Invested In Climate

Are you ready to uncover the truth about our food systems and its impact on our planet? Last week, we delved into the topic of soil and regenerative agriculture, and this week, we're taking a closer look at the larger picture of food and its role in climate change. As it turns out, food is not only something we interact with every day, but it's also a complex web of industries, processes, and rela...

Welcome to an episode on agtech, soil health and regenerative agriculture. Here’s some context: one of the big mysteries we’re facing today is how we’re possibly going to feed 10 billion people while transforming agricultural practices that are truly unsustainable. Modern farming is a technological marvel that has dramatically reduced hunger over the last century, but it relies heavily on syntheti...

Happy New Year - and welcome to the first episode of 2023! We have two special guests with us today to discuss exciting opportunities for climate progress. We’re joined by Matt Ridenour, the Head of Startup Ecosystems for Google . Matt is a dear friend who I had the pleasure of working with for several years at IDEO . He’s now leading accelerator programs at Google, and he’s here to talk about an...

This is going to be our last episode for 2022. We’ll be back in January with more great conversations. If you have ideas for episodes or topics you’d like us to explore, please reach out through our contact form or on LinkedIn . I’ve had a blast getting this podcast started and I’m excited for it to only get better as we continue. A big thank you to all our guests, to our listeners providing feedb...

The future is electric - especially when it comes to cars. Demand for electric vehicles is far outpacing supply, and automakers are rolling out more or more EV models as governments around the world set clear timelines for when new gas-powered cars will no longer be allowed.  The transition to EV is good news for our climate. Transportation creates over a quarter of global greenhouse gas emis...

If you look at climate change as a systems problem (which it is), it doesn’t take long to see the important role of finance. Yes, there’s phenomenal growth in ESG investing, alongside funding in clean energy and climate tech. However, overall, our financial system has failed to factor in climate risks and climate impacts. According to the climate disclosure nonprofit CDP, just 1% of companies prov...

If you’re interested in venture investing in climate tech, you probably already know about Climate Tech VC (CTVC) . It began as a side hustle and small newsletter and now reaches 40,000 people. In my opinion, there’s really no better source of data and insights around climate tech investing.  In this episode, I sat down with CTVC's Co-Founder Kim Zou. Kim was an investor at Energy Impact Part...

You're probably aware that venture capital investing in climate has grown very quickly in recent years, from around five billion in 2016 to over 40 billion dollars deployed in 2021. Large funds drive most of that growth, but small vehicles still play an important role - especially in recruiting new investors to start investing in climate.  Sundeep Ahuja has helped many investors dip their toe...

Have you come across the idea yet that we need to electrify everything ? It's the concept that we need to replace gas appliances with electric ones and power those with renewable energy. It's a simply idea really, and yet it's crucial to eliminating pollution, protecting the environment, saving a whole lot of money and eliminating the illnesses caused by burning fossil fuels. The benefits are mass...

Tackling climate change can’t be left to companies and governments. The nonprofit sector plays a crucial role in everything from research, education, conservation, helping communities cope with climate impacts and much more. There’s literally tens of thousands of environmental nonprofits, and almost all depend on philanthropy to do the vital work they do.  And yet, only a tiny fraction of glo...

Ever get carry out food and then feel guilty about all the plastic packaging? Single use plastics are a real problem. Every year over 14 millions tons of plastic end up in our oceans, and plastic that ends up in landfills release toxins that pollute our soil, waterways and food chain. This is not to mention the carbon emissions of producing plastic packaging to begin with.  The convenience of...

I’ve been really curious about seaweed. I hear a lot about seaweed-based businesses, and there’s a lot of hope and hype around the potential for seaweed as a climate solution. The seaweed market has grown to become a $15 billion industry and it's projected to grow to $25 billion by 2028.   To learn more, I caught up with two aspiring seaweed startup founders: Alexia Akbay and Julia Marsh...

A couple weeks ago our episode focused on Speed & Scale , a comprehensive action plan to cut  emissions in half by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050. It's a book and an ambitious ongoing effort to track global progress on addressing climate change.  This week we focus again on a book and ambitious ongoing effort: The Carbon Almanac . Over 300 volunteers created the book, and now it's a...

I’m not going to sugar coat this – fast fashion stinks. It creates a truly unfathomable amount of wasted materials, water, labor, money and carbon emissions. This means it provides the perfect context for discussing today’s prevailing paradigm for eradicating waste – not just in fashion, but in all sectors. The idea is a bold one – that we can transform our economy from an extractive, wasteful, li...

My favorite read in the last couple years by far is a book called Speed & Scale . We know there’s been a massive mobilization of capital, talent and attention to address climate change, but how do we know if it’ll be enough?  Speed & Scale offers a clear, sector by sector, action plan and online tracker of what we need to do to cut emissions in half by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050....

Today’s episode focused on food waste, a topic that I love talking about as it's one of the most accessible ways for pretty much anyone to make a difference on climate change.  Wasting food is a huge problem. Roughly 40% of the world’s food is wasted each year, while almost a billion people are undernourished. Further, wasted food adds up to 8-10% of all human-caused greenhouse gas emiss...

This week’s episode was a lot of fun. Tom Chi is one of the biggest thinkers I’ve encountered in the climate space. He was one of the founding members of GoogleX, leading teams that developed self-driving cars, Google Glass, high altitude balloons that broadcast the internet and much, much more. He also helped build Microsoft Outlook and Yahoo Answers. Tom now teaches and coaches entrepreneurs and...

This summer, the impacts of climate change have been impossible to ignore. Record heat waves, droughts and floods have inflicted a terrible toll around the world. They’ve made all the more clear the pressing need to transform how we access, use, reuse and protect ourselves from water. It’s the source of life on Earth, and yet our relationship with water clearly needs to change.  In this episo...

Hi folks, tackling climate change will take entrepreneurial efforts of all shapes and sizes. There’s already been unprecedented growth in the number of startups focusing on climate over the past few years, but I believe it's just the beginning. Decarbonizing the global economy, adapting to climate impacts, and introducing new products and services for a decarbonized world will require millions of...

In this week’s episode, we’re focusing on the opportunity to invest in buildings, cities, infrastructure and air conditioning. Why? Well, for one thing, 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from the built environment, and according to the Climate Group, those emissions are set to double by 2050 if they’re left unchecked. Why else? Because it's been crazy hot this summer and the record heat...

I've noticed that no matter who I talk to, I keep hearing about the importance of government action for addressing climate change. Laws, public programs, and incentives are critical to speeding up decarbonisation, protecting the environment, and ensuring that historically underserved communities aren't left behind. Much of the climate policy we need will happen at the state and local level. And th...

To address climate change, there's little doubt that we need to replace gas powered cars with electric vehicles. But is owning an EV actually needed? What if rather than buying a car that remains parked most of the time, electric vehicles could just appear when we need them. That's the bold vision of Anand Nandakumar, Founder of the startup Halo.car. The company provides a solution enabled by tech...

The thing that's most exciting for us working in climate is that we are witnessing one of the largest societal transformations that we'll probably ever see. And we're right at the start of it.  Over the next decade, we're going to see an explosion of growth and opportunity in this space. Last year, over $40 billion in venture capital went to over 900 climate tech companies. To put that in con...

Bienvenidos and welcome. Latin America is one of my favorite places in the world to visit and so I was thrilled to get to learn about the state of climate tech investing in Latin America for this episode. Today you’ll get to hear three interesting perspectives – a climate tech investor, a startup founder and a car designer rethinking mobility and urban design. Diego Serebrisky is a climate tech in...

Might it be that the climate crisis requires not just technological change but also culture change. Might it be that as a civilization we need profound shifts in how we think, speak and act. If that’s the case, then art and creative expression will be critical to stretching our imaginations and to creating the new narratives, paradigms and mindsets that underpin our society.  Planning for thi...