Second Entrepreneurs with Conscience event set for 16th March 2009

Inspiring entrepreneurs to be the change they want to see…

Entrepreneurs with Conscience aims to inspire socially responsible entrepreneurs to maximise their contribution to addressing the dangerous challenges – including climate change, peak oil and a rapidly growing population – that we face as a society today. The event will do this by providing a forum for sharing ideas and experiences and seeing how we can use the power of the group to make a real difference.

Without a vital contribution from entrepreneurs, it is unlikely that we will be able to meet the requirements of a growing and increasingly energy hungry world population. This in turn will have devastating consequences for the world’s future climate, health and wellbeing.

“The kind of innovation we need [to tackle climate change] is 10,000 innovators in 10,000 garages trying 10,000 things.” - Thomas Friedman

The energy industry is valued at $6 trillion annually and has 4 billion customers worldwide. John Doerr, a partner at Silicon Valley venture capital giant Kleiner Perkins, recently described energy as “the mother of all markets – perhaps the largest economic opportunity of the 21st century.”The joint venture between renewable energy company 2OC and National Grid, that created Blue-NG, is just the kind of innovative climate change and peak oil tackling venture that John Doerr and Thomas Friedman have in mind.

In April 2007 Footdown hosted the inaugural Entrepreneurs with Conscience forum, at which renowned environmental business campaigner Jonathon Porritt, together with fellow environmental leaders Tony Juniper (Friends of the Earth), John Sauven (Greenpeace) and Steve Howard (The Climate Group), urged a select group of entrepreneurs to make sustainability and tackling climate change a core part of their daily lives. The positive effects of this event are impressive, far-reaching and, more importantly, still continuing.

For more information about the event, to be held at The Royal Society, London, on 16th march, please contact Debbie Richardson on 01225 858884 or email debbie@footdown.com