Rocky Mountain Institute

Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) is an independent, entrepreneurial, nonprofit think-and-do tank that drives the efficient and restorative use of resources. Co-founded in 1982 by Amory Lovins, its Chairman Emeritus and Chief Scientist, RMI has grown into a diverse and broad-based institute with approximately 75 full-time staff, an annual budget of $12 million, and a global reach and reputation. RMI is nonpartisan and trans-ideological, and does not lobby or litigate. Rather, it uses the tools and dynamism of business to achieve the Institute’s long view and public purpose. RMI’s strategic focus is shifting the U.S. from oil and coal to efficiency and renewables by 2050. RMI’s business book Reinventing Fire articulates that focus as equal parts vision, rigorous analysis, and solutions roadmap, demonstrating a future and heavily transformed energy landscape that supports a 158%-bigger 2050 U.S. economy at a $5 trillion net present value savings over business-as-usual without needing oil, coal, or nuclear energy. While Reinventing Fire chiefly focuses on the U.S., RMI has also undertaken targeted applications of its proposed solutions at a city, state, and regional level. In addition, RMI this year embarks on a similar Reinventing Fire study for China in partnership with three other major organizations as input for China’s next five-year plan. RMI employs rigorous research and analysis to develop breakthrough insights, integrating diverse sectors, disciplines, perspectives, audiences, and markets. Then, in partnership with collaborators, chiefly in the private sector, RMI tests and refines those ideas to prepare compelling solutions for adoption at scale, creating teachable cases and competitive pressure for emulation. RMI is a nonprofit institution with multiple revenue sources, principally funded through major gifts from philanthropists based in the United States who are deeply aligned with the institute’s mission, vision and programmatic areas of focus. RMI also receives funding from US based and international foundations and funding organizations with missions and programs closely aligned with RMI. RMI has two Colorado locations—Boulder and [Old] Snowmass. Within the next few years, that Snowmass office will relocate to a new, high performance office building and collaboration center being designed in the nearby town of Basalt, 18 miles from Aspen and 5.5 miles from the current location.