The Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review (ELPAR) is a law class that produces a joint publication between Vanderbilt Law School and the Environmental Law Institute in the August issue of the Environmental Law Report. Each year, Vanderbilt Law students identify the year's best academic articles that present legal and policy solutions to pressing environmental problems.
The Private Climate Governance Lab (PCG) focuses on private-sector climate mitigation and adaptation. Through scholarship, education, and cross-sectoral collaboration, the Lab provides feasible solutions to practitioners. By engaging the private sector in climate initiatives and understanding private sector motivations and options, the Lab is helping to bridge the gap between needs and reality.
The Climate Change Research Network (CCRN) at Vanderbilt includes a team of faculty, post-doctoral fellows, and graduate and law students who are conducting research on one of the most important and most widely overlooked sources of greenhouse gases: individual and household behavior. The research also explores private environmental governance and how insights from law and the social and behavioral sciences can reduce corporate carbon emissions.
Each semester, the Energy, Environment & Land Use Program selects 3-4 students to work on white papers throughout the semester alongside Caroline Cox, and mentorship from EELU faculty. This allows students a chance at publication within their desired field of work.
The Initiative on Climate Risk and Resilience Law (ICRRL) is a joint initiative of Vanderbilt Law School, Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, Environmental Defense Fund, and the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law. The collaboration seeks to drive legal innovation, scholarship, and action to address the consequences of climate change. The partnership focuses on legal efforts to promote climate risk and resilience, particularly at the intersection of practice and scholarship. ICRRL’s work includes the generation of original scholarship, practitioner resources, and legal filings on the subject of climate risk and resilience, synthesis and explication of evidence and best practices across sectors and geographies, and collaborative engagement across interested entities, stakeholders, and parties.
The Energy, Environment & Land Use Program hosted John Cruden, Principal at Beveridge & Diamond, P.C. and former Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, as the 2025 EELU Distinguished Lecturer.
The Environmental Law & Policy Annual Review (ELPAR) hosted its annual Nashville Conference, which featured Sarah Fox, Associate Professor of Law at the Marquette University Law School.
The third annual conference brought together local leaders, faculty, policymakers, and other experts who discussed their work and the challenges presented by climate change.
Vanderbilt University Law School's Energy and Environmental Law Society is a student organization for students who are concerned about energy and environmental issues, and/or interested in careers in energy or environmental law.