The Role of Conventional Professionals in the ClimateTech Revolution
Over the past 3 years, I’ve had the opportunity to interview over 100 individuals on the CleanTechies Podcast. These have ranged from VCs to Founders, to CEOs, to Product Officers, to Thought Leaders. Something I’ve found fascinating is how some of the most interesting innovations come from folks with no previous “climate” experience.
An example of this that I think of often is Gridware founded by Timothy Barat. He started out as a lineman in Australia at a young age. Through his experience there, he came to understand the nuances of issues with transmission system outages.
During a blackout, finding the source of the outage could take a long time in some instances. So he came up with a method using IoT devices to discover the source of the issue faster. This has a cost to it of course, but allows the utility to save millions by identifying issues down to the pole. Doing this allows the utilities to stop a wildfire from happening. It also saves them from paying out millions through lawsuits and remuneration for the property destruction caused.
This is a relatively simple solution, but it was best solved by someone like Tim who understood how things worked on the ground.
This takes me to the point of today. Given that every industry needs to be “reinvented” or “reengineered” in a Climate Conscious way, we need professionals from the non-climate spaces to start thinking about climate. These individuals are uniquely aware of the issues facing their industries, and if they put on the climate cap, they can begin to find ways to make their industries more sustainable.
So, how do you make your industry more sustainable?
Well, the common things you should pay attention to are,
Energy efficiency - this is a big one and something that the US has large issues with. According to Phys.org, about 58% of the energy produced in the US is wasted through inefficiency.
So, if you’re an electrical engineer, you likely can make an impact in your space by finding ways to make the devices around you significantly more efficient (as an example).Transportation - transporting goods long distances currently has a negative impact on the environment due to the carbon emissions of transport vehicles. Currently, transportation makes up about 39% of global Co2 emissions.
Yes, in the future we may see a world where almost all transport is electrified, but we are still pretty far away from that being the reality. Far enough that if you can find a way to produce your goods closer to the point of use, you could be making a large impact. There are likely many opportunities for improvement in this area across the industrial materials sectors.Circularity - if you are not in the climate space, this may sound like a made-up word to you but I promise it’s not. There are many companies taking items or other materials and using them in the production of new items or materials. An example is the Nothing New shoe brand, making shoes out of water bottles.
However, there is also another angle of circularity which is designing your products in ways that allow you to recycle them after their use in order to have a closed-loop system. An example of a company with technology in this space is Green Li-ion, helping recycle the minerals in a lithium-ion battery so they can be used in the production of new Li-ion batteries in the future.Cost Centers - if you work in a company that is often paying large amounts to compensate for the losses of customers or to cover repairs - or if your organization suffers massive losses due to equipment downtime, this is an area for opportunity.
Finding ways to prevent this or significantly reduce this can be an easy sell to such organizations. Worth noting, this is not always going to be climate-related, but in the example given above (Gridware) these two are directly tied. Preventing wildfires also saves the utilities money.
On the adaptation side of things, there will certainly be prevention methods that can reduce the negative impacts of climate change in the future - this would be an area to keep an eye out for.
These are the four areas that come most to mind, there are of course others, but these four shine bright and cover a large swath of areas for innovation.
So what now?
Interested in taking action? Not sure where to start? The first tangible thing I can do is suggest you reach out or comment with the industry you work in, and what you’re interested in. I will do my best to recommend you examples from the podcast of folks who have been in a similar place.
I would also encourage you to join the Work On Climate community. They help upskill people and are really well-reputed.
If you’re a commercially minded person, with some specific industry experience, you can consider applying to be part of the LabStart program. They help Climate Entreprenuers commercialize technologies from one of many, of the national labs and move it further in the development cycle.
Probably the most important thing for you to do if you’re serious about this is, just start thinking and reading. If you are thinking, how can I help solve a climate problem in my industry, and continue thinking deeply about it, you will likely stumble upon a solution eventually. It’s never truly a Eureka moment, but you will get an idea and from there you iterate.
As you can see, I’m a big fan of “regular” people doing things in climate. I think that “regular” people have so much to contribute. You don’t have to be a Ph.D. or a Policy Maker to make a change. Innovation is the way society has advanced to this date, and it is the way we will get ourselves out of this climate pickle.
Proceed with patience and determination, the results will be incredible!
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You can also check out the podcast on your favorite audio player or on YouTube. As noted, we have spoken with a lot of founders and VCs so you should be able to pull a lot of insight and advice from the folks who have been where you’re going.