Urban Labs Energy & Environment Lab
The Energy and Environment Lab partners with government agencies and the private sector to identify, rigorously evaluate, and scale programs and policies that reduce pollution, conserve limited natural resources, improve environmental outcomes, and ensure access to reliable and affordable energy.
Leveraging Data for a Healthier Environment
Since its founding in 2015, the Energy & Environment Lab has become a ground-breaking incubator that partners with local, state, and federal government agencies to transform environmental protection. The Lab leverages state-of-the-art advances in data analysis, monitoring, and experimental methods to dramatically improve the effectiveness and efficiency of environmental policy.
While the last several decades have been defined by innovation and rapid technological advancement in the broader economy, many of these advances have yet to be applied to issues of environmental policy. This innovation presents an opportunity for new programs and regulatory changes to simultaneously improve environmental quality and reduce government expenditures.
The Energy & Environment Lab’s model is to partner directly with government agencies to identify and test promising new approaches to environmental problems and to help scale proven solutions. Our methodological toolkit includes rigorous impact evaluation methods, advanced monitoring technologies, predictive analytics, and other sophisticated data analysis techniques. A defining feature of our approach is embedding researchers directly with regulators to establish and execute on research opportunities central to their priorities. Our model makes us uniquely suited not only to identify and test promising new approaches with the most rigorous research methods available, but to drive proven approaches into action. Our work is fundamentally altering the form and conduct of environmental policy by helping ground environmental services, incentive programs, and enforcement tactics in rigorous evidence.
