Thomas van Viegen

Thomas is the Managing Director of EARTH.INC, and the NCFA South Africa Project Lead for ENCORE. He describes himself as an “evangelist for nature and the environment”, a green business pundit. Finding his calling in environmentalism in the late twentieth century he pursued the incremental transition into sustainable development in the twenty-first; and founded EARTH.INC as a response to the glaring divide between corporate interests, and the underpinning social-ecological systems. He works at the interphase of complex business, environmental and social systems; embedding a deeper understanding of the multiplicity and trans-disciplinary nature of emerging sustainability risk, where disruption and uncertainty characterises the new normal. Thomas holds a BLArch in Environmental Planning and Design (University of Pretoria), and a PGD in Sustainable Development (Cum Laude) (Stellenbosch University). He is an alumni of the Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership (CISL) Executive Programme, and holds a verified certificate in Planetary Boundary and Resilience Science from the SDG Academy / Stockholm Resilience Centre. He has a specific interest in how the relationships between nature, society and the economy manifest as complex adaptive systems; and how embedding resilience thinking can increase the agility of organisations to respond to emergent environmental and social shocks. He is a co-author of the Environmental Potential Atlas for South Africa book. He has extensive international project working experience in excess of 22 countries throughout Africa, Small Island Development States, and the Middle East, spanning a career of 27 years. When not contemplating the ‘future of the planet’ he immerses himself in the wildness of nature, armed only with a camera, and leaving only footprints.