Resources for the Future, Inc.

Results: As the first think tank dedicated exclusively to environmental and natural resource issues, RFF has been a trailblazer in the field of environmental economics. Our researchers put forth the fundamental idea that the impact of economic growth on environmental quality was a much more significant problem than any threat of natural resource shortages. RFF's groundbreaking 1963 study “Resources in America's Future” laid a blueprint for projecting long-term availability of natural resources and understanding their role in the US economy. Our 1979 landmark study “Energy: The Next Twenty Years” provided the impetus for what is now the routine and systematic collection and analysis of energy data by the federal government and private industry.  

RFF was the first to identify the economic value of undisturbed natural environments such as rivers and forests, creating the modern theory of resource conservation. Because of the work of RFF’s influential researchers, legislation and policy now recognize that people experience economic losses when fragile ecosystems are damaged, which has transformed environmental policy analysis.  

RFF’s pioneering work also advanced the idea of using market-based incentives to encourage environmental improvements, showing that pollution fees were more effective than conventional regulation. We demonstrated that it was possible to calculate the fees that would push pollution down to a given standard while leaving it up to each polluter to find the cheapest and easiest way to do so. This idea was embodied in the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act. A system of permit trading was established for sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain, and it ended up reducing compliance costs far below earlier forecasts. 

Today, RFF continues its tradition of impactful research and policy engagement. Here is RFF in 2021 by the numbers: 

Our website generated 1.5 million page views 
Our podcast Resources Radio was played 92,000 times by listeners 
More than 13,000 people tuned in to watch RFF virtual events 
We were cited in more than 1,300 news articles 
We wrote 330 publications and commentaries
 We're ranked #1 for environmental economics from a field of 3,000 global institutions by IDEAS/RePEc 

Programs: At RFF, we envision a future where climate change no longer threatens our well-being and where smart environmental decisions help to uplift communities around the world. Our experts bring the brightest economic thinking to bear and have shaped many of the world’s most successful environmental policies over the past 70 years. Today, we have two main areas of focus:

Designing Smart Emissions Reduction Strategies. We create climate solutions that are effective, efficient, equitable, beneficial to the economy, and able to achieve net-zero emissions goals—from economy-wide solutions that send consistent economic signals to the marketplace to sector-specific strategies for all major areas of the economy.

Confronting Risks and Building Resilience. We evaluate the physical and economic impacts of climate change, using data to assess risks and uncertainties at global, national, sectoral, and local scales, and ensure that decisionmakers are equipped with the information they need to build resilience in their communities.

Across these two areas of focus, RFF has seven different programs: Electric Power; Industry and Fuels; Land Use, Forestry, and Agriculture; Comprehensive Climate Strategies; Transportation; Climate Risks and Impacts; and Adaptation and Resilience. RFF also has eight initiatives, which are designed to be more targeted and represent opportunities for cross-cutting endeavors. The initiatives are Federal Climate Policy, International Climate Policy, Climate Finance and Financial Risk, Equity in the Energy Transition, Environmental Justice, Earth Observation for Policy, Carbon Pricing, and the Social Cost of Carbon.