🌐 Don’t Talk About Climate: How to Scale a Climate Company

Last week, I reconnected with an investor I had pitched during Plantd's Series A funding round in 2023.

He told me that what most impressed him about our deck wasn't how we had effectively electrified and miniaturized an OSB mill. It wasn't that we were commercializing an entirely new crop to pull carbon from the atmosphere nearly 10x faster than trees.

It was that we showed how Plantd's structural panels — the ones you nail to the 2x4s when building a house — offered homebuilders something the largest building materials companies in the country, all of which relied on commodity timber, couldn't: stable pricing—the ability to forecast what a panel would cost tomorrow, next week, and even six months from now.

What separated Plantd from other climate technology startups was our focus on a single question:

What's in it for the customer?

Not what's in it for the planet. Not the novel technology approach. But why would a homebuilder be excited to become a Plantd customer — and never want to switch once we have them?

2,000 Startups and $2 Trillion Later — These Stories Are Still Hidden

Whenever I'm asked why we started Supercool, I point to three things.

1. Over the past dozen years, more than 2,000 climate tech startups have raised Series B rounds and beyond. The only way to raise that kind of capital is to reach or be on the cusp of commercial scale. Sure, many of these companies eventually failed. But hundreds are succeeding, driving solutions across industries that cut carbon emissions, boost profits, and enhance the customer experience.

2. In 2024, global clean energy investment topped $2 trillion for the first time. In 2025, it hit $2.3 trillion, doubling fossil fuel investment for the first time. Estimates put global AI investment in 2025 at $1.5 trillion. The largest driver of the global economy today is the clean energy transition.

And yet the success stories are mostly hidden. Which brings me to the third reason.

3. For years, leading academic institutions and even the United Nations have said the best way to get people to care about climate is to talk about solutions.

"A good way around disillusionment and 'crisis fatigue' is to convey a hopeful message focused on the solutions, helping people feel empowered and motivated to engage," according to the United Nations Department of Global Communications.

Guess who doesn't take their own advice?

March 19, 2026 — UN Secretary-General António Guterres: "Climate chaos is rewriting the rules of weather."

Solutions to climate change are readily available. They are driving the fastest transformation of the global economy in history. So we started Supercool to tell that story.

And as we approach 100 newsletters and podcast episodes, one thing leaps out. Every climate company that succeeds in winning customers, taking market share, and scaling its business eventually does the same thing:

They stop selling climate. And they stop selling tech.

They realize that customers don't buy mission statements or kilowatt hours. They buy product benefits like lower costs, higher performance, and peace of mind.

Winning is about sharpening their product positioning.

Sam Ramadori, former CEO of BrainBox AI, said it best: “Nobody wakes up in the morning thinking, ‘You know what my building needs today? More AI."

His customers want lower costs, better control, predictive maintenance, and fewer operational headaches. Plus, emission reductions thrown in (Brainbox cuts HVAC carbon emissions by up to 40% and was acquired by Trane Technologies last January).

Customers want to celebrate climate wins, but only after the climate solution is improving the business metrics they care about most.

Here’s how leading climate companies have evolved their positioning:

Trove — Recommerce

Trove helps brands resell customers' previously owned merchandise. For example, visit Patagonia.com, and you’ll see “Shop Used” integrated into product pages.

CEO Terry Boyle trains his team to never lead with the environmental mission.

“It’s sort of like Fight Club. We have this environmental mission, but we never talk about it. We’re always trying to sell on the basis of the economics for the brands and retailers.”

Instead, Trove leads with higher margins, lower customer acquisition costs, and stronger customer lifetime value.

Sunrun — Home Solar and Batteries

Sunrun is the only residential solar company to have installed solar on over 1 million American houses. It now leads the U.S. in home battery adoption as well.

CEO Mary Powell realized that to win she needed to retrain her teams on the ground. She coaches them to stop talking bout kilowatt hours and start talking about controlling energy costs, peace of mind in an outage, and freedom from unpredictable energy bills.

Forum Mobility — Electric Freight

Forum Mobility is tackling a gnarly climate problem. In California, which dominates America's port industry, heavy-duty 18-wheeler semi-trucks drive a billion diesel-powered miles per year.

Forum Mobility's CEO, Matt LeDucq, developed a novel solution: build the largest port-based electric charging depot in the U.S., then bundle an EV semi-truck with charging into a monthly subscription. And price it low enough to undercut diesel operations.

Matt is a solar industry veteran and understands why solar adoption has taken off. "In solar, we dragged the useful life out to 30 or 40 years. Then we stacked the cheapest capital we could find on top of it. That's what brought the price down."

He's lined up similar financing for EV semi-trucks, which means he doesn't position Forum Mobility's service as a climate change solution. It's a stable, cost-effective solution. But more than that, it enables freight operators to free up space on their balance sheets by treating their trucks as operating expenses rather than capital expenditures.

That product positioning is what's now driving electrification at our nation's ports.

Supercool Takeaway

If you’re building or marketing a climate solution right now, the question to ask is not: How do we get people to care more about climate?

It’s: How do we position our solution to solve the problems customers care about most?

In other words, positioning matters just as much as the product, the mission, and the business case.

And if you’re working on that and need help, let me know (just reply here). Supercool can help with that, too.

This Week’s Podcast Episode

Don’t Talk About Climate: How to Scale a Climate Company

🎙️ Listen on Apple, Spotify, and all other platforms.

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This week’s Supercool sponsor

Climate risk has entered the building.

As heat, flooding, volatility, insurance pressure, and a growing list of things your building was never quite designed for.

That’s the backdrop for Risk and Resilience — Designing for a Changing World, a Johnson Controls fireside chat featuring Ralph DiNola, founder of Building Insights Group and former CEO of New Buildings Institute, in conversation with Rob Tanner, Marketing Director at Johnson Controls, on April 8.

They’ll explore how forward-thinking design can help buildings do more than meet code: it can help them stay durable, adaptable, and valuable in a more chaotic world.

Expect practical takeaways on:

• How climate and environmental risk are changing building and retrofit decisions

• Design strategies that go beyond compliance

• Real-world examples of buildings designed for the world ahead

For sustainability leaders, architects, urban planners, and anyone making bets on long-term building performance.

What: A Fireside Chat with Johnson Controls

When: April 8, 12-1 pm, CST

Register: Reserve Your Spot Here

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Where Supercool Will Be Next Week

Boston College: Next week, on April 8, I’ll be in Boston to speak at the “Climate is Every Story” initiative. The event series at Boston College brings together leading journalists, faculty, and students to reimagine how the climate crisis is covered across disciplines.

Details and registration are here

Where Supercool Traveled This Week

PODCASTS

10 Minute Tech Comm: Josh Dorfman on Solutions-Oriented Climate Change Communications

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Interested in Advertising with Supercool?

Connect with future-forward decision-makers seeking next-gen climate innovations. Reach out to discuss how Supercool’s platform can help. Just hit reply to this email.

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