Press Release

Enel Energy Corporation Gives $5 Million to Environmental Economics Program Headed by Belfer Center's Robert Stavins

Feb. 26, 2007

In February of 2007, the Environmental Economics program at Harvard, headed by Belfer Center's Robert Stavins, receives major gift from Enel, an energy corporation based in Italy.

To anyone who has observed the news and watched the sky, the environment has become a most pressing issue. As a sign of the times, the Environmental Economics Program at Harvard, founded in 2000 by Robert Stavins, member of the board at the Belfer Center and Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government at the Kennedy School, has received a gift of $5 million from the Enel energy corporation to establish the Enel Endowment for Environmental Economics.

Enel, an Italian energy provider, is committed to, "support excellence in research and innovation as part of our multi-billion dollar plan to attain higher environmental and efficiency standards and development of renewable sources across the globe," according to its CEO Fulvio Conti.

The gift, announced February 6, will support research, teaching, and outreach, as well as help build organizational capacity of the program. Plans include a seminar series, conferences, lectures, discussion papers, an intellectual venture capital fund, and support for pre-doctoral and post-doctoral fellows. The Program will draw upon the expertise and facilitate collaboration among twenty faculty fellows from six schools at the University, including the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Harvard Business School, the Harvard Law School, the Harvard School of Public Health, the Graduate School of Design, and the Kennedy School of Government.

"The Enel Endowment will allow us to extend our research and outreach efforts on critical public policy challenges, including global climate change, the use of market-based instruments for pollution control, new methods of valuing risk reduction, the relationship between globalization and the environment, the role of environmental considerations in business decision making, and the intersection of economic development and environmental protection," said Stavins.

More information on the Harvard Environmental Economics Program may be found on the website:http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/m-rcbg/eephu/

 Additional information on Enel’s environmental plan may be found on the website: http://www.enel.it/ambiente/

For more information on this publication: Belfer Communications Office
For Academic Citation:Enel Energy Corporation Gives $5 Million to Environmental Economics Program Headed by Belfer Center's Robert Stavins.” Press Release, February 26, 2007.