The Climate Cycle

A generation of climate tech was built on assumptions that no longer hold up. AI primitives and cutting-edge models are commoditizing software, creating new questions around the future of climate software. We sit down with an investor and founder to unpack what the Saaspocalypse means for climate tech. Geordan Hankinson is a Partner at Renewal Funds , a Vancouver-based impact VC with a track recor...

Canada's industrial carbon pricing system just went through its biggest redesign since it launched, trading ambition for stability. Depending on who you ask, the deal is either a major unlock - or a major step backwards. We sat down with Etienne Rainville , VP for Central Canada at Clean Prosperity , a Canadian think tank that's been one of the most consistent voices for market-based clima...

Climate startups face a commercialization gap: They've proven the science, but are too risky for VCs - and too commercial for a government grant. It's a gap that philanthropic capital is well-positioned to close. Galith Levy is the CEO and co-founder of the Climate Solutions Prize , a dedicated philanthropic platform for climate innovation, deploying capital at the moment it matters most....

We know heat pumps work - they’ve been around for decades - but actually getting them into homes is a challenge. The gap is structural: high upfront costs, a buying process stuck in the 90s, and a supply chain stacking layers of margin between the manufacturer and your home. We talk with Stephen Lake , founder and CEO of Jetson , a home electrification company focused on making the transition to e...

Can Toronto become a global climate hub - and put Canada on the map? Becky Park-Romanovsky is a global leader in sustainability and climate action, with a track record of launching and scaling climate-focused initiatives across multiple continents. She founded Toronto Climate Week, co-founded Climate North, is a lecturer on Social Entrepreneurship at IE University in Madrid, and previously develop...

The battery storage market is growing - and the supply chain feeding it runs largely through overseas cell manufacturers. At the same time, the first wave of EV batteries is aging out of vehicles, with nowhere obvious to go. Moment Energy is building the infrastructure to address both problems at once, repurposing retired EV battery packs for commercial energy storage. Their platform takes battery...

Canada's carbon removal sector punches well above its weight. We're home to leaders in direct air capture, mineral and ocean pathways and international companies are moving projects to Canada. The question is whether Canada will move ambitiously enough to capitalize before the window closes. Na'im Merchant is the Executive Director of Carbon Removal Canada , the country's leading CDR advocacy non-...

The green fuels transition has a cost problem. Mandates are arriving, corporate targets are being set, but sustainable aviation fuel and renewable diesel keep stalling on the same issue: price. Jochem Kamstra is the founder of Secant Fuel , a Canadian startup turning CO2 into syngas, the building block for low-carbon fuels like methanol and sustainable aviation fuel. Secant Fuel uses heat - not el...

Since 2015, over 200 new contaminants have entered our water systems. Traditional purification technology wasn't built to keep up. Diana Virgovicova is the founder and CEO of Xatoms , a Canadian company using AI and quantum chemistry to custom-design water purification materials. Instead of running months of physical lab experiments, Xatoms models molecular behaviour computationally - predicti...

Canada's auto sector faces a choice: follow the US away from EVs, or bet on the technology the rest of the world is adopting. We look at Canada’s new auto strategy - dropping Chinese EV tariffs, restoring rebates, and introducing Canada's first independent emission standards - and what it means across manufacturing, minerals, and charging. Our guest is Denise Lee , a transportation policy...

AI data centres are consuming electricity at unprecedented rates, creating anxiety about grid stability, power bills, and backsliding on climate progress by firing up natural gas generators to meet demand. But done right, this load growth could actually make electricity cheaper, accelerate grid modernization, and pull forward technologies that weren't economically viable two years ago. We talk...

Electrification depends on critical minerals — but mining and processing them remains one of the dirtiest, most constrained parts of the clean energy transition. While countries like Canada are rich in mineral resources, much of what’s mined still ships overseas as raw concentrate, leaving refining - and control - elsewhere. We talk to Mohammad Doostmohammadi, CEO of pH7 Technologies , to unpack a...

What does it actually take to build first-of-a-kind climate projects inside some of the world’s most risk-averse industries? In this episode, three leaders share how they’re scaling climate hard tech in the real world. Saad Dara from Mangrove Lithium , on scaling electrochemical lithium refining and standing up their first commercial plant Sean Lowrie from Arca shares how they’re deploying carbon...

In this episode, I’m joined by Sarah Goodman , President and CEO of NorthX . NorthX deploys non-dilutive catalytic capital at the early stages of commercialization, where founders face high risk, limited funding options, and a real need for industry traction. Their model has now supported more than 80 projects and helped unlock nearly half a billion dollars in follow-on investment from commercial...

We sit down with Hayden Smith , founder and CEO of FeX Energy , to unpack why energy storage matters to the energy transition and how their new iron-based storage solution could challenge incumbent technologies like lithium-ion. FeX is developing an Iron Arc reactor that has the potential to hold energy for days or weeks, and release it as clean energy and high-temperature heat that could power in...

Corey Ellis is the co-founder and CEO of Growcer , an Ottawa-based company building modular farms & food infrastructure used by communities, schools, and grocers across Canada and around the world. We talk about the impact our food system is having on the climate and how vertical farming can help solve those problems. We also talk about lessons learned from the vertical farming hype cycle, Gro...

Kevin Krausert is the co-founder and CEO of Avatar Innovations , a Canadian venture studio reshaping how energy technologies are developed, funded, and scaled. From Calgary to Houston and beyond, Avatar is working with industry insiders to turn ideas into deployable solutions for the energy transition. Kevin brings a unique perspective to climate tech. He began his career on the rigs in northern A...

Nelson Switzer is the co-founder of Climate Innovation Capital and author of The Gigacorn Hunter. Nelson’s spent his career at the intersection of capital markets and sustainability, helping corporations, institutional investors, and governments allocate dollars where they can drive the greatest climate impact Talking points: (5:11) The fifth industrial revolution. Nelson explains why the decarbon...

We sit down with ⁠Emily Farrar⁠, co-founder at ⁠ Genuine Taste ⁠, a startup tackling one of the biggest limitations in plant-based food: flavour. Genuine Taste are developing cultivated animal fats grown from cells in compact bioreactors. Their goal? Deliver the taste, texture, and nutritional profile of real fat - without the emissions or animal suffering. About Emily : With a background in clima...

Apoorv Sinha is the co-founder and CEO of Carbon Upcycling Technologies , a Calgary-based startup turning industrial waste and captured carbon into low-cement. Cement is a huge part of modern life but also one of the biggest sources of carbon pollution. Carbon Upcycling helps cement producers lower their emissions by replacing traditional cement with low-carbon alternatives made from industrial or...

Morgan Lehtinen and Sebastian Alamillo are the co-founders of RXN Hub, a new facility to help ChemTech ventures scale from lab to market. RXN Hub is tackling one of the biggest and least-addressed challenges in climate tech: how to scale chemical technologies from the lab to commercial scale. Whether you're working on carbon capture, energy storage, or green industrial processes, there’s often now...

Oliver David (OD) Krieg is the President of Intelligent City, a Vancouver-based company redefining how we build housing using mass timber, advanced manufacturing, and parametric design. Intelligent City is working to solve Canada’s climate and housing crises. About Intelligent City: Intelligent City manufactures prefabricated building panels out of renewable mass timber. Their platform enables fas...

Canada needs to retrofit millions of homes - fast. But outdated tools, confusing incentives, and a narrow focus on ROI are holding us back. In this episode, Arman Mottaghi , CEO of Properate , lays out what it will take to bring retrofits to scale. We explore how Properate is rebuilding the software stack for home upgrades, why health and comfort are the real drivers of adoption, and how single-fa...

Nyla Ahmad is the COO at Alvéole , a company helping commercial real estate go nature-positive, starting with rooftop beehives. What began as a tool for tenant engagement has evolved into a scalable biodiversity monitoring platform, combining physical infrastructure with environmental data collection. Nyla brings a background in media and telecom, having held senior leadership roles at Rogers and...

Alex Deslauriers is the founder and CEO at FireSwarm Solutions , a startup revolutionizing wildfire suppression. FireSwarm is developing AI-powered swarm algorithms that enable heavy-lift drones to fight wildfires. Alex brings over 25 years of experience in aerospace engineering and aviation software (including work with the US Navy on F-18 programs) before pivoting to wildfire tech after losing h...