My approach to social and environmental issues has evolved in recent years. I began my career by focusing on stopping problems. Now, I’m trying a different strategy: working to develop solutions.
After graduating from college, I spent my time doing mission driven work both in the nonprofit sector and through policy centered consulting. Typically, my employer or client would identify what they thought would be a disaster and task me with preventing that disaster from being realized.
For example, the University of Georgia has a coal plant on their campus that is adjacent to a daycare center for the children of faculty and staff. Asthma and other repertory issues are much more common the closer you live or work to fossil fuel based power plants – a trend intensifies for children. This old plant was slated to close soon, but some were angling to extend its life. So, the Sierra Club sent me to work with the local community to make the case to decision makers that it should get shut down. In short, there was a public health and environmental problem, and I spent my time working to prevent it from getting worse.
Through my time on that project and others like it, I became progressively more interested in questions such as: What would replace the coal plant? Would it be better or worse? How would it be implemented? Slowly but surely, I began to think about turning these questions and thoughts into a career.
To make this leap, I knew I would need to get a better understanding finance, markets, and data – the areas of clean energy that I believe are driving the most progress. This line of thought is one of several that led me to apply to business school and ultimately to my current summer internship.
Now, I’m working for a consulting firm, CustomerFirst Renewables (CFR), which focuses on helping nonprofits, governments, and large corporate clients transition toward using renewable energy. As it turns out, this process is complex and full of barriers.
Despite being some of the country’s and world’s largest energy consumers, few large institutions have personnel with the technical expertise and knowledge of energy markets to pull of a large scale renewable energy transition in an optimal manner. But the desire to do so exists – more institutions are becoming aware of their impact on the environment and are realizing that using clean energy in almost all cases lowers costs and reduces commodity price risk.
This summer, I have already helped several businesses and universities determine their ideal clean energy mix, find partners willing to develop solar or wind projects on their behalf, negotiate energy contracts, and navigate the complex regulatory frameworks that govern our nation’s energy systems.
I may deal with the same general issues as did before NYU, but it feels like a completely different world. I’m excited to spend my time focused on solutions.
-Jaafar Rizvi
Sustaining Impact 