Renewable Thermal Collaborative named as Organization to Watch in 2019 “State of Green Business” report

February 5, 2019 — The Renewable Thermal Collaborative has been named an “Organization to Watch” by GreenBiz Group in the 2019 edition of its annual “State of Green Business” report.

Each year, the report looks at 10 key trends and dozens of metrics assessing how, and how much, companies are moving the needle on the world’s most pressing environmental challenges.  

The Renewable Thermal Collaborative was included as part of the trend titled “Super Pollutants Become Super Important,” reflecting the organization’s leadership role in helping companies, manufacturers, cities, and environmental organizations tackle barriers to renewable thermal energy.

“Reducing emissions from thermal energy is a largely uncharted frontier for large companies with ambitious climate and energy goals,” said Marty Spitzer, World Wildlife Fund’s senior director of climate change and energy. “The Renewable Thermal Collaborative is already breaking new ground in helping large energy users buy sustainable, renewable energy for heating and cooling.”

The RTC was launched in September of 2017 at the Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance Summit (REBA). The RTC is led by its current Members—Cargill, General Motors, Kimberly-Clark, L’Oréal USA, Mars, Procter & Gamble, and the City of Philadelphia—and is facilitated by the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, David Gardiner and Associates, and World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

“The Renewable Thermal Collaborative is exciting because it brings together a diverse coalition of leading businesses, cities, and environmental groups working to solve a climate problem which has been ignored by many for too long,” said David Gardiner, president of David Gardiner and Associates.

Nearly half of all energy demand worldwide is from heating and cooling, and in the U.S. heating and cooling accounts for more than a quarter of energy demand – and these numbers are projected to rise. Many heating and cooling processes cannot cost-effectively utilize grid-based renewable electricity because retrofitting the processes is too expensive or technically not possible.

“It’s wonderful to see the Renewable Thermal Collaborative’s work getting the recognition it deserves,” said C2ES President Bob Perciasepe. “In today’s energy landscape, we need solutions that not only efficiently produce energy, but make smart use of it throughout the life cycle. The goal of the RTC is to help businesses innovate to meet their heating and cooling needs in a way that both reduces emissions and helps their own bottom line.”

The trends in this year’s report focus on the growing attention to product and packaging reuse, the growth of corporate action on deforestation, the rise of agricultural practices to mitigate climate change, the growth of electric trucks and buses, and the increased attention by institutional investors on companies’ environmental and social commitments and performance.

“These organizations are showing the way for the business community and others to accelerate progress in sustainability,” said Joel Makower, Chairman and Executive Editor of GreenBiz Group, and the report’s lead author. “We are proud to showcase the Renewable Thermal Collaborative on this list and applaud them for their leadership work.”

In addition to the 10 trends sustainability professionals should be tracking, the report offers more than 30 metrics for nearly 2,000 companies, assessing the progress, or the lack thereof, on a wide range of topics, including supply-chain impacts, natural capital impacts, greenhouse gas emissions and investment in greener products and business models.

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