Browsing by Subject "Net zero"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4

Open Access
Implementing a Net Zero Carbon Strategy in the Real Estate Industry
(2023-04-28) Barry, Jamie
Tishman Speyer is a real estate developer that owns an international portfolio of office properties in major cities and has a goal to reach net zero carbon emissions across global operations by 2050. As an intern with Tishman Speyer last summer, I delivered a tool that provides pathways for each US asset to reach operational net zero. I worked with internal stakeholders such as asset managers, portfolio managers, engineers, and members of the sustainability team to inform the tool’s design. The tool includes financial models that project NPV and IRR associated with individual energy efficiency, retrofit, electrification, and on-site renewable projects by evaluating future energy costs, fines from regulators, and future REC/offset costs. The tool also estimates emissions reductions associated with energy projects, recommends project prioritization, and estimates future emissions under multiple decarbonization scenarios. For my MP Project, I expanded the scope of this tool and helped deploy it. I worked throughout the year to add features that provide scenario-level financial models, incorporate scenario Opex and Capex changes into property Profit and Loss Statements, and give users the option to design customized decarbonization scenarios. I helped Tishman Speyer use this tool to generate net zero pathway reports for all US assets. Reports will be sent to employees and investors, ensuring that all stakeholders understand what is needed for Tishman Speyer to reach net zero.
Open Access
Investing in Clean Hydrogen
(2024-04-26) Miteva, Petya
This paper lays out a framework and process for investors to build their investment theses in clean hydrogen innovation. This framework was developed based on conversations with industry experts and a literature review that informed an analysis of a range of investment opportunities in innovations within the hydrogen value chain. The framework functions in five steps: • Answer four key questions corresponding to various investment criteria categories; • Refine specific investment criteria based on these answers; • Rank investment criteria from highest to lowest priority; • Identify optimal investment niches by using this paper’s internally developed opportunities heatmap; • Build a clean hydrogen innovation investment thesis that targets the top-scoring niches. With plentiful opportunities for innovative solutions for the production, storage, transportation, transformation, and utilization of clean hydrogen, investors are showing an appetite for tapping into this space. These innovations hold the promise of revolutionizing a variety of activities within the hydrogen value chain to enable its use in traditionally Greenhouse Gas emissions (GHG) intensive sectors. Yet, identifying the right opportunities within an emerging space could be challenging. Clean hydrogen is an important lever in the decarbonization of the global economy, expected to account for roughly 10-12% of global annual energy use by 2050. To meet the levels envisioned by most global decarbonization scenarios, low-carbon hydrogen production and use in applications where it replaces a higher emitting fuel or energy source needs to grow 100 times from today’s levels by 2030. An estimated total investment of $1 trillion would be required to reach this target; yet there remains a $430 billion gap between current commitments and what’s needed. Stronger investment frameworks like the one put forth in this paper could help narrow this gap by enabling investors to deploy capital where it matters to usher in the ubiquitous use of clean hydrogen across the economy.
Open Access
Leadership for Thriving: A Framework to Lead the Business Community to Sustainable Behaviors
(2023-04-25) Olivares, Magdalena
Climate change is a complex problem whose solution is still far from being on track. Although we have advanced a lot in terms of knowledge and awareness of the problem, we are struggling to transition to sustainable actions. Corporations have the key to unleash a substantial potential contribution to facing this challenge moving forward. Developing new business models that move their operations away from current environmental damage is needed. Their potential to leverage their connections with consumers and other stakeholders, educating and influencing them to be part of the solution, and joining efforts to adjust lifestyles and preferences for sustainable consumption also presents a huge opportunity. For these challenges, corporations need to face the transition from a technical to an adaptative approach. But corporations are not prepared to run this challenge on their own; integrating the environmental impact in the business model requires the support of environmental experts. This research is based on the hypothesis that there is an opportunity to enhance sustainable behavior transformation by improving communication and collaboration between business and environmental professionals. With this purpose, the research was done through a qualitative comparative analysis that looks to contrast the perspective and resources those professionals have with respect to climate change, looking for the interconnection of joint possibilities that can be approached in a more collaborative manner. The ecological self maturity, nature experience, and knowledge of environmental professionals make them the best candidates to support corporate change. But there is a learning challenge for environmental professionals as well, since technical acumen is not enough to lead such large and complex adaptative changes in human systems in the corporate world. This framework aims at providing a tool for environmental professionals to effectively hone their skills to lead and communicate with corporate audiences and guide them towards effective actions to tackle environmental change. Leadership for Thriving combines this perspective of leadership and inspiring storytelling with the optimistic approach of the breakthrough movement of thriving, which inspires the examples and reflections of this proposal.
Open Access
Mobilizing Domestic Private Capital for Nature-Based Solutions in Emerging Economies
(2023-04-18) Olutoke, Jide
Achieving the Net Zero commitments set by nations requires adequate financing from multiple sources. In developing countries, finance for climate and nature, thus far, has primarily been mobilized from the domestic public sector and international financial institutions. In contrast, contributions from the domestic private sector have been minimal. While equity has been at the core of the argument for mobilizing climate finance primarily from developed countries, the failure to muster a paltry USD 100 billion proves that alternative options must be explored. The domestic private market in many developing countries has the potential to support climate and nature investment, but it remains largely untapped. With the bulk of low-cost Nature Based Solutions (NbS)potential in the global south, investment in NbS provides the rare opportunity to directly impact the lives of low-income communities disproportionately affected by climate change. Mobilizing investment for NbS within the domestic economy has the potential to provide a predictable source of capital for NbS projects, deepen the domestic capital and carbon market, and, more importantly, reduce the country’s reliance on international support anchored on conditionalities.