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Scalable Climate Responses

These solutions of the year are safeguarding the planet from climate change.

December 2, 2021

Time is running out to reduce our carbon footprint. But did you know that 40% of carbon comes from buildings? Meanwhile, BlocPower is electrifying heating and cooling systems that were powered by fossil fuels and is targeting aging buildings that are home to the most vulnerable. The Black-owned company is in 24 cities and counting, with the startup’s latest big news that Ithaca, New York contracted to convert its entire building stock as part of the city’s green new deal. Plus there’s Solar for All — a community solar initiative that is bringing clean, renewable energy to low- and middle-income residents in Washington, D.C.

These are Solutions of the Year that we can learn from! Spreading knowledge is so important that we’re also honoring a program empowering Florida students to teach each other about climate change. Join us for this presentation panel as part of our Solutions of the Year program and hear directly from the practitioners making a difference for our planet.

Solutions of the Year was our annual multi-day virtual convening, including seven sessions, that framed the conversation for 2022.

MODERATOR

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Deonna Anderson
Senior Editor at GreenBiz Group

Deonna Anderson is an award-winning journalist and senior editor at GreenBiz. Previously, she was the Surdna reporting fellow at YES! Magazine and the 2017-2018 Equitable Cities Fellow for Next City. Anderson is an alumna of UC Davis and the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.

SPEAKERS

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Keith Kinch
Co-founder of BlocPower

Keith Kinch co-founded BlocPower and serves as its General Manager. In the summer of 2016, Kinch led the Solarize Brownsville campaign, bringing together community organizations, local residents and a solar installation partner to outfit more than 200 homes with solar panels. The project demonstrated solar power’s potential impact in low-to-moderate-income communities and remains one of the largest solar projects in New York history. In 2017, Kinch oversaw the Community Retrofit NYC, a partnership between the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development. The project produced over 500 retrofits for multi-family buildings. In 2019, BlocPower partnered with Con Edison and NYSERDA to launch “Green the Bronx,” a campaign that helped hundreds of multi-family building owners convert their fossil fuel heating systems to clean heating and cooling systems. The partnership provided engineering, project management, customer education, financing, and no money down equipment leases for building owners. This year, Kinch oversaw a $37 million contract with the New York City Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice to develop a 1,000+ person climate tech jobs program focused on neighborhoods with high levels of gun violence — placing over 600 individuals in training cohorts within the first two months. Kinch is leading BlocPower’s historic partnership with Ithaca, New York to decarbonize all of the city’s buildings.
 

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Sasha Srivastava
Executive Director for New Partners Community Solar Corp.

Sasha Srivastava is an experienced professional both in sustainability and finance. Caring about both people and the environment, she is focused on solutions that simultaneously address environmental problems and justice issues, particularly among highly vulnerable populations. Having concentrated on climate solutions that tackle mitigation and adaptation concurrently, Srivastava holds a Master of Science degree from Johns Hopkins University in Energy Policy and Climate, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Management from Pepperdine University. Before she joined New Partners Community Solar Corp., Srivastava designed and carried out original research on secondary positive impacts of participation in low-income solar programs. She keeps New Partners focused on the environmental and social policies that form the basis of its work. 
 

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Olivia Collins
Senior Director of Programs at the CLEO Institute

Olivia Collins is the Senior Director of Programs at the CLEO Institute. Born and raised in rural Canada, Collins lived in many places before settling in Miami in 2017. She has over 15 years of experience in the environmental field, from natural building to corporate social responsibility to grassroots community engagement. As Senior Director of Programs, Collins oversees and executes most of CLEO’s outreach programs and collaborations. She also provides climate training to help people understand how the climate crisis impacts our daily lives and what steps we can take to better prepare for future challenges.

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