Paul Ekins. Photo: Robin Vanner.
OBE for Wandsworth Friend
Paul Ekins has been awarded an OBE
Quaker and academic Paul Ekins was awarded an OBE in the New Year’s Honours List for services to environmental policy.
Paul is director of the University College London Institute for Sustainable Resources (ISR) and professor of energy and environment policy at the UCL Energy Institute. His work focuses on the conditions and policies for achieving an environmentally sustainable economy. He said of his award: ‘The recognition of achievements so far is clearly an inspiration to do more; but the amount that still needs to be done in relation to environmental policy certainly prevents any sense of “mission accomplished”.’
He has been a member of Wandsworth Meeting for at least two decades. Paul told the Friend that he has been an active environmentalist for considerably longer than he has been a Quaker, but admitted that the influence of his Quakerism on his work would ‘need some unravelling’.
In the 1970s, Paul realised that he shared common concerns with Friends, in particular peace and the environment. A grant from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust enabled him to pursue a PhD in economics at Birkbeck College, London, on the relationship between economic growth and environmental sustainability. This has provided the foundation of much of his academic work.
‘So, my work owes a lot to the vision and generosity of Quakers well before I actually became a Quaker. They also provided a sense of familiarity and being at home when I finally decided to join the Society of Friends in the mid-1990s,’ Paul told the Friend.
