The Volvo Environment Prize event 2023 starts soon.
Newsletter Oct 24, 2014
Frank Biermann, a Professor of Sustainability Governance at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, received the 2024 award at the prize event in Stockholm on Oct. 15. The Swedish Minister for Climate and Environment, Romina Pourmokhtari, handed it to him.
Frank Biermann is the first political scientist to receive the award. At the prize ceremony, Jury member Johan Rockström underscored the need for political solutions to the pressing challenges facing the Earth today.
A film on Frank Biermann’s research, “Can Political Science Save Sustainable Development Goals?” premiered at the prize event. It can be watched on the Volvo Environment Prize YouTube channel, and the video has more than 45,000 views.
The film focuses on Frank Biermann’s research on improving environmental and sustainability governance. It gives an example of the Sustainable Development Goals, which 193 nations agreed to implement at the United Nations in 2015.
Frank Biermann has analyzed 3,000 scientific studies and found that the Sustainable Development Goals have had no transformative impacts on societies or the political system so far.
“We need better and more powerful institutions and better politics to deal with the challenges such as climate change,” says Biermann.
The 2024 award ceremony coincided with the 35thAnniversary of the Volvo Environment Prize. There were discussions with Frank Biermann on his research on sustainability governance and with Jury members Professor Johan Rockström and Martin Lundstedt, VolvoGroup President and CEO, on future challenges in a fast-changing world. The event also featured a cavalcade of world events, previous laureates in retrospect since the first award in 1990, and musical entertainment.