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Meera Atreya
Director of Decarbonisation Science & European Advisory,
Carbon Direct
Dr. Meera Atreya is the Director of Decarbonization Science & European Advisory at Carbon Direct, a science-led carbon management firm. Meera leads Carbon Direct's office in Europe, helping organizations take climate action by reducing their greenhouse gas emissions and supporting high-quality carbon removal projects. Meera has been involved in climate technology research and strategic advisory since 2009 and has been invited to share her insights on sustainability with climate action leaders including former US Vice President Al Gore.
Dr. Atreya was the lead author of Bioresources within a Net-Zero Emissions Economy, a report by the Energy Transitions Commission evaluating the role of sustainable bioresources in climate change mitigation. While at SYSTEMIQ, a sustainability-focused systems change company, Meera provided strategic advice to a major climate-focused philanthropic foundation and co-authored a report on alleviating the plastic waste crisis;the United Nations Environment Programme is currently using this analysis as the basis for a global plastics treaty. Prior to SYSTEMIQ, Meera was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, where she was designated as an Affiliate Expert in Renewable Energy & Cleantech and was a key member of the team that steered McKinsey to address its own global carbon emissions.
Meera is based in London and serves as an advisor to both the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) and Carbon Gap. She holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry (Chemical Biology) from UC Berkeley and an A.B. cum laude from Harvard. Dr. Atreya was awarded a US National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship for her doctoral research on engineering enzymes to improve the efficiency, and lower the cost, of converting cellulosic biomass to 2nd-generation biofuels.
Dr. Atreya was the lead author of Bioresources within a Net-Zero Emissions Economy, a report by the Energy Transitions Commission evaluating the role of sustainable bioresources in climate change mitigation. While at SYSTEMIQ, a sustainability-focused systems change company, Meera provided strategic advice to a major climate-focused philanthropic foundation and co-authored a report on alleviating the plastic waste crisis;the United Nations Environment Programme is currently using this analysis as the basis for a global plastics treaty. Prior to SYSTEMIQ, Meera was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, where she was designated as an Affiliate Expert in Renewable Energy & Cleantech and was a key member of the team that steered McKinsey to address its own global carbon emissions.
Meera is based in London and serves as an advisor to both the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) and Carbon Gap. She holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry (Chemical Biology) from UC Berkeley and an A.B. cum laude from Harvard. Dr. Atreya was awarded a US National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship for her doctoral research on engineering enzymes to improve the efficiency, and lower the cost, of converting cellulosic biomass to 2nd-generation biofuels.