The Future of Renewable Energy with Minnesota Power’s JULIE PIERCE

The Future of Renewable Energy with Minnesota Power’s JULIE PIERCE

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Vice President of Strategy & Planning · Minnesota Power

Minnesota Power and its customers in Northeast Minnesota made the decision about a decade ago to start moving in this direction. We wanted to ensure that we took the right time, pace, and path that was thoughtful for our customers and communities to transform. Through the past decade of hard work with our communities and customers, and leveraging new technology in wind, solar, and hydro, we transformed from a 95% fossil-fuel-based portfolio to 50-60% clean energy. Essentially, in the last decade, we've worked to reduce our carbon emissions by half and increase our renewable energy production by 50-60%. It has been a very exciting time. We had over 50% of our board members as women for well over a decade. So we started at the top and then with our leadership teams. The promotion of a diverse, collaborative discussion on any topic within our organization has been paramount.

Leading Change: An Interview with GORDON LAMBERT on Business, Sustainability & Creative Tension

Leading Change: An Interview with GORDON LAMBERT on Business, Sustainability & Creative Tension

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World Economic Forum Global Council · Member for Energy and Sustainability
Fmr. Member of Alberta’s Climate Change Advisory Panel

I think curiosity is one of those traits of anyone involved in the change realm that takes you always to the right spots, like you're going to be in a learning mode, you're going to be in a collaborative mode because of that desire to learn more. And it does keep you humble. You know, arrogance is the enemy of the good. And you never want to think that you have all the answers or that it's just a case of talking louder with better PowerPoints, that you're going to convince everyone as to why you're right and they're all wrong. You know, I use the phrase, listen and respond versus declare and defend. And I've seen too many leaders over time that are in the declare and defend mindset and they're very closed down because they're smarter than everyone else. They don't need advice. We see it in leadership and lots of places in society nowadays.

The Daily Pursuit of Excellence with SAM SMOLIK

The Daily Pursuit of Excellence with SAM SMOLIK

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Author of The Daily Pursuit of Excellence

What happens is that companies get complacent. Things go well for a long time. All publicly traded companies are under tremendous financial pressure. Everyone's looking at quarterly earnings and all that, and they take their eye off of safety and operational excellence. And you can't do that.

Leadership & Operational Excellence - SAM SMOLIK Explores the Secrets of Success

Leadership & Operational Excellence - SAM SMOLIK Explores the Secrets of Success

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Author of The Daily Pursuit of Excellence

What happens is that companies get complacent. Things go well for a long time. All publicly traded companies are under tremendous financial pressure. Everyone's looking at quarterly earnings and all that, and they take their eye off of safety and operational excellence. And you can't do that.

Can We Bridge the $3-4 Trillion Gap to Mobilize the Energy Transition? with DOMINIC EMERY

Can We Bridge the $3-4 Trillion Gap to Mobilize the Energy Transition? with DOMINIC EMERY

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Energy Transition Advisor

Oil and gas companies, along with any company engaged in the production and burning of fossil fuels, must cease these activities if we are to have any hope of reaching net zero by 2050, which is only 26 years away. The pace of change needs to be extremely rapid. Currently, the world is emitting about 55 gigatons of CO₂ equivalent, with 70% of this coming from fossil fuels, which provide 80% of our energy. Demand for energy continues to grow due to increasing populations. However, we must bring down the 55 gigatons of emissions to net zero by 2050, even though emissions are still on the rise, albeit at a slower pace. In short, oil, gas, and coal must become relics of the past.

Revolutionizing Urban Mobility with Wireless Bike & Scooter Docking Stations - JEFF OLSON

Revolutionizing Urban Mobility with Wireless Bike & Scooter Docking Stations - JEFF OLSON

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Co-founder of the Largest Bike Share System in North America · NYC’s CitiBike
Co-founder of re:Charge-e: Wireless Bike & Scooter Docking Stations
Author of The 3rd Mode: Towards a Green Society

The key number for people to remember is one to 150 for the cost and energy that it takes to charge a single electric car, our system could charge 150 bikes or scooters in public space that then people have access to. So the question from an equity standpoint, from really achieving our climate goals standpoint is, do you invest in getting one person mobile and maintaining maybe the current lifestyle that goes along with those cars? Or do we make some changes and invest in 150 to 200 people being mobile with the same energy? Clearly, we think the answer is more people moving more often, more sustainably. And we have to make that shift or we're never going to hit the 2030 goals. They are probably not even in reach, you heard the Secretary-General say just last week. And even 2050 seems a long way to go if we're still investing in technologies that only essentially help the 1 percent that already have the resources. It's the larger population that we really need to reach.

Strategic Thinking for a Changing World: Environmental Solutions with Colonel ROBIN PHILLIPS

Strategic Thinking for a Changing World: Environmental Solutions with Colonel ROBIN PHILLIPS

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Retired US Army Officer with a Career in Current and Crisis Intelligence and Strategic Plans and Policy at the Pentagon

We need to work together to handle the migrations that will inevitably come because of climate change and loss of human habitat, loss of agricultural lands, things like that. The wisest nation going forward will be the one that can maintain its population through allowing immigration and thinking about where you can draw folks that are coming from stressed environments and they need a place to land and you're losing population. Why should you not accept those people and encourage them to fill the roles that you need them to fill and settle in the areas where you are being depopulated because of falling fertility by choice?

What is conscious capitalism? Sustainable Development & Leadership with DR. LARRY CLAY JR.

What is conscious capitalism? Sustainable Development & Leadership with DR. LARRY CLAY JR.

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Asst. Professor · Marymount University
Management · Designing Sustainable Systems

My whole idea is to find ways to promote and support entrepreneurship. So, my version of entrepreneurship is designing sustainable systems. There is no need to continue doing the same thing so that we can anticipate the same results of building a traditional business. Now, we have an opportunity to explore how you want your business to be. How do you want the organization? How do you want the mindset of the people that you want to hire? When people take the time–not everybody loves to take the time because we live in this world, we have to get it done–but when you take the time to conversate and build using both logic and creativity and thinking about prospecting, what can be possibilities in the future, then that brings along a good dialogue. It brings people together and empowerment, and good ideas come out that turn into good, profitable companies.

Empowering Change: NINA LUZZATTO GARDNER on Women's Rights & Sustainability

Empowering Change: NINA LUZZATTO GARDNER on Women's Rights & Sustainability

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Adjunct Lecturer in International Law, Johns Hopkins SAIS
Director of Strategy International, Corporate Sustainability Advisory Firm

My father made me think very much in terms of what kind of planet we are leaving to our children? And what should we be doing in terms of being custodians of this planet? And that we should not be using up all the resources, but actually trying to conserve them and make the world a better for the next generation.

Wealth & Climate Competitiveness: The New Narrative with Bruce Piasecki

Wealth & Climate Competitiveness: The New Narrative with Bruce Piasecki

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What does Robin Hood tell us about climate competitiveness? Using this 700- year-old narrative, Piasecki reminds his readers that business in society reading has been a classic concern, from Dante’s Inferno to Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of Vanities.

Wealth and Climate Competitiveness, which pays homage to Henry David Thoreau’s Walden and explores the new narrative offering grounds for hope for the rest of this swift and severe century. Published by Rodin Books in a series that includes the books by Bill Bradley and Michael Bloomberg, and has also been produced as an audiobook. You can hear pre-publication podcasts on the book and Piasecki’s business career at www.newsweek.com under Jesse Edwards podcast series, in Paris under Mia Funk’s One Planet Podcast series, and in political circles at www.RepublicEN.org.

First examining the 5 prejudices that have prevented both social leaders and business from making real lasting progress on the innovations required to address competition and climate, this book notes that the days of assuming all business is a set of Robber Barons and Birds of Prey has been dated by leading firms like Trane Technologies. This episode explores why these popular prejudices help us stay on the petrochemical treadmill, as well as the dynamics and results of innovative exceptions like Trane. With 50,000 engineers dedicated to competing on climate change, Trane has grown twice the rate in its stock value over the last six years than its peers in the S&P Industrial Index. Why is this?

Piasecki and several dozen of his colleagues discuss competitive principles based on Piasecki’s forty years of working for a number of large and major firms as a change agent, and business founder of www.ahcgroup.com. Other facilitators to this event include Canada’s celebrated change agent Gord Lambert (who will open and close with a jazz guitar performance), and the global head of Sustainability for Herman Miller, Gabe Wing.

www.wealthandclimatecompetitiveness.net

LEAH THOMAS - Author of The Intersectional Environmentalist - Founder of IE Platform & @GreenGirlLeah

LEAH THOMAS - Author of The Intersectional Environmentalist - Founder of IE Platform & @GreenGirlLeah

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Author of The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet
Founder of @greengirlleah & The Intersectional Environmentalist platform

Intersectional Environmentalism to me means prioritizing social justice in environmental movements and really thinking about what communities are most impacted by different environmental injustices. So, for example, in the United States, a lot of communities of color, Black, Indigenous communities, and also lower-income communities struggle with things like unclean air and unclean water, and those are environmental injustices. So I thought it was important to have an intersectional approach to environmental advocacy that doesn't ignore these things and these intersections of identity, but explores them to make sure that every community, especially those most impacted by environmental injustices, no longer are. And I wanted to write a really accessible introduction that was targeted at school kids or anyone who wants to learn more.

BRUCE PIASECKI - NYTimes Bestselling Author of Doing More With One Life

BRUCE PIASECKI - NYTimes Bestselling Author of Doing More With One Life

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NYT Bestselling Author of Doing More with One Life
Founder of AHC Group

I concluded that stress is good for a creative person and that we, in fact, flower under stress. We bloom under stress: A father's death. He would never finish this thought path because he had so little to go on. For decades, he had blamed everyone he knew for his father’s death. Having been raised by his grandmother, mother, and sister, he had to invent his masculinity—from muscle and bone to making his place in a world of markets.

SCOTT TEW - VP of Sustainability, Trane Technologies & Managing Director, Center for Energy Efficiency & Sustainability

SCOTT TEW - VP of Sustainability, Trane Technologies & Managing Director, Center for Energy Efficiency & Sustainability

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Vice President · Sustainability · Trane Technologies
Managing Director · Center for Energy Efficiency & Sustainability

I have this need to stay curious. I think all of these big problems have solutions, and they're never one solution. It's always a collection of solutions. And therefore, I think we need a collection of people and ideas, so that's a great thing to keep in mind.

ARTHUR KLEBANOFF - President of Scott Meredith Literary Agency - Founder of Rodin Books & RosettaBooks

ARTHUR KLEBANOFF - President of Scott Meredith Literary Agency - Founder of Rodin Books & RosettaBooks

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President of Scott Meredith Literary Agency
Founder of Rodin Books & RosettaBooks

As President of Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Arthur has represented J.D. Salinger, Arthur C. Clark, several U.S. Presidents, Michael Bloomberg, Bill Bradley, Paul Krugman, among others, and has handled books with over $1 billion in sales. In 2001, Klebanoff founded RosettaBooks, an independent eBook publisher which for twenty years disrupted the publishing business. Klebanoff has published, represented or packaged over 75 thought leadership titles. He founded RodinBooks to publish books by impactful leaders.

LISA JACKSON PULVER - Deputy Vice-Chancellor, University of Sydney's Indigenous Strategy and Services

LISA JACKSON PULVER - Deputy Vice-Chancellor, University of Sydney's Indigenous Strategy and Services

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Deputy Vice-Chancellor University of Sydney's Indigenous Strategy & Services

We come from the land, and we go back to the land. Aboriginal people have been on this land for at least 60,000 years in some of the most extreme conditions on Earth and survived. And over the last 230 years, the most catastrophic events have occurred to this land because people didn't listen to ancient Aboriginal cultures and knowledge. So my question is, if people were able to look after this place for 60,000 years and thrive, what have we done to ensure that we have a healthy fit world for the next 60,000 years?

JOSH KAMPEL - CEO of Clarim Media

JOSH KAMPEL - CEO of Clarim Media

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Josh Kampel is the CEO of Clarim Media where he oversees the overall strategic direction of the organization as well as works closely with the management teams of the individual portfolio companies to build scalable products and services. 

Prior to Clarim, Josh served as CEO of Techonomy Media, which was sold to Clarim Holdings in 2018. At Techonomy, Josh spent 8 years driving sustainable business growth through strategic partnerships and new product development. He built Techonomy to be one of the leading media companies covering technology and it’s impact on business and society. Techonomy Climate 2023 takes place March 28th. The conference surveys the booming climate tech sector and highlight companies making the most significant impact.

JOSH KAMPEL

Think about how do they deliver value to all of those constituents rather than just their shareholders. So they will create the more successful long-term companies, especially generationally, as Gen X and millennials care more and more about mission and purpose.

This idea of greenwashing or now what we can call woke-washing and that ESG goals are typically held within PR groups, within companies. They just talk about what they're doing versus being held accountable. I think we will continue to see that paradigm shift towards accountability, transparency of companies doing the right thing.

I'm impressed every day when I see next generation leaders, entrepreneurs, and educational institutions focus more on this idea of social entrepreneurship. That they're really embedding some of these core values into the next generation of leaders.

This interview was conducted by Bruce Piasecki, Mia Funk & Maureen Nole and with th

e participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producer on this podcast was Bianca Bartolini. Digital Media Coordinators are Jacob A. Preisler and Megan Hegenbarth.

Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).

An afternoon of stories, conversation & music with Bruce Piasecki & Gordon Lambert at Caffè Lena

An afternoon of stories, conversation & music with Bruce Piasecki & Gordon Lambert at Caffè Lena

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Join New York Times bestselling author Bruce Piasecki at Caffè Lena for an afternoon of stories, memories and interactive conversation. He will also dive into personal narratives about book tours of Australia, his personal conversations with Tom Wolfe, his admiration for Bob Dylan and other master storytellers, artists, and sustainability leaders, and read from his latest book, A New Way to Wealth. Musical accompaniment for this episode is provided by Gordon Lambert. Piasecki has dedicated 40 years of his life to climate solutions with years of experience working for The White House, helping big corporations get on board his fight for climate solutions, and asking his audience to be part of the discussion.

Highlights - Bruce Piasecki - Founder, AHC Group - NYTimes Bestselling Author

Highlights - Bruce Piasecki - Founder, AHC Group - NYTimes Bestselling Author

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NYT Bestselling Author of A New Way to Wealth · Doing More with Teams
Founder of AHC Group

Each day you wake up you make decisions that shape your own fate, your ascent, position, your own creativity. I like to think of it as fate is a personal construct. When I was at Cornell they had me teach an Emerson essay called “Freedom and Fate” where he said that fate was so overwhelming in some traditions that it’s as though we were each involved in a shipwreck and we were each thrown off the ship and all we had a chance to do was look at each other. I’ve come to believe is that not only is the future near you can design your own life.

Bruce Piasecki - NYTimes Bestselling Author of “A New Way to Wealth” - Founder, AHC Group

Bruce Piasecki - NYTimes Bestselling Author of “A New Way to Wealth” - Founder, AHC Group

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NYT Bestselling Author of A New Way to Wealth · Doing More with Teams
Founder of AHC Group

Each day you wake up you make decisions that shape your own fate, your ascent, position, your own creativity. I like to think of it as fate is a personal construct. When I was at Cornell they had me teach an Emerson essay called “Freedom and Fate” where he said that fate was so overwhelming in some traditions that it’s as though we were each involved in a shipwreck and we were each thrown off the ship and all we had a chance to do was look at each other. I’ve come to believe is that not only is the future near you can design your own life.

Colin Steen - CEO of Legacy Agripartners - Pushing Farming Forward

Colin Steen - CEO of Legacy Agripartners - Pushing Farming Forward

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CEO of Legacy Agripartners

It's interesting, as I've gotten older, I've really started to reflect back on that early time growing up on a farm. And I'm fiercely, fiercely proud of where my roots are. And Weldon, Saskatchewan, it's a town of 160 people there today. And just being in a spot where every day you have cattle to feed, you've got a grain crop you're trying to grow, right? The things are subject to weather. The sort of ups and downs of farm life are so dependent on the 6 pm news and the weather forecast each night. It's at times very stressful, but most times incredibly rewarding, right? There's nothing like sitting in a combine at harvest time with all the fruits of your labors all coming in at the same time. It's a great experience. We had cattle, which is just a never-ending thing, right? You know, our vacations were tied around going to cattle shows, cattle sales, bull sales, cow sales, anything that revolved around the farm. And we had a ton of fun on our vacations going to these events and seeing sites in those areas where we went to. But at the end of the day, you know, your life revolves around the cattle on the farm. It revolves around the farm. There's no sort of, we'll take four months off and not worry about it, right? Those cows have to be fed twice a day and looked after. So it's a lot of responsibility, and it's a great way to get yourself ready for life as an adult.