BIOGRAPHY. MaRS

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2 BIOGRAPHY Tom started his career as a software renegade in high school. Then he went legit, and founded Voice Courier Inc. (VCi) in 1991 to service the emerging Interactive Voice Response market. Tom led its expansion to over 100 employees in three countries, with revenue in excess of $20 million US annually. The VCi Group of Companies was profitable for each of the 12 years it was under his control, and was sold in the spring, Tom now focuses efforts on carbon mitigation and is active in Cleantech venture capital, technology incubation and commercialization and public advocacy. Tom is the Cleantech Practice, Lead Advisor at the MaRS Discovery District and sits on the board of a number of clean energy companies and organisations, including Morgan Solar. Tom s book Kick the Fossil Fuel Habit: 10 Clean Technologies to Save Our Word, is distributed by Greenleaf Book in the US, and Fitzhenry & Whiteside in Canada. Tom holds a BSc in electrical engineering from the University of Waterloo, a MSc in philosophy of science from the University of London / London School of Economics and an MA and PhD in philosophy from the University of Toronto. You can read his thesis here. Tom is an Action Canada Fellow. Tom speaks publicly about the issue because it is his belief that we have yet to have a serious, public conversation about the threat of climate change, and the economic opportunites afforded by the global transformation to a low-carbon economy. MaRS Tom Rand heads up the Cleantech Practice at the MaRS Discovery District, as Practice Lead, Cleantech and Physical Sciences. Mission: MaRS was created in 2000 by a group of thirteen visionary individuals, organizations and companies concerned about Canada s performance in the global innovation economy. It s mission is to act as a catalyst in helping build Canada s high-tech industries. I m really just a guy trying to slow our gallop toward an over-heated climate. Doing what I can with what I ve got.

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4 TOM RAND SAYS: Clean energy is like the silicon chip in 1960, or the internet in 1990 just much, much bigger. Building a low-carbon economy creates the biggest market in human history, involving trillions of dollars. The question facing Canada is: how do we ensure we re a seller, not a buyer, into that market? To a large extent, we ve already invented what we need. The idea that we re waiting for a magic bullet is absurd. What we need now is financial and political innovation. Climate change is not a future threat, it s already here. It s not like some unsavory character that might one day crash the fossil fuel party, and ruin the good times. It s already here - it s in the kitchen, stealing beers and breaking furniture. The fossil fuel party needs to end. People often treat clean energy like the kids table at the fossil fuel party - a lot of sound and fury, but not much substance. Adults drill for oil, and burn coal kids put up solar panels. Well, the kids are all grown up. As a matter of fact, it s the adults who are drunk and can t be trusted to get us home. Efficiency is not a hippie thing. It s about economic competitiveness. We waste half the energy we use. We could cut our energy use in half and have the same lifestyle. We need to be smarter about efficiency. We have ten years to turn the ship around and we re not going to do it by writing tip books on how to lower one s carbon footprint. I would make an analogy to war. Look how responsive governments were in World War II. The scale of response we need is analogous to a war response.

5 ON KYOTO Canada s dropping out of Kyoto was not just an abrogation of our moral responsibilities. It was the sort of economic misstep that comes along once in a lifetime. The Harper government is not looking after our economic interests by walking away from the negotiating table. Kyoto was never going to be enough, it was never meant to be. It s just the first step in a very long, and difficult process. Kyoto was really just a test to see what kids can play nicely with the other kids in the playground. Canada has decided to pick up the ball and go home. ABOUT THE HOTEL, THE PLANET TRAVELER There s nothing radical about Planet Traveler. We took five or six existing technologies and put them to work in the same place. And what we found out is that you can lower your emissions by three quarters and make money doing it. The idea that a hotel is green because there s a little less water coming out of a showerhead or it serves organic milk is completely irrelevant. It s a distraction from the real game. The real game is carbon.

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7 THE PLANET TRAVELER NORTH AMERICA S GREENEST HOTEL The Planet Traveler was an abandoned building in downtown Toronto when Tom and his partner Anthony Aarts bought it. During it was converted into a lowcarbon hotel. The target was to reduce carbon emissions from business-as-usual by three-quarters. Using existing technologies, and leveraging only 5% of the buildings value that target is being met. Technologies deployed include geo-exchange heating and cooling, solar thermal and PV, high-efficiency lighting and drain-water heat recapture. The geo-exchange pipes were the first to be buried under a public laneway in the City of Toronto. The overall lesson? Buildings are really low-hanging fruit when it comes to emissions reductions, says Tom. Not only can we reduce emissions by three-quarters or more, we can make money doing it. To find out more: PLANET TRAVELER WEBSITE: A SHORT TED TALK A LONGER DISCUSSION IS HERE. ARTICLES ABOUT THE OPENING

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