Climate 21

And we're back. I was off last week with Covid, hence the gap in the usual weekly cadence. But boy do I have an excellent episode for you this week to make up for it. Enduring Planet is a FinTech lender focused exclusively on the new climate economy. I invited Dimitry Gershenson, the company's CEO and Co-Founder to come on the podcast to tell me all about it. We had a fascinating conversation discussing the reason why Dimitri co-founded Enduring Planet, the kind of help they provide for...

Energy efficiency isn't nearly as sexy a topic as building out some shiny new solar farm, but it is equally important, and when this energy efficiency benefits low income families who have traditionally been disproportionately effected by issues such as climate change, and pollution, even better again. In this episode of the podcast I spoke to Ryan Cassidy. Ryan is the Director of Sustainability & Construction at RiseBoro Community Partnership in New York. We had a fascinating conversation...

Access to validated climate data sources is not trivial. What happens though if you want validated, regularly updated data that you can integrate with your systems? That is where Sust Global comes in. Sust Global uses credible, validated regularly, updated climate data sources, and provides integrations so organisations have access to this data in their systems to enable climate risk assessments down to individual asset level. To learn more I invited Sust Global co-founder and CEO Josh...

Some of the lesser talked about emissions reductions solutions are efficiency based solutions. In this week's episode of the Climate 21 podcast I talk to Christopher Angelo, CEO of Glass Dyenamics, a company working in this space. Glass Dyenamics uses dynamic glass (glass that changes its transparency when a low electric current is applied to it), to prevent buildings being overly warmed by the sun, thus reducing the energy load required to cool it. We had a fascinating conversation...

With 400,000 employees, Deloitte is the world's largest professional services firm. Deloitte set out its World Climate Commitments recently with an aim of reaching Net Zero by 2030. To find out more about this I invited Deloitte Managing Director & US Leader for Sustainability & Climate Change Scott Corwin to come on the podcast to tell us more. We had a fascinating conversation discussing Deloitte's perspective on combatting climate change, the value of addressing climate change (versus...

In several episodes of this podcast now guests have talked about the Circular Economy, but I've never had a full episode on it, so today we're changing that! I invited Stephen Jamieson to join me for this episode. Stephen is the Global Head of Circular Economy Solutions at SAP, so no one is better placed to talk to us about Circular Economy, and how it relates to climate. We talked about how the Circular Economy relates to Climate, what some of the latest happenings in the Circular Economy...

This week's episode of the podcast deals with methane once more. Last week's episode featured a startup in the methane space called Bennamann. This week I interviewed Andrew Benedek, the founder, and CEO of one of the world's most established methane companies Anaergia. We talked again about the importance of capturing fugitive methane, Anaergia's place in the ecosystem, as well as their future plans. This was an excellent episode of the podcast and I learned loads as always, and I hope...

Fugitive methane - what is it? And how can it be turned from a nasty climate emission into a source of energy, reduced emissions, and a way to reduce an organisation's costs, amongst other benefits? To answer these and more questions I invited Chris Mann, Co-Founder, and CTO of Bennamann to come on the podcast to tell us all about it. UPDATE: Chris emailed me to say the following - "Listening to it played back I realised that I had made an error when I gave an idea of the energy that...

Investment is a hugely important part of the fight against climate change. But where should the money come from? What if the money we invest for our pensions, life insurance, savings were put towards fighting the climate crisis, while at the same time making a profit for us? Putting our money to work, for good. That is the thinking behind Carbon Collective - an investment house that invests your money solely in nonfossil fuel-based companies, and with the shares it purchases, becomes an...

Climate and deforestation have always been very closely linked. But how is deforestation linked to human health, and how can improving human health, lead to huge reductions in deforestation? To answer these questions, I invited Dr Kinari Webb, founder of Health in Harmony to come on the podcast. Health in Harmony has had major successes in reducing deforestation. We had a fascinating conversation covering the connection between deforestation and health, how organic farming comes into play,...

Have you come across the term Climate Interventions before? If not, possibly you've heard of Geoengineering. Prof Wake Smith lectures in Yale about Climate Interventions, and is about to publish a book called Pandora's Toolbox, The Hopes And Hazards Of Climate Interventions. So obviously, I invited him to come on the podcast to enlighten us on the topic. We had a fascinating conversation covering the limitations of our Net Zero goals, why we might need Climate Interventions, and what...

A huge portion of an organisation's emissions come from its supply chain. The Climate Choice is a company working to change that by becoming a platform for companies to share their emissions data, and by providing Climate Performance Ratings. They are working with some very large companies to help their suppliers get on board with this initiative. I invited The Climate Choice co-founder Yasha Tarani to come on the podcast to tell me more. We had a fascinating conversation covering the...

I'm a big fan of Amy Westervelt's Drilled podcast. If you're not familiar, it is a Climate podcast but done like a Netflix series with each episode leading to the next one, so it tells a narrative over a number of episodes, and then it starts a new series, with a new story to tell. Really compelling! Imagine my excitement when I heard that Amy is starting a new podcast called Damages following the increasing number of climate cases that are popping up, and telling their stories - Law and...

There is a new book on climate which has been recently released which I think is worth paying attention to. It is called Supercharge Me. Why do I think it is worth paying attention to? Because it takes a different tack to most other books. It proposes a manifesto of actions which if followed, should deliver net zero. what kind of actions? The ones that actually matter - policy and regulatory tweaks which can serve to change the incentives to act. I invited the authors of this book Corinne...

Concrete and the built environment have an enormous carbon footprint. To find out more about how companies in that space are innovating to reduce emissions, I invited Gonzalo Galindo, president of Cemex Ventures to come on the podcast to talk about what they're doing. Cemex Ventures is the VC arm of Cemex, one of the world's largest cement companies, and its VC arm is looking into startups that help lower the carbon footprint of concrete. We had a fascinating conversation covering why...

Go big or go home - that could easily have been the motto of our last two episodes of this podcast and this week is no different. Today's guest on the podcast is Troy Carter. Troy is Co-founder and CEO of Earthshot Labs, a venture-backed organisation whose purpose is planetary-scale regeneration. We had a fascinating conversation covering why Earthshot labs are attempting planetary-scale regeneration, how they're going about it, and the importance of involving the community in the...

Ecocide is a term that is recently starting to gain a little ground in the public's eye, but what is it, where does it come from, and just what are the chances of it becoming an internationally legislated crime? To find out more about Ecocide I invited Jojo Mehta to come on the podcast. Jojo is the Co-Founder & Executive Director, Stop Ecocide International. Stop Ecocide International is the driving force behind, and central communications hub for, the growing global movement to make...

One of the most interesting companies in the Climate space has to be Icebreaker One. Icebreaker One is working across industries and governments to create a web of open net-zero data connecting financial, engineering and environmental data to help inform net-zero decisions. Sounds ambitious? Absolutely - but they have form doing this! How are they doing it? To find out more I invited the founder of IceBreaker One Gavin Starks to come on the podcast and tell us more. He didn't...

So, we've come to our final episode of 2021, but fear not, lots more excellent episodes of the Climate 21 podcast are coming your way starting January 12th next, and every Wednesday after that. In this episode, I have a favour to ask to start with. The podcast is now in the high hundreds of listeners, thank you all for that, but I'd love to get it into the thousands of listeners. Please, if you could do me one favour over the holidays, introduce a friend to this podcast. If you enjoy the...

What is Intelligent Decarbonisation? Intelligent Decarbonisation is the combining of artificial intelligence with cyber physical assets to reduce carbon emissions. To discuss this I invited Cambridge University Prof Markus Kraft to come on the podcast because he literally wrote the book on the topic. Professor Kraft is a Fellow of Churchill College Cambridge and Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology. He is the director of CARES, the Singapore-Cambridge...