Mr. Esty is the Hillhouse Professor of Environmental Law and Policy at Yale University.  He holds faculty appointments in both Yale’s Environment and Law Schools.  He is the Director of the Center for Business and Environment at Yale as well as the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy. Mr. Esty is the author or editor of nine books and numerous articles on environmental issues, including, most recently, “Green to Gold:  How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage”. His prior work examines the relationships between environment and trade, competitiveness, globalization, security, international institutions and development.  His current research agenda includes projects on environmental performance measurement, corporate environmental strategy, global environmental governance, and “Information Age” approaches to pollution control and natural resource management.

Prior to taking up his position at Yale in 1994, Mr. Esty was a Senior Fellow at the Institute for International Economics, a Washington, D.C. think tank.  From 1989-93, Mr. Esty served in a variety of positions in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, including Special Assistant to the EPA Administrator, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Agency, and Deputy Assistant Administrator for Policy.  During his tenure at the EPA, Mr. Esty managed the EPA’s regulatory review process, coordinated inter-agency relations, and contributed to a number of policy initiatives, including the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act, food safety proposals, and water pollution control reforms.  He also negotiated several international agreements on behalf of the EPA, including the 1992 Climate Change Convention, the environmental provisions of NAFTA, and various elements of the agreements concluded at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit.

Mr. Esty spent the 2000-2001 academic year as a visiting Professor at INSEAD, the European business school in Fontainebleau, France.  He served four years as an elected Planning and Zoning Commissioner in his hometown of Cheshire, Connecticut.  He sits on the Board of Directors of several companies and environmental groups. Mr. Esty is a graduate of Harvard College, Balliol College (Oxford) where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and Yale Law School.