Richard Heede is the Principal of Climate Mitigation Services, a consultancy focused on climate stewardship from emissions inventories to profitable action. CMS conducts greenhouse gas inventories, develops protocols, defines emissions boundaries, and identifies technologies and strategies to profitably reduce emissions. Client sectors include municipalities, colleges and universities, corporations, international NGOs, architects, and homeowners.

Sample projects: ExxonMobil Emissions Inventory 1882-2002: Methods & Results, for Friends of the Earth Trust, London, Dec03; Energy and Climate Plan for the Town of Telluride, Colorado: Audit and Policy Recommendations, Jun04. Black Hydrogen: An Assessment of the U.S. Department of Energy's Plans for Nuclear Hydrogen Production, for Greenpeace USA. Comprehensive GHG emissions inventory for the City of Aspen's Canary Initiative: Aspen Greenhouse Gas Emissions 2004. Evaluated supply chain emissions from the annual delivery of 6 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas: LNG Supply Chain Greenhouse Gas Emissions for the Cabrillo Deepwater Port: Natural Gas from Australia to California. Provided expert testimony on behalf of a lawsuit filed by four cities in Federal Court (2004) Declaration and greenhouse gas emissions estimate of the Export-Import Bank of the United States and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation energy portfolios 1990-2004. Currently engaging with the faculty, students, administration, and alumni of an Ivy-league university on carbon management; estimating GHG emissions from conventional “industrial” milk; emissions from a proposed integrated iron mine & steel plant in the Mesabi Iron Range in Minnesota, a community-wide inventory for Frisco, Colorado, the climate impact of second homes in Aspen, and a brochure detailing the emissions from about 60 everyday sources in the daily lives of Aspenites (living, driving, flying, skiing, eating, and drinking).


Rick worked with Amory Lovins and the Rocky Mountain Institute from 1984 to 2002. His work at RMI covered residential energy efficiency and retrofits (Homemade Money: Saving Energy and Dollars in Your Home and The Energy Directory), energy policy (“Hiding the True Costs of Energy,” Wall Street Journal, “Energy Policy,” Changing America: Blueprints for the New Administration, with Amory and Hunter Lovins), commercial sector energy efficiency (Electricity-Saving Office Equipment, with Mr. Lovins), and climate mitigation (Cool Citizens: Everyday Solutions to Climate Change: Household Solutions Brief; and Oberlin College: Climate Neutral by 2020 study, with RMI’s Joel Swisher).

He wrote Measuring Energy Sustainability: Evaluating Your Nation’s Energy Development: A Manual for Users of Helio’s Indicators for Helio, Paris.

Rick completed his graduate studies at the Univ. of Colorado (MS, Geog., 1983) with a National Center for Atmospheric Research cooperative thesis: A World Geography of Recoverable Carbon Resources in the Context of Possible Climate Change.

He designed and built a passive-solar rammed-earth home at 2,300m in the central Rocky Mountains of Colorado. It saves two-thirds of the energy and four-fifths of the carbon emissions of typical homes in this climate zone.

He is working on a book on the global risks of Antarctica’s climate-sensitive ice sheets.

Rick is an accomplished pilot and a life-long skier. He is devoted to his 18-year-old daughter Shana Breeze and to life’s sacred mysteries.