In a recent announcement, Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam's family office, HF Capital LLC, pledged $725 million toward an initiative focused on decarbonizing heavy industry.
According to Bloomberg, the funds will be managed by Ara Partners — a private equity fund that supports businesses involved in waste management and emissions reduction. Previous Haslam family employee Shameek Konar will oversee the execution of the new effort.
Previously, Konar was the CEO of Pilot Company, which was founded by Haslam's father, James A. Haslam II.
In addition to owning the Cleveland Browns, Jimmy Haslam owns Major League Soccer's Columbus Crew and has a stake in the National Basketball Association's Milwaukee Bucks. Per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Haslam has a net worth of $8.7 billion.
With this new effort, Haslam and Konar aim to invest in biofuels for the marine shipping industry, power generation, and energy supply and distribution organizations. Konar noted that the initiative is targeting a reduction of 50 million tons of planet-warming pollution over the duration of the fund, per Bloomberg.
The marine shipping industry alone was responsible for about 3% of the world's toxic gases in 2018, according to the not-for-profit organization Clear Seas. Since more than 80% of the world's goods are transported via marine shipping, we rely heavily on this industry, but must find ways to make it cleaner.
Green efforts by major corporations, like this new initiative, could vastly improve our air quality while slowing down the rising global temperatures that endanger our future.
In part, this new decarbonization effort will also focus on cutting down pollution from natural gas power plants. Strategies for this include changing fuel inputs, capturing CO2 at the smokestack, and working toward better efficiency.
Konar said, "I think people are coming into this realization that if you want to get to net zero, it's carbon which is the enemy and not fossil fuels. And I don't think we can get off fossil fuels in the time frame that's reasonable in order for us to get to net zero."
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