Celebrating 20 Years of Optimists Taking Action

Yale’s Daniel Esty and Andrew Winston publish Green to Gold, a landmark guide showing how companies can turn environmental challenges into opportunities for innovation, growth, and competitive advantage. The award-winning book helped bring environmental strategy into the heart of business thinking.

Bryan Garcia served as CBEY’s first program director, helping launch the center and build a leading global program preparing environmental leaders for business and society. 

He went on to become the founding president and CEO of the Connecticut Green Bank, the nation’s first state-level green bank and a pioneering model for mobilizing private investment in clean energy.

Created by Yale's Brad Gentry in 2007, the Conservation Finance Boot Camp has enhanced land and resource conservation professionals' ability to apply innovative and effective funding and financing strategies in their work.

The Conservation Finance Network was born from this initiative, and has assisted and trained over 700 professionals through the Boot Camp since its inception.

To support students with innovative business ideas that advance a more sustainable future, CBEY launched Yale’s first pitch competition, offering mentorship, feedback, and funding. The competition inspired prizes across other disciplines and helped lay the groundwork for what is now Startup Yale.

Fun fact...CBEY’s Stuart DeCew competed in this when he was a Yale YSE/SOM student with a product called Tree Water! Alas, it did not win the prize.

Launched in 2008 as the Blueprint for Energy Efficiency series, this program brought together leading practitioners and researchers to explore emerging opportunities in clean energy. It laid the foundation for what would become CBEY's flagship Financing and Deploying Clean Energy online certificate program.

When Bryan Garcia was appointed to lead the newly created Connecticut Green Bank—the first green bank in the United States—it marked a milestone for clean energy finance, demonstrating how limited public dollars could catalyze significant private investment. 

Luckily for us, Stuart DeCew had just graduated from the joint degree program and was tapped to become the next Executive Director of CBEY, ushering in a new era of growth for the young center.

Started in 2012, Nature’s Returns: Investing in Ecosystem Services was a webinar series exploring the growing importance of valuing and investing in the benefits nature provides. 

Bringing together experts from finance, conservation, business, and policy, the series examined emerging approaches to making the economic value of healthy ecosystems more visible in decision-making.

Originally called the Clean Energy Finance Forum until November 2024, the Yale Clean Energy Forum advances the understanding and growth of energy policy, technology, finance, and careers by publishing original educational content, promoting professional dialogue, fostering innovation, and highlighting Yale's contributions.

Yale University and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development announced a new “Knowledge Partners” collaboration at the WBCSD’s Council Meeting in Paris, during the COP21 climate change negotiations. 

Peter Boyd joined CBEY as a Resident Fellow to help Yale entrepreneurs think boldly about the business opportunities presented by solving climate change. His mentorship helped students turn ambitious ideas into opportunities for impact. 

Today, Peter is also a Lecturer at the Yale School of the Environment, teaching environmental leadership and sustainable business while continuing to advise the next generation of social and environmental entrepreneurs.

In 2016, CBEY celebrated its 10th anniversary, marking a decade of bringing together the worlds of business and the environment. Since its founding in 2006 by the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and the Yale School of Management, CBEY had grown into a vibrant community advancing ideas, relationships, and business solutions to environmental challenges.

CBEY opened admissions for our FDCE certificate program on Jan. 7, 2019. 

This program aims to train and connect rising leaders to accelerate the financing and deployment of clean energy at scale.

We didn't know what to expect, but we knew we were onto something good!

On this day, CBEY began delivering the Financing and Deploying Clean Energy (FDCE) certificate with its first cohort of 75 working professionals from 10 countries. 

This marked an important expansion of CBEY’s educational reach beyond campus, creating a global learning community of professionals equipped to accelerate the clean energy transition.

Tagan begins her tenure as a resident fellow, connecting with Yale students exploring pathways where people, food, justice, business, and the environment intersect. 

Stuart DeCew celebrates 10 years as Executive Director of CBEY! To mark the milestone, Heather created a video featuring voices from across Stuart’s time at Yale, capturing the impact he has had on his team, classmates, partners, and the CBEY community.

The Yale Clean Energy Conference launches, bringing together professionals, experts, students, and innovators to exchange ideas, build connections, and advance the clean energy transition. We knew it would be something special!

"This work is going to take all of us. Still, the onus for removing barriers and creating real opportunity needs to be a daily practice of individuals and organizations like ours." - Stuart DeCew, Executive Director at CBEY

In a concerted effort to advance equity and justice in the energy sector, the CBEY and the Yale Center for Environmental Justice (YCEJ) partnered to launch a new certificate program to bring the benefits of clean energy development to marginalized communities. 

The CBEY 2050 Fellows program celebrated 10 years of bringing Yale graduate students together to imagine a regenerative, resilient economy and explore the role of business in building a better future. Alumni returned to mark the milestone, sharing how lessons and connections from the program continue to shape their work today. We thank Vincent Stanley for all he has done to lead such an impactful program!

Professor Ken Gillingham and his colleague, Professor Bryan Bollinger, led a symposium reflecting on 12+ years of the Solar Energy Evolution and Diffusion Studies (SEEDS) at Yale. This event welcomed partners, researchers, and practitioners to explore lessons learned about what influences solar adoption and to celebrate the important work on solar and related technologies at Yale over the years.

CBEY welcomes Michelle Gabriel as a Resident Fellow to lead Sustainable Fashion at Yale, expanding work at the intersection of fashion, climate, labor, equity, and business. Her leadership builds on a student-driven initiative to make fashion a more central part of Yale’s climate and sustainability conversation.