Nicholas Franco is the Director of Corporate Net Zero Transition at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES). He leads C2ES’s work on developing and sharing best practices for development and communication of corporate low-carbon transition plans. This includes convening companies to identify technologies and strategies for lowering carbon emissions, methods for measurement of climate-related financial risk, identification of opportunities to develop low-carbon goods and services, and identification of sector-specific approaches to achieving low-carbon goals.

Mr. Franco has more than 20 years’ experience in the sustainability and environmental fields. Prior to C2ES, he worked as the Director, Global Renewable Energy & Sustainability at World Kinect Energy Services. There, he managed an international team responsible for renewable energy development, sustainability and carbon reduction strategy development and implementation, and energy efficiency services. The team completed over half a gigawatt of large off-site renewable energy projects with Fortune 500 companies, as well as numerous on-site solar projects. Prior to that he was Director of National Planning, Measures and Analysis Staff in U.S. EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, where he led a team that developed the agency’s first performance-based national enforcement priorities, oversaw the multi-year strategic planning and national performance measurement process, and convened workgroups to develop methods for calculating the environmental benefits of enforcement interventions. He also spent time working on the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign and as an engineer for Cray Research and General Motors.

Mr. Franco earned his Master of Business Administration in sustainable management from Presidio Graduate School, a Master of Public Affairs from the Humphrey School at the University of Minnesota, a bachelor of science in electrical engineering from Washington University in St. Louis, and a bachelor of arts in mathematics from Kenyon College.