Sue Riddlestone

Biography

Sue Riddlestone is Chief Executive of Bioregional, and a Skoll, Schwab and Ashoka award-winning social entrepreneur.

Sue co-founded Bioregional in 1994, who initiated the iconic BedZED eco-village in London, where Sue lives and where Bioregional has its headquarters.

Sue and the team work with partners to create homes, communities and eco-products and services which enable us to live a good life with a sustainable carbon footprint, within in the natural limits of our one planet.   

To further scale their work, Bioregional systematised their approach to create a sustainability framework called One Planet Living which has been used in over $30billion of real-estate development. As well as by municipalities, cities, organisations and companies around the world from Mexico to China, the USA and Australia.   

For system change, Sue draws on the work of Bioregional and partners to change policy and industry practice from zero carbon policy to eco-towns. Sue was a London Sustainable Development Commissioner from 2002-2014. 

Sue was actively involved in creating the UN Sustainable Development Goals, with a formal role as UN NGO focal point for Sustainable Consumption and Production, where Sue and the team succeeded in securing text and targets for the SDGs, particularly for Goal 12.

Sue is a founding board member of global social entrepreneur network Catalyst 2030 and chairs the work to foster partnerships with governments and recognition of social entrepreneurs at the UN and national level.

In 2013 Sue was awarded one of the UK’s highest honours, an OBE, for her work on sustainable business and the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.