Janet Ranganathan is the Vice President for Science and Research. She oversees and takes a lead role in the planning, quality control, and evaluation of WRI’s research and publications. She mentors research staff, manages effective peer review processes, and oversees mechanisms for project and program evaluation.

Before becoming Vice President, Janet directed WRI’s People and Ecosystem Program to reverse ecosystem degradation and ensure their capacity to meet human needs. Within the People and Ecosystems Program she launched an initiative to mainstream ecosystem services in public and private sector development decisions.

Janet has also served in WRI’s Market and Enterprise and Climate and Energy Programs. She developed and directed WRI’s US Climate Policy Initiative which advanced policies and business actions that resulted in significant greenhouse gas emissions reductions.

She founded and directed the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Initiative, an international multi-stakeholder partnership convened by WRI and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development for the purpose of developing international greenhouse gas accounting and reporting standards. The Greenhouse Gas Protocol is now the international accounting and reporting standard for business and numerous national and state greenhouse gas programs.

Janet has written extensively on a broad range of sustainable development challenges, including business and markets, environmental performance measurement, environmental accounting, climate change, ecosystem degradation, and global environmental governance.

Publications include:

• Policies for Sustainable Governance of Global Ecosystem Services
• Corporate Ecosystem Services Review
• Restoring Nature’s Capital: An Action Agenda to Sustain Ecosystem Services
• Ecosystem Services: A Guide for Decision Makers
• Greenhouse Gas Protocol: A corporate accounting and reporting standard
• Greenhouse Gas Protocol for Project Accounting
• Tomorrows Markets: Global trends and their implications for business
• Measuring Up:Toward a Common Framework for Tracking Corporate Environmental Performance
• Green Ledgers: Case Studies in Corporate Environmental Accounting

Prior to joining WRI Janet worked on business and environmental issues in the U.K. both as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire and in a regulatory capacity with the Department of Environment and Hertfordshire Waste Regulatory Authority.

Janet Ranganathan received a BSc. (Hons) from Imperial College of Science, Technology & Medicine, London in 1983, and an MSc. with distinction in Environmental Technology from Imperial College in 1990.

Janet was born and raised in Cornwall, England. She is married to Kumar and has two daughters Angela and Serena.