Governing Climate Action: Massachusetts’ Strategy for Decarbonization and Resilience

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1. 

   10 Dec 2025 · 39 min

   Tata Power and India's Energy Transition: Balancing Growth and Decarbonization

   As bonus episode of Climate Rising, we feature a conversation among Tata Power CEO Dr. Praveer Sinha, Harvard Business School Professor Vikram Gandhi, and HBS Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Brian Kenny that explores how India’s largest private power company is navigating its net-zero commitment while supporting a rapidly growing economy. With energy demand projected to quadruple by 2047, Tata Power has committed to phasing down coal and expanding renewables, distributed generation, and smart grid investments. This conversation, based on the HBS case “Tata Power and India’s Energy…

2. 

   26 Nov 2025 · 58 min

   Decarbonizing Steel in the Global South: JSW Group’s Climate Strategy

   Parth Jindal and Prabodha Acharya of JSW Group join Climate Rising to discuss how one of India’s largest industrial conglomerates is reducing the carbon intensity of its steel business while scaling infrastructure for a fast-growing economy. They share how JSW built vertically integrated operations—from power to cement to ports—through industrial symbiosis, and why energy efficiency, renewable power, and circular practices are at the heart of its decarbonization roadmap. The conversation explores India’s dual challenge: meeting rising domestic steel demand while managing its climate…

3. 

   12 Nov 2025 · 53 min

   De-Risking Climate Tech: Inside the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center with Galen Nelson

   Galen Nelson, Chief Climate Officer at the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) explains how the state is helping accelerate climate innovation through early-stage grants, equity investments, and infrastructure support. Galen outlines how MassCEC targets “market failures” where private investors hesitate—such as pilot and demonstration projects—and how these public investments help attract follow-on capital, inform policy, and build economic resilience. Galen shares examples across climate tech verticals including energy efficiency, carbon-intensive materials like cement, and urban…

4. 

   15 Oct 2025 · 31 min

   How Crusoe is Reducing the Carbon Intensity of AI Data Centers

   Hui Wen Chan, Senior Director of Sustainability at Crusoe, describes how the rapid rise of AI is reshaping energy demand and Crusoe’s efforts to design more sustainable data centers. She explains how Crusoe leverages stranded energy sources, repurposed electric vehicle batteries, on-site renewables, and innovative energy-efficient cooling technologies to design and build gigawatt-scale AI data center infrastructure that reduces water and carbon footprints. She also shares why Crusoe emphasizes modularity and location-based energy sourcing, and how its customers—ranging from AI startups to…

5. 

   1 Oct 2025 · 40 min

   Scaling Carbon Capture for Hard-to-abate sectors: Danielle Rapson of Mantel

   Danielle Rapson, HBS alum and Co-founder and COO of Mantel, joins Climate Rising to explain how her company is developing a novel molten-based carbon capture system for hard-to-abate industrial sectors. Danielle shares the story of how Mantel spun out of an MIT lab, what sets its technology apart from existing amine-based carbon capture, and why the economics of steam reuse are critical to its efficiency. She also discusses how Mantel’s early projects in pulp and paper and oil refining are shaping its path to commercialization, and what policy and regulatory incentives—like 45Q and Canada’s…

6. 

   17 Sep 2025 · 43 min

   Building Climate-Resilient Farming with Robotics: Eric Adamson of Oishii and Tortuga

   Eric Adamson, Robotics Executive at Oishii and co-founder of Tortuga AgTech, joins Climate Rising to share how automation and AI are transforming fruit farming. Eric explains how his team designed a strawberry-harvesting robot capable of operating in outdoor tunnels and vertical farms, bringing operational efficiency, labor savings, and climate resilience to high-value crops. He discusses why harvest is the hardest—and most impactful—problem in agriculture to automate, what it took to move from lab demo to field-scale deployment, and how they integrated custom robotics and 17 on-device AI…

7. 

   30 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 9 min

   Powering AI and the Energy Transition: Why Permitting Reform Matters

   Permitting reform has become one of the most consequential—and controversial—topics in U.S. climate and energy policy. As electricity demand rises due to AI, data centers, electrification, and economic growth, many argue that the country’s permitting, transmission, and interconnection processes are too slow to support the clean energy transition. In this special crossover episode jointly produced by the Climate Rising and CleanLaw podcasts, Mike Toffel and Harvard Law School Professor Jody Freeman speak with Nat Keohane, President of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES). They…

8. 

   16 Sep 2026 · 40 min

   Amazon’s Climate Pledge Friendly Program: Can Sustainability Labels Change How Consumers Shop?

   How can companies make sustainability information useful to consumers at the moment they make a purchase? Justine Mahler and Cameron Westfall of Amazon join Climate Rising to discuss Climate Pledge Friendly, Amazon’s sustainable shopping program. They explain how Amazon uses third-party certifications to identify products with sustainability attributes, how the company evaluates which certifications qualify, and how it translates complex standards into information consumers can quickly understand. The conversation also explores what Amazon has learned about consumer behavior since launching…

9. 

   2 Sep 2026 · 24 min

   How Companies Tell Climate Stories: Lessons from New Belgium, Allbirds, and Microsoft

   Climate action requires more than technology, policy, and capital. It also requires communication. In this special curated episode of Climate Rising, we revisit three past conversations to explore how companies communicate about climate change to different audiences. The episode features excerpts from Mike Toffel’s conversations with leaders of New Belgium Brewing, Allbirds, and Microsoft that illustrate distinct approaches to climate storytelling. New Belgium used products and campaigns to engage consumers directly. Allbirds embedded sustainability into product design and customer…

10. 

    19 Aug 2026 · 30 min

    Carbon Trust: How Carbon Labeling Shapes Climate Communication and Consumer Choice

    Carbon labeling has become one of the most visible ways climate actions enter everyday consumer decisions. In this episode of Climate Rising, Julia Nicoara, Marketing and Communications Director at the Carbon Trust, explains how carbon labeling systems, certification standards, and corporate partnerships are helping organizations measure, reduce, and communicate their climate impact. The conversation explores how carbon labels evolved from early experimental initiatives into widely adopted transparency tools, how companies balance credibility and communication in sustainability claims, and…

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