Miguel Mendonca

Who is Miguel Mendonca?

Miguel Mendonça is a writer, focusing on socially conscious fiction, written under the pen name of Michael Ford. His first book, a collection of 11 short stories and 1 novella, was published as 'Quick! Act Normal,' in February 2013. His stories explore human relationships: with ourselves, each other and the world in which we live. The work is an extension of his previous career in the field of sustainability.

He studied forestry, landscape management, journalism and radio, geography and history, social science and environmental ethics at various educational institutions in England and Ireland.

Miguel is most associated with work on feed-in tariffs, a renewable energy policy. He has done advocacy and education work on this topic in a number of countries, contributing to their introduction in several. Much of this work was carried out while he served as Research Manager for the World Future Council, an international NGO. He subsequently worked with The Converging World, a renewable energy-focussed charity based in Bristol, England.

Miguel then worked for a short period as a freelance sustainability researcher and writer. He produced two key studies, one on the UK feed-in tariff in 2011, and another on 'The Green Economy in Bristol and the West of England,' published in January 2012. The latter assessed the size and make-up of the environmental technologies sector in the region at that time. It also surveyed the UK green policy environment, and summarised some of the other key aspects of a green economy, including sustainable design of goods and services, retail, food, and well-being. The report concludes with a call for 'Resilience Planning', an ongoing process of strategic collaboration between actors and stakeholders in the region, towards meeting local needs through investment in local assets. The integration and optimisation of food, energy and transport systems is central. The development of resilience should merge the agendas of sustainability, economic development, social capital development, participatory democracy and emergency planning.