The NatureBacked Podcast

Ali Horriyat transformed from a top-tier capitalist to an activist founding Compassiviste, a movement advocating for systemic change through education and practical action. His journey began with a life-altering trip to Ecuador, leading to the relinquishment of his wealth and the pursuit of meaningful societal contributions. Compassiviste, structured like an octopus with various initiatives as ten...

Arkio Industries pivoted from bioplastics to developing a sustainable monomaterial from cellulose. Founder Timo Haanpää highlights the material's flame resistance and aesthetic qualities, emphasizing the importance of design in sustainability. He discusses the company's strategy to produce high-quality, desirable products with a focus on circularity, aiming to reuse materials to maintain or enhanc...

Aquaria, a technology company producing Atmospheric Water Generators, aims to make commonplace its innovation of creating clean drinking water out of thin air. "We have a very large vision, and that is to build Aquaria into a technology solution for water that one day at least we have the option actually to replace tap water," said founder and Chief Executive Brian Sheng. Sheng highlighted the vas...

HeavyFinance incentivizes farmers to adopt climate-friendly practices by providing financial support for the transition from conventional to regenerative farming.  Founder Laimonas Noreika, with a background in FinTech, was inspired to start the company after learning about the financial challenges faced by farmers, he said in an interview on sidelines of TechChill conference in Riga. HeavyFinance...

Martin Kelly from Innovo Network discusses the company's mission to halve global greenhouse gas emissions by promoting and deploying profitable clean technologies. "It is now actually technologically and profitably possible to achieve this reduction, but a huge amount has to happen in terms of the scale of the capital investment, and so on," Kelly said. He emphasizes the importance of making these...

Garden for Wildlife is an e-commerce business that simplifies the process of learning about and purchasing native plants for customers' yards. Founder Shubber Ali shares his personal journey from a career in management consulting to becoming passionate about gardening and the environment after reading a book called "Nature's Best Hope." This book highlighted the issue of native plants being replac...

Gregory Dewerpe, the founder of A/O, a venture capital firm, talks about his company's focus on "positively transforming" the built world, which includes real estate and construction. A/O, launched in 2020, is the largest VC firm in Europe and globally in this sector. The company invests in various solutions, including satellite companies and AI, to address the industry's challenges, such as its s...

Concrete is one of the most widely used and important materials in the world. It is essential for building infrastructure, improving human development, and providing shelter. However, it also has a huge environmental impact, as it accounts for about 8% of the global CO2 emissions due to the use of cement, its main ingredient. But what if there was a way to make concrete more sustainable and profit...

With international actions on halting climate change showing no signs of progress, the mission to save the planet and the environment has been left to startups, said Jana Budkovskaja, the head of Beamline Accelerator. "That's why I'm here — because I truly believe that these are the only ones who can save, only startups. All the, in a good way, crazy guys who don't believe that something is imposs...

Leo Treadwell, a visionary who has developed an organic intelligence language model, shares his story, his insights, and his tips on how to use AI and programming language to heal yourself and the world. Treadwell is the founder of the Organic Intelligence Language Model, a system that uses artificial intelligence and natural language to understand and reprogram the human mind. He describes how us...

The year 2024 looks promising for both, startups and investors, says investor Helery Pops from Practica Capital, a pan-Baltic investment firm which has backed several green tech startups in the region. "It's going to need a lot of work, it's going to need a lot of effort because money isn't that easy to come by at the moment, investors are doing much more due diligence: it might take up to six mon...

Kenny Kaluiji, a seasoned professional in the realm of carbon markets and climate equity, gave NatureBacked listeners a deepdive into the state of the carbon markets. We spoke about: how to fix carbon markets emerging market for biodiversity credits trust challenge of carbon markets how local communities should benefit credit markets After completing his Master Degree in Energy, Environment and So...

Novobiom, the winner of the Future is Fungi Startup Award, is cleaning contaminated soils using fungi, and is raising funding to build fungal fermentation pilot during 2024. "We aim by using fungi is to turn bulk waste into high value applications using a fungal micro refinery," Novobiom co-founder Caroline Zaoui said in the NatureBacked podcast. "The big milestone is going to be the buildup of ou...

Jens Laurids Sørensen from Aalborg University, the winner of the Future is Fungi Research Award, introduced the winning project to create the world's first biosynthesized battery. Sørensen said: "Our battery is based on pigments from fungi. So it's the world's first biosynthesized-battery. It is much better than the solutions right now, which are based on mining different metal ions or chemical sy...

Near 8,000 companies globally have certified themselves as B Corporations, where B stands for "benefit for all", with even major corporations and publicly listed entities putting all stakeholders on par with investors. "It's still very much an SME-led movement. However, I think more or less since 2015, we've seen a lot of momentum and interest in large companies and multinationals joining the move...

We met Gunter Pauli on the sidelines of Tallinn Greentech Week to talk about the Blue Economy. Here are the main points of the discussion: The blue economy concept and its potential to replace the green economy Pauli is frustrated with the green economy and argues it's too expensive and incompatible with market demands. the limitations of economies of scale in the global market, arguing that consu...

Finnish biotech startup Enifer has injected new life into an old innovation of Finnish forestry engineers, revitalising the production of mycoproteins from paper industry by-products. They have found strong demand from the pet food sector as in the 1970s and 1980s the product was sold to farmers for their animals, and are now looking also for ways to enter the higher-value-added human food market....

Adamas One, one of the pioneers in the lab-grown diamond business, is expanding production and pushing not-mined diamonds in new sectors, said founder and CEO Jay Grdina. "Three goals and tasks: factory running at full production, complete the build-out of our new factory; semiconductors technology sector - really going to charge and take the lead on that; as well as get our jewellery line out the...

Kausal, which provides local governments with a software platform for tracking and implementing sustainability measures targets German-speaking markets and North America with fresh seed funding of 880,000 euros from an investor consortium including Innovestor and Spanish impact fund Zubi Capital. "For us, the biggest milestone is to show that this is really scalable on different markets and not su...

In a wide-ranging discussion with Simona Simulyte on the sidelines of the Impact Day festival in Tallinn we talked about: How she took over her father's car component business at the age of 12 and launched environmentally friendly springs for breaks Early days of startup entrepreneurship in Lithuania, emphasizing the importance of diversity and impact How she launched the ChangemakersON network, a...

German startup The Ocean Package seeks to benefit from Europe's tightening regulations that support the re-use of e-commerce packaging materials, such as plastics that the company uses to make its shipping material. "Our solution, the most important thing behind The Ocean Package, is that we have to find a way to clean up our world and to create a cleaner world for tomorrow. Because there won't be...

In the wide-ranging discussion with Greta Monstavice we covered how Katalista Ventures supports entrepreneurs to create positive change. Startups accelerated through the programme are in 15 countries, with 69 startups accelerated, and 15 more in the pipeline. Early-stage startups are supported in scaling and understanding their business model, with a focus on impact and sales integration. The host...

In the episode Puro. Earth founder Antti Vihavainen takes the listeners to a deep dive into carbon removal space. Vihavainen tells us about the different types of carbon removal projects that Puro. Earth is working with, biochar, direct capture, and enhanced rock weathering. He also discusses the challenges and opportunities in the carbon removal industry, and how Puro. Earth is helping to create...

Biodiversity is the diversity of life on Earth, and it is vital for our planet and our well-being. But how do we know if we are having a positive or negative impact on biodiversity, and how can we improve it? In this episode of the NatureBacked podcast, Tarmo Virki spoke with Zoe Peden, partner at Ananda Impact Ventures, an investment firm that supports innovative solutions for biodiversity conser...

In the episode, we deep-dived into saving the old forests with Rimante Paulaskaite-Digaitiene from the Sengire Fondas (The Ancient Woods Foundation), which aims to acquire the first 100 hectares of old forests in Lithuania by the end of this year and leave them for nature. "So the organisation was founded in 2020 aiming to protect the last remaining forest plots of old-growth forests, the last rem...