Peter Droege directs the Liechtenstein Institute for Strategic Development (LISD), the global advisory and research organization for the rapid transition to regenerative communities, cities, regions and infrastructure. Professor Droege serves also as President of Eurosolar, the European Association for Renewable Energy, and as General Chairman, World Council for Renewable Energy. A recipient of the European Solar Prize in Education, Peter initiated the Chair for Sustainable Spatial Development at the University of Liechtenstein while holding a Conjoint Professorship at the Faculty of Engineering, School of Architecture and the Built Environment, University of Newcastle, Australia. An inaugural member of the Zayed Future Energy Prize jury and Expert Commissioner for Cities and Climate Change for the World Future Council he also served on the Steering Committee of the Urban Climate Change Research Network hosted at Columbia University's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and CUNY. He has taught and researched at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's School of Architecture and Planning, at Tokyo University as Endowed Chair in Urban Engineering at the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, and as Lend Lease Chair of Urban Design at the University of Sydney. Professor Droege has authored or edited numerous books, including Intelligent Environments (Elsevier 1997), Urban Energy Transition, 1st Edition: From Fossil Fuels to Renewable Power (Elsevier 2008), The Renewable City (Wiley 2006), 100% Renewable - Energy Autonomy in Action (Earthscan 2009 and Routledge 2014), Climate Design (ORO Editions 2010), Regenerative Region: Lake Constance Energy and Climate Atlas (oekom verlag 2014), co-editing Regenerative Räume (oekom verlag 2017).
I have known Peter for decades, initially attracted to discourse on ideas and on martial arts (he’s a black belt in judo). We worked together in the early 1980’s in a symposium on Secrecy and Disclosure. He was the Institute’s outward bound guest and INSPIRE fellow on the EPIIC’s 20th anniversary year, on “Oil and Water.” While in residence at the institute, he wrote his first book “Renewable City: A Comprehensive Guide to an Urban Revolution” in 04’. The dedication of that book reads as follows “this guide is dedicated to all who work on a more advanced human habitat - as a means of sustaining human life fairly, without eroding this fragile earth’s natural support basis on which it is founded, but in helping nurture it back from the brink.” Peter was the first person to really help me understand the concept of sustainability of sustainability and the fragility of our ecosystem. He mentored many of our students. I joined LISD as a Senior Fellow upon becoming Emeritus, in charge of developing LEAP, the LISD Embedded Action and Practitioner Program. Together, we are engaged in developing curriculum with Harvard’s International Relations Council.