Jonathan Lash has led the World Resources Institute as its President since 1993.

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Jonathan Lash is president of the World Resources Institute (WRI), whose research, analysis and policy recommendations provide practical solutions to global challenges of environment and sustainability. He is recognized internationally for his expertise on climate change, energy security, and resource, environment and development policies. Mr. Lash has broad experience with public policy processes at the international, federal and state levels, and with corporate and business practices worldwide.

Mr. Lash has been a catalyst in engaging business and industry in environmental and sustainability issues. From 1993 until 1999, Mr. Lash served as co chair of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development, a group of U.S. government, business, labor, civil rights, and environmental leaders appointed by President Clinton that developed visionary recommendations for strategies to promote sustainable development. In 2006 he played a key role in the creation and success of the United States Climate Action Partnership, a group of leading companies and environmental groups that in January 2007 issued a highly influential “Call to Action” on global warming.

A frequent writer about issues of sustainability, Lash’s article in the Harvard Business Review, “Competitive Advantage on a Warming Planet,” distills more than a decade of active engagement with the private sector on climate issues. In June 2005, Mr. Lash was named one of the world’s Top 100 Most Influential People in Finance, in the annual ranking of Treasury & Risk Management magazine, the only leader of a non-profit environmental organization on the list. Mr. Lash was profiled in Rolling Stone’s “Warriors & Heroes,” a look at “Twenty-five leaders who are fighting to stave off the planet-wide catastrophe.” The piece noted that he “has arguably done more than any other environmentalist to bridge the bitter divide between industry interests and green groups determined to halt global warming.” In December 2007, he was named “one of the 100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics” for the year by Ethisphere Magazine, recognizing his “commitment to ethical leadership and corporate social responsibility.”

Under Lash’s leadership, WRI has developed innovative approaches to measuring and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, led efforts to demonstrate the financial importance of environmental risks and opportunities to capital markets successfully catalyzed the first global assessment of the state of the world’s ecosystems, and pioneered the use of digital technologies – such as satellite imagery - to solve environmental problems.

As the head of a leading international organization with partners in more than 50 countries, Lash has been involved in research and policy discussions with companies, governments, and civil society organizations all over the world. He has served on a variety of international commissions and boards, including the DuPont Biotechnology Advisory Panel; the Tata Energy and Resources Institute (India); the Keidanren Committee on Nature Conservation (Japan); the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development; Generation Investment Management, The VIVA Trust, and the Avina Foundation. He has chaired advisory groups to the Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Trade Representative, and the Secretary General of the OECD.

From 1987 to 1990, he headed the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, having served the previous two years as Vermont’s Commissioner of Environmental Conservation. During his tenure in Vermont government, Lash helped write, win enactment of and implement innovative statutes on issues ranging from pollution prevention and solid waste management to protection of pristine streams. In 1990 he became director of the Environmental Law Center at the Vermont Law School, rated the best program of its kind in the United States.

A former Peace Corps volunteer and federal prosecutor, Mr. Lash worked as a senior staff attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) from 1978 to 1985, litigating and lobbying on issues related to pollution control, federal coal leasing, strip mining, and energy conservation.

Mr. Lash earned his baccalaureate degree from Harvard University and his masters and law degrees from the Catholic University of America. He served as a law clerk to The Hon. Frank M. Coffin, then Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

Mr. Lash lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife Ellie, who teaches at Sidwell Friends School.