Walter R. Stahel

Founder-director, Product-Life Institute

Dr h.c.mult. Walter R. Stahel is founder-director of the Product-Life Institute (Geneva, 1983), the oldest consultancy in Europe devoted to developing sustainable strategies and policies. 

MA in architecture from ETH Zurich (1971). Visiting Professor, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Surrey; full member of the Club of Rome; former member of the Coordination Group of the European Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform of the European Parliament; member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Institute CRETUS, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, and the Scientific Foresight Board of CircularEconomyAlliance. 

Today author, keynote speaker, researcher and mentor on promoting the opportunities of a circular industrial economy, and of a performance economy selling goods and molecules as a service. 

Honours: degrees of Doctor honoris causa, University of Surrey (2013) and l’Université de Montréal (2016). Mitchell Prize in Houston, TX (1982, ‘The Product-Life Factor’); first prize in the German Future's Society’s competition (1978, ‘unemployment, occupation and profession’). 

Corner books: ‘Jobs for Tomorrow, the Potential for substituting manpower for energy’ (1976/1981), Vantage Press N.Y.; ‘The Performance Economy’ (2010), Palgrave MacMillan; The Circular Economy – a user’s guide (2019), Routledge.