Pavan Sukhdev

Pavan Sukhdev is a scientist by education, an international banker by training, and an environmental economist by passion. His connection to both the business and the conservation world made Pavan the perfect Guest of Honour for the 2023 FFN Awards.

Years of work in sustainability and the invisible economics of nature led to Pavan’s appointment to head the United Nations’ “Green Economy Initiative ” and to lead the G8+5 study TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity). He launched an ongoing campaign on transforming business for tomorrow’s world. Pavan promotes tomorrow’s corporation, “Corporation 2020”, one with positive rather than negative externalities as the engine of tomorrow’s inclusive green economy. As Founder and CEO of GIST Impact, which delivers impact valuation and analytics, Pavan works with asset managers, C-suite executives and senior government officials on transition techniques, with an emphasis on metrics for sustainability. Pavan has served on the boards of Conservation International (CI), the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC), and on the TEEB Advisory Board and has won several awards for his work including the Blue Planet Prize (2016) and the Tyler Prize (2020).

On April 21st 2023, Pavan Suhkdev shared his thoughts about the future for nature. Moved by the stories of the three winners, Pavan urged them to “stay with the fight and keep the love burning inside you” and spoke about how nature provides so much of value into our lives every day, but that these invisible economics of nature need to become visible. “All that these three young people have done, is helping to create movement that will finally change people’s mindset”, said Pavan, “and change the psyche of human beings to one which is positive towards nature, to one that seeks to defend, protect and preserve nature for future generations.”