Monday 8th September
17:30 – 19:30
Programme
This session is open to the public: everyone is welcome
Chair: Alessandro Vercelli (University of Siena)
Introduction:
Angelo Riccaboni (Rector of the University of Siena)
Michelangelo Vasta (Head of the Department of Economics and Statistics, University of Siena)
Speaker:
Paul Ekins(UCL, University of London)
Policies for a green economy: making a reality of sustainable development
Discussants:
Malcom Sawyer(University of Leeds)
Ignazio Musu(University of Venice)
PROFESSOR PAUL EKINS
Brief Biographical Details
Paul Ekins has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of London and is Professor of Resources and Environmental Policy, and Director of the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources, at University College London. Before that he was Professor of Energy and Environment Policy and Director of Research at the UCL Energy Institute. He has been a
Co-Director of the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) since its establishment in 2004, leading its Energy Systems and Modelling theme, and Energy Systems theme, in Phases 1 and 2 respectively. In UKERC Phase 3 he is Deputy Director, leading the theme on Energy Resources. He is also a Fellow of the Energy Institute; a Senior Consultant to Cambridge Econometrics; and he leads UCL’s participation in the EPSRC SUPERGEN consortium on hydrogen and fuel cells, and on a major project as part of a recent EPSRC Bioenergy Challenge. He was a co-founder of the sustainable development charity Forum for the Future, Director of the Green Fiscal Commission, and Chairman of the Government-funded National Industrial Symbiosis Programme (NISP), the UK’s most successful programme to improve resource productivity. He is a member of Ofgem’s high-level Sustainable Development Advisory Group, and a member of the Expert Panel of the UK National Ecosystem Assessment. From 2002-2008 he was a Member of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. From 1997-2005 he was a specialist adviser to the Environmental Audit Committee of the House of Commons, from 2003-2007 was a Member of the Government’s Sustainable Energy Policy Advisory Board, and in 2007 was a Specialist Adviser to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Climate Change Bill. He was also an occasional consultant to the Government’s Sustainable Development Commission, and, before that, an adviser to the Government’s Advisory Committee on Business and the Environment and Round Table on Sustainable Development. He has been a contributor to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales’ course for senior executives on business and the environment, and the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership, at the University of Cambridge. Since 2003 he has been a member, and is now Chairman, of the Judging Panel, UK Ashden Sustainable Energy Awards, and he is on the Judging Panel of the Rushlight and Rosenblatt New Energy Awards. He was a member in 2010-11 of two Ministerial Advisory Panels, on the Green Deal (DECC) and on the Natural Environment White Paper (DEFRA). In 2011 he was appointed Vice-Chairman of the DG Environment Commissioner’s High-Level Economists Expert Group on Resource Efficiency, and in 2012 a member of the European Commission’s European Resource Efficiency Platform. In 1994 Paul Ekins received a Global 500 Award ‘for outstanding environmental achievement’ from the United Nations Environment Programme.
Paul Ekins’ academic work focuses on the conditions and policies for achieving an environmentally sustainable economy; in 2012-14 he was the Chair of the UCL Green Economy Policy Commission, which published its report, Greening the Recovery, in February 2014. He is an authority on a number of areas of energy-environment-economy interaction and environmental policy, including: sustainable development assessment methodologies; scenarios, modelling and forecasting; resource productivity; sustainable energy use; the adjustment of national accounts to take account of environmental impacts; environmental economic instruments and ecological tax reform; sustainable consumption; and environment and trade. He is the author of numerous papers, book-chapters and articles in a wide range of journals, and has written or edited twelve books, including Global Warming and Energy Demand (Routledge, 1995) and Economic Growth and Environmental Sustainability: the Prospects for Green Growth (Routledge, London, 2000). He is editor or co-editor of the books Understanding the Costs of Environmental Regulation in Europe (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2009), Trade, Globalization, and Sustainability Impact Assessment: A Critical Look at Methods and Outcomes (Earthscan, London, 2009), Carbon-Energy Taxation: Lessons from Europe (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2009), Hydrogen Energy: Economic and Social Challenges (Earthscan, London, 2010) and Energy 2050: the Transition to a Secure, Low-Carbon Energy System for the UK (Earthscan, London, 2011); Environmental Tax Reform: A Policy for Green Growth (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2011); and Global Energy: Issues, Potentials and Policy Implications (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014 forthcoming).