CEO and Chief Scientist of ECOTECH International, Robert Watson
More on Robert Watson
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Robert Watson
Entrepreneur, Scientist
BIO
Rob Watson is CEO and Chief Scientist of ECOTECH International. He is also an international leader in the green building movement with over 20 years of experience in the field. Recognized by the Wall Street Journal as the hottest trend in architecture, green design reduces the environmental impacts of building construction and operation while improving the bottom line.
Under Rob's direction as the "Founding Father of LEED" and as its national Steering Committee Chairman between 1994 and 2005, LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) became the most widespread and fastest-growing standard by which green buildings are measured worldwide.
A pioneer of the modern green building movement for over twenty years, in 2006 Rob Watson founded ECOTECH International and its subsidiaries, American SINOTECH (AST) and American INDOTECH (AIT) to meet the fast-growing demand for green building technologies and services in China, India and the U.S.
In 2005, China's Ministry of Construction (MOC) recognized Rob with one of its first "Green Innovation" awards--the only foreigner so honored--for his work on green buildings in China. Since 1997, Rob has worked with the MOC to develop green building standards and energy codes for residential and commercial buildings. He also was the principal coordinator for a key green building demonstration project in Beijing (www.accord21.org) for the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). This building was the first to receive LEED Gold Certification in China. Watson's work on this building and green technology in general was featured in a 2005 article by
New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman, as well as in Fortune Magazine.
In 2005, Tsinghua University appointed Mr. Watson to its International Academic Committee of Building Energy Research, and Shenyang Jianzhu (Architectural) University appointed him as a visiting professor. The Shenyang Association for Science and Technology selected Mr. Watson to be a Special Expert for 2005-2006. Rob also was appointed International Green Building Expert to professional associations in Chongqing, Shanghai, Shenyang, and Shenzhen municipalities, helping these four cities to develop programs to promote green buildings and "smart growth" development. Currently, Watson advises MOST and DOE on the development of green construction standards and demonstration
projects for the 2008 Olympics. Mr. Watson has visited China over 60 times and made over 100 keynotes or featured presentations on Green Buildings and Smart Growth in China and the U.S.
Mr. Watson is a Director of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), a national on-profit organization which manages the LEED standard. Rob is a Director of the USGBC since 2005 as well as from 1995 to 2000 and served as its Vice Chair in 1999-2000.
As a Senior Scientist and Director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's (NRDC) International Energy (www.chinacleanenergy.org) and Green Building (www.nrdc.org/buildinggreen) programs from 1985 to 2006, Mr. Watson was active in international sustainable building, utility and transportation issues in a dozen countries including China, the United States and Russia. Rob took primary responsibility for the green features in NRDC’s showcase green offices in Washington, DC, New York, and the LEED Platinum Robert Redford Building in Los Angeles--until recently the recipient of the most LEED points of any project in the world, and consulted on the San Francisco office, which achieved LEED Gold Certification. Each of these offices is a model of energy and resource efficiency.
Rob served as Chairman of the International Design Center for the Environment (IDCE) a U.S. based non-profit, non-governmental organization where he was a director since 2002. At IDCE, he spearheaded the development of a web-based streamlined lifecycle assessment (LCA) tool he named "eLCie". eLCie facilitates environmentally preferable product manufacturing, purchasing and supply chain management in the building products industry.
In other international work, Rob helped develop improved residential building codes for Russia and Moscow and managed a joint USEPA/USAID project to promote utility Integrated Resource Planning in 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.
Mr. Watson worked with 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, DOE, Treasury, EPA, NSC, Office of Environmental Policy), to promote sustainable energy policies and programs in the developing world. Rob played an important role in developing the "Partnership for Sustainable Energy Use" for the hemisphere-wide Summit of the Americas in 1996.
Mr. Watson was a member of the Executive Committee for the resident'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 Clinton.
For his work on LEED and green buildings in China, the Association of Energy Engineers gave Rob its International Energy Development Professional Award for 2005. In 2004, Interiors and Sources Magazine named Watson one of the Top 25 "Environmental Champions" in the building industry. He was named by Engineering News Record in 2003 as one of the construction industry's "Top 25 Newsmakers". Rob also was the first recipient of the USGBC Leadership Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2002.
Rob received a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) from Columbia University in May 2006. He has a Master of Science (MS) degree from the University of California, Berkeley and is a graduate of Dartmouth College where he was a Senior Fellow. In 1993, Watson was the first Environmental Fellow at the Institute of Transportation Studies at University of California, Davis.
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