Carolyn Steel is a leading thinker on the relationship between food and cities. Her 2008 book Hungry City: How Food Shapes Our Lives established a new approach to the design and interpretation of cities, describing how food cultures and systems have dominated urban and rural development, creating the 'urban paradox' at the core of civilization. Her concept of sitopia (foodplace), is gaining widespread recognition as a powerful collaborative tool with which to address the many challenges of 21st century human dwelling. Carolyn is a visiting Lecturer in Architecture at Cambridge University, visiting Professor in Food and Urban Design at Lincoln University, and visiting Lecturer and Researcher in Rural Sociology at Wageningen University. She has run successful architectural and urban design units at Cambridge University, London Metropolitan University and the London School of Economics, where she was the inaugural Studio Director of the Cities Programme. A director of Kilburn Nightingale Architects, Carolyn has completed several major buildings for the Central School of Speech and Drama, London. She is currently advisor to the Dutch Agriculture Ministry's Innovatienetwerk and the Dutch City of Groningen, with whom she is working to develop a Regional Food Vision. She has been a presenter of BBC TV’s 'One Foot in the Past' and was a regular columnist for Building Design. Carolyn is in increasing demand worldwide as a public speaker. Recent appearances include TEDGlobal (2009), The World Planning Day International Conference (2010) among many others. Carolyn's awards include a scholarship to the British School at Rome in 1995-6, where she researched the Mundane Order of the City. Her first book Hungry City won the Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award for Non-Fiction, and was chosen as a BBC Food Programme book of the year. In 2009, she was profiled by The Ecologist magazine as a ‘21st Century Visionary’.

Don Lewis is president of SCA’s North American Tissue operations, which manufactures and sells the Tork® line of napkins, towels, bath tissue and wipers that are used ‘Away from Home’ in restaurants, office buildings, schools and other public venues. Mr. Lewis joined SCA 10 years ago as senior vice president of sales and marketing. Tork is currently the second largest brand in the North American away-from-home tissue market, producing half the napkins used in U.S. restaurants. SCA makes its products from 100% recycled fiber, and many Tork products have earned environmental certifications such as EcoLogo™ and the EPA’s Green Seal™. Over the past decade, SCA has used 12 billion pounds of recycled paper in its North American production processes. Based in Stockholm, with American headquarters in Philadelphia, SCA began 80 years ago in the Swedish forest industry. Today, it brings a ‘close to nature’ approach to all of its operations, earning global recognition for its leading sustainability practices.

André Heinz is the co-founder and investment director of Sustainable Technologies Fund. Mr. Heinz has been active in the field of sustainable development since 1993, when he began working for William McDonough, the noted green architect and designer, on sustainable design issues and projects. Concurrently, Mr. Heinz joined the board of the Vira I. Heinz Endowment, where he oversaw the creation of an environmental grant-making program for both the Vira I. and Howard Heinz Endowments through a series of 14 topical environmental colloquia that convened leaders from around the world. He continues to serve on the newly merged Heinz Endowments board, and on the Investment Committee, which oversees the management of the combined $1.5 billion endowment. Following a six-month urban redevelopment project for the city of Pittsburgh where he collaborated with his colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University, André began research for Paul Hawken on his latest book, Natural Capitalism. The book chronicles examples of 75% or greater resource productivity at zero to negative cost, and suggests principles to help replicate those successes. In 1995, Mr. Heinz co-founded the first U.S. office of The Natural Step, a Swedish-based non-profit specializing in sustainable development education and consulting. In 1999, he completed an M.A. in environmental studies at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, where he specialized in industrial environmental management/ecology. In 2004, Mr. Heinz left The Natural Step, where he had been running the international office, based in Stockholm, to concentrate on U.S. presidential politics as a surrogate spokesperson specialized in environmental policy. Since then, he has been focused on cleantech investing.