Our team

Our team includes a volunteer board of directors and specialist staff working in the areas of climate science, research, education, communication and business development, botany, horticulture and environmental engineering.

Brendan Condon, Managing Director

Brendan has founded several companies and two not-for-profits that work in the field of sustainability and ecosystem protection. He is the director of Australian Ecosystems, Victoria's largest ecological restoration company, as well as the Cape Paterson Ecovillage project in South Gippsland, Victoria, which aims to set a national benchmark in terms of zero emissions housing, enhancement of biodiversity, renewable energy and active lifestyle.

He is one of the founders of Pelican, a 60 foot ocean going sailing catamaran which sails Australian waters performing social and environmental projects.

In response to his concerns about the huge risks posed by global warming, he founded Climate Positive in 2006.

Danielle Johnston, General Manager

Danielle joined Climate Positive in November 2008 from the Committee for Melbourne where she steered the Climate Change Taskforce, involving more than 80 Melbourne organisations. She believes her work at the Committee prepared her perfectly for the job of motivating individuals and organisations to take action to reduce global warming.

Danielle is looking forward to having an even bigger impact on global warming through increasing Climate Positive's offset partnerships and by providing education and leadership on the solutions to combat climate change.

During her career, Danielle has worked in publishing, human resources and marketing in Melbourne, London and San Francisco.
She has a Bachelor of Arts (Journalism) from RMIT and a Graduate Certificate of Business (Marketing) from Swinburne.

Dr Graeme Pearman, Scientific Consultant

The material for this web site was prepared under contract by Dr Graeme I Pearman AM, FAA, ATSE, FRoySocVic, BSc(Hon), PhD. Dr Graeme Pearman obtained his degrees from the University of Western Australia, where he was trained as a biologist. He joined CSIRO in 1971 where he was Chief of the CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research for the ten years 1992-2002. He contributed over 150 scientific journal papers primarily on aspects of the global carbon budget. In 2004 he left CSIRO to start a consultancy company. He is currently contracted to Monash University where he is establishing a new sustainability science program.

His current interests and activities include energy futures, sustainability and sustainability science, scientific capacity building, public communication of science, the role of science in modern societies and science policy.

Nick Witherow, Carbon Manager

In his role as Carbon Manager, Nick oversees Climate Positive's carbon inventory, as well as the biodiversity component of the organisation. Nick also keeps abreast with carbon and climate policy, as well as actively committing to the public climate debate through submissions to various papers and other publications.Having completed an Applied Science Degree (University of Melbourne), Nick is now pursuing Law at Monash University. The marriage of these two areas of expertise has proved invaluable in his role as Carbon Manager. Nick also has extensive experience in vegetation surveying, mapping and monitoring, as well as on-ground restoration work and technical reporting. When not hard at work for Climate Positive, Nick enjoys camping, travelling, snowboarding and all things food related.

Richard Hayward, Board of Directors

Richard co-founded Haystac early in 2001 after a successful career in marketing and public relations as a consultant and in-house manager. In 2007, Haystac employs more than 40 staff, has a blue chip client base, and has forged a reputation as one of Australia's best independent public relations and marketing agencies.

Prior to co-founding Haystac, Richard served as General Manager, Melbourne, and subsequently as General Manager, Australia, for GCI Group - the world's eighth-largest public relations consultancy.
During his career, Richard has worked as a consultant, director and general manager of several leading local, national and international public relations consultancies.

Richard is a guest lecturer and course marker for the BA Comm PR degree course at RMIT and is a member of the RMIT School of Applied Communication Public Relations Program Advisory Committee.

Erica Hughes, Board of Directors

Erica Hughes' background is in both financial services and health. In financial services, Erica specialized in strategy, acquisitions, change management, consumer product and marketing and investment management. Erica has experience managing large and complex businesses, often in a turnaround environment. In the health industry Erica has experience managing general operations, exploiting intellectual property and establishing start up businesses. Erica also has experience in the not for profit sector including attracting and managing philanthropic funding.

Erica currently consults to the corporate sector on financial management, business turnaround and investment management.

Erica is presently a director of Climate Positive contributing her governance and business experience. Erica has previously held board positions with Veda Advantage Limited, Cancer Council Victoria and a number of biotechnology companies.

Damien Cook, Project Botanist

Damien Cook is a respected restoration ecologist with a keen interest in plant and frog taxonomy, wetland processes and geomorphology, and the processes which lead to the degradation of natural ecosystems and how these can be reversed. He has studied natural history for over 20 years and has worked as an ecologist, project manager and environmental educator for the last 15 years. Damien has gained extensive experience in his role in overseeing over 400 successful ecological restoration projects as senior botanist and director of Australian Ecosystems.

As a keen observer of the natural world Damien is extremely concerned about the impact that climate change will have on Australia’s unique ecosystems.

Bertram Duerr, Technical Adviser

Bertram became involved with climate change research and renewable energies as a student in Germany. He gained an Engineering qualification in environmental technologies from Hochschule fur Angewandte Wissenschaften (HAW), and went on to work for energie+konzept, Hamburg, to develop engineering solutions for renewable energies. He became particularly interested in environmental management (including CO2-emissions certificate trade) and brought this experience to the Australian Greenhouse Office in 2005. Bertram has developed Climate Positive's carbon footprint calculator, based on his documentation of underlying assumptions. Read the assumptions document.

Web development

The Climate Positive site has been developed professionally, and securely, by highly experienced web developers Gozer Media.