May 8, 2024
As we enjoy the increasing sunshine and onset of spring from our vantage point in our office at One Beacon, overlooking Boston Common, Sustainability Roundtable Inc. is also experiencing a dynamic period of growth.
Last week, we announced the largest peer-buyer organized aggregated VPPA to date, with seven world-leading buyers: Cisco, Juniper Networks, IDEXX, Bio-Rad Laboratories, Cadence Design Systems, PTC, and a Fortune 100 healthcare company.
Our team has also grown, and we are hiring for multiple open positions.
Our Quarterly Newsletter will cover these topics and more: New Team Members and the Rising Tide of Sustainability Talent, our Net Zero Consortium for Buyers (NZCB) Announcement, new Member-Clients, Member-Client Spotlights, and Upcoming Events.
In the realm of corporate sustainability, the tide has turned. Gone are the days before 2010 when corporate customers and undergraduates had no idea what enterprise or corporate sustainability meant. Now, within two weeks of every open position at Sustainability Roundtable Inc. (SR Inc) more than one hundred outstandingly qualified applicants jump through hoops to join our team: they must submit a cover letter, CV, writing sample, and two references. These applicants graduated at the top of their classes in relevant majors from the most selective colleges and universities and have resumes replete with multiple corporate sustainability internships and early jobs in corporate sustainability.
As I read one smart, and even poignant, cover letter after another I think: “Eat your heart out Harvard Business School.” HBS reports an impressively selective 11% acceptance rate. SR Inc’s acceptance rate is less than 1% for every position, year round. We can select not only magna and summa cum laude graduates in Environmental Studies and/or Economics from schools like Brown, Dartmouth, Middlebury, and Duke but also applicants with a couple of years worth of internships and working experience in corporate sustainability. Applicants lionized by their references as among the most team centered and mission driven individuals they have met. As our business grows and we continue to list new positions, the wealth of talent vying for a spot grows even more quickly.
In 2024, it turns out that the most committed and focused young business analysts want full time careers in corporate sustainability that will help them learn from, and ultimately help advise, the globally scaling companies SR Inc has long served. I am reminded of when I prepared to leave a superb global law firm headquartered in Boston full of diverse and brilliant young associates. It was 1999 and I was bound for Vice President Gore’s presidential campaign. But before joining Gore 2000, more than couple of my peers volunteered two suggestions: first, consider the internet infrastructure company Akamai Technologies and, second, consider a pioneer of synthetic genes, Vertex Pharmaceuticals. So many of the most sought after talent whispered this advice I thought: “Maybe these firms will succeed simply because the top 5% graduates of the top 5% schools will insist on making them succeed.”
25 years later, both Akamai Technologies and Vertex Pharmaceuticals are large publicly traded global firms with thousands of employees headquartered in Boston in high rise office buildings emblazoned on top with their brands. And now in my 50s, I am amazed by how specific and prescient the advice of the most considered young business talent was 25 years ago. Several went on to join those firms and in doing so, many made a small, or not so small, fortune doing needed and interesting work in a globally scaling field. It strikes me that they didn’t advise me about three fields or three firms. Just internet infrastructure and, specifically, Akamai; and, gene discovery and, specifically, Vertex, had won the admiration of the most unusually ambitious and considered young talent. And in regard to both those focused “go getters” proved 100% spot-on.
This gives me hope for our ability in corporate sustainability to invent, develop and deploy much needed nonlinear breakthroughs year after year for generations. The talent competing to work at SR Inc and other sustainability focused climate advisory and climate tech firms will invent and scale needed and new business models and solutions. SR Inc may not be another Akamai or Vertex but several in the field of more sustainable business will be. In cases, the ability of attracted talent to “fearlessly innovate” as Vertex has it quarter in and quarter out, year over year, will be vital to our collective ability to invent the livable future we now need to invent. And in my middle age, I am wise enough to follow closely where the most sought after and considered decide to make their largest personal investment. Specifically, where they decide they want to work.
Wonderfully bright and committed talent – both early and late career talent – has helped SR Inc lead through developing the Net Zero Consortium for Buyers (NZCB). SR Inc Member-clients have made the NZCB the leading platform for corporate aggregated procurement of utility scale renewable energy. SR Inc has leveraged the NZCB and the group procurement Reverse Auctions it enables to help the market for utility scale renewable energy improve both process and transaction structure of Virtual Power Purchase Agreements (VPPA) to succeed in what others find to be turbulent markets and really warrant the designation “VPPA2.0.” A new process and transaction that has helped the NZCB approach it’s goal of causing a GW of new renewable energy capacity before 2025 – nearly 6 months early. One that the ambitious, top credit, corporate buyers joining SR Inc’s NZCB want to demonstrably and impressively help achieve the goal articulated at COP28 to triple renewable energy deployment globally by 2030.
What many fail to appreciate is that the exponential growth in the field of more sustainable business, from relevant enterprise software plays to immense long-term batteries, is often not headed for the constraints of an S curve. As David Roberts explained on his wonderful podcast Volts, in his interview with Michael Liebrich, founder of what became Bloomberg New Energy Finance. These solutions shatter presumed adoption ceilings as their game changing commercial attractiveness cause yet more demand. This has been both predictable and wonderful to repeatedly experience in regard to the deployment of utility scale solar and batteries as costs continue to plummet and combine with new business models like SR Inc’s NZCB and new transactions like VPPA2.0 to create exponentially more high credit corporate demand.
This can be understood as all part of a larger, even epic (i.e. “era defining”) growth in the demand for more sustainable business. Which is unmistakable among the younger cohort of the most sought-after business talent. That’s a good thing because this new generation of business leaders will be tested as perhaps no generation of leaders ever has ever been tested as they grapple with radical change including an increasingly dysfunctional political system that is increasingly rejecting global cooperation even as we face the always mounting and always more urgent threat of human caused climate and environmental breakdown.
Sustainability Strategy Leadership & Evolving the Sustainability Reporting Landscape:
We held our Sustainable Business & Enterprise Roundtable (SBER) Q1 Executive Symposium on March 14th, 2024, in-person and virtually in Cambridge, MA and Denver, CO. The first part of the symposium focused on sustainability strategy, leadership, and the evolving reporting landscape — including the SEC Climate Rule, TNFD, & transition planning. Participants heard from Splunk’s Senior Director of ESG and Sustainability, Carrie Christopher, on her work developing the Splunk Net Zero Transition Plan.
Corporate Global Decarbonization
The symposium included an in-depth discussion of Corporate Global Decarbonization with a specific focus on impact. This portion of the symposium was split into two parts, focusing first on carbon markets and secondly on renewable energy procurement, with the goal of creating global decarbonization strategies that work towards SBT-aligned Scopes 1-3 emission mitigation, Beyond Value Chain Mitigation, and neutralization of remaining emissions.
Participants heard from Andy Smith Senior Manager of Global Energy Management & Sustainability at Cisco Systems, who discussed Cisco’s renewable energy and net zero goals and their use of purchaser-caused renewable electricity procurement.
We are excited to assist Fluor with strengthening its sustainability policies, projects, and strategies and Fluor’s work to build a better world
We look forward to working with Aritzia to strengthen their renewable energy strategy on their journey to find long-term climate solutions that support both People and Planet
SR Inc welcomes Eva as a Program Associate
As a Program Associate, Eva supports the development and implementation of our internal ESG strategy and pathway to certifying as a B Corp. She also is instrumental in fostering a positive employee culture and managing office operations. She works closely with our CEO, and provides support for strategic projects across our operations.
SR Inc welcomes Daphne Frantzis as an SBER Analyst
As an SBER Analyst, Daphne assists with primary and secondary research concerning emerging environmental trends, while also developing and distributing voluntary and mandatory reporting guidelines for SR Inc’s Member-Clients.
SR Inc Member-Client Thermo Fisher Scientific announced that the company signed a buyer-aggregated VPPA to build a solar power project in Spain, alongside its value chain partner Eurofins. The value chain-aligned procurement was supported by SR Inc’s Net Zero Consortium for Buyers and championed by Matthew Yamatin, Thermo Fisher’s Sustainability Program Director, & Francesco Cordasco at Eurofins.
SR Inc’s team volunteered with Food for Free at Biogen’s headquarters
Food for Free, located in Biogen’s headquarters, fights hunger by rescuing and distributing fresh food that might have otherwise been discarded. Biogen was part of one of NZCB’s aggregate procurements. As a sustainability advisory and support service, we are working to align business with life, to support the communities where we live and work.
Akamai Technologies’ Pioneering Procurement Strategy with SR Inc’s VPPA 2.0s
Learn how Akamai Technologies has emerged as a trailblazer in corporate sustainability under the guidance of Director of Corporate Sustainability and ESG Officer Mike Mattera. Through its strategic partnership with the Sustainable Business & Enterprise Roundtable (SBER) and Net Zero Consortium for Buyers (NZCB), Akamai has overcome challenges typical of high-credit companies with geographically-dispersed electricity demand to procure impactful Purchaser Caused Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) while investing in utility-scale renewable energy projects that cause new renewable energy generation capacity.
Through Sustainability Roundtable, Inc.’s Net Zero Consortium for Buyers (NZCB), Cisco, Juniper Networks, Bio-Rad Laboratories, Cadence Design Systems, IDEXX Laboratories, Inc., PTC, and a large healthcare company signed an aggregated virtual power purchase agreement (VPPA) with Southern Power Company for the renewable energy credits produced by the 180 MW Phase II portion of the Millers Branch Solar Facility in Haskell County, Texas, expected to achieve commercial operation in the second quarter of 2026.
U.S. VPPA Opportunity Index: 2024 Q1
North America’s leading data service providing virtual power purchase agreement (VPPA) proposals reports a 1% decline in proposed solar VPPA prices and a 2% rise in wind VPPA prices in the first quarter compared to the prior quarter. These modest figures obscure the extent of the substantial reversal of the corporate VPPA market back toward greater equilibrium between corporate offtakers and developers. Since the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was signed into law in August 2022, SR Inc has been predicting a likely rebalancing of the North American VPPA market by the second quarter of 2024. It just arrived.
Dave Duncan shared insights on PTC’s impactful collaboration with SR Inc’s Sustainable Business & Enterprise Roundtable (SBER) and Net Zero Consortium for Buyers (NZCB) in an SR Inc video testimony. “Not only do they help us with our disclosures and our measurements, but they also directly help us with our decarbonization methods.”
A huge thank you to our valued Member-Client PTC for partnering with SR Inc in furthering our purpose of Aligning Business with Life.
Cisco published its FY23 Purpose Report
SR Inc Member-Client Cisco, a worldwide leader in technology that powers the Internet, published its FY23 Purpose Report, highlighting its impressive work in embedding sustainability throughout the company’s operations.
Q2 Executive Symposium
Thursday, June 13th, 2024
2:45 pm – 6:00 pm ET
Member-Clients meet in Boston, San Francisco, and Virtually
Q3 Executive Symposium
Thursday, December 7th, 2023
12:00 pm – 2:30 pm ET
Member-Clients meet in New York and Virtually
SBER 2024 Awards Dinner
Thursday, December 5th, 2024
6:30 pm – 8:30 pm ET
Member-Clients meet in Washington D.C.
The Summit For Sustainable Business VIII
Friday, December 6th, 2024
8:00 am – 3:45 pm ET
Member-Clients meet in Washington D.C.
