Broadcast Date: Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Time: 11:00 AM PT / 1:00 PM CT / 2:00 PM ET
Duration: 50-55 Minutes

Speaker:
Gregory Kats, Senior Director, and Director of Climate Change at Good Energies

Greg Kats will discuss his study, Greening Our Built World: Costs, Benefits, and Strategies, as well as introduce his work, Green Buildings and Communities: Costs and Benefits. Based on findings in the 2006 study, Mr. Kats will demonstrate that the total fiscal benefits of green schools can be twenty times as great as the initial cost. Schools can save money while reaping the benefits of high performance buildings, from improved test scores to a lower carbon footprint.

Henry Kelly, the president of the American Federation of Scientists wrote: “This carefully documented study conclusively demonstrates the financial, environmental, and other benefits of using green technologies in schools. In fact, failure to invest in green technologies is not financially responsible for school systems.”

Gregory Kats is the Senior Director, and Director of Climate Change at Good Energies, a multi-billion dollar global clean energy investor, where he leads the firm’s investments in energy efficiency and green buildings. He serves on the Board of Directors of Tendril, Sustainability Roundtable Inc., and the International Institute for Energy Conservation, and serves on the Board of Advisors of Serious Materials, CalStar Products, Cherokee Investment Partners and AlertMe. Greg guides GEI’s portfolio company’s strategy around climate change issues and CO2 monetization.

Previously, Greg served as the Director of Financing for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy. With a billion dollar budget, it is the country’s largest clean technology development and deployment program, including over $400 million annually in high performance building technology development and deployment. He was the founding chair of the International Performance Measurement & Verification Protocol, which has served as a technical basis for $10 billion in building upgrades and has been translated into ten languages.

Greg is a founder of the American Council on Renewable Energy, and the New Resource Bank. He is Founding Chair of the Energy and Atmosphere Technical Advisory Group for LEED, and was the principal advisor in developing Green Communities, the national green affordable housing design standard.

Greg earned an MBA from Stanford University and, concurrently, an MPA from Princeton University. He is a Certified Energy Manager and a LEED AP. He was a principal author of Greening America’s School’s: Costs and Benefits, Green Office Buildings: A Practical Guide to Development (ULI, 2005),  and is the author of the Greening Our Built World: Costs, Benefits and Strategies (Island Press, 2009). He is a frequent keynote speaker at national clean-energy technology, venture capital, and real estate conferences.