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Tia is an award-winning entrepreneur. She is co-founder of Kansara Hackney Ltd - the first ISO-certified sustainable lifestyle consultancy, for which she is the youngest awardee of the RIBA honorary fellowship. She's the CEO of Replenish Earth Ltd, a cause and a collective action to protect the global commons. For Tia's full bio, please see end of blog post.
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Full Length Bio- Dr Tia Kansara | Future City sustainability evangelist & entrepreneur:
Tia is an award-winning entrepreneur. She is the founder and director of Replenish Earth Ltd., Thousand Network Ltd. and Kansara Hackney Ltd. (KH), a partnership with Dr Rod Hackney (Past President: Royal Institute of British Architects and Union of International Architects). KH are the first sustainable lifestyle consultancy in the UK, leading specialists in sustainable design and implementation for the future generation of private and commercial clients.
In 2000 she was invited to present the International Baccalaureate (IB) to Lord Adonis, Educational Policy Adviser at the UK Prime Minister’s Policy Unit, Cabinet Office. This enhanced the A-level structure in the UK. Shortly after this, she completed her first degree at the School of Oriental & African Studies in Economics and South Asian Studies. Having worked with Bloomberg during her degree, she was then employed by the Japanese Ministry of Education, coordinating the teaching of English by developing the syllabus for High Schools in Japan. Whilst in Japan she translated the Sanskrit works of Lord Swaminarayan’s “Shikshapatri” into Japanese.
In 2007 she was invited by Emir Hamad Al-Thani and Shaykha Mayassa bint Hamad Al-Thani under the Qatar Museum Authority to project manage excavations in Al-Wakra and Al-Wusail. In 2009, she was invited to present at the Bharatiya Pravasi Divas on Indian Culture to President Pratibha Patil and Chief Minister Narendra Modi. As its youngest consultant, Tia was invited to advise the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, BioTrade Initiative on sustainability. A post she held between 2009 – 2012.
She has also advised the UN-Habitat in Hue, Vietnam with the Building and Social Housing Foundation. In 2010, she wrote the brief and appointed the architects Foster + Partners for SAMBAs multi-million dollar headquarters as the first female to judge a LEED platinum building in Riyadh. Her Ph.D. at University College London, Energy Institute is on designing future cities. She has worked alongside personnel from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Masdar. She has worked in Abu Dhabi, in collaboration with the Urban Planning Council, the Executive Affairs Authority, Department of Municipal Affairs, Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Authority, Regulation and Supervision Bureau to create the first energy baseline and comprehensive energy evaluation in the Gulf. Her work on adaptive thermal comfort has led her to work on the special committee led by the International Energy Agency Annex 69 with Tsinghua University.
In association with the Club of Rome and the United Nations General Assembly she has advised the Royal family of Bhutan and Past Prime Minister Jigme Thinley and current Prime Minister Tsering Tobgay on the creation of an international commission on sustainable, economic growth.
In 2011, she was invited to advise the Lebanese Parliament on the revival of Tripoli’s International Fair. KH were appointed by late Arch. Oscar Niemeyer, to complete this project. KH have organised two international conferences since themed: Future Cities and Sustainability for life.
In 2012, Tia was invited to present her views to President Hollande and Ban Ki Moon on the UN initiative: Sustainable Energy for All and has since worked closely with the Abu Dhabi government to deliver manageable energy reductions in the built environment, presenting her findings at the World Future Energy Summit, Abu Dhabi. Since, she has organised London Business School’s Global Energy Summit, inviting prestigious Energy experts from around the world.
Tia is a professional moderator, lecturer and author; she has interviewed world figures and experts, moderating for Forbes, Coca Cola, European Business Angels Network and London Business School and has delivered keynote speeches on the future of cities. She has lectured at CEPT (Ahmedabad); New Delhi School of Planning (India); Musashi Institute of Technology (Tokyo); KEA University (Copenhagen); McGill University (Montreal); University of British Columbia (Vancouver); School of Architecture and Planning (Costa Rica); School of Architecture (Havana) to name a few. Her publications in peer-reviewed journals range from sustainable cities to health and well being, presenting her findings internationally through social media.
She is a Pontignano delegate hosted by PM Enrico Letta (Siena) and has since created a partnership with the University of Siena for the Mediterranean Region to host conversations on Climate Change at University College London. Tia was part of the board for the Global CleanTech Challenge. She is the chair of Thousand Network, a community of 1000 leading change-makers. She is co-founder of the Social Shift Foundation and a board members of the What Took You So Long Foundation. She is the official ambassador of the UCL Bartlett School for the Gulf region, Siemen’s list of Future Influencers (sponsored by Harvard Business Review), alumnus of EBSINTEL Social Innovation School, and alumnus of the Start-Up Leadership Programme (SLP). Tia is Britain’s National Coordinator for the Intel Business Challenge.
Her recent work involved providing city governments with her concept of Replenish, a per capita assessment of ecosystem services and publishing her first book, Replenish. Replenish cities give more back to nature, rather than sustaining the status quo they generate ecosystem services, banish waste and create movements through lifestyles that are pro-nature. Tia is a visiting professor at Centre of Environment Planning and Technology (CEPT), University teaching Replenish: Exploring Smart Cities partnered with the Royal Government of Bhutan, the Gross National Happiness Centre, GIFT City and Masdar City to equip students with an understanding of the future challenges of the Indian Government’s 100 smart city campaign. She also launched the Pink Ladoo campaign in India on October 11th 2015. Tia launched the Replenish initiative between CEPT University and NID in Ahmedabad to raise awareness of waste management in Gujarat and has since developed two courses at CEPT University taking students to Bhutan, UAE ad Japan. In 2017 she partnered with Maker Fest to develop the Replenish Speaker Series, more information available at www.replenish.earth
She was the first female Asian physical training instructor for the Territorial Army in the UK, her hobbies include rock climbing, diving, hiking, kung-fu, yoga, mediation and singing. She speaks Gujarati, Hindi, Urdu, English, Japanese and has studied Sanskrit, Arabic and French.
