Cleaning Up: Leadership in an Age of Climate Change (Michael Liebreich, Bryony Worthington)
Explore every episode of Cleaning Up: Leadership in an Age of Climate Change
| Pub. Date | Title | Duration | |
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| 15 Jun 2022 | Calling the Earthshots - Ep91: Hannah Jones | 00:55:40 | |
Hannah Jones is the CEO of The Earthshot Prize, a prize and a platform founded by HRH Prince William and the Royal Foundation in 2020 to search, spotlight and scale solutions that can help repair and regenerate the planet in this decade. Hannah Jones is a social and environmental advocate believing in the power of entrepreneurism, innovation and collaboration to affect systems change. She started her career in radio, at the BBC, before working as a social entrepreneur in a British Charity, founding and leading pan-European AIDS/HIV prevention and anti-racism campaigns across 100's of Radio stations. She then worked on the founding team of Microsoft’s philanthropy program in EMEA before joining Nike to help start their first Corporate Responsibility team in EMEA. For 16 years, as Nike’s first Chief Sustainability Officer, working to the CEO and the Nike Board of Directors, Hannah helped lead the transformation of Nike’s labor rights and sustainability efforts, turning both functions into engines of business model innovation and industry change. Following that, Hannah founded Nike Valiant Labs, a venture to bring a culture of lean startup, human centered design & entrepreneurialism to Nike, housing a vibrant diverse culture of entrepreneurs delivering a growing portfolio of new disruptive digital businesses and offerings with purpose at their core. Named twice to Fast Company’s top 100 Creative People list, a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, and winner of the C.K Prahalad 2013 award for leadership in Sustainability, Hannah has served on the board of the Method Soap & Ecover brands, was the co-chair and co-founder of We Mean Business, a coalition of progressive businesses working to influence climate policy, and has served on the boards and councils of Mercy Corps, the UNHCR Business Advisory Council and the Purpose Climate Lab. Today, Hannah is a non-executive director on the board of Oatly, a sustainability advisor to UCB, a global BioTech company, an advisor to the Queens Gambit, an all-female SPAC, a mentor with the Unreasonable Group, and a mentor to as many talented diverse future leaders as she can fit in. Further reading: https://earthshotprize.org/ | |||
| 29 Sep 2021 | Greening the City of London - Ep 56: The Rt Hon The Lord Mayor William Russell | 00:42:03 | |
William Russel was elected as Alderman for the Ward of Bread Street in 2013 and served as Sheriff of the City of London in 2016-17. He has been the Lord Mayor of the City of London since 2019. Before leaving for public service, William Russell spent over 30 years working in the financial sector. In 1987 he went to work for First Boston Corporation before joining Merrill Lynch in 1992 as an investment banker in Institutional Equity Sales, working in Asia, New York and London. William is currently Chair of CDAM, a London based Asset Management business, and Senior Advisor to STJ Advisors. He was also on the Board of Innovate Finance, the industry body for the UK based FinTech community. He has a number of charitable interests. He has served as Chair of the Development Board of the Royal Court Theatre, he is a Board Member of the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, the Barbican Centre and is on the Council of the Royal Theatrical Support Trust. He is immediate past Chair of Prostate Cancer UK and is currently Deputy Chair of Place2Be, a children’s mental health charity. He is a Trustee of Morden College and a past member of the Development Board of the Charterhouse. William is the fifth member of his family to be Lord Mayor in the past 110 years. Further reading: Official Bio
London is a leader in green finance but we must strive for more (February 2021) https://www.cityam.com/londin-is-a-leader-inn-green-finance-but-we-must-strive-for-more/
Board of Trade report: green trade (July 2021) https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/board-of-trade-report-green-trade | |||
| 14 Jul 2021 | Beyond Net Zero - Ep50: Lord John Browne | 00:46:09 | |
Lord Browne is a Senior Advisor at General Atlantic on climate and Net Zero, providing strategic support and advice to the firm’s investment teams and portfolio companies. He served as Group Chief Executive of BP from 1995 to 2007, after having joined the company in 1966 as a university apprentice. In 2007, Lord Browne joined Riverstone, where he was co-head of the world’s largest renewable energy private equity fund until 2015. He is currently Chairman of Wintershall Dea, Europe’s largest independent oil and gas company. He is independent co-Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Council on Science and Technology, Chairman of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, Chairman of the Courtauld Institute of Art, and a past President of the Royal Academy of Engineering. Lord Browne was the UK Government’s Lead Non-Executive Board Member from 2010 to 2015. He was knighted in 1998 and made a life peer in 2001. Lord Browne is the author of five books. Further reading: Lord Browne joins General Atlantic as Senior Advisor[Official Bio] (April 2021) Saving the planet needs faith and science (May 2021) https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/saving-the-planet-needs-faith-and-science-v2bzrl28z Make, Think, Imagine: Engineering the Future of Civilisation (2019) | |||
| 19 Oct 2022 | After Ukraine - The Great Clean Energy Acceleration - Cleaning Up Audioblog Episode 7 | 00:27:08 | |
This week's episode is a recording of Michael's latest blog post for BloombergNEF:
https://about.bnef.com/blog/after-ukraine-the-great-clean-energy-acceleration/
Our thanks to BloombergNEF for allowing us to record it and share it with our Cleaning Up audience.
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| 07 Feb 2024 | Shedding Light on Energy's Dirty Secrets - Ep153: Lauri Myllyvirta | 01:10:24 | |
Michael sits down this week with Lauri Myllyvirta, co-founder and lead analyst at CREA - the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. After working as a campaigner and then as an analyst at Greenpeace, Lauri helped set up CREA, an NGO that produces research reports on the trends, causes, health impacts, and solutions to air pollution. Importantly, CREA makes extensive reference to local-language evidence sources - helped by Lauri's impressive knowledge of European and Asian languages. Lauri has degrees in economics from Helsinki University and in environmental science from University of Jyvaskyla.
Links
Read the BBC's recent articles highlighting CREA's research on the UK's Russian oil sanctions: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68018660 And read the original CREA report here: https://energyandcleanair.org/publication/evading-the-sanctions-uk-imports-oil-products-made-from-russian-crude/ Read CREA's report on the surge in coal power in China in 2023: https://energyandcleanair.org/publication/chinas-new-coal-power-spree-continues-as-more-provinces-jump-on-the-bandwagon/ Read CREA's report on the health impacts of delaying coal decommissioning in South Africa: https://energyandcleanair.org/publication/health-impacts-of-delaying-coal-power-plant-decommissioning-in-south-africa/ Read CREA's report on the recent spree of coal plant permitting in India: https://energyandcleanair.org/publication/india-enters-an-unnecessary-coal-plant-permitting-spree-in-2023/ Read CREA's report on the state of Indonesia's transition: https://energyandcleanair.org/publication/emerging-captive-coal-power-in-indonesia/ Explore all of CREA's reports here: https://energyandcleanair.org/publications/ | |||
| 10 Feb 2021 | Ecopragmatism and Policy Innovation - Ep30: Claire Perry O'Neill | 00:57:13 | |
Links World Business Council for Sustainable Development COP26 The Green 30 for 2020 Royal Geographic Society Ikigai Capital https://www.ikigai-capital.co.uk/ The Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA) https://poweringpastcoal.org/about/who-we-are ‘Wing it with a few press releases’: Claire Perry O'Neill slams UK Govt’s ‘cavalier attitude’ to COP26 (December 2020) New Year’s Resolutions for the Planet (December 2020) https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/29/climate/new-years-resolutions-climate.html UK Government announces a sovereign green bond (November 2020) https://www.greenfinanceinstitute.co.uk/uk-government-announces-a-sovereign-green-bond/ Ex-energy minister Claire Perry O'Neill joins sustainability consultancy (October 2020) Climate change: Former minister O’Neill blasts government "inaction" (September 2020) https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54085182 A Conversation with The Rt Hon Claire Perry O'Neill (February 2020) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hhsJUgqCZA COP 26: Everybody's In | Sunjoy Joshi | Claire Perry O'Neill (January 2020) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ix-b1tZoWPA Green Finance Taskforce (March 2018) https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/accelerating-green-finance-green-finance-taskforce-report UK and Canada lead global alliance against coal (November 2017) https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-42014244 UK Clean Growth Strategy (October 2017) https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/clean-growth-strategy Edie – Sustainable Leaders Forum | |||
| 11 Aug 2021 | Separating Hype from Hydrogen – Part Two: The Demand Side - Cleaning Up Audioblog Episode 4 | 00:51:10 | |
This episode of Cleaning Up is based on a October 2020 blog written by Michael for BloombergNEF https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-separating-hype-from-hydrogen-part-two-the-demand-side/
We would like to thank BloombergNEF for allowing us to record it. | |||
| 31 Jan 2024 | Can We Have a Habitable Planet? - Ep152: David Wallace-Wells | 01:13:26 | |
This week, Bryony is back, this time to talk to David Wallace-Wells. David is an American journalist and author who often writes about climate change. His 2017 article "The Uninhabitable Earth" for New York Magazine was the publication's most-read article in history. David then turned the article into a book of the same name, which was chosen as Book of the Year, 2019, by The Sunday Times, The Spectator and New Statesman. He has a BA in History from Brown University.
Links Read David's original 2017 article here: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html Read the 2020 Nature Article on RCP 8.5 here: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00177-3 Read Jim Hansen's recent paper on climate sensitivity: https://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/3/1/kgad008/7335889 View Bryony's favourite Sankey diagram showing US energy inputs and outputs: https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/ | |||
| 22 Apr 2021 | The Argument That Never Happened - Ep39: Debate Special with Gareth Wyn Jones and Ben Goldsmith | 01:06:38 | |
It’s a first here on Cleaning Up, our very own debate special. Today we will be joined by Ben Goldsmith and Gareth Wyn-Jones to discuss farming and agricultural policy. Please welcome them both, and wish them both luck! Bio – Ben Goldsmith Ben Goldsmith is the chief executive officer of Menhaden Capital, an investment trust focusing on efficient use of energy and resources. He is also a Trustee of The Children’s Investment Fund Foundation and Chair of the UK Conservative Environment Network’s Board. Moreover, he is involved in the UK Government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) as a non-executive director. Bio – Gareth Wyn Jones Gareth Wyn Jones is a sheep farmer from Tyn Llwyfan in North Wales. His farm has been with his family for over 370 years. Known as the ‘tweeting farmer’, Gareth uses media (both social and traditional) as an educational tool to show the public the life of a farmer. He has appeared on the BBC numerous times including on Countryfile as well as The Hill Farm, Farmer and the Food Chain, and Milkman. Links - Ben Goldsmith Time to rewild the Highlands - Ben Goldsmith - Reform Scotland (March 2021) https://reformscotland.com/2021/03/time-to-rewild-the-highlands-ben-goldsmith/ Leaving the EU's destructive Common Agricultural Policy enables an unprecedented win for nature in post-Brexit Britain (December, 2020) https://reaction.life/leaving-the-eu-cap-is-an-unprecedented-win-for-nature-in-post-brexit-britain/ Ben Goldsmith comes clean: lies, rewilding and the death of daughter Iris | Magazine | The Times (October 2020) Embrace wilder farming to restore nature on a grand scale (June 2020) https://reaction.life/embrace-wilder-farming-and-regenerate-britains-environment/ 'It may feel like Armageddon, but there are environmental silver linings': Ben Goldsmith on Covid-19 (April 2020) Interview: Ben Goldsmith on rewilding, wild swimming and ‘hustling on behalf of nature’ Links – Gareth Wyn Jones The Family Farm – BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/1rbcMX2vXKkvqZQR21tpLVr/gareth-wyn-jones The Hill Farm Episode 1 Farmer and The Food Chain https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3pl6F0\_t8dHFtYtaznR2YDNZdY7qRWKq The Hill Farmer – a book by Gareth Wyn Jones https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9781784610067/Hill-Farmer-Gareth-Wyn-Jones-1784610062/plp | |||
| 23 Apr 2025 | Trump vs The Transition, The Pope’s Climate Legacy & The High Price of UK Electricity — Ep205 | 00:58:18 | |
In 100 short days, the world has transformed. Since the reelection of President Donald Trump, US federal climate policy has largely been abandoned, with the government seeking to reopen coal-fired power plants and lower environmental standards. An escalating trade war and global tariffs has sent the rest of the world reeling and threatened the global financial system with collapse. China has come under particular fire, but the US has also targeted its closest allies and neighbours — Canada, Mexico and the EU — with tariffs. Any sense of certainty has been thrown out of the window as a more inward looking US seeks to reshape the global order. So what does all this mean for the energy transition, and plans to reach net-zero? Michael Liebreich and Baroness Bryony Worthington join forces for the opening episode of Season 15 of Cleaning Up to discuss. Leadership Circle: Cleaning Up is supported by the Leadership Circle: Actis, Alcazar Energy, Davidson Kempner, EcoPragma Capital, EDP of Portugal, Eurelectric, the Gilardini Foundation, KKR, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation, SDCL and Wärtsilä. For more information on the Leadership Circle, please visit https://www.cleaningup.live. Discover more:
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| 27 Jan 2021 | Setting the World's Energy Agenda - Ep28: Fatih Birol | 00:53:42 | |
Further reading: Official Bio: https://www.iea.org/authors/dr-fatih-birol Official Website: Sustainable Recovery Plan (June 2020) https://www.iea.org/reports/sustainable-recovery 5 reasons we should be optimistic about the world’s clean energy future (September 2020) https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/09/covid-19-green-energy-solar-wind-electric/ We must act now to stop the Covid crisis from undermining Africa’s energy future (November 2020) https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/we-must-act-now-stop-covid-crisis-from-undermining-africas-birol/ Renewable power is defying the Covid crisis. Here’s how its growth can accelerate even more (November 2020) How Southeast Asia’s dynamic economies can power ahead with their clean energy transitions (October 2020) https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-southeast-asias-dynamic-economies-can-power-ahead-fatih-birol/ The Covid crisis underscores the critical choices we face for our energy future (October 2020) https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/covid-crisis-underscores-critical-choices-we-face-our-fatih-birol/ 3 Questions: Fatih Birol on post-Covid trajectories in energy and climate (October 2020) https://news.mit.edu/2020/fatih-birol-covid-energy-trends-1022 IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol on What is Starting to Bring Oil Markets Back to Balance (May 2020)
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| 15 Jan 2025 | Five Years In, How Has The Bezos Earth Fund Used Its Billions? Ep192: Dr. Andrew Steer | 01:11:07 | |
How can $10 billion be spent most effectively to address the climate and nature crises? What role can philanthropy play in driving systemic change? And how can new technologies like AI be leveraged to accelerate climate solutions? This week on Cleaning Up, host Bryony Worthington sits down with Dr. Andrew Steer, President and CEO of the Bezos Earth Fund, to explore these critical questions. Established in 2020 with a $10 billion commitment from Jeff Bezos, the Bezos Earth Fund is on a mission to spend this capital by 2030 - the "decisive decade" for climate and nature. Andrew shares insights into the fund's venture capital-inspired approach, balancing support for proven organisations and innovative newcomers. He delves into the delicate dance of respecting grantee expertise while providing strategic guidance, and the importance of avoiding dependence. The conversation covers the fund's diverse portfolio, from electrifying school buses to harnessing AI for nature monitoring and sustainable agriculture. Andrew also tackles the thorny issues of carbon markets and the need for a new mindset in the environmental movement. Leadership Circle Cleaning Up is supported by the Leadership Circle, and its founding members: Actis, Alcazar Energy, EcoPragma Capital, EDP of Portugal, Eurelectric, the Gilardini Foundation, KKR, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation, SDCL and Wärtsilä. For more information on the Leadership Circle, please visit https://www.cleaningup.live. Links and more
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| 12 Oct 2022 | Industrial Heat is Electrifying! Ep103: Dr. Silvia Madeddu | 00:59:39 | |
Dr Silvia Madeddu is a scientist and expert in decarbonisation strategies for energy-intensive industries. Dr Madeddu has a particular area of expertise in industrial heat, and is at the cutting edge of research hoping to transform the energy transition in Europe and beyond. Dr Madeddu is Senior Sustainability Consultant at Schneider Electric as of August this year. In her previous role, Dr Madeddu was part of the Global Energy Systems modelling group and was Senior Scientist on Industry Decarbonisation at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (2018-2022). At PIK, she helmed research into the potential of direct electrification of heat supply for reducing industrial CO2 emissions. Prior to joining PIK, Dr Madeddu served as Chief Scientist at Cambridge Carbon Capture, developing new Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU) technologies. Dr Madeddu holds a PhD from the University of Sheffield in Materials Science and Engineering, and a master’s in Science and Technology from the University of Padua. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abbd02/meta https://www.cleaningup.live/ep49-johan-rockstrom-pushing-planetary-boundaries/ https://energy-nest.com/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwhY-aBhCUARIsALNIC05b1bO9rqQnHHS4SZrSiHDL3Xrmanh0OTZ1bUG5HWn6dIff_EnA_BQaAr3-EALw_wcB https://rondo.com/how-it-works?gclid=Cj0KCQjwhY-aBhCUARIsALNIC07G3jH4EuvDh8k1WrW98KNGf_Zobyhz81isIsSkv_yQkHtjrxOkfZwaAhGcEALw_wcB | |||
| 22 Dec 2021 | Our Savings Will Save the Planet - Ep69: Peter Sweatman | 01:06:04 | |
Peter Sweatman is the founder and Chief Executive of Climate Strategy & Partners (@ClimateSt and www.climatestrategy.com), a strategic consulting group in Clean Energy, Clean Technology Innovation and Energy Efficiency working with leading companies and policymakers in the global energy transition Peter is also Chairman and founder of Energy Efficiency Capital Advisors (www.eecapadvisors.com) an expert solution provider and finance structuring partner for over Euro 60 million of finance for energy savings and on-site power in Spanish cities. Peter Sweatman has spent 30 years in finance of which 18 are climate finance and energy efficiency. He has published fifteen white papers and chaired, moderated or spoken at 380 conferences and workshops on the global energy transition to a climate neutral economy. Peter is the rapporteur for EU Commission and UNEP FI’s 500-strong Energy Efficiency Financial Institutions Group (#EEFIG) since 2013 and for five years was the G20’s EEFTG technical lead. He is the co-chair of Breakthrough Energy’s European Climate Innovation Hub, a founder advisor to the Climate Bond Initiative, a founder member of the Ashoka Support Network in Spain, advisor to the Climate Lab, advisor to Braemar Energy Ventures, on the steering committees of EY and CapGemini Invent’s work on green recovery and climate innovation, a board member of Menorca Preservation Fund and visiting lecturer at IIT-Comillas university. Peter chaired and reported on a 250-expert process to help design the EU ETS Innovation fund and published a review of EU finance for competitive innovation for net-zero emissions by 2050. Peter holds an MA Cantab degree in Engineering and Management Studies from Cambridge University. In 1991, he joined JPMorgan in Corporate Finance where he spent 9 years responsible for client business, mainly in debt capital markets, for Spain, Portugal, Austria and Switzerland based in London and then for Mexico and other Latin American countries from New York. In the year 2000, Peter became a social entrepreneur to found three successful and high impact NGOs: Charity Digital (www.charitydigital.org.uk), New Philanthropy Capital (www.thinknpc.org) and Catalyst Climate Change Trust. From 2005, Peter was a Managing Director in Bunge-Climate Change Capital that was – from 2004-2010 - one of the world’s leading specialist fund managers and advisors in the low carbon economy. | |||
| 13 Nov 2024 | Is Trump's Victory A Win For China? Ep185: Professor Qi Ye | 00:55:05 | |
Is China's lead in clean technologies insurmountable? How will the Trump presidency shape relations with China? And when will China's emissions peak? Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency, has said that 'almost every energy story is essentially a China story. But it's a complicated story that has been powered by vast supplies of coal. China's economy has grown rapidly, with per capita levels of energy consumption now matching Europe's, making it the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gasses. At the same time, China has increased the share of electricity and total energy to around 28% thanks to a rapid uptake of electric vehicles and increasing use of electricity for heating domestically. If it continues on its current trajectory, it is likely to peak its greenhouse gas emissions from energy in the next few years, if it hasn't done so already. China is also playing an increasing role beyond its borders: In 2023, 20% of the global EV export market belong to China, and it dominates the battery, solar and wind industries. This week on Cleaning Up, Bryony Worthington sits down with Professor Qi Ye, Director of Public Policy at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, who's had a ringside seat during China's rapid shift towards a clean energy economy. Together they unpack the complex dynamics shaping the global energy transition in China. Discover the remarkable scale and pace of China's clean energy transformation, the challenges of international collaboration, and Professor Qi's vision for a new era of climate leadership. Leadership Circle: Cleaning Up is supported by the Leadership Circle, and its founding members: Actis, EcoPragma Capital, EDP of Portugal, Eurelectric, the Gilardini Foundation, KKR, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation and Wärtsilä. For more information on the Leadership Circle, please visit cleaningup.live. Links: | |||
| 09 Sep 2020 | The Price of Resilience - Ep8: Roger Dennis | 01:04:58 | |
Further reading: Roger Dennis’s website Roger Dennis on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/rogerdennis/ Lessons From the West African Ebola Outbreak in Relation to New Zealand's Supply Chain Resilience (2015) Sensing City launch announcement https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/callaghan-backs-christchurch-sensing-city Sensing City post-mortem: Smart cities encounter roadblocks https://www.newsroom.co.nz/we-built-smart-cities-on-rock-and-roll Future Agenda | |||
| 22 Jul 2020 | Building Back Better - Ep1: Prof. Cameron Hepburn | 01:00:41 | |
What makes a green stimulus? What might a better metric for economic performance than GDP look like? Who is the faster cyclist, Michael Liebreich or Cameron Hepburn, Dean of the Smith School at Oxford? Don’t miss the very first episode of Cleaning Up! | |||
| 02 Oct 2024 | Geothermal is Having a Moment, Can it Deliver? Ep179: Cindy Taff | 00:52:35 | |
Is the key to clean energy the heat beneath our feet? Could advances in the fossil-fuel extraction industry hold the key to providing 24/7 clean power? And can a Texan CEO and former oil exec bring geothermal to the masses? This week on Cleaning Up, Bryony Worthington sits down with Cindy Taff, a 35-year veteran of Shell, where she was Vice President of Unconventional Drilling, leading a team of 350 people with a budget of over $1 billion. Since leaving Shell, Cindy has made a bold pivot to the world of geothermal energy, and is now CEO of Sage Geosystems, where she is using her expertise in drilling, project management, and subsurface engineering to try to crack next generation geothermal energy. Cindy shares her journey, from rising through the ranks at Shell to leading a startup on the cutting edge of the energy transition. She delves into the technical challenges of tapping into "hot, dry rock" geothermal resources, drilling at 20,000 feet below the Earth's surface, the regulatory hurdles of using techniques like fracking or 'stim drilling', and the potential to to use geothermal wells as an energy storage solution. Cindy has a unique perspective on how the oil and gas industry's toolbox can be repurposed to drive the clean energy transition, and believes geothermal is poised to play a crucial role in powering a sustainable future. Will she be proved right? Leadership Circle Cleaning Up is supported by the Leadership Circle, and its founding members: Actis, EcoPragma Capital, Eurelectric, the Gilardini Foundation, KKR, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation and Wärtsilä. For more information on the Leadership Circle and how to become a member, please visit https://www.cleaningup.live Links and more
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| 24 Apr 2024 | How China Became a Green Finance Superpower - Ep160: Dr. Ma Jun | 01:05:38 | |
Welcome to Season 12 of Cleaning Up! If you want a sense of the trajectory of climate action, you have to understand China, and you have to understand finance. There is no one better to share insights on both than Dr Ma Jun, Founder and President of the Institute of Finance and Sustainability in Beijing. Between 2014 and 2020, Dr Ma served as Chief Economist and then Member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the People’s Bank of China. Over the subsequent years, Dr Ma played a key role in the development of sustainable finance in China and around the world. He led the drafting of China’s green finance and green bond guidelines; he led work on green finance at the G20; he pushed for the greening of China’s Belt and Road initiative; he set up initiatives with the global accounting and standards bodies; and he helped enlist the world’s major financial centres in the drive to green the capital markets. Dr Ma is a towering figure in the area of green finance in China and in the world, and provides an invaluable perspective on one of the most significant players in the clean energy transition. Please like, subscribe and leave a review. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram, and sign up for the Cleaning Up newsletter at https://cleaninguppod.substack.com. Links and related episodes:
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| 09 Dec 2020 | Mobility, Cities and Social Entrepreneurship - Ep22: Robin Chase | 01:05:19 | |
Further reading: Official Bio: Peers Incorporated Book (2015) http://www.peersincorporated.com/what-we-do Tucows World Resources Institute What's the golden age to become an entrepreneur? (1st of Nov 2020) https://www.intheblack.com/articles/2020/11/01/golden-age-entrepreneur Q&A with Robin Chase (Oct 2019) https://www.autonews.com/shift/qa-robin-chase The Future of Self Driving Cars in Cities (June 2016) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeUE4kHRpEk&t=2s Self Driving Cars will Ruin our Cities if They Don't Improve Them (Backchannel, 2016) https://www.wired.com/2016/08/self-driving-cars-will-improve-our-cities-if-they-dont-ruin-them/ Disrupted Transport will Be Better for Us in the End (Financial Times, 2015) http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/38d423ac-c266-11e4-ad89-00144feab7de.html#axzz3WSwmWIIW | |||
| 13 Dec 2023 | Not the End of the World - Ep147: Dr Hannah Ritchie | 01:02:34 | |
Dr Hannah Ritchie is a data scientist and science communicator. Her focus is on the largest problems that shape our world, and how to solve them. Most of her work focuses on environmental sustainability, including climate change, energy, food and agriculture, biodiversity, air pollution and deforestation. She is Deputy Editor and Lead Researcher at Our World in Data, where, during the COVID-19 pandemic, she built the Our World in Data COVID-19 information dashboard. She is also a researcher at the Oxford Martin Programme in Global Development. Her new book, Not the End of the World, is out in January 2024.
Links Hannah’s TED talk – “Are We the Last Generation — or the First Sustainable One?”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl3VVrggKz4 Hannah’s WIRED piece – “Stop Telling Kids They’ll Die From Climate Change”: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/climate-crisis-doom Rupert Read - How I talk with children about climate breakdown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Lt0jCDtYSY Roger Hallam - Advice to Young People as they face Annihilation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au33QX9I-Mg Roger Hallam at the Oxford Union: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQgBMSefgkM Hannah’s new book – Not the End of the World: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/453652/not-the-end-of-the-world-by-ritchie-hannah/9781784745004
Related Episodes "The Inconvenient Truth about Climate Science" - Ep93 with Roger Pielke : https://www.cleaningup.live/ep93-prof-roger-pielke-jr-the-inconvenient-truth-about-climate-science/ “Pushing Planetary Boundaries” – Ep49 with Johan Rockström: https://www.cleaningup.live/ep49-johan-rockstrom-pushing-planetary-boundaries/ “Poet of the Low-Carbon Transition” – Ep13 with Morgan Bazilian: https://www.cleaningup.live/episode-13-morgan-bazilian/ "Lord of the Net Zero Transition" – Ep110 with Adair Turner: https://www.cleaningup.live/ep110-adair-turner-lord-of-the-net-zero-transition/ “From Moore's Law to Moo's Law” – Ep136 Jim Mellon: https://www.cleaningup.live/ep136-jim-mellon-from-moores-law-to-moos-law/ | |||
| 11 Jan 2023 | Climate Risk, Financial Returns - Ep112: Bob Litterman | 01:01:42 | |
This week on Cleaning Up, Michael hosts Bob Litterman, founding partner at Kepos Capital and Chairman of the Kepos Capital Risk Committee. Litterman spent 23 years at Goldman Sachs, during which time he became a partner and established himself as an outstanding authority on financial risk. Since co-founding Kepos and joining the boards of the World Wildlife Fund, Ceres and the Climate Leadership Council, among others, he has become a leading voice on climate policy and risk as it relates to climate change and the transition.From this unique vantage, Litterman is acutely aware of the time-sensitivity of climate risk:“We have to create incentives globally to reduce emissions, and we have to do it very quickly. One thing I like to tell people is when you're managing risk, time is a scarce resource. If we have enough time, we can solve almost anything. When you're managing risk and you run out of time, a risk management problem becomes a catastrophe.”Guest Bio: Prior to founding Kepos Capital, Litterman had a 23-year career at Goldman, Sachs & Co., where he served in research, risk management, investments and thought leadership roles. Litterman became a partner at Goldman Sachs and head of the firm-wide risk function in 1994, and head of the Quantitative Resources Group in 1998. Litterman is the co-developer of the Black-Litterman Global Asset Allocation Model, a key tool in investment management. Litterman serves on a number of boards, including the Niskanen Centre, Ceres, World Wildlife Fund, and the Climate Leadership Council, where he serves as co-chair of the Board. Litterman also chairs the CFTC Climate-Related Market Risk Subcommittee, which published its report, Managing Climate Risk in the U.S. Financial System in September 2020. Litterman holds a Ph.D in Economics from the University of Minnesota, and a B.S. in Human Biology from Stanford University. Prior to Goldman Sachs, Litterman taught at MIT and worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. View: Relevant Guest & Topic Links: Read Managing Climate Risk in the US Financial System: CLICK HERE Find out more about Kepos Capital: CLICK HERE Watch: Related Episodes: Cleaning Up Episode 49 with Johan Rockstrom: CLICK HERE Cleaning Up Episode 48 with Nick Stern: CLICK HERE Cleaning Up Episode 109 with Dipender Saluja and Ion Yadigaroglu: CLICK HERE | |||
| 06 Oct 2021 | Rare Earths, Real Insight - Ep 57: Julie Klinger | 01:01:14 | |
Julie Klinger is an Assistant Professor of Geographer at the University of Delaware and also affiliated with the university's new Minerals, Materials and Society Program. She is the author of "Rare Earth Frontiers: From Terrestrial Subsoils to Lunar Landscapes”, Cornell University Press.
Julie Klinger was formerly Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University.
Julie lists her research interests as “the dynamics of global resource frontiers and space-based technologies with particular emphases in China, Brazil, and the United States; how diverse forms of violence and strategies for survival shape land use, environmental conservation, and livelihood security; rare earth elements; natural resource use; environmental politics; and outer space. Further reading:
Official bio: https://www.udel.edu/academics/colleges/ceoe/departments/gss/faculty/julie-klinger/
Rare Earth Frontiers: From Terrestrial Subsoils to Lunar Landscapes (2017) https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctt1w0dd6d
U.S. Geological Survey https://www.usgs.gov/
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| 03 May 2023 | Cleaning Up Audioblog Episode 10: The Next Half-Trillion-Dollar Market – Electrification of Heat | 00:32:14 | |
This week's episode is a recording of Michael's latest blog post for BloombergNEF: The Next Half-Trillion-Dollar Market – Electrification of Heat Our thanks to BloombergNEF for allowing us to record it and share it with our Cleaning Up audience. Make sure you like, subscribe, and share Cleaning Up. We're growing fast on LinkedIn, and we'd love for you tell your professional network about us: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cleaning-up-with-michael-liebreich/ You can find everything you need to keep up with Cleaning Up here: https://linktr.ee/mlcleaningup | |||
| 25 Dec 2024 | Cleaning Up Redux: The Einstein of Energy Efficiency - Amory Lovins | 01:05:20 | |
Hello, I’m Michael Liebreich, and this is Cleaning Up. I hope you are having a good break over the holiday season, and getting to spend some quality time with your family. I’m in Switzerland, where it has just snowed about a meter in 24 hours. In case you’re missing your regular dose of climate content, we’re starting something new, which we’re calling Cleaning Up Redux. During the break between seasons, we’ll be republishing some gems from our back catalogue, which now covers nearly 200 episodes. To kick us off, today we’ll be listening back to episode 68, from Season 4, released in December 2021. It’s a conversation with Amory Lovins, whom I dubbed the Einstein of Energy Efficiency. Amory is the co-founder and former chairman and chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute. He is also the author of more than 30 books and 700 papers, and now an Adjunct Lecturer in Atmosphere and Energy at Stanford University. I first became familiar with Amory’s work even before I founded New Energy Finance journey, as a fierce promoter of the cause of energy efficiency by design, and equally fierce opponent of the idea of any role for nuclear power. Amory and I do not see eye to eye on everything, but we have become good friends and occasional sparring partners. Amory joined me on Cleaning from his passive house high up in the Rocky Mountains, which is so warm despite not having any active heating that, at the time of recording, he had produced 78 crops of indoor bananas – a fact of which he is rightly proud. The reason I chose this episode to kick off Cleaning Up Redux is that, in these very turbulent and politicised times, it has a refreshing back-to-basics feel. If you can save energy you save money, and that is always a good thing. If we all focused more on making clean energy cheaper for consumers and businesses, and a bit less on persuading politicians to do things that drive up energy costs, the transition might be moving a lot faster. I hope you enjoy my December 2021 conversation with Amory Lovins. Further reading:
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| 29 Jan 2025 | First Cars, Now Planes: Is The Future of Flying Electric? Ep194: Anders Forslund | 00:56:21 | |
Aviation accounts for around 2-3% of global emissions, and is showing no sign of decreasing. There has been a lot of focus on replacement fuels, but no real paradigm shift in the industry. Anders Forslund has a plan to change that. Anders is the CEO of Heart Aerospace, the Swedish airplane developers who've recently established an R&D facility in California to develop their 30 seater hybrid-electric plane. Later this year, their all-electric prototype will take to the skies in its first test flight. While there are a number of companies innovating in the aerospace sector, including Joby Aviation, featured in Episode 156 of Cleaning Up, Heart is targeting larger planes and longer routes. They already have orders to buy hundreds of planes, most notably from United Airlines, and have received early investment from Bill Gates' Breakthrough Energy Ventures. This episode was recorded at the Heart Aerospace facilities in El Sugundo, Los Angeles. Leadership Circle: Cleaning Up is supported by the Leadership Circle, and its founding members: Actis, Alcazar Energy, EcoPragma Capital, EDP of Portugal, Eurelectric, the Gilardini Foundation, KKR, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation, SDCL and Wärtsilä. For more information on the Leadership Circle, please visit https://www.cleaningup.live. Links: | |||
| 10 Jul 2024 | The EV Revolution is Unstoppable - Ep170: Ben Nelmes | 00:59:58 | |
Electric vehicles are finally becoming more mainstream, but this hasn’t stopped a flood of negative stories and political attempts to scare people away from making the switch to better, more cost efficient vehicles. So is the EV revolution now inevitable? Bryony Worthington sits down with Ben Nelmes, the Chief Executive of New Automotive, a UK-based not for profit focused on the clean energy transition in road transport. Ben shares his insights on the UK and European electric vehicle (EV) markets, including:
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| 30 Mar 2022 | Resilience, Ukraine and Net Zero: What Could Possibly Go Wrong - Cleaning Up Audioblog Episode 6 | 00:39:45 | |
This episode of Cleaning Up is based on a March 2022 blog post written by Michael for BloombergNEF. https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-the-quest-for-resilience-what-could-possibly-go-wrong/ We would like to thank BloombergNEF for allowing us to record it. Further reading: “This Isn’t a Natural Disaster”: Climate Scientist Michael Mann on Deadly Tornadoes in 8 States (December 2021) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLKlvnc4dBM&t=648s Empirical evidence of declining global vulnerability to climate-related hazards (July 2019) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378019300378 Climate rhetoric: What’s an energy trilemma? (December 2013) https://www.carbonbrief.org/climate-rhetoric-whats-an-energy-trilemma Climatological analysis of solar and wind energy in Germany using the Grosswetterlagen classification (February 2021) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148120316682 What happens during a blackout: Consequences of a prolonged and wide-ranging power outage (August 2011) https://publikationen.bibliothek.kit.edu/1000103292 Voltage collapse in complex power grids (February 2016) https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms10790 A Framework for Establishing Critical Infrastructure Resilience Goals (October 2010) A 10-Point Plan to Cut Oil Use (March 2022) https://www.iea.org/reports/a-10-point-plan-to-cut-oil-use A 10-Point Plan to Reduce the European Union’s Reliance on Russian Natural Gas (March 2022) | |||
| 08 Jun 2022 | From Red Dwarf to Fully Charged Media Giant - Ep90: Robert Llewellyn | 01:02:56 | |
Robert Llewellyn is the joint CEO of the Fully Charged Show. Robert Llewellyn is most commonly known for playing the role of Kryten for 30 years in the BBC hit series Red Dwarf. He hosted the Channel 4 series Scrapheap Challenge for 10 years, along with 8 series of How Do They Do It for Channel 5. More recently he has taken his career to YouTube with The Fully Charged Show, the series has over 870,000 subscribers and now receives an average of 4 million views a month. On the Fully Charged Show Llewellyn and his co-hosts investigate the rapid development of electric vehicle technology and anything from solar panels to alternative energy sources. He is the author of seven fiction and eight non-fiction books, Llewellyn, who is of Anglo-Welsh ancestry, learnt to drive at age 11 (having been taught by his older brother in a go-kart); formerly a "petrol-head", he is now a widely acknowledged electric car and renewable energy/clean tech advocate and frequently presents talks on the subject. Further reading: | |||
| 11 Sep 2024 | The Great Hydrogen Reset — Is It Germany's Turn? Ep176: Eva Schmid | 01:23:54 | |
Germany is one of the most bullish countries in the world on clean/green hydrogen. The home of the Energiewende is not just one of the most committed countries in the world to reaching net zero, it is of course a highly industrialised nation with a very energy-intensive economy. As if that were not enough, it had one third of its energy supply yanked out from under it as a result of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. Green hydrogen has become one of the mainstays of efforts to keep the lights on as the country replaces nuclear and coal power with wind and solar, and also of efforts to replace cheap Russian gas in power generation and industry. But can green hydrogen possibly live up to expectations? This week on Cleaning Up, Michael Liebreich is joined by someone who works at the heart of Germany’s hydrogen policy-making machine: Eva Schmid is Director of Hydrogen and Synthetic Energy Carriers at DENA, the German Energy Agency, a think tank that works with the German government to deliver its energy strategy. As you’ll see she has a clear-eyed sense of what hydrogen can and can’t be expected to do, and a focus on using it to protect the resilience of the German economy. Leadership Circle We are delighted to announce the Cleaning Up Leadership Circle, and our founding members: Actis, EcoPragma Capital, Eurelectric, the Gilardini Foundation, KKR, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation and Wärtsilä. For more information on the Leadership Circle and how to become a member, please visit https://www.cleaningup.live Links & more:
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| 05 Oct 2022 | Climate Science, Caveman Brain - Ep102: Prof. Chris Rapley | 01:06:54 | |
Professor Chris Rapley CBE is Professor of Climate Science at University College London’s Department of Earth Sciences. He served previously as Director of the British Antarctic Survey and of the Science Museum, and is a passionate and plain-speaking advocate for Climate Science. Professor Rapley is a Fellow of UCL and of St Edmund's College, Cambridge, a member of the Academia Europaea, Chair of the European Science Foundation’s European Space Sciences Committee, Member of the Advisory Board of the UK government’s Clean Growth Fund, Patron of the Surrey Climate Commission, a member of the Science Advisory board of Scientists’ Warning, and a member of the UK Parliamentary and Scientific Committee. His previous posts include Directorships of the Science Museum and British Antarctic Survey, Chair of the London Climate Change Partnership, President of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, Executive Director of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, and founder and Head of UCL's Earth Remote Sensing Group. He was Instrument Scientist on astrophysical and solar sounding rocket payloads, of the Bent Crystal Spectrometer on NASA’s Solar Maximum Mission, assisted JPL with the Cassini RADAR instrument, and led numerous ESA studies on the use of radar altimeters to study the Earth. He was Chair of the International Planning Group for the International Polar Year 2007-2008 and Chair of the ESA Director General’s High-Level Science Policy Advisory Committee. | |||
| 04 May 2022 | The 130 trillion-dollar man - Ep84: Mark Carney | 00:55:46 | |
Mark Carney is one of the towering figures of climate finance. In 2020 Mark became the UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance, and the adviser to the UK on finance for COP 26. At COP26, in Glasgow, he launched GFANZ - the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, whose members manage $130 trillion of financial assets and have pledged to invest them in line with the Paris agreements. Mark co-chairs GFANZ together with Mike Bloomberg. Mark is a Vice Chair and Head of Transition Investing at Brookfield Asset Management and Board Member of Stripe. He was the governor of Bank of Canada from 2008 to 2013, and then Governor of the Bank of England from 2013 until 2020. He was the chair of the Financial Stability Board (2011-2018) founding co-chair of TCFD - the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosure. Mark holds a bachelor's degree with high honours in economics from Harvard University and MPhil and DPhil in Economics from the University of Oxford. | |||
| 29 Jun 2022 | The Inconvenient Truth about Climate Science - Ep93: Prof. Roger Pielke Jr. | 01:39:23 | |
Roger Pielke, Jr. has been on the faculty of the University of Colorado Boulder since 2001, where he teaches and writes on a diverse range of policy and governance issues related to science, technology, environment, innovation and sports. Roger is a professor in the Environmental Studies Program. Roger is currently focusing his research on a NSF-sponsored, 16-country evaluation of science advice in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Roger holds degrees in mathematics, public policy and political science, all from the University of Colorado. In 2012 Roger was awarded an honorary doctorate from Linköping University in Sweden and was also awarded the Public Service Award of the Geological Society of America. In 2006, Roger received the Eduard Brückner Prize in Munich, Germany in 2006 for outstanding achievement in interdisciplinary climate research.
Roger has been a Distinguished Fellow of the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan since 2016. From 2019 he has served as a science and economics adviser to Environmental Progress. Roger was a Fellow of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences from 2001 to 2016. He served as a Senior Fellow of The Breakthrough Institute from 2008 to 2018. In 2007 Roger served as a James Martin Fellow at Oxford University’s Said Business School. Before joining the faculty of the University of Colorado, from 1993 to 2001 Roger was a Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
At the University of Colorado, Roger founded and directed both the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research and the Sports Governance Center. He also created and led the university’s Graduate Certificate Program in Science and Technology Policy, which has seen its graduates move on to faculty positions, Congressional staff, presidential political appointees and in positions in business and civil society.
His books include Hurricanes: Their Nature and Impacts on Society (with R. Pielke Sr., 1997, John Wiley, full text free as PDF), Prediction: Science, Decision Making and the Future of Nature (with D. Sarewitz and R. Byerly, 2001, Island Press), The Honest Broker: Making Sense of Science in Policy and Politics published by Cambridge University Press (2007), The Climate Fix: What Scientists and Politicians Won’t Tell you About Global Warming (2010, Basic Books). Presidential Science Advisors: Reflections on Science, Policy and Politics (with R. Klein, 2011, Springer), and The Edge: The War Against Cheating and Corruption in the Cutthroat World of Elite Sports (Roaring Forties Press, 2016). His most recent book is The Rightful Place of Science: Disasters and Climate Change (2nd edition, 2018, Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes). | |||
| 16 Nov 2022 | Managing Uncertainty: The Scenario Shell Game - Ep106: László Varró | 00:58:06 | |
Ordered as referenced during the show: Meet the Shell Scenarios team | Shell Global After Ukraine – The Great Clean Energy Acceleration | BloombergNEF (bnef.com) Liebreich: Peak Emissions Are Closer Than You Think – and Here’s Why | BloombergNEF (bnef.com) Ep97: Julio Friedmann "The Carbon Wrangler" | Cleaning Up. Leadership in an age of climate change. | |||
| 18 Oct 2023 | Power of Data, Data of Power - Ep140: Quentin Draper Scrimshire | 00:39:33 | |
This week, Michael’s guest is Quentin Draper-Scrimshire, co-founder and CEO of Modo Energy. Modo, founded in 2019, are accelerating the energy transition by enabling companies to make better, data-backed decisions hyper-focused on energy storage. Modo is used by 75% of participants in the GB market, with over 3000 subscribers. Quentin was formerly Head of Energy Storage at KiWi Power Ltd.
Links: You can read the National Grid’s explainer on battery storage here: https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/energy-explained/what-is-battery-storage Watch Michael's appearance on Modo: The Podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGg8VOrr7Oc The Modo Website: https://modoenergy.com Read a write-up of Modo's recent fundraising round: https://www.current-news.co.uk/modo-energy-secures-3-2m-to-expand-asset-success-platform/ Explore Modo's research, including technology explainers: https://modoenergy.com/research
Related Episodes: Watch Episode 32 with Greg Jackson here: https://www.cleaningup.live/episode-32-greg-jackson/ Watch Episode 104 with Yanis Varoufakis here: https://www.cleaningup.live/ep104-yanis-varoufakis-power-markets-power-markets/
Guest Bio Quentin Draper-Scrimshire is co-founder and CEO of Modo Energy which enables companies to make better, data-backed decisions hyper-focused on energy storage. Prior to co-founding Modo, he was Head of Energy Storage at KiWi Power and, before that, enjoyed a long stint at Centrica where he worked as engineer across a range of energy systems, including oil and gas, wind, and energy storage. Quentin holds a Master’s degree in Engineering from the University of Manchester. | |||
| 06 Dec 2023 | Tackling Super Pollutants - Ep146: Jason Anderson | 00:56:48 | |
This week, Bryony speaks with Jason Anderson, Senior Program Director at ClimateWorks, who oversees the Governance & Diplomacy and Super Pollutant programs. His work spans efforts ranging from implementing the Paris Agreement to cleaning up dirty shipping and preventing methane leakage. Jason has over 25 years of experience in climate and clean energy, beginning in the solar energy conversion office at the U.S. Department of Energy, which led him to promote photovoltaics for rural electrification in Central America. Jason then worked in a range of climate organizations in Brussels for 15 years, ranging from Climate Action Network Europe to the Institute for European Environmental Policy to the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF). Jason was a lead author of the IPCC special reports on ozone and climate interactions, and on carbon capture and storage; in 2007 Jason was acknowledged for his contribution to the IPCC’s Nobel Peace Prize. Jason holds a Masters in Public Policy degree and a Masters in Science in energy and resources from the University of California Berkeley, and a degree in biological anthropology from Harvard University.
Links
Climateworks Governance & Diplomacy Program which Jason oversees: https://www.climateworks.org/programs/governance-diplomacy/ COP 28 Website: https://www.cop28.com/en/ Read a summary of the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer: https://www.unep.org/ozonaction/who-we-are/about-montreal-protocol Read the US EPA’s summary of 2016 Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol: https://www.epa.gov/ozone-layer-protection/recent-international-developments-under-montreal-protocol Explore the Climate and Clean Air Coalition’s work on short-lived climate pollutants: https://www.ccacoalition.org/content/short-lived-climate-pollutants Read about the Environmental Defense Fund’s new MethaneSAT: https://business.edf.org/insights/methane-satellites-usher-in-new-era-of-emissions-visibility-and-transparency/ Explore the Global Methane Pledge: https://www.globalmethanepledge.org/
Related Episodes Episode 143: Johannah Christensen – Is Shipping the Easiest “Hard-to-Abate” Sector? - https://www.cleaningup.live/is-shipping-the-easiest-hard-to-abate-sector-ep143-johannah-christensen/ | |||
| 21 Oct 2020 | Cheaper, Cleaner, More Reliable - Ep14: Jonathan Maxwell | 01:01:04 | |
Further reading: Jonathan’s official bio: https://www.sdclgroup.com/blog/our-team/jonathan-maxwell/ Build Back Better: How utilities can get their own estates in order (27 July 2020) Be efficient, cool and smart: tackling climate change in a post-COVID world (15 June 2020) What impact will lower oil prices have on clean energy? (27 May 2020) https://www.investmentweek.co.uk/feature/4015627/impact-lower-oil-prices-clean-energy An introduction to SDCL with CEO, Jonathan Maxwell (20 April 2020) https://content.yudu.com/web/69r/0A170rn/EEApr2020/html/index.html?page=30&origin=reader Jonathan’s interview with Proactive Investors (8 March 2019) | |||
| 02 Dec 2020 | Clean Energy Coalition-Builder - Ep21: Claude Turmes | 00:56:50 | |
Further reading: Official Bio https://gouvernement.lu/dam-assets/documents/ministres/cv/2019/en/Turmes-EN-Oct2019.pdf Energy Transformation - An Opportunity for Europe (Claude Turme’s book) European Forum for Renewable Energy Sources The EU’s state aid regime is upside down (May 2020) Directive 2012/27/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council (25 October 2012) https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A32012L0027 Directive 2009/28/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (23 April 2009) https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX%3A32009L0028 "LUXEMBOURG IN TRANSITION": TOWARDS ZERO CARBON BY 2050? https://delano.lu/d/detail/news/luxembourg-transition-towards-zero-carbon-2050/212145 | |||
| 17 Jan 2024 | Selling Sustainability - Ep150: Solitaire Townsend | 01:02:51 | |
Bryony returns in Season 11 this week, sitting down with her longtime friend Solitaire Townsend. Solitaire is Co-founder & Chief Solutionist at Futerra, and Trustee of the Solutions Union. She is a renowned sustainability expert and solutionist. From Google to the United Nations, Ikea to WWF, Solitaire works with the worlds’ most influential organisations to activate social justice and environmental restoration. Over two decades she has led the movement towards solutions, hope and optimism with numerous publications and keynotes at the UN, MIT, Ted and many more. She was named “Ethical Entrepreneur of the Year” in 2008 and more recently chair of the UK Green Energy Scheme, trustee of Ashden, a founder member of the United Nations Sustainable Lifestyles Taskforce and a London Leader for Sustainability. She holds master’s degrees in both Sustainable Development and Shakespeare.
Links Solitaire's recent book, The Solutionists: How Businesses Can Fix the Future: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Solutionists-How-Businesses-Can-Future/dp/139860934X Watch Solitaire's 2021 Ted talk - Are Ad Agencies, PR Firms and Lobbyists Destroying the Climate?: https://www.ted.com/talks/solitaire_townsend_are_ad_agencies_pr_firms_and_lobbyists_destroying_the_climate?language=en The Game Changers Movie on Meat and Nutrition: https://gamechangersmovie.com Buy Lovebug cat food here: https://www.lovebugpetfood.com
Related Episodes Lifting the Curtain on Climate Change Denial - Ep 141: Prof Naomi Oreskes: https://www.cleaningup.live/lifting-the-curtain-on-climate-change-denial-ep-141-prof-naomi-oreskes/ | |||
| 07 Jul 2021 | Pushing Planetary Boundaries - Ep49: Johan Rockström | 00:51:45 | |
Johan Rockström is Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and Professor in Earth System Science at the University of Potsdam. He is an internationally recognized scientist on global sustainability issues, most known for developing the Planetary Boundaries framework for human development. Professor Rockström is a leading scientist on global water resources, with more than 25 years’ experience in applied water research in tropical regions, and more than 150 research publications in fields ranging from applied land and water management to global sustainability. Apart from that, Professor Rockström is a member of European Commission expert group: Mission Board for adaptation to climate change including societal transformation, chair of the Earth Commission and an elected member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. Between 2004 and 2012 he led the Stockholm Environment Institute, in 2007 he co-founded the Stockholm Resilience Centre. Professor Rockström wrote not just scientific papers: together with Sir David Attenborough he’s working on a Netflix series ‘Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet’ but also co-authored a cookbook with recipes healthy for people and the planet. Further reading: Official Bio https://www.pik-potsdam.de/members/johanro TED Talk “10 years to transform the future of humanity or destabilize the planet” (October 2020) https://www.ted.com/talks/johan\_rockstrom\_10\_years\_to\_transform\_the\_future\_of\_humanity\_or\_destabilize\_the\_planet Johan Rockström: ‘We need bankers as well as activists… we have 10 years to cut emissions by half’ (May 2021) https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/29/johan-rockstrom-interview-breaking-boundaries-attenborough-biden Standing Up for a Sustainable World: Voices of Change (2020) https://www.amazon.com/Standing-Up-Sustainable-World-Voices/dp/1800371799 | |||
| 22 Nov 2023 | Iron-Air Man - Ep144: Mateo Jaramillo | 01:04:37 | |
Mateo Jaramillo is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Form Energy, a company developing, commercializing, and manufacturing breakthrough low-cost, multi-day energy storage solutions that will enable the electric system to be 100% renewably powered. Mr. Jaramillo was formerly Vice President of Products and Programs for Tesla’s stationary storage business, an effort he started. In that role, he was responsible for Tesla Energy’s product line and business model definition, as well as global policy and business development. Mr. Jaramillo joined Tesla in 2009 as the Director of Powertrain Business Development, serving as commercial lead and primary negotiator on over $100M in new development and $500M in production contracts signed for electric powertrain sales. Prior to Tesla, Mr. Jaramillo was Chief Operating Officer and part of the founding team at Gaia Power Technologies, a pioneering distributed energy storage firm. Mr. Jaramillo serves on the Board of Directors for the American Clean Power Association, the leading federation of renewable energy companies expediting the advancement of clean energy as the dominant power source in America. He earned his AB in economics from Harvard and a Masters in Theology from Yale Divinity School.
Links Forbes write-up of Form: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2023/08/09/iron-and-rust-could-be-the-secret-to-storing-clean-power-for-days/ PBS write-up of Form: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/iron-air-battery-renewable-grid/ Balkan Green Energy News’ critical analysis of iron-oxide battery technology: https://balkangreenenergynews.com/iron-air-batteries-are-10-times-as-cheap-as-lithium-and-will-be-produced-from-2024/ Assessment of SDES and LDES and current technologies: https://www.globalxetfs.com/short-and-long-duration-energy-storage-essential-to-the-clean-energy-transition/
Related Episodes Episode 122 with Sir Chris-Llewellyn-Smith: https://www.cleaningup.live/ep122-sir-chris-llewellyn-smith-solving-for-storage/ | |||
| 29 Nov 2023 | The Bridgetown Initiator - Ep145: Prof Avinash Persaud | 01:03:59 | |
Professor Avinash Persaud is special envoy to the Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley and emeritus professor at Gresham College in the UK. He, along with PM Mottley, helped design the Bridgetown Initiative in 2022 which laid out a path for reforming and ramping up the mobiliisation of climate finance to the developing world. The initiative has gathered vast international support and he’s heading to COP28 in Dubai to work on advancing the climate development agenda. His career spreads across finance, academia and public policy, including positions as a former senior executive of J.P. Morgan, UBS, State Street, chairman of the CARICOM Commission on the Economy, chairman of the regulatory sub-committee of the UN Commission on Financial Reform and chairman of the Warwick Commission on International Financial Reform, Visiting Scholar at the IMF and a former Governor of the London School of Economics.
Related Episodes Episode 2 with Rachel Kyte: https://www.cleaningup.live/episode-2-rachel-kyte/
Links Read an initial press release of the Bridgetown Initiative: https://pmo.gov.bb/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/The-2022-Bridgetown-Initiative.pdf Read a summary of the Bridgetown Initiative’s key demands: https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/what-is-bridgetown-initiative-asking-paris-financial-summit-2023-06-20/ Review PM Mottley’s speech to COP27, outlining the need for the Bridgetown Initiatve: https://latinarepublic.com/2022/11/08/mia-mottley-prime-minister-of-barbados-speaks-at-the-opening-of-cop27/ Explore the COP28 website: https://www.cop28.com Read this report on the difficult path ahead to a new loss-and-damage fund agreement at COP28: https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/sustainable-finance-reporting/impasse-broken-climate-fund-before-cop28-tough-road-ahead-2023-11-06
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| 27 Nov 2024 | Can Exponential Growth Save a Finite Planet? — Ep187: Azeem Azhar | 01:12:36 | |
As we race towards a future powered by AI and data centres, how will the insatiable demand for energy impact the environment? With the richest companies ploughing billions into energy generation, might there be some unexpected upsides for the climate transition? And can exponential technologies address the climate crisis on a finite planet? This week on Cleaning Up, host Michael Liebreich sits down with Azeem Azhar, founder of Exponential View, to explore the complex relationship between exponential growth, climate change, and the societal implications of transformative technologies. Michael and Azeem delve into the promises and pitfalls of a future shaped by the rapid advancements in renewable energy, battery storage, and artificial intelligence. Exponential View: Listeners of Cleaning Up can receive one year of complimentary access to Exponential View Premium, visit: https://www.exponentialview.co/cleaningup. Offer valid for 7 days starting November 27, 2024. Leadership Circle: Cleaning Up is supported by the Leadership Circle, and its founding members: Actis, Alcazar Energy, EcoPragma Capital, EDP of Portugal, Eurelectric, the Gilardini Foundation, KKR, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation, SDCL and Wärtsilä. For more information on the Leadership Circle, please visit https://www.cleaningup.live. Links:
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| 05 Jul 2023 | The World's Preeminent Energy Economist - Ep133: Fatih Birol | 00:45:04 | |
This week’s guest is Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency and one of the world’s foremost energy economists. Fatih has been in-post since 2015, and is a returning guest to Cleaning Up, having appeared on Episode 28, all the way back in January 2021. Under Fatih’s leadership, the IEA has expanded its mandate to become a leading voice on clean energy technologies, energy efficiency and net-zero pathways. Few people have as clear a view on the entire energy sector as Fatih, so Michael headed to Paris and IEA HQ to hear insights on surging EV sales, the urgent need for grid modernization and expansion, and a reality-check on hydrogen's role on the path to net-zero. Make sure you like, subscribe, and share Cleaning Up. We're growing fast on LinkedIn, and we'd love for you tell your professional network about us: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cleaning-up-with-michael-liebreich/ You can find everything you need to keep up with Cleaning Up here: https://linktr.ee/mlcleaningup
Links and Related Episodes Watch Fatih’s first appearance on Episode 28 of Cleaning Up here: https://www.cleaningup.live/episode-28-dr-fatih-birol/ Watch Episode 131 with Tzeporah Berman here: https://www.cleaningup.live/ep131-tzeporah-berman-canadas-controversial-queen-of-green/ Read Fatih’s latest thought leadership here: “COP28 is a moment of truth for the oil and gas industry’s efforts on climate”: https://www.iea.org/commentaries/cop28-is-a-moment-of-truth-for-the-oil-and-gas-industry-s-efforts-on-climate “Where things stand in the global energy crisis one year on”: https://www.iea.org/commentaries/where-things-stand-in-the-global-energy-crisis-one-year-on Fatih’s official bio is available here: https://www.iea.org/contributors/dr-fatih-birol Read the IEA’s flagship 2021 report, Net Zero by 2050: https://www.iea.org/reports/net-zero-by-2050 In the news: Time: Exclusive: IEA Head Fatih Birol Wants The Fossil Fuel Industry To Set Climate Targets: https://time.com/6284159/iea-fatih-birol-oil-gas-emission-targets/ Euractiv: IEA chief calls for ‘serious self-criticism’ among EU’s nuclear opponents: https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/iea-chief-calls-for-serious-self-criticism-among-eus-nuclear-opponents/
Guest Bio Dr Fatih Birol has served as Executive Director of the IEA since 2015, taking up his current position after rising through the ranks of the IEA over two decades, from junior analyst to Chief Economist. He has been named in TIME's annual list of the world's 100 most influential people and by Forbes as one of the most influential people in the world of energy. He chairs the World Economic Forum’s (Davos) Energy Advisory Board. As Chief Economist at the IEA, he oversaw the World Energy Outlook series, the authoritative source for energy analysis and projections and flagship publication of the IEA. Fatih holds a BSc in Power Engineering from the Technical University of Istanbul, and an MSc and Ph.D. in Energy Economics from the Technical University of Vienna. Fatih is the recipient of numerous state decorations, including the French Legion of Honour and the Japanese Emperor’s Order of the Rising Sun. | |||
| 13 Jul 2022 | The Voice of Sustainable Capitalism - Ep95: Mindy Lubber | 00:53:33 | |
Mindy Lubber is the CEO and President of the sustainability nonprofit organization Ceres. She leads an all-women executive leadership team and more than 160 employees working to mobilize the most influential investors and companies to solve the world’s greatest sustainability challenges. She has been at the helm since 2003, and under her leadership, the organization and its powerful networks and global collaborations have grown significantly in size and influence.
Prior to Ceres, Lubber served as a Regional Administrator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under former President Bill Clinton. She also founded Green Century Capital Management and served as the director of the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group (MASSPIRG).
She has received numerous awards and recognitions for her leadership. In 2020, Lubber was awarded the United Nations ’Champions of the Earth’ Entrepreneurial Vision award. In the same year, Lubber made Barron’s Magazine’s list of the 100 most influential women in U.S. finance, and then again in 2021. She has also received the Climate Visionary Award from the Earth Day Network, William K. Reilly Award for Environmental Leadership from American University, and the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship from the Skoll Foundation. She has been recognized by the United Nations and the Foundation for Social Change as one of the World’s Top Leaders of Change. In 2019, 2020, and 2021, Ceres was named a top 100 women-led businesses in Massachusetts by the Globe Magazine and Commonwealth Institute.
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| 01 Feb 2023 | Europe's Hydrogen Pusher - Ep115: Jorgo Chatzimarkakis | 01:22:29 | |
This week, Michael invites Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, CEO of Hydrogen Europe, to debate the importance of hydrogen in powering Europe and the world towards a decarbonized economy. Hydrogen Europe is an industry association of more than 400 members that promotes the role of hydrogen in reaching carbon neutrality in Europe. Chatzimarkakis holds hydrogen to be the miracle molecule of the transition, while Michael’s Hydrogen Ladder has a far narrower view of its likely uses on the path to net zero. What follows is a comprehensive, robust – and at moments, fierce - discussion of hydrogen in the transition, covering electrolyzers, fertilizers, freight, transportation and heating, as well as following the “pots of money” behind hydrogen infrastructure and lobbying in Europe. Spark more healthy debate around net zero pathways by liking and sharing the episode, and don’t forget to subscribe. Relevant Guest & Topic Links: Learn more about Hydrogen Europe: https://hydrogeneurope.eu/ HE’s Hydrogen Act (2021) lays out a roadmap for a ‘European Hydrogen Economy’: https://hydrogeneurope.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/2021.04_HE_Hydrogen-Act_Final.pdf HE’s Clean Hydrogen Monitor (2022) provides an overview of the European hydrogen market: https://hydrogeneurope.eu/clean-hydrogen-monitor2022/ Explore Michael’s Hydrogen Ladder here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/clean-hydrogen-ladder-v40-michael-liebreich/ President von der Leyen’s speech at the European Parliament Plenary on December 15th 2022: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/fi/speech_22_7727 Watch Cleaning Up Episode 111 with Dan Yergin here: https://www.cleaningup.live/ep111-daniel-yergin-the-worlds-most-influential-energy-analyst/ Watch Episode 88 with Patrick Graichen here: https://www.cleaningup.live/ep88-patrick-graichen-germanys-secretary-of-state-for-the-energiewende/ Guest Bio: Chatzimarkakis was a Member of European Parliament from 2004 until 2014 for Germany’s Free Democratic Party (FDP), serving on the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy among others. From 1999 to 2004, Chatzimarkakis was Managing Partner at Polit Data Concept, a public affair consultancy, and served as a Science Policy Officer at Germany’s Bundestag from 1995 to 1998. Chatzimarkakis holds an MA from the University of Bonn in Political Science. He has held positions as a lecturer at University Duisberg Essen and Saarland University. | |||
| 02 Sep 2020 | A Good and Exciting Life - Ep7: Bertrand Piccard | 01:08:08 | |
Further reading: Bertrand Piccard’s website https://bertrandpiccard.com/home The story of the Solar Impulse round-the-world electric flight https://aroundtheworld.solarimpulse.com/adventure How to raise $170m for a crazy idea https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-raise-170-million-crazy-idea-bertrand-piccard/ Solar Impulse Foundation/World Alliance for Efficient Solutions The Greatest Adventure, book on the balloon circumnavigation by pilots Piccard and Jones https://www.amazon.com/greatest-adventure-balloonists-round-world/dp/0747271283/ref=sr\_1\_1 | |||
| 21 Sep 2022 | Brewing up a clean fuel miracle - Ep100: Dr. Jennifer Holmgren | 00:53:26 | |
Dr. Jennifer Holmgren is CEO of carbon recycling company, LanzaTech. Prior to joining LanzaTech, Dr. Holmgren was VP and General Manager of the Renewable Energy and Chemicals business unit at UOP LLC, a Honeywell Company. Dr. Holmgren is the author or co-author of 50 US patents and more than 30 scientific publications. In 2003, she was the first woman awarded the Malcolm E. Pruitt Award from the Council for Chemical Research (CCR). In 2010, she was the recipient of the Leadership Award from the Civil Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative (CAAFI) for her work in establishing the technical and commercial viability of sustainable aviation biofuels. In 2015 Dr. Holmgren and her team at LanzaTech were awarded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Presidential Green Chemistry Award and she was awarded the BIO Rosalind Franklin Award for Leadership in Industrial Biotechnology. Sustainability magazine, Salt, named Dr. Holmgren as the world’s most compassionate business woman in 2015. In October 2015, Dr. Holmgren was awarded the Outstanding Leader Award in Corporate Social Innovation from the YWCA Metropolitan Chicago. Dr. Holmgren was named as #1 of the most 100 influential leaders in the Bioeconomy by Biofuels Digest for 2016-2017. She currently serves on the board of The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Biofuels Advisory Committee. Dr. Holmgren is also on the Governing Council for the Bio Energy Research Institute in India. The institute has been set up by the DBT (Department of Biotechnology, Indian Government) and IOC (Indian Oil Corporation). Dr. Holmgren holds a B.Sc. degree from Harvey Mudd College, a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an MBA from the University of Chicago. | |||
| 19 Apr 2023 | Annual Update: Sustainable Energy for All - Ep124: Damilola Ogunbiyi | 00:57:46 | |
Today’s guest on Cleaning Up is Damilola Ogunbiyi. Damilola is CEO of Sustainable Energy for All, the UN partner organization dedicated to achieving Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7) – access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all by 2030. Damilola is a returning guest on Cleaning Up after first joining us for Episode 62 in 2021. She’s back to tell us how SEforAll is progressing in its mission to bring electricity to the whole world. After talking Michael through a raft of SEforAll’s new initiatives – across everything from clean cooking to carbon markets - Damilola ends with a passionate plea to change the conversation around the energy needs of the developing world: “What is happening is you're using a conversation of no fossil / fossil to fund nothing… The crux of it is, if you look at the money that's going in to Africa, 1.5% of all renewable investment? It's absurd, it is embarrassing.” Make sure you like, subscribe, follow and share Cleaning Up. We're growing fast on LinkedIn, and we'd love for you tell your professional network about us: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cleaning-up-with-michael-liebreich/ You can find everything you need to keep up with Cleaning Up here: https://linktr.ee/mlcleaningup Relevant Guest & Topic Links Learn more about SEforAll’s mission: https://www.seforall.org/ Find out more about the parameters of SDG7: https://www.seforall.org/sustainable-development-goal-7-sdg7 Read and explore last year’s Energy Progress Report 2022: https://trackingsdg7.esmap.org/ Damilola first featured on Episode 62 of Cleaning Up in 2021: https://www.cleaningup.live/ep62-damilola-ogunbiyi-energy-the-red-thread-through-the-sdgs/ Edited Highlights from Episode 62 are available here: https://www.cleaningup.live/p/ep62-eh/ Episode 118 of Cleaning Up featured Achim Steiner, Administrator of of UNDP and Co-chair of UN Energy alongside Damilola: https://www.cleaningup.live/ep118-achim-steiner-sustaining-development/ Our episodes featuring Alain Ebobisse, Elizabeth Wathuti and Bill McKibben can all be found in our Development playlist on YouTube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe8ZTD7dMaaDSF7Z5EpAvtWOs8HPUEdC3 Guest Bio Damilola Ogunbiyi is the CEO of Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL), Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All, and Co-Chair of UN-Energy. Before joining SEforAll, Damilola was the first female Managing Director of the Nigerian Rural Electrification Agency, where she initiated the Nigerian Electrification Project, a programme that to date has provided energy access to over 5 million people across Nigeria Before joining the Federal Government of Nigeria, Damilola was the first female General Manager of the Lagos State Electricity Board. Under her leadership, five independent power projects were completed to deliver over 55 megawatts of power to Lagos State hospitals, schools, and government facilities. Damilola is a member of the Global Leadership Council of the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet, an Advisory Board member of the Centre on Global Energy Policy, a member of the Development Advisory Council of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, a member of the Clean Cooking Alliance Advisory Board, a member of the Advisory Board of University of Oxford’s Future of Cooling Programme, and Co-Chair of UN–Energy. Damilola holds a bachelor’s degree in Project Management with Construction and a Master’s degree in Construction Management with Public Private Partnership from the University of Brighton. | |||
| 24 Feb 2021 | Building the Billion-Customer Energy Company - Ep32: Greg Jackson | 01:01:23 | |
Links Octopus Energy Energy needed a digital revolution – and we are it (January 2021) https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jan/02/energy-needed-a-digital-revolution-and-we-are-it Octopus Energy is the Which? “Recommended Provider” for a record fourth year in a row (January 2021) Octopus Energy partners with Tokyo Gas to enter the Asian market (January 2021) AWS helps power UK green electricity pioneer Octopus Energy (January 2021) https://diginomica.com/aws-helps-power-uk-green-electricity-pioneer-octopus-energy In our lifetimes, cities will smell like the countryside (December, 2020) https://www.cityam.com/in-our-lifetimes-cities-will-smell-like-the-countryside/ Who is the diruptive firm aiming to be the ‘Amazon of energy’? (December, 2020) https://www.businessleader.co.uk/who-is-the-energy-firm-aiming-to-be-the-amazon-of-energy/105401/ Octopus Energy chief Greg Jackson declares London world leader of green energy tech as it wins “double unicorn” $2bn status (December, 2020) Earlier this week I sat down with Greg Jackson, CEO at Octopus Energy to talk about how we can build back greener. (November, 2020) Green Electricity Provider to Create 1,000 New Jobs in U.K. (October, 2020) Under the Spotlight with Greg Jackson, founder and CEO of Octopus Energy (October 2020) https://www.marketingsociety.com/video/under-spotlight-greg-jackson-founder-and-ceo-octopus-energy Octopus Energy launches into US market with startup acquisition (October 2020) Zopa https://www.linkedin.com/company/zopa/ Consultant Connect https://www.consultantconnect.org.uk/ A message from our founder, Octopus Energy https://octopus.energy/message-from-our-founder/ Meet Greg Jackson, Founder and CEO of Octopus Energy https://www.move-upstream.org.uk/news_post/meet-greg-jackson-founder-and-ceo-of-octopus-energy/
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| 01 Dec 2021 | US China - strategic rivals, climate partners - Ep66: David Sandalow | 01:01:12 | |
David Sandalow is the Inaugural Fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy and co-Director of the Energy and Environment Concentration at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He founded and directs the Center’s U.S.-China Program. David is as a director at Fermata Energy and senior advisor to APL. He is a member of the Zayed Future Energy Prize Selection Committee, Global CO2 Initiative Advisory Board, Electric Drive Transport Association’s “Hall of Fame” and Council on Foreign Relations. David held senior positions at the White House, State Department and U.S. Department of Energy. At DOE he served as Under Secretary of Energy (acting) and Assistant Secretary for Policy & International Affairs. Before joining DOE, David was a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and Executive Vice President at WWF. David holds a B.A. from Yale University and J.D. from University of Michigan Law School. Official bio: https://www.sipa.columbia.edu/faculty-research/faculty-directory/david-sandalow Guide to Chinese Climate Policy (2019) https://www.amazon.com/Guide-Chinese-Climate-Policy-Sandalow/dp/1691490245/ref=sr\_1\_3? keywords=guide%20to%20chinese%20climate%20policy&qid=1568665817&sr=8-3 Carbon Mineralization Roadmap (November 2021) https://www.icef.go.jp/pdf/summary/roadmap/icef2021\_roadmap.pdf | |||
| 06 Apr 2022 | The Search for Climate Talent - Ep82: Claire Skinner | 00:50:38 | |
Claire Skinner is a partner in Heidrick & Struggles' London office and leader of the Europe region. She is a member of the firm’s CEO & Board, Industrial, and Private Equity practices. Claire has more than 20 years of experience building executive and non-executive teams for a wide range of clients involved in energy, utilities, clean technology, and sustainability. Additionally, she has substantial expertise within energy and environmental investment, building teams on behalf of leading venture and private equity companies, infrastructure and asset managers, global financial institutions, and professional services groups. Claire has significant experience in senior sustainability and climate change appointments within major corporations, government, philanthropy, and non-profit organizations. Prior to joining Heidrick & Struggles, Claire led the EMEA alternative energy & clean technology practice at a global executive search firm. Previously, she was the founding managing director of a boutique executive search firm dedicated to the power and sustainability markets. Claire serves on the Business Advisory Group of the UK Government Climate Change Committee. She holds a BSc in Agricultural Environmental Science from Newcastle University and MSc in Pollution and Environmental Control from the University of Manchester. | |||
| 14 Sep 2022 | In the Engine Room of the Transition - Ep99: Dev Sanyal | 00:56:59 | |
Dev Sanyal is Chief Executive Officer of VARO Energy Group AG, based in Zug, Switzerland. He was appointed to this role effective 1 January 2022. In July 2022, the company announced the ONE VARO Transformation Strategy accelerated by “Engine 1” focussed on Conventional Energies and “Engine 2” focussed on Sustainable Energies, with a commitment to investing two-thirds of capital in Engine 2 businesses and a trebling of earnings for the Group in the next 5 years. VARO will also be Net Zero in Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions by 2040. Prior to this, Dev had a 32-year career with BP plc including over a decade as a member of the group executive committee and headed gas and low carbon energy globally. Prior to this, he was chief executive, alternative energy and also accountable for BP’s Europe and Asia regions. During his tenure, he built world scale businesses in sustainable energy – solar, offshore wind, onshore wind, hydrogen and gas and power - and led the pivot in the company’s energy transition strategy. Dev joined BP in 1989 and held a variety of international roles in London, Athens, Istanbul, Vienna and Dubai. Prior to joining the Group Executive Committee, he held the roles of group treasurer and chairman of BP Investment Management and Arco Aluminium, chief executive, Air BP International and chief executive, BP Eastern Mediterranean. Dev is an independent non-executive director on the board of M&G plc; a member of the energy advisory board of the Government of India; the advisory board of the Centre for European Reform; and the board of overseers of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, where he obtained a master’s degree in economics and politics. He is a Fellow of the Energy Institute. Dev was an independent non-executive director on the board of Man Group plc (2013-2022); a member of the Accenture Global Energy Board (2012-2018); Vice Chairman, Centre for China in the World Economy, Tsinghua University (2014-2019); The Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award Foundation Business Leaders Group (2012-2015); and Trustee of the Career Academy Foundation (2007-2013). | |||
| 04 Oct 2023 | The Dane who Harnessed the Wind - Ep139: Henrik Stiesdal | 01:02:17 | |
This week, Michael’s guest is Henrik Stiesdal, former CTO of Siemens Gamesa and a pioneer of wind turbine technology. Nicknamed "The Godfather of Wind", this Danish inventor is behind many of the sector's most important innovations. He is responsible for over 175 inventions and is named in over 1,000 patents. Today, he runs Stiesdal, a startup which innovates in floating offshore turbine foundations, thermal power storage and hydrogen.
Links: Henrik was profiled in The New York Times in May: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/03/business/energy-environment/denmark-wind-power-stiesdal.html Henrik featured in Offshore Engineer in 2022: https://www.oedigital.com/news/497276-cto-in-focus-henrik-stiesdal-wind-power-pioneer Discover more about Henrik’s company, Stiesdal: https://www.stiesdal.com/about/ Purchase The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Boy-Who-Harnessed-Wind/dp/0007316194
Related Episodes: Watch Episode 130 with Paddy Padmanathan here: https://www.cleaningup.live/ep130-paddy-padmanathan-the-usain-bolt-of-solar-power/ Watch Episode 128 with Prof. Bent Flyvbjerg here: https://www.cleaningup.live/ep128-prof-bent-flyvbjerg-how-big-things-should-get-done/
Guest Bio Henrik Stiesdal is Founder, Chief Technical Officer and Board Member at Stiesdal, who are committed to developing and commercializing technologies with high impact on climate change mitigation. Henrik is a wind power pioneer: having built his first test turbine in 1976, Henrik sold the license to commercial design to Vestas in 1979, kick-starting today’s wind industry. Henrik was Technical Manager of Bonus Energy from 1988, then CTO of Siemens Wind Power from 2004-2014. Henrik installed the world’s first offshore wind farm in 1991, and holds more than 1000 patents. | |||
| 22 Sep 2021 | Planting the Seeds of Inspiration - Ep55: Elizabeth Wathuti | 00:47:17 | |
Elizabeth Wathuti is a Kenyan environment and climate activist and founder of the Green Generation Initiative, which nurtures young people to be environmentally conscious and has planted 30,000 tree seedlings in Kenya. She grew up in Nyeri County, which has the highest forest cover in Kenya, planting her first tree at the age of seven and establishing an environmental club in her high school. She was part of the leadership of Kenyatta University Environmental Club (KUNEC) where she led tree plantings, clean ups and environmental education and education on climate change. She is a recipient of a Wangari Maathai Scholarship award for her outstanding passion and commitment to environmental conservation. She is also a full member of the Green Belt Movement, which was founded by the late Professor Wangari Maathai who is Wathuti’s role model and a big inspiration and influence. In 2019, Wathuti was awarded the Africa Green Person of the Year Award by the Eleven Eleven Twelve Foundation, and named as one of the 100 Most Influential Young Africans by the Africa Youth Awards. She has also been featured on the Queen’s Commonwealth Trust website. | |||
| 31 Mar 2021 | Driving the Ecological Transition - Ep37: Teresa Ribera | 00:41:10 | |
Teresa Ribera, Deputy Prime Minister in the Spanish government and the Minister for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, is joining us this week on Cleaning Up. She has played a key role in Spain’s low-carbon transition and is a vocal advocate of a green COVID-19 recovery. Bio Since 2018 Teresa Ribera is a Deputy Prime Minister in the Spanish Government and the Minister for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge. In her role, she has advocated reorienting the Spanish economy towards green tech, put in place a €220m deal to get coal off the grid as well as negotiating a nuclear phase-out. From 2008 to 2011 she held the position of Secretary of State for Climate Change and Biodiversity in the second administration of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Between her two ministerial stints in government, Teresa was the Director of the Paris-based Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations. In that capacity, she focused on influencing the negotiations towards the Paris Climate Agreement. From 2004 to 2008 she served as Director-General of the Office of Climate Change, and prior to that, Teresa worked closely with different ministries in the Spanish government including Environment, Public Works, and Transportation. Teresa studied law at the Complutense University of Madrid and constitutional law with political science at the Center for Constitutional Studies. Following her studies, she worked as an assistant professor at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. She was featured in Politico’s ‘Class of 2021’ annual ranking of the most powerful people in Europe. In 2018 she received Climate Reality Project Award in the category of 'Public Personality'. Further reading: Bio https://www.lamoncloa.gob.es/gobierno/Paginas/130120-teresariberarodrig.aspx Energy pact divides EU as Spain threatens walkout (February 2021) European Green Deal must be central to a resilient recovery after Covid-19 (April 2020) Spain’s socialists win the election with Green New Deal Platform (April 2019) https://www.climatechangenews.com/2019/04/29/spains-socialists-win-election-green-new-deal-platform/ European Green Deal must be central to a resilient recovery after Covid-19 (April 2020) Declaration from AT, DK, ES, LU, PT on the adoption of the ‘Manifesto for the development of a European “Hydrogen Technologies and Systems” value chain’ Liebreich: Climate and Finance – Lessons from a Time Machine (March 2021) | |||
| 08 Mar 2023 | Enabling Africa's Green Energy Revolution - Ep120: Ana Hajduka | 01:04:29 | |
Today on Cleaning Up, Michael's guest is CEO and Founder of Africa GreenCo, Ana Hajduka. Africa GreenCo provide a trading operation and guarantee scheme for power producers in Sub-Saharan Africa to enable and sustain renewable energy investment and development in the region. This episode coincided with International Women's Day, so as well as outlining Africa GreenCo's ambitions to promote renewable energy supply in Africa, Ana ended with some truly fascinating insights into what it takes to be a successful woman in the climate space. Relevant Guest & Topic Links Learn more about Africa GreenCo’s mission here: https://africagreenco.com/ Sustainable development in Africa was discussed recently in Cleaning Up Episode 118 with Achim Steiner: https://www.cleaningup.live/ep118-achim-steiner-sustaining-development/ Bridging the energy gap in Africa was one of the topics discussed in Cleaning Up Episode 62 with Damilola Ogunbiyi: https://www.cleaningup.live/ep62-damilola-ogunbiyi-energy-the-red-thread-through-the-sdgs/ Guest Bio Ana is qualified as a lawyer in both England & Wales and the State of New York and is an infrastructure and energy professional. Ana trained with Allen & Overy LLP and went on to work for Fulbright & Jaworski LLP and Trinity International LLP, advising on a diverse range of projects within the energy sector, predominately in Sub-Saharan Africa. Ana was involved in a number of renewable energy projects across sub-Saharan Africa and is an African IPP project finance and PPA risk allocation specialist. In March 2015, Ana was appointed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) as the Team Leader responsible for a Project Team in charge of developing international renewable energy PPP standards as part of the Sustainable Energy for All agenda. Ana holds a degree in Law from University College London, studied for an LPC at the University of Oxford and holds an MSc in International History and International Relations from the London School of Economics. | |||
| 20 Jul 2022 | From Skier to Investor - Prepared for Impact - Ep96: Aksel Lund Svindal | 00:52:22 | |
| 26 Apr 2023 | Annual Update: All Things Nuclear - Ep125: Kirsty Gogan | 01:14:39 | |
This time on Cleaning Up, Michael welcomes Kirsty Gogan back to the show to update us on developments across the world of nuclear energy. Kirsty is co-CEO and founder of TerraPraxis, an NGO and climate solution accelerator, and a leading expert on nuclear power. It’s been three years since Kirsty’s last appearance on the show in August 2020, during which we’ve seen new reactors come online across the globe, as well as supply dropouts and wholesale nuclear phase-outs. Kirsty walked Michael through the headlines, as well the rise of SMR (Small Modular Reactor) technology and its potential applications. Michael and Kirsty end discussing whether nuclear is offering too little, too late on the path to net-zero in the coming decades, as renewables continue to rise to meet global energy demand. As a one-stop update on all things nuclear, today's Cleaning Up is not to be missed. Make sure you like, subscribe, and share Cleaning Up. We're growing fast on LinkedIn, and we'd love for you tell your professional network about us: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cleaning-up-with-michael-liebreich/ You can find everything you need to keep up with Cleaning Up here: https://linktr.ee/mlcleaningup
Relevant Guest & Topic Links Read the European Commission JRC’s Technical assessment of nuclear energy: https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC125953 Watch Kirsty’s first appearance on Cleaning Up Episode 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83oUuo9Af_c&list=PLe8ZTD7dMaaBcbo3W_zva0ChNZ9R9rL-U&index=16 Watch Julia Pyke, Financing Director of Sizewell C on Episode 94 of Cleaning Up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fUcx9RT6hQ&list=PLe8ZTD7dMaaBcbo3W_zva0ChNZ9R9rL-U&index=4&pp=gAQBiAQB Watch Tom Samson, former CEO of Rolls-Royce SMR on Episode 116 of Cleaning Up: https://youtu.be/sjThq8c3tT4 Learn more about the work of TerraPraxis: https://www.terrapraxis.org/ Learn more about the work of LucidCatalyst: https://www.lucidcatalyst.com/
Guest Bio Kirsty has more than 15 years’ experience as a senior advisor to Government on climate and energy policy, including 10 Downing St and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Kirsty is managing partner of LucidCatalyst, a highly specialized international consultancy focused on large-scale, affordable, market-based decarbonization of the global economy. LucidCatalyst was recently commissioned to produce the widely cited Energy Technologies Institute Nuclear Cost Drivers Study, and by ARPA-E to conduct a study on Cost and Performance Requirements for Flexible Advanced Nuclear Plants in Future U.S. Power Markets. Kirsty sits on the UK’s Nuclear Innovation Research and Advisory Board and the board of the Nuclear Innovation Alliance. In addition to being an authority on nuclear, Kirsty is an award-winning expert on science communication, climate change, and competitiveness. Kirsty is also co-founder and Global Director of Energy for Humanity (EFH), an environmental NGO focused on large-scale deep decarbonisation and energy access. | |||
| 13 Jan 2021 | Environmental Leadership in a Post-Brexit World - Ep26: Minister Zac Goldsmith | 00:54:31 | |
| 22 Jun 2022 | 650 Leagues of HVDC Under the Sea - Ep92: Simon Morrish | 01:01:07 | |
Simon Morrish is the CEO and founder of Xlinks, CEO of Ground Control and Partner at Levitate Capital. Simon is a serial entrepreneur (he is the founder of amongst others, Xlinks, Future Motors and Skysports) who has invested in and worked with companies such as Excel IT, Solar Ventus, CQC, Survey Roofing and Litter Boss. Simon started out at Morgan Stanley as a Derivatives Analyst, he then worked at McKinsey & Company. With his wife, he co-founded and directed How-Smart Ltd which was successfully sold to a larger competitor. Simon holds a Master’s degree with Distinction in Economics, Engineering and Management from Oxford University and a Master of Business Administration degree with Honors from Harvard Business School. Simon was a recipient of the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year™ award for Transformational Leadership in 2018 and was the recipient of the British Business Excellence Awards LDC Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2021. | |||
| 05 Jun 2024 | Battery Recycling Is Here - But Where Are The Batteries? - Ep165: Hans Eric Melin | 01:13:02 | |
As everyone knows, battery prices are plummeting and manufacturing volumes are soaring, whether for EVs or for grid-connected storage. And everyone knows there's a problem: only 5% of lithium-ion batteries are recycled. The rest go to landfill, right? Wrong. This week's guest on Cleaning Up is the world's preeminent expert on battery recycling. Hans Eric Melin is the Founder and Managing Director of Circular Energy Storage. Circular Energy Storage is a London-based data collection and analytics consultancy focused on the lithium-ion battery end-of-life market. They help companies and organisations in the entire battery value chain to take better decisions in everything that relates to reuse and recycling of lithium-ion batteries. They do this by continuously collecting, analysing and publishing data from all parts of the value chain worldwide and by working actively with customers in their strategy and business development.
Please like, subscribe and leave a review. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram, and sign up for the Cleaning Up newsletter at https://cleaninguppod.substack.com.
Links and more: Circular Energy Storage: https://circularenergystorage.com/about Hans' LinkedIn post on the false narratives around lithium-ion battery recycling rates: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-rate-other-untruths-battery-recycling-hans-eric-melin-m5lde Hans' more extensive research report explaining the real rates: https://www.energimyndigheten.se/globalassets/forskning--innovation/overgripande/state-of-the-art-in-reuse-and-recycling-of-lithium-ion-batteries-2019.pdf The 2023 Battery Materials Review Yearbook, featuring a chapter authored by Hans: https://www.batterymaterialsreview.com/products/ The 2016 paper Hans mentioned, featuring the 95% landfill rate: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11837-016-1994-y | |||
| 10 Nov 2021 | The Past, Present & Future of CO2 Emissions - Ep63: Glen Peters | 01:15:39 | |
Glen Peters is Research Director at Center for International Climate Research (CICERO) in Oslo. Previously he was a post-doctoral researcher at the Industrial Ecology Programme at NTNU. Dr Peters is a worldwide authority on socio-economic drivers of emissions. He has performed pioneering work on how international trade intricately connects emission drivers in different countries. Recent work has focused on trends in carbon emissions, socio-economic drivers, and future emission pathways at the global and country level (particularly China and India). Other key research areas include emission metrics and the carbon cycle. Dr Peters is on the Scientific Steering Committee of the Global Carbon Project. While at the University of Newcastle (Australia) he received a University Medal and Deans Medal for undergraduate performance (Mathematics/Physics) and the DH Trollope Medal for his PhD (Environmental Engineering). He has twice received the Environmental Science & Technology Best Policy Paper Award (2007, 2009). Further reading: Glen’s Google Scholar profile https://scholar.google.no/citations?user=EW93x94AAAAJ Global Mitigation Curves https://folk.universitetetioslo.no/roberan/t/global\_mitigation\_curves.shtml | |||
| 06 Sep 2023 | Bags of Sustainability - Ep137: Anya Hindmarch | 00:59:13 | |
Cleaning Up is back for its 10th season, and to start proceedings in style, Michael's first guest is Anya Hindmarch. Anya is one of Britain’s most celebrated fashion designers and a leading voice in the industry on sustainability. Anya started her business in London in 1987 and now has 16 stores worldwide, as well as her own retail village in Pont Street, Chelsea. With the launch of her I’m Not a Plastic Bag totes in 2007, she helped kick-start a country-wide debate around single-use plastics, and this year Anya is collaborating with leading supermarkets again to prevent plastics pollution in style. In 2017 Anya was awarded a CBE, and in 2019 she became a Greenpeace Ambassador.
Links and Related Episodes Read about the impact of the original ‘I’m Not a Plastic Bag’ campaign: https://www.anyahindmarch.com/pages/im-not-a-plastic-bag You can read Anya Hindmarch’s pledges to sustainability and more here: https://www.anyahindmarch.com/pages/our-commitments The Industry: Anya Hindmarch brings circular shopping bags back with Tesco and Morrison’s: https://www.theindustry.fashion/anya-hindmarch-brings-circular-shopping-bags-back-with-tesco-and-morrisons/ Politico: Fashion’s sustainability reckoning: https://www.politico.eu/article/fashion-sustainability-reckoning-industry-textile-regulation-evironment-human-rights/
Guest Bio Anya Hindmarch founded her business in London in 1987 and it has since grown into a global brand. Today, it is as known for its luxury, organisation-obsessed accessories as it is for its ground-breaking work in sustainability and its playful experiential retail concepts. I Am A Plastic Bag was launched in 2020 to tackle post-consumer waste, with each bag crafted from 32 half-litre recycled plastic bottles. 2007’s I’m A Plastic Bag ignited the debate around the use of plastic bags and contributed to the decision to charge for plastic bags in the UK. In 2021, Anya launched The Universal Bag, a unique collaboration with supermarkets to rethink the reusable shopping bag. Anya is an Emeritus trustee of both the Royal Academy of Arts and the Design Museum. In 2017, Anya was awarded a CBE in recognition for her contribution to the British fashion industry. In 2021, Anya published her first book, If In Doubt Wash Your Hair. | |||
| 06 Mar 2024 | Audioblog 11: The Five Horsemen of the Transition | 00:29:40 | |
Michael is solo this week on Cleaning Up, outlining the "5 horsemen" of the net-zero transition - the five greatest obstacles to the net zero transition. These 5 horsemen are: the economics of energy solutions, the electrical grid, the demand for critical mineral, political and social inertia, predatory delay by the powerful incumbents. This audioblog is based on Michael's Bloomberg New Energy Finance opinion piece of the same title.
Links Read the original essay here: https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-net-zero-will-be-harder-than-you-think-and-easier-part-i-harder/ Read Michael's 2022 essay, 'The Quest for Resilience – What Could Possibly Go Wrong?' here: https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-the-quest-for-resilience-what-could-possibly-go-wrong/ Read Michael's 2023 essay, 'The Next Half-Trillion-Dollar Market – Electrification of Heat': https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-the-next-half-trillion-dollar-market-electrification-of-heat/ Read Bloomberg NEF's 2022 New Energy Outlook: https://about.bnef.com/new-energy-outlook/ Read the IEA's report on the role of critical minerals in the transition: https://www.iea.org/reports/the-role-of-critical-minerals-in-clean-energy-transitions Read the IPSOS report study - 'What Worries the World'?: https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2022-06/Global-Summary_What-Worries-the-World.pdf Read Simon Michaux's report on the required quantity of critical minerals for net zero: https://www.gtk.fi/en/current/gtk-research-the-currently-known-global-mineral-reserves-will-not-be-sufficient-to-supply-enough-metals-to-manufacture-the-planned-non-fossil-fuel-industrial-systems/ Read Part 2 of this two-parter, on the "5 superheroes" of the transition: https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-net-zero-will-be-harder-than-you-think-and-easier-part-ii-easier/
Related Episodes Review Ep141 with Naomi Oreskes - Lifting the Curtain on Climate Change Denial: https://www.cleaningup.live/lifting-the-curtain-on-climate-change-denial-ep-141-prof-naomi-oreskes/ | |||
| 16 Oct 2024 | Could Trump 2.0 Roll Back The IRA? Ep181: Ethan Zindler | 00:56:31 | |
China has taken a commanding lead in manufacturing solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles and batteries, and is central to the green energy transition. Now, the US is hoping to catch up, and has spent almost $500 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act to bolster the energy transition and domestic manufacturing. Is it enough to create-long lasting change? Zindler also addresses the tensions between fossil fuel interests and clean energy priorities, as well as the Treasury's efforts to engage with international partners and ensure an equitable clean energy transition. As the US grapples with the growing costs of climate-fueled disasters, this episode offers insights into how a key economic policymaking body is adapting to the climate emergency and the new geopolitics of the green energy transition. Leadership Circle Cleaning Up is supported by the Leadership Circle, and its founding members: Actis, EcoPragma Capital, EDP of Portugal, Eurelectric, the Gilardini Foundation, KKR, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation and Wärtsilä. For more information on the Leadership Circle, please visit https://www.cleaningup.live Links
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| 25 Sep 2024 | Slowdown, what Slowdown? The EV Revolution is Just Getting Started | Ep178: Dr Andy Palmer | 01:06:33 | |
What will it take for electric vehicles to truly dominate the transportation landscape? Can traditional automakers adapt quickly enough to the EV revolution, or will new players seize the opportunity? And how close are we to the holy grail of fully autonomous driving? This week on Cleaning Up, Michael Liebreich sits down with Dr. Andy Palmer, a pioneer in the electric vehicle industry. With over 45 years of experience in the automotive sector, Andy has witnessed the industry's transformation firsthand - from his early days as an apprentice to senior leadership roles at companies like Nissan and Aston Martin. Andy shares the fascinating story behind the development of the Nissan Leaf, the world's first mass-market EV. He delves into the challenges of bringing this groundbreaking vehicle to market and how it kickstarted his journey from "piston head" to "battery head." We also explore Andy's time at Aston Martin, where he tried to steer the iconic British brand towards an electric future. Andy provides keen insights into the rapid evolution of battery technology, the role of government policy, and the future of autonomous driving. Leadership Circle: We are delighted to announce the Cleaning Up Leadership Circle, and our founding members: Actis, EcoPragma Capital, Eurelectric, the Gilardini Foundation, KKR, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation and Wärtsilä. For more information on the Leadership Circle and how to become a member, please visit https://www.cleaningup.live Links and more:
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| 12 Apr 2023 | H.S.H. Prince Albert II of Monaco: The Prince and the Planet - Ep123 | 00:46:26 | |
Cleaning Up: Leadership in an Age of Climate Change has the great privilege of welcoming H.S.H. Prince Albert II of Monaco to launch our ninth season. For our 123rd episode, Michael and Prince Albert have a wide-ranging and insightful discussion, on the work of the Prince Albert II Foundation to safeguard the planet and its oceans; the Prince's lineage and its deep connections to oceanography; the Prince's adventures and the awakening on climate they prompted; and the joys of success - and the perils of failure - in winter sports. The episode was recorded at the Palais Princier de Monaco. Cleaning Up would like to thank the Royal Household and all those inside and outside of the Palace who supported production of this special episode. As always, please like, share, and if you haven't already, subscribe to Cleaning Up.
Relevant Guest & Topic Links Learn more about the work of the Fondation Prince Albert II de Monaco: https://www.fpa2.org/en/index Watch Cleaning Up Episode 7 with Bertrand Piccard here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MeGpW2HOek Watch Cleaning Up Episode 96 with Aksel Lund Svindal here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRc1VCBnVgI
Guest Bio H.S.H. Prince Albert, Alexandre, Louis, Pierre, Sovereign Prince of Monaco, was born on 14 March 1958. His Highness is the son of Prince Rainier III, Louis Henri-Maxence-Bertrand and Princess Grace, née Kelly. H.S.H. Prince Albert II succeeded his father, Prince Rainier III who died on 6h April 2005. On 12th July 2005, at the end of the period of official mourning, the Prince's accession to the throne was celebrated. In April 2006, H.S.H. Prince Albert II visited the North Pole by dog sled from the Russian base of Barneo 120 kilometres away. This journey was the opportunity for him to pay tribute to his great-great grandfather, Prince Albert I of Monaco, a pioneer of modern oceanography, who, in 1906, set out to Spitzberg, in the archipelago of Svalbard, the most successful of his four Arctic exploration campaigns. In January 2009, Prince Albert II of Monaco undertook a three-week scientific journey in the Antarctic. He visited a large number of scientific stations and visited the South Pole in the company of the explorer Mike Horn. In June 2006, H.S.H. the Prince set up the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation dedicated to protecting the environment. It encourages sustainable and fair management of natural resources and places man at the centre of its projects. It supports the implementation of innovative and ethical solutions in three broad areas: climate change, water and biodiversity. HSH the Prince participated in five Olympic Games, from Calgary in 1988 to Salt Lake City in 2002, as a member of the national bobsleigh team. A member of the International Olympic Committee since 1985, He is President of the Monegasque Olympic Committee. The Prince's complete biography can be found here: https://www.palais.mc/en/princely-family/h-s-h-prince-albert-ii/biography-1-5.html | |||
| 07 Sep 2022 | Writer, Activist & Constructive Disruptor - Ep98: Bill McKibben | 00:57:03 | |
Bill McKibben is founder of Third Act, which organizes people over the age of 60 for action on climate and justice. His 1989 book The End of Nature is regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change, and has appeared in 24 languages. He’s gone on to write 20 books, and his work appears regularly in periodicals from the New Yorker to Rolling Stone. He serves as the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College, as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he has won the Gandhi Peace Prize as well as honorary degrees from 20 colleges and universities. He was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, sometimes called the alternative Nobel, in the Swedish Parliament. Foreign Policy named him to its inaugural list of the world’s 100 most important global thinkers. McKibben helped found 350.org, the first global grassroots climate campaign, which has organized protests on every continent, including Antarctica, for climate action. He played a leading role in launching the opposition to big oil pipeline projects like Keystone XL, and the fossil fuel divestment campaign, which has become the biggest anti-corporate campaign in history, with endowments worth more than $40 trillion stepping back from oil, gas and coal. He stepped down as board chair of 350 in 2015, and left the board and stepped down from his volunteer role as senior adviser in 2020, accepting emeritus status. He lives in the mountains above Lake Champlain with his wife, the writer Sue Halpern, where he spends as much time as possible outdoors. In 2014, biologists credited his career by naming a new species of woodland gnat—Megophthalmidia mckibbeni–in his honor. | |||
| 13 Oct 2021 | Meeting Africa's Infrastructure Needs - Ep 59: Alain Ebobissé | 01:00:11 | |
Alain Ebobissé is a specialist in the financing and development of infrastructure and CEO of Africa50. Prior to joining the organization, Mr. Ebobissé served as the Global Head of the World Bank Group’s Global Infrastructure Project Development Fund (IFC InfraVentures), where he oversaw a team of infrastructure specialists and led the development of and investment in numerous infrastructure projects in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Mr. Ebobissé led the design, structuring, and implementation of IFC InfraVentures from its inception. He also served as Chief Investment Officer in the Global Infrastructure and Natural Resources Department of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private-sector arm of the World Bank Group, based in Washington. Prior to joining the IFC in 1998, he held several positions in the financial services industry in France, including Deputy Head of Project and Structured Finance at Caisse des Depots et Consignations. Ebobissé holds a Master of Business Administration from the International School for Management Development (IMD) in Lausanne, Switzerland. Further reading: Africa50 | |||
| 08 Mar 2022 | International Women's Day - Towards an Inclusive Transition - Cleaning Up Audioblog Episode 5 | 00:19:59 | |
| 19 Jul 2023 | The Climate Venture Adventure - Ep135: Kim Zou | 01:07:13 | |
This week on Cleaning Up, Michael welcomes Kim Zou, CEO and co-founder of CTVC (Climate Tech VC). Launched in 2020, CTVC is a leading climate innovation resource and newsletter with 50,000 weekly readers, providing data-driven insights and analysis into the latest deals and developments in climate tech. CTVC launched their H1 2023 climate funding update at the end of June, reporting a 40% drop in venture funding. Michael wanted to hear from Zoe whether this was a moment of crisis or correction, and to compare notes on building a market intelligence platform, having jumped through so many of the same hoops building New Energy Finance. Make sure you like, subscribe, and share Cleaning Up. We're growing fast on LinkedIn, and we'd love for you tell your professional network about us: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cleaning-up-with-michael-liebreich/ You can find everything you need to keep up with Cleaning Up here: https://linktr.ee/mlcleaningup
Links and Related Episodes All of the episodes mentioned by Michael at the end of the show can be found in our “Women Leaders of the Net-Zero Transition” playlist on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe8ZTD7dMaaBJwVk9CfU-CZLeX42M7flC You can subscribe to CTVC here: https://www.ctvc.co/ Read CTVC’s H1 2023 climate tech funding update: https://www.ctvc.co/climate-tech-h1-2023-venture-funding/#:~:text=Highlights,35%25%20from%20H2'22. CTVC’s Climate Capital Stack is here: https://www.ctvc.co/the-climate-capital-stack/ In May CTCV announced their new climate intelligence platform: https://www.ctvc.co/ctvc-platform-fundraise/ Kim and co-founder Sophie Purdom spoke to Techonomy in September 2022: https://techonomy.com/video/the-state-of-climate-tech-venture-capital/
Guest Bio Kim has spent the last three years building Climate Tech VC, a leading source on climate and innovation with 50,000 weekly readers among climate investors, operators and market leaders. CTVC generates data-driven insights on the climate tech market which have been featured in channels including Bloomberg, Reuters, Financial Times, and TechCrunch. From 2020-2022, Kim was an Investor at Energy Impact Partners, a $2.5B AUM venture capital firm, and from 2018 – 2020, an Investment Banking Analyst at JP Morgan. From 2017 – 2019, Kim was Managing Partner at A-Level Capital. Kim holds a bachelor’s degree from John Hopkins University in Economics, Environmental Science and Applied Mathematics. | |||
| 12 Jul 2023 | Zaporizhzhia: Nuclear on the Front Lines - Ep134: Chris Gadomski | 01:03:59 | |
This week’s guest on Cleaning Up is Chris Gadomski, Lead Nuclear Analyst at BloombergNEF and adjunct assistant professor at NYU’s Centre for Global Affairs. Chris joined Michael to discuss the unfolding situation at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which sits on the frontline of the Russian aggression against Ukraine and whose safety is a matter of mounting international concern. Make sure you like, subscribe, and share Cleaning Up. We're growing fast on LinkedIn, and we'd love for you tell your professional network about us: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cleaning-up-with-michael-liebreich/ You can find everything you need to keep up with Cleaning Up here: https://linktr.ee/mlcleaningup
Links and Related Episodes Watch Episode 119 with Aneeqa Khan here: https://www.cleaningup.live/ep-119-dr-aneeqa-khan-fusion-energy-the-materials-challenge/ Watch Episode 133 with Fatih Birol here: https://www.cleaningup.live/ep133-fatih-birol-the-worlds-preeminent-energy-economist/#:~:text=Fatih%20has%20been%20in%2Dpost,efficiency%20and%20net%2Dzero%20pathways. Read the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) July 7th update on the situation at Zaporizhzhia: https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/update-172-iaea-director-general-statement-on-situation-in-ukraine The IAEA’s rolling updates on nuclear safety and security in Ukraine can be found here:https://www.iaea.org/nuclear-safety-and-security-in-ukraine The New York Times on the evidence that Russia sabotaged Kakhovka Dam: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/06/16/world/europe/ukraine-kakhovka-dam-collapse.html Politico on Ukraine’s warnings of nuclear disaster at Zaporizhzhia: https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-warn-disaster-russia-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-power-plant/
Guest Bio Chris was appointed to lead New Energy Finance’s nuclear analysis team in 2008, which provides global analysis on critical topics from within the nuclear industry. Chris spent most of the previous three decades at SMIdirect as a business development and marketing consultant. There he advised a wide range of clients from the Government of Egypt to IBM on strategic planning, business development, corporate communications and policy initiatives. Chris is a faculty member of the Centre for Global Affairs at New York University where he teaches courses on Energy Policy, Energy and the Environment, and the Economics and Finance of Energy. Chris holds a BA from College of the Holy Cross, an MS from NYU’s Polytechnic School of Engineering and an MBA from Baruch College. Chris is a member of the United States Energy Association and the American Nuclear Society. | |||
| 19 Jun 2024 | Texas Hold'em: Playing Poker With Methane - Ep167: Grant Swartzwelder | 01:30:35 | |
Depending on who you ask, methane is either a useful transition fuel to a low-carbon future, or a super polluter. The science of methane says that for natural gas to have a lower climate footprint than other fossil fuels, particularly coal, there can be leakage of no more than 3.2% from end to end. Yet studies across the US show wildly different leakage rates. One of the most influential, by Robert Howarth of Cornell University, puts it at 4.8%, making methane worse for the environment than coal. The EPA tells a different story, and says leakage rates are just 0.93%. All of this really matters for the climate, especially since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The US has become the world's biggest producer and exporter of natural gas, and hundreds of billions of dollars have been invested globally on the premise that natural gas is a cleaner stop-gap between our fossil present and our low-carbon future. So who's right? And how can we find ways to reduce those methane emissions in either case. Grant Swartzwelder, founder of OTA Environmental Solutions and ESG Dynamics, based in Dallas, Texas, joins Cleaning Up to tease out the problem. Episode Update (Dec 2024)
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| 10 Mar 2021 | Electrifying Almost Everything for Net-Zero - Ep34: Kristian Ruby | 00:58:10 | |
Further reading: Official Bio https://be.linkedin.com/in/kristian-ruby-143685 Europe’s vehicle fleets to boast 10.5m EVs by 2030 (February, 2021) https://www.energylivenews.com/2021/02/03/europes-vehicle-fleets-to-boast-10-5m-evs-by-2030/ ‘Not fit for purpose’: Europe’s distribution grids ‘need up to €425bn of investment to enable energy transition’ (January, 2021) Leaders of our industry: Kristian Ruby of Eurelectric (November, 2020) https://www.pveurope.eu/markets-money/leaders-our-industry-kristian-ruby-eurelectric Bringing utilities on side in the climate fight (September, 2020) https://energymonitor.ai/technology/electrification/bringing-utilities-on-side-in-the-climate-fight Eurelectric boss: ‘The gas system has to be more focused on what makes it really unique’ (February, 2019) | |||
| 12 Jan 2022 | The Man in Charge of Charging - Ep71: Pasquale Romano | 01:08:45 | |
Pasquale Romano is President and Chief Executive Officer of ChargePoint and a member of the company’s board of directors. Pasquale joined ChargePoint in February of 2011, bringing more than 30 years of technology industry leadership and executive management experience to the company. He is currently a board member for Levitate Acquisition Corporation. He co-founded 2Wire which was acquired by Pace plc for $475M in 2010. Previously, Pasquale held multiple positions in marketing and engineering at Polycom. In 1989, he co-founded Fluent, Inc., a digital video networking company and served as Chief Architect until it was sold to Novell Corporation in 1993. Pasquale holds an undergraduate degree in computer science from Harvard University and received his M.S. from MIT. | |||
| 07 Aug 2024 | The Future of Chinese Solar, Battery Myths & Climate Politics | Ep174: Michael Liebreich & Bryony Worthington | 01:02:58 | |
In the final episode of Season 12, hosts Michael Liebreich and Bryony Worthington reflect on the key conversations and developments in the net-zero transition over the past three months, including:
We'll be back for Season 13 of Cleaning Up at the beginning of September. Thanks so much for listening, and see you then! In the meantime, please share this podcast with a friend, colleague, family, or whoever you think might enjoy it. Links and more:
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| 02 Mar 2022 | Maths, Models and Melting Ice - Ep78: Emily Shuckburgh | 01:05:08 | |
Professor Emily Shuckburgh OBE is Director of Cambridge Zero, the University of Cambridge's major climate change initiative. Emily is a climate scientist and mathematician, a Fellow of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, an Associate Fellow of the Centre for Science and Policy and a Fellow of the British Antarctic Survey. She leads the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training on the Application of AI to the study of Environmental Risks. A polar expert, she previously led a UK national research programme on the Southern Ocean and its role in climate. In 2016 she was awarded an OBE for services to science and the public communication of science. She is co-author with HRH The Prince of Wales and Tony Juniper of the Ladybird Book on Climate Change.
Further reading: Official bio https://www.cst.cam.ac.uk/people/efs20 Cambridge Zero https://www.zero.cam.ac.uk/ Cambridge Zero Policy Forum https://www.csap.cam.ac.uk/Research-Policy-Engagement/cambridge-zero/ AI4ER https://ai4er-cdt.esc.cam.ac.uk/ Centre for Landscape Regeneration https://www.clr.conservation.cam.ac.uk/ | |||
| 30 Dec 2022 | It's a New Year - Time to Face Reality - Cleaning Up Audioblog Episode 9: | 00:07:19 | |
This week, it's a special, bonus episode of Cleaning Up. Michael has some essential messages to keep in mind at the dawn of the new year: 1. Climate action is neither doomed nor a sure thing. 2. People who disagree with you may share your goals, but put facts and priorities in a different order. 3. We will never get to declare victory over climate change.
The original version of It’s A New Year And Time To Face Reality can be found here: https://medium.com/@MLiebreich/its-new-year-and-a-good-time-to-face-some-facts-c610f3aa579e Follow or Subscribe to Cleaning Up: Twitter: https://twitter.com/MLCleaningUp LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cleaning-up-with-michael-liebreich/ | |||
| 22 Feb 2023 | Sustaining Development - Ep118: Achim Steiner | 00:51:05 | |
This week on Cleaning Up, Michael welcomes Achim Steiner, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme and co-chair of UN Energy. Michael had questions for Steiner on UNDP’s roster of initiatives, balancing climate priorities with development goals, and how to clear a path to financing billions of dollars of clean infrastructure in the midst of a global energy crisis. Like, share and subscribe to Cleaning Up for more essential conversations around the net zero transition. Links and Related Episodes: Learn more about UNDP: https://www.undp.org/energy Over 120 countries are part of UNDP’s Climate Promise: https://climatepromise.undp.org/ Discover UNDP’s Sustainable Finance Hub: https://sdgfinance.undp.org/ Many of the episodes mentioned can be found in our ‘United Nations’ playlist on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gvl91lgPsUg&list=PLe8ZTD7dMaaDVAOrAyAwuMKrmq3G9ih75 Watch Episode 98 with Bill McKibben: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W9uR6eTe94 Watch Episode 59 with Alain Ebobissé: https://www.cleaningup.live/ep-59-alain-ebobisse-meeting-africas-infrastructure-needs/ Guest Bio Achim Steiner became Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme in 2017, and is also the Vice-Chair of the UN Sustainable Development Group. Steiner has been a global leader on sustainable development, climate resilience and international cooperation for nearly three decades. Prior to joining UNDP, he was Director of the Oxford Martin School and Professorial Fellow of Balliol College, University of Oxford. He led the United Nations Environment Programme (2006-2016), and was Director-General of the United Nations Office at Nairobi. Steiner previously held positions including Director General of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, and Secretary General of the World Commission on Dams. Steiner graduated in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (MA) from Worcester College, Oxford University, and holds an MA from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). | |||
| 02 Apr 2025 | What Happened to Google's Climate Ambitions? | Ep203: Kate Brandt | 00:54:26 | |
Google has one of the most ambitious climate targets in the tech world, but what happens if it falls short of its goals? How does the company balance innovation with environmental responsibility? And can AI really help reduce emissions? This week on Cleaning Up, Bryony Worthington sits down with Kate Brandt, Google's Chief Sustainability Officer, to unpack these critical questions. Brandt offers an insider's view of how one of the world's most influential companies is tackling the climate crisis, from tackling its own emissions to the impact of misinformation on its platform. Brandt has a fascinating background, having spent time in both the Pentagon, and advising President Obama on energy security and sustainability issues. In her current role, she oversees the team working to reduce Google's environmental impact. Google has set itself an ambitious company-wide climate goal of halving their 2019 emissions by 2030 but their latest sustainability report showed that they were off track, as the company has grown and increased their investment in energy-hungry artificial intelligence. As providers of curated information at a global scale, Google has a unique intersection with the climate problem. Primarily, their impact comes from the electricity they buy, but they're also able to guide customers' decisions through the provision of information and through their parent company Alphabet. They've made some pretty bold investments in innovative, disruptive companies, so measuring their impact is arguably more than the sum of their Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. Nevertheless, missing a clear target can't be very comfortable. Brandt discusses the company’s ambitious yet challenging emissions reduction targets, the transformative potential of AI in environmental solutions, and the innovative clean technologies that might just help us reimagine our energy future. From predicting floods and reducing aircraft emissions, to molten salt batteries and grid optimization technologies, this conversation reveals how Google thinks about innovation and the climate. Leadership Circle: Cleaning Up is supported by the Leadership Circle, and its founding members: Actis, Alcazar Energy, Davidson Kempner, EcoPragma Capital, EDP of Portugal, Eurelectric, the Gilardini Foundation, KKR, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation, SDCL and Wärtsilä. For more information on the Leadership Circle, please visit https://www.cleaningup.live. Go deeper: | |||
| 05 Mar 2025 | EVs & Heat Pumps: The Real Alternatives for Germany — Ep199: Patrick Graichen | 01:04:51 | |
In February, Germany elected a new government. Friedrich Merz emerged as the new leader, but what are his energy and climate policies, and will Germany remain a climate leader in Europe and beyond? Joining Cleaning Up this week is Patrick Graichen, a former Energy and Climate minister in the last government, representing the Green Party. Prior to entering government, Patrick ran the think tank Agora Energiewende, working on energy from 2001 to 2012. With his deep expertise Patrick offers unique insights into the evolving political landscape and its potential impact on Germany, Europe, and beyond. Patrick has witnessed how shifting public opinion can stall progress, and was responsible for a highly contested policy to phase out gas boilers and phase in heat pumps, which ultimately caused him to quit government. Bryony Worthington asks Patrick what he learned from that phase, and digs into the big questions surrounding the German car industry, nuclear power and the future of gas. Leadership Circle Cleaning Up is supported by the Leadership Circle, and its founding members: Actis, Alcazar Energy, Davidson Kempner, EcoPragma Capital, EDP of Portugal, Eurelectric, the Gilardini Foundation, KKR, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation, SDCL and Wärtsilä. For more information on the Leadership Circle, please visit https://www.cleaningup.live. Links
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| 21 Feb 2024 | Extreme Electrochemistry for a Sustainable Future - Ep155: Prof Donald Sadoway | 01:07:04 | |
Michael returns to talk with legendary educator and inventor, Donald Sadoway, Professor Emeritus of Materials Chemistry at MIT. After earning his PhD in chemical metallurgy in 1977 at the University of Toronto, he joined the faculty at MIT where he spent 44 years. For 16 of those, he taught 3.091 (Introduction to Solid-State Chemistry)—and his animated lectures, peppered with references to music, art, and literature—doubtless contributed to the subject’s popularity. Among the many accolades bestowed on Professor Sadoway in his 44 years as a teacher and researcher at MIT was a compliment by Bill Gates: “best chemistry lessons anywhere. Unbelievable.” In 2012, for the invention of the liquid metal battery, he was named by Time magazine one of the “100 Most Influential People in the World.” He has founded several hard tech startups, including Ambri, Avanti Battery Company, Pure Lithium and Boston Metal.
Links
Review Donald's 2012 TED talk, "The Missing Link to Renewable Energy" here: https://www.ted.com/talks/donald_sadoway_the_missing_link_to_renewable_energy?language=en Explore Avanti Battery Company's tech here: https://avanti.energy Explore Ambri's tech here: https://ambri.com Explore Pure Lithium's tech here: https://www.purelithium.io Explore Boston Metal's tech here: https://www.bostonmetal.com Explore Sadoway Labs' research here: https://sadowaylabs.org Take Prof Sadoway's course, 3.091 - Introduction to Solid State Chemistry - here: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/3-091sc-introduction-to-solid-state-chemistry-fall-2010/
Related Episodes
Metals Refining - From Mining to Brining - Ep142: Alex Grant: https://www.cleaningup.live/metals-refining-from-mining-to-brining-ep-142-alex-grant/ Iron-Air Man - Ep144: Mateo Jaramillo: https://www.cleaningup.live/iron-air-man-ep144-mateo-jaramillo/
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| 24 Nov 2021 | Cities, Service, and Cities-as-a-Service - Ep65: Dan Doctoroff | 00:52:18 | |
Dan Doctoroff is the Founder and CEO of Sidewalk Labs, an Alphabet company that works with cities to address key urban problems. Before founding Sidewalk Labs in 2015, Dan spent 6 years working at Bloomberg L.P. first as President and since 2011 as CEO. He joined that company after leading the post 9/11 recovery of the New York city for 7 years as its Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Rebuilding. Prior to working in the Mayor Bloomberg administration, Dan was Managing Partner at Oak Hill Capital Partners and worked as an investment banker at Lehman Brothers. Dan is a board member of the University of Chicago, World Resource Institute and Human Rights First. He founded Target ALS, an initiative aimed at finding new approaches to treating the illness. Dan holds a B.A. in government from Harvard College and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. | |||
| 01 Mar 2023 | Fusion Energy: The Materials Challenge - Ep 119: Dr Aneeqa Khan | 00:55:08 | |
This week on Cleaning Up, Michael welcomes Dr Aneeqa Khan, Manchester-ISIS Neutron and Muon Source Research Fellow in Nuclear Fusion. Aneeqa had insights to offer on the significance of the recent fusion breakthrough at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, some of the challenges facing nuclear scientists and engineers, and the race to bring a raft of fusion technologies to commercialisation and grid integration. Links and Related Episodes: Dr. Khan spoke to the New Statesman about fusion and the climate: https://www.newstatesman.com/spotlight/climate-energy-nature/2022/12/when-nuclear-fusion-produce-enough-power Discover Cleaning Up’s Nuclear playlist on YouTube, including Episode 29 with Steven Chu: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe8ZTD7dMaaBcbo3W_zva0ChNZ9R9rL-U Dr. Khan’s recent research output can be found here: https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/persons/aneeqa.khan#:~:text=Aneeqa%20Khan%20is%20a%20research,khan%40manchester.ac.uk Learn about Helion’s plasma accelerator: https://www.helionenergy.com/our-technology/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bDXXWQxK38 Cleaning Up Episode 114 featured James DeMuth, CEO of Seurat Technologies: https://www.cleaningup.live/ep114-james-demuth-disrupting-manufacturing-with-laser-printing/ Guest Bio Dr Khan has been Manchester-ISIS Neutron and Muon Source Research Fellow in Nuclear Fusion at the University of Manchester since 2019. Previously, she’s held postdoctoral positions at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Garching, Germany, and at ITER Organization in Saint-Paul-lès-Durance, France. Dr Khan holds a BEng in Mechanical Engineering and a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from the University of Manchester. Dr Khan’s areas of research interest include material deposition, irradiation effects and fuel retention.
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| 23 Oct 2024 | Is There Really an EV Slowdown? Ep182: Colin McKerracher | 01:04:23 | |
Is the shift to electric vehicles really slowing down? Are people losing interest in EVs, or is there more to the story? How will changes in the global automotive industry impact the net-zero transition? And If no one wants EVs, why do we need tariffs?
This week on Cleaning Up, host Michael Liebreich sits down with Colin McKerracher, Head of Clean Transport at BloombergNEF, to unpack the latest trends and dynamics in the electric vehicle market from cars to trucks to two wheelers. They dive deep into the regional differences, the strategies of European automakers, the impact of tariffs, as well as the latest forecasts and predictions in BloombergNEF's Electric Vehicle Outlook. Leadership Circle: Cleaning Up is supported by the Leadership Circle, and its founding members: Actis, EcoPragma Capital, EDP of Portugal, Eurelectric, the Gilardini Foundation, KKR, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation and Wärtsilä. For more information on the Leadership Circle, please visit cleaningup.live Links:
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| 18 Nov 2020 | Leadership from the Heart of the Problem - Ep19: Mike Bennetts | 01:03:42 | |
Further reading: Official Bio: https://z.co.nz/about-z/who-is-z-energy/our-leadership-team/ Bosses in Lockdown: Z Energy’s Mike Bennetts (Wednesday 8th of April 2020) (radio) CEO of Z Energy Mike Bennetts joined Heather du Plessis-Allan to discuss how he's faring at home, and how the lockdown is impacting Z's business. First Follower: Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW8amMCVAJQ Leadership in extraordinary times Q&A: Z chief executive Mike Bennetts (4th of September 2020) Z Energy’s crisis management lessons (24th of March 2020) - Rod Oram talks with Z Energy's Mike Bennetts about "Code Red" preparations for the Covid-19 pandemic and the key lessons the company has learnt so far https://www.newsroom.co.nz/z-energy-rod-oram Climate change needs Covid-level urgency from politicians (24th of August 2020) NZ Business Podcast 34: Mike Bennetts - CEO, Z Energy (March 25th, 2018) https://nz-business-podcast-paul-spain.simplecast.com/episodes/41365fc2-41365fc2 | |||
| 09 Feb 2022 | US Net Zero - From Pledge to Policy - Ep75: David Turk | 00:35:08 | |
David Turk serves as Deputy Secretary in the US Department of Energy. Before joining President Biden’s administration in 2021, David spent over 4 years as Deputy Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA). He was Head of Strategic Initiatives Office and Head of Energy Environment Division. During the Obama administration David worked at the Department of Energy (Deputy Assistant Secretary), the Department of State (Deputy Special Envoy) and at the National Security Council as a Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director. Between 2001 and 2007 David was a counsel in the US Senate, working for Senators Joe Biden and Kent Conrad. David holds a bachelor’s degree from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and JD from the University of Virginia Law School | |||
| 17 Jul 2024 | The Climate Challenge is an Engineering Challenge - Ep171: Dr. Rosemary Barnes | 00:59:12 | |
This week on Cleaning Up, Michael Liebreich sits down with mechanical engineer and YouTube creator Dr Rosemary "Rosie" Barnes to discuss the critical role of engineering in addressing climate change. Rosie shares insights from her work developing clean energy technologies and her popular channel "Engineering with Rosie," where she tackles topics like wind turbine design, the hydrogen debate, and the nuclear power discussion in Australia through the lens of engineering. Rosie and Michael dive into the engineering challenges and solutions driving the energy transition, from optimising wind turbine size to navigating the politics around nuclear power. They also explore why engineers' voices are often overlooked in the climate conversation, and Rosie offers practical advice for the next generation of women in STEM fields. Read/watch more: | |||
| 15 Feb 2023 | From Oil to Clean Energy - Bridging the Gulf - Ep117: Dr. Nawal Al-Hosany | 01:04:24 | |
This week on Cleaning Up, Michael welcomes Dr. Nawal Al-Hosany, UAE’s Permanent Representative to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), for a wide-ranging discussion on IRENA’s work promoting an equitable transition, the UAE’s emergence as a renewables superpower, and the significance of COP28 coming to the region later this year. Links and Related Episodes: Learn more about the International Renewable Energy Agency and its work: https://www.irena.org/ Learn about IRENA and the UAE’s Beyond Food initiative: https://www.irena.org/News/pressreleases/2022/Mar/UAE-and-IRENA-Launch-New-Initiative-to-Provide-Access-to-Energy-for-Clean-Cooking Dr. Nawal’s recent op-ed on the importance of climate education: https://www.thenationalnews.com/opinion/comment/2023/01/05/its-time-to-put-youth-at-the-top-of-the-climate-agenda/ Visit the UAE mission to IRENA’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@uaemissiontoirena Watch Cleaning Up Episode 87 with Francesco La Camera: https://www.cleaningup.live/ep87-francesco-la-camera-the-economist-diplomat-championing-clean-energy/ Guest Bio Dr. Nawal Al-Hosany is the Permanent Representative of the UAE to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) as of April 2018. Previously, Dr. Al Hosany held the position of the Executive Director of Sustainability at Masdar, the international renewable energy leader based in Abu Dhabi. She also served as the Director of the Zayed Future Energy Prize for eight years between 2011-2018. Dr. Al-Hosany is an active member of various climate-focused boards and committees, including the advisory council of National Geographic magazine and the advisory Panel for the Momentum for Change initiative of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). She is a board member of Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) and she serves as the Vice Chair for the Global Council of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). She graduated from the Faculty of Engineering at the UAE University in 1992 and obtained her PhD from Newcastle University in the UK in 2002. In July 2018, Dr. Al-Hosany was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Keele University in the UK in recognition for her achievements in the field of sustainability. Dr Al-Hosany has also received the “Arab Woman Award” and the “Emirates Business Women Award”. | |||
| 17 Feb 2021 | Climate Change? We'll be in Floods - Ep31: Emma Howard Boyd | 00:55:05 | |
Further reading: Government bio https://www.gov.uk/government/people/emma-howard-boyd Environment Agency website https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/environment-agency Encouraging locally-led climate change adaptation (January 2021) https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/encouraging-locally-led-climate-change-adaptation Storm Christoph (January 2021) https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/gallery/2021/jan/20/storm-christoph-hits-the-uk-in-pictures Emma Howard Boyd, Green Summit speech (September 2020) https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/emma-howard-boyd-green-summit-speech The importance of disclosure in the climate emergency (June 2020) https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-importance-of-disclosure-in-the-climate-emergency The Prime Minister visits Didsbury following Storm Christoph (January 2021) Flood and coastal resilience innovation programme Emma Howard Boyd - UK Environment Agency - Adaptation Week (December 2020) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBX\_h8ORpoA Letter to The Times from Emma Howard Boyd, Chair of the Environment Agency (February 2020) ShareAction Menhaden Capital PLC Global Centre for Adaptation The Prince’s Accounting for Sustainability Project https://www.accountingforsustainability.org/en/index.html Green Finance Institute https://www.greenfinanceinstitute.co.uk/ Thrive Renewables Climate Adaptation Summit 2021 Race to Zero | |||
| 17 May 2023 | The Clean Tech Network Effect - Ep127: Emily Kirsch | 01:02:09 | |
This week’s guest on Cleaning Up is Emily Kirsch, Founder and CEO of Powerhouse and Managing Partner of Powerhouse Ventures. Powerhouse, based out of Oakland, California, is an innovation firm that pairs startups in clean energy, mobility, and climate with some of the world’s largest corporations and investors. Emily is also managing partner of Powerhouse Ventures, directly backing seed-stage start-ups innovating on decarbonization. Michael and Emily spoke about building Powerhouse and adding value to its huge startup database, some of the hits from Powerhouse Ventures' first funding round, and ended with a wider discussion about the role of VCs - and pioneering women - on the path to net-zero. Make sure you like, subscribe, and share Cleaning Up. We're growing fast on LinkedIn, and we'd love for you tell your professional network about us: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cleaning-up-with-michael-liebreich/ You can find everything you need to keep up with Cleaning Up here: https://linktr.ee/mlcleaningup Links and Related Episodes Learn more about Powerhouse here: https://www.powerhouse.fund/ Michael appeared on Emily’s podcast, Watt It Takes, back in 2021: https://www.powerhouse.fund/liebreich Watch Episode 9 with Jigar Shah here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJhhinSeh9I Watch Episode 18 with Nancy Pfund here: https://www.cleaningup.live/episode-18-nancy-pfund/ Watch Episode 47 with Gina Domanig here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlZvy2c92Ss Guest Bio Emily is Founder & Managing Partner of Powerhouse Ventures, and Founder & CEO of Powerhouse. Prior to launching Powerhouse in 2013, Kirsch worked with Van Jones to launch the Green Jobs Corps, Oakland’s first ‘green jobs’ training program. She is the founding convener of the Oakland Climate Action Coalition, which drafted and secured passage of what was at the time the most ambitious climate action plan of any U.S. city. Emily is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader Fellow, served on the Executive Committee for Clean Energy for President Biden, and appeared on the San Francisco Business Times’ 2020 list of the “Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business.” Emily hosts the podcast Watt It Takes, which has over 1 million downloads and has featured founders of some of the energy and automotive industries’ most iconic companies like Nest, Sunrun, and Tesla. Emily studied Sustainable Urban Development at San Francisco State University. | |||
| 08 Jan 2025 | Petrostate USA vs Electrostate China — Place Your Bets | Ep191 | 01:01:07 | |
Happy New Year and welcome to Season 14 of Cleaning Up. From the future of nuclear to growing tensions between China and the USA, we're off with a bang with a conversation between hosts Michael Liebreich and Bryony Worthington. They reflect on the key trends of 2024, and looking ahead to what might be on the cards in 2025, from China's rapid electrification to political upheaval in the US. Bryony and Michael get stuck into the challenges and opportunities around the build out of nuclear power, the potential of biofuels in aviation, and what we might expect from COP30 in Brazil later this year. Leadership Circle Cleaning Up is supported by the Leadership Circle, and its founding members: Actis, Alcazar Energy, EcoPragma Capital, EDP of Portugal, Eurelectric, the Gilardini Foundation, KKR, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation, SDCL and Wärtsilä. For more information on the Leadership Circle, please visit https://www.cleaningup.live. Links and more
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| 09 Oct 2024 | What Have the Oceans Ever Done For Us? Ep180: Helen Czerski | 01:15:46 | |
Ocean's absorb one third of the CO2 we are recklessly pumping into the atmosphere, as well as 90% of the heat. What would happen if that were to stop? The oceans define every aspect of our planet's physical systems, its ecosystems, human history and human culture. They also define the planet's future. Oceans represent an almost unexplored frontier in the fight against climate change, whether as a host for offshore wind farms, an enhanced carbon sink, a source for critical minerals or a route for high-voltage DC cables. But could there be unintended consequences? This week on Cleaning Up, Michael Liebreich welcomes Dr Helen Czerski, whose expertise is 25,000 miles wide and seven miles deep, to discuss the crucial role the oceans play in regulating our climate and keeping the planet habitable. Helen is a physicist and oceanographer, and associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at University College London. She is the author of two books: 'A Storm in a Teacup' and 'The Blue Machine', about the physics of the oceans. Leadership Circle: Cleaning Up is supported by the Leadership Circle, and its founding members: Actis, EcoPragma Capital, EDP of Portugal, Eurelectric, the Gilardini Foundation, KKR, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation and Wärtsilä. For more information on the Leadership Circle and how to become a member, please visit https://www.cleaningup.live Links and more:
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| 21 Jul 2021 | Saudi Arabia's Net-Zero Conundrum - Ep51: Yousef Alshammari | 00:55:17 | |
Dr. Yousef Alshammari, is the CEO and Head of Oil Research at CMarkits, London UK. He is a former Research Fellow in energy economics at the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). He has been hosted for more than 200 TV shows with Al-Arabiya, CNBC Arabia, Sky News Arabia, Asharq Bloomberg, and CGTN. He is a writer at Forbes Middle East, CGTN and Oilprice.com, and his articles have been featured by multiple business news websites including MarketWatch, NASDAQ, and Business Insider. He obtained his PhD in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College London where he worked on designing innovative processes for clean hydrogen generation from heavy oil fields. Following that, he pursued his postdoctoral research in energy economics at the IAEA, KAUST, and the University of Vienna. He was awarded a research fellowship from King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies (KFCRIS) chaired HRH Prince Turki Alfaisal, and SABIC. He has also been a peer-reviewer for research papers at Energy Policy and the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, and he published a wide range of research papers in the field of energy technology and energy economics. Yousef is an assistant professor of energy economics at Prince Mohammad bin Fahd University in Saudi Arabia, and he taught more than 800 Saudi students including some of the first female engineering students in the country. He has been a recipient of many international prizes including the World Energy Congress Prize (2016) for TOP20 research papers for his work on the impact of low oil prices on carbon capture and storage, and the UK Alumni Award for Professional Achievements (2017). In 2017, he was honoured as a Young Global Changer by the G20 Global Solution Summit in Berlin, Germany, and in 2018, he was honoured for his long-term leadership services as a board member of Future Energy Leaders by the World Energy Council. Further reading: LinkedIn profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-yousef-alshammari-0ab23340/?originalSubdomain=uk How COVID-19 Will Impact The Future Of Fuel Demand (October 2020) Achieving 80% greenhouse gas reduction target in Saudi Arabia under low and medium oil prices (February 2017) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301421516305717 | |||
| 04 Dec 2024 | Is The International Order Too Weak To Stop Climate Change? Ep188: James Cameron | 01:06:58 | |
What was achieved at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan? Where will the promised $300 billion come from, and how will it be spent? And what reforms are needed to make the COP process more effective and impactful? This week, host Michael Liebreich sits down with James Cameron, an international climate lawyer who has been involved with the COP process since before COPs were COPs. James shares his insights into the challenges and dynamics of these high-stakes global talks, from the crucial role of small island states to the difficulties of bridging the divide between developed and developing nations. James and Michael explore the inner workings of the COP process - its successes, failures and the urgent need for reform. James provides a clear-eyed assessment of where the negotiations have fallen short, and outlines concrete ideas for how to make the COP a more effective forum for driving real-world climate action. Leadership Circle: Cleaning Up is supported by the Leadership Circle, and its founding members: Actis, Alcazar Energy, EcoPragma Capital, EDP of Portugal, Eurelectric, the Gilardini Foundation, KKR, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation, SDCL and Wärtsilä. For more information on the Leadership Circle, please visit https://www.cleaningup.live. Links:
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| 26 Mar 2025 | Net Zero Isn’t Impossible, It’s The Key To UK Prosperity — Ep202: Emma Pinchbeck | 01:08:48 | |
The UK is an extraordinary case study in how to cut greenhouse gas pollution successfully. Since 1990, the country has more than halved its greenhouse gas emissions, while the economy has grown by over 80%. The Climate Change Act, passed in 2008, has helped steer the UK towards its net-zero goals, setting five yearly carbon budgets that are specifically designed to be ambitious but flexible, with lots of options available to the government to meet the targets. Joining this week’s episode of Cleaning Up is Emma Pinchbeck, the new CEO of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), the organisation which advises the government on the route it should take to net zero. Emma spent close to a decade leading the UK’s energy sector trade association, and is now responsible for producing advice on the UK's final three carbon budgets. In February, the CCC published the seventh carbon budget, which covers the period centred around the year 2040. Emma joins Bryony Worthington to talk about the progress the UK is making in meeting its carbon targets, the challenges ahead, and why it's so important the UK holds the course, even if others have chosen to abandon their climate ambitions. Leadership Circle: Cleaning Up is supported by the Leadership Circle, and its founding members: Actis, Alcazar Energy, Davidson Kempner, EcoPragma Capital, EDP of Portugal, Eurelectric, the Gilardini Foundation, KKR, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation, SDCL and Wärtsilä. For more information on the Leadership Circle, please visit https://www.cleaningup.live. Links:
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| 28 Feb 2024 | A Magnificent Woman And Her Flying Machines - Ep156: Bonny Simi | 00:55:36 | |
Bryony returns with Bonny Simi, President of Operations at Joby Aviation, where she's working on bringing to market a new civilian electric VTOL (eVTOL) aircraft. Prior to joining the team at Joby, Bonny held several operational and strategic roles at JetBlue Most notably, she founded and led JetBlue Technology Ventures, investing in improving the travel, hospitality, and transportation industries. As a pilot, Bonny has commanded Boeing, Airbus and Embraer aircraft at both United Airlines and JetBlue Airways. She is also an Emmy-nominated sports reporter and a 3-time Olympian in the sport of Luge. She holds a BA in Communications, a MS in Management and a MS in Engineering, all from Stanford University, as well as a MS in Human Resources from Regis University.
Links
Explore Joby's website here: https://www.jobyaviation.com You can watch more footage of Joby's eVTOL aircraft here: https://www.youtube.com/@JobyAviation/featured Read about Joby's partnership with the US DoD here: https://www.jobyaviation.com/news/joby-delivers-first-evtol-edwards/ Hear Bonny talk more about her lessons from competing in luge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj9Ey6fdnT0 Listen to the theme song from Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines (the title inspiration for this episode!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPgS26ZhqZs | |||
| 19 Jan 2022 | Solving the Low Carbon Skills Gap - Ep72: Nathan Gambling | 01:03:23 | |
Nathan Gambling is a heating engineer and lecturer who has taught in colleges and a prison. As well as industry, teaching and assessing qualifications he has a psychology degree in Behavioural studies and is regarded as a leading expert around training and the learning process within plumbing and heating. He has a remarkable heritage within the heating industry: As central heating first started to take hold it was his grandfather who brought Swedish oil burner technology to the UK and was the UK’s leading oil combustion expert venerated throughout Europe. His great uncle was lead engineer and European Energy manager for Unilever and his dad was a technical rep for Trianco Redfyre who back in the 80s was the UK’s leading boiler manufacture. He sometimes works with his cousin who is the UK’s leading acoustic sensitive heating and ventilation engineer installing and maintaining the comfort cooling and heating systems in some of the world’s best recording and post production facilities here in the UK. Nathan often jokes that some of the radio/tv stations who’ve had guests on dismissing heat pumps are actually sitting in facilities heated and cooled with heat pump technology his cousin’s engineers installed, and that if heat pumps were that noisy you’d hear them on some of the world’s most famous record albums." He currently hosts the award winning low carbon and renewable heating podcast BetaTalk and provides consultancy. He is regarded as knowing who the best engineers in the UK are and has helped senior figures in the energy discourse find competent engineers for their own homes. He is also able to help local authorities receiving money from the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund understand who the competent suppliers are on their Dynamic Purchasing Systems
Further reading: Depher https://www.depher.co.uk/ Miriam Violet Griffith https://twitter.com/MLiebreich/status/1480645001155858433 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Miriam_Violet_Griffith BetaTeach https://www.betateach.co.uk/ | |||
| 05 Aug 2020 | Real Estate in the Crosshairs - Ep3: Antony Slumbers | 01:01:14 | |
Furrther reading: Antony's bio: https://www.antonyslumbers.com/about Space as a Service: The Trillion Dollar Hashtag https://www.antonyslumbers.com/theblog/2019/1/30/space-as-a-service-the-trillion-dollar-hashtag Retail Real Estate after the Apocalypse https://www.antonyslumbers.com/theblog/2020/5/4/retail-real-estate-after-the-apocalypse Work, The Workplace and Covid-19 https://www.antonyslumbers.com/theblog/2020/4/20/work-the-workplace-and-covid-19 | |||