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Ep 4: Tim Barnes on the Intersection of Sustainability, Data, and Consumer Behavior
12 Plays7 months ago
In this episode of Sustainability Square 1, Tim Barnes, founder of Scout, joins GLYNT.AI’s CEO Martha Amram to discuss the intersection of sustainability, data, and consumer behavior. Tim shares insights from his career spanning healthcare, retail energy, and sustainability startups. Explore how Scout simplifies grant funding for climate innovators, the challenges of sustainability data access, and the evolving role of consumer choices in clean energy adoption. Learn how scalable data solutions enable businesses to focus on impact rather than administration.
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Transcript
Introduction to Sustainability Square One
00:00:00
Speaker
what what
00:00:07
Speaker
Hey Tim, it's great to see you again and thanks for joining me on our Sustainability Square One series. And so let's get started.
Tim's Career Journey to Climate Tech
00:00:15
Speaker
You and I met when you had you were working for our previous company. So why don't you give us a little bit about your background. How did you arrive here and what brought you into the world of sustainability?
00:00:25
Speaker
Thanks for having me, Martha.
Leading Product & Engineering in Climate Tech
00:00:26
Speaker
So my first 10 years, actually, I spent in healthcare. care So I spent, I'm a software engineer and product person, um spent 10 years and in health tech before I found the company on Arcadia. So met with Kieran and Ryan, the two founders of Arcadia.
00:00:43
Speaker
And really learned that even somebody like me with a software background can actually have a pretty big impact in climate. So ended up leading product and engineering there for quite some time before then going to Inspire, which is a retail energy company that then got acquired by Shell.
Corporate Impact on Sustainability Beyond Core Business
00:00:58
Speaker
So spent a lot of time in climate and have just founded Scout, which is helping climate founders and other founders seek grant funding in a much easier and and faster way.
00:01:08
Speaker
Oh, cool. I'm sure that the the political temperature in the US changing is going to change what you do for grants. But that that we know that there's a lot of grant money out there. It's hard to navigate that space. One of the things that you didn't mention is your climate Instacart. And I think that's really critical for the future of clean energy and also carbon. So can you describe what you did there and how you think it relates to sustainability? And I'll ask mike my follow-up after. Sure. So I think that's the other thing that a lot of companies don't realize is they can have a big impact on sustainability, even if that is not directly inherent to their core focus. So when Instacart, you know, our goal was really to help um deliver online groceries and make that that faster and easier for folks. And so, you know, one thing that we took a lot of pride in is that
00:01:56
Speaker
We can do that in more rural areas or food deserts or with an elderly population that maybe has um disabilities or or can't otherwise get to the store.
Effects of U.S. Political Changes on Sustainability Efforts
00:02:05
Speaker
um So there's a lot of effort that we could put into there. um And Instacart's actually taking this on directly. So they actually now have a head of sustainability um within the company and in their policy team. And so this is something that many companies, Figma is another one that has an employee resource group that um also focuses a lot on sustainability.
00:02:26
Speaker
And so there's lots of different ways that that people can have this impact and that companies can offer this as a benefit to their employees too. Cool.
Consumer Engagement & Eco-Friendly Choices
00:02:34
Speaker
So what I'm thinking is, you know, Glenn does a lot of emissions reporting and data preparation for companies.
00:02:41
Speaker
And in the new world, when we have the Trump administration come in, we're going to see a step back in enforcement of any sort of disclosure standards. The global markets and investors still require it, so companies that have global footprints will still do it. But I think the tenor, or the to use an overuse phrase, the vibe, shifts towards the consumer.
00:03:02
Speaker
Because in the global supply chain, after I make a chair that might be sitting in your backyard, it's up to you to use it and then dispose it. And we currently ask like Apple to report on cell phone charges as part of their sustainability reporting for all the cell phones that are currently in active use around the world.
00:03:19
Speaker
It is that kind of over usage um reporting that shifts the burden over to consumers. How much are you using it? What are you doing at the end of life? And I think your experience in consumer engagement speaks to how do you get consumers to select products based on these attributes?
Private Sector Investments & Consumer Education
00:03:37
Speaker
you know If the underlying current is moving in that direction, what is it that consumers will actually shop on?
00:03:42
Speaker
Yeah. So I think consumers and then also state and local governments, I think you'll see a lot of that shift with the new shift in at the federal level. And then we've already started to see like a lot of private sector investment into climate, you know, in the results of of the new election, because there's so many opportunities there. There's so many huge companies that have already made these commitments that are seeing the financial impact that they can provide. And so those things are already happening.
00:04:09
Speaker
And whether there's public dollars there or not, there will be dollars there no matter what. But then in the consumer side, again, I think there's there's lots of opportunity for education, and honestly, more than anything else. People don't really understand what their carbon footprint means. They don't understand that what clean energy even means for their home. I mean, certainly it's easy to understand if I put solar on my roof.
00:04:29
Speaker
then I'm getting a lot of energy from the sun, but how much of that? An example that I tend to cite a lot is people have shifted a lot towards EVs, and EVs sound great. And I think there's this claim of there's no carbon emissions that come from the EV. It's not really true. If you have battery backups in solar and and you're 100% reliant on on those in your home, maybe that is true. But for most people, it's probably not. And when you're actually plugging into the wall,
00:04:55
Speaker
then you're pulling in power from the grid mix in your your local and
AI's Energy Demand & Corporate Implications by 2025
00:04:59
Speaker
sort of environment. And so that could actually be powered by coal, um for instance, if you're, especially if you're living in West Virginia, where that's the predominant energy source in that that grid. And so it's just, again, this awareness kind of thing of just, what does this actually mean for me? And I think that helps to then sort of cascade down the the effects that that consumers can adopt. so Yeah, I'd see that as well. And you're touching on something that is top of mind for me. So we've been working on data centers and electrification, you know such as EVs, pushing into the grid. And the grid doesn't move that fast, so it's hard to expand generation capacity. But we have surging AI demand.
00:05:41
Speaker
And, and that's more data centers and so Glenn is coming out with a white paper that shows our version of AI uses less energy and water because we use less data center resources.
00:05:52
Speaker
per unit of functionality. And so that's great, but when we put it all together, I realized for all of our customers, maybe you use AI, maybe you don't, but you're on the other side of the equation here, folks, with rising electricity prices you know and scarce water supplies per locale. This is probably going to be a top corporate issue in 2025.
Reconsidering Nuclear Energy for Meeting AI Demands
00:06:13
Speaker
Thoughts?
00:06:14
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely it definitely will be. And i I think, you know, one thing I've learned in my time in climate is that what does everybody in the world agree on? Not necessarily that they they care as much about carbon emissions or, you know, impact on the environment. There's a huge population that does. What everybody cares about is lowering their prices.
00:06:34
Speaker
And so as those prices start to soar, everybody, regardless of your political or otherwise background, will very much be invested in wanting to lower those prices and find opportunities and solutions. And the nice thing with that is those opportunities and solutions almost always mean more job creation in that local area as well. So lots of things that we're seeing, in especially in recent weeks with a shift from some DOD policies and DOE policies is that Nuclear is for the first time really being truly seen as as a clean energy source. um Maybe not renewable source, but it is a clean energy source.
Data's Role in Advancing Climate Tech
00:07:08
Speaker
And so lots of investments you know I would expect are going to happen in that sector, um which will also then help to really meet the demand that AI will inevitably be bringing to the table. Yeah.
00:07:21
Speaker
So as you know, Glenn's in the the part of the world of clean tech and sustainability that's called data, data, data. ah That's all we do. We're nuts about data, pulling it from here, preparing it, pushing it from there. So back to you, what's one thing that you have worked on in your career around data and what do you see for the world of data nets and sustainability that in this whole sustainability clean tech area?
00:07:45
Speaker
I think it's just a huge industry. So Arcadia actually started off, not as a data company, really started off as a renewable energy company and making that a commodity that any consumer could could access. It very quickly has shifted to what's now the Arc platform, which is a developer platform specifically to access utility data.
00:08:04
Speaker
Glint, of course, is also in a very similar space of them getting that data in the hands of companies that need it. And so I think with the advent ah and creation of all of these interested parties in the climate tech sector, those are all people that need to access this type of data.
Glint's Role in Data Access for Clean Tech Companies
00:08:19
Speaker
The data is hard to access. I mean, at Arcadia, we spent many, many hours building scrapers, web scrapers, things like that to access utility data, because they don't have APIs. Utility API is another one that kind of exists in that space. That's, you know, not grown as much, right? Because they're pretty limited in the amount of data they actually have. And so, you know, I think really providing these types of platforms is then advancing the rest of these companies to move quickly.
00:08:45
Speaker
I really see glint as the stripe for clean companies that that want to make an an impact and so you know if everybody in the world who's building an e-commerce platform or or fintech the platform had to actually have to deal with PCI compliance and credit card processing, that would be a huge distraction from the core business that they're trying to create.
Navigating Grants & Balancing Costs with Sustainability Impact
00:09:05
Speaker
And that's where I see Glyn really fitting in. And a lot of these data companies is, you know, we want the ability to access this data because it's necessary for what we're doing, but it's also not core to our mission at hand. And so, you know, Glyn is it very similar actually to Scout in that way, right? Like you need funding to make your business operate, which is where we come in, but it shouldn't be where the founder spends 75% of their time. They should be focused on their mission at hand. And I think the same thing happens with Glyn.
00:09:32
Speaker
Yeah, very good. And we don't mind you mentioning competitors without just, you know, do head to head and beat them, but we also think the space is redefined by our financial grade, investor grade, you know, stocks level type data and all the infrastructure around that. A closing question, as you look forward for Scout, there's probably many sustainability managers listening to this that would say, tell me what to do. Are there going to be grants that would apply to me as a sustainability manager out of business? Any thoughts on that? That's a good question. I think, I think again, it's,
00:10:05
Speaker
You know it's access to these different areas right so if i'm a sustainability manager and I want to say offer carbon offsets for my my commuters that are coming into the office or flying out to our retreat, where I want to offer.
00:10:20
Speaker
renewable energy credits to my employees at home, you know, what are the two things that are top of mind, it's the sustainability impact right so offering three year old Texas wind Rex to your employees.
00:10:36
Speaker
pretty low down on that list. But what what's also super important to these companies is cost. And so those Texas Windwrecks are super cheap. Buying a new S-Wrek is going to be pretty expensive. And so with with thousands of employees, that may just be out of out of budget. right And so balancing those two things is really important. But it's a lot of work, again, for these sustainability managers to have the the access to this data that they need. And so providing this into them really gives them the ability to like kind of figure out what those levels are and create the best mix and and package for for their company. Yeah well thank you and we look forward to chatting again um that closes up Sustainability Square One.