About Us

Lester Brown

Lester R. Brown is President of the Earth Policy Institute, a non-profit organization founded in May 2001 in Washington D. C., which is dedicated to interdisciplinary research. The purpose of the Earth Policy is to provide a vision of an environmentally sustainable economy and a project to reach it. Brown has been described as “one of the world’s most influential thinkers.” by the Washington Post. The Telegraph of Calcutta called him “the guru of the environmental movement”. In 1986, the Library of the United States Congress requested his personal papers noting that his writings “have already strongly affected thinking about problems of world population and resources.”

30 years ago, Brown helped pioneer the concept of environmentally sustainable development, a concept that has been used in the design of eco-economy. He was the founder of the World Watch Institute and he was president during its first twenty-six years. He has authored or co-authored many books and has received over twenty honorary awards. His books have been translated into more than forty languages.

Brown is a member of the MacArthur Foundation, he has received notable awards, including the Award of the United Nations Environment in 1987, the Gold Medal of the World Wild Fund for Nature 1989 and Japan’s Blue Planet Prize in 1994 for his “outstanding contribution to solving global environmental problems.” In 1995, Marquis Who’s Who, the most prominent biographical editor of the world, named him as one of fifty great Americans. More recently he was awarded with the Presidential Medal of Italy, the Borgström Prize by the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry, and was named honorary professor of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. His publications include: Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to save civilization, World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse, Eco-Economy, the book of the Earth Policy, Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity.

Pavan Sukhdev

Pavan Sukhdev, born and raised in New Delhi is the founder and CEO of GIST Advisory, he worked in the sector of the financial markets in companies like the ANZ Bank (1983-1994) and Deutsche Bank where he lasted 14 years and was in charge as director of the Global Markets Division, Chief Operating Officer for the markets in Asia located in Singapore (2001-2003) and CCO. Furthermore he founded and chaired the GMC (Global Markets Centre) in 2006.
He was chosen by the G8 +5 to direct the TEEB ( The Economics of Ecosystems & Biodiversity) where he dimensioned the problem of worldwide loss of biodiversity, degradation of the ecosystems regarding economic and human wellbeing and the proposed solutions addressed to the responsible politicians, administrators, companies and citizens in particular. As Special Adviser and head of the Initiative for a Green Economy of UNEP he published the final report “For a Green Economy” in February 2011.
Pavan was president of the “Global Agenda Council” of the World Economic Forum for Ecosystems and Biodiversity (2009-2011) and was an orator in Davos in 2010 and 2011. He is a member of the Joined Directives of Conservation International and the Stockholm Resilience Centre. In 2012 he was appointed by the United Nations Program for the Environment as “Goodwill Ambassador”.
His work Corporation 2020 proposes topics like responsible advertising, taxation for natural resources, financial leverage and incorporation of externalities with the object of managing the corporations in a participatory, transparent, ethical and responsible way.

Javier de Cendra

Javier de Cendra is an energy and environmental lawyer at the UCL Energy Institute. He is the Director of Research in Ethics at the Energy Institute, a member of the LLM on energy and environmental law at the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium) and legal expert in the Forum for Adaptation to Climate Change created by the Catholic University of Leuven and the University of Malta. He studied a first degree in law and economics, after which he gained an LL.M in international, European and comparative energy and environmental law.

At the UCL Energy Institute, Javier brings a legal dimension to the highly multidisciplinary work currently undertaken (covering many policy, technical and behavioral aspects of the production and consumption of energy). The main goal is to generate new collaborative and multidisciplinary research, whether at international, European or domestic levels, which develops innovative solutions in response to current challenges faced by societies in moving towards low carbon and sustainable futures.

Rob Fowler

Rob Fowler is an Adjunct Professor in the Law School at the University of South Australia, having retired in late 2008 after teaching and researching in the field of environmental law in Australia for over thirty years. He continues to teach environmental law part-time at the University of South Australia and also at the University of Adelaide and the Australian National University. He is the Chair of the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law and represents the Oceania region on its Governing Board. Rob is also Chair of the South Australian Environmental Defender’s Office, a public interest environmental law firm, and serves as a member of the Governing Board of the Australian Conservation Foundation, a national environmental NGO in Australia. He is also a member of the IUCN Environmental Law Commission, and participates in two of its Specialist Groups, on soils and forests. His research interests include climate change, forestry, soils and protection of the marine environment.

Stephen Kass

Steve Kass is the founder of the Environmental Practice Group of Carter Ledyard & Milburn LLP in New York. Formerly a partner and founder of Berle, Kass & Case, company that specialized in environmental law when the studies in the field first began in the 70s. He holds a B.A. magna cum laude from Yale (1961) and L.L.B. cum laude from Harvard (1964). Additionally, he was an Associate Professor of Law School Pace (Pace Law School) and Associate Professor in Brooklyn Law School (Brooklyn Law School), where he teaches topics related to international environmental law and climate change, economic development and human rights. Regularly, S. Kass has published articles on environmental law at New York Law Journal since 1986. He is a former vice president of New York City Bar Association. He currently chairs the International Human Rights Committee, is Director Emeritus of Human Rights Watch and a member of the Steering Committee of the National Center for Law and Economic Justice.

Gloria Isabel Triviño Valenzuela

Lawyer from the Universidad Católica de Colombia, with emphasis in civil law from the Faculty of Paris X Nanterre (France) and specialized in environmental law at the Universidad del Rosario in Bogota. She is a consultant in environmental law, regime of emergencies and disasters, communities and social responsibility as well as an active board member of the Colombian Environmental Bar Association since 1985.

Former National Superintendent of Health, she also addressed the legal management of organizations such as the Special Administrative Unit of Civil Aeronautics, the Institute of Urban Development – IDU and the District Institute of Recreation and Sport – IDRD. Triviño Valenzuela is also a university professor and researcher on environmental law and sustainable development. She was also a member of the first team of social auditing for exploitation and production contracts of the National Agency of Hydrocarbons (ANH). She is a certified instructor by the U.S EPA for teaching the program on Principles of Enforcement and Compliance of Environmental Law. Her research work includes: La Conciliación Ambiental en Colombia (The Environmental Conciliation in Colombia), Orden Jurídico de los Humedales a partir de la Convención de Ramsar (Wetlands Legal Order from the Ramsar Convention) and Lineamientos Metodológicos para la Aplicación de la Legislación Ambiental (Methodological Guidelines for the Implementation of Environmental Legislation).

Claudia Martínez

Claudia Martinez is the Director of E3- Ecology, Economics and Ethics. Studied Business Administration at the Los Andes University in Bogotá and holds a Master’s Degree in Development Economics and a Master’s Degree in Environmental Studies from Yale University. She has more than 25 years of practical experience in environmental management and has actively participated in major environmental landmarks, including the Rio Conference 1992, the creation of GEF, the conventions on climate change and biodiversity, the Millennium Development Goals in environmental sustainability amongst others. She has been Director of the Office of Sustainable Development and later Vice President for Social and Environmental Development at the Bank for Latin America (CAF), Deputy Minister of Environment of Colombia, and environmental officer for the Latin American Bureau of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in New York. She is a member of the board of Tropenbos International, CIFOR, the Center for International Forestry Research, the Yale environmental leadership council and CATIE, the Center for Research and Learning in Tropical Agriculture. She is a professor at the MBA, and MGA at Los Andes University in Colombia.

Nathan Borgford-Parnell

Nathan is an U.S. attorney specializing in international environmental law, global climate change, sustainable development, and the rule of law. He has worked in a number of countries around the world including, Albania, Jordan, Mongolia, Hungary, and Colombia. He is currently a climate law fellow at the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development (IGSD) and a staff attorney with the International Network for Environmental Compliance and Enforcement. Nathan is also the founder of Valkyrie-Energy, a consulting firm that promotes the development of renewable energy and consults on the expansion of sustainable low carbon energy in emerging markets. He has published a number of articles and papers on near-term climate mitigation, short-lived climate pollutants, the Montreal Protocol, and renewable energy.

Manuel Guzman Hennessey

Manuel Guzmán Hennessey is a consultant and annalist on issues of global climate change. He serves as an advisor to governments and organizations and he is a distinguished university professor, writer and contributor for various magazines and news papers. He is also an academic observer of the Conference of the Parts (COP) of the United Nations. Guzmán Hennessey advised the cleaner production program of the Department of Environment and Development of Argentina (2001-2005). He was also founder of the environmental program for plastic and chemical sectors in Colombia and for the Responsible Care program in Canada (Andi, Acoplásticos, CCS, 1991-1996). He has published several books such as: Entre Bali y Copenhague (Universidad del Rosario, 2009), La Generación del Cambio Climático (Universidad Bolivariana de Santiago de Chile, 2009, Universidad del Rosario 2010), Educación para la adaptación (2010), and he is the editor of the series theoretical approaches to climate change (Universidad del Rosario/KLN). Currently Guzmán Hennessey is the General Manager of the KLIMAFORUM LATIONOAMERICA NETWORK – KLN, a lecturer and researcher at the Universidad del Rosario, environmental project evaluator for the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, opinion columnist in the El Tiempo newspaper and a permanent columnist for specialized national and foreign magazines.

Leonie Reins

Leonie Reins is a German national with legal expertise in environmental and energy law. Leonie is writing her PhD thesis at KU Leuven in Belgium on the coherent regulation of energy and the environment in the EU.
Leonie completed an LL.M. in Energy and Environmental Law at KU Leuven and worked there as an assistant to the program’s director, where she conducted research on various topics related to her field of studies including: environmental liability; shale gas regulation in the United States and Europe; ecosystem service functions. Further Leonie worked as a Legal Research at Milieu Ltd., a Brussels- based consultancy on environmental law.
Prior to arriving in Belgium, Leonie was a legal intern at the Environmental Law Center of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in Bonn, Germany, where she worked on access and benefit-sharing, protected area legislation and connectivity conservation.
Leonie serves as a focal point of CEID in Europe in order to create synergies with people and institutions in this region.

Mateo Ledesma Bohorquez

Environmental Engineer from the Universidad El Bosque. Member of Choc Izone Research Group.

Currently, he supports different projects in CEID Colombia, such as the organizing and preparing academic agenda of the Annual International Environmental Congress, follow-up of the international climate change negotiations, among others.