Focus

Professor Dr. Hermann Ott joined ClientEarth in September 2018 to oversee our operations in Germany and help drive our work in our office in Berlin.

Experience

He served as director of the Wuppertal Institute’s Climate Policy Division from 1998 and set up its Berlin Office in 2004 where he also worked as Senior Advisor for Global Sustainability and Welfare Strategies from 2014 to 2018. From 2009 to 2013 he was a Member of the Bundestag, the German federal parliament in Berlin, and served as the Greens’ speaker on climate policy. In this capacity, he was also a member of the Parliamentary Study Commission on “Growth, Prosperity, and Quality of Life” and chaired its working group on the decoupling of resource use from economic prosperity.

Hermann Ott wrote books and articles in German and English scientific journals, newspapers, and weblogs on environmental and climate policy as well as sustainability governance. Besides of his professional and political work he enjoys his family (with two kids and one grandchild), served on the Board of Greenpeace Germany, and served on the Executive Committee of the German League for Nature, Animal and Environment Protection (Deutscher Naturschutzring, DNR), a network of 87 environmental organisations in Germany.

Education

Prof. Dr. Hermann E. Ott (born 1961) holds a law degree and a Ph.D. in International Environmental Law from the Free University of Berlin and is a professor for ‘Global Sustainability Strategies and Governance’ at the University of Sustainable Development in Eberswalde (HNEE).

Preserving our Earth in a condition that’s hospitable for future generations of humans and all other creatures has always been my mission. So I am delighted to be joining the highly talented team of environmental lawyers at ClientEarth and using the law to protect the planet. Legal environmental action has proven to be the sharpest weapon in the quest for a sustainable future and I hope that we can support Germany, the largest country of the EU, to become a leader in environmental and climate protection again.

Hermann is working on