Prof. Dr Klaus Töpfer

Professor Dr Klaus Töpfer is senator of the Helmholtz Association for the Research Field Earth and Environment. He is former Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) in Nairobi as well as Under Secretary General of the United Nations and is currently founding director of the Institute for Advanced Sustainable Studies (IASS) based in Potsdam, Germany.

He studied economics in Mainz, Frankfurt am Main and Münster, graduating in 1964 with a Diplom degree in economics. From 1965 to 1971 he worked as a research assistant at the Central Institute for Regional Planning at Mainz University and earned his doctorate there with a thesis on “Regional Politics and Location Decisions”. From 1971 to 1978 he was head of the Department of Planning and Information of the Federal State Chancellery of Saarland, whilst also lecturing at the German University of Administrative Sciences in Speyer and evaluating development policy in Egypt, Malawi, Brazil and Jordan. From 1978 to 1979 Töpfer was full professor at the University of Hanover where he directed the Institute of Regional Research and Development, and during this time, he was also a member of the German Advisory Council on the Environment and of the KfW Bank’s Board of Supervisory Directors. In 1985 he became honorary professor of the University of Mainz and in 2005 he was made honorary professor by the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration of Tübingen University. He was also awarded an honorary professorship for environmental science and sustainable development by Shanghai University in 2007.

Töpfer has been a member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) since 1972 and was a member of the German Bundestag from 1990 to 1998. He held office as Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety from 1987 to 1994, and as Federal Minister of Regional Planning, Building and Urban Development from 1994 to 1998. Klaus Töpfer has received numerous honours and awards including the Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1986 and the German Sustainability Award in 2008.