Another ClimateTech Podcast

Jessica Droujko is a passionate kayaker and lover of rivers. So it’s fitting that she should combine that passion and her PhD from ETH Zürich to launch Riverkin, a startup that monitors river health.

In this episode we talked about:

🌊 How rivers shape landscapes and their importance in global ecosystems

🔬 How Riverkin monitors water levels and sediment flows

🏞️ Jessica's adventures on some of the world's most interesting rivers, including the Boiling River in Peru

🚣‍♀️ The balance between responsible tourism and river conservation. Think: Grand Canyon

🌍 The River Collective's mission to create changemakers through events like the Students for Rivers camp

🔌 Opportunities for citizen science in river monitoring through mini hydrological stations

#ClimateTech #Rivers #Water

Promo partner for this episode is Grizzle, helping B2B ClimateTech companies generate demand and customers through high-quality content, social media, and SEO services.

Podcast listeners can book a free consultation here.

Max Boykoff is a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado. His research focuses on the cultural dimensions of climate change, with a particular interest in how media and various stakeholders communicate about the issue.

In this episode we talked about:

☯️ How firsthand experiences of climate events can contrast with media coverage

🎭 The power of comedy in connecting people to climate change information and ideas

🌏 Cultural perspectives on climate change ranging from Singapore and Jerusalem

🎬 The climate-themed standup comedy video competition he runs

👥 His excitement around younger generations' engagement with climate issues

#ClimateComedy #ClimateEducation #ClimateTech

More:

Climate comedy work from Inside the Greenhouse at CU Boulder

The 10th annual climate comedy video competition

The Media and Climate Change Observatory

Promo partner for this episode is Grizzle, helping B2B ClimateTech companies generate demand and customers through high-quality content, social media, and SEO services. 

Podcast listeners can book a free consultation here.

Marissa Beatty is the co-founder and CEO of Turnover Labs, a startup developing technology to convert CO2 into valuable chemicals. With a background in chemical engineering and a Ph.D. from Columbia University, Marissa is tackling the challenge of carbon utilization in the petrochemical industry.

In this episode we talked about:

🧪 Turnover Labs' approach to converting CO2 into useful chemical building blocks

💼 The challenges and opportunities for female founders in the climate tech space

💰 How Marissa secured backing from notable climate tech investors for her pre-seed round

🔬 The importance of corporate partnerships in developing and scaling carbon utilization technologies

🎯 Turnover Labs' strategy for narrowing their focus and identifying potential customers

🤝 Why I’m missing out by not going to Climate Week NYC

#CarbonUtilization #CleanChemistry #ClimateTech #netzero

Jessica Burley is an investor at Planet A Ventures, a €160 million fund pioneering a science-based approach to venture capital. Jessica is passionate about impact measurement and, as she says: "If there's not a significant positive environmental impact, the deal is off.”

In this episode we talked about:

🔬 Planet A Ventures' use of life cycle assessments to evaluate potential investments

🚫 The fund's in-house science team's veto power on deals lacking significant environmental impact

🤝 Collaboration with Speedinvest and Norrsken VC to create a climate hardware playbook

📊 The importance of impact measurement for businesses to demonstrate sustainability claims

🌡️ How climate risk is increasingly becoming a business risk

🚀 Her optimism in climate tech thanks to transformative technologies and dedicated talent

#VC #Hardware #Sustainability #Investing #ClimateTech

Promo partner for this episode is Grizzle, helping B2B ClimateTech companies generate demand and customers through high-quality content, social media, and SEO services.

Podcast listeners can book a free consultation here.

I spoke with WebMD co-founder and veteran VC Kittu Kolluri of Neotribe Ventures to talk about what he’s investing in, the importance of board governance, and what active investing actually means.

We touched on:

🐉 The potential of technologies like hydrogen, ammonia synthesis, and cold fusion

💼 The role of boards in ensuring good governance and avoiding conflicts of interest

📈 What software VCs need to do to become hardware investors

🤝 The importance of active investing and the value it brings to young entrepreneurs

#climatetech #venturecapital #governance

Promo partner for this episode is Grizzle, helping B2B ClimateTech companies generate demand and customers through high-quality content, social media, and SEO services. 

Podcast listeners can book a free consultation here.

Aneta Londa is the founder of Moonshot Pirates, an organization that empowers young changemakers to tackle global challenges. In this episode, Aneta is joined by Annie Zountsa and Elanu Karakus, winners of the Shape the Future Challenge, to discuss their innovative project AEIFLORIA and the impact of youth-driven initiatives.

We talked about:

🏴‍☠️ How Moonshot Pirates teaches Gen Z to fight climate change through innovation

🏆 How four teenagers found a way to help bees find flowers with AEIFLORIA

🔮 How Moonshot Pirates is going to get involved in the future of food, and how you can help

👭 What it’s going to be like for four founders to meet for the very first time in person

#MoonshotPirates #climatetech #YouthInnovation

Promo partner for this episode is Grizzle, helping B2B ClimateTech companies generate demand and customers through high-quality content, social media, and SEO services. 

Podcast listeners can book a free consultation here.

I spoke with Alex Ivanenko, the founder of HyWatts, about building “power plants in a box” and about why, after selling a company for more than $100 million, he started another one right away.

In this episode, we talked about: 

👉 Why traditional power generation philosophies don’t work for renewables 

🔋 The high costs of transmission and distribution in the energy grid 

💡 The potential for distributed energy solutions in reducing blackouts and fires 

🚗 Why EV charging stations are the fastest path to commercialization for startups 

📈 The implications of subsidies and regulations on the renewable energy market

#climatetech #renewableenergy #EVcharging

Promo partner for this episode is Grizzle, helping B2B ClimateTech companies generate demand and customers through high-quality content, social media, and SEO services. 

Podcast listeners can book a free consultation here.

Marco Möller is a computer scientist, physicist, and serial entrepreneur. He’s passionate about electrical transportation and recently turned his attention to open sourcing the world of EV charging.

In this episode we talked about:

🔋 The company Marco sold to Intel and its impact on climate change through drone technology

🚗 The current state of the EV market in Europe, including growth and price trends

🔌 Common concerns about switching to electric cars and how to address them

⚙️ Marco's new company Pionix and its open-source EV-charger operating system, Base Camp

💼 The stakeholders involved in the EV charging space and the role of collaboration

🕵️‍♂️ Resistance to open-sourcing EV charging and the industries' changing perspectives on open source

#climatetech #EVcharging #opensource

Promo partner for this episode is Grizzle, helping B2B ClimateTech companies generate demand and customers through high-quality content, social media, and SEO services. 

Podcast listeners can book a free consultation here.

Sebastian Pohlmann is VP of Business Development at UpCatalyst, which makes carbon nanotubes and graphite from CO2. They are literally taking one of the world’s most problematic waste streams and turning it into one of the most desperately-needed materials.

In this episode we talked about:

🔋 The carbon footprint of producing graphite for lithium-ion batteries

🌍 Innovative approaches to sourcing CO2 for industrial processes

🚗 The emerging market for sodium-ion batteries and their benefits over lithium-ion batteries

🏗️ How carbon nanotubes can reinforce concrete and reduce overall emissions

🤝 The role of academia in validating and advancing climate tech innovations

#climatetech #carbonnanotubes #sustainability

Promo partner for this episode is Grizzle, helping B2B ClimateTech companies generate demand and customers through high-quality content, social media, and SEO services. 

Podcast listeners can book a free consultation here.

This is a topic I’ve wanted to talk about on the podcast for the whole last year. 🌟 Juraj Krivošík is the Executive Director at SEVEn, The Energy Efficiency Center, in Prague. He’s also in my opinion one of the leading voices on how energy and infrastructure have been affected by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and its broader implications today and in the future.

In this episode, we talked about:

🇺🇦 The impact of the Ukraine war on CO2 emissions and biodiversity loss

🏢 The role of energy security in shaping climate policies in Europe

🪖 The importance of supporting Ukraine to ensure global climate protection

⚡ The unintended push towards renewable energy due to rising energy prices

🔋 The challenges of measuring and promoting energy efficiency compared to new energy sources

#climatetech #energysecurity #renewableenergy #ukraine

Promo partner for this episode is Grizzle, helping B2B ClimateTech companies generate demand and customers through high-quality content, social media, and SEO services. 

Podcast listeners can book a free consultation here.

Who needs a cow to make leather when you've got beer? Brett Cotten is co-founder of London-based Arda Biomaterials and in this episode we talked about:

🐄 The problems of the traditional leather industry

👜 New Grain, Arda's sustainable leather alternative

🍺 Creating local supply chains by co-locating with breweries and distilleries around the world

🎡 The synthetic biology scene in London, and how the UK is investing heavily into biotech and material science

#leather #climatetech #beer #spentgrain #synbio #syntheticbiology

Promo partner for this episode is Grizzle, helping B2B ClimateTech companies generate demand and customers through high-quality content, social media, and SEO services. 

Podcast listeners can book a free consultation here.

Lisett Luik is co-founder of Arbonics, an Estonian company that believes forests have been undervalued for far too long and is seeking to rememdy that.

In this episode we talked about:

🌳 How Arbonics is making forests a climate asset rather than just a source of timber 

🕵️ The detective work involved in ensuring carbon offsetting projects are the real deal

🌍 Lisett's journey into climate tech entrepreneurship and her advice for others looking to make the switch
🇪🇪 The entrepreneurial culture in Estonia, and the influence of long, dark winters 

👅 Her translation of Keith Richards' autobiography into Estonian

#climatetech #carbonoffsetting #carboncredits #forests

Promo partner for this episode is Grizzle, helping B2B ClimateTech companies generate demand and customers through high-quality content, social media, and SEO services. 

Podcast listeners can book a free consultation here.

To celebrate the launch of their new facility this week, I spoke with Yonatan Golan, co-founder of Brevel. Brevel makes possibly the most sustainable protein in the world through a process that speeds up microalgae production 100x.

We talked about: 

👻 The concept of 'ghost protein' 

🚀 How fermentation x photosynthesis = efficiency revolution 

🥛 Why dairy is a good starting place 

🏗️ Their new facility

#climatetech #sustainablefood #alternativeprotein

Promo partner for this episode is Grizzle, helping B2B ClimateTech companies generate demand and customers through high-quality content, social media, and SEO services. 

Podcast listeners can book a free consultation here.

Meet Maxime Meijers, co-founder of Estuaire, a company that is working across the aviation industry to reduce its climate effects.

In this episode we talked about:

🛩️ The often overlooked impact of contrails on our climate and how their strategic mitigation can put a dent in aviation's climate footprint

💰 The power and influence of aviation finance in shaping the sector's environmental trajectory  

🚀 The growth trajectory and ambitions of Estuaire as they seek to assemble a dream team in the intersection of aviation and sustainability

#ClimateTech #AviationInnovation #Flying #Aviation

Promo partner for this episode is Grizzle, helping B2B ClimateTech companies generate demand and customers through high-quality content, social media, and SEO services. 

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Andreas Schwarzenbrunner always thought he's get into politics. But, as a partner leading the climate tech and industrial tech practices at Speedinvest, he's arguably playing an even bigger role in Europe's future this way.

In this episode we talked about:

🌍 Why hardware is hard but absolutely critical in climatetech

🔬 How crucial de-risking with corporate customers is for startups

💡 The role of policy in driving climatetech investment

🏭 The challenges of scaling up production and fundraising for founders

📘 The creation of "Building and Scaling Climate Hardware," a playbook for the climate tech sector

Check out "Building and Scaling Climate Hardware: A Playbook" here.

#climatetech #venturecapital #VC #deeptech

Promo partner for this episode is Grizzle, helping B2B ClimateTech companies generate demand and customers through high-quality content, social media, and SEO services. 

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Meet Joe Hill, Co-founder of One Planet Pizza. Joe has dedicated his career to promoting plant-based eating through the medium of delicious pizza. 

In this episode we talked about:

🌿 The importance of making plant-based alternatives that deliver on taste, texture, and price 

🍕 How One Planet Pizza is leading the charge in this delicious revolution 

🔬 The emerging trend of healthier, whole-food plant-based alternatives 

🍄 Joe's excitement about the potential of mushrooms 

🎙️ The role of food activism and its influence on plant-based food industry 

💪 How Joe maintains his resilience and health while running a high-growth business

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oneplanetpizza/

#climatetech #plantbased #pizza

Promo partner for this episode is Grizzle, helping B2B ClimateTech companies generate demand and customers through high-quality content, social media, and SEO services. 

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Christian Rebernik is the mastermind behind Tomorrow University, an accredited online university using business education to drive impact and sustainability. In this interview we talked about:

👑 Christian’s royal pedigree in Berlin’s startup ecosystem

🎒 How a university dropout becomes a university Chancellor

🎯 Tomorrow University’s goal of reaching 1 million people

#education #university #climatetech

Promo partner for this episode is Grizzle, helping B2B ClimateTech companies generate demand and customers through high-quality content, social media, and SEO services. 

Podcast listeners can book a free consultation here.

Robbie Lockie is co-founder of Plant-Based News and has just launched the Freedom Food Alliance, which fights misinformation and empowers people with the best science and expert alliances to create meaningful societal change.

In this episode, we talked about:

🌱 The deceptive tactics used by the meat and dairy industries to discredit plant-based alternatives

🎙️ Celebrity influence in promoting a plant-based lifestyle, featuring the likes of Alicia Silverstone and Joaquin Phoenix, including running Jamie Oliver’s online presence back in the day 

🌍 The Plant Based Treaty, a global initiative to shift away from animal-based food systems and restore ecosystems  

🍔 The challenges and opportunities in the plant-based food industry, including the move towards fewer and more natural sounding ingredients

As discussed in the episode, the Plant Based News Podcast had some interviews with famous vegans. Here are a few of them:

Megadeth Drummer Dirk Verbeuren

"Bones and All” author Camille Deangelis

Actor Alicia Silverstone

Conservationist, anthropologist and activist Jane Goodall

#futurefood #plantbased #climatetech

Promo partner for this episode is Grizzle, helping B2B ClimateTech companies generate demand and customers through high-quality content, social media, and SEO services. 

Podcast listeners can book a free consultation here.

Joel Tasche is the founder of CleanHub, and is on a mission to clean up our oceans, all while empowering marginalized waste workers.  🌊 And it all started with his passion for surfing. 🌊

Listen to this episode to learn how CleanHub:

🚛 implements tracking systems all the way from households to disposal sites, ensuring transparency and efficiency

💻 is developing its platform into a full-stack waste management system, borrowing efficiency strategies from Amazon's playbook

🌍 is expanding its waste collection and sorting capacities in coastal communities in India, Indonesia, Tanzania, and Cambodia

🤝 is working on upskilling programs and social audits to improve working conditions for waste sorters

#cleantech #wastemanagement #plasticcredits #recycling #sustainability

Promo partner for this episode is Grizzle, helping B2B ClimateTech companies generate demand and customers through high-quality content, social media, and SEO services. 

Podcast listeners can book a free consultation here.

Deniz Ficicioglu loves tuna so much that she doesn't want them to be put in a can. 🐟

That's why she founded BettaF!sh, an alternative proteins company that  uses seaweed to create plant-based fish alternatives that replicate the taste, texture, and experience of traditional fish, minus the devastating effects of fishing.

Check out this 30-minute episode to hear how:

🐟 Tuna are freaking awesome and can swim basically as fast as a Fiat 500

🇪🇺 Their products are currently available in 10 different European countries 

🛫 Japan Airlines serves their vegan tuna on flights from London to Tokyo and back

🧪 The company's R&D team is continuously working on developing a toolbox of seaweed ingredients for food industry players

#climatetech #altproteins #fish #tuna #salmon #seaweed

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Promo partner for this episode is Grizzle, helping B2B ClimateTech companies generate demand and customers through high-quality content, social media, and SEO services. 

Podcast listeners can book a free consultation here.

Brian Sheng is a self-funded entrepreneur and co-founder of Aquaria, a company that seeks to create resilient water infrastructure by extracting water from the air. A former venture capitalist who started his own VC firm at 18, Brian transitioned to the operational side of startups with the onset of the pandemic.

Here's what we talked about in our half-hour chat:

💦 Brian's company, Aquaria, seeks to create water infrastructure that doesn't need any pipes or construction

🏝️ Aquaria's water harvesting technology is ideal for residential communities, especially those off-grid or in locations with limited access to clean water

🌊 Aquaria's $26 million project in Hawaii to service a community of 1,000 homes

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 What it's like to have your brother as a co-founder

👨 Several reference to Tatooine from Star Wars (this emoji is Luke Skywalker, obviously)

#WaterFromAir #SustainableLiving #TechInnovation #ClimateTech #Tatooine

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Promo partner for this episode is Grizzle, helping B2B ClimateTech companies generate demand and customers through high-quality content, social media, and SEO services. 

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Kidus Asfaw is the founder of Kubik, an Ethiopian company that upcycles plastic waste into construction material for low-carbon buildings.

In this episode we talked about:

🏢 How Kubik aspires to be a technology platform for the materials industry, aiming to extend their reach beyond just plastic

🚀 The opportunities for climatetech companies in Sub-Saharan Africa

🌐 Kidus’s career, including time with UNICEF and the World Bank

🎖️ What it’s like to be named as one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in climate

🌱 Why he’s optimistic about the future

#greenbuilding #recycling #innovation #sustainabledevelopment #Africantech #climatetech

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Promo partner for this episode is Grizzle, helping B2B ClimateTech companies generate demand and customers through high-quality content, social media, and SEO services. 

Podcast listeners can book a free consultation here.

Vivian Bertseka is co-founder of BlueLayer, the first end-to-end software platform for carbon project developers. 

In this episode we talked about how:

📈 The carbon credit market is growing but also experiencing growing pains, with issues around transparency and trust.

🔍 There is an urgent need for more transparency in the carbon credit market to improve data disclosure and data system organization.

🧾 High-quality carbon credits are in high demand but short supply — companies need to act early to secure them.

🍷 Carbon credits are like wine — although the container is always the same size, the contents can be radically different!

#carboncredits #climatetech #netzero 

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Promo partner for this episode is Grizzle, helping B2B ClimateTech companies generate demand and customers through high-quality content, social media, and SEO services. 

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Viktoria Oseyko is CMO of Carbominer, a startup that uses direct air capture (DAC) to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere and use it for productive purposes, like growing our fruits and vegetables in greenhouses. We talked about how this technology works, how founder can attract public money for green interventions, and what the future of Ukrainian climatetech looks like.

#ClimateTech #DAC #NetZero

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Promo partner for this episode is Grizzle, helping B2B ClimateTech companies generate demand and customers through high-quality content, social media, and SEO services. 

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I found Jennifer O'Brien when reading some press about a new seaweed farm that had just been set up off the wild western coast of Ireland, in County Galloway. I've been intrigued by seaweed for a long time as a source of sustainable protein and material, as well as for its carbon sequestration power. It seems that seaweed is finally starting to get some of the limelight it deserves.

Jennifer is Founder and CEO of Sea&Believe, which owns that seaweed farm. This is to be the first of many such farms and she talks about all that seaweed can do, how it's cultivated, and who uses it. 

#ClimateTech #Seaweed #Aquaculture

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Promo partner for this episode is Grizzle, helping B2B ClimateTech companies generate demand and customers through high-quality content, social media, and SEO services. 

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Martin Stuchtey is the founder and co-CEO of The Landbanking Group, which aims to support the regeneration of nature and biodiversity through an asset class they call Nature Equity. 

Martin talked about how we can protect nature by literally putting a value to it, as well as his own life and career which has ranged from soldier in the German army’s alpine group to management consultant, professor, and now founder.

#biodiversity #regeneration #climatetech

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Promo partner for this episode is Grizzle, helping B2B ClimateTech companies generate demand and customers through high-quality content, social media, and SEO services. 

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This inverview is the 25th and final episode of my podcast Sound Funding, where I've been interviewing impact fund managers together with Impact Europe since 2020. If you're interested in impact funds, I highly recommend checking out the back catalogue!

Impact Europe's podcast host Benjamin DeVries interviewed me about my background as a founder, how I became a climatetech investor, why I started podcasting, and what I think about McKinsey (👎)  and spicy chicken wings (👍).

Check out the back catalogue of my interviews with impact fund managers at Sound Funding.

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Promo partner for this episode is Grizzle, helping B2B ClimateTech companies generate demand and customers through high-quality content, social media, and SEO services. 

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Remember in the mid 2010s when we were all talking about microplastics in things like face creams, and brands were making a big deal about being micro-bead free? Well although the media attention has gone away, the problem of microplastics has definitely not. Adam Root is the founder and CEO of Matter., which is tackling the problem of microplastics head on at one if its key sources—your washing machine.

Matter. has just raised $10 million, with participation from big names like Leonardo DiCaprio, Ashton Kutcher, and the Walton family (Walmart) through their various investment vehicles.

#climatetech #microplastics #laundry #cleanwater #plasticfree

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Jason Goodhand is an old classmate and pal, and a fellow traveller in renewable energy before it was cool. He's been fascinated by the role energy storage has in greening the grid for as long as I've known him. These days, he's travelling the world discovering, developing, and implementing storage technologies based on hydrogen, sodium, zinc, iron, vanadium redox flow technologies. He talks about the road ahead and what he's learned as a 20+ year industry veteran.

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Promo partner for this episode is Grizzle, helping B2B ClimateTech companies generate demand and customers through high-quality content, social media, and SEO services. 

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Bruce Friedrich is the founder and president of the Good Food Institute and the reason I invest in alternative proteins. I was driving through the hills of Umbria listening to podcasts and an interview with Bruce came on. An hour later I was enthralled and had found my calling. It really was as simple as that. 

I talked with Bruce about the outlook for investment in alt proteins, the nature of the industry, why it's so crucial to the fight against climate change, and how he is able to keep his cool with all the trolls out there. And finally got to thank him for being such a major influence in my life.

#altproteins #climatechange #climatetech #futurefood #foodtech

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Fungi is having a moment as it does everything from open our minds, feed our population, pass notes for our trees, capture our CO2, and clean up our messes. Nathan Paumier is a fungi nerd and writer of the popular and informative BRB newsletter.  I took advantage of having him on the show to ask everything I always wanted to know about mushrooms but was afraid to ask.

Nathan's go-to book to learn about fungi is Entangled Life by Merlin Seheldrake. 

#fungi #climatetech #climatechange #bioremediation #mushrooms

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Will Wiseman is a Forbes 30 under 30 founder who’s on a mission to democratise investing in renewable energy. He co-founded Climatize, which allows people to invest as little as five bucks, just two years ago and it’s going well. We talked about how Will got started, his experiences abroad in Europe, and the role of microloans in electrifying the grid.

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I was flattered when Silas Mähner and Somil Aggarwal reached out to invite me onto The CleanTechies Podcast out of New York. In the end we decided to do something fun and interview each other and syndicate the episode across both our podcasts at the same time. Fun times! 

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Stuart Goldsmith is one of the only people out there who can make me LOL about climate change. I caught his act on YouTube thanks to "the Algorithm" and was thrilled that he said yes when I invited him on the podcast. Especially since he's in front of slightly larger audiences like the Conan O'Brien Show and Wembley Arena. This episode has some important insights nested in some good laughs.

Check out Stuart's website and Instagram.

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Promo partner for this episode is Grizzle, helping B2B ClimateTech companies generate demand and customers through high-quality content, social media, and SEO services. 

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Susanne Glørsen is a renowned early-stage sustainability investor who took her fascination with the potential of fungi to the next level: she created an award, called the Future Is Fungi. In this episode, Susanne talks about the award and introduces us to the inaugural winners including the bioremediation company novobiom, as well as Oona Snoeyenbos-West, whose company MycoMine solves the "forever chemical" quandary through mycelium cleanup, and Jens Laurids Sørensen, Associate Professor at Aalborg University who is making batteries out of fungi.

I know a thing or two about fungi (except how to pronounce it) but was blown away by some of these innovative applications. I can also recommend the book that Oona mentions in the episode: Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake

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If you've ever found yourself looking for a job in the foodtech sector, chances are you've come across the name Emma Osborne. Once a traditional executive recruiter, Emma threw that overboard to focus only on matching talent with roles that are aligned with her own values. Today, in addition to her talent matching work, she is at the centre of some major campaigns like "50 x 25", which aims to see 50% plant-based menu items in the UK by 2025.

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I know Nate Crosser as an influential venture capitalist at Blue Horizon, where I've co-invested with him. But I've lately started appreciating his talents as a writer of the Fifth Industrial series of essays on Substack. It was in reading his essay "Solarpunk is the next big literary-design movement" that I knew my listeners needed to hear from him. I've been called a punk throughout the years by many a person in authority and from now on I know to reply: "No ma'am, not a punk. A solarpunk".

Don't know what solarpunk is? Neither did I until I heard about it from Nate. Listen to the episode. 

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Glenn Hurowitz is Founder & CEO of Mighty Earth, which aspires to be the most effective environmental advocacy organization in the world. Based on the work I’ve seen them do so far, I think they’re pretty damn close to achieving that.

Glenn founded Mighty Earth after recognizing a need for an entrepreneurial, results-focused organization working on the biggest problems that aren’t getting enough attention. Chief among these is nature, which Glenn says is 37% of the solution to climate change but gets only 3% of the funding. They aim to be agile, and to take the best of the business world, classical military strategy, and social change theory to run transformative campaigns.

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In a world where biodiversity is under threat, the role of native trees in maintaining the planet's health cannot be overstated. Blaine Pearson is the founder of Squiirrel, a digital marketplace and traceability system for reforestation and restoration ecology. We talked about trees' complex roles in biodiversity, the wildfires in Canada, and the importance of preserving native tree seeds and their potential role in restoring our ailing ecosystems.

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Jonny Everett didn't want to build his own climatetech company, so he decided instead to launch Marble, a climatetech company to build 25 of them in the next five years. Does that sound crazy to you? Well, it didn't to some serious backers who have helped make this Paris-based venture studio a reality.

Jonny talks about his career, his thoughts on climatetech financing, how a venture studio works, and some of the most exciting areas Marble is investing in.

#startups #venturestudio #companybuilder

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What if you could eat carbon-negative food? This isn’t sci fi—it’s arguably even cooler. Gregor Tegl is the co-founder and CEO of Arkeon, a company that can turn CO2 into amino acids, the building blocks of protein. How, you ask? Well, Arkeon has figured out how to put an ancient micro-organism called archaea to work. These little fellas have been living in the oceans and at the bottom of volcanoes for 3.8 billion years, patiently waiting for Gregor and team to find out how to make them into your cheeseburger a year or two from now.

#altproteins #futurefood #sustainability #netzero

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Mallory Greene's father was a funeral director and mother worked at a hospice, so the topic of death was never far from the dinner table. With her company Eirene Cremations,  she has combined digitisation and transparency in order to shake up the funeral industry and give people real and cost-effective choices for themselves and their loved ones.

Especially interesting is one service Eirene offers, called aquamation. Think: cremation by water instead of fire. We talked about the funeral industry generally, and what options are available for people who want to factor in environmental considerations for their remains and the remains of their loved ones.

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Paul Foulkes-Arellano is a sort of elder statesman in the circular economy industry. A lone wolf consultant these days, he previously spent the better part of 30 years in packaging and so knows first-hand the uphill battle we have ahead of us to achieve circularity in our economy. Fortunately, he also has some ideas about how to get there. 

In this sprawling interview he talks about the broad shifts—and backward steps—within industry towards circular production, and the intertwined roles of media and legislation that are driving the changes.

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Did you ever consider that your bank account could be doubling your carbon footprint? Me neither. But Dan Sherrard-Smith has built a business called Mother Tree that exists to help people and businesses shift their money so that they're not funding climate change. It might actually be the easiest way to lower your carbon footprint.

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Amos Golan is Founder and CEO of Chunk Foods, based both in Israel and the USA. Chunk has the distinction of being the first plant-based steak on an American steakhouse chain's menu. Here's what it says on the menu at Charley's Steakhouse:

F U Filet Mignon: *freaking unbelievable* plant-based by Chunk

Chunk's goal is to make plant-based steaks better-tasting and--drum roll please--cheaper than traditional meat. 

This episode is especially suited to founders (of any kind) as he has great advice about how to focus on what your customer wants, why technology should be the enabler but not the product, and insights into the current funding environment.

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Nicole Kellner was already making a living as an artist before she even identified as one. A tech entrepreneur by background, she kept finding herself drawn (haha) to visual storytelling through art and so went all in.

With this episode she is launching her colouring book, Electrify Everything, which is an awesome way for kids and adults alike to learn about renewable energy.

Follow Nicole's Substack for more at Arts and Climate Change. 

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Paul Ritch is a recent transplant from the US to Berlin, via two years of world travel. He's one of the forces behind ProVeg Incubator's absolutely brilliant Kickstarting for Good program which your humble podcast host sees as one of the most ambitious and clever programs ever(!) 

Check out some of the ideas they have come up with, which they are ready to support:

🧑🏽‍🍳 World Society of Plant Based Chefs

🎓 Vegan Thesis

☁️ Meta-Funding Organisation

🍏 Nutritionists Fellowship

💅 Accelerator for Social Media Influencers

📣 Marketing & Comms Agency for the Plant-based Movement

☑️ Vegan "Checkoff" Programme

🐦 Early Action Network (EAN)

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It's hard to be an animal lover. Those of us who eat plant-based diets because we don't want to harm animals are also very likely to have cats and dogs at home. And so we end up unwittingly fuelling cruel and unsustainable meat production every day. Dogs can be plant-based--though they don't all take to it--but cats, as obligate carnivores, are the real challenge.

But what if you could feed your pets real meat that didn't come from animals?

That's the promise of BioCraft Pet Nutrition, which makes meat from chicken, mouse, and rabbit cell cultures that will be in commercial pet food as soon as 2025.

Founder and CEO Shannon Falconer talks about her personal mission to make pet food good for animals, people, and the planet.

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Today, ClimatePartner works with more than 6,000 companies in over 60 countries. Manca Jurca  talks about the pivotal role corporations play in mitigating climate change.  

Our conversation highlights the importance of quantifying a company's carbon footprint, transitioning to green energy sources, and investing in green technology. Listen as we discuss the essence of establishing short and long-term reduction goals, investing in nature-based solutions, and the vital role of transparent communication for businesses on their journey towards carbon neutrality.

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My conversation with Arman Anatürk, founder of FoodHack, ClimateHack and HackCapital, a universe that grew out of a single event in Geneva in 2018. 

We talk about new approaches for startups, fund managers, and angels to participate in the capital-hungry universe of climatetech, and how to get more players involved. From micro funds to SPVs, M&A to secondary markets, we cover it all.

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Jeff Katz is a serial entrepreneur who these days invests in climatetech through his company builder and investment vehicle 1.5° Ventures.

In this conversation, Jeff dives into the many structural problems with VC and how it's not set up to tackle the massive challenges around climate change. This interview is packed with insights both for professional investors in the sector as well as climatetech entrepreneurs and how they can avoid falling into all kinds of traps.

Jeff talks about why we don't have time to follow the normal growth trajectories investors and entrepreneurs are used to since climate change is an impatient master. And we talked about how Europe risks losing its edge if it doesn't step up its ambition to deal with our biggest existential threat.

Jeff mentions this CAPEX financing guide for hardware climatetech startups.

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Megan Poinski is a US-based journalist who has covered the food industry the last 7 years. During this time, she has seen some of the biggest changes in how and what we buy, eat, and think about food literally in centuries. We talked about these changes in technology, attitudes, and markets and what excites her about the industry now.

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Markus Linder is a serial tech founder whose company Inoqo evaluates the impact of grocery products on the basis of climate, social impact, animal welfare, and nutrition to help consumers make greener food selections.

We talked about how private label brands can create differentiation by appealing to sustainability-conscious consumers and retailers,  the EU's efforts to fight greenwashing, and how to make smart lifestyle changes to reduce your planetary footprint.

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Art Lapinsch certainly never thought he would be studying law, but after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, he became convinced that energy policy is one of the most crucial and overlooked aspects of global security. He is now studying energy law while sharing his thoughts on the topic through essays, science fiction pieces, and more at Delphi Zero. 

In our meandering conversation we talked about European startup hotspots, knowledge management, and lots of kind of geeky stuff.

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One of the biggest complaints about plant-based meats is that something is missing -- and that something is usually the fat. Some folks out there have been busy toiling away for years to find a way to solve this problem, without needing to kill animals to achieve it. People like Anastasia Krivoruchko, co-founder and CEO at Melt&Marble.

Anastasia talks about her journey from scientist to founder, why Europe is lagging behind in novel foods, and gives a short 101 on precision fermentation.

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I had the immense pleasure of speaking with Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow at the Post Carbon Institute about his brand spanking new report Welcome to the Great Unraveling: Navigating the Polycrisis of Environmental and Social Breakdown. 

The biggest eye-opener for me? The extra emissions from creating the hardware we need to avoid surpassing emissions limits could ironically cause us to surpass emissions limits. Bottom line: no matter what, we need to reduce emissions as well as green our energy infrastructure.

If it feels like we’re living in an age of multiple crises whose interlinkages we’re only starting to fathom, it’s because we are. Listen as Richard explains how to navigate this new reality.

Books mentioned in this podcast include:

• End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration by Peter Turchin

• The Children of Men by PD James

• And you can find Richard's published works here too

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Extantia is a ClimateTech fund decarbonization fund investing in gigacorns: companies that have the potential to offset or obviate a gigaton of carbon every year.

Carlota Ochoa Neven Du Mont talks about carbon markets and Extantia's long-term view of carbon pricing, the investment gap between the sectors attracting the. most attention versus the ones doing the heaviest lifting on emissions reduction, and why ClimateTech will soon be an outdated term.

Carlota raises how the newspaper The Guardian recently damaged the carbon offset industry with an oversimplified series of articles about credit valuation, and how we’re living out the Tragedy of the Commons.

Carlota's heroes are David Attenborough and Greta Thunberg.

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What if there was a platform to help businesses make climate-conscious decisions and achieve net zero emissions?  Yasha Tarani talks about how his platform Climate Choice helps corporates to target Scope 3 emissions as a major step towards net zero.

Yasha breaks down the emerging regulatory landscape, the financial implications of climate change, and the challenges large companies face when it comes to reaching net zero targets. 

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Imagine traveling by air with zero  emissions, enjoying the luxury of a private jet at business class ticket prices. That's what Josef Mouris, founder of ELECTRON, envisions with their electric five-seater airplane, the ELECTRON 5. As a commercial pilot for 15 years, Josef's experience fuelled his passion for revolutionizing air travel, and in this episode, he shares the challenges, potential, and mission behind ELECTRON.

We dive into the world of funding and the exciting future of regional air mobility, projected to grow massively and be worth $100 billion by 2035. Find out how ELECTRON plans to leverage underused regional airports to minimize environmental impact while capturing a large slice of the global regional aviation market.

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What if you could enjoy real meat without the guilt and environmental impact of animal slaughter? Discover how Magic Valley, a pioneering cultivated meat company, is making this concept a reality in our engaging conversation with vegan entrepreneur and founder Paul Bevan. Learn about the fascinating process of cultivating meat, its potential to compete against traditional meat in terms of taste and health, and the immense possibilities for tailoring nutritional profiles.
 
We talk about the technical and commercial challenges of cultivated meat, the ethical and scalability issues surrounding the use of foetal bovine serum, and the roadmap to achieving price parity with slaughtered meat, the intricacies of scaling up production and the global market landscape, and much more.

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Melina Sánchez Montañéz has covered some ground, from working on Wall Street to serving as a diplomat. Today she combines her finance expertise and interest in public policy as a cleantech investor at AENU in Berlin.

We talked about why traditional venture capital is broken, why carbon isn’t the only metric that matters for the climate, and the problem with climate bros.

Melina offers fresh perspectives on what needs to change in our investment approach to solve a crisis that is both happening now but also needs lots of future planning, on the problem with incremental change, and how Berlin is on the rise in all things climate. Melina's hero is Cecile Bilious.

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