What people say about Common Current and founder Warren Karlenzig

“Warren Karlenzig has excellent sustainability and resilience policy knowledge; a strong network across the Public, Private, Non-governmental Organization and Foundation sectors; and an impressive capacity to engage multi-stakeholder entities in order to determine the most feasible course of action, which in the end result in the delivery of successful and timely results.” 

Emma Stewart PhD, Netflix Sustainability Officer (former head of Sustainability Solutions at Autodesk and Autodesk Sustainable Living Design Lab founder)

"Warren Karlenzig’s How Green is Your City? is the first systematic report card measuring city quality of life combined with resource impacts....I believe the methodology will become international, and none too soon." 

Paul Hawken, Drawdown Executive Editor, author of Ecology of Commerce and Blessed Unrest, in Foreword of How Green is Your City?

“Warren has consistently and proactively kept Aclima abreast of key state offices and individuals including the California Air Resources Board (CARB), other state executive officers and community grant opportunities. He was instrumental in Aclima and partners’ successful nearly $500,000 CARB grant award for the community of West Oakland in 2018, which included Warren’s working directly with West Oakland community groups. He understands and has deep relationship with government at all levels and combines that knowledge with the latest technical landscape, including Big Data, artificial intelligence and data presentation technologies. His interactions with Aclima executives, teams and investors have always been timely, efficient and valuable.”

Robert Murphy, VP Strategy and Business Development, Aclima

“Warren’s input was extremely valuable in a cooperative effort of LBNL, the US Department of Energy, and China’s Ministry of Urban and Rural Development (MOHURD) to develop appropriate benchmarks across a range of indicators and categories to incorporate into a tool allowing 663 Chinese cities to evaluate their ranking within MOHURD’s Low-Carbon Ecocity program and allowed rapid completion of the system framework. He worked very effectively with a bi-national team of Americans and Chinese through to the completion of a very dynamic indicator selection process, and his input was both timely and extremely relevant. We all appreciated the benefits of his knowledgeable international, technical and personal perspectives.”

David Fridley, Senior Advisor, International Energy Analysis, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

“The Shanghai Manual on Sustainable Cities (co-authored by Common Current's Warren Karlenzig) details the experience and practices of cities across the world in addressing common challenges and achieving harmonious development ... and is therefore of great theoretical and practical value."

Han Zheng, Senior Vice Premier of the State Council and Politburo Standing Committee of China, former mayor of City of Shanghai

"Warren Karlenzig of Common Current is a great resource for sustainable urbanization trends and solutions. He was a productive collaborator with the United Nations in the development of the Shanghai Manual on sustainable urban development, and serves as a valuable trainer in capacity building workshops. His considerable experience in indicators for sustainable cities can help ensure accountability in urban planning and projects. He is insightful, pragmatic and media savvy."

Mohan Peck, Focal Point for Sustainable Cities (retired), Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations, New York

"How Green is Your City? provides the first benchmark quantifying and qualifying management innovation and the performance of American cities as they seek to define what sustainability is."

L. Hunter Lovins, Founder, Natural Capitalism Solutions. Co-Author, A Finer Future and Natural Capitalism

"The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has chosen sustainable communities as one of its strategic priorities for the next five years. Karlenzig’s advice seems right on target as we further refine that agenda."

F. Kaid Benfield, Senior Counsel for Environmental Strategies at PlaceMakers LLC. Co-founder, LEED for Neighborhood Development rating system; former NRDC Smart Growth Director

"Warren is the creator and lead author of SustainLane's US City Rankings. I've been in the sustainability business for over 25 years. And these types of rankings have been tried dozens and dozens of times and this in my opinion is the best one in terms of its rigor and how much care they've given to apples-to-apples comparisons. A lot of that comes from Warren's commitment."

Steve Nicholas, VP of US Program, Institute for Sustainable Communities, former Sustainability Director of Seattle

"Warren is one of the country's leading experts on sustainable planning. He has been instrumental in helping the California Department of Conservation choose our recycling communities using sustainability criteria. I have found his work to be really helpful, thoughtful and thorough." 

Bridgett Luther, Sustainability Director, Continuus Materials, former Executive Director of Cradle-to-Cradle Institute and California Department of Conservation

"Warren Karlenzig of Common Current has been a tremendous help in teaching our students about sustainability. Warren gave a stimulating and highly informative guest lecture for my Stanford University Civil and Environmental Engineering China Energy Systems class. Through his network, Warren also helped us plan and facilitate a visit of our 30-student field trip to China, for a special tour of China's Tianjin Eco-City."

(Late) Adjunct Prof. Karl Knapp, Stanford University