Professor Stefan Schaltegger

"Sustainable development only happens if people make it happen. This is why 'change agents for sustainability' are so important. They encourage and support companies, larger groups in society, and individuals to engage in sustainability transformation with verve. In this context, Green Talents develop outstanding approaches how to walk the talk."

Head of the Centre for Sustainability Management (CSM), Leuphana University Lüneburg

Prof. Stefan Schaltegger is founder and head of the Centre for Sustainability Management (CSM) and professor of Sustainability Management at Leuphana University Lüneburg. In 2003, he founded the world-wide first MBA in Sustainability Management with 650 students and alumni until 2020. Stefan Schaltegger is member (chairman from 1999 until 2019) of the steering committees of the European and the global Environmental and Sustainability Management Accounting Network (EMAN), member of the SustainAbilityFaculty, London, United Kingdom, and research fellow of the Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA). In addition to these activities, he is member of several corporate sustainability boards. He has served as member of the jury of the German Sustainability Award and the Next Economy Award.

Stefan Schaltegger is among the internationally most cited researchers in sustainability management. His main research interests are fundamental concepts and methods of sustainability management (sustainable entrepreneurship, biodiversity management, operationalisation of corporate sustainability, sustainable business models, and sustainable supply chain management) and measuring and controlling of corporate sustainability (environmental and sustainability accounting, reporting, and controlling). In 2017, he received an honorary doctorate for internationally leading research in Sustainable Entrepreneurship, Sustainability Accounting, and Management of Stakeholder Relationships. He received various research awards (including awards of the German Association of Environmental Management and of the International Federation of Accountants, IFAC).

Stefan Schaltegger studied Economics, Marketing, and Economic Policy (Environmental Economics) and received a PhD from the University of Basel, Switzerland. After a research stay at the University of Washington in Seattle, United States of America, he returned to the University of Basel and worked there in different positions as senior lecturer and assistant professor of economics until 1998. Then he received several calls to German universities and decided to continue his career at Leuphana University Lüneburg. He served as vice-president research of Leuphana University from 2006–2011, and was guest researcher at the University of Sydney and the University of South Australia in 2011–2012.