Geurt van de Kerk is chairman of the Sustainable Society Foundation (SSF, www.ssfindex.com). His work experience has gradually raised his personal interest in sustainability issues in general. This resulted in the establishment of the SSF. He developed, in close cooperation with Arthur Manuel, the Sustainable Society Index, SSI, which measures the level of sustainability in its broad sense for 151 countries, covering 99% of the world population. Since 2006, now five biennial editions of the SSI have been published. Beside the SSI at national level, SSF has developed a sustainability index at city level, published in 2104.
Geurt received his M.Sc. degree in civil engineering at Delft Technical University in 1969. Subsequently he held several positions as management consultant in the Netherlands and abroad until he co-founded K+V Management Consultants in Arnhem , The Netherlands, in 1984. In 1997 Geurt started a publishing firm and some years later the SSF.