Rob Gell AM FRGS FEIANZ

Best known for the thirty-one years he spent presenting television weather, Rob Gell is a geographer and science communicator. Specifically he’s a coastal geomorphologist, specialising in the environmental processes that continually shape our coastlines.

Rob now works as a company director or advisor to a range of sustainable technology companies involved in real time environmental sensing, strategic water storage, mine waste rehabilitation, resources recovery for the circular economy, food waste management software and sustainability advisory services.

Rob completed his Science Degree with Honours at Melbourne University in the early seventies and taught Environmental Science and Physical Geography at Melbourne State College and Melbourne University. For thirty-one years after that he presented television weather in parallel with a career as an environmental consultant. Apart form his business interests Rob is President of The Royal Society of Victoria and Patron of Geography Victoria.

Rob’s business activities focus on business strategy and sustainable development project design, product stewardship, the circular economy, communications and marketing, responding to the need for business to be informed about new issues, take up smart technologies and actively develop new development plans and programs to ensure an understanding of changing markets, the emerging green economy and the need for a positive and accountable contribution on behalf of shareholders and stakeholders alike.

In previous roles he has been the national President of Greening Australia Limited, Chairman of the Mornington Peninsula and Westernport Biosphere Reserve Foundation Ltd. and a member of the Victorian Coastal Council. Rob is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and an Inaugural Fellow of the Environment Institute of Australia and New Zealand. He was Environment Ambassador to the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games. Rob has been a local government councillor and was a councillor of the Australian Conservation Foundation through the 1990s. He is a published author and photographer.

He has served as the Patron of the Geography Teachers Association of Victoria, Wildlife Victoria and Life Education Victoria. He was a Life Ambassador for Australia Day for the State of Victoria.

On Australia Day 2014 he was made a Member (AM) in the General Division of the Order of Australia for significant service to conservation, to the protection of coastal and marine environments, and to the community.

Rob Gell talks about:

• Are we sustainable?: what is safe space for human development?
• Innovation: how are we going? Developing a lust for change.
• The state of the world and what to do about it
• Sustainability: to be (woke) or not to be, that is the question!
• Climate shift – the science, impacts and options for the future.
• Circular economy: linear, circular; regenerative and restorative economies; examples and opportunities
• Natural capital, biodiversity and ecosystem services
• Water, energy and waste: the keys to sustainable development
• Business as usual or sustainable business.