Hopefully, all of you were able to enjoy some downtime with your family and friends over the holidays last month. I know I was – and that means I also had some much-needed time to sit and reflect on the past year, as well as gear up for the year ahead. First things first: I am tremendously grateful for the impact that our customers made last year with our help. Together, we transacted over 47 million MWh of renewable energy and 2.3 million MT of carbon offsets. Just to put that in perspective, that is similar to the carbon sequestered of nearly 400 million acres of US forests in one year. I couldn’t be prouder of the important work we’re doing to advance our mission of helping our clients and their customers take urgent action on climate change. Which brings me to my next observation…
While there has been a lot of news this year about how much worse climate change is getting, I remain optimistic. We are part of a unique ecosystem with the power to make it possible for people to take action on climate change, meet their emission reduction goal and make real impact. And we’re seeing it happen at a faster pace. 2018 gave us a lot to be hopeful for:
- According to the most recent NREL report, release Oct 2018, The last reporting year saw a 28% increase U.S. voluntary green power purchases
- We also saw a dramatic increase in the number of aggregated renewable energy contracts signed. Which is exciting not only for rapid acceleration of renewable energy development but also for allowing companies of all sizes unprecedented access to the renewable energy market.
- Since 2008, the fastest creator of blue collar jobs in the USA and worldwide has been clean energy. Whether these are construction jobs in solar or manufacturing jobs in electric vehicles, clean energy continues to be the place people look to build lasting careers in the 21st century.
While these statistics are promising and inspiring, I raise these in no way to minimize the issue – climate change can absolutely feel big and overwhelming. We are taking on giant challenges, that require bold action. However, from my vantage point, I see more organizations than ever before stepping up to commit to true leadership through this complicated challenge and I find that inspiring.
Thank you, to all of you, for your hard work and commitment to addressing this urgent issue last year. There is much work the world needs us to do, and I look forward to continuing to tackle that challenge together in 2019.
Steve McDougal