Our Green Champion for 2006 is no newcomer to green pursuits - he can chart a lifetime of raising environ-mental awareness and cleaning up the planet.

But never one to sit and preach, Des Kay, 55, has made it his business to make changes in people's attitude with humour, art and most importantly, positivity.

"Every little thing that we do to save the world makes a difference. I try to be positive about what people do for the environment as I know that it is difficult when people have family commitments and careers," he said.

Des co founded Kingston's Green Fair in 1987 and since then Des has personally helped to inspire and mentor dozens of other environ-mental fairs including Sutton, Camden and West London Green Fair.

Every year the fair in Canbury Gardens, Kingston, which Des still helps to run, attracts up to 15,000 people and plays an important role in showcasing more environ-mentally friendly ways of living.

Festival Eye magazine said of it: "If there was an award for the best one day event in Europe then Kingston Green Fair would win hands down."

Des also founded Save the World Club, which works with young people in Kingston on a wide variety of arts based projects. Registered as a charity in 2002 it promptly won an award as the UK's Best New Charity. Then in 2004 it won the Queen's Award for Voluntary Service. Working with hundreds of young people it has created seven large colourful mosaics around the borough in areas which were formerly subject to lots of graffiti. The most recent, based on the work of William Morris, opened in the underpass at Tolworth in October 2006.

Des said: "It's a win, win situation, we use recycled materials to make mosaics to cover graffitied areas and we give those doing it a sense of ownership and responsibility, which is exactly the philosophy of the Save the World Club."

Save the World Club has also run many community clean-up projects, including a Green Police beat' around town centres to educate smokers on the pollution caused by smoking.

Des was also instrumental to the survival of the Glaston-bury Festival, when he set up the Green Police force to deal with pollution issues.

"The Environment Agency threatened to close the festival down as they said it was causing too much pollution to the waterways. The Green Police came about as a way of communicating to people how important it was to look after the surround-ings," said Des.

This year Des championed the case of Critical Mass at the Court of Appeal. He successfully argued that the monthly bike ride around London by hundreds cyclists, committed to raise awareness of the issues surrounding cycling and sustainable transport, should not be banned as it is both well-established and well-policed.

He travels the country in the guise of Professor Kayoss educating poeple about the environment using kinetic sculptures made from waste objects.

And on top of all that, this multi-talented Green Champion, has produced a CD of award-winning music and raps, Enviro-Mental, which he uses at events.