Green Alliance
 | |
| Founded | 1979 |
|---|---|
| Type | Charitable trust |
| Focus | Environmental policy |
| Location |
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| Website | green-alliance.org.uk |
Green Alliance is a charity and an independent think tank focused on ambitious leadership for the environment in the United Kingdom (UK). Founded in 1979, it works with influential leaders from the NGO, business, and political communities. Its work aims to generate new thinking and dialogue, and has increased political action and support for environmental solutions in the UK.
The organisation has six themes around which its work is based. Three partnership themes: Political Leadership, Sustainable Business and NGO Engagement; and three policy themes: Sustainable Economy, Low Carbon Energy and Resource Stewardship.
Individuals involved in Green Alliance's early years include Maurice Ash, Tim Beaumont and Tom Burke. The current director Matthew Spencer was previously head of government affairs at the Carbon Trust. He sits on the Department for Energy and Climate Change’s Carbon Capture and Storage Development Forum and regularly advises government on energy and environment policy
Green Alliance's staff is based in central London. It has an individual membership of approximately 400, including environment professionals and well known personalities. Inside Track is Green Alliance's occasional journal for supporters, addressing environmental policy issues relevant to Green Alliance's themes and featuring opinion and analysis by guest writers. Green Alliance's blog is a platform for insights from Green Alliance staff and reaction and comments from authorities and opinion leaders.
In 2009 Green Alliance was awarded 'Think Thank of the Year' at the Public Affairs News Awards.
History
Green Alliance was founded to inject an 'ecological perspective into the political life of Britain'. One of the founders and first chair Maurice Ash said at Green Alliance's launch in March 1979 that "We’re a bunch of optimists. We’re not the doomsters. We believe in the possibilities of the future...”
Since, Green Alliance has focused on influencing UK government policy and decision-making on the environment.
It elicited the first environmental policy statements from all the main UK political parties in the mid-1980s. Green Alliance was the first organisation in the UK to raise genetic modification (GM) as an environmental issue at the end of the 1980s. Its risk analysis of the issue helped to inform new government regulation.
Its work on environment as a foreign policy issue led to the formation, in 1998, of the Green Globe Network of foreign policy experts, based at Green Alliance and supported by cross-cutting funding from three government departments: the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Department for International Development and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Green Alliance's recommendations have contributed to new government strategies on green taxes and microgeneration, increases to landfill tax and more investment in recycling.
A number of new organisations and initiatives have arisen from Green Alliance's work, including the National Food Alliance (now Sustain), the Environment Agency, the Carbon Trust and the UK's Renewables Obligation.
In February 2008, the consultancy Firetail conducted a detailed, independent evaluation of Green Alliance's work, through interviews with representatives of the three main political parties, civil servants, NGOs, businesses and other think tanks. It concluded: “Green Alliance’s key strengths are considered to be its influence within Westminster and Whitehall and its understanding of the political process. Green Alliance’s relationships with politicians, special advisers and civil servants are its primary strength. It is considered influential within government. Those in government value the ability of Green Alliance to bring them policy positions and mediate relations with NGOs.”
Expert opinion
Green Alliance staff and associates are often quoted as expert sources in national and specialist news outlets such as The Guardian, The Independent, BusinessGreen, The Financial Times and The ENDS Report. Subjects which have recently been commented on by Green Alliance experts in major news outlets are; The Green Investment Bank; The UK Comprehensive Spending Review; Electricity Market Reform and the Fuel Stabiliser.
Board
- Robin Bidwell (Chair)
- Philip Parker (Hon. Treasurer)
- Tom Burke
- Ben Caldecott
- Catherine Howarth
- Leo Johnson
- Alistair Keddie, CB
- Professor Mariana Mazzucato
- Dame Fiona Reynolds, CBE
- Sophia Tickell
- Sir Graham Wynne CBE
Associates
External specialists providing advice and support to Green Alliance:
- Ian Christie
- Chris Church
- Chris Hewett
- Julie Hill
- Jiggy Lloyd
- Julie Hill
- Rebekah Phillips
- Rebecca Willis
See also
- List of UK think tanks
- Department of Energy and Climate Change
References
- ^ Green thinktank warns against using tax cuts to stabilise fuel prices (The Guardian 2010)
- ^ Companies warn on carbon fund cuts (The Financial Times 2010)
- ^ Green Investment Bank turf war rumbles on (BusinessGreen 2010)
- ^ Electricity Market Reforms - the reaction (BusinessGreen 2010) and The EMR White Paper - step 1 of 3 (BusinessGreen 2011)
- ^ Towards a bright future: transforming the electricity market (Green Alliance 2010)
- ^ new times new connections: civil society action on climate change(Green Alliance 2010)
- ^ A pathway to greener products (Green Alliance 2010)
- ^ The new commandments of climate change strategy (Green Alliance 2010)
- ^ The Last Parliament: priorities for urgent action on climate change (Green Alliance 2010)
- ^ From hot air to happy endings (Green Alliance 2010)
- ^ Unlocking a low-carbon Europe (Green Alliance 2010)
- ^ An independent review of Green Alliance: final report February 2008 (Firetail, 2008)