Geoffrey Heal, Donald C. Waite III Professor of Social Enterprise at Columbia Business School, is noted for contributions to economic theory and resource and environmental economics. He holds bachelors (first class), masters and doctoral degrees from Cambridge University, where he studied at Churchill College and taught at Christ’s College. He also holds an Honorary Doctorate from the Universite´ de Paris Dauphine.
Author of eighteen books and about two hundred articles, Professor Heal is a Fellow of the Econometric Society, Past President of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, recipient of its prize for publications of enduring quality and a Life Fellow, a Director of the Union of Concerned Scientists and a founder and Director and chairman of the Board of the Coalition for Rainforest Nations, developers of the REDD policy for reducing deforestation by awarding carbon credits for forest conservation. Recent books include Nature and the Marketplace, Valuing the Future, When Principles Pay and Whole Earth Economics (forthcoming).
Professor Heal chaired a committee of the National Academy of Sciences on valuing ecosystem services, was a Commissioner of the Pew Oceans Commission, is a coordinating lead author of the IPCC, was a member of President Sarkozy’s Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, was a member of the advisory board for the World Bank’s 2010 World Development Report and the United Nations Environment Program’s 2011 Human Development Report, and acts as an advisor to the World Bank on its Green Growth project. He is also a Director of Public Business, a foundation that promotes in-depth public interest journalism.
He has been a principal in two start-up companies, one a consulting firm and the other in software and telecommunications, and until recently was a member of the Investment Committee of a green private equity group. He teaches MBA courses on “Current Developments in Energy Markets,” “Business and Society: Doing Well by Doing Good?” and “The Business of Sustainability” and advises doctoral students interested in sustainability.