Daniel C. Esty

Daniel Esty
Born	(1959-06-06) June 6, 1959 Massachusetts, U.S.
Alma mater	Harvard University University of Oxford Yale University
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Elizabeth Henderson

Daniel C. Esty served as Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), the state agency with primary responsibility for protecting Connecticut’s environment, natural resources, and wildlife and for maintaining Connecticut’s state parks and forests.^[1]

Esty was appointed to this position in March 2011 by Governor Dannel Malloy.^[2]

Commissioner Esty is a sought after commentator on business, energy and climate change issues, and has been quoted in various publications such as The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Scientific American, and others. He is a frequent commentator on NPR and has appeared on national TV talk shows such as The Colbert Report, The O'Reilly Factor, and Glenn Beck, to speak on issues of business innovation and the environment. One author has characterized his views as radical centrist in orientation.^[3]

Esty earned his A.B. from Harvard College and J.D. from Yale Law School. He also studied as a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford where he attained his M.Phil.

He is married to Elizabeth Esty, the U.S. Congresswoman for Connecticut's 5th congressional district, and former member of the Connecticut House of Representatives.^[4][5][6]

Publications

Commissioner Esty is the author or editor of ten books and numerous articles ^[7] on environmental policy issues and the relationships between environment and corporate strategy, competitiveness, trade, globalization, governance, and development. His recent prizewinning book, Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage,^[8] argues that pollution control and natural resource management have become critical elements of marketplace success and explains how leading-edge companies have folded environmental thinking into their core business strategies.

Professional History

Prior to joining the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, Commissioner Esty was the Hillhouse Professor of Environmental Law and Policy at Yale University. He held faculty appointments in both Yale’s Environment and Law Schools. He also served as the Director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy and the Center for Business & Environment at Yale.

Professor Esty was a Senior Fellow at the Institute for International Economics (1993–94), served in a variety of senior positions on the US Environmental Protection Agency (1989–93), and practiced law in Washington, DC (1986–89).

Professor Esty spent the 2000-01 academic year as a Visiting Professor at INSEAD, the European business school in Fontainebleau, France. In 2002, Professor Esty received the American Bar Association Award for Distinguished Achievement in Environmental Law and Policy for “pioneering a data-driven approach to environmental decision making” and developing the global Environmental Sustainability Index. He served four years as an elected Planning and Zoning Commissioner in his hometown of Cheshire, Connecticut. He also served as an energy and environmental policy advisor on the 2008 Obama Presidential campaign and as a member of the Presidential Transition Team.

He has advised companies across the world on energy, environment, and sustainability issues and serves as the Chairman of Esty Environmental Partners,^[9] a corporate environmental strategy group based in New Haven, Connecticut. He sits on the Board of Directors of the American Farmland Trust, Resources for the Future, and the Connecticut Fund for the Environment.

In April 2011, Esty co-authored an op-ed for the New York Times entitled "Pain at the Pump. We need more". The article advocated higher carbon taxes so as to accelerate technological change.^[10] The article proved problematic as the time Governor Dannel Malloy was proposing an unpopular increase in the Connecticut gas tax.^[11][12] Malloy later withdrew the gas tax increase from his budget package as a result of legislative opposition.

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