The Progress 1000: London's most influential people 2017 - Social Pillars: Environment

Dieter Helm

Professor, University of Oxford

The Oxford economist and CBE is swiftly, and somewhat controversially, becoming the Government’s go-to academic adviser. Earlier this year Helm, who has previously questioned both the efficiency and value of renewable energy programmes, advised Michael Gove’s DEFRA on its 25-year Environment Plan. He is now leading a review into Britain’s high energy costs.

Alan Andrews

Lawyer, ClientEarth

The Clean Air project leader at ClientEarth, lawyer Alan Andrews heads up the London office and is a thorn in the Government’s side which, earlier this year, admitted defeat in a battle with the firm, pledging to publish an air quality strategy. In September, ClientEarth launched a “poisoned playgrounds” campaign that seeks to protect children from dirty air. “This is good news for everyone who wants to breathe clean air,” Andrews said.

Jenny Bates

Campaigner, Friends of the Earth

In her 20 years of campaigning, Bates — who says there’s no such thing as a clean car — has taken on planes, trains and automobiles in the fight to reduce air pollution in the UK. She’s volunteered and campaigned against Heathrow’s third runway and pushed for the phasing-out of dirty diesel vehicles, while juggling a career as a professional photographer.

Simon Birkett

Founder and Director, Clean Air in London

After a 21-year career with HSBC, Birkett gave up on his City job to start a one-man bandwagon to make London’s officials responsible for illegal air pollution levels, founding campaign group Clean Air London, and making a significant donation to ClientEarth in 2009. With so many campaigners now working on the issue, Birkett says his job of raising awareness is nearly done.

Elena Dieckmann

Founder, Aeropowder

Nobody’s calling Elena Dieckmann chicken. Along with co-founder Ryan Robinson, the 29-year-old Imperial College London student set up the company Aeropowder last year, which takes waste poultry products — feathers, basically — and turns them into sustainable, low-cost, useful things like housing insulation. With 2,000 tonnes of feather waste a week, most of which go in a landfill, that’s one tidy nest egg.

Gary Fuller

Environmental Researcher, London Air Quality Network

Fuller lives a double life. Senior lecturer in Air Quality Measurement at King’s College London by day, he transforms into a toxic air vigilante of sorts at night, heading up the London Air Quality Network which uses data to map London’s air pollution. He’s saving lives — and also, inadvertently, becoming a frequent source for first-time home-owners using him to find out the areas of least pollution. Hot property.

Giles Gibbons

Founder, Sustainable Restaurant Association

Since founding the Sustainable Restaurant Association 20 years ago, Gibbons has worked with shopping centres, train operators and a major airline among others. Almost 4,000 restaurants, pubs, cafés and takeaways are now looking to offer a more sustainable dining experience. The SRA has also helped 150 restaurants reduce food waste through its FoodSave programme. Along with co-founder Steve Hilton, he aims to harness the power of brands to change the world for the better.

Anna Hill

Artist, Thames Deckway

Hill is buoyant about London’s future. The artist is responsible for the design of the £600 million Thames Deckway, a floating cycle and pedestrian path that could help London deal with its growing congestion and pollution problems. An ingenious solution to a pressing problem — power for lighting would be derived from solar, tide and wind energy — it’s currently in crowdfunding stages.

Arthur Kay

Founder, bio-bean

Every morning, Kay wakes up and smells the coffee. The second youngest person in the company he founded, bio-bean, 26-year-old Kay came up with the idea of using coffee waste as fuel while studying architecture at UCL. The UK drinks 70 million cups of coffee a year, which produces 500,000 tonnes of waste. That’s quite a buzz.

Frank Kelly

Director, Environmental Research Group, King’s College London

Kelly is helping to lead London’s fight for breathable air. Under his guidance, the Environmental Research Group at King’s College London has grown to be an internationally recognised team in air quality science, toxicology, epidemiology and policy. The scientist’s work isn’t confined to improving our understanding of air pollution — he has also this year lent his voice to a campaign for providing a plastic-free aisle in supermarkets to reduce waste.

Jodie Kidd

Model and Eco-Campaigner

Equestrian, petrol head and catwalk queen, Kidd has always been multi-talented. But a new role, of landlady at a Sussex pub, has seen her add eco-warrior to her portfolio. One of the veteran model’s first acts on taking on the licence at the Half Moon Inn was banning plastic straws and cups, after which she joined Sky Ocean Rescue for a campaign seeking to cut down on plastic in our seas.

Romain Lacombe

CEO at Plume Labs

The crowd-sourcing pollution data pioneer broke new ground this year, launching the world’s first air pollution tracker, Flow, in an effort to help cyclists and other commuters steer clear of toxic hotspots. The Frenchman, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Ecole Polytechnique graduate based in Paris, invented a device which features 12 LED lights that indicate air quality, and the data is beamed wirelessly to a mobile app.

Donna Lyndsay

Commercial Director, EarthSense

How am I supposed to breathe with no air? Lyndsay’s company EarthSense provides technology for the measurement and modelling of air quality across the UK, to inform real-time decisions on how to ensure everyone can breathe clean air.

John Sauven

Executive Director, Greenpeace UK

Sauven is a moderniser. As executive director of Greenpeace UK since 2008, and director responsible for communications before that, he’s turbo-charged the charity’s digital platform, weaponising its use of social media, emails and online petitions. Offline, his battles have set him against fracking, pollution in the ocean, Arctic oil drilling, and for London’s air pollution to be tackled.

Ashok Sinha

Chief Executive, London Cycling Campaign

Never happier than being out on his bike with his family, Dr Ashok Sinha is chief executive of the London Cycling Campaign. Tackling air pollution one motorist at a time, LCC lobbied hard to successfully persuade Sadiq Khan to build on and expand the support for cycling, with promises to triple the extent of London’s protected cycle lanes, fix the most dangerous junctions and enable boroughs to implement major walking and cycling schemes.

James Thornton

Founder and Chief Executive, ClientEarth

The long arm of the law has green fingers. In 2007, this quiet American — previously named as one of the New Statesman’s 10 people who could change the world — founded ClientEarth, the environmental law group that twice successfully sued the UK Government to improve its air pollution plan, and which counts on support of music stars such as Brian Eno and Coldplay for its swashbuckling combination of lobbying and legal argument.

Dale Vince

Eco-preneur

Vince is in a league of his own. A former New Age traveller, he converted his environmentalism into a personal fortune estimated to be in excess of £100 million by founding green energy company Ecotricity in 1995. The entrepreneur bought his local football club Forest Green Rovers in 2010, taking them from the Conference to League Two — with entirely vegan catering for both players and fans and a solar-powered lawn mower.

Prince of Wales

Campaigner, Writer, Royal

The first encounter between Prince Charles and Donald Trump should be interesting. The heir to the throne is tireless in his commitment to global environmental preservation and protection through his charities, has been an environmental campaigner for more than 40 years and was awarded the GCC Global Leader of Change Awards award in May. He has thrown his weight behind a campaign to stop plastic being dumped in the oceans and led the calls for a deposit scheme for bottles.