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Robert Costanza

Distinguished University Professor of Sustainability

Robert Costanza joined the Institute for Sustainable Solutions in September 2010. Costanza's research has focused on the interface between ecological and economic systems, particularly at larger temporal and spatial scales. This includes landscape-level spatial simulation modeling; analysis of energy and material flows through economic and ecological systems; valuation of ecosystem services, biodiversity, and natural capital; and the analysis and correction of dysfunctional incentive systems. 


He is the author or co-author of more than 400 scientific papers and 20 books, and his work has been cited in more than 5,000 scientific articles. Reports on his work have appeared in several outlets including Newsweek, Time, The Economist, The New York Times, Science, Nature, National Geographic, and National Public Radio.

Costanza is editor-in-chief and co-founder (along with Paul Hawken, David Orr and John Todd) of the new journal Solutions (www.thesolutionsjournal.org).

Recent Presentations

Visions of a Sustainable World series, Yale University, March 26, 2010

 Robert Costanza to Lead Sustainability Center at PSU (press release)

About Robert Costanza

Before joining Portland State in 2010, Costanza was the Gund Professor of Ecological Economics and director of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont. Prior to moving to Vermont in August 2002, Costanza was director of the University of Maryland Institute for Ecological Economics, and a professor in the Center for Environmental Science, at Solomons, and in the Biology Department at College Park. Costanza received his Ph.D. from the University of Florida in 1979 in systems ecology, with a minor in economics. He also has a master's degree in Architecture and Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Florida.

He is co-founder and past-president of the International Society for Ecological Economics (ISEE). He currently serves on the editorial board of eight other international academic journals and is past president of the International Society for Ecosystem Health. He is a senior fellow of the Stockholm Resilience Center, Stockholm, Sweden; a senior fellow of the National Council on Science and the Environment, Washington, D.C.; and, a distinguished research fellow of the New Zealand Center for Ecological Economics, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand.

In 1982 he was selected as a Kellogg National Fellow, in 1992 he was awarded the Society for Conservation Biology Distinguished Achievement Award and in 1993 he was selected as a Pew Scholar in Conservation and the Environment. In 1998 he was awarded the Kenneth Boulding Memorial Award for Outstanding Contributions in Ecological Economics and received an honorary doctorate in natural sciences from Stockholm University in 2000.

Costanza has served on the scientific steering committee for the “Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone” and “Analysis, Integration and Modeling of the Earth System” core projects of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme; the U.S. EPA National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and Technology; the National Research Council Board on Sustainable Development, Committee on Global Change Research; the National Research Council, Board on Global Change; the U.S. National Committee for the Man and the Biosphere Program; and, the National Marine Fisheries Service Committee on Ecosystem Principles.

Robert Costanza: The Role of Universities in Creating a Sustainable and Desirable Future

“We stand at a critical moment in Earth’s history, a time when humanity faces significant challenges and opportunities to redirect our course toward a sustainable and desirable future.

Universities must play a critical role in this transformation, not only by educating future leaders and supporting researchers in the quest for applied solutions, but also by serving as models of innovative practices and sustainable systems. Universities in the U.S. have not yet risen to this challenge and many sustainability initiatives have dissolved into fragmented, tinkering reforms that fail to address the underlying workings of our complex socio-ecological systems.

It will require a new kind of university to act on these opportunities: a university that can adequately integrate synthesis, analysis, communication, service, and outreach; a university that can adequately reward and encourage transdisciplinary research and teaching; a university that can emphasize cooperative synergy rather than cutthroat competition.

Portland State University has a unique opportunity to become that kind of university: a powerful catalyst, model, and engine of positive and lasting change; a driving force that can help lead society by design to a sustainable and desirable future; a “3rd Millennium” University.

I’m extremely excited about joining PSU as the director of the Institute for Sustainable Solutions (formerly the Center for Sustainable Processes and Practices) to help create a shared vision of a sustainable and desirable future, and to help bring that future into being.”

—Robert Costanza, April 7, 2010