By Meg Garner Reporter, Nashville Business Journal
Former Gov. Phil Bredesen has his next act. On Tuesday, Bredesen debuted Clearloop, a new business that aims to help companies offset their carbon emissions through new solar energy projects, at Bloomberg’s Sustainable Business Summit in New York City. Bredesen serves as the startup’s chairman, after founding the company with his former campaign staffers Laura Zapata and Bob Corney, according to Clearloop’s website.
“I see it as a way of really reaching into a different world of companies that are not the big dogs, who have got some C-suite executive worrying about sustainability, like Walmart does or Procter & Gamble does,” Bredesen told The Associated Press, which first reported on the company’s launch.
Here’s how the Brentwood-based company will operate, according to The Associated Press:
Clearloop will offer short-term agreements that enable companies to compensate for their carbon emissions impact by paying to fund new solar panels in communities with the dirtiest electric grids.
The agreements would offset companies’ carbon footprints, either product-by-product or service-by-service. This is Bredesen’s second renewable energy-centric venture since his time in public office. It’s also his first public move since he unsuccessfully campaigned for U.S. Senate last year.
In 2011, he teamed up with other members of his administration to launch Silicon Ranch Corp., which owns and develops solar energy plants. Over the past two years, the fast-growing company has attracted nearly $280 million in equity capital, including a major investment from global oil and gas company Royal Dutch Shell.
In July, Bredesen stepped down as Silicon Ranch’s chairman during a series of C-suite changes. He remains one of the company’s directors.
Read the original article at the Nashville Business Journal.
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