Environmental resource management or environmental management is the management of the interaction and impact of human societies on the environment. It is not, as the phrase might suggest, the management of the environment itself. Environmental resources management aims to ensure that ecosystem services are protected and maintained for future human generations, and also maintain ecosystem integrity through considering ethical, economic, and scientific (ecological) variables. Environmental resource management tries to identify factors between meeting needs and protecting resources. It is thus linked to environmental protection, resource management, sustainability, integrated landscape management, natural resource management, fisheries management, forest management, wildlife management, environmental management systems, and others.
The Earth Institute is a research institute at Columbia University created in 1995 for addressing complex issues facing the planet and its inhabitants, with a focus on sustainable development. With an interdisciplinary approach, this includes research in climate change, geology, global health, economics, management, agriculture, ecosystems, urbanization, energy, hazards, and water. The Earth Institute's activities are guided by the idea that science and technological tools that already exist could be applied to greatly improve conditions for the world's poor, while preserving the natural systems that support life on Earth.
Norman Myers was a British environmentalist specialising in biodiversity and also noted for his work on environmental refugees.
Ted London is an American scholar and teacher on Base of the Pyramid (BoP) business strategies. He is the Ford Motor Company Clinical Professor of Business Administration at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. London is an internationally recognized expert on the intersection of business strategy and poverty alleviation. In 2016 London authored The Base of the Pyramid Promise: Building Businesses with Impact and Scale, which translates over 25 years of research and experience into actionable strategies, frameworks, and tools for managers seeking inclusive growth. The book won the Responsible Research in Management Award in 2018 and the Humanistic Management Book Award in 2019.
Mark Diesendorf is an Australian academic and environmentalist, known for his work in sustainable development and renewable energy. He currently researches at the University of New South Wales, Australia. He was formerly professor of environmental science and founding director of the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology, Sydney and before that a principal research scientist with CSIRO, where he was involved in early research on integrating wind power into electricity grids. His most recent books are The Path to a Sustainable Civilisation (2023) and Sustainable Energy Solutions for Climate Change (2014).
Robert W. Kates was an American geographer and independent scholar in Trenton, Maine, and University Professor (Emeritus) at Brown University.
The Lancaster Environment Centre (LEC) in Lancaster, England, is an interdisciplinary centre for teaching, research and collaboration at Lancaster University, founded in 2007.
Sustainability science first emerged in the 1980s and has become a new academic discipline. Similar to agricultural science or health science, it is an applied science defined by the practical problems it addresses. Sustainability science focuses on issues relating to sustainability and sustainable development as core parts of its subject matter. It is "defined by the problems it addresses rather than by the disciplines it employs" and "serves the need for advancing both knowledge and action by creating a dynamic bridge between the two".
Pamela Anne Matson is an American scientist and professor. From 2002 - 2017 she was the dean of the Stanford University School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences. She also previously worked at NASA and at the University of California, Berkeley. Matson is the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Professor of Environmental Studies (Emerita) at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and a Senior Fellow (Emerita) at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. Matson is a winner of the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, also known as the "genius grant," and is considered to be a "pioneer in the field of environmental science." She was appointed to the "Einstein Professorship" of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2011. She received an honorary doctorate from McGill University in 2017. She is married to fellow scientist Peter Vitousek.
Rosina M. Bierbaum is currently the Roy F. Westin Chair in Natural Economics and Research Professor at the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy. She is also a professor and former dean at the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE). She was hired in October 2001, by then-University of Michigan President, Lee Bollinger. She is also the current Chair of The Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel (STAP) that provides independent scientific and technical advice to the GEF on its policies, strategies, programs, and projects.
William P. Barnett is an American organizational theorist, and is the Thomas M. Siebel Professor of Business Leadership, Strategy, and Organizations at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is the BP Faculty Fellow in Global Management; Senior Fellow, Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford; Director of the Center for Global Business and the Economy; Director of the Business Strategies for Environmental Sustainability Executive Program; and Codirector of the Executive Program in Strategy and Organization.
Jay S. Golden is an academic and researcher. Golden is the Pontarelli Professor of Environmental Sustainability & Finance at Syracuse University where he also directs the Dynamic Sustainability Lab. He is the author of the 2023 book, Dynamic Sustainability: Implications for Policy, Markets and National Security.
Paul Shrivastava is Professor of Management & Organizations, at The Pennsylvania State University. He served as Chief Sustainability Officer and Director of the Sustainability Institute, until July 1, 2022. In November 2023 he was elected as Co-President of the Club of Rome. Previously he was the Executive Director of Future Earth, an international sustainability research program. Before that, he was Distinguished Professor and Director of the David O'Brien Centre for Sustainable Enterprise at Concordia University.
Arun Agrawal is a political scientist and the Samuel Trask Dana Professor in the School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) at the University of Michigan. Agrawal is the coordinator for the International Forestry Resources and Institutions network and does research in Africa and South Asia.
North American collegiate sustainability programs are institutions of higher education in the United States, Mexico, and Canada that have majors and/or minors dedicated to the subject of sustainability. Sustainability as a major and minor is spreading to more and more colleges as the need for humanity to adopt a more sustainable lifestyle becomes increasingly apparent with the onset of global warming. The majors and minors listed here cover a wide array of sustainability aspects from business to construction to agriculture to simply the study of sustainability itself.
Alon Tal is an Israeli politician, academic and environmentalist. He was a member of the 24th Knesset between 2021 and 2022, representing the Blue and White political party; founder of the Israel Union for Environmental Defense and the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies; and co-founder of Ecopeace: Friends of the Earth–Middle East, This Is My Earth, the Israel Forum for Demography, Environment and Society, Aytzim: Ecological Judaism, and the Green Movement. Tal was appointed chair of the Department of Public Policy at Tel Aviv University in 2017.
The contributions of women in climate change have received increasing attention in the early 21st century. Feedback from women and the issues faced by women have been described as "imperative" by the United Nations and "critical" by the Population Reference Bureau. A report by the World Health Organization concluded that incorporating gender-based analysis would "provide more effective climate change mitigation and adaptation."
Xuemei Bai (白雪梅) is a Distinguished Professor of Urban Environment and Human Ecology at the Australian National University. She was the winner of the 2018 Volvo Environmental Prize, and is the winner of the KIEL Global Economy Prize 2021. She is an elected fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and an ARC Laureate Fellow (2023-). Bai is a commissioner of the Earth Commission, leading a group on methods of cross-scale translation from planetary limits to local actors. She has been named as one of the World’s 100 Most Influential People in Climate Change Policy in 2019 and 2021.
Robert Sroufe is a scholar of sustainability, integrated management, high-performance buildings, supply chain management and operations. He is the Falk Chair of Sustainable Business at Chatham University. His research utilizes a systemic outlook to understand triple bottom line performance, extending TBL to the contemporary term integrated bottom line (IBL) metrics reported to internal and external stakeholders. More specifically, he focuses on the most successful systems and tools for measuring and managing the relationship between performance and the environmental, social, and financial practices of businesses. His list of publications is primarily about: how firms can create productive management systems, integrate them across business functions, and measure and manage their performance; the main drivers of sustainability; the process and importance of existing buildings becoming high-performance buildings; the UN Sustainable Development Goals; and the strategic change process that occurs during a firm's sustainable development. Michigan State University conferred him a Ph.D.
