The Decarbonization Race

On this episode of the Decarbonization Race, Lincoln Payton dives deep into the world of sustainable architecture with architect Lori Ferriss, who's worked across her career to square sustainability, historic preservation and aesthetic concerns in cities swimming in history, like Boston.

As Director of Sustainability and Climate Action at Boston architectural firm Goody Clancy, Lori leads research initiatives and project design and implementation serving a range of sectors including higher education. For Lori, building reuse is a significant form of climate action. Her far-reaching work has expanded the role of architects while simultaneously elevating building reuse as a prime way to combat climate change.

Lori and Lincoln discuss the interplay between both operational and embodied carbon in buildings, debating investments to reduce carbon emissions through retrofitting or new-build construction (including with the Carbon Avoided Retrofit Estimator or CARE Tool, which Lori helped develop), policies passed by cities like London and Cambridge, Massachusetts that prioritize life cycle assessments and emissions disclosure, and changes in the materials being used like biogenic materials for insulation or green cement or steel.

Key Takeaways:

1. Boston has implemented policies and ordinances to achieve net-zero operations for commercial buildings such as the Building Energy and Reporting Disclosure Ordinance (BERDO 2.0) to achieve net-zero operations for commercial buildings over 20,000 sqft. BERDO 2.0 requires disclosure and reporting followed by reductions, with a financial penalty for non-compliance. Boston's zero net carbon zoning policy complements BERDO by requiring new buildings to meet similar standards.

2. Biogenic materials are becoming more viable for commercial construction. These natural materials like wood, cross-laminated timber, hemp, and straw bale are becoming more viable for commercial construction, with their environmental benefits dependent on where the materials come from, how they are produced, and they are disposed of or repurposed at the end of their life cycle.

3. The CARE (Carbon Avoided Retrofit Estimator) Tool was developed to help planners, owners, and design professionals calculate the total embodied and operational carbon of existing buildings after energy efficiency upgrades or renovations. CARE can help estimate the environmental value of reusing existing buildings, and inform decisions on whether to retain buildings or demolish and build new ones.

Resources

• A Better City blog post, "BERDO 2.0 Explained"

• Carbon Avoided Retrofit Estimator (CARE) Tool

• Architecture 2030

On this Energy Minute episode, Dana Dohse and Steven Goldman take a deep dive into the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) legislation that will be taking effect in the European Union in 2024. Under the new legislation, aligning with Paris climate goals or ensuring ethical supply chains will move from voluntary practices or proactive risk management to regulatory requirements with oversight by EU nations.

Listen in as they examine the legislation's details, requirements, and potential impact on businesses and society, discuss the differences between the CSRD and the proposed SEC rules on climate-focused disclosure, how they reflect existing sustainability reporting standards such as SASB/ISSB standards, and analyze the legislation's implications and advise companies on how to prepare for compliance.

Key Takeaways

1. The EU adopted a "double materiality" approach as the basis of the new legislation, meaning it encompasses not only ESG issues with material impacts on financial performance, but also impacts of the company's operation on the environment and society.

2. Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors covered by the CSRD will be significantly more far-reaching than the proposed SEC rules on climate-focused disclosure, encompassing issues including climate change mitigation and adaptation, water and marine resources, equal treatment and opportunities, sustainability risk management and internal controls, and anti-corruption policies, to name a few.

3. Unlike the proposed SEC rules, the CSRD explicitly includes Scope 3 emissions in its carbon footprint disclosure requirements.

References

• Press release on the adoption of the CSRD: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20221107IPR49611/sustainable-economy-parliament-adopts-new-reporting-rules-for-multinationals

• https://finance.ec.europa.eu/capital-markets-union-and-financial-markets/company-reporting-and-auditing/company-reporting/corporate-sustainability-reporting_en

• Harvard Law School analysis: https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2022/08/23/eu-corporate-sustainability-reporting-directive-what-do-companies-need-to-know/

Iron Mountain Data Centers are in the vanguard of the clean energy transition: they not only run their facilities on 100% renewable energy, they are working towards a more ambitious goal, powering them with carbon-free energy 24/7.

In this episode, host Lincoln Payton dives deep into decarbonization with Chris Pennington, Director of Energy and Sustainability at Iron Mountain Data Centers, to understand the more ambitious goal, and how Iron Mountain is using hourly energy and carbon data as the foundation to match supply with consumption and help the company meet its emission goals.

Key Takeaways

• Why the future of decarbonization is moving away from annual market-based accounting methodology to hourly location-based accounting
• More granular data is key to understanding facilities' load and matching it in near-real time to available clean energy sources
• Why adopting a long-term clean energy and decarbonization strategy serves both the climate and Iron Mountain's bottom line

Resources

• What is 24/7 Carbon-Free Energy & Why It Matters

Hydrogen is used as a heat source, a fuel or a feedstock in a range of industries… but depending on how it's made, it can be a boon or hazard to our climate. Shifting to zero-carbon "green hydrogen" - produced using renewable energy sources like solar and wind - is critical for using hydrogen as a decarbonization resource, so much so that both the United States and European Union have passed legislation and targets aimed at quickly growing hydrogen adoption.

But making sure hydrogen production is indeed green is complicated, and the choices we make today will have big impacts on how quickly hydrogen use grows, and how much it helps or hurts the climate challenge in the process.

In this Energy Minute, Dana Dohse and Steven Goldman explore the complex world of hydrogen and the efforts to ensure its production is sustainable and decarbonized. They discuss the challenges of transitioning from grey to green hydrogen, the debate over how incentives should be structured to avoid decarbonizing the grid, and some of the ways hydrogen fits into the overarching goal of decarbonizing heavy industries.

Key Takeaways

1. The most common type of hydrogen produced today is "grey hydrogen," made by heating and reacting methane to break its carbon and hydrogen bonds, creating carbon emissions in the process. "Blue hydrogen" is made by capturing and storing the resulting carbon emissions in geologic formations like caverns, or built storage facilities under high pressure. If captured and stored properly, that process can abate about 90% of emissions associated with making grey hydrogen.

2. The key accelerator of green hydrogen projects in the United States is the Section 45V Production Tax Credit passed as part of the Inflation Reduction Act legislation. The 45V tax credit is a scaling tax credit tied to lifecycle hydrogen emissions through the point of production, based on how much lower the emissions from hydrogen production are relative to grey hydrogen. The highest tax credit level is set at $3 per kilogram of hydrogen, but how production qualifies is yet to be finalized by the U.S. Treasury..

3. The hydrogen "color wheel" refers to the different colors used to represent different methods and energy inputs for producing hydrogen. Grey hydrogen is produced by breaking natural gas; black and brown hydrogen respectively by converting different types of coal into syngas, then breaking that like natural gas; turquoise hydrogen by breaking natural gas and producing hydrogen and solid carbon through pyrolysis; green hydrogen by powering an electrolyzer with renewable energy to split water; and pink hydrogen by powering an electrolyzer with nuclear energy to split water.

4. The framework that a coalition of renewables and electrolyzer developers, midstream companies, think tanks, academics and nonprofits have advocated for calls for three principles: 1) additionality, requiring electrolyzers to draw power from new sources of clean electricity brought online as a direct result of that electrolyzer's construction; 2) deliverability, requiring that electrolyzers use local sources of clean electricity that are physically deliverable to the electrolyzer site; and 3) time-matching, requiring that electrolyzers run at the same time as clean electricity generation.

References

• IEA report, "The Future of Hydrogen"

• Renewable Thermal Collaborative report, "Green Hydrogen Technical Assessment"

• Energy Innovation research note, "Smart Design of 45V Hydrogen Production Tax Credit Will Reduce Emissions and Grow the Industry"

• Natural Resources Defense Council blog post, "Success of IRA Hydrogen Tax Credit Hinges on IRS and DOE"

• Spectra, "Europe Sets Rules for Producing Green Hydrogen"

• Green Hydrogen Catapult

Investing in infrastructure is different and more complex than many other investment classes, often involving significantly longer timeframes and larger capital expenditures. Investing in sustainable infrastructure — like renewable energy, energy storage, or electric vehicle fleets — can be attractive to investors but adds complexity and often requires delivering with newer technologies.

Generate Capital was founded in 2014 with an unusual approach: invest, operate and maintain a range of sustainable infrastructure assets for the long term — creating "sustainable infrastructure as a service" — that can provide extended value to investors and customers while yielding lasting environmental, social, and economic benefits.

Nam Nguyen, Chief Operating Officer of Generate Capital and a visionary leader in the clean energy sector, joins Lincoln on the podcast to talk about how she and Generate Capital's team are creating long-term impacts with strategic investments in the sustainable energy, e-mobility, waste and smart cities sectors.

Key Takeaways:

1. When Generate examines an investment opportunity, they view it through the lens of a long-term asset owner, looking at impacts and returns across 20, 30, or 40 years. Therefore, when looking at the opportunities, they are also looking for drivers that are going to factor in for the long term. In addition, they are looking at how to optimize assets and facilities so that they are lasting for a long time.

2. Generate's investment strategy isn't limited to clean energy. Part of their portfolio is a platform called Generate Upcycle, which is focused on the circular economy—keeping waste streams out of landfills, and turning that waste into something more renewable, whether it's in the form of renewable electricity, renewable natural gas, compost or other uses.

3. Generate's team has a problem-solving mindset, because markets change quickly and the world is always evolving. Because of this, Generate's team look at issues, like grid instability in California, and regularly sit down with the company's partners to ask, "how do we solve for this? How do we change the way we utilize the assets we've built to address fresh concerns? How do we optimize portfolios in different parts of our customer base?"

In time for Earth Day, Dana Dohse and Steven Goldman are joined by a special guest to talk about how to begin your journey into the ESG or sustainability career field. Over the past year, we've seen a "green wave" of skilled workers looking to shift to roles focused on sustainability or ESG issue areas, either at their current company or at a new one, or taking their talents from Big Tech to Climate Tech companies.

Mike Hower, a sustainability expert with an unconventional career trajectory, has been helping companies to report out and tell stories about their ESG and sustainability impacts in roles across the last 15 years. Mike recently founded Hower Impact, his own sustainability communications consultancy, and Impact Hired, a platform aimed at helping people find impact jobs — while making it easier for companies to find the experienced hires they need to achieve their sustainability ambitions.

In this episode, he joins Dana and Steven to dig into how professionals can transition their existing skills into sustainability and ESG-focused work, the unique challenges and strategies faced when hiring ESG professionals, how the growing climate tech is creating new opportunities, and how those already in ESG roles need to stay ahead of future regulatory requirements for ESG reporting and adoption.

Key Takeaways:

1. Nobody has perfect experience in the sustainability sector - even if you have deep experience in one sector, shifting to a new one usually requires a fresh learning curve on the specific issues that sector faces. But those shifts are possible, requiring you to master the story you have to tell around your experience and how it translates between industries.
2. When pursuing an ESG or sustainability career, make sure to focus on your soft skills - communications, ability to advocate for new initiatives, working across a range of teams - as much as technical knowledge.
3. Become a lifelong learner if you aren't already, because this space is changing so fast. Even if you recently got a degree or finished a certification, regulations and standards continually change, and you need to stay on top of relevant areas for your sector.
4. A career in sustainability takes grit and optimism - there are lots of learning curves, failures or setbacks along the way. It's a constant - but rewarding - battle as you work to solve problems and get the right initiatives in place to meet your organization's sustainability goals.

Resources:

• Environmental Defense Fund's Degrees podcast curated an excellent Green Jobs Hub for jobseekers;
• Broader green job boards include Kristy Drutman's Green Jobs Board, Green Jobs Network and GreenBiz' Sustainability Jobs board, and Ed Carley's Clean Energy & Sustainability Jobs email list on Substack;
• Specifically climate tech focused job sites include Climatebase, Climate Draft, MCJ Collective, Terra.do and Climate Tech VC - note that many of these also offer focused networking, office hours with experts, events, and in some cases training or fellowships;
• Check out the #DayInTheLife series on OpenDoorClimate to better understand what actual skills climate professionals use in their jobs (spoiler: most are non-technical skills);
• Get real-world skills and experience through a fellowship like EDF Climate Corps or the Clean Energy Leadership Institute; sustainability career coach Trish Kenlon curated a list of 18 fellowships to consider;
• Trish also put together a comprehensive list of certifications or degree paths if you're considering further education;
• Lastly, look at the hashtag #opendoorclimate on LinkedIn to find sustainability professionals offering an open-door policy.

When it comes to decarbonization, local governments have a twofold role to play: reducing the impacts of their own operations, which can be broader than one thinks depending on the footprint of county services; then in supporting the ecosystem of public, private and stakeholder groups like NGOs in growing impacts within the region.

In this episode, Lincoln is joined by Lisa Lin, who currently serves as the Director of Sustainability for Harris County, Texas, the third-largest county in the United States and home to Houston. Lisa discusses the role of driving behavior change in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, how the county is pursuing renewable energy and energy storage to create jobs and add resilience as much as curb emissions, how the county is growing its "solar-ready" status through the SolSmart program, and how her team is collaborating with both private companies and other local governments to enhance sustainability efforts.

With a background in architecture and a passion for green building, Lisa has played a crucial role in shaping sustainability initiatives for local governments across central Texas for the last 12 years. Her journey began assisting the city of Houston with its Green Office Challenge, and eventually led her to leading sustainability programs for three local governments (San Antonio, Houston and now Harris County) and Rice University. As Harris County's first Director of Sustainability for Harris County, Lisa has been instrumental in crafting Harris County's first Climate Action Plan, which includes energy conservation measures, renewable energy projects, and transportation demand management programs.

Key Takeaways:

1. A key goal for Harris County is to reduce reliance on grid power through two targets: securing a 50-100 megawatt power purchase agreement and developing up to 20 megawatts of solar and 10 megawatt-hours of battery storage projects at county facilities. The county plans to site these projects to support community centers or other facilities that can serve as "resilience hubs," protecting critical services and providing powered shelter in case of extreme weather.
2. The Inflation Reduction Act tax credits have created a range of opportunities for counties and cities to invest more heavily in renewable energy, electric vehicle deployment or clean fuel projects. The county recently conducted a series of community meetings with its precincts to see what critical assets or sites should be prioritized so they can work to leverage the new federal funding and incentives.
3. Harris County recently achieved the Silver designation in the U.S. Department of Energy's SolSmart program - a free series of trainings and resources available to towns, cities, MPOs, and regional organizations to break down barriers to solar adoption.

Resources:

• Harris County's Climate Action Plan for Internal Operations - aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions 40% by 2030 compared to the base year of 2021
• The Sunnyside Landfill Solar Project mentioned by Lisa - 52 MW of utility-scale solar being built on a local, 240-acre former landfill site that has limited reuse potential; will include 2 MW of community solar, as well as 150 MW of battery storage and an Agricultural Hub and Training Center
• The SolSmart program - provided by the U.S. Department of Energy, to help towns, cities, MPOs and regional organizations get "solar-ready" and support solar deployment in their areas
• The federal Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund - competitive grant program administered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, funds that must be disbursed by 9/30/2024
• The [National Community Solar Partnership](https://www.energy.gov/communitysolar/about-national-community-solar-partnership#:~:text=The National Community Solar Partnership (NCSP) is a coalition of,increased resilience and workforce development.), run by the U.S. Department of Energy - the program's goal is to enable community solar systems to power the equivalent of five million households by 2025 and create $1 billion in energy savings for subscribers
• Urban Sustainability Directors Network

In this Energy Minute, Dana Dohse and Steven Goldman discuss the importance of examining the marginal impact of different energy sources - using principles like additionality and emissionality - and why businesses may want to consider them in during clean energy procurement processes. Some of the world's biggest tech companies, including Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, and others are looking hard at their energy procurement through one of these lenses, with different outcomes in mind for the facilities they power or the grids they operate on.

In this segment, Dana and Steven look at the concepts of additionality and emissionality, and what they each mean for companies evaluating whether to procure clean energy through financial instruments like RECs or virtual power purchase agreements or working to directly source that power through physical PPAs or local green power/tariff programs.

Resources:

• Nature Climate Change journal article, "Renewable energy certificates threaten the integrity of corporate science-based targets"

Key Takeaways:

1. Once it is generated for transmission and delivery, all electricity fundamentally is identical - you can't distinguish between electrons. RECs are a financial construct that allows the environmental value of clean energy generated to be bought and sold, either bundled with the energy being sold or separately ("unbundled").
2. Additionality value refers to when purchasing clean energy is contributing to new capacity being added to the grid, rather than purchasing clean energy from a project that has already been in operation. For an offtaker, focusing on additionality means purchasing clean energy in ways that drive deployment of new projects in general
3. Emissionality value refers to purchasing clean energy from projects that are have lower marginal emissions compared to the local average emissions factor, in effect reducing emissions on the local grid by becoming part of the local mix. For an offtaker, focusing on emissionality means procuring from projects that have carbon reduction impacts on the grid in which your facilities are operating.

To decarbonize the world, ensuring all homeowners and communities can play a role in adopting clean energy is critical. Under the Biden Administration's Justice40 initiative, the U.S. federal government is directing 40 percent of certain funds and programs at helping low-income and historically excluded communities scale up renewables and energy storage locally.

Why those communities? Because low-income households typically have higher energy burdens - meaning they pay a larger amount of their income to their utility bill than the majority of other households.

Nicole Steele serves as a Senior Advisor for two federal agencies in key areas - leading programs like the National Community Solar Partnership at the U.S. Department of Energy and guiding deployment of the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund at the Environmental Protection Agency. Across her career, she has been working to bring clean energy deployment into low-income communities, to grow their use of clean energy and reduce their energy costs, and train new additions to the solar power workforce in the process.

In this episode, Nicole shares stories and experiences with Lincoln from the frontline of these efforts - including the range of instruments helping make it happen like financing products and community solar subscriptions - and how we can all play our part.

Key Takeaways:

1. The Inflation Reduction Act created a huge pool of resources to help communities adopt clean energy, but the EPA is continuing to fine-tune the approach to make sure communities most in need are being heard and made aware of opportunities. To do that, the EPA has already held a nationwide RFI process and continues to hold town hall listening sessions to ensure communities can discuss their needs.
2. The goal of $7 billion of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund is to deploy residential or community solar and/or storage in disadvantaged and low-income communities. This is part the administration's goal to make the building sector decarbonized by 2035, and the economy by 2050.
3. Programs at both the EPA and DOE are part of the Justice40 initiative - the product of an executive order requiring that a minimum of 40% of the benefits of certain programs flow to disadvantaged communities.

Resources:

• GRID Alternatives, the organization Nicole led in the mid-Atlantic region
• The Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool - a geospatial mapping tool developed for the Justice40 initiative to identify disadvantaged communities that are marginalized, underserved, and overburdened by pollution
• The Disadvantaged Communities Reporter - a Department of Energy mapping tool intended to allow users to explore and produce reports on census tracts DOE has categorized as disadvantaged communities

Today, discussions on decarbonization are focused about what we need to build - more clean energy assets, more electric vehicles, more hydrogen and EV-charging infrastructure, more new efficient buildings or software and equipment to make older building more efficient. But a soon-to-be-huge issue that's emerging is waste - retired solar panels, wind turbines and blades, batteries from electric vehicles and energy storage - and what to do with it all.

In this Energy Minute, co-hosts Dana Dohse and Steven Goldman pull back the lens and take a broader look at the challenges of end-of-life materials pose to the clean energy transition, and how a mix of startups, local governments and heavy industrial companies are finding ways to reuse, repurpose and recycle solar panels, wind blades and turbines and batteries. They provide insights on some of the early efforts - and big funding rounds - underway to close the loop on materials in the clean energy supply chain.

Key Takeaways:

• New recycling technology has the potential to separate out the elements that are caught up in the "hash," such as silicon, polysilicon, and silver. Those materials are expected to become more valuable over time due to virgin material shortages and supply chain bottlenecks.
• The cumulative mass of decommissioned wind turbine blades in the U.S. will reach 1.5 million metric tons by 2040 and 2.2 million tons by 2050. The largest blades being deployed today - turning to power 15-megawatt offshore wind turbines - are over 350 feet long, roughly the length of a football field, so keeping them from taking up landfill space is critical for communities.
• A recent partnership between the Environmental Solutions and Services division of Veolia North America, an energy, water, and waste company, and GE Renewables to build a recycling program has already turned 2,000 of these giant blades into an alternative valuable commodity, which is cement.

Resources:

• Organizations mentioned in this show: SOLARCYCLE, Veolia North America, Carbon Rivers, Global Fiberglass Solutions, Ascend Elements, Redwood Materials, Li-Cycle
• The Renewable Energy Laboratory wind turbine study: https://www.nrel.gov/news/program/2021/nrel-research-identifies-motivations-methods-for-achieving-a-circular-economy-for-wind-energy.html
• Article on Veolia partnering with GE for renewable energy blades: https://www.veolia.com/en/news/united-states-veolia-makes-cement-and-gives-second-life-ge-renewable-energys-wind-turbine