These thumbnail biographies are listed in alphabetic order of family name.

Names in red contributed to the original book.

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Gary Alexander chaired the Open University Energy Research Group at the time Radical Technology was published. He has been a Trustee of the Transition Network, is the author of eGaia,Growing a peaceful, sustainable earth through communications, and dances the tango.

Paul Allen is communications director of the Centre for Alternative Technology and principal co-ordinator of the influential Zero-Carbon-Britain series of reports, the latest of which is Making It Happen (see www.zerocarbonbritrain.com)

Chas Ball was founder and director of the car-club coordination organisation CarPlus and a tireless advocate of the benefits of car clubs. He has also been a parliamentary candidate for the Green Party. His linked-in profile is https://uk.linkedin.com/in/chas-ball-37a8a21b.

Hugh Barton was the prime mover for the Urban Centre for Appropriate Technology (founded 1979) which morphed eventually into the current Centre for sustainable Energy, and he is now Emeritus Professor of planning, health and sustainability at UWE, Bristol.

Rut Blomqvist is a Swedish singer and activist who uses her songs to explore ethical and political issues. Her web site is rutblomqvist.net.

Pat Borer is an architect with over 35 years’ experience in designing and constructing ‘green’ buildings. He has been closely involved with the Centre for Alternative Technology in the design and development of ultra-low energy buildings and across the UK has been developing ecological timber frame designs for the self-build housing sector. A visiting lecturer at CAT, Liverpool University and other institutions, he has written several books including ‘Out of the Woods’ and ‘The Whole House Book’. He was recently awarded the MBE.

Godfrey Boyle taught at the Open University, where he is now Emeritus Professor of Renewable Energy. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (FIET) and a Life Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA). He has authored and co-authored many publications on Renewable Energy, including the Renewable Energy: Power for a Sustainable Future, Energy Systems and Sustainability.

Jackie Carpenter founded and spent ten years as MD of the national charity Energy 21 and was responsible for running the UK Eurosolar Prize. She was President of the Women’s Engineering from 2002 – 2003, and also served on the Renewable Power Committee of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Jackie was instrumental, with ten others in setting up South-West England Sustainability Enterprises (SWESE Trelay).

John Cantor is an engineer specialising in heat pumps who has striven to test and measure real installations with a view to discovering the real patterns of performance, in contrast to the talked-up ideals of the industry. See his ruthlessly honest blog johncantorheatpumps.blogspot.com/. His web site is heatpumps.co.uk.

Dr Charlie Clutterbuck has 3 degrees in Agricultural Science, and since writing the ‘Agribusiness’ section in RadTech 1.0, has been active in National Farmworkers’ union (now Unite). He was a member of government’s Advisory Committee on Pesticides, is an Honarary Fellow of Food Policy at City University, London, and now runs the Sustainable Food unit of a degree at Manchester Metropolitan University

Daphne Davies was an offset printer for ten years and is now a freelance journalist and international development consultant. She has worked with the U.N., the European Union, national governments and global NGOs, including Amnesty, WWF, Club of Rome and LDC Watch.

Tony Durham has worked in technology journalism and international development, and renovated several properties to varying levels of greenness.

Richard Elen has worked in music recording and broadcasting since the late 1960s. He is a Board member of – and presenter on – Radio Riel, an eclectic non-profit multi-stream internet radio station based in Detroit; and co-host and editor of Designing Worlds, a weekly web TV show on design & designers in virtual worlds.

Dr David Elliott is Emeritus Professor of Technology Policy at The Open University. His main research interests relate to the development of sustainable energy technologies, and in particular renewable energy based systems. He is editor of the journal ‘Renew’.

Martin Fodor is a Green Party councillor in Bristol and a locally well-known environmentalist who was author of Bristol’s first Recycling Plan.

Romy Fraser is an ethical entrepreneur who founded Neal’s Yard Remedies, eventually selling the business and starting Trill Farm, an ambitious experimental and educational project in Devon. She has been an effective catalyst of debate in environmental matters, and was recently awarded an OBE.

Dr Tara Garnett, is the Creator, Director and Lead investigator of the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food, and Lead of the Food Climate Research Network. In 2015 she was awarded the Premio Daniel Carasso for her commitment to reducing the food system’s impact on the climate through research and dialogue.

Herbert Girardet, is a co-founder of the World Future Council, consultant to UNEP and UN-Habitat and has been chairman of the Schumacher society and is a member of the Club of Rome. He has produced 50 environmental TV documentaries for major broadcasters. He is author and co-author of 12 books, amongst these Cities, People Planet, Surviving the Century and Creating Sustainable Cities

Nick Grant is a freelance building consultant. He dropped out of two universities so has a basic grounding in engineering, but is mostly self-taught. His interest in closing the gap between design and reality in building performance led him to his first Passive House conference in 2007. Nick is a practical engineer, tinkerer and self-builder with a keen interest in theory. He questions everything, including the need to question everything. He has a strong interest in eco-sanitation.

Geoff Hammond is a now-retired Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and Director of the interdisciplinary International Centre for the Environment at the University of Bath. He is famous for his work in energy and the embodied energy in materials, including the Inventory of Carbon and Energy.

Sandy Liddell Halliday graduated from the Engineering Design & Appropriate Technology Course at the University of Warwick in 1985 and moved via design of socially useful products into sustainable building design. She founded Gaia Research (1996) as part of the interdisciplinary Gaia Group and has since managed numerous research projects, advised on projects and published widely

Peter Harper was co-editor of the original Radical Technology. He was formerly Head of Research at the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) in Wales and lectures at the University of Bath. His institituonal web site is www.peterharper.org.

Peter Head leads the global planning practice at Ove Arup. He has more than 40 years’ experience in civil and structural engineering and planning, and has been involved in many leading projects in Asia, Europe, North America and the Middle East. He recently founded, and directs, the Eco-sequestration Trust. In 2011 he was awarded the CBE.

Rob Hopkins is the founder of the Transition movement of towns and cities that use local cooperation and interdependence to shrink their ecological footprints. Hopkins is also the co-founder and a resident of the first Transition Initiative in the UK, in Totnes, Devon.

Martin Ince is a freelance science writer, media adviser and media trainer. His most recent staff post was deputy editor of the Times Higher Education Supplement, now THE. His current clients include Goldsmiths, University of London and several of the UK research councils. He is President of the Association of British Science Writers.

Dr Dave King is a former molecular biologist, who has been writing and campaigning on the politics of technology since 1990. He is Director of Human Genetics Alert and a member of the Breaking the Frame working group, which is currently organising a conference on the 40th anniversary of the Lucas Plan (www.lucasplan.org.uk).

David Lea is a distinguished architect specialising in low-carbon, low-impact design alongside characteristic aesthetic refinement. His most recent large project is the WISE building at the Centre for Alternative Technology (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wales_Institute_for_Sustainable_Education). See also the professional biography by Adam Voelcker

Ann MacGarry is a veteran member of the Education Department at the Centre for Alternative Technology. She has specialised in designing education materials and eco-games for young people. See a typical video clip

Preben Maegaard is Chair of the World Council for Renewable Energy and the President of the World Wind Energy Association, Board member of European Renewable Energy Federation, member of the Nordic folk center for Renewable Energy and Vice president of EUROSOLAR, the European Renewable Energy Association. He is author or co-author of numerous reports, books and articles in Danish, English, German and Japanese.

Erik Millstone is professor of science policy at the University of Sussex. He has carried out research into the causes, consequences and regulation of technological change in the food and chemical industries, and the role of scientific experts, evidence and advice in public policymaking. He has actively engaged with public policymakers in the UK, other countries and international organisations with a view to influencing policy developments.

Andy O’Brien is founder-director of the Bristol Energy Cooperative, and initiator of the pioneering solar farm in Lawrence Weston, Bristol.

Martin Peck. An early interest in appropriate technology and concerns over environmental pollution and food production eventually brought Martin to a tiny upland farm in Wales, obtained through financial debt. He has achieved 26 years of Soil Association organic pasture and an environment friendly house built with very little ecological debt.

Joe Ravetz is Co-Director of the Centre for Urban & Regional Ecology at the University of Manchester. He has developed Synergistics, the theory and practice of working with complex cognitive collaborative systems. He has worked with the Institute for Alternative Futures, Rockefeller Foundation, Institute for Innovation Research, European Commission, Defra and Environment Agency, regional development agencies, and the UK Economic and Social Research Council.

Sue Roaf is Professor of Architectural Engineering at Heriot Watt University and best known for pioneering solar eco-architecture and thermal comfort.

Ian Roderick is the Director of the Schumacher Institute and past president of the UK Systems Society. His early career was in Operational Research, MSc (1975) and he co-founded a successful software company in 1982. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, co-founder of The Converging World and is on the advisory board of Low Carbon South West.

Chris Ryan is Professor of Urban Eco-Innovation at University of Melbourne, Australia, as well as Visiting Professor at the University of Delft, the Netherlands, and Member of the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics, Lund University, Sweden.

Stefan Szczelkun is an artist who created the Survival Scrapbooks in the early 70s, which in turn strongly influenced Radical Technology 1.0. He was a founder member of the Brixton Artists Collective and has Strong Views. His web site is www.stefan-szczelkun.org.uk.

Andrew Simms is co-director of the New Weather Institute, research associate with the Centre for Global Political Economy at the University of Sussex and Fellow at the New Economics Foundation, where he served as Policy Director, Communications Director, and established the NEC’s Climate Change Programme. He co-authored The Green New Deal and co-founded the Green New Deal Group the climate campaign onehundredmonths.org and cooperative think tank the New Weather Institute.

Wendy Stephenson is a renewable energy engineer with 15 years’ experience in the environment and climate change sector. She is CEO of The Converging World, a Bristol-based charity that addresses issues arising from social inequality, creating mechanisms which link communities in the developed and developing world.

Simon Trace is a writer and consultant on technology and international development with more than 30 years’ experience in the fields of energy, water, food and natural resource manager. His book Rethink, Retool, Reboot: technology as if people and planet mattered, was published by Practical Action Publishing in July 2016. Simon was formerly the CEO of Practical Action.

Adam Twine, Westmill Farm, is an organic farmer and founder-director of Westmill solar and wind cooperatives, Westmill is the first wind farm in the South East of England and the first 100% community owned scheme in the UK from commissioning. The scheme produces pollution-free electricity for over 2,500 average homes, saving carbon emissions.

Robert and Brenda Vale are architects, academics and writers, originally contributors to both Undercurrents and Radical Technology, now living in New Zealand and supervising PhD students at Victoria University of Wellington.

Andy Warren has worked in ecological design and construction since the late eighties, including on energy conservation and energy-efficient refurbishment. He has been designing, building and using compost toilets since 1993 and set up NatSol, and brings his scientific training to the biology and ecology of composting.