Diego Saez Gil: The Zen Treehugger

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There is someone I want you to know about.

He lost his house and everything in it to a wildfire in 2020. What could have been a villain origin story, or a tale of sorrow, crystallized his urgency around climate change. It helped him forge his vision to reforest billions of hectares and save our planet from extinction.

His name is Diego Saez Gil.

I’m not one for idolizing (see my previous thoughts on this), but this guy is pretty cool.

I came across Diego as I started asking myself: “How can I really make an impact in the fight against climate change?”

For most people, this question pushes us towards a cliff of existential anxiety. After all, how can a single individual tackle a problem this BIG? How can I do anything to revert a planetary event?

Diego asked himself a variation of this question after selling his previous startup, Bluesmart. 

By all accounts, Bluesmart was thriving; one of the pioneers in smart travel luggage, sold over $20M in product, with offices in Hong Kong, Argentina, New York and San Francisco.

There was just one small issue. Airlines suddenly outlawed lithium batteries in luggage. And Bluesmart’s design did not allow for the battery to be removed. Overnight, they became a company saddled with a massive inventory and no market. They sold the IP and the business closed. Ouch.

This sudden exit gave Diego a unique opportunity to reflect. A forced sabbatical. 

In his own variation of Eat, Pray, Love, Diego went to the Amazon and spent time in a Buddhist Monastery in Thailand. It was in the Amazon that Diego observed deforestation first hand; the scene left an indelible impression. 

The pieces of a dreadful puzzle emerged: The reckless industrial pollution he observed in China, the gluttonous consumerism of New York, the vanishing tree line of the world’s most iconic forest. They were all connected. All man made. We abused our claim as the top species, and were driving our planet towards the Grand Canyon in a Formula 1 car with no brakes. 

We were killing the world. He was determined to save it. 

Enter Pachama.

The Pachama Story

Diego put his talents and founder mettle to task. He identified that forest conservation and reforestation is one of the best tools we have to counter the impact of climate change. 

The stakes are so high, and we are so behind in the race to prevent existential catastrophe, that not only do we need to reduce emissions, but we need to remove greenhouse gasses.

Trees are amazing vessels for carbon removal. Yes, those same trees where you and your middle school boyfriend etched your initials in, that you’ve used as goalposts for pick up soccer games at the park, that give you shade in those sizzling summer days.

So if trees are so great, why isn’t reforestation as popular as a Taylor Swift concert ticket?

Because checking on a forest’s progress and calculating the amount of carbon that trees capture in said forest was too manual, inconsistent, and expensive.

What if you could assess how much carbon a forest was removing cheaply, accurately, and at scale? Furthermore, what if with this assessment, you could issue carbon offsets that companies would pay to offset their carbon footprint and use this money for reforestation? 

This is the gap that Diego saw. And the mission behind Pachama.

Pachama uses technology to digitally measure, report, and verify the carbon captured by forests faster and cheaper than current methods (using a calculator vs. an abacus). If you can prove that a forest is capturing X tonnes of carbon, the carbon credits issued against that forest will be reliable; and thus, big companies will feel warm and fuzzy that their ESG initiatives and investments are reducing their carbon footprint. 

20 years ago, this company would not have been possible. Luckily, advances in satellite imagery, LIDAR technologies, machine learning, cloud computing, and the Paris Agreement (which created guidelines on how to transact carbon credits), have placed Pachama at the forefront of forest reforestation at scale. 

These are mature technologies powering a real platform. There is no “one drop of blood is all you need” gimmick here. And large established organizations like Verra, the largest greenhouse gas crediting organization, are working with Pachama to define the next era of digital measuring, reporting, and verification (DMRV).

In a world where short-termism and sensationalist headlines give so much air to the WeWorks, Theranos, Ubers, Twitters, and FTXs of the world; companies like Pachama are working to make sure we have a world to live in. I say we start paying more attention to them. 

The Tao of Diego 

What I find fascinating about Diego are some of the ideologies and mindsets he’s publicly discussed and have influenced his thinking. 

His personal philosophy has been heavily shaped by Buddhism and Stoicism. Two core ideas in Buddhism 1) Understanding that suffering comes from attachment and 2) The concept of equanimity, have helped him navigate difficult situations like closing Bluesmart or picking up the pieces after his home burned down. 

Practices like meditation provide the necessary grounding to apply these concepts both in his personal and professional life (which for a Founder tend to be one and the same). 

His work at Pachama is guided by seeing the world under the lens of systems thinking and approaching problems through first principles.

They’ve also been influenced by three ideas that merit their own essay, but I want to briefly touch upon: The Gaia Principle, Deep Ecology, and Profitable Growth for All (PGA):

The Gaia Principle

This principle asserts that Earth is a self-regulating complex system. The interaction between inorganic and organic surroundings form this singular system.

What I appreciate about the Gaia hypothesis is that it interprets the planet as a complex system. Under that light, we are forced to recognize the nuance and second/third order effects any global action entails. The catchy headlines and trite political speeches that oversimplify any action around climate change are rendered meaningless when seen through this lens.

This is a big departure of Industrial, Western ideology. Instead of defining our world simply as a pyramid with humans on top, it asserts that our world is far more complex and that the interdependencies between human and non-human, organic and inorganic, cannot be interpreted under the hierarchy we’ve lived in for the last 250+ years. 

Deep Ecology

This is a philosophy that promotes the inherent worth of all living beings regardless of their instrumental utility to human needs. The point of deep ecology is that even though we need to take care of the bees because of their impact on our food supply, that should not be the primary reason we take care of them.

Also, deep ecology establishes that the destruction of the environment poses not only an existential threat to humans but all organisms. The fight to preserve the planet is not just about us. We are responsible for all living organisms and must assume this responsibility.

Profitable Growth for All (PGA)

Finally, his business philosophy is inspired by elements from Alan Mulally’s PGA framework. PGA stands for “Profitable Growth for All.” It’s a business framework that defines a win-win scenario for all stakeholders, and it widens who we tend to think of as stakeholders of private organizations.

PGA philosophy captures the core elements of The Gaia Principle and Deep Ecology. It expands the scope of stakeholders and pushes us toward a multidisciplinary approach based on the shared acknowledgement that our planet is a singular, complex system. Your principles and practices inform how you do business. And how you do business cannot be based on old hierarchies that obscured the true costs of our growth over the last couple of centuries.

*****

Diego does not claim to be a guru, nor does he pursue clout by spewing ghost-written clichés to drive Twitter engagement. He approaches the challenge of restoring nature with the earnestness of someone who’s been personally impacted by climate change, and has seen enough of its devastating effects to just sit on the sidelines. Yet, he blends this with his keen eye towards finding gaps, bringing the right technology, the right people, and razor sharp execution to cover this gap. His secret super power is his zen-like approach to life and business. A refreshing approach in today’s reactionary world.

Startups inevitably take on the personality of their founders. Pachama is both a pragmatic and romantic company, just like Diego. It understands that transitioning from fossil fuels is not enough; we need to remove carbon as well. But it’s also spurred by treating forest restoration as an act of love and penance towards our planet.

Our world doesn’t need heroes. It needs engaged groups of people doing meaningful things to solve complex problems (climate or others). And through the example of leaders like Diego, more people will be compelled to make this climate fight theirs, to trade cynic remarks for optimist actions, and to hug more trees.