Education
After earning a degree in mechanical engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, he completed his Doctor of Philosophy in community and regional planning at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada in 1994.
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book
The Winners and Losers in Global Competition. Why Eco-Efficiency Reinforces Competitiveness: A Study of 44 Nations
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3725306583/?tag=2022091-20
Winners and Losers in Global Competition: Why Eco-Efficiency Reinforces Competitiveness : A Study of 44 Nations
( Our dominant culture continues to celebrate blind econo...)
Our dominant culture continues to celebrate blind economic expansion despite its heavy toll on people and nature all over the globe. In fact, our national income accounts (such as the GDP) and our policies ignore that much of today's economic income stems from liquidating our social and natural assets. While living on the planet's capital, rather than on the interest (or sustainable harvest) of its renewable assets, we operate as if we could transgress ecological limits forever. Rather than acknowledging this ecological reality, we actively resist recognizing biophysical limits and use wealth to temporarily shield ourselves from the fallout of ecological overshoot. This study addresses the core question of sustainability and shows why nations will also secure their future competitiveness if they improve their ecological performance. Taken together, all the countries studied consume approximately one-third more ecological services than their available ecological capacity can provide, suggesting that the global economy as a whole is poorly positioned for future competition. Still we find that the European countries, Japan , and Canada (this last because of its large ecological remainder) are in distinctly more favorable starting positions for future competitiveness than all the other countries. They are better at using fewer resources to produce commodities, and, in the case of the countries with ecological remainders, they take better care of their existing ecological capacities. Perhaps the most significantcant finding is that 16 of the 20 eco-efficiency leaders (about 80 percent) are competitive, compared to only 11 of the 24 eco-efficiency laggards (about 45 percent). This suggests either that eco-efficiency already offers a competitive edge or that competitiveness and high eco-efficiency are not mutually exclusive.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1557533571/?tag=2022091-20
Mathis Wackernagel
Edit Profileprofessor President of Global Footprint Network
Career
He is President of Global Footprint Network, an international sustainability think tank with offices in Oakland, California. Brussels, Belgium, and Geneva, Switzerland. The think-tank is a non-profit that focuses on developing and promoting metrics for sustainability.
There, as his doctoral dissertation under Professor William Rees, he created with Professor Rees the ecological footprint concept and developed the methodology.
He has worked on sustainability issues for organizations in Europe, Latin America, North America, Asia and Australia. Wackernagel previously served as the director of the Sustainability Program at Redefining Progress in Oakland, California (1999 - 2003), and directed the Centre for Sustainability Studies / Centro de Estudios para la Sustentabilidad in Mexico (1995-2001).
In 2004, he was also an adjunct faculty at SAGE of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In 2010, he was appointed Frank H. T. Rhodes Class of 1956 Visiting Professor at Cornell University (1 July 2011 – 30 June 2013).
Wackernagel has said that "Overshoot will ultimately liquidate the planet"s ecological assets.".
Achievements
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Wackernagel, along with Susan Burns, received the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship from the Skoll Foundation in 2007. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Bern in 2007, a 2006 World Wide Fund for Nature Award for Conservation Merit, and the 2005 Herman Daly Award of the United States Society for Ecological Economics. With Global Footprint Network, he received the International Prize Calouste Gulbenkian 2008 (Lisbon, Portugal) “dedicated to the respect for biodiversity and defense of the environment in man’s relationship with nature.” In 2013, Mathis Wackernagel received the Prix Nature Swisscanto. Prior, he received the 2012 Binding-Prize for Nature Conservation, the bi-annual Kenneth Boulding Award of the International Society for Ecological Economics, and the Blue Planet Prize of the Asahi Glass Foundation (the latter two with William East Rees). He also received the 2011 Zayed International Prize for Environment in the category "action leading to positive change in society." The Zayed prize recognized Wackernagel’s contribution to “translate the complexity of humanity"s impact on the environment and natural resources into a more understandable and actionable form. The concept of ‘ecological limits" and relating the demands of human beings to the planet"s available ecological resources, has attracted and is catalyzing action among governments, business and civil society." The (En)Rich List ranked Mathis Wackernagel as the 19th of the 100 most inspirational individuals whose contributions enrich paths to sustainable futures.(). John Elkington identified Mathis in 2012 among the “Zeronaut 50” Roll of Honor,id est (that is), leading pioneers who are driving the world’s most significant problems to zero ().
Works
book
-
Winners and Losers in Global Competition: Why Eco-Efficiency Reinforces Competitiveness : A Study of 44 Nations
( Our dominant culture continues to celebrate blind econo...)
- The Winners and Losers in Global Competition. Why Eco-Efficiency Reinforces Competitiveness: A Study of 44 Nations
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Winners and Losers in Global Competition: Why Eco-Efficiency Reinforces Competitiveness : A Study of 44 Nations
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Born
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Died
2003 (aged 40) -
Nationality
Switzerland