Business of Sustainability Initiative Explores the Energy Transition During Annual Summit

Students, business leaders, and sustainability experts gathered at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business to discuss the energy transition during the second annual Leadership and Innovation Summit. Hosted by the school’s Business of Sustainability Initiative, this year’s event focused on the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources as a key step in combating climate change. 

The summit featured conversations with many accomplished sustainability leaders around the world, starting with a fireside chat with Jigar Shah, director of the Department of Energy Loans Program Office, moderated by Vishal Agrawal, the Henry J. Blommer Family Endowed Chair in Sustainable Business and academic director of the Business of Sustainability Initiative. During the discussion, Shah shared the value of educating potential investors on projects.

“You have to actually invest in that expertise,” said Shah. “When I was at SunEdison, we were the first group to hire a Ph.D. that looked at the performance of every combination of solar module and inverter that we had in our fleet, and we realized that some solar module and inverter marriages performed way better than everybody else. When you have those insights and you can demonstrate that expertise, it goes a long way to building trust and getting more people involved.”

Attendees then heard from Kevin Rabinovitch, global vice president of sustainability and chief climate officer at Mars, who sat down with moderator Şafak Yücel, associate professor and associate director of the Business of Sustainability Initiative. During the fireside chat, Rabinovitch explained the structure of smart business and financial models when it comes to renewable energy projects.

“Solar as a service is a great solution for end customers who aren’t going to be able to do what Mars can do: find long-term contracts,” said Rabinovitch. “But even in solar as a service, somebody still had to pay the upfront cost for the solar panels, somebody still took out a loan – there’s still debt-to-service. So it’s an underlying sort of structural difference for renewables in this capital-heavy model, which on the one hand is a problem. On the other hand, it is an opportunity for innovation and cleverness.”

Following the morning fireside chats, McDonough alumna Lucía Szyman Mulero (MS-ESM’24), customer success lead at Proof, moderated a panel discussion that dove deeper into the implications of the energy transition featuring Jacqueline Wong, senior vice president for climate and energy at the Natural Resources Defense Council; Jen Zepeda, commercial solar consultant at ReVision Energy; and Chip Levergood, senior director of investments at HASI. The panelists agreed on the importance of incentivizing consumers to buy into renewable resources in a way that appeals to their interests.

“A lot of this comes down to helping communities both understand, as well as actually benefit from, these projects,” said Wong. “So what’s in it for them in terms of not just jobs but also on an ongoing basis from these projects.”

Zepeda echoed these sentiments and reinforced the importance of proper staffing and workforce capacity. 

“We’re starting to take a step back at the big picture and say, ‘what do we need to get to this goal of this many megawatts installed?’ and I think the workforce piece is a huge part of that because if we don’t have the workforce to install it then we’re going to fall short,” she said.

Afterward, Yücel sat down with Tom Craig, vice president of federal government affairs at Duke Energy, and Julia Pyper, vice president of public affairs at GoodLeap, to discuss their strategies for using energy data to connect with their customer bases while achieving their sustainability goals.

“We’ve got to continue to look at how we’re including climate data in our development and decision-making,” said Craig. “Resiliency, sustainability, storm hardening – those are all really important things that we have to build in and start looking at where all it fits together.”

Pyper emphasized the importance of highlighting the long-term benefits of renewable energy within consumer homes as a way to increase product adoption. 

“We know 42% of energy-related emissions come from decisions made in the home, so decisions meaning what car you choose to drive, how you power your home, how you cook your food, how you wash your clothes,” Pyper said. “The more we can electrify, the lower carbon we have because it’s not only what is on your rooftop but how utilities are decarbonizing their portfolios as well. So if we could make sure the customers are aware at the point of sale that there’s a rebate available, and we can play the role as that touchpoint out into the community, that’s where we can come in with that piece of the puzzle.”

Agrawal moderated the closing fireside chat with Kristen Eshak Weldon (B’00), founder of Eshak Capital, where they explored her career in entrepreneurship and sustainable investment.

“With this company that I just set up, there are so many legs to the transition. So it is energy, it is agriculture, it is nature, and sitting in one firm for me felt limiting because I do have such breadth of experience not only in those different areas but also across asset classes,” said Eshak Weldon. “So the benefit of being at a place like Blackrock was I worked across infrastructure, debt, and equity straight through venture, and so can I work across this ecosystem more effectively in my own company.”

Watch the summit recordings on Youtube.