“When I was six years old, I had a fascination with animal cards. While most of my friends were eagerly collecting and trading baseball cards, I was searching for more animal cards to add to my growing collection,” says Karl Skare. One thing that consistently disturbed him was that many of the animals depicted were either threatened or endangered. “I felt a connection with these animals, and I could not bear the thought of any of them going extinct”. Karl realized that one of the primary factors leading to species extinction was human activity and habitat fragmentation. He decided to dedicate his life to finding ways to reduce the human footprint on Earth and ensuring that there is room for humans and other species to coexist.
The energy sector is a huge contributor towards a variety of negative environmental trends including: climate change, habitat destruction, and air and water quality degradation. Karl sees distributed renewable energy as a viable alternative to our current energy system dominated by fossil fuels. “I believe that distributed solar in the developing world has the potential to leapfrog centralized generation powered by fossil fuels” says Karl. After graduating from Stanford with an MBA and an MS in Solar Engineering he has built his career around the mission of delivering affordable and reliable clean energy solutions to developing markets all over the world.
Karl is now the Director of Special Projects and Strategic Initiatives at d.light design - a global leader in delivering affordable solar-powered solutions designed for the two billion people in the developing world without access to reliable energy. His work at d.light offers him opportunities to visit d.light’s customers in rural areas all over the world, including his recent visit to Our Lady of Mediatrix Village, San Rafael, Bulacan in the Philippines. “I feel so honored and humbled every time I visit our customers and see what a difference our products are making in peoples’ lives. Not only are our solar products good for the environment, but they also are life-changing for our customers who were previously using kerosene and candles for lighting”. During his visit to Bulacan, Karl was surprised to discover how educated the people were about climate change and renewable energy and how eager they were to do their part to move towards a more sustainable future. “As I was about to leave Bulacan, a man stopped me and told me that I should go to the Department of Energy and tell them that they should stop promoting fossil fuels and start promoting solar”. Karl will not forget his visit to Bulacan or the promise that he made to work with the government in the Philippines to transition to a more sustainable energy system.