Biography

I am an independent corporate responsibility (CR) expert and advisor with over 16 years’ experience in the CR field. I’ve been involved at a leadership level with some of the best-known and most influential organizations pioneering the field from the beginning of my career. It has been an incredible privilege and honor to have been part of shaping the agenda – and to know and have worked with a collection of true sustainability visionaries.

Until mid-2008, I spent eight years (most recently as Director, Client Services) with SustainAbility, the London-based think tank and consulting firm known for ground-breaking research, advocacy and client services. SustainAbility was founded by John Elkington and Julia Hailes and is currently led by CEO Mark Lee. While at SustainAbility, I worked with scores of clients across a wide range of industries, but my specialties were particularly in the energy and knowledge economy sectors. I developed and led SustainAbility’s Knowledge Economy strategy from its inception; while in the energy sector, I managed the account with one of SustainAbility’s largest and longest-standing clients in the field. See my list of clients for examples of the companies I’ve worked with.

I am perhaps more widely known, however, for my work in the area of corporate sustainability reporting, engagement and standards. At SustainAbility, I developed and led the company’s Accountability pillar, which encompasses these three areas, including the well-known Global Reporters series of research into best practice sustainability reporting.

Before joining SustainAbility, I spent three years as project director of the Global Reporting Initiative – from its inception through to its launch as an independent organization. Now based in Amsterdam and headed by CEO Ernst Ligteringen, the GRI is dedicated to the development and support of organizational sustainability reporting globally. GRI’s mission is to make sustainability reporting as normal, expected and professional as financial reporting, and to do this, they have developed guidelines for sustainability reporting now used by thousands of organizations around the world. I worked closely alongside Bob Massie, Allen White and Rob Graff – the other project team members – to develop the concept of the GRI, assemble the international steering committee, build the partnership with the UN Environment Programme, convene working groups, and draft the first public exposure draft of the GRI Sustainability Reporting Guidelines, released in 1999.

The GRI emerged as a project of Ceres – Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies – where I served as Director of Corporate Programs for nearly eight years under its founder, the late Joan Bavaria and, later, Executive Director Bob Massie (currently Mindy Lubber). It was at Ceres that I became exposed to the business world in a significant way – their challenges, issues, work dynamics and strengths in the sustainability area. My role was to coordinate all activity with Ceres’ group of companies that had endorsed the Ceres Principles – a ten-point code of conduct on the environment which the organization had promulgated in 1989. These activities covered a lot of territory, but revolved around two main responsibilities: Supporting the Ceres Report process, the annual, standardized, public environmental report all endorsing companies were required to do; and instituting a process of regular review of endorsers’ performance against the expectations set out in the Ceres Principles. Throughout my work, the organization’s intention was to underscore the importance of public accountability, stakeholder engagement and professionalization of the environmental field. During my time at Ceres, the organization grew from the early days when the team in its entirety consisted of me and another guy (the inimitable Mark Tulay, now with RiskMetrics) to some fourteen staff by the time I left; Ceres now boasts a team of no fewer than thirty-seven staff.

Over the years, I have served on a number of committees, panels and advisory groups, among them the AccountAbility Council, Project Sigma, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants’ Sustainability Reporting Awards judging panel, and the GRI Stakeholder Council. The latter two I continue to serve on today. I even did a stint on SustainAbility’s Faculty in the days before I joined the team.

I am married with a young son, am a United States citizen and live in England.