The Global Voice of ESG & Impact Investing

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Looking forward to being a speaker at the 2026 Impact Investor Global Summit in London, 19-20 May.
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Please use the discount code: impact26_spk10
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ENOUGH

Or: How I Spent 30 Years in Sustainable Finance Watching Smart People Do Stupid Things With Money

This is an adaptation from the upcoming book, "Radical Truth-Financing our Collapse, Funding our Survival." Think your network needs to hear this? Share it. Let's start a real conversation.

Let me start with a confession: I almost died. Emergency heart valve surgery. My wife was running our conference alone in Bangkok. Our teenage son sat nearby, terrified.

And while I was in that hospital bed — while Rieki was holding everything together across eight time zones — one of our speakers called.

Not to ask how I was doing.

To request extra hotel nights.

For sightseeing.

On our dime.

I want you to sit with that for a moment. The man spoke at a sustainability conference — a conference about doing better, being better, building better — and his primary takeaway was: "Can I squeeze a free vacation out of these people?"

Ladies and gentlemen: this is civilization in 2026 (actually occurred 2007). This is us. This is what we've become. And if you think that's an outlier — a single bad apple — you haven't been paying attention.

WE ARE RUNNING THE WORLD'S MOST ELABORATE SCAM ON OURSELVES

Here's the deal. We have constructed, over several generations, the most sophisticated system of psychological manipulation in human history. We call it "the economy." We worship it. We sacrifice our health, our time, our relationships, and occasionally our souls to it.

And what does this magnificent engine produce?

A $400 water bottle.

With Bluetooth.

That blinks at you when it's time to drink water.

Because apparently, thirst — that ancient, evolutionarily-refined signal that has kept human beings alive for 300,000 years — is no longer trustworthy. No. You need an app. You need connectivity. You need a notification on your wrist from a device manufactured by underpaid workers in conditions that would make a Victorian factory owner blush, reminding you to consume a resource that covers 71% of the planet.

That's where we are.

George Carlin once said, "The reason they call it the American Dream is because you have to be asleep to believe it." Thirty years in finance, and I'd add: you have to be heavily sedated to believe the dream includes an avocado slicer, a banana cutter, a mango splitter, and a strawberry huller — all living in separate drawers, all used twice, all decomposing in a landfill for the next five centuries.

God forbid a human finger touch a piece of fruit.

And don't even get me started on the $10,000 luxury watch that tells time less accurately than the free clock on your phone. But hey, it "makes a statement about who you are." And that statement is: "I have more money than I have questions about my choices."

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George Frey / Getty Images

Data centers are straining the grid. Can they be forced to pay for it?

As backlash grows, a nationwide search is underway for solutions to the AI energy crunch.

Naveena Sadasivam

Last month, President Trump sat alongside executives of the largest tech companies in the country as they pledged to pay a fair share of the energy costs of their data center buildout. “Data centers … they need some PR help,” Trump said at the gathering. “People think that if the data center goes in, their electricity is going to go up.”

It’s not an entirely unfounded assumption. 

As the tech industry has funneled billions of dollars into the AI boom over the last several years, it has simultaneously been expanding its fleet of computing powerhouses, which require vast amounts of energy to run. These facilities have been cropping up all over the country, from rural communities in eastern Pennsylvania to the cities of northern Utah. 

This boom coincides with a dramatic rise in U.S. electricity prices, driven by inflation and the rising cost of adapting to wildfires, hurricanes, and other extreme weather. But these massive facilities have also strained the grid — and in some cases — contributed to rising prices. For instance, last year, an independent monitor for PJM, the grid operator that serves 13 northeastern states and Washington, D.C., projected that powering data centers would result in higher electricity generation costs, which would ultimately be passed on to consumers. And in cases where the buildout hasn’t yet led to price hikes, utilities and grid operators expect that it’s just a matter of time if tech companies follow through on their plans. Indeed, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas estimates that with data center electricity demand expected to double in the next five years, wholesale power prices could rise by as much as 50 percent.

At a time when the cost of living has become untenable for many Americans, and consumers are setting aside ever greater shares of their income to pay energy bills, the possibility of further rate hikes to line the pockets of tech companies has prompted a massive backlash across the country. The White House gathering of tech executives appeared to be a response to the backlash. On March 4 at the event, they signed onto the “Ratepayer Protection Pledge.”

The pledge itself has few specifics or teeth. It’s a voluntary agreement by several prominent tech companies — including Microsoft, Meta, OpenAI, and Amazon — to secure their own power for data centers, pay for any powerlines or other infrastructure that utilities may need to build to move that power, and hire locally from the communities they build in. While in theory the agreement could help prevent Americans from having to bear the cost of the data center expansion, the White House hasn’t set up oversight mechanisms to ensure that they do. Several consumer and environmental advocates called the agreement “meaningless,” “unenforceable,” and ultimately, “nonsense.”

The United States has become ground zero for the global data center boom. The rapid buildout has left developers, tech companies, and the utility industry scrambling to secure more power. As a result, the wait for a data center to connect to the grid can be years in many parts of the country. Hyperscalers — companies that operate large data centers and provide vast computing power — have been trying to get around these wait times by signing long-term power purchase agreements with solar developers, building their own natural gas plants, and even retrofitting jet engines to generate electricity. 

“Every single data center in the future will be power limited,” said NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang last year. “We are now a power‑limited industry.”

Outside of the White House, utilities, local regulators, and lawmakers have also been proposing various solutions to address the community backlash and allow for the continued building of more data centers. Some have implemented measures requiring data centers to pay the costs of generating and moving the electricity they use. Others have suggested that data center developers install solar and battery systems on-site, or that rates should be frozen for residents while utilities figure out how to handle the additional costs. And at least 11 states are considering legislation to temporarily ban new data centers while their impact on electricity prices and other concerns are addressed.