Marta Antonelli has been exploring how to accelerate the transition towards sustainable food systems as business advisor, researcher, and lecturer over the past 12 years. Her expertise lies in food, water and agricultural policy; sustainable and healthy diets; urban food systems; food waste; climate change; the Sustainable Development Goals.

As Food Systems Project Lead at Global Footprint Network, she contributes to research on the Ecological Footprint of food and the Food4Future project.

She earned a Ph.D. in Environment, Politics and Development (King’s College London), with a thesis on food and water security in the Middle East and North African region. She received a MSc in International Economics (La Sapienza University of Rome) and a MSc in Development Studies (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London).

She has authored 50+ publications in scientific journals, reports, books, as well as articles on media outlets. She co-edited the book Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals through Sustainable Food Systems (Springer, 2019).

She is one of the 45 members of the expert group of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre that will help develop the legislative framework of the Farm to Fork Strategy.

Marta lives in Zurich. She enjoys working in multidisciplinary teams, the great outdoors, and good music.

As Chief Science Officer at Global Footprint Network, David Lin oversees the science related to Ecological Footprint and biocapacity accounting. He brings scientific rigor, technical expertise, and creativity to the research, data products, tools, and applications we provide at Global Footprint Network. Drawing on his experience leading the production and improvement of the National Footprint and Biocapacity accounts (NFBA), he now serves as member of the NFBA Science Advisory Committee. He previously led the cities and local government program and continues to bring a strong passion to working with various stakeholders to envision and achieve a sustainable future.

Prior to joining Global Footprint Network, David earned his Ph.D. and worked as a post-doctoral researcher in the Systems Ecology Laboratory at the University of Texas at El Paso. His research brought him to Arctic regions of Russia and Alaska, and he developed and deployed rapid assessment sensor systems, and applied geospatial tools and statistical models to understand the effect of land cover change on ecosystem function in Arctic tundra ecosystems and predict the effects of climate change on greenhouse gas dynamics. David is a native of California and holds a BS in Biology with specialization in Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution from the University of California, Los Angeles. On most weekends you can find him enjoying nature, hiking and rock climbing in the San Francisco Bay Area and Sierra Nevada mountains.

Debora manages projects, coordinates the board and Global Footprint Network operations, and also is engaging in project development. She loves developing strategy, mounting participatory projects, and finding ways to grow motivation for the needed sustainability transition.

Debora wrote her master dissertation on “Tourism and Sustainable Development: toward a Tourism Net Impact Index” in synergy with Global Footprint Network, IUCN, WWF-Med and CAST Rimini. The research consisted of a review assessment on social, economic and environmental indicators (Footprint included) aiming to work as a baseline to develop an integrated tool assessing tourism’s impact. Debora holds an international master degree in Tourism Economics and Management. She has former working experience in tourism: as a trainee for the European Institute of Cultural Routes (Erasmus +) and the Italian Institute of Culture in Shanghai (MAECI-MIUR-CRUI scholarship), as selling and reservation manager for a local travel agency promoting local tourism in Maldives. Having always been passionate about sustainability, she initially joined Global Footprint Network to support the research team in the implementation of tourism-related projects and other projects in the Mediterranean region.

Sandra Browne is serving as interim CFO and currently is the Chief Operating Officer of Industrial Logic, Inc. She also was Global Footprint Network’s COO from 2011 to 2018, where she created HR processes for recruiting and performance management, aided the creation of a revised strategic plan, and implemented systems for tracking operations and finance analytics to enable timely, data-driven decisions.

Sandra has 20 years of experience as a business operations executive for technical and scientific organizations. She earned her MBA from UC Berkeley with an emphasis in organizational behavior and strategy. Throughout her career Sandra has focused on creating high-performance cultures that are financially stable and data-driven.

Prior to working at Footprint Network, Sandra managed company-wide operations for several consulting companies, including a multi-office transportation engineering firm and a global agile software development company. She was also the VP of Engineering for a software consulting firm, where she managed custom software development projects for enterprise clients.

Sandra’s interests include global travel and volleyball. She lives in California with her husband and two children.

Florence is a multifaceted activist, focusing on population issues, girls’ rights, and environmental protection. Her involvement with Global Footprint Network began in 2021 as a consultant when she created the “What About Population?” video. This video guides users of our Ecological Footprint Calculator, who are curious about the population dimension. Previously in 2020, she contributed a piece on the significance of population, as part of the Power of Possibility solutions. Currently, she supports us with email engagement and social media.

Florence also works with Population Matters, a UK-based charity advocating internationally for a sustainable human population. This organization promotes ethical, choice-based methods to achieve this goal, ultimately protecting the environment and improving lives. An award-winning journalist, Florence’s career began in 2010 with media outlets in Kenya and Uganda. Since then, she has consistently campaigned and communicated about the interconnectedness of population, health, and the environment. Florence holds a Master of Science in Population and Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE.

In her free time, Florence pursues a well-rounded life. She balances attending Samba and yoga classes with spending quality time with her family and enjoys socializing with friends. Additionally, she’s passionately building a project called FlowReady, a menstruation awareness campaign that aims to prepare girls in rural communities for their menstrual cycles.

Joost got involved with Global Footprint Network in 2022 when he promoted the first Dutch Deficit Day. Realizing the impact of climate change and the tremendous effort to get humanity in balance on the Earth back in 2009, Joost decided to focus both his professional as private life on sustainability. Since then Joost pursued a wide variety of roles, in which innovation, impact, change and communication are key ingredients. Joost worked for Accenture, launched multiple new companies like Toogethr,  Zero Emissions Services, and Synkero. In 2019, he initiated Cycling 4 Climate, a movement which is gaining international momentum and rolls out throughout Europe. Recently Joost co-founded Sinkit: the carbon removal cooperative and initiated the first Climate exam of the Netherlands. Joost graduated from TU Delft and lives energy-positive in Utrecht.

Robert Williams manages the Global Footprint Network computer network and IT department and is responsible for the computer programming that is required to calculate the National Footprint Accounts. He is also responsible for the design, implementation and maintenance of the database systems, which hold the National Footprint Accounts data. Robert has a broad background in programming, database management and systems administration. He is also the owner of Cosmetto, an information technology (IT) consulting company, that provides custom IT services to small businesses in the Bay Area. Robert has certificates in Java and C++ programming from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a B.S. in computer information systems (summa cum laude) from Excelsior College.

Alessandro is a macro-ecologist and sustainability scientist with a passion for anthropology and human behavior. His research focuses on the overall human metabolism (e.g., land-use, agriculture, fisheries, energy and climate change) and how it squares with the planet’s limits, especially in key societal sectors such as food, tourism and education. His main ambition is to contribute to and support evidence based decision-making processes via sustainability indicators and environmental accounting tools, to help address the global challenge of collaborating to live well within the limits of our planet.

Since 2008, Alessandro has been working with government agencies, NGOs and academia in Europe, North and Latin America, and the Middle East. He has collaborated with the National Government of the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Morocco, Slovenia and Montenegro, where he supported the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism in the national transposition of the global SDGs, and contributed to the country’s National Strategy for Sustainable Development 2016-2030. From 2010 to April 2024, Alessandro has led the Mediterranean-MENA program of Global Footprint Network. Now he is a board member of Global Footprint Network, Mediterranean. Since 2024, he is also research director of Hot or Cool.

Through his work with both government agencies and non-government organizations, Alessandro has developed interdisciplinary skills – laying at the intersection between applied research and governance – and developed a particular interest for investigating the deeper mechanisms of societal change. He is also intrigued by the search for a new global governance model.

Alessandro holds a PhD degree in Chemical Science from the University of Siena (Italy). He currently serves as Steering Committee member of the Biodiversity Indicator Partnership (BIP), as Chair of the Scientific Committee of the Common Home of Humanity, and scientific advisor to the Planetary Accounting Network. As of July 2022, Alessandro is the elected president of the MEET Network Association.

In 2022, Alessandro has been included in the list of the top 2% most cited scientists in the “environmental sciences” subfield, according to research from the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford University’s (METRICS). For two years in a row since 2022, he has also been included by Research.com in their ranking of Best Scientists in Environmental Sciences.

Serena first connected with Global Footprint Network in 2010 during the Footprint Forum in Colle di val d’Elsa (Siena), Italy. Since then, she became a passionate Ecological Footprint researcher, focusing her work on resource and natural capital accounting methods, with a particular focus on carbon measurements and the distinction between humans’ use of stock vs. flows of natural capital. As a member of the research team, she contributes to research on the Ecological Footprint methodology and technical publications, as well as to Footprint applications at the national and local scale within a Mediterranean context. Serena holds a Ph.D. in Earth, Environment and Polar Sciences from the University of Siena.

Mathis Wackernagel is co-founder and board member of Global Footprint Network. He currently also serves as an interim advisor to Global Footprint Network staff.

In 1990, he started to create the Ecological Footprint with Professor William Rees at the University of British Columbia as part of his Ph.D. in community and regional planning. Mathis also earned a mechanical engineering degree from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

Mathis has worked on sustainability with governments, corporations and international NGOs on six continents and has lectured at more than a hundred universities. He previously served as director of the Sustainability Program at Redefining Progress in Oakland, California, and ran the Centro de Estudios para la Sustentabilidad at Anáhuac University in Xalapa, Mexico. Mathis has authored and contributed to more than 100 peer-reviewed papers, numerous articles, reports and various books on sustainability that focus on embracing resource limits and developing metrics for sustainability, including Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on the Earth; Sharing Nature’s Interest;  Der Footprint: Die Welt neu vermessen; Ecological Footprint: Managing Our Biocapacity Budget; and WWF International’s Living Planet Report.

Mathis’ awards include the 2018 World Sustainability Award, the 2015 IAIA Global Environment Award, being a 2014 ISSP Sustainability Hall of Fame Inductee, the 2013 Prix Nature Swisscanto, 2012 Blue Planet Prize, 2012 Binding Prize for Nature Conservation, the 2012 Kenneth E. Boulding Memorial Award of the International Society for Ecological Economics, the 2011 Zayed International Prize for the Environment (jointly awarded with UNEP), a 2007 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, 2006 WWF Award for Conservation Merit and 2005 Herman Daly Award of the U.S. Society for Ecological Economics. He also holds two honorary doctorates, one from the University of Berne (in 2007) and the other one from the University of Stirling (2022), He was also selected as number 19 on the en(rich) list identifying the 100 top inspirational individuals whose contributions enrich paths to sustainable futures (www.enrichlist.org). John Elkington identified Mathis among the “Zeronaut 50” Roll of Honor, i.e., leading pioneers who are driving the world’s most significant problems to zero. From 2011 to 2015, Mathis was also the Frank H. T. Rhodes Class of 1956 Visiting Professor at Cornell University.

You can find out more about him on his personal website at www.wackernagel.info.

Katsunori Iha is a research economist, responsible for tracking Ecological Footprints in global supply chains through the use of the multi-regional input-output model, which also applies to sub-national and personal calculator projects. Currently, he is working on developing the computable general equilibrium for Ecological Footprint (CGE-EF) model to assess the impact of different policies on nature. His next project will be building a platform to connect interdisciplinary scholars and leaders in Asian regions that are facing sustainability challenges. He holds an M.S. in economics, specializing in environmental economics, from Okinawa International University, Japan.

Sarosh Kumana is a sustainability advocate, real estate entrepreneur, and angel investor. He is based in Incline, Nevada, and has over 40 years of startup and management experience. Sarosh founded and ran a leading California government foreclosure brokerage and a mortgage brokerage company for over 25 years. He is the president of PIP Inc., which owns and manages a large portfolio of animal-friendly apartment buildings in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is President of Pacific Capital Management, having made over 200 early-stage investments over the past 20 years. He is a member of Sierra Angels and Health Tech Capital; a limited partner in numerous VC funds; former President of the Board of Directors of Sand Hill Angels in Silicon Valley; and a former Managing Partner at The Batchery, a Berkeley-based incubator.

Sarosh has a deep commitment to global sustainability. In addition to his work with Global Footprint Network, he sponsors and supports a number of projects in the US and around the world through his Foundation for a Sustainable Future, including education and replicating successful businesses that increase sustainability.  In San Francisco, he is actively involved in civic, community, and political affairs, particularly involving housing and good government issues. Sarosh serves on the Advisory Council of the Center for Entrepreneurship at Tepper Business School, Carnegie Mellon University. Sarosh received a B.Com. from Sydenham College, University of Bombay, and an MBA from Carnegie-Mellon University.

As an independent advisor, Heiko is an advocate for transformation. He brings to the table over 30 years of experience in the field of sustainability, with particular expertise connecting the broad spectrum of philanthropy engagement with the entire field of socially and environmentally viable investment practices. Through his passion for regenerative principles and key topics such as food, water, agriculture, biodiversity or purpose-driven economy, he is devoted to co-creating new, more consciously interconnected, and resilient systems, which align nature and people.

He holds an MBA from the University of Frankfurt and is a qualified Trust & Estate Practitioner (TEP). In the summer of 2019, he was certified as a warm data lab host by the International Bateson Institute (IBI) and has since expanded practise in analogue and digital learning spaces.

He has worked with different service providers in the field of green investments and further in his career joined a multi-family office in Zurich to set up their charity services, guiding and representing the clients in their philanthropic efforts and managing their projects globally. He then headed the Philanthropy and Social Responsible Investment Advisory at Credit Suisse, advising the bank’s premium clients.

Heiko is the founding Director of specking+partners based in Zurich. The firm provides guidance to high net-worth individuals, foundations and corporations on topics such as responsible behaviour, systems change and sustainable long-term business or funding strategies.

In the past decade, he has regularly facilitated and moderated panel discussion on emerging topics online and in physical meetings. He lectures and runs workshops at different Universities in Switzerland and abroad. As an advisor to The Klosters Forum, he co-designs the yearly program of different events relating to the topic of regenerative ecosystems and cultures.

As Managing Director, Lewis oversees strategic development, program implementation, and staff management at Hot or Cool Institute. Previously, Lewis has served as Executive Director of SEED, founded as a UN partnership at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development to promote entrepreneurship for sustainable development. Prior to that, he was Director for Sustainable Consumption and Production at the think tank Institute for Global Environmental Strategies.  He has consulted with organizations including United Nations agencies, the Asian and African Development Banks, the European Commission, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and has served as technical or science-policy adviser to several national government delegations, including Finland, Japan, Sweden, Indonesia, Hungary. Lewis conceived and led the 1.5-Degree Lifestyles project, analysing potential contribution of lifestyle changes to the aspirational 1.5 °C target under the Paris Agreement on climate change. He co-lead the United Nations One Planet programme on Sustainable Lifestyles and Education. He has an M.Sc. Sustainable Resource Management (Technical University Munich, Germany) and a Ph.D. Political Economy (University of Helsinki, Finland).

Sandra Browne is the Chief Operating Officer of Industrial Logic, Inc. She also served as Global Footprint Network’s COO from 2011 to 2018, where she created HR processes for recruiting and performance management, aided the creation of a revised strategic plan, and implemented systems for tracking operations and finance analytics to enable timely, data-driven decisions.

Sandra has 20 years of experience as a business operations executive for technical and scientific organizations. She earned her MBA from UC Berkeley with an emphasis in organizational behavior and strategy. Throughout her career Sandra has focused on creating high-performance cultures that are financially stable and data-driven.

Prior to working at Footprint Network, Sandra managed company-wide operations for several consulting companies, including a multi-office transportation engineering firm and a global agile software development company. She was also the VP of Engineering for a software consulting firm, where she managed custom software development projects for enterprise clients.

Sandra’s interests include global travel and volleyball. She lives in California with her husband and two children.

Mathis Wackernagel is co-founder of Global Footprint Network. He created the Ecological Footprint with Professor William Rees at the University of British Columbia as part of his Ph.D. in community and regional planning. Mathis also earned a mechanical engineering degree from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

Mathis has worked on sustainability with governments, corporations and international NGOs on six continents and has lectured at more than a hundred universities. He previously served as director of the Sustainability Program at Redefining Progress in Oakland, California, and ran the Centro de Estudios para la Sustentabilidad at Anáhuac University in Xalapa, Mexico. Mathis has authored and contributed to more than 100 peer-reviewed papers, numerous articles, reports and various books on sustainability that focus on embracing resource limits and developing metrics for sustainability, including Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on the Earth; Sharing Nature’s Interest;  Der Footprint: Die Welt neu vermessen; Ecological Footprint: Managing Our Biocapacity Budget; and WWF International’s Living Planet Report.

Mathis’ awards include the 2018 World Sustainability Award, the 2015 IAIA Global Environment Award, being a 2014 ISSP Sustainability Hall of Fame Inductee, the 2013 Prix Nature Swisscanto, 2012 Blue Planet Prize, 2012 Binding Prize for Nature Conservation, the 2012 Kenneth E. Boulding Memorial Award of the International Society for Ecological Economics, the 2011 Zayed International Prize for the Environment (jointly awarded with UNEP), an honorary doctorate from the University of Stirling in 2022 and the University of Berne in 2007, a 2007 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, 2006 WWF Award for Conservation Merit and 2005 Herman Daly Award of the U.S. Society for Ecological Economics. He was also selected as number 19 on the en(rich) list identifying the 100 top inspirational individuals whose contributions enrich paths to sustainable futures (www.enrichlist.org). John Elkington identified Mathis among the “Zeronaut 50” Roll of Honor, i.e., leading pioneers who are driving the world’s most significant problems to zero. From 2011 to 2015, Mathis was also the Frank H. T. Rhodes Class of 1956 Visiting Professor at Cornell University.

You can find out more about him on his personal website at www.wackernagel.info.