Dr David Ness is Adjunct Professor, College of Engineering and IT, Adelaide University, South Australia, with a background in architecture, urban and infrastructure planning, and strategic asset management within the SA Government and beyond. He is President of the World Sufficiency Lab, Paris, which he co-founded in 2024, and is an executive member of the Australia-French Research & Innovation Association (AFRAN) - that sponsored the 1st International Sufficiency Summit 2023 and a 2024 SA Workshop on Sufficiency and Adaptive Reuse.  After winning the Arup 2017 Global Research Challenge to adapt the circular economy to the built environment, David currently leads research on dramatically reducing upfront embodied carbon in the built environment - supported by the GBCA. He advises the Sufficiency Action Hub of the Global ABC and introduced the notion of top-down remaining carbon budgets to ensure Zero Carbon for All and climate justice. Earlier, he advised UN ESCAP and UN Habitat on green growth and sustainable, integrated, and inclusive infrastructure, led a training course at the UN International Urban Training Centre (2011), and evaluated a major UN clean environment program involving 60 cities across the Asia Pacific. In addition, he headed Ecological Development Union International (EDUI), a NFP association seeking to integrate environmental improvements with socio-economic development within China and SE Asia. David was lead researcher on the project 'Learning from Regional Climate Analogues' for National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF, 2012) and has been a Chief Investigator (CI) on ARC research projects. He has authored over 130 publications, including 'The Impact of Overbuilding on People and the Planet' (2021),  ‘Towards Sufficiency and Solidarity: Implications for Construction and Property’ (2022), and ‘Technological Efficiency Limitations to Climate Mitigation: Why Sufficiency is Necessary’ (2023).