Christopher Le BRETON
Leadership Coach & Change Agent, Environmental Trainer & Facilitator
Institutional Adviser and Strategic Thinker
Background
Christopher (usually known as Chris) Le Breton was born of British parents in Kenya in 1964, and grew up in Zambia, England, Hungary, Anguilla, Kenya, and The Gambia.
At the age of 14, travelling in the northern desert of Kenya, he was astounded to see the impact of western society on the indigenous people living in harmony with the natural environment. This propelled him to study Geography with African and Asian studies at the University of Sussex, followed by an M.Sc in Agricultural Economics at the University of London. His final thesis proposed combining socio-environmental issues with structural adjustment to enable sustainable development in third world countries, something that is still not carried out 20 years later.
Current Work
Chris has refreshed his skills and is now working as a leadership/ life coach drawing on the ideas of “Solutions Focus”, the Coaches Training Institute (CTI) and the Coaching Academy to help resolve management issues within organisations and with individuals at both a professional and a personal level.
Chris now leads the “Be the Change “Symposium, which help guide participants to create an environmentally friendly, socially just, and spiritually fulfilling society for humankind. For more details, please visit: http://www.bethechange.org.uk/about.cfm & http://www.awakeningthedreamer.org. To help publicise this further he is working on a major expedition from the UK to Japan to New Zealand, giving the Awakening the Dreamer symposium, and publicising Transition Towns. http://vimeo.com/2217073
Selected Achievements
1. Led the creation of the very first environmental programme for the Caspian Sea region bringing Russia, Iran and Kazakhstan together in a major forum and brokering an historical deal in collaboration with the World Bank and EU; the World Bank had failed twice before in this goal. Following this, investment funds worth up to €1bn were released into the region. A senior World Bank official described this as “the best example of World Bank & EU co-operation ever.”
2. Pioneered the development of the ‘New Regional Environment Centre’ for the Caucasus region, building close co-operation between Armenia, Georgia & Azerbaijan. This €12m project was a major triumph and required extensive negotiation with all participating governments, US & EU officials. The centre became operational in 2002 and represented a level of multi-stakeholder and multi-country teamwork never before seen in the Caucasus. Chris Patten (then EU External Affairs Commissioner) declared it “the best example of EU aid in the region.”
3. Played a pivotal role in preparing Serbia for EU Accession, creating the framework & infrastructure to attract financial support for environmental projects; Built a cohesive scientific stakeholder network that had previously not communicated systematically.
4. Created the strategic momentum as Executive Director of GLOBE, that led to consensus between EU, Japanese, Russian & US parliamentarians in international environmental meetings on key climate change negotiations.
5. Persuading the European Commission to set up central systems to extinguish all office lights, and to recycle paper in every EC office in Brussels, and in Delegations and Agency offices around the world.
6. Co-founded No-SupercasiNO.com with 3 local colleagues to advocate (successfully) against the planned supercasino at the Dome in Greenwich, London.
Other
He speaks English and French, with some German, Russian, Serbian, and the general travellers’ ability to ask for a coffee in a few others! He has friends who are atheist, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Muslim, and Quaker.
Aged 23, he cycled solo over the Indian Himalayas from Kashmir into Ladakh (geographically Tibet) and wrote his first article: “Dead Easy, and not even a puncture. A short ride in the Himalayas”, published in a national magazine. He co-created London’s first gay cycling group in 1990 to raise money for Terrence Higgins Trust initiatives, and believes he is the first person to have taken his Brompton folding bicycle on the Eurostar from Brussels to London and London to Brussels during the inaugural week of operation in 1994.
Since then, he has published several articles in both broadsheets and magazines. He has spoken on radio and television in Argentina, Georgia, India, the UK, and the West Indies.
He is active in: :
- St. Alfege Church, Greenwich - Deputy Church Warden
- Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) – Fellow.
- Liberal Democrats – European Parliamentary Candidate 2009, and elected member of the International Relations Committee.
Chris has a nephew and niece in Malaysia, two god children in England, and two “god” children in Buddhist Sri Lanka, Whilst he is passionate about sustainable urban living, and surviving climate change, he loves getting out of town on his bicycle into quieter parts of the countryside. He has been based in Greenwich since 1987.
