Emeritus Professor Robert Costanza

Emeritus Professor
Crawford School of Public Policy

Dr. Robert Costanza is a professor of Ecological Economics and Vice Chancellor's Chair in Public Policy at the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University. He is also currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Stockholm Resilience Center, an Affiliate Fellow at the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, a deTao Master of Ecological Economics at the deTao Masters Academy, China, a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and the Royal Society of Arts (UK), and an Ambassador of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance (WEAll)

Professor Costanza's transdisciplinary research integrates the study of humans and the rest of nature to address research, policy and management issues at multiple time and space scales, from small watersheds to the global system. His areas of expertise include: ecological economics, ecosystem services, landscape ecology, integrated ecological and socioeconomic modelling, energy and material flow analysis, environmental policy, social traps and addictions, incentive structures and institutions.

He is co-founder and past-president of the International Society for Ecological Economics, and founding editor of the society's journal, Ecological Economics. He currently serves on the editorial board of ten other international academic journals. He is also founding editor-in-chief of Solutions a unique hybrid academic/popular journal and editor in chief of The Anthropocene Review.

Professor Costanza is the author or co-author of over 600 scientific papers and 28 books. His work has been cited more than 100,000 times in Google Scholar with an h-index of 125. More than 350 interviews and reports on his work have appeared in various popular media and he has written over 75 articles for the popular press.

Research interests

Areas of expertise

  • Ecological Applications
  • Landscape Ecology
  • Environmental Management
  • Environment And Resource Economics
  • Urban And Regional Planning

Groups

  • Costanza, R. 2014. A theory of socio-ecological system change. Journal of BioEconomics. 16:39-44.
  • Costanza, R. and S. Liu. 2014. Ecosystem services and environmental governance: comparing China and the U.S. Asia and Pacific Policy Studies. 1:160-170
  • Costanza, R., I. Kubiszewski, E. Giovannini, H. Lovins, J. McGlade, K. E. Pickett, K. V. Ragnarsdóttir, D. Roberts, R. De Vogli, and R, Wilkinson. 2014. Time to leave GDP behind. Nature. 505:283-285
  • Costanza, R. 2013. Achieving sustainable well-being. Solutions 4(6):1
  • Costanza, R. 2013. Sustainable Well-Being. Resurgence and Ecologist. 279:39-41
  • Costanza, R. J. McGlade, S. de Bonvoisin, P. Fagerholm, J. Farley, E. Giovannini, I. Kubiszewski, F. Moore Lappé, H. Lovins, K. Pickett, G. Norris, T. Prugh, K. V. Ragnarsdottir, D. Roberts, and R.Wilkinson. 2013. The future we really want. Solutions 4(4):37-43
  • Kubiszewski, I. R. Costanza, and T. Kompas. 2013. The university unbound: transforming higher education. Solutions. 4(2):36-43
  • Petrosillo, I., R. Costanza, R. Aretano, N. Zaccarelli, and G. Zurlini. 2013. The use of subjective indicators to assess how natural and social capital support residents’ quality of life in a small volcanic island. Ecological Indicators 24:609-620.
  • Costanza, R. 2012. Ecosystem health and ecological engineering. Ecological Engineering 45:24– 29
  • de Groot, R., L. Brander, S. van der Ploeg, R. Costanza, F. Bernard, L. Braat, M. Christie, N. Crossman, A. Ghermandi, L. Hein, S. Hussain, P. Kumar, A. McVittie, R. Portela, L. C. Rodriguez, P. ten Brink, and P. van Beukering. 2012 Global estimates of the value of ecosystems and their services in monetary units. Ecosystem Services. 1:50-61