Paul Ekins, Professor at UCL-Energy receives OBE in 2015 New Year's Honours List

Professor Paul Ekins, Director of UCL ISR and Professor of Energy and Environment Policy at the UCL Energy Institute, has been awarded an OBE in the 2015 New Year’s Honours list for services to environmental policy.

Professor Ekins joined UCL in 2009, firstly within the UCL Energy Institute, before becoming Director of UCL ISR in 2012. He is also Deputy Director of the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC), and the Co-Director responsible for its Energy resources theme, a member of UNEP’s International Resource Panel and of the Global Green Growth Knowledge Platform, and of Ofgem’s high-level Sustainable Development Advisory Group.

Professor Ekins said: “Being awarded an honour of this kind is both inspiring and humbling. The recognition of achievements so far is clearly an inspiration to do more; but the amount that still needs to be done in relation to environmental policy certainly prevents any sense of ‘mission accomplished’. From the global issues of climate change and biodiversity loss, to whether our air is fit to breathe, our water to drink and our seas to swim in, environmental policy will be critical to human health, wealth creation and quality of life. Securing these benefits is the agenda for environmental policy for now and the foreseeable future, and I am grateful for this award because it will help me play my part in what needs to be done.”

Professor Ekins' academic work focuses on the conditions and policies for achieving an environmentally sustainable economy, and he is an authority on a number of areas of energy-environment-economy (E3) interaction and environmental policy, including: sustainable development assessment methodologies; resource productivity; sustainable energy use; E3 modelling and scenarios; the adjustment of national accounts to take account of environmental impacts; environmental economic instruments and ecological tax reform; sustainable consumption; and environment and trade.

He is the author of numerous papers, book-chapters and articles in a wide range of journals, and has written or edited twelve books, including Global Warming and Energy Demand (Routledge, 1995); and Economic Growth and Environmental Sustainability: the Prospects for Green Growth (Routledge, London, 2000). His most recent books of which he is editor or co-editor are Understanding the Costs of Environmental Regulation in Europe (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2009) and Trade, Globalization, and Sustainability Impact Assessment: A Critical Look at Methods and Outcomes (Earthscan, London, 2009), Carbon-Energy Taxation: Lessons from Europe (Oxford University Press, Oxford), Hydrogen Energy: Economic and Social Challenges, (Earthscan, London), Environmental Tax Reform: a Policy for Green Growth (Oxford University Press, Oxford); and Energy 2050: the Transition to a Secure, Low-Carbon Energy System for the UK (Earthscan, London)

Read more 

Contact: UCL Media Relations