Dr. Sebastian Troëng, Executive Vice President of Conservation International “We urgently need to put the world on the path to emissions neutrality”

• The conference is the second of the Open Source cycle of the 2023/2024 academic year, organized by the Inditex-UDC Sustainability Chair.

• Troëng gave the lecture ‘Climate and Nature: risks, opportunities and challenges for the private sector’ at the University of A Coruña.

A Coruña, 20 April 2024.- The conservation and economic benefits of nature were the focus of Dr. Sebastian Troëng, Executive Vice President of Conservation International, in his presentation ‘Climate and Nature: risks, opportunities and challenges for the private sector’, which corresponds to the second in the In Open Code 2023/2024 conference series, organised by the Inditex-UDC Chair in Sustainability. The event took place this Thursday, 18 April, at the Rectory of the University of A Coruña.

The event was attended by the Vice-Chancellor for Research and Transfer of the UDC, Jerónimo Puertas; the President of the UDC Social Council, Antonio Abril Abadín; the Director of the Inditex-UDC Chair, Marta Rey García; and the Head of Community Investment at Inditex, Carlos Piñeiro.

The Vice-Chancellor for Research and Transfer at the UDC, Jerónimo Puertas, began his speech by highlighting that “the UDC considers sustainability as one of its strategic development poles, this is something we want to promote, and this chair contributes to that objective in a remarkable way. The climate impacts many of the SDGs. Beyond the so-called ‘climate action’, which alerts us to climate disasters, it also affects food security, water security, and terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, to name the most obvious ones”. In addition, Puertas stressed that due to his profession “I am closely linked to the management of water resources. In recent decades, a paradigm shift has been experienced, where ‘grey’ solutions are avoided and solutions based on nature are preferred. This has an economic cost and requires important decisions on the part of public administrations”.

The president of the UDC Social Council, Antonio Abril Abadín, indicated that “Universities are agents of change that can and must commit to mitigating the devastating effects of climate change through training, research and the transfer of results. Initiatives such as the CESIS of the Inditex-UDC Chair in Sustainability demonstrate that training can have a decisive influence on the improvement of our society as it generates talent capable of transforming our organizations and our environment to make them more sustainable.”

For her part, Marta Rey, director of the Inditex-UDC Chair in Sustainability, highlighted that “from the Expert Course in Sustainability and Social Innovation we explain, from an academic perspective, how the public-private alliance influences ESG criteria and sustainable behaviors in the competitiveness of organizations”.

Troëng began his talk by addressing the relationship between the public and private sectors needed to increase the impact of conservation for the benefit of nature, people and the climate. He explained that “addressing the climate crisis and nature loss that threaten the planet requires everyone’s participation. Governments, businesses and organizations must come together and accelerate the adoption of nature-based solutions.”

The executive vice president of Conservation International assured that, to do this, it is essential that we move towards energy neutrality, “with global temperature records being broken every month and more and more species on the verge of extinction, we urgently need to put the world on the path to emissions neutrality.”

During his speech, Dr. Sebastian Troëng highlighted the main challenges facing humanity and how Conservation International is trying to provide possible solutions, “Conservation International is an organization focused on providing solutions to the greatest challenges of our time: the climate crisis and the loss of nature. We bring together influential actors, including governments and businesses, to increase ambition and accelerate the dissemination of nature-based solutions.”

Sebastian Troëng

As Executive Vice President of Conservation International, Dr. Sebastian Troëng leads the Conservation Alliances team. This role carries an annual portfolio of $65 million and includes regularly advising heads of state, ministers, directors and community leaders on sustainability and conservation. He has worked on conservation and development issues for 30 years in Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Fiji, Australia, Greece, the United Kingdom and the United States. He also holds a PhD in Animal Ecology from Lund University (Sweden) and a Masters in Marine Conservation from the University of Wales (United Kingdom).

In Open Code, an initiative of the Inditex-UDC Sustainability Chair

The Open Source Conference Series is promoted by the Inditex-UDC Chair in Sustainability. The relationship between the University of A Coruña and Inditex led to the creation of the chair more than a decade ago, as a result of the collaboration agreement signed by both entities to promote university social responsibility in 2010.

The coordination of this initiative is in charge of the UDC Social Council, in its capacity as a body for society’s participation in the university.

This university-business chair, a pioneer among Spanish universities, was the first step towards the creation of a much broader collaboration program between Inditex and the UDC, which today includes the InTalent Program, for the international recruitment of excellent researchers, created in 2016, and the Inditex-UDC Predoctoral Fellowship Program, created in 2013.

Photo 1: from left to right, Marta Rey, director of the Inditex-UDC Chair in Sustainability; Antonio Abril, president of the UDC Social Council; Dr. Sebastian Troëng, executive vice president of Conservation International; Jerónimo Puertas, vice president for Research and Transfer at the UDC; and Carlos Piñeiro, head of Community Investment at Inditex.

Photo 2: lecture by Dr. Sebastian Troëng at the Rectorate of the University of A Coruña as part of the Open Code 2023/2024 conference series, organized by the Inditex-UDC Chair in Sustainability.