Sri Sukhi is a data scientist and serial entrepreneur who taps into his strong feelings about climate change for his leadership and motivation in creating solutions to reduce the use of fossil fuels. He founded and served as CEO of Solecular, a software company that maximizes efficiency and output of renewable energy plants.  His current company, EmitZero, provides a software platform that helps companies decarbonize their supply chains.  Sri describes feeling disturbed, especially with slow progress on solving the climate crisis, and despite that feels the urgent need to continue moving forward and making progress.  I appreciate how Sri serves to show both companies and individuals paths to decarbonize and reduce fossil fuel emissions.

Find Sri Sukhi here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/srisukhi/

EmitZero: https://www.emitzero.io/

[Video Transcript]

Matt Schlegel:

How are you feeling about climate change and how are those feelings influencing your behaviors? Thanks for joining me in conversations with leaders who are engaging with their feelings as a leadership tool for both inspiration and motivation. Today, I’m speaking with Sri Sukhi, a data scientist and entrepreneur who has founded and led several software companies focused on solutions that are leading us to a decarbonized society. And now for the conversation.

My guest today is Sri Sukhi. Sri is a data scientist and serial entrepreneur who turned his attention to grid level wind and solar energy solutions when he founded and served as CEO of Solecular, a software company that maximizes efficiency and output of renewable energy plans. His current company, EmitZero, provides a software platform that helps companies decarbonize their supply chains. Sri, it is a delight to have you here with me today. Thank you so much for joining me.

Sri Sukhi:

Hey, Matt. Yeah, thank you for the opportunity.

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah, I love it. Appreciate it. Let me just start off. The climate report just came out this week. How are you feeling about climate change right now?

Sri Sukhi:

Yeah. I think for those of us who are sort of in tune with the world of the climate reports and whatnot, we kind of see a disconnect between what is being talked about in the news, what’s being talked about in social media, and what climate scientists are telling us about. Just this like going back and forth between these two worlds, it’s just like really hard, right?

Sri Sukhi:

I was rock climbing yesterday at the gym and met this guy who… He’s a scientist, not a climate scientist, but a scientist who worked for one of the chemical companies in the Bay Area. He kind of asked me what I do, and it was like, “Yeah, I’m helping companies reduce emissions.” Like, “Wow, so you’re like an environmentalist?” I’m like, “Well, no, I’m not an environmentalist.” There’s layers. It’s kind of like I feel like I’m in this position kind of caught between two worlds. That’s kind of how I feel.

Matt Schlegel:

It’s like almost cognitive dissonance, where we know what’s going on with climate and yet the world just kind of keeps going along. Is there any particular feeling that strikes you? Is it like anger, or do you feel anxious or sadness? I mean, is there anything in particular, or is it just like a malaise for you?

Sri Sukhi:

It’s disturbing, right? That is how I feel. There are elements of anger, but it’s not so direct.

Matt Schlegel:

Okay.

Sri Sukhi:

It’s also like this feeling of like, “Well, okay. So if we have to hit peak emissions by 2025 and it’s 2022?”

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah.

Sri Sukhi:

There’s new natural gas plants being built, and there’s more oil being pumped, like, “Wait, this isn’t trending in the trajectory,” right? Again, even in terms of like what we are doing as a civilization is disturbing compared to what we should be doing in order to sustain this planet.

Matt Schlegel:

Right. Right. Yeah, disturbing. How would you characterize it? Would it be something like frustration? That disturbing feeling, it’s kind of coming out as a frustration maybe?

Sri Sukhi:

Yeah, that’s probably the closest. Rather than anger is like more of an active thing and this is a little more frustration because I’m trying to do my best, but it’s not nearly enough, right?

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah, yeah. We all need to be doing everything we can to really move the needle. It can feel frustrating and a little bit isolating when you don’t see everybody stepping up and doing it. I totally get that. How are you then channeling those feelings that you’re having into your work as a leader and how are they informing your leadership?

Sri Sukhi:

Right. In the organization, there’s constant steering and there’s a lot of need for alignment. What is that north star? And if that north star is, in our case, if it’s tons of carbon emitted, tons of CO2E carbon dioxide equivalent emitted, then how do we design our business model? How do we helped our economics line with that metric? That is how I channel it. Because you could be like, well, we just kind of inform people of what their emissions are and let them figure out what to do with it.

Matt Schlegel:

Right.

Sri Sukhi:

That’s like if we were to take that stance, and there are companies that are doing that, we could still be like a large successful company. But I would still feel that we missed the mark because we didn’t serve our other goal of actually reducing emissions, right?

Matt Schlegel:

Right.

Sri Sukhi:

That is how I believe I’m channeling it, you know?

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah. Your solution is not only reporting, you’re also providing guidance for how to further reduce the carbon footprint of the supply chain.

Sri Sukhi:

Correct. Guidance, as well as pathways and actual projects that can be implemented and connecting to vendors and then financing and all that.

Matt Schlegel:

That is such an important element because a lot of people do start to like realize they need to do something, but they don’t know what to do. Actually giving them the tools to take action. That’s brilliant. That is really brilliant. Well, now, I think that as time goes on here, we’re going to increasingly have people having feelings about the climate. I think a lot of people they’ll come to this with different feelings. It might be anger. It might be sadness. It could be anything.

Matt Schlegel:

But just from your point of view, as it seems to kind of manifest as this frustration, what advice would you give to leaders and aspiring leaders who are starting to feel frustrated that not enough is happening?

Sri Sukhi:

Well, it’s sort of how do you spread the word, but also how well are you practicing what you’re preaching, right? I don’t want to name any names, but there are sustainability leaders who are still driving in gas coasters, kind of burning on national gas in their furnaces. It’s not things they think about when it comes to climate action. Practice before you preach, right? That’s something that I do share with my fellow leaders.

Sri Sukhi:

I took the effort of decarbonizing my house here and an earlier house that I used to own, but there are still… I know of like some cases where there are unavoidable emissions. When we order food, obviously they’re not driving in EVs, right? There’s the Scope 3 emissions of our personal household. The advice would be like, Hey, when you as a climate leader, when you are also practicing what you’re preaching, it’s a lot more powerful, right?

Sri Sukhi:

You can share from personal experience, right? Like, hey, I made the transition to reduce emissions in my life and here’s how I did it and here were the stumbling blocks, right?

Matt Schlegel:

Yes. It’s a very satisfying feeling, a very rewarding feeling. It sounds like it gives you the opportunity to have conversations about climate, but also just like what you’re doing in your business, suggesting actions for people to take. Don’t say just like have these feelings, but here e some things you could do and you’ve done it and you can share that.

Sri Sukhi:

That’s right. That’s right, yeah. Correct. Sustainability isn’t this other thing. It kind of runs through us, right?

Matt Schlegel:

Right, right. Well, this is great. This is such great advice. I thank you so much for are coming and sharing this, and I really appreciate all the work that you are doing to decarbonize supply chains and get us to a low no carbon world. I wish you the best success, and I hope that you can come back in the future and share more about what you’re doing and the successes that you’ve had, Sri.

Sri Sukhi:

Thank you. Thank you, Matt. I appreciate that. It’s great to have this forum and this dialogue, right?

Matt Schlegel:

Yes. Yes. Well, yes, thank you. We all need to share our stories and thanks again for sharing yours.

Sri Sukhi:

Yeah, thanks again. Thank you.

Matt Schlegel:

Thanks for watching. Disturbing is the word that Sri uses to describe his feelings right now about climate. He also identifies with the feeling of frustration. As a leader, he speaks to highlighting the north star of his organization, which is maximizing the amount of carbon abatement. I love how his company solutions not only report carbon, but provide direction to his customers on how they can continue to reduce carbon in the supply chain.

He also demonstrates how he walks the walk and takes action in his personal life to decarbonize his lifestyle. He uses that to demonstrate the possibilities for a decarbonized lifestyle with the people in his life. If you found this conversation helpful, please click on the thumbs up button and subscribe to the channel for notifications of future episodes. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments section and I’ll respond to them as soon as I can. Thanks again.

 

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