James Gustave Speth

Dean

Yale Forestry School

James Gustave "Gus" Speth Esq. is currently Dean at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

• Director Ex Officio, National Council on Science and the Environment

• Director, World Resources Institute

• Trustee, Natural Resources Defense Council

• Advisory Board, Center for International Environmental Law

Speth's name is linked to the UN's Global Compact/Global Compact Corporate Partners, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Sloan & Kettering Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation.

Speth served as Administrator of the United Nations Sustainable Development Program (UNDP) from 1993 to 2000. He was the highest-ranking American in the UN system: "in effect the No. 2 job at the U.N. next to the secretary general."[1][2]

Previously, Speth founded and was the first president of the World Resources Institute (WRI) in 1982 and served as its president until January 1993. Based in Washington, D.C., WRI, is a center for policy research and technical assistance on environment and development issues. At the time, Speth also served as a senior advisor to President-elect William Jefferson Clinton's transition team, "heading the group that examined the USA role in natural resources, energy and the environment."[3]

Before founding WRI, Speth served as a Member and then as Chairman (two years) of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) in the Executive Office of the President (1977-1981). As President James Earl Carter, Jr.'s CEQ Chairman, Speth was the "principal advisor on matters affecting the environmental programme." Under Speth's leadership, "CEQ and the Department of State produced the Global 2000 Report, which expanded national environmental policy to embrace global concerns." That experience led to the founding of WRI.[4]

In 1981 and 1982, he was Professor of environmental and constitutional Law at Georgetown University. From 1970 to 1977, he was a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council[5], an environmental organization he co-founded and where he continues as a member of the Board of Trustees.[6]