As professor of environmental economics in Gothenburg University, Thomas Sterner has, during the last two decades, built up the Unit for Environmental Economics with a staff of about a dozen PhDs and another dozen graduate students. The unit gives a unique PhD program in environmental economics with a large participation of graduate students from developing countries (financed by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Sida), masters and undergraduate programs and a large number of other research and teaching activities.

In 2012-2013 he was on sabbatical leave from Gothenburg and worked as Chief Economist at the Environmental Defense Fund. His main areas of work at the EDF were on instrument design for climate policy, catch shares in fisheries and other areas.

He has published over 100 articles in refereed journals (such as Nature and Science), authored or edited more than a dozen books and a large number of book chapters, official reports and journalistic articles.

The main focus of his work has been on environmental policy instruments with applications to energy and climate, industry, transport economics and finally resource management in developing countries. Many of these areas benefit from interdisciplinary collaboration with natural scientists, engineers, medical or other experts which he finds to be a challenging and exciting part of professional life.