Zac Goldsmith is a Senior Fellow at the Bezos Earth Fund, advising on 30x30, the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and supporting strategy development in Indonesia and the Pacific. He has devoted his entire professional life to the environment – first as editor of the Ecologist magazine, then as an MP and Government Minister, and now as a Conservative peer in the House of Lords in the United Kingdom.
In 2019, Zac was appointed as a Minister attending Cabinet with portfolios across the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. He served as a Minister of State until June 2023, when he resigned citing the Government’s increasing apathy in the face of the environmental and climate crisis. As a Minister, his responsibilities over the years included forests, oceans, biodiversity, climate change and the illegal wildlife trade as well as the Pacific region and UK Overseas Territories.
A committed environmentalist, Zac was extensively involved in the delivery of the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration at COP26, the adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework at CBD COP15, and the formation of Global Ocean Alliance that grouped 30 countries to sign a pledge to improve the protection of the ocean.
In 2022 Colombian President Ivan Duque awarded Zac the Order of Boyacá, the highest honour that can be given to a non-Colombian national, for his international environmental leadership. In the same year Zac was awarded the Order of the Etoile Équatoriale by Gabon’s President Ali Bongo Ondimba in recognition of his international environmental leadership.
Zac was MP for Richmond Park between 2010 and 2016 and between 2017 and 2019, and before becoming involved in politics, he directed and edited the Ecologist Magazine for a decade and received Mikhail Gorbachev's Global Green Award for "International Environmental Leadership.