Daniel C. Esty

Prior to joining the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, Esty was the Hillhouse Professor of Environmental Law and Policy at Yale University. He held faculty appointments in both Yale’s Environment and Law Schools. He also served as the Director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy and the Center for Business & Environment at Yale.

From 2011 to 2014, Esty served as Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. He launched a series of renewable power and energy efficiency finance programs, including Connecticut's first-in-the-nation Green bank and statewide property assessed clean energy (C-PAC) finance system.

Esty is the author or editor of ten books and a number of articles on environmental policy issues and the relationships between environment and corporate strategy, competitiveness, trade, globalization, governance, and development. His book published in 2006, Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage, argues that pollution control and natural resource management have become critical elements of marketplace success and explains how leading-edge companies have folded environmental thinking into their core business strategies. The book was followed by Green to Gold Business Playbook: How to Implement Sustainability Practices for Bottom-Line Results in Every Business Function.

Esty spent the 2000–2001 academic year as a Visiting Professor at INSEAD, the European business school in Fontainebleau, France. In 2002, Esty received the American Bar Association Award for Distinguished Achievement in Environmental Law and Policy for “pioneering a data-driven approach to environmental decision making” and developing the global Environmental Sustainability Index. He served four years as an elected Planning and Zoning Commissioner in his hometown of Cheshire, Connecticut. He also served as an energy and environmental policy adviser on the Barack Obama 2008 presidential campaign and as a member of the Presidential Transition Team.

Esty was a Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in 1993 and 1994, served in a variety of senior positions on the United States Environmental Protection Agency from 1989 to 1993, and practiced law in Washington, D.C. from 1986 to 1989.