This interview is from the free Radio World ebook “Sustainability in Radio.”
Emily Lindner is founder and CEO of TruNorth, which helps clients manage technology and energy assets, including the elimination of waste and costs from underutilized services.
Radio World: How does your firm fit into this sustainability conversation?
Emily Lindner: I founded TruNorth in 2005 to help broadcast companies reduce waste in telecom spending, a category that had been newly deregulated after the Telecom Act. We’ve helped them leverage competition to achieve “better, faster, cheaper” in the telecom sector, year over year.
Now we’re using these proven tools and rigor on another deregulated market, which is energy. The sectors are different, yet very similar.
RW: What does sustainability mean to you as it applies to a broadcast organizational context?
Lindner: It means “doing it right over the long term.”
Sustainability in broadcast goes way beyond the energy efficiency of things like media processing and distribution. It encompasses the entire lifecycle of content and involves every employee in a company.
And it’s tied to a company’s values. This shouldn’t just be a topic that comes up on an earnings call. There is an adage that states, “How you do anything is how you do everything.” Does the CFO recycle their soda can? That relates to how the company plans its cap-ex investments and is making the right decisions for the long haul.
Where radio broadcasters are struggling right now is that they don’t think they can “afford” to make these investments. I put that word in air quotes; but radio broadcasters are focused on survival. Many feel that any discussion around sustainability is a privilege reserved for companies that are thriving; so it feels like radio is being forced to follow, not being inspired to lead, in this arena.
Also, attention to this topic comes and goes. I sit on a lot of earnings calls. In 2022 I saw a spike in analysts asking CEOs and CFOs about their ESG initiatives, including sustainability. Now I think we’re seeing that interest decrease.
Many companies react; they do only what they have to do to satisfy analysts, instead of leading for the greater good while enjoying cost savings. We should all be asking “can we do well by doing good here?”
RW: What can be done about it, and by whom?
Lindner: Broadcast engineers and finance need to have this conversation. Engineering is the closest to the topic, and it has the loudest voice, because transmitters are the primary source of energy consumption for broadcasters. Between 60% and 80% of a radio broadcaster’s total carbon emissions comes from the transmitters.
We know that engineers are working 20 hours a day with only 20% of their desired budget. So doing the math around how a cap-ex investment can lead to an op-ex payoff needs to be a priority.
Initiatives that are driven top-down often fail because company values are not drafted in the boardroom; they’re revealed during times of crisis or in the general workday. With radio in survival mode, I don’t think sustainability will be driven from investors, the board or the executives. It’s going to come bottom-up, driven by some of the most innovative humans I know — radio broadcast engineers — as well as from a younger workforce and an investor base that care passionately about the survival of our planet.
Actually it’d be great if both happened simultaneously — if a company’s board installed a chief sustainability officer at the same time that its engineers were bringing forward evidence of possible cost savings.
But it’s getting cooler to be green. Our industry should give “green engineer” awards for the most innovative ideas and the most impactful results.
RW: What should an engineer or manager do to get started?
Lindner: Inventory your equipment. Document the energy consumption of your transmitter over the past 24 months. Infuse sustainability into your conversations with equipment manufacturers and tower owners. Act on the results.
Also talk with your peers. One thing I love about radio is the belief that rising tides lift all boats; engineers share their best practices. For example if an engineer replaces a transmitter and reduces his energy bill every month by $3,000, that investment might pay for itself within three years — I’m speaking generally, but the math is there — and then other engineers will connect the dots about the energy consumption that drives all that beautiful equipment.
Consider that a tower park owned by an American Tower or a Vertical Bridge may have 18 different broadcast companies on-site. Those engineers see and talk to each other about their initiatives, their vendors and their ideas; they’ll share information about how sustainable equipment will generate less heat and require less cooling.
And I think broadcasters should approach those tower site owners too, and ask: “What are you doing for sustainability? You own 30 acres in a cornfield or on a mountaintop where you have lots of sun and wind.”
Let’s lead our supply chains — our transmission networks; our data centers with their high energy consumption; and even our equipment manufacturers. How can we more sustainably dispose of our specialized broadcast equipment?
RW: You’d encourage stations to consider upgrades to modern transmitter models that are more power-efficient.
Lindner: Absolutely. Engineers care about quality and reliability, while finance folks care about the ROI. There’s a Venn diagram here.
In sustainability, doing well means reducing your carbon footprint, but it can also mean reducing costs for shareholders; and if I’m an engineer, maybe it means I don’t have to fix this transmitter all the time or turn on a generator to keep the station on the air.
The juicy intersection at the heart of that Venn diagram is getting bigger.
Energy costs are rising faster than health care costs, which blows my mind. In the past five years, the cost of commercial electricity has increased 24%. This is very different than what happened in telecom after deregulation. Telecom really did deliver the promise of consumer choice, lower prices and innovation. But in energy the results are mixed, as geopolitical factors, grid modernization and green initiatives have raised prices. We haven’t seen the glory of deregulation play out in the energy sector, where prices are expected to keep increasing.
So our Venn diagram — where we can do well and support ROI by doing good — is getting more attractive. This is the time for engineers and finance folks to come together in support of both shareholder value and long-term climate success.
RW: Yet a chief technology officer for a major radio company told me he did explore solar and wind but found that the ROI wasn’t there, it didn’t make sense to pursue those kinds of solutions.
Lindner: That makes me sad, but I think the calculus will continue to evolve.
A recent Deloitte study asked companies to identify where pressure for sustainability efforts is coming from. It found that the highest percentage was from the boards of directors, while the lowest one was government. That’s just the opposite of Europe, where governments just mandate it. And about 35% was from employees.
This is where I believe radio is following instead of leading. But as prices go up, the ROI calculation is going to change. I think companies will feel increasing pressure from this new generation of investors and employees. They’re investing in stocks and choosing where they work based on outside ratings and ESG reports. Companies or departments will find themselves under more pressure to identify how they plan to reduce their climate footprint by X percent this year. And hopefully there’s cost savings in there too.
RW: You mentioned the importance of establishing a baseline. In a previous conversation you described how one of your radio customers uses your dashboard to see the state of every power meter and every account expiration date on various utility accounts across his company.
Lindner: Energy is a critical real-time commodity with high infrastructure costs and environmental impact. It is complex and prone to volatility. Finance leaders have to deal with questions like, “Why did we see our Texas natural gas bills triple last month?”
So clients need rigor and tools to track their contracts, their rates and consumption month over month and year over year. This is where TruNorth fits in. Data collection and reporting can be a colossal undertaking, pulling up energy bills from all of a company’s markets for 24 months. Our tools and robots do that automatically and then track them going forward.
Also, many companies want to buy from green suppliers. When you can select from among a dozen energy suppliers, you can choose one based on price as well as where that energy comes from; perhaps it’s wind or solar. We help a client get the data they need to make better decisions.
Engineers and finance teams deserve a dashboard of energy insights; then with their baseline data in hand, they can start to test green initiatives and prove out ROIs. Maybe they install motion-sensor lighting in just one of their business offices, then track it over 12 months to see if it yielded. Then they’ve got the math to say, “Our investment was X, the reduction is Y. It took 13 months to pay for itself, so let’s do this across the company.”
RW: Other thoughts?
Lindner: Some business leaders may be embarrassed to talk about energy initiatives that haven’t proven out. Or they’re worried they’ll appear irresponsible to their peers. And some are just scared; they don’t know where to start. CFOs hear the word sustainability and might say, “Really, you think I have time for that?” It’s our job to teach them.
In fact, did you know that radio is the most climate-friendly medium? At least that was the premise of a broadcast industry marketing campaign in Germany that highlights radio as the medium that generates the least amount of carbon dioxide, compared with TV, billboards and newspapers. [Read about that here.]
So just because radio is in survival mode doesn’t mean we can’t do anything about it. Maybe these financial pressures will be the catalyst for green initiatives.