Mark Orlowski

About Mark Orlowski

I am the CEO and Founder of the Boston-based Sustainable Endowments Institute (SEI). As a social entrepreneur, I’m committed to building a more sustainable world by innovating solutions that help institutions better address and prevent climate change. Over 20 years working in sustainability, I’ve pioneered high-impact solutions to achieving net zero emissions.SEI is a leading sustainability tech organization advancing innovative climate solutions through its novel GRITS web platform and other programming. GRITS uniquely enables institutions to track project-level energy/financial/carbon data, empowering them to accelerate their sustainability impacts and decarbonization goals including implementing plans to reach net zero carbon emissions. Before GRITS, institutions tracked project data inefficiently using spreadsheets. Now, 900+ institutions (including higher ed, governments, nonprofits, and corporations) use GRITS to manage their sustainability projects and goals. These energy-and-resource efficient projects have generated over $1.8 billion in savings.My work and SEI have been featured in the New York Times, CNN, The Boston Globe, The Associated Press, Bloomberg, NPR, and more. I’ve had the pleasure of speaking at over 125 universities and conferences in the US and internationally. I’m a graduate of Berkshire Community College, Williams College, and Harvard, where I studied nonprofit management.__• GRITS: A user-friendly platform for managing sustainability projects, it helps capture energy efficiency savings and achieve energy and carbon reduction goals.• Building Performance Standards Working Group: We host and facilitate a network of nearly all U.S. and Canadian jurisdictions that have implemented a BPS policy to help each member share best practices and learn from each other.• Community Conversations Series: In collaboration with Second Nature, we host monthly dialogues with over 100 institutions worldwide, sharing innovative initiates in climate action and sustainability planning.• Billion Dollar Green Challenge: Launched a program with $125M+ committed to Green Revolving Funds, creating a 50+ institution network. We\'ve developed influential reports, including co-authoring a revolving fund implementation guide published by the National Academies of Sciences.• SEI\'s College Sustainability Report Card: In 2007, we pioneered the first university Green Report Card, influencing sustainability standards in higher ed. The Report Card covered 300+ universities, attracted over 1 million website visits, and received extensive media coverage.

Experience

1. Edmund Hillary Fellow

   Edmund Hillary Fellowship Ehf

   Jan 2018 — Present · NZ

   Proud to be a member of the second cohort of the Edmund Hillary Fellowship. EHF is a community of high-impact entrepreneurs, investors and changemakers, collaboratively building solutions to global challenges from Aotearoa New Zealand, and helping lead the way to a better world. Reach out if you\'d like to learn more about EHF.

Education

• Berkshire Community College

  Associate's Degree

• Harvard University

  Master's Degree, Nonprofit Management

  2010

• Williams College

  Bachelor's Degree

  2004