Matthew Franklin Chalmers

Global citizen, strategic consultant, multidisciplinary systems thinker, policy maker and advisor, CEO, science- and engineering-literate attorney, climate and energy nerd, sustainability addict, big fan of empathy and compassion, realistic optimist, and dead-serious, life-long advocate for a brighter future.

After studying climate change with some of the world's top experts from multiple disciplinary lenses at Stanford University - climate science, chemistry, political science, macro- and micro-economics, business, policymaking, technology, psychology, engineering. But studying was not impact.

So I went on to law school, specialized in climate and energy, and went on to explore the problem from the ground. I spent nearly a decade at the California Energy Commission, one of the world's leading government institutions on climate and energy policy issues. There, I helped permit groundbreaking renewable energy projects, and helped an incredible team of talented and dedicated scientists and engineers create cutting-edge regulations like building codes that require the installation of solar photovoltaics on new residential (2019) and nonresidential (2022) construction. I am deeply proud of the work there. But I also realized that even the most earnest and dedicated policymakers face a network of constraints, including from diverse stakeholders, that are often not apparent to the public.

I realized there was something bigger we were missing. I realized we were running out of time, and there was a key insight that we missed. We are facing the greatest systems deadlock our species has ever encountered, and instead of trying to loosen that global Gordian knot - ecological overshoot, the Metacrisis, the superorganism, however you frame it - in a coordinated manner, while most of us have been tugging at it from individual, siloed academic and institutional perspectives.

So I founded Birch Citadel, an organization focused on demonstrating that a different approach and perspective, systems thinking and systemic interventions grounded in acceptance of the total problem and first-principle, data-driven solutions, can not only better address the crises facing our species, but by unlocking multidisciplinary tools and synergies, help create force multiplying leaders that will create transformative change, safeguarding a brighter future for us all, one that is clean, sustainable, just, equitable, and prosperous for all.

Together, let's make that future a reality. It's beyond time.