Services

Professors not only teach courses and conduct research, we also engage in services to the University, the scientific community and society at large. Below you can find some of my activities in this regard.

At the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration I am chairing the sustainability committee that overlooks the implementation of the Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME). The Faculty adopted the PRME in 2020, and benefited from this work when acquiring the AACSB accredition in 2023. With the committee we also push for a stronger integration of sustainability in both education and research at the Faculty in order to increase the societal impact it is having.

Since 2023, the chairs of the Faculty-level sustainability committees are also (non-voting) members of UGent's central sustainability committee. In addition, I have also contributed to different Action Plans on sustainability at the University (e.g. on sustainable travel), co-organized a university-wide survey on sustainability education, and am actively involved in UGent's think-and-do thank "Transitie UGent".

On May 16th, 2019 I was promotor of the Honorary Institutional Degree awarded by Ghent University to professor Lord Nicholas Stern, climate economist at the London School of Economics (LSE). 

I am country representative for Belgium at the European Society for Ecological Economics (ESEE) and try to bring together Belgian ecological economists at least once a year for an informal exchange of ideas. I am also member of the organizing committee of the annual Belgian Environmental Economics Day (BEED), that I hosted twice in Ghent in the past (2018 and 2022).

In  the summer of 2026 I will be chairing the 16th biannual conference of the European Society for Ecological Economics at our Faculty together with prof. Bart Defloor. This is a 3,5-day conference on ecological economics that attracts around 500 participants, so challenging yet exciting times ahead!

My services to the scientific community also include referee work for academic journals (e.g. Ecological Economics; Social Indicators Research, Sustainable Production and Consumption, Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics), publishers (e.g. Routledge, Cambridge University Press) and international scientific bodies (e.g. International Resources  Panel, Agence Nationale de la Recherche). 

I am a representative of the scientific community at the Federal Council for Sustainable Development (FRDO) in Belgium. This council unites all stakeholders in sustainable development—including employers, employees, environmental and North-South NGOs, youth organizations, and scientists—to provide consensus-based advice at the request of federal ministers in Belgium. At the FRDO, I am member of the Bureau and I (co)preside the working groups on "Financing the Transition" and "Strategy" that advise the Belgian Federal government on related topics by building consensus amongst stakeholders - all FRDO opinions can be found here. Other activities from the Council include organising and chairing seminars to inform the stakeholders and the public at large. Below you can find the latest seminars that we organised:

• 13/11/2024 - Financing the green transition of the economy

• 24/6/2024 - Klimaat en economisch bestuur in een Europees kader: welke implicaties voor België? (jointly organised with the Centrale Raad voor het Bedrijfsleven)

• 21/12/2023 - Implementing green budgeting in Belgium. What does it mean?

Since 2021 I am also member of the Scientific Committee on National Accounts at the National Bank of Belgium (NBB). The committee scrutinizes the scientific value and the objectivity of the methods adopted by the National Accounts Institute (NAI) and of the results it publishes.

Apart from my roles at the FRDO and the NBB, I also engage in other activities that promote sustainable development - e.g. jury member of the VDK Bank's prize for best PhD on Sustainable Development, and I also hold lectures on topics related to ecological economics, post-growth, donut economics to broad audiences.