And they’ve made sure their search for the globe’s greatest greenies has been a wide-ranging one, with the list including anyone from animal-loving priest St Francis of Assisi to Sir David Attenborough through to nineties tree-dwelling protester Swampy and Prince Charles.

Despite all the famous names on the list, it’s topped by Rachel Carson, whose 1962 book, ‘Silent Spring’, alerted the world to the damage being wrought by excessive use of pesticides.

Barbara Young, Chief Executive of the Environment Agency, praised Carson’s activism, saying: “She started many of us off on the road to environmental protection.”

Al Gore makes it into the top ten - he’s at Number Nine for his film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, 10 places ahead of the Victorian engineer Joseph Bazalgette, who saved London from the great stink with his then-innovative sewage network.

As well as Gore, there are a number of people known for their work fighting climate change, including a perhaps surprising placing at Number 29 from governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger, who joins The Clash main-man, the late Joe Strummer, featured for his work in developing tree planting practices, and writer and outspoken activist George Monbiot.

Mark Funnell, who publishes The Environment Agency’s magazine, said of the list, “We tend to get incredibly negative about people and their effect on the planet. There are some who have done fantastic things and we wanted to celebrate that.”

Click here to download the top 100