Rob Hopkins

Born in Chiswick, London, Rob grew up in London until the age of 12, when he moved to Wiltshire, attending St John's School, before then moving to Bristol where he went to the Bristol Waldorf School for 2 years, followed by Henbury School to do A'Levels. This was followed by an Art Foundation course at Bower Ashton Art College, also in Bristol.

From 1988, he spent two and a half years living at Istituto Lama Tsong Khapa, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Tuscany, Italy, working as the House Manager. From here he then spent a year travelling in India, Pakistan (including a visit to the Hunza Valley), China, Tibet, Hong Kong and then back to India where he met Emma, who has been his partner since then. They settled in Bristol, where Rob did a degree in 'Environmental Quality & Resource Management' at the University of the West of England, and also undertook his Permaculture Design Course.

With students at Kinsale FEC, July 2005.

In 1996, Rob and his young family moved to south west Ireland, to West Cork. He initially worked with An Taisce West Cork, writing and illustrating a booklet called 'Woodlands for West Cork!'. He began teaching permaculture, initially as short courses, and building up to running full design courses, initially as an evening class. Together with another family, he and Emma set up Baile Dulra Teoranta, a charity, with the intention of creating an ecovillage project. In 1999, with another family, they bought The Hollies, a farm near Castletown, Enniskeane. After a few years, they were granted the first planning permission for an ecovillage development.

In 2001, he started and taught the Practical Sustainability course at Kinsale Further Education College, initially as a one-year course, and later as the first 2-year Permaculture course in the world. Between 2003 and 2005, the students built the 'Wooden O Theatre', an amphitheatre using local materials. The Hollies ran a series of courses in natural building and built two new cob houses, using local and natural materials. In October 2004, Rob and Emma's house was destroyed in a fire.

In 2004, he became aware of the concept of peak oil, and set his students the task of applying permaculture principles to addressing this challenge. The output of this student project was the ‘Kinsale Energy Descent Action Plan’, which was uploaded to the college website. Much to the surprise of the authors, it was downloaded by interested parties around the world. In July 2005, Kinsale FEC hosted Fuelling the Future, a conference on peak oil and solutions to it.

TTT graphic by Wordsmith One.

In 2005, Rob and his family moved to Totnes, England, and there co-founded, with Naresh Giangrande, Transition Town Totnes, the first official Transition Town. The project held its 'Unleashing' event in September 2006. Many projects then began. These include Keeping Totnes Warm, Open Eco Homes and the Eco Homes Fair, Transition Homes, Transition Streets (which won the 2011 Ashden Award for Behaviour Change), the Totnes & District Energy Descent Action Plan (which he co-authored), Food in Community, Grown in Totnes, Incredible Edible Totnes, Nut Tree Planting, Seedy Sisters, Skillshares, Mentoring & Wellbeing Support, the REconomy Centre, the Totnes Local Economic Blueprint, the Local Entrepreneur Forum, the Totnes Pound, Totnes Transition Film Festival, TTT Film Club, Dr Bike, Caring Town Totnes, and Transition Tours.

TV presenter Nicholas Crane, in an episode of his series 'Town', visited Totnes and declared "This is the biggest urban brainwave of the century. A visionary, practical blueprint that took root in a town and is circling the globe". Michael Portillo, in Great British Railway Journeys, visited Totnes and spent a Totnes Pound. Westlife once appeared on The One Show, showing each other Totnes Pounds.

Rob Hopkins also presented the Totnes Pound in the documentary film Demain (2015).

Hopkins is a founder and a director of New Lion Brewery, a social enterprise craft brewery in Totnes.[6] New Lion Brewerys aims to be built on foundations of sustainability, profitability, community and innovation. In 2015, its Pandit IPA was voted Britain's 17th Hottest Beer.[7]

Hopkins is one of the directors of Atmos Totnes, a community-led development initiated by Totnes Community Development Society].[8][9] Atmos Totnes is the redevelopment of the former Dairy Crest site in Totnes as a mixed use development in community ownership. It will be one of the first, and most ambitious, uses of a Community Right to Build Order, through a referendum due to take place in June 2016.