About Prashant

Biog

I was born in Nagpur, a city unknown outside India except by Test cricket fans, and was transplanted to the UK when I was two. During my peripatetic education I sampled eleven different schools in Wales, England and India before my parents settled down in Staffordshire.

At university I started studying biochemistry when becoming a genetic engineer seemed a cool thing to do, but gave up after a year bored by the endless lab work. I drifted into applied biology as my interest in environmental issues took off. From biology I did a MSc in Economics as the career prospects were more varied.

I’ve worked as an economist in the UK Government, a policy consultancy company, and also in the UK consumer movement. Economists spend much of their time evaluating different ways of getting people and businesses to change their behaviour. Over the years I’ve worked on environmental issues, as an analyst in the pensions industry, for a consumer body.

I currently live in Hong Kong and work on climate change and energy issues for an environmental NGO.

I've written two books on environmental issues, the first The Economical Environmentalist published by Earthscan in 2009 the second Repowering Communities in 2011  with my good friend the late Stephen Tindale. 

Newsletter

Simon Overton from Hong Kong Writers Circle and I in conversation about climate, AIs, future of schools and writing fiction