Closing Statement. The World Needs ELI at Its Creative Best

• Author: Scott Fulton
• Position: President
• Pages: 64-64

64 | THE ENVIRONMENTAL FORUM Reprinted by permission from The Environmental Forum®, January/February 2022.

Copyright © 2022, Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, D.C. www.eli.org.

ELI REPORT

T HIS COLUMN is indeed my

“closing statement.” Come Janu-

ary, I will step down from my

role as president to take up residence

with my wife in Rome. I will continue

working with the Institute from Europe

on a part-time basis, primarily supporting

ELI’s international portfolio. The balance

of my time will be devoted to work-

ing with the consultancy Sustainability

Frameworks.

Looking back over our last six-plus

years, there is much to feel good about

in what we have accomplished together.

We have grown ELI’s revenue base

by about 50 percent, attracting a host

of new donors and funders to the

Institute’s rule of law and governance

work. A pandemic that we feared might

break us saw instead an increase in fund-

ing and productivity.

We have turned ELI’s recruitment

processes for staff and the board deci-

sively in the direction of diversity so that



we serve.

We added to ELI’s appeal through

our Emerging Leaders Initiative and the

ELI WELL (Women in Environmental

Law and Leadership) program.

We have modernized ELI’s knowl-

edge-transfer platforms, digitizing our

celebrated print publications, establishing

and growing ELI’s podcast and blog of-

ferings, and adding new virtual engage-

ment vehicles for most of our programs,

dramatically enlarging the reach of ELI

content.

We have established new vehicles

for business engagement and leader-

ship, from our in-house EHS dialogue

series, to our award-winning China

International Business Dialogue on Envi-

ronmental Governance — an interface

that seeks to share the learning of high-

performing multinational companies’

best regulatory practices with China’s

regulators, with ELI brokering the con-

versation.

We added important new lanes on

technology, from our Innovation Lab to

our GreenTech initiative, shining a light

-

gies, and the law and policy conditions

needed for them to accelerate.

We have made ELI’s mark in the

climate arena, from our development

of a model climate law for develop-

ing countries; to our publication of the

ground-breaking book Legal Pathways to

Deep Decarbonization; to our Climate

Judiciary Project, which seeks to bring

basic climate science education to judg-

es, here and around the world, who are

encountering climate change questions

in a widening array of cases.

We have made important strides

in enhancing ELI’s contributions in the

environmental justice arena, led by our

board’s groundbreaking “Statement on

Race and Environmental Justice,” and as



for connecting members of the bar with

EJ communities needing legal support.

And these are just the tip of a much

bigger iceberg of contributions that

included growth in ELI’s leadership in

advancing environmental rule of law and

environmental peacebuilding around the

world; expansion of natural resources

work with Indigenous Peoples, particu-

larly in the Arctic region, and through

our growing Ocean Program; deepening

engagements with environmental justice

communities and other local communi-

ties in the Gulf region, the Mississippi

River basin, and elsewhere; our contin-

ued work building the capacity of state

and local governments — and so much

more.

So, looking back, there are many

positives. But looking forward, we see

-

phorically and in actuality. The ideas of

effective governance and rule of law

— so central to the ELI mission and

identity — are being put to the match in

various ways. Politics are hotter — and

more toxic — than ever, chronically

on the verge of combusting or implod-



questions anew about the uneven dis-



burdens, exacerbated by the overlay of a

pandemic that reserves its worst for the

disadvantaged among us.

And the Earth itself is heating up, with

the costs of a changing climate mounting

in the form of extreme weather events

and prolonged drought, accelerating

rates of species extinction, degradation

of the marine environment as sea levels



burning out of control.

If necessity is the mother of inven-

tion, then surely the world needs ELI

at its creative best. And to be what the

world needs of it, ELI and its new leader,

Jordan Diamond, will continue to need

you — your support, your ideas, and

your presence.

Many thanks to all of you and ELI’s re-

markable staff, executive team, and board

for these years of support and success-

ful collaboration. No resting on laurels,

however. There is vitally important work

yet to be done.

Scott Fulton

PRESIDENT

he World Needs ELI

at Its Creative Best

Closing Statement