The Future Earth Systems of Sustainable Consumption and Production Knowledge-Action Network (SSCP KAN) is an organic community of people from many different backgrounds and experience, aiming to enable an urgent transformation in theory and practice to SCP systems. The network includes academics, practitioners from the public and private sectors, government representatives, artists, and interested citizens from around the world.
Management Team
The SSCP KAN Management Team is responsible for the regular functioning of the KAN.
Magnus Bengtsson
Magnus Bengtsson is an independent researcher and consultant in the field of environmental sustainability, based in Japan. Until 2017, he worked for the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), where he was leading institutional flagship initiatives. He has previously held positions as Director of the Sustainable Consumption and Production group (2010‒2013) and Manager of the Waste Management and Resource Efficiency project (2008‒2010). Before joining IGES in 2007 he was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Tokyo where his research focused on water demand scenario analysis and global water futures assessment. Magnus received his PhD in Environmental Systems Analysis at Chalmers University of Technology in Göteborg, Sweden, where he worked on Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA), stakeholder consultation processes and sustainability controversies. Magnus has conducted and lead research on a wide range of topics, mainly focusing on policy approaches to Sustainable Consumption and Production, and Sustainable Materials Management. In the last few years he has also devoted some of his time to exploring how the Sustainable Development Goals could get traction in practice.
Maurie Cohen
Maurie J. Cohen is Professor of Sustainability Studies and Director of the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. He is also Associate Faculty Member with the Division of Global Affairs at Rutgers University, Associate Faculty Member with the Rutgers/NJIT Urban Systems Program, and Associate Fellow at the Tellus Institute. Cohen serves as Editor of Sustainability: Science, Practice, and Policy and Associate Editor of Environmental Innovation and Sustainability Transitions and is co-founder and Management Team member of the Future Earth Knowledge-Action Network on Systems of Sustainable Consumption and Production. His books include The Future of Consumer Society: Prospects for Sustainability in the New Economy; Social Change and the Coming of Post-consumer Society; Putting Sustainability into Practice: Applications and Advances in Research on Sustainable Consumption; Innovations in Sustainable Consumption: New Economics, Socio-technical Transitions and Social Practices; and Exploring Sustainable Consumption: Environmental Policy and the Social Sciences. Cohen received his PhD. in regional science from the University of Pennsylvania in 1993.
Charlotte Louise Jensen
Charlotte Louise Jensen is a post-doctoral researcher at Aalborg University in Denmark. She has obtained a M.Sc. in innovation and environmental management from the Technical University in Denmark, and holds a PhD in sociology of technology, consumption and transition from Aalborg University. Charlottes work and research interests are on exploring links between consumption and production patterns and environmental and social implications thereof, as a dynamic and intertwined process. Her PhD research evolved around exploring the socio-technical transition of light in Denmark, and its implications in and of energy consumption, everyday life, households and professional practices. Currently, Charlotte is engaged in a project exploring opportunities for developing circular economic business models. The project takes on a critical approach to the popular circular economy concept, by exploring the role of practices and contexts in developing circular business models, in partnership with a number of Danish companies. Charlotte has, in her short career span, already had several research exchanges to international research institutions and universities in the UK and in France. She is (together with Dr. Chris Foulds) the co-founder of the early career research network ‘Practices, the Built Environment and Sustainability’ (PBES) that developed an internationally renowned Thinking Note Collection. A number of critically acclaimed researchers within the field of practice theory and consumption studies responded to the Thinking Note Collection in an invited collection of Responses to the Thinking Note Collection. Charlotte teaches and supervises students from two (bachelor and master) programmes at Aalborg University, School of Engineering and Science; Sustainable Design and Techno-Anthropology, both of which are highly trans-disciplinary in scope and approach.
Sylvia Lorek
Sylvia Lorek holds a PhD in consumer economics and is trained to work on the interlinkages of the individual micro-economic and the societal macroeconomic perspective in which the scientific and societal discourses about sustainable consumption take place. As head of SERI Germany e.V. she is working on studies and as consultant for national and international organisations. She has a lecturer position at the University of Applied Science in Münster and held classes e.g. at the University of Helsinki, the Baltic University Program (BUP) and the Asia-Europe Foundation University. Sylvia is an organising member of SCORAI Europe, the Global Research Forum on Sustainable Consumption and Production (GRF-SCP) and on board of the Society for the European Roundtable on Sustainable Consumption and Production (ERSCP).
Hein Mallee
Director, Regional Center for Future Earth in Asia
Hein Mallee is a social scientist with a Ph.D. from Leiden University, the Netherlands. His research was initially concerned with migration and related policies in China, but as he started working in international development (with the Netherlands Government, the Ford Foundation and Canada’s International Development Research Centre), he became involved in projects on rural development, natural resources management and poverty alleviation both in China and in Southeast Asia. The dominant theme in this was local people’s involvement in and rights to resources. For the past decade, Hein has worked on issues relating to human health and environment (“Ecohealth”). He has been a professor at the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature in Kyoto, Japan, since March 2013 and a Deputy Director-General since April 2018. He is also the Director of the Regional Center for Future Earth in Asia.
Steven McGreevy
Steven McGreevy is an environmental sociologist and associate professor at the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN). He has a background in agriculture, rural sustainable development, and environmental education. His research focuses on novel approaches to rural revitalization that utilize local natural resources, sustainable knowledge dynamics, sustainable agrifood and energy transition, and the relinking of patterns of food consumption and production in local communities. He is leads a five-year RIHN research project entitled “Lifeworlds of Sustainable Food Consumption and Production: Agrifood Systems in Transition.”
Patrick Schröder
Patrick Schroder is Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. His main research interests relate to the global transition to a circular economy within the context of sustainable consumption and production (SCP) systems and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). He also has expertise on issues relating to China’s renewable energy development and civil society participation in China’s environmental governance. Prior to joining IDS, Patrick was based in Beijing from 2008-2015. He worked extensively in development cooperation programmes of the European Union, including the SWITCH-Asia Programme and the EU-China Environmental Governance Programme. He also has worked for the German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ/CIM) as Senior International Advisor to the China Association for NGO Cooperation, coordinating the China Civil Climate Action Network. As development consultant he has worked for the Collaborating Centre on Sustainable Consumption and Production (CSCP), the Heinrich Boell Foundation and UNEP. Patrick holds a BA Hons in Chinese from the University of Westminster, an MA in International Relations and a PhD in Environmental Studies both from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
Steering Committee
The Steering Committee oversees all of the work and other activities of the KAN.
Eva Alfredsson
Eva Alfredsson is a policy analyst at the Swedish Agency for Growth Policy Analysis commissioned by the Swedish government to provide the government with an advanced knowledge base and recommendations to develop the state’s work to promote sustainable growth and business development. Eva’s work at Growth analysis focus on issues related to the green transition of industry. Eva has taken part in several parliamentary inquiries as an expert. Last one being the Swedish government committee (M 2010:04) developing a climate policy framework which passed as a climate law in 2018. Eva is also a part time researcher at the Royal Institute of Technology, KTH, at the department for Strategic Sustainability Studies. There she has been part of a group of researchers exploring scenarios for sustainable development beyond traditional BNP-growth. Currently she is involved in a research project reviewing the climate co-benefits literature. Eva is a senior advisor at the think tank Global Challenges where she led an expert group exploring the Green Economy ahead of Rio+20. The investigation resulted in a prestudy “The Inclusive Green Economy — Shaping society to serve sustainability — minor adjustments or a paradigm shift? (2014). Eva received her PhD at Umeå University in 2002, at the Environmental Spatial Modelling Centre. Her research focused on green consumption, energy use and carbon dioxide emission using a micro-simulation model in which the rebound effect was internalized. Eva´s research interest is on how to transit to an inclusive pluralistic green economy - at the required speed.
Kartika Anggraeni
Kartika Anggraeni is a project manager at the Collaborating Centre on Sustainable Consumption and Production (CSCP) in Wuppertal, Germany. As an expert in the field of sustainable consumption and production (SCP), she is currently co-managing an EU-funded Switch Africa Green 'GOALAN' project on sustainable horticulture in Kenya. Previously, she worked with the EU SWITCH-Asia Network Facility from 2012–2017 to promote and mainstream SCP measures and policies across 18 Asian countries.
Magnus Bengtsson
Magnus Bengtsson is an independent researcher and consultant in the field of environmental sustainability, based in Japan. Until 2017, he worked for the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), where he was leading institutional flagship initiatives. He has previously held positions as Director of the Sustainable Consumption and Production group (2010‒2013) and Manager of the Waste Management and Resource Efficiency project (2008‒2010). Before joining IGES in 2007 he was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Tokyo where his research focused on water demand scenario analysis and global water futures assessment. Magnus received his PhD in Environmental Systems Analysis at Chalmers University of Technology in Göteborg, Sweden, where he worked on Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA), stakeholder consultation processes and sustainability controversies. Magnus has conducted and lead research on a wide range of topics, mainly focusing on policy approaches to Sustainable Consumption and Production, and Sustainable Materials Management. In the last few years he has also devoted some of his time to exploring how the Sustainable Development Goals could get traction in practice.
Janis Brizga
Janis Brizga is Head of the Board at the NGO Green Liberty and researcher at the University of Latvia, department of geography and earth sciences. Previously, he was a chair of NGO network ANPED – The Northern Alliance for Sustainability, the Environmental Policy Programme Director at WWF-Latvia, the Executive Director at Coalition Clean Baltic Latvia’s office. He has received a Ph.D. in geography, Environmental Science and Master of Social Science in Public Administration at the University of Latvia. He is working on issues of sustainable development and sustainable consumption governance and environmentally friendly behavior. Janis Brizga is a member of the Global Research Forum on Sustainable Consumption and Production as well as a member of the board of the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), Europe's largest federation of citizens' environmental organisations.
Dr. Anthony Chiu
Dr. (Anthony) Chiu is University Fellow and Professor at De La Salle University. He is a member of the United Nations International Resource Panel, and a member of the Future Earth KAN on Systems of Sustainable Consumption and Production. Professor Chiu has advised doctoral research works and published more than 200 papers, book chapters, and keynote documents in the field of Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP), Resource Efficient and Cleaner Production (RECP), and Industrial Ecology / Eco-industrial Development (EID). He is also a Philippine Permanent Delegate to the United Nations 3R Summit, and member of the Philippine Delegation to Rio+20, SDG Roadmap, CSD19, etc. He served as member of the National Pollution Adjudication Board (Pollution Court) from 2004 to 2016. He is the founding vice-chair of the Industrial Engineering Certification Board. Professor Chiu is the first Philippine awardee of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers as outstanding international correspondent, and the first Philippine ASEAN Engineer in the field of Industrial Engineering from academe.
Maurie Cohen
Maurie J. Cohen is Professor of Sustainability Studies and Director of the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. He is also Associate Faculty Member with the Division of Global Affairs at Rutgers University, Associate Faculty Member with the Rutgers/NJIT Urban Systems Program, and Associate Fellow at the Tellus Institute. Cohen serves as Editor of Sustainability: Science, Practice, and Policy and Associate Editor of Environmental Innovation and Sustainability Transitions and is co-founder and Management Team member of the Future Earth Knowledge-Action Network on Systems of Sustainable Consumption and Production. His books include The Future of Consumer Society: Prospects for Sustainability in the New Economy; Social Change and the Coming of Post-consumer Society; Putting Sustainability into Practice: Applications and Advances in Research on Sustainable Consumption; Innovations in Sustainable Consumption: New Economics, Socio-technical Transitions and Social Practices; and Exploring Sustainable Consumption: Environmental Policy and the Social Sciences. Cohen received his PhD. in regional science from the University of Pennsylvania in 1993.
Leonie Dendler
Leonie Dendler is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment working within the risk communication department on stakeholder management and public engagement in science-based consumer protection. She previously worked for the Sustainable Consumption Institute and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Manchester (UK) and Fudan University (China). An environmental scientist by training with a PhD from Manchester Business School (UK), her wider research interest lies in understanding institutional change processes across international consumption and production systems with a particular focus on food. Next to science-based consumer protection, Leonie applied her research to topics of sustainability related product labelling, biofuels regulation, transformations in the production and consumption of food in China and wider food safety and risk governance. She is a board member of the Global Research Forum on Sustainable Production and Consumption and has written, reviewed and edited for various peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Cleaner Production and Energy Policy.
Paul Dewick
Paul Dewick is Professor of Sustainability and Innovation at Keele Business School, Keele University, and Honorary Research Fellow at the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research, The University of Manchester. Paul's research explores the role of innovation in reducing environmental burdens and improving quality of life. Much of his research is undertaken in interdisciplinary teams and in collaboration with industrial and societal stakeholders. He is a member of the Steering Committee of Future Earth's Knowledge-Action Network on Systems of Sustainable Consumption and Production, and co-leads the Working Group on Circular Economy.
Charlotte Louise Jensen
Charlotte Louise Jensen is a post-doctoral researcher at Aalborg University in Denmark. She has obtained a M.Sc. in innovation and environmental management from the Technical University in Denmark, and holds a PhD in sociology of technology, consumption and transition from Aalborg University. Charlottes work and research interests are on exploring links between consumption and production patterns and environmental and social implications thereof, as a dynamic and intertwined process. Her PhD research evolved around exploring the socio-technical transition of light in Denmark, and its implications in and of energy consumption, everyday life, households and professional practices. Currently, Charlotte is engaged in a project exploring opportunities for developing circular economic business models. The project takes on a critical approach to the popular circular economy concept, by exploring the role of practices and contexts in developing circular business models, in partnership with a number of Danish companies. Charlotte has, in her short career span, already had several research exchanges to international research institutions and universities in the UK and in France. She is (together with Dr. Chris Foulds) the co-founder of the early career research network ‘Practices, the Built Environment and Sustainability’ (PBES) that developed an internationally renowned Thinking Note Collection. A number of critically acclaimed researchers within the field of practice theory and consumption studies responded to the Thinking Note Collection in an invited collection of Responses to the Thinking Note Collection. Charlotte teaches and supervises students from two (bachelor and master) programmes at Aalborg University, School of Engineering and Science; Sustainable Design and Techno-Anthropology, both of which are highly trans-disciplinary in scope and approach.
Sylvia Lorek
Sylvia Lorek holds a PhD in consumer economics and is trained to work on the interlinkages of the individual micro-economic and the societal macroeconomic perspective in which the scientific and societal discourses about sustainable consumption take place. As head of SERI Germany e.V. she is working on studies and as consultant for national and international organisations. She has a lecturer position at the University of Applied Science in Münster and held classes e.g. at the University of Helsinki, the Baltic University Program (BUP) and the Asia-Europe Foundation University. Sylvia is an organising member of SCORAI Europe, the Global Research Forum on Sustainable Consumption and Production (GRF-SCP) and on board of the Society for the European Roundtable on Sustainable Consumption and Production (ERSCP).
Hein Mallee
Director, Regional Center for Future Earth in Asia
Hein Mallee is a social scientist with a Ph.D. from Leiden University, the Netherlands. His research was initially concerned with migration and related policies in China, but as he started working in international development (with the Netherlands Government, the Ford Foundation and Canada’s International Development Research Centre), he became involved in projects on rural development, natural resources management and poverty alleviation both in China and in Southeast Asia. The dominant theme in this was local people’s involvement in and rights to resources. For the past decade, Hein has worked on issues relating to human health and environment (“Ecohealth”). He has been a professor at the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature in Kyoto, Japan, since March 2013 and a Deputy Director-General since April 2018. He is also the Director of the Regional Center for Future Earth in Asia.
Michael Maniates
Michael Maniates is Professor of Social Science and Head of Studies of Environmental Studies at Yale-NUS College in Singapore. He holds a BS in Conservation and Resource Studies and an MA and PhD in Energy and Resources, all from the University of California, Berkeley. He was previously Full Professor of Environmental Science and Political Science at Allegheny College (1993 – 2013), and Senior Visiting Professor of Environmental Studies at Oberlin College (2011 – 2013), both nationally ranked liberal arts colleges in the United States. He joined Yale-NUS College in its inaugural year (2013)to guide the development of its environmental-studies program.
Manu V. Mathai
Manu V. Mathai is an Assistant Professor in the School of Development at Azim Premji University. His teaching and research focus on how to realize greater fairness in human well-being outcomes within the constraint of ecological finitude. The themes that intersect with his work include (energy) policy and governance, (energy) technology choice and sustainability. His publications include Nuclear Power, Economic Development Discourse and the Environment: The Case of India (Routledge, 2013) and Green Growth: Ideology, Political Economy and the Alternatives (Zed Books, 2016). Manu previously taught at the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies and the Department of Science, Technology and Society/Public Policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He was a Research Associate at the Centre for Energy and Environmental Policy at the University of Delaware. He earned his PhD in Energy and Environmental Policy from the University of Delaware in 2010.
Steven McGreevy
Steven McGreevy is an environmental sociologist and associate professor at the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN). He has a background in agriculture, rural sustainable development, and environmental education. His research focuses on novel approaches to rural revitalization that utilize local natural resources, sustainable knowledge dynamics, sustainable agrifood and energy transition, and the relinking of patterns of food consumption and production in local communities. He is leads a five-year RIHN research project entitled “Lifeworlds of Sustainable Food Consumption and Production: Agrifood Systems in Transition.”
Jaco Quist
Jaco Quist is an assistant professor in Sustainable Innovation and Transitions at the Technology, Policy & Management Faculty, Delft University of Technology. He has completed a dissertation on participatory backcasting that was published by Eburon Publishers in 2007 entitled Backcasting for a sustainable future: the impact after 10 years (see www.eburon.nl or repository.tudelft.nl). His research and teaching evolves around sustainable innovation and transitions, in particular around participatory visioning, backcasting and transition management. His research includes: (i) Making visions for transitions, e.g. through applying participatory backcasting and transition management, developing specific tools, methods and modelling for this; (ii) Evaluating the impact of visioning processes, not only shortly after completion and how these have been turned into pathways, but also five to ten years later, and (iii) Vision dynamics in emerging niches and transitions. The includes how emerging visions relate to social innovation, learning, sustainable consumption and new business models. Work is done on Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP), Circular Economy, Renewable Energy, Climate Adaptation, and Urban Agriculture and Food. Jaco Quist has been the (co)editor of special issues in Technological forecasting (2011, on “Backcasting for sustainable futures”) and in the Journal of Cleaner Production in2013 (on “sustainable Innovation & Sustainable business models” and on “Learning and Collaboration for Sustainable Innovation and Consumption”), and in 2019 (forthcoming, SCP in a Circular Economy).
Leida Rijnhout
Leida Rijnhout is a national Dutch and has a background in cultural anthropology with more than 30 years of experience in international development cooperation (focus on rural development in Bolivia) and sustainability. For many years, she facilitated and coordinated the global NGO community to realise their active engagement in United Nations processes on Sustainable Development and Environment. For that reason, she was heavily involved at and in the preparations of the Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 (Johannesburg), at Rio+20 in 2012 (Rio de Janeiro) and in the development of the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, including the Sustainable Development Goals. She is the European Focal Point for civil society in Europe, in the 10-year Framework on Sustainable Consumption and Production (UNEP). And was the representative for the Environmental NGOs at the OECD, until shortly. At UNEA2 (2016) and UNEA3 (2017) she is the co-chair of the Major Group Facilitating Committee, and the main contact for UNEA and member states for the civil society groups. She was Director Global Policies and Sustainability at the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), and since September 2016 program coordinator Resource Justice and Sustainability at Friends of the Earth Europe. She is member of the High Level Steering Group of the European Innovation Partnership on Raw Materials. She initiated a broad alliance of civil society organisations SDG Watch Europe and is member of the Steering Group. As representative for this alliance she is also member of the EU Multi Stakeholder Platform on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, chaired by EU Vice President Frans Timmermans. Leida was also coordinator of an international think tank on ecological debt and environmental justice. She is full member of the Club of Rome, EU Chapter. She is member of the SSCP group, working on macro economics. She always combined scientific research work, activists’ approaches, field experiences and policy work. She wrote many articles and chapters of books on strong sustainability and speaks Dutch, English and Spanish.
Patrick Schröder
Patrick Schroder is Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. His main research interests relate to the global transition to a circular economy within the context of sustainable consumption and production (SCP) systems and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). He also has expertise on issues relating to China’s renewable energy development and civil society participation in China’s environmental governance. Prior to joining IDS, Patrick was based in Beijing from 2008-2015. He worked extensively in development cooperation programmes of the European Union, including the SWITCH-Asia Programme and the EU-China Environmental Governance Programme. He also has worked for the German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ/CIM) as Senior International Advisor to the China Association for NGO Cooperation, coordinating the China Civil Climate Action Network. As development consultant he has worked for the Collaborating Centre on Sustainable Consumption and Production (CSCP), the Heinrich Boell Foundation and UNEP. Patrick holds a BA Hons in Chinese from the University of Westminster, an MA in International Relations and a PhD in Environmental Studies both from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
Daigee Shaw
Daigee Shaw, Research Fellow at the Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica in Taipei, specialized in economic analysis and policy analysis related to natural resources, environmental quality, and sustainability issues. Dr. Shaw has served as President of Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research from 2006 to 2011, President of the East Asian Association of Environmental and Resource Economics during 2012 and 2013, President of the Chinese Regional Science Association-Taiwan from 2011 to 2013, and President of the Taiwan Association of Environmental and Resource Economics during 2014, 2015, 2018 and 2019. Dr. Shaw is also Professor in National Cheng-Chi University and National Taipei University. Dr. Shaw has published many articles in a number of professional journals, including American Economic Review, Journal of Econometrics, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Natural Hazards, Energy Policy, and Risk Analysis. Dr. Shaw won the Ministry of Education Academic Award for Distinguished Scholarship in 1995. He received his Ph.D. in resource policy, economics and management from the University of Michigan in 1985.
Julia Steinberger
Prof. Julia Steinberger researches and teaches in the interdisciplinary areas of Ecological Economics and Industrial Ecology. Her research examines the connections between resource use (energy and materials, greenhouse gas emissions) and societal performance (economic activity and human wellbeing). She is interested in quantifying the current and historical linkages between resource use and socioeconomic parameters, and identifying alternative development pathways to guide the necessary transition to a low carbon society. She is the recipient of a Leverhulme Research Leadership Award for her research project 'Living Well Within Limits' investigating how universal human well-being might be achieved within planetary boundaries. She is Lead Author for the IPCC's 6th Assessment Report with Working Group 3. Before she was a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Social Ecology in Vienna (SEC), where she investigated sustainable cities and the links between material use and economic performance, held postdoctoral positions at the Universities of Lausanne and Zurich, and obtained her PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Victoria Thoresen
Victoria Wyszynski Thoresen holds the UNESCO Chair for Education for Sustainable Lifestyles at The Collaborative Learning Centre for Sustainable Development at Inland Norway University. The Centre promotes the development and use of research and learning methods that assist people to contribute to constructive change through the way they choose to live. Thoresen has specialized in curriculum development, global education, peace education, value-based education and consumer education. In addition to many years of experience as a teacher and teacher trainer, Thoresen has written articles and textbooks for teacher training and has functioned as an international educational consultant. As leader of PERL, The Partnership for Education and Research about Responsible Living, she has worked closely with UNEP, UNESCO and other international agencies concerned with sustainable development particularly in connection with the 10-Year Framework of Programmes about Sustainable Consumption and Production’s program on Sustainable Lifestyles and Education as well as with the U.N. Decade on Education for Sustainable Development and the present Global Action Plan for Education for Sustainable Development. Thoresen has been an invited speaker at many conferences on sustainable human development, education and behavior change, citizenship and social responsibility, economic growth and well-being.
Philip Vergragt
Philip Vergragt is an academic and activist; an Associate Fellow at Tellus Institute, Boston and a Research Professor at Marsh Institute, Clark University, Worcester, MA; he is a Professor Emeritus of Technology Assessment at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. He has co-authored more than one hundred scientific publications and four books. His main research interests are sustainable technological and social innovations in transportation, energy, and housing; grassroots innovations; socio-technical transitions; sustainable consumption and production; sustainable cities; and technology assessment of emerging technologies. In the last six years, he is a founding Board member of SCORAI, the North American (and European) Sustainable Consumption and Action Initiative; and a co-founder of NARSPAC, the North American Roundtable on Sustainable Production and Consumption. He organized two international GRF conferences (Rio 2012 and Shanghai 2014); the SCORAI 2016 conference at the University of Maine; and numerous smaller workshops for SCORAI and GRF. Vergragt obtained a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, in 1976.
Dan Welch
Dan Welch is a sociologist and Research Fellow at the Sustainable Consumption Institute (University of Manchester). His research interests focus on the sociology of consumption and consumer culture, political economy and understanding processes of social change. Specific research topics have included sustainability communications, food waste, corporate governance, behaviour change and the history of consumer culture. Dan has a background in journalism and copywriting and is a former editor of Ethical Consumer magazine. He is currently conducting a research project on ‘Imagined futures of Consumption’ (funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council) which explores how visions, models and expectations of the future of consumption shape, and are shaped by, social processes.
Lei Zhang
Dr. Lei Zhang obtained her master and doctoral degrees in environmental management from Wageningen University in the Netherlands and since 2002 she continued to work as teacher and researcher at Environmental Policy Group at Wageningen University. She joined the School of Environment and Natural Resources at Renmin University of China as associate professor since 2009. As an environmental sociologist, her researches cover topics ranging from environmental policy analysis, governance of environmental flows to sustainable consumption. She also worked as consultant for different international organizations. She is currently serving the Journal of Society and Natural Resources as associate editor. Since 2014, she serves as the contact person for SCORAI China.
Secretariat
The Regional Center for Future Earth in Asia, hosted by the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature based in Kyoto, provides secretariat and logistical support to the KAN.
Ria Lambino
Science Officer, Regional Centre for Future Earth in Asia
Ria Lambino is based at the Research Institute for Humanity & Nature (RIHN) in Kyoto as Specially Appointed Associate Professor. She received her PhD and Masters from Kyoto University Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies. She has a degree in Applied Physics (although never applied it) but has spent most of her professional career as a practitioner and researcher focusing on environmental conservation and sustainability, with significant experience in the Philippines and in Japan. Prior to joining Future Earth, she worked for WWF Philippines as Vice President for Sustainable Production and Market Engagement and had been involved in transdisciplinary research on watershed governance at RIHN. Her research interests include environmental policy and governance, protected areas & management, renewable energy, water issues, sustainable agriculture & fisheries and sustainable consumption and production.