WASHINGTON—Mark Van Putten, president of ConservationStrategy LLC and former president of the National Wildlife Federation, will join the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as a visiting scholar in September.

Van Putten will lead a new project at Carnegie evaluating public outreach strategies for addressing climate change, global biodiversity loss, and other critical environmental issues. The project will bring together notable environmental leaders and release recommendations for how to improve environmental policy making.

Making the announcement, Jessica T. Mathews, president of the Endowment, said:

“Mark is a well-known environmental leader and we are delighted he will be joining us and bringing his expertise to the pressing challenge of improving environmental policy making. Mark knows firsthand what it takes to be an effective environmental leader and is well positioned to identify best practices to solve environmental problems.”

Van Putten added:

“I am excited about the opportunity to work with Carnegie’s Energy and Climate Program. As we have seen in recent failures to adopt policies to control greenhouse gas emissions, there is pressing need to improve the conversation around environmental policy making. Working with Carnegie and with colleagues among environmental leaders, I am confident we can identify pathways for reaching consensus on pressing environmental problems.”
 

NOTES

Mark Van Putten is president and founder of ConservationStrategy LLC, which advises foundations on effective environmental grantmaking. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Environmental Grantmakers Association.

Prior to founding ConservationStrategy in 2003, Van Putten served for 21 years on the staff of National Wildlife Federation (NWF), including nearly eight years as president and CEO. In that capacity, he testified before Congress and represented NWF at the highest levels of international and national policy making on a range of environmental issues. He built a grassroots network that achieved national legislative victories to restore the Everglades, protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, reform environmentally damaging practices of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and increase funding for state fish and wildlife programs.

Mark is also a Public Service/Public Interest Law Fellow at the University of Michigan Law School, where he previously founded and led the School’s Environmental Law Clinic. On the 30th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, he was named one of 30 nationwide “Clean Water Heroes.”

Press Contact: Karly Schledwitz, +1 202 939 2233, pressoffice@ceip.org