Mike Robinson
Mike Robinson is Chief Executive of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society (RSGS) based in Perth. For the last 20 years Mike has been heavily involved in many aspects of climate change in Scotland, most notably helping establish Stop Climate Chaos Scotland in 2006, the largest coalition ever formed in Scotland. The coalition was instrumental in delivering the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009, the Climate Justice Fund and the subsequent 2019 Climate Emissions Bill. He represented SCVO at the Climate Agora in Brussels in 2008, was an inaugural grant panel member of the Climate Challenge Fund, and the 2020 Business Leaders' Group and Chaired the Scottish Parliament Short life working on annual targets. He has held over 30 voluntary board roles, mostly for environmental bodies.
He Chairs a leadership forum to try and turn his home city of Perth into the “Most Sustainable Small City in Europe”, Co-chairs the Farming 1.5C enquiry into achieving a net zero future for agriculture in Scotland, sits on the board of the transport charity Transform Scotland and is an advisor to government, business and various universities.
He has developed a project to commission a book of climate related stories (Beacons) and another to produce a 2020 whisky to celebrate the Climate Change (Scotland) Act which was distributed to world leaders at Copenhagen COP15 and G20. Through RSGS and other roles he has also hosted or worked with many of the leading global figures in the climate change arena and for COP26 has helped produce a special magazine, a whisky for world leaders and a documentary film about Scotland’s Climate Journey.
He is an Honorary Fellow of Scottish Environment Link and The Royal Canadian Geographical Society and has won a number of awards for his contribution to climate change including the 2009 Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland award for the environment, the Scottish Green Award and the Green Energy award for Best Renewable Initiative in 2003.
In 2020 he launched a qualification in climate solutions for business leaders, written with the University of Stirling Management School and University of Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Innovation and the Institute of Directors Scotland which has now been taken up by 60,000 people across the public and private sectors, aimed at getting existing managers up to speed quickly with the challenge and solutions to climate change .
Through his many voluntary roles he strives to promote joined up and cross sectoral thinking; proposing ideas and solutions, winning political and popular support for measures and helping in their delivery and promotion at home and internationally.