My Rainforests Project ... has three main elements. Firstly, to determine how much funding the rainforest countries need to re-orientate their economies so that the trees are worth more alive than dead.

Business is recognizing the role it can play in combatting climate change. Thank God, is all I can say, for there is a desperately urgent need for business to play that role. Your lobbying influence can be substantial, but together, united and in large enough numbers it could prove decisive in turning the tide.

I find myself born into this particular position. I'm determined to make the most of it. And to do whatever I can to help. And I hope I leave things behind a little bit better than I found them.

The simple fact is that the world is not paying for the services the forests provide. At the moment, they are worth more dead than alive-for soya, for beef, for palm oil and for logging, feeding the demand from other countries. ... I think we need to be clear that the drivers of rainforest destruction do not originate in the rainforest nations, but in the more developed countries which, unwittingly or not, have caused climate change.

A large number of us have developed a feeling that architects tend to design houses for the approval of fellow architects and critics, not for the tenants.

This was one of those special occasions when I could actually feel the inner appreciation of the beauty of the moment passing like an electric current through the brush in my hand.

Forests are the world's air-conditioning system-the lungs of the planet-and we are on the verge of switching it off.