Author: Seyed Madaeni, Co-founder and CEO

Why did your organization get involved with the Beyond the Megawatt initiative?

Verse’s mission is to unlock the benefits of clean power for organizations everywhere. But we have to do so in a responsible, sustainable way. Beyond the Megawatt (BTM)has created excellent resources and guidelines to ensure the clean energy transition doesn’t do damage in the service of doing good. 

What impact will the Principles for Purpose-Driven Energy Procurement have on the clean energy industry?

The Principles help keep important issues of social justice, human and labor rights, sustainable sourcing, the environment, and equity on people’s minds. The status quo will only change if people engage in conversations about change-making — and BTM is helping galvanize conversation. 

Also, CEBA has created excellent resources to help companies ask the right questions when sourcing clean power. Those actionable, easy-to-use tools are invaluable, particularly for organizations that don’t have significant power procurement experience or don’t know what questions to ask. 

How do the principles influence the broader transition to clean energy?

BloombergNEF’s 1H 2024 Corporate Energy Market Outlook showed that most new clean energy came from corporate power purchase agreements. As a driving force in the clean energy transition, corporates can influence the broader ecosystem. If they model good behavior, it can set a standard for other clean energy purchasers.  

How will you consider the principles during your clean energy procurement process?

We have incorporated the Principles into our standard Request for Offer (RFO) form for developers. We already had many of the questions from the Procurement Guidance resource in our form, but the BTM Toolkit helped us add new ones to be comprehensive.