July 29, 2025 • 39 mins
The energy transition faces political headwinds, but market forces tell a different story. Today on the Clean Power Hour, Keith Zakheim, CEO of Antenna Group and host of the Age of Adoption podcast, shares why he remains bullish on clean energy despite policy challenges.
Keith brings 20 years of communications experience in the clean energy sector. His agency has grown alongside the industry, helping companies navigate everything from the early cleantech boom to today's political landscape. In this conversation, he breaks down why the transition continues regardless of Washington politics.
Key Discussion Points:
- Why 96% of new grid capacity in April 2025 came from renewables
- How corporate demand from tech giants creates policy-agnostic growth
- The shift from "age of innovation" to "age of adoption" in clean energy
- Communication strategies for sustainability companies in challenging times
- Why energy abundance arguments resonate better than climate messaging
- The economics driving renewable competitiveness without subsidies
- How to align clean energy with administration priorities around security, strength, and prosperity
Keith explains why supply and demand fundamentals favor renewables. Tech companies need massive amounts of new electricity for AI and data centers. Traditional energy sources face capacity constraints and long build times. This creates opportunities for solar, wind, and batteries to compete purely on economics.
The conversation covers practical advice for clean energy companies on messaging and market positioning. Keith advocates for incremental change over radical transformation, focusing on multiple value propositions beyond environmental benefits.
This episode offers perspective for energy professionals, investors, and policy watchers trying to understand market dynamics beyond political noise. Keith's experience guiding companies through multiple industry cycles provides valuable insights for navigating current uncertainties.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Keith Zakheim (00:00):
Up two years ahead if there's a change in
(00:03):
government or what have you. Thereality is, you see it right
now, these big tech companiesare signing massive contracts to
get more electrons. They justare, and it's renewables, right?
So reality hits politicians inthe face much less quickly than
it does corporate and thereality is the corporate see
that they have an insatiableappetite right now for energy,
(00:26):
electricity and power, and sothere's going to be a lot of a
lot of demand for new energy,and renewables is the quickest.
Is the fastest way to do thatand meet that need. Are
intro (00:39):
you speeding the energy transition here at the Clean
Power Hour, our host, TimMontague, bring you the best in
solar, batteries and cleantechnologies every week. Want to
go deeper into decarbonization.
We do too. We're here to helpyou understand and command the
commercial, residential andutility, solar, wind and storage
industries. So let's get to ittogether. We can speed the
(01:01):
energy transition
Tim Montague (01:03):
today on the Clean Power Hour, the bullish case for
the energy transition, or theflip side crisis, is
opportunity. My guest today isKeith Zakheim. He is the CEO of
antenna group, a communicationsand marketing firm based in New
York City, and they have a veryextensive sustainability
practice. He is also the host ofthe age of adoption podcast,
(01:27):
which covers a lot of what we'regoing to talk about today. So
welcome to the show. Keith
Keith Zakheim (01:34):
Tim, thanks so much for having me. And you
know, I've been a listener toclean power hour for a long
time. So for me, it's an honorto be here.
Tim Montague (01:41):
Great to have you.
So it is Strange Days inAmerica. It's, I like to say
it's the best of times and theworst of times. We have so much
resources flowing into theenergy transition. It truly is
an unstoppable force, solar,wind, batteries being the most
cost effective sources of cleanenergy. You see that right
globally, 80 90% of new energyon the grid is is clean energy,
(02:05):
and yet we have anadministration in Washington
that wants to stick a stick inour eye and create friction and
claim to be propping up thefossil fuel industry and
claiming that there's this greenscam going on. But Keith, before
we get into the green scam, tellour listeners a little bit about
(02:25):
yourself and why you care aboutsustainability.
Keith Zakheim (02:30):
Yeah. Thanks.
Thanks. Tim, so I startedantenna group, or it was a
different iteration when Istarted it, but I started a
public relations shop in 2005 sohard to believe it's been 20
years, and when we started, theagency made the decision that we
wanted to focus in verticalsthat we found to be interesting,
consequential and missiondriven. I come out of the public
affairs space and issue advocacyspace and 2005 for those who
(02:52):
remember, I think George W Bushand his State of the Union
address kind of kicked off thelatest phase in government
investment in renewables andclimate and the private sector
quickly started to kick in aswell. So we found it to be, you
know, both an interestingopportunity, one, of course,
(03:12):
that's important, you know. Sofor interesting, consequential
and mission driven, it wascertainly mission driven. We
thought there was a greatbusiness opportunity as well. So
we started early on, and westarted in business pretty
quickly. The issue for us as anEast Coast based see was in 2005
you couldn't find a lot of commsand marketing people that had
domain expertise and renewablesand climate. And a lot of our
(03:34):
clients were on the West Coast.
You know, the venture communityat that point in Northern
California, were funding a lotof these companies, so we had to
figure some way to build out abench of great communications
professionals who could speak ina sophisticated way about
climate and renewables. And wewere lucky enough. It was kind
of serendipitous that there wasan agency in San Francisco
(03:56):
called antenna group that atthat point in their history was
focusing on climate andsustainability and what we
called cleantech back then, andwe were lucky enough to be able
to acquire that agency, and thatimmediately enabled us to fill a
bench of fantastic comms andmarketing professionals, and
away we went. And over theyears, you know, we've ridden
(04:19):
that solar coasters. They callit as I know you have Tim and in
general, you know, we'veexperienced the ups and downs of
the industry, but all along, wehad a belief and an immutable
belief, honestly, that thefuture of climate and
sustainability and clean techand clean energy was inexorable,
and it's and it's increasingadoption, and we wrote it, and
we've been blessed to grow overthe years as we've now expanded
(04:42):
into all the different marketingdisciplines, whether it's web
development and performance,marketing, creative and design,
addition to our public relationsand comms, and we've also added
public affairs. We're nowglobal, so we've been able to
scale as the industry hasscaled, which has been
gratifying and. Ultimately, youknow, we're doubling down in
this environment. I know we'regoing to talk more about this
(05:04):
environment and the headwindsand where things are going, but
ultimately, again, we both havethis abiding belief that this is
what the future is, and we seesome really interesting near
term and long termopportunities.
Tim Montague (05:16):
So we're recording here in mid July, 2025 the
Senate and the Congress hasratified the BBB, the big,
beautiful bill, which is awrecking ball in some regards to
clean energy and the solarindustry, is kind of freaking
(05:37):
out. Many companies are castingabout for how to navigate these
tumultuous waters. And myopinion is that we are here to
stay. Yes, there is going to bea contraction, and many
companies will go away. Therewill be lots of mergers and
(05:57):
acquisitions, and there will bea refocusing for some companies,
or an expansion into othermarkets, adjacent markets. So I
think the days, for example, ofthe solar alone installer, are
pretty much gone. You have toembrace batteries full on. You
really should consider HVAC orroofing or some adjacent trades
(06:20):
to solar, because solar pairs sowell with other trades, and that
gives you multiple legs to standon. But it really depends. You
know, that's like if you're aninstaller, now, if you're a
technology company that makessolar panels, it doesn't really
matter to you whether or not theUS exists, frankly, right,
Keith, because we're such aminor player in that global
(06:42):
economy. But what is your takeon a I'm curious like, what do
you think the Trumpadministration is trying to
achieve with the BBB in regardsto the energy transition? And
what is the bullish case thatyou have, you know, come to and
that you're communicating withyour clients and through your
(07:04):
clients.
Keith Zakheim (07:06):
Yeah, so, I mean, there's a, there's a kind of an
economic case. I think that'sbullish in terms of how we
communicate things for ourclients and with our clients. We
can discuss that. It's obviouslyrelated, just getting to your
first question around the BBBand the point around it, you
know, I can't, necessarily, Idon't think anybody can read
Donald Trump's mind and figureout exactly why he does certain
(07:26):
things, whether or not his hedetests renewables because of a
windmill that was near one ofhis or wind turbine that was
near one of his golf courses inScotland, and that turned him
off, whether or not it's the bigoil lobby that certainly has
made a case for a long time thatsees renewables as a threat,
although the truth is Big Oil, Idon't know, or certainly a lot
(07:47):
of the major oil companies havehuge investments, certainly
around carbon capture. So Idon't think they look at, you
know, they don't deny climatechange, but ultimately, you
know, let's put aside whatDonald Trump was thinking. I
think we can all agree that itis significant headwinds for an
industry that was growing byleaps and bounds with the
inflation Reduction Act. But Ijust don't, I don't share the
(08:08):
view that this is a death knell,and I don't even share the view
that in the short term, it'sgoing to be, it's going to be a
correction. Don't get me wrong,but I still think that the short
term, there are just indicatorsand trends that play into the
hands of continued prosperity inthe solar renewables market. I
do agree about coupling, youknow, solar and batteries and in
(08:29):
general, kind of looking at thehome as one of these micro grids
that if you can sell into allcell batteries and panels and
energy efficiency systems andwith electric I mean, there's a
lot of things that can becoupled and agreed, but
ultimately just kind of thebullish case. To get back to
your question, I think in April,96% of all the energy that was
(08:51):
added to the grid came fromrenewables, right? So it's now
the cheapest electricity sourcein most parts of the US and
globally, even without federalsupport, right? And then, of
course, like renewable projects,those you know, built without
PPAs or subsidies, are becomingviable. And like high demand
markets, I think the economicsultimately work. Corporate
(09:12):
demand is policy agnostic,right? And it's accelerating. So
the Googles, Amazons, Microsoftof the world, they're signing
gigawatts of solar, wind, PPAs,they need it, right? I mean, we
need electrons on the grid. Andlet's face it, as much as this
administration wants morenatural gas, wants more coal,
those we just don't have thecapacity. New plants take a long
(09:32):
time to be built, from what Iunderstand, well, what they need
to build natural gas plants.
Those turbines are on backorder. They don't have them
readily available. So those are,I mean, again, so the demand is
going to make it that we needthose renewable electrons. I'm
not an economist, Tim, but lawsof supply and demand. If the
demand is going up with thesetech giants, and if supply is
(09:53):
going to go down because ofputting renewables aside and not
being able to get in. Off oftraditional electricity sources
on the grid, then the price isgoing to go up, which will make
renewables competitive, maybeeven more competitive. So state
and local governments are stillall in. Global Markets are
booming. We're getting betteraround grid tech
(10:13):
interconnections, hopefully getbetter regulations around that.
So there's just a lot, in myopinion that I can make one
bullish about it. Will there bean adjusted period? Of course,
will there be some contraction?
Of course, the truth is, Tim,every market needs some
contraction, right? So I thinkthat's going to happen. There'll
be but ultimately, I'm verybullish on it.
Tim Montague (10:36):
Yeah. I mean, it was really happy days under the
Biden administration with theIRA. And in my opinion, that was
very good industrial policy. Andwe did see the reshoring of
many, well, onshoring andreshoring of battery factories
and solar panel factories. Andyou know, some of that's going
(10:58):
to go away now. And SEIA, youknow, is documenting this, but
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more. I guess I'm I'm curious.
Zak like, what you tell yourclients, if you're a solar
technology company, and let'ssay you're you're very
entrenched in the US market. Isthis a time to diversify into
other markets geographically? Ordo you think that technology
(12:06):
companies don't have to worrytoo much about it, they can just
double down on the US, becausethis is just kind of going to
blow over, and people willrealize, look, we need more grid
power and wind, solar andbatteries are the answer. That's
the most fiscally responsiblething for anybody to do, and
(12:29):
it's just going to happen, whichis kind of my assessment. But
I'm just curious, yeah, what doyou what are you advising your
clients? Who are going, Yeah,things are going to be bumpy
here in the US for the nextcouple of years. And that is,
you know, it is only a couple ofyears, probably right. And then
(12:51):
some other administration willbe in DC, and things will
change. But in the near term, ifyou're a manufacturer of solar
technology, what is your advice?
Keith Zakheim (13:06):
Yeah, so just to your last point, you know, look
two years ahead if there's achange in government or what
have you the reality is, you seeit right now, these big tech
companies are signing massivecontracts to get more electrons
on the grid. They just are, andit's renewables, right? So
reality hits politicians in theface much less quickly than it
(13:29):
does corporate and the realityis the corporates see that they
have an insatiable appetiteright now for energy,
electricity and power, and sothere's going to be a lot of a
lot of demand for new energy andrenewables is the quickest. Is
the fastest way to do that andmeet that need. Okay, let's take
a step back here in terms ofwhat we're counseling our
(13:50):
clients. And first of all, youknow, we're not management
consultants, so clients don'task us, should we go global?
Should we stay domestic? I havemy opinions on that, but I don't
really get paid to give thatadvice. What they are asking us,
is this is our business. Theseare the headwinds. How do we
talk about it now? And how do wetalk about it with employees,
who, most of them choose to workwith us. And I'm not talking
(14:11):
about just Solar Tech, I'mtalking about fortune, 100
companies that we work with,right? How do we talk about
climate sustainability, cleantech, renewables to all of our
different stakeholders in thisenvironment. So it's employees,
it's customers, right? It's thepublic markets, it's private
markets, to the venture capitalcommunity. How do we talk about
this stuff? So for us, you know,there's a number of things.
(14:34):
Number one, let's try to alignwith this administration and
their priorities, right? Becauseultimately, we can beat our head
against the wall about thisadministration. This is the
reality, right? This bill gotpassed. This is policy.
Ultimately, economics is policy.
Is economics really the otherway around? So this is what
we're facing. And the Trumpadministration has made very,
very clear that there's threepillars that they look at,
right, whether or notsomething's going to make
(14:57):
America stronger, right? Whetherit's gonna make America more
secure and whether it's gonnamake America more prosperous.
And you know, we could breakthose three down. I think
there's a really good argumentto be made for climate it makes
us more secure aroundresiliency. It makes us
stronger. The more energy wehave domestically, the less we
have to import some geopoliticalrisk. It makes us stronger.
There prosperity, of course,jobs and returns on investment,
(15:19):
being able to power the AIrevolution, right? So we can
really align with those threepillars of administration in a
way that's not cynical, notdisingenuous, it's real. And
hopefully that gets, you know,gets momentum. There's also, I
mean, you know this, Tim, Ithink all of our listeners know
this. There's multiple valuepropositions when it comes to
(15:39):
climate sustainability, right?
And I think many of us whojoined in this industry have a
redemptive perspective on it,right? So it's going to we
really do believe it's going tosave the planet. We really do
believe there's a cataclysmicchallenge to our ability to
survive. But let's put thataside, because clearly, in this
environment, that does not seemto do the trick. That's been
(16:00):
obviously politicized. Andpeople think that when someone
talks about climate change anddisasters and saving the planet,
ultimately, that's anideological perspective and a
factual one, so they're notinterested in that. But there
are multiple value propositions,right? And we talked about
energy abundance being one,right? 96% of new generation
April was renewables. We needelectrons on the grid. We've got
(16:22):
to talk about that. We've hadthis week wildfire. You know, we
had the flash flooding in Texas,right? We have wildfires in
Europe. We have, you know,extreme heat in Europe right
now. In fact, I think there'ssome emergency regulatory
discussions in Europe right nowbecause of what's happening, I
think, in Catalonia. So there'sand again, it's not about saving
(16:43):
the planet. It's how do weeverybody wants to avoid these
types of extreme weather events,and to the extent that climate
tech and sustainability tech canhelp with that, there's more
resilience to supply chains,right? That's another value
prop. The economic returns are,you know, another value prop.
And, of course, jobs. And as Imentioned before, the economics
of it, ultimately, I think evenit's going to be borne out very,
(17:05):
very soon, solar and wind,renewables, coupled with
battery, they are going to beable to compete in the market,
even without these subsidies,because laws of supply and
demand are going to put a ton ofpressure, upward pressure on
prices. So even without thesesubsidies, I think solar and
wind will be able to make
Tim Montague (17:22):
it. Yeah, I mean energy prices are going to go
up, right there. Is there. Thereis a lot of demand for energy,
and if supply is level anddemand goes up, then price will
go up. And that does make solarwind batteries pencil better.
Let's talk about sustainability,though, I always tell my clients
(17:43):
when I'm talking to a facilityowner, I never lead with
sustainability. I always leadwith savings that they could
benefit from by going solar orparticipating in community
solar. And I'm just curious youobviously have embraced this
paradigm that humanity has anopportunity here to save our own
(18:07):
butts. The earth is going to behere one way or the other, no
matter what we do, pretty much.
And the question is, can we holdon to the good life that we have
in any semblance of what we havetoday, like we have an amazingly
generous life, and we have agreat opportunity to lean in and
take the inventions that we'vemade and deploy them at scale.
(18:30):
And we also need to do otherthings. Okay, there is a lot of
legacy carbon in the atmosphere.
The energy transition is, is1/20 of that greater problem,
but it's a significant piece ofthe problem. But what is your
philosophy about this? And howdo you, how do you try to guide
(18:52):
others towards bettercommunication and PR about
sustainability?
Keith Zakheim (18:59):
Yeah, so, I mean, there's a lot of things to break
down there. So I don't know thatwe've ever positioned the
company as a do gooder, right?
PR firm, we, you know, we'vetypically really been around the
technology of the market, of theopportunity in climate, clean
tech, sustainability, energytransition, whatever the you
(19:20):
know, whatever the term of theday was, and the reason for that
is, you know, I'm anincrementalist, right? So by
nature, I'm an incrementalist.
Candidly, I'm a conservative,small c, right? For the same
reason, I think change happensslowly. I think radical change
typically backfires, which maybewe're experiencing right now,
candidly. And you know what Ifound about the climate and
(19:44):
sustainability community, and Ithought, you know more about the
NGOs and some of those, youknow, latter advocates, is that
they're not incrementalists, youknow? They really are looking
for extreme change right away.
And I've never believed in that.
I think that it's as I mentionedbefore. There isn't an
inexorable transition to acleaner world, a world where
companies are transitioning toclimate and sustainability
(20:07):
solutions. And we see that,right? We call it the age of
adoption. At our agency, we'reat a time and kind of the
history of climatesustainability, over the last
three, four years, wherecompanies of all shapes and
sizes, industry agnostic, arerapidly adopting Climate
Solutions just is the that'sjust the case, and that's
incremental, right? They didn'tone day stop with fossil fuels,
(20:29):
grind the economy to a halt andstart renewables. It's just not,
ultimately, that's not feasible.
And I think a lot of thebacklash we're experiencing
right now is because of that.
And again, right? So radicalchange very often gets a radical
backlash, so we see it asincremental, and that's really
been the guiding principle ofour agency. We won't work with
fossil fuel companies. That'sjust not a that's not something
(20:51):
we'll do. We see that asregressive. Won't do it. But at
the same time, we feel thatthere's a place for fossil
fuels, but that's the realityright now. Let's be smart about
the transition. Let's keep goingforward. The metaphor I love,
it's not mine, but I alwaysrepeat it is incrementally march
down that football field, and aslong as when you take a breath
(21:13):
and turn around, you're closerto the next goal post, that's
success, and that's how wecounsel our clients, that's what
kind of a guides our business.
That's what, what's been ourmission all these years.
Tim Montague (21:27):
So the energy transition is happening, and you
have grabbed onto this, thisexpression, the age of adoption.
So let's, let's talk a littlemore about that. We could
completely net zero the economywith the technology that we
already have, and that includeswind, solar, batteries and heat
(21:48):
pumps and geothermal, etc, etc,etc, electrification of
transportation. And as thing, astechnologies become adopted,
there's this thing called thecost adoption curve, and the
technologies become moreaffordable, and that is a
positive feedback loop. And thenwhen we went from horse and
(22:08):
buggy to internal combustionengine, right? It had nothing to
do with people's dislike ofhorses. It had to do with their
ability to go 50 miles an hourfor three hours, which they
couldn't do on a horse,
Keith Zakheim (22:22):
or horsepower, literally and figuratively,
right? More horsepower.
Tim Montague (22:26):
It was just more economical and more convenient.
And that switch happened atfirst gradually, but then
there's this there. There isthis acceleration that that
happens. And we are in a periodglobally of acceleration, right?
We are going vertical, globally.
Now in the US we're going towe're going to see a little
tailing off, and then we'll comeback again. But I'm just
(22:46):
curious, I guess, how youcommunicate this to
stakeholders, like likeemployees? You talk about
incremental change, butincremental change does lead to,
ultimately, a radicaltransformation, like the economy
is going to be radicallydifferent in 30 years. So I
(23:08):
don't know. I'm struggling toput my finger on this exactly,
but that is a hard to graspphenomenon, I guess.
Keith Zakheim (23:20):
Yeah, I don't see that as a tension. I see that as
inevitable. I mean, I totallyagree with you. I totally agree.
But the question is, ultimately,how do you stop the roller
coaster? How do you get thetransition to continue in the
right direction? My perspectiveis, and this has been true in
history, it's always going to beincremental change. That's true
(23:42):
in political environments.
That's true in social justice,that's true really everywhere.
Just the second you do somethingextreme or more radical, you're
inviting a backlash, and that'sultimately what we're
experiencing right now in theUS. But that's been true
throughout history. What I willsay, you talk about our
employees, and you know, we callthem fellow ants in our in our
agency. But ultimately, I'm abig believer. People say to me,
(24:04):
okay, well, yeah, you're intoclimate sustainability, but
you're in comps. You know? Whyaren't you out there installing
solar panels? Want you out thereinnovating technologies and
ultimately, like comms andmarketing have a huge role to
play. Narratives have a hugerole to play. Every single great
movement in history of theworld, right religions, social
(24:24):
justice movements, what haveyou? Political movements have
all been initiated and have allbeen sustained and grown through
storytelling. That's just thereality. And you know, it's
Jesus Moses and Muhammad, theywere amazing storytellers,
right? The Bible, Quran. Theseare great, great media platforms
in order to convince people, andthat's what, ultimately, I think
(24:49):
what we do as comms andmarketing people, I think
there's, I think it's redemptiveto me. It's playing a huge role
in this. And I think thechallenge is. Magnified and made
a lot more difficult because ofthe environment we're in today,
the media environment. I mean,we live in a post truth, post
data world that's riven byconspiracy theories, and it
(25:09):
makes it really, really hard totell a story that we think is
factual, that we think is real,right? So what do you do? And to
me, again, that's wherestorytelling comes in, because
storytelling has to be a motive,right? It has to connect with
people. Storytelling has toultimately involve and tell
stories about real people, realencounters, not just anecdotal,
but in a sustained way. And Ithink that's what we're doing. I
(25:34):
think that's what the peoplethat come to work for antenna
do. And we find it to begratifying. We find it to be
something that gets us excitedevery day to come to work and
work with companies that arecommitted to this.
Tim Montague (25:50):
What does it mean to be sustainable? In your mind,
like, what is the heart ofsustainability?
Keith Zakheim (25:59):
Yeah, so to me, it's ultimately, it's a company
that is deploying solutionscould be hardware, software,
best practices, doesn't matter,that are in the service of
making their companies moreclimate sensitive period. That's
it. That's how a company makesthem send out. I know there's
(26:21):
ESG, which, by the way, from acomms perspective, not a word
one should use anymore in thisenvironment. It's third rail,
right? But ultimately, if acompany is doing that in a
meaningful way, like realimplementations, integrating
into full operations, right?
Supply chains, it becomes partand parcel of the company,
embedded in the roots of acompany that, to me, is a
sustainable company. We call italso a conscious brand. I think
(26:44):
in business schools now call itresponsible business. These are
things that companies have to donow. I think ultimately, like if
you want to be an ongoingconcern as a business in the
next 1020 years, you have nochoice. But to me, that's what
sustainability is.
Tim Montague (27:00):
So we have capitalism, which is very good.
It is a system that is very goodat concentrating wealth and
creating wealth. And I, youknow, one of the questions I ask
myself, Keith is, if everycompany in America became a B
Corp, right, where there'stheoretically some higher
(27:22):
mission to the organization,other than just turning a
profit. Would we solve theproblem of climate chaos? And I
have to say, I don't necessarilybelieve so and but I do resonate
with your definition of okay,being climate sensitive. And so
(27:47):
I'm just curious. Like, if youlook into the crystal ball and
you're talking to your familyabout 1020, 30 years into the
future, what is it that is goingto be different about our
economy? If there is, you know,some semblance of a modern
economy as we're that we'reinventing.
Keith Zakheim (28:08):
Yeah. So first of all, I agree with you. I mean,
it's just not, it's just notrealistic for every company to
be, B Corp, just not, notrealistic. And we can go,
there's a lot of reasons for it,but ultimately, why has, and I
believe capitalism in themarket, market economics have
worked, and it's pulled. Youknow, in the history of the
world, standard of livings haveincreased more than it ever had.
(28:32):
More people have been pulled outof poverty than ever in the
history of mankind, right? Imean China and India, the amount
of people have been pulled outof poverty in the last 10 years
because of industrialization andopening up their economies, has
never been seen before. So itworks. The question is,
ultimately, will climate andsustainability, will those
(28:52):
investments, will those bestpractices? Does that align with
market economics? I think itdoes. You mentioned before the
economies of scale and how thatthat ultimately is a concept in
market economics, right, and incapitalism and and ultimately, I
think the most successfulcompanies, which the assumption
of capitalism, is that those whoare running those companies want
(29:14):
to be the most successful. Theycan only be that successful if
they are at this point, adaptingtheir businesses to become more
climate sensitive andsustainable full stop. I don't
think ultimately that there is.
It's not a zero sum game. Let'sput it that way, between either
we're a capitalist society orwe're going to transform the
world to net zero. I don't thinkit's a zero sum game. In fact, I
(29:35):
think it's something thatultimately they work hand in
hand. So
Tim Montague (29:41):
you mentioned a frame earlier. You know, like
you said, ESG is out, right?
We're not talking about ESG. Wasit responsible business, or what
is the frame? What is a simpleframe for business that is
sensitive to sustainability,without using the S word?
Keith Zakheim (29:59):
Yeah? Yeah, responsible business, to me, is
probably, you know, if you, ifyou're at a cocktail hour with
other comms people, that's,that's what being bandied about.
So, yeah, I guess responsiblebusiness, ESG, ultimately, to
me, you know, it's interesting.
I think people couple Deia ordei with ESG, and both of them
being third rails. I actuallysee them as different
(30:21):
challenges. I think that thecurrent Zeitgeist when it comes
to dei is actually a culture waragainst Dei. I think that people
think, well, if you break up deiinto its components, nobody
disagrees with that. I actuallythink that's wrong. I think that
plenty of people in thisadministration, plenty of people
right now, from an ideologicalperspective, might disagree with
(30:43):
all three, and that becomes aculture war that's very
difficult to combat withlanguage and comms. ESG is much
more of a political issue,right? And I think a lot of ESG
and a lot of the backlashagainst the IRA comes from the
fact that it was, it'sassociated with liberal
economics, associated with Bidenthat becomes a political game.
(31:04):
So again, ESG itself, as a term,as an acronym, should be stayed
away from but the componentparts, certainly the energy part
of ESG, I should say that to me,is something that is much easier
to deal with if it's if it'sdealt with smartly and
responsible businessesunderstand, and this is also
conservative economics thatevolved over the last 1015,
(31:25):
years, that you're not justresponsible to the bottom line,
but there's multiplestakeholders who you're
responsible to. And corporateAmerica understands that, and
you're responsible thestakeholders, because
ultimately, that's how you'regoing to be responsible to the
bottom line. And I think that, Ithink that there's a lot to be
said there for where we areright now.
Tim Montague (31:44):
Hey guys, are you a residential solar installer
doing light commercial butwanting to scale into large CNI
solar? I'm Tim Montague. I'vedeveloped over 150 megawatts of
commercial solar, and I'vesolved the problem that you're
having you don't know what toolsand technologies you need in
(32:06):
order to successfully close 100KW to megawatt scale projects.
I've developed a commercialsolar accelerator to help
installers exactly like you justgo to cleanpowerhour.com click
on strategy and book a calltoday. It's totally free with no
obligation. Thanks for being alistener. I really appreciate
(32:29):
you listening to the pod, andI'm Tim Montague, let's grow
solar and storage. Go to cleanpower hour and click strategy
today. Thanks so much. So I haveone hard question and one easy
question to close this out. Thehard question is, why do we as a
species struggle to care aboutfuture generations? You know, on
(32:53):
Maslow's hierarchy of needs,future generations rank towards
the bottom in modern society.
There are cultures, I'm surewhere that's different,
indigenous cultures. But let'sface it, in modern society,
future generations rank fairlylow. And for us, in my opinion,
for us to have a sustainablefuture on Earth, we're going to
(33:16):
have to care more. Do you haveany ideas about what that takes?
Keith Zakheim (33:24):
Yeah, so I'm one of my side hobbies. Let's talk
about behavioral psychology. Andyou know, so we're all played by
these heuristics. They callthem, right? So biases that we
have just we've evolved to havethese, these neurological
biases. One of them, everybodyhas this confirmation bias. But
another bias we have is we justconstantly discount the future.
(33:45):
Great way to see it as terms ofinvestments, right? So typically
people, if they really were notpeople, discount the future, and
therefore they don't understandthat compounded interest. And,
you know, we are, many of us, ormost of us, are plagued with,
you know, wanting instantgratification, right? So these
are all biases discounted thefuture. I think another one we
tragically see today is, youlook at birth around the world,
(34:09):
I think you know, very fewcountries now have replacement
rates, right? Because, and whenyou don't have children, you
tend to discount the future aswell, because you're pretty much
living for today. So I thinkthere's a lot there to unpack,
but to me, it's a combination ofa heuristic around we just
discount future our brainsagain, and we've evolved for
that, right? Because, you know,when we were trying to survive
in the Savannah, who cared aboutthe future to avoid the tiger or
(34:32):
the lion, right? Now, reallyhardwired. Seriously, it's
hardwired into us, yeah, andthat now, you know, so we
haven't evolved for where we arein the world today. So that was
the first part. You asked me asecond question as well. I think
so
Tim Montague (34:44):
the easy question, Zak is, what are you doing with
the age of adoption podcast, andwho are your dream guests on
that show?
Keith Zakheim (34:54):
Oh, thanks, yeah.
So the age of adoption podcastis and Tim, you were a fantastic
guest. I. And so thank you foragain, coming on that we want to
get on on the show just peoplewho are smart and candidly, who
have been in the industry for awhile, so they can tell that
adoption story. And again, forus, we look at the history of
climate over the last 25 years,and two distinct kind of epochs
(35:17):
or phases, right? So up untilfive years ago, we call it the
age of innovation, and that'swhen companies and entrepreneurs
and investors were all spendingmoney and time innovating in the
solutions, hardware, software,best practices that they hoped
one day would be widely adopted.
Last three, four years, we'veseen that come to fruition,
(35:38):
right? So we want people whohave been around long enough in
this space, who can reallyreflect on that, and we ask
them, what's your age ofadoption story, right? How have
things changed for you over thepast 20 years, as you yourself
and your companies transitionfrom one age to the next, we've
had amazing guests. If you hadasked me a few months ago, kind
of who are my dream guests, oneof them would have been Jigar
(35:59):
Shah, but we actually just hadJigar Shah on the podcast and
released that episode. He's he'sjust incredible to listen to.
He's one of those people as youknow Tim. You can just kind of
ask a question, drop the mic andjust listen, and he can go all
day. He's fantastic. Butultimately, we just want those
kinds of people. I don't reallycare about their title, I don't
care about what company they'refrom. If you can give me
somebody who's really thoughtfuland has experienced this, and
(36:21):
can really give me a good sense,and our listeners, more
importantly, a good sense of howthe world has changed and how
they're experiencing that. Assomebody who's passionate about
climate and sustainability,that's a great guess for me.
Tim Montague (36:34):
Awesome. Thank you so much. Keith Zakheim CEO of
Antenna Group. I reallyappreciate this opportunity.
Thank you for having me on yourshow. And with that, I'll say,
let's grow solar and storage.
Have a great day, Keith.
Keith Zakheim (36:48):
Let's do it.
Thank you. You.
Up two years ahead if there's a change in
(00:03):
government or what have you. Thereality is, you see it right
now, these big tech companiesare signing massive contracts to
get more electrons. They justare, and it's renewables, right?
So reality hits politicians inthe face much less quickly than
it does corporate and thereality is the corporate see
that they have an insatiableappetite right now for energy,
(00:26):
electricity and power, and sothere's going to be a lot of a
lot of demand for new energy,and renewables is the quickest.
Is the fastest way to do thatand meet that need. Are
intro (00:39):
you speeding the energy transition here at the Clean
Power Hour, our host, TimMontague, bring you the best in
solar, batteries and cleantechnologies every week. Want to
go deeper into decarbonization.
We do too. We're here to helpyou understand and command the
commercial, residential andutility, solar, wind and storage
industries. So let's get to ittogether. We can speed the
(01:01):
energy transition
Tim Montague (01:03):
today on the Clean Power Hour, the bullish case for
the energy transition, or theflip side crisis, is
opportunity. My guest today isKeith Zakheim. He is the CEO of
antenna group, a communicationsand marketing firm based in New
York City, and they have a veryextensive sustainability
practice. He is also the host ofthe age of adoption podcast,
(01:27):
which covers a lot of what we'regoing to talk about today. So
welcome to the show. Keith
Keith Zakheim (01:34):
Tim, thanks so much for having me. And you
know, I've been a listener toclean power hour for a long
time. So for me, it's an honorto be here.
Tim Montague (01:41):
Great to have you.
So it is Strange Days inAmerica. It's, I like to say
it's the best of times and theworst of times. We have so much
resources flowing into theenergy transition. It truly is
an unstoppable force, solar,wind, batteries being the most
cost effective sources of cleanenergy. You see that right
globally, 80 90% of new energyon the grid is is clean energy,
(02:05):
and yet we have anadministration in Washington
that wants to stick a stick inour eye and create friction and
claim to be propping up thefossil fuel industry and
claiming that there's this greenscam going on. But Keith, before
we get into the green scam, tellour listeners a little bit about
(02:25):
yourself and why you care aboutsustainability.
Keith Zakheim (02:30):
Yeah. Thanks.
Thanks. Tim, so I startedantenna group, or it was a
different iteration when Istarted it, but I started a
public relations shop in 2005 sohard to believe it's been 20
years, and when we started, theagency made the decision that we
wanted to focus in verticalsthat we found to be interesting,
consequential and missiondriven. I come out of the public
affairs space and issue advocacyspace and 2005 for those who
(02:52):
remember, I think George W Bushand his State of the Union
address kind of kicked off thelatest phase in government
investment in renewables andclimate and the private sector
quickly started to kick in aswell. So we found it to be, you
know, both an interestingopportunity, one, of course,
(03:12):
that's important, you know. Sofor interesting, consequential
and mission driven, it wascertainly mission driven. We
thought there was a greatbusiness opportunity as well. So
we started early on, and westarted in business pretty
quickly. The issue for us as anEast Coast based see was in 2005
you couldn't find a lot of commsand marketing people that had
domain expertise and renewablesand climate. And a lot of our
(03:34):
clients were on the West Coast.
You know, the venture communityat that point in Northern
California, were funding a lotof these companies, so we had to
figure some way to build out abench of great communications
professionals who could speak ina sophisticated way about
climate and renewables. And wewere lucky enough. It was kind
of serendipitous that there wasan agency in San Francisco
(03:56):
called antenna group that atthat point in their history was
focusing on climate andsustainability and what we
called cleantech back then, andwe were lucky enough to be able
to acquire that agency, and thatimmediately enabled us to fill a
bench of fantastic comms andmarketing professionals, and
away we went. And over theyears, you know, we've ridden
(04:19):
that solar coasters. They callit as I know you have Tim and in
general, you know, we'veexperienced the ups and downs of
the industry, but all along, wehad a belief and an immutable
belief, honestly, that thefuture of climate and
sustainability and clean techand clean energy was inexorable,
and it's and it's increasingadoption, and we wrote it, and
we've been blessed to grow overthe years as we've now expanded
(04:42):
into all the different marketingdisciplines, whether it's web
development and performance,marketing, creative and design,
addition to our public relationsand comms, and we've also added
public affairs. We're nowglobal, so we've been able to
scale as the industry hasscaled, which has been
gratifying and. Ultimately, youknow, we're doubling down in
this environment. I know we'regoing to talk more about this
(05:04):
environment and the headwindsand where things are going, but
ultimately, again, we both havethis abiding belief that this is
what the future is, and we seesome really interesting near
term and long termopportunities.
Tim Montague (05:16):
So we're recording here in mid July, 2025 the
Senate and the Congress hasratified the BBB, the big,
beautiful bill, which is awrecking ball in some regards to
clean energy and the solarindustry, is kind of freaking
(05:37):
out. Many companies are castingabout for how to navigate these
tumultuous waters. And myopinion is that we are here to
stay. Yes, there is going to bea contraction, and many
companies will go away. Therewill be lots of mergers and
(05:57):
acquisitions, and there will bea refocusing for some companies,
or an expansion into othermarkets, adjacent markets. So I
think the days, for example, ofthe solar alone installer, are
pretty much gone. You have toembrace batteries full on. You
really should consider HVAC orroofing or some adjacent trades
(06:20):
to solar, because solar pairs sowell with other trades, and that
gives you multiple legs to standon. But it really depends. You
know, that's like if you're aninstaller, now, if you're a
technology company that makessolar panels, it doesn't really
matter to you whether or not theUS exists, frankly, right,
Keith, because we're such aminor player in that global
(06:42):
economy. But what is your takeon a I'm curious like, what do
you think the Trumpadministration is trying to
achieve with the BBB in regardsto the energy transition? And
what is the bullish case thatyou have, you know, come to and
that you're communicating withyour clients and through your
(07:04):
clients.
Keith Zakheim (07:06):
Yeah, so, I mean, there's a, there's a kind of an
economic case. I think that'sbullish in terms of how we
communicate things for ourclients and with our clients. We
can discuss that. It's obviouslyrelated, just getting to your
first question around the BBBand the point around it, you
know, I can't, necessarily, Idon't think anybody can read
Donald Trump's mind and figureout exactly why he does certain
(07:26):
things, whether or not his hedetests renewables because of a
windmill that was near one ofhis or wind turbine that was
near one of his golf courses inScotland, and that turned him
off, whether or not it's the bigoil lobby that certainly has
made a case for a long time thatsees renewables as a threat,
although the truth is Big Oil, Idon't know, or certainly a lot
(07:47):
of the major oil companies havehuge investments, certainly
around carbon capture. So Idon't think they look at, you
know, they don't deny climatechange, but ultimately, you
know, let's put aside whatDonald Trump was thinking. I
think we can all agree that itis significant headwinds for an
industry that was growing byleaps and bounds with the
inflation Reduction Act. But Ijust don't, I don't share the
(08:08):
view that this is a death knell,and I don't even share the view
that in the short term, it'sgoing to be, it's going to be a
correction. Don't get me wrong,but I still think that the short
term, there are just indicatorsand trends that play into the
hands of continued prosperity inthe solar renewables market. I
do agree about coupling, youknow, solar and batteries and in
(08:29):
general, kind of looking at thehome as one of these micro grids
that if you can sell into allcell batteries and panels and
energy efficiency systems andwith electric I mean, there's a
lot of things that can becoupled and agreed, but
ultimately just kind of thebullish case. To get back to
your question, I think in April,96% of all the energy that was
(08:51):
added to the grid came fromrenewables, right? So it's now
the cheapest electricity sourcein most parts of the US and
globally, even without federalsupport, right? And then, of
course, like renewable projects,those you know, built without
PPAs or subsidies, are becomingviable. And like high demand
markets, I think the economicsultimately work. Corporate
(09:12):
demand is policy agnostic,right? And it's accelerating. So
the Googles, Amazons, Microsoftof the world, they're signing
gigawatts of solar, wind, PPAs,they need it, right? I mean, we
need electrons on the grid. Andlet's face it, as much as this
administration wants morenatural gas, wants more coal,
those we just don't have thecapacity. New plants take a long
(09:32):
time to be built, from what Iunderstand, well, what they need
to build natural gas plants.
Those turbines are on backorder. They don't have them
readily available. So those are,I mean, again, so the demand is
going to make it that we needthose renewable electrons. I'm
not an economist, Tim, but lawsof supply and demand. If the
demand is going up with thesetech giants, and if supply is
(09:53):
going to go down because ofputting renewables aside and not
being able to get in. Off oftraditional electricity sources
on the grid, then the price isgoing to go up, which will make
renewables competitive, maybeeven more competitive. So state
and local governments are stillall in. Global Markets are
booming. We're getting betteraround grid tech
(10:13):
interconnections, hopefully getbetter regulations around that.
So there's just a lot, in myopinion that I can make one
bullish about it. Will there bean adjusted period? Of course,
will there be some contraction?
Of course, the truth is, Tim,every market needs some
contraction, right? So I thinkthat's going to happen. There'll
be but ultimately, I'm verybullish on it.
Tim Montague (10:36):
Yeah. I mean, it was really happy days under the
Biden administration with theIRA. And in my opinion, that was
very good industrial policy. Andwe did see the reshoring of
many, well, onshoring andreshoring of battery factories
and solar panel factories. Andyou know, some of that's going
(10:58):
to go away now. And SEIA, youknow, is documenting this, but
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more. I guess I'm I'm curious.
Zak like, what you tell yourclients, if you're a solar
technology company, and let'ssay you're you're very
entrenched in the US market. Isthis a time to diversify into
other markets geographically? Ordo you think that technology
(12:06):
companies don't have to worrytoo much about it, they can just
double down on the US, becausethis is just kind of going to
blow over, and people willrealize, look, we need more grid
power and wind, solar andbatteries are the answer. That's
the most fiscally responsiblething for anybody to do, and
(12:29):
it's just going to happen, whichis kind of my assessment. But
I'm just curious, yeah, what doyou what are you advising your
clients? Who are going, Yeah,things are going to be bumpy
here in the US for the nextcouple of years. And that is,
you know, it is only a couple ofyears, probably right. And then
(12:51):
some other administration willbe in DC, and things will
change. But in the near term, ifyou're a manufacturer of solar
technology, what is your advice?
Keith Zakheim (13:06):
Yeah, so just to your last point, you know, look
two years ahead if there's achange in government or what
have you the reality is, you seeit right now, these big tech
companies are signing massivecontracts to get more electrons
on the grid. They just are, andit's renewables, right? So
reality hits politicians in theface much less quickly than it
(13:29):
does corporate and the realityis the corporates see that they
have an insatiable appetiteright now for energy,
electricity and power, and sothere's going to be a lot of a
lot of demand for new energy andrenewables is the quickest. Is
the fastest way to do that andmeet that need. Okay, let's take
a step back here in terms ofwhat we're counseling our
(13:50):
clients. And first of all, youknow, we're not management
consultants, so clients don'task us, should we go global?
Should we stay domestic? I havemy opinions on that, but I don't
really get paid to give thatadvice. What they are asking us,
is this is our business. Theseare the headwinds. How do we
talk about it now? And how do wetalk about it with employees,
who, most of them choose to workwith us. And I'm not talking
(14:11):
about just Solar Tech, I'mtalking about fortune, 100
companies that we work with,right? How do we talk about
climate sustainability, cleantech, renewables to all of our
different stakeholders in thisenvironment. So it's employees,
it's customers, right? It's thepublic markets, it's private
markets, to the venture capitalcommunity. How do we talk about
this stuff? So for us, you know,there's a number of things.
(14:34):
Number one, let's try to alignwith this administration and
their priorities, right? Becauseultimately, we can beat our head
against the wall about thisadministration. This is the
reality, right? This bill gotpassed. This is policy.
Ultimately, economics is policy.
Is economics really the otherway around? So this is what
we're facing. And the Trumpadministration has made very,
very clear that there's threepillars that they look at,
right, whether or notsomething's going to make
(14:57):
America stronger, right? Whetherit's gonna make America more
secure and whether it's gonnamake America more prosperous.
And you know, we could breakthose three down. I think
there's a really good argumentto be made for climate it makes
us more secure aroundresiliency. It makes us
stronger. The more energy wehave domestically, the less we
have to import some geopoliticalrisk. It makes us stronger.
There prosperity, of course,jobs and returns on investment,
(15:19):
being able to power the AIrevolution, right? So we can
really align with those threepillars of administration in a
way that's not cynical, notdisingenuous, it's real. And
hopefully that gets, you know,gets momentum. There's also, I
mean, you know this, Tim, Ithink all of our listeners know
this. There's multiple valuepropositions when it comes to
(15:39):
climate sustainability, right?
And I think many of us whojoined in this industry have a
redemptive perspective on it,right? So it's going to we
really do believe it's going tosave the planet. We really do
believe there's a cataclysmicchallenge to our ability to
survive. But let's put thataside, because clearly, in this
environment, that does not seemto do the trick. That's been
(16:00):
obviously politicized. Andpeople think that when someone
talks about climate change anddisasters and saving the planet,
ultimately, that's anideological perspective and a
factual one, so they're notinterested in that. But there
are multiple value propositions,right? And we talked about
energy abundance being one,right? 96% of new generation
April was renewables. We needelectrons on the grid. We've got
(16:22):
to talk about that. We've hadthis week wildfire. You know, we
had the flash flooding in Texas,right? We have wildfires in
Europe. We have, you know,extreme heat in Europe right
now. In fact, I think there'ssome emergency regulatory
discussions in Europe right nowbecause of what's happening, I
think, in Catalonia. So there'sand again, it's not about saving
(16:43):
the planet. It's how do weeverybody wants to avoid these
types of extreme weather events,and to the extent that climate
tech and sustainability tech canhelp with that, there's more
resilience to supply chains,right? That's another value
prop. The economic returns are,you know, another value prop.
And, of course, jobs. And as Imentioned before, the economics
of it, ultimately, I think evenit's going to be borne out very,
(17:05):
very soon, solar and wind,renewables, coupled with
battery, they are going to beable to compete in the market,
even without these subsidies,because laws of supply and
demand are going to put a ton ofpressure, upward pressure on
prices. So even without thesesubsidies, I think solar and
wind will be able to make
Tim Montague (17:22):
it. Yeah, I mean energy prices are going to go
up, right there. Is there. Thereis a lot of demand for energy,
and if supply is level anddemand goes up, then price will
go up. And that does make solarwind batteries pencil better.
Let's talk about sustainability,though, I always tell my clients
(17:43):
when I'm talking to a facilityowner, I never lead with
sustainability. I always leadwith savings that they could
benefit from by going solar orparticipating in community
solar. And I'm just curious youobviously have embraced this
paradigm that humanity has anopportunity here to save our own
(18:07):
butts. The earth is going to behere one way or the other, no
matter what we do, pretty much.
And the question is, can we holdon to the good life that we have
in any semblance of what we havetoday, like we have an amazingly
generous life, and we have agreat opportunity to lean in and
take the inventions that we'vemade and deploy them at scale.
(18:30):
And we also need to do otherthings. Okay, there is a lot of
legacy carbon in the atmosphere.
The energy transition is, is1/20 of that greater problem,
but it's a significant piece ofthe problem. But what is your
philosophy about this? And howdo you, how do you try to guide
(18:52):
others towards bettercommunication and PR about
sustainability?
Keith Zakheim (18:59):
Yeah, so, I mean, there's a lot of things to break
down there. So I don't know thatwe've ever positioned the
company as a do gooder, right?
PR firm, we, you know, we'vetypically really been around the
technology of the market, of theopportunity in climate, clean
tech, sustainability, energytransition, whatever the you
(19:20):
know, whatever the term of theday was, and the reason for that
is, you know, I'm anincrementalist, right? So by
nature, I'm an incrementalist.
Candidly, I'm a conservative,small c, right? For the same
reason, I think change happensslowly. I think radical change
typically backfires, which maybewe're experiencing right now,
candidly. And you know what Ifound about the climate and
(19:44):
sustainability community, and Ithought, you know more about the
NGOs and some of those, youknow, latter advocates, is that
they're not incrementalists, youknow? They really are looking
for extreme change right away.
And I've never believed in that.
I think that it's as I mentionedbefore. There isn't an
inexorable transition to acleaner world, a world where
companies are transitioning toclimate and sustainability
(20:07):
solutions. And we see that,right? We call it the age of
adoption. At our agency, we'reat a time and kind of the
history of climatesustainability, over the last
three, four years, wherecompanies of all shapes and
sizes, industry agnostic, arerapidly adopting Climate
Solutions just is the that'sjust the case, and that's
incremental, right? They didn'tone day stop with fossil fuels,
(20:29):
grind the economy to a halt andstart renewables. It's just not,
ultimately, that's not feasible.
And I think a lot of thebacklash we're experiencing
right now is because of that.
And again, right? So radicalchange very often gets a radical
backlash, so we see it asincremental, and that's really
been the guiding principle ofour agency. We won't work with
fossil fuel companies. That'sjust not a that's not something
(20:51):
we'll do. We see that asregressive. Won't do it. But at
the same time, we feel thatthere's a place for fossil
fuels, but that's the realityright now. Let's be smart about
the transition. Let's keep goingforward. The metaphor I love,
it's not mine, but I alwaysrepeat it is incrementally march
down that football field, and aslong as when you take a breath
(21:13):
and turn around, you're closerto the next goal post, that's
success, and that's how wecounsel our clients, that's what
kind of a guides our business.
That's what, what's been ourmission all these years.
Tim Montague (21:27):
So the energy transition is happening, and you
have grabbed onto this, thisexpression, the age of adoption.
So let's, let's talk a littlemore about that. We could
completely net zero the economywith the technology that we
already have, and that includeswind, solar, batteries and heat
(21:48):
pumps and geothermal, etc, etc,etc, electrification of
transportation. And as thing, astechnologies become adopted,
there's this thing called thecost adoption curve, and the
technologies become moreaffordable, and that is a
positive feedback loop. And thenwhen we went from horse and
(22:08):
buggy to internal combustionengine, right? It had nothing to
do with people's dislike ofhorses. It had to do with their
ability to go 50 miles an hourfor three hours, which they
couldn't do on a horse,
Keith Zakheim (22:22):
or horsepower, literally and figuratively,
right? More horsepower.
Tim Montague (22:26):
It was just more economical and more convenient.
And that switch happened atfirst gradually, but then
there's this there. There isthis acceleration that that
happens. And we are in a periodglobally of acceleration, right?
We are going vertical, globally.
Now in the US we're going towe're going to see a little
tailing off, and then we'll comeback again. But I'm just
(22:46):
curious, I guess, how youcommunicate this to
stakeholders, like likeemployees? You talk about
incremental change, butincremental change does lead to,
ultimately, a radicaltransformation, like the economy
is going to be radicallydifferent in 30 years. So I
(23:08):
don't know. I'm struggling toput my finger on this exactly,
but that is a hard to graspphenomenon, I guess.
Keith Zakheim (23:20):
Yeah, I don't see that as a tension. I see that as
inevitable. I mean, I totallyagree with you. I totally agree.
But the question is, ultimately,how do you stop the roller
coaster? How do you get thetransition to continue in the
right direction? My perspectiveis, and this has been true in
history, it's always going to beincremental change. That's true
(23:42):
in political environments.
That's true in social justice,that's true really everywhere.
Just the second you do somethingextreme or more radical, you're
inviting a backlash, and that'sultimately what we're
experiencing right now in theUS. But that's been true
throughout history. What I willsay, you talk about our
employees, and you know, we callthem fellow ants in our in our
agency. But ultimately, I'm abig believer. People say to me,
(24:04):
okay, well, yeah, you're intoclimate sustainability, but
you're in comps. You know? Whyaren't you out there installing
solar panels? Want you out thereinnovating technologies and
ultimately, like comms andmarketing have a huge role to
play. Narratives have a hugerole to play. Every single great
movement in history of theworld, right religions, social
(24:24):
justice movements, what haveyou? Political movements have
all been initiated and have allbeen sustained and grown through
storytelling. That's just thereality. And you know, it's
Jesus Moses and Muhammad, theywere amazing storytellers,
right? The Bible, Quran. Theseare great, great media platforms
in order to convince people, andthat's what, ultimately, I think
(24:49):
what we do as comms andmarketing people, I think
there's, I think it's redemptiveto me. It's playing a huge role
in this. And I think thechallenge is. Magnified and made
a lot more difficult because ofthe environment we're in today,
the media environment. I mean,we live in a post truth, post
data world that's riven byconspiracy theories, and it
(25:09):
makes it really, really hard totell a story that we think is
factual, that we think is real,right? So what do you do? And to
me, again, that's wherestorytelling comes in, because
storytelling has to be a motive,right? It has to connect with
people. Storytelling has toultimately involve and tell
stories about real people, realencounters, not just anecdotal,
but in a sustained way. And Ithink that's what we're doing. I
(25:34):
think that's what the peoplethat come to work for antenna
do. And we find it to begratifying. We find it to be
something that gets us excitedevery day to come to work and
work with companies that arecommitted to this.
Tim Montague (25:50):
What does it mean to be sustainable? In your mind,
like, what is the heart ofsustainability?
Keith Zakheim (25:59):
Yeah, so to me, it's ultimately, it's a company
that is deploying solutionscould be hardware, software,
best practices, doesn't matter,that are in the service of
making their companies moreclimate sensitive period. That's
it. That's how a company makesthem send out. I know there's
(26:21):
ESG, which, by the way, from acomms perspective, not a word
one should use anymore in thisenvironment. It's third rail,
right? But ultimately, if acompany is doing that in a
meaningful way, like realimplementations, integrating
into full operations, right?
Supply chains, it becomes partand parcel of the company,
embedded in the roots of acompany that, to me, is a
sustainable company. We call italso a conscious brand. I think
(26:44):
in business schools now call itresponsible business. These are
things that companies have to donow. I think ultimately, like if
you want to be an ongoingconcern as a business in the
next 1020 years, you have nochoice. But to me, that's what
sustainability is.
Tim Montague (27:00):
So we have capitalism, which is very good.
It is a system that is very goodat concentrating wealth and
creating wealth. And I, youknow, one of the questions I ask
myself, Keith is, if everycompany in America became a B
Corp, right, where there'stheoretically some higher
(27:22):
mission to the organization,other than just turning a
profit. Would we solve theproblem of climate chaos? And I
have to say, I don't necessarilybelieve so and but I do resonate
with your definition of okay,being climate sensitive. And so
(27:47):
I'm just curious. Like, if youlook into the crystal ball and
you're talking to your familyabout 1020, 30 years into the
future, what is it that is goingto be different about our
economy? If there is, you know,some semblance of a modern
economy as we're that we'reinventing.
Keith Zakheim (28:08):
Yeah. So first of all, I agree with you. I mean,
it's just not, it's just notrealistic for every company to
be, B Corp, just not, notrealistic. And we can go,
there's a lot of reasons for it,but ultimately, why has, and I
believe capitalism in themarket, market economics have
worked, and it's pulled. Youknow, in the history of the
world, standard of livings haveincreased more than it ever had.
(28:32):
More people have been pulled outof poverty than ever in the
history of mankind, right? Imean China and India, the amount
of people have been pulled outof poverty in the last 10 years
because of industrialization andopening up their economies, has
never been seen before. So itworks. The question is,
ultimately, will climate andsustainability, will those
(28:52):
investments, will those bestpractices? Does that align with
market economics? I think itdoes. You mentioned before the
economies of scale and how thatthat ultimately is a concept in
market economics, right, and incapitalism and and ultimately, I
think the most successfulcompanies, which the assumption
of capitalism, is that those whoare running those companies want
(29:14):
to be the most successful. Theycan only be that successful if
they are at this point, adaptingtheir businesses to become more
climate sensitive andsustainable full stop. I don't
think ultimately that there is.
It's not a zero sum game. Let'sput it that way, between either
we're a capitalist society orwe're going to transform the
world to net zero. I don't thinkit's a zero sum game. In fact, I
(29:35):
think it's something thatultimately they work hand in
hand. So
Tim Montague (29:41):
you mentioned a frame earlier. You know, like
you said, ESG is out, right?
We're not talking about ESG. Wasit responsible business, or what
is the frame? What is a simpleframe for business that is
sensitive to sustainability,without using the S word?
Keith Zakheim (29:59):
Yeah? Yeah, responsible business, to me, is
probably, you know, if you, ifyou're at a cocktail hour with
other comms people, that's,that's what being bandied about.
So, yeah, I guess responsiblebusiness, ESG, ultimately, to
me, you know, it's interesting.
I think people couple Deia ordei with ESG, and both of them
being third rails. I actuallysee them as different
(30:21):
challenges. I think that thecurrent Zeitgeist when it comes
to dei is actually a culture waragainst Dei. I think that people
think, well, if you break up deiinto its components, nobody
disagrees with that. I actuallythink that's wrong. I think that
plenty of people in thisadministration, plenty of people
right now, from an ideologicalperspective, might disagree with
(30:43):
all three, and that becomes aculture war that's very
difficult to combat withlanguage and comms. ESG is much
more of a political issue,right? And I think a lot of ESG
and a lot of the backlashagainst the IRA comes from the
fact that it was, it'sassociated with liberal
economics, associated with Bidenthat becomes a political game.
(31:04):
So again, ESG itself, as a term,as an acronym, should be stayed
away from but the componentparts, certainly the energy part
of ESG, I should say that to me,is something that is much easier
to deal with if it's if it'sdealt with smartly and
responsible businessesunderstand, and this is also
conservative economics thatevolved over the last 1015,
(31:25):
years, that you're not justresponsible to the bottom line,
but there's multiplestakeholders who you're
responsible to. And corporateAmerica understands that, and
you're responsible thestakeholders, because
ultimately, that's how you'regoing to be responsible to the
bottom line. And I think that, Ithink that there's a lot to be
said there for where we areright now.
Tim Montague (31:44):
Hey guys, are you a residential solar installer
doing light commercial butwanting to scale into large CNI
solar? I'm Tim Montague. I'vedeveloped over 150 megawatts of
commercial solar, and I'vesolved the problem that you're
having you don't know what toolsand technologies you need in
(32:06):
order to successfully close 100KW to megawatt scale projects.
I've developed a commercialsolar accelerator to help
installers exactly like you justgo to cleanpowerhour.com click
on strategy and book a calltoday. It's totally free with no
obligation. Thanks for being alistener. I really appreciate
(32:29):
you listening to the pod, andI'm Tim Montague, let's grow
solar and storage. Go to cleanpower hour and click strategy
today. Thanks so much. So I haveone hard question and one easy
question to close this out. Thehard question is, why do we as a
species struggle to care aboutfuture generations? You know, on
(32:53):
Maslow's hierarchy of needs,future generations rank towards
the bottom in modern society.
There are cultures, I'm surewhere that's different,
indigenous cultures. But let'sface it, in modern society,
future generations rank fairlylow. And for us, in my opinion,
for us to have a sustainablefuture on Earth, we're going to
(33:16):
have to care more. Do you haveany ideas about what that takes?
Keith Zakheim (33:24):
Yeah, so I'm one of my side hobbies. Let's talk
about behavioral psychology. Andyou know, so we're all played by
these heuristics. They callthem, right? So biases that we
have just we've evolved to havethese, these neurological
biases. One of them, everybodyhas this confirmation bias. But
another bias we have is we justconstantly discount the future.
(33:45):
Great way to see it as terms ofinvestments, right? So typically
people, if they really were notpeople, discount the future, and
therefore they don't understandthat compounded interest. And,
you know, we are, many of us, ormost of us, are plagued with,
you know, wanting instantgratification, right? So these
are all biases discounted thefuture. I think another one we
tragically see today is, youlook at birth around the world,
(34:09):
I think you know, very fewcountries now have replacement
rates, right? Because, and whenyou don't have children, you
tend to discount the future aswell, because you're pretty much
living for today. So I thinkthere's a lot there to unpack,
but to me, it's a combination ofa heuristic around we just
discount future our brainsagain, and we've evolved for
that, right? Because, you know,when we were trying to survive
in the Savannah, who cared aboutthe future to avoid the tiger or
(34:32):
the lion, right? Now, reallyhardwired. Seriously, it's
hardwired into us, yeah, andthat now, you know, so we
haven't evolved for where we arein the world today. So that was
the first part. You asked me asecond question as well. I think
so
Tim Montague (34:44):
the easy question, Zak is, what are you doing with
the age of adoption podcast, andwho are your dream guests on
that show?
Keith Zakheim (34:54):
Oh, thanks, yeah.
So the age of adoption podcastis and Tim, you were a fantastic
guest. I. And so thank you foragain, coming on that we want to
get on on the show just peoplewho are smart and candidly, who
have been in the industry for awhile, so they can tell that
adoption story. And again, forus, we look at the history of
climate over the last 25 years,and two distinct kind of epochs
(35:17):
or phases, right? So up untilfive years ago, we call it the
age of innovation, and that'swhen companies and entrepreneurs
and investors were all spendingmoney and time innovating in the
solutions, hardware, software,best practices that they hoped
one day would be widely adopted.
Last three, four years, we'veseen that come to fruition,
(35:38):
right? So we want people whohave been around long enough in
this space, who can reallyreflect on that, and we ask
them, what's your age ofadoption story, right? How have
things changed for you over thepast 20 years, as you yourself
and your companies transitionfrom one age to the next, we've
had amazing guests. If you hadasked me a few months ago, kind
of who are my dream guests, oneof them would have been Jigar
(35:59):
Shah, but we actually just hadJigar Shah on the podcast and
released that episode. He's he'sjust incredible to listen to.
He's one of those people as youknow Tim. You can just kind of
ask a question, drop the mic andjust listen, and he can go all
day. He's fantastic. Butultimately, we just want those
kinds of people. I don't reallycare about their title, I don't
care about what company they'refrom. If you can give me
somebody who's really thoughtfuland has experienced this, and
(36:21):
can really give me a good sense,and our listeners, more
importantly, a good sense of howthe world has changed and how
they're experiencing that. Assomebody who's passionate about
climate and sustainability,that's a great guess for me.
Tim Montague (36:34):
Awesome. Thank you so much. Keith Zakheim CEO of
Antenna Group. I reallyappreciate this opportunity.
Thank you for having me on yourshow. And with that, I'll say,
let's grow solar and storage.
Have a great day, Keith.
Keith Zakheim (36:48):
Let's do it.
Thank you. You.
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