Jay Golden's Bio and Research

Dr. Golden is the Director of the Duke Center for Sustainability & Commerce.  Based in the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Golden leads efforts to deliver impactful research and education programs on the important nexus of sustainability and commerce.  Building upon the world-class faculty and resources at Duke, the center serves as a catalyst for creating a new generation of sustainability knowledge and solutions in service to society.

Dr. Golden teaches on sustainable systems theory and sustainability analytics in the Nicholas School of the Environment and the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke and was previously at Arizona State University where he was an assistant professor and honors faculty in the School of Sustainability with affiliate appointments with the Supply Chain Management Department and the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment.

Golden focuses his teaching and research on sustainable systems, which examines organizational and technology intervention strategies in regards to global social and environmental impacts from population and consumptive patterns.  Golden founded and co-Directed of the multi-university Sustainability Consortium, which is developing a global standard for measuring and reporting the sustainability of consumer products globally. He also directed the National Center of Excellence on SMART Innovations, which focused on engineering innovations for sustainable materials and renewable technologies.  Dr. Golden serves as editor for the Journal of Green Building and on the editorial board of the International Journal of Sustainable Building Technology & Urban Development

Golden received his PhD in Engineering from the University of Cambridge, and Masters Degree in Environmental Engineering and Sustain­able Development from a joint program of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Cambridge. He also holds a Professional Mastery of Project Management from Stanford University and has a bachelor’s degree in management.  

He was appointed to the UN Life Cycle Management Task Force and was named an AT&T Indus­trial Ecology Fellow.  Golden has testified before Congress on energy and climate issues, serves on the Advisory Council to the Pew Center on Corporate Energy Efficiency, American Council on Renewable Energy Higher Education Committee, and voted to the Board on the Urban Environment for the American Meteorological Society.  Dr. Golden also serves as a special advisor to the World Economic Forum and to various global corporations and governments including to the General Services Administration in meeting their Section 13 reporting requirements.   

In 2009 Golden was awarded the Faculty Pioneer Award by the Aspen Institute for his leadership in the field of Sustainability Education & Research and was also named in 2009 as 100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics by Ethisphere.