Emmanuel Prinet

Emmanuel Prinet "is Principal of EcoSteppingStones Consulting and Executive Director of the One Earth Initiative. Being both a Canadian and French citizen, and having grown up in Vancouver, Emmanuel decided to reconnect with family roots and pursue a dream of working in Europe by moving to France shortly after completion of his Master's degree. He joined Association 4D – Debates on the Do's and Don'ts of Sustainable Development – a Paris-based NGO, as the coordinator of the national Jo’burg 2002 Coalition, a French NGO platform that was created to work towards the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in 2002. The coalition brought together more than 120 NGOs working on sustainability issues, and Emmanuel was responsible for the group's political representation with the French Government as well as European and International NGO networks, of facilitating group work and of organizing the logistics for participation in the Summit itself. He attended all the Johannesburg World Summit’s regional and international preparatory conferences (PrepComs) on behalf of the coalition. After the WSSD, Emmanuel was asked to take on and develop 4D's European and international work on sustainability, and his activities included representing 4D as a member organization in the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), in the corporate social responsibility network OECD Watch and in the Northern Alliance for Sustainability (ANPED). He has developed working relationships with various international organizations such as UNEP, the OECD, and the European Commission. Emmanuel also has tremendous experience working with the United Nations, and has attended the UN's Commission on Sustainable Development every year since 2000. There, he participated actively in the NGO’s Sustainable Development Issues Network, and published a number of articles in the daily NGO newsletter Taking Issue. He has also been actively involved in the UN’s 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns (“Marrakech Process”). He has attended the regional sustainable consumption and production meeting in Ostend, Belgium (November 2004), and has taken an active part in drafting the NGO statement. Since 2004, he has co-produced a number of short documentaries as part of a video series called “Sustainability Productions”, which highlight the good social and ecological practices of various cities and their efforts to work towards sustainability. Emmanuel holds a BA (Hon.) in French literature and a Master of Science (Planning) from the University of British Columbia. His area of expertise is on understanding the concept of sustainability, ecological economics, sustainable production and consumption patterns, and the Ecological Footprint. Emmanuel is an avid outdoor enthusiast who enjoys rock-climbing and telemark skiing. He is perfectly bilingual in French and English, and can also speak Swedish, Spanish and Russian."