Herman E. Daly (1938-2022) was a world-renowned ecological economist and professor emeritus at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy. From 1988 to 1994 he was Senior Economist in the Environment Department of the World Bank. Prior to 1988, he was Alumni Professor of Economics at Louisiana State University, where he taught economics for twenty years.

Daly championed the integration of ethics, quality of life, environment and community. His interest in economic development, population, resources, and environment resulted in over a hundred articles in professional journals and anthologies, as well as numerous books, including Toward a Steady-State Economy (1973); Steady-State Economics: Economics of Biophysical Equilibrium and Moral Growth (1977; 1991); Valuing the Earth: Economics, Ecology, Ethics (1993); Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development (1996) and From Uneconomic Growth to a Steady-State Economy (2014).

He is co-author with theologian John B. Cobb, Jr., of For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future (1989; 1994) which received the 1991 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas for Improving World Order. In 1996 he received Sweden’s Honorary Right Livelihood Award and the Heineken Prize for Environmental Science, awarded by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1999 he was awarded the Sophie Prize (Norway) for contributions in the area of Environment and Development; in 2001 the Leontief Prize for contributions to economic thought, and in 2002 the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic for his work in steady-state economics. In 2010 the National Council for Science and the Environment (USA) gave him its Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2014 he received the Blue Planet Prize awarded by the Asahi Glass Foundation of Japan.