Cleaning Up: Leadership in an Age of Climate Change – Details, episodes & analysis

How does a startup become the largest provider of electricity in the UK in less than a decade? What is locational pricing and how could it encourage more renewables? And is it possible to achieve a zero-carbon electricity system by 2030? 

Welcome to the first episode of Season 13 of Cleaning Up, in which Michael Liebreich sits down with Greg Jackson, the founder and CEO of Octopus Energy, to uncover the incredible story behind the company's rapid growth and its transformation into a global energy powerhouse. 

Greg and Michael explore how Octopus Energy has gone from a small startup to the largest energy supplier in the UK, directly serving over 7 million households, and with a presence in 8 of the top 10 competitive energy markets worldwide. Greg reveals the key drivers behind Octopus Energy's success, including the innovative Kraken platform that powers their operations, the strategic acquisitions that fuelled their expansion, and the company's unwavering focus on customer-centric solutions during the recent energy crisis. 

The story doesn't end there. Greg shares his ambitious vision for the future, whether or not its possible to reach 1 billion Kraken licenses by 2030 and the company's groundbreaking work in areas like locational pricing, electric vehicle integration, and the electrification of home heating. 

Leadership Circle

We are delighted to announce the Cleaning Up Leadership Circle, and our founding members: Actis, EcoPragma Capital, Eurelectric, the Gilardini Foundation, KKR, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation and Wärtsilä. For more information on the Leadership Circle and how to become a member, please visit https://www.cleaningup.live

Links & More

• Episode 32: Building the Billion-Customer Energy Company — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9kHNMyH7bw
• Episode 154: Green Heat (and Cooling) Under our Feet — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TpHa-uU6lc
• Michael at the Imperial College Energy Futures Lab, and the subsequent panel discussion with Greg Jackson — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0Q9cuF8zKg
• Octopus Energy customers provide 108MW of grid flexibility in first ‘Saving Session’ — https://octopus.energy/press/believe-it-or-watt-octopus-energy-customers-provide-108mw-of-grid-flexibility-in-first-saving-session-equivalent-of-a-gas-power-station/

In the final episode of Season 12, hosts Michael Liebreich and Bryony Worthington reflect on the key conversations and developments in the net-zero transition over the past three months, including: 

• China's leadership in green finance and the role of air quality issues in driving climate action
• The rapid growth of the solar industry and its potential to meet global electricity demand
• The progress and challenges around electric vehicles, battery recycling, and the need for a holistic approach to energy storage
• The potential of thermal batteries for storing excess renewable energy
• The debates around engineering solutions like direct air capture and synthetic proteins
• The politics of climate change, the UK election results, the EU's hydrogen plans, and what might happen in the US
• The intersection of fashion, sustainability, and climate change 

We'll be back for Season 13 of Cleaning Up at the beginning of September. Thanks so much for listening, and see you then! In the meantime, please share this podcast with a friend, colleague, family, or whoever you think might enjoy it. 

Links and more: 

• Listen to and watch every episode of season 12: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe8ZTD7dMaaAHKRt7GpWNkrhhrXv2-KoR 
• Jim Mellon of Agronomics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqFPic5iqds 
• Jonathan Maxwell of Sustainable Development Capital: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OTbyOxYUpg
• Lauri Myllyvirta, co-founder and lead analyst at CREA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqjvCeR9VLg

As everyone knows, battery prices are plummeting and manufacturing volumes are soaring, whether for EVs or for grid-connected storage. And everyone knows there's a problem: only 5% of lithium-ion batteries are recycled. The rest go to landfill, right? Wrong. This week's guest on Cleaning Up is the world's preeminent expert on battery recycling. Hans Eric Melin is the Founder and Managing Director of Circular Energy Storage. 

Circular Energy Storage is a London-based data collection and analytics consultancy focused on the lithium-ion battery end-of-life market. They help companies and organisations in the entire battery value chain to take better decisions in everything that relates to reuse and recycling of lithium-ion batteries. They do this by continuously collecting, analysing and publishing data from all parts of the value chain worldwide and by working actively with customers in their strategy and business development. 

Please like, subscribe and leave a review. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram, and sign up for the Cleaning Up newsletter at https://cleaninguppod.substack.com. 

Links and more: 

Circular Energy Storage: https://circularenergystorage.com/about 

Hans' LinkedIn post on the false narratives around lithium-ion battery recycling rates: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-rate-other-untruths-battery-recycling-hans-eric-melin-m5lde 

Hans' more extensive research report explaining the real rates: https://www.energimyndigheten.se/globalassets/forskning--innovation/overgripande/state-of-the-art-in-reuse-and-recycling-of-lithium-ion-batteries-2019.pdf 

The 2023 Battery Materials Review Yearbook, featuring a chapter authored by Hans: https://www.batterymaterialsreview.com/products/ 

The 2016 paper Hans mentioned, featuring the 95% landfill rate: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11837-016-1994-y

Claire Skinner is a partner in Heidrick & Struggles' London office and leader of the Europe region. She is a member of the firm’s CEO & Board, Industrial, and Private Equity practices.

Claire has more than 20 years of experience building executive and non-executive teams for a wide range of clients involved in energy, utilities, clean technology, and sustainability. Additionally, she has substantial expertise within energy and environmental investment, building teams on behalf of leading venture and private equity companies, infrastructure and asset managers, global financial institutions, and professional services groups.

Claire has significant experience in senior sustainability and climate change appointments within major corporations, government, philanthropy, and non-profit organizations. Prior to joining Heidrick & Struggles, Claire led the EMEA alternative energy & clean technology practice at a global executive search firm. Previously, she was the founding managing director of a boutique executive search firm dedicated to the power and sustainability markets.

Claire serves on the Business Advisory Group of the UK Government Climate Change Committee. She holds a BSc in Agricultural Environmental Science from Newcastle University and MSc in Pollution and Environmental Control from the University of Manchester.

This episode of Cleaning Up is based on a March 2022 blog post written by Michael for BloombergNEF.

https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-the-quest-for-resilience-what-could-possibly-go-wrong/

We would like to thank BloombergNEF for allowing us to record it. 

Further reading:

“This Isn’t a Natural Disaster”: Climate Scientist Michael Mann on Deadly Tornadoes in 8 States (December 2021)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLKlvnc4dBM&t=648s

Empirical evidence of declining global vulnerability to climate-related hazards (July 2019)

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378019300378

Climate rhetoric: What’s an energy trilemma? (December 2013)

https://www.carbonbrief.org/climate-rhetoric-whats-an-energy-trilemma

Climatological analysis of solar and wind energy in Germany using the Grosswetterlagen classification (February 2021)

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148120316682

What happens during a blackout: Consequences of a prolonged and wide-ranging power outage (August 2011)

https://publikationen.bibliothek.kit.edu/1000103292

Voltage collapse in complex power grids (February 2016)

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms10790

A Framework for Establishing Critical Infrastructure Resilience Goals (October 2010)

https://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/niac/niac-a-framework-for-establishing-critical-infrastructure-resilience-goals-2010-10-19.pdf

A 10-Point Plan to Cut Oil Use (March 2022)

https://www.iea.org/reports/a-10-point-plan-to-cut-oil-use

A 10-Point Plan to Reduce the European Union’s Reliance on Russian Natural Gas (March 2022)

https://www.iea.org/reports/a-10-point-plan-to-reduce-the-european-unions-reliance-on-russian-natural-gas

Tom Steyer is Co-Executive Chair of Galvanize Climate Solutions, a mission-driven investment platform.

Tom Steyer founded and ran Farallon Capital Management, a multi-strategy global investment business based in San Francisco, from 1986 until 2012. During that period, it grew assets from $6mm to $36bn. Over the same time, Tom was also a partner and Investment Committee member at Hellman & Friedman, a multi-billion dollar private equity firm.

After retiring from Farallon, Tom dedicated himself to public service and philanthropy, with a focus on climate action. Tom is the Co-Founder of Beneficial State Bank, a triple bottom line community development financial institution founded in 2007 with over $1 billion in assets. Tom is also the Founder of NextGen America, the largest youth voter mobilization organization in American history. Most recently, Tom was a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and beginning in April 2020 served as co-chair for Governor Newsom’s Business and Jobs Recovery Task Force. He also co-chaired Vice President Biden’s Climate Engagement Advisory Council to help mobilize climate voters.

Tom graduated from Yale and received his MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business. 

Emma Pinchbeck has been the Chief Executive of Energy UK, the trade association for the energy industry since July 2020.

 Before taking up this post she was Deputy CEO of RenewableUK for 4 years and was the Head of Climate Change at WWF-UK.

 Emma holds an MA from the University of Oxford. She is a competitive rower and in 2018 ran her first marathon, raising money for WWF.

Rhian-Mari Thomas is Chief Executive of the Green Finance Institute. The Institute sits at the nexus of the public and private sectors, the Green Finance Institute convenes and leads sectoral coalitions of global experts, that identify and unlock barriers to investment towards impactful, real-economy outcomes. The Green Finance Institute is backed by the UK Government and City of London Corporation. 

Rhian spent 20 years in investment banking and corporate finance and was awarded an OBE for services to green banking. She is an Emeritus Member of TCFD and co-chaired the launch of the TNFD to which she is a senior advisor. 

Rhian sits on numerous advisory groups across UK Government including the Net Zero Expert Group, Centre for Greening Finance and Investment, Global Resources Initiative, Department for Transport Expert Panel, Her Majesty’s Treasury Green Technical Advisory Group and the UK Voluntary Carbon Markets Forum. Rhian was also a commissioner on the Zero Carbon Commission and a member of the Climate Change Committee’s Net Zero Finance Advisory Group. Rhian sits on the advisory board for UCL Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources and co-chairs the advisory board for Snowball Impact Management.

A fluent Welsh speaker, Rhian holds a PhD in Physics from Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.

Further reading:

Green Finance Institute

https://www.greenfinanceinstitute.co.uk/

Professor Emily Shuckburgh OBE is Director of Cambridge Zero, the University of Cambridge's major climate change initiative.  

Emily is a climate scientist and mathematician, a Fellow of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, an Associate Fellow of the Centre for Science and Policy and a Fellow of the British Antarctic Survey. She leads the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training on the Application of AI to the study of Environmental Risks.  

A polar expert, she previously led a UK national research programme on the Southern Ocean and its role in climate.  

In 2016 she was awarded an OBE for services to science and the public communication of science. She is co-author with HRH The Prince of Wales and Tony Juniper of the Ladybird Book on Climate Change.

Further reading:

Official bio

https://www.cst.cam.ac.uk/people/efs20

Cambridge Zero

https://www.zero.cam.ac.uk/  

Cambridge Zero Policy Forum  

https://www.csap.cam.ac.uk/Research-Policy-Engagement/cambridge-zero/

AI4ER

https://ai4er-cdt.esc.cam.ac.uk/  

Centre for Landscape Regeneration

https://www.clr.conservation.cam.ac.uk/