In this week’s episode, host Kristin Hayes talks with Katie McGinty and Jim Connaughton about how to accelerate the permitting process for clean energy projects. McGinty is vice president and chief sustainability and external relations officer at Johnson Controls, and Connaughton is chair of Nautilus Data Technologies and a member of the board of directors at Resources for the Future. McGinty and Connaughton discuss why project delays are a central challenge in the clean energy transition, how clean energy projects can support environmental justice communities, and the types of permitting reforms that can help deploy funding for clean energy that’s available through recent laws such as the Inflation Reduction Act.

References and recommendations:

“Building Cleaner, Faster: Creating Permitting Systems that Enable Decarbonization Infrastructure Deployment” from the Aspen Institute, by James L. Connaughton, Katie McGinty, Brent Alderfer, Roger Ballentine, Donnel Baird, Dan Esty, Roger Martella, Manisha Patel, Nancy Pfund, Rich Powell, Bill Ritter, Emily Schapira, and Michael Skelly; https://www.aspeninstitute.org/publications/building-cleaner-faster-report/

“Termination Shock” by Neal Stephenson; https://www.harpercollins.com/products/termination-shock-neal-stephenson

Princeton faculty member Jesse Jenkins; https://cpree.princeton.edu/people/jesse-jenkins

Donnel Baird and BlocPower; https://www.blocpower.io/