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Selecting my favorite comments from the most recent Common Sense Colloquy Q&As is both challenging and fun. I’m always struck by how relevant the comments from our participants are, and how much they have in common with each other. Listening, engaging others and simplifying what you say and how you say it come up as advice again and again. But what makes the series so interesting to me are the other nuggets of wisdom that may be specific, funny and/or inspiring.   The past

After nearly six years, I’m still surprised by how useful the insights shared by our Common Sense Colloquy participants are for my daily work. The inspiration and information each participant imparts is both helpful and encouraging and reminds me of what a great resource this series is for communicators.   This is my second post in our Years Five and Six in Review series and it includes responses from our sixteen participants about the best advice each participant has given

Somehow, nearly six years have passed since I started The Common Sense Colloquy series of Q&As with energy, environment and other leaders in February 2018. In that time, more than sixty leaders from a variety of backgrounds and organizations have shared their insights on common sense communications and the wisdom of their professional experience. It’s a remarkable collection of commentaries from an inspiring set of people and a reminder that common sense is a useful foundati

We’ve had the pleasure and privilege of working with a number of leading environmental and conservation organizations over the past eight years. We’ve included them in this series whenever possible, and we’re happy to add to that list this month with a new Q&A with Brian Sybert , the executive director of the Conservation Lands Foundation (CLF). Brian leads an organization that is focused more on “doing the work” than on “taking the credit,” but that doesn’t mean their work

Although our work is generally focused in the United States, we are beginning to have opportunities to bring our expertise in communicating about energy to clients working in other parts of the world. One of the first such clients is Greenwood Energy , a part of The Libra Group , and a partner firm to our client Greenwood Sustainable Infrastructure (GSI). [To learn more about GSI, read our Common Sense Colloquy Q&A with their CEO, Mazen Turk, from earlier this year here .] G

With so much happening in the energy and environment communities this year, it can be challenging to determine what to focus on for this monthly series of interviews. One topic of particular interest to many of our audiences is sustainability and corporate responsibility. I’ve been encouraged to see the importance of these issues increase over the past few decades to the point where they are now front and center in the national conversation and key drivers of business and pol

The role of institutional investors in climate change mitigation is not always well understood, despite a great deal of attention being paid to the impact of such investments in driving business changes designed to help address the global threat of a changing climate. At the same time, diversity, equity and inclusion decisions are increasingly important to investment considerations and are now contemplated in concert with climate and related topics. Fortunately, we have a fri

Substantively and effectively addressing climate change is a multi-layered challenge. We need to reduce and eventually eliminate emissions (which technologies such as carbon capture, utilization and storage will help with), and we need to remove existing or legacy emissions as well (which technologies such as carbon removal will help with). In this series, we’re trying to address climate change and other important topics in as many ways as possible. This month, we’re focusing

The Common Sense Colloquy requires a good deal of effort, but the opportunity to share the insight and perspective of the smart people we work and collaborate with is worth it. In this, the third post in our Year Four in Review series, we share my favorite comments from our twelve participants over the past year. In addition to being smart and insightful, the comments below share a few things in common: they address the value of authenticity, the importance of equity and the

Every year at this time for the past three years, we have highlighted the best of the best from our Common Sense Colloquy series: key advice and perspective on communications from a diverse group of energy, environmental and LGBTQ leaders who participated in our monthly Q&A series. In this, the second post in our three-part series marking the end of the fourth year of the Common Sense Colloquy, we’re sharing insight from twelve influential communications and advocacy leaders

Four years ago, I had an idea for a series of Q&As with interesting energy and environment leaders. In February 2018, I posted the first of what I hoped would be an ongoing series of useful conversations sharing insight on common sense conversations. Our client Marcene Mitchell set a high bar with that first interview and every person since then has demonstrated that this wasn’t just a good idea, it was an insightful one. The nearly fifty conversations we’ve had since that

Energy policy is now also climate policy. Decisions about what types of energy sources to build for the future are now inextricably linked with their impact on the planet. As this connection has become ever more obvious, interest in nuclear energy has grown. But challenges remain, to be sure. This month’s Q&A subject is Jessica Lovering , co-founder of Good Energy Collective (GEC). Jessica stepped into that breach to build the “ progressive case for nuclear energy as an e

Climate change touches everyone, everywhere. As we saw with extreme weather events last year that were likely influenced by a changing climate, the conversation about our warming planet is no longer theoretical or future-based. Climate change is now. Increasingly, the conversation about it is now as well. And groups like E2 (Environmental Entrepreneurs) are one reason for this dialogue. E2 is a national, nonpartisan organization of more than 11,000 business leaders across th

Climate change doesn’t recognize borders. While most of our work centers on the U.S., we understand the importance of hemispheric and global communications on issues like energy and environment. So, I was thrilled when a former colleague contacted me this summer to ask for RENEW PR ’s help with the release of a report on the future of clean energy in Mexico. I jumped at the chance and had the opportunity to bring new RENEW PR Team Member Jessica Lass into the conversation fr

National Parks have been part of my life for almost as long as I can remember. I was born in DC and lived within a mile of Rock Creek National Park for most of my childhood. I spent summers visiting National Parks with my family and some of my fondest memories are of hiking the Grand Canyon National Park and Rocky Mountain National Park . Indeed, my passion for nature and the environment is part of the reason I’ve focused my career on climate and related communications effor

Over the past six and one-half years, we’ve had the pleasure and privilege of working with a number of leading energy and environmental advocacy firms on topics as varied as renewable energy, energy efficiency, sustainable buildings and carbon capture. One of those groups is Clean Air Task Force . Clean Air Task Force (CATF) was selected as a top global climate organization by the Founders Pledge , has been called one of “ six of the most high-impact, cost-effective, evidence

One of the many careers I considered as a young child was landscape architecture. It just seemed cool and I thought it would be a lot of fun. But then, other career paths seemed more exciting, and I moved on. So it’s great fun for me now to have the opportunity to talk about landscape architecture again, but this time with the leader of the landscape architecture industry’s professional organization. Landscape architecture is relevant to health, infrastructure and environment

Events of the past few years have thrust corporate leaders into the spotlight in new ways and raised expectations for action. The dialogue has certainly changed in terms of the national conversation about corporate responsibility, particularly in light of growing recognition of the need for urgent action on climate change. We have the good fortune of working with a number of corporations and other leaders shaping this national conversation. One such person is DSM North Americ

As we noted earlier this week, "with the beginning of the Biden-Harris Administration and the start of a new session of Congress, efforts to decarbonize the economy are getting renewed attention with announcements being made seemingly every day on new net zero pledges, new partnerships designed to boost advanced technologies and new products and services designed to help the U.S. meet mid-century climate goals." To help highlight the business perspective on these policies, we

With the beginning of the Biden-Harris Administration and the start of a new session of Congress, efforts to decarbonize the economy are getting renewed attention with announcements being made seemingly every day on new net zero pledges, new partnerships designed to boost advanced technologies and new products and services designed to help the U.S. meet mid-century climate goals. Much of that attention has focused on what policies the new Administration will promote and the c