Craig Cohon

Cohon was born at Michael Reese Hospital on the South Side of Chicago, the eldest of two children of Susan Silver Cohon a philanthropist, and George Cohon, a former lawyer and founder of McDonald's in Canada and Russia. His grandparents on both sides emigrated from Ukraine, Russia, Lithuania, and Latvia.

Cohon moved with his parents and younger brother Mark to Toronto, Canada in 1968 where he attended Upper Canada College. While at school, he excelled in rugby and took up the saxophone which he plays to this day.

Cohon went on to study liberal arts at The University of Western Ontario where he graduated from the economics and music faculty. During his time at university, he was heavily involved in student politics and was the Business Editor of the University newspaper. He also developed an interest in media and worked at the campus radio station and started a TV station on campus.

Cohon led a 14-year executive-level career at The Coca-Cola Company, first starting their operations in Moscow in 1990, then running their marketing division throughout Northern Europe. He went on to become Coca-Cola's Brand Director world-wide and Europe's director of Learning Strategy. In 2000, he served as Deputy Division President for the Northwest Europe Division, a 1.2 billion USD operating unit.

From 2000 to 2008, Craig Cohon created and ran an international development advisory firm, building up businesses in India and Africa. This included First Energy, an alternative energy company based in India which applies biomass and gasification technology to heating applications for rural homes, providing commercial cooking to over a million kitchens.

He also helped lead the creation of Reuters Market Light, a tech company providing agricultural decision support solutions that have improved productivity and profitability for over 3.3 million Indian farmers. Both companies have been focused on sustainability and poverty reduction through commercial innovation and have since been recognised as Technology Pioneers by the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Craig Cohon was Managing Director and Executive Vice Chairman of Cirque du Soleil Russia from 2006 to 2016.

In 2022, he stepped down from his professional commitments as Chief Strategy Officer with ApiJect Systems Corp and Chairman of Worn Again, the world's first closed loop textile recycling company (now majority-owned by H&M) to launch walk it back, a new global environment campaign raising awareness on clean carbon removal solutions.

In 2021, Cohon became the first private citizen to undertake a personal lifetime carbon audit following COP26 and discovered he had caused 8,400 tons of carbon dioxide to be emitted into the atmosphere since his birth.

He committed to pay back his carbon debt giving over USD $1 million of his pension to clean carbon removal projects and challenged himself to walk over 4,000 km across Europe to engage in a global discussion about carbon removal with decision-makers, environmental experts and regular citizens he would meet on the way.[3]

From 3 January to 5 June 2023, Cohon, who is not a trained athlete, will walk 25 to 35km nearly every day through the United Kingdom,[4] France,[5] Belgium,[6] the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic,[7] Austria,[8] Slovakia, Hungary,[9] Serbia,[10] Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey. He is expected to complete his journey in Istanbul on June 5, which marks both World Environment Day and his 60th birthday.

The campaign is called walk it back and supports local clean city projects that accelerate carbon removal efforts in energy, transport, industry, agriculture, oceans and buildings. Walk it back sets out to question how carbon removal is perceived currently and supported globally, calling for greater dialogue, coordination, knowledge, governance and investment in the sector in order to safely and quickly scale carbon removal solutions.

Founder members of the campaign include youth climate activist network ReEarth Initiative and city leadership networks United Cities and Local Governments. Partners include climate platform Patch, EFG private bank, and the investment firm Searchlight Capital.

In November 2022, walk it back published the research paper Getting to Net Negative which highlights the critical role that cities play in carbon removal.

Cohon has two children from a previous marriage (with Jeanette Sundberg-Cohon). He lives on a refurbished Belgian barge on the River Thames in London, where he's been based since 1999. Prior to that, Craig had lived in the US, Russia, Sweden, Norway, India, South Africa, Chile, Venezuela and Canada.

• walk it back website
• World Economic Forum profile