Prof. Dr. Dirk Messner became the new President of the German Environment Agency on 1 January 2020. He was the director of the German Development Institute from 2003 to 2018. The political scientist has been a member of the WBGU since 2004 and has co-chaired the council since 2013. He is also a professor for political science at the University of Duisburg-Essen. His work focuses on national and international sustainability research, which links ecological, economic, and social issues. Within the WBGU, he coined the term “transformation” to describe the upcoming restructuring of cities, mobility, energy systems and land use.