Sebastian is the Germany Director for the Transport & Environment (T&E), which is Europe’s leading clean transport campaign group. His current focus is on the transformation of the transport and automotive sector in Germany which has major social implications for a country that has - to a large extent - built its success around that very sector.
Previously, he was a Team Leader for Germany at 350.org, an international movement working to end the age of fossil fuels and build a world of community-led renewable energy, and a Senior Strategist at Greenpeace International, where he helped shape the organisation’s global campaigning on trade and financial markets. In the past he has led successful campaigns and projects to challenge the unchecked expansion of the fossil fuel industry and to protect the world’s remaining rainforests. He was also deeply involved in the international climate negotiations, working on and later leading Greenpeace’s political work on forests within the United Nations climate process from 2012 to 2014.
Sebastian is a member of the Think Tank 30, an interdisciplinary network of young academics and practitioners. Affiliated with the Club of Rome, the think tank facilitates exchanges, research and work on different aspects of sustainability.
He studied philosophy and economics at the University of Bayreuth, Germany and the University of São Paulo, Brazil and holds an MSc in Development Studies from LSE, UK. Among other things, his studies focused on the political influence of the private sector and its consequences for development and environmental policymaking.
I am particularly interested in the systemic causes of inequality because I think that many of the political structures causing inequality also create problems in other areas. Naturally for me one of those areas is the question of how inequality manifests itself in regard to how different strata of society are affected differently when it comes to the negative consequences of environmental degradation and climate change. In that, I want to look at how the (lack of) access to political power and transparency of political processes as well as the growing influence of corporate lobbying affects structural inequality.Sebastian Bock