22 November 2024 – Club of Rome member Mathis Wackernagel has been awarded the 2024 Sustainability Award in Leadership in Implementation by the Nobel Sustainability Trust for his contribution to the awareness of climate change and challenges.
Wackernagel co-developed the concept of Ecological Footprint in the early 1990s with his doctorate supervisor, Professor William Rees, at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. This widespread and popular concept helps compare human demand against planetary or regional ecosystem regeneration. Based on this idea, he co-founded in 2003 with Susan Burns the Global Footprint Network, an international nonprofit organisation founded in 2003, advising politics and organisations in their decisions to strive for a more sustainable world and raising awareness about the limited natural resources of our planet. Its largest campaign initiated in 2006 is the annual Earth Overshoot Day which marks the date when humanity has used up all the natural resources that the Earth can provide in a year.
“It is an incredible honour to be recognised by the Nobel family. It is inspiring to see them now emphasise the importance of sustainability, a dimension that, in 1885, had not yet been acknowledged as essential to humanity’s well-being. I am deeply moved by their decision to highlight overshoot—humanity’s overuse of our planet’s resources—as the core driver undermining both ecological and economic stability,” says Wackernagel.
Wackernagel’s work with governments, corporations, and organisations has influenced environmental policies and sustainability practices worldwide. He has authored and contributed to more than 100 peer-reviewed papers, numerous articles, reports, and various books on sustainability that focus on embracing resource limits and developing metrics for sustainability.
“This recognition also honours the work championed by the Club of Rome: exploring ways for everyone to thrive within the limits of our planet. I am profoundly grateful to the Nobel family, their Sustainability Trust, and the Technical University of Munich’s academic selection committee for their dedication,” Wackernagel added.
His work was also recently recognised by the Colombian Parliament, having received the awards “Gran Cruz con Placa de Oro” and the “Orden de la Democracia Simón Bolívar” in the context of COP16, the UN biodiversity conference held in Calí, Colombia this October.
Read more about the Nobel Sustainability Award.
