Creativity and Design for Energy Decarbonization
“The best way to predict the future is to create it”
The movement to decarbonize our built environment is urgent and inevitable. While collaborative efforts continue to emerge -- the rate of decarbonization must reach 20x the rate of global decarbonization reported in 2023 to keep global temperatures to 1.5 C above pre-industrial records. We have a daunting task ahead of us, but as the timeline for many global deadlines and commitments draws closer, this transformation also offers hopeful opportunities: to reimagine and redevelop systems that are equitable, sustainable, and just.
To successfully decarbonize our cities and our economies requires thoughtful collaboration, planning and innovation among multiple parties (governments, communities, corporations, intergovernmental partnerships) and across all industries. Here, Stephen Early (Harvard GSD ‘26), Logan Malik (HLS ‘25), and Anay Patel (SEAS ‘26) of the CLP Energy and Decarbonization Cluster reflect upon key challenge areas: decarbonization buildings; decarbonizing the grid; and AI solutions. Together we explore paths for innovation and creative solutions that align with the transformational values of climate-forward leadership.
“The challenge that we face is that architecture has, broadly speaking for the past few decades, reveled in the production of formal virtuosity with little concern for its relational effects. Despite the facts that buildings and cities are of course an essential aspect of climate dynamics, the so-called mainstream of the field is just beginning to open up to the challenges that lay ahead…”
Diagram from Circular Construction Lab at Cornell University
Piles of cement-clinker before being formed into concrete.
Photos of adaptive reuse in buildings from my adventures.
Kendeda Building at the Georgia Tech Campus in Atlanta, Georgia - awarded certification from the Living Building Challenge.
The HouseZero Building in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Creatively Reforming the Incentive Structure and Power Dynamics of the Grid
By Logan Malik
The grid is critical to decarbonization efforts in the United States and across the globe. It represents both a critical area that must be decarbonized as well as an important tool in a decarbonized economy. While progress has been made to reduce emissions from the grid, the electric industry is still the second largest source of emissions in the United States, accounting for 25% of overall greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Moreover, for us to decarbonize other sectors, including the built environment and transportation, we need to rapidly electrify them – exchanging internal combustion engine cars for electric vehicles and natural gas or oil furnaces for heat pumps. To achieve this, immense investments and upgrades will need to be made to our grid. According to former United States Energy Secretary Jennifer M. Granholm, “to realize the full benefit of the nation’s goal of 100% clean electricity by 2035, we need to more than double our grid capacity,” while expanding interregional transmission capacity by over fivefold.
While investment in transmission has drastically increased [1] and reforms have been made to improve planning, permitting, and financing for new transmission projects, [2] investment in the most critical upgrades for a decarbonized system – namely, interregional transmission – is still lagging significantly. [3] This failure to make the necessary upgrades is due, in part, to “the current regulatory landscape [which] gives incumbent utilities a financial incentive to avoid investing in high-voltage lines while also giving them significant discretion to determine which lines will be built.” [4]
More money and regulatory reforms that maintain the same power dynamics alone will not get the grid where we need it to be to ensure clean, reliable, and affordable energy for an electrified economy. Rather, we must advance creative, innovative solutions that re-envision existing policies, decision-making processes, and norms in the operation and management of our grid. These creative solutions can be advanced at every level – from state, regional, and federal – and by diverse stakeholders – including consumer and environmental advocates, states, and federal agencies. It can be done by envisioning new structures that change the power dynamics and more directly incentivize the advancements we need to modernize our grid, and by leveraging available authority in existing law to upset business-as-usual, which has failed us.
Creative solutions are not mere theory. They have been, and continue to be, advanced at every level by diverse stakeholders. The remainder of this section offers three examples of creative solutions being advanced by advocates, states, and academics.
i. Advocates are envisioning what should be expected from the New England Regional Grid Operator.
A regional coalition of non-profit organizations and environmental advocates in New England, known as Fix the Grid, is fundamentally changing the way that communities and advocates interact with the regional grid operator, ISO New England (ISO-NE), by taking the fight for clean energy, environmental justice, and energy democracy directly to the operator. Through public education, direct advocacy, and participation in existing proceedings, they are demanding that “ISO-NE work with states and communities to build a just, transparent, and democratic energy grid” that (1) stops propping up dirty energy (2) transitions to 100% renewable energy (3) encourages small-scale and decentralized energy production, (4) is transparent and responsive to community input, and (5) is affordable and accessible for all. [5]
This sort of community-based advocacy that directly targets the grid operator and reinvisions what the grid should be and who it should serve is a creative strategy that could fundamentally change existing grid policy and management.
ii. Massachusetts proposed a Clean Energy Market to meet regional clean energy goals
Advocates are not alone in their efforts to advance creative solutions to alter grid management and shift power dynamics. States are also leading the way. For example, in 2023, the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER), submitted a bold proposal to establish a New England Forward Clean Energy Market as a means for states and utilities to meet their clean energy targets through the advancement of clean
energy development. The state proposed that a new regional nonprofit organization should be formed (overseen by a board of directors representing the New England States) which would coordinate closely with ISO-NE. This nonprofit would create several new renewable and clean energy certificate products (such as New England Regional Energy Certificates (NE-REC) and New England Clean Capacity Certificates (NE-CCC)) geared towards accelerating the deployment of clean energy within the region. It would also develop a three-year forward auction and a spot auction specifically for clean and renewable energy. [6] These markets would have worked concurrently with existing ISO-NE markets and would help to ensure that states and other actors could procure energy to satisfy their clean energy goals while also ensuring more transparency and security for clean energy developers.
While this proposal had some hangups and was ultimately not advanced, it offers an example of states seeking to advance creative and innovative solutions that re-imagine what the priorities of grid operators should be and how the grid is managed.
iii. Examining available avenues for federal actors to advance interregional transmission without legislative action
In a new article published in the Harvard Environmental Law Review, Professor Josh Macey and Elias van Emmerick identify available and creative solutions for federal agencies, including the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and Department of Energy (DOE), to change the incentive structures and power dynamics of the grid in a way that would better facilitate interregional transmission. [7] For example, Macey and van Emmerick propose leveraging the recently established Grid Deployment Office within DOE to increase funding and streamline permitting for new interregional transmission. [8] They also identify reasonable interpretations of existing provisions in the Federal Power Act that would enable FERC to (1) more readily make National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor (NIETC) designations, [9] (2) to create a National Transmission Planning Authority, [10] and (3) work with state or market participants to identify alternatives processes for identifying, and implementing, transmission solutions. [11] Finally, the authors argue that ISO governance reforms should be advanced. Specifically, they call for reforms that would restrict the overrepresentation of large utilities, increase participation in stakeholder processes, reduce vote dilution, and increase the number of filings submitted to FERC that align with key priorities by expanding filing rights to non-utility actors.
While many of these proposals are less feasible in light of the election of Donald Trump, they nonetheless highlight that changes can be made, at the federal level, that would alter the existing power dynamics of grid management without enacting legislation.
Participating in the Climate Leaders Program this past year has deepened my commitment to advancing bold, systems-level change in how we manage and govern our electric grid. The examples above are a powerful reminder that innovation doesn’t always require new laws—it often requires reimagining what’s possible within existing structures, and building the coalitions to get it done. I’m especially energized by the work of advocates, state officials, and scholars who are pushing boundaries and refusing to accept the status quo. Their efforts make clear that the grid is not just a technical system, but a political and moral one that is shaped by choices about who holds power and who benefits. As I move forward in my own career, I’m more committed than ever to helping reconfigure those choices. Whether through legal scholarship, policy work, or public advocacy, I hope to contribute to a future where the grid serves the public interest, supports climate goals, and reflects the voices of communities too often left out of energy decision-making.
—— Sources ——
[1] U.S. Energy Info. Admin., Utilities continue to increase spending on the electric transmission system (Mar. 26, 2021), https://perma.cc/S8LK-W6NZ (showing that transmission investments have increased from $9.1 billion per year in 2000 to $40 billion in 2019)
[2] See Joshua Macey & Elias van Emmerick, The Political Economy of Transmission Planning, 49.1 Harv. Envtl. L. Rev. 1, 3 (forthcoming 2025) (noting reforms in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and FERC Order’s No. 1977 and No. 1920)
[3] Id. at 6
[4] Id.
[5] https://fix-the-grid.org/about-us/
[6] See https://www.nutter.com/trending-newsroom-publications-ma-proposes-regional-clean-energy-mrkt
[7] Joshua Macey & Elias van Emmerick, Towards a National Transmission Planning Authority, 49 Harv. Envtl. L. Rev. 79, 82-83 (2025)
[8] Id. at 117-120
[9] Id. at 122-23 (interpreting § 216, which gives the DOE the authority to designate NIETC in geographic areas experiencing capacity constraints or congestion)
[10] Id. at 125-26 (arguing that § 206 would allow FERC to develop such an authority which could “be in charge of planning the entirety of the national transmission system”)
[11] Id. at 124 (arguing that § 202 “allows FERC to directly order utilities to build specific transmission projects, so long as either a state official or a market participant requests that it do so.” Based on this, they argue that FERC could establish a process that would enable it to “solicit proposals [based on identified needs]…and then direct incumbent utilities to develop the transmission infrastructure required for new generators to connect to the grid.”)
Solar panel energy drop off after sunset.
Modern, state-of-the-art data center with corridors of server racks.
Nvidia’s RTX 5090 GPU, one of the newest and most powerful on the market.
Inside the heart of a quantum computer, a cryogenic chamber with gold-plated wiring channels energy toward its qubit core.
CLP Cluster logo generated by Fotor AI.
New Cultures for Decarbonizing Buildings + Cities
By Stephen Early
When I came to the school of design from my mechanical engineering background, I had been focused on renewable energy systems and novel-alternative material applications. Much of my previous work revolved around the discussion of circular design, construction alternatives like hempcrete and renewables infrastructure like solar microgrids. I assumed these conversations would be foundational within architecture and urban design.
At the Graduate School of Design, I was surprised, however. Despite the urgency of the climate crisis, many conversations about the built environment still centered around conventional methods and aesthetics. The deep environmental implications of material choice, construction practice, and infrastructure design often took a back seat. I found myself asking: Why are we still obsessed with concrete? Why do we treat new construction as the default? And what would it take to realign architectural culture with the demands of a climate-conscious future?
When combined, the buildings and construction sector is responsible for about 39% of global energy-related GHG emissions. [1] This can be attributed to the actual construction of buildings and the materials they are made of (embodied emissions), as well as the energy required to support building functions through lighting, heating and cooling (operational emissions). [2] The majority of these emissions come from operational emissions, and yet creative solutions in both aspects are critical to achieving targets. Whether that be the Science-based target (SBti) of limiting average global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, [3] achieving carbon-neutral buildings by 2030, [4] or meeting the major US net-zero emissions goal of 2045 (which has a 50% reduction target for 2032), [5] these ambitious goals require new, ambitious solutions.
In this context, two areas have become central to my work::
First, the high carbon footprint of concrete. Concrete is the most widely used material in the world, after water, and is responsible for approximately 8% of global CO₂ emissions. [6] The production of cement is energy-intensive and emits significant greenhouse gases due to the energy demands of clinker (a key component of cement-concrete) and the bonding process of concrete curing. Yet the instinct of the construction industries to meet the demands of housing and developing with the use of concrete continues to rise. In its wake, demolition and construction waste also continue to be a carbon-burden.
Second, building energy demands. Electricity usage is a demand that will continue to increase as climatic conditions become more extreme since air conditioning (A/C) demand is projected to triple by 2050. [7] Areas that may not have previously had A/C built into housing infrastructure systems may now begin to incorporate it making the demand even greater than the regions where A/C is already commonly used.
These challenges — and the consequences of failing to address them — are well documented and well understood. From The Guardian, Jonathan Watts labeled concrete as “the most destructive material on Earth” in 2019. [8] In H.Res.109 (a.k.a the duty to create a Green New Deal), which was sponsored by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2019, there is an explicit call for “upgrading all existing buildings and constructing new buildings to achieve maximum energy and water efficiency.” [9]
To address these challenges, we need commitment and creativity.
In 2018, I spent three weeks on a research trip in Europe, studying the sustainable infrastructure of countries with major cities that often rank highest on the majority of sustainability and climate indexes. This journey took me to Germany, Spain, and Switzerland, which I have studied alongside other incredible countries (the Netherlands, Denmark, and Costa Rica). In Basel, Switzerland a unique approach from the city municipality and independent collectives has produced something new. The start-up collective Zirkular and the city teamed together to map the buildings that had been marked in the city for demolition, and identified building components that could be dismantled and reused rather than demolished. This information has been organized into a building component catalogue, producing a city-wide tool for architects and builders to build from the existing, rather than to build with imported materials or new concrete. [10]
Back in the United States, I’ve become more familiar with people dedicated to the work of operational building emissions. In 2022 at Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), I was involved in research being done on the Kendeda Building, [11] a converted parking lot building in Atlanta, Georgia that was awarded a Living Building Challenge Certification for its self-sustaining energy and water efficiency. It diverted more waste from landfill than it sent to the landfill, sourced more than 50% of its materials from within 1000 km of the site, and employs a photovoltaic system that produces a net-positive effect: 200% of the energy demand for the building. I was working there alongside GTRI faculty to develop sensor kits that studied the usage of the building (through occupancy data). This area of study which focuses on how people are actually using a building, largely improves our understanding of a building’s operational emissions and offers clues to how the emissions can be mitigated.
At Harvard, building decarbonization is also being pioneered with creativity. My work as an engineer and architect drew me to HouseZero which is the first smart retrofit of its kind. As a research assistant there, I learned that HouseZero is run through the Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities and headed by Dr. Ali Malkawi. He and the HCGBC team implemented a retrofit design of a pre-1940’s building that incorporated 285 sensors and responsive building control systems in order to reach stringent building standard goals. The goals were that: no HVAC system be utilized (almost no energy required for heating and cooling), 100% of the building cooling be managed through natural ventilation, lighting be operated through natural light conditions, and that there be zero embodied carbon emissions from construction. [12] All of these goals highlight the possibilities of a new decarbonization design agenda. When we are aware of the realistic constraints of our current moment, we can better address the impact of buildings through aspirational approaches, and move beyond the conventional practices of traditional construction.
While we can always improve the efficiency of buildings and construction, what’s most urgently needed today is creative, systemic change — an approach that makes alternative modes of building not only viable, but impossible to ignore. Our technical knowledge has outpaced our capacity to act. Now, innovation must emerge not just in form or material, but in the ways we implement, legislate, and normalize new design protocols. A more expansive culture of the built environment is waiting to emerge — one where “comfort” is decoupled from energy excess, and where architectural education is inseparable from the realities of carbon emissions, material extraction, and climate justice. In that context, the feasibility of alternatives like cross-laminated timber, hempcrete, or rammed earth no longer feels niche; prioritizing retrofits over new construction, or designing with responsive building envelopes, becomes an easier conversation, not an exception.
Through my own practice — as an engineer, researcher, designer and climate leader — I aim to keep pushing this conversation forward. Whether through adaptive reuse, novel material systems, or climate-aligned design tools, I am committed to reimagining futures that challenge default assumptions and center long-term resilience. The path toward a decarbonized built environment is not abstract, and fortunately, we have many examples of decarbonization being prototyped around the world. Our job now is to scale it — with creativity, care, and with collective resolve. Of course, there is still a long way to go to transform the built environment into one that is globally resilient, and we are still a long way away from achieving the established climate and sustainability targets I mentioned before. But if this moment of compounding ecological, social, and infrastructural crises teaches us anything, it is that siloed solutions will no longer suffice. We need collaborative, cross-disciplinary approaches that bring together engineers, architects, policymakers, scientists, builders, and communities.
As climate change reshapes our relationships to land, housing, and infrastructure, the built environment must evolve in kind. This transformation is not solely a technical problem — it is also political, cultural, and stems from what we consider when we design. Within that complexity I see a great possibility: to design with intention, to build with integrity, and to imagine systems that serve both people and planet. On my climate journey, I hope to help bring that vision closer.
A view of transmission lines in Melville, N.Y. Credit: Steve Pfost/Newsday RM via Getty Images
Advocates from Fix the Grid protesting outside of ISO-NE’s headquarters in Holyoke, MA (fix-the-grid.org/about-us/)
Official logo of Mass DOER
(www.mass.gov/orgs/massachusetts-department-of-energy-resources)
Potential NIETC Geographic Areas identified by the GDO during the Biden Administration (https://www.publicpower.org/periodical/article/doe-releases-preliminary-list-potential-national-interest-electric-transmission-corridors)
A Double-Edged Sword
By Anay Patel
The rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has taken the world by storm, rapidly transforming industries and driving innovation. From enhancing predictive analytics to the automation of systems, AI is already deeply embedded in many aspects of our daily lives. AI systems have been integrated to power products that we have long been familiar with, such as chatbots and browser search, expanding capabilities at an astonishingly quick pace. However, this “AI revolution” brings forth new challenges, particularly in energy consumption and sustainability, the latter of which is a contentious issue as climate change continues to intensify. [1] As AI inevitably is more widely adopted, balancing its potential as a beneficial tool with environmental responsibility is becoming a critical matter.
The energy sector is facing significant challenges, including aging infrastructure, fluctuating energy demands, and the urgent need for decarbonization. The demand for clean energy is also rising globally, as countries and companies commit to climate and sustainability targets. Harnessing the power of renewable energies such as solar and wind has proven to be tricky, as it introduces variability into energy supply, complicating grid stability and energy reliability. For example, solar output drops to near zero after sunset, and wind farms can experience a similar drop-off on nights with calm conditions, forcing grid operators to tap into alternative or stored energy sources. [2]
AI offers promising solutions to address some of these issues. It can optimize energy management by analyzing demand patterns, weather conditions, and grid capacities to improve efficiency and reduce energy waste. AI powered maintenance systems can also enable the early detection of equipment and infrastructure failures, cutting costs and preventing disruptions, which can often be extremely detrimental to both the suppliers and customers. When summing up the benefits, it becomes clear how AI can improve the integration of renewable or alternative energies into the energy grid, as well as how versatile of a tool it is. Energy giants like GE Power and Schneider Electric have already implemented AI to assist operations and resource management. [3] Furthermore, AI can completely transform the functionality of energy grids by powering smart grids that can dynamically adjust energy flow, optimizing energy management and increasing reliability. By aiding in the integration of renewables and streamlining grid performance, I believe AI can directly contribute to large-scale decarbonization efforts. [4]
In spite of the many benefits of AI in the energy sector, there are of course some glaring downsides, particularly in energy consumption. Training AI models takes immense computational power, as well as operating them. A single ChatGPT query consumes about 10 times more energy than a traditional Google search. [5] The data centers that are at the core of AI operations are currently estimated to account for 2-3% of global energy consumption, a figure that could increase to 4% by the end of the decade, potentially doubling their carbon emissions. AI hardware is also pushing the limits of power expenditure. Companies such as Nvidia and AMD are continuously improving their GPUs, which consume more energy with every advancement. [6] This rapid growth in both AI adoption and AI technologies poses a complex challenge for energy management and decarbonization efforts. I believe it is imperative that we proceed with caution until comprehensive solutions are in place.
Some efforts to curb these challenges are already underway, with some approaches being a natural extension of the rapid pace of technological innovation and others more sustainability-forward. Companies are developing energy-efficient hardware, with Nvidia’s new chips promising a 30-fold performance boost while also consuming 25 times less energy. [7] AI can also be integrated into scheduling systems, allowing tasks to be performed during periods of low energy demand, strategically decreasing stress on energy supply.
The most promising solution focuses on making data centers inherently more sustainable. Nuclear energy has been a controversial topic for decades, especially in the public eye due to lack of trust and major accidents, as well as being significantly more expensive to build and operate. In October 2024, we witnessed a huge step forward by three of the largest technology companies in the world: Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. They pledged to invest heavily in nuclear power plants, with the goal of creating AI data centers that have net-zero emissions and run carbon-free, both being commitments they need to fulfill urgently. This is a powerful statement to the world, announcing that the tech giants see nuclear energy as the main path forward, hopefully paving the way for more companies to follow their lead.
Nuclear energy is the most reliable and realistically scalable of the alternative energies that have been introduced as a replacement for fossil fuels. The United States is focusing on modular reactors to combat the issues of time and cost for nuclear energy infrastructure. These reactors produce about one-third of the amount of power as a traditional nuclear reactor, but cost significantly less money and time to make while also increasing location-dependent scalability. Google in particular has teamed up with Kairos Power, and the two hope to bring the first reaction online by 2030. [8]
Another long-term strategy involves breakthroughs in quantum computing. Classical supercomputers are consuming more and more power as AI models advance and become more complex, but quantum computers operate with entirely different mechanisms. The technology works by using qubits, which can represent 0 and 1 at the same time, compared to classical computers with transistors that can either represent 0 or 1. This seemingly small difference makes quantum computers unfathomably efficient compared to the majority of our current technological infrastructure. These machines will be able to solve problems with a fraction of the time and energy as we currently use, with the potential to abate significant amounts of carbon as well. Estimates based on current developments show that the first generation of fault-tolerant quantum computing could be operational by 2030, with some being more bullish. The coincidence of nuclear energy with quantum computing has the potential to reshape the climate crisis entirely, paving a way for a sustainable future that harmonizes with innovation. [9]
AI offers several solutions to long-standing challenges within the energy sector, such as efficiency, sustainability, and reliability. However, AI also poses an environmental threat as energy consumption skyrockets. Balancing the benefits with the costs requires both smarter AI-powered grid management and innovative technologies.
The current state of the energy sector and climate crisis demands more than just creativity, it also requires large-scale investments and commitments. The rapid rise of AI has not only revolutionized how industries approach problems, but it has also proved that there is no shortage of innovation. AI companies have been surfacing left and right, trying to outperform each other and become the preeminent AI leader, and while this does increase the pace of innovation, there is not enough regard for the purpose, impacts, and application of AI moving forward. It’s time to put AI into perspective of the critical, time-sensitive crises our world is facing, and think about what type of player AI is and will be. There are solutions on the horizon and several paths to a future sustainable equilibrium, it is simply a matter of whether we allow the climate crisis to beat us there.
As someone who both comes from a climate background and now works extensively with data and AI, I am uniquely positioned to take a lead in this transformative era of energy and decarbonization. I intend to continue educating myself on sustainable energy and how the AI boom confounds the energy transition through courses at Harvard as well as networking with professionals in the field. As I outlined in this post, the AI and energy intersection does have a promising future, but it is imperative that we spread awareness about the complexity of AI’s role, timeline of solutions, and mitigation strategies in the interim to drive large-scale cooperation. My mission is to help climate practitioners leverage AI to expedite the fight against climate change while shedding light on the energy stresses of AI to the tech sphere. Rapidly changing times are undoubtedly stressful, but in such a critical period for our planet’s future it is our duty as climate leaders to be informed to help strike the right balance between innovation and sustainability.