#74. Calming climate anxiety + last chance to register for Sept. 15th event
Understory newsletter on climatetech and sustainability
Join us! This week we kick off our Fall event series with our September ‘Startups Driving Sustainability’ Showcase on Wednesday. Don’t miss hearing stories from these early and later stage startups: SolarKal, United by Zero, and Smartbin.io. We’ve also invited A100x Ventures to talk about the investment opportunities it sees across the sustainability landscape.
For those that can’t make it in person, we will post the recording shortly after the event. Register to get notified when it is available.
📚 Worth Reading
Are you familiar with the term ‘climate anxiety’? Also called eco-distress, it is the chronic fear of significant environmental impact. In Understory’s latest startup profile, we explain how Arbor’s new mobile app allows users to take direct action on climate change with the tap of a phone. Arbor makes it simple to have a climate impact, and reduce climate anxiety, by offsetting carbon-producing activities with contributions to climate positive activities.
🚀 Funding and Congrats!
Earthshot Ventures, a spin-out from Elemental Excelerator, raised a $60 million climate technology fund.
Revaia, previously Gaia Capital Partners, closed a €250 million fund that will be ESG focused. Revaia is based in Paris and is one of Europe’s largest female-founded VC funds.
Founders Factory and G-Force have launched the Founders Factory Sustainability Seed program, a remote pre/seed investment program for greentech startups.
Alder Fuels, a sustainable aviation fuel company, received a multi-million dollar joint investment from United Airlines and Honeywell.
Juno, a proptech startup that helps build sustainable apartment buildings, raised a $20 million seed round led by Comcast Ventures, Khosla Ventures, and Real Estate Technology Ventures.
Unspun, which builds custom, on-demand and sustainable jeans, raised a $7.5 million seed round. You can learn more about the business in our podcast episode with co-founder Kevin Martin.
💡 Startup Spotlight
Biohm is a biomanufacturing firm that is transforming the construction industry with its bio-based materials and circular construction systems.
👀 Quick Hits
A U.S. Energy Department Report indicated that the U.S. could increase its solar power usage from 3% (current) to 44% by 2050, but it would require $562 billion in funding over that time period.
Sustainable aviation fuel has potential to reduce transportation emissions but the impact is still unknown. In an effort to analyze and report the reduction in emissions, Chevron, Delta Airlines, and Google are teaming up to create a common and transparent model.
Climeworks launched the world’s largest carbon capture machine called Orca. Orca can draw down the same amount of emissions created by 870 cars. This new facility, based in Iceland, increases global direct air capture capacity by 50%.
In other carbon removal tech news, Shopify announced it has purchased 400 tons of carbon removal to help fund Heirloom’s first deployment. Heirloom, like Climeworks, is a direct air capture carbon removal system.
India’s climate technology startup ecosystem has raised $1.2 billion across 120 startups over the past five years.
🎧 Podcast
Hetal Parekh of EnerYields: financing green building projects
Abby Lyall of Big Idea Ventures: investing in foodtech
Climate Neutral: certifying climate claims
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.
Account Manager at Climate Neutral
Associate, Corporate Sustainability at BlackRock
Multiple Roles at TheRealReal
Vice President of Operations at LimeLoop
Head of Marketing at ZigZag Global
VP / Director of Marketing at Cloverly
Director of Sustainability Initiatives at Coca-Cola
Software Engineer at Joulea
Climate Data Analyst at CO2HERO
Multiple Roles at Patch
Sustainability Strategy Manager at Accenture
Sustainability Communications Specialist - CSR at Thermo Fisher
Director of Sustainability at MassMutual
Head of Sustainability Underwriting at Zurich North America
Chief of Staff, Sustainability at JPMorgan
Director, Strategic Initiatives (Circular Economy) at Walmart
Senior Product Manager, Re-commerce at REI
Senior Legislative Counsel at Earthjustice
Head of Product at KEY ESG
Marketing Associate at Big Idea Ventures
Head of Product, Bus Dev Director, Engineers at Nitricity
Developer roles at Gybe
Chief of Staff at ReGen Ventures
Senior Manager, Growth Strategy at R-Zero
Numerous Roles at CarbonCure
VP, Sustainability at Macy’s
Sr. Program Manager, Net Zero Carbon & Sustainability for Grocery at Amazon
Director, Energy & Sustainability Services at JLL
Circular Economy Specialist at Rubicon
🗓 Events
September 15: Startups Driving Sustainability - September Showcase (REGISTER NOW!)
October 21: Startups Driving Sustainability - October Showcase
October 28-30: Sustainable Fashion Week Atlanta
December 1: Startups Driving Sustainability - December Showcase
📧 Stay in Touch!
You don’t have to wait for our weekly newsletter for all the latest content. Join us on Slack or follow along on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter to see real-time updates.
Hope to see you at our showcase on Wednesday!