Ralph Cavanagh has been with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) since 1979; he served for 10 years, from 1993 to 2003, as a member of the US Secretary of Energy’s advisory board. His focus over the past 30 years has been the role of electric and natural gas utilities and the opportunity to transform them into the economy’s most important clean energy investors, with special emphasis on energy efficiency and renewable energy. Cavanagh has won multiple awards, including the Heinz Award for Public Policy, the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners’ Mary Kilmarx Award, the Yale Law School’s Preiskel-Silverman Fellowship, the NW Energy Coalition’s Headwaters Award, and the Bonneville Power Administration’s Award for Exceptional Public Service.

Cavanaugh has been a leader in the notion that environmental solutions should contribute to the bottom line of polluting businesses, something that traditional regulations prevented. Cavanagh’s unparalleled success in persuading regulators of the merits of this once-unorthodox view helped to prove that utility regulatory reform is viable and yields substantial environmental gains. He has used public policy to bring about positive, widespread changes in existing regulations and practices. Although Cavanagh didn’t invent the idea of aligning utility shareholder and societal interests, he did prove it could be implemented on a large scale.