Global clean energy non-profit organization
RMI, or Rocky Mountain Institute, is a global, independent, non-partisan non-profit organization co-founded in the United States by Amory Lovins. As of 2025, RMI's stated mission is to transform "global energy systems through market-driven solutions to secure a prosperous, resilient, clean energy future for all."[3] Established in 1982, RMI has grown into a broad-based institution that is active in more than 60 countries[4] with over 700 staff[5] and annual revenues of $170 million in 2023–24. RMI works with businesses, policymakers, financial institutions, local communities, and other partners to drive investment in clean energy solutions.[5]
By 1978, experimental physicist Amory Lovins had published many books and consulted globally. Lovins is the leading proponent of the soft energy path.
Later in 1979, Lovins married L. Hunter Sheldon, a lawyer, forester, and social scientist. Hunter received her undergraduate degree in sociology and political studies from Pitzer College, and her J.D. from Loyola Marymount's School of Law. In 1982,[6] Amory and Hunter founded Rocky Mountain Institute, based in Colorado. Together with a group of colleagues, the Lovinses fostered efficient resource use and policy development that they believed would promote global security. RMI ultimately grew into an organization with a staff of around fifty. By the mid-1980s, the Lovinses were featured on major network TV programs, such as 60 Minutes.
The Lovinses described the "hard energy path" as involving inefficient liquid-fuel automotive transport, as well as giant centralized electricity-generating facilities, often burning fossil fuels such as coal or petroleum, or harnessing a fission reaction, greatly complicated by electricity wastage and loss. The "soft energy path" which they wholly preferred involves efficient use of energy, diversity of energy production methods (and matched in scale and quality to end uses), and special reliance on "soft technologies" (alternative technology) such as solar, wind, biofuels, and geothermal. According to the institute, large-scale electricity production facilities had an important place, but it was a place that they were already filling in the middle 1970s; in general, more would not be needed. In a 1989 speech, Amory Lovins introduced the related concept of Negawatt power, in which creating a market for trading increased efficiency could supply additional electrical energy to consumers without increasing generation capacity—such as building more power plants.
In the 1990s,[7] RMI convened a team of designers and engineers to develop a super-efficient prototype automobile, which they dubbed the Hypercar.
In December 2014, RMI merged with Carbon War Room, an organization with similar goals but a different approach.[8] In June 2017, RMI merged with WattTime,[9][10] an organization providing real-time power plant data to consumer devices for automatic dispatchable power consumption.[11][12] RMI, in 2021, launched[13] Canary Media, a nonprofit newsroom covering the clean energy transition.
In 2021, the Rocky Mountain Institute rebranded itself as RMI.[14]
Books published by RMI include:
Co-founder Amory Lovins has received many awards.[15]
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