Contact details

  • email address: info-AT-transitionnetwork-DOT-org
  • click here to email us
  • phone: +44 5601 531882
  • address: 43 Fore Street, Totnes, TQ9 5HN, UK
  • GoogleMap our office in Totnes



Meet the Transition Network’s Trustees

Peter Lipman (Chair) works on the Liveable Neighbourhoods and Low Carbon Travel programmes at sustainable transport charity Sustrans and is chair of trustees of the Centre for Sustainable Energy, www.cse.org.uk. He has been involved with the steering group of Transition Bristol since it got going and is very interested (frustrated at times) by the different challenges of the transition process in a city environment. Can often be found wearing shorts in the depths of winter.
Julie Richardson has over 20 years’ international experience working across a range of sectors and organisations covering different aspects of sustainable development. She has worked as a senior environmental policy advisor to the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit and as Principal Sustainability Officer for Jonathon Porritt’s Forum for the Future. In 2005, she was awarded an MSc in Holistic Science at Schumacher College and since then has undertaken a range of projects to show how new thinking in science can be applied to sustainable development. In May 2006 she was appointed Director of the Landscope Project for the Dartington Hall Estate. The Landscope is a pioneering initiative to attract sustainable land based ventures to the estate with the aim of strengthening the local economy. She recently co-authored The Triple Bottom Line:Does It All Add Up?
Brian Goodwin teaches Holistic Science at Schumacher College. Trained as a biologist and a mathematician, he had an academic career that included appointments at Sussex and the Open University, where he was Professor of Biology. His educational vision gradually broadened to include issues of planetary health and the role of humans as participants in shaping a new global culture of participation based on local communities.
Ben Brangwyn had put his ecological aspirations on the back-burner, spending many years quite successfully infiltrating the world of business and hi-tech, with occasional forays into charity work. Like many before him, the strain of disconnecting from a long-lost inner Gaian core was taking a heavy toll, especially with peak oil and climate change looming fast. However, finding out how to be part of the solution wasn't proving to be easy. And just when it was all looking a little tragic, an encounter with Stephan Harding of Schumacher College re-energised the eco-warrior.
At that point, realising he could no longer be part of the problem, he backed irrevocably away from his bizarre day job of manipulating pixellated abstractions while feigning enthusiasm and started planting acorns with a vengeance. Once he ran out of acorns, a synchronous confluence of disparate elements - a long-term fixation on relocalisation, a limerick, Rob Hopkins and a "Life Beyond Oil" course at Schumacher - helped put his energies where they might do some good. And ever since, he's been putting all his efforts into helping nurture the accelerating emergence of a network of communities that aspire to implement the fast developing transition model.

Ben has two sons, Josh 19, Ollie 17, and hopes they'll inherit a human-scale world.

Pamela Gray is a well respected scientist and award-winning entrepreneur who has enjoyed a long and varied career working in the US and UK. For the past 5 years she has focused exclusively on factors affecting human health, paying particular attention to those that relate to our use of fossil fuels. Pamela is a strong advocate of localized medical systems and of the need to integrate conventional medicine with the best of alternative and complementary techniques. She is deeply concerned about the implications that peak oil and climate change have for the future design and management of our health and medical systems and is in the process of producing a book on the subject. pamela.gray@transition-health.com.

William Lana is co-founder and owner of Greenfibres an organic textile company started in 1996. He is Chairman of the Soil Association’s Organic Textile Standards Committee and of the Ethical and Environmental Marketing Group. He is also a trustee of a number of charities including the Environmental Justice Foundation, Transition Network, and the Naturesave Trust as well as an elected member of the Organic Trade Group. In a previous life William worked in the City and on Wall Street in the 80’s, and in Brussels in the 90’s for the External Relations Directorate of EU Commission. He has 2 kids Megan (12) and Max (10), and lives in Totnes.
Rob Hopkins is co-founder of the Transition Network. He spent many years teaching permaculture and cob building, mostly when living in Ireland. Now based in Totnes, he is a member of Transition Town Totnes, works part time for Transition Network, publishes www.transitionculture.org, is author of the just published ‘Transition Handbook’ and generally spends far too much time thinking about Transition stuff. He is also a Trustee of the Soil Association, is a family man with 4 sons, and is deeply in love with the raised beds he just finished building.