Environmental law is not a subject known for its good news stories. It deals with some of the gravest challenges facing humanity — among them, climate change, biodiversity loss and resource scarcity — which place unprecedented demands on practices and institutions of governance and forms of legal order. Environmental law is routinely confronted with its own limitations. It is also increasingly seen as part of the problem. The situation invites, or demands, engagement with the possibility that things may become otherwise — not as a form of denial or wishful thinking, but rather as a way of interrupting the status quo and reorienting to questions of hope. In my lecture, I want to explore what might be gained by thinking about hope in this context. My aim is to reflect on various ways in which the relationship between environmental law and hope could be framed, by inquiring into the forms that hope takes in environmental law, and by asking whether hope also has a role to play in environmental law teaching and research.