World Resources Institute
The World Resources Institute is an environmental think tank that goes beyond research to find practical ways to protect the earth and improve people’s lives.
The organization works around four key programs:
Climate Protection
This program works to protect the global climate system from further harm due to emissions of greenhouse gases and help humanity and the natural world adapt to unavoidable climate change.
By conducting independent research and developing innovative policy and business options, WRI is promoting an effective international response to climate change.
In particular, WRI aims to:
- Develop robust international agreements and US policies to protect the climate system.
- Foster widespread investment in climate-friendly energy and transportation technologies.
- Reduce greenhouse gas emissions through clean alternatives supported by businesses, governments, nongovernmental organizations, and the public.
WRI collaborates with institutions and civil society organizations worldwide to ensure that decisions about natural resources reflect environmental values as well as people’s rights and interests.
These are some of their programs:
- The Access Initiative–the largest global network dedicated to ensuring that people have the right and ability to influence decisions about the natural resources that sustain their communities.
- Electricity Governance Initiative–a collaboration of civil society, policy-makers, regulators, and sector actors to promote open, transparent, and accountable decision-making processes in the electricity sector.
- Poverty, Environment, and Distributional Equity–promote equitable allocation and distribution policies for revenues from ecosystem goods and services.
- Decentralization and Natural Resources–promote representative local government as a tool to improve environmental justice, reduce poverty, and raise the efficiency and equity of decision-making.
- Mapping Poverty and Natural Resource Revenues–overlay data about geographical distribution of poverty, natural resources and fiscal transfers to improve development approaches and outcomes.
WRI’s Markets and Enterprise Group produces economically sound policies, bold vision, and practical solutions in collaboration with the business community. To channel the private sector to incorporate environmental and social opportunities into core business strategies, they employ the following approaches:
Build Market Demand: Expand the market for goods and services that protect the climate and ecosystems
Create Sustainable Enterprises: Enable entrepreneurs and corporations to develop profitable business approaches to climate change, ecosystem degradation, and improving people’s lives.
Establish Economic Incentives: Secure policies that use price incentives to drive efficiency, business investment in environmentally superior technologies, and growth of new markets.
Promote Green Investing: Incorporate environmental value and risk into investment decisions as a means to influence corporate performance and strategy.
Train New Leaders: Ensure that current and future executives view sustainability as a business driver and have the managerial skills to deliver financial, environmental, and societal value.
People and Ecosystems
WRI’s goal is to reverse rapid degradation of ecosystems and assure their capacity to provide humans with needed goods and services. WRI’s People & Ecosystems Program creates innovative, practical, and decision-relevant solutions that aim to halt and reverse ecosystem degradation while sustaining their capacity to provide humans with the goods and services we need.
WRI has over 50 active projects working on aspects of global climate change, sustainable markets, ecosystem protection, and environmentally responsible governance. Learn more about them all by clicking here.
WRI is unique in its ability to create solutions that protect the Earth, and in doing so, improves people’s lives. There are many ways to support their cause, from employer matching gifts to gifts of securities or even donations to specific funds within the Institute. WRI is an IRS recognized non-profit and charitable contributions may be tax-deductible.
Learn more about giving by clicking here.
