Billy Parish (born September 11, 1981) is an American environmental entrepreneur, author, and activist. He is the co-founder and executive chair of Mosaic Inc., a leading financing platform for U.S. residential solar and sustainable home improvements.[1]
Early life
Parish grew up in Manhattan, New York City. His father, a lawyer, specialized in finance for electronic utilities. His mother, also a lawyer, met his father while working on a securitization deal.[2] He spent a semester of high school at The Mountain School in Vermont, where he was turned on to working for the environment.[3] In July 2005 he led a three-day fast in front of the White House to draw attention to the 150,000 deaths caused each year by climate change.[4]
He designed his own major in sustainable economic developments at Yale University.[2]
However, in 2002, he left Yale University and went on to found the Energy Action Coalition, renamed the Power Shift Network.[5] The Coalition became the largest youth-led clean energy advocacy network in the world, bringing together 50 environmental and social justice groups and over 340,000 members.[6] The coalition raised nearly $10 million in four years and helped more than 600 colleges make commitments to climate neutrality.[6]
In March 2009, the Energy Action Coalition organized Power Shift '09, which brought over 12,000 young people to Washington D.C., for the largest climate-focused training, lobby day and non-violent civil disobedience action in U.S. history. 1Sky states Parish is on the Board of Directors.[5] He is also co-chair of SolarAPP+ and board member and former board chair at The Solutions Project.[7][8]
Career
Parish played a leading role in creating the Clean Energy Corps proposal to create 5 million new green jobs in the U.S.,[6] which was incorporated into the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009. He also helped to expand the AmeriCorps public service program to include a new “Clean Energy Service Corps”.[9] With the idea that crowdfunding could affect a shift to green energy, Parish co-founded Mosaic. At that time, the company allowed individuals to micro invest in community-scale solar projects.[10] In 2014, Parish shifted the company’s focus from crowdfunding to financing for residential solar projects, and in 2018, expanded to sustainable home improvements.[11]
