In this episode of Climate Positive, hosts Guy Van Syckle and Gil Jenkins are joined by Matt Traldi, co-founder and CEO of Greenlight America, to discuss how local dynamics are driving—or delaying—clean energy progress in the United States. Drawing on Matt’s background in grassroots advocacy and his transition to targeted climate action, the conversation explores how data-driven insights, strategic engagement, and community partnerships can accelerate renewable energy deployment. Matt shares practical examples of how Greenlight America is mapping local decisions, empowering advocates, and reducing friction in the permitting process.
In this episode of Climate Positive, hosts Guy Van Syckle and Gil Jenkins are joined by Matt Traldi, co-founder and CEO of Greenlight America, to discuss how local dynamics are driving—or delaying—clean energy progress in the United States. Drawing on Matt’s background in grassroots advocacy and his transition to targeted climate action, the conversation explores how data-driven insights, strategic engagement, and community partnerships can accelerate renewable energy deployment. Matt shares practical examples of how Greenlight America is mapping local decisions, empowering advocates, and reducing friction in the permitting process.
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Episode recorded June 10, 2025
Chad: I am Chad Reed.
Hilary: I'm Hilary Langer.
Gil: I'm Gil Jenkins.
Guy: I'm Guy Van Syckle.
Chad: And this is climate positive.
Matt: some of our efforts, we've had the local decision makers cite this outreach in their decisions. They'll say, you know, I know there's a lot of competing views on this project, but I received a lot of outreach.
I got more than a hundred emails in support of this project. There are some people here today who are in support of the project and. They're saying makes sense to me. And so I'm voting yes. And that's really, that's the dream. That's when everything is working the way it's supposed to.
Guy: We are witnessing and excited to be a part of a historic investment in clean energy. But one hurdle stands out: local permitting decisions that can make or break projects. Over 15% of counties in the US now have effectively blocked or significantly delayed renewable developments through local permitting regulation. Today, I’m grateful to chat with Matt, co-founder of Greenlight America, a non-profit dedicated to tracking and influencing these pivotal local decisions through empowering community engagement. We explore Greenlight’s unique approach to overcoming local opposition and ensuring vital clean energy projects get built.
Guy: Matt, thank you so, so much for joining us today. To kick it off, I would love it if you could share the origin story of Greenlight and what was the initial spark or observation that kind of led to the wonderful work y'all are driving forward right now?
Matt: Absolutely. First, thank you for having me.
Wonderful to meet you. Excited for the conversation. So my background, I was in the labor movement around a decade, and then in 2016 I was one of the co-founders of Indivisible, the National Grassroots Network that sprung up in response the first time that Trump won the presidency. And, uh, a few years ago, a couple things happened at once.
The first is that while I was at Indivisible, I got to work a little bit on passing the Inflation Reduction Act. And I felt and still feel incredible excitement and optimism about the clean energy transition and what's possible in this arena. And right around the same time, my wife and I decided to become parents and we have, uh, you know, an 18 month old.
Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. You know, it's a total stereotype, but for me it really changed the time horizon that I was thinking on Previously. I'd been working on these urgent and timely political challenges. And instead I was thinking, you know, what's life gonna be like in 50 years? And as you know, reducing emissions is one of the most important things we can do that impacts that question.
So I started learning as much as I could through talking to a lot of people thinking more about clean energy than I did. And I learned some stuff that you and probably many of your listeners already know in the next decade. In the US more than 80% of the emissions reduction comes from the power sector.
It mainly comes from building really big clean energy projects, getting them on the grid and taking fossil fuels off the grid. And the big obstacle to getting those, uh, big, clean energy projects on the grid is not the cost. This is some of the cheapest energy you can build, is not the technology. It's very well established technology.
It's local permitting. Projects get blocked or delayed at the local level. Basically because opponents show up and supporters don't show up. And so projects kind of lose by forfeit, you know? And that immediately piqued my interest 'cause I'm the wrong person to send, to solve a technology challenge. I love that stuff.
I love reading about, you know, title power and fusion and everything, but I'm not, I'm not gonna make any kind of contribution there. I know, but I am an organizer and a campaigner. I know something about helping. Folks make local change within their own communities, helping them organize, helping them be effective advocates.
So that pulled me in. That pulled me in. And, uh, I and a few other folks started Greenlight America. Greenlight is a nonprofit organization, philanthropically funded, so entirely funded with philanthropic dollars, and we only do one thing. We've set ourself to that one challenge, which is to track these critical moments across the country when local communities are gonna make decisions about clean energy, about accelerating it or delaying it.
About permitting a project or blocking that permit about a favorable ordinance or a ban at the local level. And we find and support local residents, local partner organizations to show up and to be effective advocates and to, to win favorable decisions at that local level.
Guy: So that's a little bit about how Greenlight came to be and what we're up to.
Well, we are deeply, deeply grateful for your, uh, your good efforts out there on the local front. And it's super impactful. And, and certainly when we think about, you know, what's holding up investment in our space, permitting is top of that list. So when we look at the state of that current local opposition, what is primarily driving that, do you think?
What are kind of the motivations that's. Showing up as you're seeing it on the ground?
Matt: Yeah, it's a great question and a complicated one. I think. So first, just to say to kind of, I guess, level set, clean energy has really broad and deep support across the country. The strong majority, I think it's like 70% plus.
So people not just support clean energy, but support having a clean energy project in their own community. So in theory, right, that should be a recipe for success. But a couple of factors are working against us. The first is it's a lot easier to oppose things than to support them. And it's a lot more motivating, right?
To stop something that you think is bad than it is motivating to get something that you think is good. And some of that is just human nature, right? So I think, um. Part of what's driving opposition is frankly that, you know, any kinda change is hard. There's a lot of inertia in, you know, local politics, just like any kind of politics.
And that the idea of losing something at the local level of a change that people don't want is just very motivating to opponents. The second thing I would say is that, you know, when we talk about the opposition and I'm a student of the opposition, I think we can learn a ton from. People organizing against clean energy?
Absolutely. I think when we talk about opposition, we really have to talk about two separate parts of it. One part is genuine local residents, neighbors of projects. Sometimes folks who they value the character of their community. They have some set of concerns that range in reasonableness, you know, um, about the project specifics or about clean energy in general, and.
You know, it's important to not demonize these folks, right? Like they're just people like anyone else. And you know, it's understandable that they care a lot about, you know, fighting against something for the same reason that a lot of the time it's easier to fight against something. The other part of the opposition is that, you know, we do see some fossil fuel funded interests and national kind of advocacy groups, really giving those.
Local resident, adding fuel to the fire, giving them tools, giving them resources. You know, sometimes you'll see people making these arguments against solar or wind or what have you, and then you realize, oh, this fossil fuel funded think tank put out a paper about this, you know, eight years ago. Right. And that's where it really comes from, right.
And I think that, you know, the organizations that are working at Greenlight, our partners, you know, all of that, the organizations that really care about clean energy, we also have to learn from those groups too. And to think about how, you know, everything we do really should be with a mind towards how are we supporting folks who actually live in the community to understand what's at stake for their community and to advocate effectively, you know, where they live.
So, yeah, that's a little bit of what I think is driving it. Those two things. I do think that it's never helpful when local issues get politicized. Yep. And we see that more and more. Right. We see prominent national politicians who will remain nameless talking about wind turbines and everything like that.
And you know, at the end of the day. A local community is not deciding, is climate change real? They're not deciding, is clean energy good? They're deciding should we build this project here? Is it good for us? Right. And I think we are best off when that's what the decision is really about. It's about the local benefits and it's about the downsides of the project and you know, all of those things.
And it's not about capital P politics, so to speak. Right.
Guy: And you know what I hear in that is that you're really leading with understanding. The drivers at that local level and understanding, you know, the communities on the ground and learning from that as opposed to kind of swooping in with all the solutions in hand.
And I think that makes a lot of sense. And imagine that helps your approach be received much better. And when you think about looking at the strategies on the ground, are you thinking about it more as engaging? Those in the community that aren't necessarily tracking all these initiatives aren't necessarily showing up to, you know, whatever city hall meeting?
Or is it more about converting those that have already started opposing?
Matt: Yeah, it's a great question and uh, first let me just say I a hundred percent agree with, you know, what you just shared. All politics is local, right? That's a truism, but it's a truism for a reason and for Greenlight in particular, you know, nobody cares what we think.
In one of these communities, nobody cares what I think, if anything, that's gonna be counterproductive if I'm coming around and saying why a project is good. So we really think about our role as supporting community members and partner organizations in these communities to understand the benefits of clean energy deployment of a particular project, and to advocate effectively, you know, that we can help them, we can offer resources, we can offer support, you know, all of those things.
But our role is not. It's never gonna work for our role to be, to swoop in. And you'll never see me talking at a hearing unless my neighborhood in DC has a solar project proposed. So I think it is a little unlikely, but you know,
Gil: you never know. Talk a little bit more about those local groups. I understand they vary by community across our great country, but am I oversimplifying it to be like, you look at, you know, these are key opinion leaders, you know, so sort of like the.
Correct me if it was just too obvious, but like the head of the Kiwanis Club and the Rotary Club, the school superintendent, I mean, do you sort of segment by what you know about the community and local chamber of commerce? Like, like do you have a playbook there where you identify these? Key opinion leader groups and community members within theirs that you've take from community to community as you learn lessons or,
Matt: yeah, I think you've put your finger on one of the kind of critical strategic questions for this work, and I have kind of a yes and answer.
On the one hand, you're absolutely right, is that we think a ton about credibility within the community. You know, folks who have a history of leadership there. And that's both in general and also in terms of, you know, the credibility to deliver a specific argument. I'm just gonna give an example. There's research out there showing that if some neutral person, or even more so the developer of a project says, I.
There's gonna be all these community economic benefits. The community's gonna get $10 million of tax revenue, et cetera, et cetera. Nobody cares, doesn't move public opinion at all. Whereas if the school superintendent says the school district is going to get X amount of money and we're gonna spend it on iPads for students, wildly impactful on public opinion, and so.
That's the yes. Part of the Yes. And is it absolutely matters. Like who is the messenger who actually has credibility to speak to the thing that's being talked about? That's like a threshold
Guy: thing. And that they're connecting into the story of impact. Right. Giving it a little bit more, more tangible, more.
What does this actually mean on the ground in practice in day to day?
Matt: A hundred percent. A hundred percent. It's gotta be the right person for the thing they're saying. Not just a, you know, a, a good person in general that said, here's the, and part of the yes and. You know, I, I mentioned earlier, I'm a student of the opposition and our side sometimes will get so obsessed with having a perfect messenger, right?
Where like it needs to be a farmer who's a veteran. They've lived in the community for at least 30 years and you know, their kids are in the local school and you know, they're pastor, you know, amateur pastor in their spare time. You know, otherwise it's probably not the right person. And the other side sometimes, you know, you see the opponents who are most virulent.
It's like the craziest person in the neighborhood sometimes, right? Who's running a Facebook group. They don't have this kind of, they're just,
Gil: uh, the loudest and they've been activated. Right. And it's so funny, like this opposition you're talking about, you're talking about, can we say the word AstroTurf, right?
Matt: Yeah. Sometimes there are some, they're totally legitimate folks who are like actually neighbors of. You know, projects. But I do think a big part of it is being ginned up by these outside, these AstroTurf groups, right, who go in and they, you know, are spreading these arguments and finding someone. But I think something we can learn from the opposition is not being too obsessed with the perfect messenger.
Everyone in a community has a stake in these decisions. Everyone in these community is a constituent of the local elected officials who are gonna make the decision, maybe a county counselor or something like that. And with the right information, with the right. Training and support. We think everyone in that community can be an effective advocate, and so anyone who's, you know, ready to support clean energy, ready to support the project, you know, wants to know how to do it effectively, we're happy to help them.
We try not to get too hung up on like only the veteran pastor. Farmer, et cetera. You know, and that brings me to your question guy, just about, you know, when we talk about supporting folks in the community, who are we really talking about? Overwhelmingly it is, as you said, folks who are, I'm gonna call them latent supporters of clean energy.
They probably think clean energy is a good idea, or at least they're open to it, but they don't know that this is happening. Nobody knows about these local hearings. Right? You know, like this is the unsung story of how government works in the us, right? Like these are places where they vote to put in a speed bump.
They vote to put in a stop sign at the intersection in, you know, 20 people may be standing room only for some of these things,
Guy: right? Well, even in the, you know, the wonkiest of energy wonk circles, rarely do my friends know what's going on at the local level. So, yeah. A
Matt: hundred percent. And it's also in part because of that, this is not a 50% plus one situation.
I mentioned earlier that 70% plus people want clean energy in their communities. If only that were enough, right? If only it were just a poll or a vote and we were like, uh, you know, in business then. But these local processes are all about who shows up, who are the voices in the room, who reaches out to those elected officials?
Because you know, for both kind of crass reasons related to getting reelected, but also high-minded reasons about public service. You know, local, official, they're gonna hear from their constituents and they're gonna be really influenced by what they hear. They're gonna really care what people in the community think.
And so you can have all the support in the world, but if everyone who shows up to the hearing says how terrible the project is and spout some misinformation about the technology, it's gonna be very hard for that local official to go the right way. So we really focus on supporting local supporters, those latent supporters, folks who might not otherwise engage, giving them what they need to engage to show up to be effective, and we really think
Guy: that gets the goods, so to speak.
No, that, that makes a ton of sense. And when you think about supporting, you know, those latent supporters and, and the folks that are generally aligned here. What are the types of things that you equip them with and, and you touched on it briefly there, talking about the superintendent, talking about property taxes, making more iPads available for students in the classroom.
You know, we hear a bit about jobs and we hear about property taxes and we hear about economic development. What do you find? Kind of sell, and how do you equip those, those locals with those stories?
Matt: Yeah. This is one of the biggest questions that we think about all the time. Couple of different categories.
I guess I should first say that the most direct answer is whatever people ask for whatever they need, right? We are constantly. Talking to local partner groups and local supporters within communities, and they have sometimes idiosyncratic needs based on specifics of the project or the questions that they have, and we really try to help with whatever we can, any barriers.
We try to take them away to taking action, so whatever they need. But I do think there are a few categories of things that come up over and over again. The first is just knowing when and where to show up. As you mentioned, even in climate wonk circles, most people don't know if a solar project is on the docket at their county council hearing, uh, next month.
And you know, that's the kind of thing we can help with. We have an amazing research team. We try to think about, you know, what are those critical moments? So that's one. A second component is I think, giving folks confidence in the project, right? Answering questions. Sometimes we'll introduce folks to the, the developer, someone from the, the company, you know, working on the project, let them answer questions.
All stuff that gives someone who might be hearing about this thing for the first time, a sense that this company's gonna be a good neighbor. The project will be a, you know, good addition. And so that's really, again, taking away a barrier right to, to participating. Then the third big bucket is on, you know, if someone shows up at their local hearing, it might be the first time that they've ever spoken in public about clean energy.
So we can really help with effective tactics and effective messages. So on the tactic side, you know, what is it that your county board of supervisors pays attention to? What is it that they listen to? What are the kinds of things that you might say that will make. Particularly important. It could be as simple as saying where you live in the community or how long your family has been there, something like that.
It could be, you know, show up to the hearing rather than send a letter that's gonna be more powerful. That kind of advice. And then on messages, I'm here because of climate. Many of our volunteers, many of the folks who want clean energy projects in their own communities are also motivated by climate. But climate isn't really an answer to should we build this project here?
Right. And particularly in like a rural, conservative community, it's not necessarily gonna persuade someone who's currently on the fence. Right. So we try to support folks in understanding what's at stake for a clean energy project for the community, and making compelling arguments. And really that is, it varies community.
Community, every community is different. I would say there are two themes that come up over and over again. The first one is economic benefits, particularly public revenues in public spending. I mentioned public revenues in public spending just because. You all know this, the three of us might be able to run a solar firm together, right?
It's, uh, the permanent job footprint is not massive, which is actually really good for the clean energy transition, right? There are other kinds of economic comparisons where these projects look better or worse compared to other stuff that might happen in the community. They're often massive taxpayers.
They could be the most significant windfall, pun intended, for the local budget. That's happened in decades, right? It's not just messaging, right? It actually matters. How good is this project going to be for the community and in what way? What are the tangible benefits folks get? So we end up sharing a ton of information with local partners, local individuals, about the economic benefits that the community's gonna get, and you know, in particular, taxes, public revenues, all that
Guy: stuff.
Sure, yeah. Just pausing on that, right? I mean, it can be millions, if not tens of millions of dollars in property tax revenue that's coming in to these otherwise fairly thinly populated, very rural districts. And that's a huge swing for them.
Matt: A hundred percent. And just to hover over this for a moment. I'm not from a rural community originally, and I love local organizing, so I love like learning about how communities tick.
And I, you know, I feel like I've learned a ton about rural communities as part of doing this work, and one of the things that really resonates with me about how folks talk about their communities in a lot of the places where we've supported projects is that they like their communities. They're not looking for their communities to change.
They're looking to preserve the way of life in their communities, which is a fundamental challenge for building this big new thing. But these are also communities that have faced decades of disinvestment. They have a shrunken property tax base. They might have less industry than they used to. So I think the sweet spot when it happens is a situation where it's not just about the money, it's not just the millions, you know, 'cause it is tens of millions, but it's like this is gonna be the biggest property taxpayer in the community and it's gonna preserve that way of life.
It's going to allow the community to continue the way it's continued to maintain the same services. To, we pave the roads, it's gonna allow the family farm to stay in the family. You know, things like that that are really about this kind of like preserving the character. And then just to say, the second bucket that we in almost every campaign comes up is about property rights.
So these are also communities that are really proud of people doing what they want with their land and doing something meaningful with their land. And. My personal belief is if you wanna build a hundred foot statue of yourself on your land, you know it's your land. You should get to do it. And similarly, you wanna build a hundred foot wind turbine.
The thresholds for being told you can't do that on your and should be pretty high, right. I'm not saying there's nothing, you know, if you wanna build like a hundred foot. Nuclear warhead on your land, probably that should be not allowed, right? So there's some things you should not be able to do, but the threshold should be high for like interfering with this and that there should be any restrictions.
There should be like a pretty compelling public reason for. And so those are just two of the things that like on almost every campaign, local residents talk about the economic benefits the community will get and they talk about property rights and you know, making sure that any restrictions have a really compelling public reason versus just being that people don't like this use of the land that someone else is going to do
Gil: in there, you're talking about this is the view shed critics, right?
I don't like the glass in my fields. Right. Property rights.
Matt: Doug n That's right. And I do, you know, a, a developer once told me that in opposition, everything is downstream from aesthetics. And, uh, I'm, I'm not sure that's true anymore. I think now politics is, you know, a big part of what drives some of the opposition.
But it was a very perceptive comment and, uh, really captured something about it to say the obvious thing. Solar and wind projects are just very different in terms of that. Aesthetic thing. I actually think for solar, often having it be somewhat low profile, having vegetative barriers, there are like various things that you can potentially do and.
Wind people are gonna see it or it's not gonna work. That's the whole, it's gotta be, I'm not a wind energy expert, but like, you can't have it be hemmed in or you won't get the wind. That's the way the turbine works. And so I think different kinds of projects have different components to them. But yeah, I think aesthetics, you know, again, I, I just go back to the a hundred foot statue yourself.
I wouldn't want my neighbor to, to build one of those. Do I think it should be against the law? I don't know. That's a lot to put on like my rights to what I can see on my neighbor's property.
Gil: Absolutely. Our friends in the environmental NGO space, right? The conservationists often philosophically get the climate message, but there's a whole history of organizing the environmental movement that is about stopping stuff from being built infrastructure.
Right? So like how often is it were these projects are coming? Against more well intentioned, not AstroTurf environmental groups who have concerns and are immovable or are those groups evolving? And I, I see that anecdotally. Being more of an issue with perception of folks that have maybe been friendly to GR energy development before when it was a certain scale that are perhaps less so and we are getting in more disputes across the country with environmental groups.
But I know I'm paying really broad brush there, so like, correct me if I'm wrong or like tell me where that is still happening and how we're not adding another category perhaps of local opposition from earnest environmental focus groups. I.
Matt: So there absolutely can be opposition from environmental groups.
I do think that things have changed a lot on that front. I'm newer to the clean energy industry, so you would know better than me, but I know that a lot of folks who are part of environmental organizations understand the severity of the threat of climate change and understand at least intellectually that.
The only way to avert that threat is building a ton of stuff. You know, wind and solar, they take a lot of land. That's something they have in common, right? There's not a way to build them without using land and putting them in open space. I. So I think that there's, at least intellectually there's an understanding of that, and I've seen a lot of change from environmental organizations at every level, state, national, local, over the last even couple of years that Greenlight has been operating.
In terms of folks embracing this challenge, you know, I would say a lot of opposition is good faithed, you know, it's like people think they're doing the right thing by doing it. That includes environmental opposition and just like, you know, I was saying earlier that each community is not deciding, is climate change real or is clean energy good?
They're deciding should we build this project here? I think where things get really complicated for environmental groups is, you know, an individual project has specific trade-offs when it comes to conservation and all of them have some trade-offs. I'm not a believer. You know, sometimes you hear people talk about like the perfect, you know, we can have, there's no such thing.
Yeah, there's no, you're gonna have to use some land that would be used for something else. It's either land that wildlife would be on or it's farmland or it's something right. Or it's clear cutting forest as the case may be. So I don't believe in the perfect site. You know, I think every site has trade-offs, including environmental ones, and so then it's really just sometimes a matter of.
How severe are those trade-offs? When can the environmental group, you know, how conflicted are they about, you know, what's at stake? I'll just give a, you know, a quick example here. Something we're really proud of is that sometimes we can help broker conversations between the industry, which we work really closely with, and environmental and other nonprofit partners who we also work really closely with, but kind of in some ways in between.
And have relationships with both. On a campaign where we were supporting some local organizations, we were able to introduce a really cool project, solar project on reclaimed mine land. And I'm not a mining expert, but that raises all these watershed concerns basically. And we were able to broker a conversation between the developer and the local watershed association and it turned what might have been opposition into.
Maybe not quite full throated support, but acceptance, right. In the sense of like, we can work together, right? Like we can work through these challenges. You know, we understand the developer and where they're coming from and they're not trying to screw us. And that was probably the most valuable thing we did to help with that particular project, right?
Because it removed some opposition that could have been pretty potent. So. I see a lot of movement. I think a lot of folks who care about the environment care a lot about this and understand how important it is. And also I do think like each individual project raises its own concerns. The one last thing I wanted to say here, just because this is my hobby horse, so I apologize for No, we love it.
We love it. Keep going. You know, I'm new. I've worked around climate and clean energy for a while, being in national politics and you know, all this other stuff, but I'm new to really focusing on these issues. And a lot of time and energy and money goes towards climate overall in the nonprofit space. And a tiny fraction of that goes towards clean energy.
Even though this is where the numbers are. I don't know if you know, I think it's a Willie Sutton quote, um, a famous bank robber. It's asked, you know, why do you rob banks? And he says, well, that's where the money is, right? You gotta go where the money is, right? You gotta go where the numbers are for whatever it is that you care about.
And I believe that the most important thing we can do for the environment, for climate in the next 10 years is deploy clean energy, and it's not close. There's no runner up that's similar in terms of the numbers that it drives for emissions reduction, and I am excited to push for more of my fellow nonprofit-mates
to embrace that reality and to focus accordingly. Right. I think way more time, energy, and money could get invested in this problem and it would be a good investment in terms of the stuff we all care about.
Gil: Yeah, and particularly the citing and permitting overlay within there. I guess I have to ask. There was a book came out a couple months ago, caused great debate and democratic and um, I think
Matt: I of the book.
Yeah. Yeah. So are you abundance pilled? I am relatively abundance filled, yes. So I'm gonna do caveats. I'm gonna do a partial answer first, lemme just say, green lates vision is that abundant clean energy powers the clean energy economy of the future. The word is in the vision. You know, like we're very much, we think that the path out of our energy challenges and the emissions that they produce, the pollution that our energy produces is building a ton of this stuff flooding the zone, right?
And so we're very abundant build in that sense. I think, and you know, Ezra would say this too, he has said it on some podcasts that I listened to. I think that, you know, it really matters what it is that you're trying to accomplish and that it's not necessarily like abundant everything, like bring down barriers to everything.
It's actually more like being really thoughtful about like what is the thing that we need a lot of and how do we. Clear the path for that. And I think a lot of great ideas. I would say that some of the folks who've adopted the abundance framework are advocating for abundance of things that I think it's just fine that there are some
Guy: limitations on it.
But Matt, Matt, to jump in here, when you think about focusing our efforts and that priority. Of where we allocate our time and looking out in these various communities. How at Greenlight do you all kind of tactically think about and track these projects and where your support would've the biggest impact?
Matt: Yeah, that's a big one that we think about a ton because there's so much need. In our pilot program, we worked on 11 campaigns that we've now worked on a bunch more, and we were approached during that time about. 200 campaign opportunities, 200 projects or ordinances, you know, that we could have worked on.
And it just shows, I think that there's a kind of massive unmet need out there. So
Guy: is it
Matt: coming
Guy: through developer outreach to a certain extent or?
Matt: Yeah, so there are a couple of different ways we get information about this and it's a messy data problem. There are lots of different sources. It's very hard to track down.
We talked about those heroic local government hearings earlier where they're gonna put in a stop sign and they're gonna. You know, vote on the new warehouse and they're gonna vote on the library budget and they're gonna vote on the solar project, right? And it's not easy to get information about what's happening at those.
So we try to stay very in touch with clean energy developers, as well as, uh, nonprofit partners that we work with across the country. And a lot of our ideas for, you know, where there might be a need for support really come. From those places. We also are approached by individual volunteers. We have on our website, Greenlight america.org/resources is a page that offers resources to individual folks who wanna advocate for clean energy in their community.
And we often get questions on there. There's a solar project happening where I live, you know, how do I get involved? You know, things of that type. So a lot of it. We get incoming and then we kind of look at it and try to understand what's the key decision point, you know, when is it happening, all of that.
We also track public notices from hundreds of counties and municipalities and you know, we do that. We have media tracking services and web scrapers on local government websites, things of that type. As well as there's a lot of data on like projects that are moving forward from the interconnection queue.
And all of that is just to create this like real time as comprehensive as possible picture of basically which projects are gonna be approaching key milestones, hearings, votes, you know, things like that. And in total we call that our early warning system. And we use it basically to assess like where and when are supporters of clean energy gonna be most needed,
Gil: red light.
Matt: Yellow
Gil: light.
Matt: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, one thing I'll say too is that, as I mentioned earlier, we think anyone can be an effective advocate for clean energy in their own community. We do think that since we're in the business of supporting people, advocating in their own community, rather than us coming in, if you're engaging in something as a volunteer, on the one hand it's not great to get a hair on fire.
You know, oh, there's like a hearing tomorrow. Can you go? Kind of situation. But then at the same time, I don't know about y'all, but when I volunteer for something, I kind of wanna know what the end date is. You know, I wanna know what I'm signing out for down date.
Guy: Yes, yes. What is, what am I signing up with?
The most important piece of it.
Matt: That's right. That's right. And so we tend to find that we're always looking at projects that are further out, even years out. And we always love talking to developers about projects that are always out, but. A lot of our work happens supporting folks when there's a hearing scheduled or there's a permit about to be filed, something that's happening in like months and not years basically, and you know that then community members really have something that they can sink their teeth into and some way of knowing that if they show up and they say something, it's gonna have an impact versus it just kind of going out there into the ether.
We try really hard. I think it is so important for anyone, any organization supporting. Local volunteers, you really have to respect people's time. You really have to think of it as trying to help them find the moments where they can have amazing impact. And just to say, you know, going back to the issue of like, why doesn't this issue get more attention, if 10 volunteers go to a local hearing for one of these clean energy projects and they get it approved, it's a few hundred megawatt project.
So, you know, mid-size utility scale project. They have the same impact with an afternoon of their time as planting like 3 million trees. So that's like 300,000 trees per person, or I think it's maybe 30,000 cars off the road. So you spend an afternoon, you personally take 3000 cars off the road, the gas power cars.
So I feel really energized by the fact that this is a, a mo, where you can have a really high impact as a volunteer and I think as an organization that works to support. Local volunteers as opposed to showing up ourselves or doing our own thing. It's really important that we always think about how compelling is this opportunity for volunteers?
How compelling is this moment? Is there a really clear way that what they're doing is gonna make a difference? And a part of that is timeliness, right?
Guy: Is knowing the end date. I think incredibly well framed there in terms of how we allocate our time and their respective impact through efforts and certainly the respective impacts of your efforts.
You, and you and your team definitely has forced multipliers out there, so, so, so grateful for it. And just one more question kind of tactically, when you're reaching out to these folks. What does that interaction look like? Are you scheduling, you know, zoom calls? Are you bringing in experts on battery storage?
Are you doing kind of an hour seminar that preps 'em up, sending materials, sending checks? What does that? Look like in practice?
Matt: Yeah, that's a great question. And it can look different in different communities, but there are some common themes. So a big part of how we operate is working with local partner organizations, organizations that have members in the community.
So often the first local resident might hear about a project is not coming from Greenland America, this organization they've never heard of. It might be coming from, you know, they're a part of the Sierra Club chapter, or they're a part of the PTA, coming from something that they're a member of. Usually the first thing that they can do as a result of hearing about the project is not.
To go show up at the hearing and speak in public about how great it is. 'cause that seems like a lot to ask if you've never heard of something. Mm-hmm. Usually the first thing is to come to some kind of community event. We sometimes call these power hours. I think the clean energy space, as you know, is ripe for puns.
We have a target rich environment of the puns front, so we often call these power hours, but this is really about. Anyone who wants to learn more about the project, learn more about how they might be able to support it, can get all the information they need, can understand the decision making process, can understand how you know they can have an impact, and why they can have such a large impact.
It's really about preparing them. So there's usually something like that. And the exact nature of it, Ries these days, a lot of those are by Zoom, depending on the partner organization. If we were working with a local partner that has regular in-person meetings in a community, it might be that some of this would happen there.
Gil: Community center or church basement, so on and so forth. Yeah, exactly. And it's
Matt: really just about, you know, what's the existing, we try to be really flexible. About how does each partner that we're supporting, how do they talk to their members? What's their existing communication structure? We're not building our own membership base.
We don't have any desire to co-opt or to have it look a particular way. We wanna do what fits in to this existing kind of social fabric.
Gil: It's like barbecues and ball games. I mean, I, I think that like how you set up this meeting in this space too. I mean, these things matter, right? Like you don't just want it to be.
I don't know. I'm, I'm focused on the aesthetics, but I'm, I'm fascinated by the mechanics as well.
Matt: Yeah, absolutely. And one of the number one rules of organizing, right, is give people food. Food is the great,
Gil: easier to hear the information.
Matt: That's right. That's right. When you're well fed. And then once we have whatever this kind of community gathering is, typically there will be some kind of upcoming moment for folks to take.
An in-person action to show up at a hearing, to speak in public, et cetera. And there may also be other ways for folks to take action because, I mean, you know, a lot of these local hearings, you know, they might be at 9:30 AM on a Tuesday, right? Not everyone's gonna be able to participate. So it can be useful to have folks sign letters of support or.
Op-eds or things of that type call the, the county counselor, you know, there might be other actions that they can take. All of that is really, uh, again, about giving local supporters everything they need to engage and to be effective, and that at the end of the process, the local decision makers. No, they're not overly influenced by that vocal minority of opponents who's highly motivated.
They know there are a bunch of people in this community who support this project, and they support it for reasons that I can relate to. You know, in some of our efforts, we've had the local decision makers cite this outreach in their decisions. They'll say, you know, I know there's a lot of competing views on this project, but I received a lot of outreach.
I got more than a hundred emails in support of this project. There are some people here today who are in support of the project and. They're saying makes sense to me. And so I'm voting yes. And that's really, that's the dream. That's when everything is working the way it's supposed to.
Guy: That's fantastic.
And I'll probe just one more as we think about that impact and maybe a favorite story. I know you mentioned the coal community. And the reclaimed land project, uh, solar on that. Would love to hear any other favorite story of impact by the Greenlight team.
Matt: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm gonna share a recent one from Champaign County, Illinois.
We helped some partners there, mobilize. Local volunteers to come out in support of, it's a 270 megawatt solar and storage project. There were a handful of hearings and in total, like 18 folks came out in support and kind of overwhelmed, you know, there were no opposition speakers of the last hearing.
Everyone who spoke was a supporter, overwhelmed the opposition. And the last permit for the project was unanimously approved. It's a board of 22 commissioners, which I just have to say that's too many commissioners. I would not want 22 commissioners. It's like the New Hampshire State legislature or whatever, you know, but it's a bipartisan group.
They're six Republicans on the commission, and again, it was a unanimous decision. I love that example for a couple of reasons. First. If everything goes right, if supporters are showing up and talking about the benefits and those benefits are clear, this can be a really easy uncontroversial choice for local officials.
Right? It's just a good investment in the community. It's just good economic development. It's not complicated. It's not political. In Champagne specifically, volunteers were really excited about local tax revenue and you know, the benefits, the spending that could happen from there. And there were also a bunch of kind of local environmental benefits.
Some stuff around soil health and habitats and so forth that would be better off with the project. It also underscores this thing about just a small number of volunteers can make a wild difference.
Guy: Yeah, 18 Wild. 270 megawatts. That is some pretty awesome impact math right there.
Matt: Thank you. Yeah, no, it's a a hundred percent and this is one where compared to natural gas, having that solar and storage project, it's the equivalent of taking 44,000 gas powered cars off the road or planning 3.1 million trees.
So incredible. You know, again, this incredible, this one is 170,000 trees per person who showed up. I don't know how long it takes to plant 170,000 trees. But I don't have enough time to do that. I suspect that none of the people who engaged outta this would either. So it really is this kind of outsized impact that folks can have.
So anyway, that's just one story. We feel really lucky at Greenlight. We get to support people across the country during this work in their own communities. And so, you know, in any given month, I might have a, a most recent fun story, but I do think it really underlines how incredibly impactful. Building these projects is, and how incredibly impactful it can be for local residents to show up, engage and win, you
Guy: know, at the local level.
I love it. And you're our kind of wonk talking in those types of metrics. So definitely connects. And as we're wrapping up here, I wanna be respectful of your time for the listeners, you know, who maybe are living in DC or San Francisco or Chicago or Dallas, right? And may not be as, just frankly aren't as many projects, big utility projects happening nearby.
How can folks like us get involved to support the good work of Greenlight and your path ahead?
Matt: Thank you. Love getting that question. And there are lots of different ways. First, I just wanna say Greenlight, we're very proud of our work and also we're one small part of this ecosystem in this industry. And I wanna say a thank you for a moment here to.
Folks developing these projects and working at developers and all the different roles that are necessary for actually getting this stuff across the finish line. We don't build clean energy, we just get it permitted, you know, and our work doesn't make a lot of sense. It doesn't exist without that work.
So I think there are lots of ways, kind of individually in terms of our own work to get involved in the clean energy transition, and I'm really excited. I think that's only gonna grow over the coming years. I would also say that. Even in some of those urban areas, although there might not be solar and wind, something that is a pet thing of mine recently is to make a grid that runs mainly on renewables.
We need a lot of battery storage. Battery storage is getting a lot of blow back. Again, sometimes for well-intentioned reasons, I'm not here to judge people's reasons, but we need a lot of battery storage to make the clean energy transition happen. So there might be projects that folks can support within their own communities, even in places like dc.
But finally, I would just say, please go to greenland america.org. That's our overall website, or greenland america.org/resources, which is again, resources for folks to be effective. Clean energy advocates. We're philanthropically funded, so we do welcome. Donations if you are. So I was
Gil: wondering when you were gonna get to that.
Give money support.
Matt: Yeah, absolutely. So please do donate if you're so inclined. And also check out the resources we have. There might be other ways to get involved, you know, in your own community. And we're happy to help find projects that you can support as well.
Gil: And just to underline, I think I read this right, you don't take money from the developer, so you maintain a certain level of.
Independence, which I think is important for your credibility in these communities, no doubt.
Matt: That's correct. We don't seek or accept any funding directly from industry, and as you said, it's a decision about. I love the clean energy industry and basically every developer we've worked with is fantastic.
And within a given community, the developer of the project is perceived as having a vested interest in that project, right? They're gonna be perceived a particular way by the community and you know, anyone on their payroll, so to speak, will be perceived the same way. And so we do think we're able to play our role best because we're independent.
We're mission driven and we can say honestly to a local resident or to, you know, nonprofit partner we're working with. We're here because we believe in this. We're not here because we have a contract to be here. So yes, entirely philanthropically funded. And so those donations on our website, i united america.org, they do make a big difference in terms of our ability to do this.
Just as I mentioned, there's an incredible opportunity here in terms of individual volunteer effort. We also think that the return on investment in terms of contributions to this work is really, really high because so often a very small number of people are paying attention to these moments, and by working with local partners and helping just a few people engage, which.
It's not that costly. Each time we do it, we can have a kind of outsized impact. So we
Guy: put every dollar we get to that use. I mean that that impact is very clear and excited to see it scale. So grateful to tell the story of the good work you all are helping to implement around the country, and again, deeply grateful for that.
So Matt, as we wrap up here, we do have a tradition of a hot seat where we go through some rapid fire questions. So to start it off, what's something you're particularly proud of?
Matt: There are lots of different answers here. I would say I am very proud of the team we've built at GreenLake. I've now been part of a couple of new organizations.
It's becoming a habit, being part of starting new nonprofits and your team is everything. It makes work fun to work with good people and so I'm really proud of our team. That's my answer. Love it. And having gotten
Guy: to meet a couple of your team members, I can certainly echo.
Gil: Matt, what's the most infuriating, AstroTurf tactic or sort of piece of information you've come across?
Is it like the curious whale supporters on offshore? Is it the t-shirts coordinated in a certain color by utility companies blocking a clean energy project? Please just give the tactic or piece of misinformation, disinformation that is most infuriating.
Matt: Yeah, most infuriating. That's a good one. I think the one that's most personally infuriating to me is the property values stuff, because you know, I'm not a real estate expert.
I've been privileged to buy a house and to sell a house in my time. Right. And it's such a big transaction for most people. And so the idea of even a minor shift in it is so scary. And I. I just think it's so manipulative to raise that specter with basically no evidence, right? Like it's, you know, it's all based on these kinda like generalities.
And so I think that's the one that I personally find most infuriating. There are others that I find funnier. I think the like, uh, you know, wind turbine syndrome, right? Where it like causes cancer and it causes all this like that, that one is probably. Silliest. But I think the property value one, 'cause I do think it's preying on people's fears, right?
It really is predatory in that way.
Guy: Next one. What's something you'd like your kids to know?
Matt: I would like my daughter to know that work can be a source of great joy and meaning. I think I've been very lucky to find myself. Doing work that is one of the most important sources of joy and meaning in my life.
And I hope she's lucky in that way too.
Guy: Mm-hmm. That's beautiful. And then we'll wrap it up. What does climate positive mean to you? So
Matt: I'm incredibly hopeful about our ability to bend the curve and climate change. I don't have my head in the sand. Climate change is here. It's already causing immense suffering.
We saw, you know, the wildfires in Los Angeles earlier this year, and you know, that's even just here within the us but in my view, getting caught in. Doism about it is missing the point. It's a distraction. We're a hundred percent gonna tackle climate change. I believe in my lifetime. Our economy will run on unclean energy and the human race will be here afterwards.
And climate change is going to do a lot of harm in the meantime. So what we do really matters. The things we do every day really matter how fast we move, really matter. How big we go really matters. So to me. Being climate positive is having enormous confidence that we're gonna tackle this challenge and also having enormous urgency about the way we do it.
Guy: Matt, love how you frame it. Love your efforts more broadly. Deeply grateful once again for everything you're doing here and for your time today, and excited to continue to tell the good story of Greenlight. So thank you again.
Matt: Thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.
Guy: If you enjoyed this week's podcast, please leave us a rating and review on Apple and Spotify. It really helps us reach more listeners. You can also let us know what you thought via Twitter at Climate pai pod, or email us at climate positive@hasi.com. I'm Guy Van Syckle and this is Climate Positive.