ECOS mourns its founder, Tony Long
By Tony Long, a founder of ECOS and WWF EU’s long-serving Director, passed away recently. It is with great sadness that we learn of Tony’s passing.
For many years, he shaped environmental policy, and will be remembered for his great commitment to protecting our planet. Working for WWF in his native UK since 1986, he moved to Brussels and created the WWF office there in 1989. Eleven years later he helped to create ECOS.
Justin Wilkes, ECOS Executive Director, who knew Tony from his days at WWF, said: Our thoughts are with Tony’s family at this time. Tony will always have a special place at ECOS as one of its founders. Only a few months ago, we had the honour to welcome him at our General Assembly to celebrate our twentieth anniversary – and what a pleasure it was to hear him reflect on the ECOS journey. His leadership and charisma will keep inspiring us to do our utmost to protect nature, just as Tony did all his life.
Former ECOS expert John Barwise, who represented ECOS for many years developing ISO Environmental Management standards, said: Tony was a close friend and our work crossed paths from time to time over many years. It was Tony that introduced me to ECOS, which led to my involvement with environmental management standards. Tony was passionate about the environment and recognised the benefits of improving business environmental performance and the added value of raising awareness of environmental protection through the business community. He valued the work of ECOS and its successful interventions to improve environmental standards in the business community but also supported its efforts to widen the scope of environmental standards across all industrial and commercial activities.
Tony will be greatly missed.
