GREEN RANKING FOR 2009
Ranking: 32=
Worth: £1.5bn
Green investment: Eco research

Edward Bass’s money comes from the oil fortune built by his late uncle. An ardent environmentalist, Bass was an early pioneer of charitable giving in the field. Having studied architecture at Yale, he gave $20m to the university in 1990 to establish a research and teaching centre to study the global environment. He spent $200m on the Biosphere 2 in Arizona, an experiment in space living. Although it failed, Biosphere 2 still carries out research into saving desert plants. Worth around £1.7 billion in October 2008, we cut Bass back to £1.5 billion in these straitened times.