About

Click here for Edward's CV.

My vision and approach

For 27 years, I have worked at the intersection of climate change, international development, human rights, and corporate sustainability. My experience includes designing climate strategies for more than 250 companies across ten industrial sectors and six continents.

Throughout my career, I have sought to advance a vision of climate-resilient development: a world in which decarbonization, adaptation, economic opportunity, and social justice reinforce one another.

I believe that effective climate leadership must do more than establish ambitious targets or manage environmental risks. It must create tangible value: strengthening competitiveness, improving operational performance, unlocking investment, generating new business opportunities, and building resilience in a changing world.

Achieving this requires more than scientific expertise or technically sound strategies. It requires an understanding of political and economic incentives, the ability to connect ideas and institutions, the capacity to build coalitions, and the skill to communicate a compelling vision of the future.

These convictions shape how I work. I combine rigorous analysis with systems thinking, strategic foresight, dialogue, and storytelling to help organizations recognize the risks and opportunities before them and translate climate ambition into practical, value-creating action.

Experience and impact

My career has taken me across governments, international institutions, multinational companies, and civil society, providing an unusual vantage point from which to understand the forces that enable or obstruct change.

I have served with the European Union, the Government of the Maldives, the World Bank, and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and have led climate initiatives at the World Resources Institute (WRI), Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), and the We Mean Business Coalition.

I was an early advocate of corporate climate leadership, serving as the first Policy Engagement Director of We Mean Business. My work has focused on connecting climate ambition with commercial incentives, organizational transformation, investment, and practical implementation.

My recent work with the Panama Canal Authority illustrates this approach. I helped develop an integrated climate strategy that expanded the ambition of the Canal's decarbonization plans from addressing approximately 1.5% of greenhouse gas emissions to covering 100%, while reducing the estimated investment requirement through 2030 from approximately US$2 billion to US$980 million. Equally important, the work identified approximately 17 process innovations and potential new business opportunities, including renewable-energy shore power, alternative-fuel bunkering, and technologies to support the decarbonization of maritime transport.

I am equally proud of my contribution to the emergence of climate justice as a field of international policy and practice. My doctoral research explored the relationship between climate change and human rights, and how strengthening human rights can build climate resilience. In 2007, I co-authored the Malé Declaration on the Human Dimension of Global Climate Change, the first state-led initiative addressing climate change and human rights. I subsequently worked for more than a decade to advance recognition of human rights within international climate negotiations.

Teaching, Coaching and Public Engagement

Teaching, coaching, and mentoring are central to my professional practice. I believe that lasting organizational change requires more than sound strategies and technical expertise. It depends on developing the knowledge, confidence, judgment, and leadership capabilities of the people responsible for making change happen.

Throughout my career, I have designed and facilitated learning experiences that combine expert insights, practical application, peer exchange, and individual coaching. Whether guiding senior executives through strategic challenges, facilitating peer learning among sustainability leaders, or mentoring emerging professionals, my aim is to help people develop the understanding and capabilities needed to lead change within their own organizations.

I also have a longstanding commitment to academic education. I regularly teach postgraduate students in Europe and North America and have been commissioned to design climate curricula for Masters programs . In 2019, I designed a six week course on professionalizing climate advocacy, offered pro bono to civil society organisations, in the United States.

I have spoken at more than 700 events across the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia, engaging audiences on climate policy, corporate sustainability, international development, human rights, and organizational transformation.

I am the author of 2 books – “A World Made New” in 2020, and “The New Corporate Climate Leadership” in 2021. I have spoken at more than 700 events across the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia.

I welcome opportunities to teach, engage in executive learning, coaching, mentoring, keynote addresses, and public engagement.