ESEE Elections
ESEE holds elections for ESEE President and Vice-Presidents, as well as for ESEE board members from 21 January – 11 February 2025 (a 3 week election period).
The nominee for ESEE President is Alexandra Köves and for ESEE Vice-Presidents Rita Lopes and Tone Smith. You can access their profiles and motivation statements below (see further below for board nominations).
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Nomination for ESEE President
Alexandra Köves, PhD
I am an associate professor at the Corvinus University of Budapest and head of the Ecological Economics Research Centre at the Corvinus Institute for Advanced Studies. 
My research focuses mainly on Degrowth scenarios using participatory foresight techniques. I am currently leading a work package in the MAPS horizon project with many fellow ecological economists. I have been involved in the development and the launch of several ecological economics related courses with novel approaches and I have also published on the power of transformative learning when teaching ecological economics. I have become an advocate of ecological economics trying to introduce this research field to both students and to a wider audience, running two podcast series. The Hungarian language podcast “Green Equality” has been running almost 5 years with now over 170 episodes. I am also founder and co-host to the English-language podcast of the European Society of Ecological Economics called Economics for Rebels. I am an active member of both the Ecological Economics and the Degrowth research community. I was part of the Local Organising Committee for both the 5th International Degrowth Conference in 2016 and the ESEE 2017 Conference in Budapest. I have been a Board member to ESEE and a member of the Degrowth Support Group since the beginning of 2019. Since 2022 I am vice-president of ESEE. For more information, please visit https://kovesalexandra.org/en/home/
Motivation
I have been a member to ESEE for over a decade now and have been an elected member of the Board since 2019 and served as vice-president since 2022. The current ESEE Board consists of highly dedicated members who are absolutely devoted to enhancing ecological economics knowledge as well as building a stronger society with many great ideas on how to advance that. Coordinating their work would be an amazing opportunity. Beyond the usual functions of the Board like conferences and keeping the network alive, there are many initiatives that I would like to see through. All of them are in line with the understanding that ecological economics is a highly matured field with a message that needs to be heard more than ever reaching out not just to students but to a much wider audience, including like-minded organisations, civil society with similar aims, and decision-makers. In ESEE we need to work on voicing our concerns and we should be able to release statements that draw attention to issues that are generally being overlooked. This is why we have now initiated drafting the first of such statements. Another important project is the EE curriculum development platform and the EE Teachers in Europe Support Network to facilitate the sharing of resources as well as peer support to all those who already teach or about to teach ecological economics. Attracting young researchers into the society is also important and this is why I would like to propose coordinating the submission of a proposal for establishing a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Network to support PhD students doing research in ecological economics. These are only three flagship projects that could help ESEE become a more vibrant community. However, I would like to continue the trend from the previous years that all members are encouraged and supported when launching and owning meaningful new projects and for that we need a strong Country Contact Network as well as mobilised and engaged membership. If elected, together with my colleagues, I hope to work on that.
Nomination for ESEE Vice-President
Rita Lopes
I am an Assistant Professor at NOVA University of Lisbon, and a researcher at CENSE – Center for Environmental and Sustainability Research (FCT-NOVA), in the Ecological Economics and Environmental Management research area. 
My research has been focused on socio-ecological systems, ecosystem services valuation, circular economy, and socially just low-carbon economies. I specialize in developing and applying collaborative tools and mix-method approaches, with a particular emphasis on participatory modelling. I love designing and facilitating collaborative processes, fostering the engagement of diverse stakeholder groups, including public authorities, businesses, civil society, and the research community, allowing the co-production of knowledge and the sharing of experiences, supporting better informed decision-making processes.
My background is in Environmental Engineering (FCT-NOVA), and I hold a PhD in Climate Change and Sustainable Development Policies from NOVA University of Lisbon (2017).
I am a board member since 2021, and before that I was the Portuguese country contact for European Society of Ecological Economics since 2015.
Motivation
In the work I have been developing, my main motivation has been to understand how stakeholder engagement in environmental and sustainability participatory processes can support better-informed decisions and how these collaborative approaches may contribute to defining pathways toward a regenerative planet, where people and nature are healthily integrated.
Being a board member, I have been dedicated to the CCN project and have actively contributed to the newsletter and membership working groups. These experiences have enriched my engagement with ESEE, allowing me to work on initiatives that promote debates, idea-sharing, and collaboration within the society’s members.
As Vice-President, I am eager to continue the work with the Country Contacts network, helping it grow and thrive while amplifying its impact. I am also deeply committed to working on collaborative initiatives that strengthen societal outreach and inspire more people to join and actively participate in ESEE.
Nomination for ESEE Vice-President
Tone Smith
Originally a human geographer, I discovered ecological economics while working for Statistics Norway in the 2000s. I later wrote my Ph.D on the role of numbers in environmental policy, including their discursive role and the link between quantification and capitalism. 
As a result, I moved to focus on understanding the underlying causes of the social-ecological crisis (vs. simply mapping what is going on), and in this process, also developed a strong interest in philosophy of science.
After finishing my Ph.D, I worked as a civil servant on international biodiversity politics at the Austrian Ministry of Sustainability, but found it difficult to address the causes of the current crises from within the existing state institutions. For some years now, I have therefore worked freelance as a writer, speaker, independent scholar covering topics such as greenwashing, degrowth and (post)work, Green New Deal(s) and financialisation of nature. I am also a co-founder of Rethinking Economics Norway and engaged in promoting ecological economics and heterodox thinking to a broader audience. This work has included producing a Norwegian edited volume on heterodox theories.
Motivation
I have been a member of the ESEE board for one period (3 years) and have thoroughly enjoyed working with this engaged and committed group of people. My main task during this period has been to renew, edit and produce the ESEE newsletter. For the ESEE 2022 Conference in Pisa, we re-launched the newsletter with a new look and with a range of new categories of articles. Some of them have been a success, like the “country spotlight” – where we, in each newsletter, present the ecological economics community of one European country. What has been less successful was the attempt at using the newsletter as a forum for debate within the membership. This is an area I would like to work on further if I get elected as vice-president.
More generally, I want to explore how we can help members strengthen their identity as ecological economists, build community, and facilitate engagement and debate within the membership in between the ISEE/ESEE conferences. Many become members to get a reduced conference fee, but we need to increase our efforts to keep them for longer than a year.
Another field, where I would like to contribute, is to spread ecological economics to a wider audience. Currently I am part of the local organising committee for the upcoming ISEE-Degrowth Conference to be held in Oslo in June this year. We will use the opportunity of the conference to make ecological economics more visible beyond our own community.
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The nominees for ESEE board member are María J. Beltrán, Claudio Cattaneo, Andrew Fanning, Mine Islar, Tommaso Luzzatti and Marco Sakai. You can access their profiles and motivation statements below.
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María J. Beltrán
María J. Beltrán holds a European PhD in Ecological Economics and Environmental Management from Pablo de Olavide University (Seville, Spain) and an MSc in Ecological Economics from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. 
She is Associate Professor at the Economics Department, Pablo de Olavide University. She has worked for the French National Center for Scientific Research on the TERRE‐EAU Project as a Research Engineer and for the European Network of Political Ecology (ENTITLE Project) as a Marie Curie Post‐Doctoral Research Fellow. She was invited as visiting researcher at the Centre for Water and Development, SOAS University of London. Her research focuses on water ecological economics, critical water studies and political ecology. She is the Spanish country contact for European Society of Ecological Economics since 2014.
Motivation
I have been an active member of the ESEE since 2013. Every two years I attend the ESEE European Conference, not only for the professional atmosphere and the interesting papers that are presented, but because I like meeting researchers at the Conferences who have principles and human quality. Being the Spanish country contact for European Society of Ecological Economics for almost ten years gave me a deeper understanding of ESEE and had intensified my willingness to be a more active member. As a board member I would like to contribute to the development of meaningful research in a cooperative manner, with a particular focus on furthering social justice and environmental sustainability.
Claudio Cattaneo
Dear ESEE member, I am pleased to run for a second term for the ESEE board. I am formally affiliated to the Environmental Studies Department of Masaryk University, Brno, but live in Barcelona and teach as a contract professor in the Geography Department of Autonomous University of Barcelona 
and currently research as a post-doc in the wastecare team of University of Barcelona. I am a founding member of Research and Degrowth, where I am mainly involved in teaching and coordinating the masters we run in political ecology and in degrowth.
I also participate in some autonomous and radical grassroots projects of Barcelona to which I am motivated to contribute. I believe that real change can come from below and from within our groups, bodies and minds.
In the same way I want to contribute to the ESEE, by making it a society that works as a unified collective and that cares for its members.
Andrew Fanning
I am an ecological economist exploring how to move our interconnected societies towards the goal of meeting the needs of all people within the means of the living planet. 
One of my passions is to find creative ways to make progress towards this goal both visible in data and widely accessible for all.
My current role is Research & Data Analysis Lead at Doughnut Economics Action Lab, an organisation co-founded by Kate Raworth and Carlota Sanz to turn Doughnut Economics from ideas in a book into transformative action with a growing global community of practitioners spanning civil society, government, business, education, academia, and more.
I’m based in Cádiz (Spain), and I lead our distributed team’s engagement with applied research, data analysis and iteratively improving our methodologies, especially for “downscaling” the global Doughnut to many places – from neighbourhoods to nations.
My research in ecological economics has been published in leading journals, such as Nature Sustainability and Lancet Planetary Health, and I lead the ongoing development of an interactive website hosted by the University of Leeds, entitled ‘A good life for all within planetary boundaries’ (https://goodlife.leeds.ac.uk), that makes our published country-level results widely accessible. I have presented ideas and results publicly in more than 100 events in different settings, including two episodes of ESEE’s beloved Economics for Rebels podcast.
Motivation
I am currently serving on the ESEE Board, and I’m motivated to stand for a second term because I believe this Society of researcher-activists holds more potential than any other that I’m aware of to inspire and inform deliberate action towards safe and just post-growth economies.
At Doughnut Economics Action Lab, we receive an overwhelming level of interest, energy, and desire for change from people outside of academia, of all ages and stripes – from UN agencies and the Pope to Extinction Rebellion and Fridays for Future, and everything in between. I believe that I contribute to the Board’s work by bringing this non-academic perspective, while simultaneously raising the profile of ecological economics outside of the academic sphere.
My activities on the Board to date have mainly focused on projects related to communication, such as the newsletter and engaging with ESEE’s content managers for the website and social media. I am also leading a project to create an interactive map of ecological economics research and training institutes in Europe, which will be posted on the ESEE website as soon as I am re-elected (Joking! The map will be posted regardless – it just needs a couple finishing touches, a beta version is here: https://observablehq.com/d/b48c4b49b00d9fec)
I’d be honoured to serve another term on ESEE’s Board, especially to help raise the profile of ecological economics in Europe and beyond. At the same time, I also want to acknowledge that I have inherited a privileged starting position as a middle-class, able-bodied, light-skinned, Canadian-born, native English-speaking male – I warmly encourage all ESEE members to vote for your Board with a diversity of identities and lived experience in mind.
Mine Islar
I am an Associate Professor at Copenhagen University, Institute for Resource Economics (IFRO). My PhD is in Sustainability Science and Environmental Justice. 
My research interests are political ecology and transformative political frameworks including degrowth.
Currently, I am co-leading a project called ‘Postgrowth Welfare Societies’ that aims to assess ways of decoupling welfare from economic growth in Nordic countries. In collaboration with colleagues from different disciplines, I design and lead PhD courses on ecological economics and degrowth, as well as integrate components of the field into master programmes in environmental science and sustainability science.
Motivation
I have been an active member of the ESEE since 2010 and a board member since 2022. The ESEE research community has been a cornerstone in shaping and broadening the scope of my academic journey, providing invaluable inspiration and collaboration. Reflecting on the trends and themes from several ISEE/ESEE conferences in recent years, its transformative work has consistently advanced critical interdisciplinary discussions about economics, planetary challenges and societal change.
I am eager to continue my board membership to build upon the foundation laid by previous boards. As part of this commitment, I am leading an initiative to (re-)engage former long-standing members who have become less active in the community. Additionally, I am actively supporting efforts to integrate ecological economics into various master’s programs, further strengthening the field’s reach and impact. Serving on the ESEE board has been a truly rewarding experience, and I would be grateful for the opportunity to continue to contribute more to this community!
Tommaso Luzzati
I’m a professor in Economics at the University of Pisa. My research is mainly centred on the relationship between (un)economic growth, environmental degradation, and human well-being, from an ecological economics perspective, but you can read more on my webpage 
https://people.unipi.it/tommaso_luzzati/curriculum/626-2/
Motivation
Before writing this statement, I checked the list of members to ensure that the colleagues I wanted to ask for support were indeed members. I was moved to see that our society has over 500 members, almost half of the ISEE, not to mention that some of the colleagues I wanted to approach are not formally registered. This strong interest is undoubtedly due to the very critical historical moment we are experiencing, marked by the rise of populism and a significant regression in matters of justice and solidarity, including the desire to live well in a healthier environment, in line with the concept of One Health.
But the credit for the many members is also due to the extraordinary conference that Mario Pansera and his team organized in June 2024 in Pontevedra. A small contribution was also made by the ESEE board, in which I had the honour of serving during the last term (2022-2024). Particularly, the president, Dan O’Neill, and the secretary, Elke Pirgmaier, proposed very effective organizational changes that enabled all board members to contribute productively. I contributed mainly to conferences and education projects, for which I have been organizing, from 2022 until today, the summer school in Pisa in July.
These past three years on the board have been truly exciting, and I would be delighted to continue serving the scientific society I have proudly been a member of for 27 years. Since the first time I participated in an ESEE conference (Geneva 1998) I found it to be a convivial and highly interdisciplinary community. I now have the honour of serving as one of the editors of Ecological Economics. Despite several challenges—particularly being managed by a strongly profit-oriented company—this journal remains one of the pillars of success for our perspective. Admittedly, opinions vary, and disagreements are inevitable. My effort as an editor is to uphold our robust epistemological foundations (for instance, incommensurability) and to emphasize ideas such as focusing on cost-shifting (and its numerous implications for power and injustice) rather than externalities.
Now that populism is becoming increasingly powerful in Europe (and worldwide) and the Green Deal is under attack, it is more crucial than ever to debunk the false myths—such as technological salvation and (un)sustainable economic growth—and the lies (e.g., “nuclear energy is cheap”) being presented to citizens. This makes it urgent to enhance the social impact of Ecological Economics and contribute to breaking free from the lock-in created by vested interests and entrenched mental habits that continue to hold us back. We have been living in the 21st century for over 20 years, yet politicians seem to struggle with acknowledging this reality.
Marco Sakai
Department of Environment and Geography
University of York
York, UK 
https://www.york.ac.uk/environment-geography/people/sakaimarco/
Marco is an Associate Professor in the Department of Environment and Geography at the University of York.
As an ecological economist, his research primarily focuses on analysing the macroeconomic impacts of climate policies and energy-efficiency measures. His work is particularly cantered on evaluating the ‘footprints’ or ‘virtual’ content of internationally traded goods and services—such as emissions, energy, water, labour, and value-added. Marco specialises in the use and development of large-scale macroeconomic models, including multi-regional input-output analysis. Previously, he has held academic and professional positions at the University of Leeds, the Stockholm Environment Institute, the Mexican Ministry of Finance, and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). At York, Marco leads the undergraduate and master’s programmes in Environment, Economics, and Ecology.
Motivation
I have been a member of ISEE/ESEE since 2011, when the ESEE conference was held in Turkey. Since then, I have participated in most of the conferences and have served as the UK country contact since 2015. I consider ecological economics my scholarly community and am deeply committed to advancing and expanding this interdisciplinary field. Given the pressing challenges facing humanity and the planet, I strongly believe in ESEE’s potential to unite concerned individuals and foster interdisciplinary knowledge and solutions. I am seeking to join the ESEE Board to contribute toward three key objectives: (1) Strengthen member engagement: I aim to bring the society closer to its members by ensuring they derive greater value from their ESEE membership. For instance, we could organise more activities and initiatives that are directly beneficial to members. (2) Expand our networks: I hope to broaden our reach by connecting with economists who share similar values but may not yet be linked to ecological economics. While efforts to collaborate with heterodox economists have been made, there is significant potential to deepen and expand these connections. (3) Enhance collaboration and funding opportunities: I propose creating mechanisms and dedicated spaces for ESEE members to collaborate more effectively and secure additional research grants to advance the field. With your support, I am eager to contribute to achieving these goals as a member of the ESEE Board. Thank you for considering my candidacy.
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All ESEE members are eligible to vote in these elections throughout the 3-week election period.
The term of the elected ESEE representatives will start as soon as the elections are over, and last for a duration of 3 years.