Ep. 343 Dimitry Gershenson on Sustainable Investments in the Clean Energy Space
Dimitry, Enduring Planet Co-Founder, speaks to Green Planet Blue Planet about the fund’s support for various projects from software with indirect impacts to planting trees with very explicit impacts.
He speaks to the profound impact of tax incentives included in the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act to catalyze transformative decarbonization. Rather than necessitating a complete overhaul of existing economic and energy systems, Dimitry said by altering the economic dynamics, the tax incentive has become one of the most influential pieces of climate legislation in the US, fostering the largest expansion of clean energy investment in the nation's history. While some might have hoped for radical disruption, the government's approach to supporting decarbonization focuses on incentivizing clean energy deployment within the current framework.
While it is laudable to have large decarbonization goals, Dimitry explains that for Enduring Planet, all initiatives are considered, as can be seen in their portfolio case studies. The impact metrics across businesses may be dramatically different, but it’s all within their climate finance scope - from water to energy to waste. By design, every dollar they put to work is having an impact.
Enduring Planet offers rapid financing without dilution, personal guarantees, or collateral. It is climate focused for impactful teams, big or small, working across mitigation, removal, adaptation, and resilience to address the climate crisis. They provide two products now, Revenue Based Financing and Climate Grant Advances for government backing to be repaid once the funding is received.
Join Dimitry and Julian in this discussion of the nature of the work in a new climate economy, “where every business is a climate business.”
The two explore the idea of dismantling capitalism and incentives for extractive structures that are misaligned with climate change. Learn more about Dimitry and how he came to his ecological conclusions while working in Honduras with the Peace Corps, addressing questions such as how to restore damaged ecosystems and bring the planet back to a healthy, happy place, only to determine what motivates him is love of people and a desire for equity and accessibility to services and principles of conservation.
#About Dimitry Gershenson
Dimitry co-founded Enduring Planet, building on his 10+ years of experience across climate tech, operations, and impact investing. Prior to Enduring Planet, Dimitry led M&A and served as COO for Rango Wireless, an Enduring Ventures portfolio company. Before that, Dimitry built Meta’s Energy Access program, a $15M+ investing initiative that enabled energy access for 3M people and unlocked nearly $500M in additional capital in underserved markets like Kenya and India. While at Meta, Dimitry also led the development of multiple predictive ML products in the cleantech space and built corporate accelerator programs for impact startups in India and Puerto Rico.
Outside of Enduring Planet, Dimitry sits on the board of Ecosafi, a Lower carbon-backed climate startup enabling clean cooking in emerging markets. Dimitry holds an MS in Energy and Resources from UC Berkeley, a BS in Natural Resource Management from Rutgers University.