WRI Annual Report 2011

The energetic collaboration among a highly motivated leadership team, staff and Board of Directors yielded strong results. WRI experienced its sixth consecutive year of growth, with a 12 percent increase in its budget in 2011. We expanded our China office and signed a memorandum of understanding with NDRC, China’s main planning agency, to work together on low carbon city development and related issues. We took the seminal step in India of establishing a trust and a distinguished board chaired by WRI Director Jamshyd Godrej.

WRI will invest considerable effort over the next five years working at the city level in China, India and Brazil on sustainable transportation and road safety, renewable energy and clean water. As centers of intellectual capital, talent, and entrepreneurship, cities are proving to be at the vanguard in tackling global climate change and a broader array of sustainability challenges.

Our commitment to protecting the environment and improving people’s lives remains as strong as ever. The combined stress of rising and volatile commodity prices, ecosystem degradation, and global warming disproportionately affects poor and vulnerable communities, who rely on natural resources for their livelihoods and well-being. WRI will redouble its efforts to make the economic case and demonstrate through its work that sustainability and poverty reduction—and more broadly economic growth—go hand-in-hand.

The challenges facing the planet and people are epic in proportion. WRI was founded to pursue big ideas and make them happen. We remain optimistic that our efforts, amplified with hundreds of worldwide partners, are shaping a more sustainable planet for all people.