John O'Brien is an English businessman and an expert advisor to governments, industry, financiers and the

cleantech Clean technology, also called cleantech or climate tech, is any process, product, or service that reduces negative environmental impacts through significant energy efficiency improvements, the sustainable use of resources, or environmental prote ...

sector. He is based in New York and is a Managing Director in Deloitte's Climate & Sustainability practice. In this role he leads the firm's Energy Transition and Decarbonisation work. He previously led Deloitte's work on climate in Australia. Before that, he was the managing director of Australian CleanTech which acted as the Australian representative for the Global CleanTech Cluster Association. He was also a non-executive director of Novarise Ltd, an ASX listed company which recycles polypropylene waste in China. O'Brien entered the Australian energy sector in the 1990s and worked for

Origin Energy Origin Energy Ltd is an ASX listed public company with headquarters in Sydney. It is a major integrated electricity generator, and electricity and natural gas retailer. It operates Eraring Power Station, Australia's largest coal-fired power ...

for nine years. He had previously worked in the Middle East, the United Kingdom and Canada where he held various oil and gas industry and consulting engineering roles. O'Brien lectured in leadership and entrepreneurship at the

University of Adelaide The University of Adelaide is a public university, public research university based in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. Its main campus in the Adelaide city centre includes many Sa ...

and was a member of the Premier’s Climate Change Council in South Australia. He has been a member of the board of several CleanTech companies involved in

wind farm A wind farm, also called a wind park or wind power plant, is a group of wind turbines in the same location used to produce electricity. Wind farms vary in size from a small number of turbines to several hundred wind turbines covering an exten ...

development,

biosensor A biosensor is an analytical device, used for the detection of a chemical substance, that combines a biological component with a physicochemical detector. The ''sensitive biological element'', e.g. tissue, microorganisms, organelles, cell rece ...

s and

plastic recycling Plastic recycling is the processing of plastic waste into other products. Recycling can reduce dependence on landfills, conserve resources and protect the environment from plastic pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Recycling rates lag beh ...

. He has served on the board of Renewables SA and as a member of the Clean Technology Innovation Program Committee at Innovation Australia. O'Brien has studied at Oxford, Trinity College in Dublin and the University of Adelaide from which he has received two engineering degrees and an MBA respectively. O'Brien is the author and editor of the book ''Opportunities Beyond Carbon - Looking Forward to a Sustainable World'' which was published in 2009 by

Melbourne University Press Melbourne University Publishing (MUP) is the book publishing arm of the University of Melbourne. The press is currently a member of the Association of University Presses. History MUP was founded in 1922 as Melbourne University Press to sell text ...

. He has since published two further books,'Visions 2100: Stories from Your Future' in 2015 and 'Stories from 2030: Disruption-Acceleration-Transformation' in 2021, on the topic of effectively communicating environmental challenges through positive storytelling. Since 2012, O'Brien has written frequently about the cleantech sector for the website, Renew Economy.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:OBrien, John Living people 21st-century English businesspeople Alumni of the University of Oxford Alumni of Trinity College Dublin University of Adelaide alumni Year of birth missing (living people)