Physicist Amory Lovins is Cofounder, Chairman Emeritus, and until September 2019 was Chief Scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute (www.rmi.org), with which he continues to collaborate as an independent contractor. Author of 31 books and over 680 papers, he has designed many super-efficient buildings, vehicles, and industrial plants, and since 1973 has advised major governments and firms worldwide on advanced energy efficiency and strategy. He received the Blue Planet, Volvo, Zayed, Onassis, Nissan, Shingo, and Mitchell Prizes, MacArthur and Ashoka Fellowships, 12 honorary doctorates, the Heinz, Lindbergh, Right Livelihood, National Design, and World Technology Awards, and Germany’s highest civilian honor (the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit).
A Harvard and Oxford dropout, former Oxford don, honorary US architect, Swedish engineering academician, and 2011–18 member of the US National Petroleum Council, he works in numerous disciplines and has taught at ten universities (most recently Stanford’s School of Engineering and the US Naval Postgraduate School)— teaching only subjects he hasn’t formally studied, so as to cultivate beginner’s mind. In 2009, Time named him one of the world’s 100 most influential people, and Foreign Policy, one of the 100 top global thinkers.
His most recent books, mostly co-authored, include Natural Capitalism (1999), Small Is Profitable (2002), Winning the Oil Endgame (2004), The Essential Amory Lovins (2011), and Reinventing Fire (2011). His avocations include fine-art landscape photography (the profession of his wife Judy Hill), music, orangutans, great-ape language, linguistics, and Taoist thought.