Julia Hailes

July 2010

Julia was at the forefront of the development of awareness of environmental issues, founding her eco-think tank SustainAbility back in 1986 (it now has offices in London, Washington and Zurich) and co-writing the million-selling Green Consumer Guide two years later. Since then she’s become one of the world’s leading advisers on social, consumer and ethical issues, spending much of her time advising businesses on environmental policy and communications. She advises a veritable roll-call of blue-chip business including McDonald’s, Shell, Reckitt Benckiser and Procter & Gamble, and is the woman behind Marks and Spencer’s high profile ‘Plan A’ initiative.

Julia educated and inspired with her run down of a 20-point manifesto of green and sustainability ideas for the incoming coalition government. Placing a heavy emphasis on harnessing the power of market forces to drive change as opposed to always relying on government legislation, Julia’s ideas ranged across a whole spectrum of green issues, such as: moving from a centralised to a national energy distribution system; lining motorways with wind turbines; introducing a comprehensive waste policy for the health service; and implementing a system for the army to recycle the millions of batteries it wastes each year. Julia has sent her list to Chris Huhne, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, and is awaiting his response…