Sustainability Currents

The AI boom has largely been framed as a race for chips and compute, but as the technology scales, some of its biggest constraints are becoming increasingly physical. On this week’s episode of the Sustainability Currents podcast, Stephen Byrd, global head of thematic and sustainability research at Morgan Stanley, joins Shaheen Contractor, Bloomberg Intelligence senior sustainable finance research analyst, to explore whether electricity and infrastructure could become the next major bottlenecks to AI growth. They discuss energy affordability and security, the implications for the energy transition and what physical constraints could emerge next. The conversation also examines where investors may still be underestimating the risks and opportunities created by the AI build-out.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“You’re going to be in the red if you don’t go green,” says Ben Makowiecki, agriculture sustainability director at Lloyds Banking Group. In this episode of the Sustainability Currents podcast, Bloomberg Intelligence analystGrace Osborne speaks with Makowiecki about why farm resilience is increasingly financial resilience. They explore how finance can better reflect the realities of transitioning agriculture to more regenerative practices, and why everyone from insurers to infrastructure developers has a growing stake in strengthening farm resilience, including its potential to reduce flood risk. This episode was recorded Oct. 6.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Traditional development funding is under pressure even as the need for investment in healthcare, water, energy access and other basic services remains high. Can innovative finance help draw more private capital into these areas? On this week’s episode of the Sustainability Currents podcast, John Simon, co-founder and managing partner of Total Impact Capital, joins Shaheen Contractor, Bloomberg Intelligence senior sustainable finance research analyst, to explore how new financing structures can pool capital, manage risk and attract investors to projects that can be difficult to fund. They discuss the role of concessional capital and technical assistance, where these structures work — and where they don’t. The conversation also examines how the investor base is changing and what could come next for impact finance.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Climate risks are becoming easier to identify and model, but turning that knowledge into projects remains a major challenge. Michael Berkowitz, executive director of the University of Miami’s Climate Resilience Institute, joins Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Sustainability Analyst Chris Ratti to discuss how cities can move from planning to implementation, which technologies could reshape resilience and how the new Resilience Finance Lab aims to mobilize capital for adaptation and climate-risk projects.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Solar and storage account for 70% of all new capacity added to the electric grid in the first half of 2026, and the US now has enough solar capacity to power more than 50 million American homes, according to a recent report from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie. On this week’s episode of the Sustainability Currents podcast, Tim Pawlenty, former governor of Minnesota and current president and CEO of SEIA, joins Eric Kane, Bloomberg Intelligence director of sustainable finance research, to discuss key findings from the group’s U.S. Solar Market Insight report. They discuss the strategic road map for scaling American solar and storage, bipartisan market reform, soaring power demand from data centers, grid interconnections and much moreSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

AI’s rapid expansion is turning data centers into critical economic and energy infrastructure — and creating one of sustainable finance’s fastest-growing markets. Sustainable debt tied to data centers has more than doubled since 2023 as operators tap green bonds, loans and securitized markets to fund hyperscale growth. On this episode of Sustainability Currents, Romina Reversi and Patricia De Pauw from Crédit Agricole CIB join Bloomberg Intelligence’s Chris Ratti to explore how green financing is evolving alongside the AI infrastructure boom. The discussion examines rising power and water demand, grid constraints and community opposition, and why investors are increasingly looking beyond green labels to energy efficiency, clean-power sourcing, water use and asset-level performance. The conversation also considers whether sustainable finance can help fund the enormous data-center build-out while making projects more efficient, resilient and socially durable.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A recent analysis by PwC of more than 3,500 companies finds that eight in 10 held steady or accelerated the timeline for their climate targets, and more companies increased their decarbonization ambition than lowered it. On this week’s episode of the Sustainability Currents podcast, David Linich, a PwC partner who leads the firm’s Decarbonization and Sustainable Operations offering, joins Eric Kane, Bloomberg Intelligence director of Sustainable Finance research, to discuss key findings from PwC’s third annual State of Decarbonization report, which challenges the perception that sustainability and climate ambition have peaked. They also explore the near-term outlook for sustainability at large, whether there’s a disconnect between stated climate targets and the carbon-intensive AI build-out, and much more.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

El Niño is already affecting weather around the world, with droughts in India, floods in Hawaii and a sinkhole in front of Nicolas Cage’s house in Malibu. Join Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Climate Analyst Andrew Stevenson and his guest, Hansi Singh, PhD and CEO of Planette AI to discuss what to expect from Niño over the coming months from the perspective of a long-term weather forecaster.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New York City faces competing demands for capital as artificial intelligence reshapes the labor market, electricity needs rise, housing remains scarce and physical climate risks intensify. NYC Comptroller Mark Levine joins Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Sustainable Finance Analyst Chris Ratti to discuss how the city should weigh those pressures, from AI’s implications for jobs and tax revenue to grid investment, housing finance and climate resilience. They also examine the role the city’s pension funds can play and where New York may be dangerously underinvested.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Gary Gensler, 33rd Chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (2021-25), professor of the Practice of Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management and co-host of the Power and Consequences podcast, joins a special crossover episode of Sustainability Currents and Votes and Verdicts to examine how the SEC can balance its three key mandates: investor protection, capital formation and fair, orderly and efficient markets. How should the commission weigh investor demands for climate disclosures against the cost to public filers? Do quarterly earnings reports drive market efficiency, or trading volatility? How do recent Supreme Court rulings (Slaughter, Loper Bright, West Virginia v. EPA) affect SEC rulemaking? BI analyst Nathan Dean and sustainable finance product manager Rob Du Boff discuss these topics and more.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.