It is an honour to be invited to join IEEP as their new Honorary Chair of the Board, and I thank everyone at IEEP for entrusting me with this important responsibility.

I am truly impressed by the high quality and policy relevance of IEEP’s research, which over the past 40 years has helped shape much of Europe’s environmental acquis. I look forward to supporting IEEP achieve its goal for a more sustainable Europe.

While Europe has much to be proud of, we are racing against time to avoid irreversible environmental damage to our continent and the rest of the world. There is a window of opportunity to remain within planetary boundaries, but it is rapidly closing. We cannot afford further delays or mistaken paths.

More than ever, European policy makers require robustly discussed, evidence-based information to guide their decisions.

In 2018, Europe will debate its future and post-2020 strategy. European political parties will formulate their programs for the 2019 European elections. To ensure evidence is at the heart of this process, we are pleased to announce Think 2030 as a new science-policy platform for European environmental policy.

Think 2030’s first forum will take place in Brussels on October 15-18th 2018. It will convene a diverse range of stakeholders to propose solutions to Europe’s most pressing sustainability issues, with a view to inform Europe’s 2030 environmental policy agenda and guide the next European Commission, Parliament and national governments.

I see Think 2030 becoming a collaborative, recurring event for Europe’s sustainability knowledge community. It is imperative we work together to support Europe’s 2030 environmental policy agenda, and engage the wider community including businesses, NGOs, local authorities, national policy makers and European Institutions.

We invite our colleagues to join us at Think 2030 and share this exciting new step for IEEP in making Europe more sustainable.

To register your interest, visit http://Think2030.eu.