Book | Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy

Advanced Introduction to Environmental Law

Providing a comprehensive overview of the current and developing state of environmental governance in the United States, this Advanced Introduction lays out the foundations of US environmental law.

E. Donald Elliott and Daniel C. Esty explore how federal environmental law is made and how it interacts with state law, highlighting the important role that administrative agencies play in the creation, implementation, and enforcement of US environmental law.

Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage

This book explains what every executive should know to manage the environmental challenges facing society and the business world. Based on the authors’ rich experience with forward-thinking companies around the world, Green to Gold demonstrates how corporations create value by building environmental thinking into their overall business strategies. Daniel C. Esty and Andrew S.

The Labyrinth of Sustainability Green Business Lessons from Latin American Corporate Leaders

The Labyrinth of Sustainability’ explores the growth of corporate sustainability in Latin America, offering actionable insights to business leaders, policymakers, NGOs, academics and journalists through 12 case studies that examine the challenges and opportunities facing companies across the region as they integrate sustainability into their strategy and operations.

A Better Planet: 40 Big Ideas for A Sustainable Future

A practical, bipartisan call to action from the world’s leading thinkers on the environment and sustainability

Values at Work: Sustainable Investing and ESG Reporting

Sustainable investing is a rapidly growing and evolving field. With investors expressing ever greater interest in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics and reporting, companies face a sustainability imperative and the need to remake their business models to respond to an array of pressing issues including climate change, air and water pollution, racial justice, workplace diversity, economic inequality, privacy, corporate integrity, and good governance.

A Better Planet inspires climate action from "no" to "go"

Friday, July 15, 2022

In an interview with The Economist, Center Director Dan Esty, highlights how policy “red lights” must be trasformed to “green lights” that drive innovation with incentives that engage the world’s entrepreneurs, financial markets and creative spirits in the pursuit of a net-zero future. This philosphy is expanded upon and highlighted in the recently released book “A Better Planet: 40 Big Ideas for a Sustainable Future”.

Read the interview here.

Buy A Better Planet: 40 Big Ideas for a Sustainable Future here.

Center Director Dan Esty and Professor Don Elliott Discuss Their Book on U.S. Environmental Law

Thursday, April 28, 2022

Center Director Dan Esty and Professor Don Elliott provide a brief description of their collaborative book, Advanced Introduction to U.S. Environmental Law (2021), in the above video. In the words of Professor Esty, this text “provides an opportunity to retrospectively review where U.S. environmental law’s come from, what strategies and policy options have been deployed, and… a pretty clear-eyed view of what we think has worked and what hasn’t worked so well.” The book is interactive and structured to facilitate input, and we encourage readers to share their thoughts here.

Hana Vizcarra: Climate Risk and Wall Street

U.S. financial regulators lag behind other countries in requiring corporations to disclose their financial risks from climate change. Hana Vizcarra, staff attorney at Harvard Law School’s Environmental & Energy Law Program, joins Charles Harper (YSE ’22) to discuss the financial sector, climate risk disclosure, and how courts and President Biden’s SEC can improve climate reporting.

Aisha Saad: Improving Corporate Sustainability Reporting

Aisha Saad, a Fellow of the Program on Corporate Governance at Harvard Law School, joins Jhena Vigrass (YSE ’22) to discuss the current challenges of corporate sustainability reporting and investing in ESG funds. Aisha contributed to the recently released book, Values at Work: Sustainable Investing and ESG Reporting, which explores how companies and investors can respond to pressing environmental and social issues.

Pathways to a Sustainable Future: Lessons from "A Better Planet"

Thursday, December 24, 2020

As the nation shifts from a focus on politics to efforts to develop policy, Center Director Dan Esty explores options for new initiatives and progress across the country related to energy, environment, conservation, land use, and other sustainability issues. The discussion built on ideas from the edited book, A Better Planet: 40 Big Ideas for a Sustainable Future.

Watch the interview here.