The Optimum Population Trust is the leading think tank in the UK concerned with the impact of population growth on the environment. OPT research covers population in relation to climate change, energy, resources, biodiversity, development impacts, ageing and employment and other environmental and economic issues. It campaigns for stabilisation and gradual population decrease globally and in the UK. OPT is a registered charity and is financed by its members. It receives funding neither from the government nor from any political or business interests, and is not affiliated to any other organisation*.(*Except as a partner in the Global Footprint Network.)

MAIN AIMS

• To advance the education of the public in issues relating to human population worldwide and its impact on environmental sustainability;
  
  
• To advance, promote and encourage research to determine optimum and ecologically sustainable human population levels in all or any part or parts of the world and to publicise the results of such research;



• To advance environmental protection by promoting policies in the United Kingdom or any other part or parts of the world which will lead or contribute to the achievement of stable human population levels which allow environmental sustainability.

SUBSIDIARY AIMS:

• To encourage UK governments to act on the strong recommendations of the Government Population Panel in 1973, so as to fully integrate population policy into all decision-making.
  
• To oppose the view held by many politicians and economists and those in the commercial world, that perpetual population growth is desirable and possible.
  
• To make it widely understood that failure to reduce population is likely to lead to a population crash when fossil fuels, fresh water and other resources become scarce. OPT's overall task is to enable people to recognise the links between the quality of life and environmental destruction and (a) high population levels; (b) wasteful consumption; and (c) poor technology. OPT concentrates on (a) because other environmental organisations dangerously neglect this component. In addition it is a subject which until recently has been shunned by the media. Seeking to reshape people's reproductive behaviour, however democratically, involves the intimate decisions of individuals and is seen as an infringement of human rights. OPT believes that all other human rights and needs will suffer if this issue continues to be ignored.

PATRONS

Professor Paul Ehrlich,   Professor of Population Studies, Stanford University
Jane Goodall PhD DBE,   Founder, Jane Goodall Institute, and UN Messenger of Peace.
Susan Hampshire OBE,   Actress and population campaigner
Professor John Guillebaud   Former Co-chair of OPT, Emeritus Professor of Family Planning and Reproductive Health, UC London. Ex-Medical Director, Margaret Pyke Centre for Family Planning.
Professor Aubrey Manning OBE,   Emeritus Professor of Natural History, University of Edinburgh
Professor Norman Myers CMG,   Visiting Fellow, Green College, Oxford University, and at Universities of Harvard, Cornell, Stanford, California, Michigan and Texas
Sara Parkin OBE,    Founder Director and Trustee of Forum for the Future and Director of the Natural Environment Research Council and the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education and Head Teachers into Industry.
Jonathon Porritt CBE,   Founder Director of Forum for the Future and Chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission.
Sir Crispin Tickell GCMG KCVO,   Chancellor of Kent University, Director of the Policy Foresight Programme at the James Martin Institute, and former UK Permanent Representative on the United Nations Security Council

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

CHAIR

Valerie Stevens   worked in Friends of the Earth for 20 years, five of them spent as an elected member of the board of directors, and has long experience of political campaigning.

OTHER TRUSTEES

Sue Birley    is a geographer with a special interest in Europe, and has decades of experience in green politics.
Edmund Davey,    is a former primary-school teacher and keenly involved in wildlife organisations. He is an expert in ecological footprinting methodology and sustainable energy.
Martin Desvaux PhD ChPhys   is a physicist experienced in life assessment techniques for power generation, petrochemical and plant, and formerly a director of ERA Technology. He now researches ecological issues.
Dr Pippa Hayes    is a full-time general practitioner in Devon and mother of two teenage boys.
Yvette Willey,   Company Secretary, Treasurer and Membership Secretary, Yvette Willey has been with OPT since its foundation and is a businesswomen with treasury and accounts experience.

POLICY DIRECTORS

Rosamund McDougall *ADVISORY COUNCIL MEMBER   Former Co-chair of OPT, Founder/MD of Peridot Press, financial journalist (The Banker, Financial Times), and family planning campaigner (FPA).
David Nicholson-Lord, RESEARCH ASSOCIATE    Former Environment Editor, Independent on Sunday and Deputy Chair of the New Economics Foundation. Chair of the Urban Wildlife Network.

HONORARY EDITOR, OPT JOURNAL

Andrew Ferguson   co-ordinates the OPT' Journal's research on eco-footprinting and population carrying capacity.

HONORARY EDITOR, JACKDAW (Members magazine)

Bill Partridge

WEBMASTER

Alastair Droop

ADMINISTRATOR

Julie Lewis

BLOG EDITOR

Simon Ross

ADVISORY COUNCIL

Catherine Budgett-Meakin,    Network Co-ordinator, Population & Sustainability Network (supported by the Margaret Pyke Memorial Trust)
Martin Chilcott,   Chief Executive, Place Group.
Harry Cripps MA MSc DMS CEng CEnv,   Chemical engineer and process integration consultant
Patrick Curry PhD   lives in London and lectures in Religious Studies at the University of Kent. He is the author of 'Ecological Ethics: An Introduction', Polity, 2006.
Rosamund McDougall,   *See above.
Rajamani Nagarajah,   Health and development consultant to the European Commission and former Director of Population Concern
John Rowley,   Founder/Editor of www.peopleandplanet.net and former Editor, People magazine (International Planned Parenthood Federation)
William Ryerson (USA),   Founder and president of Population Media Center, William Ryerson has worked to promote population stabilisation for four decades, with an emphasis on social change communications.
Alastair Service CBE, former Chairman of the Family Planning Association

HISTORY

The Optimum Population Trust was founded in 1991 by the late David Willey, its first chairman. Its purpose was to collect, analyse and disseminate information about the sizes of global and national populations, and their relations with the carrying capacities of different countries and the quality of life of their inhabitants. It was intended that such information should help people to make informed choices about policies affecting their and their descendants' welfare. Special emphasis was given to the situation in the United Kingdom.

The need for this function was seen in the failure of UK governments to act on the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Population in 1949, the Parliamentary Select Committee on Science and Technology in 1971 and the Government Population Panel in 1973 to set up a mechanism for monitoring and policy guidance on issues affected by population changes - such as welfare, education, labour supply, population ageing, immigration and impact on the environment.

The need was also seen in a general neglect of the role of population pressure by bodies concerned with the relief of poverty and protection of the environment, and the consequent tendency of those bodies to promote ineffective or counterproductive policies. OPT was granted charitable status on 9 May 2006.

This website was launched in June 2002

Items last updated 29 April 2008