The gains in efficiency generate enough savings to lower costs for property owners and deliver a profit to BlocPower investors. That reduces the pollution driving climate change while also making indoor air healthier. Baird’s business plan is simple: the company replaces heating and cooling systems that run on fossil fuels with greener, more efficient alternatives such as electric heat pumps and solar panels. Since its inception in 2012, his Brooklyn-based start-up has brought clean energy to more than 1,100 low-income buildings across the New York area. So they stayed, the need to keep their children warm outweighing the danger of toxic fumes and open flames.īaird, 40, has made it his life’s work to ensure other people don’t have to make that choice. The landlord wouldn’t address the problem, and the family couldn’t afford to move. It was exactly how Baird’s family tried to heat his childhood home more than three decades earlier, in another Brooklyn building with a dysfunctional HVAC system. Climate Visionaries highlights brilliant people around the world who are working to find climate solutions.
