Sustainability Leaders Podcast

Mike Casey, CEO of Tigercomm is an expert in communicating climate change, or as he puts it, global climate disruption. Mike has deep expertise in communications, from his early days with Bill Clinton’s comms team to advising Tom Steyer in challenging the Keystone XL pipeline to his current work in helping renewable energy developers across the country clear the hurdles they often face in getting big projects through. Mike is thoughtful, clear-sighted an emphatic about our race to save the planet.

Bill Weihl has likely done more to drive down GHG emissions from the tech sector than any single person. He was the Green Energy Czar at Google, building the strategy and team that took the company to 100% renewable energy and to carbon neutrality for its primary operations. Bill also headed Facebook’s sustainability efforts and co-founded several tech industry-wide efforts including RE 100.

As chair of 38 North Solutions and co-host of the Energy Gang Podcast, Katherine Hamilton is expert in energy policy at the state, federal and international level, and has deep experience in technologies ranging from bioenergy to smart grid and from energy storage to demand-side management. Her fascinating career spans from work at utilities and NREL, to co-chairing the Global Future Council on Advanced Energy Technologies at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Elaine has been one of the architects Illinois’ current heading to be a 100% clean energy state by 2050. She served in the IL legislature for nearly 15 years, chairing several committees and ultimately co-authoring what became the Future Energy Jobs Act of 2016—a law that approaches renewable energy expansion from a green jobs perspective, building clean energy job training centers in disadvantaged communities throughout the state. Representative Nekritz is also expert in transportation issues, having chaired the Midwest Interstate Passenger Rail Commission.

This week we talk with Doug Scott and Ann McCabe, two former commissioners of the Illinois Commerce Commission and both former directors of the board of The Climate Registry, where Ann currently serves as executive director. Doug and Ann both have broad experience at the nexus of energy and climate policy and deep understanding of the evolving energy picture in Illinois and across the Midwest. We touch on a range of topics, from the delegation of U.S. states at the signing of the Paris Agreement to the current Clean Energy Jobs Act, which aims to put Illinois on a path to 100% renewable energy by 2050.