Anders Wijkman

Anders Wijkman (Sweden) has a BA from the University of Stockholm (1967). He is a former Member of the European Parliament, spent many years as a civil society leader - in humanitarian as well as environment affairs - as well as director of research capacity building. He is co-author of the 2012 book “Bankrupting Nature: Denying Our Planetary Boundaries.”  

Anders spent eight years early in his career as a Member of the Swedish Parliament, and then left politics to become the Secretary General of the Swedish Red Cross and also serving as president of the International Red Cross Disaster Relief Commission. Wijkman then served as Secretary General for the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, and was actively involved in the NGO preparations for the Rio Summit in 1992. In 1992 Wijkman was appointed Director General of SAREC – the Swedish Agency for Research Cooperation with Developing Countries, and then in 1995-97, Wijkman served as Policy Director of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and Assistant Secretary General of the UN.

In 1999 Wijkman was elected Member of the European Parliament. As a Member of the EP, he focused on issues related to climate change, energy policy, environment and health, development cooperation and humanitarian affairs. Wijkman was the EP´s rapporteur on a number of important issues, like HIV/Aids Prevention, the Development Cooperation Budget, Renewable Energy in Developing Countries, the Energy Efficiency Action Plan, Integrated Product Policy, Climate Change Mitigation and Sustainability Criteria for Biofuels. He also served on STOA, the Science and Technology Options Panel. Wijkman is Co-President of Club of Rome and a Councillor of the World Future Council. He is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry as well as the World Academy of Art and sciences. He is also a member of the Board of the Stockholm Resilience Center, the International Institute of Industrial Environmental Economics in Lund, the Tällberg Foundation and Chairman of The Swedish Recycling Industries’ Association.