The Center for Business & Environment organizes the Carbon Finance Webinar Series, events include:

-Energy Efficiency: Key Concepts and Opportunities, Jonathan Koomey, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. This talk explores key issues in catalyzing energy efficiency investments. In the three decades since the energy crises of the 1970s we’ve learned a great deal about the potential for energy efficiency and the means to deliver it cost effectively and reliably. Back then, many analysts still held to the now discredited “ironclad link” between energy use and economic activity, which implied that any reduction in energy use would make our society less wealthy.

-Climate Change and Energy Savings Attitudes, Behavior and Barriers in the U.S., Anthony Leiserowitz, Yale University. As behavior-based strategies to climate protection have increasingly become more mainstream in America, this talk explores key issues around the challenges of changing consumer attitudes and behaviors when it comes to taking personal actions to address climate change and energy.

-Measuring Performance in State Energy Efficiency: Energy Consumption Intensity in the Residential Sector, Yurina Mugica, NRDC. NRDC, in cooperation with Humboldt State University, is exploring how to measure energy consumption trends as a means for understanding energy efficiency results and creating greater transparency and accountability needed to ensure that energy efficiency funding and programs achieve their full potential. As part of the ACEEE 2009 State Energy Efficiency Scorecard, the team has developed a methodology for developing state-level metrics of energy consumption intensity in the residential sector. This talk focuses on how this metric is calculated and what it says about the state of public policy on energy efficiency at the state level.

-Lessons Learned from New England: A National Priority to Invest in Energy Efficiency to Increase Economic Output and Job Creation, Jamie Howland, Environment Northeast. As the congress debates a national energy and climate policy, New England’s increasing focus on energy efficiency provides a prime case-study for evaluating efficiency’s impact on economic output and job growth. Presenting is Jamie Howland of Environment Northeast, whose groundbreaking work brings useful lessons and insights to the national debate on the future of energy and climate policy.

-Expanding Renewable Energy Markets in the U.S.: Current Drivers and Examination of Potential Policy Scenarios. Lori Bird, a member of the Market and Policy impact Analysis Group at NREL, discusses policies and markets for renewable energy in the U.S. She provides an overview of current policies driving renewable energy development in the U.S. as well as the costs and impacts of proposed federal policies. She will also discuss the interplay of efficiency and renewable energy in a combined renewable energy portfolio standard.

-Advancing Energy Efficiency in the U.S.: A Look at State and Federal Policies and Best Practices. Steve Nadel, Executive Director of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) talks about leading examples of state level energy efficiency policies and the current discussions on energy efficiency resource standards at the federal level.

-People Centered Initiatives: Estimating the Potential for Behavior-Related Energy Savings and why they are Necessary. Karen Ehrhardt-Martinez, founder of Human Dimensions Research Associates, talks about the scale of potental behavior-related energy savings and the critical contributions of applied social science research for achieving successful energy initiatives.

-Peer Comparison Feedback Can Reduce Residential Energy Usage: A Study from Two Large Field Experiments. Ian Ayres, the William K. Townsend Professor of Law and Anne Urowsky Professorial Fellow in Law at Yale University, talks about a recent study that uses large scale data analysis to assess how peer feedback can reduce residential energy usage.

-Implementing the Behavior Wedge. Michael Vandenbergh, Professor of Law at Vanderbilt University Law School, talks about overcoming barriers to implementing the behavioral wedge to be achieved in 10 years.

-Marketing Clean Energy and Energy Efficiency Across the U.S. - Let's Get Energy Smart. Brian Keane, President of SmartPower, talks about the challenges and opportunities of marketing clean energy and energy efficiency to the nation’s households and communities.

-Increasing Consumer Energy Engagement: Comparing Behavior to Traditional Efficiency Resources. Zeke Hausfather, Executive Vice President of Energy, and Andy Frank, Executive Vice President of Business Development of Efficiency 2.0, talk about the strategies to radically increase consumer energy engagement in order to place behavior as a preferred efficiency resource and demonstrate one approach to breaking down household savings opportunities.

-Green Jobs/Green NY: Helping the Economy and the Enviro

Yale SOM Net Impact coordinates discussions with leaders from various non-profit, social enterprise, and for-profit organizations. During the 2009-2010 school year, the panels focused on topics such as “Innovative Models for Mission-Driven Organizations” and a “crash course” in topics in environmental corporate social responsibility. Topics for the 2010-2011 year include corporate social responsibility and using marketing to promote social causes. Events are often co-sponsored by multiple clubs in order to increase student participation.

Yale SOM’s mission is to educate leaders for business and society. The Leadership Development Program (LDP) is an important component of that education, designed to help students actively reflect on leadership as it pertains to their own personal and career aspirations, attitudes, and plans. A new series of occasional Dean’s Teas, loosely connected to LDP but open to the whole SOM community, will provide another venue to help such reflection. To take advantage of being at Yale, we have asked eminent Yale scholars in the humanities to share with us their visions, ideas, and perspectives. Attending these events offers an opportunity to develop a deeper sense of culture, values, and that special brand of education Yale offers to the world.

John Hare, Noah Porter Professor of Philosophical Theology, “Morality and Religion.”

Jon Butler, Howard R. Lamar Professor of American Studies, History, and Religious Studies at Yale University, “Religion in Modern American Life,”

Norma Thompson, Professor Norma Thompson, Director of Undergraduate Studies in Humanities at Yale College, “Evidence in Humanistic Inquiry: Freud and the Business of Dreaming”, a course she co-taught last year.

This weekly seminar series is devoted to exploring the management of non-profit and non-governmental organizations, especially the factors that underlie effective organizational performance. Both students and outside speakers present at this lively exchange over lunch on Wednesdays. For example, Margot Brandenburg, Associate Director at the Rockefeller Foundation, joined SOM’s weekly Organizational Effectiveness seminar to speak about the growing field of impact investing. Margot spoke broadly about the Foundation’s role in nurturing the expansion of social impact investing as an important complement to government and philanthropy, as well as her own observations about recent trends in the field. The Foundation’s “Harnessing the Power of Impact Investing Initiative” seeks to grow the sector by creation of an industry-wide infrastructure that promotes the placement of private capital into companies or funds that not only provide financial returns, but that also have a positive social or environmental impact.

The Donaldson Fellows Program for Yale SOM Alumni is named to honor SOM’s founding dean, William H. Donaldson, who also founded an investment bank, served under secretary of state, and led a major insurance corporation, the New York Stock Exchange, and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The program recognizes Yale SOM graduates whose personal and professional accomplishments embody the school’s mission to educate leaders for business and society. In selecting the Donaldson Fellows, the committee will seek a wide range of experience, and a variety of industries, sectors, and years since graduation. The objective is to select alumni who exemplify what it is to live the Yale School of Management mission as expressed through the following themes: Leading and Managing Across Boundaries; Transforming Positive Values into Personal; Professional and Institutional Commitments; and Bringing Creativity and Discipline to Complex Management Problems. Once selected, Donaldson Fellows take part in a seminar program at the school that will involve a series of presentations, student meetings, and other events. Participation in the on-campus program is a requirement for all Donaldson Fellows. The first residency was held in October 2008.

The 2010-2011 Donaldson Fellows come from different industries and have dramatically different life stories. Bradley Abelow '89 spent more than 15 years at Goldman Sachs before taking the job of New Jersey state treasurer and then eventually moving back into the private sector; Jennifer Niles '98 worked helping charter schools get started in Connecticut and helped run a foundation in Chicago before moving to Washington, D.C., to start a charter school; Ken Ofori-Atta '88 was an investment banker on Wall Street before returning to his home in Ghana and founding the country's leading investment banking firm; and Hilary Pennington '83 co-founded and ran the nonprofit Jobs for the Future for more than 20 years before leaving to lead post-secondary educational programs and special initiatives for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. But while their experiences are different, all four alumni exemplify the spirit of Yale SOM and embody the school's mission to educate leaders for business and society.

The Orientation Program at the Yale School of Management is specifically designed to orient incoming students to the school's mission of educating leaders for business and society. Topics focus on what’s unique and special about the school, including intersection of sectors, SOM's professional code, and an opportunity for students to reflect on SOM’s mission before classwork and the job search. Initiated in 2008, an integral part of Orientation is a two-day exercise, called the Audubon Street Project, introducing first-year students to each other and to the SOM approach to solving business problems. The class is divided into groups of eight and provided a small list of instructions that boil down to a simple directive: create a business for a storefront on New Haven’s Audubon Street that is profitable, represents the mission of the Yale School of Management, and reflects the university’s desire to have a positive impact on the city. Students are then given a day to come up with a business and create a business plan, which they present to select faculty the following day. The exercise is intense, fast-paced, and highly competitive. Students present their proposals to groups of faculty on the first Friday of Orientation and five groups are picked as finalists. They have the weekend to hone their pitches, which they give the following Monday before a panel of judges and the entire incoming class. The faculty judges then choose the competition’s winner.

The Class of 2010 was the first to take part in the Audubon Street Project. The winner that year was the Hands-On Audubon Kitchen, a "make and take" facility that would work with local farmers to promote sustainable agriculture and give free workshops on healthy eating. Class of 2011’s winner was Dance Dance Institution, a dancewear store situated in the heart of the city’s arts district that would sell clothes and shoes, while providing free apparel to students on scholarship to local arts schools.

The Dean and Faculty of Yale Law School and Yale School of Management present the Yale Symposium on Law and Management with Kevin R. Czinger ’82 BA, ’87 JD, Co-Founder and Strategic Advisor, CODA Automotive. The topic of his talk is "Lessons from Two Decades of New Business Creation—From Satellite Television to Electric Cars".

About Kevin Czinger:

Kevin Czinger is the co-Founder and Strategic Advisor of CODA Automotive, an electric car and battery company headquartered in Santa Monica, California. Previously, he was the President and CEO of CODA, where he oversaw the management and strategic direction of the company. Throughout his career, Kevin has maintained a proven track record of performance operating start-up and growth companies.

Prior to CODA, Kevin was a Partner and Managing Director at Fortress Private Equity, an alternative asset management firm, and an Entrepreneur in Residence at Benchmark Capital. From 1999 – 2000, Kevin served as Senior Vice President, Operations and Finance, and Chief Financial Officer of Webvan Group.

Prior to Webvan, Kevin was a Managing Director in the media and telecommunications group at Merrill Lynch, and also served as the CEO of Volcano Entertainment, a record and music publishing company he founded. In the early 1990’s, Kevin was Executive Director and head of the media-banking group at Goldman Sachs International in London.

A talented football player, Kevin was recruited to play football for Yale University where he earned a B.A. from Yale College and a J.D. from Yale Law School. Outside of his responsibilities for CODA, Kevin is a passionate advocate for renewable energy, sustainable transportation and the environment, and is a member of the board of the Electrification Coalition. He is also a leader in the charter school initiative for inner cities through his sponsorship of Achievement First. Kevin served in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves for nine years.

The Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance Center’s call for papers, “Origins of Shareholder Advocacy,” was posted on SSRN on January 24, 2009 and selected papers received from the call were presented at an academic conference at Yale on November 6-7, 2009. This “Project 400” event was framed to mark the first recorded dissident shareowner petition, filed by investor Isaac Le Maire on January 24, 1609 as a bill of complaints involving the Dutch East India Company. The Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance at the Yale School of Management sponsors research and discussions to explore how corporate governance can better enable the corporation to be competitive in its markets and to enhance society.

Growing out of the School’s 30 year tradition of exploring the complex relationships among the public, private and non-profit sectors, Yale SOM’s Program on Social Enterprise has been exploring the intersections between development finance and sustainable energy, both within the US and in developing countries. In particular, to examine whether the intentional linking of development finance with sustainable energy services can create collaborations that are more effective and efficient than separately pursued efforts in each field.

The aim for the conference was to bring together leading practitioners and researchers exploring the array of interfaces between development finance and sustainable energy. Speakers and panels explored emerging trends at the service delivery, intermediary, and policy levels. A report, “Making the Connection: Partnerships in Development Finance and Sustainable Energy,” can be downloaded.

Presenters included: Dipal Barua (Bright Green Energy Foundation, formerly with Grameen Shakti), John Berdes (ShoreBank Enterprise Cascadia), Roger Clark (The Reinvestment Fund), James Dailey (MicroEnergy Credits), Joel Freehling (ShoreBank Corporation), Harish Hande (SELCO Solar Lighting), Richard Hansen (Soluz, Inc.), Noara Kebir (MicroEnergy International), Philip LaRocco (E & Co.), Ellen Morris (Arc Finance), Silverio T. Navarro, Jr. (Asian Development Bank ), Binu Parthan (Renewable Energy & Energy Efficiency Partnership – REEEP), Paul Rippey (Center for Financial Inclusion, Energy Links Project), Joel Rogers (University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Center for State Innovation), Katherine Steel (World Bank, Africa Energy Unit), Corey Stone (Verdigris Ventures), Robert Stoner (MIT Energy Initiative), Mark Thurber (Program on Energy and Sustainable Development, Stanford University), Richenda Van Leeuwen (formerly with Good Energies Foundation), and Jayshree Vyas (SEWA Bank).