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UCL alumni from a huge range of academic backgrounds are pursuing rewarding careers in sustainability. Here we share the story of Craig Bennett, Chief Executive of The Wildlife Trusts.
Craig Bennett (UCL Biology 1995) is Chief Executive of The Wildlife Trusts, which aim to put a third of the UK’s land and sea into nature recovery by 2030. He is known in the UK as “one of the country’s top environmental campaigners”.
Find out more about Craig
Before taking up the role of Chief Executive of The Wildlife Trusts, Craig was CEO of Friends of the Earth, where he refocused the organisation to empower communities to tackle the climate and ecological crisis. This resulted in over 200 new Friends of the Earth community groups being set up during his tenure. Craig led Friends of the Earth to numerous campaign victories including on bees, fracking and against the expansion of Heathrow Airport.
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). Before that, he campaigned on corporate accountability, trade, and wildlife issues at Friends of the Earth, and on international wildlife crime at the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).
Craig has twenty years’ experience of designing and contributing to executive education and leadership programmes at numerous universities and business schools, including the Judge Business School, London Business School, and Duke CE. He is Honorary Professor of Sustainability and Innovation at Alliance Manchester Business School.
Craig has a BSc (Hons) in Human and Physical Geography (University of Reading) and an MSc in Biodiversity Conservation (UCL), as well as an Honorary Doctoral degree (University College of Estate Management).
Listen to the podcast
Listen to Craig’s recent guest appearance on the UCL Generation One Climate podcast episode “Trees matter. But just how much?”, where host Dr Matt Winning chats to Craig about the importance of biodiversity, how wildlife is on a decline and what needs to be done now to undo the damage.