ICMI "20 years experience in
providing expert advice"
speakers & entertainers
Call now on
1800 334 625
International call +61 39529 3711

Speaker Jon Dee

- Full Biography
Home > Speaker > Environmental Speakers > Jon Dee > Biography

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.

In June 2007, 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.

In 1989, Jon also initiated and ran ‘Rock Aid Armenia’ where he organized ‘The Earthquake Album’ – the UK’s first ever gold selling charity album. The album and video were supported by such bands as Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Yes, Deep Purple and Bon Jovi. Jon also had a top 40 UK hit with his all-star remake of Deep Purple’s classic ‘Smoke on the Water’.

Jon is married to Leanne Dee and they have two daughters - Estelle, who is four and Claudia who was born on Oct 20th 2007. Jon and Lee met in London back in 1991 and they live in Yosemite in the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney.

 

 

View Short Bio
on Jon Dee
Download PDF Bio
on Jon Dee

Jon Dee

Enquire about
Jon Dee
for your next event
*Name
*Company
*Email
*Phone
-
Question

* required fields

Add To Short List
View Short List

Copyright ICMI 2006