Bernardas Padegimas

Bernardas Padegimas is the Team Lead of the Environmental Policy and Strategy (EPS) team and a Senior Project Manager at SEI Headquarters.

As Team Lead, Bernardas provides strategic leadership, drives fundraising efforts, and fosters network development. He is also dedicated to ensuring the well-being and professional growth of team members. In his role as a Senior Project Manager, he oversees the implementation of large-scale projects in the Eastern Partnership and Western Balkans regions.

Currently, Bernardas serves as the Project Lead for two large-scale initiatives: the Green Agenda in Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine (GA GUMA) and Sustainable Transitions in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH SuTra). The GA GUMA project is an ambitious effort to support these countries in achieving climate neutrality by 2050. Its activities include producing a comprehensive readiness assessment for a green transition, developing detailed roadmaps to climate neutrality, identifying investment-ready projects for priority implementation, conducting public awareness campaigns, and delivering targeted technical support and capacity-building initiatives. Meanwhile, the BiH SuTra project focuses on assisting coal-dependent municipalities and cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina in their just transition toward a decarbonized, low-greenhouse-gas-emissions, low-air-pollution, and environmentally sustainable future.

In his previous roles at SEI, Bernardas managed a project supporting Bosnia and Herzegovina in the development of an Environmental Strategy and Action Plan (2019–2023), aligning the country’s environmental policies with EU standards. He also led the Mistra Geopolitics Programme (Phase 1) and coordinated the Stockholm Climate and Security Hub.

Before joining SEI, Bernardas worked at the World Water Council, where he headed the Climate Department. In this role, he supported governments, international organizations, and civil society groups in integrating water management into climate change strategies under the UNFCCC framework, contributing to the successful implementation of the Paris Agreement.

Earlier in his career, he worked at the OSPAR Commission, where he facilitated collaboration among OSPAR governments for coherent implementation of the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive in the North-East Atlantic. He successfully delivered the EU-funded EcApRHA project and the Intermediate Assessment 2017. He also gained extensive experience at UNEP/GRID-Arendal, working on transboundary water resource management projects in regions such as Lake Victoria, the Okavango and Limpopo rivers, the Caspian Sea, and Druksiai Lake. His focus was on environmental security, climate change impacts, natural disaster management, and capacity building.

Bernardas holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Impact Assessment and Management from the University of Manchester, UK, and a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science from Vilnius University, Lithuania.