Rocky Mountain Institute

Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI)—an independent nonprofit founded in 1982—transforms global energy use to create a clean, prosperous, and secure low-carbon future. It engages businesses, communities, institutions, and entrepreneurs to accelerate the adoption of market-based solutions that cost-effectively shift from fossil fuels to efficiency and renewables. In 2014, RMI merged with Carbon War Room (CWR), whose business-led market interventions advance a low-carbon economy. The combined organization has offices in Snowmass and Boulder, Colorado; New York City; Washington, D.C.; and Beijing..

RMI-CWR employs rigorous research, analysis, and whole-systems expertise to develop breakthrough insights. In partnership with collaborators, chiefly in the private sector, we test and refine those ideas. Then RMI-CWR convenes and collaborates with diverse partners—business, government, academic, nonprofit, philanthropic, and military—to accelerate and scale solutions, creating teachable cases and competitive pressure for emulation. This “snowball” strategy bridges iconic projects—such as the energy efficiency retrofit of New York City’s Empire State Building—with accelerating deployment of solutions in the four energy-using sectors of the global economy: transportation, buildings, industry, and electricity. In each of these sectors, RMI drives innovation in technology, policy, design, and business strategy.

RMI-CWR is a nonprofit institution with multiple revenue sources, principally funded through major gifts from philanthropists who are deeply aligned with the institute’s mission, vision, and programmatic areas of focus. RMI-CWR also receives funding from U.S.-based and international foundations and funding organizations with closely aligned missions and programs.