A Key Player of the International Agenda for Sustainable Development

"Jim MacNeill's intellectual clarity was key to sustdev agenda. Farewell to a true gentleman!", tweeted Achim Steiner, executive director of UNEP. Dr. Jim MacNeill, one of the leading minds of international environmental policy, died on 5 March 2016. The Canadian, who studied physics, mathematics and mechanics at the University of Saskatchewan, as well as economics and political sciences at the University of Stockholm, was OECD Environment Director in Paris from 1978 to 1984. After that he became Secretary-General of World Commission on Environment and Development, the so-called Brundtland Commission. Their report "Our Common Future", whose lead author was MacNeill, heavily influenced the Earth Summits in Rio and Johannesburg regarding the objectives for a sustainable development. For those values he advocated in scientific committees, as a counsellor for various governments, the World Bank and as a part of a number of other bodies. He had been honoured with environmental awards internationally.

Jim MacNeill had been a member of the Wuppertal Institute's International Advisory Board from the beginning until 2002. The institute remembers him both with high regard and gratitude.