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Mike Zatz was not planning to leave the Environmental Protection Agency. For two decades, Zatz worked within the departments Energy Star program, managing the commercial building side of the public-private partnership focused on energy efficiency. “I loved the program. I loved what we were doing. I loved the success that we were having, he says. But in June, when the EPA offered a second round of early retirement (or deferred resignation), Zatz was one of more than 1,400 employees to step away. The offer came after President Trump and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency rolled out mass terminations and program cuts to shrink the federal workforce at large. It also came after Trump took aim at Energy Star specifically. In May, Trump announced his plans to shut the program down, part of a larger attack on energy efficiency measures since his return to office. No matter that the program was voluntary, that it saves Americans $40 billion on energy bills annually, that its notably cost-effective for a government program (for every one federal dollar invested, Energy Star delivers a return of $350), or that it has long had bipartisan support. Its in Trumps crosshairs. At Energy Star, Zatz was crucial to getting commercial buildings on board with Portfolio Manager, a free tool to track and benchmark building energy use, which helps owners and operators comply with local laws, get green financing loans for investing in efficiency measures, and earn environmental recognitions. Zatz even helped expand Portfolio Manager to Canada. Under him, the tool became the industry standard in North America: a trusted, free, essential resource. It’s not the only such tool though; there are a slate of private companies that track and benchmark building energy efficiency. And now, Zatz works for one. He recently started as the senior vice president of Global Data Ecosystems and Partnerships at Measurabl, a sustainability data platform that allows the real estate industry to measure, manage, and report on their emissions and energy performance. Zatz will use his experience building up Portfolio Manager to help grow Measurabl’s customer basethis time with a global approach. Though now in the private sector, Zatz says Measurabl has the “same vision” that the EPA had for Energy Star. It’s an example of how the private sector is filling gaps in government services following Trump DOGE-powered gutting of the federal workforce and programsand also shows how former government workers, forced out by recent administrative moves, have plenty of skills to offer such companies. Taking Energy Star’s mission global Our built environment plays a huge role in our carbon footprint; In the U.S. alone, residential and commercial buildings together account for 31% of our greenhouse gas emissions. The building sector uses 75% of the countrys generated electricity. Tracking energy use is the key to reducing these emissions, and can also save operators significant money on energy costs. By benchmarking their energy use and aligning with Energy Star standards, building operators can increase their profits, apply for efficiency rebates, and access certain loans. Apartment managers can use it to keep from passing increased utility costs to residents, and school districts can even free operating funds, making more resources available to teachers if less money is spent on energy costs. Other roles look at building energy use too, like brokers, loan underwriters, and policymakers. The potential end of Energy Star has shaken building owners and operators. Both building owners and sustainability experts have said that the private sector (or the act of privatizing Energy Star itself) cant completely replace the government programs offeringsspecifically Portfolio Manager, which is currently used to track and benchmark the energy use of more than 330,000 buildings. Measurabl is trying, though. And a crucial step toward offering a similar experience is having a free version. Even before the rumblings of Energy Star coming under Trump’s ax, Measurabl began working on its Free Sustainability Software Solution, which also collects and tracks energy use data, and even integrates with Portfolio Manager. The leadership at Measurable recognized that in order to build an ecosystem like this, you have to lower the barriers to entry. And the main barrier to entry, and to all the other tools that are out there that build on Portfolio Manager . . . like Measurabl, was that you had to pay, Zatz says. After launching that free software tool in July, Measurabl says new subscribers onboarded more than 12,000 buildings, representing 2.2 billion square feet across 40 countries. It was fastest software adoption Measurabl has seen in its 13 years in business. Along with the free version, Measurabl offers premium tools, charging for software upgrades that allow building owners to do scenario planning to decarbonize properties, automatically collect data from utilities, help prepare reports to HUD or loan providers, and generally conduct more granular analysis. Across all its offerings, it serves more than 1,000 organizations across 90-plus countries, representing more than $3 trillion in assets and 22 billion square feet of real estate under management. The company has raised a total of more than $235 million in funding since its founding. Measurabl and Energy Star actually overlap. Even when he worked at Energy Star, Zatz knew of the company, because multiple Energy Star partners are also Measurabl clients. Measurabl was named Energy Stars Partner of the Year six times. And Measurabls software uses and integrates with Portfolio Manager, allowing data to sync between the two. But to really expand, especially around the world, Measurabl needs to build up its partnerships and connect to all the players in the building industrynot just building owners (which includes Fortune 500 companies to schools to religious congregations) but builders, utilities, state and local governments, product manufacturers and retailers, sustainability consultants, architects and engineers, and so on. This is the kind of ecosystem Zatz created at Energy Star. Now at Measurabl, Zatz isn’t looking to completely replace Energy Star’s Portfolio Manager. In fact, he hopes it stays around, not just because hes spent nearly 20 years working on it. As far as Measurabl and the ecosystem were trying to put together, I think certainly it will be beneficial to us to have Portfolio Manager running as a tool,” he says. How government tools are constrained Portfolio Manager is a useful tool, allowing owners and operators to track changes in their water use, greenhouse gas emissions, and energy costs over time. It gives buildings a score between 1 and 100, and lets them compare their energy use to simila buildings. But as a government tool, it was also constrained. People were not shy about asking for enhancements. We had a running list of hundreds of enhancements that we wanted to do, and in any given year we could only get to a dozen of them, maybe two dozen, Zatz says. Even before Trump’s attacks, Energy Star’s budget had been shrinking. A decade ago, its funding was $54 million; today, it’s $38 million. (Another constraint was the fact that in previous government shutdowns, like in 2018, Portfolio Manager was also shut down; now its marked as essential to keep running.) Portfolio Manager was intended to offer buildings the basics. And it was never built to compete with anything, Zatz adds, but to foster more ideas. The EPA knew that the private sector could put more resources towards developing tools, and also create sustainability jobs. We wanted to build sort of the core, something that everybody could use, Zatz says of Energy Star, but we wanted it to then be something that could feed into other things that would be even more beneficial to the wide variety of stakeholders. Along with building owners and operators, others like lenders, insurers, investors, and auditors like to track this kind of sustainability data. This is where private companies like Measurabl can come in to offer more features. Energy Stars Portfolio Manager looks at Scope 1 and 2 emissions, for exampledirect emissions from a company’s operations and from buying the electricity, heat, or cooling to power those operations, respectively. But cant incorporate Scope 3, the indirect emissions from up and down a company’s value chain, like business travel or employee commutes, investments, and so on. Thats something Measurabl can offer, Zatz says. Portfolio Manager didnt have the bandwidth to keep a list of which buildings are subject to which emissions laws up to date, but Measurabl can. Zatz says Measurabl can work off the same model that has made Energy Star so successful: building up partnerships, creating an ecosystem of industry stakeholders, and providing data that anyone can see in useful, clear ways. And when it comes to bringing this tool to buildings around the world, he says it’s in the best position to do so. Measurabl has the most sustainability data in the industry, second only to Portfolio Manager, he says. Zatz will bring his contacts to the private company to help expand that reach: “I love that in this role, I can keep working with a lot of those same people as partners,” he says. In markets where buildings are already on Portfolio Manager, he’ll leverage that relationship to grow Measurabl. And he’ll also use his decades of experience building Portfolio Manager’s reputation to bring Measurabl to new places, “to take the same concepts and put and send them overseas, where these things don’t really exist.” Portfolio Manager wouldnt have been expanded that way anyway, even before the Trump administrations threats. “It was not in the vision of the EPA to make it global, Zatz says. But still, he emphasizes he hopes it sticks around for the U.S. and Canada. Zatz will miss the EPA, and hell miss, most, working as a public servant. Working for Measurabl, a private company, he wont be considered such anymore, but I still view it that way, he says. He hopes the real estate industry sees him in that way, too. Im hoping Ill have that same support from them, and hopefully we can continue to build on Portfolio Manager, he adds. And if not, well hopefully be there to help the industry if, God forbid, something bad happened with the Energy Star program.
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E-Commerce
When Hurricane Melissa began moving toward Jamaica earlier this week, Amazons chief meteorologist was watching closelynot just for the companys global shipping operations, but also to see how its disaster relief team might need to act. “As soon as the hurricane formed, we had eyes on it,” says Abe Diaz, principal technical product manager for Amazon’s disaster relief team. “We’ve been tracking this for multiple days.” [Photo: Amazon] Inside an Amazon fulfillment center near Atlanta, pallets are stacked with disaster relief supplies, from medical supplies to solar-powered lights. Its one of 15 massive disaster relief hubs that the company has stationed inside warehouses around the world. In the wake of the record-breaking hurricane that hit Jamaica, with flooding and 185-mile-an-hour winds that destroyed homes and infrastructure, the hub was poised to send shipments to partners like the Red Cross. When the team spoke to Fast Company yesterday, they were planning a potential shipment of power supplies on a cargo plane for today. “Damage assessments are still underway at both of the airports and then they’re going to be prioritizing life-saving, rescue and response teams for access first,” says Jeff Schweitzer, who leads Amazon’s global disaster relief operations. If all went as planned, though, the power systems would also be on a flight, ready to support first responders and “provide augmented power in areas that just simply won’t have power for weeks to come,” he says. Other early shipments will likely include tarps and solar lights that can also charge phones. Each delivery will happen only after nonprofits or agencies on the ground assess the situation and order what they need. “As with everything at Amazon, we work backwards from the customer,” Diaz says. [Photo: Amazon] In the warehouse, some pallets are wrapped in color-coded shrink wrap, to help nonprofits easily tell from a distance what’s inside, such as diapers. One pallet is designed to include everything needed for a nonprofit to set up a mobile office. Amazon first began its disaster relief work in 2017, after conversations with organizations about how difficult it is to get the right supplies quickly after disasters. Since then, it has been closely working with organizations to understand what they need and to track data about what’s used in each event so it can better prepare. [Photo: Amazon] The team works to find the most efficient products to donatefor example, water filters instead of bottled water. “It makes no sense for us to send a whole bunch of water bottles and fly them out to Jamaica when high-efficiency water filters can do 100 times the volume with just a pallet of product,” Diaz says. “These are the kind of items that we’re just trying to be really smart on what is needed and what we’re getting there.” [Photo: Amazon] The hubs, which are each located inside existing Amazon fulfillment centers to make use of the company’s existing infrastructure and workers, are each filled with products most likely to be needed locally. A hub near L.A. is stocked with supplies for wildfires, such as masks. The Atlanta hub has kits for cleaning up homes after a floodfrom gloves and shovels to respiratorsthat have been used in previous hurricanes and events like the floods in Central Texas this summer. [Photo: Amazon] Organizations also make their own preparations; the World Food Programme, for example, prepositioned a shipment of food and other suplies to the area before Hurricane Melissa hit. But Amazon can quickly respond as more is needed, with pallets ready to be sent out as soon as a request comes in. It’s one example of corporate philanthropy that makes use of a company’s core competency, rather than simply giving money to causes. (Amazon also uses its delivery infrastructure to help food banks reach more clients at home.) Toyota did something similar when it donated kaizen training to the Food Bank for New York City, helping cut wait times for dinner from an hour and a half to 18 minutes.
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E-Commerce
A first-of-its-kind refinery has been in the works for a decade and half. Set to be completed this year, the facility is design to produce climate-friendly jet fuel, a material in increasing demand in response to climate commitments and regulations around the world. The refinerycalled the Freedom Pines Fuelswas designed to showcase new methods of producing the fuel, and was receiving government support to help clean up air travel. Now, a year behind schedule due to a hurricane and equipment glitches, the project hit another roadblock this summer, when a major shift in U.S. energy policy under the new administration threw a wrench into the business model. It’s now a story of a company quickly adapting under pressure, and an illustration of the challengesand continued opportunityof clean energy in a more hostile political environment. The goal of the company behind the project, Illinois-based LanzaJet, is to produce a close facsimile of the kerosene-based fuel that powers jets and many helicopters and propeller planes todaywithout using petroleum. Instead, the Freedom Pines Fuels plant in the forest hamlet of Soperton, Georgia, will use ethanol to make whats known as sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF. LanzaJet was ready to start with ethanol made from Brazilian sugarcane, until a new U.S. law forced a quick shift to midwestern corn. The fuels that make modern travel possiblekerosene, gasoline, and dieselare typically refined from crude oil, rich in hydrocarbon molecules that release copious energy when burned. But burning them also inundates the atmosphere with heat-trapping carbon dioxide. [Photo: Couresy of LanzaJet] SAF is essentially lab-grown jet fuel, made from carbon already in the environment, rather than pumped up from oil wells. It’s a tweaked formulationfor instance, with less sulfurdesigned to burn cleaner. Sugarcane and corn are two of many possible carbon sources, along with cornstalks, twigs, vegetable oil, factory exhaust, and even garbage. The CO2 released by making and burning SAF should, in theory, be offset by the carbon captured to make more SAF, forming a closed loop. The Freedom Pines Fuels plant is a mini version of a typical refinery, slated to produce nine million gallons of SAF and a million of green diesel fuel in its first year. (A standard crude-oil refinery could churn a billion or more gallons of fuels.) But the Georgia plant is meant to be big enough to show the technology can work at scale. “Most process technology companies . . . almost never build plants of this magnitude,” says Jimmy Samartzis, a climate-focused airline industry veteran who became CEO when LanzaJet was founded in 2020. “It’s expensive, it’s big. But we thought and feltaccurately, looking back on it todayit was the right move to make.” Before the 2024 election, the federal government was also promising generous financial support for Freedom Pines. A Potential Market Boom LanzaJet is backed by companies that are counting on, or stand to benefit from, the shift to carbon-neutral jet fuel, including All Nippon Airways, British Airways, Southwest Airlines, and plane maker Airbus. The UNs International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has committed the industry to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. In addition, laws and regulations, such as in Singapore, the U.K., and the European Union, have started requiring airlines or suppliers to blend SAF into the jet fuel supply, beginning at around 12%, then ramping up in later years. More such requirements are in the works in India, Indonesia, and Japan. The European Union is by far the most ambitious. From a mere 2% SAF blend required today, quotas rise steeply about every five years, hitting 70% in 2050. Theres further demand from companies, such as LanzaJet backer Microsoft, striving to meet aggressive greenhouse gas reduction goals. In addition to reducing its own footprint, Microsoft has announced plans to buy SAF Certificates,” which subsidize the cost of the fuel to boost its usage. SAF has a long way to go in making a dent. It will account for just 0.7% of all jet fuel in 2025, according to the International Air Transport Association. [Photo: Couresy of LanzaJet] Obviously, if you look at the size of the overall aviation fuel space, in theory the [SAF] market is potentially huge for those that can offer a product at a competitive price, says John MacDonagh, senior research analyst at capital markets research firm PitchBook. LanzaJet has raised “approximately” $400 million, according to Samartzis, from these companies and other backers, including energy producers Shell and Suncor, the U.S. Department of Energy, airport operator Groupe ADP, and Bill Gatess Breakthrough Energy fund. Another backer is LanzaTech. Founded in Auckland, New Zealand, in 2005, it relocated its headquarters to Skokie, Illinois, in 2014. The company has engineered microbes to convert waste such as carbon monoxide and dioxide from factories into ethanol, as another route to carbon-neutral fuel and other chemicals. In 2010, LanzaTech and the U.S. Department of Energy started collaborating on technology to transform ethanol into jet fuel. In 2020, LanzaTech spun out LanzaJet as a new company to continue the work. LanzaJet is dipping a toe into the SAF market with Freedom Pines, with plans to build more plants, such as a collaboration with British Airways to open a facility in the U.K. by 2028. LanzaJet has also announced partnerships in India, Japan, and Kazakhstan to build additional facilities. But as it continues to announce expansion overseas, things have gotten messy back at home. SAF Meets MAGA
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E-Commerce
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