PhD in Sustainable Development

Current position: Executive Director at Fundación Enerstud, Colombia

Research focus: energy efficiency and landscape development

His research brings a truly interdisciplinary dimension to low-carbon landscape development and energy planning. The focus lies on the interaction between social systems and ecosystem services within a particular landscape; between living, developing communities, and their environments.

His concepts are taking the technological, as well as the human, social, economic, and environmental dimensions into account. Those concepts could influence policy-making tools to promote low-carbon landscape development, which have a great potential in achieving sustainable rural communities.

CV as submitted for the Green Talents award (2014):

Universidad de Manizales-Colciencias, Colombia

Research focus: low-carbon landscape development based on energy management in small and rural communities in developing countries

With a background in Industrial Engineering, PhD Student Juan Sepulveda is now focusing his talents on the interdisciplinary field of low-carbon landscape development for energy access in small and rural territories.

Juan’s impressive academic background in Industrial Engineering has included scholarship awards in Colombia, Spain and Cuba and a position as academic research manager in the area of Energy and Technology Management. Now in the second year of his doctoral studies, Juan is bringing a truly interdisciplinary dimension to low-carbon landscape development and energy planning. His focus is on the interaction between social systems and ecosystem services within a particular landscape – between living, developing communities and their environments.

Advances in the understanding of this interdependent relationship are particularly important. Early results show that an integrated approach to development concepts, taking not only the technological but also the human, social, economic and environmental dimensions into account, offers clear benefits. Juan’s research demonstrates that integrated planning for rural landscapes has two distinct advantages. Firstly, it accelerates development in each field through mutual reinforcement. Secondly, it can make a fundamental and lasting difference to a community’s environmental impact and lead to sustainable low-carbon territories. Juan’s research aim is to develop tools that will allow for the regular and easy integration of this balanced approach into policy-making, technology transfer and landscape management in the rural communities of developing countries.

The jury was impressed by the way in which Juan’s research is both wide in scope and concrete in its application. Well designed policy-making tools to promote low-carbon landscape development have great potential in helping achieve sustainable rural communities.