The Eric Zencey Prize in Ecological Economics was created by his family and friends to memorialize a pioneering scholar and establish his legacy for generations to come.

In a long career as a writer, thinker, teacher, and public intellectual, Eric Zencey worked to bring Ecological Economics out of the academy and into use as an idea system for understanding the interrelated challenges facing our civilization — political, economic, social, and environmental.

The Zencey Prize is awarded every other year to the best book or work of long-form journalism that advances public understanding of Ecological Economics — a school of thought that cautions us that the economy can't grow forever, that there are limits to what our finite planet can support.

The prize is awarded through UVM's Gund Institute for Environment in collaboration with the US Society for Ecological Economics. The Zencey family and friends created a permanent endowment for the prize.