Peter Fusaro, Senior Partner and Head of ESG for Oxford Global Accelerated Ventures, and New York Times best selling author, sits down with Green Success Stories to share his experience working in clean energy and shares some helpful tips about how to live more environmentally friendly.
Who is Peter Fusaro?
Fusaro is a best selling author, keynote speaker and thought leader on emerging energy and environmental financial markets. He is Chairman of Global Change Associates an energy and environmental consultancy in New York since 1991. He previously worked at the U.S. Department of Energy, the NYC Mayor’s Energy Office, Petroleos de Venezuela and ABB Financial Services.
Peter, thanks for joining us. Tell us a little bit about you and your background:
I am Senior Partner and Head of ESG for Oxford Global Accelerated Ventures which is focused on commercializing sustainable university IP through our conservation venture labs. I am an industry veteran in clean energy for almost 5 decades as well as a New York Times best selling author. I have worked on sustainability solutions since my first job including getting the lead out of gasoline with US EPA and advising the Toyota Prius development team.
I am committed to helping create a more sustainable environment particularly focused on the energy sector, the world’s largest polluter and GHG emitter. Focus today is accelerate clean energy transition this decade through commercialization of university technology from Oxford, Stanford and Harvard. Also involved in creating better ESG (Environmental Social & Governance) metrics for investors to deploy more capital into sustainable finance. I have also mentored over 300 young professionals during the past 25 years since it is my belief that if we don’t have the intellectual capital then we can’t make the sustainability transition.
What is a fun fact about you?
I love to travel and meet new people and cultures. I have visited over 50 countries throughout the world.
Why do you think climate change and sustainability is such an important topic today?
Climate change is the 800 pound gorilla in the room that must be addressed on all levels of society. It is particularly threatening to the world’s 3 largest businesses i.e. energy, food and water. There is now the need to accelerate technology transfer from ideas to full commercialization in order to reduce GHG emissions and make the world safer from the more deleterious impacts of climate change. Severe droughts, flooding, and forestry fires are already evident. Ocean warming is making more dead zones. Carbon emissions have not been reduced in a significant way. Sustainability writ large is the biggest threat to humanity and we have the money, brain power and technology to get the job done. This decade is the tipping point on climate solutions.
What do you envision your industry looking like 10 years from now?
Renewables will be so mainstream that people won’t even notice the changes that took place. Outliers such as ocean technology and energy efficiency will be more commercialized. Transportation will be transformed not only with EVs but also hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. In fact, this is the dawn of the hydrogen economy with the marriage of solar and wind farms to green hydrogen production which can either make electric power or energy storage with water vapor as its emission.
Let’s Get to It: Can you share with us how to live more environmentally friendly?
Many things. They can buy organic, sustainable food from vertical farms. They can offset their carbon footprint for air travel. They can buy either electric vehicles or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. They can use more mass transit and rail for intercity transit. They can save energy in their homes as well as save water. These are not pie in the sky sacrifices but very doable. Finally, they can invest their retirement in clean energy and other renewables funds.
