The board
Torbjörn Lahti – Chairman
Cynthia Contie – Board member – North America Representative
Barbro Kalla – Co founder
Deputy on the board
Adane Negash – Ethiopia Representative
Election committee
Gunnar Brundin – Co founder
Lena Lindahl – Japan Representative
Members:
Esam AB

Torbjörn Lahti
Trained in social planning and economics, he initiated the Eco-Municipalities movement in Sweden and was one of the two founders of Esam AB together with Grunnar Brundin (see below). Torbjörn has 40 years of experience in sustainable development, which is unique even in Sweden. He is an international lecturer and was the leader of the “Sustainable Robertsfors” project, where the concept of “Ecomunicipality 5.0” was developed. He was a consultant advising on the development of pilot ecomunicipality projects all around the world. He also participates in tours, gives lectures and shares his experience. Nowadays he is mainly focused building up Ecomuna. Contact Torbjörn for questions about the Sustainable Sweden Association.

Cynthia Contie
Cynthia is driven to help facilitate awakenings to humanity’s place in Nature and exploring ways we can harmonize our relationship with all living things. She serves as Board Member and North America Representative to Sustainable Sweden Association, and as principal of her own company, Full Circle Discovery where she carries out this work via facilitation, communications, and education. Cynthia studied Psychology for her undergrad, and Earth Studies Education and Curriculum Design for her Masters. She draws from 14 past years in corporate management and facilitator roles, and 20 years in non-profit and sustainable community development settings. In her free time Cynthia enjoys cooking creative meals with friends, spending time outdoors with her dog and cat, and making time for art and music.

Barbro Kalla
Barbro began her career educating teenagers in language. Then she worked for 15 years as a consultant providing competence-enhancing services to companies, NGOs, municipalities, and regional bodies, who were entering the world of sustainable development. Her international expertise focuses on the transfer of knowledge among project partners and reaching out to external target groups. This includes Technical Visits with participants from Japan, US, and Europe. A lifelong mission has been to provide children and young adults the opportunity to acquire the knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes needed to play a constructive role in the current and future transition of society towards sustainability. She has been working at BioFuel Region since 2012 with both strategy and implementation of communication plans, including gender and gender mainstreaming.
Her area of expertise is developing ways to communicate the complex message of what is needed for us to change to become sustainable. The transfer of knowledge is aiming to integrate research findings and good examples into practice. Ongoing assignments include working to influence opinions to strengthen the bioeconomy and the development of alternative fuels in northern Sweden.
Specialties: Sustainable development, Bioeconomy, Learning for sustainable development (ESD) International exchange of experience.
Lena Lindahl
Japan Representative
Contact Lena for questions regarding Tours in Japan or with japanese participants or for more information about her work in Link & Learn International.
Adane Negash
Ethiopia Representative
Turn to him for questions regarding Ethiopia or SSDE.
Adane is an Information Designer Scientist and Public Relation – PR Expert. He is one of the two founders of a charity organization – Sustainable Sweden Association Ethiopia / Sustainable Sweden Development Ethiopia (SSAE/SSDE). He is also an Executive Director, Tour Leader and Senior Consultant. Adane has joined Sustainable Sweden in 1992 and is now one of its principal members. He has more than 20 years of experience working with Eco-municipalities.
Sardu Bajracharya
Nepal Representative
Sardu Bajracharya is an environmental scientist and a GIS/Remote sensing expert. She is the founder of a non-profit organization ‘Sustainable Nepal’. As a member of Sustainable Sweden, she hopes to enable the sharing of experiences and knowledge of sustainable development between the two countries.
Gunnar Brundin
As one of the two founders of Esam, Gunnar Brundin has more than 25 years of experience of working with eco-municipalities.
Interns in Sustainable Sweden:
Throughout the last years, Sustainable Sweden has welcomed several interns interested in working with and learning about practical examples of Sustainable Development in the Nordic countries.
- Margot Husson (2011-2012). – French
- Julie Marcel (2012-2013). – French
- Maxime Sourdin (2013/2014) – French
- Guilherme Bleu (2016/2017) – French
- Diane Rougé (2017) – French
- Manon Salé (2018) – French
- Léa Goupil (2018) – French
- Margot Renard (2018) – Belgian
- Camille Mossard (2019) – French
- Clarisse Veaux (2019) – French
- Maëlle Dupré (2020) – French
- Anaïs Naze (2020) – French
- Carla Rat-Laclouère (2021) – French
- Lola Bucciarelli (2021) – French
- Elise Elie – French
- Jeanne Guinamant – French