Anthony John Colman (born 24 July 1943)[1] is a British politician, businessman, and academic, who served as the LabourMember of Parliament for Putney from 1997 to 2005. Prior to entering Parliament, he was the Leader of Merton London Borough Council from 1991 to 1997. Colman has since become an academic in water management and resource innovation.
Colman was appointed as a board director at the Burton Group in 1969, a position which he held until 1990.[2] During his time at the Burton Group, he helped to found Topshop.[4][5]
In 1990, he was elected as a councillor for the Lavender ward in Merton, before becoming leader of the council from 1991 to 1997.[7]
Prior to becoming an MP, Colman chaired the Low Pay Unit, a charity advising low-paid workers.[8][9] He served as the Director of the Polka Children's Theatre from 1995 until 2004.[10]
Colman chaired the All Party Parliamentary Group on Retail,[8] the All Party Parliamentary Group on Socially Responsible Investment,[17][18] the All Party Parliamentary Group on the United Nations,[19] and the All Party Parliamentary Group on Management.[2]
During his time in parliament, Colman was also vice-chair of GLOBE UK, a pressure group promoting sustainable development.[2] He chaired the Public Private Partnership Programme Ltd until October 1998,[20] and remained on its board during his later parliamentary career.[21][22]
Later career
Since 2005,[3] Colman has been a Non-Executive Director of Africapractice, a corporate citizenship and communications consultancy.[20][5]
From July 2008 to November 2010, Colman was the Director of One World Trust,[23] a pressure group for global governance of which he is now the chair of the board of trustees.[3]
Colman completed his doctoral thesis at the University of East Anglia in 2013; it specialised in water resource management and water supply and sanitation in Botswana.[24] He has since published extensively on the subject of water management, with particular focus on southern Africa.[4][25]
Colman is a research fellow at the University of Cape Town, the Earth Institute at Columbia University and his alma mater, the University of East Anglia.[4][5] From June 2020, he has been a Visiting Research Scholar at the Centre for Natural Material Innovation, Department of Architecture, Cambridge University.[26] His research covers the need to move to nature-based materials, such as mass-timber/bamboo and he is engaging with the UNFCCC for COP26, 27 and 28. He is a research associate at Stellenbosch University, Department of Forestry and Biological Sciences.[citation needed]
