Judges
Confirmed judges to date
- Brendan May, Chair of judging panel
- Professor David Grayson CBE
- Alison Austin OBE, Former Head of Sustainability, Sainsbury’s
- Tony Juniper, Former Director, Friends of the Earth England & Wales.
- Penny Shepherd OBE, Chief Executive of UK Social Investment and Finance Association (UKSIF)
Brendan May, Chair of Judging Panel
Brendan is an international advisor on corporate responsibility and sustainable development issues, PR and communications. Brendan sits on the board of the Rainforest Alliance and has worked on many of the organisation’s major corporate partnerships since 2005.
He is a contributing editor to Ethical Corporation, and a member of our advisory board. Brendan was Chief Executive of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) from 1999-2004. Before that he worked as a journalist and also a political advisor.
Professor David Grayson CBE
David joined Cranfield as director of the new Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility in April 2007, after a thirty year career as a social entrepreneur and campaigner for responsible business, diversity, and small business development. This included the chairmanship of the UK's National Disability Council and several other government bodies, as well as serving as a joint managing-director of Business in the Community. He is a visiting Senior Fellow at the CSR Initiative of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard. He has Masters degrees from the universities of Cambridge and Brussels, and an honorary doctorate from London South Bank University. He has been a Visiting Fellow at several UK and American business schools.
His books include: "Corporate Social Opportunity: Seven Steps to make Corporate Social Responsibility work for your business" (Greenleaf - 2004) and "Everybody's Business" (2001) - both co-authored with Adrian Hodges. He now also chairs Housing 21 - one of the leading providers of sheltered and extra care housing and care for older people (www.housing21.co.uk).
Alison Austin OBE, Former Head of Sustainability, Sainsbury’s
Having worked for 25 years for Sainsbury’s Supermarkets Ltd. of which 18 were managing environmental issues within the environment field, Alison has now set up as a freelancer. Her career to date has covered programme management and policy development for operational impacts such as climate change, packaging, recycling and waste management as well as wider sustainability issues relating to products from a sourcing and consumption perspective.
She also has a strong interest in consumer issues and has used this with extensive experience in broadcast media to champion easy to achieve environmental solutions that anyone can take to make a positive difference.
Tony Juniper, Former Director, Friends of the Earth England & Wales.
Tony is an independent sustainability & environment adviser and a special adviser with The Prince of Wales' Rainforest Project and Senior Associate with the Cambridge University Program for Sustainability Leadership. He speaks and writes on many aspects of sustainability, and contributes to the work of several advisory panels, including with the Science Museum and British Council. He is the editor-in-chief of National Geographic Green Magazine and writes a green column for the Sunday Times Home section.
He is the author of several books, including the award winning Guide to the Parrots of the World (1998), Spix's Macaw (2002) and How Many Light Bulbs Does It Take To Change A Planet? (2007). His career began as an ornithologist, working with Birdlife International. From 1990 to 2008 he worked at Friends of the Earth. He was the organisation's executive director from 2003-2008 and also the Vice Chair of Friends of the Earth International from 2000-2008.
Penny Shepherd OBE, Chief Executive of UK Social Investment and Finance Association (UKSIF)
Penny Shepherd has been Chief Executive of UKSIF, the sustainable investment and finance association, since May 2005. UKSIF promotes responsible investment and other forms of finance that support sustainable economic development, enhance quality of life and safeguard the environment.
Penny is also a lay member of the Professional Regulation Committee of the Actuarial Profession.
She has over thirty years of experience in working with the finance sector, including over fifteen years on sustainability and corporate responsibility issues. She was the first Chief Executive of the London Sustainability Exchange (2001-2005) and has been a member of the Mayor of London's Sustainable Development Commission (2002-2007).
As UKSIF Executive Director from 1997-2001, Penny played a leading role in championing the government’s SRI disclosure regulation for occupational pension funds and tripled UKSIF’s membership. Her leadership in socially responsible investment was recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in June 2000 with an MBE for “services to sustainable economic development and socially responsible investment”.
At the start of her career, Penny spent twenty years in the computer industry where she advised financial services and other companies on business solutions.
