Everblue Partner Speaks at White House Clean Energy Forum

Yesterday Jon Boggiano, principal partner at Everblue, was a panelist at the White House Clean Energy Forum (see forum video here). The forum involved a jam-packed conference room at the White House and was a who’s who of the green building industry with over 120 federal and corporate leaders present.

Green building finance, technology, and training were all discussed for nearly four hours total and Jon was invited as a panelist to share some of Everblue’s expertise from the private sector with the members of the audience. Attendees included the Administrator for the Government Services Administration (aka the government’s landlord), the Secretary of Labor, the chairman of the U.S. Green Building Council, the Federal Environmental Executive, the Deputy Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Chief Technology Officer of United Technologies Corporation, numerous mayors and representatives from every federal agency.

The conference’s theme was to discuss the role of the federal government in promoting sustainability through green building. Jon took the opportunity to point out that since the GSA alone controls 1.7% of the commercial space in the United States that they can take risks to help scale new technologies that would otherwise be too risky for the private sector. He also emphasized the importance of the federal government for setting standards to avoid a patchwork of regulations at the state and local level.

Other topics covered included the bipartisan idea of setting up a “green bank” to finance renewable energy and energy efficiency projects much as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac do for the mortgage industry. Proponents of such a plan believe it is the best way to alleviate the ongoing credit crunch and promote investment in such technology.

Other panelists and attendees included:

• Nancy Sutley, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ)
• Hilda Solis, Secretary of the Department of Labor
• Martha Johnson, Administrator, General Services Administration (GSA)
• Ron Sims, Deputy Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
• Xavier de Souza Briggs, Associate Director for General Government Programs, Associate Director of the office of Management and Budget (OMB)
• Michelle Moore, Federal Environmental Executive, Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ)
• Arun Majumdar, Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Department of Energy (ARPA-E, DOE)
• JocCole "JC" Burton, President, Woodline Solutions
• Martin Chavez, Executive Director of ICLEI- Local Governments for Sustainability, USA
• Dan Nall, Senior Vice President, WSP Flack + Kurtz
  
• Herman Bulls, CEO, Public Institutions, Jones Lang LaSalle
• Jeff Eckel, President & CEO, Hannon Armstrong
• Kenneth Hubbard, Executive Vice President, Hines
• David Allen, Principal, McKinstry
• Howard Berke, Executive Chairman and Co-Founder, Konarka
• Phil Bernstein, Vice President, Autodesk
• J. Michael McQuade, Carrier/ United Technologies Corporation (UTC)

The day ended with a number of the attendees traveling to another 1.5 day conference dedicated to discussing energy efficiency and renewable energy in the federal government.