Prof. Paul Ekins

Paul Ekins has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of London and is Professor of Resources and Environmental Policy at the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources, University College London. From 2005-10 was Chairman of the UK’s National Industrial Symbiosis Programme (NISP), the country’s most effective initiative at promoting resource efficiency in industry. In 2013 he was appointed to UNEP’s International Resource Panel (IRP), for whom he was lead author of a major report on resource efficiency at the request of the German Government at the G7 Summit in 2015. He was also co-author of the National Government chapter of the UK Chief Scientific Advisor’s 2017 report From Waste to Resource Productivity: Evidence and Case Studies. For the IRP he was also a co-author of its 2020 report on Mineral Resource Governance in the 21st Century, and was coordinating lead author of the IRP report Financing the Responsible Extraction of Energy Transition Minerals for Sustainable Development, published in 2025. In 2011 he was appointed Vice-Chairman of the DG Environment Commissioner’s High-Level Economists Expert Group on Resource Efficiency, and in 2012 a member of the European Commission’s European Resource Efficiency Platform. He was one of two Co-Chairs of UNEP’s sixth Global Environmental Outlook (GEO-6), which is the United Nations’ flagship environmental report, and which was presented to the United Nations Environment Assembly in March 2019. He is currently lead coordinating author on an IRP report on financing the extraction of critical minerals for sustainable development. In 1994 Paul Ekins received UNEP’s Global 500 Award ‘for outstanding environmental achievement’. In the UK New Year’s Honours List for 2015 he received an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) for services to environmental policy.