Manan Bhan

Background

About Manan Bhan

Currently, I work as a Lead Sustainability Scientist at the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) in Bengaluru, India, which has been consistently recognised as one of the leading environmental think-tanks in the world. At ATREE, I am leading sustainable land use research and practice across 2 aspects: 1. The design and monitoring of ecosystem restoration initiatives, where I estimate the carbon sequestration potential of restoring degraded ecosystems. Sustainability in agro-ecosystems in India, where I strategise how the transition to sustainable agricultural practices can be pro-farmer, pro-environment and pro-consumer, and how the finance required to make that possible may be unlocked. Alongside, I engage in systems design research to respond to the systemic nature of climate risks at hyper-local urban areas, with a focus on ward-level actions to combat heat stress in the city of Bengaluru. In June 2022, I completed a PhD (with Distinction) from the Universität für Bodenkultur (BOKU) in Vienna, Austria. My PhD research focussed on the impacts of land use change on global carbon emissions, spatially (across the world) as well as temporally (since the mid-20th century), while investigating its drivers (the global consumption of agricultural commodities like soy and palm oil). Previously, I graduated with a Masters from the University of Oxford (with a full scholarship) and came back to design forest conservation programmes in India, with a focus on accessing forest carbon finance. I am skilled in fundraising: Till now, I have raised almost (more than INR 1.8 crores) to support the work I do. My aim is to help ensure that sustainable land use becomes and remains an ally in fighting climate change. I am deeply committed to expanding my work in India, and to other countries in the Global South. I am always looking out for further opportunities to translate my research into on-ground practice. Talk to me about: carbon in ecosystems, land use transition, land use finance, systems design, urban heat stress.