TRANSFORMING BOARDROOM EUREKA MOMENTS INTO POWERFUL CLIMATE ACTION

This series of articles showcases our 2025 Impact Awardees. The Impact Awards are dedicated to former Cartier Women's Initiative Fellows who have achieved extraordinary impact. Each of these nine exceptional women impact entrepreneurs has an inspiring story to tell about her journey to success.

This is the story of Tracy O’Rourke, a 2019 fellow and 2025 Impact Awardee.

Tracy O’Rourke has a superpower. Thanks to a previous life in the corporate world the impact entrepreneur is skilled in the language of the boardroom, a gift she’s using to persuade hard-headed CEOs to play their part in saving the planet. “I’m conjuring those climate-friendly ‘aha’ moments!” she says.

Yet this is no magic act. Through Vivid Edge, the business she founded to address climate change, Tracy harnesses the very real-world power of pragmatism, helping corporate leaders make the connection between healthy profits and a thriving planet.

More specifically, she focuses on energy efficiency, which is widely acknowledged as an important enabler of emissions reductions. “Energy efficiency is the golden nugget of climate action,” says Tracy, who prior to establishing Vivid Edge had a longstanding career with global multinationals spanning commercial, finance and general management roles. “But the capital outlay required can be a big problem for corporations, who have to meet strict payback targets or preserve capital for core activities.”

Removing barriers to climate action

Vivid Edge removes those barriers by providing energy efficiency as a service, making it affordable and trouble-free for large and medium organizations to meet their climate goals. It does this by installing energy efficiency equipment such as heat pumps and rooftop solar in commercial buildings, then renting it out to the occupiers under a full-service model.

“Energy savings will generally more than cover the service charge and can be as high as 60%, and up to 82% in the case of lighting,” Tracy explains. “And by demonstrating the big win in one building, we pave the way for broader impact because after working with us, senior leadership understand that this is something they can do across multiple sites worldwide.”

Healing people and planet

The vital role of business in saving the planet is evident in Vivid Edge’s impact to date. So far, the company has avoided over 36,457 tons of carbon emissions – equivalent to planting 104,420 trees and saved 119.6 GWh of energy – enough to power 28,486 typical family homes for 22 years.

Further, while restoring health and equilibrium to the wider environment, Vivid Edge is also helping people and communities in both obvious and less obvious ways.

“We all know how emissions reductions preserve and save lives, especially in parts of the world disproportionately affected by climate change,” says Tracy, who has made numerous mission trips to sub-Saharan Africa and Brazil to understand the lived experiences of communities – women in particular – in a warming world. “However, what is less understood is a more medium-term benefit, which is that we are creating buildings in which people work safer and work healthier.”

Many workplaces, Tracy elaborates, tend to “sweat their assets,” failing to replace outdated lighting, heating and air conditioning systems that are bad for both the environment and human health.

Leading by example

Tracy also believes passionately in Vivid Edge employees leading by example and advocating on climate issues. Among the successful initiatives is the ‘Green Team,’ an employee-led community outreach program that promotes awareness around climate and energy efficiency actions such as digital footprint reduction, public transport use and recycling in the company’s Dublin locality.

Because for Tracy, no matter how big or small each individual or organization’s input, we all have a collective role to play in global climate action.

In fact, she is refreshingly optimistic in her confidence in the power of humans to join together and do extraordinary things in service of urgent global challenges.

Recalling the response to the global pandemic, including the rapid production of life-saving vaccines, she reflects: “When there’s a big problem, it makes you stand taller. It makes you think bigger. And it makes you act more collaboratively. I’m inspired and hopeful about what’s possible for the future of our beautiful planet.”