The Understory Newsletter on ClimateTech and Sustainability #66 🌳
Dear subscribers, happy Monday! Welcome to another edition of our newsletter. This previous week, we launched a new podcast episode with Just Salad’s Chief Sustainability Officer. From this podcast episode, you will learn how Just Salad is advancing its reusable bowl program (pioneer in the industry), food waste management, and sustainable supply chain. We are fortunate to have the opportunity to talk to Just Salad’s Chief Sustainability Officer (this is not an ad or sponsored post!).
We also look forward to seeing you at our July 21 Startup event. We have some amazing companied lined up to talk about what they are working on and answer your questions. Have an amazing and climate-friendly week! 🙏
📚 Worth Reading
The European Commission announced its fines on major car manufacturers for restricting competition on clean car technology. Essentially, the Commission said that Daimler, BMW and Volkswagen Group (VW, Audi, and Porsche) colluded on clean tech and agreed to use the same technology so that the market and consumers do not know about alternatives and cannot access better clean car technology. It’s a very interesting case, and a type of collusion that we do not think about everyday. For EU to call out its major players takes courage and shows how government can play a very important role in helping to advance climate technologies from an enforcement and competition perspectives.
“‘ Executive Vice-President of the Commission Margrethe Vestager, in charge of competition policy said: “The five car manufacturers Daimler, BMW, Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche possessed the technology to reduce harmful emissions beyond what was legally required under EU emission standards. But they avoided to compete on using this technology's full potential to clean better than what is required by law. So today's decision is about how legitimate technical cooperation went wrong. And we do not tolerate it when companies collude. It is illegal under EU Antitrust rules. Competition and innovation on managing car pollution are essential for Europe to meet our ambitious Green Deal objectives. And this decision shows that we will not hesitate to take action against all forms of cartel conduct putting in jeopardy this goal.’”
🗓 Events
July 21: Startups Driving Sustainability - July Showcase
Don’t miss presentations by:
Open Water - making sustainable and climate neutral bottled water
Topl - using blockchain to increase transparency in ESG initiatives
NEXT Energy Technologies - transforming windows into solar energy
👀 Quick Hits
European Union is considering aviation fuel tax to curb carbon emission. EU will tax polluting fuels. The proposal is intended to help EU meet its carbon emission reduction goals by 55%.
G20 highlighted carbon pricing as a potentially important tool to help with decarbonization. There is carbon credit market right now but the pricing is not as sophisticated as pricing for other asset classes.
Four global banks will pilot a carbon offset trading platform next month. The four participating banks are: NatWest Group, CIBC, National Australia Bank, and Itaú Unibanco.
Relentless heat wave with another fire in California. Death Valley temperature hit 130 degrees.
Deforestation in Brazil rises for the fourth consecutive month.
🚀 Funding and Congrats!
Breezometer, a data provider of air quality, pollen, and fire alerts, raised $30 million Series C.
Cloverly, a company that provides APIs to measure and offset carbon usage, raised $2.1 million.
Blackstone acquires Sphera, an ESG software provider, in a $1.4 billion deal.
Heliogen, a clean energy company that looks to replace fossil fuels, is now going public through SPAC with Athena Technology Acquisition Corporation (NYSE: $ATHN). The combined company is expected to go public under the ticker $HLGN in Q42021.
💡 Startup Spotlight
BreezoMeter - its location-based Air Pollution, Pollen & Active Fires information enables businesses to develop solutions that help reduce exposure to environmental hazards.
🎧 Podcast
Just Salad: pioneering zero waste in restaurants
A Good Company: mitigating mindless consumption
LimeLoop: revolutionizing smart reusable packaging
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.
Climatetech Financial Analyst at Climate Collective
Fellowship Senior Product Manager at The Cartier Women’s Initiative
Senior Product Manager at The RealReal
Sustainability Director at Avery Dennison
Packaging & Sustainability Expert at The Clorox Company
Environmental Data Analyst at Arc’teryx
Multiple Roles at Rheaply
Senior Product Marketing Manager, Carbon Buyer at Indigo
Head of Sales at LimeLoop
Multiple Roles at Cervest
Brand Partnerships Manager at TerraCycle
Circular Economy Product Manager at Iron Mountain
Head of ESG Solutions, Energy at AWS
Sr. Program Manager, NA Transportation Sustainability at Amazon
Sustainability & Social Impact Lead at Adobe
Sustainability Program Manager - Carbon at Facebook
Senior Director, Sustainability at Tory Burch
Associate for Sustainability and ESG Strategies at JP Morgan
Head of Sales at Lizee
Business Developer & Sales at Resortecs
Product manager and engineers at Topl
📧 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.
Until next week!