​MATT GOLDEN, PRINCIPAL

Matt Golden is an entrepreneur and policy advocate, committed to bringing energy efficiency in the built environment to scale as a demand side resource.  Matt is currently a principal at Efficiency.org, and is consulting with a range of clients on issues related to the juxtaposition of energy efficiency performance risk and its impacts on financing and investment. Current projects include:

• Senior Energy Finance Consultant for the Environmental Defense Fund, leading the Investor Confidence Project to facilitate investment in commercial energy efficiency investment by enabling a network of project developers and investors through protocols to standardize projects and manage returns.
• Project lead for PG&E (representing CA Investor Owned Utilities) to redesign of the Energy Upgrade California program requirements for modeling software, into a first of its kind system that operationalizes smart meter data to provide ongoing feedback and calibration based on past savings actual performance.
• Managing a Department of Energy (DOE) project to develop a 3D simulation training and testing for inspectors to deliver the DOE Home Energy Score. (see video of 3D Simulation Tool)
• Deploying a national third party quality assurance field inspection system and helping to develop a national Solar QA Standard to conduct field QA for residential solar finance companies to reduce risk for project investors and secondary markets.
• Supporting the development and rollout strategy for the Warehouse for Energy Efficiency Lending (WHEEL), the first securitization for energy efficiency consumer lending as a unique asset class.
• Aggregation and analysis of data from many of the largest US energy efficiency programs to quantifying links between energy and loan performance for a variety of stakeholder, including rating agencies and capital markets.  

Prior to his current project based work, Matt was founder and president of Recurve Inc, where he helped create the first truly tablet based energy auditing software for the home performance industry based on real world experience gained from conducting thousands of energy audits and home performance retrofits in the Bay Area.  Sustainable Spaces, which later became Recurve, was the the first BPI Accredited home performance contracting company in California.  Recurve was venture funded through investments from Rockport Venture Partners, Shasta Ventures, and the Lowes Companies and was sold to Tendril Networks in 2010.

Matt is a national leader in the energy efficiency industry and was instrumental in founding Efficiency First, the national trade association for the home retrofitting industry, representing over 1,300 contractors and manufacturers in all fifty states.  Matt has both as founding Chairman, and is Policy Committee, and currently remains on the board of directors.  In addition to Efficiency First, Matt has served on a number of national and state nonprofit boards, including the Building Performance Institute (BPI), National Home Performance Council, California Building Performance Contractors Association (now Efficiency First CA), and is Chairman of the Home Performance Resource Center.  

Matt played a key role building consensus amongst the advocacy community and advising national policymakers in the crafting of Retrofit for Energy and Environmental Performance (REEP), legislation that was included in the American Clean Energy and Security Act that passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 2009. Later, working with the White House and the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, Matt was instrumental in developing Home Star, a $6 billion bipartisan jobs initiative that passed the House in 2010. Home Star was supported by the HomeStar Coalition of over 3,000 companies and organizations, including small businesses in all fifty states, Fortune 500 retailers and manufacturers, labor and social justice groups, and a broad coalition of environmental and energy advocates.

Matt was recognized by the Building Performance Institute as the 2009 recipient of the Tony Woods Award for Excellence in Advancing the Home Performance Industry, and was awarded the One-Change Catalyst Award for his nonprofit leadership. He speaks extensively on market transformation in the energy efficiency industry and has authored articles in Forbes, Home Energy Magazine, and GreenTech Media, and published influential policy papers such as “Taking on the Tool-Belt Recession” co-written with the Center for American Progress.  Matt has been featured in numerous stories in publications including the San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, LA Times, USA Today, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, The Economist and The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

Matt Golden combines frontline experience with both State and Federal policy and has dealt extensively in the regulatory and utility arenas.  In addition, Matt has a technical understanding of building science and consumer markets gained from over six years as a practitioner of energy efficiency retrofitting running a growing small business.

Prior to founding Recurve, Matt worked as a management consultant for Ernst & Young, founded Travelkey.com an internet travel technology company, and worked in the solar industry designing and selling projects for commercial and residential customers.  Matt holds a bachelor’s degree in foreign relations from Georgetown University and is a licensed California contractor.