Scott Foster (engineer)

Scott Foster is executive chair of the energy programme at Enniscorthy International Forum, Senior Fellow at Boston University’s Institute for Global Sustainability, and a former Director of Sustainable Energy at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) from 2011 to 2022. 
With over 30 years' experience, he has led global efforts to enhance energy efficiency, reduce emissions, and increase carbon capture technologies. Foster has contributed to international collaboration on sustainable building standards and urban energy efficiency. He advocates integrating renewable energy with traditional infrastructure and pioneered the "Energy as a Service" model for a more sustainable energy system.
==Early life and education==
Foster was born in Washington DC, United States of America. 
He was a Classics and Biology double major at Dartmouth College. After working in Washington, DC for an energy and environmental analysis consulting firm providing analyses for the US Environmental Protection Agency and the US Department of Energy, he then completed a Master of Science degree in Civil Engineering at Stanford University. Upon completing his civil engineering degree he joined Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) company. He was sponsored by the company to earn an MBA at the University of California, Berkeley. 
==Career==
Foster has over 30 years of experience as a management consultant, utility executive, and energy market analyst.
===International Energy Agency===
Foster left PG&E in 1988 to join the International Energy Agency as a Programme Officer and Senior Electricity Expert. At the time, the agency's activities in electricity led the G7 to request support for efforts to close nuclear power plants of Soviet design that were considered unsafe. He left the IEA in 1994 to take on various roles in energy at Cambridge Energy Research Associates and AES Corporation before founding his own consulting firm, Nomad Energy Consulting.
===United Nations Economic Commission for Europe===
Foster served as the Director of Sustainable Energy at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe from February 2011 through May 2022. The programme manages a broad portfolio of energy-related activities for nearly one-billion people across 56 member states. Throughout his tenure, he oversaw several key initiatives aimed at advancing sustainable energy practices globally. His work included efforts to improve energy efficiency and reduce emissions, including a focus on carbon capture and storage and cleaner electricity systems. Foster also led activities on methane emissions and United Nations Framework Classification for Resources, the first widely accepted natural resource management system for classifying, managing, and reporting energy, mineral, and raw material resources in the world.
Furthermore, Foster's work emphasized the importance of energy efficiency in buildings and urban environments, creating United Nations guidelines for energy efficiency standards in buildings in collaboration with the international Passive House community. and launching a high performance buildings initiative with networks of international centres of excellence, academia, and industry. This work led to Foster being awarded the Baku Nobel Heritage Fund's Nobel Prize on behalf of the UNECE Sustainable Energy Division for unique contributions to sustainable energy dialogues.
===Boston University===
In 2022, Foster became one Boston University's Institute for Global Sustainability senior fellows. His research focused on good practice from just transition for coal communities, and advancing technologies such as data centers to enhance the contribution from renewable energy sources.
In addition to this role, Foster is executive chair of the energy programme of the Enniscorthy International Forum and managing director of Nomad Energy Consulting.
==Work==
===Energy as a Service===
Energy as a Service is a concept promoted by Foster that promises a transformative transition on how energy is produced, purchased, consumed and managed. The primary aim of this concept is to shift energy from a traditional commodity industry to a subscription-type business model. By subscribing to energy services, consumers can benefit from a more predictable and potentially lower-cost energy supply. The energy service provider is motivated to increase margins by improving energy efficiency and enhancing energy services by deploying knowledge of technology, a low cost of capital, relations with contracters and a profit motive. This innovative business model enables to make energy cheaper, more resilient and more environmentally sustainable. A crucial feature of such business model is placing energy efficiency and demand flexibility at the heart of the service proposition and thereby enable the integration of renewable sources of energy. That integration plus improvements in energy efficiency align with global efforts to combat climate change and promote environmental sustainability. The concept has gone on to be a pivotal aspect of academic literature on energy storage as a service as well as the sustainability of energy security and renewable technology.
==='All of the Above' approach to Climate Change and Sustainability===
Foster’s research focuses on developing cost-effective and culturally, socially responsive strategies for transitioning to sustainable energy. The energy services that are currently met by fossil energy will still be required in the future, but energy demand must be tempered, global quality of life aspirations delivered, and energy supply decarbonized. All energy types and all actors have a role to play in the transition.
Foster has been outspoken in his skepticism about how renewable energy is supported, a position that was often at-odds with wider UN proposals. In an op-ed in the UN Chronicle, Foster wrote: Renewables cannot be used uniformly across the energy system to replace the use of fossil fuels today, mostly because of the variance in the ability of different energy subsectors to switch from fossil fuels to renewables. For example, in some industrial applications such as cement and steel production, emissions come from both the energy use and the production process. Alternative technologies that can replace current production techniques are not yet available at the scale needed, so it is expected that these techniques will persist in the short to medium term. In these cases, carbon capture and storage can provide a solution consistent with current demands and give the time needed to develop future alternative approaches.Nonetheless, he has also argued that clean energy development needs to be “aggressive” and happen “fast” in order to meet the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. In recent keynote speeches to leaders, he has called on nations to stop finger pointing at the fossil fuel industry, and instead support efforts to implement sustainable energy and water resource management.
Category:1957 births
Category:Energy
Category:United Nations Secretariat
Category:American expatriates in France
Category:United Nations officials
Category:University of California, Berkeley alumni
Category:Stanford University alumni
Category:Dartmouth College alumni