Interview with Will Wiseman, CEO of Climatize

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This week’s read time: 4 minutes

Welcome to a special edition Green Digest Interview Series, our bi-weekly feature showcasing conversations with the industry’s leading voices - CSOs, sustainability directors, and other senior professionals shaping the sustainability landscape. Each edition dives into their professional journeys, hands-on insights, and outlook on the challenges and opportunities defining corporate sustainability.

These interviews are designed to be quick, insightful reads, offering you actionable takeaways and a personal glimpse into the people leading the way. Stay tuned for stories, strategies, and lessons that matter to you.

PROFILE

This week’s guest:

Will Wiseman

Co-Founder and CEO of Climatize

Will has over a decade of experience in renewable energy, especially solar, having worked across finance, engineering, project management, and construction—personally building 15 solar farms. He holds a Double MSc in Renewable Energy Engineering from KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

Inspired by the 2019 Global Climate Strikes, Will founded Climatize to empower individuals to invest in renewable energy projects across the U.S. from as little as $10, earning up to 10% annual interest. Under his leadership, Climatize has built a 2,250+ investor community, channeling over $8.75 million into 18 clean energy projects across nine states.

Will was named to Forbes 30 Under 30 in Social Impact (2023), won the Keeling Curve Prize in Finance (2024), and was selected as a Young Global Changer by the World Policy Forum (2022). His work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas list.

His goal is to fund $1 billion in renewable energy annually within five years. With Climatize, he’s building a global financial network for climate action.

For those hearing about Climatize for the first time — what is it, and how does it work?

Climatize is a regulated investment platform that allows anyone to invest directly in renewable energy projects like solar, battery storage, and EV charging with as little as $10. These are real, income-generating infrastructure projects led by trusted developers across the U.S. Since today, investors have earned returns (between 8–10% annually - past performance not being indicative of future results) as the project repays and can track their impact along the way. By making clean energy investing accessible, transparent, and rewarding, Climatize empowers individuals to take climate action while building financial resilience.

Can you walk us through the user journey — from signing up to seeing impact?

Users can create a Climatize account either through our mobile app or online in under five minutes! They’ll need to provide basic identity and financial details like a brokerage through a secure, regulated onboarding process.

Once you’ve created account, you can explore a curated list of vetted renewable energy projects—solar arrays on community buildings, battery storage at grocery stores, EV chargers at local businesses—each with clear financial terms, repayment schedules, and projected environmental impact.

Once you’ve found an offering that you like, you select a project and can begin investing with as little as $10. Climatize charges no investor fees currently and makes the process incredibly simple.

As projects begin generating revenue, users may receive interest payments and can see their capital returned over time, either on a quarterly basis or milestone basis. So far, investors have earned 8–10% annually; however, of course, past performance may not guarantee future performance.

We’re in the process of building more rich features so that you can receive updates, impact reports, and even drone footage of the completed installations; offering tangible proof that your dollars are powering clean energy, strengthening communities, and driving climate action.

You’ve helped fund solar panels on farms, battery storage units, EV chargers, and more. What kind of projects are featured on the platform, and how do you decide which ones to support?

Climatize features renewable energy projects that can deliver both financial returns and community impact, like solar panels on small farms, micro-grids for disaster resilience, EV charging stations at local businesses, and energy efficiency upgrades for low-income communities.

We prioritize projects between $100,000 and $5 million that are often overlooked by traditional banks due to size, complexity, or limited familiarity with clean energy technologies. Each project undergoes a rigorous diligence process that evaluates developer credibility, repayment risk, environmental impact, and community benefit. We look for shovel-ready projects with committed hosts, strong policy support (like USDA REAP grants or Section 48 ITCs), and contracted revenue streams.

Ultimately, we choose projects that align with our mission: to build a movement of climate investors while accelerating the clean energy transition. We try to steward the platform as if we were investing our own capital, knowing that you work hard for yours

Looking ahead, what’s next for Climatize — where do you see the company in the next three to five years?

Over the next three to five years, we envision Climatize becoming the leading investment platform for community-scale clean energy, empowering millions of Americans to participate directly in the energy transition. Our goal is to mobilize $1 billion annually into renewable energy projects by 2030 while shifting capital from Wall Street to Main Street.

To get there, we’re expanding the beyond types of solar projects we offered in the past; we’ve recently hosted raises for multifamily energy retrofits, and EV infrastructure—while deepening our underwriting capabilities with AI. We’re also building strategic partnerships with banks and private credit to scale distribution and co-financing opportunities.

As the federal landscape evolves, we’ll continue to bridge the financing gap created by stalled or underutilized government incentives, especially in rural and underserved communities. Climatize will remain a trusted, regulated platform where anyone can invest with impact, and where local developers get the capital they need to build the future we want to live in.

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