Karen Landmark has built her career around sustainability, societal change and the relationship between people and nature. Her background spans research, renewable energy and international environmental cooperation, and she holds a PhD in sustainability and societal transitions.

Today, Karen is Managing Director of GRID-Arendal, a Norwegian environmental foundation and UNEP Collaborating Centre working at the intersection of science, policy and action.

Over time, her focus has widened beyond environmental solutions alone. Karen has become increasingly interested in the stories and assumptions that shape how we see ourselves, each other and the world around us, and in how those stories can influence our ability to create change.

Her work explores polarization, connection and the tendency to divide the world into “us” and “them”. She is particularly interested in the link between inner and outer transformation, and in what becomes possible when we become more curious about the things we are certain we already know.

At TEDxArendal, Karen explores a powerful idea: the separation we create between people and the separation we create between humanity and nature may be part of the same story, and changing that story may start closer to home than we think.