Ken LaRoe has been leading de novo banks and fintech startups since 2009 with a mission of financing carbon-friendly technology like solar power installations. Though the results of the recent presidential election worry him, he believes this work can go on, undeterred by a new administration that's friendly to fossil fuel-burning businesses.
LaRoe founded First Green Bank after reading the book "Let My People Go Surfing" by Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard. LaRoe was struck by Chouinard's idea that in addition to making a profit, companies can have a positive impact on society. After selling that bank, he started Climate First Bank in 2020.
Today, the Florida bank has $850 million of assets and has made $200 million worth of loans for solar panel installations in 27 states, with plans to have a footprint in all 50 states as soon as it obtains the required licenses. Climate First's solar lending platform was developed and is maintained by OneEthos, an in-house fintech owned by Climate First Bancorp, the holding company of Climate First Bank.
LaRoe shared his thoughts on what the Trump administration means for businesses like his that aim to reduce carbon emissions in an interview this week.
What does the recent presidential election mean for the decarbonization efforts in this country and for Climate First?
We're of course worried about the Trump administration. I personally think Trump will try to kill international cooperation and withdraw from the Paris Accord. I'm confident he'll impose tariffs — who knows where or how much. I'm confident he'll slash environmental protection. And, of course, they'll try to gut the IRA, especially if they can find a tactic to apply those funds toward yet another tax reduction. [This is a reference to the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which was intended to provide funding, programs and incentives to accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy.]
But I'm just completely, totally upbeat about this. I think it's kind of like the
But I can tell you our resolve hasn't changed. It doesn't matter what happens on the political stage because [the work Climate First and OneEthos do] is really driven by consumer demand, by international demand to decarbonize. We are the fastest growing new bank in America since 2009. How did we get there? Because of the extremely strong consumer demand to do the right thing to decarbonize.
We didn't build the IRA into our budget for either the bank or [OneEthos]. If we get something out of it, it's all the better. We're still budgeting tremendous growth and uptake in solar and energy retrofits, building retrofits and electric vehicle infrastructure finance. The demand is huge. Families want affordable energy. Businesses want reliable, predictable energy. And that goes across all political spectrums.
For instance, farmers in Texas love their renewable energy, love putting in solar and wind on their farms.
Does Climate First have plans for other climate-friendly products beyond solar loans?
OneEthos is days away from launching our fully digitized consumer retrofit home improvement product that's geared toward decarbonization — so, windows, HVAC, heat pumps, spray foam insulation, as well as solar.
We're also working on a partnership with a firm that is going to provide decarbonization retrofit loans for larger commercial buildings. And we also do that as a matter of course in the bank, it's just hard to get uptake. It requires a whole separate set of outreach and sales that we're currently perfecting.
Other decarbonization products that we've done are EV charging infrastructure, and we finance that at 100%. So it's the same drill as our consumer [loans]. It's hard for somebody to throw an objection up and say, 'Well, I don't want to put solar on,' or, 'I don't want to set up the EV charging infrastructure because I don't have the money.' We can eliminate that objection because we finance 100%. And in fact, early in our life, three guys were setting up a large gas station. We went back to them and said, 'We can't do the deal. Gas stations are the last mile of dirty energy unless you do EV charging and solar, and then it becomes a transition loan.' And they came back and said, 'Hell yeah, we'll do that.' And so we financed all of that infrastructure at 100% financing. That's exactly the biggest impact we can make, is changing minds, influencing and educating.
What do you think about factory farming under the new administration? (According to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, animal agriculture represents 14.5% of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.) Will it continue to be subsidized by the government?
Who knows what Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is planning, that's another whole topic that has huge implications. He's against factory farming. I've had a lot of conversations with Dave Chapman, the founder of the Real Organic Project, and some of the other folks that are heavily involved in the food industry. And everybody's kind of scratching their head on that one. It would be great if they would stop subsidizing them or do something different.
Farming has a huge, huge impact on decarbonization. And it goes back to, in my opinion, we've got to change everything we're doing. Now. We can't wait for another four years of another administration change. We've got to do everything we can to change it now. And on the farming side, what I've found is the vast majority of Americans don't understand any of it. They don't understand the implications for their personal health. They don't understand the implications for the planet. So maybe it comes down to a really exerted, informational campaign to try to educate people.
