Anand Punja

Anand has worked on sustainability through all of its lenses (Social, Environmental and Economic) topics for 20+ years now and also in scale from local levels to international, where he currently works for the Forest Stewardship Council. His work focuses on engaging FSC’s diverse membership and stakeholder communities to come together and co-create solutions that can be implemented through forest related markets, whether this is a tangible value chains such as fibre or furniture
value chains or less tangible such as carbon and biodiversity finance markets. Anand had his grounding in Economics at university in the 1990’s, just at the start of the big push towards globalization in trade and has complimented this training with other disciplines which gives him a much more rounded perspective of the challenges and opportunities faced by society and nature across the world. Anand strongly believes that the current environmental problems that the world faces must be tackled by including all parts of society, engaging people with empathy and courage to make them a part of the solution, not the problem, as many narratives do. This is why places such as Embercombe are so essential in our world- as empathy can only come with connection, to nature itself but also with each other.

What does Embercombe mean to you?

The land at Embercombe provides the opportunity for people to connect with nature whilst Embercombe’ s own programs provide a space to open up and connect with your own inner self and also with other people. The programs are courageous enough to challenge you to think about your relationship to our human and more than human world. This is why Anand became a trustee of Embercombe.