{"id":2487,"date":"2019-10-18T10:23:12","date_gmt":"2019-10-18T14:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/?p=2487"},"modified":"2019-10-18T10:23:12","modified_gmt":"2019-10-18T14:23:12","slug":"the-view-from-20-gms-global-sustainability-energy-manager-reflects-on-changes-at-the-automaker-by-sahara-james-and-katie-ellman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/2019\/10\/18\/the-view-from-20-gms-global-sustainability-energy-manager-reflects-on-changes-at-the-automaker-by-sahara-james-and-katie-ellman\/","title":{"rendered":"The View From 20\u2014GM\u2019s Global Sustainability Energy Manager Reflects on Changes at the Automaker–by Sahara James and Katie Ellman"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
General Motors’ Rob Threlkeld in the solar array field at GM Warren Transmission Operations in Warren, Michigan. (Photo by Jeffrey Sauger for General Motors)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rob Threlkeld, Global Manager of Sustainable Energy, Supply and Reliability for General Motors, began his career at the automaker as manager of the powerhouse and wastewater treatment plant operations at GM\u2019s Lordstown, Ohio assembly complex.<\/p>\n

In the almost 20 years since, his sustainability career has grown alongside the company\u2019s sustainability commitment. From an initial focus on energy efficiency, both his role and the company\u2019s efforts have expanded to encompass renewable energy procurement and EV integration. General Motors is now on track to meet the electricity needs of its global operations with 100% renewable energy by 2050<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bard MBA student Sahara James spoke with Threlkeld about how GM has responded to changes in the renewables landscape, how company leadership reacted to his team\u2019s pitch to join RE100<\/a>, and why there\u2019s still power in numbers.<\/p>\n

The following Q&A is an edited excerpt from the Bard MBA\u2019s October 18th <\/em>The Impact Report<\/em><\/a> podcast. The Impact Report brings together students and faculty in <\/em>Bard\u2019s MBA in Sustainability<\/em><\/a> program with leaders in business, sustainability and social entrepreneurship.<\/em><\/p>\n

Reprinted from GreenBiz.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

JAMES: YOU’VE BEEN WITH GENERAL MOTORS FOR THE BETTER PART OF TWO DECADES. HOW HAS THE COMPANY AND YOUR ROLE EVOLVED OVER TIME?<\/p>\n

A lot of the initial focus of my early part of my career was on operations and energy efficiency efforts. If we fast forward, my role is still significantly focused on energy efficiency, but it\u2019s now also focused on procuring more sustainable energy from renewable sources.<\/p>\n

GM has spearheaded renewable energy efforts going back decades. Starting in 2005, we used solar panels on our rooftops, and we now procure renewables off site. For instance, a sizable wind portfolio supports our production facilities in Texas, Ohio and Indiana, with the wind energy coming from virtual power purchase agreements<\/a>. The landscape has changed dramatically as the price of renewables has come down significantly in the past decade\u2014the amount of renewables coming online is increasing significantly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

JAMES: TELL US ABOUT GM’S FOUR-PRONGED ENERGY STRATEGY.<\/p>\n

As we march down our path to ultimately zero emissions, we joined RE100<\/a> in 2016 and have a four-pronged strategy towards that.<\/p>\n

The first pillar is energy efficiency\u2014reducing energy use is ultimately what you want to do, but you\u2019re never going to reduce to zero because you\u2019re always having to use energy in the business. The second pillar is using renewable energy and other resources that are zero carbon.<\/p>\n

The third pillar is, as a car company, transitioning to an all-electric future and how we think about energy differently. It used to be about what a barrel of oil cost and a gallon of gasoline. Now it\u2019s about how a kilowatt hour of electricity is generated and how it\u2019s being consumed. So the third pillar is around energy storage, whether it\u2019s fuel cells, batteries or electric vehicles. How do we think about rates and the designs that ultimately support our electrification efforts?<\/p>\n

The fourth pillar is around policy and how we leverage the size and scale of General Motors to drive change, whether it\u2019s support for energy efficiency efforts or renewable energy designs, or policy around tariffs or transmission or how we integrate energy storage.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

JAMES: HOW DID THE STRATEGY COME TOGETHER AT THE COMPANY?<\/p>\n

In 2011, GM set a target to procure 125 megawatts of renewables by 2020. We were one of the first corporations to establish a renewables target at that time, which was actually before renewables became mainstream and prices came down to the levels they are today. Fast forward to 2016, and with the addition of our off-site wind projects, we surpassed that 125 megawatts target four years ahead of schedule.<\/p>\n

So the question was, what is our next goal going to look like? That\u2019s when the team here proposed joining RE100. In response to our initial pitch to leadership, there were a lot of questions about whether we were putting all of our eggs into the renewables basket. Leadership wanted to know whether there was more to it. We developed the four pillars strategy in response to those questions\u2014it\u2019s everything we\u2019re doing as a company to drive this space forward.<\/p>\n

With it, we were able to go back to leadership and say, \u201cHey, we\u2019re going to explain it to you in a much clearer way. It\u2019s not just renewables, it\u2019s energy efficiency, it\u2019s energy storage, it\u2019s electrification and our policy.\u201d Ultimately, we got leadership to see that this was something we could actually do as a company and there really was a means to get there.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

JAMES: HOW MUCH DOES GM COLLABORATE WITH OTHER COMPANIES VERSUS TAKING THE LEAD?<\/p>\n

Sustainability is core to the business, and many companies are looking at how best to implement it, both externally and internally. Companies that want to lead have to be out there supporting these types of efforts, as General Motors has been. For example, we\u2019re one of the founding members of the Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance<\/a>, which is leading the charge to bring more renewables online.<\/p>\n

I think there\u2019s still a lot to be said for the power in numbers. When you think about a company the size of General Motors with a massive supply chain, we can leverage our leadership position to really make change occur. But we also think about it in a way that supports the smaller companies that aren\u2019t just suppliers of General Motors but of other companies, which helps support that change into the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rob Threlkeld, Global Manager of Sustainable Energy, Supply and Reliability for General Motors, began his career at the automaker as manager of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":267,"featured_media":2489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,535],"tags":[909,568,910,905,722,906,324,912,911,904,907,908],"class_list":["post-2487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","category-the-impact-report","tag-battery-storage","tag-electric-vehicles","tag-energy-storage","tag-general-motors","tag-gm","tag-re100","tag-renewable-energy","tag-renewable-energy-buyers-alliance","tag-renewables-target","tag-rob-threlkeld","tag-virtual-power-purchase-agreement","tag-wind-energy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/files\/2019\/10\/TIR216-Rob-Threlkeld-e1571257183910.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/267"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2487"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2490,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2487\/revisions\/2490"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/mba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}