Tom Burke (environmentalist)

Tom Burke is Co-Founder of E3G, Third Generation Environmentalism (Environmental Think Tank) founded in 2004 and is currently Chairman of its board. He is responsible for supervising the overall fitness of the organisation to fulfil its mission.

He is Visiting Professor at Imperial and University Colleges, London and is Chairman of the China Dialogue Trust which produces a number of online publications covering China and the environment. He is also a Trustee of Climate Advisors UK , Black-E Community Arts Trust and Rising Tides Theatre Company.

He was an Environmental Policy Adviser to Rio Tinto for 20 years (1996 to 2016) and was Chairman of the Editorial Board of ENDS Magazine[1][2] (2004 to 2010) and he used to write a regular column in BusinessGreen magazine. From 2015 to 2022 he was on the advisory board for Glennmont Partners.

He has been an environmentalist since first joining a Friends of the Earth (FoE) local group in 1971. He joined the FoE staff in1973 as its local groups coordinator and became its Executive Director in 1975. He was the Director of the Green Alliance from 1982 until 1991 when he became Michael Heseltine’s Special Advisor. While at the Green Alliance he ran for Parliament twice for the SDP and the Liberal Democrats.

He played a leading part in establishing the European Environment Bureau for nearly two decades and was the Secretary-General of the European and North American NGO preparations for the Rio Earth Summit. As a Special Advisor to three Secretaries of State for the Environment (1991-1997) he was intimately involved in a wide range of international negotiations as well as all aspects of domestic environment policy.

In 1997, Burke was appointed CBE for services to the environment. In 1993, Burke was appointed to United Nations Environment Programme's Global 500 Roll of Honour.

Having begun developing dialogues with business while at the Green Alliance, he went to work for Rio Tinto and BP on leaving government in 1997. At Rio Tinto he created the Global Mining Initiative which engaged the industry globally with sustainable development and drafted Rio Tinto’s first climate policy in 1998. He also joined the Council of English Nature and was the government’s statutory advisor on biodiversity as part of the Central Policy Group, Office of The Deputy Prime Minister where he served two terms until 2003.

Burke has co-authored several books including The Fragile City (with Charles Landry), Europe In the World (with Nick Mabey), The Green Capitalists (Gollancz, 1987), Green Pages (Routledge, 1988), and Ethics, Environment and the Company (IBE, 1990).[3]

He has written and broadcast extensively and coined the term ‘green growth’ in 1987. He remains actively involved on a wide range of environmental issues, working with NGOs, government and business. He is particularly active on energy and climate issues and is a prominent critic of the government’s policy on nuclear power and has previously campaigned against nuclear power.[4][5]

He endorsed the parliamentary candidacy of the Green Party's Caroline Lucas at the 2015 general election.[6]