Michael Crabb [00:00:58] Welcome to another episode of the Energy Impact Podcast. Our guests today are Erika Gupta and Anthony Casciano from Siemens Financial Services. Erika, Anthony, glad to have you on.

Anthony Casciano [00:01:10] Thanks for having us. Excited to be here.

Erika Gupta [00:01:13] Thank you.

Michael Crabb [00:01:14] Well, before we get into some of the cool software tools you have and all the work that you've been doing over at Siemens, maybe tell us a little bit about yourselves. Erika, we'll start with you. Where are you from originally?

Erika Gupta [00:01:27] I am from a small town in upstate New York, so I grew up with cows and horses and chickens. Think of it that way.

Michael Crabb [00:01:35] Fantastic. Which small town? Can you share?

Erika Gupta [00:01:39] It's called Lomontville. It's only on the old bus maps at this point, but it's sort of between New Paltz and Woodstock. So, there's a lot of that sort of influence in the area and definitely a focus on sustainability.

Michael Crabb [00:01:51] Yeah. So, did you know sustainability was something you wanted to do growing up with animals?

Erika Gupta [00:01:57] My best friend and I had a Save the Rainforest Club when we were seven years old, and we would do bake sales out of the local farmstand. So yeah, I think it was there from the start.

Michael Crabb [00:02:08] Okay. Yeah, fantastic. Anthony, how about yourself?

Anthony Casciano [00:02:12] Well, I wish I was part of that club; I wasn't. I grew up in Newark, New Jersey. And I've, with my jobs, traveled the world, but I've never lived more than 50 miles from that center. I've lived in Connecticut for 25 years, lived in Northern Jersey. So, always in that area, close enough to New York City to get there for work.

Michael Crabb [00:02:36] Okay, fantastic. And then, what was your journey? Did you come through finance, come through broader energy?

Anthony Casciano [00:02:45] No, neither. When I graduated school, I was an economics major undergrad and an English lit minor. And the last thing I wanted was to wear a blue suit and a red tie for the rest of my life. And so, look where I ended up.

Michael Crabb [00:03:04] Yeah, you were going to write essays to fight the man, I think.

Anthony Casciano [00:03:07] Exactly. So, I really enjoyed strategy and developing markets. And when you look at sustainability, it's just one of those areas that creates opportunity both for society, but also for a company's chance to be successful. Because without a without a strategy around sustainability, whether it's defensively to stay resilient or offensively to decarbonize, without that embedded in your business plan, I don't know long-term how you stay competitive.

Michael Crabb [00:03:49] Yeah, we definitely want to dig in to that. But let's come back to Erika saving the rainforest, and then moving into enabling the future, Anthony, that you're describing.

Anthony Casciano [00:03:59] You got it.

Erika Gupta [00:04:01] When I went to school, I studied engineering. I really loved problem solving and I was very interested in finding ways to develop new technologies in order to address our challenges around sustainability and climate. So, I worked in the Boston-area tech startup space for a while. I ended up focusing on controls engineering. So, really looking at like, "How do we manage systems?"

Erika Gupta [00:04:30] I ended up moving to the US Department of Energy, where I was for about 10 years, running R&D programs in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. And I really stayed deeply rooted in R&D and engineering for a long time. I joined Siemens first in the R&D side of the business, and Siemens Corporate Technology, which is their internal think tank. And then, Anthony found me and convinced me that I could have much more impact if I joined him and joined finance. And so far, I think he's right. So, I'm very excited to be where I am.

Michael Crabb [00:05:04] You're not just saying that because he's listening in, are you?

Erika Gupta [00:05:07] No.

Michael Crabb [00:05:10] But back up a little bit... It sounds like you were on the operator's side, and then working in government. How long were you on the front line, sort of in the mud, if you will, on building solutions?

Erika Gupta [00:05:23] About five years before I joined government.

Michael Crabb [00:05:26] And what was the thinking? So, you kind of got your hands dirty. You're getting in the controls, doing maybe hardware, right? Hard tech is hard for a reason. And then, what was the shift to government like? Was it a person that pulled you over, an opportunity? What was the drive there?

Erika Gupta [00:05:43] You want the really honest answer?

Michael Crabb [00:05:45] Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Erika Gupta [00:05:46] I met my husband on an airplane and I needed to find a way to move to DC and stay in clean and renewable energy. That is the real, true, honest answer.

Michael Crabb [00:05:54] That is a great story. That was a heck of a plane ride. Well, a little longer than a puddle jump, I would imagine.

Erika Gupta [00:06:01] No, it was Boston to DC. It was a short one.

Michael Crabb [00:06:05] Wow, okay. So, love at first sight, and you said, "I've got to move to DC. And what's in DC but policy?" How was that transition for you?

Erika Gupta [00:06:13] It was honestly a little hard, initially, going from the fast-paced world of the startup, moving then to government. But we have the saying, "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together," right? And I think that's really the mentality you have to adopt when you're in these really large organizations. If you want to have large and significant impact, sometimes you need to really take the time to get that stakeholder buy-in. And that's what I really found in government; to have enormous impact required a lot of effort on coordination and buy-in.

Michael Crabb [00:06:53] Interesting. Do you feel like that perspective evolved on what you think the right way is to have large impact? Or, was it sort of a necessity for you to act that way in government because it was already large and cumbersome?

Erika Gupta [00:07:12] In that case, I think it was a necessity in a large organization. I think small and nimble also can have an immense amount of impact.

Michael Crabb [00:07:20] Yeah. And so, maybe Anthony has to do earmuffs here. Tell us about where Siemens fits in that spectrum and how you've brought value to that team because of those two disparate experiences.

Anthony Casciano [00:07:34] As I'm listening to Erika talk about the business, I'm thinking about, "We're kind of both." Inside of our business, we operate like an incubator. We operate like a startup tech company because we need to move with the speed of the market, and the market is changing so fast. When you look at the forces... Digitalization, reshoring, upskilling of labor and sustainability, all the different things that intersect with society, Siemens is involved. And so, we need to move fast.

Anthony Casciano [00:08:10] We also need to recognize that we're a large global organization. And so, I think we benefit from a benevolent parent who allows us to innovate. But we also need to make sure that what we bring to market carries the brand of Siemens in the right way. And so, all the different tools, all the different solutions, products, we're proud to stand behind and have proven over time to matter and be successful for our customers.

Anthony Casciano [00:08:47] And I really think we're looking at it right now where you need capital that we bring, but you also need the technology; the two travel together. And then, to be able to articulate the value proposition around it, why it matters, why it's important, I think are the things that we really focus on as a company that cuts across whatever discipline you're in, whether it's finance or...

Anthony Casciano [00:09:19] Again, I'm in Detroit today with different parts of Siemens talking about the best way to communicate sustainability to process industries. It's a two-day workshop on that. And that's really the cool part of what Siemens brings together.

Michael Crabb [00:09:36] Yeah, very cool. Before we get into the current work that you're doing in too much depth, maybe give folks the snapshot of Siemens, Siemens Financial Services, Siemens Energy. I'm sure there's a whole host of other sort of legal entities here. How do you fit in the broader ecosystem, just more tactically?

Anthony Casciano [00:09:59] So, we are Siemens B2B, business-to-business financial services provider. We have five different product capabilities inside the B2B world. So, when you look at financing... What Siemens does, that's our commercial finance business. It's a small ticket flow business that finances what we do.

Anthony Casciano [00:10:24] We have a project finance business. So, we're one of the biggest lenders, as a for instance, in the renewable space. Battery storage, solar, wind, infrastructure projects like desalination. We have a business focused on corporate lending. So, primarily in the small and medium-sized companies that fit in the supply chain.

Anthony Casciano [00:10:51] One of the tools we built was a direct request from customers inside of our portfolio. We have an equity business that looks at earlier-stage companies. So, carbon capture as a for instance, that looks at innovation in decarbonization through wind farms. So, we think we have, across the suite of products, globally...

Anthony Casciano [00:11:16] So, my responsibility is the Americas, from Canada through Latin America, but anchored in the US. It fits well inside of what Siemens does. And I think what you would say is it enables Siemens, again, because whatever we sell from a technology perspective, whatever we offer, it always travels with capital.

Michael Crabb [00:11:42] Yeah, money talks, as they say, right?

Anthony Casciano [00:11:46] Especially around innovation, right? We talk about the changes and the speed of change; we've already talked about that. You need to have a trusted partner in that change because one wrong turn can set you back. And so, I think when you look at where Siemens positions itself, we like to consider ourselves a trusted partner of our customers.

Michael Crabb [00:12:08] Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Erika, I think you said that you were doing technical prototyping when you first started. So, now you came over with some of us finance nerds to the business side. How has that transition been? Do you feel like you have some advantages knowing the tech as deeply as you do?

Erika Gupta [00:12:31] I do. I do think that really helps, particularly when we're looking at new markets and new opportunities to really understand what are the risks here? What are the challenges, and be able to bring that into that conversation.

Michael Crabb [00:12:44] Can you share an example, maybe one that was most technically interesting or the most exciting or that you're the most proud of?

Erika Gupta [00:12:53] Maybe not on a very specific level, but an example would be the direct air capture technologies. To be able to really look at and evaluate them, their performance and intended applications, and is this technology robust? Will it withstand different climatic conditions or different exhaust streams? And really being able to look at that from a technical risk perspective and bring that into the conversation so that we can find sort of optimal solutions for direct air capture.

Michael Crabb [00:13:22] Yeah, very cool. Sounds like one that's sort of live time, so I won't ask you how it... I'll keep an eye out for the press release; I'll put it that way.

Michael Crabb [00:13:32] Maybe walk us through the process a little bit. D you get called in from other Siemens sales entities when they're working with a customer? Or, are you bringing opportunities? Are you bridging the gaps between clients and Siemens technical functions? Really a question for either of you, I guess. Help us get into what a transaction lifecycle looks like.

Anthony Casciano [00:13:54] So, maybe I'll start Erika? I think you have to look at it strategically and tactically. Strategically, we're always looking at our five-year plan. Where do we invest? Where do we want our portfolio to build to over that period of time? Whether it's overt or not, we consider ourselves a sustainable lender of choice, the sustainable lender of choice. We want customers, whether it's in the development or production of energy, or the consumption of energy to view us as that trusted partner, as I said before.

Anthony Casciano [00:14:29] So, we're looking at, "What are the sectors that need the support that are emergent? And what are those that also need to transition?" And so, we look at that in terms of the sectors; that's part of the exercise today. Where are they in the lifecycle of sustainability and how can we help them?

Anthony Casciano [00:14:51] Tactically, the tool that we built, the tool that we'll talk about, is to help companies baseline their carbon footprint. Why do they need to baseline their carbon footprint? Because they're in the supply chain and their customers are saying, "I'm measuring your carbon, not just the quality and the price of the widget that you make for me." "Well, where do I start?" Right? So tactically, that's the tool that we built and the types of tools that we're building to help position companies to be successful more than put them at risk of failure.

Anthony Casciano [00:15:28] So proactively, how do we do that? That requires that combination. Erika always talks to me about, when she wants to simplify things, footprints and handprints. In footprints, we're sort of looking back. "What is the carbon footprint of our portfolio?" And handprints are, "Where do we want to be? What do we want that to look like, aspirationally?" And so, I think we have our hands and feet at work at the same time. Erika, you may want to touch on that.

Erika Gupta [00:15:59] One of the things that we really talk about a lot is that we need to be able to bring our financing and solutions together to address some of these really hard-to-abate industries, the whole universe of companies out there that don't have really simple, easy solutions to decarbonization. But we at Siemens are decarbonizing our own operations. We have a lot of this experience; we're doing it ourselves and making incredible progress. To be able to bring that technology know-how in financing to that sector I think can have a really large impact. And that's one of the things we're focusing on from a handprint perspective.

Erika Gupta [00:16:36] And there are companies that will say, "Well, if you finance this steel manufacturer, now your footprint has grown." Yes, but we're providing them financing in order to reduce that footprint. That's our handprint, that's our impact, and that's what we really want to focus on.

Michael Crabb [00:16:49] Yeah, someone's footprint is someone else's handprint, to really stretch the analogy. Maybe touch a little bit... Erika, maybe in particular. But please, both of you comment. Siemens has a long history, right? What's it been like to spearhead that climate initiative within such a large, global organization that from the outside appears to really stay on the forefront. But I'm sure behind doors, there are a lot of conversations. It takes a lot to sort of evolve a company like that.

Anthony Casciano [00:17:29] Maybe I'll start and then hand it to you, Erika. I think if you could look across the halls of Siemens, you will see so many different groups innovating, coming up with different ideas. We're just part of that ecosystem.

Anthony Casciano [00:17:43] And one of the things I'm most proud about, Michael, is when we look at hiring people and we ask them, "Why are you considering us over company X, Y, or Z?" It's because they want to work for a company that has purpose. And so, when you start from that foundation, it's amazing how fast and how successful you can be in driving change. I'm really proud of our organization. A lot of the ideas that come come from the grassroots that Erika then takes and molds like clay. But you see that all across Siemens, all across Siemens.

Michael Crabb [00:18:25] That's cool. That's cool. Erika, anything to add?

Erika Gupta [00:18:30] I would just say that Siemens has been really committed to sustainability long before I joined. I only joined Siemens two-and-a-half years ago. It seems like longer because I've just had so much opportunity to really develop. But the ecosystem that's already in place at Siemens has been crafted to support this transition, and it's been crafted that way for many years. I don't find it to be an area of resistance. Yes, we have lots of conversations and we talk about how can we have more impact, how can we do more? Where can we help our customers go further? But it's probably not what you might imagine.

Michael Crabb [00:19:13] Yeah, that's great. That's great to hear. Well, maybe a perfect segway. Tell us about this more recent tool. I think it's available now or to be available, maybe, by the time the episode airs? Tell us what it is. How did you come up, and how are you using it?

Erika Gupta [00:19:33] This was Anthony's brainchild, so I'll let him introduce this.

Anthony Casciano [00:19:38] It's fully developed and it's in with friends and family, and we'll roll it out in a couple of weeks at Climate Week. Erika will be there and will host the panel. She can explain the technical aspects, but I'll tell you the why. The why was... We started to get questions from our customers, those that we lend to, who would say, "I got an RFP from Company X. And in that RFP, they asked me to measure my carbon footprint."

Anthony Casciano [00:20:12] So, I mentioned that before; it's not just the widget or the price of the widget, now it's your emissions. Because companies started to measure Scope 3, supply chain emissions. And supply chain emissions are 11X times greater than operational emissions. So, it's far dirtier and needs the most work. A lot of the supply chain are small and medium companies and don't have Erika's on their team; they don't have heads of sustainability. So, how can we help them first to baseline, and then to bring solutions to bear?

Anthony Casciano [00:20:46] So, it started with that. And we hired when... Erika said she was at Siemens Technologies. That's our internal think tank. They make the digital twins and everything else. And so, we started out on a path to say, "How can we help them measure?"

Anthony Casciano [00:21:07] And by the way, this tool is expandable. We're looking at different ways to do it. Not just carbon footprint, but resiliency. What are the different things you need to do to make sure your business can stay competitive and operational in the future? So maybe, Erika, talk about sort of the technology.

Erika Gupta [00:21:27] Sure. So, Anthony brought me this request right after I joined Siemens of, "Can you make a tool where you give the customer their carbon footprint with just their address?" And I was like, "Well, I can't do it with just the address, but if we get a little bit more information, we can make this work." So, what we really need is the address, the type of building... So, is it a hospital? Is it a food and beverage manufacturing plant? And the size. That's the minimum information that we need.

Erika Gupta [00:22:00] And the way it's being done is really by using a lot of these incredibly rich data sets that have been created by the US government. So, there is data from the National Renewable Energy Lab called the ComStock Database, where they have over 10 terabytes of load profiles of buildings from every state and climate zone in the country, organized by type. So, that's what we're using for our commercial building load profiles.

Michael Crabb [00:22:27] And did you know that? Was that something that you were like, "Hey, I've seen this?"

Erika Gupta [00:22:32] Yeah, so that's actually one of my frustrations. I guess I'm allowed to say that now that I'm no longer in government. But all of these amazing data sets and tools were created, but they weren't made usable. So, what we've done is collect all of these trusted data sets, from EPA, from the Department of Energy, from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, from Argonne National Lab, from the National Renewable Energy Lab, and brought them together in this tool and created an interface and a capability layered on top that brings them together and allows someone to interact with them in a way that's intuitive, rather than trying to go and gather all these little pieces of data for themselves.

Erika Gupta [00:23:16] The tool will give an estimate of their carbon footprint based on existing data sets that are available. And then, the estimation for the carbon footprint is from EPA, and the electricity is from the eGRID database. If you're familiar with that, that'll give you the regionally-specific carbon intensity of the grid. You can add in if you're already buying RECs or if you have PV on site and we'll adjust for that.

Erika Gupta [00:23:43] And it also gives you your estimated cost based on the state average electricity price, but you can also choose an electricity rate from the utility rate database. Another thing that's provided by Department of Energy that most people probably don't know exists, but you can go in and look at the utility rates that are available to you from your utility in this database and pull your load profile, put it through that rate structure, and see your actual costs, including your peaks, your demand charges, all of that.

Erika Gupta [00:24:14] But then, we wanted to take it one step further and not just say, "Okay, here's your carbon footprint," but rather say, "Okay, here's your carbon footprint. Now, here's what we can do to reduce it while also giving you a positive payback."

Erika Gupta [00:24:31] So, there's another tool that we built off of called REopt that the National Renewable Energy Lab developed. We didn't take it directly, but we did build off of that base code to really create an optimization that looks at the different technologies that you could adopt... Solar, battery storage, thermal storage, and says, "Okay, what would be the impact on your cost of your carbon footprint if you adopt these technologies?"

Erika Gupta [00:25:02] And then, it's sizing them, based on your location and your load profile, to maximize your return on investment. And that's really taking into account your site-specific irradiance on the solar production, all of that. And that's really allowed us to also give them this view of, "Here's how you maximize the payback on this decarbonization. This is a financial benefit. It's not just reducing your carbon footprint, it's reducing your energy bill, too."

Michael Crabb [00:25:34] Yeah, amazing. That sounds like a very involved... That's like eight people spending nine months of work to do manually, right? Sounds like a very involved tool.

Anthony Casciano [00:25:47] Yeah. And I think part of it, Michael, was some of our customers would say... They'd have consultants come in and the consultants would offer lots of ideas, and it would be expensive. And so, two of the objectives that Erika had upfront were to make sure we use trusted sources... So, we didn't want to get into the debate of whether it's Siemens stuff or not. So, it needed to be trusted. And two, we wanted it to be ubiquitous. We wanted it to be available for everyone, because we didn't want to be the ones who determined winners or losers. So, we want to give everyone the same starting point.

Anthony Casciano [00:26:27] You need more granularity than what this tool offers. This tool... It doesn't take you from "A to Z." It takes you from "A to F," or "A to N." So, you still need work in between, because you need to get specific. "Where inside the factory floor should I focus on the most?" But it gives you a running start and it gives everyone an equal chance to participate.

Michael Crabb [00:26:49] Yeah, yeah. And so, is it focused mostly on "in the fenceline emissions?" And someone else would then have to use it for their... Someone's Scope 3 is someone else's Scope 1, and on and on and on, right? So yeah, it's been "in the fenceline."

Erika Gupta [00:27:06] Currently, it is focusing on the site operational carbon footprint, Scope 1 and 2; it does not include Scope 3. We are currently in development, as Anthony described. We're continuing to add capabilities and features. So, this will not be out in time for Climate Week, but the added features that we're working on right now...

Erika Gupta [00:27:26] One is a fleet analysis. So, you can put in your current vehicle fleets, types, and look at the cost and carbon impact of converting to electric for those fleets. We're also working on that resilience tool to also say, "Okay, based on the location you already gave us, here are the top climate risks for your location, and the adaptation measures you can consider taking to improve your resilience to the increasingly common weather events that we've been experiencing."

Michael Crabb [00:27:56] Yeah, fascinating. Maybe it's too soon, but can you share an example of something that has come from the tool? "Shoot, if I just add some PV to my here... If I do this..." Do you have a eureka moment you can share yet?

Anthony Casciano [00:28:18] I would say, in pilot, one of the really cool examples is we had an intermodal company that was getting pressure from inside its customer base. And so, we used the tool as a demo; we were still developing it. And off of that, they made some investment, ultimately, in software to help optimize the operation. So, that was before we even rolled it out; just in pilot.

Anthony Casciano [00:28:46] And I think the other thing is the tool doesn't really discriminate. It doesn't know if it's a small company or a big company. We target towards small and medium, but the other sort of "a-ha" was larger companies, even though they have a sustainability group, want to deploy the tool because they have manufacturing facilities all over the United States. And so, the same way Siemens is decarbonizing its footprint, so are they. And this just gives them that running start. We thought it would be more focused on smaller companies, because that's what we're targeting. Again, other people and other companies want to leverage this capability.

Anthony Casciano [00:29:31] And we've had some really nice conversations with the government side, green banks that want to bring tools to bear for companies. Again, whether it's a residential building which we don't finance... Again, it doesn't discriminate; it will help you there and target where they should focus investment. So, I think there is this blossoming ecosystem. And I know that's a bit of an overused word, but the more we talk, the more there are tentacles into the tool that really create and push the dialog along.

Michael Crabb [00:30:03] Yeah, yeah. What features are you most excited to add? I think you mentioned the fleet feature. What else is on the list that you're like, "This is really cool. I'm excited when this finally hits."

Erika Gupta [00:30:20] I'm really excited about the adaptation and resilience piece that we're adding in. I think that's something that's going to be really powerful and really helpful, particularly into the future. But I'm also just really excited about the current launch and to see what feedback and what users ask us for. That's another thing that we want to be really responsive to, is listening to what our customers are asking for and making sure that we're prioritizing those features that will help them the most.

Michael Crabb [00:30:47] Yeah, that makes sense. And a sign of a good business when you're customer-first.

Anthony Casciano [00:30:51] So, Michael, one cool thing that Erika mentioned with the adaptability tool that we developed as an extension of the Decarb tool. We did that as part of a Siemens initiative called Tech for Sustainability, where we open it up or they opened up ideas to academia all around the world. And we probably had... I don't know, 50 different applicants, 50 different universities that applied to develop this tool. And so, this tool is an extension...

Anthony Casciano [00:31:21] The adaptability tool is an extension of the work that was done with the university in Germany to help a company measure its ability to basically withstand weather events. So, windows, roofs, all those types of things that in weather events cause a company to shut down, to lose productivity. Again, when you talk about that ecosystem, there's academia in the middle of it. We've got government, we've got other corporates. We've got all hands on deck around this innovation.

Michael Crabb [00:32:02] Yeah, very cool. And I should have asked earlier, is this going to be publicly available? Will it be behind a sign-up wall? What's the rollout going to look like?

Erika Gupta [00:32:15] Anyone can sign up from the website. It'll be dbo.siemens.com. So, Decarbonization Business Optimizer, DBO. Those are the letters you're looking for... dot Siemens dot com.

Michael Crabb [00:32:28] Delta Bravo... What's the "O?" Something... Octopus? I don't know at the "O" is, but yeah, dbo.siemens.com; okay, great. And you just go and sign up? Like, I could put my house in and see what it says?

Erika Gupta [00:32:40] You could. I don't have a residential load profile for a standalone single-family, but you maybe model it as a small hospital.

Anthony Casciano [00:32:48] A warehouse.

Michael Crabb [00:32:49] I'll put my office in. Yeah, I'll see what if I was generating a thousand shirts... A thousand shirts a year from this address would be what? Yeah, really cool.

Michael Crabb [00:33:00] Okay, well, it sounds like you spent a lot of time perfecting this, rolling it out. You're right on the doorstep of having it go live. There'll be stuff to add and tweak, but what's next? What's that five-year plan look like for the team, and what should we be on the lookout for?

Anthony Casciano [00:33:20] I think we'll continue to introduce tools, but it's not just tools. So, it becomes, "How do you connect these curated tools' information with the technology?' And then, the capital. So, to have this turnkey solution that says, "Whatever your need, we have a solution for." And we're going to do it through partners, because we don't have a solution for everything.

Anthony Casciano [00:33:54] Here's the thing. If you think about five years ago, when we talked about sustainability, half the battle was whether people took it seriously, whether there was a business case for it or not. Today, the conversation is very different. Right now, the conversation becomes, "I kind of get it." If you don't get the decarbonization, you certainly get the resiliency because there's no part of the United States where there's not some sort of weather-driven event that's impacting us. So now, you're changing the narrative to not, "Why do I need to do it?" But, "How do I do it?" And I think the next five years are mobilizing around opportunity of getting it to scale.

Anthony Casciano [00:34:43] We used to talk about green premium in the negative. Green premium, the cost of green technologies greater than the cost of traditional technologies. And how do you overcome the green premium? I think the green premium is something different. I think green premium is actually opportunity. Because if your company is able to withstand weather events, if your company is decarbonized and more efficient, right? Because green is not just sustainable, it's also efficiency; there are lots of different things that go into it. Boy, are you positioned well for the future. So, I think it's a mobilizing resource and I really want to get in that ecosystem.

Anthony Casciano [00:35:23] Our CEO in the US, Barbara Humpton, calls it "the ecosystem of capital." I really want to see if we can bring the green banks together with private capital, with different sources of capital, to get scale there. I really want to see how we build our technology, in partnership with other technology, to get the right solution to the right company, right person at the right time. So, now I think it's mobilizing forces.

Michael Crabb [00:35:51] Erika, anything to add to that?

Erika Gupta [00:35:54] I think Anthony captured that perfectly.

Michael Crabb [00:35:57] He had your thought. And it's a great idea. What do you think the biggest barriers are to that? I mean, there are a lot of people doing a lot of things at the right time, right? And so, I don't think anyone's going to say, "No. That's not what we want to do." But I think doing it's a totally different story.

Anthony Casciano [00:36:18] Well, I hate to draw an analogy to dating since I've been married for almost 30 years, but...

Michael Crabb [00:36:23] That's okay. I think we're all here because Erika sat next to someone that she thought was cute on an airplane.

Anthony Casciano [00:36:28] All roads lead to that date. I think it's taking the inefficiency out of the process; that's the hard part. How do you match the right pools of capital? Everyone says "the government," right? As Erika talked about, there's lots of different capital that's helped be a catalyst... The IRA with tax incentives and other things. But how do you find the right technology? How do you find the right pool of capital? It's never as easy as it should be, and we have to find a way to simplify that. If we can solve that, that I think is what triggers that explosion.

Michael Crabb [00:37:08] Yeah. What are the ideas? If you're willing to share, at least. This is like my real sweet spot too.

Anthony Casciano [00:37:16] Welcome. Before we did this tool, we were playing with... And I think we were too soon. We were trying to develop an online marketplace. And again, I view it to be capital agnostic, but if you're a developer and you're building a wind farm or you're doing a community solar project or you're doing a resi building in a low-income area, they all attract different capital, right? But no one knows where to go. So, we tried to build a marketplace around that, an online marketplace.

Michael Crabb [00:37:51] Between project and capital markets marketplace?

Anthony Casciano [00:37:55] And corporate and capital markets. But it's the matching. And then, you need to add, "Okay, the what? What is it that I actually need?" Because if you think about it... Erika, what's the statistic you tell me? 40% of Siemens can answer to 40% of the building envelope. That means there's 60% of other technology that's needed to help truly decarbonize. Who are the who? Right? And so, we need to make it easier. We need to make that process easier. So, to me it's, "How do you build this marketplace?" Siemens is doing it through what we call "the accelerator."

Anthony Casciano [00:38:32] We're at what I would call the infancy, although it's been in development investment for a while now. It's this accelerator. And we're going to bring, from a Siemens perspective... And the question is, "How big can you make that? And how simple can you make it so that anyone who goes in understands how to navigate?" But that's how I think Siemens is doing it, and I think that's really the opportunity that sits there for whoever captures the moment. We're trying to capture that moment.

Michael Crabb [00:39:00] Yeah, fascinating. And you called it an accelerator. That has sort of a venture, seed sound to me. Is that...

Anthony Casciano [00:39:10] Yeah.

Michael Crabb [00:39:10] Okay. So, that's like early stage tech. You're saying, "Wind, solar... That's relatively mature."

Anthony Casciano [00:39:17] No, I think it's Siemens' homage to... You have to think, as this 200-year old company, like an accelerator.

Michael Crabb [00:39:24] I see, I see.

Anthony Casciano [00:39:26] It is called The Accelerator. I think it's just that homage to, "We need to be faster, more nimble because the market's moving that fast."

Michael Crabb [00:39:34] Accelerating, not...

Anthony Casciano [00:39:35] Accelerating. That's right.

Erika Gupta [00:39:38] And we're flexible and more open in our ecosystem, in our approach. So, we've been doing a lot of work to that regard as well to really make sure that the different digital tools that we develop are easily integrated with and open with any other tech that you want to bring in and connect in. Especially, our building acts as a good example of that.

Michael Crabb [00:39:59] Yeah. Yep. Yeah, my observation of the capital market space is that the software, venture, and growth equity market makes a lot of sense and seems very scalable and is understood, but is also maybe the smallest amount of impact, right? I mean, at the end of the day, climate, whether it's adaptation or prevention, is a very physical, hard tech business, right? It's changing the building envelope. It's installing generation equipment. It's building pylons and transmission lines. And so, sometimes I'm afraid that we're all solving the margin with software and ignoring the main driver, which is the actual stuff.

Erika Gupta [00:40:48] I'm going to make one small argument to that.

Michael Crabb [00:40:51] Please, please.

Erika Gupta [00:40:53] Often you can achieve almost a 30% energy efficiency improvement just by improving your building control systems and your efficiency controls. There are daily reports on this. So really, that controls and management... Seeing as buildings account for about 40% of primary energy use, globally, if you can cut 30% of that 40%, you've already made a pretty big impact. So, let's not leave the low-hanging fruit.

Michael Crabb [00:41:18] That's coming from a controls engineer, so you know that's right. Yeah.

Anthony Casciano [00:41:21] And I think there's room for both, right? You need those moonshots, but at the same time, it's every day block And tackling that's going to carry the day. When we're talking to companies... If we were asked to speak to a large, Fortune 500... Two-thirds... I forget the exact number. 63, 64, 65% of large-cap companies, of Fortune 1000, have a sustainability statement; many of them have a sustainability target.

Anthony Casciano [00:41:54] Conversely, the SMR space, a third have made any advancements towards sustainability. So, if you think the SME space is the core of your supply chain and supply chain is 11 times greater than your operational efficiency, the math just doesn't work unless everyone grows in the same direction, unless everyone strives for the same goal. I think how you help them monetize it, how you help them see something that's good for society, good for business, is really that opportunity that we take as a challenge.

Michael Crabb [00:42:30] Yeah, yeah. What's the best way to ask this question? You have a very cool perspective on the whole thing as financiers, but with deep insight into technical supply chains, right? Erika, you mentioned direct your capture. Let's lean right now on direct air capture. That's going to be a real game changer, or jury's still out? And what other technologies are you really excited about?

Erika Gupta [00:43:01] So, this is probably a little bit colored by my personal perspective, which is I spent many years in hydrogen and working in the hydrogen office. But when we look at these really hard-to-decarbonize industrial sectors, looking at the opportunity that we can bring forward by using green hydrogen, I think that's another area that's really interesting for us. And a lot of what we're looking at, too, is fuel cells. And what are the other power generation systems that can be more of a dispatch on demand versus at the whim of the planet? Anthony?

Anthony Casciano [00:43:38] No, I think you've answered it.

Michael Crabb [00:43:41] Does Siemens have fuel cells, or that's one where you match up with some of the larger? I know there are a few companies that are very established fuel cell players.

Erika Gupta [00:43:49] We provide a lot of supply chain-related parts. We no longer have fuel cells ourselves; they went with Siemens Energy.

Michael Crabb [00:44:00] Got it. Oh, okay. Yes, yes, yes; the split. Yeah, fantastic. Okay, maybe keeping an eye on time here, anything that I didn't ask that I should have?

Anthony Casciano [00:44:16] I have to say, you're pretty comprehensive. I think you've asked the exact right question, "Where do we go from here?" And I think the momentum is with us, and it's really for us to grab that opportunity. Not "us" being Siemens, but the collective "us," right? There's a role for everyone to play in understanding that role, and making it work is both the opportunity and the challenge. And I think you've captured that.

Anthony Casciano [00:44:54] I don't think this is one of those that's going to go with the political whims of the time. I think this is one that people get; that this is a business-driven momentum. And I think you needed that tailwind to get that going.

Michael Crabb [00:45:12] Erika, anything to add? I wouldn't say I captured it. You guys captured it; I just baited you.

Anthony Casciano [00:45:18] You did.

Erika Gupta [00:45:20] I'm happy to let Anthony have that summary point there.

Michael Crabb [00:45:23] Fantastic. Any last thoughts that you would want... It was really a good note to end, so maybe, Erika, you could repurpose it. What would be the one takeaway you would hope that our audience takes away from this conversation?

Erika Gupta [00:45:41] Can I have two?

Michael Crabb [00:45:42] You can have two; I'll allow it.

Erika Gupta [00:45:45] One is really, we're here to support. We're developing this tool; we want everyone to be able to use it. It does only work in the US right now, because of these amazing, rich datasets. And I'd love to see data similarly developed for other regions so that we can make these offerings more broadly available. I think that could really help a lot of impact, just in terms of being able to have the reach.

Erika Gupta [00:46:10] And then two is really to Anthony's point of it being an ecosystem and a partnership. And to say, "We are very open to partnering." This is a big, large challenge. None of us can do it alone, and we're open.

Michael Crabb [00:46:24] Fantastic. What a way to end it on. Anthony, Erika, thanks so much for your time.

Erika Gupta [00:46:30] Thank you.

Anthony Casciano [00:46:30] Michael, thank you.