Sustainable Places: Climate Leadership for COP28

Efrosyni (Effie) Konstantinou is Associate Professor in the Strategic Management of Projects and an expert in Executive Education at The Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction, UCL. She leads an interdisciplinary programme of research on the politics of the self in connection with ethics, professionalism and Grand Challenges. Her work builds on existentialist philosophy and the human condition, the sociology of the professions and the individual as an agent of professionalism, and critical management studies and the power of expert labour. She is founding chair of the Post Experience Education Working Group and chair of the Knowledge and Learning Special Interest Group at the British Academy of Management. Since 2017, she has been Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. With more than 20 years of experience, Effie helps people and organisations shape and achieve their vision, and more specifically how to make difficult decisions at the strategic level. 

Professor Paul Ekins is Professor of Resources and Environmental Policy at the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources, the Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources, UCL. He is former Co-Director and Deputy Director of the UK Energy Research Centre, leading on its Energy Resources theme, with research publications on low-carbon futures, fossil fuels and hydrogen. In addition, he is a member of UNEP's International Resource Panel and was a lead author on its publications on resource efficiency and mineral resource governance. He was previously Chairman of the Government-funded National Industrial Symbiosis Programme (NISP), a Member of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, a specialist adviser to the Environmental Audit Committee of the House of Commons, a Member of the Government’s Sustainable Energy Policy Advisory Board, and a Specialist Adviser to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Climate Change Bill. He has extensive experience consulting for business, government and international organisations, and in 2015 he was awarded an OBE in the UK's New Year's Honours List for services to environmental policy. 

Cornelius Pieper is Senior Partner and Managing Director and global topic leader for Climate and Sustainability in Industrials at Boston Consulting Group (BCG). He studied Geography and Economics at the Universities of Munich/Germany, Lund/Sweden and Bonn/Germany. He holds doctorate in Economic Geography of the Bonn University. Following a short stint as research assistant, he joined BCG in 2004 and is currently based in Boston, USA. In his work with corporate clients, he works with clients across industrial sectors and focuses on topics like sustainability, climate change, decarbonization, green growth, low-carbon technologies and the transition to a low-carbon economy. He was part of the BCG delegation to COP26, COP27 and COP28, and is leading BCG's support for the First Movers Coalition (US State Dept./WEF) 

Jeff Malpas is Professor Emeritus at the University of Tasmania, and Honorary Professor at Latrobe University and the University of Queensland. The author of over numerous books and papers, as well as the editor of various collections, he has written on topics across many different areas of philosophy, including ethics. Much of his work has an interdisciplinary focus, especially in relation to fields such as art, architecture, geography, media and culture, and he has also been heavily involved in work with government and business. He has held visiting positions at universities around the world, and is Vice-President of the Australian Association of von Humboldt Fellows as well as a member of the Australian Academy of Humanities.