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Scaling Clean Podcast

Episode 52: Gareth Brown, CEO and Co-founder of Clir Renewables

December 4, 2025

 

Scaling Clean: Gareth Brown on How AI, Go-to-Market Focus, and Clear Reporting Are Transforming Renewable Asset Performance

In this episode of Scaling Clean, I sat down with Gareth Brown, CEO and co-founder of Clir Renewables, a risk-intelligence platform that helps banks, investors, and operators understand how their wind, solar, and storage assets are performing, and why.

Clir started in Vancouver in 2017 with six employees and 500 MW of assets. Now, it has grown into a 100-person team processing performance data for more than 200 GW of renewable and storage projects.

Here are his big three points:

In renewables, the “fuel” is free, but the uncertainty isn’t.

Gareth made the point that renewable energy is the only power source where investors don’t fully know the “fuel” going into the machine, making it challenging to determine whether underperformance is caused by external factors like wind and solar conditions or by internal factors like equipment issues. As a result, investors want clear reporting that explains past performance, benchmarks it against similar projects, and provides reliable forward-looking projections.

“What we see from investors is that they want really great reporting. They want to understand what has happened at that farm, how that compares to its peers, and what will happen in the future.” – Gareth Brown

Go-to-market discipline is just as important as product quality.

If Garrett could go back in time and give advice to his younger self, and he would focus more on go-to-market strategy, along with three important points:

  • Founder-led sales are great, but not scalable.
  • Big logos don’t mean you’ve cracked repeatability.
  • The real test is moving from pilots to fleet-wide adoption.
“You're thinking, ‘Great, this person is buying. They're going to buy more from me as we go forward.’ But not getting stuck at that pilot stage is making sure that you've got that expansion process really well understood – the decision makers, the value props, the communication, and the marketing.”

To scale, businesses need a repeatable go-to-market strategy built on both solid data and a narrative. Narrative without data is just fiction, but data without narrative is just numbers. 

Great teams run on impact.

Gareth believes people stay motivated when they see the real-world value they are creating. For his team, this means showing customer impact early, celebrating improved asset performance, creating a strong management team, and hiring mission-aligned people who want to decarbonize the grid. These are things that get the team excited about working for your company. 

“When our customers are able to get better financial returns or log in and use the software all the time, we show those metrics to the team to show the impact that we're having... This really helps our team.”

Why This Conversation Matters

For me, this episode highlights several points about scaling clean energy companies:

  • Certainty drives investment. Platforms that explain asset performance build confidence and unlock capital.
  • Scaling isn’t about a single go-to-market push, but a repeatable go-to-market strategy. Cleantech CEOs must build repeatable sales engines.
  • Mission-driven teams need to see their impact. Shared purpose is more motivating than softer benefits, like days off. 

Listen to the full conversation on Apple, Spotify, Radio Public, Amazon Music, and iHeart.

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Overview

Introduction

Melissa Baldwin:

Welcome back, Cleantechers. My guest today is Gareth Brown. He's the CEO and co-founder of Clir Renewables, a risk intelligence provider that helps banks and investors understand and manage wind, solar, and storage portfolios. Clir was founded in Vancouver in 2017 and has grown from six employees and 500 megawatts of assets to a team of more than 100 experts managing over 200 gigawatts of renewable and storage data.

Clir has raised more than $50 million in equity, debt, and grants and built a company that helps investors and operators drive returns from their wind, solar, and battery assets. Gareth, thank you so much for joining me on the show today.

Gareth Brown:

It's great to be here.

What Clir Renewables Does: Using AI to Optimize Renewable Energy Assets

Melissa Baldwin:
Okay, so we always start the show with a career journey and your mentors. I want to dive into that, but first I want to give you a chance to tell our listeners about Clir Renewables. What do you do at Clir Renewables?

Gareth Brown:
Yeah, so Clir is a renewable AI platform. We basically connect into wind, solar, and storage assets all over the world, take the data off them, and give intelligence back on how they can improve the financial returns and minimize risk on those assets.

Serving Banks and Wall Street: What Investors Are Asking

Melissa Baldwin:
What are the main questions that you're hearing from your customers? And I'm thinking specifically about Wall Street. One of the things I understand about you is that some of your customers are banks and Wall Street. So what are those customers asking you about their projects? Do you notice any trends from that customer type?

Gareth Brown:
Yeah, I mean, we work for the major investment funds investing into this asset class. What we see is that renewables are unique. It's the only power source where we don't know what the resource is going into the asset.

When you have a nuclear plant, a coal plant, or a hydro plant, you have a pipe with a controlled intake. So you know how much energy is going through that pipe, and you know how much electricity is being produced on the back end. It's really easy to tell if that turbine is underperforming.

In the wind space, we have a coffee cup anemometer behind a hundred-metre blade on a hundred-metre tower, which is on hundreds of turbines all spread out on a hillside or on the ocean. It's similar for solar as well, where you have a very distributed asset.

When the asset underperforms on those investment assumptions, it can be quite hard to tell why. So is it because of the wind, or is it underperforming technology?

What we see from investors is that they want really great reporting. They want to understand what has happened at that farm, how that compares to its peers, and then what will happen in the future.

What we've built with our AI platform is the ability to explain what has happened with that asset, benchmark it, and then give forward-looking projections on yield and on major component exchanges, so folks have the best information for their investment decisions.

Melissa Baldwin:
I think that's so interesting. You make a really great point about the knowns in traditional fuels. You know how much fuel you're putting in. You know what you should expect getting out. But with renewables, one of the benefits is that the fuel is free. One of the downsides, from what I'm hearing, is that it's really hard to measure that fuel because it's variable. So it sounds like you're helping your clients get a handle on that.

Gareth Brown:
Exactly. Once you've got great reporting, you can really understand your investment. It's much easier to squeeze as much return out of that asset as possible, whether it's revenue, OPEX, or CAPEX that you're optimizing.

A great example recently was a customer who onboarded a large portfolio to our platform. Within three months, they were able to reduce the bonus payments they were paying their service provider because they got a really clear view of what was going on at that asset.

How AI Identifies Underperformance in Renewable Assets

Melissa Baldwin:
Are you able to determine the source of a problem when an asset is underperforming?

Gareth Brown:
Yes. I mean, it is constrained by the quality of the data coming off, but that's exactly what our AI does. It's really looking to connect into these assets and understand whether it's a mechanical issue, a technology issue, or a fundamental issue within the resource, so that folks can proceed with confidence, knowing what to do next.

We had a battery asset recently, for example, that was trading on the grid, and its inability to trade at the right times was having a huge impact on the financial returns. So just putting great AI in place and adding strong intelligence allows us to make sure that the financial returns are optimized.

Melissa Baldwin:
That's so cool. I think I heard you say you're kind of looking at three things. You're looking at the technology, you're looking at the software, and what was the other part?

Gareth Brown:
Yes. The challenge is breaking apart the resource from the performance of the technology. A lot of these assets are underperforming in the space, and that's a big frustration for investors. They've placed large amounts of capital, billions of dollars, into these portfolios, and then the asset doesn't quite do what it said on the tin.

Then it's about understanding why, and whether there's anything they can do about that so they can get a bigger bang for their buck as they go. So it's looking at the technology, separating it from the resource, then knowing where to look in the first place and what to do when you find the issue. That's really where AI has been so exciting, because of the ability to scale that.

Melissa Baldwin:
And most of these projects you're looking at, are they pretty big projects, like utility-scale?

Gareth Brown:
Exactly, yes. We're working on small rooftop projects all the way through to the largest offshore wind farms, and we're working on assets at the multi-gigawatt scale at this point.

Gareth Brown’s Career Journey and the Inspiration Behind Clir Renewables

Melissa Baldwin:
Okay, we're going to shift now to learn about your background, Gareth. You are the CEO of a growing company. How did you get here? How did you become the CEO?

Gareth Brown:
I finished university at Edinburgh. I'm a bit of a nerd. I did my undergrad in math, and I wanted to do something positive. So I ended up working for a company out of Scotland that was about 20 staff.

I was in the right place at the right time because there wasn't a huge amount of expertise in the industry. I always say, if you're a turbine tech today, you should be an MVP of operations in three years' time, because the industry is just so much bigger today than it was a year ago, and so on.

What I was able to do was work in India, China, and Sri Lanka from Glasgow, then come out to North America and set up their operation here in Vancouver. So I had this great experience of going all around the world and working on projects, realizing that folks didn't know how to run these assets all that well in our industry.

Doing that gave me great experience, but also helped me see the pain points in the market. So in 2016, I quit my job and wanted to take advantage of low-cost, cloud-based computing to basically scale impact. That's where my experience of working on projects all over the world, seeing this pain point of assets really underperforming in our industry, wanting to have an impact on climate change, and being able to scale that all came together.

Melissa Baldwin:
That's so cool. And what was the company that you were working at before you decided to go out on your own?

Gareth Brown:
Yeah, so it was a startup in Glasgow called SgurrEnergy. It was a consulting engineering firm. We worked on the first offshore wind farms. We worked on some of the first and largest projects all over the world. So we were working for the insurers, the equity investors, and the lenders.

Melissa Baldwin:
So you've been working from day one for the same customer type that you're working for now.

Gareth Brown:
Exactly. Having a decade of working with them and understanding the problems has given us a real leg up in being able to scale a startup. That was a big part of being able to be successful with Clir and scale the business. 

Mentors Who Shaped the Journey: Say Yes and Figure It Out

Melissa Baldwin:
That makes sense. Can you recall any memorable mentors who influenced you through your career journey? And if so, what lesson did they teach you that you think other people should know about?

Gareth Brown:
Yeah, I think it's really important from a confidence perspective. I would say that I had two former bosses, Ian Ian Irvine and Steve McDonald, two Glaswegians, who taught me to basically say yes and figure it out.

We were working on so many global-first projects. There wasn't another option beyond being confident, taking on that work, backing yourself to work it out, and going from there. I would say those were two people who had a big impact on my career.

Melissa Baldwin:
Gareth, I'll tell you, that advice you just gave on saying yes and figuring it out is coming at a really interesting time in our firm, so it's really meaningful. 

Advice to His Younger Self: Focus on Go-to-Market and Scalable Sales

Melissa Baldwin:
Another question I like to ask my guests is, if you could go back to 2017 when you started the company, knowing what you know now, what advice would you give to your younger self?

Gareth Brown:
Yeah, I think it's focusing on go-to-market. That would be my biggest area of learning, if you like. You can have the best product in the world. You can have the best value point. But that ability to scale from founder-led sales to system-led sales, if you like, being able to scale the sales and the marketing, is critical.

It's great having me go in and speak to a customer. You can talk about 20 or 30 different points. But how does that allow you to hire a sales team and a marketing team that can learn that quickly? They don't have 10 years to figure it out and scale up the marketing engine.

So if I was going back to 2017, it's really about learning what's scalable, not really from a product perspective, but from a go-to-market perspective. Quite often, the market isn't ready for certain things as well. A few years ago, we'd go in selling how to run when customers couldn't even walk yet. So we'd go in with forward-looking projections and benchmarking and all this intelligence they could act on, when the reality was that most of our customers were still figuring out how to crawl.

They just wanted to get their data in one place. They wanted good, solid reporting. So talking about all the optimizations and upside, it's like, well, that's great, but I've got to deal with the basics first.

I think for me, from a go-to-market perspective, it's about driving simplicity and driving a consistent message without overwhelming the team on what to do. Quite often, your success can be what holds you back. We'll have some massive sales and push through on those points because we're able to put founder-led sales behind them. But being able to bring it back to how you scale this, how you repeat this 100 times or 1,000 times, is how you really get the impact.

I want to come back to our mission of minimizing humankind's impact on the climate. That sounds very grandiose, but we want to be on every wind and solar farm on the entire planet, being able to achieve that so people have great investigative reporting, great oversight, great performance monitoring, and also great reconciliation with budgets and contractual availability.

All those workflows fit into just having a great understanding of the assets. To do that, we have to simplify our messaging at times. That's been a big learning point for me as a CEO and as a leader.

Founder-Led Sales: The CEO's Role in Scaling the Business

Melissa Baldwin:
You hit on a few things there, and actually you lead me naturally to one of my other questions. You talked about founder-led sales. I'm going to jump ahead in my question list here because you touched on it, and I want to learn more.

It sounds like the answer is going to be yes to this question, but tell me more. As the CEO, are you involved in the sales process, and what's your role in that process? What are you noticing from your customers and your conversations?

Gareth Brown:
Yeah, sure. I mean, at the end of the day, I'm the chief executive, but you're also the chief salesperson, the chief of customer success, and everything else.

The biggest thing I have to do in the lead-up to those roles is build teams. You've got to hire great people, which is probably the most important thing for any CEO as you go forward. But then too, with everyone you hire, you need to empower them. You also need to make sure they've got the tool set to succeed, the background knowledge, and the frameworks.

So I would say that, yeah, I'm obviously still heavily involved with our sales, our fundraising, and everything else here at Clir. But the big focus for me is how do you build that sales and go-to-market engine so we can really scale the business as we go.

What Investors Look for When Funding Renewable Energy Startups

Melissa Baldwin:
When you touched on something earlier too that I want to ask more about, and that's fundraising. We work with tons of companies who need to raise Series B, Series C, whatever it is. And it's a challenging fundraising environment right now for renewables.

You've had successful financing rounds. What advice would you give to other companies that are looking to do a fundraise and how they can get attention from investors? What do you think led to the traction that you got? Was there any aha moment or something that really clicked?

Gareth Brown:
Yeah. When I set up the company back in 2017, we kind of bootstrapped through with friends-and-family investors early on, then went out to outside investment after that first year. We quickly realized it was about traction in the market.

Now, this obviously depends on what your startup is doing. If it's deep tech or software, you can have different forms of traction. But ultimately, the market speaks.

I think there are two levels I look at. One is founder-led sales, or those early sales you can go out and make where you can prove that pain point is there. It's great getting big logos on board, but then the ability to go from a pilot to fleet-wide sales and to build that repeatable sales engine is the second proof point when you start getting beyond Series B.

So I come back to the recommendation before of go-to-market.

Even though renewables are certainly based here in Canada, it's having a really hard time south of the border right now with the current administration. The bottom line is renewables are the cheapest form of electricity. They're fast to deploy. Last year, more solar was built globally than every other power source combined.

We've seen more electricity generation come from renewables so far this year than from all coal plants combined. Renewables have won. The question is how quickly they will be deployed now to displace fossil fuels.

I don't think investors are going to stay away from renewables. There are short-term investment issues with major projects, but I think for renewable energy firms as a whole, globally as well, there are huge tailwinds behind those companies.

Why Renewable Energy Demand Continues Despite Policy Uncertainty

Melissa Baldwin:
You actually set me up perfectly for the next question, which is on geography. So you're based in Canada. You have operations spanning North and South America and Europe. First of all, have you noticed any changes in the market in the USA under the Trump administration? And do you think that could have ripple effects globally?

Gareth Brown:
America is the force of innovation in the Western world. We need the Americans on board, working hard at renewables and investing in innovation there. It's the biggest gift America can give to the world right now.

So what we see is, obviously, there's been a huge number of layoffs south of the border, particularly on the development side. We see similar issues in offshore wind in Europe with some of the uncertainty there.

But the bottom line is that renewables have the data centres. The amount of electricity AI is going to drive, particularly in the Western world and particularly in the US, means that the tailwinds are there.

We haven't seen a major impact on our business because we're primarily focused on the operational side. Obviously, it causes investors to pause. It causes companies to take a second look at investment in IT infrastructure. But the missed opportunity of not investing in Clir or similar platforms is huge. So we're seeing that Q4, for us, should be our biggest quarter ever.

Melissa Baldwin:
Wow. Do you think that's because companies understand how important it is to make sure that the assets we do have are performing at their best and that they're not underperforming?

Gareth Brown:
I think people are facing different challenges. A few years ago, we talked about 100 megawatts being a big portfolio. Then it was a gigawatt. Now it's tens of gigawatts.

And you're dealing with multiple technologies. You've got wind, solar, and BESS. Before, it was very skewed towards wind by itself. But anyone who owns a wind farm probably owns a solar farm and probably owns a battery as well. So you've got all these multiple technologies, and then you've got to report on and operate them.

You've also got the problem that there just aren't enough technicians in the market. There's a dearth of expertise to actually operate these plants. So you can obviously hire and train to fill that hole, but you can also invest in technology. And if you want to be tech-enabled, getting a platform like Clir in place is really, key.

The Toughest Marketing Challenge: Simplifying the Message

Melissa Baldwin:
Interesting. I want to ask you now about my favourite topic, which is marketing, PR, and AI. AI is a new thing, and of course it's the basis of your program. But I want to talk about challenges. So what, for you, Gareth, is the toughest marketing challenge that you're facing right now?

Gareth Brown:
At the end of the day, AI, machine learning, LLM, whatever words are being thrown around, it all comes back to business value. You need to think hammer, chisel, screwdriver for all these tools. It's the right tool for the right process.

It's really exciting because AI is so powerful in so many areas, but you need to bring it back to that return on investment. I think for us, our platform has so much potential in what it does. It's really about bringing it back to what the immediate pain points of our customers are, really effectively.

So for us, we've invested in a new fractional CRO right now. We've brought on SDRs and marketing support. So we're just launching our new marketing campaign through Q4 to basically build on the success that we've seen from a sales perspective, while making sure that we communicate really effectively with the market as we go forward.

When and How Startups Should Scale Marketing

Melissa Baldwin:
You answered my next question, which is at what point did you invest in communications or PR? I mean, I can tell you, Tigercomm has worked with nearly 200 companies, and a lot of them are engineer-driven startups that have grown over time. A lot of times we hear from companies that they didn't invest in marketing right away. They were able to grow through word of mouth.

So what was your process like at Clir? At what point did you invest in communications or bring on somebody full-time to be thinking about marketing and comms?

Gareth Brown:
Marketing is key, right? You want to get that top of funnel coming in. You want to test not just what is one person's problem, but whether it is an industry-wide problem, and then test how well that communication works.

So we've always invested in it. We brought on our first marketing resource, I want to say, in 2019, around then. But the real ramp-up came in May 2021, when we were able to demonstrate in our Series B that we could get major logos signed on board. What we weren't then able to do was fleet-wide sales. So we invested in sales and marketing to push on that point.

We essentially got some of our assumptions wrong. We went out and spent a lot from our Series B. We kept growing the business throughout, but we scaled up the company and then had to downsize our spend so we could get into a stable position. Today, we're cash-flow positive. We've got more money coming in than going out.

So what I would say is that, on the marketing side, the messaging was not really crystal clear from the sales engine perspective. We didn't have those metrics, those early adoption signals that show, look, if I put a dollar in, I'm going to get three dollars back or ten dollars back.

Melissa Baldwin:
Got it. That's interesting. So you had a slow start, then you had a surge, then you had to scale back, and now you're kind of finding that equilibrium. That's so interesting.

Gareth Brown:
It is, for sure. I think the big thing comes back to go-to-market, really understanding that buying process for your customers, that selling motion, that ideal customer profile, and then that expansion play.

I think that can maybe get missed earlier on when you're making those first sales. You're like, great, this person's buying, they're going to buy more from me as you go forward. But then you get stuck at that pilot stage. So it's about making sure you've got that expansion process really well understood, the decision-makers, the value props, the communication, the marketing around that, and the engagement piece so you can drive from there.

And I think with marketing, you need to invest in it from day one. But to really scale it and build that larger engine on top, you need that repeatable process with the data and the narrative. I always emphasise, if you want to be data-driven, narrative without data is fiction. Data by itself still needs tests, assumptions, and the narrative that you're putting on top.

Melissa Baldwin:
I love what you just said.

It's so funny that you made that point. I was just listening to a podcast the other morning where there were two different podcast hosts, and one of them is a very data-driven guy, and the other one just has a different decision-making style. But we're big believers at Tigercomm that human beings are essentially emotional creatures first and rational beings second. Usually, a lot of times, we make decisions based on our emotions, and then we use facts to back up what we're thinking.

Why Energy Management Matters More Than Time for Leaders

Melissa Baldwin:
All right, we're going to shift gears now. We're going to talk about learning and development. So when you think about your professional career and your education, is there any training or book or podcast or anything memorable from your past that you feel really influenced who you are today or kind of drives your ethos?

Gareth Brown:
I remember my former boss, Ian Irvin, took me aside and said, "Look, you need to do some leadership courses." So he sent me to UBC. I remember sitting in the room, and it was great to be with other leaders, just hearing their perspectives and what was going on. So that was good for me. I can certainly be a bit candid and blunt sometimes, and softening those skills a little more is key. So that was a good one.

And then on top of that, it's taking the time to work on yourself. One of the biggest things I've realised now that I've got into my forties is that I can't quite work in the same way I used to, flying around at all hours and eating whatever I like. But realising that your physical shape has a huge impact on your mental shape is important.

So I'd say the biggest learning has not just been professional training on what to do as a leader, but also spending time on eating right and exercising, because you're going to be so much more productive. It's about doing the smart things, not just the longest hours or the hardest work. You still have to work bloody hard, but being smart around it and being effective.

Because time isn't really the main constraint. It's still the second most precious resource, but the most precious one is energy. Do you have the energy to do the next hard task, to do the next hard thing, and get through it? Timing when you're working on the most important things and driving that through is critical.

Melissa Baldwin:
Every CEO I've talked to has made that same point, that you can beat yourself up, but you're going to pay for it. And if you don't make time to exercise, move your body, and take care of yourself, then you're not going to be able to perform the way you want to perform. So that really resonates.

Do you have a thing you like to do? Do you like running? Some people swim. They have a certain activity they do. Is there anything you really enjoy doing to recharge yourself?

Gareth Brown:
Yeah, when we talk about recharging, there's obviously the physical side of it. I find I've got to have engaging things. I'm not very good at passive things. Walking the dog is great, but I'm thinking about work the whole time while walking the dog.

So I've got two kids who keep me entertained and busy on the other side. My wife and children are very good at keeping me grounded, that is for sure. But yeah, I think it's important to have projects that feed energy.

I have a small side project putting rugby in schools, and everything I've learned from startups applies there too. Growing rugby in Vancouver is a startup issue. It's not a well-established sport. So getting frameworks signed with the school boards and finding coaches who can go out and coach and grow the programme matters.

So I think the biggest focus for me is work and making sure I have an environment around that which provides the energy to be successful. Family and community are a huge part of being able to deliver on that.

Melissa Baldwin:
That's cool. You're bringing rugby to schools where you are in Vancouver.

Gareth Brown:
Trying to, yeah. 

Books and Podcasts Worth Recommending

Melissa Baldwin:
Nice. What about books, podcasts, anything you're listening to now or that you've read in the past that you'd recommend to our listeners?

Gareth Brown:
Yeah, there are so many great books and podcasts out there. I do listen to The Diary Of A CEO regularly, with Steven Bartlett. I'd recommend that to anyone. He gets some great speakers on, and it's great hearing about their experiences, from people like Richard Branson to the founders of Netflix.

And on the books side, I remember The Hard Thing About Hard Things. I can't remember the name of the other book I read last month, but I'll bring that up and send it through.

Melissa Baldwin:
That book just came up, The Hard Thing About Hard Things. I was at Nico's SunCast Summit last week in Denver, and I believe that was one of the books recommended by another CEO.  

Keeping the Team Motivated: Impact Over Perks

Melissa Baldwin:
Great. What about your team? We talked about how you stay healthy and stay motivated. What do you do to keep your team motivated?

Gareth Brown:
Yeah, for sure. I come back to the values of the business and impact. People talk about all the softer things that maybe get a lot of buzz on LinkedIn about mental health and days off and all this other stuff. But the bottom line is whether a team is coming to work excited about what they're doing. And the number one thing that impacts that satisfaction is having a great manager.

I just come back to it on that point. Fundamentally, people can have great job satisfaction working in a paperclip factory if they have a great team they're working with and a great manager. They get a lot of satisfaction from that.

We're fortunate here at Clir that we've got this huge mission, working in sustainability, and we're a really values-based company in how we think about hiring and retention. But the big point, when I come back to the team, is impact.

When our customers are able to get better financial returns, when they're logging in and using the software all the time, showing those metrics to the team and showing the impact we're having on customers, that really gets the team excited. And when customers are happy to be reference points and are jumping up and down saying, hey, this is a great product, this is really helping our team, that's what gets people motivated.

So when we slimmed back the company on sales and marketing, obviously that was really hard for the team. But the bottom line was that it came back to customer impact. The folks who stayed with us stayed for the journey because, from a hiring perspective, we've got people who want that impact. They want to have an impact on every wind, solar, and BESS asset on the planet, and we're on that journey to achieve it.

Climate Optimist or Pessimist: A Pragmatist's View

Melissa Baldwin:
My final question is, has your work left you a climate optimist or a climate pessimist?

Gareth Brown:
Yeah, I'm a pragmatist, I guess, on these things. I got into climate because I viewed it as the great existential crisis for us, and the biggest way I could have an impact was by taking my expertise and applying it to renewable energy. I remain an optimist all the time.

The point is, we need to get kicked in the butt enough times to basically go out and fix these things. So we're going to have huge climate impacts, I'm sure. But I have huge faith in the innovation of humankind to resolve these things.

When I started working on wind farms, it was a really subsidised industry. It really relied on government support. Last year, 50% of the grid in Pakistan was built by people putting solar panels on their roofs. The ability to scale and deploy this technology is incredible. I'm excited about what we can do to solve climate issues as we go forward. 

Closing Remarks

Melissa Baldwin:
I love that. I think that's a great example. Is there anything else you want to share with our listeners before we end this episode?

Gareth Brown:
No, it's been great. I really appreciate the opportunity to come on.

Melissa Baldwin:
Great. All right, Gareth, excellent.