Craig Bennett, Vice Chair of Stakeholder Forum, joins Friends of the Earth as Director of Policy and Campaigns
Craig Bennett will take the helm as Director of Friends of the Earth’s policy and campaigns department, the green campaigning charity announced on Tuesday 31 August 2010.
The move will see Bennett rejoin Friends of the Earth after three years at The University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership where he was Deputy Director of the institution and, in this role, was Director of The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change.
Over the last three years, he built The Corporate Leaders Group into one of the most influential and progressive business voices in the international climate debate, primarily through its series of hard-hitting statements in support of a strong, effective and equitable global climate deal. The most recent of these, The Copenhagen Communiqué, secured the support of over 950 companies from more han 60 countries around the world.
Craig Bennett originally worked at Friends of the Earth as a Senior Trade and Corporate Accountability Campaigner and Wildlife Campaigner from 1999 – 2007. In his new role as Director of Policy and Campaigns, Bennett will be the organization’s lead campaigner and policy strategist, representing the charity with Government and other key lobbying contacts and leading its tactical response to the changing political and policy context.
He will maintain links with the University of Cambridge, both as a Senior Associate of the Programme for Sustainability Leadership and as a visiting Programme Director at the Judge Business School. He is Vice-Chair of the Board
of Directors of Stakeholder Forum.
Craig Bennett, who will start work as Friends of the Earth’s Policy and Campaigns Director on Monday 6 September 2010, said:
“Over the last 40 years, Friends of the Earth has played a critical role in forcing environmental issues onto the political agenda, both here in the UK and internationally. But the time has now come for a step change in political action if we are to deliver the better, greener future that ever more of us want to see.”
Executive Director of Stakeholder Forum, Felix Dodds, welcomed the opportunity for cross-over with Craig’s role as Vice-Chair of Stakeholder Forum:
“Craig will be able to take a leadership role for Rio+20 in his new role at Friends of the Earth. Stakeholder Forum look forward to close cooperation over the key agenda items for the next Earth Summit, the green economy, emerging issues and climate change all of which are both core to Stakeholder Forum and Friends of the Earth.”
