Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement
Pavan Sukhdev (1978, Physics), President of the Board of WWF International has been awarded the 2020 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement for being a pioneer in illuminating and quantifying the economic value of our natural environment. He shares the award with conservation biologist Dr Gretchen C. Daily.
Established in 1973 by the late John and Alice Tyler, the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement is one of the first international premier awards for environmental science, environmental health, and energy.
From 2008 till 2011, as Special Adviser and Head of UNEP鈥檚 Green Economy Initiative, Pavan worked in partnership with international and national agencies, including twenty UN agencies and organizations, and several universities and research institutes to deliver two important studies: UNEP鈥檚 widely appreciated and influential report “Towards a Green Economy” and the landmark G8+5 commissioned and EU-supported report suite, known as TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems & Biodiversity). Pavan was appointed UNEP Goodwill Ambassador in 2012. Yale University, USA, awarded Pavan the McCluskey Fellowship 2011. While at Yale, Pavan wrote , a book that envisions tomorrow鈥檚 corporation as an agent of an inclusive, green economy.
More recently, Pavan founded GIST Impact a sustainability consulting group with many firsts to its credit, which advises and assists corporations and governments in implementing many of the strategies and methods outlined by TEEB, the Green Economy Initiative, and Corporation 2020. GIST is an acronym for 鈥淕lobal Initiative for a Sustainable Tomorrow鈥� and its mission is to make sustainability accessible to all. It evolved from Pavan鈥檚 NGO, GIST (Green Indian States Trust), which had carried out the pioneering 鈥楪reen Accounting for Indian States Project鈥� (2004-2008).
An international banker for 25 years, Pavan鈥檚 last assignment in the finance sector was to lead Deutsche Bank鈥檚 Global Markets business division in India. This included setting up their “Global Markets Centre” 鈥� GMC Mumbai, a dedicated global hub for capital markets “front-office” off-shoring.
Pavan has served many years on the boards of several global institutions such as the Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC), Conservation International (CI) and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). Pavan was awarded the 2013 Gothenburg Award for Sustainable Development, earlier recipients included Gro Harlem Brundtland and Al Gore. He won the 2016 Blue Planet Prize of the Asahi Glass foundation for his pathbreaking work on sustainability metrics at the national, provincial and business levels.
You can watch a discussion between Pavan and Dr Gretchen Daily on .
Photo: Leonardo Druscovich
Published: 7 October 2021