Local Chapters
CASSE’s chapters (see directory below) provide opportunities to collaborate on activities to advance the steady state economy. A chapter can cover one of a variety of geographic scales:
- College or university campus;
- City or county;
- State or province;
- Nation;
- Watershed, ecoregion, or other geographic region.
Chapter directors, in consultation with CASSE staff, determine the activities undertaken by the chapter. Chapters can work on projects such as gaining support for the CASSE position on economic growth, developing outreach materials, and arranging speaking engagements.
If you want to get involved with a chapter, please use the contact information provided in the directory below. If you are interested in starting a new chapter, please download the chapter guidelines and contact us.
Directory of CASSE Chapters
Albany Chapter
Location: Albany, New York, USA
Director: Ted Lawrence
Ted is an Energy and Environmental Policy Analyst for the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). His primary responsibilities involve energy modeling, forecasting, policy and economic analysis in support of statewide energy planning and climate action planning. He is also co-chair of the Education and Outreach sub-committee of NYSERDA’s Sustainability Committee. Outside of NYSERDA, Ted is President and Executive Director of the Foundation for Developing Sustainable Societies, a nonprofit organization committed to environmental conservation and sustainable development in Mesoamerica. He has also served as a full-time visiting instructor in Siena College’s Economics Department. Ted’s interdisciplinary education includes public policy, system dynamics, sustainability, ecological economics, biodiversity conservation, and anthropology.
Contact: Ted’s email
Boston Chapter
Location: Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Director: Eric Verploegen
Eric is a materials scientist with a Ph.D. in Polymer Science and Technology from MIT who works on developing chemical treatment processes to reduce the environmental impact of oil and gas extraction. He a member of the Echoing Green Social Investment Council and enthusiastically supports the social enterprises movement. Eric believes that the proliferation of organizations that operate to maximize social and environmental well being while being financially sustainable is a critical component of the path toward a steady state economy.
Contact: Eric’s email
Brisbane Chapter
Location: Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Director: Tom Byrne
Tom is a reformed lawyer and conscious consumer who is concerned about how rarely people question the systems in which they live and work, and he is keen to start the conversation. He is looking forward to the day when people stop working in jobs they dislike to earn money they don’t need to buy things they don’t really want to impress people they don’t know. His interest in a steady state economy has come from an ongoing journey of self education into the way we do the things we do. He firmly believes that with the right education and understanding, people will consider the ideas put forward by CASSE and bring the concept of a steady state economy into the mainstream debate.
Contact: Tom’s email
British Columbia Chapter
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Director: Neil Dawe
Neil is a wildlife biologist who lives on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. He retired from the Canadian Wildlife Service, Environment Canada, in 2006 after 31 years, during which time he managed National Wildlife Areas and Migratory Bird Sanctuaries and worked to protect migratory birds and their habitat. Prior to his work in the biological field, he spent seven years as a banker with one of Canada’s major banks. His current professional efforts focus on the preservation of global biodiversity by addressing the limiting factor of biodiversity conservation on the Earth today: economic growth. He regularly delivers presentations and writes newspaper columns on this topic.
Contact: Neil’s email
Cameroon Chapter
Location: Ekondo Titi, Cameroon
Director: Mukete Awah Beckline
Beckline is the Project Officer at the Community Service for Environmental Protection (COSEP), Cameroon Office and a Postgraduate Research Student, Environmental Agriculture at Buea University, Cameroon. He has previously worked as a Research Ecologist in Copenhagen, Denmark, as well as in the Netherlands, and elsewhere. Beckline graduated with a Master’s of Science degree in Ecological Sciences from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU), The Netherlands and has a Bachelor’s degree in Natural Sciences (Zoology) from the University of Dschang, Cameroon.
Contact: Beckline’s email
Colombia Chapter
Location: Villa de Leyva and Bogotá, Colombia
Director: Claudia Múnera Roldán
Claudia is a biologist whose main interest (from both a personal and professional perspective) is conservation of biodiversity. She has experience working in both Colombia and Guatemala on projects involving endangered species, CITES, protected areas, birdwatching tourism, and invasive species. Her current research focuses on the social aspects of conservation, particularly ways to reconcile nature conservation with other societal goals. Claudia lives in the small town of Villa de Leyva where she works as a consultant for public and private sector organizations. She is very interested in coordinating people and organizations in Colombia who are concerned about the consequences of economic growth and want to develop an economic framework that includes a healthy environment.
Contact: Claudia’s email
Hong Kong Chapter
Location: Hong Kong, China
Director: Claudio Delang
Claudio is a geographer working at the Hong Kong Baptist University. He has a background in economics, geography, and environmental studies, and has been working for the last 15 years in rural areas in Southeast Asia (Thailand, Laos, Vietnam) and China. He is interested in particular in people’s livelihoods, and the conflicts that emerge around the resources people depend on, and are denied by more powerful groups (for example through land grabbing for plantations or mining, or zoning for national park) and how this is presented as ‘economic development’. Through his work, he has become interested in the economics, social, and environmental failures of the growth economy. He is very keen in organizing activities in Hong Kong to contribute to the debate as to whether further economic growth is desirable, and the costs that accompany it. He welcomes your E-mails.
Contact: Claudio’s email
London Chapter
Location: London, UK
Director: Desmond Kilroy
Desmond developed an interest in sustainable economics while doing an Msc Sustainable Development at the onset of the current financial crisis. His main professional interest is in the aspirational values of the sustainability agenda, i.e., ecological stability, social equity and economic efficiency. For six years he worked at the UK Empty Homes Agency as a consultant to the UK local authority sector on regeneration issues. Other experience includes managing NGO projects to create sustainable development benefits and some international development experience. In 2010 Desmond started a new organisation for sustainable development advocacy, Democratic Planet Capital (DPC) specifically focused on the systemic barriers that hinder sustainability and innovative financial mechanisms.
Contact: Desmond’s email
New South Wales Chapter
Location: Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Co-Directors: Anna Schlunke and Eva Schlunke
Anna is a chemical engineer with a PhD in reaction kinetics (from Sydney University) who works in the area of sustainable buildings, primarily creating algorithms to model building water use, greenhouse gas emissions and thermal comfort. Eva is an artist and illustrator, who lives and exhibits in Redfern, Sydney. Eva has a background in business administration and eco-tourism. She has managed and consulted for several eco-tourism lodges in the Amazon Rainforest, including work with Rainforest Action Network and Peru Verde. Anna and Eva grew up in country NSW, where they lived in an off-the-grid mudbrick house (built by their father). It was a frugal but magical childhood. They are saddened by the comparative emptiness of affluent modern lifestyles (particularly in the city) and frustrated to find themselves in a system that is destroying the planet. Anna and Eva run a blog <http://the-inkling.com/> as an outlet for their ideas, worries and questions about sustainability and politics.
Contact: Anna’s email and Eva’s email
Norway Chapter (click here to visit the Norway webpage)
Location: Oslo, Norway
Director: Tormod Burkey
Tormod is a conservation biologist with a Ph.D. from Princeton University on how to protect biodiversity and endangered species. He spent three years in Papua New Guinea as the Environment Programme Manager for the UN. He has served on the boards of the Rainforest Foundation and the Norwegian Carnivore and Raptor Foundation, advised parliamentarians on environmental policy, co-founded a wolf advocacy group, and is active with the Norwegian Green Party. He believes that political will is the limiting factor in bringing about meaningful change, not necessarily a lack of knowledge. Therefore he is drawn toward activism more than research.
Contact: Tormod’s email
Queensland Chapter
Location: Queensland, Australia
Director: Richard Sanders
Richard is an ecological economist, futurist, environmental scientist and change agent who has delved deeply into the concept of sustainability for over 20 years and been a steady stater for over 40 years. He is employed as a principal policy officer within the Queensland government dealing with sustainability and resource management. He is executive officer and founder of Quest 2025, a not-for-profit community organisation which aims to: “help facilitate the transformation of society through informed people power and the democratic process from its current state of social, spiritual and ecological crisis into an enlightened civilisation that is ecologically sustainable and socially just by the year 2025”.
Contact: Richard’s email
Rio de Janeiro State Chapter
Location: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Director: Christopher Amaral Paterson
Chris has a technical background and a strong interest in the social and economic issues of our time. He is a systems engineer from PUC-RJ with a masters course in computer science also from PUC-RJ and a master of science degree in operations research from Stanford University. Chris strongly believes that a steady state economy is a must for all countries, but its implementation has to adjust to the specifics of each country. He further believes that blind economic growth fails to address human development needs and prioritizes profit above well-being. Chris is the founder of the Nova Economia Blog (written in Portuguese), which is dedicated to promoting new economic ideas with a Brazilian perspective.
Contact: Chris’s email
Risaralda Chapter
Location: Risaralda, Colombia
Director: Paola Arias
Paola Arias is an economist with graduate studies in the management of protected areas. She has worked on interdisciplinary projects in the environmental sector, such as environmental goods and services, economic valuation, watershed management and planning, and payments for environmental services. She currently lives in the state of Risaralda where she works mainly in the Otun Watershed. She is very happy to live there, since it is an excellent place to explore local development experiences toward a steady state economy. For example, the Otun Watershed encompasses ecovillages; commitments to conserve seeds, medicinal plants and traditional knowledge; community-based ecotourism in protected areas; children involved in environmental groups; and agro-ecological schools. She believes these activities stem from the high levels of social capital in the communities of the watershed. Besides her work as a consultant, Paola is excited to be working with other steady staters to create sustainable habitats and communities, based on the experience of 11 years of the Ecovillage El Prado.
Contact: Paola’s email
San Francisco Bay Area Chapter
Location: San Francisco, California, USA
Director: Erik Alm
Erik is a researcher and consultant providing services to companies in the clean fuels sector. He has studied sustainability formally having earned a B.S. in Environmental Studies at the University of Vermont, and an MPA in Environmental Science and Policy at Columbia University. His strong passion for the preservation of biodiversity was his motivating factor for getting involved with CASSE. Through his work with the Center, he hopes to build a collaborative environment in the Bay Area where the local effects of uneconomic growth can be documented, and ways of moving toward a steady-state economy can be devised.
Contact: Erik’s email
Serbia Chapter
Location: Novi Sad, Serbia
Director: Ante Vujić
Ante Vujić is a biologist with a Ph.D. in diversity of Diptera (Syrphidae). He is a full professor at the Department of Biology and Ecology, Faculty of Sciences (University of Novi Sad, Serbia), whose main interest is biodiversity conservation, entomology, and the protection of endangered species. He intends to implement ecological economics into university curriculum in Serbia, and point out the importance of biodiversity through economic valorizations. He believes that biodiversity conservation through a steady state economy can provide potential solutions for many problems. He wants to help spread CASSE’s concept in Serbia and welcomes your emails.
Contact: Ante’s email
South Africa Chapter
Location: KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Co-Director: Gertrud Lomas-Walker
Gertrud Lomas-Walker has for the past 20 years worked in the field of sustainability, in local economic development, for a large South African financial services organisation, and latterly as an advisor to companies for an international assurance and advisory firm. Her areas of speciality are sustainability strategy, integrated reporting and governance. She is pursuing a non-consumption driven ecological economic agenda and helping organisations and communities prepare for the transition. She is political science major and has an honours degree in organisational development.
Contact: Gertrud’s email
South Africa Chapter
Location: KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Co-Director: Jean Senogles
Jean Senogles is a veteran environmental activist and conservationist. Her primary concerns are around biodiversity and education especially with reference to the 9 Planetary Boundaries. She has served on various boards including the Fish Quota Board, Natal Parks Board, is chairman of the local Palmiet Nature Reserve management committee and the Westville Conservancy, and serves on the Board of the South African Association for Marine Biological Research. She is a geographer and teacher of environmental sciences in underprivileged schools in KwaZulu Natal, founding member of Primates Africa and PLANT (Plant a National Tree), and has propagated and planted thousands of trees over 40 years in gardens, parks, schools and hospitals. With her husband Ron, she sailed extensively in the Indian Ocean, and together served on the Executive of the Save St Lucia Campaign. St Lucia is now a World Heritage Site.
Contact: Jean’s email
St. Louis Chapter
Location: St. Louis, Missouri, United States
Director: Eric Zencey
Eric is the author of Virgin Forest: Meditations on History, Ecology, and Culture and the forthcoming The Other Road to Serfdom: Essays in Sustainable Democracy. An internationally published (and nationally best-selling) novelist, Eric has been teaching ecological and steady state economics since the 1980s. He holds a Ph.D. in political philosophy, and currently is a visiting professor of historical and political studies for Empire State College. He is also an affiliate of the Gund Institute of Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont.
Contact: Eric’s email
Tolima Chapter
Location: Tolima, Colombia
Director: Sandra Marcela Cely Santos
Marcela works at a Regional Innovation Institute which educates people living in rural landscapes and supports them in the establishment of cooperatives and associations. The purpose is to improve livelihoods, build equitable communities, and re-empower communities to build a better future. Marcela is a biologist with a passion for wildlife conservation and a deep interest in biodiversity conservation in productive landscapes. She believes that agroecology and sustainable food systems are critical to achieving healthy landscapes and a sustainable economy.
Contact: Marcela’s email
Toronto Chapter
Location: Toronto, Canada
Director: Ryan Dyment
Ryan is a Chartered Accountant and the Executive Director of IRBE, a non-profit organization that connects economic and environmental issues and implements shared-resource projects in Toronto. Ryan started his career working at KPMG, an international accounting firm, and moved to the health care industry for several years before founding IRBE. In his day-to-day life, Ryan aims to limit his participation in the growth economy, build community and advocate for a sustainable economic model. Ryan is a graduate of McGill University and serves on the Board of Wildlife Preservation Canada, a registered charity that addresses biodiversity issues.
Contact: Ryan’s email
Vermont State Chapter
Location: Burlington, Vermont, United States
Director: Aaron Witham
Aaron is the sustainability coordinator of Green Mountain College in Vermont. He holds an M.S. in Natural Resources from the University of Vermont and a Graduate Certificate in Ecological Economics from the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics. He was also a former research scholar at the Transportation Research Center at UVM and the Managing Director of the Center for Environmental Education in Maine. His research interests include reforming the fractional reserve banking system, promoting alternative economic indicators, and mitigating climate change. As an avid hunter and fisherman, Aaron is also interested in steady-state outreach among outdoor enthusiasts.
Contact: Aaron’s email
Vienna Chapter
Location: Vienna, Austria
Director: Graziano Ceddia
Graziano is an economist with a PhD in Environmental Economics and Management (Ebor, UK). He is Associate Professor in Sustainable Development at MODUL University (MU) Vienna, where he teaches ecological economics and where he also serves as president of the MU Sustainability Committee. He has worked on interdisciplinary topics looking at the interactions between environmental and socio-economic systems, including the management of invasive alien species and infectious diseases. More recently he has been working on the relationship between agricultural intensification and deforestation in tropical regions and looking into the existence of Jevons paradoxes in land use changes. His interest in ecological economics has come from his dissatisfaction with the way in which standard neoclassical theory deals with environmental issues. He firmly believes in the role of education and in the necessity of providing new generations with an alternative paradigm capable of explaining the current energetic, environmental and economic crisis.
Contact: Graziano’s email
Washington State Chapter
Location: Seattle, Washington, United States
Director: Josh Nelson
Josh is a structural engineer by day, a writer by night (and on the weekends). He lives in Seattle with his partner and young son. Taking to heart his responsibilities for his son’s future, Josh applies the “campsite rule” — he wants to leave this world in better condition than he found it. Josh runs the blog called Steady State Revolution, collaborates on the blog Post Growth and helps CASSE in numerous ways, particularly on the technical end of things. He also is an avid mead maker, homebrewer and bicyclist.
Contact: Josh’s email
Yorkshire Chapter
Location: Yorkshire, UK
Co-Directors: Brian Flynn and Owen Brear
Brian Flynn is a newly retired teacher who is concerned about the inexorable and widespread desire “to have more”. This dichotomy between having and being has been a matter of personal interest and struggle over the long term. Attending the Steady State Economy Conference held at Leeds Metropolitan University a couple of years ago was a revelation to him, in that there appeared to be a real alternative to the current unsustainable system. Brian is keen to get the message out there. Personal example is, he believes, important in order to demonstrate that you walk the talk, but without pushing the idea up the national and political agendas it seems unlikely change will happen. It is with this in mind that he recently agreed to co-direct the Yorkshire chapter.
Owen Brear is a graduate in Environment, Economics and Ecology from the University of York and is currently studying a PhD with Bangor University in the area of ‘well-being’ and investigating the multi-faceted nature of the Ancient Greek word “eudaimonia”. Owen is interested in the intersection of economic thought and eudaimonic well-being as presented within the field of positive psychology. He is also studying the more mystical aspects of this work – especially the notion of the daemonic in the human mind as presented within Jungian and post-Jungian psychology via the metaphysical union of opposites, and within the context of the divine feminine i.e. daemonic imagery and the unconscious coupled with the Christian ‘demonisation’ of the Pagan ‘daemon’. He is also a keen birdwatcher.
Contact: Brian and Owen’s email
Zürich Chapter
Location: Zürich, Switzerland
Director: Michael Curran
Michael Curran is a Ph.D. student at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, focusing on applying the principles of steady state and ecological economics to the problem of land allocation between nature conservation and human use. He holds a Master’s degree in spatial ecology from the University of Basel and a Bachelor’s degree in Zoology from University College Dublin. In Zurich, he is involved in grass roots projects to revive local communities and involve people in locally producing the goods and services they require. This includes founding a community garden at the ETH Zurich, sharing a small farm in the Emmental region, and participating in initiatives from Transition Towns to Citizens Salaries. (Update: Michael is away on fieldwork in Kenya until May, and will forward any correspondence to other members of the Zurich Chapter).
Contact: Michael’s email
