Kim Carstensen brings to the Forest Stewardship Council an extraordinary track record in multi-stakeholder leadership on complex social and environmental issues. He is an international specialist in a wide range of conservation and development issues who in recent years has focused on global climate issues, a topic of critical importance to FSC. Carstensen will succeed Andre de Freitas, who has provided superb leadership to FSC for the past five years, including the initiation of a structured leadership transition process during a period of sustained growth and financial security.
“Kim Carstensen will be a dynamic leader for FSC worldwide,” said Michael E. Conroy, FSC International board chair. “He has the demonstrated leadership and management skills, patience, and multicultural understanding that FSC needs for continuing its significant growth as one of the world’s most successful multi-stakeholder processes and as the global leader in forest product certification.”
“I’m truly excited by this opportunity to lead FSC,” noted Carstensen. “Since its establishment, the Forest Stewardship Council has demonstrated an unmatched potential to be a genuine game-changer for sustainable forest management globally. FSC is in a strong position already, but I am convinced that it can grow much further in coming years, and I look forward to being part of this opportunity and the challenges that come with it.”
Carstensen founded Fair Green Solutions in 2011 after 20 years of executive experience with the World Wide Fund for Nature, both at WWF Denmark and in WWF’s international leadership and programs. From 2008 to 2010, he was the director of WWF’s Global Climate Initiative, forging a consensus set of positions on climate change across the many disparate national realities of the WWF network and leading the program advocacy at the Copenhagen Climate Change COP in 2009. During this period he was also chairman of the political clearinghouse of the Global Campaign for Climate Action (GCCA), the broad coalition of international NGOs, including WWF, Greenpeace, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Oxfam and Christian Aid.
From 1996 to 2008, Carstensen was the General Secretary of WWF Denmark, where he also became a trusted advisor to the Danish Ministry of the Environment, serving as deputy chair of its Advisory Council for Environmental Assistance, and to Danida, the Danish international development assistance program, where he served as deputy chairman of its board, which approved all Danida grants. He had extensive engagement with both the Danish and the international business communities as a member of the CSR Advisory Board of the Danish Industrialization Fund for Developing Countries, as co-founder of the Nordic partnership across 17 global corporations for promoting sustainable development, and in other stakeholder dialogues with a wide range of Danish and international companies on environment and corporate responsibility.
“I am very pleased that the FSC board of directors has identified and recruited such a strong candidate as my successor,” Andre de Freitas said. “I am fully confident that Kim will do great things at FSC, and I wish him all the best in leading the organization in its next stage of development.”
Source: FSC International