Environmental Geoscientist | Sustainable Finance Professional | Photographer | MSc, BSc, FRGS

Hello! My name is Sergiu Jiduc, and I am a trained environmental geoscientist, sustainable finance professional and photographer. Since 2012, I have been designing and coordinating environmental research and consultancy-style project delivery on four continents across water resources management, energy resilience and access, disaster risk management, climate change policy, green bonds standards development and sustainable infrastructure finance. I am also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a National Geographic Explorer. 

As a child, I grew up in Transylvania, Romania where through mountaineering I developed a strong appreciation of the natural world and an interest in studying it. My passion for geography and the outdoors led me to study Environmental Geoscience at the University of Edinburgh followed by a Master of Science in Environmental Technology at Imperial College London. 

My professional career began at Ricardo Energy and Environment, an environmental and sustainability consulting firm, where I provided technical input into a wide array of water resource management projects, international climate change policy and air quality programmes. I later worked at Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI), a not-for-profit organization, where I supported the development of green definitions and green criteria across various sectors of the green economy, including protected agriculture, electrical transmission and distribution, and climate adaptation and resilience. After CBI, I became an independent consultant for the World Energy Council, where I designed a qualitative research framework to explore the topic of energy resilience and provide policy recommendations regarding best practices within the energy sector to enable more agile and adaptive responses to extreme weather impacts. Similarly, I have supported the Carbon Trust by delivering a comprehensive mid-term review of the UK’s Department for International Development Transforming Energy Access (TEA) programme – an umbrella initiative to accelerate access to affordable, clean energy services for households and enterprises in developing countries.

Currently, I work for the World Wide Fund for Nature Singapore where I lead a sustainable infrastructure finance programme, which includes upstream initiatives across the Asia region, focusing on greening finance and financing green, and tackling issues such as the energy transition and nature-positive infrastructure;

My field research endeavours span the spectrum of the natural and social sciences but broadly focus on understanding the threat of climate change on the water-energy-food (WEF) nexus in glaciated catchments. Some of my flagship projects explored the trigger mechanisms and quantified the dynamics of surging glaciers, assessed the risk of glacial lake outburst floods, evaluated policy and technological solutions to help mountain communities adapt to glacial hazards and explored the barriers and enablers to the adoption and diffusion of agricultural technological innovation in remote communities.

I am also an accomplished climber having completed numerous ascents across four continents, ranging from high-altitude alpine climbs in the Himalaya and Karakoram mountains to technical ascents in the Andes and Caucasus ranges. I am one of the youngest Eastern European climbers to have reached the summits of a series of mountains including Khan Tengri (7010m) in the Tian Shan Mountains of Kazakhstan. Thus, I have acquired considerable project and expedition management experience in difficult terrain. 

In addition to my scientific and mountaineering interests, I am an accomplished science communicator having worked for the Edinburgh International Science Festival and delivered several talks at events such as TEDx, Flood Expo, Royal Geographical Explorer Seminars and others. I am also an aspiring landscape photographer and film director. 

Regarding professional skills, I am trained in the application of science-based greenhouse gas reduction methods, environmental impact assessment, qualitative and quantitative research techniques and science communication. My key strengths lie in creative problem-solving, inductive and deductive reasoning skills, a good eye for detail, strong investigative prowess, and a proven ability to communicate effectively and provide evidence-based inferences. I am a self-starter who thrives in a fast-paced and dynamic environment, with resilience, pace, and interpersonal flexibility and a proven capacity to work in a range of cultural and socio-economic contexts.