Trustees

Liz is the owner of Lansdowne Warwick Sustainability Consultancy. She has specialised in providing environmental and energy advice since 2008 and is passionate about promoting climate change policy and reducing impacts. Liz provides advice to events, productions, business and property owners on developing and managing programmes, monitoring and evaluation, policy advice, risk management, compliance and regulations, research and analysis and stakeholder engagement. Reductions in energy and travel emissions are of particular interest and Liz has undertaken detailed research on festival travel emissions. Liz works with clients such as Cambridge Folk Festival and a large global media entertainment company as well as in the design and sustainability fields to enhance environmental performance. At onboard.earth Liz leads on due dilgence processes and sustainable travel advice.

“I wanted to contribute my environmental knowledge and skills to be part of this cause that includes a lot of passionate environmental advocates. Promoting sustainable transport and reducing emissions is now a top priority in the world and onboard.earth engages, educates and connects vehicle users with the opportunity to mitigate their impacts. The reach includes a wide variety of fields in the entertainment, event and venue sectors. The balancing of travel emissions by investing in low carbon projects is a valuable contribution.

Chris co-founded the award-winning Boomtown Fair, an event at the cutting edge of the festival experience, both in scale and imagination. Part festival and part ongoing immersive theatre, each year Chris and the team create a city of wonderment at Boomtown with intricate stages and streets brimming with theatre, escapism and community.

Chris is committed to making Boomtown sustainable – they have been working with Energy Revolution for the last three years to tackle audience travel emissions and they are a Vision:2025 festival – pledged to aim to half their CO2 impacts by 2025.

“onboard.earth provides us with the tools, confidence and communications to work with our audience and suppliers to balance travel emissions. “ Chris Rutherford, Director at Boomtown.”

Ben is the Company Director of From the Fields. Promoters, festival organisers and creative minds behind Kendal Calling, Bluedot, Off the Record, Electric Fields & Bournemouth’s Arts by the Sea. Having grown Kendal Calling from a 900 capacity conceptualisation to a 25,000 capacity multi award winning festival over the last ten years, Ben and the From the Fields team have not stopped adding to their portfolio with innovative, imaginative and ground breaking shows.

“For years I have been looking at practical and well researched ways to make a direct impact and onboard.earth  have nailed this. The team behind it have the relevant experience in the field, literally, and also the drive to create a movement for change. That’s a rare and bold thing in life.”

Jessica was awarded a first class LLM in international law, specifically researching the power of climate litigation to propel global change before going on to train as a bid writer and working for charities across the UK on projects including local climate change initiatives. She has since worked for a London-based youth charity and currently is employed as Head of Development for The Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Health Care as well as working as a freelance consultant supporting charities with income generation strategies and growth. 

Human connection and real-life experience have never been more important, yet we face an impending climate emergency which necessitates rapid innovation in the way we do things. With 80% of event carbon emissions deriving from travel – onboard.earth presents a uniquely collaborative and effective industry response and road map to meaningful change.

As Director of renowned festival venue ‘Chai Wallahs’ and former Director of artist booking agency ‘Diplomats of Sound’ Tom brings a wealth of experience from the live events and music industry to the board. Having recently completed a Masters in Environmental Management, Tom is well placed to introduce onboard.earth to artists, agencies and music companies to help them account for, reduce and balance their touring emissions.

“The festival, event & music industry is full of people who acknowledge and care about the impacts of climate change and want to take positive and meaningful action. onboard.earth’s Trees+ programme provides a platform to take concrete and positive action with that care & intention.”

Ed is a writer, communications specialist, serial entrepreneur and futurist. He co-founded Futerra, an internationally renowned change agency that specialises in business transformation and creative campaigns – including work on award-winning corporate sustainability initiatives. Ed is a seasoned sustainable traveller – he circumnavigated the globe without getting on a plane and wrote, ‘Only Planet – a flight-free adventure around the world,’ a book about his 381 day, 33 country, 45,000 mile trip. He is also, along with fellow futurist Mark Stevenson, one half of ‘The Futurenauts’ who do talks, live stage shows and a popular podcast.

“I’ve worked on climate change for the best part of two decades and I love the fact that onboard.earth takes a really, positive and creative approach to tackling what is almost always an event’s biggest environmental impact – the travel miles generated by eager punters getting there!”

Graham was invited to join onboard.earth in 2018 having met other trustees through his role as brand advisor for onboard.earth’s founding organisation, Powerful Thinking, and realising the positive impact the charity could make around transport emissions in the festival and event sector.

Graham has over two decades in events media and PR, supporting sustainable initiatives and creative event industry communications, through his consultancy Brown Fox Comms. He supports organisers and suppliers to strategically connect their brands with their clients, stakeholders and to build communities.

The event sustainability space is a creatively innovative one, as the world seems to be taking more notice and realising that it’s really important that we urgently take responsibility for the wellbeing of our natural environment. onboard.earth has a pro-active group of trustees who embrace the opportunity to inform the ever-changing dynamic of carbon reduction in the area of audience and artist transport. I’m delighted to be a contributor as a trustee to increase the reach and effectiveness of the charity.

Chris is Co-Founder, Operations Director and Sustainability lead of Shambala Festival as well as onboard.earth CEO. He has spent 17 years pioneering green initiatives that tackle food sourcing, plastics, energy, travel and wider environmental impacts at events. He has has written and collaborated on many resources that support festival organisers tackle their environmental impacts, and has key roles in a number of industry initiatives including: Environmental Consultant at Kambe Events, co-founder and Chair of Powerful Thinking and Associate for Festivals and Events with Julie’s Bicycle.

“After writing the Show Must Go On Report (Powerful Thinking, 2015), it was very clear that a key part of a road map for the events industry to become more environmentally sustainable was travel, it accounting for around 70%+ of the industry footprint. I co-founded Energy Revolution, now onboard.earth,  to provide the festival community with ways to make better choices and take action.”

Wayne is an ACCA qualified accountant with nearly 30 years experience in the profession, starting in practice before moving into industry with both SME’s and large multi-national companies, within different sectors. In 2019, he studied sustainability with Harvard Business School online, to further his understanding within this area, knowing that finance can play an important role in this critical issue.

Music has been a massive part of my life, both as a fan and musician and live music is especially precious to me (yes, i still have every ticket!). I’m involved with onboard.earth due to a real interest in how the music sector can help, with this critical climate emergency. Music and how we can protect this planet, are two of the most important things to me and it’s a real privilege to be involved with this fantastic charity.

Rick has been with onboard.earth since its inception, joining as its Governance Advisor. He is a Director of My Favourite Holiday Cottages, a Directory advertising self-catering holiday properties in the UK. Prior to setting up his online business he was much in demand for his consultancy and training services provided for cultural and events organisations throughout the UK, specialising in governance, business management and fundraising.

Dig deeper into his past, and you’ll discover he has a long history as a theatre and events manager going right back to the 1980’s when claims to fame included booking Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart for £75 and working on the original events that led to the setup of Comic Relief. He failed his 11+ but he does have a teaching degree and a Diploma in Company Direction from the Institute of Directors.