People. Planet. Purpose. At SD Strategies, we believe that smart and successful decision-making on the most pressing 21st century challenges needs to address all dimensions of sustainability: Social development, economics, and the environment. Modern problems and crises open the door for new opportunities. Challenges and solutions have impacts on every geographic level from the local to the global; they affect multiple economic sectors and players, and ultimately, all groups and individuals. Climate-compatible development includes lowering emissions and adapting to more extreme weather patterns. Energy solutions need to be affordable, reliable, and sustainable.
Ultimately, we aim to create circular economies in which value is created while resources, waste, and emissions are kept in closed loops. We are convinced that to be effective, strategies on the most complex matters must have clear and convincing, ambitious and achievable goals. Progress must be measurable, reportable and verifiable. Solutions must simultaneously improve people’s lives, protect our habitats, and save our ecosystems.We implement projects large and small, but we always strive to find comprehensive solutions that really work. The assessment of technological potentials and challenges; the analysis of the social, economic and environmental impacts of alternate pathways; the investigation of financing and investment risks and enablers; as well as in-depth experience with the design of concrete policies and the creation of institutional effectiveness – all these are important building blocks that need to be integrated in one comprehensive approach to create successful sustainable development strategies.
SD Strategies was founded by Alexander Ochs, an internationally renowned policy advisor with more than 20 years of experience in the areas of climate, energy and the environment. Alexander currently also serves as Chair of the Energy Working Group of the Low Emissions Development Strategies Global Partnership (LEDS-GP), President of the Forum for Atlantic Climate and Energy Talks (FACET), and senior expert for the Clean Energy Solutions Center. He is a current Senior Fellow at both the Worldwatch Institute in Washington DC, where he was Director of Climate and Energy from 2009 to 2017, and at the American Institute for Contemporary Studies (AICGS).
Alexander has held research and/or teaching positions in the United States at Center for Clean Air Policy, Johns Hopkins University, George Washington University, Princeton University, and CUNY, as well as, in Germany, German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), Freie Universität, Humboldt Universität, LMU Munich, Albertus-Magnus University in Cologne, and CIEE Global Institute. Alexander has served on several international advisory boards including the German Government’s International Climate Initiative (ICI). In 2011, Alexander received the Sustainable Future Award of the Austrian Academic Forum for Foreign Affairs. In 2012, he served on a High-level Commission evaluating the French national research system. In 2015, he was appointed Senior Advisor to UNEP’s One Gigaton Coalition.