Scaling Sustainability: Two Innovative Approaches to Tackling a Common Problem

One of the most powerful elements of the Think Bigger mission is that it celebrates the multitude of ways in which a single problem can be tackled. Climate change is a prime example of this. 

Scientist Raffael Jovine is traveling around the world researching and implementing the most effective systems to capture carbon dioxide in an efficient and cost-effective way. Entrepreneur Donnel Baird ’13, meanwhile, is confronting the problem just as ambitiously and spiritedly but building by building, city by city. 

Both are having a profound impact on the world, embodying a core tenet of the Think Bigger mission: that everyone, regardless of their background, expertise, or interest, can make a change for the common good. 

At the second annual Think Bigger Innovation Summit, Jovine discussed the company he founded, Brilliant Planet, where he currently serves as chief scientist. The best way to think of Brilliant Planet, he said, is as an “anti-big fuel company.” 

To some, this might sound aspirational or unrealistically utopian, perhaps even naive. But given Jovine’s explanation of what that bold description means in practice, it’s clear he’s more than just an idealistic dreamer.

Over the past eight years, Brilliant Planet has been conducting field trials in South Africa, Oman, and Morocco. Specifically, it’s been exploring so-called coastal algal blooms in those locations. 

The ocean is an amazing place, Jovine said. It’s home to about five times more animals than on land, and it’s absorbing about 90 percent of the heat of global warming. Deep in the water, around the edges of continents, algal blooms form that look otherworldly to the untrained eye but hold huge potential in our collective fight against climate change. They capture carbon dioxide, which makes the planet more habitable and sustains its precious ecosystem. And Brilliant Planet is harvesting this. 

Every year, Jovine and his team bring the blooms — which occur naturally during a period of about two weeks annually — onto land and use them to produce more algae. They then convert that into stable biomass and bury it. The biomass remains stable for thousands of years, he explained, removing carbon dioxide permanently from the atmosphere. 

What’s particularly remarkable about Brilliant Planet’s system is that it isn’t reinventing nature; it’s simply applying lessons in a new way. The team has learned from shrimp farmers, miners, and even snowmakers — people who have been perfecting their trade for centuries — to make what it does as low cost and stable as possible. 

Brilliant Planet, Jovine added, is working with harbors, existing infrastructures, and people who are already pumping seawater for thermal cooling and desalination — individuals who are young, motivated, hungry for innovation, and determined to do whatever is necessary to preserve the environment. 

Change that Starts at Home

While Jovine is a master of harvesting the world’s natural resources to combat one of our biggest shared threats, Baird is a specialist at seeing the potential in his own front yard to achieve the same thing.

Baird, who also spoke at the summit, is the founder and CEO of BlocPower, a company that uses proprietary technology to analyze, finance, and upgrade homes and buildings with energy-efficient electric technology and appliances. In doing so, Baird and his company have had a marked and immediate impact on the lives of the individuals living in the communities in which BlocPower operates.

For example, the company has provided professional opportunities to formerly incarcerated individuals or people who have become involved in drug trafficking and related activities but want to change their lives. 

Baird and his team extend a hand to those who have the ability and desire to help change the world but who’ve never had the opportunity. For example, one man, a former drug dealer, attended a retraining program BlocPower runs in conjunction with New York City Mayor Eric Adams’s office, Baird noted. Through the program, people are paid $20 an hour to learn green construction skills, including how to install solar panels and electric vehicle charging stations and how to switch out fossil fuel heating and cooling systems to help New York City buildings comply with new green buildings laws. 

Today, BlocPower operates across almost 50 cities and is using artificial intelligence to make the work of redesigning how people live as efficient and easy as possible. 

Several cities across the United States have set a goal of being carbon neutral within the next decade. Many countries are more committed than ever to reversing the climate change that has occurred in recent decades. Brilliant Planet and BlocPower are just two examples of companies that are introducing us to new ways and methods for meeting those seemingly lofty but achievable goals. The road to net zero is long, but with innovation like this, our destination may soon be within reach.