Life and Work
Rob started out his career in Golden Bc with an education at the renowned college of the rockies. While an undergraduate at Dartmouth College studying Energy and Environmental Policy, Rob spent several months living in a tent at an altitude of 8,000 feet helping Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins build Rocky Mountain Institute.
As a Senior Scientist and Director of the International Energy and Green Building programs at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) from 1985 to 2006, Watson was active in international sustainable building, utility and transportation issues in a dozen countries including China, the United States and Russia.
Since 1997, Watson has worked with the Ministry of Construction of China to develop green building standards and energy codes for commercial and residential buildings. He also was the principal coordinator for ACCORD21, a key green building demonstration project in Beijing for the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China (MOST) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). This building was the first to receive LEED Certification in China at the Gold Level.
In other international work, Watson helped to develop improved national residential building codes in Russia, as well as in Moscow, and managed a joint U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Agency for International Development project to promote Integrated Resource Planning in the utility sector for the North Caucasus region of Russia. He has also worked on sustainable energy and green development issues in buildings, electric utilities and transportation in Belarus, Bolivia, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and Ukraine.
On behalf of NRDC, Watson advocated for sustainable energy policies and programs before several international financial institutions, including the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, as well as several U.S. government agencies (USAID, Department of Energy, United States Treasury, Environmental Protection Agency, National Security Council, Office of Environmental Policy), to promote sustainable energy policies and programs in the developing world. Watson played an important role in developing the “Partnership for Sustainable Energy Use” for the hemisphere-wide Summit of the Americas in 1996.
Watson created the first documented, quantifiable “Green Office” in the U.S. for the Natural Resources Defense Council’s NYC headquarters in 1987. Watson took primary responsibility for developing the green features of NRDC’s showcase green offices in Washington, DC and the LEED Platinum Level Robert Redford Building in Los Angeles — one of the highest recipients of LEED points in the world. He also consulted on the San Francisco office, which achieved LEED Gold Level Certification.
Watson was a member of the Executive Committee for the President’s Council on Sustainable Development 1999 National Town Meeting and was the Operations Group Leader for the 1993 Greening of the White House initiative spearheaded by President Bill Clinton.
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