The Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development is governed by a group of trustees who are also directors of the company. The Chair of the board of trustees is John Elkington.

The Foundation’s day to day work is led by its Director Halina Ward.

Staff

Halina Ward

Halina Ward joined the Foundation as Director in April 2009, having previously served as a trustee from 2006-2009.

Halina has a strong leaning to policy-relevant, action-oriented research. Her interest in links between democracy and sustainable development was framed by periods spent working on projects in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Kosovo; by work on the relationship between public policy and responsible private enterprise; by experience as a mediator and facilitator; by extensive work on environmental and social implications of international trade liberalisation and its institutions, and through interactions with public authorities in the UK as an ordinary citizen.

Before joining the Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development, Halina was Director of the Business and Sustainable Development Programme at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) in London. She has also worked as a Senior Fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House); as a Senior Consultant for the consultancy Environmental Resources Management, and as a solicitor practising commercial environment law.

Halina’s first language is English. She also speaks Spanish, French, Russian and Polish. She holds an LLB and an LLM (Law and Development) from the University of London. Halina is a member of the Scientific Committee of Vigeo, a Paris-based social ratings agency.

Trustees

Dr Malcolm Aickin TD (Vice-Chair)

Malcolm Aickin has been a Trustee of the Foundation since it was established in 1983. Malcolm worked on environmental liabilities in the insurance industry for ten years and was also a Principal at the environmental consultancy Dames and Moore. He is Chairman of Green Cone Ltd and of the CEMEX Community Fund and since 1988 he has also been Chair of The Environment Council.

Dr Kate Burningham

A trustee since 2008, Kate Burningham is Senior Lecturer in sociology of the environment in the Department of Sociology and the Centre for Environmental Strategy (CES) at the University of Surrey. Kate is interested in how people make sense of environmental change and sustainability and how diverse social and environmental concerns and priorities can be taken into account in decision making. An important issue in her research is exploring the experience of environmental inequality and promoting the views and needs of disadvantaged and vulnerable groups. She has carried out research for The Environment Agency, the ESRC and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

Ian Christie (Vice-Chair)

Ian Christie has been a trustee since 1998. Ian is an Associate of the London-based environmentalist think-tank Green Alliance and a visiting Professor of Sustainable Development at the Centre for Environmental Strategy, University of Surrey. He is an independent advisor, researcher, lecturer and writer on sustainability and environmental issues. Previous posts include: Deputy/Acting director of the think-tank Demos; Associate Director at the Henley Centre for Forecasting; Joint Head of Environment and Economy at Surrey County Council; and Senior Fellow of the Policy Studies Institute, London. He is a member of several charity boards and advisory groups and has been a part-time advisor to Ministers and officials on sustainable development and climate policy in the UK. Ian’s publications include Managing Sustainable Development (Earthscan, second edition 2000, with Michael Carley.

John Elkington (Chair)

John Elkington is a world authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable development. He has been a trustee of The Environment Foundation (now the Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development) since 1994 and Chair of its board since 1995.

John is Founding Partner and Director of Volans. Volans, launched in April 2008, aims to find, explore, advise on and build innovative scalable solutions to the great global divides that overshadow the future. John also co-founded the consultancy and think-tank SustainAbility in 1987 and was its Chair from 1995-2005.

Over time, John has authored or co-authored 17 books. His most recent explores the work of leading social and environmental entrepreneurs. Co-authored with Pamela Hartigan, The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change the World, was published by Harvard Business School Press in 2008. John’s previous books include 1988’s million-selling Green Consumer Guide and Cannibals with Forks: The Triple Bottom Line of 21st Century Business (1997). He has also written hundreds of articles for newspapers, magazines and journal and has written or co-written some 40 published reports. John speaks regularly at conferences and other events around the world, and contributes regular columns to Nikkei Ecology in Japan, chinadialogue in China, Brazil’s Época Negócios and Director magazine in the UK as well as other media. John is a Visiting Professor at the Doughty Centre for Corporate Responsibility at the Cranfield School of Management. He was also a faculty member of the World Economic Forum from 2002-2008.John chairs the Aflatoun Impact and Policy Analysis Steering Group, and is an Honorary Fellow of The Hub and also of the Institute of Green Professionals. John also serves as a member of the strategic advisory boards of, or as an advisor to, over a dozen organisations. 

John Lotherington

John Lotherington joined the Foundation as a trustee in 2009. John is Director of Seminars for the Salzburg Global Seminar (SGS), where his work continually brings him back to democracy and sustainable development, and their inter-relationship, as key cross-cutting issues for present and future policy-making across the world. The SGS seminars bring together present and prospective leaders, from countries worldwide and from diverse professional backgrounds, including government, business, NGOs, academia, the media and other sectors to challenge each other’s thinking from diverse perspectives, identify the major issues and opportunities facing them and the world in the decades ahead, and better inform their decision-taking and opinion-leading. Sustainable development is a key concern for SGS.

John began his career in history education and maintains an interest in that area. His publications as editor and author include Years of Renewal: European History 1470-1600 (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2nd ed. 1999); The Seven Ages of Life (London: Centre for Reform, 2002); The Tudor Years (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2nd ed. 2003); and introductions to The Florentine Histories by Niccolo Machiavelli (New York: Barnes & Noble, 2004) and The Book of the Courtier by Baldesar Castiglione (New York: Barnes & Noble, 2005).

Jane Nelson

Jane Nelson has been a trustee of the Foundation since 1998. She is Senior Fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government and Director of the Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. She is also Director of Business Leadership & Strategy at International Business Leaders Forum and a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Brookings Institution. Jane has previously been Vice-President at Citibank, lecturer in agricultural economics at Natal University in South Africa, and a consultant to a range of international organisations. Author and co-author of several books and reports on the role of business in development, she is on a number of international advisory boards. Jane was educated in Africa, the USA and Europe. She is a Fellow of the 21st Century Trust, an Aspen Institute Scholar and a former Rhodes Scholar.

Tim O’Donovan

Tim O’Donovan has been a Trustee of the Foundation since 1985 and our Treasurer since 1998. Tim played a significant role in the Foundation’s award schemes as Chair of the Steering Group. He worked for forty years in the Lloyd’s Insurance market. On his retirement from Lloyd’s in 1992, Tim became Honorary Secretary of The Society of the Friends of St George’s and Descendants of the Knights of the Garter. He has been a Lay Steward in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle since 1978 and is also involved in a number of local charities.