Michael Nolan

Michael Nolan is the inaugural Chair of the Global Compact Cities Programme. He joins us from a global role which focused on resilient cities with AECOM, an urban planning, infrastructure and environmental consultancy. Michael has over 20 years’ experience in sustainability, climate adaptation and resilience for government and private sectors.

In his role at AECOM, Michael developed a Disaster Resilience Scorecard for cities for the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction in collaboration with IBM. He has extensive experience in sustainable infrastructure, climate change adaptation and resilience in Australia, the United States, Canada, China, India, Brazil, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

Michael has led over 120 climate change impact, risk assessment, adaptation and resilience projects relating to ports, road, rail, local government, water, flood management, power, mining, buildings, facilities, coasts, states and cities. Michael represented the Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia in developing the Australian Standard AS5334 Climate Change Adaptation for Settlements and Infrastructure.

Michael is the Resilient Cities lead for the United Nations R!SE initiative focused on risk sensitive investment. Michael has also supported the development of strategy tools for the 100 Resilient Cities programme pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation.

In his role as Chair of the Cities Programme, Michael supports the programme’s strategic direction and growth. In particular, he aims to increase private and public sector collaboration to increase the liveability and resilience of cities.

Similar Posts

  • Paris Huxley

    Paris Huxley undertook an internship with the Global Compact Cities Programme over a period of several months in 2014. He worked on two specific projects, including a translation from English into French of the Circles of Sustainability Urban Profile Process as well as writing an Urban Social Profile on the city of Paris. Paris has...

  • Steve Kemp

    Steve Kemp is the Executive Director of OpenPlan, an internationally focused consultancy specialising in urban and spatial planning. With over 30 years of professional experience, Steve’s public and private sector work has enabled him to refine his approach, which is based on the idea that, at its core, planning is about managing change to achieve...

  • Sarah Bekessy

    Associate Professor Sarah Bekessy leads the Interdisciplinary Conservation Science Research Group at RMIT University. She is interested in the intersection between science and policy in environmental management and is currently involved in an interdisciplinary range of research projects, including an ARC Future Fellowship titled ‘Socio-ecological models for environmental decision making’ and a project funded by...

  • Vidhula Venugopal

    Dr Vidhula Venugopal has a keen interest in fostering entrepreneurship among refugee women as well as understanding the identity conflicts among migrant women in Australia under the overarching theme of the social construction of gender. In her current work, Dr Venugopal focuses on gender and entrepreneurship with emphasis on social inclusion and empowerment of women...

  • RMIT University

    RMIT is a global university of technology, design and enterprise, Australia’s largest tertiary institution and the UN Global Compact – Cities Programme’s lead partner and supporter. The International Secretariat of the UN Global Compact – Cities Programme is hosted by RMIT’s Research and Innovation Portfolio located in the University’s city campus in Melbourne. The University...

  • Global Infrastructure Basel Foundation

    Sustainability and resilience are the two core values heading the partnership between the UN Global Compact – Cities Programme and the Global Infrastructure Basel Foundation (GIB), which was formalised in a Memorandum of Understanding in August 2016. As an independent, non-for-profit Swiss Foundation based in Bagel, GIB has the vision of delivering sustainable and efficient...