Pre-Investment Considerations: Deep Dive with The Roda Group’s Dan Miller
Dan Miller, Managing Director of The Roda Group, was one of the eight authors of Project Frame’s Pre-Investment Considerations, a methodology guidance for climate investors looking to understand the forward-looking emissions impact of their investment decisions.
In the following Q&A with Project Frame, Miller highlights why this work is so important, discusses areas in which there is more work to be done, and emphasizes the urgency with which it all needs to happen.
What motivated you to contribute to Project Frame's methodology for assessing forward-looking emissions impact?
Climate change is the most dangerous problem facing humanity. To address it, we need major changes to many aspects of society including a rapid shift away from fossil fuels, and we need to focus private investment towards climate solutions.
Project Frame’s guidance will help investors avoid reinventing the wheel and more efficiently and effectively fund the solutions that we need.
Of the topics covered by the methodology, which did you feel was the most pressing to address and why? Are there any questions that remain?
Choosing the proper baseline is key to assessing climate impact.
“Local” baselines are often chosen to make the impact assessment tractable, but these narrow baselines may not show the full impact of a potential climate impact. I’m looking forward to working on this issue in future versions of the methodology.
RELATED: Constructing a Baseline Scenario | Pre-Investment Considerations
Are there any key takeaways, reflections, or learnings from your experience collaborating on the methodology that you would like to share?
The team is experienced and works together well. The initial guidance is a good product and was done on a relatively fast timeline. In the future, I hope more time would be dedicated to discussing and debating issues that don’t have full consensus.
Looking forward, how would you like to see climate investing evolve with respect to assessing forward-looking emissions impact?
The world has not yet faced up to the dramatic changes needed to meet climate targets.
In future versions of the methodology, I hope we can help investors understand how to assess climate solutions that will be needed to meet net zero and net negative targets far sooner than most of the public realizes.
Dan Miller is Managing Director of The Roda Group, a seed-stage venture capital group focused on clean technology, which he co-founded in 1997. Miller is a member of Cornell University's Faculty Computing and Information Science and School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Advisory Boards. He received his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, with distinction, from Cornell University and his Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.
The Roda Group provides entrepreneurs the resources, environment, and guidance to launch and grow their high technology businesses.
