Jules Pretty is Professor of Environment and Society at the University of Essex. His sole-authored books include The Low-Carbon Good Life (2023), Sea Sagas of the North (2022), The East Country (2017), The Edge of Extinction (2014), This Luminous Coast (2011), The Earth Only Endures (2007), Agri-Culture (2002), The Living Land (1998), and Regenerating Agriculture (1995).

He is former Deputy-Chair of the UK government’s Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment, and has served on advisory committees for BBSRC and the Royal Society. He was appointed A D White Professor-at-Large by Cornell University from 2001, and was Founding Editor of the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability. He received an OBE in 2006 for services to sustainable agriculture, an honorary degree from Ohio State University, and the British Science Association Presidential Medal (Agriculture and Food) in 2015. He was appointed President of Essex Wildlife Trust in 2019, is Chair of the Essex Climate Action Commission, and was also a trustee for WWF-UK. This Luminous Coast was winner of New Angle Prize for Literature, and The East Country was winner of the East Anglian book of the year.