Decarbonizing the industrial sector is the next frontier in climate action, but for Dimensional Energy’s Co-Founder & CEO, Jason Salfi, the work doesn’t stop there. Dimensional Energy is instilling climate justice principles throughout their business, beginning by pairing sustainable, carbon neutral fuel development with binding community engagement processes. Their work to foster equitable relationships between technologists and the public could make the difference between solving the clima...
Apr 05, 2023•21 min•Ep. 47
Executive leadership in today’s highly-complex innovation economy requires more than the traditional investment in IP, market transformation, and engineers. According to this week’s Age of Adoption (formerly Raising Your Antenna ) special guest, the most competitive, resilient startups depend on emotional awareness that begins at the C-Level. This is particularly true in the wake of the Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse in March 2023, whereby bank executives made a series of risky decisions with li...
Mar 31, 2023•27 min•Ep. 46
This week we are privileged to have two exceptional guests on Raising Your Antenna’s Special Inflation Reduction Act 8-Part Series, Mahesh Ramanujam and Sarah Merricks. They discuss how Global Network for Zero (GNFZ) is redefining net-zero strategy and green building certifications to optimize corporate sustainability efforts. GNFZ focuses on a significant culprit of global emissions: the existing U.S. building stock. Approximately 80 percent of the buildings that will be standing in 2050 are al...
Mar 15, 2023•30 min•Ep. 45
This episode of Raising Your Antenna features Jordan Feldstein, Product Co-Chief / Tech Lead at BlocPower, to discuss the path forward to upgrading all 125MM American homes and 5MM fossil fuel-burning buildings to make them more cost-effective, healthier, smarter, and greener. This transition is not only combating the climate crisis but creating inclusive new job opportunities and saving money for property owners and tenants. BlocPower is leading the charge to replace and retrofit dated and dang...
Feb 07, 2023•27 min•Ep. 44
This episode of Raising Your Antenna features David Kim, former U.S. Department of Transportation Deputy Administrator under President Obama and California State Transportation Agency (CalSTA) Secretary under Gov. Newsom , to discuss the ways in which industry can help unlock billions of dollars in local transportation investments and help build a more equitable mobility system. Secretary Kim is a globally recognized leader in transportation policy. As CalSTA Secretary, Kim focused on advancing ...
Dec 15, 2022•32 min•Ep. 43
The BlackBerry is now just a distant memory to some, and a fruit to others (ehm, Gen Z) but in 2022, it represented the cutting edge technology that brought AI to your fingertips, one keyboard “click-click” at a time. What does the BlackBerry phone have to do in the context of climate action? New, disruptive technologies are analogous to the type of transformative change Utilidata is leading when it comes to equity, affordability and reliability in America’s energy system. And, Utilitdata’s Pres...
Dec 08, 2022•30 min•Ep. 42
This week on Raising Your Antenna, we welcome Mayor of Truckee, CA and Head of Market Strategy for Resource Innovations Courtney Henderson, alongside her colleague Kelly Helfrich, Vice President of Resource Innovations’ Electric Vehicle Practice. Resource Innovations is a women-led and controlled organization making clean energy more accessible and affordable for everyone. Both Mayor Henderson and Kelly have committed to careers in sustainability to ensure solutions are accessible and equitable ...
Nov 29, 2022•38 min•Ep. 41
On this episode of Raising Your Antenna , we are thrilled to welcome former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Chairman Neil Chatterjee for an insightful discussion on grid transformation and regulatory innovation in light of the Inflation Reduction Act. Chairman Chatterjee formerly served as Commissioner and Chairman of FERC, where he championed several strategic initiatives, including streamlining and improving FERC’s liquified natural gas application review and approval process, bols...
Nov 01, 2022•29 min•Ep. 40
Cities aren’t going anywhere. Half of the world’s population currently resides within them and if their unwavering strength during a global pandemic says anything, they are certainly here to stay. But cities also account for about 75% of global CO2 emissions , and the sustainability and public health challenges they present are substantial. On this episode of Raising Your Antenna , our host, Keith Zakheim and guest, Miguel Gamiño, Jr. will discuss the role public-private partnerships play in mak...
Oct 06, 2022•32 min•Ep. 39
This episode is the first of a 6-part series, The Inflation Reduction Act in the Age of Climate Adoption, released in light of the Inflation Reduction Act and its impact on climate tech innovation, emerging technologies, and a just transition. I was honored to have Hawai’i State Senator Chris Lee as my first guest on the series. Senator Lee is a globally-recognized leader on climate policy, grid modernization and environmental justice. He is the author of first-of-its-kind legislation to establi...
Sep 23, 2022•36 min•Ep. 38
On this episode of Raising Your Antenna, I had the pleasure of engaging with Rich Kenny, Nurse Intrapreneur at SAS. We talked about curiosity. Namely, the value of being curious in the workplace, and how it is a trait that both predicts high performers as well as successful enterprises. Rich is an incredibly insightful guest, and the research done by SAS is of value to anyone who is shaping the workplace of today. Tune in as we discuss: What curiosity really means, and how it impacts employee en...
Aug 22, 2022•35 min•Ep. 37
I’m not sure that the climate change and sustainability community would include issues related to the pandemic, biodiversity, health equity, and modern slavery in their definition of ESG. Yet, today on RYA, we address all of these issues with our guests Chris Kline (Global Senior Principal for Sustainability and ESG at Cardno), Natalie Egnot (Epidemiologist at Cardno Chemrisk), and Seth Yoskowitz (Interim CEO, International Development at Cardno). For those who are not familiar, Cardno is a glob...
Oct 25, 2021•40 min•Ep. 36
Having Joel Makower appear on your podcast is, in the clean tech world, akin to Oprah landing Harry and Meghan. Like Harry and Meghan, Joel is a celebrity in our world, everyone wants to hear what he has to say and he provides salacious details about the royal family. Okay, maybe not the royal stuff. But the rest is true. As the founder and Chairman of GreenBiz — a media and events company that lives, works and leads at the intersection of the business, technology and sustainability — Joel is pr...
Oct 05, 2021•35 min•Ep. 35
When we imagine what our energy transformation will look like, we tend to focus on the shiny new toys — solar panels, electric vehicles, Tesla powerwalls, and Nest Thermostats. While those products are necessary for a carbon net-zero future, they are in no way sufficient. Today on RYA, I chat with Benjamin Birnbaum, partner at Keyframe and co-founder of TeraWatt Infrastructure. Ben is consumed with the energy transition technologies that we don’t see, but are critical to fighting global warming ...
May 26, 2021•31 min•Ep. 34
It’s not every day that I have the opportunity to interview two utility executives — especially from Texas, and especially a mere two months after the historic freeze in the State of Texas. While we didn’t spend a lot of time dissecting the causes of the February grid failure, much of our conversation addressed the types of challenges, programs and solutions that utilities — in this case CPS Energy, the nation’s largest municipally owned electric utility — are thinking about and implementing in ...
Apr 27, 2021•39 min•Ep. 33
Today’s guest on Raising Your Antenna is Siobhan Clarke, Operating Partner of Launchpad — a bp scaling engine accelerating the growth of digitally-led businesses that re-imagine energy. As Operating Partner, Siobhan is helping bp reinvent its company and lead from the front on building a clean energy future. Siobhan brings a unique perspective to cleantech investing as she hails from the SAAS venture capital world. She was attracted to cleantech for both its economic opportunity as well as its m...
Jan 06, 2021•29 min•Ep. 32
One of the nice things about hosting a podcast is the opportunity to make new friends and reconnect with old ones. On today’s episode of Raising Your Antenna, I was able to do both. I've known Adam Bergman for 15 years as we go back to the halcyon days of the solar revolution and have stayed in touch as renewables have waxed and waned as well as reinvented itself in an effort to stay relevant, attract investment and most importantly continue its quest to mitigate climate change and effect system...
Dec 04, 2020•39 min•Ep. 31
Tune in as we discuss Using the resources of corporate America to not just make money but to drive social impact Chante’s experience as a leader in the movement to transform our cities into smart cities Advice for securing pilot projects, undertaking design initiatives, and launching community impact initiatives Perspectives on the bubble that has emerged around clean mobility/transportation ...and more
Oct 23, 2020•31 min•Ep. 30
Heather and I had a fascinating conversation that touched on the respective roles of the public sector, both federal and state, as well as the private sector in advancing a clean energy future. We agreed on a lot, disagreed on some, but the tenor of the conversation and one that I hope can be mimicked by our political leaders, was characterized by mutual respect, data-driven arguments, and an understanding that while reasonable people can disagree on how to get there, the goalposts must be clima...
Sep 17, 2020•31 min•Ep. 29
When we think about sustainable finance, we tend to focus on the capital needs for renewable energy products, green bonds, and carbon trading and credits. While these are all key components of sustainable finance, they do not begin to tell the full sustainable finance story. On today’s episode, I speak with Nicole Andersen, Managing Partner of Redsand Ventures. Every organization thinks they are unique, but Redsand, at least from where I sit, really is unique. Redsand specializes in innovation s...
Apr 24, 2020•41 min•Ep. 28
Today's guest is someone who has been a sustainability thought leader from multiple vantage points - as a journalist, NGO board member and advocate, climate change summit delegate and sustainable finance investor. Sasja Beslik, in his role as Managing Director and Head of Sustainable Finance at J. Safra, has a powerful pulpit in which to motivate and mobilize his industry to unleash the power of its capital to mitigate carbon emissions and climate change. On today’s episode, Sasja, with both can...
Apr 14, 2020•39 min•Ep. 27
The National Renewable Energy Lab, NREL for short, has been in existence since 1977. It was founded by the Carter administration as a reaction to the oil shocks of the mid-70s. It was the first acknowledgment by the federal government that our economic and national security interests demanded that we diversify our energy resources from exclusively fossil fuels to renewables. The clean energy economy was born! In the 40+ years since the founding of the laboratory, the clean energy industry has ex...
Apr 02, 2020•43 min•Ep. 26
Today’s podcast is an exciting one as we’re lucky to have Talia Rafaeli, Investment Director at Porsche Ventures as our guest. Talia has built an incredibly successful career as a Venture Capitalist at a couple of Israel’s most successful VC firms such as Gemini and Stage One. In the past year, Tali made the decision to move to the corporate VC world and specifically into the mobility industry. As one of the world’s preeminent luxury car manufacturers, Porsche is no different in that it is playi...
Mar 09, 2020•31 min•Ep. 25
Today on Raising Your Antenna, we are joined by two individuals who are at the forefront of the data and mobility space and leading the charge to make Big Data both responsible and valuable to the people that it is serving. Ben Volkow, the founder and CEO of Otonomo, and Yuval Cohen, founder and managing partner at StageOne Ventures, an l fund that invests in early-stage B2B deep tech startups in the Israeli ecosystem, share their professional backgrounds, what they saw that motivated them to be...
Nov 27, 2019•37 min•Ep. 24
This episode of Raising Your Antenna was recorded live in Salt Lake City at the Solar Power International podcast center. On this episode, we are lucky to have one of the visionaries of the distributed energy movement, Dan Nordloh. Dan is General Manager of DCentrIQ, a newly formed division of Faith Technologies. DCentrIQ is providing distributed energy technology and capabilities for a sustainable future through innovative distributed energy resource systems and Internet of Energy (IoE) control...
Oct 30, 2019•25 min•Ep. 23
Today on RYA, we host Henry Gordon-Smith the Founder and Managing Director of Agritecture Consulting. Henry has a lot to say about the current AgTech scene, both the business and moral imperative driving the industry and where we are, as a society, both making strides and falling short. Tune in as we discuss: The recent spike in Urban AgTech investment and macroeconomic, environmental, and social drivers of the industry Urban AgTech’s part in solving food supply challenges caused by urban densit...
Sep 16, 2019•34 min•Ep. 22
On this episode of Raising Your Antenna, we are lucky enough to feature ZenCity and its CEO Eyal Feder-Levy. ZenCity perfectly fits the model of a company that uses data, as captured through “social listening” and other publicly available platforms, to enhance our everyday lives. As Eyal will explain, ZenCity’s algorithms capture anonymous conversations and feedback and transform it into actionable items for elected officials and municipal bureaucrats who can then respond and govern accordingly....
Sep 10, 2019•38 min•Ep. 21
Your energy bill is made up of several charges, including the cost of transmission and distribution of the energy. But only the energy portion of the bill is competitively priced. The wires and pipes that bring electricity and natural gas to your home, business or factory are still owned by the traditional utility company, and the transmission and distribution charges are still set by regulators. But the energy is competitively priced and provided by suppliers, called ESCOs, competing for the cu...
Aug 15, 2019•33 min•Ep. 20
Complex problems demand complex solutions. While we would all love to have the silver bullet to solve a marital crisis, business challenges, Middle East peace or climate change, the reality is that the solutions to these types of problems are usually multifarious but related and attack the problem from different directions. On today’s episode of Raising Your Antenna, we are going to address the threat of climate change but from a non-binary, non-zero sum game and a non-linear perspective. Guidin...
Jul 10, 2019•41 min•Ep. 19
The range of transportation options at the fingertips of contemporary urban commuters is both astonishing and at times, overwhelming. For the Luddites, filling up your car with petroleum, sitting in a car for an hour and a half to complete a 15-mile trip and then spending a week's worth of salary on parking is still an option. For those that don't want to drive into the office, there is the option of public transportation, a mode of transport that depending on the city can range from clean and c...
May 15, 2019•35 min•Ep. 18
