Phoebe Koundouri

Professor Phoebe Koundouri is speaking at The University of Sheffield on Thursday 22 October, from 5:00pm to 6:30pm. It's an online talk, so you can tune in from home rather than heading into the city centre. The session is part of Rethinking Prosperity on a Finite Planet, a series of public talks, film screenings and book-club discussions run by the Grantham Centre, which takes its cue from the 1972 book The Limits to Growth.

Koundouri is a Professor of Environmental Economics at the Athens University of Economics and Business and a Visiting Professor at the University of Cambridge. Her research covers sustainable development, climate economics and natural resource management. She works with a human-centred, interdisciplinary economic systems approach that brings natural capital, ecosystem services, environmental pressures, resilience, equity and wider societal wellbeing into the analysis of economic development, drawing on a Beyond-GDP modelling framework. It's a way of looking at economic progress that counts more than just the numbers on a balance sheet.

She's also heavily involved on the global stage: she's Co-Chair of the United Nations Global Sustainable Development Report 2027 and Chair of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network Global Climate Hub. Over the years, she's advised the United Nations, the World Bank, the European Commission and the OECD on climate and sustainability policy, so she's well-versed in how these ideas translate into actual policy.

The talk is free, but you'll need to sign up on Eventbrite to reserve a place. Once you've registered, the online event link will be sent closer to the date. It runs from 5:00pm to 6:30pm on Thursday 22 October.