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Conference on the Economy Creates Career Advantage

Generation BEST member, Jonathan Adey, a Senior Climate Change Officer from Birmingham Environmental Partnership has just returned from representing the UK at a prestigious political summit.

The annual Wilton Park British-German forum was set up by Margaret Thatcher and Chancellor Kohl in 1985 and each year brings together 50 high achieving young people from Britain and Germany to discuss key political, economic and social challenges.

The theme of this year’s conference was “Can we shape capitalism to suit our future?”, and participants were invited to engage in high level and stimulating debate. The programme included a chance to meet and question MPs, which was the highlight for Jonathan, a tour of the House of Lords and lunch at the German Embassy.

Speaking about his experience Jonathan said; “I was delighted to be given the opportunity to go through Generation BEST and was the only Local Government representative there, which meant I was able to put Birmingham on the map amongst the highly influential delegates and speakers I met.”

“The event was very financially focussed, but I was able to contribute to the debate from an environmental perspective and it was interesting to see the opinions of other delegates change from scepticism about the importance of environmental issues on the economy, to taking this on board.”

“I learnt a lot both personally and professionally and especially that environmental concepts need a financial system to make them work. Before the conference I had been developing a proposal on the economic impacts of climate change for Birmingham as part of my work for Birmingham Environmental Partnership. But I have subsequently re-written it with the new insights gained from my time at Wilton Park!”

Jonathan will be sharing his experiences of the conference at a lunchtime seminar at the Central Library on 29th September.

To find out more and to make sure you don’t miss out on exciting opportunities open to Generation BEST members, call us on 0121 675 1545 or email GenerationBEST.