February 29, 2000
RELEASE ON RECEIPT

Redesigning Cleveland for the 21st Century Lecture Series Continues With Physicist Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute

Tuesday, March 28, 2000

6:00 p.m.

Cleveland Public Library,
Louis Stokes Wing Auditorium

OBERLIN, OHIO -- Oberlin College's environmental studies program continues to frame conversations about the newest building innovations in ecological design with a talk by physicist Amory Lovins, cofounder of the Rocky Mountain Institute [RMI], an independent nonprofit resource policy center. Lovins will discuss green building technologies and their relation to business innovation.

Lovins' lecture is the penultimate in a series of free, public talks, "Redesigning Cleveland for the 21st Century," that began in October, and that have highlighted some of the lessons learned in developing Oberlin's Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies. A member of the Lewis Center's design team, Lovins held the group to a high standard as it defined the building's goal of generating more electricity than it uses.

The Wall Street Journal's Centennial Issue named Amory Lovins among 28 people in the world most likely to change the course of business in the 1990's. Car magazine called him the 22nd most powerful individual in the global automotive industry. His work focuses on transforming the car, real estate, electricity, water, semiconductor and other manufacturing sectors toward advanced resource productivity.

Lovins currently serves as treasurer and co-chief executive officer for research at RMI. A consultant physicist, he has been active in energy, resource, environmental and security policy for more than 30 years. Educated at Harvard and Oxford, he has received an Oxford MA, six honorary doctorates, a MacArthur fellowship, the Heinz and Lindbergh Awards, and the Nissan, Mitchell "Alternative Nobel" and Onassis prizes. He has briefed 10 heads of state, published 26 books, including Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution (with Paul Hawken and L. Hunter Lovins, published in 1999) and the forthcoming Small is Profitable: The Hidden Economic Benefits of Making Electrical Resources the Right Size (with Andre Lehmann).

"The Cleveland lecture series is part of a larger community effort to realize the economic, social, and environmental benefits of green development," says Sadhu Johnston, Cleveland project coordinator of Oberlin's environmental studies program. Johnston is also director of the Green Building Coalition, an umbrella organization of Cleveland-area architects, builders, developers, civic administrators, engineers and environmentalists interested in green design.

For more information, please contact Sadhu Johnston at the Cleveland Green Building Coalition by phoning 216/732-3385.

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[Editors please note: A scheduling conflict for the last lecturer in the series, ecological author Paul Hawken, has necessitated a change. Instead, Gregory Watson with Massachusetts' Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative will speak in April at a date to be announced.]

Media Contact: Marci Janas