Bill Shutkin

1993

Bill Shutkin

New Ecology Inc. (NEI)

http://www.newecology.org/index.htm

Roxbury, Massachusetts, United States

Community Improvement & Economic Development, Environment

The Bold Idea:

Though often overlooked by environmentalists, urban development practitioners including CDCs, private developers, and universities are slowly but surely becoming important environmental change agents as they gain greater understanding of what sustainability means in practice and look for better environmental performance - from renewable energy to improved indoor air quality to restored wetlands - in their development projects. To speed up this process and achieve greater scale, these constituencies need to not only build their knowledge but also collaborate.

New Ecology Inc. seeks to become a catalyst for sustainable development in cities. They accomplish this mission by promoting best practice and information exchange among three constituencies - CDCs, private developers, and universities - as well as public policy networks. By sustainable development, NEI means development that restores environmental quality and eliminates pollution and waste, provides direct, meaningful economic opportunities for all communities, and builds civic capacity to ensure a healthy future.

NEI focuses on places most in need of physical and economic revitalization, where residents have been disenfranchised by and alienated from the development system. Emphasizing collaboration and knowledge sharing among the targeted constituencies, NEI promotes development solutions that deliver positive economic, environmental, and social returns (the "Triple Bottom Line").

Biography:

Bill was the Orton Family Foundation’s President and CEO from 2004-2007 after twelve years in the Boston area where he co-founded and led two non-profit environmental organizations, Alternatives for Community & Environment and New Ecology, Inc.  From 1998-2004, Bill taught environmental law and policy in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT, where he is currently a Research Affiliate, and was an Adjunct Professor of Law at Boston College Law School from 1993-2003.  He is the author of the award-winning book, The Land That Could Be: Environmentalism and Democracy in the Twenty-First Century.

Bill is a commentator for Vermont Public Radio and the web magazine TomPaine.com, a contributing writer for Northern Woodlands magazine and a published poet.  He earned an AB in History and Classics from Brown University and an MA in History and JD from the University of Virginia.  He also completed doctoral studies in Jurisprudence and Social Policy as a Regents Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley.  Bill was a law clerk to Chief Judge Franklin S. Billings, Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont, has received numerous public service awards and fellowships and is a trustee of several non-profit organizations, including the Echoing Green Foundation and the Funders’ Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities.   He served as Steering Committee Vice-Chair for the 1998 Massachusetts gubernatorial campaign of Scott Harshbarger, was the chief environmental policy advisor to 2002 Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Warren Tolman, the state’s first-ever clean elections candidate, was a policy advisor to 2004 U.S. presidential candidate Howard Dean.

Bill lives in Peru, VT with his wife and two children.