A new Microsoft solar project shows how climate and racial equity are getting connected

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4 years ago

August 12, 2021

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A Bronx rooftop with a view of Manhattan in the distance is covered with solar panels. As climate and racial justice are connected, ESG experts say more clean energy projects and jobs need to come to neglected urban communities.

DON EMMERT | AFP | Getty Images

Climate crises across the country — record heat waves, wildfires and flooding — have pushed climate to the forefront of corporate agendas. At the same time, companies are being held accountable for their actions to fix systemic racism at the community level. The two goals may seem distinct, but a new Microsoft renewable energy deal demonstrates that as the ESG industry develops, the environmental and social mandates shouldn’t stay in their siloes. Environmental injustice and racial injustice have always been connected in the real world, and should be in the realm of corporate ESG as well.

Microsoft announced in mid-July a solar energy partnership with Volt Energy, a Black-owned solar energy development firm, to supply Microsoft with 250 megawatts of solar power. It’s just one small power purchase agreement in the technology giant’s pledge of using 100% renewable energy by 2025, but it stands out not only for being done with a minority-led firm, but in being structured so that a portion of the profits are used to develop renewable energy sources in underserved communities across the United States.

The deal was Microsoft’s first utility-scale solar power purchase agreement with an African American energy solar development firm.

Big Tech’s climate commitment

Microsoft is already a leader in environmental initiatives from waste elimination to carbon removal, joining Big Tech peers Apple and Alphabet and more recently Amazon who are all heavily invested in climate technology, whether to power their own energy-intensive data centers or for transportation needs, as in the case of Amazon.

Microsoft’s overarching climate pledge goes one step further than most corporations though, promising to not just become carbon neutral but remove all the carbon from the environment that the company has emitted either directly, or by electrical consumption, since it was founded in 1975, by 2050.

“This is another example of them continuing to push the boundaries of what environmental leadership and leadership overall looks like for companies,” said Alison Omens, chief strategy officer at JUST Capital, ESG research specialist, which ranked Microsoft No. 1 among corporations in 2021, a position it has consistently held in the rankings. “Microsoft is doing a good job of thinking about the connection point between equity and environmental justice,” she said. “We cannot think about these things in silos.”

Bringing climate tech to underserved communities translates to high-paying green jobs, healthier air, and increased investment in those neighborhoods.

Tim Boyle | Getty Images News | Getty Images

“They’re not in this for charity,” said Nathanael Greene, a senior renewable energy advocate at the National Resource Defense Council. “They’re in this to make money, so this tells us that renewable energy is winning in the marketplace.”

That marketplace increasingly needs to represent all of America, including long neglected rural and urban communities of color.

“Developing community-based, renewable energy projects and related initiatives take time, and we are focused on doing the work to help ensure we are successful,” said Noelle Walsh, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s cloud operations and innovation group.

Racial equity and climate justice

Following the death of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement, discussions on racial inequities were ignited throughout corporations across the country. The larger history linking environmental justice and racial justice tracks a map of 20th-century environmental pollution that tended to be most acute near low-income communities and communities of color including majority Black, Native American, Latinx and Asian American areas, as well as an environmental non-profit movement that grew in size and scope but lacked diversity.

Microsoft and Volt Energy executives declined to provide details on projects being developed under the partnership, but bringing renewable energy sources to underserved communities signals an important step towards investing in the environment at the intersection of fighting racial inequities.

In the late 1960s, during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, growing concerns emerged around the inequity of environmental protection for communities of color across the U.S. In the 1980s, toxic solid waste sites were often located in low-income communities, often with majority Black, Native American, Latinx and Asian American residents, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Racial inequities like this persisted into the 1990s when an executive order was signed in 1994 by the Clinton Administration, dedicating federal funding to improve environmental and health conditions for minority and low-income communities.

“It is critically important that clean energy infrastructure and economic development investments are made in underserved minority and rural communities that have been disproportionally impacted by environmental injustices and lag behind in the health and financial benefits of the thriving clean energy economy,” said Volt Energy’s co-founder and CEO Gilbert Campbell in a statement at the time of the deal’s announcement. “It is equally important to provide access to the business and job creation benefits of the clean energy movement.”

The intersection of the environment and racial justice is an issue where leading ESG researchers and ESG investment activists are beginning to develop metrics. On Wednesday, shareholder advocacy group As You Sow released its first environmental racism scorecard for S&P 500 companies (Microsoft was No. 1). As You Sow views the metric as important in holding companies accountable for environmental harm even if they are making progress — and touting — diversity efforts, such as in hiring. The racial justice scorecard include indicators specifically focused on environmental racism through tracking of corporate environmental violations, fines, and penalties since 2015.

Scoring environmental harm

Andy Behar, CEO of As You Sow, said the new ESG metric stood out for a bad reason: the number of companies that ended up with a negative score when their progress on diversity was measured against their environmental harm.

“Environment violations, money paid in super fund sites, toxins dumped in communities of color … 39 of the S&P 500 don’t make it to zero,” he said. “We’ve never had a scorecard where we had to visualize negative numbers. It describes the situation really on the ground. They are doing more harm than they are able to make up for with positive hiring, donations to communities of color.”

Among those S&P 500 laggards are many oil and gas companies, as well as Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, which is facing increased ESG scrutiny.

ExxonMobil scored a negative 23%, placing it last. One example cited by As You Sow was the section of Beaumont, Texas, where 95% of the residents are African American and an ExxonMobil refinery releases at least 135 toxic chemicals.

The Exxon Mobil Beaumont Polyethylene Plant stands following Tropical Storm Imelda in Beaumont, Texas, U.S., on Friday, Sept. 20, 2019, which brought flooding that threatened refinery operations.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

“When we are in a conversation with a Chevron [Chevron was not in the bottom 10, ranking 350 out of 500 companies] or whoever, we’re saying you are not only failing on climate but get a negative score on racial justice, and you can’t have climate justice without racial justice, and this data actually shows that, and will be part of next year’s shareholder resolutions,” Behar said.

Diverse energy leaders

“After George Floyd, a lot of Silicon Valley companies took a hard look in the mirror and said they needed to invest in more diverse entrepreneurs and more diverse companies, but I haven’t seen a whole lot of progress there,” said Donnel Baird, CEO and founder of BlocPower, a climate technology start-up based in Brooklyn, New York, that is focused on energy efficiency retrofits for urban buildings.

BlocPower, which ranked No. 47 on the 2021 CNBC Disruptor 50 list, has completed over 1,000 projects in the New York City area, and is expanding its projects in 24 other U.S. cities. The Urban Green Council estimates a $20 billion market and well over 100,000 jobs created by 2030 in the NYC-metro area alone, and business models like Bloc Power’s retrofitting in underserved communities translates to high-paying green jobs, healthier air, and increased investment in those neighborhoods.

Baird’s firm has received a $50 million investment from Goldman Sachs, as well as investments from Salesforce Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz, who all came together in the middle of a pandemic to fund the early-stage company.

“I think there’s a moral and ethical for business leaders to invest in green infrastructure,” Baird said, but he added, “Goldman Sachs is investing $50 million to our company to invest in green buildings and low income communities. They’re not doing that for PR. They’re doing it because it’s a great story and they’re going to make money.”

Baird gives Microsoft credit for leading the charge in corporate America by making substantive investments in communities that need environmental justice initiatives, but he said all technology companies can go further. They can diversify their sustainability supply chains, and as more companies invest in carbon offsets as a way to meet their ambitious carbon-neutral targets in the years ahead, he said companies should invest in renewable energy credits in the streets of Chicago, Seattle and low-income communities instead of in the Brazilian rainforests, where there is less corporate accountability.

He recently told CNBC the road for Black founders in the energy sector is still one beset by bias, which he learned firsthand in fundraising, and George Floyd won’t change that quickly enough.

“We talked to 200 investment firms before the first yes. It was no on no for months on end,” Baird said. “The same people investing before George Floyd are the ones who are investing after. I believe intentions are real, but deep in the heart of hearts, they are just looking for the 19-year-old Stanford or Harvard dropout who has been doing coding since age 10. It’s pattern recognition.”

Environment

Tesla changes meaning of ‘Full Self-Driving’, gives up on promise of autonomy

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3 hours ago

September 5, 2025

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Tesla changes meaning of 'Full Self-Driving', gives up on promise of autonomy

Tesla has changed the meaning of “Full Self-Driving”, also known as “FSD”, to give up on its original promise of delivering unsupervised autonomy.

Since 2016, Tesla has claimed that all its vehicles in production would be capable of achieving unsupervised self-driving capability.

CEO Elon Musk has claimed that it would happen by the end of every year since 2018.

Tesla has even sold a software package, known as “Full Self-Driving Capability” (FSD), for up to $15,000 to customers, promising that the advanced driver-assist system would become fully autonomous through over-the-air software updates.

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Almost a decade later, the promise has yet to be fulfilled, and Tesla has already confirmed that all vehicles produced between 2016 and 2023 don’t have the proper hardware to deliver unsupervised self-driving as promised.

Musk has been discussing the upgrade of the computers in these vehicles to appease owners, but there’s no concrete plan to implement it.

While there’s no doubt that Tesla has promised unsupervised self-driving capabilities to FSD buyers between 2016 and 2023, the automaker has since updated its language and now only sells “Full Self-Driving (Supervised)” to customers:

The fine print mentions that it doesn’t make the vehicle “autonomous” and doesn’t promise it as a feature.

In other words, people buying FSD today are not really buying the capability of unsupervised self-driving as prior buyers did.

Furthermore, Tesla’s board has just submitted a new, unprecedented CEO compensation package for shareholders’ approval, which could give Musk up to $1 trillion in stock options pending the achievement of certain milestones.

One of these milestones is Tesla having “10 Million Active FSD Subscriptions.”

At first glance, this would be hopeful for FSD buyers since part of Musk’s compensation would be dependent on delivering on the FSD promises.

However, Tesla has changed the definition of FSD in the compensation package with an extremely vague one”

“FSD” means an advanced driving system, regardless of the marketing name used, that is capable of performing transportation tasks that provide autonomous or similar functionality under specified driving conditions.

Tesla now considers FSD only an “advanced driving system” that should be “capable of performing transportation tasks that prove autonomous or similar functionality”.

The current version of FSD, which requires constant supervising by the driver, could easily fit that description.

Therefore, FSD now doesn’t come with the inital promise of Tesla owners being able to go to sleep in their vehicles and wake up at their destination – a promise that Musk has used to sell Tesla vehicles for years.

Electrek’s Take

The way Tesla discusses autonomy with customers and investors versus how it presents it in its court filings and legally binding documents is strikingly different.

It should be worrying to anyone with an interest in this.

With this very vague description in the new CEO compensation package, Tesla could literally lower the price of FSD and even remove base Autopilot to push customers toward FSD and give Musk hundreds of billions of dollars in shares in the process.

There’s precedent for Tesla decreasing pricing on FSD. Initially, Musk said that Tesla would gradually increase the price of the FSD package as the features improved and approached unsupervised autonomy.

That was true for a while, but then Tesla started slashing FSD prices, which are now down $7,000 from their high in 2023:

The trend is quite apparent and coincidentally began when Tesla’s sales started to decline.

FSD is now a simple ADAS system without any promise of unsupervised self-driving. This might quite honestly be one of the biggest cases of false advertising or bait-and-switch ever.

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Environment

GM’s promised affordable EVs hit another hurdle, but there’s more to the story

Published

4 hours ago

September 5, 2025

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GM's promised affordable EVs hit another hurdle, but there's more to the story

The new Chevy Bolt EV is set to enter production later this year, with one fewer shift, following GM’s reduction in production plans at several US plants. Apart from the Bolt, GM promised a new family of affordable EVs. Are those, too, now at risk?

GM says more affordable EVs are coming, but when?

GM remained the number two EV maker in the US after back-to-back record sales months in July and August. However, with the $7,500 federal tax credit set to expire at the end of the month, the company expects a slowdown.

On Thursday, GM sent a note to employees at its Spring Hill plant in Tennessee, outlining plans to reduce output of two Cadillac electric SUVs, the Lyriq and Vistiq.

A source close to the matter confirmed the news to Reuters, saying the production halt will begin in December. GM will significantly reduce output during the first five months of 2026, according to the source.

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GM is also delaying the second shift at its Fairfax Assembly Plant in Kansas City, where the new Chevy Bolt is slated to enter production later this year. The Bolt will be the first of a new series of affordable EVs that GM intends to build in Kansas.

However, those too, may now be in jeopardy. According to local news outlets, GM Korea Technical Research Center (GMTCK), a spin-off of GM’s Korean subsidiary, was recently cut out of a secret small EV project it was developing.

GMTCK president Brian McMurray reportedly announced internally last month during a trip to the US that the project was cancelled and only 30% to 40% complete.

A GM Korea spokesperson clarified that “the EV project being led by GMTCK was a global undertaking, not undertaken solely by GM Korea. The spokesperson added, “The project itself has not been canceled; the role of the Korean team has simply changed.”

The new electric car, dubbed “Fun Family,” was scheduled to launch under the Chevy and Buick brands, using a single platform. Production was expected to begin in 2027 with deliveries starting in 2028.

Chevy-Bolt-EV — 2022 Chevy Bolt EUV (Source: GM)

GM Korea exports over 90% of the vehicles it makes to the US, but with the new auto tariffs, the subsidiary is expected to play a drastically smaller role, if any at all. The news is fueling the ongoing rumors that GM could withdraw from Korea altogether.

In addition to the tariffs, South Korea’s recently passed “Yellow Envelope Law” could make it even more difficult for GM with new labor laws.

Chevy-Equinox-EV-discounts — Chevy Equinox EV LT (Source: GM)

Will this impact the affordable EVs GM is promising to launch in the US? They are scheduled to be built in Kansas, but with the R&D Center, GM’s second largest globally, following the US, claiming to be excluded from a major global EV project, it can’t be a good sign.

In the meantime, GM already has one of the most affordable electric vehicles in the US, the Chevy Equinox EV. Starting at under $35,000, the company calls it “America’s most affordable” EV with over 315 miles of range.

With the $7,500 federal tax credit still available, GM is promoting Chevy Equinox EV leases for under $250 a month. Nowadays, it’s hard to find any vehicle for under that.

Source: Newsworks Korea

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Environment

Connecticut, Rhode Island sue Trump to save 80% complete offshore wind farm

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4 hours ago

September 5, 2025

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Connecticut, Rhode Island sue Trump to save 80% complete offshore wind farm

Connecticut and Rhode Island are suing the Trump administration to overturn its “baseless” decision to halt Revolution Wind, a nearly completed offshore wind farm set to deliver clean power to New England.

Attorneys General William Tong of Connecticut and Peter Neronha of Rhode Island announced Thursday that they’ll file suit in Rhode Island federal court to overturn the August 22 stop-work order from the Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management (BOEM). The order abruptly shut down construction without citing any violation of law or safety threats. Instead, BOEM vaguely referred to “concerns” under its Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act authority, offering no explanation.

Revolution Wind is 15 nautical miles off Rhode Island and expected to come online in 2026. Once complete, the $6 billion project would supply 350,000 homes with electricity and save ratepayers in Connecticut and Rhode Island hundreds of millions of dollars over 20 years. The project supports more than 2,500 jobs across the US, including over 1,000 union construction jobs, and has already cleared every required state and federal review. Construction is already 80% complete.

The lawsuit, to be filed against the Department of the Interior, BOEM, and their nominated leaders, argues that the stop-work order violates the Administrative Procedure Act and the agency’s authority under OCSLA. The complaint says the government’s action is arbitrary, capricious, and undermines both states’ legal and financial commitments.

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“Revolution Wind is fully permitted, nearly complete, and months from providing enough American-made, clean, affordable energy to power 350,000 homes. Now, with zero justification, Trump wants to mothball the project, send workers home, and saddle Connecticut families with millions of dollars in higher energy costs,” Tong said. “This kind of erratic and reckless governing is blatantly illegal, and we’re suing to stop it.”

Neronha added, “With Revolution Wind, we have an opportunity to create good-paying jobs for Rhode Islanders, enhance energy reliability, and ensure energy cost savings while protecting our environment. And yet, this stop-work order is not even the latest development in this administration’s all-out assault on wind energy. Just yesterday, we learned of reports that the Administration is pulling in staff from several different unrelated federal agencies, including Health and Human Services, to do its bidding. This is bizarre, this is unlawful, this is potentially devastating, and we won’t stand by and watch it happen.”

Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont said the administration has offered no explanation nearly two weeks after the order. “We hoped to work with the Administration to lower energy costs, strengthen grid reliability, create jobs, and drive economic growth, but only if they share those goals. But if they do not, we will act to preserve this vital project and protect the energy future of Connecticut and the entire New England region,” he said.

Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) called the shutdown “insane, illogical, and illegal,” while Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) said, “The Revolution Wind project has already made it through exhaustive reviews by multiple federal agencies, and I doubt Trump’s flimsy excuses for scuttling this project will stand up to legal scrutiny.”

Danish renewables developer Ørsted, which owns a 50% share in Revolution Wind, also announced Thursday that it’s suing the Trump administration in a bid to restart construction on the blocked wind farm.

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