California Center for Sustainable Energy

From the director’s Desk

One of the books I am enjoying reading these days is What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith, a leader in executive education who happens to live in Rancho Santa Fe. The book is full of wonderful advice for improving your work life by changing bad behaviors into good ones. Its title, however, got me thinking about other things, and when my mind wanders, it often turns to subject number one – how are we going to achieve a more sustainable energy future?

We’ve come a long ways in adopting the ideas of renewable energy, energy efficiency and conservation, but there is still a long ways to go. We have raised the levels of awareness, implemented much of the low-hanging fruit and brought the issues to the fore. We got here largely because of the passion people have about the saving the environment, becoming oil independent and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Passion is necessary, but not really enough.

To get to where we want to be requires a more collaborative approach in which business and government take a greater role in energy issues. There are lots of reasons businesses should be at the forefront of wise energy use, not the least of which is money. Keeping an eye on their bottom line, many businesses forgo energy improvements. Yet others, such as Qualcomm here in San Diego, have learned that state-of-the-art energy strategies can improve profit. We need more businesses to serve as role models by demonstrating their energy successes.

As for government, an oft heard criticism is that they simply throw money at problems without figuring out how to solve them. I’d like to think we’ve turned the corner on that kind of action and that our leaders are prepared to, well, lead. There are some good signs. Examples are the proposed national energy efficiency resource standard and California’s new building codes regarding energy efficiency. Another hopeful sign are be the soon-to-come Property Assessed Clean Energy programs that will tie energy improvement costs to property taxes rather than personal financial liability. None of these examples use ongoing government funding, but instead require people to take action for the common good.

Please, never give up on your passions about a cleaner, more sustainable energy future. I don’t think we can move forward without them. But in conjunction with our passions we also need to get the business community more involved by demonstrating the economic benefits of energy efficiency and renewable energy and to be ever vigilant about guiding our lawmakers toward policies that support our efforts. Passion and reason can make great partners.

Continue reading February's newsletter.