About

Click here for Edward's CV.

Experience

I have spent 25 years working at the nexus between climate change, human rights and corporate sustainability. During these years, I have served across the public sector in various positions at the European Union, the Government of the Maldives, The World Bank and The International Finance Corporation. I have led climate change practices at some of the world’s most prestigious sustainability organizations including The World Resources Institute (WRI), Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), and the We Mean Business coalition.

I am proud to have been an early champion of corporate climate leadership, serving as the first policy engagement director for the We Mean Business coalition, and since 2012, designing climate strategies for more than 250 companies across ten industrial sectors, including working with many of the world’s leading financial services companies.

I am equally proud to have been one of the early pioneers of the climate justice movement. I spent ten years pursuing doctoral research to explore how climate change undermines human rights and establish the ways in which strengthening human rights builds climate resilience. I co-authored the Male’ Declaration in 2007, the first state-led initiative on climate change and human rights, and worked for more than a decade to bring human rights into the UN climate convention.

I am the author of 2 books – “A World Made New” in 2020, and the recently published “The New Corporate Climate Leadership”.

Vision

My work focuses on building climate resilient companies to catalyze climate resilient development. This has three components:

• First, we must avoid unmanageable climate change through aggressive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions during this decade, with the goal of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

• Second, we must enhance our collective ability to manage unavoidable climate change, by building adaptive capacity across our socio-ecological systems. This requires improving the way we diagnose climate risk and investing in the six capital assets that improve risk management.

• Third, we must invest in a just transition, by ensuring that the new climate economy is one of shared prosperity and not a repetition of the inequality and extraction of the high-carbon economy.  

Personal

Born in Dublin, Ireland, I have lived in the United States since 2007.

I am lucky to be Carina’s husband and endlessly entertained by being father to Robert and James.