Energy and Environment Program

Sustainability Series

Environment in the 21st Century

For well over 30 years the Aspen Institute Energy and Environment Program has provided nonpartisan leadership for improving environmental policy-making through intentional, non-partisan, values-based dialogue.

From 1993 to 1996, the Series on the Environment in the 21st Century convened leaders of business, government, environmental groups, and other non-governmental organizations to engage in civil discourse focused on an alternative path to the environmental regulation of industrial pollution which resulted in The Alternative Path; A Cleaner, Cheaper Way to Protect and Enhance the Environment, 1996.

From 1997 to 1999, the Series focused on alternatives to improve the management of natural resources in order to sustain natural systems, a healthy economy, and vital communities which resulted in The Stewardship Path to Sustainable Natural Systems, 1999.

During this same period two other dialogues were convened, one on valuing environmental performance which resulted in Uncovering Value: Integrating Environmental and Financial Performance, (1998); and one updating U.S. progress on environmental performance which resulted in A Call to Action to Build a Performance-Based System, (2000).

The Environmental Management Task Force also produced findings and recommendations at this time for the President's Council on Sustainable Development, a federal advisory committee to then President Clinton.  They were included in Chapter Three of the final report of the President's Council on Sustainable America: Towards A Sustainable America (1999).