The Program on Law and Sustainability at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University has awarded the Morrison Prize to Mike Vandenbergh and me for our article “Beyond Gridlock,” 40 Columbia Environmental Law Journal, 217–303 (2015). The Morrison prize recognizes the paper published in the previous year in North America that is “likely to have the most significant positive long-term impact on the advancement of the environmental sustainability movement.”
The Morrison Prize is drawing increased attention to sustainability-orientated legal academic research throughout the United States. This research plays a valuable role as federal, state and local policymakers seek to integrate new sustainability technologies into their economies.
— Troy Rule, Faculty Director, ASU Program on Law and Sustainabilty.
This paper represents the culmination of a decade of work by Mike Vandenbergh and me in which we have sought to call greater attention to the obstacles to government action at the national and international scales, and to the largely neglected potential of actions by the private sector—businesses, not-for-profit organizations, and private citizens—to reduce greenhouse gas emissions even when governments fail to act.
We conducted this research well before Donald Trump became president, but the policies of the Trump presidency has made our work more relevant than ever and we are very grateful to the ASU Program on Law and Sustainability for this recognition of our work.
Press release here