Mike Berners-Lee

Mike Berners-Lee is an English researcher and writer on carbon footprinting. He is a professor and fellow of the Institute for Social Futures at Lancaster University and director and principal consultant of Small World Consulting, based in the Lancaster Environment Centre at the university. His books include How Bad are Bananas?, The Burning Question and There Is No Planet B and he is a contributing author to The Climate Book created by Greta Thunberg. He is considered an expert on carbon footprints.

Early life and education
He was born in 1964 and is the son of Mary Lee Woods and Conway Berners-Lee who were both mathematicians and computer scientists. One of his brothers is computer scientist Sir Tim Berners-Lee who invented the World Wide Web.

He graduated in physics from University of Oxford in 1986, gained a PGCE in Physics and Outdoor Education at Bangor University in 1988, and has a master's in Organisation Development and Consulting from Sheffield Hallam University (2001). He has been a Professor in Practice at Lancaster University since 2016.

Carbon accounting
Berners-Lee has pioneered carbon accounting of upstream carbon emissions from supply chains, known as scope 3 emissions, to assess the full greenhouse gas emissions of products. His work at Small World Consulting has combined Process-based Life Cycle Analysis with Environmentally Extended Input-Output Analysis to achieve both a system-complete estimate of the supply chain and specificity in key areas. He is also a leading researcher in assessing the full climate impacts of current and emerging ICT.

Climate impact of food and land-use
His research has also examined the climate emissions from food and land-use, concluding that global food production can meet humanity's nutritional needs but only with a radical shift in dietary choices, so that less land is used for the relatively inefficient production of animal products with high greenhouse gas emissions, and more land is used to produce plant-based foods direct for human consumption.

Selected publications

 * Second edition:
 * "Updated North American" edition:
 * Berners-Lee, Mike (2024) Peut-On Encore Manger des Bananes? [How bad are bananas?] (in French) Translated by Bertrand Guillot (1 ed) France. ISBN 9789998772403
 * "Updated North American" edition:
 * Berners-Lee, Mike (2024) Peut-On Encore Manger des Bananes? [How bad are bananas?] (in French) Translated by Bertrand Guillot (1 ed) France. ISBN 9789998772403



Media appearances

 * Climate Change - The Facts. First aired on 18 April 2019, BBC One
 * Horizon - Feast to Save the Planet. First aired 4 January 2021, BBC Two
 * Six Inches of Soil. First screened in UK 4 January 2024.

Memberships

 * 2016 - present: Centre for Social Futures, Lancaster University
 * 2024 - present: Carbon Accounting Alliance