With the meteoric rise in net-zero commitments and “green” capital raises by corporations and financial institutions, investors and consumers are wondering if these statements are credible. Do “green” labels actually accelerate the flow of capital to companies and projects seeking to improve our climate future? 

In this episode, Chad Reed sits down with Desiree Fixler (former chief sustainability officer at DWS), Tim Mohin (chief sustainability officer at Persefoni), and Erik Becker (senior vice president of corporate development at Arcadia) at the GreenFin22 Conference in New York City to discuss why “green” financial products and labels are ineffective and why actually counting carbon levels the playing field for investors and consumers alike. 

Links:

GreenFin: The Premier ESG Event Aligning Sustainability and Capital Markets

Article: Deutsche Bank, DWS Raided Over Allegations of Greenwashing (Bloomberg, May 31, 2022)

Article: The ESG Mirage (Bloomberg, December 10, 2021)

Article: The Secret Diary of a ‘Sustainable Investor’ – Part 4 (Epilogue) (Tariq Fancy, June 2022)

Article: Supreme Court Strips Federal Government of Crucial Tool to Control Pollution (The New York Times, June 30, 2022)

Article: Re: File No. S7-10-22: The Enhancement and Standardization of Climate-Related Disclosures for Investors (Jeffrey W. Eckel, June 17, 2022)


Episode recorded: June 28, 2022

Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, Hilary, and Guy at [email protected].

Climate change solutions typically center on carbon, and addressing carbon is essential for a safer climate future. But we sometimes forget that carbon isn’t the only culprit.  Fluorinated gases such as old HVAC refrigerants can have more than 10,000 times the climate-changing potential of carbon.  The climate research nonprofit Project Drawdown determined that refrigerant management is one of the most impactful ways to mitigate climate change.  As CEO of Tradewater, Tim Brown is racing to aggregate potent gases from around the world and destroy them before they leak into the atmosphere and wreak havoc on our climate. 

In this episode, host Hilary Langer speaks with Tim Brown, CEO and Founder of Tradewater – a Chicago-based company that finds and destroys the world’s most potent climate-changing gases. Tim shares how his eBay purchase of a common refrigerant inspired him to build a company that produces some of the highest quality carbon offsets. He explains how the Tradewater team leverages partnerships to scale their impact, why they expanded internationally, and how they plan to accelerate their work before potent GHGs are released into the atmosphere. 

Links:

Tradewater Website

Tradewater on Twitter

Tradewater on LinkedIn

Tim Brown on LinkedIn

Project Drawdown: Overview of Refrigerant Management

One overlooked way to fight climate change? Dispose of old CFCs. (National Geographic)

Episode recorded: May 5, 2022 

Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, and Hilary at [email protected]or tweet them to @ClimatePosiPod.

Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, Hilary, and Guy at [email protected].

Sheldon Kimber has built from scratch multiple successful enterprises over his two decades in the energy industry. Now the CEO and Co-Founder of Intersect Power, a developer and owner of some of the world’s largest clean energy resources, Sheldon is working to bring innovative and scalable low-carbon solutions to customers across North America. 

Earlier this year, Sheldon published an article entitled, “The Nexus of Deep Decarbonization,” in which he discusses the five inevitable industries that have the potential for exponential growth as we work to decarbonize the global economy by leveraging increasingly affordable and available clean energy. These five industries include; Green Hydrogen and E-Fuels, Direct Air Capture, Electrification of Industrial Thermal Loads, Mass Electric Vehicle Charging, and Desalination and Water Transportation.

In this episode, Chad Reed and Jeff Eckel dive deep into Sheldon’s unique background and discuss the five inevitable industries, and the related decarbonization policy challenges and opportunities given the current macroenvironment. To get the most out of this episode, we encourage you to read Sheldon’s aforementioned article, available in the show notes.

Links:

Sheldon Kimber Twitter

Article: The Nexus of Deep Decarbonization (Sheldon Kimber, February 11, 2022)

Article: Proposed US tax credit 'would instantly make green and blue hydrogen competitive with grey' (ReCharge News, February 9, 2022)

Episode recorded: May 11, 2022

Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, Hilary, and Guy at [email protected].

Joe Britton is the Executive Director of the Zero Emission Transportation Association (ZETA), a federal coalition focused on advocating for 100% electric vehicle (EV) sales by 2030. ZETA is committed to enacting policies that drive EV adoption, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, securing American global EV manufacturing dominance, dramatically improve public health, and significantly reducing carbon pollution. In this episode, Gil Jenkins speaks with Joe about his experience working on climate policy on Capitol Hill, how the politics around the environment and energy have changed, and what that might mean for passing a massive clean energy incentives package that deals with emissions. Joe also talks about the future of transportation (hint: it’s electric), the top policy priorities at ZETA, the key consumer selling points for EVs and charging, and how to overcome common misperceptions in the marketplace.

Links:

• ZETA Website
• ZETA Twitter
• Joe Britton Twitter
• House Oversight Hearing USPS Electrification Written Testimony, It’s Electric: Developing the Postal Service Fleet of the Future, Joe Britton, April 5, 2022

Note: Joe Britton (via Pioneer Public Affairs) is a registered climate policy lobbyist for Hannon Armstrong.

Episode recorded May 3, 2022

Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, and Hilary at [email protected]or tweet them to @ClimatePosiPod.

Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, Hilary, and Guy at [email protected].

In this episode, host Gil Jenkins speaks with Tim Hade, Co-Founder & COO of Scale Microgrid Solutions – a New Jersey-based company that designs, builds, finances, and operates distributed energy assets that are cheaper, cleaner, and more resilient. 

Tim talks about his journey since founding the company in 2015, how customer demand for resilient energy solutions is evolving, the intersection of EV fleets and microgrids, the merits of cogeneration technology, his perspective on energy security as a U.S. Air Force veteran, the prospects for federal climate legislation, and much more.

Links:

Website

Tim Hade on LinkedIn

Tim Hade on Twitter

Scale Microgrid Solutions on Twitter

Scale Microgrid Solutions on LinkedIn

Episode recorded: April 8, 022 

Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, and Hilary at [email protected]or tweet them to @ClimatePosiPod.

Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, Hilary, and Guy at [email protected].

The impacts of climate change are front and center. Rising temperatures, volatile weather events, and poor air quality affect our physical and mental health in dangerous new ways. From increasing the risk of infectious disease to amplifying emotional stress and anxiety—even the healthiest among us are at risk. Bonnie Schneider has tracked environmentally linked physiological impacts throughout her career as a Peabody Award-winning TV journalist, meteorologist, and founder of Weather & Wellness©—a platform that explores the connection between weather, climate change, and health.

In this episode, host Gil Jenkins speaks with Bonnie about her most recent book, Taking the Heat, How Climate Change Is Affecting Your Mind, Body, and Spirit and What You Can Do About It. In Taking the Heat, Bonnie provides crucial and practice advice from a broad range of science experts and medical professionals.
 

Links:

Bonnie Schneider Website

Weather and Wellness® Website

Bonnie Schneider LinkedIn

Bonnie Schneider Twitter

Taking the Heat: How Climate Change Is Affecting Your Mind, Body, and Spirit and What You Can Do About It

Article: I'm A Meteorologist & This Is How Climate Change Is Affecting Your Health, By Bonnie Schneider, Mind Body Green, April 4, 2022)

Article: ‘OK Doomer’ and the Climate Advocates Who Say It’s Not Too Late, The New York Times, March 22, 2022)

Episode recorded: April 7, 2022

Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, and Hilary at [email protected] or tweet them to @ClimatePosiPod.

Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, Hilary, and Guy at [email protected].

People want performance. As sustainability focused as a new product can be, if it is truly attempting to dominate the market, the new product has to be as good as or better than the less sustainable incumbent it is looking to replace. This is especially true with sustainable food. To this end, many of us have searched – often in vain – for plant-based dairy products, such as ice cream and cheese, that are both delicious and environmentally sustainable.  

In this episode, Chad Reed sits down with Tim Wildin, CEO of Vertage. Using a chef-driven, science-backed, and consumer-focused approach, Vertage develops and sells delicious plant-based cheeses to restaurants across the spectrum in select U.S. cities. Tim talks about his career journey through the sustainable food space, how he teamed up with Chef Margaux Riccio to found Vertage, the secret sauce behind Vertage’s plant-based cheeses, and much more. 

Links

• Vertage
• Flexitarian Diet
• Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat

Episode recorded March 22, 2022

Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, Hilary, and Guy at [email protected].

Are there unavoidable tradeoffs between human economic development and environmental conservation? Long before there were carbon offsets to help address climate change, there were environmental offsets – or projects undertaken to counterbalance significant but unavoidable negative impacts to wetlands, streams, and other important natural resources caused by infrastructure, commercial, industrial, or residential development. In the U.S., these sorts of projects are actually mandated by various state and federal environmental permitting regulations. But many of us – including many environmentalists – are completely unaware of the environmental offset market and how it works. 

In this episode, Chad Reed sits down with Nick Dilks, Managing Partner at Ecosystem Investment Partners (or EIP). EIP acquires, restores, and permanently protects conservation properties and sells the mitigation credits generated by the projects to a diverse group of customers who must offset their unavoidable environmental impacts. Nick discusses EIP’s role in the environmental offset and mitigation banking markets in support of environmental restoration at scale. Note that EIP is a client of Hannon Armstrong.

We also note and celebrate today the one year anniversary of the launch of the Climate Positive Podcast. With support from Hannon Armstrong, Chad, Hilary, and Gil started this podcast to delve into both the personal stories of the leaders, innovators, and changemakers driving our climate positive future and the sometimes wonky details of the wide array of climate positive topics and initiatives these leaders are engaged with. We encourage you to check out each of our first year’s 20 episodes, and we thank you for listening. 

Links

• Ecosystem Investment Partners
• The Conservation Fund
• Copperas Stream Mitigation Bank

Episode recorded March 10, 2022

Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, Hilary, and Guy at [email protected].

In this episode, host Gil Jenkins speaks with Paula Glover, president of the Alliance to Save Energy – a bipartisan, nonprofit coalition of business, government, environmental, and consumer leaders advocating to advance federal energy efficiency policy. Since its founding 45 years ago, the Alliance has played an integral role in nearly every major energy efficiency policy achievement on the national stage.  

Paula and the Alliance team believe that a nation that uses energy more productively can achieve economic growth, a cleaner environment, and greater energy security, affordability, and reliability. It was wonderful to sit down with Paula roughly one year into her tenure as president of the Alliance. We are lucky to have such a wise, passionate, joyful, and dedicated person leading the charge for energy efficiency in America!

Links:

Bio

Paula on Twitter

Paula on LinkedIn

Always Bet on Black: Conversations with African American energy thought leaders covering a variety of topics hosted by Paula Glover

Alliance to Save Energy

Alliance to Save Energy Twitter

Active Efficiency Collaborative

Op-Ed: Want Environmental Justice? Look to Energy Efficiency (Politico, Paula Glover, February 1, 2021)

Op-Ed: The clean energy economy has a diversity problem. Let’s change that as we build back.(Canary Media, Paula Glover, July 22, 2021)

Article: 21 Wins For Energy Efficiency In 2021 (Ellie Long, December 30, 2021)

Robert’s Rules of Order
 

Episode recorded: February 23, 2022

Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, and Hilary at [email protected]or tweet them to @ClimatePosiPod.

Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, Hilary, and Guy at [email protected].

In this episode, Chad Reed and Jeff Eckel sit down with Jeff Hooke, senior finance lecturer at the Johns Hopkins Carey School of Business and acclaimed author, to discuss his new book, The Myth of Private Equity, An inside Look at Wall Street’s Transformative Investments.

Jeff dives deep into his thesis that certain private equity funds aren’t nearly as successful as they claim to be and that, as a result, many of their investors, including the pension funds of public employees, are subject to more risk than they think—with taxpayers potentially and ultimately on the hook for unexpected underperformance. Jeff also explores a similar dynamic plaguing the ESG investment space.

While more financially focused than many other Climate Positive episodes, we chose to focus on this topic as we believe it is of increasing importance to both taxpayers and investors—including anyone with retirement savings—as we all look to put our dollars into investments that are both profitable and climate positive. 

Links

• The Myth of Private Equity: An Inside Look at Wall Street’s Transformative Investments
• Washington Post: Maryland is wasting its pensioners’ money
• Jeff Hooke Bio

Episode recorded: February 7, 2022

Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, and Hilary at [email protected]or tweet them to @ClimatePosiPod.

Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, Hilary, and Guy at [email protected].