William E Rees

Biographical information

William Rees received his PhD degree in population ecology from the University of Toronto. He founded SCARP’s ‘"Environment and Resource Planning" concentration and from 1994 to 1999 served as director of the School. Rees’ book on ecological footprint analysis, Our Ecological Footprint (co-authored with then PhD student Dr Mathis Wackernagel), was published in 1996 and is now available in English, Chinese, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Latvian, and Spanish.

Much of Rees' work is in the realm of ecological economics and human ecology. He is best known in these fields for the co-development of ecological footprint analysis with his then PhD student Mathis Wackernagel. The ecological footprint is a quantitative tool that estimates humanity's ecological impact on the ecosphere in terms of appropriated ecosystem (land and water) area. This research reveals the fundamental incompatibility between continued material economic growth and ecological security, and has helped to reopen debate on human carrying capacity as a consideration in sustainable development.

Academic, policy and research interests

Rees is a founding member and recent past-President of the Canadian Society for Ecological Economics. He is also a Fellow at the Post Carbon Institute and a co-investigator in the "Global Integrity Project," aimed at defining the ecological and political requirements for biodiversity preservation. His present book project examines factors that seem to drive the repeating cycle of human societal collapse. A dynamic speaker, Rees has been invited to lecture on areas of his expertise across Canada and the US, as well as in Australia, Austria, Belgium, China, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Indonesia, Italy, Korea, the former Soviet Union, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden and the UK.

Rees' academic interests are in the following subject matter fields:

1. Human bio-ecology and the ecological basis of civilization
2. Ecological economics: Biophysical realities in resource allocation and distribution
3. Global change and the dynamics of societal collapse.

Rees also presently serves on the National Board of Advisors of the Carrying Capacity Network, an organization that advocates immigration reduction to achieve U.S. population stabilization and resource conservation, and calls for "national revitalization attained through fostering education, family, community self-reliance, tradition, and national unity."

Philosophy

Rees has said that the "enlightenment project," rooted as it is in Cartesian dualism, has resulted in a techno-industrial society that sees itself as somehow separate from the biophysical world. This dualism and its expansionary-materialist worldview are the basis of many of the "environmental problems" facing humankind.

Awards and honours

Rees was awarded the 2007 Trudeau Fellowship Prize, an annual prize awarded by the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation "...in recognition of outstanding achievement, innovative approaches to issues of public policy and commitment to public engagement", and in 2006 was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC). Rees was a member of the winning team receiving the City of Barcelona 2004 Award (Multimedia Category) for the exhibition Inhabiting the World. In 2000, The Vancouver Sun recognized him as one of British Columbia’s top “public intellectuals.” In 1997, UBC awarded William Rees a Senior Killam Research Prize in acknowledgment of his research achievements.

Publications