Speaker
Prof Dr Lilian Busse has been Vice President of the German Environment Agency (UBA) since 2021. She had been Head of Division “Environmental Health and Protection of Ecosystems” at UBA from 2015 to 2021. Prior to that, Lilian Busse worked for 10 years at the California Environmental Protection Agency doing research and policy advising and was also a scientist and Lead of Water Programmes for the State of California. From 2002 to 2006, Lilian Busse has worked as Scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography of the University of California San Diego. She represents UBA on several scientific advisory boards, committees and boards. Since 2023, Lilian Busse has been an honorary professor at the Technical University of Munich (TUM).
Ulrike Kallee is head of the „Chemicals and Circular Economy“ Department at Friends of Earth Germany (BUND e.V.). She studied Marine Science in Oldenburg and New Zealand. With more than 20 years of experience spanning chemical policy, research, and industry engagement, Ms. Kallee brings deep expertise in environmental health and chemicals management. Throughout her career, she has contributed to numerous studies investigating contamination by hazardous substances in the environment, consumer products, and the human body. She has advised international companies on the substitution of substances of concern, with a particular focus on the textile sector. At BUND, she was instrumental in developing BUND’s ToxFox app, which provides consumers with real-time access to information about products and their ingredients, helping to drive greater transparency, informed choices and substitution. In recent years, an increasing focus of her work has been the resource consumption of the chemical industry and the need for more resource-sufficient production and consumption.
Prof Dr Klaus Kümmerer Klaus Kümmerer is Professor of Sustainable Chemistry and Material Resources at Leuphana University Lüneburg, where he has headed the Institute for Sustainable Chemistry since 2011. His research areas encompass green and sustainable chemistry and pharmacy, He contributed significanatly to the understanding of theses concepts. He is recognised as for his contributions of the Benign by Design concept for chemical substances and pharmaceuticals for over two decades. Research and advisory work are internationally oriented. Klaus Kümmerer headed the Research & Education Hub of the International Sustainable Chemistry Collaborative Centre (ISC3) from 2017 to 2024, and was a member of the High Level Roundtable of the European Commission on the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability from 2021 to 2024. Since 2026 he has been a member of an advisory body of the United Nations involving FAO. In 2023 Klaus Kümmerer received the Wöhler Prize of the German Chemical Society for Sustainable Chemistry, and in 2024 the Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2025 both the University of Ghent and the University of Helsinki awarded him honorary doctorates. In the Stanford ranking of Environmental Sciences he was listed at 16th place worldwide in 2023 — measured by citations, he ranked first in Germany."
