Sahara Forest Project Foundation Board

Bill Watts

Technology Manager

Mr. Watts studied zoology at Oxford and Stirling Universities before joining Max Fordham llp in 1980 to be a Consulting building services engineer. Mr. Watts has spent over 30 years designing the environmental services installations in buildings and introducing innovative sustainable ways of making buildings comfortable. He has designed services installations in many building types that included schools, housing, offices, pools, theatres and art galleries. He is Technology Manager of the Sahara Forest Project and Board Member.
bill@saharaforestproject.com

Frederic Hauge

Frederic Hauge founded Bellona in 1986, at the age of twenty. He is still the President of the largest environmental NGO in Norway. Bellona has offices in Oslo, Brussels, St.Petersburg, Murmansk and Kiev. Trough academic work, legal action and non-violent activism, Bellona has changed the opinion and set the agenda on environmental issues in Norway for almost three decades. The work of the Bellona Foundation has led to concrete changes in environmental policy and awareness among political and business leaders, both in Norway and internationally. Hauge was in 2007 elected Vice Chairman of the European Commission's Technology Platform for CO2 sequestration (ZEP). The same year TIME Magazine named him "Hero of The Environment". In 2009 Frederic Hauge became a board member of the EU Biofuel Platform (EBTP), and he became one of the founding partners of the Sahara Forest Project. In 2010 he took a leading international role in exploring the possibilities of combining biomass and carbon capture and storage (CCS), through the creation of JointTaskForce. In 2011 he was asked to be one of the 12 personal advisors to the EU Energy Commissioner Gunther Oettinger on the extensive EU Energy Roadmap 2050. In 2012 Frederic Hauge launched the company Ocean Forest.

Michael Pawlyn

Design Manager

Mr. Pawlyn jointly initiated the project and assembled the team that became formalized as The Sahara Forest Project. He established the architecture firm Exploration in 2007 to focus on biomimicry. Prior to establishing his own firm, he was part of the core team of architects at Grimshaw that designed the Eden Project. Mr. Pawlyn has lectured internationally on biomimicry and innovative approaches to sustainability and is the author of the book Biomimicry in Architecture (2011, new version comung in September 2016).
Mr. Pawlyn is the Design Manager of The Sahara Forest Project and is also a Board Member.
michael@saharaforestproject.com