Summary Hearing: spatial planning, behaviour change and procurement / consumption

Gill is Co-Chair of Transition Exeter and a Director of New Prosperity Devon. She has a background in education for sustainability and health economics and has lived on a Devon smallholding since 1992. She is a former Chair of Cheriton Bishop Parish Council and helped found the Cheriton Bishop Community Land Trust to provide affordable homes for local people.

David Sergeant is Associate Professor in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature at the University of Plymouth, and from 2018-2020 is an Arts and Humanities Research Council Early Career Researchers Leadership Fellow. His current research focuses on how novels, films and TV are imagining the near future, and what this can tell us about the challenges we currently face. He recently collaborated with Regen and south Devon energy communities on a project exploring the role of narrative and the imagination in facilitating change.

Michael is Head of Place at North Devon Council where he is a member of the senior management team and responsible for the Council’s planning, economic development and regeneration functions. He has recently taken on the lead officer role for the climate change and environment agenda.  A town planner by profession he has worked in economic development and regeneration roles since 1996 and been a senior manager in a wide variety of local authorities since 2005.

Tony is a Senior Fellow of the Finance Innovation Lab and was previously Director of Economics at the RSA and the Head of Finance and Economics at the New Economics Foundation. His publications include ‘People Powered Prosperity: Ultra Local Approaches to Making Poorer Places Wealthier’, ‘Where Does Money Come From? A guide to the UK monetary and banking system’ and ‘The British Business Bank: Creating good sustainable jobs’. Tony’s early career was in the City as a chartered accountant and investment banker with Barclays and Credit Suisse.

Tony is the Executive Director of South West Mutual, a regional mutual challenger bank based in Devon and serving the south west of England. The mission of South West Mutual is to support sustainable prosperity in Devon, Cornwall, Somerset and Dorset. Tony also is an advisor to Lion Trust Asset Management, a leading ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) strategy fund manager and sits on the steering group for the UK-wide Banking on Just Transition project which is working with major banks to ensure that appropriate finance is available for achieving a transformation to a net zero carbon economy.

Angie researches cultural shifts, specifically the pioneering edges of participation, and collaborates with future-focused organisations who want to experiment with their own answers to critical questions. Such as: How do you become more relevant to your communities and audiences? How do you invite participation and enable collaboration? How do you turn a challenge, or even a crisis, in to positive change? Angie maintains a focus on the intersection of disciplines with a particular interest in growing social capital in communities and the role of culture and food, farming and forestry in responding to climate crisis as a public health challenge.  

With over twenty years’ experience of starting and working in and for creative organisations – from micro start ups to established institutions, Angie has a track record of originating ideas, raising money and developing innovative, collaborative strategies for success. 

Deborah is a Chartered Town Planner and Chartered Surveyor with over 30 years’ experience of the public, private and voluntary sector primarily working in the South West. She is an Neighbourhood Planning Independent Examiner Referral Service examiner and has carried out over 35 neighbourhood plan examinations and a number of hearings. She also uses her experience as an examiner to work with communities to develop their neighbourhood plans.

Elizabeth works for New Prosperity Devon. Transition Exeter and Exeter Quaker Meeting have supported the development of a new social enterprise, New Prosperity Devon, devoted to catalysing conversations and partnerships promoting an inclusive and sustainable kind of economic development for Devon.

Elizabeth has lived and worked around the world, working on and writing about community development and nature. She is the co-leader of Arukah Network, and is a Contributing Editor at The Ecologist. Elizabeth has worked with large and small non-governmental organisations in the UK, Africa and Asia, and has been Deputy Editor for the UK’s longest-running Environmental magazine, Resurgence. Elizabeth is also on the Operating Board of the Ministry of Entrepreneurship.

Ian is Professor of Environmental Politics at the University of Plymouth. Ian’s research interests are in environmental policy and, in particular, carbon and other environmental markets, social debates on onshore and offshore renewable energy, waste management, and environmental justice.

Tim is Chairman of the South West Business Council and Chair of the North Devon UNESCO Biosphere Foundation. Previously, Tim was the first Chair of the Heart of the South West Local Enterprise Partnership. As a chartered surveyor, Tim has been involved for over 30 years in a wide range of property issues. Tim is now extensively involved in commercial property development across the south-west peninsula.

Jeremy Leggett is an award-winning energy-technology entrepreneur, and critically-acclaimed historian-futurist author whose books include The Energy of Nations and The Winning Of The Carbon War. He is founder and a director of Solarcentury, currently the fastest growing UK renewable energy company based on international sales, developer and installer of solar in more than a dozen countries on four continents, and winner of awards including a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Innovation. He is also founder and chair of SolarAid, a charity set up with five percent of Solarcentury’s annual profit’s that endeavours to build solar lighting markets in Africa.