Chris Castro on Building Sustainable Cities, Federal Climate Action, and the Future of Green Banking
In the latest episode of Dollars & Change: The Expert’s Guide to Sustainable & Responsible Investing, host Peter Krull sat down with Chris Castro, Founding Director, Executive Vice President, and Chief Sustainability Officer at Climate First Bank. Chris has an inspiring yet instructive career journey that takes him from local government, to federal climate leadership, to sustainable finance.
Chris first made his mark as the City of Orlando’s Chief Sustainability and Resilience Officer. Starting in 2014, he spearheaded Green Works Orlando, an ambitious strategy to transform the fast-growing city into a leader in clean energy, green building, water conservation, zero waste, and sustainable transportation. To this day, Orlando is the only city in Florida that has benchmarking and transparency laws for commercial buildings.
Leading Federal Climate Programs
In 2022, Chris joined the U.S. Department of Energy as Chief of Staff for State and Community Energy Programs (SCEP) in Washington, D.C. He joined at a critical time, when the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed shortly before he joined the team. This monumental moment unlocked historic levels of climate investment.
In this role, Chris helped stand up a brand-new federal office, overseeing billions in funding for:
- Weatherization Assistance Programs for low-income households.
- Renew America’s schools and nonprofits programs for building updates.
- Home energy rebates and building code modernization, totaling $10 billion from the IRA alone.
By January 2023, his team had allocated more than $11 billion to helping drive energy efficiency across the country.
Scaling Climate Finance at Climate First Bank
Today, Chris is back in the private sector, helping to expand Climate First Bank’s national footprint. As a founding board member, Chris works directly on capital raises, loan origination, and partnerships with green banks, Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs), and state-level financing institutions.
One standout initiative Chris worked on was a collaboration with the Montgomery County Green Bank in Maryland. By blending private and public capital, Climate First buys solar loan rates for households, helping residents save on utility bills while scaling adoption of clean energy solutions.
Whether transforming Orlando into a green city, channeling billions in federal climate investments, or building innovative financing solutions at Climate First Bank, Chris embodies the belief that sustainability must be woven into every level of society: local, federal, corporate, and civil.
To learn more about Chris and aligning your portfolio with sustainability, resilience, and innovation, listen to the full episode here.
Check out some of our recent episodes:
- Maria Lettini, CEO of US SIF, share why sustainable investing is here to stay.
- Terra McBride, Chief Marketing Officer at Prime Capital Financial (PCF), the parent company of Earth Equity Advisors, interviews Pete on the evolution of SRI.
- Maggie Kulyk, the CEO and founder of Chicory Wealth, shares their journey from divinity into sustainable investing.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Share your feedback or suggest future topics by contacting us at info@earthequityadvisors.com.
Be good. Invest better.
The Earth Equity Team
