Namaste Solar’s 2024 Public Benefit Report

Our Public Benefit

In April 2018, Namaste Solar became a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC), prioritizing social and environmental impacts alongside profit. As a PBC, we must consider both financial and nonfinancial interests when making decisions, aligning with our mission and core values. This report informs the public about our social and environmental performance, reflecting our commitment to transparency.

Our mission is our statement of public benefit: We work to propagate the responsible use of solar energy, pioneer conscientious business practices, and create holistic wealth for ourselves and our community. The following sections share some of the ways we have fulfilled our public benefit in 2024.

Propagate the responsible use of solar energy

25,764 Panels Installed

In 2024, we installed 1,028 systems, equivalent to taking 3,645 cars off the road, avoiding 17,359,891 pounds of coal being burned, or powering 2,383 homes for a year. We designed 5,394 systems for our residential and commercial customers in Colorado, as well as new communities being built across the nation. Every day we service solar panel systems for our customers (including residential, commercial, and utility-scale) and systems that were installed by companies that are no longer in business. We serviced over 1,560 systems in 2024, ensuring more operational solar is online and producing efficiently as part of our mission to use solar energy responsibly.

National and Local Recognition

Namaste Solar was again recognized as a “Top Solar Contractor” by Solar Power World, for the 12th year in a row, and ranked number one in Colorado by kilowatts installed for the residential and commercial market. Solar Power World also recognized us as the Greenest Contractor in 2024. We received the Energy Efficiency award from Independent Electrical Contractors Rocky Mountain. Additionally, we won the Best of Boulder: Solar Company from Boulder Weekly, Top Company: Energy from Colorado Biz Magazine, and Project of the Year (Editor’s Choice) from Solar Builders Magazine for our Vaisala installation.

State Policy

Our strong partnership with the Colorado Solar and Storage Association (COSSA) led to several policy wins in 2024. With support from Governor Polis, a series of stakeholder meetings with utilities and the industry convened to consider changing the Net Metering policy. Namaste Solar was chosen to be one of the industry representatives. We helped COSSA secure an agreement to preserve net metering law in our state. Additionally, when our largest utility prematurely and abruptly ended an important and popular storage program, Namaste Solar helped lead the effort with COSSA to negotiate with the utility and the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to reopen the program for 2025.

PIONEER CONSCIENTIOUS BUSINESS PRACTICES

As a Certified B Corporation, we meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance purpose and profit.

We continued to prioritize Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) opportunities for our employees in 2024. We continued our curation of the JEDI Resource Library, which is full of text, video and audio content that is available internally and to the public. Each month we continue to offer JEDI learning sessions on wide-ranging topics of current and historical interest. To encourage participation, we offer every employee 10 hours of paid time annually for Equity Time On (ETO) to engage in JEDI learning.

Employee Resource Groups (ERGs)

As Namaste Solar continues to grow our equity efforts, we want to build a culture where people can bring their full and unique selves to work. Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) are open to all employees and aim to help foster diversity and inclusion in the workplace, provide supportive environments for groups to connect, along with allies, and improve work conditions by building trusting relationships within the company. We currently have two ERGs: Queer Workplace Empowerment and Expression at Namaste Solar (QWEENS) and Women of Namaste Solar Electric (WoNSE).

Queer Workplace Empowerment and Expression at Namaste Solar

For the past four years, QWEENS has participated in Boulder County’s Pride events. These are hosted by Rocky Mountain Equality (previously Out Boulder County), an organization that ensures the LGBTQ+ community thrives through programming, advocacy, education, connection, and research. Namaste Solar felt it was important to be a sponsor at these events, primarily to support QWEENS and their goals, but also to show up as a business and member of the community.

Women of Namaste Solar Electric

In 2024, WoNSE welcomed 10 new members to the group, all new hires in that same year. The group also toured the Vaisala headquarters in Louisville where we had completed an award-winning commercial installation with two rooftop arrays and one vertical facade array.

Women majority on Board of Directors

For the last three years, women have been the majority on our seven-person Board. In 2024, four out of the seven board members were women. Internal Board members are nominated and elected by fellow co-owners. Serving on the Board is an influential leadership role within the company and an in-depth learning experience that may enhance career advancement.

2024 Board Members Pictured: Tatianna Vereschagin, Rachel Mountain, Alicia Creighton, Matt Herman, Dan Fireside, Gwénaël Hagan, and Carolyn Romero

2024 Board Members Not Pictured: Keenan Luebbers and Susan Graf

Create holistic wealth for ourselves and our community

Employee-ownership is central to how we operate at Namaste Solar. We believe in sharing the benefits of business ownership and empowering employees to participate in running this company. In 2024, we welcomed 14 new co-owners and 23 new candidates on the track to co-ownership.

Co-ownership track

When an employee decides they are interested in becoming a co-owner of our business, they embark on a year-long journey of education and mentoring. Overall, the one-year journey of a candidate considering co-ownership is a chance to understand how the business operates, how decisions are made, and to consider if co-ownership is right for them.

Access to Information

All candidates are full participants in our co-ownership meetings. These meetings are meant to inform co-owners of current issues affecting the business, gather input from the cooperative, and provide time for deep dives into important decision-making for the company.

Candidate Curriculum

Each month we offer a candidate curriculum session that prepares them for the expectations of co-ownership, with topics ranging from financial literacy to company governance.

Mentorship

Each candidate is paired with a mentor, someone who is already a co-owner, and together they discuss topics of governance and responsibilities of our co-owners.

Our Community

Part of our mission is to take care of the communities we live and work in. Business can be a powerful engine for change, and we want to use ours as a force for good. A few ways we do this include:

Volunteer Time On (VTO)

VTO offers paid time for any employee to volunteer for a charitable purpose that benefits the community. Each employee can use up to 20 hours of VTO (to be used during regular work hours) per year, which is 1% of work time. Some of the organizations we volunteered at in 2024 include Community Food Share, Andrew’s Farm, Resource Central, the Women’s Bean Project, the Veterans Community Project, WOW Children’s Museum, and Joy’s Kitchen. In 2024, our employees spent 359 hours volunteering.

Keep the Lights on Colorado giving campaign

Our annual giving campaign, raises money for Energy Outreach Colorado, a not-for-profit that utilizes community solar subscriptions and emergency bill assistance to support Colorado families struggling to afford their home energy bills. In 2024, the campaign celebrated 5 years and raised $53,000 for Colorado families facing energy insecurity. Over the past five years, this campaign has raised over $334,000 to help over 1,000 families.

Education and Awareness

Nine Namaste Solar employees volunteered 45 hours throughout the year teaching students about solar installation and careers in renewable energy. A highlight included when Namaste Solar was invited by the CSU Sustainability Club to give a presentation about the Namaste Solar business model, B Corps, and the sustainability of solar energy.

Assessment of Public Benefit

Colorado’s public benefit statute requires PBCs to assess and report on their overall social and environmental performance, benchmarked against a third-party standard that meets statutory criteria of transparency and credibility. Because Namaste Solar was a Certified B Corporation when we became a PBC in 2018, we were already meeting this legal requirement.

Namaste Solar chose to operate under these standards and practices not just because we are a PBC and a B Corp, but also because we are a group of humans working for the betterment of humans and the environment. Our employees are passionate, excited, and knowledgeable about what they do and many of them have come to Namaste Solar searching for the opportunity to create a difference through their job. We are here to create a lasting positive impact on the world.

More About Namaste Solar

Learn more about how we are transforming energy and transforming business, including our community, sustainability and equity initiatives.

Discover how and why Namaste Solar was founded in our story series, starting with our origin story.

Learn more