From Vision to Execution: How Raphaella Gomes Advances Low-Carbon Solutions
Raphaella Gomes
Raphaella Gomes is the Founder and CEO of New Gaia Strategies, a consulting and investment platform advancing the energy transition across emerging markets by aligning ambitious climate goals with local realities. She is also the Co-Founder of GoClean Energies, which develops decentralized solutions that convert urban solid waste into clean fuels such as green diesel and renewable natural gas — scalable, circular, and potentially carbon-negative technologies designed for impact across the Global South. Raphaella serves on the Board of Agrosmart, advises McKinsey on climate and innovation, and sits on the Advisory Board of Futuria Fuels.
With two decades of cross-sector leadership — from global roles at Shell, to building low-carbon businesses at Raízen, to becoming the first female CEO in Votorantim’s history while leading the investment firm Floen — Raphaella has earned recognition from Forbes Brazil, LinkedIn, and the Brazilian energy sector for her influence and vision. An IESE Business School alumna and IMAGINE Leader, she is known as a curious, optimistic, and collaborative changemaker dedicated to accelerating Brazil’s role in the global energy transition. Outside her work, she enjoys life in the rural hills of Rio de Janeiro, where nature, learning, and family ground her leadership journey.
“The decisive challenge isn’t innovation; it’s building the systems that allow climate solutions to scale fast and reliably.”
Raphaella, tell us about how your work intersects with the impact space.
My work sits at the intersection of energy transition, climate innovation, and emerging-market development. I lead New Gaia Strategies, a consultancy and investment platform focused on accelerating decarbonisation in Brazil and Latin America, and I co-founded GoClean Energies, a venture turning urban waste into renewable fuels such as green diesel, renewable natural gas and, in the future, SAF.
Across both fronts, the impact lens is not an add-on — it’s the core of the strategy. The energy transition in emerging markets demands solutions that deliver emissions reduction, cost competitiveness, and real social value simultaneously. Much of my work is about closing that triangle. This means structuring investments in biomethane and waste-to-fuel infrastructure, designing policy and market mechanisms that unlock scale, and helping industrial clients shift from fossil to low-carbon energy without compromising reliability or economics.
I come from a background in bioenergy, biogas and large-scale project development, and I’ve seen how climate solutions only reach their potential when they are financially viable, technically robust, and locally grounded. That’s where my work overlaps with impact: using engineering, finance and strategy to take ideas that are “good for the world” and make them “good business,” capable of attracting capital and achieving scale. The goal is simple — build what comes next, and make sure it actually works in the real world.
What is your own definition of impact?
Impact, for me, is measurable transformation. It is the point where an idea delivers three things at once: real emissions reduction, economic value that stands on its own, and local benefits that endure beyond the project. If it cannot be measured, financed, and replicated at scale, it is not impact — it is intention. Real impact changes systems, not just narratives.
Raphaella, what do you see as the most important issue to address in the next 10 years?
One of the most urgent issues for the next decade is closing the gap between climate ambition and real-economy execution. The science is clear, the technologies largely exist, and capital is increasingly available — yet deployment remains far too slow.
The core problem is not a lack of solutions, but the inability to scale them in the places where they matter most. Emerging markets need reliable, affordable, low-carbon energy; industries need viable alternatives to fossil fuels; cities need circular waste systems; and investors need clear rules and predictable markets. Today, the bottleneck sits at this intersection of regulation, infrastructure, and market design.
If we don’t solve this, we risk remaining in a world of pilots and announcements rather than systems that actually reduce emissions at scale. Reports from the International Energy Agency, McKinsey’s Global Energy Perspective, and BCG’s Climate Report all point to the same conclusion: execution, not innovation, is now the limiting factor.
Over the next ten years, the priority must be building the enabling conditions that turn climate solutions into mainstream economic activity — permitting, financing frameworks, stable regulation, grid and gas infrastructure, workforce development, and market mechanisms that reward low-carbon choices.
If this foundation is built, technologies like biomethane, waste-to-fuel, green hydrogen, large-scale renewables, and industrial electrification can scale fast enough to matter. Without it, we will continue to fall short regardless of how much innovation or capital we have.
The decisive issue is execution at scale — turning what is technically possible into what becomes economically and socially normal.
What is the greatest challenge you face to scale your impact?
In the energy-transition and waste-to-fuel sectors, three practical barriers slow the delivery of impact.
The first is regulatory uncertainty. Projects that could scale quickly — biomethane, waste-to-fuel, industrial electrification — depend on clear, stable rules for interconnection, pricing, certificates and permitting. In many markets, regulation evolves slower than technology, creating delays that the IEA and EPE repeatedly flag as structural obstacles.
The second is infrastructure. Brazil and other emerging markets have strong resource potential but limited grid, gas and logistics capacity. Without predictable access to pipelines, transmission, waste supply chains and financing mechanisms, even technically ready projects struggle to move beyond pilots. McKinsey’s Global Energy Perspective 2024 shows that infrastructure bottlenecks are now one of the main reasons low-carbon fuels are not scaling fast enough.
The third is the fragmentation of the value chain. Impact solutions require coordination across municipalities, utilities, industry, technology providers and financiers. In practice, incentives are often misaligned. Waste-to-fuel plants depend on stable feedstock contracts; industrial offtakers need long-term price visibility; investors want standardised risk structures. Until these pieces converge, projects take years instead of months to reach investment decision.
All of this leads to the same outcome: we have the technology and the capital, but not yet the enabling environment for rapid deployment. The challenge is less about innovation and more about building the systems — regulatory, financial and infrastructural — that allow climate solutions to scale with the speed the next decade demands.
“Technology alone doesn’t create impact; systems, policy, and economics make it real.”
Raphaella, what is your long-term vision and how do you measure & quantify your impact?
My long-term vision is to help make low-carbon energy and circular waste solutions part of the economic mainstream in Brazil and other emerging markets — not exceptions, not pilots, but core infrastructure. The goal is to build systems where biomethane, waste-to-fuel, renewable heat and green molecules become as reliable and cost-effective as today’s fossil alternatives. That requires coordinated progress across regulation, capital, technology and industrial demand, and my work is focused on accelerating that convergence. In consulting (New Gaia), the vision is to help large industrials and investors shift from incremental decarbonisation to structural transformation — new supply chains, new business models and long-term competitiveness. In venture building (GoClean), the vision is to prove that urban waste can reliably produce renewable fuels at scale, with economics strong enough to replicate units across cities. Impact is measured using hard metrics, not narrative. On the environmental side, we track avoided emissions (tCO₂e), lifecycle intensity reductions (gCO₂e/MJ), methane abatement, waste diverted from landfills (t/year), and displacement of fossil fuels (m³ of biomethane, litres of green diesel). Methodologies follow IPCC, GHG Protocol, Renovabio CI models and IEA lifecycle frameworks. Economic impact is quantified through cost competitiveness, capex deployed, private capital mobilised, project IRR, local supply-chain participation and job creation. Social impact is measured through municipal waste-service improvements, local hiring, and regional development indicators. The long-term vision is simple: build climate solutions that endure — technically, financially and socially — and demonstrate, with evidence, that decarbonisation in emerging markets is both possible and profitable.
What are some misconceptions you’ve noticed regarding what “impact” is all about?
A few misconceptions appear repeatedly.
The first is the belief that impact is mainly about intention or storytelling. In practice, impact only exists when results can be measured — emissions reduced, waste avoided, efficiency improved, livelihoods strengthened. Good narratives don’t compensate for weak fundamentals.
Another misconception is that impact and financial performance sit on opposite sides of the table. In the energy transition, the opposite is true. Projects that genuinely reduce emissions and solve real-world problems tend to be more resilient, attract better capital and scale faster. The IEA, McKinsey and BCG all point to this convergence as a structural trend, not an exception.
A third misconception is that technology alone creates impact. Technology is necessary, but insufficient. Impact emerges when technology is paired with economics, policy, and local capability. I see many pilots succeed technically yet fail to scale because they ignore infrastructure, regulation or market design.
There is also a tendency to equate “new” with “impactful.” In reality, some of the highest-impact solutions — energy efficiency, waste reduction, biogas, electrification — are not new. They are simply under-deployed. The work is less about invention and more about disciplined execution.
Finally, many assume impact is a niche. In Brazil and other emerging markets, it is central to competitiveness. Decarbonising fuels, reducing waste and improving energy security are not side agendas; they are core economic priorities.
In short, the misconception is thinking impact is soft. It is rigorous, data-driven and economically grounded — or it does not last.
Get Involved
Interested in connecting with our private global network of investors, founders, and experts building real, scalable solutions? Learn more and apply to join the Top Tier Impact Network and access future convenings, collaborations, and deal flow.