Robert K Watson

Life and work

Rob started out his career in Golden Bc with an education at the renowned college of the rockies. While an undergraduate at Dartmouth College studying Energy and Environmental Policy, Rob spent several months living in a tent at an altitude of 8,000 feet helping Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins build Rocky Mountain Institute.

As a Senior Scientist and Director of the International Energy and Green Building programs at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) from 1985 to 2006, Watson was active in international sustainable building, utility and transportation issues in a dozen countries including China, the United States and Russia.

Since 1997, Watson has worked with the Ministry of Construction of China to develop green building standards and energy codes for commercial and residential buildings. He also was the principal coordinator for ACCORD21, a key green building demonstration project in Beijing for the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China (MOST) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). This building was the first to receive LEED Certification in China at the Gold Level.

In other international work, Watson helped to develop improved national residential building codes in Russia, as well as in Moscow, and managed a joint U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Agency for International Development project to promote Integrated Resource Planning in the utility sector for the North Caucasus region of Russia. He has also worked on sustainable energy and green development issues in buildings, electric utilities and transportation in Belarus, Bolivia, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and Ukraine.

On behalf of NRDC, Watson advocated for sustainable energy policies and programs before several international financial institutions, including the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, as well as several U.S. government agencies (USAID, Department of Energy, United States Treasury, Environmental Protection Agency, National Security Council, Office of Environmental Policy), to promote sustainable energy policies and programs in the developing world. Watson played an important role in developing the "Partnership for Sustainable Energy Use" for the hemisphere-wide Summit of the Americas in 1996.

Watson created the first documented, quantifiable “Green Office” in the U.S. for the Natural Resources Defense Council’s NYC headquarters in 1987. Watson took primary responsibility for developing the green features of NRDC’s showcase green offices in Washington, DC and the LEED Platinum Level Robert Redford Building in Los Angeles — one of the highest recipients of LEED points in the world. He also consulted on the San Francisco office, which achieved LEED Gold Level Certification.

Watson was a member of the Executive Committee for the President’s Council on Sustainable Development 1999 National Town Meeting and was the Operations Group Leader for the 1993 Greening of the White House initiative spearheaded by President Bill Clinton.

Selected appointments

Academic appointments

Awards

Education

Watson received a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Columbia University, holds a Master of Science (MS) degree from the University of California, Berkeley Energy Resources Group (ERG) and is a graduate of Dartmouth College where he was a Senior Fellow. In 1993, Watson was the first Environmental Fellow at the Institute of Transportation Studies at University of California, Davis.

Watson speaks fluent Spanish and intermediate Russian and French. He was a member of the Dartmouth Varsity Lightweight Crew: British Henley 1984; Silver – National Collegiate Championship, 1984; Gold – Canadian Henley 1983. He has a Black Belt in Kuk Sool Won (Instructor), and a black belt in Jow Hop Kuen Kung Fu. Rob became an Eagle Scout (Boy Scouts of America) in 1976.

Quotes

"Mother nature is just chemistry, biology and physics. That's all she is. You cannot sweet-talk her. You cannot spin her. You cannot tell her that the oil companies say climate change is a hoax. No, Mother Nature is going to do whatever chemistry, biology and physics dictate. Mother nature always bats last, and she always bats 1,000."

"China is just beginning to move from copying to creating. The last time they were in full creative mode they invented paper, the compass and gun powder."

"We need to use the one faculty that distinguishes us as human beings--the ability to imagine. We need to fully grasp the non-linear, unmanageable, climate events that could unfold in our lifetime. because if we hit the wall, there will be no seat belts or air bags, and we will end up being a bad biological experiment on the planet."

"You know, if you jump off the top floor of an eighty story building, you can actually feel like you're flying for seventy-nine stories. It's the sudden stop at the end that gets you."

"We are either going to be losers or heroes--there's no room anymore for anything in between,"

"We cannot continue to use eighteenth century economics, and nineteenth century engineering, to solve twentieth century problems. We need to move from EGOnomics to ECOnomics." Sc3 Congress, 2009

Organizations and committees

Selected publications

Videos and podcasts