What Earth Day Means to Us

Decarbonizing Buildings to Save the Planet

To the extent that any of us “celebrate” Earth Day, we typically do it by adventuring outside - to walk in the park, go for a hike, or visit a beach. It’s a good reminder of what’s at stake in the next decade as we collectively decide whether or not preserving these experiences is worth the effort. But as we return home from these outings, it’s worth thinking about the path forward. It’s one thing to appreciate nature, but another thing entirely to fathom the enormity of the work that must be done in the next ten years to ensure that our grandchildren will have the same experience.

We are now entering the third wave of environmentalism. Initially, environmentalists sought to preserve nature. John Muir is the most famous, and his Sierra Club lives on, preaching the gospel of ecological preservation. In the 1970s, environmentalists learned how to use the courts and the administrative state to corral industrial polluters run amok. Erin Brockovich may be the most well-known, but plenty of others have helped ensconce organizations like the Natural Resources Defense Council in policymaking circles.

Today’s environmental movement is different. Instead of focusing on nature preservation, or blocking polluters, today’s environmentalists are optimists. We see a bountiful future powered by clean energy, resilient to climate change, and infused with a spirit of equality and inclusiveness. Remnants of the old guard remain, but there’s no question that the effort to achieve decarbonization goals is rooted in a different way of thinking.

This is why we at WattCarbon are working on decarbonizing buildings. If successful, we will eliminate 40% of annual carbon emissions. This is alone enough to achieve the goals of the Paris Climate Accords. And if we achieve this goal, every other decarbonization effort simply brings us one step closer to keeping global temperatures within a reasonable range.

We realize that decarbonizing buildings is no small task. Cost estimates range anywhere from $10 to $100 trillion dollars for the United States alone. So it’s going to take some fresh thinking to get us there in the time frame required. Most obviously, we need to figure out how to invest significantly more money at significantly lower cost to the end user to catalyze the transformation of our buildings.

The great thing about decarbonizing buildings is that it doesn’t rely on any new technology. We know how to do this already. And it’s not that complicated. We need to provide clean energy on a 24/7 basis on every grid; electrify all heating and transportation; and make sure that we have at least one grid connected smart device in every building to manage intermittent renewables.

We believe that the key to unlocking building decarbonization as a first-priority climate solution is to value the environmental impacts of decarbonization projects. It’s eminently possible to measure the precise avoided carbon emissions from buildings and to leverage this value to reduce the upfront costs of doing the project in the first place. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

So WattCarbon has built a measurement and verification platform that allows anyone to measure their carbon emissions savings in any building. We built this on top of open-source data and methods so that there was no proprietary black box leaving doubts as to how savings might have been calculated.

Then we launched the world’s first building decarbonization marketplace to allow companies with net zero goals the opportunity to reach their goals by catalyzing investments into decarbonization projects. Working with project developers on the front lines of the building decarbonization movement, we are able to bring down upfront costs so that these companies can make decarbonization a better choice financially and for the planet.

Now it’s time to bring down the cost of capital. For too many of us, the choice to do the right thing requires significant personal sacrifice. We see interest rates in the double digits for the conscientious homeowner. Small business owners trying to go green have to take out loans backed by their personal assets. Big companies are being asked to become energy market experts in order to go net zero. These are highly inefficient and counterproductive expectations.

In order to unlock the trillions of dollars in new capital required for building decarbonization, both the cost and the complexity must come down. By valuing the environmental benefits of building decarbonization, we can do exactly this. The future value of carbon emission reductions can be front-loaded into the project finance required to fund these projects at scale and reduce the risk for investors. Over time, as building decarbonization projects yield emissions reductions, investors will be able to bank the clean energy credits and even turn a profit! As we collectively commit to net zero, we can make sure that any such claims are made with full visibility and transparency back to the project level.

So as we mark this Earth Day, and redouble our efforts to create a better future, we must also recommit ourselves to the task at hand. Let’s take the spirit of John Muir, and the courage of Erin Brockovich, and figure out how to realize the greatest ambitions of the new environmentalism. Our grandkids will thank us.