Utility Vegetation Management (UVM) Initiative

The global demand for safe and reliable energy to sustain human existence has never been greater. But the earth's changing climate has complicated the delivery of energy with increasingly more frequent and substantially more severe weather events such as hurricanes, tornados, wildfires, floods, droughts and freezes. In response to these challenges, Tulane Law School’s internationally outstanding programs in both Energy Law and Environmental Law collaborated with industry’s thought leaders to establish the Utility Vegetation Management Initiative.

The UVMI’s mission is to serve as the world’s preeminent center for the understanding, development, and improvement of law, policy, and practice of utility vegetation management in order to promote the creation of safe and environmentally sound co-existence among people, infrastructure, and the natural environment while also ensuring safe and reliable delivery of energy and other utilities.

Tulane’s location in New Orleans, Louisiana, makes it ideally suited to be the focal point of this legal discipline. No other state has felt the impact of climate change as Louisiana has, and the state simultaneously hosts one of the most diverse ecosystems in North America as well as one of its most diverse industrial bases.

Lawyers with specialized UVM knowledge are desperately needed around the country and around the globe.  Students in the program have all developed original research and have presented their findings at international, national and regional conferences, and all have been successfully placed in full time jobs and summer internships with federal and state government agencies, international organizations, utilities and their service providers, law firms, and NGOs on the front lines of this pressing global issue.