Dr. Varun Shankar is an Analyst at CPI, based in London, working in the Climate Finance Tracking team. Varun’s work beginned with a focus on taxonomies for assessing and tracking climate finance flows.

Varun is consulting for the International Transport Forum (ITF-OECD), providing evidence-based policy recommendations to enhance connectivity, decarbonization, and resilience in freight transport across Southeast Asia. Previously, Varun contributed to the World Bank Climate Team’s Rising to the Challenge report, exploring private sector roles in adaptation and resilience and supported the South Asia Resilience Initiative.

Before joining CPI, Varun served as Head of Research at the Oxford SDG Impact Lab, where he designed research methodologies and led sustainability-focused projects with organizations such as Formula 1, Silverstone, Green Gold Forestry, Extreme E, and Neste. Varun also worked with the Aviation Impact Accelerator at the University of Cambridge on documentation for sustainable aviation fuel and fleet modelling. At AFRY Management Consulting, Varun examined vulnerabilities and strategies to enhance the resilience of the battery energy storage supply chain.

Varun holds a DPhil in Engineering Science from the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. Varun’s doctoral thesis investigated the impact of renewable fuel compositions on unregulated aldehyde emissions. Prior to this, Varun completed an MEng (Hons) in Mechanical with Automotive Engineering at the University of Bath.