This Week in MCJ (7/18/20)
With diversity comes strength.
Hey all,
One thing I am a huge believer in is that, by surrounding yourself with diverse backgrounds, perspective, skill sets, and experiences, you achieve better, more durable results. It is one of the reasons I am so excited about the MCJ community.
We curate the community for certain consistent attributes:
1) determination to tackle the problem of climate change
2) ambition to work on the most impactful solutions
3) optimism we can make meaningful progress
4) a collaborative spirit
But beyond those shared attributes, the perspectives in the MCJ community are incredibly diverse, and getting more so every day. This makes for both an incredible learning opportunity for all of us, but also a chance for us to pressure test new ideas or solutions together in a way that not many people have access to.
To that end, I saw this tweet (thread) from @chamath tonight.
In it, he says he is looking to allocate a few billion dollars to climate change over the next several years. He is requesting proposals for frameworks he and his team can use to buy and build companies/technologies/products that result in a holding company that can meaningfully advance the efforts of decarbonization/climate change/sustainability. Submissions need to be 7 pages or less, and are due by August 1. And finalists not only get cash prices, but potentially job offers to help implement their plan, too!
Now, this is a really cool idea. I am excited to see someone like Chamath moving into climate action in such an aggressive way (he has only one speed, haha), and I am excited to see the output that comes out the other side of this process!
It also feels like something I’d love to take a crack at. And while I (or me and Thai!) could go it alone, it sure feels like we would come up with a better result if we did it in collaboration with all of you!
So, for anyone that is interested, we are going to set up a channel in Slack and a project team to try to tackle this together, as a community. I don’t know how it will go, but it is a great opportunity to test our thesis that the diversity in our community will lead to incredible results.
If you are interested, drop me or Thai a note in Slack and we will get you initiated to the project team. This is going to be fun. And if you aren’t an MCJ member yet (you need to be a member to access the Slack room), you can learn more about membership here.
Jason
📼Episodes
Here’s this week’s episode, in case you missed it.
Episode 112: Rebecca Henderson, John and Natty McArthur University Professor at Harvard University
In her position at Harvard, Rebecca has a joint appointment at the Harvard Business School in both the general management and strategy units. She's also a research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Her work explores how organizations respond to large scale technological shifts most recently in regard to energy and the environment. She teaches “Reimagining Capitalism” in the MBA program and recently published a new book called, "Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire," which was released on April 28th.
We have a great discussion in this episode about the role of capitalism in society, what has gone well with capitalism, what has gone not so well, and what needs to change as we enter this next era. We also talk a lot about climate change, how to think about the problem, the path forward, and how Rebecca came to be doing this work to begin with. She has a fascinating journey, and I know it was helpful for me as I'm navigating my own. I hope you find it helpful too!
🙋🏾Member Request
MCJer and Co-Founder of Charm Industrial, Peter Reinhardt, is seeking to connect with anyone that has relationships at major steel manufacturers or regulatory bodies. You can DM him in the MCJ Slack.
🏗What You’re Building
Projects and ventures being built by fellow MCJers.
A Meta-Analysis of 100+ MCJ Interview by ADL Ventures
MCJer Chris Richardson, who we feature below in this week’s spotlight, and his team put together a fascinating analysis for listeners of the MCJ podcast. His firm, ADL Ventures, sees MCJ as a large-scale voice of the customer study on the challenges and barriers the climate community faces today. In its latest article, A Meta-Analysis of the My Climate Journey Podcast, ADL shares a robust analysis of over 300 “wishes” outlined by Jason’s 100+ interviewees and the five major themes that emerged from the analysis. From that webpage, you can sign up to access a free dynamic analysis of the underlying data.
ADL would love to collaborate with the MCJ technical community to make this a living, crowdsourced analysis. If anyone is interested in taking this on, please reach out directly Chris at chris@adlventures.com or in MCJ Slack.
🔦Member Spotlight: Chris Richardson, Principal at ADL Ventures
If you are an MCJ member and want to submit your story for consideration or nominate another member, feel free to do so here. We can’t promise it will make the newsletter, but we will choose one to run each week and attempt to include as many as we can over time.
Together with a team of "well-behaved entrepreneurs" at ADL Ventures, I work to help legacy-sector companies navigate and even lead disruption…without breaking them. Electric utilities, building materials companies, and other legacy-sector companies are risk-averse for a reason: the consequences of failure are severe.
After decades of incremental change, these risk-averse industries are ripe for disruption. We help these legacy-sector companies drive toward a zero-carbon future by tapping into a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem. An openness to innovation and even disruption is what will allow these legacy sector companies to thrive while playing an essential role in the climate fight.
There are three areas in which we look to drive innovation.
Technology: We work with legacy-sector companies to solve seemingly intractable technical problems, such as working with an electric utility to turn non-merchantable woody biomass into a carbon sink.
Policy: We work with the Department of Energy on many initiatives, including the Advanced Building and Construction Collaborative (alongside Rocky Mountain Institute). The Collaborative is an effort to align the stakeholders in building space behind off-site construction, which is foundational to grid-interactive, energy-efficient buildings.
Business Model: We work with clients to build new businesses out of non-core assets. Ask me about our recent spin-out of a software platform from a utility that couldn't monetize home-grown innovation in the absence of a novel business model.
We're hiring, so check out our team page at www.adlventures.com.
And in our blog section, check out our recent Meta-Analysis of 100+ MCJ episodes, referenced in this newsletter. We love identifying problems that need to be solved so that we can do something about them! We hope that this is a helpful resource for the MCJ community.
💼Climate Jobs
Here are some jobs shared by members of the MCJ community that we think might be of interest to you. Many of these opportunities and the MCJers who shared them can be found in #climatejobs in the MCJ Slack.
Fall Internship at Homecoming Capital in San Francisco, CA (PDF of job description). N.B. Application due by August 11th.
Designer at Stripe’s climate team in var. locations and U.S. remote (job listing). Contact Jeff Weinstein at jweinstein AT stripe DOT com if interested.
Front-End Developer at Cooler in multiple locations possible (job description). Contact MCJer and Cooler CEO, Michel Gelobter at michel AT cooler DOT dev if interested.
Associate in Agriculture at Deep Science Ventures (remote) (job listing).
Accounting Manager at Elemental Excelerator in Honolulu, HI (job listing)
Firmware Engineer at SparkMeter in Washington, D.C. (job listing)
Assoc. Product Manager et al. at 2NDNATURE in Santa Cruz, CA (careers page)
Multiple Associate Professorships of Climate Equity and Social Justice at U.C. Berkeley in Berkeley, CA (job listing and tweet). (H/T to Mike Olson)
📢Climate News
Highlights of news this week related to climate change.
As reported by Tech Crunch, ClassPass Co-Founder, Sanjiv Sanghavi, joins Arcadia as Chief Product Officer.
As cited below, Joe Biden’s presidential campaign has released a $2T climate plan.
As reported by The Economist, scientists in Russia are citing climate change as the cause for a record recorded warming in Siberia.
Reuters is reporting that NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced a $750MM investment, aimed at developing EV charging stations and infrastructure throughout the state. The goal is to build 50K charging stations in NY.
📰🎧Recommended Reading/Listening
Below are recently published articles and content that we find interesting and/or that were shared by fellow MCJers.
The Wall Street Journal: “Universities Cut Oil Investments as Student Activism Builds” (PDF Link)
Spurred by pressure from students and faculty, an increasing number of universities are divesting their endowment from fossil fuel companies. However, some like CalPERS Director of Sustainable Investments, Anne Simpson (Ep.99 guest), see divestment as counterproductive: “We are using our position as owners of these companies to drive change. Walking away from a situation is not going to change it.”
The Wall Street Journal: “Joe Biden Set to Release $2 Trillion Climate Agenda” (PDF Link)
Having coalesced policies from the progressive and moderate wings of the Democratic party, the Biden campaign has released the broad contours of his climate agenda.
Bloomberg: “BNP Paribas Starts a Fund to Bet Against Polluters”
Having netted gains of 35% this year by investing in the renewable energy sector, BNP Paribas is now betting against companies and sectors that are being disrupted by the clean energy transition.
Bloomberg: “Procter & Gamble’s Climate Commitment Leaves Most Emissions Untouched”
This article delves into how P&G, whose products serve over 5B people worldwide, is falling short of making meaningful climate commitments. Aware of this, P&G has outlined a plan for curbing the bulk of its emissions that is generated from its vast supply chain.
👏Special Shoutout to “How To Save A Planet”
It was recently announced that Gimlet & Spotify have produced a new podcast series focused on climate change, co-hosted by Alex Blumberg and Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson. Congrats to them and MCJer and Sr. Producer Lauren Silverman — we’re thrilled to have more voices elevating attention of the climate crisis and its solutions in the public discourse! Look out for the first episode to air on August 6th.
🎟Climate Events
Past and upcoming events organized or surfaced by your fellow MCJers.
"Elections as a Lever on Climate Action: an MCJ Exploration" (Monday, July 20, 3 PM EST)
Join us for a panel discussion on July 20th at 12p PT/3p ET, the first event in a 3-part series to explore the 2020 elections as a lever on climate action. This conversation will lay the foundation for this inquiry with a look at the critical work climate 501(c)4s are doing to set the stage for new leadership to advance climate positive policy.
The panelists are
- Tamara Toles O'Laughlin, North America Director @ 350
- Kodiak Hill-Davis, Director of Government Affairs @ Niskanen
- Tiernan Sittenfeld, Senior VP, Government Affairs @ League of Conservation VotersLearn more and register here!
Elevate Conservation: “Outdoors For All (Monday, July 20, 6 PM EST)
Elevate Conservation is hosting a virtual event, bringing together Colorado and national conservation organizations, outdoor retailers, and community leaders. The purpose is to foster and maintain efforts around conservation, climate change mitigation, public land policy and equity. Register here.
Climate & Environmental Justice Panel (Saturday, July 25th, 1 PM EST)
MCJers Amy Wang & Gareth Gransaull are putting together a panel on climate / environmental justice for the MCJ community. Given recent events that have exposed systemic racial injustice, they wanted to spend some time reflecting on how the community can weave a “justice and decolonization-lens” throughout their work. They want to make sure that the community is covering these in the most appropriate way. If there are particular topics or issues you would like them to cover, please let them know by DMing them in the MCJ Slack! They are also still looking for speaker recommendations. They currently have Sharon Lewis, the Executive Director of Connecticut Coalition for Environmental Justice, confirmed for the panel. If you have any other suggestions, please let them know!
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