Verena Ehold is our new Managing Director
Climate change is the biggest and most real risk for the future of our children
Since 1 February, the 46-year-old legal scholar Verena Ehold is at the head of the Umweltbundesamt, the Environment Agency Austria. Together with Georg Rebernig, she completes the management team of Austria's most important expert organisation for the environment.
"Climate change is the greatest and most real risk to our future on this planet. It was therefore the only right thing for me to now use my time and skills to work together with the highly qualified experts at the Environment Agency Austria to promote effective climate protection," says Ehold, explaining her decision to move from the Federal Ministry for Climate Action to the Environment Agency Austria after 20 years. The challenges in the areas of environment and climate are numerous and great, according to the new Managing Director. ”Our world urgently needs a course correction – environmental and climate goals have been on the table for a long time. In order to reach them effectively, we need targeted environmental controlling," says the legal scholar.
This is one of the strengths of the Environment Agency Austria - like a forward-looking navigator, we provide information, draw attention to opportunities and threats, and show how we as a society can take effective countermeasures.
In addition to the environment, climate and sustainability, the topics of gender mainstreaming, intercultural dialogue and digitalisation are close to Verena Ehold's heart. She also wants to campaign for this at the Environment Agency Austria. “Regular monitoring of environmental data makes changes in the environment visible and the results comparable with established standards and regulations," says the new Managing Director. "We are not there yet, but big 'environmental' data could in the future unite a number of areas in such a comprehensive analysis: a method that examines air, water and soil as well as the built environment and socio-economic data. In a few years, it could be an important tool to effectively contribute to achieving the goals of the EU Green Deal through more efficient environmental controlling.”
On 1 February 2023, Verena Ehold replaced Monika Mörth, who had held the position of Managing Director at the Environment Agency Austria together with Georg Rebernig since 2018. "Monika Mörth stood for transformation and courage," says Ehold about her predecessor. "She courageously initiated and implemented change and was willing to embrace the unknown and take risks."
Before taking up her position as Managing Director of the Environment Agency Austria, Ehold spent four years as Head of the Radiation Protection Department at the Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology, where she was responsible for emergency planning and crisis communication. Before that, she worked for eight years as a lawyer for chemical safety at the Federal Ministry for Sustainability and as an internationally sought-after expert on minimising chemical, biological, nuclear and radiological risks in the field of EU development cooperation. In Luxembourg, the EURATOM expert spent four years as an Austrian expert in the EU Commission, having started as a lawyer in the Radiation Protection Department in 2003.
Ehold is married, mother of two children (10, 12) and was awarded the Federal Honor Medal of Merit for voluntary work in intercultural dialogue in 2008.
The Environment Agency Austria
As the most important expert institution for the environment in Austria and one of the leading environmental consultants in Europe, the Environment Agency Austria stands for the transformation of the economy and society to ensure sustainable living conditions. The experts develop decision-making bases at local, regional, European and international level. The Environment Agency Austria is transparent and non-partisan and engages in dialogue with politics, administration, business, science and civil society.
