Episode 217: Kerry Bowie, Browning the Green Space
Today's guest is Kerry Bowie, Founder, President and Executive Director of Browning the Green Space.
Browning the Green Space (BGS) is a voluntary coalition of leaders and organizations primarily in the New England region that share a passion to advance diversity, equity and inclusion in clean energy. The organization's goal is to increase the participation and leadership of people in underrepresented groups, including people of color and women in the clean energy space and beyond.
We cover a lot in this episode, including the origin story of BGS and we go way back to Kerry's background, his youth and experiences as well as some of the motivations for why he’s focused on DEI, workforce development, and clean energy. We also talk about tactics. How do we systemically make changes? How do we increase equality and justice? What are some things that have and haven't worked? And most importantly, what is the path for the future?
Enjoy the show!
You can find me on Twitter @jjacobs22 (me), @mcjpod (podcast) or @mcjcollective (company). You can reach us via email at info@mcjcollective.com, where we encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.
Episode recorded June 29, 2022.
In today's episode, we cover:
Origin story of Browning the Green Space (BGS)
Overview of the nonprofit and its mission
Kerry's background in environmental engineering, environmental justice, and consulting
BGS's focus on the 5 C's: careers, companies, capital, contracts, and communities
The intersection between environmental, social, and economic justice issues
The importance of cultural connections in community development
The threat of climate change to underrepresented communities on a day to day level
Differences of energy burden between urban centers and BIPOC communities vs wealthy neighborhoods
How money and wealth are major contributors to environmental inequality
Kerry's motivation in workforce development
The luxury of thinking about climate change as an existential threat
Barriers to alleviating environmental issues faced by lower income communities
Regulations that need to be upheld, including the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act
Kerry's thoughts on government and its shortcomings
Hopeful action from younger generations
BGS's fundraising goals and who they want to hear from
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Jason Jacobs:
Hey everyone, Jason here. I am the My Climate Journey show host. Before we get going, I wanted to take a minute and tell you about the My Climate Journey, or MCJ as we call it, membership option. Membership came to be because there were a bunch of people that were listening to the show that weren't just looking for education, but they were longing for a peer group as well. So we set up a slack community for those people that's now mushroomed into more than 1300 members. There is an application to become a member. It's not an exclusive thing. There's four criteria we screen for determination to tackle the problem of climate change, ambition to work on the most impactful solution areas, optimism that we can make a dent, and we're not wasting our time for trying, and a collaborative spirit. Beyond that, the more diversity, the better. There's a bunch of great things that have come out of that community.
Jason Jacobs:
A number of founding teams that have met in there, a number of nonprofits that have been established, a bunch of hiring that's been done, a bunch of companies that have raised capital in there, a bunch of funds that have gotten limited partners or investors for their funds in there, as well as a bunch of events and programming by members and for members, and some open source projects that are getting actively worked on that hatched in there, as well. At any rate, if you want to learn more, you can go to MyClimateJourney.co, the website, and click the "become a member" tab at the top. Enjoy the show.
Jason Jacobs:
Hello everyone. This is Jason Jacobs, and welcome to My Climate Journey. This show follows my journey to interview a wide range of guests to better understand and make sense of the formidable problem of climate change and try to figure out how people like you and I can help.
Jason Jacobs:
Today's guest is Kerry Bowie, founder, president, and executive director at Browning the Green Space. Browning the Green Space is a voluntary coalition of leaders and organizations primarily in the new England region that share the passion to advance diversity, equity and inclusion in clean energy. The organization's goal is to increase the participation and leadership of people in underrepresented groups, including people of color and women in the clean energy space and beyond. I was excited for this one because when there's talk about climate change, often it's about emissions, carbon accounting, greenhouse gases, pollution, et cetera. But a lot of it is in the aggregate. And the reality is that people in underserved communities tend to bear the brunt of the bad things that come along with climate change. But when it comes to stuff like capitalizing on the revolution and all the capital and resources that are going into facilitating the transition, they tend to get left behind.
Jason Jacobs:
And that was the motivation of Kerry, of starting Browning the Green Space. And it's really interesting because he comes more from a workforce development bent, yet he's really operating at the intersection of workforce development and climate. We cover a lot in this episode, including the origin story of the organization, and we go deep into the way back machine to Kerry's background and his youth and upbringing and some of the motivations for why he does what he does. And we also talk about tactics. How do we systemically make changes? How do we increase equality and justice? What are some things that have worked and haven't worked and what is the path for the future? I really enjoyed this one and I'm so excited to introduce you to Kerry Bowie, welcome to the show.
Kerry Bowie:
Hey, happy to be here.
Jason Jacobs:
Happy to have you. And as we were just reminiscing before we started recording, you and I met at a dinner, gosh, it was probably like 2010 or 11.
Kerry Bowie:
Long time ago.
Jason Jacobs:
When yeah, I was doing different stuff. You were doing different stuff, so different contexts, but your name has come up from like six different angles. Everyone's like, you got to talk to Kerry at Browning the Green Space. You got to talk to Kerry at Browning the Green Space. And so finally I convinced you to come on the show. Thank you, and nice to be reconnected.
Kerry Bowie:
Good to see you.
Jason Jacobs:
Well, as I explained to you before we kicked off, typically we start with an overview. I know that since you've got a portfolio of a bunch of different things you're involved with, maybe just give a snapshot of the work you're doing today and then we'll dive in from there.
Kerry Bowie:
Okay. I think Jason, when we met, I was still at the Department of Environmental Protection. I think I was associate commissioner there. So, working on Brownfield's work, cleaning up contaminated properties. I was the director of environmental justice. So, regardless of what race or ethnicity you are, how much money you make, what language you speak, you should have a right to clean air, clean water, open spaces. And I sat on the Massachusetts Food Policy Council. And so I had come there from a background in environmental engineering. So, went to MIT and University of Michigan. I did semiconductor manufacturing down in Dallas at Texas Instruments. And I came back up here to see about a girl. I'm married now with two daughters, 11 and 14.
Jason Jacobs:
Sounds like it's the same girl. So, congrats.
Kerry Bowie:
Yeah, yeah. So it worked out, worked out. And so I'm just north of Boston in Summerville. And when I came back, I went back to MIT and I did business school and I was a non-traditional student coming out of business school in the sense that didn't do high tech investment banking, consulting. You know, that world. I actually went to work for Governor Patrick. I think it was when I was working in the Patrick administration that I met you, but I spent about a year or two in the Baker administration as well. And so, to fast forward a bit, I came out of that work back then. And it might have been shortly after we met or a little bit later, I left the Commonwealth in 2016 and I started my own consulting practice. And so that's Msaada Partners.
Kerry Bowie:
And part of the reason I did that is well, probably three reasons. One, in doing that environmental justice work, talking to people in the gateway cities. Gateway cities in Massachusetts are pretty much akin to environmental justice communities, but they have higher minority populations. They have lower income, manufacturing jobs may have left, and they typically have higher English language isolation because there are larger immigrant populations there. When I would talk to those communities about greenhouse gases and climate change, they weren't climate change deniers, but it just wasn't the top of their list. Wasn't top of mind or the first thing. They would talk about needing jobs and better education and the housing and transportation and access to healthy food and the police to stop harassing them. So, I was doing environmental justice work, but I was hearing about social justice and economic justice issues.
Kerry Bowie:
And on that economic justice piece, that was right around the time that the Fed's Color of Wealth report came out back in 2015. And you know, there was a lot of statistics in there, but the one that jumps out to me here in Boston is the average net worth of a white family in Boston is $247,500. Whereas the average net worth of a black family was $8 and I was going, "Wow, this is crazy." And the last piece I will say, is being a dual alum from MIT while I was working for the state, I stayed connected to more the private sector through being a mentor for MIT's venture mentoring service. So, I've probably been doing that for about 13 years now, but unfortunately most of those people do not look like me. They most of look like you. Young, well, you're not young anymore, but [inaudible].
Speaker 3:
I'm 46. 46. Yeah,
Kerry Bowie:
[inaudible] Young white guys. These are younger white guys and Asian students. And I just was like, "Hey, can I help?" One of those young guys, a guy, Gilad Rosenzweig, who now runs designX over at MIT. He started a high tech accelerator called Smarter in the City. And so I was on his mentor team, helped him to get that launch. But what I really learned was... And Gilad, he'll probably say it, he caught it a little bit from people in the community of like, "Who's this young Jewish guy from MIT starting a high tech accelerator in Roxbury?" But what I did was I met some black women who had really good ideas, but I saw that they were struggling. They weren't getting the access to the resources and support that the young white guys at MIT were getting. And so I said, hell, I led with my heart and said, "I'm going to help."
Kerry Bowie:
I'm going to do it. But what I didn't realize is, early stage startups and small businesses don't have the funding and wherewithal to keep me having a six figure salary. And so I had a bit of a hobby for a couple years, as I figured it out, almost like a startup I was searching and figured out that, "Hey, it's best to work with nonprofits and with academic institutions and others." So I could get paid that way. So, I work with the social innovation forum with executive directors of nonprofits. I am now a core instructor for the National Science Foundation's I-Corp program through MIT. But what I was really still missing was how do I support these black and brown entrepreneurs who can't pay me consulting fees. And one of my friends and classmates from MIT Sloan, and I actually went to University of Michigan for grad school. He did undergrad. A guy named Roger Premo.
Kerry Bowie:
And Roger does corporate strategy at IBM now, but at the time he was a managing director and partner at the Boston Consulting Group. And we were watching a Michigan game and he said, "Hey, we'd love to help." I told him this story that I'm telling you, and by we, he meant the Boston Consulting Group, and we did a pilot with six companies from the Boston area. And it was really, really cool. And we did that again the next year and the next year. And the next year that fifth year was 2020 and everything changed. One, the pandemic hit us, and because of that, this program that we were doing in person in Boston, we went virtual. And when we went virtual, we weren't restricted to Boston. And so we were like, we can go anywhere.
Kerry Bowie:
And then right on the heels of that was George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Walter Wallace, Dante Wright. And there was just, when I say is there was a lot of white guilt, literally and figuratively in a sense, and people were leaning in more. And so our program really just expanded. And so, if I think about this next year, we're going to be in 36, we're going to have 36 companies in our cohort versus six. We're going to be in 15 BCG offices and we're going to probably have close to 400, BCG volunteers working. So really excited about that, but you know, getting to Browning the Green Space, that program is industry agnostic. So, we work with 87 companies over the last six years, but I bet a couple, a dozen of them, about definitely more than 20 of them have been in the clean energy food, water space. Because of my background, I'm definitely going to know those companies and be interested in them.
Kerry Bowie:
And so I think working with them more over the last few years, recognizing that there's still a gap and tremendous opportunity. And in working with all those companies, recognizing that consulting ,connections, technical systems, all of that is great, but what these companies really need is access to capital. And so we didn't have our own capital at the time, but I was just trying to get to know angels and VCs of color all across the country. And this is really the story of how BGS started. I think I met this guy, Ed Jean-Louis. He runs a VC firm out in LA called Tale Ventures with a partner. But Ed is from Sommerville. He actually is from the housing projects right underneath where my daughters go to school.
Kerry Bowie:
Now they go to the Healy school near Winter Hill, sort of Whitey Bulger sort of territory. But he grew up there, went to UMass Boston. I think he went to UCLA for business school, but I met him, I think we were both trying to catch up with Carmichael in Boston one day. Carmichael Roberts from Material Impact and Breakthrough Energy Ventures. But we caught up and stayed connected. And he reached out to me back in the summer of 2019 and said, "Hey, we've got to carve out in this company out of Summerville." Josh Aviv, SparkCharge. He said, "Hey, you got $25,000 you want to invest?" I was like, no, I do not. I'm running a couple of, you know... I'm running a nonprofit and my small consulting practice, but guess what, I know people who probably would.
Kerry Bowie:
And so I reached out to my network, and with two requests, specifically one, "Can you help, in this round, in this sort of seed round for Josh's company and help my friend Ed out at the same time?" And secondly, I want to talk about Browning the Green Space because it was pulling together all these things that I saw that our communities tend to get more than our fair share of the environmental bats: the pollution, the asthma, the brown fields. But I was seeing that we're missing out on the environmental goods. And one of my other friends, another breakthrough energy venture guy, Dave Danielson, I remember when he was at first ARPA-E and then the Department of Energy, I would go down to those ARPA-E sessions. And I remember this will date it because governor Schwarzenegger was a keynote. He spoke.
Kerry Bowie:
So this was way back then. I know we were in a room of like a thousand people and using the eyeball test or the windshield test, I could count six black and brown people. So, I couldn't even fill up both of my hands with the people in it. And I was like, this is not about tree hugging and being like... This is about making money and about economic development and I'm going, we're not there. And so this was sort of the request I had. And when I reached out, I got some of the guys from the Northeast Clean Energy Council. So, Dan Goldman, who's that clean energy ventures, Mitch Tyson, Peter Rothstein, Jeremy McDermot, they reached out first and said, Hey, we love to talk and had a great conversation with him.
Kerry Bowie:
And then we were aligned, but I was like, it can't be four old white guys, no disrespect to, Jeremy, he's not as old as them, he's sort of your age, Jason, and me. And so, I always want things to be as diverse as possible. So we reached out to some of my friends at the New England Women in Energy and the Environment. So I think about a Carter Wall, a Jackie Ashmore. And then I reached out to folk over at American Association of Blacks in Energy. A friend, Amanda Downey came into the conversation. Then I reached back to my MIT days, my good friend, Sarah Wood Kearney from Prime Coalition, and she connected me to Maggie Kutz and Amy Dufour. And so we started to just have not just individual one off meetings. We said, "Let's get everybody together."
Kerry Bowie:
And so we had a few meetings in Kindle square and put a couple months in between them, and our third meeting, we couldn't do in person because that's when COVID hit. And so we decided not to stop. We met virtually, and we really figured out that there was a dare there, that there was a need for what we were talking about, and that was the launch of Browning the Green Space. So I think it's September 24th, 2020, we formally incorporate it as a nonprofit. We've been under the fiscal sponsorship of the Northeast Clean Energy Council, but I think we should have our formal 501(c)(3) certification in the next month or so. So, this has been a whirlwind two and a half, three years, but really exciting things that are going on.
Jason Jacobs:
And when you first had the idea for the organization, how did you think about the charter or the purpose of the organization? Because I mean, the name is great and it, I think it's very, it's like, well... Browning the Green Space. It's I think it's intuitive and obvious what it's trying to do from a big picture, but what does success look like at a more tangible level?
Kerry Bowie:
Yeah. And maybe I can tell you a little bit about what do we do? And maybe that'll help you. And so, one, we're a group of cross-sector leaders, focus on promoting diversity, equity, inclusion, and clean energy and beyond. And our vision is a just energy transition. And if I talk about that a little bit, the energy transition is upon us. You know, we've got a green wave or tsunami that's on top of us. And I think my biggest concern was, "Man, are we going to leave black and brown folk out again?" All of these resources and all these opportunities going to come and we're just going to be left going, "Man, we missed it. You know, we missed the boat." And so really, that was my big focus. And so those meetings that I talked about, Jason, where we were meeting, I think a lot of what we did is we had these conversations and we talked about what is needed, what are the gaps? What are the issues? And what we ended up aligning on was what we call sort of these five Cs.
Kerry Bowie:
And so those five CS are careers. We need to focus on pathways to employment. How do we make sure that we are training a workforce for these green careers? And that's a whole host of things and I can unpack it, but a lot of what we're doing is in awareness and and outreach, especially with a target for two year universities, community colleges, certification programs. So not necessarily environmental engineers coming out of MIT like me, because all of those jobs don't need that. That's overkill for a lot of things. And second is companies removing barriers to employment. And one of those barriers is thinking that you need somebody with a four year degree to do a number of these jobs.
Kerry Bowie:
You don't necessarily need that to be a wind turbine technician. You don't have to have that same level of, but you can also those guys, or gals, or women can actually make as much as some of those young folk coming out of those ivy institutions or the universities around here. Especially you start doing overtime. And so that's tremendously important for moving people out of poverty or tackling gentrification. You know, once I talk about those social issues, a lot of black and brown folk, as I'm in Boston, they can't afford to stay in Boston anymore. So they're moving out to Quincy, Brockton, Randolph, and it'd be great if we could keep people in these communities. So, that's what company is about, removing those barriers to employment. So, not just looking for their own people or having more qualifications on your job distributions than is done or absolutely necessary, but where are you looking? You know, where are you targeting?
Kerry Bowie:
And also even once you get people in, because it's recruitment, retention, retainment promotion, do you have a healthy work environment for them or is it toxic? Because if you recruit them, but then you've got a terrible work environment for them, that's not good. And so we really don't want that to happen. And so we work on that. The next place we look is really around capital. And so really thinking about how do we support founders of color. And we were just talking about this a little bit before we started taping or recording, showing my age, saying taping that what is it, 2 to 4% of VC funding goes to women, 1% goes to African Americans? So if you happen to be an African American woman founder, it's like .002%.
Kerry Bowie:
And a lot of that is around, in a sense pattern matching in the sense of, hey, most of the VC dollars are older white guys who are, if you think about where they are, oftentimes they're... It's easy for them to relate to a younger white guy. And so we can work on breaking that, but we can also look at how do we just get more black and Latinx and indigenous and women people into the VC space. The last two are contracts so, different than startups. Think about more established businesses, small businesses that may not be so technical, but doing energy efficiency or doing solar installs. How do we make sure that, from a supplier diversity perspective that these larger corporations companies, municipalities, governments are bringing in folks that way to get some of those half a million or a million plus contracts, because those correspond to them hiring more people from the communities to work in their companies.
Kerry Bowie:
So, we think that's super important. So, we're doing work there to try to increase the pipeline of folk who are starting companies. Because it's tough being a founder or an owner of a company. So how can we help with that process? How can we give some technical assistance, some consulting, how can we help with startup costs, how can we help with micro-credentialing, certifications, insurance, bonding, all of those things? So, that's that work. And last but not least is communities. And the community side, what we're trying to do is make sure that the community does that need the help get it. Our most vulnerable communities. Because unfortunately right now it feels like toys, like really toys for the rich white, green and vain.
Kerry Bowie:
A lot of these things are just not accessible to folk. Because of all of these, a rebate program doesn't work or you can't do energy efficient as you've got asbestos or knob and tube wiring or you know, mildew, or you can't put solar on your roof if your roof is in disrepair, or you can't put solar on your roof if you don't own a roof because you're not an owner, you're a renter. And so community solar and all of that stuff. So, that's really how we look at it. And if I take it back to our threefold mission, it is to create jobs, build wealth, and reduce energy burden. And at a high level, we break things into corresponding to those missions. We do workforce development, business development, and community development.
Jason Jacobs:
Well thank you for that overview, Kerry. And when you look at the problem of climate change and you look at the problem of racial justice, social justice, wealth inequality, or problems, I should say, how do you think about them as it relates to each other? Is it all one problem? Is each one a separate and distinct problem? Are they inter-reliant? I feel like I'm leading the witness here. I wish I didn't even say all those things, which I just had said period, after question mark, how do you think about that problem? And then shut up. So let's pretend I did that.
Kerry Bowie:
Yeah, no, no, I've already had my answer. So, you did not lead me. And so, I'll go back to my MIT Sloan days. One of our professors, I actually just audited his class, he probably thinks I took it, but Professor Sterman, John Sterman teaches a system dynamics class. And you know, I truly believe in... Man, there's so many things are interconnected. And so part of why we did this work is to look at the intersection of environmental, social, economic justice issues. All of these things link together. I go back to what I talked about with, if we can have more contractors of color winning contracts, that's business development, but that actually supports workforce development. Most of our businesses in the country are small businesses. So, if we want to employ people of color in the communities, well, if we've got more smaller businesses led by people of color, they hire folk.
Kerry Bowie:
But then that also goes to community development. If you are... I was just talking to one of the guys over at Local 103 hose, Josue Pierre, international Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, at one of the unions and he's Haitian descent. And so man, if you're trying to button up the house of someone in a Haitian community, man, if someone's a Haitian guy or a woman comes and knocks and says, Sak Pase, that's a whole 'nother experience than if a white guy from the suburb knocks on your door.
Kerry Bowie:
Similar in Lawrence. If someone's a Spanish speaker, and I'm not saying it has to be that way, it just it's natural. And it makes sense. And where we've got some resistance and different things. If you can speak the same language, if you understand the culture, if you're local. Some of the stuff that I've seen, and this is more, I think construction.
Kerry Bowie:
We talk about, if we look back a few years and there are cranes everywhere with such a boom, and you know, even as I go down to the Roxbury area and got some of the highest unemployment rates for men 18 to 35, to see white guys own construction sites that may not even be Massachusetts residents that are coming in from Vermont or New Hampshire or somewhere. I'm going, "Whoa, this is kind of crazy." Not to say that they can't work, but when you've got high levels of unemployment, why can't the folk who... There's a need. How can we match that need and make those connections? And so we want to do that. That's a big piece of what we're trying to do around the Green Space is really connect all those dots.
Jason Jacobs:
And you also talked about how climate change, for example, and I think I heard you say on another podcast, you were talking about sea level rise and things like that, don't mean as much in some of these local communities, what means more to them is keeping water out of my basement or my electronics from breaking or saving money on my heating bill or, or things like that. I've heard some people say, a critique of the climate community is that, look climate, caring about an existential problem like climate change or worrying about it, that's a privilege. Most people don't have the luxury to care about the long term because they're so busy thinking about how they're going to put food on the table for their next meal, or for their families meal, or living paycheck to paycheck, and things like that.
Jason Jacobs:
So, how do you reconcile those things? Do you think the existential threat is overblown? Do you think that it's not overblown but most people just don't have the luxury to think about it? How concerned are you at the existential level, and then how do you take that back to local paycheck to paycheck workforce development that you work so hard to do every day?
Kerry Bowie:
Yeah. And I'm concerned all around, but for the communities that we're targeting, I think we can't be way up there. It can't be at that existential level. I think we try to bring it back to sort of the day to day. And I think it's really, a lot of this comes back to just dollars and cents. And so that third leg of our mission statement is to reduce energy burden. And one thing is to also just give people an awareness of the energy burden that they're they're saddled with. I think a lot of people don't recognize it. Versus white households, black households spend 43% more on energy. That doesn't mean absolutely they do it, but this is going back to some of those social and economic pieces where not only is there a wealth gap, there's an income disparity or an income gap.
Kerry Bowie:
And so... I'm trying to think. I did, as part of a challenge workshop, I'm part of a group of Sloan alums. We have an MIT Sloan Renewable Energy Finance Round Table. So we meet from time to time and people do challenge workshops. And so I came in and this was, I think back when I was still with the State and just talked about how do we do energy efficiency or renewable work in our most underserved communities? And one of the, and I don't know if the data still holds true, because this was a while back, but at the time the population in America with the largest energy burden was Latinas.
Kerry Bowie:
So the Latinx women in Providence, Rhode Island, and you go, okay, why is that? But if you think about it, you can unpack it and go, one they're typically they're not going to be homeowners. They typically are going to be not salaried workers. They're probably do hourly workers living check to check. They typically, we got really old housing stock in new England that's probably not buttoned up. And we got some of the higher energy costs in the country. So, if you already aren't making a whole bunch of money, then you're paying higher energy costs than anyone else in the country, and you're probably blowing cool air out of your windows, out of cracks in your home in the summer. And it actually gets pretty cold in Providence like it does in Boston. You're probably blowing warm air out of your house in the wintertime. That's just not good. That's what's important. Not, and still to your point, yeah.
Kerry Bowie:
In East, Boston is your house flooding? That's what's important. Or if you are in, what's the heat island effect, or as, we think about black body radiation, if there are no trees planted. I can think back to when I was still back at the state, I think about what it was, the Asian longhorn beetle infestation out in Worcester.
Kerry Bowie:
And I can't remember the exact numbers, but you know, it was pretty much a case study on, what's the impact of trees on electricity bills, because once all that shade disappeared, you saw an uptick in electricity bills. Well, that uptick is already there in our urban centers because we don't have trees. And so once again, people are paying a lot more money because they got to do extra cooling in the summertime because they don't have tree cover. They don't have shade. And so yeah, I could go on and on, but there're just a lot of pieces where I don't think we have to be way up here in the sky. We can be like right here on the ground meeting people where we're talking about livelihoods because you know, a lot of the issues overall, our societal issues here in the US really come down to money.
Kerry Bowie:
And so, can we get more money into people's wallets or purses? And can we keep more of that money in their wallets and purses? That's really what we're thinking about, from my perspective with an environmental justice backing, but I see Browning the Green Space almost as an economic justice organization.
Jason Jacobs:
Well, it sounds, and it correct me if I'm wrong, but I try to parrot back what I think I'm hearing as a way to test my understanding and also kind of bring the listeners along for the journey. But what I think I'm hearing is that workforce development, jobs, social and racial justice, at the core, it sounds like that's a big motivator for you. And it sounds like on the green side, it is that it's a growth area that is also good, and there's money to be made since it's an emergent area. Any disagreement so far or should I keep going?
Kerry Bowie:
Nope. I'm in agreement.
Jason Jacobs:
Okay. So one question I have is that, people that work in climate that maybe aren't as up to speed on the social and racial justice, which they should be, and working to get more people, including myself, more in tune with these issues and thinking about them and acting about them and baking it into the things that we do and our hiring practices and our portfolio companies, hiring practice, et cetera. All that is great, but today maybe they're motivated by carbon, right? And one worry they have is that we're not moving nearly fast enough. And another worry they have is that so-called dumb Silicon Valley money is flooding into the green space and that a bunch of money's going to be set on fire, and then actually, it's not the gold rush that you're dreaming that it will be. And so I guess one question for you is, I guess, do you feel if it's strictly about workforce development, do you feel like there's safer bets than green?
Kerry Bowie:
So I am, and I know, so there are a lot of people say, they're not like I'm not a capitalist, I'm not doing this. I am a capitalist. I believe in market forces. Part of the reason I left the state is not because I don't think the state is doing work. And I think some of the hardest working people I knew were in state government. As I look back on it, I go maybe using the engineering or, or business terms, working in the private sector in a sense is easy. You're really targeting the bottom line. You're trying to maximize profits. And really, you've got a group of shareholders that you're behold to. Until we got, you think of the Mindy Lubbers and Ceres and others who are coming to shift that a little bit.
Kerry Bowie:
And I think we've got people being a little bit more thoughtful about the role of the corporations, but in general, that was sort of it. Whereas if you think about, government, it's not a maximization problem, it's sort of min-max optimization thing. And so, and you got stakeholders. And you got stakeholders on the left and the right and the center and behind you and everywhere. And so, success in like, I'll use state government where I was, is they're not oftentimes everybody wins. It's like, you're trying to make sure not too many people are P'd off at you. And then you know you're good when everybody's the right level. And so it's really exciting to be out in the market space to a certain extent, or even in the non-governmental space where you can think about it in a different way and sort of target and say, "Hey, here's where are we going to do."
Kerry Bowie:
And so, I think that from a creating job space, and I don't know if I thought about like very deeply to go, "Yeah, are there other ways to create jobs?" I can't remember, was it Milton Freedman or someone said, if you're talking about digging ditches or doing something, if you want to create jobs, don't give people shovels, give them spoons. But I also believe in efficiency and I think we want to be as efficient as possible. I think we want to get people. I think we dig ditches with shovels or we dig ditches with backhoes, you know, and now we get people trained to do that work. I just want to see more black and brown people in those roles. And I think right now the green jobs, there's just so many opportunities.
Kerry Bowie:
And you talk about decarbonization. For me, decarbonization is important, and I believe in decarbonization, but I don't think there's a silver bullet. Even before we get to the decarbonization electrification, all of that piece, and a lot of these vulnerable communities, we just need to, even if they're on fossil fuel, we need to button up the houses. We need to insulate the houses so they're not wasting that energy, even from that perspective. That's the low hanging fruit, but even as I'll use a decarbonization electrification space, for example, and this goes back to those union jobs, then there's a dearth of, as we think of electricians, we're left wanting right now, we need more. In every part of the energy spectrum, in generation, and think about offshore wind and others.
Kerry Bowie:
We need electricians. We need them in solar. We need them in geothermal. We need them wherever. So, on the generation side, we need electricians. On the mobility side, think about all the EV charging stations. And, like I said, we worked with, I was out in LA for a culture and climate event couple months ago with my good friends, Camille and Yvette. Yvette Ellis, Camille Cherry. You know, they've got a company charger help that helps to train electricians to maintain those. So their jobs, their jobs that can be created doing that kind of work.
Kerry Bowie:
But also as you talk about the home space, because you know, as you look at it, probably the biggest chunk is through our built environment. And so, we need folks to be going and doing the work of, switching to air source heat pumps or, this is the work that Donnell Baron and you know, Kief Kench, are doing at BlocPower, really exciting stuff, but we need more workers. I think Donnell talks about, he wants to, I can't remember the number, I think he wanted to train a thousand George Floyds.
Kerry Bowie:
So, this is real work in communities in neighborhoods. That's, if you think from a VC financing perspective, yeah, if you can just build an app and do some things, that's great. Or some type of SAS platform, but there are a lot of jobs in this space that well, a lot of work to do in this space that need real bodies and they create jobs.
Jason Jacobs:
And when you're doing this workforce development, given that the people that you're describing, it sounds like sea level rise and existential threat and stuff isn't going to be as motivating as say, 50 bucks a month on your electricity bill or, or things like that. Do you even need to get them to care about climate or do you just need to show them a better job and more opportunities than they have today that happen to be green?
Kerry Bowie:
I think it'd be great to do both, but now that you ask, I don't know if I need to get them to care about climate. I need to...
Jason Jacobs:
And by the way, it's not just the people you're talking about. I mean, billionaires is probably the same thing. If you can show them a way that serves their self-interest that happens to be cleaner, is it going to be more motivating to them than showering them with guilt and shame?
Kerry Bowie:
Yeah. Going back to our mission statement, our threefold mission statement, we want to create jobs, build wealth, reduce energy burden. Although we're an environmental or EJ energy organization, none of those really talk about climate change, even though that's where we're trying to tackle. As I tell people, part of the reason we're doing this work is, I say, not withstanding the pandemic, the wars that are raging the attacks on our democracy, the police brutality and murders. Before all of that stuff hit us all together over the last couple years, the two biggest issues that we were facing are the racial wealth gap and climate change. And so that's, what we're trying to tackle with the work that we are doing, is at that space. And like I said, this tsunami is upon us, this work and all of the things are coming, but I'll give you an example.
Kerry Bowie:
There's the Justice 40 initiative says that 40% of the funding. So let's say Biden Build Back Better, or the Biden infrastructure, or some it's supposed to go to our most vulnerable communities. What does that look like? How are we sure? Who is checking that? How is the money really getting to the people who need it the most? Or are we about to miss out again, for whatever reason? For red tape bureaucracy, whatever, we're trying to get ahead of that. And I would say in a sense, we're a little bit behind, but this goes back to that adage is, what's the best time to plant a tree. It was probably a hundred years ago. The second best time is now. So, we're trying to think about the urgency of now and have all hands on deck working on this work.
Kerry Bowie:
And the last thing I'll say, sort of get into your question of, do people need to understand climate change and understand those pieces? I think there is more of an awareness. I've been doing environmental engineering and environmental justice for a very long time, but I think there are a lot of people where this is new. They're just sort of hearing about environmental justice, especially even people in communities of color, because to your point, Jason, it has felt like it's a luxury to think about those things. To think about, and also I think the narrative has been the wrong narrative. The narrative has been around the polar ice caps and around polar bears and whales and animals and fishes and things like that, where I think the story is one of public health and economic development in those pieces.
Kerry Bowie:
I actually heard, I guess vice president Kamala Harris now, but I think she was campaigning here when she was campaigning for Senator. And she told a really good story about this space coming from her position in California. Like, I think when she was here, California was burning. So she talked about we got as far as fires, we got droughts, we're missing water, but also, she talked about asthma, and this, a young black girl who's in the emergency room, can't breathe because, thinking about particulate matter and all those different things. And so that's, I do think people need to understand that while we're focusing at Browning the Green Space on the environmental goods, so the jobs and all that piece, we also definitely support people doing that work around the environmental bats and still pushing back on that.
Kerry Bowie:
And so this would be the Chelsea Green roots, the alternatives for community environment, the neighbors to neighbors, maybe our Groundwork Lawrence or, and I'm talking about organizations in this area. There are other organizations all across the country. WeAct for environmental justice up in New York, or Partnership for Southern Equity down in Atlanta. There are groups that are doing this type of work, and it's so important that we continue to uplift them and support them, but I think that there's a piece of supporting them by, I think people can be more poised to advocate and lobby for those types of changes when they have got jobs, when they have security, when they have a roof over their heads. And I think the environmental goods can help us with that. And so I think that's super important.
Kerry Bowie:
And the last thing I'll say maybe tying to this is I come from being a, I hate to say sort of victim, but I grew up in an environmental justice community. I'm from Alabama originally. So I grew up in a fence line community. I literally tell people the fence was 10 feet outside my bedroom window, and it was separating us from a Monsanto plant. And for me, I grew up and my mom and dad, both college educated, we were probably upper middle class for where I grew up, but my dad didn't leave his neighborhood. And so, we lived in a poor black community. And I thought it was natural for it to smell like rotten eggs every couple weeks when the plant was cooking. And then, when I was off at grad school in Michigan or actually before then, but it came up, they cut through [inaudible] Landfill. And you know, that landfill had polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs in it. And that those PCBs leaked into the creek.
Jason Jacobs:
That the same stuff that was in Woburn? The W.R. Grace facility?
Kerry Bowie:
So, W.R. Grace PCBs actually, that's interesting as you bring that up, the professor that was in there was a professor Harold Hyman at the end. So I knew professor Hyman when I worked there. Not when I worked there, when I was a student as an undergrad and Jan, what is it, Metzlinger? I think Jan was the attorney. I've been on panels with him when I worked for the state, but my aquatic chemistry lab was in Woburn, that [inaudible] Watershed, that program. So we took samples. And so to see water that's orange and smells like toluene it's crazy. And that was years after the fact. And so we want to remove that type of work. Well, not remove that type of work. We want to champion continuing to do that type of work because that changes lives. That changes communities.
Kerry Bowie:
I was just home for father's day and that neighborhood, it was good to see people I hadn't seen because those people have been scattered because it's pretty much a cleanup site that Johnny Cochran's last class action lawsuit, post-OJ was in my community. It was around that class action lawsuit of around, you know, getting money for folk who were impacted by that contamination that they tried to cover up. There's a 60 Minutes special. That's how connected to this stuff I am. And, you know, I think when I was a suit, you know, working for the state, a lot of the communities that I was working with didn't know that I came from some of the same things that they were doing. So, I think having empathy for people is so important in anything that you do.
Kerry Bowie:
And so, I think I bring that to the table from an environmental justice perspective and just knowing Dr. Robert Bullard and others when I got the MIT, I read Dumping in Dixie for the first time. And so that's when I, like 1990, 1991 was first made aware of environmental justice and read about people, sending their waste to my state and I'm going, what is going on? But I think we're trying to make that more apparent now. And a lot of things have gotten a lot better. If we think of the EPA, it just started in the seventies. So it's not that much older than me, if at all.
Jason Jacobs:
Well, gosh, there's so many different ways the discussion could go from there. But as you're talking, even with cleaner solutions, when it comes to energy sources and things like that, there's unintended consequences. The plants need to go somewhere. They might utilize a lot of water or energy to produce. They might have waste that's produced. If it's an EV, well, where do the precious metals for the mining and mining labor practices. And it's like, everything is so interconnected. And I'm curious for the... It's very clear to me that the just transition is important because it's the right thing to do. And not having just transition is the wrong thing to do. There are people that would say, well, yes, it's important. I'm not, I mean, there's people that would say isn't important, but those are not my people.
Jason Jacobs:
So, I'll leave that perspective out of it. But there's people that say, no, actually it is important, but we've got to decouple it because we have a carbon problem and there's a blanket of heat and we're pumping emissions into the atmosphere and we have to get that under control or we're all screwed. The wealthy, the poor, and everybody in between. So let's not get distracted from the mission in hand, which is carbon, carbon, carbon. What would you say to those people?
Kerry Bowie:
Those things are not disjointed. You can do both of those things at the same time, and you need to do both of those things at the same time. It is imperative. I'm going to preach the gospel of climate justice, which for us starts with diversity. We have an office down at CIC Boston in downtown, but we also have office space at Greentown Labs. Both of those spaces and definitely in this green space, Greentown Labs, we want to think about how do we green that space? We are literally and figuratively brown into green space when we're in there, we want to have more people of color traversing through that space and working in that building and launching companies and growing things because that's so important. And as you think about it, and this is what's crazy, big three strategy consulting firms like McKenzie and the Boston Consulting Group, BCG. You can read the reports that say diverse teams are better teams.
Kerry Bowie:
They just are. Teams with women outperform teams that are all men. Teams with people of color out... You keep adding that and it's just better, but I think we've got to get people, and the thing that I think about this is, we can't have people sitting on the outskirts or sitting on the bench disengaged. This fight is so big that we've got to have everybody engaged. And so yeah, if you want to decarbonize, decarbonize, decarbonize do it, but do it with women and people of color because guess what, you're going to do it faster and you're going to do it better. And so, we can't have blinder zones and just go, "Oh, this is how we do it." We're missing out and we're not getting there. And a lot of times those unintended consequences come because you don't have the right people at the table.
Kerry Bowie:
So the first, and that goes back to that diversity piece, you can't have a... A lot of teams that I get it, a team of three white guys out of Harvard or MIT or Babson or BU or somewhere, great as you start. But as you build, you got to bring more people onto your team. You got to make that diverse. That's going to make you better. Even if you couldn't care less about any of this stuff that we're talking about from a green perspective, you should be caring about the green of money and the bottom line for your shareholders and investors. And they need to do that. And I think that's the stuff that Ceres and others are trying to let people know is that, Hey, looking at 10Ks and all these things and going, "Hey, these companies outperform the others."
Kerry Bowie:
And so there's almost a fiduciary responsibility or an obligation for you to think about diversity and not just diversity, inclusion. So once you get people in you, don't just bring them in just to check a box. Do you have them engaged and doing projects? And then it's equity, where now they're at the table, they're leading the conversations, they're driving things. And that's when we got justice, that's when we truly have fairness and we're making a difference. So, I see that as sort of a false choice, in a sense, we got to be doing all of it.
Jason Jacobs:
And we started the discussion by talking about the two sides of the equation, how in some of these lower income communities, they bear the outside brunt of the harm on the environmental side, and then they don't capitalize as much on the upside. As we make the transition and more resources come into the space, looking at each of those separately and distinctly, maybe talk a bit about some of the biggest barriers to alleviating those issues, both on the less harm to the communities that maybe aren't as well equipped to fight it, and then more benefit to those communities. What are the blockers and what could we change to accelerate progress if you could only change one thing?
Kerry Bowie:
Yeah. So, I think on the environmental baths side and I that's like, how can we have less harm? One, the good thing is a lot of things have come into place that are helping to do that. If we think about the clean air act, the clean water act, a number of different regs and things are in place. But one thing is, a lot of them have been over the last 10 years under assault. And so we need to make sure that those things are upheld and we are pushing to make sure those take place. I think the other piece though, once again, and I think, like I said, is, there needs to be an awareness and there needs to be opportunity for folk to speak up in their communities about these things. And I think it's tough to do it when you are worried about all these other things.
Kerry Bowie:
And so that's why I think our focus is, like I said, I think is really important to continue to have people doing the fight against those environmental bads. But me, it feels like, and it almost feels like that stuff has been there and we're working on lessening it. But it's been there for me, the new thing and the new frontier and the one that can do a whole bunch of other things is working on those environmental goods. Let's get people into these green jobs that are both blue collar and white collar jobs that are the folk from the union trades. We just receive some funding from the Mass Clean Energy Center, along with our partner, the Exodus group out of Aberdeen Scotland. And this is specifically in the offshore wind space, but to look not just, we're working with folk like Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology and Roxbury Community College, and thinking about two year universities and community colleges and certification programs.
Kerry Bowie:
But thinking about, how do we also not just do internships and apprenticeships, but how do we think about post-bacc programs? So we're looking at an X academy that takes people out of four year institutions and gives them additional training, almost like a rotation or program. So, we can put them in the jobs at Mayflower and Commonwealth and Vineyard Wind and Orstead and all of these places because they're going to be all these jobs coming. I want to see some black and brown people and more women in those roles. And so I think, Jason, when people have jobs and the livelihoods, and I think I said this earlier, that now they've got opportunities to, you know what, they've got some disposable cash flow. They can go make a donation to that community group, or guess what? Maybe they've got a salary position now, or they've got a better schedule.
Kerry Bowie:
So you know what, they can go and be involved a little bit more in their communities. If you're living check to check and you're working two jobs or three jobs, it does feel like a luxury to talk about trees. You know, maybe when you've also just, you've grown accustomed to it. Like I said, I thought it was supposed to smell like rotten eggs. I didn't think, and I never remember in my 18 years before I came to MIT, anybody going, "We should go tell them to stop." There were plenty of really smart folk. I think they just were like, this is how it is. And so I think there is an awareness and an education to say, no, this is not how it's supposed to be. You're getting the short end of the stick.
Jason Jacobs:
And I know we're coming up on time here. But one important thing that we haven't yet addressed is, I know you spent some time in government and we haven't talked much about government. So when you think about government and that could be state, that could be federal, that could be both, are you getting what you need from government today? And what do you wish from government looking forwards? And I mean, it's especially timely to ask this, just given how effed up our government is right now.
Kerry Bowie:
Yeah. Unfortunately I think it's, and I don't know who said it, but I think we, unfortunately get the government you deserve. And I think a lot of people have checked out, and going back to that sort of system dynamics sort of problem, we've been in a state where we're in a sort of positive feedback loop of negative repercussions. And so people checking out and then when people check out, they're not pushing on government and so government's not getting better. And then it gets worse and more people check out and it's done that. I actually think, and unfortunately this is how we do. It's almost like a metronome or something. We swing far one way and then we come back. I think because of all of the mess that has gone on over the last three or four years, that people are becoming more engaged.
Kerry Bowie:
And I think really the younger generation, I think they're really actively engaged. I think they're super interested in this work. I was actually at an event, Golden Door awards. I can't remember the immigration organization. They just honored Stefan Bansal from [inaudible]. And h`e gave a great speech and it was amazing. They hear all the things that they're doing and we all owe them a debt of gratitude for what they've done in helping us to really ramp up and get people vaccinated, along with the people at Pfizer and Johnson and Johnson and others. But he talked about his daughter and I want to say her name is Olivia. That's, what's popping in my head and I don't know how many kids he has, but he's [inaudible].
Jason Jacobs:
You're brave to put that out so confidently.
Kerry Bowie:
Yeah, no, I'm, I'm going to go with that, but talked about how she's pushing him on climate, like she's doing it. And so he's starting to think more about it because of them. So I've got so much faith in our young people, and it's sort of unfair, but life's not fair. That's what I tell my girls. Not fair. You got to suck it up and deal with it.
Kerry Bowie:
They didn't put us in this situation that we're in, but they're going to have to be a really big part of the solution of getting us out of it. And that's why, as we think of workforce development, a lot of what we've been focused on is high school and post secondary, that piece, but we're starting to think and returning citizens and those groups, and also thinking about people switching from the oil and gas industry, sort of transitioning, but we're more and more starting to think of K-6, K-8 K education. And how do we make sure we're promoting this work to those folk because they're going to be the people who are really going to keep this going. As we jump in right now to try to stop the bleeding.
Jason Jacobs:
And Kerry, for anyone listening who's inspired by your work how can we be helpful to you? Who do you want to hear from, if anybody?
Kerry Bowie:
I think there is a lot of different folk. I think that there are opportunities. I don't know everybody you've spoken to in this area. Maybe I'll give you a few people to speak about in this area, if you can get them on, but in general, for us we're fundraising. Because we want to grow the work we're doing at Browning the Green Space. And especially we've a lot of programmatic dollars coming in, but you know, we want to build our capacity. We've got a small team of three deputy directors, some interns and me part-time. I think there's so much work for us to do. And so we love, if you are interested, we're www.browningthegreenspace.org. You can send an email to info@browningthegreenspace.org, or even to me, kerry@browningthegreenspace.org.
Kerry Bowie:
And we'd love to hear from you and we can get you involved in the work that we're doing in any of those areas. If it's around workforce development, if it's around business development, venture capital, funding, different financing mechanisms, and also on the community side, doing more outreach, doing more pilots, thinking about R&D and knowledge base management in our communities. Because the people in the community are the experts.
Kerry Bowie:
You don't have to go bring in some fancy hydrologists from MIT to know where it floods. You go talk to Mr. Jefferson on the corner who's been there for 50 years. He knows where it floods. You can save a lot of time just talking to people about things. We got to do more of that. We've got to be more relational and not transactional. We've got to build those relationships to more communication, more being on the ground, more building trust and communicating and really just getting out there, especially as things start to open up, knock on wood, with the pandemic where we can actually get out and maybe we don't press pause, maybe do fist bumps, but you know, going and understanding what other really needs that people have and telling them a little bit more about the opportunities, especially in this green space.
Jason Jacobs:
And Kerry, anything I didn't ask that I should have or any parting words?
Kerry Bowie:
Not that I can think of. I'm sure there's plenty more I can talk about, but I think, just to reiterate, we need everybody in this climate fight. It is a climate fight. And to really win and as quickly as we can, let's not leave any people on the edges.
Jason Jacobs:
Great. Well, Kerry, thank you so much for making the time to come on and educate me and educate listeners. Hey everyone, Jason here. Thanks again for joining me on My Climate Journey. If you'd like to learn more about the journey, you can visit us at myclimatejourney.co. No, that is.co, not .com. Someday we'll get the.com, but right now, .co. You can also find me on Twitter @jjacobs22 where I would encourage you to share your feedback on the episode or suggestions for future guests you'd like to hear. And before I let you go, if you enjoyed the show, please share an episode with a friend or consider leaving a review on iTunes. The lawyers made me say that. Thank you.
