Orrick’s Zac Padgett sat down with Pankaj Tanwar, managing director at CarbonBetter, to explore what’s driving demand in the energy tech market today and and how CarbonBetter is helping companies scale. Learn about:
- Opportunities to disrupt the market and leverage AI, including to optimize grid performance
- How customer and investor interests are reshaping go-to-market strategies for energy tech startups
- Breakthrough technologies like geothermal and the potential for scalable, next-generation energy sources
Pankaj: Yesterday I was talking to an AI-based company looking at ways in which they could streamline the way energy supply is being diversified with the advent of renewables. So, optimizing how the grid performs depending on who is supplying the energy. This space is evolving. It is still nascent. There is a lot of opportunity to actually disrupt different parts of the sustainability space.
Zac: Zac Padgett, partner at Orrick. I'm here with Pankaj Tanwar, managing director at CarbonBetter. Can you tell me a little bit about what CarbonBetter is all about?
Pankaj: Yeah. No, absolutely, Zac. And thank you. Thanks for having me here. CarbonBetter, we are a boutique sustainability and decarbonization focused consulting firm based here in Austin, Texas, helping companies define and then achieve their sustainability goals.
Zac: So South by Southwest 2025…what is the buzz on the street? What have you been hearing about?
Pankaj: Yeah, I think the good thing is, I've been coming here for a few years. I feel every year the climate and sustainability track has been growing. Which I think is a positive thing. This year particularly, one is the need for climate action. I think, the last few years, there was a lot of talk around, “Hey, this is something we need to be doing.” But this year, I'm seeing people actually talking about what they are doing and making that extra push to discuss ways in which we can further accelerate action.
Zac: And it sounds like at CarbonBetter, you have some exposure to those larger players that are trying to figure out: What does it mean to decarbonize a supply chain? How do we make representations to our customers about the level of green of our products?
So, what are some of the considerations that go into advising those bigger fish and how they think through leading on climate?
Pankaj: Yeah, no, that's a great point, Zac. Most of these corporations are engaging in this space not because they have to necessarily, right? There's no mandate here in the U.S. So, a lot of this is actually driven by either customer demand. These are companies which, some of them are B2C companies and their customers are demanding more sustainable products and so they are looking into it, or, some sort of investor pressure.
Zac: Well, I want to shift gears a little bit and start talking about startups. Maybe you can tell me a little about how startups think about prioritizing sustainability, decarbonization and what you are seeing among that audience here.
Pankaj: The two main ones, which I've talked to a lot, one is– they are basically providing solutions to this space. Be it in energy supply, grid infrastructure, there's a lot of startups coming in trying to figure out how best to disrupt the space. There's also a tranche of startups or founders who are creating sustainable products and taking them to market. There are startups which are coming up with products and their first product is a sustainable product. So it's like, zero carbon or climate neutral X.
They are realizing that the younger generation, their both willingness to pay and the demand for sustainable products is just higher in a particular demographic group, which is what they are targeting. And so, they are starting with, this is what we want to create, so now, how do we set up our operations to be able to support that?
Zac: All right, so I want to shift gears now again at South by Southwest 2025. We are often talking about technologies that maybe aren't going to be on the shelves in two or three years, but might revolutionize the world in five or 10 years. And the one I've been asking everybody about because they've had a big presence here this year is geothermal. And this is geothermal everywhere, in the sense that you could put a pipe in the ground almost anywhere. I mean, I'm sure there are plenty of limitations on that, big asterisk. I know you have some experience understanding these things, given your past and your history. So maybe you've got some thoughts for us on geothermal everywhere.
Pankaj: Yeah. I'm an engineer by background and after engineering, I actually worked in the industry and I was drilling wells. So, I think it is quite feasible. There is a lot which still needs to be proven, but to me, it was a very fascinating idea. I'm glad that someone is looking into it and hopefully, we'll have a solution in ten years which enables us to get... I would not say an unlimited amount of power like a source of energy, but a vast source of energy.
Especially in today's world, where the demand for energy is just exponentially rising. I feel that whenever you are developing something new, the simpler it is, the more the chance for it to scale. And the second is, it is also relying on things which we have expertise on in the past. We have been drilling wells for a while. So it's not that you are completely developing a new line of work which no one knows or has heard of before. Which for me, makes it even more promising.
Zac: Right. Yeah. Well, thank you so much.
Pankaj: Thanks for having me.
[View source.]
