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Industry Leader Interview: Carolyn Green, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of EnerGreen Capital Management

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Date: Jun 13, 2011

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Industry Leader Interview with Carolyn Green: Alliance Board Member, Energy Industry Businesswoman, African American Activist

Members of the Alliance Board of Directors know energy efficiency.  One of the newest Board members, Carolyn Green, is co-founder/managing partner of EnerGreen Capital Management, a private equity firm focusing on late venture and growth stage companies in the energy and environmental industries.  Green also is the CEO and President of Professional Environmental Engineers and the immediate past chair of the American Association of Blacks in Energy.

What aspect of your 30+ years of professional and community-based environmental and energy experience help you most in your post on the Alliance Board?

I think my combined experience as a regulator, a member of the energy industry and as a community activist gives me a balanced perspective on the costs and benefits of policy options, especially as they relate to low-income communities of color.

How do you advance energy efficiency in your current role as co-founder and managing partner of EnerGreen Capital Management, LLC?

An important aspect of EnerGreen's investment strategy is energy efficiency. I look for companies that either provide direct energy efficiency services or provide products and services to help industry use energy more efficiently.

What does energy efficiency mean to you? 

Efficiency is about making sure that we use our energy resources wisely.  

  • For residential users, it means taking steps so that you're not heating or cooling the outdoors because your house leaks.  It also means turning off the television or radio when you're not in the room or using energy-saving devices like CFLs to lower your electricity bill.  Such actions not only save money for families, they save money for society because the utility doesn't need to build as many new power plants.   
  • Wearing my industry hat, energy efficiency is all about reducing costs.  Reducing energy usage may be as simple as a lightbulb change-out program or installing motion sensing lighting systems in office spaces.  In major capital projects, it means selecting the alternative that will use less energy – replacing an old boiler rather than overhauling it yet again.
  • When I speak as an environmentalist, I note that tackling global climate change begins with harvesting the low-hanging fruit: energy efficiency, especially in commercial and residential buildings.  We can make significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by using existing technology to make our building stock more energy efficient.  Moreover, building retrofit projects provide immediate benefits both to the user and to the surrounding community, and the jobs can't be outsourced.

How does your role with American Association of Blacks in Energy align with your role in EnerGreen and the Alliance Board?

I formed EnerGreen as a direct result of my AABE experience.  If communities of color, and the African American community in particular, are ever to be economically self sufficient, they need to build businesses of scale that can provide jobs to community workers at a living wage.  I view the current wave of clean energy and energy efficiency investment as a major opportunity for AABE members to use their experience and training to become entrepreneurs.  EnerGreen is intended to provide capital to companies looking to grow or reposition themselves to provide energy or environmental products and services.

Could you describe one of the ways that you will contribute to the Alliance’s goal of amplifying the impact of energy efficiency?

Better-informed users are smarter users. I look forward to using my AABE, industry and community contacts to increase energy literacy in communities of color.

For More on Carolyn Green