André Thierstein Heinz (born December 9, 1969) is an American environmentalist. Heinz is a son of Senator

Henry John Heinz III Henry John Heinz III (October 23, 1938 – April 4, 1991) was an American businessman and Republican politician from Pennsylvania. Heinz represented the Pittsburgh suburbs in the United States House of Representatives from 1971 to 1977 and ...

and businesswoman/philanthropist Maria Teresa Thierstein Simões-Ferreira. He has a younger brother named

Christopher Christopher is the English language, English version of a Europe-wide name derived from the Greek language, Greek name Χριστόφορος (''Christophoros'' or ''Christoforos''). The constituent parts are Χριστός (''Christós''), "Jesus ...

and an elder brother John IV. André is a stepson of former

U.S. Secretary of State The United States secretary of state is a member of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States and the head of the U.S. Department of State. The office holder is one of the highest ranking members of the president's Ca ...

John Kerry John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American attorney, politician and diplomat who currently serves as the first United States special presidential envoy for climate. A member of the Forbes family and the Democratic Party (Unite ...

, and stepbrother of

Alexandra Kerry Alexandra Forbes Kerry (born September 5, 1973) is an American actress and filmmaker. She is a partner at Locomotive Films and co-founder of Fictional Pictures, a film production company based in New York and Los Angeles. She is married to conte ...

and

Vanessa Kerry Vanessa Bradford Kerry (born December 31, 1976) is an American physician, health care administrator, and doctor. She is a founder of the non-profit Seed Global Health. Her father is John Kerry, who served as the 68th United States Secretary of ...

. André Heinz has been active in the field of sustainable development since 1993, when he began working for William McDonough, the noted green architect and designer, on

sustainable design Environmentally sustainable design (also called environmentally conscious design, eco-design, etc.) is the philosophy of designing physical objects, the built environment, and services to comply with the principles of ecological sustainability ...

issues and projects. At the same time, Heinz joined the board of

The Heinz Endowments The Heinz Endowments is one of the largest philanthropic organizations in the United States, and was formed with the combined support from two smaller, private foundations: the Howard Heinz Endowment and the Vira I. Heinz Endowment. It awards more t ...

, where he oversaw the creation of an environmental grant-making program through a series of 14 topical environmental colloquia that convened leaders from around the world. He continues to serve on the Endowments board and on its Joint Investment Committee, which oversees the management of the $1.5 billion endowment. Following a six-month urban redevelopment project for the City of

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

, where he applied his knowledge together with colleagues at

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

, Heinz began research for

Paul Hawken Paul Gerard Hawken (born February 8, 1946) is an American environmentalist, entrepreneur, author, economist, and activist. Biography Hawken was born in San Mateo, California, and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, where his father worked at ...

on his latest book titled "Natural Capitalism." It chronicles examples of 75 percent or greater

resource productivity Resource productivity is the quantity of good or service (outcome) that is obtained through the expenditure of unit resource.Weizsäcker, E, and Jesinghaus, J. 1992. ''Ecological Tax Reform, Chapter 2: Increasing the Productivity of Natural Resource ...

at zero-to-negative cost, and suggests principles to help replicate those successes. Simultaneously, Heinz co-founded in 1995 the first U.S. office of

The Natural Step The Natural Step is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation founded in Sweden in 1989 by scientist Karl-Henrik Robèrt. The Natural Step is also used when referring to the partially open source framework it developed. Following publication of ...

, a Sweden-based nonprofit organization specialized in education and consulting around sustainable development. In 1999, after receiving a masters in environmental management at the

Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies Yale School of the Environment (YSE) is a professional school of Yale University. It was founded to train foresters, and now trains environmental leaders through four 2-year degree programs ( Master of Environmental Management, Master of Environme ...

, where he specialized in industrial environmental management and industrial ecology, Heinz accepted a job offer to run the international office of The Natural Step in Stockholm. In 2004, Heinz left

to focus on U.S. presidential politics as a surrogate spokesperson specializing in environmental policy and issues. Since then, he has turned his attention yet again to Scandinavia as the founder of Sustainable Technology Capital, a growth-stage, private equity management firm focused on Nordic Cleantech. André married his wife, Maria, in August 2016.

External links

Washington Post
address to the

Democratic National Convention The Democratic National Convention (DNC) is a series of presidential nominating conventions held every four years since 1832 by the United States Democratic Party. They have been administered by the Democratic National Committee since the 1852 ...

References

1969 births Living people Carnegie Mellon University faculty Heinz family Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies alumni American people of British descent American people of Portuguese descent Georgetown University alumni {{US-activist-stub