Jeremy Leggett

Jeremy Leggett
Born 1954
Education Doctor of Philosophy in Earth sciences, Oxford University
Occupation Social entrepreneur, author

Dr Jeremy Leggett is a British green-energy entrepreneur, author and advocate who is founding director of Solarcentury (1997–present), the UK’s largest independent solar electric company; founder and Chairman of SolarAid (2006–present), a charity set up with 5% of Solarcentury’s annual profits; and Chairman of CarbonTracker, a financial-sector think-tank warning of carbon-fuel asset-stranding risk to the capital markets, colloquially known as the carbon bubble (2011–present). He is the author of four books on energy, climate change, and oil depletion. Leggett advocates renewable energy and a rapid managed withdrawal from fossil fuels in the media and is a contributor to the Financial Times and the Guardian. Winner of numerous awards, he has been described in the Observer as “Britain’s most respected green energy boss."[1]

Career

In a first career, Leggett was an award-winning earth scientist on the faculty of the Royal School of Mines, Imperial College. He researched, among other things, shale deposits, funded by BP, Royal Dutch Shell and other energy companies (1978-1989).

Leggett holds a variety of current roles in the renewable energy and clean energy sector. In 1998, Leggett founded Solarcentury, the UK’s largest independent solar electric company, where he served as CEO until 2006, Chairman until 2014, and is now a board director.[2] Solarcentury is an international, profitable venture capital-backed downstream developer, EPC, O&M, owner of solar roofs and solar farms, and a BIPV solar product-developer. Leggett set up the charity SolarAid in 2006, which helps African communities access solar power with 5% of the proceeds of Solarcentury’s annual profit.[3] SolarAid owns a retail brand SunnyMoney that is Africa’s top-seller of solar lighting, having sold well over a million solar lights, all profits recycled to the cause of eradicating the kerosene lantern from Africa. He also serves as a Chairman of the Carbon Tracker Initiative,[4] a think tank which was set up to align the capital markets with international climate policymaking.

Other roles include convening the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security,[5] a pan-industry group warning of a systemic oil-depletion risk to economies (2007-2013), which evolved into the Transatlantic Energy Security Dialogue (2013–present), co-convened with Lt Col. Daniel Davis (US Army). Jeremy also served on the New Energy Architecture Global Agenda Council[6] of the World Economic Forum (2012 – 2014), a group primarily working on “black swans” in energy markets. Between 2000 and 2014 he was non-executive director of New Energies Invest AG, a private equity fund investing in renewable energy (2000–14), and is a consultant on systemic risk to major corporations.

Books

Leggett is author of four books: The Carbon War (2000), an eye-witness account of the climate negotiations in the 1990s; Half Gone (2005), an account of the interaction between oil depletion and climate change; The Solar Century (2009), a vision of the solar revolution; and The Energy of Nations: Risk Blindness and the Road to Renaissance (2013). He is a contributor to the Guardian and the Financial Times. He lectures on business and society at the universities of Cambridge and St. Gallen, and is an Associate Fellow at Oxford University.

Awards

Described by the Observer as “Britain’s most respected green energy boss, Leggett has been an Entrepreneur of the Year at the New Energy Awards,[7] and a CNN Principal Voice.[8] His awards include the President’s Prize[9] and the Lyell Fund[10] of the Geological Society, the US Climate Institute’s Award for Advancing Understanding,[11] UK Climate Week’s Most Inspirational Person Award,[12] Outstanding Individual Award at the 2013 international Solar Industry Awards,[13] and at the 2014 Business Green Leaders Awards, Champion of the Year in promoting the green economy.[14] He was the first person to be appointed a Hillary Institute Hillary Laureate for International Leadership on Climate Change (2009).[15] At the 2009 Rosenblatt New Energy Awards Leggett won in the Entrepreneur of the Year category.[16]

Leggett received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 2010 [17]

Climate change

Leggett has called for a rapid strategic withdrawal from fossil fuels and argues that coal should be left in the ground.[18] Leggett has been critical of the lack of reporting by the British mainstream media on the economic imperatives of climate change abatement.[19] Leggett is known for his support of microgeneration technology in the fight to abate global warming. Recently, Leggett has spoken in depth about the great dangers of allowing carbon assets to be viewed at zero risk of impairment if promised action on climate change does take place.[19]

In his 2009 book, The Solar Century, Leggett is critical of nuclear power, saying that it cannot come online quickly enough to mitigate climate change; that the nuclear industry still hasn't found a way to deal with its radioactive wastes; and that investing in nuclear power would mean less money for other initiatives involving energy conservation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy. Leggett also states that carbon capture and storage has a "substantial timing problem" as it will take fifteen to twenty years to introduce the technology.[20]

Politics

Prior to the 2015 UK general election, he was one of several celebrities who endorsed the parliamentary candidacy of the Green Party's Caroline Lucas.[21]

See also

References

External links

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