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The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. Across industries, a new era of climate innovation is accelerating. The momentum is visible in the data: Global clean energy investment surpassed $2 trillion for the first time in 2024, double the amount invested in fossil fuels. While solar panels, wind turbines, and grid-connected batteries often grab the headlines, the low carbon economy is growing in far more corners than many realize. Since founding Supercool last summer to cover proven and scaling climate solutions, Ive seen needle-moving innovation accelerating across farms, factories, and finance departments. One sector in particular shows remarkable progressthe built environment, which accounts for 34% of global carbon emissions. From hard tech and material breakthroughs to AI-powered intelligence to novel business models, here are three approaches to decarbonizing buildings happening now. 1. Hardtech innovation: Build with carbon-negative materials The engineered materials we use to build our suburbs and citiesprimarily timber, concrete, and steelcreate a lot of carbon emissions in their manufacture. Concrete and steel account for nearly 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Wood-based materials like oriented strand board (OSB), which are commonly installed in new homes, generate most of their manufacturing carbon emissions from burning wood to generate heat during production. Plantd transforms the built environment using carbon-negative building materials derived from alternative biomassa hardy, fast-growing grass. Four years ago, I cofounded the company with two former SpaceX engineers. To realize its ambitions, Plantd established a new agricultural supply chain innovating at every step, from building an in-house tissue culture lab to establishing full-scale greenhouse operations to supplying commercial farmers with the companys proprietary grass. [Photo: Courtesy of Plantd] Why grass? Because it grows incredibly fast, like bamboo, rapidly removing atmospheric carbon in the process, and possesses the structural characteristics to be transformed into durable engineered building materials. Yet, the key to sequestering carbon in our materials is Plantds manufacturing technology. Our team pioneered a modular, electric-powered production line that turns grass into finished products that replace plywood and OSB in new home construction. Its a first-of-its-kind technology that distinguishes a Plantd production facility from every other engineered wood facility in the world; ours is the only one without a smoke stack on top of the building. This past fall, D.R. Horton, the largest homebuilder in America, which builds about one in every 10 U.S. homes, ordered 10 million Plantd panels, enough to form the walls and roofs of 90,000 new single-family homes. 2. Software innovation: Give buildings brains An even bigger source of building-related carbon emissions is the energy required to operate them. Globally, this accounts for 26% of all greenhouse gas emissions. The top culprit: HVAC systems. The heating, cooling, and ventilation equipment needed to keep us comfortable indoors are responsible for about 35% of all energy used in U.S. buildings. The challenge is that thermostats, even the smart ones, arent very bright. They can track whats already happened and react to whats happening right now, but they cannot anticipate changes in weather, occupancy, carbon intensity of the grid, and energy costs. BrainBox AI can. Using AI-powered intelligence, its cloud-based control system connects to the hundreds, sometimes thousands, of HVAC components in a building and sends them real-time instructions. The companys platform provides over 15,000 buildings worldwidefrom Nordstrom to Family Dollarwith the intelligence to see six hours into the future with 96% accuracy. By knowing the future, BrainBox AI cuts energy, costs, and carbon emissions and improves comfort. Its an easy-to-install solution that works with existing systems and equipment. The results? HVAC-related emissions reductions of up to 40% and energy savings as high as 25%. 3. Finance innovation: Make efficiency upgrades free Many buildings are stuck with legacy equipment that gets the job done but consumes far more energy than their more efficient modern counterparts. Yet, new equipment can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, often placing upgrades out of reach. Budderfly has built one of the fastest-growing businesses in America by removing the cost barrier. The company identifies energy-intensive businesses like fast food chains and offers them a deal that sounds almost too good to be true: free upgrades to energy-efficient systems, including HVAC, lighting, refrigeration, and secrity. Budderfly foots the bills and shares the monthly energy savings with its customers. Scale is key to making this business model work. Budderfly has raised nearly $1 billion to pay for the equipment it installs in customer locations. Its rapid expansion enables it to secure preferential pricing from global equipment suppliers that individual owners and franchisees could never obtain independently. Budderfly also takes over billing, which is one less thing for customers to worry about, and gives the company a trove of data to drive further energy reductions and cost savings. From Taco Bell to McDonalds to Sonic, clients are guaranteed to see savings from day one. In 2024, Budderfly generated $200 million in revenue and now operates in more than 7,000 locations nationwide. Its customers collective energy use dropped 43% last year. The takeaway Whether its growing new materials, giving buildings the ability to think ahead, or reimagining who pays for energy systems, the low carbon economy isnt just coming someday. Its already being built. Josh Dorfman is the CEO and host of Supercool.
Category:
E-Commerce
Tesla has reached a potentially lethal moment in its history, and it isn’t solely due to CEO Elon Musk’s political radicalization. Years of design and technology stagnation have led to a languishing model line and outdated technology. Back in 2023, I wrote that the beleaguered carmaker should aspire to survive and become yet another car manufacturer. Now that objective feels more pressingand distantthan ever. The company just announced a new quarter of abysmal vehicle sales. Teslas first quarter of 2025 was a disastera 71% decline in net income compared to the same quarter last yearexcept for a better-than-expected gross margin thanks to its energy business. Its EV sales cratered, with a 13% sales drop in relation to the previous quarter. Worse yet: The company would have posted a loss if it werent for the government’s zero-emission credits. Predictably, Musk tried to distract from all of this with more of his usual empty promises about self-driving cabs and magical robots. During the Q1 financials conference call, he declaredwith a faltering train of thoughtthat he remained optimistic about the future of the company. A future that is based on a large number of autonomous cars and autonomous humanoid robots. He said that he expects autonomy to start moving Teslas financial needle in mid-2026. Musk also claimed Teslas humanoid robot Optimus will be working at Teslas factories by years end. I feel confident we will make a million units per year in less than five years, maybe four years, he said. Tesla will be the most valuable company in the world by far if we execute well, he declared after a pause. Then he said it will be maybe as valuable as the next five companies combined. Delay tactics Is anyone falling for all this bluster? Im not. You shouldnt either. Musks promises have a tendency to end in the graveyard of delusions, some of them literally buried, most delayed for many years. During the Cybercab reveal in October 2024, he promised the two-seater with scissor doors and no steering wheel by 2026, a claim that was met with derision. Remember that he promised robotaxis for 2020. The company declared in its Q1 report that the Cybercab is scheduled for volume production starting in 2026. Thats very unlikely to happen, as fully autonomous Tesla cars have not been approved anywhere, and they are far from going through the certification process needed for volume to happen. Waymo is still progressing slowly in its approval process and it’s years ahead of Tesla. Full Self-Driving manages just 489 miles between disengagements, dwarfed by Waymos 17,311, notes industry expert Ashok Elluswamy. To achieve human-level safety, analysts say, Tesla needs a 1,400x improvement. Which is why Musks claim of launching unsupervised Full Self-Driving (FSD) in June 2025 sounds so absurd. Teslas FSD currently remains a beta experiment linked to federal probes and crashes. Meanwhile, Volvo and Mercedes currently deploy safer autonomous tech made by Waymo, a company that already has self-driving cabs on the road. Even if Musk could actually deliver on his Cybercab promise, Teslas internal analysis admitted Robotaxis would hemorrhage cash. According to a report by The Information, the companys own executives warned Musk that the payback around FSD and Robotaxi would be slow . . . very, very hard outside the U.S. He ignored them. Instead, he canceled the Model 2the alleged name for an affordable Tesla modelto chase the geofenced 5mph Disneyland ride of Robotaxis, as critic Dan ODowd mocked. The company is now implicitly recognizing it made a mistake in its first quarter financial report, saying that more affordable options are as critical as ever. No wonder its top designers and engineers are leaving the company. Rotting design and cybertruck carnage During the call, Musk said he will focus more on Tesla and less on the government, blaming people benefiting from fraudulent government money for the protests against him. In his mind, these fraudsters are responsible for the company’s ongoing disaster, not him. But that shouldnt distract from the real reasons for the Teslapocalypse. This didnt happen because of Musk’s support for Donald Trump, though it did accelerate it. Even without Musks recent behavior, Tesla would still suffer from its preexisting condition and the bare facts of its business model: stale design, no forward vision, no technolgical innovation. This is a trifecta for failure. Tesla lacks what it needs to save itself from the current realities of the automobile market. Chinamainly BYD and brands like Xiaomi and Xpenghas established itself as the clear design and technological car manufacturing leader in the world, resulting in its top spot in global sales, despite U.S. tariffs. And in Europe, Japan, and South Korea, the old brands have finally risen to the challenge, with BMWs EV sales in Europe overtaking Tesla for the first time in February of this year. Teslas collapse began with its rotting design DNA. The Model S is 10 years old now, Adrian Clarke, a veteran car designer, told me in 2023. Its other carsModels 3, X, and Ylook like spitting-image cousins. Its 2025, and except for a lackluster refresh of Model Y so unappealing that the company has just announced a zero-interest five-year buying plan, nothing has changed. Teslas lineup remains a museum of stagnation in an industry where everyone refreshes models yearly. Most manufacturers would replace a model after about seven or eight years, Clarke told me. But Tesla clings to a decade-old template, a strategy former Jaguar designer Jeremy Newman calls strategically irresponsible. How can anyone expect the market to keep buying Teslas when every other manufacturer is releasing new models, like BYDs Yangwang U7 and its magical suspension system that eliminates all bumps. Then theres the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra and its supercar features that come at regular sports car prices. Or the BMW iXthe best 2024 EV according to Consumer Reports. With this in mind, can anyone truly be surprised to see Teslas U.S. market share plummeting from 79.4% in 2020 to 65.4% in 2022 to 48.7% in 2024? Only the most deluded fanboys and Tesla bulls could ignore this. Everyone else is seeing the writing on the wall. The Cybertruck epitomizes Musks delusional leadership. When it launched, industry experts criticized and warned about its design. Cold, sterile, and almost repulsive, legendary designer Frank Stephenson spat. Everyone I know thought theres no way theyre gonna get that into production, Clarke said at the time. They were partially right. The trucks dead straight panels defied manufacturing logic, leading to countless recalls for razor-sharp frunks that slice fingers, accelerators that stick mid-drive, and bulletproof windows that can shatter from hail. By June 2024, more than 11,000 units faced recalls for failing wipers and loose trim. Sales cratered: After peaking at 16,692 units in Q3 2024, sales dropped to 12,991 in Q4a 22% decreaseand fell further to 6,406 in Q1 2025, marking a 50% decline from the previous quarter. Can it be saved? Now you can add cratering financials to this technological and design mayhem. Teslas Q4 2024 deliveries hit a record 495,570 vehicles, but the cost was catastrophic. Price cuts and 0% financing slashed profit margins, with average sales prices plunging to $41,000the lowest in four years. Annual deliveries fell 1.1% to 1.79 million, Teslas first decline since 2011. Meanwhile, BYD sold 595,413 battery electric vehicles in the same quarter. Analysts called Teslas performance an unmitigated disaster masked by temporary incentives. Today confirmed what we knew. Teslas first-quarter 2025 revenue came short of the estimated $21.1 billion at only $19.3 billion. Auto revenue fell 20%. Its the worst quarter in almost three years, and the companys first-ever year-to-year drop in sales. Sure, the protests at stores and vandalism of Tesla lots fueled by Musks polarizing politics didnt help this situation. But at the end of the day, if you give consumers the choice of buying a new EV design with superior technology at a lower price or a tired Tesla model, they will choose the former. Having a better product at the best price possible is the most important part for the long-term survival of any company. Talking to CNBC, Patrick George, editor-in-chief of InsideEVs, said the biggest operational challenge in the latest quarter was the nuts-and-bolts job of being a car company. For a car company that runs on, you know, car sales, things like robocabs and humanoid robots are a distraction. Its no wonder that Teslas stock plummeted since December. Meanwhile, the rest of the market keeps innovating at record speeds. BYDs flash-charging techrefueling EVs in five minutesand its Blade battery, hailed as the worlds safest, have left Tesla in the dust. The Xiaomi SU7, a luxury sports sedan priced like a Toyota, sold 88,898 units in 24 hours, proving Chinese brands can out-innovate and undercut. In Europe, BMW and Mercedes leveraged 60% customer loyalty to reclaim the luxury segment. People want cars that fit into their lives, Clarke told me two years ago. It was an industry lesson that Musk ignored. Legendary investor and economist Bruce Greenwald warned about all of this in 2021, way before Musk descended into the political mud: Twenty years from nowyou really think that [Tesla is] going to dominate the auto market? Not a chance. He was wrong by almost two decades. After todays results, there are only two questions in my mind. First: How much more value will Musk oblterate before shareholders eject him? And the other, more pressing question: Will the next CEO be able to save the company? Tesla needs to do something radical right now. And that should start with Musk leaving the company.
Category:
E-Commerce
The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. With the U.S. government reducing and, in some cases even freezing federal funding, many nonprofits will need to seek other sources of philanthropic support. According to the 2024 Giving USA Report, corporate charitable giving in the U.S. totaled $36.6 billion in 2023, making it the fastest-growing nonprofit revenue source over the past five years. But less quantifiable is the value many corporate funders provide in addition to financial support. Most corporate philanthropies are not interested in merely signing a check or attaching their logo to an event. Instead, they are looking for ways to strategically collaborate with organizations and the communities they serve through time, talent, and treasure. The 3Ts: Time, talent, and treasure Companieswantto make a difference in the places wheretheiremployees and key stakeholders live, work, and play. One of the greatest corporate resources that the countrys 1.8 million nonprofits can tap into is time, especially through skillsand service-based volunteer opportunities for companies employees. A 2023 global study conducted for Ares Management by Edge Research found that employees who volunteer through their workplace are twice as likely to recommend their organization to job seekers than those who dont volunteer. In addition, do not overlook the ways your nonprofit can benefit by leveraging those employees talents. Nonprofits can request pro bono support in the form of guidance and counsel from employees who are subject matter experts and will find that employees are generally more than willing to share their skills at no cost. Of course, it is critical for nonprofits to pair the benefits of time and talent with treasure, i.e., the funds needed to help them increase their reach and impact. But building connections by first seeking employees time and talent can actually strengthen grant applications and unlock corporate fiscal support because theres already corporate buy-in. 5 ways to unlock corporate support Here are five ideas to increase the likelihood that corporate philanthropies will collaborate with and fund your nonprofit. 1. Align with the corporate mission Understand the funders giving priorities, funding cycles, and core values. Make sure you can answer these questions: Does your nonprofit share a similar mission, vision, and strategic objectives? What other nonprofits has the company previously supported? Was the companys support in the form of time, talent, treasure, or some combination of these? 2. Make a connection Introduce yourself to the corporate giving or philanthropy officer by sending a quick email or LinkedIn message. Share information about your organization and how it aligns with the companys philanthropic priorities and values. Include two potential ways you could collaborate, but do not send a proposal until you have had a chance to learn more about the company and are certain there is alignment. 3. Build partnership Before asking for funding, establish a relationship with the company. One method with proven success is connecting through a project that allows the companys employees to identify with your nonprofits mission through volunteerism. The more you can communicate the importance of your organizations work to a potential corporate funders employees and engage them, the greater the opportunity for you to make the case for grant support or sponsorship. 4. Be clear, concise, cogent, and compelling Be clear about the type of support you are seeking and be able to talk about the potential geographic and demographic reach of what youre proposing for support. Share your past accomplishments and proven impact, and be very clear about the societal challenge you are seeking to solve with the requested funding. Keep in mind that proposals that introduce new approaches to solving long-term problems are often favored. 5. Engage in storytelling Describe what success will look like and explain how you will communicate that success to the world. Showcase the story you will tell about your nonprofits achievements and how your funder played a role in that success. As we head into a sustained period of change, keep in mind that corporate philanthropies are looking to partner with organizations that address societal challenges and bring meaningful benefits to their local communities where they do business. When nonprofits bring partnership opportunities that demonstrate a deep sense of purpose and compelling vision, they can unlock a treasure chest of benefits. Michelle Armstrong is president of the Ares Charitable Foundation.
Category:
E-Commerce
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