#132 | State of Climate Action + Climate-Conscious Portfolios
Understory newsletter on climate and sustainability tech
We hope to see you all at our Startup Showcase on WEDNESDAY, November 2nd! Register now to hear from our featured founders from Climate X, Capture6, 4Earth, and Vertical Activewear.
📚 Worth Reading
In advance of COP27, the World Resources Institute published the State of Climate Action 2022 assessing the climate action gap across industries. Key highlights:
“These transformations are not occurring nearly fast enough. This report assesses progress across 40 indicators of systems change and finds that none are on track to reach their 2030 targets.”
“Getting on track to achieve 2030 targets will require an enormous acceleration in effort. Unabated coal in electricity generation, for example, must be phased out six times faster than recent global rates. Improvements in cement production’s carbon intensity must increase much more quickly—by a factor of more than 10. And reductions in the annual deforestation rate must accelerate 2.5 times faster.”
Check out the report to see the breakdown by sector: power, buildings, industry, transport, forest and land, food and agriculture, carbon removal, and finance.
Worth reading: WRI: State of Climate Action 2022
Pebble Finance helps passive investors avoid climate unfriendly companies when building their investment portfolios. The company uses the concept of direct indexing to grant users the ability to pick and choose the companies that comprise their index funds. Ultimately this means that investors can easily support the companies that align with their individual values.
Worth reading: Climate-Conscious Portfolios with Pebble Finance
🚀 Funding and Congrats!
Battery recycling company Ascend Elements raised a $200 million Series C round.
Ostera which removes nutrients from wastewater to create fertilizers raised a $70 million Series C round.
Regenerative materials and packaging company Cruz Foam raised a $18 million Series A round.
Joro, an app that helps individuals track and reduce their carbon footprints, raised a $10 million Series A round.
Paebbl, a carbon storage company, raised a €8 million seed round.
Cleantech firm RIFT raised a €2M seed round.
Raise Green, a sustainable investment platform, raised a $1.2 million funding round. You can learn more about the company from our recent Showcase recording.
💡 Startup Spotlight
Botanical Water Technologies - creates drinking water by harvesting it from plant-based sources.
🌱 Startup Resources
Avery Dennison is looking to run paid pilots with 7-10 startups starting in May 2023 through their corporate pilot accelerator program, AD Stretch. Apply here.
Apply by October 31st: Activate New York Cohort 2023 - Fellowship Program
Apply by November 11th: Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas
Apply by November 18th: BNEF Pioneers Program
👀 Quick Hits
Countries across the globe are failing to meet their climate pledges. What does this mean for the future?
Massachusetts bans textile waste, including clothing, footwear and bedding, from landfills.
Breakthrough Energy Ventures plans to add adaptation tech to its portfolio, to complement existing investments in mitigation solutions.
🎧 Podcast
Jorge Bonilla: sustainable structures with bamboo
Hazel Horvath: empowering sustainable transformation
Marcelo Lando: developing renewables in Latin America
The Understory Podcast is also available on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and Google Podcasts.
⚙️ Jobs
Find and share your open positions on the Understory Slack channel.
🆕 Director of Communications at the Ray C. Anderson Foundation
🆕 CTO at Green Cloud Nine
🆕 Sr Mgr-GPC Strategy Sustainability at Disney Parks
🆕 Director of New Initiatives, Environmental Sustainability at Microsoft
🆕 Vice President, Sustainability at Sysco
Multiple openings at Climate X
Director of Product Management at Derapi
Chief of Staff at Arnie
Director - Sustainability at MetLife
Director of Sustainability at Nisolo
Director, Carbon Markets Policy and Governance at World Wildlife Fund
Director, Global Decarbonization Strategy and Program Management at Google
Carbon Partnerships Program Manager at Schneider Electric
Director, Sustainable Built Environment at Harvard University
Assistant Director - GSD Office of Sustainability at the City of Detroit
CEO & Co-Founder [Proptech] at Struck Studio
🗓 Events
November 2: Understory’s Startups Driving Sustainability - November Showcase
December 6: Understory’s Startups Driving Sustainability - December Showcase
Do you have any events to share? Post them in our Understory Slack community.
📧 Stay in Touch!
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