Dr Ada Lee - Royal Town Planning Institue 

Dr Ada Lee is the Policy Specialist for the RTPI, leading on the Institute's work on infrastructure planning and climate change. She holds a PhD in Land Economy and an MPhil in Environmental Policy, both from the University of Cambridge. Her policy and research experience spans the areas of public engagement, planning theory and environmental policy. She was a journalist at the start of her career, specialising in transport infrastructure news.

Ed Lockhart - Chief Executive of the Future Homes Hub

Future Homes Hub is the organisation which brings together the partnerships needed to deliver on the new homes sector’s climate and environmental plan. Ed is also convenor of the Broadway Initiative the organisation of business associations working with Government and civil society to collaborate on the UK’s climate and environmental goals. Previously Ed has led government reform programmes, worked as an economic adviser in UK government, has advised 15 international Governments on sustainability issues, worked in the European Commission on trade issues, worked in a New Delhi based environmental NGO and worked in corporate finance in the city of London.

Venus Galarza-Mullins - Policy Manager at Shelter

Venus has extensive experience in government, legislation and political campaigns in the U.S. and U.K. She has worked on issues across various policy areas such as housing, land and planning, health, voting rights, transportation and climate change. She has had the honour of serving diverse communities and is passionate about civic and democratic engagement.

In her current role at Shelter, she focuses on how government can end the housing emergency through the delivery of social rent homes. Her work brings together the intersectionality between housing and other critical policy areas like health, the economy and climate justice. She also co-leads Shelter’s race and housing campaign that seeks to end housing discrimination in England.

Venus has a master's degree in Public Policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Sarah Jane Chimbwandira - Chief Executive of Surrey Wildlife Trust

Sarah Jane has worked for Surrey Wildlife Trust for over 26 years, latterly as Director of Biodiversity, before becoming CEO in February 2019. Her main focus has been achieving impact through partnerships and the implementation of innovative and meaningful projects.  She is the co-founder of the Surrey Nature Partnership, co-authored the ‘Natural Capital Investment Plan for Surrey’ and have recently become the Chair of Nature South East.  In the recent past she has been a Trustee of the Surrey Hills Society and a Board member for the Enterprise M3 Local Enterprise Partnership as well as Chair of the Ecosystems Knowledge Network.  Sarah Jane leads SWT’s strategic approach based on ‘Restoring Surrey’s Nature’ to create a living landscape with connective hedgerows, rivers, nature reserves and green spaces across Surrey. 

Sarah Jane is particularly interested in the emerging interface between nature and technology; this led to a successful joint Space4Nature project bid. This is a £1.5m project in partnership with University of Surrey, Buglife and Painshill Park Trust which uses high resolution remote sensing data combined with citizen science ground truthing to create a machine learning AI which can detect habitats at scale and with high levels of accuracy.  She is also very interested in the emerging nature investment markets and we have recently completed Biodiversity Net Gain sales of £1.3m.

Craig Bennett, Chief Executive, The Wildlife Trusts

Craig is Chief Executive of The Wildlife Trusts, Honorary Professor of Sustainability and Innovation at Alliance Manchester Business School, and an Associate Fellow of Homerton College (Cambridge). He is also a Commissioner on the UK Government’s Clean Power 2030 Advisory Commission.

He has been described as “one of the country’s top environmental campaigners”, by The Guardian as “the very model of a modern eco-general” and was recently included in The Sunday Times Green Power List of the UK’s top 20 environmentalists.

Craig was formerly CEO of Friends of the Earth where he led the organisation to numerous campaign victories including on bees, fracking and against airport expansion.

Earlier in his career, Craig was Deputy Director at The University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), and Director of The Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change (from 2007 to 2010).

Craig has twenty-five years experience of designing and contributing to Executive Education and Leadership programmes at numerous universities and business schools around the world, and of providing advice and constructive challenge direct to CEOs and company boards. He is currently Chair of the Independent Challenge Group for Anglian Water.

He is also a Senior Associate of The Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, a Policy Fellow of The Centre for Science and Policy at The University of Cambridge, a judge on The Wainwright Book Prize, a Trustee of the think-tank Green Alliance, and an Honorary Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM). He regularly appears in the print and broadcast media

He has a BSc (Hons) in Human and Physical Geography from The University of Reading and an MSc in Biodiversity Conservation from University College London, and Honorary Doctoral degrees from University College of Estate Management (UCEM), and Anglian Ruskin University (ARU).