Pitching Progress

Today’s guest runs the most important piece of infrastructure that Californians have never heard of.

Vince Godfrey is the CEO of Olympus Terminals, a company that operates a massive fuel storage facility at the Port of Long Beach. Olympus specializes in the offloading, blending, and storage of fuels shipped from overseas, including renewable diesel and biodiesel.

Vince’s facility plays a vital role in Southern California, where refinery capacity is decreasing, and imported fuels will be needed to keep the people and economy moving during the transition to renewables.

So how robust is t...

What started as a group of Spider Man enthusiasts, is now a company capable of producing synthetic silk on a commercial scale. And not only does their silk feel and perform exactly like the natural material, but it can be modified to suit the needs of virtually any industrial application.  

Ulrich Scherbel is the CEO of AMSilk, a Germany-based company that specializes in the creation of lab-grown silk products. Their products are now in use in a range of industries, including shampoo, home care, and luxury textiles. 

The focus on performance and sustainability has attracted the...

Billions of dollars are being spent on new CapEx to satisfy the growing energy needs of AI data centres. But one firm is convinced that the answer isn’t building new capacity, but being smarter in utilizing the power we already have. 

Varun Sivaram is the Founder and CEO of Emerald AI, a company whose software aims to make data centres more ‘flexible’, by intelligently modulating their computational load, and avoiding demand spikes that could overload the grid. 

So what does a truly flexible data centre look like? How much capacity could Emerald’s software actually h...

After years of skyrocketing investment, the renewables industry seems to have lost some of its lustre. With tax credits that once supercharged new wind and solar development being rolled back, and general enthusiasm waning, are we witnessing the bubble burst on renewable energy? 

Mark Noyes definitely doesn't think so. He's the CEO of TerraForm Power, a fully integrated renewables business with 3 gigawatts of existing capacity and 6 more currently in development. Despite shifting political and economic winds, Mark remains confident that renewables will play a pivotal role in meeting America's exploding energy demands.

So how have p...

To build the low-carbon economy of the future, we’re going to need a lot more steel. But right now, most steel is produced from high-carbon-emitting blast furnaces, and there’s nowhere near enough recyclable steel to meet global demand. So how do we make more steel, without pumping more carbon into the atmosphere? 

Parker Meeks is the President and CEO of Utility Global, a company leveraging their revolutionary tech to decarbonize global steel production. Utility’s platform can be incorporated into existing facilities, requires relatively minimal capital expenditure, and here’s the kicker: no new energy infrastru...

Roughly a third of all food produced in the United States ends up in a landfill. A lot of that comes from dumpsters behind grocery stores, where food that could otherwise be marked down or donated ends up rotting in the trash.

Ryan Begin is the CEO of Divert, a company that's using its incredible trove of data to keep food out of landfills. At the core of their pitch is some simple in-store infrastructure that allows retailers to see exactly what's ending up in the trash, and empowers them to make smarter choices. 

But w...

Commercial aviation has completely altered the nature of life on Earth, and forever changed the way humans think about distance. But in 2023, the industry was responsible for 2.5% of global energy-related CO2 emissions, and given the difficulties of electrifying heavy transport, other solutions are clearly needed.

Today's guest is Robert Schuetzle, the CEO of Infinium, a company specializing in the production of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). Instead of petroleum, Infinium's fuels are made using waste CO2, renewable energy and water, and can be used in planes without requiring any changes to existing infrastructure.

But how robust...

From turning food waste into energy, to sustainable steel and low-emission aviation fuel: Pitching Progress brings you the stories of leaders working to decarbonize the industries that power our world. On this show from Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the founders and CEOs of some of the world’s top green companies take part in an in-depth pitch session that challenges them to demonstrate their business’s environmental impact, and the value they create for investors.

Pitching Progress is hosted by Vinay Shandal, who leads BCG’s sustainable investing business. Vinay draws on his experience at the intersection of capit...