Below are key excerpts from a lucid article published at the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco on September 10, 2018 by Brenden Millstein, CEO and Co-Founder, Carbon Lighthouse. AHA represents a new paradigm social enterprise aligned with the Global Goals and designed for sustained profitability.
“There’s a longstanding narrative that capitalists and environmentalists can’t be friends — that you can only take climate action by sacrificing jobs and growth.
We live in a capitalist society, and markets matter. Unchecked capitalism drives many of the challenges exacerbating our climate conundrum, but aligning environmental goals with market forces can help save the planet. The challenge lies in redirecting capitalism’s focus on financial growth toward a more climate-conscious direction.
The evidence is everywhere that this can be done — foremost here in the San Francisco Bay Area. The energy industry is shifting to a new paradigm where capitalist interests are aligned with long-term sustainability. It’s now significantly profitable for businesses to prioritize reducing carbon emissions. Carbon Lighthouse applies that belief to buildings. Other companies are attacking the same carbon emissions problem in their own respective industries, from Impossible Foods’ plant-based meat substitutes to Proterra’s zero-emission electric buses and LimeBike’s electric scooters.