Notes from VERGE22

26.10.2022 — climate change, travel — 13 min read

This year I went to this cool climate tech conference https://events.greenbiz.com/events/verge/2022, here are some interesting notes!

Twitter Accounts Discovered

@jasonaramburu
@TroyCarter
@liamlimu
@sustaindotlife
@EarthshotLabs
@vesta_earth
@CarbonUpcycling
@kaiterra
@gomakeena
@efaurot
@wattTime
@SecGranholm
@ENERGY
@JuliaCollins
@PlanetFwd
@adamwerbach
@harvest_thermal
@yottaenergy
@jasonaramburu
@liamlimu
@nanransohoff
@SophiePurdom
@cleakolster
@lowercarbon
@climatetech_vc

[Carbon] Startup Pitching

Christine skelton, carbon upcycling.
Material science https://carbonupcycling.com/
Troy Carter, Earthshot labs https://www.earthshot.eco/
Big market: a billion hectars
Our LandOS platform provides state of the art AI ecological forecasting, financial modeling and risk assessment for investors and land stewards.
Biome, An easy to use mobile app that combines computer vision, AI and AR to measure trees 10X faster with no human error. Streamlines tree inventory work for improved biomass calculations and project MRV.
CTO patrick
Might be interesting for spencer, cindy
Tom, Vesta
Hard part in the market: supply of carbon removal
Annalee Bloomfield, Sustain.Life
Jason Aramburu, Climate Robotics
Other startups
Liam bates Kaiterra

[Product] Startup Pitching

Otrafy
Orbillion bio
Ecotone renewable
atarraya
https://makeena.com/ food sustainability data platform
https://calyx.eco/

[Energy] Wattime

GreenBiz CEO eric faurot
Gavin Mccormick, Wattime (wattime.org) Climate Action in the Era of Data Transparency
Infrared data from space
evaluate steel plant emissions and choose steel plant
Can tell if your EV is being charged by coal or by renwable
Can tell if ship is emitting CO2
Carbon potentials
2Gt potential for changing steel plants
0.2Gt potential for changing shipping
0.4Gt potential for EV cars charging
Transition Zero: climate trade coalition. Providing data for anything that emits CO2 on the planet
Emissionality
Multiply efficiency of carbon reductions
Generational change in high quality climate data
Google map
"most fuel efficient"
Default user to fuel efficient route
Shana Rappaport, SVG
- https://www.climatetrace.org
- https://www.watttime.org
- winner of google 2019 ai impact challenge https://www.watttime.org/news/watttime-chosen-as-google-ai-impact-grantee
- https://www.watttime.org/solutions/measuring-power-
plant-emissions-from-space/
- annual emission reporting

[Policy] Kim Stanely Robinson

Miss Mollywood, Kim Stanely Robinson (The MInstry of Future), Delton Chen wrote the original paper (gobalcarbonreward.org, policy developer)
Utopian sci fi writer: if we dodge mass extinction is already good
We have solutions but not money
"Hypothesis for carbon cost.." Dalton Cheng
Central banks doing carbon QE
People want that story
Delton Chen
Wrote the original carbon coin paper
Use shared carbon currency to solve the free rider problem
He is an engineer, suspicious that standard economic model is missing some things. Carbon markets disfunctional, no economic infra for carbon removal
Kim Stanely Robinson
Old vietnam era hippie
Kayesian economics as the most effective and socially just method to deploy right now
Private capital put into governments during WWII when trasurey bought BoE debt
Payment for carbon capital should be directed by government, not neo liberal but kayesian economics theory
Global carbon reward organisation from Delton Chen
False dicotomy between green growth and strong growth
Symbosys where money are moved to green debt-free economy
Project instilled for 8 years or more
Strategic plan to raise the support and money to undertake a policy demonstration that is going to take 3 years that is design to engage with stakeholders, in particular decision makers in business in fossil fuel and consumptive economy and experts in central banks and community, engage with all these stakeholders
Kim Stanely Robinson
How does it feel that people are trying to implement solutions from the book?
People wanted the story to be true, everyone is a "brick in a wall" and is hard to get it paid for.
A genre in itself "utopia", Thomas More
Glass half empty or hall full, everything that we need is there, we just miss the story that put it all together to make the financing happening. We need clarity in the finance
Deep dive this afternoon

[Policy] Secretary Jenninfer Granholm, State

Never a better time to work in climate tech
The full force of administration behing climate tech
Cut US emissions in half by end of this decade
We have the legislation to make it happen
(great public speaking)
Three pieces of legislation with .5 T $ of funding
(missed first climate legislation)
Chips and science act
IRA
Now they are just lines of text! Need to "translate those lines of text into transmission lines" and real action
Send us proposal with bold climate energy project
CCUS
23$ T climate market size by end of decade
The federal government is handing out money for energy efficiency
What happened in the last 10 year, fast pace of progress
Imagine what that world is goig to look like in 10 years

[Resilience] Acey Charisma, Climate Juice

Climate Justice
Real chance that most of that money will make a little difference
We have a real bias when it comes to climate science and tech
Nigeria two weeks ago: floods! Also in Pakistan
Climate Justice and Climate Reparation and Human Rights of those impacted by climate change
Study on 100k climate studies. 2 to 1 of studies are done in europe and us. There is a hole in our understanding of climate change
Satellite data have low precision on developing countries
We (might be) are underestimating global warming
International Humanitarian Relief
"There is no away"
West oakland is polluted, disproportinate cancer asma and life expectation
Not Climate Change but System Change
Science 1997 system model of human domination over nature ecosystem
Those models leave out the inequality among people that's driving exploitatinon of lands .. that are the true driver of climate change
Adaptation
There are some consequences of climate crisis we can not come back from (sea level rise)
These impacts that we are feelig we are going to feel them more, there is no way to stop them
Correlation between climate disaster and social vulnerability: inequalities in funding -> more climate crisis
Frontline voices
Green gentrifications

[Energy] Sara Golden, VP Energy

IRA, war in ukraine, stability of clean energy attractive
overhyped : The clean energy transition is inevitable
Grid not ready, trusting momentum alone not safe
Underhyped: Tailored local energy storage and generation (small nuclear)
Early movers must act swiftly
Buildings are 40% of global emissions

[Corporate] Amazon Future Forward

amazon “future forward” serie
amazon net zero by 2040
the climate pledge

[Environment] Aulani Wilhelm on Oceans and Angeline Chen Global Coralition

Aulani Wilhelm, White House science and tech
Kakani went to the Marianna trench , chief scientist ENRI
90% of all warming absorbed by ocean
ocean climate action plan
we can not get to climate objective without the ocean
less than 1% of venture capital goes into ocean
propeller venture capital 100M of VC funding in the ocean
exploration and ocean mapping
she went 7 miles under ocean and she saw a beer bottle
only 23% or world ocean mapped
“gotta get a handle on our own planet”
coral science
daughter of nobel prize
they put sculptures in the sea beds!
solar powered colar farms

[Product] Own Your Influence To Shape Consumer Food Choices

Rebecca Chesney, Director for food systems design IDEO
Gasina Beckert, direct of research and opes, food for climate league (how to eat climate smart )
Certifications and labelling
Coming from behavioural change perspective
"We put calories information there it didn't change behaviour"
Just seeing a label here and there are not going to change behaviour
Niche is people who are actively looking
Most people waiting for active incentives
From a choice perspective, instead of label think about menu architecture
Cooking sustainabily is seeing as a constraint
Julia Collins, Found & CEO at Planet FWD where , how to get sustainable product to market (they help add food companies to add climate labels on their products)
Data driven software platform
https://www.planetfwd.com/
60% of global emissions come from consumer use. Consumer brands have the power to stop the harm and begin the healing.
Link between food and decarbonisation
Relationship between what we eat and the world we want to be in
Food to help health of humans and health on the planet
Contextualise of data: how data is playing in the eating narrative?
Empower and allow brands and go and have climate conversations with their consumers
They are the "analyst"
What does high quality climate data mean in oct 2022?
Scope 3 emissions , 89% of CO2 impact is from scope 3. Supply chain complex.
Historically: purchase data
What to do when you have data? Where the emissions are coming from. Which part of the supply chain is creating carbon
How to leverage data to help customers solve problems
People
Broad spectrum to consumer categories
Product developers reach out to interact with our solutions
Engineer climate friendliness into product
Integrate climate from beginning can influence product (consumer product)
"Big food redesign" report: opportunities for designing nature positive food from the net g
Quick online research
One of the food brand that uses planetfwd https://justsalad.com/carbonlabel
"26% of global carbon emissions are created by the food system"
Products that have carbon informations!!!! https://www.orderjustsalad.com/view/menu/13?_gl=1%2anmkzix%2a_ga%2aMTY1ODYxNTk0Mi4xNjY2ODE4Nzgw%2a_ga_99FT3530WL%2aMTY2NjgxODc4MC4xLjEuMTY2NjgxODc5My4wLjAuMA..
Idea: identify advertiser that are already trying to upload carbon data! Does just salad upload co2e informations?
Facebook page of just salad https://www.facebook.com/justsalad/posts/pfbid025RF8S81iQsQoSgCk3kkju3S7N7nhooxVZLi1PRXYYiQQy2j95GFQ7Eyp2AF6Ef1wl
Though Collins declined to go into detail about growth metrics, she did say the company is now working with 25 customers, including Kashi, Pangaia, Just Salad, Numi Organic Tea, Healthy Hippo, Toodaloo and Sweet Loren’s.
Idea: partner with watershed like to support carbon scoring
Happy hour for people in food! 17:15 at market terrace
Sara Burnett
Panara "Food Beliefs"
Whold food bage
38% lower carbon than traditional meal https://www.panerabread.com/en-us/food-values/food-beliefs/cool-food-meals.html
Rather than put a number, simple enough that is a good housekeeping
Hasn't shifted consumption
Half of sales online
People are not going to eat differently because of a label
Label is just a way to move from awareness to action and start a conversation
Post purchase emails: A/B tests. did you know you order cool food meal? Increases their frequency of returning to buy
Launched in 2020, no holdout . Now just online, in Jan gonna be put in store.
Consistently increasing conversion: hey what I love to eat is also good for the planet
https://www.facebook.com/panerabread/ check if they have ads
Idea: make a dataset with stuff like panerabread and just salad

[Product] Amazon Sustainable Shopping

Lots of other panel around how to compute carbon data
Communication carbon data
Hanna cagimora, head of sustainability at alberts?
Measuring carbon data
Francisco benedito
CEO climate trade
First blockchain climate marketplace
Algorand greenest blockchain
Traceability
The amazon for climate
Computing and offsetting transactions
Adam werbach
Custom and employee impact
The Climate Pledge
376 companies making carbon commitment
You can't shop your way to climate change
Climate pledge friendly
Discover products they wouldn't have already found that have sustainability certifications
They also created certifications (they have good packaging data)
Fair trade international along different carbon certifications, we identify certifications of brand that have
370+M climate pledge friendly products
Mouse: "climate pledge friendly"
Some verticals not covered
Click on badge get more informations
Sending people to certiciation pages
Program inclusion leadsr climate
Computing and offsetting transactions
Adam werbach
Custom and employee impact
The Climate Pledge
376 companies making carbon commitment
You can't shop your way to climate change
Climate pledge friendly
Discover products they wouldn't have already found that have sustainability certifications
They also created certifications (they he I: 4000 eco certifications in the world
Type II: self reported
Type III: LCA life cycle assessment, time consuming and costly
Algorithm that convert data into comparative scores
70 brands, SKUs
Ecommerce everlastly https://everlastly.com/
Allbirds: great LCA still challenging for customers
Assess environmental footprint at product level
Q: do you share your data?
Q&As Why you excited about this space? And others
Nathan
Negative externalities
Quantify negative externalities for consumer product
Simplicity with information that sits below us
Adam
Activist background
Greenpeace
Trove : recommerce for patagonia and lululemon
Invention space
no one is looking for carbon score
No one types "want low carbon shoe"
But when they get to choose
Progressive disclosure
Theory of nanopractices, homo economicus
That tells you who you are, connects who you are where you live, how you vote
Tenet: 464 certifications evaluated and selected! Choose 40 top certifications
Inventions
Compact by design
We would love not to be in this business
Pull external stakeholders
Figure out together , not only one retailer to manage it
10% higher views, does that translate in more purchases?
We haven't released conversion data
Selling partners on amazon are highly motivated by 10% increase in page views
There are dead ends: a lot of things don't work! The last thing you want to do is to push people away. Even saying nothing might be the right choice. Not a silver bullet.
Main stream customer not looking to lots of carbon inromation
Standardisation questions: is gonna become a regulated number -> search by carbon
Amazon aware
Cognitive overload

[Energy] Energy Startups

Andrew tanner, YOTA energy
Solar leaf energy storage system
Safest lithium ion for rooftop
Industry first plug and play solar + storage
Harvest Thermal, cofounder
Get gas of our home
Moment Energy, cofounder
EV battery recycling
Dilan Lu, ecotone renewables
Convert food waste in liquid fertilizers
Jason Arronbu, climate robotics
To beat climate change we must harness power of biosphere
Tractors that make biochar on the fields
Kaiterra, Liam Bates liam@kaiterra.com
11% of global energy is use on heating ventilate and cool air
Air purificationand efficiency
8 figure revenue

[Energy] Klea Costler, Lower Carbon Capital

Klea Costler
Fixing the planet is just good business
Solutions categories
Solution that reduce CO2 emissions, decarbonise heavy industry, stuff that is materially better than incumbent
How to we build carbon removal industry from ground up, 1Mx that industry
Buy more time for those in the frontline, like better data to inform paramedics,
Going through massive energy crisis felt thought he european reason, fluctuate 6,7x
Solution like solar and storage end up being the economic choice, is about making that choice more easy and available
Heat pumps more efficient, fragmented market
Startups in this space they are all riding on tech innovation trends in hardware (?)
Other Speaker, THird Derivative, Elaine Hsiesh
Global climate accelerator for RMI
Over 100 startups
winner
Harvest thermal

[Social] Keynote 2: Mo gawdat (Mo Gawdat) author Solve for Happy and other speakers

Solve for happy
Climate anxiety -> climate action
Climate change is a consumerism problem (?)
Become a billionarie with a billion happy people
No one wake up in the morning and they want to destroy the world
people are inside systems of making money
That's why young people need to say "i am not going to buy your product unless it takes into account our future" (ref sustainable shopping)
Technology we need already created: trees
Clover
First thing that need to happen: that the climate emergy is an emergy and need emergy type response
We are on track for 1B climate migrants for 2050
pakistan 33M displaced people because of flood
1.5M people displace in nigeria
Justice crisis
Biggest challenge we ever faced, most important challenge for us to work on

[Startups] Climte Pledge Amazon

Seonghoon woo amogy
Maritime tech, fuels for ships, ammonia as green energy
Ivonna dumanyan, hippo harvest
Yields
Malnutrition
https://www.hippoharvest.com/
Less water
Same dollar with instead of outdoor ag do it CEA
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivonnadumanyan/ is a thiel fellow with digital health
Alex meek, moxion power
Crisis response
Mobile power supply after flooding
Robert schuetzle, infinium
https://www.infiniumco.com/ elecrotfuels for transport
Drop in replacement liquid fuels, same specs as today but instead of being produced petroleum we need e-fuels (waste CO2, green hydrogen)

[Carbon] Frontier carbon session, Sophie

Nan ransohoff head of climate
Gigaton scale carbon removal
6 gigaton per year by 2050
Those solutions by themselves won't scale to the size of the problem
Carbon removal is behind only 10k removed
IPCC 2018 made people realise we need CDR
$30M spent buying permanent carbon removal
No intrinsic value
Idea: climate at stripe
Early customers can accelerate new technologies down the cost curve
Borrowed idea from vaccine, $1B for carbon removal
Technology agnostic demand signal
Aggregating buyers, frontier vet suppliers
Target criteria: Durability , ok if it's expensive and low volume today
First purchases in June (AspiraDAC, Lithos, RepAir)
6 month increase in pre-application for carbon purchases
Volontary markets not gonna get us there
This is a growth story
Demand pull (shaking a carrot) signal to get more companies to
Supply side, research grants, supporting capex
"Well said"
AMC why is it so important to not set a price but total willingness to pay?
Tesla couldn't go from roadster down the way
Weird AMC: is not the entire market
Forward looking curve of carbon removal price
Can't judge from their cost, what do you have to believe for that to be cheap in the future
Let's learn what works and what doesn't in the cheapest way
Stacy kauk head of sustainability shopfiy
Entrepreneurship accessible everywhere
100 year company (?)
One day we are going to be all regulated for carbon like we are regulated on taxes
Mitigating future risk for our business
If you want to be buying high quality carbon removal
Will be a supply constrained market, there is going to be market clearing activities
How to build MRV system for something that hasn't been built
How do you build verification and measurement system
Right now we need to focus on quantification
MRV right is about getting out, doing the actual thing,
Rest of the market needs carbon certification approval in order to jump in
Publicly trading company with fiduciary duty to not overspend on something also with climate commitment
You can not buy something that is not verified , no room for risk for big corps
Carbon removal is on the future path for your business
Start spending on carbon removal to build your muscle and learn
"My job is to loose money" lol

[Carbon] Carbon Removal w/ Lower Carbon Capital

DAC HUBS $3.5B for 4 hubs of carbon removal in US https://www.energy.gov/bil/four-regional-clean-direct-air-capture-hubs
- IRA 44 qtax credit , 180$/ton 130$/ton utilisiation
Anthony Cottone, 1PointFive and Oxy (oil and gas!)
We are not waiting for grants
71M direct air capture facilities
Get revenue when you sequestrate CO2e
Hub in west texas
"We are going to need oil and gas for a long time"
Clea Kolster
LCC fund entirely dedicated to carbon capture $350M
Traditional and new stuff Biomass conversion
Raise that fund cause we realised there is already market
Purchasing carbon removal credit from private sector entities
There is a market already
Private companies, majority of 100 large companies in the world have some form of net zero goals that are going to require net zero removal plans
Fundantionally our funds doesn't rely on gov grant, but incentives
Carbon removal market is existing and growing to a place $100B in next 10 20 ys
Not all companies in portfolio benefitting from DAC hub
$3.5B for DAC hub is great
Clea has been working on carbon removal on carbon capture before it was cool
Today you have 100s of companies that are working on CDR
We need to scale by 1Mx
Brightest mind on the world want to go work on this, proud of this
Private sector money going into this
Inherentily assumes that CDR is going to be part of their carbon sect
New tech really important because incumbent tech (direct air capture) we are talking about doubling are total global electricity demand
Tax credit for CDR, definition rather narrow and reduce minimum facility size by a thousand
It also requires lots of financial insurance that small startups can't do
Challenge around permiting of …. 3-6 years process
You need to lobby for it or wait years, so not viable for startups
Risks between companies?
No, climate tech space and CDR in particular is one of th emost collaborative we see in the industry
Most groups look to be collaborative cause they want to be collaborative
Celina Scott Buechler @cleobu, Data for Progress https://www.dataforprogress.org/
How do we make sure DAC hubs are space for CDR innovation specificically
CDR how to ebate emissions
2050 onwards we need to be net negative
Initial $3.5B they are centering communities that is not shifting a mission around on a ledgerbook but is actually net negative
Eventually compensate for the enormous carbon debt that we owe the world
Other countries need that extra room
DAC Hubs represent is the first real opportunity for large government that has carbon debt to the world to do things right and monitor where carbon is stored in a way that is equitable
DOE has put great thought into it
Ideal outcomes for DAC hubs?
Funding oportunity announcemnt will defined who benefit, right now still unclear
Community benefit plan, engaging community around the site you might choose for DAC hub
Currently we just have "Notice of intent" we need to see what comes out
Lots of excitement for small scale company at the stage where they are development tech where they are able to switch things around when stuff come sout
Quote "we are going to grow oil and gas drilling in such a way that is carbon neutral" (???)
CDR is laughed out of the room in DC
How can Oxy start divesting funding of expansion of oil and gas
Petronova: 90% capture inefficiency but 7% carbon reduction, https://www.nrg.com/case-studies/petra-nova.html