A leading journalist and environmentalist, Alison Benjamin has spent her career raising awareness of the impact of bees on the environment and the need to save them. As a journalist and co-founder of Urban Bees Limited, she has educated people on sustainability, biodiversity, and the environment and as a speaker, she is a great choice for any sustainability-focused event.
She graduated from the University of Sussex with a degree in History and Community and Cultural Studies and moved into journalism where from 2000 she had a 20-year career at the Guardian. While at the leading newspaper she wrote about social issues, the environment, and bees. Growing throughout her career she held the roles of Commissioning Editor, Acting Environment Editor and Deputy Editor. She also edited the social policy section of the newspaper for 10 years. Now working as a freelance journalist Alison writes about nature and wellbeing, bees, farming and environmental policy and has had work published in The Guardian, The Observer, BQ Bee and Pollinator Quarterly. Alongside her journalism career, Alison is an accomplished author and has co-written four books including the bestselling ‘A World Without Bees’.
Away from writing, Alison is the co-founder and Operational Director of Urban Bees Limited. The organisation she founded with her husband supports companies to become more bee-friendly and reach their biodiversity and sustainability goals, with a client list that includes KPMG, Lush, St George and Weil Law Firm. During her work with Urban Bees Limited, Alison has appeared on Radio One, showing Jo Wiley ways to make her garden more bee-friendly and Radio Four showing bee hotels in her garden to Martha Kearney. Alison also co-created a bee garden in the educational zone at RHS Chelsea and in 2012 conducted a TEDx Talk titled ‘The Urban Buzz’.
As a speaker Alison focuses on the impact of bees on the environment and their uses in everyday life. Her passionate, well informed, and engaging discussions leave organisations with actionable plans to become more sustainable, become bee-friendly and meet their biodiversity goals, making her a great choice for any business looking for a sustainability speaker.
Books
The Good Bee: A Celebration of Bees – And How to Save Them
A World Without Bees
Bees in the City: The urban beekeeper's handbook
How to hire Alison Benjamin
Contact the Champions Speakers Agency to provisionally enquire about hiring Alison Benjamin for your next event, today. To get in touch, simply call an official booking agent on 0207 1010 553 or email us at [email protected] for more information.
** We do not accept requests for autographs, signed merchandise, fan mail, birthday messages or any other non-commercial contact with the speakers or acts. Each speaker on the website may not have necessarily worked with Champions in the past but are known to perform such engagements within the industry.
Alison Benjamin's official speaking topics include:
- A celebration of the 250 bee species in the UK, why they are so important, and why and how we can save them.
- A celebration of the 20,000 bee species globally, why they are so important, and why and how we can save them.
- How rewilding our towns and cities will improve biodiversity and make them more attractive places for people to live.
- Simple steps you can take at home to help bees, pollinators and other wildlife.The climate crisis and bees and food security.
“Alison is a fantastic educator and hugely passionate about the welfare of bees. Urban Bees’ entertaining and practical lunchtime sessions about how to help bees have proved extremely popular with our employees at all levels of the firm. It’s been a fantastic way to engage employees in sustainability issues. Many of us have planted their bee-friendly wildflower seed mix at home with great results. We've really enjoyed learning how to identify different bee species on our London office roof terrace and the flowers the bees are visiting. Employees also appreciate why Weil has transformed its roof terrace to provide food and lodging for wild bees. And pupils from one of our partner primary schools have come into the office to make bee-hotels and go on a rooftop bee safari with Urban Bees. It's an experience they say they'll never forget!”- Robert, London at Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP
