Josh Littlejohn

Josh Littlejohn was born on 16 September 1986 in Edinburgh, United Kingdom. He has an honours degree in Politics and Economics from Edinburgh University..[1]

In August 2012 Littlejohn and Alice Thompson co-founded the Social Bite, a small chain of sandwich shops that donates its profits to social causes.[2][3]

Littlejohn built a Social Bite Village from reclaimed wasteland in Edinburgh to provide shelter and support for up to 20 homeless people.[4] He also launched a programme called Housing First, asking landlords to pledge accommodation. The scheme received £6.5million funding from the Scottish Government and aims to house 830 people by April 2021.[5]

In December 2019, Littlejohn launched the World’s Big Sleep Out,[6] which took place in 52 cities including London, New York, Delhi and Hong Kong.[7] In 2016, he co-founded a social enterprise beer company called Brewgooder, where the profits go towards providing clean water.[8] The brewery set out an aim of providing clean drinking water for one million people in five years.[9]

He has appeared on the One Show[10] and BBC Breakfast.[11] Newspaper interviews include The New York Times,[12] The Guardian[13] and The Times.[14]

In 2017, Littlejohn was given an MBE in the New Years Honours list.[15][7] He has received an honorary Doctor of Science in Social Science from the University of Edinburgh [1] and honorary doctorates from Robert Gordon University ,[16] Edinburgh Napier University,[17] and Queen Margaret University[18]

He was included in the Debrett’s list of 500 most influential people in the UK 2017.[19]

Littlejohn and Alice Thompson collected the Pride of Britain Special Recognition award in 2019.[20][21]

In 2020, he won the Robert Burns Humanitarian Award for helping helpless people.[22][23]