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). From 1992 to 1995 he was appointed as state secretary in the Ministry of Youth, Family Affairs and Health in the state of Hesse. From 1995 to 2000 he was member of the parliament of Hessen and served inter alia as chair of the caucus. From 2001 to 2005 he was 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. 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). May 2013 until Oct. 2014 he was Senior Fellow in the IASS (Potsdam/GHermany) 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 was also appointed as study leader of the project “The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for Agriculture and Food” (TEEBAgriFood) funded by the Global Alliance for the Future of Food. He is also Managing Director of TMG – ThinktankforSustainability.