Edeltraud Günther

On 1 September 2018, Prof. Edeltraud Günther took up the position of Director at the United Nations University Institute for Integrated Management of Material Fluxes and of Resources (UNU-FLORES). Launched in 2012, the Dresden-based institute of the United Nations University develops strategies to promote the sustainable use and integrated management of environmental resources such as water, soil, and waste. To accommodate this appointment, Günther has been granted a leave of absence by the TU Dresden. As part of strengthening the connections between UNU-FLORES and the wider United Nations network, Günther was one of the establishing Directors and the first Chair for the UNU Water Network, which was initiated in 2019. In 2020, she was appointed UNU Focal Point for the Environmental Management Group (EMG).

Best Paper Award of the Global Innovation and Knowledge Academy (2015), Highly commended Award of the Emerald LiteratiNetwork (2011), second award "plus energy house" with e-mobility (open interdisciplinary design competition for universities in cooperation with planning offices) (2011), B.A.U.M.-Umweltpreis (Environmental Award) in the category science (2008), Teaching Award for the development of the teaching concept "investing in a sustainable future" for the Procter & Gamble competition for the development of innovative Curricula (2005, together with Mark A. White).

Günther is editor of the Zeitschrift für Umweltpolitik und Umweltrecht ZfU (since 2009), Sustainable Production and Consumption (since 2015), Umweltwirtschaftsforum (since 2015) and subject editor of the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment (since 2016). Günther was an expert reviewer for the IPCC-reports.

Günther was a visiting professor at the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, U.S.A. from August 2001 to February 2002, and later, from December 2005 to May 2016. In January of 2015, she was a visiting professor at Kobe University, Kobe, Japan, and in the summer semester of 2017, a visiting professor at the NUST – Namibia University of Science and Technology.

In 1996, Günther was appointed Chair of Business Management, esp. Sustainability Management and Environmental Accounting, at the Faculty of Business and Economics at the TU Dresden - a position she holds to this day. Under the leadership of Günther, the TU Dresden implemented an environmental management system according to EMAS (being the first German university of technology to do so), which has been regularly validated since 2002. Günther founded and now leads the Centre for Performance and Policy Research In Sustainability Measurement and Assessment PRISMA.

Günther received her Diploma of Business Administration from the University of Augsburg, where she specialised in Accounting and Auditing, Finance, and Operations Research from 1984 to 1989. She also studied Languages at the École de Traduction et d`Interprétation of the University of Geneva. From 1989 to 1994, she worked as a research assistant at the Chair of Accounting and Control at the University of Augsburg (Prof. Dr. Dres. h.c. A.G. Coenenberg) and undertook her doctorate to a Dr. rer. pol. with the dissertation topic, "Ökologieorientiertes Controlling" (Environmental Management Control). From 1994 to 1996, she was a research assistant and project leader in the Economics Department of the Bavarian Institute of Applied Environmental Research and Technology GmbH (BIfA) in Augsburg.

Edeltraud 'Edel' Günther (born October 10, 1965 in Augsburg) is a German business and sustainability assessment researcher, and university educator. Günther is currently the Director of the United Nations University Institute for Integrated Management of Material Fluxes and of Resources (UNU-FLORES) while on leave from the Technische Universität Dresden, where she has held the Chair of Business Management, esp. Sustainability Management and Environmental Accounting since 1996. She has also undertaken multiple international visiting professorships, and is the founding member of the Centre for Performance and Policy Research in Sustainability Measurement and Assessment (PRISMA).