NES 2007 - Speakers -Amory Lovins


 


Amory Lovins
CEO & Treasurer
Rocky Mountain Institute

Amory Lovins is renowned for his wide-ranging intellect and unique problem-solving approach, which he has used to make breakthroughs in fields ranging from automobiles to energy. His work has consistently focused on harnessing market forces to promote resource efficiency as a solution to a variety of economic, social, and environmental problems.

Mr. Lovins has briefed 18 heads of state, given expert testimony in eight countries, held several visiting academic chairs, authored or co-authored 29 books and hundreds of papers, consulted for scores of industries and governments worldwide, and received numerous major awards and  honorary degrees. Dr. Alvin Weinberg, ex-Director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has called him "surely the most articulate writer on energy in the whole world today"; Newsweek, "one of the Western world's most influential energy thinkers." Dr. John Ahearne, former Vice President of Resources for the Future, remarked that "Amory Lovins has done more to assemble and advance understanding of [energy] efficiency opportunities than any other single person." The Wall Street Journal's Centennial Issue named him among 39 people in the world most likely to change the course of business in the 1990s, and Car magazine called him "the 22nd most powerful person in the global car industry."

Trained as an experimental physicist, Mr. Lovins rose to prominence during the oil crises of the 1970s when, still in his twenties, he challenged conventional supply-side dogma by urging that the United States instead follow a "soft energy path." His controversial recommendations were eventually accepted by the energy industry, and his book Soft Energy Paths: Toward a Durable Peace (1977) went on to inspire a generation of decision-makers. A sampling of the other highly acclaimed books Mr. Lovins has authored or coauthored includes Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution (1999), Factor Four: Doubling Wealth, Halving Resource Use (1997), Brittle Power: Energy Strategy for National Security (1982), and Energy/War: Breaking the Nuclear Link (1980).

Mr. Lovins co-founded, with Hunter Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute, the Snowmass-based applied research center, in 1982. RMI is an independent, entrepreneurial, nonpartisan, nonprofit applied research center whose mission is to foster the efficient and restorative use of natural, human, and other capital to make the world more secure, just, prosperous, and life-sustaining. He continues to serve as CEO of the organization, whose 43 staff members research and consult in a variety of fields. Under the Lovinses' leadership, RMI spun off two pioneering enterprises: E SOURCE, now a $10-million for-profit electric-efficiency information service (founded in 1986 as COMPETITEK and sold to the Financial Times group in 1999); and Hypercar, Inc., an automotive technology-development startup (1998).

Relevant Experience

Rocky Mountain Institute; CEO,Treasurer; 1982-Present. Mr. Lovins co-founded RMI and has, over 20 years, built it into one of the world's most respected institutions in resource strategy and implementation. He is involved in almost every facet of the Institute's activities:

  • Intellectual capital. Mr. Lovins has created most of the Institute's main intellectual legacies: the end-use/least-cost approach to resource issues; the concept of "negawatts" and methods for making markets in saved electricity and other resources; profitable climate protection and transition to a hydrogen economy; codifying and quantifying the links between scale and economics, especially in electric power systems; the practice of "tunneling through the cost barrier" (making big resource savings cost less than small ones); the ultralight, ultra-lowdrag, hybrid-electric Hypercar® concept; using competitive forces to align the real-estate, energy, water, car, carpet, semiconductor, and other industries with resource productivity; and most recently, mobilizing global commerce as the chief engine of sustainability through the practice of Natural Capitalism.
  • Consulting and strategic advice. Mr. Lovins has advised, often at top levels, such firms as Allstate, Anheuser-Busch, Baxter, Borg-Warner, BP, Carrier, Ciba-Geigy, Coca-Cola, Dow, Equitable, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard, H.P. Bulmer, Interface, Invensys, Lockheed Martin, Mitsubishi, Monsanto, Motorola, Norsk Hydro, Phillips Petroleum, Prudential, Royal Ahold, Royal Dutch/Shell, Shearson Lehman Amex, STMicroelectronics, Sun Oil, Union Bank of Switzerland, Westinghouse, Xerox, major real-estate developers, and over 100 electric and gas utilities. Public-sector clients have included the OECD, U.N., the U.S. Congress and the Energy and Defense Departments, and many other U.S. and overseas agencies.
  • Speaking and media relations. A highly sought-after speaker, Mr. Lovins has addressed many leading U.S. and overseas business, policy, energy, automotive, environment, and development groups. RMI's principal spokesman, he has been interviewed by most major broadcast and print media, including 60 Minutes, PBS's Future Quest, CNN, Fortune, Business Week, and Wired.
  • Administration. Mr. Lovins plays a leading role in setting RMI's research agenda. As the Institute's Treasurer, he is closely involved in finances and funder relations. As a member of RMI's Board of Directors, he helps set policy and long-term strategy.

Hypercar, Inc.; Chairman; 1998-Present. Having founded its nonprofit predecessor, The Hypercar Center, Mr. Lovins spearheaded the spinoff of this for-profit subsidiary of RMI with over $6 million in private-equity startup capital. As its chairman, he guides its strategic decisions.

E SOURCE, Director and Principal Technical Consultant, 1992-99. Mr. Lovins co-founded COMPETITEK in 1986, built it into a respected electric-industry information service, and spun it off as the for-profit E SOURCE in 1992. He served as the company's Principal Technical Consultant, authoring several ground-breaking reports and advising on strategic as well as technical issues, until its sale to FTEnergy in1999. It is now owned by Platts.

Various institutions, Visiting Professor, 1978-Present. Mr. Lovins has been Regents' Lecturer at the University of California both in Energy and Resources and in Economics; Grauer Lecturer at the University of B.C.; Luce Visiting Professor at Dartmouth College; Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Colorado; Oikos Visiting Professor at the Business School, University of St. Gallen; and Visiting Lecturer at the University of Peking.

 

 

 
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