The CEO of a startup claiming to assess and certify less-climate-damaging oil and gas extraction is stepping down. Denver-based Project Canary claims to monitor the climate-heating pollution released by methane gas operations and selling that analysis to firms in order for them to market their product as ‘responsibly sourced.’
The Project Canary leadership reshuffling comes amid criticism that so-called ‘responsibly sourced’ methane gas programs are merely greenwashing schemes. It also follows a report, released by Earthworks and Oil Change International earlier this year, revealing possible conflicts of interest and discrepancies between Project Canary’s data and observations at oil and gas sites. CEO and co-founder Chris Romer (son of former Colorado Governor Roy Romer and a former state legislator himself) will remain chairman of the firm and will be replaced as CEO by his brother CFO Tim Romer (who has a background on Wall Street) and COO and co-founder Will Foiles. (Bloomberg $, Denver Business Journal)