Tim Smith

NorthStar Initiative for Sustainable Enterprise
Institute on the Environment
612-624-2648
smith463@umn.edu

Tim Smith is a resident fellow and director of the NorthStar Initiative for Sustainable Enterprise at the Institute on the Environment. He is also an associate professor of corporate environmental management and bioproducts and biosystems engineering at the University of Minnesota.

Smith's research focuses on the organizational adoption of energy efficiency, renewable energy and other environmental performance-enhancing technologies, as well as the effectiveness of complex “green” messaging, including life-cycle assessment information and the development of sustainable product standards. 

His early research won the international doctoral dissertation competition through Penn State's Institute for the Study of Business Markets, among other awards and honors. In 2006, he was named an AT&T industrial ecology fellow. He has served on the extended faculty in marketing and logistics management at the Carlson School of Management, and also on the faculty within INCAE Business School in Costa Rica.

A Minnesota transplant in 1999, Smith has yet to fully embrace winter, but enjoys all the Twin Cities have to offer with his wife, Ann, and three children—Ellie, Michael and Ida. He spends his free time bicycling, playing soccer and cooking.

To invite Smith to speak at your event, please email him directly.

BEYOND THE BIO

  • Environmental Hero:
    Chip Giller, founder of grist.org
  • Fun Fact:
    Continues to relive his youth by playing what his children refer to as “fat old man soccer"
  • Favorite Read:
    Capitalism at the Crossroads: The Unlimited Business Opportunities in Solving the World's Most Difficult Problems