The Sustainability Institute was formed in 2006 by sustainable building and renewable energy consultant Andy Wilson. It represented the culmination of some nine months of preparation and planning but might never have happened at all had it not been for a 'routine' cardiac procedure that went wrong, leaving Andy with an unstable and potentially life threatening heart arrhythmia. This however proved to be the tipping point which saw the both the Institute and its flagship publication Sustainability launched over a three month time frame between December 2006 and March 2007.

Andy was then joined by Laura Heneghan, a civil engineering graduate with a keen interest in sustainability-related issues

Laura has since moved onto other things but is still involved with the inistitute on an occasional basis.

A number of other people have been involved in the Institute on a part time basis. These have included green journalist Lenny Antonelli, local renewable energy researcher Diane Taylor and environmental justice campaigner Paul Lynch.

The Future

The priorities of the Insitute have gradually moved towards food and energy security-related issues. This reflects the growing realisation that the impending decline in availability of fossil fuels, in conjuction with unavoidable climate change arising from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissons, will cause massive disruption to both global supply chains and global food production.

Our resources are now being focussed on how humanity might address these issues.