New Ventures Podcast

Credit lines are a very common instrument of moving climate finance from international development financial institutions to intermediaries in developing countries. Unfortunately and very surprisingly, not all of these lines get utilised. Rainer and Sanjoy who have worked with credit lines for many years explain how credit lines can be made more effective. The market needs to be assessed, potentia...

A small country like Bangladesh is vulnerable to both extreme events and slow deterioration of living conditions due to climate change. People migrate in droves when extreme events occur, they migrate in trickles as agriculture and fishing becomes unviable. The Climate Bridge Fund, supported by the German Development Bank, and implemented by BRAC, the world’s largest NGO aims at increasing the res...

BBOXX started selling small solar home systems in Rwanda thirteen years back. It was heady times as several entrepreneurs from the Western world rushed to provide modern electricity to millions of customers in Africa . The industry soon attracted enormous global investor interest. Like all hype cycles, reality dawned as some of these companies collapsed. Listen to this podcast with Christopher Bak...

A very small part of arable land in Africa is irrigated and with climate change already happening, there is neither time nor money to build grand irrigation projects. What can be done, however, is to collect rainwater, which now comes in sudden heavy downpours, using age-old techniques. Add on solutions that measure soil moisture, predict weather and connect farmers to market and you can transform...

Michael Poisson helps us understand the types of companies in the crowded ESG scoring industry. The industry is very crowded with various types of companies offering different data products based on the customer needs. Incoming regulations will lead to standardised products. Companies use broadly two types of approaches. One way is to make sense of publicly available data and the other is to use t...

What you learn at a world class incubator? In this podcast , two entrepreneurs reflect on the time they spent at Carbon 13, Cambridge’s climate venture builder. Why did they apply? What happened when they meet their other cohort members? Did the experience help them? What is the progress they have made since then? Finally, it seems to boil down to know to the maximum; “Know myself” Sections Sectio...

Human wildlife conflict has social causes and is being exacerbated by climate change. Solving it requires an integrated approach. Technology is key but you cannot air drop it in these frontiers of climate change. To make real impact organisations of different types must come together and their funders will have to support these partnerships. Listen to this fascinating podcast to know how software...

Deep Science Ventures is building climate businesses with a plan. What is required to reverse global warming? What are the constraints in reaching outcomes? What technology solutions can remove these constraints? Who are the best people to develop the technology? How can we give them opportunity to think about the problem? Listen to this fascinating podcast about they are building companies in Dir...

The mining industry contributes more than 4 per cent of the global greenhouse gas emissions. That is about the share of cement and chemicals & amp; petrochemicals taken together. It also consumes water in areas where it is in short supply. Things can get worse. The transition to electric vehicles and renewable energy will increase the demand for minerals and rare earths several times over. Ore...

Can the tools that we have – science, technology and business – address the issues that we face from climate change? After all, these are the very things that has brought us to this problem. So it is right to be skeptical. But then in the limited time these tools are all that we have. It is not practical to think that we will build everything afresh . This difficult problem can be solved if we use...

2 people attract 15 volunteers. These 15 volunteers are supported by people across the UK. Seeing the success of this first group, scores of groups spring up across the UK and the world all working on recycling plastic waste for products such as survival blankets for people who have nothing else to keep warm during the winter. The groups partner with corporate organisations, charities and public b...

Description:  Suppose millions of people come together to fund innovations that have the highest impact on solving the climate crisis. The areas they target are the priority areas science is telling us to focus on, not just the VC flavour of the year. The innovations they support are examined by intelligent common people as well as by experts. The innovators license out the technology so that...

Wasted food leads to a greenhouse gas emissions. Not only is food waste causing global warming but climate change will lead to greater food waste. Extreme events will damage crops. Unseasonal flowering will lead to short term surpluses. Food is wasted because as consumers we have some unsustainable habits and because retailers are seeking efficiency. Oddbox provides growers an option to sell the f...

The inside story behind the dramatic drop in renewable energy prices is often quite mundane. In this podcast, we discuss how nitty gritty technical and commercial details led to the rapid decline of offshore wind prices in the UK. The story is really that of a trusted organization bringing together industry players to collaboratively explore solutions to common problems. The Carbon Trust is now ex...

Green hydrogen is necessary to decarbonise industry. It is possible to make green hydrogen from electrolysis process from renewable energy but the UK government has given out grants to test various ways of making green hydrogen from biomass. A few of them will go to the demonstration stage in the next few years. Post demonstration they can go to commercial stage. Depending on which technology make...

Helping climate businesses to get their first customers and the first seed investment is a very tough job. The Greenhouse at the at the Centre for Climate Change Innovation gets it done for about 60 to 70% of the companies they support during a twelve month process. More creditable: most companies they have supported are still in business defying the high mortality rates of start-ups. In this podc...

Every report on climate finance claims that we need trillions to adapt to climate change and moans that the money is not coming through. In this podcast Jaideep Prabhu, the international frugal innovation guru, contemplates the future where not enough money is available soon enough. His message is one of hope. Sections Section 1: First 22 minutes about how you can do a lot with less. Section 2: Ho...

Climate change will not cause disastrous impact. Vulnerability to it will. To reduce vulnerability, public and private managers will have to be clear headed about risks and plan for them. It is not hard to guess that all businesses will be subjected to greater physical risk. What is hard is to assess to what extent and in what time frame. Cervest uses machine learning and statistical modelling to...

Heatwaves, fires and flooding will impact physical and mental health and will cause additional pressures on public health facilities. This means that not only health facilities but also offices, building and public spaces will have to be designed keeping in mind the health of people who will use them. Architects have to build for this new world also keeping affordability and a growing shortage of...

If we use climate data, we can take actions today at low cost and avoid a lot of pain later. Kayross collects climate data observed by satellites and then makes them useful for public and private investors by combining various sorts of data and interpreting the results using clever algorithms. Investors can use this analysis to take informed effective decisions to manage risks and take positive ac...

Every city in the world where people have some spare cash to invest in their future should have a group of green angels to support climate innovators. Nick Lyth tells you how to do it and what you can achieve. Section 1: What have we achieved? Section 2: What companies do you support? Section 3: What processes do we follow? Sanjoy Sanyal - Director www.regainparaise.com Nick Lyth - Founder and Pre...

Listen to Johan Mendez explain the implementation of an  ecosystem based adaptation project  in Seychelles These are the parts of the podcast : First 10 minutes : the climate change and environmental damage in Seychelles 10 -16 minutes : what is ecosystem based adaptation and why is it important ? 16-29 minutes : what really happened in the project? 29-40 minutes : doing m...

Dr. Sanjay Kuttan, Chief Technology Officer of the Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonization and Ken Hickson, veteran sustainability commentator explain why moving to new fuels is really the only way for the shipping industry to cut emissions. It is not easy to make the transition, however. The Centre located in Singapore, one of the world’s most important places for the maritime trade is playing...

Listen to  Chris Coleridge , of the Cambridge Judge Business School talk of how and his colleagues are helping build innovative organizations that will have the potential to reduce carbon emissions by 10 million tonnes per annum at Carbon 13. The process starts with selecting 70 people of diverse backgrounds from over 1000 applications. These 70 people form their business teams by trading ide...

Listen to George Kibala Bauer, Director Digital Utilities, GSMA in this second episode as he reflects on underlying strategies of businesses using mobile and digital technologies to deliver basic services in emerging countries. Innovative companies are seeking out partners as the mobile companies have customer acceptance. Larger companies are partnering with the younger companies to increase their...