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Wolfgang Sachs | |
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| Born | 25 November 1946 (age 77) |
| Nationality | German |
| Alma mater | University of California, Berkeley |
| Known for | Environmental studies |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Sociology, Catholic theology, environment |
| Institutions | Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy |
Wolfgang Sachs (German: [zaks] ; born 25 November 1946) is a researcher, writer and university teacher in the field of environment, development, and globalization.
Sachs studied sociology and Catholic theology in Munich, Tübingen and Berkeley. He holds a master's degree in sociology (1971), a master's degree in theology (1972) and a PhD in social sciences (1975).
After a period (1975–1984) as assistant professor at Technische Universität Berlin he joined the Society for International Development in Rome as a co-editor of the journal Development. 1987–1990 he was visiting professor at Pennsylvania State University and 1990–1993 fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities in Essen.
In 1992 he edited and co-authored the volume The Development Dictionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power (London: Zed Books), by now a 'classic' in (Post-)Development Studies, which has been translated into a dozen languages. A new edition, including a new preface, was published in 2010.
Since 1993 Sachs has worked at the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, since 2009 as head of the Berlin Office. He served also as chairman of Greenpeace Germany from 1993 to 2001, and as a lead author in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change from 1999 to 2001. On behalf of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, he chaired two international civil society expert panels, one to draft a memorandum for the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002 (The Jo'burg Memo) and the other (also on behalf of Misereor) to carry out a Dialogue / Report on multilateral trade rules for sustainable markets in agriculture (Slow Trade – Sound Farming, 2007). He is also Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the annual fair "Terra Futura" in Florence, Italy a Curator of the annual "Toblach Talks" in Toblach, Italy, and a co-organizer of the annual "Spiekeroog Climate Talks" on the island of Spiekeroog, Germany. Sachs is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions and for Citizens' Action. [1]
Furthermore, he is the principal author of Fair Future: Resource Conflicts, Security and Global Justice and Sustainable Germany in a Globalized World, both major studies produced by the Wuppertal Institute. Sachs is also a member of the Club of Rome, a lecturer at Schumacher College and an honorary professor at the University of Kassel, Germany.
In 1993, Wolfgang Sachs summarised sufficiency with "four Ds": [2]
Heinrich Theodor Böll was a German writer. Considered one of Germany's foremost post-World War II writers, Böll received the Georg Büchner Prize (1967) and the Nobel Prize for Literature (1972).
The European Green Party (EGP), also referred to as European Greens, is a transnational, European political party representing national parties from across Europe who share Green values.
The Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy is a German research institution for sustainability research, focusing on impacts and practical application. It explores and develops models, strategies, and instruments to support sustainable development at local, national, and international levels. Research at the Wuppertal Institute focuses on ecology and its relation to economy and society. Special emphasis is put on analyzing and supporting technological and social innovations that decouple the prosperity of economic growth from the use of natural resources. The organization's activities focus on developing transformation processes aimed at shaping a climate-friendly and resource-efficient world.
Development studies is an interdisciplinary branch of social science. Development studies is offered as a specialized master's degree in a number of reputed universities around the world. It has grown in popularity as a subject of study since the early 1990s, and has been most widely taught and researched in developing countries and countries with a colonial history, such as the UK, where the discipline originated. Students of development studies often choose careers in international organisations such as the United Nations, World Bank, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), media and journalism houses, private sector development consultancy firms, corporate social responsibility (CSR) bodies and research centers.
Klaus Huber was a Swiss composer and academic based in Basel and Freiburg. Among his students were Brian Ferneyhough, Michael Jarrell, Younghi Pagh-Paan, Toshio Hosokawa, Wolfgang Rihm, and Kaija Saariaho. He received the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize in 2009, among other awards.
The Heinrich Böll Foundation is a German, legally independent political foundation. Affiliated with Alliance 90/The Greens, it was founded in 1997 when three predecessors merged. The foundation was named after German writer Heinrich Böll (1917–1985).
C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group is a group of 96 cities around the world that represents one twelfth of the world's population and one quarter of the global economy. Created and led by cities, C40 is focused on fighting the climate crisis and driving urban action that reduces greenhouse gas emissions and climate risks, while increasing the health, wellbeing and economic opportunities of urban residents.
Postdevelopment theory holds that the whole concept and practice of development is a reflection of Western-Northern hegemony over the rest of the world. Postdevelopment thought arose in the 1980s out of criticisms voiced against development projects and development theory, which justified them.
Peter Robbins is a British author whose published works include Stolen Fruit and a range of specialist books on related topics including precious metals markets, tropical commodity markets, trade sanctions, access to market information, and on support for rural communities.
The so-called Territorialist School is a contemporary approach to urban and regional planning and design grown out from the work of a number of Italian scholars, among whom Alberto Magnaghi is the most prominent figure.
Material input per unit of service (MIPS) is an economic concept, originally developed at the Wuppertal Institute, Germany in the 1990s. The MIPS concept can be used to measure eco-efficiency of a product or service and applied in all scales from a single product to complex systems. The calculation takes into account materials required to produce a product or service. The total material input (MI) is divided by the number of service units (S). For example, in case of a passenger car, the number of service units is the total number of passenger kilometres during the whole life span of the vehicle. The lower the material input per kilometre, the more eco-efficient is the vehicle. The whole life-cycle of a product or service is measured when MIPS values are calculated. This allows comparisons of resource consumption of different solutions to produce the same service. When a single product is examined, the MIPS calculations reveal the magnitude of resource use along the life-cycle and help to focus efforts on the most significant phases to reduce environmental burden of the product.
Rüdiger Safranski is a German philosopher and author.
The World Health Summit is an international conference that has been held in Berlin every October since 2009. It has developed into one of the world's leading global health conferences. It was held for the first time on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the founding of the Charité. 2,500 experts from around 100 countries from science, business, politics and civil society discussed the most important issues of global health care and made recommendations. The academic backbone of the event is the M8 Alliance of Academic Health Centers, Universities and National Academies. From the very beginning, the World Health Summit has been under the patronage of the German Chancellor and the French President. Since 2019, the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) has also been a patron of the World Health Summit.
The 41st G7 summit was held in Schloss Elmau, Krün, Bavaria, Germany on 7–8 June 2015. In March 2014 the remaining members of the G8 declared that a meaningful discussion was currently not possible with Russia, and since then meetings have continued under the G7 name.
Resource justice is a term in environmentalism and in environmental ethics. It combines elements of distributive justice and environmental justice and is based on the observation that many countries rich in natural resources such as minerals and other raw materials nevertheless experience high levels of poverty.
Trent Schroyer was an American scholar, author and international activist.
Cosmopolitan localism or Cosmolocalism is a social innovation approach to community development that seeks to link local and global communities through resilient infrastructures that bring production and consumption closer together, building on distributed systems. The concept of cosmopolitan localism was pioneered by Wolfgang Sachs, a scholar in the field of environment, development, and globalization. Sachs is known as one of the many followers of Ivan Illich and his work has influenced the green and ecological movements. Contrary to glocalisation, cosmolocalism moves from locality to universality, acknowledging the local as the locus of social co-existence and emphasizing the potential of global networking beyond capitalist market rules.
Sergey Lagodinsky is a German lawyer and politician of the Alliance 90/The Greens who has been serving as a Member of the European Parliament since 2019.
Silke Helfrich was a German author, activist and scholar, best known for her contributions to the commons as a socio-political paradigm. Along with her frequent coauthor David Bollier, she was considered one of the most important international voices on the commons. She was regional director for Latin America at the Heinrich Böll Foundation, the think tank of the German Green Party.
Barbara Unmüßig is a German political scientist and from 2002 to 2022 board member of the Heinrich Böll Foundation.
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