🍉 JULY 2023

Hi everyone,

CATF has been busy this summer, hosting a wide range of impactful events throughout July. Learn more about our hydrogen hubs convenings with regional stakeholders across the U.S, the report launch from our Climate Equity Initiative, a high-profile summit on industrial decarbonization featuring the Biden administration and Congress, and our workshops in Ghana on mitigating methane emissions. We’re also out with a new report this month exploring Europe’s CO2 storage potential.

At the same time, CATF has been holding important internal meetings focused on strategic alignment and organizational impact. To watch or rewatch Armond’s most recent update on this process, click here (Passcode: Usps=0z6).

If last month’s newsletter got lost in your inbox, you can find a copy here. And if you have any comments, questions, or feedback, please reach out to Kara Hunt.

HR, Ops, IT, and Project Management
News & Updates

Human Resources

New Staff This Month

❗Check out the NEW staff directory! You can find your coworkers’ information by last name, team, or vertical.

Updates

• Resource Optimization Initiative: The data is currently being collated and the Staff Directory has been updated to include the column “I Can Be a Resource For . . .” to assist with collaboration across the organization. If you’d like to make changes to your profile on the staff directory, please email [email protected]
• DE&I: We’ve completed the initial data gathering and focus groups with the consultant Paradigm. Thank you to all that participated! Currently, the Leadership and HR teams are working on a DEI roadmap that focuses on CATF’s priorities. We’re excited to partner with employees across CATF that are passionate about this initiative and will be reaching out soon with more information.
• U.S. Vacation: Don’t forget that U.S. staff have until September 4th to use any remaining 2022 vacation time (2023 vacation hours accrued can be used between now and September 2024). To check your vacation balance, log into T-sheets, click on “time off,” then “accruals and balances” and select the time off code you’d like to view. “Prior Year Vacation Balance” will show the 2022 hours still available for use.

Present Your Work!

Please sign up to present on your work at an all-staff watercooler! These presentations can range from overviews of your team’s work to deep dives into a specific solution, to an explanation of the policy landscape in a specific region, or anything else you think may be interesting to staff. They do not need to be long or formal. It’s all about sharing your expertise and work with the CATF community! The link to sign up can be found in the CATF Team General channel under the “Forms” tab, and please free to sign up well in advance of your planned presentation date.

Operations

Are you using someone else’s subscription login or getting articles from someone because you don’t have a subscription you need? Fill out the Subscription Request form! And please read the Electronic Resources Use Policy here.

IT

• Boston phone system: We've got a new phone system that allows for improved voicemail handling and call routing for the main office number.
• Teams: Updates are coming down the pipe. You may have noticed that Microsoft is allowing a test run of the new Teams release, currently slated for an October release, via the toggle slider for new Teams client. IT will be hosting a Teams update call to get the information you need for this large update, covering new and updated features.
• Monday.com onboarding system: IT, with help from Ops and HR, has been working on a new streamlined onboarding process leveraging Monday.com. It's still in beta but should be in full swing in the coming weeks.

Project Management Team

The Project Management Team and IT are excited to give an update on our CRM/Salesforce for Programs Project!

Where we are: The draft system has been built and we are in the process of reviewing and testing with the help of our stakeholders. We have organized ‘Power Hours’ consisting of ~30 CATFers and an internal CATF Working Group representing nearly 10 departments in which we demonstrate core features of the platform and solicit feedback.

Sneak Peak! Currently we’ve designed the system so that teams can track large communications with external stakeholders, as well as track shared external relationships across departments/programs. We’re exploring an outlook integration that allows teams to upload contacts and emails from outlook into Salesforce!

Next Steps: We aim to launch Salesforce in October. As we continue to refine the system and define our internal processes, we will move to testing and adjustments in August.

View all organizational updates →

Events & Meetings

What's Happening at CATF? 

Find out more by viewing the 2023 Events Master Calendar

Events Spotlight

CATF and ClearPath Action co-hosted a Clean Industrial Summit in Washington, D.C., with participants from the U.S. Congress, Department of Energy, NGOs, and industry. Lindsey Baxter Griffith spoke with Under Secretary for Infrastructure David Crane on how U.S. policy incentivizes economy-wide decarbonization projects, and other panels highlighted how multiple climate solutions will be needed to fully decarbonize the industrial sector. You can watch the event here.

Would you like an event featured in Task Force Times? Email [email protected] with a description and photo.

Event Operations Updates

• NEW! The Events team has crafted a helpful FAQ regarding our process rollout. Find more information on what events need an intake form or approval, what to do for speaking engagements, etc. Program team members are invited to join our "office hours" on August 1 at 10am ET.
• Note on tax exemption: CATF is currently only tax-exempt in the state of Massachusetts. U.S. Room Occupancy tax at hotels is not eligible for exemption, but other purchases are and can be waived by providing our tax exemption certificate to the vendor. Please see Cheryl Mossman for any questions.
• Join us! The Events team is establishing a professional development network for Meetings & Events at CATF. All are welcome to join if this type of work impacts your day-to-day or if you wish to develop your skill sets. Join our first meeting on August 1 at 11:30am ET. For now, we plan to meet every six weeks to review the CATF calendar and make time for creativity, troubleshooting, and skill set building.
• Reminder: Requests for branded material, swag, and equipment should be produced in partnership with Communications and our creative agency, 5IVE. Complete a project request form to get started. Once the product is designed, Roland Shay will manage purchasing.

Upcoming Events

⚠️ The events tracker has been moved to Monday.com! View it here.

External

• August 1-4: West Africa Utility Roundtable (Accra, Ghana)
• August 9-12: Donor Trip – Iceland: An Energy Revolution in the Making (Reykjavik, Iceland)
• August 22-23: Colombia Solid Waste Methane Workshop (Bogota, Colombia)

Internal

• August 14-17: Superhot Rock European Kickoff (Reykjavik, Iceland)
• August 14-18: Operations In-person Group Meeting (Portland, Oregon)
• August 23-25: Development Team Retreat (Boston, Massachusetts)
• August 29-31: Comms Team Meeting (Boston, Massachusetts)

Upcoming CATF Holidays

See here for the full holiday lists for all countries.

• Friday, August 11: Ecuador National Day (Ecuador)
• Tuesday, August 15: Assumption Day (Austria, Belgium, France, Greece, Spain)
• Monday, August 28: Summer Bank Holiday (UK)

Program & Regional Advocacy
Team Updates

Highlights

• The Climate Equity Initiative hosted a webinar launch for its new report, Perspectives from Environmental Justice Communities: A National Survey. The webinar covered the four thematic findings from the National Survey, including environmental and health impacts; opportunity, awareness, and perceptions; civic engagement, trust, and information access; and accessibility.
• U.S. hydrogen hubs regional convenings: CATF’s hubs managers hosted a series of successful convenings this month in Appalachia, California, the Midwest, and the Gulf Coast on hydrogen and hydrogen hubs with key stakeholders in each region.
• A new report from the Carbon Capture team’s Toby Lockwood explores the potential of CO2 storage in Europe, with an accompanying blog that hits the highlights of the report.
• The Zero-Carbon Fuels team has been working on a slate of interactive tools to help stakeholders better understand tradeoffs across the hydrogen supply chain. The latest tool, The Hydrogen and Ammonia Production Cost Model (password: h2finance), helps users estimate the production costs for low-carbon and electrolytic hydrogen and ammonia, giving them a better understanding of the technical and economic drivers behind these costs.
• The Methane Pollution Prevention team recently hosted two workshops in Ghana on managing and quantifying methane emissions in the oil and gas sector – find out more about this work in a blog from Mohammed Dahiru Aminu, Alfredo Miranda-González, and Ioannis Binietoglou.
• European Advocacy released a suite of considerations for the EU as it considers its 2040 climate targets. Check out the slider on LinkedIn.
• New videos! Check out a new video about the Superhot Rock Energy team’s work to elevate the recognition of superhot rock energy in the decarbonization debate, as well as an explainer video on methane emissions from the waste sector – and how we can eliminate them.
• The Methane Pollution Prevention team published a blog to accompany the latest report, Barriers and Solutions to Scaling-up Methane Finance. The blog highlights how just 2% of international climate finance was spent on methane mitigation in 2019 and 2020, and how financing can be increased.

All program & advocacy updates →

Full List of Publications This Month

Reports, Papers, & Fact Sheets

• Perspectives from Environmental Justice Communities: A National Survey (Report)
• Unlocking Europe’s CO2 Storage Potential (Report)

Blogs

• Transmission Mission: How FERC can improve efficiency and community engagement to deploy clean energy infrastructure — Nicole Pavia
• The 2022 French nuclear outages: Lessons for nuclear energy in Europe — Jon-Michael Murray
• Where will Europe store its CO2? — Toby Lockwood
• Challenges and opportunities to scaling up methane mitigation finance — Stacey Davis and Brandon Locke
• Addressing methane emissions in Ghana’s oil and gas and waste sectors — Mohammed Dahiru Aminu, Alfredo Miranda-González, and Ioannis Binietoglou

Press Statements

• Biden administration’s Methane Task Force is important step toward reducing methane emissions
• Colorado passes ambitious, first-of-its-kind intensity verification rule for oil and gas production

Letters, Comments, and Testimonies

• Clean Air Task Force Comments on Financial and Technical Assistance Funding under the Methane Emissions Reduction Program
• Response to a public consultation on the EU climate target for 2040
• Joint Letter: Consideration of Methane Emissions in Energy Contracts
• Gas flaring and venting wastes resources and heats the planet – it must be curbed
• Open Letter: Support for the Publication of an Industrial Carbon Management Strategy

Comms Corner

CATF in the News

• Lee Beck highlighted the importance of investing in multiple climate solutions, as well as the need to plan ahead with infrastructure deployment in Bloomberg.
• The Washington Post included a quote from Ben Longstreth on the need for all the climate tools in the toolbox – including carbon capture deployment alongside a build-out of renewable power.
• An op-ed from European Advocacy’s Sonia Stoyanova and Lee Beck was published in Energy Monitor: Lessons for Europe from the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act.
• Toby Lockwood was extensively quoted in Euractiv in response to a discussion paper attacking carbon capture and storage from the Spanish government. Toby provided excellent and balanced talking points, including: “There’s almost more risk from saying ‘let’s wait until we have green hydrogen,’ and then [industry] can keep emitting until we have sufficient clean energy to deliver that.”
• Energy Intelligence covered the U.S. Department of Energy’s efforts to boost clean hydrogen demand, with a quote from Emily Kent on how the policy mechanism will benefit the industry.
• CATF’s report, Unlocking Europe’s CO2 Storage Potential, from Toby Lockwood was featured in the Financial Times’ Europe Express.
• Ben Longstreth provided remarks at the opening of Calpine’s new gas carbon capture pilot project in California, with media coverage and quotes featured in E&E News.
• David McCabe provided expert testimony on behalf of several environmental groups before the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission, who unanimously adopted a new rule to verify methane emissions from oil and gas production in the state. He was quoted in coverage of the new rule by The Colorado Sun.

View all press coverage →

Communications Updates & Reminders

New Project Request Form Process

The Communications team is now the central manager for all creative services requests, and the primary point of contact between CATF and 5IVE – as well as any potential additional third-party creative providers. This will allow CATF to more actively manage this work, better track and evaluate it, and ensure brand and communications consistency across the organization.

As has been the case, all creative requests from CATF to 5IVE require the requester to fill out a Project Request form.

This form will now go directly to Communications, who will evaluate it, track it, and efficiently relay it to 5IVE or any other creative services providers with necessary contextual additions including prioritization and urgency. The form is run through Monday.com, and the CATF comms team will manage and track all activity in a shared Monday.com board. For a reminder of services available and under retainer with 5IVE, please see this document. For requests that fall outside the retainer, Comms, the requester, and 5IVE will work together to agree to terms on a separate scope of work and contract, in compliance with CATF’s broader requisition process.

If you are working on a product that will require design through 5IVE (CATF’s creative and branding agency), please submit requests through the project request form a minimum of three business days (and ideally two weeks or more) in advance of your deadline and include a link to the Word or PDF document with finalized content. This includes reports, fact sheets, and slide decks.

Please also factor design time and a few rounds of reviews into your target release date for the product! 

Staff Pet Photo of the Month

Sagan belongs to Land & Climate Research Fellow Rebecca Sanders-DeMott. Sagan is a nearly 9-year-old mix of hound/shepherd/we may never know who loves wide open spaces to run, carrots and broccoli, and being within 5ft of Rebecca in the house at all times. (There is a 99% chance he is at my feet on any video call - feel free to say hi!)

He is heart-meltingly kind and patient with his human little siblings and despite weighing nearly 80 pounds considers himself a lap dog. He wears a space themed collar in tribute to his namesake, Carl Sagan, who he does not live up to in intelligence, although he does have a similar gentle demeanor and thoughtful eyes.

If you have a pet you’d be willing to share, please submit a pet photo for the newsletter! You can do so by filling out this Teams Form.

That’s all for this month. If you made it this far — thanks for reading!