Industry Leaders Gather to Discuss Ways to Boost Clean Energy Innovation
June 16, 2015 — Responding to the President’s call to action to expand private sector investment in solutions to climate change, Benefunder is announcing its participation in the White House Clean Energy Investment Summit today.
The Summit brings together foundations and mission-driven institutional investors to discuss ways to boost clean energy innovation. As part of the summit, the White House is announcing $4 billion in commitments by major foundations, institutional investors, and other long-term investors to fund climate change solutions, including innovative technologies with breakthrough potential to reduce carbon pollution. Additionally, the White House will announce a series of new executive actions to encourage private-sector investments in clean energy innovation.
Benefunder, a foundation that connects philanthropists with top research causes across the country, has a wide range of leading clean energy innovators and labs on its platform, including those at Duke University, Cornell, The University of Texas at Austin, Rice University, UC San Diego, and Georgia Tech. These researchers and labs are working on breakthroughs in power production, storage and delivery, as well as climate change and policy.
“These nationally recognized innovators are on the cusp of breakthrough discoveries that will greatly impact our world,” said Benefunder cofounder and CEO Christian Braemer, who joins other industry leaders at the Clean Energy Investment Summit. “By funding such cutting-edge research, philanthropists have a powerful opportunity to not only maximize their giving impact, but to also strengthen our nation’s clean energy initiatives, create jobs and a cleaner and safer environment for future generations.”
The Summit is part of the White House Clean Energy Investment Initiative announced early this year to expand private-sector investment to investigate and implement solutions to climate change. As part of the initiative, the Department of Energy (DOE) will help catalyze philanthropic activity by leading an effort to identify opportunities to leverage its world-class technical expertise, technologies, and programs to assist in understanding the opportunities and needs to transition to a clean energy economy.
The Initiative’s goal is to help clean energy investors reduce transaction costs, spread promising investment models, and increase their climate mitigation impact.
According to the White House, mission-driven investors – such as foundations, university endowments, and institutional investors – can play a catalytic role in accelerating the transition to a low-carbon economy. Philanthropists can also help fund clean energy innovation at the earliest stages, where bold new ideas are emerging from our labs, universities, and startups, while investors can scale up the most promising of these innovations.
“Benefunder is excited and honored to participate in this important summit, which aligns with our mission to help close the nation’s innovation deficit,” Braemer said.
The Summit will be live streamed at wh.gov/live and will feature remarks from leaders in the private and philanthropic sectors.
For more information about the White House Clean Energy Investment Summit, click here.