NEP Initiative Contractors

The Consensus Building Institute, Inc. (CBI) was established in March 1993 and received its 501(c) (3) not-for-profit status in September of that year. CBI operations began in August of 1993 their office is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

CBI is committed to refining the art and science of consensus building. A nonprofit organization, CBI was created by MIT Professor Larry Susskind and other leading practitioners and theory builders in the field of consensus building. CBI's founders, board members and staff have been involved in the design and implementation of consensus building efforts at the local, state, national and international levels. CBI draws on this extensive experience to help government, business, advocacy and community groups develop new consensus building and dispute resolution capabilities.

CBI's mission as defined in our Articles of Organization is to:
(1) assist public and nonprofit agencies and institutions in the United States and abroad in their efforts to develop and employ consensus building and dispute resolution in performing their public-interest functions;
(2) conduct workshops, seminars and other training programs, and develop and disseminate instructional materials and practice guides, designed to advance public understanding of the theory and practice of dispute resolution and consensus building; and
(3) undertake and publish the results of independent studies and assessments of consensus building and dispute resolution efforts in the United States and abroad.

During the past eight years, CBI has provided training and facilitation services to a broad spectrum of domestic and international public agencies including the US Department of Energy; US Environmental Protection Agency; the U.S. Air Force; the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment; the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development; United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat; and ambassadors to the World Trade Organization.

CBI has secured grants for the research and promotion of alternative dispute resolution techniques and systems from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The Carnegie Corporation of New York, The Pew Charitable Trusts, The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, The Kendall Foundation, The Surdna Foundation, The United States Institute of Peace, and The German Marshall Fund of the United States.

CBI's annual budget is about $1.8 million.

For more information about CBI’s other work, please visit www.cbuilding.org.
CBI Biographies of participating staff

Rocky Mountain Institute

Rocky Mountain Institute is an entrepreneurial nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that fosters the efficient and restorative use of resources to create a more secure, prosperous, and life-sustaining world. Its staff show corporations, communities, individuals, and governments how to create more wealth and employment, protect and enhance natural and human capital, increase profit and competitive advantage, and enjoy many other benefits—largely by doing what they do far more efficiently. Its work is independent, nonadversarial, and transideological, with a strong emphasis on market-based solutions. It is focused on the following main areas and the interconnections between them:

Energy Buildings & Land Development
Innovative Business Practices
Communities
Climate
Transportation
Water

RMI was established in 1982 by resource analysts Hunter Lovins and Amory Lovins, who still lead it. What began as a small group of colleagues focusing on energy policy has since grown into a broad-based institution with more than 45 full-time staff, an annual budget of nearly $7 million (much of it earned through programmatic enterprise), and a global reach. By demonstrating new ways to save natural and human resources, RMI not only helps protect natural capital; it also creates new wealth—financial capital—to improve quality of life, achieve worthy social goals, and lay the foundation for future prosperity.

For more Information about RMI’s other work, please visit www.rmi.org.
RMI Biographies of participating staff