Donella H. Meadows was an environmental scientist and systems analyst who is internationally recognized for her work in writing The Limits to Growth and for her work related to systems thinking. She rose to international fame with the Club of Rome through her lead authorship to the 1972 report titled The Limits to Growth. In this report, her findings were based on the impact of exponential growth models familiar to economists, such as exponential economic growth and exponential population growth on a finite planet, using computer simulations.

The study, published in 2009, then translated into twenty-six languages and sold more than nine million copies, offered the world the idea of planetary boundaries and cautioned on the risks of unmitigated consumption of resources and pollution of the environment. Originally from Illinois, Dr. Meadows received her Ph.D. in biophysics from Harvard University in 1968. A few years later, she moved to a research team at MIT, where she worked with Jay Forrester on system dynamics, a discipline that aims at modeling systems and determining how they will behave in the future.

She stayed in this position, developing an interest in international environmental matters and highlighting the social, economic, and natural systems. She was a skilled speaker who could convey complicated scientific information to lay audiences, emerging as one of the leading voices supporting sustainable development.

As mentioned above, Meadows devoted a significant part of her work to discussing sustainability and published many articles, essays, and books on the topic. She also wrote a weekly newspaper column for The Global Citizen, in which she addressed environmental and social issues from the systems approach. In her work in systems thinking, she focused on the central prerequisite of integrated processes of problem-solving, and she introduced the notion of leverage points, which are points in a system where a little push can lead to massive changes.

Meadows was also engaged with Community Sustainability Initiatives. In 1996, she co-founded the Sustainability Institute, later named the Donella Meadows Institute, which seeks sustainable solutions to the world’s systemic challenges. She was a great advocate for visioning, the act of creating and moving towards a sustainable future. Her ideas still inspire those interested in environmental preservation, along with scientists and activists in the modern world.

Meadows’ contribution to environmental science was acknowledged widely. She was awarded the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation fellowship in 1994 and other awards during her career. Sadly, she passed away in 2001. However, her visionary work continues through her writings, teachings, and the many people and organizations she nurtured to pursue a sustainable future.