Advisory Board

Brunner, Conrad U. Mr

Conrad U. Brunner is an energy efficiency consultant based in Zurich Switzerland. He started with experimental low energy building technologies and continued to help Swiss building standards for low thermal and electrical energy use. Mr Brunner founded the Swiss Agency for Efficient Energy Use. He now primarily works on energy efficient consumer goods with the Topten program in Europe, China, USA and India (www.topten.info). Conrad Brunner is also leading an Annex to the IEA implementing agreement 4E on efficient electric motor systems. He is a member of several IEC committees that develop testing standards and efficiency classes for electric motor systems (www.motorsystems.org).

Garrigan, Curt Mr

Curt Garrigan is currently serving as Sustainable Buildings Co-ordinator for the UNEP-RISOE Centre. In this capacity, he provides support to management of the United Nations Environment Programme’s Sustainable Buildings and Climate Initiative (UNEP-SBCI) in Paris, a global public-private initiative to promote sustainable buildings. Mr. Garrigan helps co-ordinate UNEP-SBCI’s work with international agencies and on global projects, and contributes to UNEP efforts on resource-efficient cities.

Previously, Mr. Garrigan served more than 20 years in a number of capacities for city government in Nashville, Tennessee including Deputy Mayor. For the city’s Parks Department, he served in Interim and Assistant Directorships, and implemented the city’s first sustainable public buildings initiatives. He was appointed by Nashville’s Mayor to co-ordinate planning and infrastructure for the city’s post-flood Recovery Team.

Mr. Garrigan earned a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from Temple University in Philadelphia and a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Environmental Diplomacy from the University of Geneva.

Kornevall, Christian Mr

Christian Kornevall is an economist by training and is of Swedish nationality. He started his career as a teaching professor at Stockholm University on labour market issues. Christian worked for ILO in Latin America in the 70's on employment and income distribution issues. He returned to Sweden to work at Sida with development aid. He joined the Red Cross and became employed by International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in 1996. After 10 years of involvement in wars and conflicts, Christian moved to the UN Drug Control Program in Vienna (UNDCP) as Director of Operations and later headed its Regional Office in Bangkok with the aim at fighting drug trafficking and organized crime in the South East Asia region.

Christian Kornevall returned to Europe in 1999 and joined WWF International as Deputy Secretary General, focusing on establishing relationships between the WWF and global businesses. Between 2001 and 2005, he was Senior Group Vice President at ABB in Zurich, in charge of Sustainability Affairs at Group level. From 2005 – 2012, Christian was at WBCSD, as a Director of the Energy Efficiency in Building Project (EEB) and the new project on Urban Infrastructure Initiative (UII). He is now participating at the Urban Strategy Council of the GDF Suez.

Laustsen, Jens Mr

Jens Laustsen graduated as an architect in 1986, and has worked for over 20 years with Energy Efficiency in buildings. Currently, Jens Laustsen is Technical Director for Global Research in the Global Buildings Performance Network. His experience has been derived partly from private consultancy companies and partly from the Danish Energy Authorities. Since March 2006, Jens Laustsen worked in the International Energy Agency (IEA) as Energy Efficiency Policy Analyst specialised in Buildings, and was deputy head of the the energy efficiency unit in the IEA until the beginning of 2011. His work included recommendations for G8, preparation of SBN. He also involved in international collaboration and negotiations, including the EPBD directive.

Dr McMahon, James E. Mr

Dr. James E. ("Jim") McMahon is a scientific researcher and policy analyst, focusing on energy efficiency and mitigation of climate change. Research and policy analysis includes: 1) identify the feasibility and cost of engineering changes that increase energy or water efficiency for a wide range of specific products in buildings and industry; 2) analyse scenarios quantifying future economic and climate impacts associated with adoption of these technologies (e.g. United States, California, other countries); and 3) assess potential impacts on consumers, manufacturers, utility companies, governments, countries, and the environment. Since 2012, he has led the independent consultancy (“Better Climate”) and is a part-time Technical Advisor to the Collaborative Labeling and Appliance Standards Program.

He is an Associate and retired Staff Scientist from the Energy Analysis and Environmental Impacts Department at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) at the University of California in Berkeley, former Department Head of Energy Analysis (2006-2011) and Leader of the Energy Efficiency Standards Group (1994-2011).

Saheb, Yamina Ms

Dr. Yamina SAHEB has 15 years of experience in buildings and appliances energy efficiency. She currently works for the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. She joined the International Energy Agency as the senior buildings expert in the Energy Efficiency and Environment Division in February 2011, where she headed the Sustainable Buildings Centre until August 2013. This role included conducting research and analysis on the use of policy instruments to reduce energy consumption in the buildings sector. She regularly presents papers and analysis results at international conferences and has contributed to a book published on sustainable cities.

Prior to joining the IEA, she worked as an energy efficiency analyst for IFRI (Institut Français des Relations Internationales). Previously, she worked as the Technical Director for CLASP (Collaborative Appliances Standard and Labelling program) and as the head of the Technical Department for Eurovent (HVAC manufacturers’ organisation in the EU). Yamina holds a Ph.D in Energy Engineering and an Engineering degree in Buildings.

Tao, Yan Mr

Yan Tao, Master of Engineering, is now the Director of the R&D Centre of Shenzhen Institute of Building Research (IBR) and Director of the Low-carbon Eco-City Research Center under Chinese Society for Urban Studies (CSUS). From 2005, he’s been contributing in the area of China’s building energy efficiency, green building and eco city research. As one of the young experts in China’s building sector, Mr. Yan Tao as a lead author, undertook many national and international projects in the subject of green building and building energy efficiency, for example: the National Scientific Research Programs for Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development (MOHURD) both during the 11th 5-year plan and 12th 5-year plan; several NDRC / UNDP / GEF projects. He also takes part in many national and local policy and standards compilation projects, like ‘National Green Building Evaluation Standard’, ‘Code for Green Design of Civil building’, and more than 10 related technical standards for cities of Shenzhen and Changsha. In addition, Mr. Yan Tao is in charge of plenty of building energy efficiency and green building consultancy projects covering millions of building square meters during this time period.

Prof Ürge-Vorsatz, Diana Ms

Diana Ürge-Vorsatz is Director of the Center for Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Policy (3CSEP) at the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest and Professor at CEU’s Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy. She undertook her Ph.D. studies at the University of California (Berkeley and Los Angeles), and has been a Fulbright Scholar.

After 4 years of dissertation writing and research at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the USA, Diana Ürge-Vorsatz returned to Europe and has been devoting her research and teaching activities to the promotion of sustainable energy policy for the Central and Eastern European region. She has worked on and directed several international research projects for organisations including the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Global Environment Facility, United Nation’s Environment Programme, the World Energy Council, Climate Strategies and the World Bank. She has been regularly advising the Hungarian government on environmental, climate change and energy issues. She acted as a Co-ordinating Lead Author for the Fourth Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the buildings-related work in the latest Global Energy Assessment.