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DrPushpam Kumar

Honorary Professor (Science Policy Research Unit)

University of Sussex Business School

  • Honorary Professor (Science Policy Research Unit)
    University of Sussex Business School

BIO

EXECUTIVE PROFILE

Global institutional leader in environmental and sustainability economics with more than three decades of recognised authority at the intersection of economic policy, the environment, and human health. Currently serves at the highest levels of the United Nations as a senior economic leader, advising the Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Member States on integrating natural capital, climate risk, biodiversity, and planetary health into core economic and fiscal decision-making.

Provides senior leadership in agenda-setting, institution-building, and large-scale convening of governments, international financial institutions, and scientific leaders to deliver durable global policy change, developing and securing adoption of a UN Environmental Assembly resolution on Natural Capital, jointly leading the Return on Investment in One Health interventions with the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health, and shaping SDG indicators, the Global Biodiversity Framework, and the Cost of Inaction for Antimicrobial Resistance framework.

Internationally recognised for redefining how economic growth and national wealth are measured through global leadership on Inclusive Wealth, Beyond GDP, and ecosystem accounting. Joint recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize and the Zayed International Prize for the Environment.

INSTITUTIONAL LEADERSHIP AND AUTHORITY

Chief, Programme Management Unit (Environmental Economics) and Senior Economic Advisor

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Headquarters – Nairobi
2024 – 2026 (Feb)

  • Provides high-level economic and strategic advice to the Executive Director of UNEP and briefs the Committee of Permanent Representatives.
  • Leads institutional agenda-setting on environmental economics across UNEP headquarters.
  • Sets system-wide priorities across the UN system on integrating nature, climate, and health into development and fiscal decision-making.
  • Builds and maintains senior institutional partnerships with FAO, World Bank, WHO, the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and Green Climate Fund, advancing strategic integration of health economics and nature finance across the UN system.
  • Leads interagency coordination mechanisms across UN entities and international financial institutions (including UNEP, World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, FAO, and GEF) to align policy frameworks, financing instruments, and implementation.
  • Demonstrates leadership in resource mobilisation and fund management, securing over US$15 million from sources including the Green Climate Fund, GEF, the UN Development Account, and the European Union.
  • Stewards and oversees multi-donor and multi-year funding portfolios aligned to UNEP’s economic, biodiversity, climate, pollution and ecosystems restoration priorities.

Chief Environmental Economist

UNEP – Washington DC
2021 – 2024

·       Directed fiscal and macroeconomic analysis linking environmental accounting, economic policy, and fiscal modelling for international partners.

·       Led UNEP’s global engagement on integrating natural capital and Inclusive Wealth, Beyond GDP into national government accounting, advising the World Bank, IMF, the Asian Development Bank and national treasuries on implementation and sustainability metrics.

·       Played a central role in bringing Nature’s contributions into the core operational and diagnostic frameworks of global financial institutions.

·       Briefed U.S. Treasury and Office of Science, Technology and Policy, the White House, USA, as well as other governments, on incorporating natural capital accounting into national fiscal and development policies.

·       Directed large-scale (25+ staff) interdisciplinary and cross-institutional teams of economists, environmental scientists, health experts, and policy specialists, operating across regions and institutions.

·       Engaged with academic and policy institutions, including Boston College, Harvard University, Yale University, George Mason University, the Brookings Institution, and American University.

Chief Environmental Economist and Senior Economic Advisor

UNEP – Nairobi
2018 – 2021

  • Led UNEP economic strategy working directly with governments and multilateral partners to apply nature-based solutions, and Beyond GDP frameworks to economic accounting and international economic assessments.
  • Coordinated four flagship inclusive wealth assessments that move beyond GDP as the sole measure of progress, providing governments with a more accurate basis for assessing long-term economic sustainability and equity.
  • Served as senior economic adviser, advising treasuries and central banks on embedding inclusive-wealth indicators in fiscal frameworks and monetary policy.
  • Successfully built consensus around the approach to move Beyond GDP at the national level in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Amazonia.
  • Developed frameworks to internalise environmental and social safeguards into infrastructure projects and policies in Africa and Asia.

Coordinator, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Branch

UNEP – Nairobi
2015 – 2017

  • Led UNEP strategy on developing frameworks for measuring biodiversity and valuing ecosystem services, developing alternative growth measures essential for sustainability and human well-being.
  • Provided senior programme governance and portfolio oversight across complex, multi-country and multi-donor initiatives.
  • Oversaw and steered multi-million-dollar portfolios across Latin America, Africa, and Asia applying new metrics of environmental-economic accounting.
  • Led, supervised, and evaluated a large multidisciplinary team of experts and UN staff across economics, ecology, science, and policy to create a shared vision around planetary crisis including climate and biodiversity.

Chief, Ecosystem Services Economics Unit

UNEP – Nairobi
2010 – 2015

  • Directed global research and policy on cross-cutting environmental trends on climate, nature and pollution. Led the work of UNEP on an inclusive wealth framework guiding nations on how to calculate and interpret sustainable measures of economic growth.
  • Advanced consensus on nature-based solutions and ecosystems-based adaptation to climate change.

Reader/Associate Professor in Environmental Economics

University of Liverpool – UK

2007 – 2010

  • Led teaching, research, and postgraduate supervision in environmental and resource economics, with responsibility for mentoring, project delivery, and academic programme contribution within a research-intensive UK university.
  • Managed externally funded research at the science–policy interface, contributing economic analysis to UK government–linked programmes supported by NERC, DFID, and ESRC.

Associate Professor

University of Delhi & Institute of Economic Growth – Delhi

1999 – 2006

  • Delivered graduate-level teaching and supervised applied research in environmental economics, contributing to capacity-building among policy-oriented economists and researchers.
  • Led and managed externally funded research projects, including grant acquisition, budgeting, and delivery, with relevance to environmental policy and development planning.

 

 

SYSTEM-LEVEL IMPACT

  • Redefined how economic growth and national wealth are measured globally, moving environment and natural capital from externalities to core assets within economic decision-making.
  • Provided seminal thought leadership that created new metrics of sustainable wealth and the financing frameworks required to operationalise them within national accounting systems.
  • Influenced national treasuries, policymakers, central banks to adopt and operationalise natural-capital and sustainable-wealth-accounting frameworks in their national accounting and statistics, thus fundamentally changing how sustainable growth is understood and governed.
  • Published at the highest level across multiple disciplines – economics, natural-resource management, and health – influencing the global academic community on alternative measures of economic growth.
  • Embedded global frameworks within national fiscal, planning, and statistical systems, enabling sustained government ownership and implementation across countries, including Pakistan, Trinidad and Tobago, South Africa, Vietnam, Chile, Morocco, and Kazakhstan.

GLOBAL LEADERSHIP AND INSTITUTIONAL INFLUENCE

International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

2003 – 2007

·       Joint Lead Author, IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (2007), with responsibility for agricultural mitigation baseline data. Recognised through the Nobel Peace Prize (2007).

Inclusive Wealth Reports

2012 – 2023

·       Directed the Inclusive Wealth Reports, measuring sustainable wealth across 163 countries, providing the foundation for The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review, commissioned by the UK Treasury.

·       Significantly advanced sustainability economics, guiding nations on how to calculate and interpret sustainable measures of economic growth and supporting governments globally to implement them.

·

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment | Lead Scientific Coordinator – Responses Working Group
2000 – 2005

·       Produced the first global synthesis linking ecosystem change to measurable human welfare, creating the foundation for modern environmental-economic accounting.

·       Led and coordinated over 350 contributors spanning governments, UN agencies, international financial institutions, and global scientific leaders to evaluate ecosystem services in economic terms.

·       Ensured scientific coherence and policy relevance across the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment’s Responses Working Group, integrating ecological evidence with credible response options for governments and international institutions.

·       Influenced adoption by governments globally including Chile, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago, and Viet Nam, shaping national sustainability policy.

Economics of Land Degradation Global Alliance | Working Group Leader

2015 – 2018

·       Led international analyses quantifying economic costs of land and soil degradation across 44 countries and two Chinese provinces over 13 years, providing the first financial case for land and soil degradation worldwide.

·       Guided environmental-economic investment and restoration policies across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, making land productivity and soil health core components of global development and climate-resilience agendas.

The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity Initiative (TEEB) | Scientific Coordinator

2006 – 2010

·       Shaped the conceptual foundations for valuing ecosystem services and designing sustainable-finance mechanisms, particularly in agriculture and food systems.

·       Developed the TEEB framework, which has informed policy and operational decision-making across U.S. federal agencies, European Union institutions, and national governments, and has been adopted by ministries in Thailand, Mexico, Ghana, India, and Brazil.

GLOBAL RECOGNITION

  • Nobel Peace Prize (2007) – Joint recipient through IPCC
  • Zayed International Prize for the Environment (2005) – Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

 

 

SELECTED FLAGSHIP PUBLICATIONS

 

Global Policy and Institutional Influence

·       The Future of Energy, Climate and Biodiversity. United Nations Economists Network (2025).

·       Inclusive Wealth Report 2023. United Nations Environment Programme (2023).

·       The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for Agriculture & Food: Scientific and Economic Foundation. (TEEB 2018).

·       Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Synthesis. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005).

 

Redefining Economic Growth and Measurement (Beyond GDP)

·       Sustainable Metrics Beyond GDP: Investment for Inclusive Growth. Nature (2024).

·       The Inclusive Wealth Index and the Sustainable Development Goals. Sustainability Science (2021).

·       Measuring for Sustainability. Nature Sustainability (2020).

·       Get the Science Right When Paying for Nature’s Services. Science (2015).

·       Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Synthesis. Island Press, Washington, DC (2005).

 

Environment, Health and Human Capital Economics

·       Manufactured Chemicals and Children’s Health — The Need for New Law. New England Journal of Medicine (2025).

·       Air Pollution and Development in Africa: Impacts on Health, the Economy, and Human Capital. The Lancet Planetary Health (2021).

·       Pollution and Global Health — An Agenda for Prevention. Environmental Health Perspectives (2018).

 

Foundational Frameworks and Field-Building

·       Handbook of Economics of Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity (Edward Elgar, 2014),

·       Valuation of Regulating Services of Ecosystems: Methodology and Applications. Routledge (2010).

 

ACADEMIC POSITIONS

  • Reader (Associate Professor) in Environmental Economics
    University of Liverpool, School of Environmental Sciences, Liverpool, United Kingdom5 Apr 2007 - 29 Oct 2010

NON-ACADEMIC POSITIONS

  • Chief Programme Management Unit (Ecol Economics)
    United Nations Environment Programme, Ecosystems, Nairobi and Washington DC, Kenya30 Oct 2010 - 2 Feb 2026

DEGREES

  • Post Doctoral
    UMN, Saint Paul, United States24 Nov 2001
  • Ph.D. (Economics)
    University of Delhi, New Delhi, India3 Aug 1995 - 8 Jun 1999

CERTIFICATIONS

  • Environmental Risk Management
    Harvard University, Boston, USA2 Mar 2020 - 31 Mar 2026

POSTGRADUATE TRAINING

  • CGE and Environment
    Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden1 Feb 2002 - 30 Apr 2002
    Natural ResourcesPostdoctoral ResearchSupervised by Maler and Bergman KGAL

LANGUAGES

  • English
  • Hindi
  • Urdu
    Can read, write and peer review

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS

  • 15 Life on Land
  • 13 Climate Action
  • 17 Partnerships for the Goals
  • 1 No Poverty
  • 3 Good Health and Well Being