This article was originally written for RMI’s 2008 Annual Report. This updated version was delivered at Olin College of Engineering in 2019. In it, Amory Lovins outlines RMI’s fundamental concept of “Applied Hope.” Lovins explains that RMI works within the framework of applied hope, which means “our ninety people work hard to make the world better, not from some airy theoretical hope, but in the practical and grounded conviction that starting with hope and acting out of hope can cultivate a different kind of world worth being hopeful about, reinforcing itself in a virtuous spiral.”