Sadie Henderson, Climate Investment, California
Sadie Henderson, who has been in the industry for 2 years, is a Senior Portfolio Innovation Analyst at Elemental Excelerator.
Why is clean energy important to you? I grew up in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, which is about 70 miles from the Mississippi coast. Hurricane Katrina, the BP oil spill, and the increasing occurrences of devastating tornadoes and hurricanes shaped so much of my upbringing and my perspective. But it took me a long time to realize that many of those events could have looked different if only we were willing to shift our energy production and consumption tendencies. Growing up, clean energy and climate solutions were never part of the conversation around these disasters in Mississippi, and even today, those conversations are just starting to get going. If we continue to grow and deploy clean energy solutions thoughtfully, we have an opportunity to support vulnerable communities that have historically been left out of these conversations and empower them to change the narrative around deployment and who these solutions can truly benefit.
What's a memorable clean energy project you’ve worked on? Right now, Elemental is supporting a project with Nitricity to scale their climate-smart fertilizer. We’ve been working with Nitricity on this project since the Fall of 2022 and are excited to see it continue to move forward. Fertilizer production is historically an incredibly energy-intensive process – production and application of fertilizer is responsible for up to 7% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Nitricity’s fertilizer production is powered by electricity, and their technology mimics a naturally occurring process to fix nitrogen, making high-quality fertilizer with low GHG emissions profiles. And again, with this project one can see how interconnected energy production and community impact is. My grandfather worked as an entomologist in North Mississippi, and every day, he was exposed to toxic and harmful chemicals in fertilizers, pesticides, and more. The health impacts for him, and many others, of those agricultural impacts cannot be glossed over. Supporting Nitricity as they scale not only an energy efficient solution, but also a solution that can mitigate these negative health outcomes for the people working on these farms day in day out, is a massive and memorable opportunity that I’m thrilled to be a part of.
What did you do prior to working in clean energy? Why did you transition to the clean energy industry? Before working in clean energy and the climate space, I worked in education and also spent some time working for a public interest law firm in Mississippi. I’ve always known that I wanted to work in social impact, but I had a bit of a meandering path to get to the climate and clean energy space. Right after college, I worked with a public interest law firm in Mississippi, where I was born and raised, doing research on education outcomes and connectivity access. After that, I went to work for an education technology startup, and I rode many ups and downs with that company. During my time there, I worked on an acquisition, an asset sale, 2 re-orgs, a business model redesign, and their eventual shift from a B-corp to a 501(c)3 to double down on their impact-first framework. I learned so much through those experiences, but ultimately, I knew that while improving education access and outcomes is incredibly important, I wanted to shift into the climate and clean energy space. I saw the climate and clean energy industries as having more concrete solutions that I could work towards scaling, and ultimately, I viewed climate as a more immediate need.
What do you wish more people knew about the clean energy industry? The clean energy industry isn’t just about cars and power plants and batteries – energy production dictates how we grow food, how we distribute food, how we get our water, clean our water, create textiles, and more. The post-industrial world that we’ve built is dependent upon energy, and clean energy is an opportunity for us to look at so many industries through a new lens of innovation and opportunity.
Why should congress invest in clean energy jobs? The clean energy transition is a huge opportunity for Congress to invest in people and local communities in a way that we haven’t seen in decades. This is a moment in which our Senators and Representatives can specifically fund initiatives that will allow for people to make that transition from working on an offshore drilling rig and instead work on a geothermal plant and trust that this new industry will grow with meaningful support and backing. These jobs also aren’t just for your states that are already pretty deep into these transitions – investing in clean energy jobs can help places like my home state of Mississippi start to move the needle on this clean energy transition with more support.
Is there anything else you’d like to share? My mother has been a huge inspiration to me in everything I do. For as long as I can remember, my mom has gotten up and gone to work for the purpose of improving healthcare access and quality in Mississippi – a complicated, fraught, but absolutely necessary effort. I’ve only ever considered going to work in a role and for an organization with a similar commitment to improving the lives of those most vulnerable in our communities because that’s what I’ve seen my mom do every day. I’ve seen her frustration and disappointment when her goals seem impossible, but I’ve also seen how even the smallest win can shift everything and make all that hard work so worthwhile. Her commitment to tackling the hardest challenges head on inspires me to try to at least attempt to do the same.
