Ralph Earle III

Mr. Earle is a founding Managing Director of the Clean Energy Venture Group, an investment organization with activity in the areas of fuel cells, wind power, and energy conservation. Mr. Earle is also the founder of the Assabet Group, a consulting firm working with market leading companies and financial organizations to catalyze superior financial performance through investments and action on energy efficiency, clean technology, and pollution reduction. He is the author of numerous papers and speeches on the link between environmental performance and shareholder value, environmental strategy, environmental management, recycling, life cycle analysis, and solid waste management. Previously, Mr. Earle was the founding Director of the Alliance for Environmental Innovation, a project of the Environmental Defense Fund and The Pew Charitable Trusts. The Alliance's projects with SC Johnson, Starbucks and United Parcel Service are widely hailed as examples of positive environmental change. Before the Alliance, Mr. Earle spearheaded Arthur D. Little's Competitive Environmental Strategy practice, where he helped corporations integrate environmental considerations into long-term decision making. Prior to Arthur D. Little, Mr. Earle served as Assistant Secretary of Environmental Affairs for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. There he set and managed state policy in the areas of solid waste disposal and recycling. Mr. Earle is a Board Observer at Purpose Energy and previously served on the board of eQuilibrium Solutions (acquired by EnerNOC). He also serves on the Editorial Board for the Journal of Sustainable Product Design, on the Advisory Board of the Center for Business and the Environment at Yale, is a Governor of the Concord Museum and co-chairs the "Pay-If" Committee of the American Cancer Society. He holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management and a BA, cum laude, from Harvard College.