Ingeborg Niestroy

Ingeborg Niestroy (1964) studied (physical) geography at the University of Goettingen (Germany) and UC Berkeley (USA), and initially worked as project leader in a consulting firm for transport and other infrastructure planning, specialised in environmental impact assessment. She undertook research on strategic environmental assessment (SEA) in Germany and California, comparing the legal and administrative framework for environmental integration as well as the influencing actor constellations, including procedural recommendations for the EU SEA Directive, for which she received a Doctoral degree from Berlin Technical University in 2000.

Since 1999 she has been Executive Director of EEAC and has contributed to its work on the EU- and national sustainable development strategies, including a comparative study on such strategies in nine EU member states (Sustaining Sustainability, 2005). She has also critically followed and published on the development of the European Commission's and member states' Impact Assessment systems. Other key policy areas she has dealt with supporting working groups of EEAC are energy and climate change, agriculture and rural development, marine affairs, and biodiversity.

The post with EEAC used to be hosted by member councils in a rotating fashion, and after three years with the Environmental Advisory Council in Germany (SRU) she accepted an invitation by the succeeding Dutch RMNO and came to The Hague for three years. in 2005 the EEAC secretariat moved operations to Brussels, located with the Flemish Environment Council Minaraad. Before that EEAC had established, as legal entity for its management needs, a Stichting based in The Hague, and with this a Dutch identity continues.