Jon Dee

Internationally, Jon Dee is best known as the founder of Planet Ark, 'World Environment News' and his 14 country 'World Environment Review' poll. Some of Jon's initiatives have become role models for international change. He initiated the successful lobbying campaign for Australia's 3 year phase-out of incandescent light globes - a move that has since been copied by other countries.

Jon has also spearheaded the highly successful media campaign to phase-out Australia's usage of plastic bags. This campaign led to a recent Government announcement that Australia will phase-out free plastic bags by the end of 2008. One of the key drivers for this campaign took places five years ago, when Jon and Ben Kearney got the Tasmanian town of Coles Bay to become Australia's first plastic bag free town. Since then, many communities around the world have used this town as their role model for taking similar action. Indeed, Jon was Rebecca Hosking's key advisor in telling her how to turn Modbury into Britain's first plastic bag free town.

In 2007, Jon was the media spokesperson for the Australian release of Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth' DVD. As part of this campaign, Jon organised the sponsorship and sending out of 'An Inconvenient Truth' leaflet to 5 million homes Australia-wide. This was backed up by a retail campaign that Jon organised in every Bunnings store around Australia. In partnership with Jackgreen, Jon also organised to put a free DVD of 'An Inconvenient Truth' into Australia's secondary schools.

Jon made a speech at the House of Lords to launch his 14 country 'World Environment Review' poll, which was carried out in partnership with GMIPoll from Seattle. Jon's interviews for this initiative achieved significant media coverage in the international media.

Jon founded Planet Ark back in 1991 in partnership with his close friend Pat Cash. Jon was also the founder of 'World Environment News' (the world's leading environmental news service which is used by 8 million people a year), 'Cards 4 Planet Ark' (over half a billion greeting cards recycled), RecyclingNearYou.com.au (used by one million people a year), Australia's 'National Recycling Week' and 'The National Recycling Hotline', to name but a few.

Together with Olivia Newton-John, Jon founded Australia's 'National Tree Day', an event for which 1.2 million volunteers have planted 12 million native trees and shrubs. This initiative has achieved significant environmental results - it has also provided significant amounts of food and shelter for Australia's native wildlife.

Jon personally recruited Sir Richard Branson to front a TV advertising campaign to promote 'Cartridges 4 Planet Ark'- an advert which Jon also directed. 15,000 Australian businesses and 1,000 Australian retail outlets have now joined this campaign which has recycled more than five million printer cartridges.

In the media, Jon's columns have millions of readers. He writes the 'Eco-Agogo' environment column in Australia's biggest read weekly magazine 'Sunday' - which is distributed with 'The Sunday Telegraph' and 'The Sunday Herald-Sun'. The column now also runs in The Sunday Times 'STM' magazine in WA. He also has a number of regular environment columns in Australian motoring magazines.

Jon hosts the environment TV series 'Tipping Point', which airs 24 hours a day - on the hour every hour - on 'The Weather Channel' on Foxtel and Austar. He is also a regular guest on Channel Nine's national 'Today Show'.

In his role as an environmental commentator, Jon undertakes hundreds of interviews every year across all media. He is also Neil Mitchell's on-air environmental advisor on Radio 3AW.

Jon is also in strong demand here and overseas as a corporate speaker. Companies who have hired Jon to speak to them include Hewlett-Packard, Commonwealth Bank, McDonald's, ANZ, Toyota, NAB, BMW, Fosters and many others. Jon?s speaking engagements have taken place in Australia, Italy, Taiwan, America, the United Kingdom, France and Singapore.

Jon has directed and produced over 300 environmentally-focussed TV and radio adverts. These have featured people such as Tom Cruise, Kylie Minogue, Sir Richard Branson, Dustin Hoffman, Nicole Kidman, Pierce Brosnan, Steve Irwin, Olivia Newton-John, Rolf Harris and many others.

Jon is the Chairman of Planet Ark. Prior to taking on this position, Jon was the organisation's Managing Director - a role he held for over 15 years after he and Pat Cash started the organisation back in June 1991. His full time role is now as the Managing Director of Issues Solutions, where he advises companies and industry groups about the environment and corporate social responsibility.

Jon's first full time environmental job was at Earthlife UK in 1985. As part of his community work outside of the environment, Jon co-produced 'The World Against AIDS' global broadcast which launched 'World AIDS Day' back in 1988.

Jon also initiated the 'RecyclingNearYou' service - an online searchable database that shows people what they can and cannot recycle in 672 council areas Australia-wide.

Jon also started Planet Ark's 'National Recycling Week', which is backed by hundreds of councils around the country each year. This event has grown to play a key role in reducing public confusion about what can and cannot be recycled.

Planet Ark's most successful project to date has been its push to reduce Australia's usage of plastic check-out bags. This campaign was initiated by Jon and in a very short space of time it generated a huge firestorm of publicity, gathering huge public support to reduce the 7 billion plastic check-out bags that were being used every year.

Since Jon started this Planet Ark campaign, Australia's use of plastic bags has declined by over 4 billion bags and more than 20 million green bags have been sold Australia-wide

Every year, Jon undertakes hundreds of radio and TV interviews about the environment. In addition to regular appearances on the major current affairs TV shows, Jon is also the on-air 'Environmental Advisor' for Neil Mitchell on his top rating Melbourne talkback show on 3AW. For the past four years, Jon has also written a regular eco-motoring column for 'The Road Ahead' magazine

He was recently nominated for the 2010 NSW Australian of the Year. Jon Dee has led the way in showing Australia and the world how we can all change our planet for the better.