Australian Board of Directors
John Thwaites
Chair
John Thwaites was Deputy Premier of the Australian state of Victoria from 1999 to 2007 and an elected member of the Victorian Parliament from 1992 to 1997. Thwaites was Victoria’s first Minister for Climate Change. He has also held the portfolios of Environment, Water, Health, Planning and Victorian Communities. He oversaw the introduction of 5-star energy and water efficiency standards for all new homes in Victoria, compulsory energy audits for major industry and the first mandatory renewable energy target for an Australian state. He also lead the Victorian Government’s social justice policy - A Fairer Victoria - and has a particular interest in the impact of climate change on low income people.
John is a graduate in science and law from Monash University and practised as a barrister prior to entering Parliament.
Tim Flannery
Vice-Chair
Tim Flannery is one of the world’s leading writer-scientists and thinkers and an internationally acclaimed explorer and environmentalist. Sir David Attenborough described him as being in the league of all-time great explorers such as David Livingstone. Flannery has shown that human activity is drastically altering Earth’s climate and that these changes will have a devastating effect of life on this planet. He wants to mobilise the social and political will to address this problem before it’s too late. That’s why he wrote an important and provocative book The Weather Makers, which debuted on the New York Times bestseller list and which also won the 2007 NSW Premier’s Book of the Year award. Flannery has held various academic positions throughout his career including Professor at the University of Adelaide, director of the South Australian Museum in Adelaide, Principal Research Scientist at the Australian Museum, Visiting Chair in Australian Studies at Harvard University, and an adviser on environmental issues to the Australian Federal Parliament. He holds bachelor degrees in English and Earth Science, a doctorate in Palaeontology, and has contributed to over 90 scientific papers. In 2007, he took up a role as an adjunct professor within the Climate Risk Concentration of Research Excellence at Macquarie University.
Steve Howard
Steve is the CEO of The °Climate Group which he co-founded in late 2003. He has worked on a variety of social and environmental issues from within business, NGO and UN settings. Whilst at °The Climate Group he has advised many world leading companies on climate change strategy and has chaired meetings with business and government leaders including the Long Beach meeting of business leaders with Governor Schwarzenegger and Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Andrew Stock
Andrew Stock has had over 30 years’ broad management experience in the energy sector both in Australia and overseas. He is currently Executive General Manager, Major Development Projects with Origin Energy Limited, and a Director of Geodynamics Limited and several Origin Energy companies. He leads Origin’s major upstream, power generation and renewables projects developments. He has held previously, senior commercial, operations and technical management roles across the energy and petrochemical industries in Australia and overseas. He has a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering (Honours) from the University of Adelaide, is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers Australia and a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and Australian Institute of Energy. He is a past National President of the Australian Business Council for Sustainable Energy, a past member of the Advisory Committee to CSIRO’s Energy and Transport Division and the South Australian Premier’s Sustainability Roundtable.
Jim Walker
Jim helped to set up The Climate Group in late 2003 and is responsible for managing the Group’s operations, fund raising and research. He has worked for six years as a consultant on public and private sector responses to environmental and social challenges. With Steve Howard he has advised WWF International on the development of the Clean Development Mechanism Gold Standard and produced the business plan for The Climate Group on behalf of Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Jim was lead author of the Mining Minerals & Sustainable Development report Finding the Way Forward on industry voluntary initiatives, and a contributor to the WWF-UK report To Whose Profit? on the business case for sustainability. He has produced stakeholder engagement reports for BP Scotland and Nirex and has developed approaches for assessing corporate exposure to climate change-related risk. Prior to his environmental career Jim was a professional athlete, competing in the British Rowing Team at the 1992 and 1996 Olympic Games and at six World Championships. He holds a Bachelors degree in Biology and a Masters degree in Environmental Technology, both from Imperial College London.