Dale Vince, founder of Britain's first green energy company, Ecotricity, has won the top Sustainability Leader category at the prestigious 2012 Sustainability Leaders Awards.
The category included competition from John F Brock of Coca-Cola Enterprises and Dierdré Lingenfelder from Anglo American.
Vince, who founded Gloucestershire-based Ecotricity in 1996, said: "Ecotricity's founding mission is to change how energy is made and used in Britain – to bring about sustainability and energy independence.
"But energy is only one of the big three issues we need to tackle. Energy, transport and food, between them account for 80% of everybody's personal carbon emissions. Over the last few years at ecotricity we've extended the scope of our work to tackle all three of these issues. And it's an honour to receive this recognition of our work."
The judging panel included Joanna Yarrow director of Beyond Green, Ed Gillespie director of sustainable communications consultants Futerra, Jonathon Porrit founder director of Forum for the Future and the Rt Hon Lord Smith of Finsbury chairman of the Environment Agency.
More than 300 leading lights in the sustainability sector gathered at The Grange St Paul's Hotel to celebrate this year's pick of the crop in demonstrating leadership and innovation in this field.
The event was compered by Great British Bake-off presenter Sue Perkins who also handed out the accolades to our 12 category winners.