Davidsen drives cleantech investments

Amy Davidsen

If you’re looking for someone who’s sitting squarely in the intersection of business and government, look no further than Amy Davidsen.

After two-plus decades in the banking industry, Davidsen has recently taken on a new post as U.S. executive director of The Climate Group, a global nonprofit that works with the private and public sector to promote policies and technologies to reduce carbon emissions.

If you’re looking for someone who’s sitting squarely in the intersection of business and government, look no further than Amy Davidsen.

After two-plus decades in the banking industry, Davidsen has recently taken on a new post as U.S. executive director of The Climate Group, a global nonprofit that works with the private and public sector to promote policies and technologies to reduce carbon emissions.
Formerly the director of environmental affairs at JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM), Davidsen says she joined The Climate Group in late 2009 after feeling the financial services crisis had slowed the trajectory of change that was possible from within the financial services sector itself. Now, being one of the leaders of a nonprofit with a $12 million annual budget and operations on four continents makes her old job seem simple, she says.

Sustainable Industries checked in with Davidsen as U.S. lawmakers were preparing to unveil new climate legislation, to discuss the roles of business and government in ushering in a lower-carbon future, and to learn about some of The Climate Group’s ongoing initiatives.

SI: What do you think the consequences will be if the government fails to put a price on carbon? Specifically how will it affect business and investment?
AD: It depends on what else is in there, because a price on carbon alone is not enough to do what we need to do. You do need the renewable energy standard, etcetera. What’s nice about a price on carbon is that it gives that global price and market for investment. So we would like to see that. It would bring the U.S. up to the standards of other countries that are leading. … I think it makes it easier for businesses to have certainty going forward if there is that price signal.

SI: The Climate Group is engaged with a wide range of technologies, including carbon capture and storage, LEDs, information and communication, technology and electric vehicles. How does The Climate Group select the technologies it’s going to focus on?
AD: We looked to find technologies that were really past the R&D stage and were at a place where [they] could be scaled quickly, specifically, to meet 2020 greenhouse gas reduction targets.
For instance, lighting accounts for about 10 percent of global CO2 emissions. So if you convert that and have LEDs to substitute for that lighting, there’s an ability to cut emissions by 50 to 70 percent. … Obviously there’s all different kinds of technologies within each of those sectors, but from a sector approach, those are technologies that really have the ability to reduce emissions today if we can scale them quickly.

SI: Renewables were notably absent from [the technologies on which the group focuses]. Can you talk about that a little bit?
AD: Wind, we felt we really couldn’t make an impact. Wind has taken off thanks to the incentives that have been put in place, and there’s been a marked growth globally in wind. So we felt we couldn’t really add any value there. We are exploring in the solar space on the concentrating solar side. I think there’s an opportunity there for much greater investment. … So we are spending some time on that.