Jennifer Layke

Jennifer Layke is the Global Director of the Energy Program at World Resources Institute. Jennifer spearheads WRI’s work on energy efficiency, renewable energy and energy access. She leads the Building Efficiency Accelerator, a public-private collaboration of over 35 partners supporting 30 cities implementing efficiency policies and projects in support of the Sustainable Energy for All Initiative.

From 2010-2014, Jennifer created and directed Johnson Controls’ Institute for Building Efficiency, a global initiative to provide information and analyses on the technologies, policies, and practices to deliver high-performance buildings. Jennifer’s prior experience includes 12 years at the World Resources Institute where she was deputy director, Climate and Energy Program. She developed innovative energy procurement paths for corporate use of clean energy in the U.S. and Europe, managed corporate partnerships to reduce GHG emissions, and led work on U.S. carbon cap-and-trade policy.

Jennifer’s international experience includes consulting for the World Bank and the U.S. EPA on technology transfer for ozone layer protection under the Montreal Protocol. In 1990, she was awarded a Thomas J. Watson Foundation fellowship for a year of sociology research in Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan. She has an A.B. in Asian Studies/Political Studies from Pitzer College in Claremont, CA, and was a student at Nanjing University, China during her undergraduate years. She also has an M.S. and MBA from the University of Michigan’s Erb Institute for Sustainability.

Member of the Global Panel on Access to Cooling