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His Excellency Mohamed Nasheed has been the President of the Maldives since 2008. He has received global recognition for his efforts to curb climate change and raise awareness of environmental issues, particularly as it related to island-nations.

Afghanistan’s 46-year-old Director General of the National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA), Prince Mostapha Zaher has laid the foundation for a sustainable and peaceful future in Afghanistan.

Dr. Balgis Osman-Elasha, a senior scientist from Sudan, is at the forefront of global research on climate change. A leading author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, she has produced groundbreaking work on global warming - the defining challenge of our era - in Africa, with an emphasis on northern and eastern Africa.

There are some individuals so accomplished, so on the nail with their science and insight, and so omnipresent at award ceremonies that one could be forgiven for suspecting they have secretly been busy cloning themselves to carry out so much ground-breaking work.

Ms. Thompson has become one of the recognized leaders on environmental issues of the Small Island Developing States.

Born in Gujarat, India, Tulsi Tanti is the Chairman of Suzlon Energy Ltd, the fifth largest wind turbine manufacturer in the world and the largest in Asia. After graduating in commerce and mechanical engineering, Tulsi Tanti started a textile business and decided to invest in two wind turbines in 1990 due to power unavailability in the area.

Jack Dangermond is an American business executive and environmental scientist. In 1969, he and his wife Laura founded the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), a privately held Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software company.

President Tsakhia Elbegdorj of Mongolia, who was among the leaders of the peaceful democratic revolution that ended communist rule in 1990, has realized his commitment to putting a green agenda at the forefront of policies since coming to power in 2009.

President Calderon has been a strong voice for the environment on the world stage since his election in 2006.

Providing a green twist on Jules Vernes’ famous voyage, adventurer Louis Palmer successfully led a fleet of electric vehicles around the world last year. The “Zero Race” teams crossed the globe in eighty days, highlighting two of the major environmental challenges facing the world today- the need for more sustainable transport and cleaner energy supplies. 

After earning a degree in engineering, a doctorate in Earth Science and a professorship at Queens College and Columbia University, Dr. Taro Takahashi is now a Senior Scholar at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University.

Zhou Xun, one of China’s most popular actresses, spends much of her time promoting ‘tips for green living’ through Our Part, a campaign she runs jointly with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The actress encourages people to reduce their carbon footprint through simple changes in lifestyle, something that can make a huge difference in a country the size of China.

Small Island Developing States are on the frontline of the war against climate change, both in terms of suffering the greatest damage and calling most stridently for action. Palau, a low-lying archipelago in the Pacific Ocean home to just over 20,000 souls, is one such country.

Dr. Atiq Rahman is an eloquent advocate for sustainable development from Bangladesh- a country highly vulnerable to climate change and flooding. As one of the top specialists in his field, the Executive Director of the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS) transformed the NGO into a leading think-tank in South Asia on sustainable development issues.

Dr. Ramanathan is a Distinguished Professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD. In the 1970s, he discovered the greenhouse effect of CFCs and numerous other manmade trace gases, and forecasted in 1980 that global warming would be detectable by the year 2000.

Carlo Petrini founded Slow Food in 1986 as a response to the opening of a McDonald’s outlet in Piazza di Spagna in Rome. Today the movement exists in over 150 countries and has a network of over 100,000 members and supporters. Slow Food International is responsible for publishing periodicals, books, and guides in many languages around the world.

Dr. Van der Leeuw has spent his career studying human-environment relations and invention and innovation in society, applying the lessons learned from history to help understand why humanity is not facing up to the long-term issue of environmental change.

Born into a dynasty of scientists who have explored the heights and depths of the planet, Bertrand Piccard achieved the first ever non-stop round-the-world balloon flight.

By setting a carbon neutral goal for New Zealand, Prime Minister Helen Clark has put her country at the forefront of today's environmental challenges. Three major policy initiatives launched by Miss Clark are also blazing new trails for sustainability and the fight against climate change: the Emissions Trading Scheme; the Energy Strategy; and the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy.

The word “legend” is one that should be applied with judicious care, but few deserve the tag more than Dr. Sylvia Earle—a renowned pioneer of deep sea exploration and conservation so synonymous with the topics that she now has a Lego figurine modelled after her, complete with little yellow flippers.