- Conference Speakers
Topics:
- Business
- Inspirational
- Sustainability
Julia Hailes
Julia Hailes is a leading opinion former, freelance consultant and keynote speaker on social, environmental and ethical issues. Her work includes environmental reviews, management briefings and advising companies on policy, strategy and communications.
Author
Julia is co-author of numerous books, including the international No.1 best-selling Green Consumer Guide first published in 1988 (and updated many times since) and selling over one million copies. Other books include Green Pages: The business of saving the world (1987) , The Green Consumer’s Supermarket Shopping Guide (1989), The Young Green Consumer Guide (1990), The Green Business Guide (1991), Holidays That Don't Cost the Earth (1992), MANUAL 2000: Life Choices for the Future You Want (1998), The New Foods Guide: What’s here, what’s coming, what it means for us’’ (1999), the New Green Consumer Guid (2007). She has also contributed to a number of key reports including The LCA Sourcebook (1993) and Who Needs It? (1995).
Julia in Business
In 1987 Julia Hailes founded SustainAbility Ltd with John Elkington, where she was Director and Company Secretary until 1995. SustainAbility is a leading edge consultancy with an international profile. Between 1994 and 2000 she was a non-executive director of ‘Out of this World’, a small chain of ‘alternative supermarkets’ and between 2001 and 2006 a non-executive director of Jupiter Global Green Investment Trust, set up by Jupiter Asset Management. In 2006 this fund was rolled into Jupiter Green, which invests in environmental solutions - it has a new board of directors.
Speaking and Television
Julia Hailes has spoken at conferences world-wide including Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, the US and all over Europe. She has also made numerous television and radio appearances in Britain and abroad including presenting a weekly series of environmental programmes on UK network television.
Columnist and other roles
Between March 2001 and October 2002 she wrote a regular monthly column called ‘Planet Food’ - on food and sustainability issues, for BBC Online and continued this for the regional Western Daily Press in 2003. In 2002 she worked with the International Institute of Environment & Development (IIED) on their Race to the Top initiative, which tracked supermarket progress towards a greener, fairer food system. She is a recognised expert on eco-labelling, sat on the UK Eco-labelling Board from 1989 when it started and was appointed Deputy Chair to its successor the Advisory Committee on Consumer Products and the Environment (ACCPE), from 1999 to 2005, when it was disbanded.
In 2003, Julia stood down from being a District Councillor in South Somerset. Also in 2003 she helped set up the Haller Foundation, and in 2007 she is still a Trustee. This charity supports environmental conservation through grass routes initiatives such as farmer training and community education.
In 2006 she was a judge for Great Britons 2005 and for the Green Awards. At the end of 2006 she was appointed to the Food Ethics Council, which promotes more sustainable food and farming practices. And in 2007 she has started working with the Environmental Change Institute in Oxford exploring the potential for a personal carbon trading initiative.
Clients with whom she has worked include: British Airways, British Airways Holidays, Cargill Dow Polymers, Dow Europe, ICI Polyurethanes, Novo Nordisk, Tioxide and Unilever. Recent clients include Procter & Gamble, Shell, Bulmers and Marks and Spencer, whom she advised on their sustainable foods policy.
In 1989 Julia Hailes was elected to the UN `Global 500 Roll of Honour’ for her ‘outstanding environmental achievements'. She was awarded an MBE in the New Years Honours List in 1999.
