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Meet the Common Current Team
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Warren Karlenzig ~~~ Allison Quaid ~~~ Robert Borinstein ~~~ Kenneth Ott ~~~ Partners
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Warren Karlenzig, Common Current founder and president, has worked with the federal government; the nation of South Korea ("New Cities Green Metrics"); The European Union ("Green and Connected Cities Initiative"); the State of California ("Comprehensive Recycling Communities" and "Sustainable Community Plans"); major cities; and the world's largest corporations developing policy, strategy, financing and critical operational capacities for 20 years. Current and recent clients include the US Department of State; the Asian Institute for Energy, Environment and Sustainability; the David and Lucile Packard Foundation; an international food and beverage corporation; a major mixed-use real estate development corporation; an educational sustainability non-profit; and IDEO, a product design corporation.
Warren has appeared in media including The Wall Street Journal, CNN, CNBC, Forbes, The New York Times and The Washington Post.
The former Chief Strategy Officer of SustainLane, he devised, planned, designed and directed both the SustainLane US City Rankings and the SustainLane Government knowledge base for sustainability best practices in state and local governments. He also led consulting engagements with the State of California focused on green city performance metrics for a successful pilot program.
As Lead Strategist for Dimension Data/ Proxicom, Warren led executive-level strategy engagements for clients including General Electric and Chevron. His area of expertise included developing corporate knowledge management initiatives directly impacting corporate governance, supported by systems utilizing complex intellectual property information and data management. Warren previously served as editor-in-chief for Knowledge Management magazine. He has been a consultant with clients including the White House Office of Science and Technology, for which he helped plan an eco-industrial park; the US EPA Futures Group and the US Department of Energy. He authored A Blueprint for Greening Affordable Housing, the first substantial work on the subject (Global Green USA, 1999) and he co-authored San Francisco's influential Sustainability Plan, which was adopted by the city in 1997. The section he co-authored ("Economy and Economic Development") was directly cited in San Francisco's 1999 and 2003 green building ordinances.
How Green is Your City?, which Warren authored, was published in 2007 by New Society Publishers, and he contributed a chapter to Growing Greener Cities: Urban Sustainability in the 21st Century published in 2008 by the University of Pennsylvania Press and the Wharton School of Business. Warren is on the Boards of The Climate Change Center and the Korea Green Foundation. He has an MFA from Naropa University and a Bachelor of Science degree from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a Fellow with The Post Carbon Institute.
What Others Say About Warren and his work:
 "Warren is the creator and lead author of SustainLane's US City Rankings. I've been in the sustainability business for 15 or 20 years now. 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, Seattle Sustainability Director
 "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, author of Ecology of Commerce
and Blessed Unrest
 "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."
--Hunter Lovins, Founder, Natural Capitalism, Inc.;
co-author of Natural Capitalism
 "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, Director, California Dept. of Conservation
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Allison Quaid (Senior Associate) has spent the last ten years greening the operations of more than 500 local governments, non-profits and businesses across the nation. Issue areas include transportation, waste reduction and recycling, energy efficiency and conservation, sustainable economic development, smart growth, green buildings and climate protection plans. Allison has a depth of experience facilitating public, private and non-governmental organizational partnerships which advance sustainability.
She currently serves as the Executive Director of the Bay Area Alliance for Sustainable Communities. Most recently, Allison was a Project Manager for Flex Your Power, leading regional outreach efforts for energy efficiency and conservation in Southern California and the Central Valley. Prior to that, Allison was Project Director for Strategic Energy Innovations, assisting communities in the use of clean energy technologies while strengthening community relations. Allison co-led the Clean Air/Clean Energy Working Group of the San Joaquin Federal Interagency Task Force, which is composed of federal agencies, research and non-profit organizations striving to improve the air quality in California's Central Valley.
Allison spent four years working with local governments to advance their sustainability efforts, while employed as the Project Director of Communities 21 for ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability. Allison wrote a manual for developing local sustainability plans, and piloted a process called the Sustainability Inventory with fifteen local governments.
Allison has consulted to the World Bank and USAID on international environmental projects. She is a LEED Accredited Professional and a board member of the International Sustainability Indicators Network. Allison is an Advisory Board member for the Business Council on Climate Change. Allison holds a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science from Rutgers University and Masters in Urban and Environmental Public Policy from Tufts University.
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Robert Borinstein (Associate) possesses over 27 years of experience in commercial and institutional construction serving as the project manager and cost estimator on a wide variety of project types. He has years of experience managing the day to day rhythms of challenging construction projects giving him an intimate understanding of complex construction issues during all phases of building projects. Mr. Borinstein has a Bachelor degree from Pitzer College and is a LEED Accredited Professional.
Robert managed the construction efforts for highly respected contractors in Los Angeles and San Francisco including Plant Construction and Swinerton & Walberg. His projects include high rise construction, seismic bracing of historic structures, data facilities, collegiate and high school athletic complexes, and complicated tenant improvements in operational facilities. In 2005, he founded R. Borinstein Company to apply this experience to guide and assist commercial and institutional organizations with the consuming task of planning, budgeting, and managing complex capital development programs. His combined experience with the challenges facing general contractors and the broad oversight gained through representing the interests of project owners coupled with the principles adopted through his LEED training, Robert Borinstein provides a strong and knowledgeable asset to the project ownership team.
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Kenneth Ott (Associate) is a crack researcher and online marketer. He learned about sustainability firsthand while working overseas and seeing how people in other countries managed their somewhat less abundant resources. In Japan, Ken discovered the joys (and perils) of riding a bicycle and taking the train to get around.
Upon returning to the US, he decided to start a restaurant grease collection company to produce biodiesel, only to find and join an existing startup with like-minded folks. Ken sold his last remaining car, a Nissan Maxima, in 2006 and has started an organic garden at his parents' 0.3 acre estate.
Ken earned his Bachelor of Arts in Political Science at the University of California at Berkeley.
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Partners
Vijay Kanal, Managing Principal and Chief Consultant of Kanal Consulting, started his firm in 2003 after a 15+ year career at leading management consulting firms and technology corporations. His consulting experience spans the globe, including assignments in several European countries and parts of Asia. Kanal Consulting offers strategy and marketing services, helping clients grow sustainably.
Building on its work in sustainability since 2007, the firm has expanded its portfolio of services, and recently completed a Best Practices study on sustainability management with 25 leading firms in technology, consumer goods, and Media & Entertainment. Participants included Cisco, Dell, HP, P&G, Disney, and 20 other similar blue-chip companies. Several topics were addressed from strategy to communications, with the intent to help companies become more sustainable throughout their value chain.
Earlier in his career, Vijay was a senior consultant at Deloitte Consulting, and later at A.T. Kearney. Vijay also spent a distinguished career at Sun Microsystems where he worked in a variety of executive roles in the marketing and sales organizations.
Vijay holds an MBA from the Wharton School, a Bachelor's in Electrical Engineering, and is a certified management consultant, awarded to less than 1% of professionals in this field.
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