He is a leading and multi-awarded Filipino environmental activist, Von’s career in the environmental movement covers more than 20 years of campaign leadership, strategic planning and organizational development and management..

He is currently the Coordinator of the Break Free from Plastic movement. Before taking on this latest assignment, Von was Global Development Director of Greenpeace International where he oversaw the development and performance of the Greenpeace’s national and regional offices worldwide. Prior to this, he was the Executive Director of Greenpeace Southeast Asia (GPSEA), where he led programs and operations in Southeast Asia. Together with allies, he co-founded and spearheaded various environmental coalitions and partnerships at the national, regional, and global levels including the Ecowaste Coalition, Waste Not Asia, and the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA).

In 2003, he was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize for his work, which led to the first national ban on waste incineration. Von also gained recognition from Asia Inc. magazine as one of Asia’s Young Movers and Shakers in 2004, and from Time magazine as one of the Heroes for the Environment in 2007. In 2010, Reader’s Digest conducted a nationwide Trust Poll, where he emerged as among the top 20 most trusted Filipinos.

Nicky Davies is currently the Program Director of the Plastic Solutions Fund, an international group of funders who have joined forces to turn the tide on plastic pollution in the air, land, rivers and oceans. Nicky is the former Project Coordinator for the Plastics Movement Alignment Project (2016-2017) which helped establish #breakfreefromplastic. She was previously the Campaigns Director for Greenpeace USA from 2012 – 2016 and Deputy Head of Climate and Energy for Greenpeace International (2007 – 2012). Prior to that Nicky ran a small NGO in her native Australia that worked across a whole range of local environmental issues, including climate change, waste management & water conservation. Nicky is an environmental lawyer by training and is currently on the Board of Directors of the Oil and Gas Action Network and PlugIn America.

She joined GAIA in 2005, and has 25 years of experience with social movements and international non-profit organizations. Her early work experience included work for seven years in Guatemala as a popular educator, program coordinator, and strategic planning consultant for groups in the women’s movement and Mayan-campesino organizing community, as well as six years in international human rights advocacy. Since moving back to the United States in 2001, Christie has worked primarily with environmental and public health organizations, and on environmental justice as a human rights issue. She has held multiple Development Director and Executive Director positions, with a focus on organizations that are either growing or undergoing transitions.

Christie’s work at GAIA has allowed her to support grassroots organizations in dozens of countries – a role for which she is deeply grateful. She has also played a leadership role in developing key new partnerships and programs for the GAIA network, including a global collaborative campaign with organized waste workers to raise the profile of zero waste solutions and the rights of recyclers in the global climate negotiations, and in generally expanding GAIA’s work in the economic and climate justice arena. Christie is based in GAIA’s Berkeley, California office.

With training in marine biology and nearly three decades of policy experience, Jacqueline brings a combination of sound science, clear environmental vision and successful leadership to Oceana, the largest international advocacy organization dedicated solely to ocean conservation. As Chief Policy Officer, she oversees all of Oceana’s work in North America and directs the organization’s new international campaign to reduce the amount of single-use plastic being produced at the source.

Jacqueline’s 16-plus-year tenure at Oceana has involved a variety of positions, including senior scientist, senior campaign director and vice president for U.S. campaigns. She’s a co-founder of Global Fishing Watch — an online platform that offers the first free global view of commercial fishing, in partnership with SkyTruth and Google — and currently serves on its board of directors. She also designed and led Oceana’s campaigns to stop the expansion of offshore drilling, eliminate the use of mercury in chlorine production and improve wastewater treatment technology on cruise ships.

He is the Co-Founder of China Zero Waste Alliance (CZWA) and two other environmental NGOs Rock Environment and Energy Institute and Nature University in China. Over the past 10 years, he has been actively working with different environmental NGOs for their efforts to reduce pollutions of wastes and toxic chemicals, and promote environmental health. In the academic area, he has published a book on the history of waste disposal in the ocean in the United States and finished a post-doctorate report on the history of social debate on dioxin. Currently his work focuses more on the pollution and climate impacts of waste incineration, and the social assistance to pollution victims in China. He is now coordinating a new program “Beijing Zero Waste”, which is dedicated to coordinating the countrywide Zero Waste movement, building up a local network for sustainable waste management in Beijing and effectively monitoring the various problems of end-of-pine waste disposal technologies.

He is based in Brussels where he works as Director of Zero Waste Europe. Zero Waste Europe is a network of 22 zero waste groups in Europe with the mission of redesigning our relationship with resources and also brings together 350 municipalities moving towards zero waste. He has been a leading voice for Zero Waste in Europe since 2007, dramatically increasing the visibility and policy impact of Zero Waste efforts in this time. He is a regular keynote speaker in meetings in Brussels but also at local level as well as internationally. In 2015 he has authored the Zero Waste Case Study “The Story of Contarina” and “The Story of Gipuzkoa” as well as the book “Zero Waste – How to reactivate the economy without trashing the planet”. With training in Economics and Development Cooperation, he has more than 10 years of experience working with governmental and non-governmental organisations in the field of good governance, new economics, social justice, and environment.

Steve joined the Oak Foundation in 2015 as campaigns leader for the environment program and works in the philanthropic portfolio dealing with marine and climate change issues. He has worked for several international environmental organizations in senior management positions including the Antarctic Ocean Alliance, Greenpeace Australia-Pacific and Greenpeace International. In a substantial career as a campaigner and activist, Steve has participated in the full spectrum of environmental change from the front line of coal blockades, to multilateral treaty negotiations, to the boardrooms of some of the world’s largest companies. He has worked extensively in East and South-East Asia and the Pacific.

Steve is on the board of 350.org/Australia, was formerly on the general assembly of Greenpeace China, and holds an honors degree in Law from Macquarie University, Sydney and a qualification in Legal Practice from the Australian National University, Canberra.

Froilan is an environmental educator and volunteer at heart. He currently works as the Executive Director of GAIA Philippines and as the Asia Pacific Coordinator for the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives. He is also the President of Mother Earth Foundation, an NGO working with cities and municipalities in the Philippines on building Zero Waste systems, as well as Chairman of Add Up! Volunteers, a group he founded in 2003 with the goal of engaging the youth in active nation building. He was also recently elected as the next private sector representative/Commissioner to the National Solid Waste Management Commission.

A passionate advocate against the use of plastic, he has not used a single plastic drinking straw or shopping bag in more than 10 years. This, and his love for composting has allowed him to reduce his household waste to less than 2 kilos for the whole year of 2015.

Graham Forbes leads Greenpeace’s global plastics campaign that aims to stem the flow of plastic pollution into our oceans, waterways and communities by empowering people to hold corporations accountable. He has over 15 years of experience leading successful campaigns on environmental, human rights, labor and social justice issues. Beginning his career as a union organizer with UNITE HERE, Graham has focused his professional life on bringing the environmental and labor movements together to win political and corporate victories that protect natural places and secure rights for workers. Graham holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from University of California, San Diego and a master’s degree in political economy from San Diego State University. He has a lifelong passion for the ocean and spends as much time as he can in the Pacific.

Lakshmi is an activist based in Pune, India. She is a co-founder and former secretary general of KKPKP, trade union of self-employed waste pickers. KKPKP was instrumental in the formation of SWaCH, an autonomous waste picker cooperative offering decentralised, front end, waste management services to the city of Pune.

Based in Copenhagen Denmark she works in Plastic Change as Head of Development and Strategy.

As a trained cultural and social anthropologist she applies system thinking and design approaches to accelerate the transition in sustainable resource optimization and human-centered design systems. In Plastic Change she leads a movement building impact mission, engage in political debates and design strategic storytelling campaigns around plastic.

She is a strong national voice in public and political arenas and media – and is a frequent keynote speaker at national and at international conferences.

Combining her previous work experiences from public, private and NGO settings she draws on a versatile toolbox to address the issue of plastic pollution from new angles. Anne is a strong advocate for systems subversion in solving the plastic crisis and linear resource thinking in general and is inspired by the Albert Einstein quote “we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”.

Tory has devoted her career to making positive change in the world and to having fun doing it. Forests, streams, oceans and animals have been close friends to Tory from earliest days, and so have people from diverse cultures and backgrounds. She believes that being part of wider movements is essential to shifting power back to people and to transforming current systems to create the world we want.

She got her B.A. in humanities from Stanford University and her M.A. in journalism from the University of Missouri. Most recently, she completed Stanford Business School’s professional program in Innovation & Entrepreneurship so she could bring the best thinking and approaches from Silicon Valley to our movement. Before joining Greenpeace in 2015, Tory led OceanWork Consulting, which specialized in strategic communications and campaigning for a thriving planet.

Tory has worked with communities, governments, global environment NGOs and UN agencies, with a special focus on Asia and the Pacific. She’s also a nationally-funded artist who has developed award-winning approaches to using art for change. She speaks Indonesian, French and some Italian, and she loves to share a meal or an adventure.

Stiv Wilson is an award winning activist, filmmaker, and educator working at the nexus of marine conservation, plastic pollution, petrochemical production and human rights. After completing 35,000 nautical miles sailing the world to study marine plastic pollution, Stiv co-authored the first ever global estimate of the abundance of plastics in all of the major five oceans in the peer reviewed journal, PLOS ONE. After co-authoring and publishing several other scientific papers on the abundance of microplastics in the marine and fresh water systems, Stiv went on to pass state level policy as well as the first plastics focused national policy, The Plastic Free Waters Act, that was signed into law by President Obama in 2015. A frequent speaker on the issue of plastic pollution, his work has been met with critical acclaim, winning a United Nations Ocean Hero award. He is a co-founder of the #BreakFreeFromPlastic movement that now comprises over 1,800 NGOs across the globe working in solidarity to end plastic pollution at all intervention points across the plastics supply chain. Wilson writes on plastic issues for various publications and has been profiled in dozens of media outlets including The New York Times. He has recently produced his first feature length documentary,The Story of Plastic, which has earned several awards on the film festival circuit and is working with federal lawmakers to use the film to support the first comprehensive plastics legislation in federal congress, The Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act. Wilson serves as an advisor to Senator Udall and Representative Lowenthal to develop the policy with the ultimate goal of passing this historic act, as well as consulting on national level campaign and policy initiatives in Southeast Asia. He resides in San Francisco with his partner, and mutt Lucy.