Amory Lovins

Physicist Amory B. Lovins is cofounder and Chairman Emeritus and was 2007–19 Chief Scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), continuing as an independent contractor and Trustee. He has been an energy advisor to major governments and firms in 70+ countries for a half-century; author of 32 books and over 950 papers; and an integrative designer of many superefficient buildings, factories, and vehicles. He has received the Blue Planet, Volvo, Zayed, Onassis, Nissan, Shingo, and Mitchell Prizes, the MacArthur and Ashoka Fellowships, the Happold, Benjamin Franklin, and Spencer Hutchens Medals, 12 honorary doctorates, and the Heinz, Lindbergh, Right Livelihood (“alternative Nobel”), [US] National Design, and World Technology Awards. In 2016, the President of Germany awarded him the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit (Bundesverdienstkreuz 1. Klasse).

A Harvard and Oxford dropout, former Oxford don, honorary U.S. architect, and Swedish engineering academician, Lovins has taught at ten universities, most recently as a Professor of Practice at the Naval Postgraduate School and Stanford—but only on topics he’s never formally studied, so as to retain beginner’s mind. At Stanford, he was Adjunct Professor from 2020–24 and is currently Adjunct Lecturer in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, and Senior Precourt Scholar of Integrative Design and Energy Efficiency at the Precourt Institute for Energy. He served on the U.S. National Petroleum Council in 2011–18 and has advised the U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense. TIME magazine has named him one of the world’s 100 most influential people, and Foreign Policy, one of the 100 top global thinkers. He has briefed dozens of heads of state or government, and led energy redesign projects valued at over $40 billion across more than 20 sectors.

His books include "Natural Capitalism," "Small Is Profitable: The Hidden Economic Benefits of Making Electrical Resources the Right Size," "Winning the Oil Endgame," "The Essential Amory Lovins," and "Reinventing Fire." His main recent efforts include supporting RMI’s collaborative synthesis of an ambitious efficiency-and-renewables trajectory that informed China’s 13th Five Year Plan; helping the Government of India transform mobility to become shared, connected, and electric; and exploring how to make integrative design the new normal so the energy efficiency resource becomes severalfold larger, but also cheaper, often with increasing returns.