Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI; www.rmi.org) is an independent, entrepreneurial, nonpartisan, nonprofit think & do tank working chiefly to foster advanced resource productivity and create abundance through integrative design and market-based implementation. RMI was founded in 1982 by resource analysts Amory and Hunter Lovins in Snowmass, Colorado. Its ~50 staff foster the efficient and restorative use of natural and human capital to make the world secure, just, prosperous, and life-sustaining. Most of the Institute's $8-million annual budget is funded by programmatic enterprise, chiefly consultancy for the private sector. About one-third of revenues come from foundation grants and individual donations; government support is rare and seldom sought. RMI’s extensive business experience includes strategic and technical consultancy, often at Chair and CEO level, for scores of major companies worldwide. Its services have recently been procured or requested by more than 80 Fortune 500 companies. Over the life of the Institute, RMI has developed a considerable body of practical experience, in 28 sectors of the economy, achieving expanding rather than diminishing returns to investments in resource productivity. As explained in Natural Capitalism (www.natcap.org), a noted 1999 business text written by RMI’s co-founders and Paul Hawken, the Institute’s designs often “tunnel through the cost barrier,” making very large energy and resource savings cost less than small or no savings. |
