This feels like a strange time for any kind of celebration, as communities across the world continue to grapple with the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. For that reason, we initially delayed making this announcement (our actual anniversary was in February, when the pandemic was gaining steam). After several months of confinement —and countless volunteer hours working to foster a clean economic recovery (ongoing)—we feel it’s time to pop the proverbial cork and celebrate our Sweet 16!
Founded in 2004, the Dunsky team has grown over time into one of North America’s premiere clean energy advisory firms, with a team of 35 extraordinary professionals and a clientele of over 150 utilities, governments and other clean energy leaders.
As we enter our 17th year of business, we’re taking the opportunity to reflect on where we’ve come from, and where we’re headed. This special newsletter shines a light on the things that matter most to us: our Projects, People, Clients, Tools, and Impact. We hope you’ll enjoy learning more about our history, as we look toward building a cleaner energy future.
Our Projects
At the end of the day, the impact of our company is largely defined by the projects we deliver. Since 2004, we have substantially grown the volume of our work—and more importantly—we have continually increased the quality and variety of the support we provide to our clients.
When we opened our doors in 2004, our founder, Philippe Dunsky, offered clients his expertise in energy efficiency. Since then, we have expanded our expertise to encompass the three pillars of the clean energy transition: efficiency, renewables and mobility.
Across these three areas, we’ve developed an integrated approach that recognizes their critical interplays, and that maintains a broader focus on helping our clients find the best path toward responsibly and effectively achieving their clean energy goals.
Over time, our service offering has grown as well:
- Quantifying Opportunities: We’ve developed sophisticated models to quantify the technical, economic and real-world market potential for each clean energy solution.
- Designing strategies: We’ve also expanded our strategic work: historically focused on designing go-to market programs, we now address the full array of options – from enabling tools like innovative financing mechanisms or building disclosure rules to comprehensive decarbonization plans and policies.
- Evaluating Performance: Our evaluation practice has grown as well, with an unwavering emphasis on continuous improvement so that our clients not only know how well their efforts have performed but, critically, how to squeeze more value from them going forward.
The expansion of our focus areas and services has allowed us to support a greater number of projects each year. In 2004 we were thrilled to deliver a handful of projects; in 2019, we delivered nearly 70. In total, our team has undertaken more than 400 different projects for clients across North America. As we look toward the future of the clean energy transition, we are more focused than ever on ensuring our clients—old and new—trust and turn to us to help address their challenges.
Our People
Our founder, Philippe Dunsky, is the first to admit it; in 2004, he had no intention of building an organization. But his passion for quality work, clear communications and positive relationships—combined with a singular focus on accelerating the clean energy transition—was contagious. Sixteen years later, Dunsky is a team of 35 talented, experienced and passionate professionals, with more than 300 years of combined clean energy experience.
With a unique blend of technical and strategic perspectives, the Dunsky team is more than the sum of its parts. Our people come from utilities, governments, research institutes, business and non-profits, and have been executives and academics, engineers and economists, consultants and communicators. Importantly, they have addressed the challenges of clean energy at every level: from 50,000-foot policies, to on-the-ground implementation of market solutions, and everything in between.
Despite their varied backgrounds, our people share some common traits: They are kind – the sort of people who give more than they take; who always have your back, whether you’re a teammate, a collaborator or a client. They’re whip smart – the very definition of curious, lifelong learners. They are collaborative, constantly helping one another and sharing their expertise and insights, both within and across projects. And they are deeply committed to getting it right, leaving no stone unturned in the drive to ensure that results are accurate, strategies are effective, and our clients have what they need to succeed.
During the gradual expansion of our team, we’ve maintained a mission-driven focus. If there are opportunities to grow our impact, we pursue them only if growing will enhance – not erode – the value we bring to our clients and to our team. And when growing, we follow a cardinal rule: we only hire people who truly excite us. In doing so, we’ve built a team of kind, knowledgeable, collaborative, professionals who care deeply about getting it right, for our clients, our planet and our shared future. If you’ve worked with us, you know that we mean it — if you haven’t, we hope you’ll consider giving our team a try.
Our Clients
As a consultancy, we exist to support our clients’ goals. We’re proud that over the years, our team has developed lasting partnerships with the people and organizations leading North America’s clean energy transition (as well as those aspiring to such leadership). As this transition accelerates, more people in more places are depending on us to help move the needle.
In our early days, we primarily supported Quebec-based organizations. Today, we’ve worked with more than 150 organizations across 30 states and provinces, spanning every single region of the continent. Dunsky has been at the forefront of some of the most ground-breaking work, driving and often defining the next step in state/provincial and municipal clean energy strategies.
Our clients count us to delve deep into their unique characteristics – every place has a unique set of climate, market and cultural differences – while also bringing insights from our work elsewhere, in places both similar to and different from their own. In the years to come, we look forward to fostering relationships with new and familiar people and organizations across North America.
Our Tools
Intuition is great, but data is better. As our industry has grown, so too have our tools and capacities to support effective, informed decision making.
Since our inception, we have developed sophisticated, data-driven models that allow us to forecast potential market adoption of clean energy solutions under an array of scenarios and constraints. These models help our clients assess what is possible, in which markets, with which levers, and at what cost, benefit, and impact. Our models’ inputs are adapted to each client and territory’s technical, economic, and market conditions, enabling risk-aware decision making for policies, program design, business-case development, and investment optimization.
Below you can find more information on some of our go-to models:
DEEPTM: Demand & Energy Efficiency Potential model
DROPTM: Demand Response & Optimization model
HEATTM: Heating Electrification Adoption model
EVATM: Electric Vehicle Adoption model
+ More!
Our Impact
Dunsky is a mission-driven firm, focused on accelerating the transition to a clean energy future. Over the years, we’ve driven positive change in three ways:
First, through our core work; quantifying clean energy opportunities, designing programs, plans and policies to accelerate their adoption, and evaluating performance with a view to continuous improvement. While most of our work is focused on meeting our clients’ needs, we also take a proactive approach, seeking new and innovative ways to accelerate the clean energy transition.
Second, by walking the talk. Our company has been a certified B Corp since 2014. Since then, we’ve been awarded B Corp’s coveted “Best for the World” status on two occasions, and have improved our B Corp score year over year (our independently measured impact score is now more than twice that of the average business). We are also purposefully headquartered in one of North America’s greenest buildings, adhere to a strict green procurement policy, and subsidize public and active transportation options for our team, among other “walk-the-talk” efforts.
Third, by giving back generously. We donate 2% of our gross revenue to charity, and over time, have supported more than 140 charities working to make our world and our communities better places to live. We also donate our time, and have helped found or lead multiple non-profit organizations, among other initiatives.
We’re not perfect – we believe there’s always room to improve. But we’re proud of the efforts we’ve made to leave as positive a footprint as possible on our world and those living in it. We look forward to growing our impact, with you, in the years to come.