20-Year renewable energy expert James Critchfield won Leader of the Year and honored at the 30th annual Renewable Energy Markets Conference
September 4, 2025 – Renewable Energy Markets Conference, Houston, TX – CleanCounts, a nonprofit with the industry-leading environmental attribute certificate (EAC) tracking platform for voluntary and compliance claims of renewable energy projects across North America, today announced that James Critchfield, the Head of Registry & Market Integrity, won Leader of the Year in the 11th annual Green Power Leadership Awards (GPLAs). James accepted the award at this year’s Renewable Energy Markets™ 2025 (REM) Conference in Houston, Texas.
The GPLAs have been awarded annually by the nonprofit Center for Resource Solutions (CRS) in the categories of Community Impact, Education and Awareness, Market Innovation, and Leader of the Year. Award nominees are competitively judged by CRS representatives and other green power market experts. Past winners in the Leader of the Year category include industry leaders such as Governor Jerry Brown, President of the University of California, Janet Napolitano, Heather Mulligan from Puget Sound Energy’s Customer Clean Energy Solutions team, Rob Threlkeld from GM, Chris Pennington (Iron Mountain), and Kristen Graf from Women of Renewable Industries and Sustainable Energy (WRISE) among others.
The Leader of the Year category recognizes outstanding leadership by an individual leveraging their personal efforts and achievements as an advocate in building the renewable energy market, and dedication to and vision for renewable energy. As the winner this year, James Critchfield was highlighted for a career of leadership starting at the solar developer Sun Light & Power, his past role at the U.S. EPA where he spent two decades as an authority on energy-attribute certificates, registry architecture, and greenhouse-gas accounting, and followed more recently by helping to advance credible next generation registry platforms and services at Clean Counts. During his career, Critchfield scaled the EPA’s Green Power Partnership program from its infancy to hundreds of organizations, pushing annual voluntary green-power procurement to more than 100 billion KWh annually and catalyzing nearly 19 GW of new renewable capacity nationwide.
“I’m humbled to accept the Center for Resource Solutions’ Leader of the Year award for my work in the renewable energy industry over the past 25 years. I’m dedicated to safeguarding transparency, trust and integrity across clean energy and carbon markets and this award is truly an honor,” said James Critchfield, CleanCount’s Head of Registry & Market Integrity. “But there is still much work in front of us to ensure that renewable energy is accessible for everyone across the US and I’m excited to be part of this movement. Congratulations to all the winners this year.”
In his new role at CleanCounts, Critchfield leads the development and governance of high-fidelity registries that safeguard transparency and trust across clean-energy and carbon markets. CleanCounts, formerly known as M-RETS, tracks generated energy outputs across North America, enabling market participants to validate and value the environmental benefits of renewable energy and renewable fuels. Through rigorous validation of the environmental benefits, verifiable data, and unbiased third-party verification, CleanCounts is now North America’s leading platform to obtain, transfer, or retire renewable energy certificates (RECs), renewable thermal certificates (RTCs), and alternative energy certificates (AECs).
“Throughout his career, James has been a driving force in promoting renewable energy,” said Jennifer Martin, CEO of Center for Resource Solutions, which presented the award. “His drive and commitment to growing the voluntary market, from his time at the U.S. EPA’s Green Power Partnership through today, is well known throughout this industry. We are proud today to present him with Green Power Leader of the Year, an award he truly deserves.”
About CleanCounts
CleanCounts, formerly known as M‑RETS, is North America’s most expansive clean energy registry and a trusted gateway to environmental markets. As a nonprofit organization, CleanCounts empowers participants across the energy ecosystem to track, trade, and validate clean energy production and consumption with confidence and transparency. To learn more about CleanCounts, please visit www.cleancounts.org
About the Green Power Leadership Awards
The annual Green Power Leadership Awards (GPLAs) are competitive awards that recognize outstanding commitments and achievements in the green power marketplace. By choosing green power instead of conventional electricity, consumers, businesses, and organizations can support increased deployment of renewable energy technologies that will reduce the environmental impact of electricity generation and increase energy security. The GPLAs are presented by the nonprofit Center for Resource Solutions at the annual Renewable Energy Markets conference. Learn more about the Green Power Leadership Awards at www.greenpowerleadershipawards.com.
About Center for Resource Solutions
Center for Resource Solutions’ (CRS’s) leadership through collaboration and environmental innovation builds policies and consumer-protection mechanisms in renewable energy and greenhouse gas reductions that foster healthy and sustained market growth. CRS runs the Green-e® certification program, the leading independent consumer protection program for the sale of renewable energy, greenhouse gas reductions, and renewable fuels in the retail market. Green-e provides forward-thinking organizations a simple, internationally recognized logo they can use to communicate their renewable energy and climate commitment to their customers and stakeholders. Learn more about CRS at resource-solutions.org.
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