The Advisory Board - the association's consultative committee
The mandate of the Advisory Board is to guidethe Board on the long-term strategic orientation of the association. The Advisory Board has a minimum of 5 and a maximum of 11 members. New Advisory Board members are appointed by the VNU Board in consultation with the Advisory Board. The duration of the advisory board membership is 6 years. Renewed appointments are possible. The Advisory Board elects a president and a vice president for 4 years, re-elections are possible.
We regret to announce the passing of Dr Georg Winter,
the pioneer of environmentally oriented corporate management. He passed away on 9 January at the age of 84. Dr Winter was a lawyer, entrepreneur and author of specialised books. Back in the 1970s, he developed the so-called Winter Model for environmentally oriented management, in which environmental protection is integrated into business processes – including in his own company. His book ‘Das umweltbewusste Unternehmen’ (The Environmentally Conscious Company) gained worldwide attention. In Hamburg, he founded the national B.A.U.M. e.V. and the international INEM, as well as the ‘Haus der Zuknft’. He received the German Environmental Award, among other honours, for his pioneering work.
Dr Winter was the founding chairman of our advisory board. He accompanied our association in this role for many years and invited us to advisory board meetings at the House of the Future on several occasions. In recent years, he focused primarily on “rights of nature” and his foundation of the same name.
In addition to his foresight and passion for environmental protection, we remember his particularly empathetic nature and his subtle humour. We will miss him.
President of the Advisory Board
Professor Dr. Frank Ebinger holds the research professorship for Sustainability-Oriented Innovation and Transformation Management at the Nuremberg Campus of Technology (NCT) at Nuremberg Institute of Technology (TH Nürnberg). After studying Business Administration, he received his doctorate on 'Ecological Product Innovation Cooperations' at the University of Oldenburg. Since 1995, he has been active in research and academia, with professional experience at the European Business School, the Öko-Institut in Freiburg, the Institute of Forest Economics at the University of Freiburg, and GIZ projects in Ethiopia and Kyrgyzstan. In 2014, he was appointed to Nuremberg Institute of Technology and moved to the NCT in 2018. He first came into contact with the VNU in 2019 through the Environmental Verification Committee. Since 2022, he has served on the VNU Advisory Board, and in 2026 he succeeded Professor Seifert as Chair.
Vice President of the Advisory Board
After studying philosophy, Professor Dr. Annette Kleinfeld specialized in business ethics at the end of the 1980s and earned her doctorate on the fundamentals of ethically sound corporate and personnel management. After working in research and as a consultant, she founded her consulting firm "Dr. Kleinfeld CEC - Corporate Excellence Consultancy" in 2004, focusing on corporate integrity, ethics, values, CI and culture management as well as social responsibility. Since 2014 she has been Professor of Business & Society at the University of Applied Sciences Konstanz - Technik, Wirtschaft und Gestaltung (HTWG) and is involved in the DNWE (German Network for Business Ethics).
Member of the Advisory Board
Franz Knecht studied law at the University of Basel. After further legal education and initial years in the field of associations, he changed to the banking industry, holding various management positions in product development, marketing and communications. After building and heading the Environmental Management and Sustainability/Sustainable Banking Solutions department at Swiss Bank Corporation (now UBS), he started CONNEXIS AG, Strategy Consulting, based in Basel in 1999. He still heads the company as Managing Partner and supports clients on sustainability issues in finance, industry and services as well as international organisations as an independent international consultant. At ISO, he contributes to several standardisation projects in the fields of TC 207 Environmental Management and TC 322 Sustainable Finance. He has been a member of the VNU Advisory Board since 2020.
Member of the Advisory Board
Professor Dr Stephan Krinke is Head of Sustainability Management and Life-Cycle Engineering at the Fraunhofer IST and Professor of Sustainability Management at the Technical University of Braunschweig. Prof. Krinke has broad experience in the development and implementation of sustainability strategies in industry. He worked at Volkswagen AG for 23 years and held various management positions: Head of Environmental Product, Head of Group Environmental Protection and Environmental Management Officer at VW AG as well as Head of Sustainability Strategy in the General Secretariat of the Chairman of the Board of Management. Prof. Krinke has been teaching environmental and sustainability management at various universities for over 20 years. He represents Fraunhofer for Sustainability and Life-Cycle Engineering in the DIN Group for Life-Cycle Assessment and was appointed by the government of Lower Saxony to the Government Commission for Sustainable Environmental Policy and
Digital Transformation. Prof. Krinke has been a member of the VNU Advisory Board since 2023.
Member of the Advisory Board
After his graduation in chemistry Professor Dr. Peter Saling began his professional career at BASF AG in the field of colour research. In 1997, he started to develop the eco-efficiency analysis, later the SEEbalance and other sustainability assessment methods. As Head of Eco-Efficiency Analysis at BASF, he and his team have prepared more than 700 life cycle assessments and eco-efficiency analyses. He currently holds the position of Director Sustainability Methods at BASF's Corporate Sustainability Center. Since 2017, he has been responsible for standard development at ISO as Chair of ISO/TC 207/SC 5 "Life cycle assessment" and since 2021 as Chairman of the mirror committee "Life cycle assessment and environmental labelling" at DIN. As Chair of "Together for Sustainability (TfS)", he is responsible for the development of the PCF Guideline for chemicals. Prof. Saling has been teaching at TU Dresden for many years and has been a board member of the Competence Centre for Sustainability Assessment and Policy (PRISMA) at TU Dresden since 2016. He was appointed Honorary Professor of Sustainability Management at TU Dresden in 2021. He has been a member of the VNU Advisory Board since 2024.
Member of the Advisory Board
DI Hanna Schreiber is a Senior Expert for Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Carbon Management at the Environment Agency Austria. She heads the expert team "Environmental Assessment Systems & Economic Transformation" and has many years of experience in scientific project coordination, consulting on climate and sustainability management, and the environmental and climate impact assessment of products, organisations and value chains. Her areas of expertise include the methodological development of environmental assessment approaches, the application of life cycle assessment, and the development and evaluation of carbon management strategies. In addition, she serves as a reviewer of LCA studies and for the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. Hanna Schreiber completed degree programmes in Forestry and Environmental Sciences with a specialisation in Corporate Environmental Economics, as well as a master's programme in Sustainable Resource Management, Waste Management and Environmental Engineering. At the European and international levels, she represents Austria as a technical expert in the European Commission's Environmental Footprint Initiative and contributes to numerous climate- and environment-related standardisation committees at the ASI, CEN and ISO levels. Since 2021, she has also chaired the Austrian mirror committee for ISO TC 207/SC 7 Climate Change. With her expertise in environmental and climate assessment, standardisation and sustainable transformation, she has brought valuable insights to the work of the VNU Advisory Board since 2026.
Member of the Advisory Board
As co-founder of IDU, one of the predecessor associations of the VNU, Professor Dr. Eberhard K. Seifert was a board member of both associations for many years. He is one of the founding members of the "Neue Wohlstandsmodelle" (New Wealth Models) presidential group at the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Energy and Environment. Since 1992, he has been active in international environmental management standardization (DIN-NAGUS, ISO TC 207-ISO 14000 series, ISO 50000 series) in various functions - above all as DIN chairman for "climate change" and in other international committees, e.g. environmental performance evaluation, resource protection, climate finance. After serving as Chair of the VNU Advisory Board for 15 years, Professor Seifert passed the role on to Professor Ebinger in 2026.