Speakers
Jeb Brugmann
ICLEI Founder / Urban and Global Business Strategist
Biography:
Jeb Brugmann has a 25-year career in the municipal, development and urban sectors. For the last five years he has worked intensively in the private sector with major multinational corporations.
In 1990, Brugmann founded the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), the international environmental agency for local government, in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Union of Local Authorities. He served as ICLEI’s Secretary General from 1991-2000. In this capacity, he conceived and founded the worldwide ‘Local Agenda 21’ initiative, which since its high profile endorsement by 178 countries at the 1992 UN ‘Earth Summit’ has engaged nearly 10,000 communities in 115 countries in community-based development planning and implementation. In 1991, Brugmann and Philip Jessup also co-founded ICLEI’s Cities for Climate Protection Campaign, which has since involved more than 800 cities and towns in more than 50 countries in a coordinated effort to quantify and reduce their local greenhouse gas emissions.
In his capacity as ICLEI Secretary General, Brugmann also was the principal technical representative for the worldwide local government community in a number of United Nations summits and processes, including the 1992 Earth Summit, the 1996 Habitat II conference (‘City Summit’), the first World Water Forum and the Global Water Partnership. In this capacity, he worked closely with the technical and diplomatic professionals of relevant of United Nations programs, convention secretariats, the World Bank, national ministries and NGOs throughout the world.
To support his work at the community level, Brugmann secured the financial support of the governments of Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, the European Union, Finland, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as the UN Development Programme, UNEP, UN-Habitat, the World Bank, hundreds of municipalities, and numerous private foundations.
Between 1985 and 2005, Brugmann worked directly with 49 municipalities and urban slum communities in 21 countries on their local sustainable development projects. From 2000-2003 he was Principal of City-States urban strategies consulting, serving as a strategy consultant to the cities of Barcelona, Metro Vancouver and Honolulu, and managing a multi-year capacity-building program for Asian municipal leaders through a partnership between the Asian Development Bank, Honolulu and the US-AID Asia Environmental Program.
In 2003, Brugmann joined Prof. CK Prahalad, the world’s leading global business strategist, as a Founding Partner of The Next Practice, a business consultancy specialized in developing businesses that serve the “base of pyramid” (very low income) households in India, S. Africa and other parts of the world. . Brugmann’s clients have included bp (formerly British Petroleum), Barclays, Nestles and Reuters.
Brugmann is an economist by profession. He holds a B.A. in economics with highest honors, specializing in regional economics, from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and a Masters Degree in Public Administration from Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government. He has received a variety of international awards and recognitions for his work in the urban sustainability field.
He has served on numerous international “best practice” awards panels and published in a number of scholarly journals including Harvard Business Review, Third World Development Review, Environmental Impact Assessment Review, and Local Environment. He is a founding and continuing editorial board member of Local Environment. His February 2007 article in Harvard Business Review with C.K. Prahalad, Co-creating Business’ New Social Compact, won the prestigious McKinsey Award for Best Business Article in 2007. He has authored chapters in books published by Earthscan, UN Habitat and United Nations University and others. His first book, Welcome to the Urban Revolution, will be released in 2009 by Penguin Books (Canada) and Bloomsbury Press (USA).