Simon is the Campaign Manager and leads WWF's work in the sustainable housing arena. He joined WWF in early 2005 to work on the One Million Sustainable Homes campaign, which exerted significant influence over the outcome of the UK's zero carbon new build housing policies and Code for Sustainable Homes. Now focussing on UK housing retrofit as part of WWF's wider One Planet Future initiative he works on the Grand Designs Great British Refurb campaign. Simon sits on the government's 2016 Housing Task Force and on the Sustainability Board of BRE Global. He is also on the board of the Existing Homes Alliance.
The One Planet Future campaign is working to stabilise and reduce the UK’s footprint focusing on the key areas of Homes, Power, Transport and Food. Major themes running through all these issues are tackling climate change and the enabling the UK to have a high standard of living within its fair share of the earth’s resources. Prior to joining WWF, Simon was an international tax consultant working in London-New York-Sydney, and more recently was a tabloid newspaper reporter for the Daily Star, the Daily Express and The Sun. He has written as a freelance and has contributed to various environmental and wider interest books (including, bizarrely, a biography of Ant and Dec!).
Simon has Masters degrees in both Jurisprudence (from Oxford University) and International Economic and Business Law (from Kyushu University, Japan).
He is now happily ensconced in his own low impact self-build on the Gower Peninsula, south Wales, with his wife, 2 kids - Ned and Kitty -, dog and chickens.
"Dramatic headlines aside, the way we all live is screwing the planet. We urgently need to overhaul the way we build, refurbish and simply live in our homes if we are stand a chance of remedying this. But to do this, we need to make people not just want a new mode of doing things, but truly desire it. At the Grand Designs Awards I want to see homes, the component parts, fixtures and fittings that aren't just a little kinder to the planet, but that really stir people's senses and have them chomping at the bit for these things. Eco homes aren't just low impact, they are better quality, and should integrate better design, better ideas and that elusive aspect of cool."
