Combining ecology and economy meaningfully

ACHIM STEINER

Executive Director of the 
UN Environment Programme (UNEP)

Achim Steiner is currently the highest-ranking German at the United Nations – and one of the longest-serving holders of his post. For nearly ten years now, he has been an untiring champion of envir­onmental concerns in his capacity as UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). Whether the issue is climate protection or natural resources, forest conservation or biodiversity, Steiner is tireless in his efforts to raise awareness of the depletability and overexploitation of natural resources and the connection between economic activity and development. He always qualifies his message by pointing out that the world can change course and balance economic interests with environmental concerns. Combine ecology and economy is his credo – today often labelled green economy. Steiner has long been an advocate of this approach. “The money’s there,“ he says. “It just needs to be spent properly.”

Environmental protection and sustainable development seem to be second nature to Steiner, but they are issues he got into more or less by chance, as he once confessed in a newspaper interview. As a young man, he relates, he was sitting at an airport in the heart of the Himalayas and got talking to an environmentalist who was working on a report on the local environmental situation. From then on, the topic had him hooked. Steiner, a German and Brazilian national, studied political science, philosophy and economics and initially worked in development cooperation – in Pakistan, South Africa, Vietnam and Oman. After discovering his “green streak”, he devoted his attention to protecting the environment, first as Director General of the Geneva-based World Conservation Union, and since 2005 as head of UNEP in Nairobi.

The mandate there expires in a few months’ time. It remains to be seen where and how he will then make use of his extensive international experience. Thanks to his “compelling personality” (Klaus Töpfer), the 54-year-old will have no difficulty making his mark outside the realm of green issues. ▪