This year, the Schumacher Award went to Rob Hopkins, for his pioneering work with the Transition Towns Movement. This popular decision was greeted with a standing ovation.

‘It is a real honour and a pleasure to be the recipient of the Schumacher Award,’ Rob said. ‘Although it has been presented to me, I think it is really for everyone who has been involved in getting this powerful and timely movement embedded in communities around the world. Since the very beginning of the Transition Movement back in 2005, the concept has spread with amazing viral momentum, driven forward by ordinary people, living ordinary lives, in ordinary communities. Yet, what they have begun to create is quite extraordinary.

‘By choosing to look peak oil and climate change square in the eye, rather than run from it, they have discovered great dynamism and power ñ what I like to think of as engaged optimism.

‘It shows great vision on behalf of the Schumacher Society that they saw, in the Transition Towns Movement, an embodiment of E.F. Schumacher’s ideas. Indeed, I often argue that we have moved beyond discussing if Small is Beautiful’ or not and are now in the realms where Small is Inevitable’. The Transition Movement is attempting to address the practicalities of that. So, I am deeply honoured and delighted to be recognised in this way and see it as a powerful endorsement of an idea whose time has come.’

Contact: www​.transitionculture​.org

Above: Rob Hopkins
Photo: © Mike Grenville www​.changingworlds​.info