On Monday and Tuesday, April 7 and 8, representatives of the American Security Project visited Western and Central Tennessee for a series of meetings, public events, and briefings on how climate change is affecting security, and how businesses are planning for it.

Attending were LtGen John “Glad” Castellaw, USMC (ret.) and Brig. General John Adams, USA (Retired). Castellaw was a 36 year veteran of the Marine Corps and now serves as the Director of the Crockett Policy Insititute and a member of the ASP Board. Adams is a 30 year veteran of the Army, is completing his Doctorate in International Relations, and is the President of Guardian Six Consulting LLC. Both are members of ASP’s Consensus for American Security. Andrew Holland, ASP’s Senior Fellow for Energy and Climate, and Porter Brockway, ASP’s events manager, rounded out the delegation.

The first appointment of the tour was to meet with representatives of FedEx at Memphis Airport to discuss the energy and environmental challenges that the company faces, and efforts they are taking to mitigate those challenges. We agreed that a large portion of the event would be off the record in order to have a more open discussion, but there are certain parts that can be reported.

The visit started with a tour through the FedEx sorting facility – a place that has about 10,000 employees per day. As we toured on Monday morning, we saw the facility the only time that it is quiet – as there is no pickup on Sundays and packages picked up from Monday had not yet arrived. Repeatedly throughout the meeting, we returned to this theme: greater investment in energy efficiency and reduced energy use has co-benefits to overall productivity and profits for FedEx. After the tour around the facility, ASP moved inside to meet with executives and leaders or FedEx’s “Practical Sustainability” initiatives. We went through their efforts on biofuels, flight fuel management, and ground transport efficiency. For a full discussion of FedEx’s work, see this (forthcoming) article. Overall, the theme was clear: as FedEx has invested in clean energy, its environmental footprint has gone down while revenues and profits have continued to climb.

After leaving FedEx, ASP drove to the West Tennessee Solar Farm, an initiative of the University of Tennessee to provide 5 MW of solar power to the electricity grid. Taking up more than 25 acres, the approximately 21,000 fixed photovoltaic solar panels provide electricity as one of the largest solar arrays in the Southeast. ASP met with Elliot Barnett, the facility manager, who discussed the history of the facility. While the facility provides important electrical power, its purpose is also as an educational destination. Built within easy view of Interstate 40, the Tennessee Department of Transportation is building an off-ramp and visitors center that will allow travelers to see and learn about solar power and renewable energy. There is room to expand, and the facility could one day host a variety of renewable energy production.

From there, ASP drove to Martin, TN for a public event at the