America invented the clean energy future. Now it may be dismantling it, just as the rest of the world hits the accelerator.

The U.S. was first. The first silicon solar cell in New Jersey. The first wind turbine in Cleveland. The first microinverter in a California garage.

But now it’s China scaling the clean energy transition—building factories, locking in supply chains, and racing toward a low-carbon economy at industrial speed.

In the U.S., the president just signed the Big Beautiful Bill into law—gutting the historic clean energy investments at the heart of the Inflation Reduction Act. The country that helped invent the clean energy future is now stepping back. Just as solar keeps getting cheaper. Just as global investment hits $2 trillion. Just as the low-carbon transition starts to tip.

David Roberts, founder of Volts, has spent 20 years as a journalist tracking this shift. In this episode, he joins Josh Dorfman to dissect the precarious moment we find ourselves in—when America’s energy future is uncertain, global momentum is accelerating, and the clean energy transition won’t wait. They talk solar’s 60-year cost curve, energy policy, and why the real revolution may be happening from the bottom up.

This is what it looks like when the politics retreat—but the transition doesn’t.

Show Notes

Guest: David Roberts 

Company: Volts

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TerraCycle takes on waste the rest of the world ignores—cigarette butts, diapers, pharmaceutical blister packs.

But what makes the model work isn’t what they recycle. It’s how they get companies to pay for it.

Even with one of the boldest missions in climate tech—eliminate the idea of waste—TerraCycle doesn’t lead with sustainability. It leads with the business case.

In this episode, CEO Tom Szaky shares with host Josh Dorfman how the company has grown for 23 straight years by solving a problem no one wanted: how to make recycling hard-to-process waste worth paying for. Salons use it to attract new customers. Labs use it to retain top talent. Big brands use it to build loyalty. Every program works because it helps someone grow their business.

Tom also explains how Loop, TerraCycle’s reuse division for consumer packaging, is scaling fast in France and Japan. The reason isn’t culture. It’s the right rules and incentives.

This is a conversation about reimagining the entire business model of recycling and reuse—so waste stays out of the landfill, and the value shows up on the P&L.

Show Notes

Guest: Tom Szaky, CEO

Company: TerraCycle

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When Roger Griffiths first heard about Formula E in 2014, he was intrigued but skeptical. A veteran of IndyCar, Le Mans, and Formula 1—and a self-described petrol head—he wasn’t convinced electric racing could deliver credible performance.

Then he saw who was signing on.

Michael Andretti. Alain Prost. Emerson Fittipaldi. Frank Williams. Plus early backers like Richard Branson. Racing legends and global brands were putting their reputations behind an all-electric series built for city streets, digital-native fans, and a new kind of mobility.

That’s when Roger knew: failure wasn’t an option.

He joined Andretti Global to help lead its Formula E team. Today, he’s Team Principal and Chairman of the Formula E Teams Association.

Just over a decade later, Formula E is the fastest-growing motorsport on Earth. It races through city centers, draws 500 million fans, and connects with a global audience that legacy motorsports can’t reach.

Roger takes us inside how Formula E became the sport brands chase, fans love, and the future demands.

Show Notes

Guest: Roger Griffiths, Team Principal, Andretti Formula E

Company: Andretti Global

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Grid battery storage has gone from niche to necessary. Fast. Projects that were once 300 megawatt-hours are now hitting 9 gigawatt-hours. And companies like Wärtsilä are leading the charge, taking on the hardest, highest-stakes deployments around the world.

In this episode, Dave Hebert, VP of Global Sales & Business Strategy for Wärtsilä's Energy Storage division, takes us inside the systems powering the clean energy transition. Wärtsilä has deployed over 17 gigawatt-hours of storage—enough to power millions of homes for hours at a time—across more than 130 projects worldwide. Many of these are first-of-a-kind systems built in remote deserts, on islands, and in densely populated urban neighborhoods, where batteries now operate alongside people, not just power lines.

Dave shares what it takes to deliver at this level: fire safety, noise control, seismic readiness, cybersecurity, and software managing millions of real-time data points across every cell.

Battery storage now sits at the heart of the energy transition. It’s how we make solar and wind reliable. How we stabilize grids shaped by AI, EVs, and electrified homes. Wärtsilä is building that future, where others won’t.

Show Notes

Guest: Dave Hebert, VP of Global Sales & Business Strategy

Company: Wärtsilä Energy Storage

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Jaime Pumarejo helped lead Barranquilla, Colombia, through a stunning transition. When he first joined the city’s government in his twenties, Barranquilla was under bankruptcy protection, poverty was high, and public trust was fractured. Today, it serves as a global model for how climate action can drive economic growth, attract investment, and deliver tangible benefits to people’s lives.

In 2020, when Pumarejo became mayor, he accelerated the transformation. He established a public-private tree company to enhance property values, increase tax revenue, and enhance climate resilience. Delivered 300 parks co-designed by residents. Made biodiversity and eco-tourism part of the city’s economic engine. And positioned Barranquilla to lead on clean energy, with major solar projects and Colombia’s first offshore wind farm underway.

Jaime also secured capital on better terms. Convinced development banks to change how they lend. And showed that cities aren’t risky—they’re investable.

Now, as a member of the SDSN Global Commission for Urban SDG Finance, he’s helping cities around the world unlock the climate capital they need to cut emissions and build the low-carbon future.

This is what the ROI on climate looks like. Not someday—now.

Show Notes

Guest: Jaime Pumarejo

Organization: SDSN Global Commission for Urban SDG Finance, whose Secretariat is housed at the Penn Institute for Urban Research (Penn IUR)

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The energy grid we know today was built for a different era—centralized generation, one-way power flow, no rooftop solar, no EVs, no AI-driven demand. If Thomas Edison were alive, he’d recognize it instantly. And that’s the problem.

Raghu Belur bet the system would have to change. In 2006, he co-founded Enphase Energy and started from the distributed edge, designing a microinverter that made every solar panel smart, efficient, and self-reliant.

That foundation became the starting point for a new kind of energy system—built to turn homes into mini power plants and partners to the grid, not just customers.

Today, Enphase delivers integrated home energy systems encompassing solar, storage, EV charging, and intelligent management software that give homeowners control, reliability, and resilience in a rapidly shifting energy landscape.

Raghu’s story embodies the American Dream—a young immigrant who came to the U.S. to study engineering, absorbed the best of Silicon Valley, and built a company reshaping how energy works in homes around the world. He joins Supercool to discuss how the decentralized grid isn’t just some day, it’s already here.

Show Notes

Guest: Raghu Belur, Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer

Company: Enphase Energy

Video link referenced: American Innovation: Making Enphase Batteries in Texas

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If food waste were a country, it would be the third-largest emitter, right behind the United States and China, accounting for 8-10% of global carbon emissions. It’s a staggering problem: 30% of all food produced globally goes to waste. And for supermarkets already operating on razor-thin margins, that waste translates into billions of dollars lost every year.

At the heart of the problem? A broken pricing model. Food hits an arbitrary sell-by date—and it’s trashed.

Oded Omer thought that was absurd. So he built Wasteless, an AI-powered platform that helps grocers sell more food before it expires. Wasteless’ system uses dynamic discounting to find the sweet spot—just enough of a price reduction to move products at the right moment, without slashing margins.

Today, grocers across Europe, the Americas, and beyond are embracing Wasteless. It’s not just a product—it’s business model innovation. Wasteless created a category that didn’t exist, and now it’s become the shorthand for solving the food waste problem—like Netflix is to streaming, or Kleenex is to tissues.

In this episode, Oded shares how he built Wasteless into a global category leader—and why solving food waste is both a climate and profit imperative.

Show Notes

Guest: Oded Omer

Company: Wasteless

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Before becoming the youngest elected mayor in Quito’s history, Mauricio Rodas had already founded a political party, launched a think tank in Mexico City, and run for president.

In 1944, when the global financial system was designed, just 29% of the world lived in cities. Today, that number has nearly doubled to 56%. Cities now account for more than 70% of global emissions and 80% of energy consumption—yet most still can’t access the capital they need to fund climate solutions. The system, built at the tail end of World War II, wasn’t made for them.

Mauricio Rodas knows that firsthand. As mayor of Quito, he had to fight for national approval to fund the city’s subway. Now he’s working to change the rules. As co-lead of the SDSN Global Commission for Urban SDG Finance, he’s helping reshape the global financial architecture needed to unlock climate capital for cities.

Mauricio joins Supercool to discuss subways, politics, public luxury goods, institutional entrepreneurship, and the global effort to rewrite outdated financial rules so cities can rapidly deploy the next generation of climate solutions.

Supercool is collaborating with the Commission’s Secretariat, hosted at the University of Pennsylvania, to feature global mayors at the forefront of this movement.

Show Notes

Guest: Mauricio Rodas

Organization:
- Former Mayor of Quito, Ecuador
- Visiting Scholar, Penn Institute of Urban Research, University of Pennsylvania
- Co-Lead, SDSN Global Commission for Urban SDG Finance

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Circularity isn’t just about keeping t-shirts and jeans out of landfills. Done right, it’s a growth engine for brands. That’s exactly what Trove is building: the recommerce technology that drives margins, attracts new customers, and streamlines operations.

As the resale platform behind Patagonia, Levi’s, Brooks, Arc'teryx, Carhartt, and Canada Goose, Trove helps brands give their products a second, third, even fourth life—while driving profitable growth.

For CEO Terry Boyle, an e-commerce veteran of major shopping sites like Nordstromrack.com, Zulily, HauteLook, and Trunk Club, circularity was never going to scale on sustainability values alone. It had to deliver clear business results.

Trove has built that system and is now scaling it globally. Today, more than 75% of U.S. brands with branded take-back and resale programs run on Trove. With strategic acquisitions accelerating growth in the U.S. and Europe, the company aims to become the largest e-commerce player no one’s ever heard of, seamlessly operating on the backend to deliver world-class resale experiences on the front end.

For brands that want to grow, the next evolution of retail is circular and profitable.

Show Notes

Guest: Terry Boyle, Chief Executive Officer

Company: Trove

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As mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees helped launch a billion-pound public-private partnership to decarbonize his city, one of the most ambitious deals of its kind anywhere in the world.

This wasn’t just about climate targets. It was about results: cutting emissions, cutting energy bills, creating jobs, and improving housing — all while building a long-term investment model that gave private partners confidence and gave residents real benefits they could feel.

When Marvin started, the city had no budget, limited staff, and a local government still reeling from years of austerity. So he got creative. He turned Bristol’s public assets into a platform for investment and built the capacity to get a 20-year deal signed, funded, and delivered.

Now, Marvin is helping cities around the world do the same through a new global commission to mobilize climate finance for urban action; the SDSN Global Commission for Urban SDG Finance.

Supercool is collaborating with the Commission’s Secretariat, hosted at the University of Pennsylvania, to conduct a series of episodes with global mayors at the forefront of this movement.

Show Notes

Guest: Marvin Rees

Organization: Member of the House of Lords of the United Kingdom, former Mayor of Bristol, and Distinguished Visiting Fellow (2024–2025 Academic Year, Perry Ward House at University of Pennsylvania)

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