ENVIRONMENT & ENTERPRISE STRATEGIES

“Strategic Advantage Through Environmental Solutions”

 

HomeWhat We DoRepresentative ClientsWho We ArePrincipal's BiographyKey AssociatesSelect PublicationsPresentations & PressTestimonialsContact Us

Hollyheadshot2021.jpg


 

 



PRINCIPAL'S BIOGRAPHY

Holly Kaufman is founder and president of Environment & Enterprise Strategies, a consultancy that specializes in the design and management of projects that integrate business, human and environmental needs.

Representative clients include the Energy Foundation, Hewlett Packard, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the White House Council on Environmental Quality, where she developed the President's twenty-fifth anniversary report to Congress on environmental trends. 

She is widely recognized for her strategic and outreach skills, with great aptitude at relationship development, organizational development, communications and negotiations, including persuading and recruiting supporters.  

Ms. Kaufman is also the co-founder and co-director of the Plastics & Climate Project. The Project will pinpoint the gaps in knowledge that need to be filled in order to estimate the extent to which plastics and their associated petrochemicals contribute to global average temperature rise, and and generate support for the necessary subsequent research and inclusion of climate-relevant plastic impacts in greenhouse gas accounting and climate models.

Ms. Kaufman was a Presidential appointee, representing the United States at United Nations' climate change treaty negotiations for the Departments of State and Defense under Bill Clinton.  She developed diplomatic strategy as Special Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of State for environment and the U.S. Ambassador for sustainable development. She also managed the climate change and national security portfolio for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and served as the Defense Department's liaison to the President's Council on Sustainable Development. 

Ms. Kaufman previously managed the environmental planning and community outreach for multi-million dollar commercial and maritime projects at the Port of Oakland and the fourth largest waste management company in the U.S. She taught ecological land management and sustainable agriculture at the University of California at Berkeley and the California Academy of Sciences.

Ms. Kaufman also served as the Executive Director of an international ecological research organization under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences, Executive Director of the Galapagos Conservancy Foundation, and Deputy Director of The Center for Resource Solutions, a non-governmental organization that promotes renewable energy policy. 

Ms. Kaufman is a member of the California Senate Bill 54 Implementation Working Group, a stakeholder group that advises on the crafting the rules for this first-of-its-kind plastic packaging reduction law.  

In 2015, the Sierra Club nominated and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors appointed Ms. Kaufman to serve on its inaugural Energy Efficiency Coordinating Committee.  She advised the Board on energy efficiency policy and how to allocate funds from California's greenhouse gas trading regime to benefit disadvantaged communities.  In 2012, San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee appointed her to the San Francisco Public Utility Commission's Revenue Bond Oversight Committee, where for six years she helped oversee nearly $6 billion in bond expenditures for the utility's power, water and wastewater enterprises, including green bonds for green infrastructure, and co-chaired the Environmental Justice subcommittee. 

She is an advisor to Carbon180 (formerly the Center for Carbon Removal), and a former member of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) Advisory Council and advisor to the San Francisco Department of the Environment. She was a founding member of Clean Energy for Biden (CE4B) and served on its Finance Council and on the Climate Voters' Finance Council, and was a member of the Biden Policy Committee.  She was Northern California Co-director of CleanTech & Green Business for Obama and CleanTech for Hillary, and Northern California Director of Environment2004 for the Kerry presidential campaign. 

Ms. Kaufman was awarded a Leadership Fellowship at Harvard for her Master's studies in the integration of economic, social and environmental interests. She also holds a Bachelor of Science in Conservation of Natural Resources, with Highest Honors, from the University of California at Berkeley.  She speaks fluent French and conversational Spanish.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She has led community development projects or conducted research in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. 

 

Ms. Kaufman is also the recipient of a Superior Team Honor Award from the U.S. Department of State for participation in the UN climate treaties delegation, and a 2009 award from the California Climate Action Registry for her contribution to their work.

For more information, see LinkedIn.