Walter Stahel
Walter R. Stahel is a Swiss architect and industrial analyst who has been influential in developing the fields of sustainability, circular economy and performance economy through the reuse, repair, remanufacture and technology upgrades of infrastructure, buildings and objects, and selling performance, such as goods as a service. He co-founded the Product-Life Institute in Geneva, Switzerland, a consultancy devoted to developing sustainable strategies and policies, after receiving recognition for his 1982 prize-winning paper 'The Product Life Factor'. Stahel’s ideas, and those of similar theorists, led to what is now known as the circular economy, where industry adopts the reuse and service-life extension of goods and molecules as a strategy of waste prevention, regional job creation and resource efficiency to decouple wealth from resource consumption. He is author of “The Performance Economy” and “The Circular Economy: A User's Guide". Stahel is Visiting Professor at the University of Surrey, a Full Member of the Club of Rome and 2020 was nominated Senior Research Fellow at the Circular Economy Research Centre of the École des Ponts Business School in Paris.
