Aaron Best
Masters in Public Administration
Coordinator Digitalization and AI
Senior Fellow
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Aaron Best is a Senior Fellow and economist at Ecologic Institute who focuses on the interface of economic issues with environmental policy. An experienced project leader, he also coordinates Ecologic Institute's digitalization and AI team and has decades of experience in sustainability indicators, the analysis of large datasets as well as the visual communication of complex concepts.
His project portfolio includes climate policy, sustainable development indicators, circular economy, impact assessments, policy evaluations, cost-benefit analysis, and economic analyses of environmental policies. He leads the team at Ecologic Institute that supports Eurostat's annual monitoring of progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals. In 2017-2019, he led the data analysis and visualization work for a comprehensive review of environmental governance in EU Member States.
In addition to his research and writing, he is co-host of the podcast series "Green Deal – Big Deal?", which examines the many facets of the European Green Deal. Aaron Best headed the Horizon 2020 project "Measuring the IMPACTS of the Transition to the CIRCULAR Economy" (CIRCULAR IMPACTS), which further developed the evidence base on the EU transition to a more circular economy. He recently led two projects supporting the EU monitoring of air pollution impacts on European ecosystems. He led the project team organizing the high-level conference "Measuring Progress, True Wealth, and the Well-being of Nations" (Beyond GDP). He has managed reviews of several sustainability indicators, including bioeconomy monitoring in Germany and has contributed to several climate-related projects for both EU and German institutions. Aaron Best was previously manager of the Transatlantic Program, overseeing several of Ecologic Institute's transatlantic initiatives.
From 2006 to 2010, Aaron Best worked as a Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute. From 2010 to 2016, during his time away from the institute, he was Deputy Director at Climate-KIC, a major EU initiative to support climate-related innovation by start-ups, firms and academic institutions across Europe. During this time, he remained connected to the institute as a Senior Associate. Since 2017, he is engaged full time at Ecologic Institute.
Prior to his work at Ecologic Institute, Aaron Best worked as a research economist at ECONorthwest, a leading economic consultancy in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. He also gained significant business experience as a business development manager and program manager for Amazon.com in both the United States and England. In 2005/6 Aaron Best spent 10 months living and working in Germany as a Robert Bosch Fellow. The Robert Bosch Fellowship is an intensive program that provides future American leaders with a detailed look at the present-day institutions, politics and cultures of Germany and the European Union.
Aaron Best holds a Master's degree in Public Administration (MPA) from the University of Washington in Seattle, USA and a Bachelor's degree (economics and environmental policy) from The Evergreen State College, an interdisciplinary liberal arts school near Seattle.
Aaron Best is an American citizen, speaks fluent German and has a good knowledge of Spanish. As a creative project, he pursues fine-art photography: http://aaronbestphotographs.com.