Wednesday 25 March 2015

No. 92: Things I learnt at the GLA Green Means Business roundtable event….

£1,000,000,000,000 is required to solve the climate change challenge. Fortunately this is also the amount of money that is currently sitting in (UK?) bank accounts earning little or no interest. The ever-brilliant Julia Groves, CEO for the Trillion Fund (guess where they got the name from?) believes that crowd funding ‘green projects’ is the best way to unblock the infrastructure investment pipeline. I think she is onto something.

Californians use 40% less energy than most Americans due at least in part to policy changes implemented by Mr Swartznegger. I particularly liked the proposal to add a small amount (c$1) to everyone’s energy bill and then use the $400m created to buy people old, inefficient white goods (eg fridges) so they could replace them with more efficient new ones.

UK CEOs for green start-up companies demand higher salaries than US CEOs, but they don’t ask for much equity. This would suggest that they dont believe that the equity is worth anything. Sounds to me like it’s time to get some new CEOs.

‘Disintermediation’ is a real word. It was used to describe how many funding for green infrastructure projects is moving from institutional investors (such as my good self) towards crowd funders. I am not sure I agree, but I am going to use the word ‘disintermediation’ to make people think I am cleverer than I really am.

I am acutely aware of the hypocrisy of me blathering on about the benefits of being green whilst at the same time flying around the world. In my (admittedly rather weak) defence, a number of the deals I am working on will have a tangible and potentially massive positive impact on carbon. I just need to get them over the line…

I still intend to get my entry ticket to Carbon Heaven. My deficit will be paid.

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