 | This article's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia.(July 2023) |
Donnel Baird | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1981 Brooklyn, New York |
| Education | Duke University (Bachelor's) Columbia Business School (MBA) |
| Occupation | CEO of BlocPower |
Donnel Baird (born 1981) is an American entrepreneur and community organizer. He is the CEO and founder of BlocPower. [1]
Baird was born in the Brooklyn [2] borough of New York City in 1981 to Guyanese parents who immigrated to the United States in the early 1980s following an economic decline in Guyana. [3] [4] Baird is the first-born child in his family and has a younger sister [3] . His family started life together in a one-bedroom apartment with a shared bathroom with a neighbor in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. His father worked cleaning boilers, while his mother was in a teacher program at York College. Living in a decrepit building, his family experienced leaving on natural gas powered stoves for heating during the winter, while opening windows to release harmful gas. [5] [6]
In the early 1990s Baird's parents divorced, and his mother and both of the children moved to Atlanta, Georgia. [3] He attended a prep school and later moved on to Duke University. During his time at Duke, the police shooting of Amadou Diallo had a profound effect on Baird and sank him into a depression. His relationship with historian Larry Goodwyn and classmate Mariana Arcaya urged Baird to pursue environmental issues and racial equity. [5]
Baird earned his bachelor's degree at Duke University, [7] after which he moved back to New York City and spent four years as a community organizer, working to bridge the gap between the privileged students he encountered at Duke and the underprivileged kids he grew up with in his neighborhood. [5] He wanted to create a business that could address the intersection of climate change, energy waste in buildings, public health, and poverty by providing employment opportunities for low-income families. [8] Additionally, he become a political organizer with Change To Win Labor Federation, focused on partnering with the Department of Energy to help create green energy jobs under the Obama Administration. He continued his graduate study at Columbia Business School, where he earned a Master of Business and Administration (MBA) in 2013. [7] These experiences helped him launch BlocPower in 2013, a company that aims to make buildings more energy-efficient and create green jobs in underserved communities. [6] [9] [5]
During his last semester at Columbia Business School, Baird launched BlocPower, a Brooklyn-based technology company whose goal is to upgrade residential homes and buildings in underserved communities while combating the environmental crisis. [10] This is done through installing solar panels and the retrofit of efficient electric heating and cooling systems that lower utility costs and provides financial help during installations. The company is under the support of investing groups such as Goldman Sachs and Kapor Capital. [5]
BlocPower has gained recognition for its innovative approach to bringing clean energy solutions to disadvantaged communities. The company utilizes data-driven approaches to identify and retrofit buildings with energy-efficient technologies, reducing carbon emissions and lowering energy costs for building owners. BlocPower has successfully transformed numerous buildings into energy-efficient and sustainable spaces, positively impacting both the environment and the local communities. [5] [8]
In 2014, Baird was named a "Champion of Change" by the White House for his efforts in advancing clean energy and economic opportunity. [11] In 2017, Baird was recognized as a Crain’s "40 Under 40" of influential young leaders. [12] Baird's achievements have been featured in numerous media outlets, including The New Yorker, Forbes, and Fast Company, amongst others. Baird was featured on Time magazine's 100 Next in 2022. [10] He has also been invited to speak at events such as TED [13] and the World Economic Forum in Davos. [14]
Beyond his role at BlocPower, Baird serves on the board of several organizations, including the New York Federal Reserve Bank Advisory Board, Al Gore's Climate Reality Project, the Sierra Club Foundation, and The Sunrise Movement. [15]
Baird is married and has a son. [13] [16] His wife, who went to Columbia Law School, [16] played a crucial role in shaping his career path, encouraging him to pursue entrepreneurship instead of law school. [17] [18]
An eco-industrial park (EIP) is an industrial park in which businesses cooperate with each other and with the local community in an attempt to reduce waste and pollution, efficiently share resources, and help achieve sustainable development, with the intention of increasing economic gains and improving environmental quality. An EIP may also be planned, designed, and built in such a way that it makes it easier for businesses to co-operate, and that results in a more financially sound, environmentally friendly project for the developer.
Duke Energy Corporation is an American electric power and natural gas holding company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The National Black Chamber of Commerce (NBCC) was incorporated as The National Black Chamber of Commerce, Inc., in 1993. It is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, nonsectarian organization dedicated to the economic empowerment of African American communities. Additionally, the organization indicates that it represents the views of its members regarding economic and political policy issues; domestically and internationally. It is organized as a 501(c) corporation and has at least 190 chapters within the United States. The NBCC also has international chapters in the Bahamas, Brazil, Colombia, Ghana and Jamaica. As with all Chambers of Commerce, affiliate branches are committed to carrying out the goals of the main Chamber within their areas.
Efficient energy use, sometimes simply called energy efficiency, is the process of reducing the amount of energy required to provide products and services. For example, insulating a building allows it to use less heating and cooling energy to achieve and maintain a thermal comfort. Installing light-emitting diode bulbs, fluorescent lighting, or natural skylight windows reduces the amount of energy required to attain the same level of illumination compared to using traditional incandescent light bulbs. Improvements in energy efficiency are generally achieved by adopting a more efficient technology or production process or by application of commonly accepted methods to reduce energy losses.
A green-collar worker is a worker who is employed in an environmental sector of the economy. Environmental green-collar workers satisfy the demand for green development. Generally, they implement environmentally conscious design, policy, and technology to improve conservation and sustainability. Formal environmental regulations as well as informal social expectations are pushing many firms to seek professionals with expertise with environmental, energy efficiency, and clean renewable energy issues. They often seek to make their output more sustainable, and thus more favorable to public opinion, governmental regulation, and the Earth's ecology.
The Clean Tech Revolution: The Next Big Growth and Investment Opportunity is a 2007 book by Ron Pernick and Clint Wilder, who say that commercializing clean technologies is a profitable enterprise that is moving steadily into mainstream business. As the world economy faces challenges from energy price spikes, resource shortages, global environmental problems, and security threats, clean technologies are seen to be the next engine of economic growth.
The Pembina Institute is a Canadian think tank and registered charity focused on energy. Founded in 1985, the institute has offices in Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Ottawa, and Vancouver. The institute's mission is to "advance a prosperous clean energy future for Canada through credible policy solutions that support communities, the economy and a safe climate."
Michael Peter Skelly is a Houston renewable energy and infrastructure developer and entrepreneur. He is the former Democratic candidate for Texas's 7th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives. From 1999 to 2008, he served as the chief development officer for Horizon Wind Energy, which by 2007 had become the second-largest wind farm developer and third-largest wind farm owner in the United States. Skelly cofounded and served as president of Clean Line Energy Partners, an independent developer of high voltage direct current, long-haul transmission lines until 2018. Skelly's work at Clean Line is detailed in the book, "Superpower: One Man's Quest to Transform American Energy" by Wall Street Journal Energy reporter and Pulitzer Prize finalist Russell Gold. Skelly is CEO of Grid United, an independent transmission development company.
The environmental policy of the Stephen Harper government was implemented when Stephen Harper was the Prime Minister of Canada from 2006 to 2015, under two minority governments until 2011 when the Conservative Party of Canada won a majority in the 2011 Canadian federal election. During the term of Stephen Harper, Canada's greenhouse gas emissions decreased from 730 to 723 Mt of carbon dioxide equivalent. In contrast, during the period from 1993 until 2006, under various Liberal governments, Canada's greenhouse gas emissions increased 617 to 730 Mt of carbon dioxide equivalent.
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.
The energy policy of the Obama administration was defined by an "all-of-the-above" approach which offered federal support for renewable energy deployment, increased domestic oil and gas extraction, and export of crude oil and natural gas. His presidency's first term was shaped by the failure of his signature climate legislation, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, to pass, and then climate and energy disasters including the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 and then Hurricane Sandy, which took place during the 2012 election. In his second term, Obama lifted the ban on crude oil exports and approved liquified natural gas exports; his planned regulatory approach to reducing greenhouse pollution in the electricity sector, the Clean Power Plan, was blocked by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Chicago Climate Action Plan (CCAP) is Chicago's climate change mitigation and adaptation strategy that was adopted in September 2008. The CCAP has an overarching goal of reducing Chicago's greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, with an interim goal of 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.
Steven George Mandis is an American investor and the founder of Kalamata Capital. He is an adjunct associate professor in finance and economics at Columbia University Business School. Previously, he worked at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup and as a senior advisor to McKinsey. He is the author of three books: What Happened to Goldman Sachs: An Insider's Story of Organizational Drift and its Unintended Consequences, The Real Madrid Way: How Values Created the Most Successful Sports Team on the Planet, and What Happened to Serie A: The Rise, Fall and Signs of Revival.
GoodLeap, formerly Loanpal, is a finance technology company that provides financing options for the residential solar energy industry. The company was founded in 2003 as Paramount Equity and was later rebranded to Loanpal. In June 2021, the company rebranded to GoodLeap. As of 2020, the company was responsible for 41% of the solar loan market in the U.S. and is the top solar lender in the country.
John A. "Skip" Laitner is an American-born economist, author and lecturer. He focuses on developing a more robust technology and behavioral characterization of energy efficiency resources for use in energy and climate economic policy models.
Peter L. Corsell is an American technology entrepreneur, leader, and investor. A repeat entrepreneur in the sustainable energy industry, Corsell founded GridPoint in 2003, and Twenty First Century Utilities in 2015.
Sumant Sinha is an Indian businessman. He is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of ReNew, a renewable energy company and the first Indian renewable energy company to list on Nasdaq. A first-generation entrepreneur, Sumant founded ReNew in 2011.
ReNew Energy Global is a decarbonisation solutions company based in India. It is the first Indian renewable energy company to be listed on NASDAQ. ReNew operates more than 140 projects spread across nine states in India. The company provides decarbonisation solutions through a mix of green hydrogen, data-driven solutions, storage, manufacturing, and carbon markets.
The Goldman Sachs Foundation is a New York–based, not-for-profit private foundation that is a subsidiary of the financial services firm Goldman Sachs and has the goal of bettering humanity worldwide, especially regarding health and education. In recent years its principal philanthropic projects have been: 10,000 Women, and 10,000 Small Businesses.
The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) is a landmark United States federal law which aims to curb inflation by possibly reducing the federal government budget deficit, lowering prescription drug prices, and investing into domestic energy production while promoting clean energy. It was passed by the 117th United States Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden on August 16, 2022.