Mark Swilling

Mark Swilling is Distinguished Professor of Sustainable Development in the Centre for Sustainability Transitions (CST) in the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, University of Stellenbosch and Co-Director of the CST, and as from September 2021 Visiting Research Professor at the Environmental Justice Programme, Georgetown University, Washington D.C.

As a UNU-WIDER Non-Resident Senior Research Fellow, Professor Swilling is involved in the Southern Africa – Towards Inclusive Economic Development programme. Specifically, he is co-organizing the project’s sub-component on food, energy, and water in a context of climate change.

His latest book is The Age of Sustainability: Just Transitions in a Complex World, London and New York: Routledge, 2020. He also co-authored with Eve Annecke Just Transitions: Explorations of Sustainability in an Unfair World, Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 2012, co-edited with Adriana Allen and Andreas Lampis Untamed Urbanism, New York and London: Routledge, 2016, co-edited with Josephine Musango and Jeremy Wakeford Greening the South African Economy, Cape Town: Juta, 2016 and was the lead author with Ivor Chipkin et. al. of Shadow State: Politics of State Capture, Johannesburg: WITS Press, 2018.

He is a member of UNEP’s International Resource Panel acting as Coordinator of the Cities Working Group and co-lead author of The Weight of Cities: Resource Requirements of Future Urbanization, published in 2018. He is the Chairperson of the Board of the Development Bank of Southern Africa and in late 2021 was appointed by the President of South Africa as a member of the National Planning Commission.

He has been a Visiting Professor at the Universities of Sheffield and Utrecht, and in 2018 was the Edward P. Bass Visiting Environmental Scholar at Yale University. As of 2021 he had published 20 books, 84 book chapters, 64 peer reviewed articles, 50 reports and delivered 126 presentations.