Climate Capitalism     

Call Date: October 5, 2011

Hunter Lovins , President, Natural Capitalism Solutions

L. Hunter Lovins is a former co-CEO of Rocky Mountain Institute, a Colorado-based nonprofit resource policy think tank. She holds a BA from Pitzer College, a JD from Loyola University School of Law with the Alumni Award for Outstanding Service to the School, and an honorary LHD from the University of Maine.

Trained as a lawyer, she helped establish and for six years was Assistant Director of the California Conservation Project (“Tree People”), an innovative urban forestry and environmental education group. She was 1982 Henry R. Luce Visiting Professor at Dartmouth College, and has taught at several other universities. In 1982, with Amory Lovins, she co-founded RMI, now a 45-person organization that conducts research and provides consulting services in a variety of fields. They also co-founded E SOURCE, a for-profit spinoff that RMI sold to the Financial Times Group in 1999.

Ms. Lovins has co-authored eight books, notably Energy/War: Breaking the Nuclear Link (1980), Brittle Power: Energy Strategy for National Security (1982), and Factor Four: Doubling Wealth, Halving Resource Use (1997). Frances Cairncross of The Economist called the latter “essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the ways technology can be put to the service of the environment.”

She has consulted for governments and the private sector, briefing senior management at such groups as Interface, Mitsubishi, Bank of America, Allstate, Calvert Social Investment Fund, Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and numerous utility companies. Ms. Lovins’s public-sector clients have included the U.S. Defense Civil Preparedness Agency, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Bonneville Power Administration, the Solar Energy Research Institute, and the German Federal Environment Agency.

With Amory Lovins she has shared a 1999 Lindbergh Award, a 1993 Nissan Prize, a 1983 Right Livelihood Award (often called the "alternative Nobel Prize"), and a 1982 Mitchell Prize.

Ms. Lovins has appeared on numerous television shows, including 60 Minutes, Good Morning America, and dozens of news programs. A sought-after public speaker, she has addressed such audiences as the U.S. Congress, The World Economic Forum at Davos, the Continental Congress of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the World’s Fair Energy Symposia, the Industrial Designers Society WorlDesign, the Epiphany service at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the State of the World Forum, and hundreds of conferences and college symposia.

She sits on the boards of five for-profit and nonprofit companies. In her spare time, she serves on the local fire/rescue service as an EMT, trains horses, competes at polocrosse, and rides rodeo.

Website: http://www.natcap.org/

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