The Science Council provides scientific advice, guidance, and support to the Nature Action 100 Technical Advisory Group, to ensure the quality and rigor in research and technical activities carried out by the initiative. It is comprised of 10 to 15 highly qualified and recognized experts in their respective fields.
The Science Council has an advisory role and offers independent viewpoints on content produced by the Technical Advisory Group, which is coordinated by the Finance for Biodiversity Foundation and Planet Tracker. Members of the Science Council are selected by the Technical Advisory Group based on their expertise, experience, and dedication to advancing biodiversity conservation efforts.
The first cohort of Science Council members was announced in May 2024. Read more here.
Members of the Science Council
Co-chair Marco Lambertini
Lambertini is the Convener of the Nature Positive Initiative. He was the World Wide Fund for Nature’s former International Director General (2014-2022) and Special Envoy (2023). Before joining WWF, he was Global Director of Network and Programme and subsequently CEO of BirdLife International. Marco’s experience and career ranges from ecological field research to high-level advocacy and international policy, nature reserve management, integrated conservation and development projects, environmental education, NGO development, communications and campaigning, in many countries all over the world.
Co-chair Sharon Brooks
As the Head of Nature Economy at the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Brooks leads a team of dedicated professionals with specialist skills at the interface between the economy and nature. The team works closely with businesses, financial institutions and governments to drive action for a nature positive future. This includes supporting development and reform of policies, standards and accountability mechanisms, and developing tools, guidance, and technical knowledge to build capacity and enable action. Sharon has over 20 years of experience in international conservation, an M.S. in Applied Ecology and Conservation, and a PhD in the field of Conservation and Development.
Hannah Birgé
Birgé is a Senior Scientist of Food and Water for The Nature Conservancy where she oversees the Science and Standards Team. She has a Ph.D. in Natural Resources Sciences and Applied Ecology from University of Nebraska-Lincoln, an M.S. in Ecology from Colorado State University, and a B.A. in Biology from St. Olaf College. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time outside with her family in the beautiful Kansas Flint Hills.
Rebekah Church
Church is the Global Lead Biodiversity Stewardship of the World Wide Fund for Nature, driving the development of new approaches and tools to support businesses in understanding and addressing their biodiversity impacts and risks. Church is an environmental lawyer with a background in ecology, and has over a decade of experience in biodiversity strategy and program development working across NGOs, government and the private sector.
Beatrice Crona
Crona is a Professor of Sustainability Science and Scientific Director at the Stockholm Resilience Center at Stockholm University. She also is Executive Director of the research program Global Economic Dynamics and the Biosphere at the Royal Swedish Academy of Science. She has a Ph.D in marine ecology but has worked since then to integrate various social science theories and methods with ecology to improve understanding of complex social-ecological dynamics. She contributed to the EAT-Lancet commission on Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems, and co-chaired the subsequent Blue Food Assessment, which maps out the role aquatic foods can play for a sustainable and healthy transition of food systems. Her work now increasingly focuses on understanding how capital markets can be a force for rapid movement towards sustainability, and how corporate reporting and ESG can facilitate corporate and financial biosphere stewardship. She currently co-leads the Mistra FinBio program that aims to provide meaningful measures of biodiversity for corporate and financial sectors.
Annelisa Grigg
Grigg is Founder and CEO of consultancy Globalbalance Ltd., and Board Member of the Partnership for Biodiversity Accounting Financials. She also is a Senior Associate at Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership and Fellow of United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre. She has more than 20 years’ experience advising companies and investors on the business risks and opportunities associated with the loss of nature and approaches to measuring and managing them. She started her career at KPMG specializing in sustainability report verification and sustainability strategy development. Following that, she held leadership roles in environmental groups, Fauna & Flora International and the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre. She recently advised the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform (IPBES) on biodiversity assessment methods for business, co-authored a report from the European Union Business and biodiversity platform on biodiversity measurement approaches, was advisor to the Taskforce for Nature-related Financial Disclosures on metrics and is technical advisor to the Align which recently produced seminal recommendations on corporate biodiversity measurement. She has an M.Phil. in Environment and Development from Cambridge University and is a qualified financial accountant.
Frank Hawkins
Hawkins is a conservation biologist and policy advisor with many years of experience working with governments, finance institutions, civil society and local communities in Africa and around the world. He currently is a Science and Policy Advisor to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. He focuses on the use of natural capital data in investment decision-making, and on bringing the conservation and finance communities together to drive changes in international conservation. He was instrumental in creating the Coalition for Private Investment in Conservation and in developing the Species Threat Abatement and Restoration biodiversity metric.
Nadine McCormick
McCormick is Senior Manager, Nature Action and leads the mainstreaming nature workstream at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, based in Geneva, Switzerland. In this role, she aims to empower and inspire companies to accelerate progress on their nature-positive journey, for which she combines a broad expertise in nature and business and in organizational and behavioral change. Before joining WBCSD in 2021, McCormick worked for more than 15 years at the International Union for Conservation of Nature, primarily in the Global Business and Biodiversity Programme, where she mobilized knowledge and experiences to scale up business engagement in the conservation community. She is British-Swiss and holds an M.S. in Environment and Development from the University of Edinburgh and a B.S. in International Management and French from the University of Bath and is also a certified facilitator.
Naw Ei Ei Min
Min is currently a Ph.D. student focusing on Climate Change study under Development studies at the University of Auckland. She received the U.S. Embassy’s Women of Change award on March 16 (2017). She is the Executive Council Member of Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact. which advocates for sustainable environmental policies for all people, regardless of gender or ethnicity. She has been a long-time advocate for indigenous peoples’ roles and rights in climate change response under UNCCCC. Since COP20, she has continued her engagement in climate change issues related to Indigenous Peoples at local, national, regional and international level. In addition to this she actively works on indigenous women issues, biodiversity protection, promotion of indigenous knowledge of Indigenous Peoples.
Stephen Polasky
Polasky is Regents Professor and Fesler-Lampert Professor of Ecological/Environmental Economics at the University of Minnesota. His research focuses on issues at the intersection of ecology and economics including the value of ecosystem services and natural capital. He is a co-founder of the Natural Capital Project, co-chair of the Biodiversity and Business Assessment of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and was a coordinating lead author on nature’s contributions to people for the IPBES Global Assessment. He has served on the Board of Directors for The Nature Conservancy and a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
Varsha Vijay
Vijay is a quantitative scientist with expertise across biodiversity, land, data/modeling, monitoring and corporate supply chains. In addition to technical expertise, she has direct experience working on justice and equity in conservation to develop solutions with a diverse group of collaborators and stakeholders, including communities, NGOs, companies, and government stakeholders. As Technical Director at Science Based Targets Network, Vijay provides strategic oversight and leads the development of methods, tools, and guidance companies can use to set science based targets for nature.