THE EPICENTER FOR CLIMATE SOLUTIONS

About Us

Opportunity

The nations that adopt climate solution practices will share in a multi-trillion-dollar economic opportunity that will create over 24 million new jobs by 2030 alone, according to the International Labor Organization. Such practices will lead these nations to a cornucopia of co-benefits: clean air and water, more fertile soils for a more secure and productive agriculture, expanded habitats for forests, wildlife and fisheries, and declining rates of asthma, cancer, obesity, and income inequality in human populations.

Working with the Rocky Mountain Institute and The Nature Conservancy, Epic Institute is developing tools to explore decarbonization pathways focused on a minimum set of proven actions currently scaling globally. Known as ‘Positive Disruption, this paradigm focuses on commercially-proven, market-based and profitable best practices, that if adopted in a typical disruptive timeframe would put us in a position to stabilize our climate by 2100. The data supporting the Positive Disruption paradigm will become openly available to those modeling decarbonization pathways and to nations seeking to employ best practices in maximizing their opportunity while satisfying their climate pledges.

Background

While there has been extensive analysis over many decades of climate change science, there is now an imminent need for focus on climate solutions. Climate change is solvable at this late stage only with a highly data-driven engagement by private enterprise in collaboration with the nations of the world to transition quickly to the most impactful climate-sustaining technologies and practices in pursuit of their commitments made under the 2016 Paris Agreement (Accord de Paris) and subsequent calls to action. Epic’s data platform facilitates corporate and national responses to such calls for action.

EPIC VISION

EPIC’s vision is to accelerate global deployment of climate solutions, in a time frame sufficient to limit rising global temperatures to well within 1.5°C.*

*In accord with the CO2 concentration trajectory defined as Representative Concentration Pathway 2.6, aka RCP2.6, as defined by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

EPIC MISSION

Epic’s mission is to identify, accelerate and monitor the most promising climate solutions globally. Proven, market-based practices in renewable energy, regenerative land use, and carbon removal, if adopted in time by the nations of the world, can put us in a position to reverse global warming. Epic will monitor global data streams to track and assess climate solutions progress, while curating working/learning/convening spaces to openly serve as a global resource for accelerating these solutions.

EARTH DATA OBSERVATORY

Epic will operate its Earth Data Observatory (EDO) at The Plant, a former coal power plant located on the Hudson River, at Yonkers, NY, currently being developed by the Lela Goren Group, a premier catalyst builder based in NYC. Built in 1907, this bastion of Romanesque-Revival architecture is being re-purposed, from an abandoned icon of the extractive industrial era to an inspiring workplace, cultural and social destination fostering the new paradigm of sustainable and regenerative abundance. With unparalleled views of the New York City skyline and the bucolic New Jersey Palisades, and a direct stop and 35-minute train ride from Grand Central Station, The Plant will become an epicenter for climate solutions, offering work and convening space for those on the front lines of climate solutions.
Epic will maintain the EDO as a unique global resource that is ground zero for a data-driven, international data visualization showcase in the fight to reverse climate change. The EDO will be staffed by data scientists who will monitor climate-solutions progress globally and by nation, in an effort to continually refine our understanding of where humanity stands in addressing the climate challenge. The EDO will use emerging information technologies to develop novel approaches in crowd-powered systems and open networks for coordinating information markets on climate indicators such as climate solution adoption rates, emissions trajectories, and health indicators of human and natural ecosystems. The EDO will put this data to use by supporting interactive and experiential visualization tools that advance effective communication of climate solutions progress and opportunities.
In addition, Epic will operate The Plant as a center-of-excellence for up to three of the vector/sub-vector categories of climate solutions: Grid Decarbonization, Building Electrification, and Regenerative Agriculture. Epic will curate companies and NGOs within these categories as an ecosystem of tenants at the Plant, establishing programs and links to other organizations working in these fields by the time of The Plant’s opening in 2022.

ENCOURAGING HOPE AND ACTION

Epic aims to encourage action on climate solutions by highlighting the remarkable opportunities available to governments, industry, scientists, and communities as follows:

For scientists and policymakers – relevant emissions trajectories (vs. Business as Usual) based on market-informed adoption rates of low- to negative-emission technologies and practices in the categories of energy, land use, and carbon removal.
For entrepreneurs – an understanding of the scale of untapped markets, by vector and by nation, representing opportunity for business expansion and job creation.
For technology providers and their supply chains – insight into the scale and location of market demand in future years.
For entrepreneurs and policymakers – up-to-date global best practices in the adoption of climate solution vectors.
For start-up incubators – an understanding of the highest-impact sectors in which to focus their efforts, and the frictions to scaling by vector and by nation, representing opportunities for hackathons and other acceleration events.
For Media – progress reports featuring data visualized to tell the story of where we are in the effort to stabilize the Earth’s climate.
For government decision-makers – an up-to-date understanding of the opportunities available to national planning agencies (jobs, GDP, human and environmental health) in setting and meeting their nation’s climate commitments.
For incumbent industries – a view of emerging competition, as well as opportunities for business transformation and expansion through investment and acquisition.
For those demoralized by the climate problem – a dose of realism, hope, and direction for engaging with fast-emerging, new-paradigm practices that achieve both a stabilized climate and a world of regenerative abundance.

AN EPIC JOURNEY

John Kennedy challenged Americans to place a man on the moon within a decade. Tracy Edwards led the first all-women team in a race to sail around the globe. Elon Musk launched a world of high-performance electric vehicles, and sent his own car on a rocket ship he designed, which is now on its way to Mars. Humans are capable of extraordinary undertakings, tackling tremendous adversity against great odds. Reversing climate change is a similar heroic challenge, yet is within our reach. Meeting this challenge requires clear intention, focus and direction.

We invite you on an Epic journey: to reverse climate change by the end of this century by engaging with the core climate-sustaining technologies and practices that today represent our most cost-effective and life-sustaining path forward.

Partners

EPIC PARTNERS

Working with NGOs and other Partners, EPIC will serve as an education and training hub that any organization seeking to achieve its climate objectives may engage with and utilize.

Those expressing early interest to be EPIC tenants and/or affiliates include:

Publications

POSITIVE DISRUPTION 2021:

POSITIVE DISRUPTION 2020:

Three scenarios indicate trajectories that are consistent with RCP3 of the IPCC*

Representative Concentration Pathway 3 (RCP3) of the UN’s InteGovernment Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
The above chart from ”Positive Disruption 2.0, Chitkara, Aman; Noriega, Alicia; Tuckfelt, Mike; et.al., Rocky Mountain Institute, Aug, 2018.