Billy Parish

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Billy Parish
Billy-Parish-photo.jpg
Billy Parish
Born
Billy Parish

(1981-09-11) September 11, 1981 (age 42)
NationalityAmerican
Citizenship United States
Alma mater Yale University, The Mountain School
Occupations
  • Co-founder & Executive Chairman of Mosaic
  • author
  • activist
Years active2003 - present
SpouseMarried

Billy Parish (born September 11, 1981) is an American environmental entrepreneur, author, and activist. He is the co-founder and executive chair of Mosaic Inc., a leading financing platform for U.S. residential solar and sustainable home improvements. [1]

Contents

Early life

Parish grew up in Manhattan, New York City. His father, a lawyer, specialized in finance for electronic utilities. His mother, also a lawyer, met his father while working on a securitization deal. [2] He spent a semester of high school at The Mountain School in Vermont, where he was turned on to working for the environment. [3] In July 2005 he led a three-day fast in front of the White House to draw attention to the 150,000 deaths caused each year by climate change. [4] He designed his own major in sustainable economic developments at Yale University. [2] However, in 2002, he left Yale University and went on to found the Energy Action Coalition, renamed the Power Shift Network. [5] The Coalition became the largest youth-led clean energy advocacy network in the world, bringing together 50 environmental and social justice groups and over 340,000 members. [6] The coalition raised nearly $10 million in four years and helped more than 600 colleges make commitments to climate neutrality. [6]

In March 2009, the Energy Action Coalition organized Power Shift '09, which brought over 12,000 young people to Washington D.C., for the largest climate-focused training, lobby day and non-violent civil disobedience action in U.S. history. 1Sky states Parish is on the Board of Directors. [5] He is also co-chair of SolarAPP+ and board member and former board chair at The Solutions Project. [7] [8]

Career

Parish played a leading role in creating the Clean Energy Corps proposal to create 5 million new green jobs in the U.S., [6] which was incorporated into the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009. He also helped to expand the AmeriCorps public service program to include a new “Clean Energy Service Corps”. [9] with the idea that crowdfunding could affect a shift to green energy, Parish co-founded Mosaic. At that time, the company allowed individuals to micro invest in community-scale solar projects. [10] In 2014, Parish shifted the company’s focus from crowdfunding to financing for residential solar projects, and in 2018, expanded to sustainable home improvements. [11]

Personal life

Billy lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and two daughters.

Awards and honors

Writing

Parish has written over 50 articles for publications Inc., The Atlantic, HuffPost, and Grist.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clean technology</span> Any process, product, or service that reduces negative environmental impacts

Clean technology, in short cleantech or climatetech, is any process, product, or service that reduces negative environmental impacts through significant energy efficiency improvements, the sustainable use of resources, or environmental protection activities. Clean technology includes a broad range of technology related to recycling, renewable energy, information technology, green transportation, electric motors, green chemistry, lighting, grey water, and more. Environmental finance is a method by which new clean technology projects can obtain financing through the generation of carbon credits. A project that is developed with concern for climate change mitigation is also known as a carbon project.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alliance to Save Energy</span> A How to Save Energy

The Alliance to Save Energy is a bipartisan, nonprofit coalition of business, government, environmental, and consumer groups based in Washington, D.C. The Alliance states that it advocates for "energy-efficiency policies that minimize costs to society and individual consumers, and that lessen greenhouse gas emissions and their impact on the global climate." The Alliance's chief activities include public relations, research, and lobbying to change U.S. energy policy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeremy Leggett</span> British social entrepreneur and writer (born 1954)

Jeremy Leggett is a British social entrepreneur and writer. He founded and was a board director of Solarcentury from 1997 to 2020, an international solar solutions company, and founded and was chair of SolarAid, a charity funded with 5% of Solarcentury's annual profits that helps solar-lighting entrepreneurs get started in Africa (2006–2020). SolarAid owns a retail brand SunnyMoney that was for a time Africa's top-seller of solar lighting, having sold well over a million solar lights, all profits recycled to the cause of eradicating the kerosene lantern from Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Southern Alliance for Clean Energy</span> American energy advocacy organization

The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) is a nonprofit advocacy group that promotes the use of clean energy in the southeastern United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Power Shift Network</span> Youth environmental justice organisation

Power Shift Network is a North American non-profit organization made up of a network of youth-led social and environmental justice organizations working together to build the youth clean energy and climate movement. It runs campaigns in the United States and Canada to build grassroots power and advocate for tangible changes on climate change and social justice at local, state, national and international levels in North America. The organization changed its name from Energy Action Coalition in July 2016 in order to reflect its new leadership and it shift from a coalition to a network structure. The Power Shift Network's members, which include other non-profit organizations and student groups focused on environmental justice, social justice, and climate change, focus their organizing and campaigns on campuses, communities, corporate practices, and politics. The Power Shift Network is part of the Global Youth Climate Movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phil Radford</span> American environmentalist

Philip David Radford is an American activist who served as the executive director of Greenpeace USA. He was the founder and President of Progressive Power Lab, an organization that incubates companies and non-profits that build capacity for progressive organizations, including a donor advisory organization Champion.us, the Progressive Multiplier Fund and Membership Drive. Radford is a co-founder of the Democracy Initiative, was founder and executive director of Power Shift, and is a board member of the Mertz Gilmore Foundation. He has a background in grassroots organizing, corporate social responsibility, climate change, and clean energy. He currently serves as the Chief Strategy officer at the Sierra Club.

PACE financing is a means used in the United States of America of financing energy efficiency upgrades, disaster resiliency improvements, water conservation measures, or renewable energy installations in existing or new construction of residential, commercial, and industrial property owners. Depending on state legislation, PACE financing can be used to finance water efficiency products, seismic retrofits, resiliency, and other measures with social benefits.

A Green bond is a fixed-income financial instruments (bond) which is used to fund projects that have positive environmental and/or climate benefits. They follow the Green Bond Principles stated by the International Capital Market Association (ICMA), and the proceeds from the issuance of which are to be used for the pre-specified types of projects.

Eco-investing or green investing, is a form of socially responsible investing where investments are made in companies that support or provide environmentally friendly products and practices. These companies encourage new technologies that support the transition from carbon dependence to more sustainable alternatives. Green finance is "any structured financial activity that has been created to ensure a better environmental outcome."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Liebreich</span> British businessman

Michael Liebreich is Chairman and CEO of Liebreich Associates, through which he provides advisory services and speaks on clean energy and transportation, smart infrastructure, technology, climate finance and sustainable development. In September 2020, he became an official adviser to the UK’s Board of Trade. He is also a senior contributor at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a company he founded in 2004 that was acquired by Bloomberg L.P. in 2009. In July 2020, he launched his weekly podcast Cleaning Up. Guests are leaders in clean energy, mobility, climate finance or sustainable development, and have included Tony Blair and Ban Ki-moon.In March 2021, Michael became a Co-Founding and Managing Partner of EcoPragma Capital LLP. EcoPragma is a Growth Equity investor, investing in companies on the cusp of strong commercial growth and contributing to the net-zero transition In November 2022, Michael was awarded an Honorary Fellowship from the Energy Institute for being one of the foremost thought leaders in renewable energy and sustainability, not just in the UK, but globally

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gregory Kats</span> American businessman

Gregory H. Kats is an American businessman, environmentalist, and thought leader in the green economy sector. He is President of Capital E, a national clean energy advisory and venture capital firm. Kats is also founder and CEO of the Smart Surfaces Coalition, a non-profit organization consisting of 40+ national and international partner groups working to ensure the rapid, cost-effective adoption of resilient urban surface infrastructure, or "smart surfaces", in cities. Previously, Kats served as a Managing Director at Good Energies,[2] a multi-billion dollar global clean energy investor, and Director of Financing for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).[3]

Clean Power Finance, headquartered in San Francisco, California, is a financial services and software company for the residential solar industry.

Danny Kennedy is a clean-technology entrepreneur, an environmental activist, and the author of the book Rooftop Revolution: How Solar Power Can Save Our Economy—and Our Planet—from Dirty Energy (2012). Kennedy serves as managing director of the California Clean Energy Fund, a non-profit dedicated to optimising the clean energy transition. He co-founded Sungevity, a rapidly growing residential solar power company, and Powerhouse, the primer solar incubator in Oakland. While at Sungevity, Kennedy won a Planet Forward Innovator of the Year award from the PBS program Planet Forward.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mosaic Inc.</span> Solar crowdfunding company

Mosaic is a clean energy fin-tech company based in Oakland, California. Founded in 2010, Mosaic created its initial business model using crowdfunding principals to offer loans for commercial solar development projects. After shifting its model in 2014, Mosaic Inc. is now focused on financing residential solar projects by leveraging third party capital partners. Through this model, the company aims to democratize the social and environmental benefits of clean energy.

James Eugene Rogers Jr. was an American businessman and author. He was president and CEO of Duke Energy, the largest electrical utility in the U.S., from April, 2006 until July 1, 2013. He stayed on as Chairman of the Board until retiring the following December. His book, Lighting the World, which explores the issues involved in bringing electricity to over 1.2 billion people on earth who lack it, was published August 25, 2015, by St. Martin's Press. The book asserts that access to electricity should be recognized as a basic human right.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clean Energy Finance Corporation</span> Australian Government-owned Green Bank

The Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) is an Australian Government-owned green bank that invests alongside private investors, innovators and industry leaders to increase the flow of finance into the clean energy sector, and to help achieve Australia's national goal of net zero emissions by 2050.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Council On Energy, Environment and Water</span>

The Council on Energy, Environment and Water, commonly known as CEEW, is a Not-For profit Think Tank and policy institution based in New Delhi, India. CEEW was formed to provide independent research-based insights to policymakers for building a sustainable India. The Council also has an office in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. It has multiple research projects running across 22 Indian states and other parts of the world.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Home energy upgrades from public utilities</span> HVAC and power improvements to residences offered by service providers

Home energy upgrades from public utilities are added home energy efficiency and renewable energy features planned or installed by public utilities. Help from a public utility can make it easier for a homeowner to select, install or operate climate-friendly components. The utility might assist with coordinated use of utility-supplied energy, building features, financing, operating options and neighborhood supplied energy.

References

  1. Litvak, Nicole. "U.S. Residential Solar Financing 2016-2021". Greentech Media. Retrieved December 1, 2016.
  2. 1 2 Cardwell, Diane (September 2, 2013). "A Bet on the Environment". The New York Times . Archived from the original on March 20, 2021. Retrieved April 24, 2021.
  3. "Sprig.com Interview". Archived from the original on January 5, 2009.
  4. Rolling Stone, November 3, 2005
  5. 1 2 "Board of directors". 1sky.org. Archived from the original on April 11, 2009.
  6. 1 2 3 Kamenetz, Anya. "Climate Change Power Shift". The Nation.
  7. "Billy Parish, President of Mosaic". The OGM. September 19, 2013. Retrieved January 5, 2022.
  8. "Watt It Takes: The Origin Story of Mosaic With Billy Parish". Green Tech Media. Retrieved January 5, 2022.
  9. Ross, Alice (November 9, 2020). "Green entrepreneurs look to make money and a difference". Financial Times . Archived from the original on February 12, 2021. Retrieved April 24, 2021.
  10. "The Fossil Fuel Resistance: Meet the New Green Heroes". Rolling Stone . April 11, 2013. Archived from the original on January 25, 2021. Retrieved April 24, 2021.
  11. "Mosaic, Freedom Forever Partner on Residential Solar Financing". Solar Industry magazine. February 18, 2021. Retrieved January 5, 2022.
  12. Vision Award | Center for Social Entrepreneurship. Middlebury.edu (2015-08-13). Retrieved on 2015-08-13.
  13. Cohan, Ellen (March 3, 2015). "Billy Parish". Climate One. Retrieved July 1, 2020.
  14. "New Leaders Initiative 2004 Award Winners" Archived July 25, 2011, at the Wayback Machine , Earth Island Institute. Retrieved 29 December 2010.