Brief

An architect by training, Najib Saab is publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Al-Bia Wal-Tanmia (Environment & Development), the leading pan-Arab magazine on sustainable development, Secretary General of Arab Forum for Environment & Development (AFED) and President of MECTAT, a regional environmental resource centre he founded in Beirut in 1982. He has a varied experience, ranging from designing for multi-nationals like General Motors and lecturing on corporate architecture at the American University of Beirut, to advising various governments and agencies on environment and writing on sustainable development and technology. He is a 2003 laureate of the United Nations Environment Programme’s Global 500 Award for environmental achievement. Saab has ten books to his credit, including Nature Book which received in 2002 the Book of the Year Award from the Beirut Arab Book Fair. His monthly editorial is simultaneously published by 10 leading newspapers across the Arab region, and is the only regular syndicated commentary in Arabic on environment issues. Born in Lebanon in 1953, Najib Saab got his degree in Architecture from the American University of Beirut, where he also studied mass communications and political science. He is married to Maria Vos, a Dutch national. The couple have three children, and live between Lebanon and the Netherlands.