Laura Schmidt is Head of Division for Climate Finance at the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Ms Schmidt has held various positions at the BMZ since 2008, including as climate adaptation advisor and negotiator in the UNFCCC context and as head of the German development cooperation in Mozambique and Ethiopia. Ms Schmidt has over twenty years of experience in the field of development policy, including ten years of practical cooperation on the African continent. Before joining the BMZ, she worked for the European Commission, also in the field of climate change, and for GIZ in Malawi. Ms Schmidt completed her studies in European Studies/International Relations with an MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). She has been Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation Development and Climate Alliance since December 2023.
Martin Schröder has been Deputy Chairman of the Board of Trustees, the supervisory body of the Foundation Development and Climate Alliance, since January 2025. He has been with KfW for 14 years and currently coordinates the WALD initiative (Worldwide Alliance on Landscape-based Decarbonisation). In addition to carbon storage for climate protection, WALD’s nature-based approaches make a valuable contribution to biodiversity conservation. As part of his work at KfW, Mr Schröder has headed the KfW Development Bank’s office in Brazil, supervised several development projects and shared his expertise on carbon markets.
Helmy Abouleish is the CEO of the SEKEM initiative in Egypt. SEKEM promotes sustainable development with a holistic approach: ecologically, economically, in terms of the economy of love, socially and culturally. He is the Chairman of the Board of Heliopolis University for Sustainable Development. He is also the president of the Biodynamic Federation – Demeter International, where he has been active since its foundation and has helped to define the vision, mission, principles and values of Demeter International. Helmy Abouleish is a member of the Club of Rome, on the board of C2C (Cradle to Cradle), a member of the Schwab Foundation (World Economic Forum), on the Common Board of Trustees of CIFOR-ICRAF, and a board member of WSIF (World Social Initiative Forum) and WGA (The World Goetheanum Association). He is a Firekeeper of the World Ethic Forum and an advisor to the World Future Council. Helmy Abouleish is the chairman of Ecotec, the Sekem Development Foundation (SDF) and the secretary general of Chapter Zero Egypt. He is a member of our advisory board since December 2023.
Prof. Dr. Anna-Katharina Hornidge is Director of the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS, formerly the German Development Institute (DIE)) and Professor of Global Sustainable Development at the University of Bonn. Her research focuses on issues of knowledge for development and natural resource governance in agriculture and fisheries in Asia and Africa. She advises the German government at EU and UN level – among other things as a member of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU), co-chair of SDSN Germany, and member of the Executive Board of the German UNESCO Commission. She is a member of our Advisory Board since December 2023.
Dr. Hans Peter Lankes is Managing Director and Deputy Chairman of ODI, an international think tank, Visiting Professor at the LSE Grantham Research Institute, and member of the Investment Committee of ILX, an impact fund. Dr Lankes has more than 30 years of experience in international development institutions, as well as in academia, the private sector and government consulting (in Africa, Southeast Asia and Central America). During his professional career, he has worked at the EBRD in the Board and other senior positions, at the International Monetary Fund and, until 2021, as Executive Director and Vice President for Economics and Private Sector Development at IFC/World Bank. He holds a PhD in Public Policy and a master in Public Administration from Harvard University, and a degree in Economics from the University of Freiburg and the University of Grenoble. He is a member of our Advisory Board since December 2023.
Dr. Franziska Tanneberger is a member of the German Federal Government’s Council for Sustainable Development. She is also a member of the steering group of the toMOORow initiative and sits on the board of trustees of the Michael Otto Environmental Foundation (Hamburg) and the David Nature Foundation (Erfurt). She is a renowned researcher and expert on moorland use and moorland biodiversity. She studied landscape ecology and nature conservation. She was a research assistant at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research and at the University of Greifswald, where she also obtained her doctorate. She has worked for the Brandenburg State Environment Agency, OTOP BirdLife Poland, NABU Brandenburg and the Michael Succow Foundation. Since 2012, she has been a research assistant at the University of Greifswald, where she works on vegetation, biodiversity and carbon certificates from moorland climate protection. Since 2015, she has been the director of the Greifswald Moor Centrum (GMC), a collaboration between the University of Greifswald, the Michael Succow Foundation and the Institut für Nachhaltige Entwicklung der Naturräume der Erde (DUENE e.V.). She is a member of various committees and organisations, including the International Mire Conservation Group (IMCG) and the German Ornithologists’ Society (DO-G). She is also a member of our advisory board since December 2023.
Dr. Kira Vinke is a renowned researcher and expert on climate and foreign policy. She began her career as a research associate at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), where she led the East Africa Peru India Climate Capacities (EPICC) project. Until 2018, she was scientific advisor to the director of PIK. In this role, she worked as an advisor to the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) from 2014 to 2016. She received her doctorate from Humboldt University in Berlin on the topic of climate change and migration. Since 2022, Dr Vinke has been head of the Centre for Climate and Foreign Policy at the German Council on Foreign Relations. She is also co-chair of the Advisory Board to the German Federal Government for Civilian Crisis Prevention and Peacebuilding. She is a member of the board of trustees of the German Climate Foundation and World Vision Germany. She is also a member of the German section of Action Against Hunger and the Development Service and Humanitarian Aid Committee of Brot für die Welt. She is a member of our advisory board since December 2023.
Since 2010, Kirsten Gade has been the contact person at Brot für die Welt for the financing of climate protection programs that contribute to climate justice and the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Her tasks include developing climate protection financing strategies and supporting Brot für die Welt partner organizations and their social enterprises in the design and implementation of certified carbon projects. Ms Gade has many years of experience in development cooperation in various regions of Asia, Africa and the Pacific as well as in the voluntary carbon market.
Before joining Brot für die Welt, she worked in various positions, including at the Protestant Development Service and the Protestant Central Agency for Development Aid, in the areas of sustainable rural development, the right to food and small business development. She studied ethnology, tropical and subtropical agriculture and small business development in Hamburg, Göttingen and Wales (UK).
Matthias Poralla is an international climate policy consultant and heads the Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) division at Perspectives Climate Group. He advises public and private actors on the planning and implementation of net-zero strategies that require a portfolio of market-based and non-market-based instruments. He places particular emphasis on the political, economic and social feasibility of ambitious climate policies involving CDR. Matthias Poralla studied political science, public administration and economics at the University of Potsdam and has been working at Perspectives since 2019.
Nicolas Kreibich is Senior Researcher in the International Climate Policy Research Unit at the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy. His work focuses on the design of market-based instruments under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the voluntary carbon market and corporate climate action. The introduction and implementation of market-based climate policy instruments at national level and the governance of environmental and social impacts of mitigation measures are further focal points of his work. Nicolas Kreibich studied Regional Studies Latin America at the University of Cologne with a focus on political science and has been working in the Department of Energy, Transport and Climate Policy at the Wuppertal Institute since 2009.
Lambert Schneider is Research Coordinator for International Climate Policy at Oeko-Institut. He has been conducting research on international climate policy and carbon markets for more than 20 years and is involved in the international climate negotiations on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. He is also a member of the Executive Board of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), was co-chair of the Expert Panel of the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) and is a member of the Methodological Expert Panel of the Paris Agreement Crediting Mechanism under Article 6.4. He co-founded the Carbon Credit Quality Initiative (CCQI), under which different types of credits are independently and transparently assessed using a scoring tool. Lambert Schneider holds a PhD from Wageningen University on the environmental integrity of international carbon markets under the Paris Agreement.
Dr. Hanna Fuhrmann-Riebel is a Behavioural Economist and Researcher at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), where she mainly works on topics in the area of sustainable development, sustainable consumption, circular economy, behaviour change, and policy acceptance. She studied Economics at the Universities of Münster and Cologne, with stays abroad at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and KU Leuven, and did her PhD in the UK at the University of East Anglia, School of International Development. In her PhD, she investigated motivations for pro-environmental behaviour among the growing middle class in Peru, for which she conducted large household surveys as well as randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in cooperation with a local municipality in Lima. In her role as member of the Advisory Council, she is looking forward to supporting the Foundation in its work for more climate protection and sustainable development.
Photo credits: Die Hoffotografen GmbH, Kirsten Nijhof, Tobias Schult, DIE, ODI, DGAP/Zsófia Pölöske, Hermann Bredehorst/Brot für die Welt, Perspectives Climate Group, Wuppertal Institut für Klima, Umwelt, Energie, Öko-Institut, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).
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