I feel like political/advocacy/regulatory should be a category. Organizations like Vote Solar, SEIA, Mission:Data, Sierra Club, etc. have most impact fighting climate change because the policies they push through have huge industry-wide consequences.
Also, for energy, how wide do you want to cast the net? Solar and wind generation is now more cost effective than fossil generation, so traditional utilities and utility vendors are now doing huge climate-change fighting efforts, just because it's cheaper. For example, GE has a solar division that is developing huge commercial projects that offset a fuck ton of carbon. Should GE be on the list?
I worry that this list is giving the impression that fighting climate chance is a selfless endeavor, when nowadays much of the carbon offset work (especially in energy) is done by established entities because it's simply cheaper and in their self interest.
Also, what about governments? Countries, states, cities, and regulators are passing more and more 100% carbon free mandates. Those are vastly more impactful that anything else on this list. Shouldn't they be included on the list?
Finally, a search or full list to Ctrl+F would be nice so I don't have to click through multiple categories to see if a company is included.
Thanks very much for the effort to put this list together, and I wish you the best of luck!
You bring up some great points regarding categorization–choosing a sensible taxonomy has been by far the hardest part of this project so far. I'd love some help in this area if you or anyone else is interested.
Should GE be on the list?
I've been asking myself this same question for weeks and haven't come to a conclusion yet. What do you think? How about O&G companies with big green tech budgets?
Also, what about governments? ... Shouldn't they be included on the list?
I think this would be a very interesting data point to track indeed, though I suspect someone else is already tracking this.
How about O&G companies with big green tech budgets
This troubles me endlessly. My gut says no, as I can't imagine some of the largest companies in the world reorienting sufficiently, and I feel that they should quickly become sidelined as relics of a different time. But it seems unreasonable to think they don't have some value to add with the large budgets and pressure they are under.
I argue that it does, as someone doing a search for competitors or alternatives might be caught unaware if this is a blind spot for them. For example, you have Drivy (bought by GetAround... a while back?) and yet you're missing a large portion of the CarShare landscape. Do you count Zipcar? (Avis-Budget group, but the largest player and running EVs in London). Maven? (GM) DriveNow/car2go? (BMW, and EV-centric in Europe) And that doesn't even get into smaller players like Innova (EV-focused) or BlueLA (LA-only but EV)/BlueIndy/etc - or Autolib/Cite Lib/Carma...
* Full disclosure: I'm employed by Zipcar. But I'm also an alternative transit geek in general.
I second the point that it's helpful to know the actual landscape, so the division within GE should definitely be listed. After all, if they end up contributing something positive it deserves visibility.
And your mention of Zipcar, Maven, etc makes me think it'd be great to include the entities that own or fund each organization. Definitely means there's more information to hunt down, but crowd-sourcing can lessen that pain.
Comments
I feel like political/advocacy/regulatory should be a category. Organizations like Vote Solar, SEIA, Mission:Data, Sierra Club, etc. have most impact fighting climate change because the policies they push through have huge industry-wide consequences.
Also, for energy, how wide do you want to cast the net? Solar and wind generation is now more cost effective than fossil generation, so traditional utilities and utility vendors are now doing huge climate-change fighting efforts, just because it's cheaper. For example, GE has a solar division that is developing huge commercial projects that offset a fuck ton of carbon. Should GE be on the list?
I worry that this list is giving the impression that fighting climate chance is a selfless endeavor, when nowadays much of the carbon offset work (especially in energy) is done by established entities because it's simply cheaper and in their self interest.
Also, what about governments? Countries, states, cities, and regulators are passing more and more 100% carbon free mandates. Those are vastly more impactful that anything else on this list. Shouldn't they be included on the list?
Finally, a search or full list to Ctrl+F would be nice so I don't have to click through multiple categories to see if a company is included.
Thanks very much for the effort to put this list together, and I wish you the best of luck!
Thank you for all the thoughtful feedback.
You bring up some great points regarding categorization–choosing a sensible taxonomy has been by far the hardest part of this project so far. I'd love some help in this area if you or anyone else is interested.
I've been asking myself this same question for weeks and haven't come to a conclusion yet. What do you think? How about O&G companies with big green tech budgets?
I think this would be a very interesting data point to track indeed, though I suspect someone else is already tracking this.
Agreed, added this to our backlog.
This troubles me endlessly. My gut says no, as I can't imagine some of the largest companies in the world reorienting sufficiently, and I feel that they should quickly become sidelined as relics of a different time. But it seems unreasonable to think they don't have some value to add with the large budgets and pressure they are under.
Gladly be informed on this topic!
I argue that it does, as someone doing a search for competitors or alternatives might be caught unaware if this is a blind spot for them. For example, you have Drivy (bought by GetAround... a while back?) and yet you're missing a large portion of the CarShare landscape. Do you count Zipcar? (Avis-Budget group, but the largest player and running EVs in London). Maven? (GM) DriveNow/car2go? (BMW, and EV-centric in Europe) And that doesn't even get into smaller players like Innova (EV-focused) or BlueLA (LA-only but EV)/BlueIndy/etc - or Autolib/Cite Lib/Carma...
* Full disclosure: I'm employed by Zipcar. But I'm also an alternative transit geek in general.
I second the point that it's helpful to know the actual landscape, so the division within GE should definitely be listed. After all, if they end up contributing something positive it deserves visibility.
And your mention of Zipcar, Maven, etc makes me think it'd be great to include the entities that own or fund each organization. Definitely means there's more information to hunt down, but crowd-sourcing can lessen that pain.
Good points -- and a strong vote for tags / attributes, over hierarchical categories