Alexander Müller received a diploma in sociology at the Philipps-University in Marburg in 1985.
He was elected as City Councilor in Marburg (1985 -1992) with the responsibility for social and environmental affairs and was chair of the board of the municipal utilities (electricity, natural gas, water and public transport). In this function he was member of the board of a regional water supply utility and an association of regional electricity suppliers.
From 1992 to 1995 he was appointed state secretary in the Ministry of Youth, Family Affairs and Health in the State of Hessen. From 1995 to 2000 he was a member of the Parliament of Hessen and served inter alia as chair of the caucus and member of the budget committee. From 2001 to 2005 he was the State Secretary in the Ministry for Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture in the Federal Republic of Germany.
From 2006 until June 2013 he served as Assistant-Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and was responsible for the Department for Natural Resources and Environment including FAO’s work on Land and Water, Climate Change, Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture and the relations to CGIAR. During this time his department was chairing UN Water for three years and UN Energy for two years.
The Secretary-General of the UN nominated him as a member of the Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change (AGECC) in June 2009 to advise him on the energy-related dimensions of the climate change negotiations. From 2008 to 2011 he was chair of the United Nations System Standing Committee on Nutrition (UNSCN)
From May 2013 until October 2015 he was Senior Fellow in the cluster Global Contract for Sustainability of the IASS working on governance of sustainability, with a focus on soils and its role in the Nexus of Water, Food and Energy, and on the German “Energiewende”. He also served for an interim period as Secretary General of the IASS.
Since 2014, he has been appointed as study leader of the UNEP project The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity Agriculture and Food” (TEEBAgFood).
