Paul Ekins

Paul Ekins has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of London and is Professor of Resources and Environmental Policy at the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources, University College London. From 2005-10 was Chairman of the UK’s National Industrial Symbiosis Programme (NISP), the country’s most effective initiative at promoting resource efficiency in industry. In 2013 he was appointed to UNEP’s International Resource Panel (IRP), for whom he was lead author of a major report on resource efficiency at the request of the German Government at the G7 Summit in 2015. He was also co-author of the National Government chapter of the UK Chief Scientific Advisor’s 2017 report From Waste to Resource Productivity: Evidence and Case Studies. 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. He was one of two Co-Chairs of UNEP’s sixth Global Environmental Outlook (GEO-6), which is the United Nations’ flagship environmental report, and which was presented to the United Nations Environment Assembly in March 2019. He is the author of numerous papers, book-chapters and articles in a wide range of journals, and has written or edited thirteen books. His most recent book is Stopping Climate Change: Policies for Real Zero (Routledge, 2024). He is currently lead coordinating author on an IRP report on financing the extraction of critical minerals for sustainable development, due for publication in 2024. In 1994 Paul Ekins received UNEP’s Global 500 Award ‘for outstanding environmental achievement’. In the UK New Year’s Honours List for 2015 he received an OBE for services to environmental policy.