Tellus Institute

The Tellus Institute is a non-profit research and policy organization based in Boston, Massachusetts. Its mission is to advance the transition to a sustainable, equitable, and humane global civilization. The Tellus Institute was founded in 1976 by Paul Raskin, Richard Rosen, Stephen Bernow, John Stutz, and David Nichols for the purpose of research on resource and environmental strategies. Dr. Paul Raskin is the President of the Institute. Initially called the Energy Systems Research Group (ESRG), the Institute adopted its current name in 1990.

Since 1976, Tellus has conducted over 3,500 resource management and environmental strategy projects throughout the world. The Institute is well known in the environmental strategies domain for its many studies on state and municipality recycling programs, including its 1992 Packaging study, the 2008 Assessment of Options for Massachusetts' Solid Waste Master Plan, and the Preliminary Analysis of the Costs and Benefits of Bottle Bills study done for the US EPA.

Through the years Tellus has created numerous scientific tools and reports in many different areas, including energy, water, sustainable communities, corporate social responsibility, and climate change; however, since 2005 the Institute has shifted its focus to developing a Great Transition vision for a sustainable future.

The main body of Tellus' current research specializes in the application of quantitative analysis to the development of possible future scenarios.

Tellus has also launched a number of subsidiary working groups and research programs:

Tellus developed and uses a series of software programs in its research. These programs were designed for strategic planning and scenario analysis, allowing the user to create, evaluate, and compare alternative futures based on current data and hypothetical trends. LEAP software facilitates energy-environment planning; WEAP, water planning; WastePlan, solid waste planning; and PoleStar, sustainability planning.

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