sus.lab | ETH

🚨 Report Launch 🚨 Interdependencies along the food value chain – A case study on vegetable waste in Switzerland 2.8 million tons of food are wasted annually, with vegetable waste being a major contributor. To reduce vegetable waste effectively, it is imperative to understand value chain interdependencies and the rationales of the actors involved. Our latest report delves into the following: 🥕 Vegetable waste hotspots: What are the areas where trade standards and agreements lead to significant vegetable waste? 🥔 Value chain actor rationales: Which factors drive behaviors contributing to vegetable waste? 🥒 Collaborative solutions: How can multi-stakeholder approaches address vegetable waste hotspots, engaging policy, research, industry, and society? Our insights come from literature reviews, market analysis, 15 stakeholder interviews, and an innovation workshop with 25 participants. 📒 To explore actionable strategies for reducing vegetable waste in Switzerland, dive into the full report https://lnkd.in/dbSQAvvx 🙏 We thank our interviewees (including Laura Spring, Aurélien Ducrey, Beretta Claudio, Christian Sohm, Olaf Apelt) and all workshop participants for sharing their insights. Further, we thank Jeanine Ammann and Beretta Claudio for their valuable reviews. ⁉ ✉ Do you have any questions or want to find out more? Don't hesitate to reach out to Ricarda Fieber, Femke Bosch, or Julia Bachmann. #FoodWaste #Sustainability #ValueChain #Collaboration

🥕 Let's fight food waste together at the United Against Waste Schweiz Event “Fokus Food Save – Gemeinsam Chancen Nutzen” on June 28th - Join Julia Bachmann and numerous relevant players from academia and industry!

🔥State of CDR - Edition 2: sus.lab reflection As committed CDR enthusiasts, we are excited to read the State of CDR - Edition 2, which was published last week. This report provides an incredibly useful overview of the current state, challenges, and opportunities of CDR! The work presented in the SoCDR is highly relevant to our ongoing and upcoming work 🤓: 🚀 Chapter 4 highlights recent studies on buyers’ motivations to engage in the voluntary carbon market. Notably, while climate targets drive credit purchases in general, the purchase of CDR credits seems to be particularly driven by buyers’ intrinsic motivations. 📃❓ We sought to understand these motivations: What makes organizations engage in CDR purchases now and how does the process unfold internally? We interviewed 14 sustainability leads from organizations that have successfully purchased CDR and summarized the findings as 6 building blocks that drove the CDR purchasing process, from awareness to action → [1] 🚀 Chapter 10 (co-authored by our senior project manager Dianne Hondeborg) stresses the crucial role of MRV in building trust and scaling CDR while showcasing the complexity of the current scattered ecosystem with 101 (!) MRV protocols.  📃❓ How to go from here? We interviewed 20 system actors and industry experts on the governance of certification, including the need for more consistency. We explored what consistency might look like and how to achieve it. Experts were aligned, but had differing views on the short-term path, seeing competition on quality as either a race to the top or a potential race to the bottom. We’re curious to hear more perspectives and see the developments, as we continue to work on this topic. → [2] 🚀 Chapter 3 draws special attention to the findings from a report we co-authored:  European CDR startups particularly struggle with lead conversion despite overall market optimism, and they struggle to access non-dilutive funding due to high bureaucratic efforts. 📃❓ We also explored the strategies European startups use to overcome these challenges: They e.g., shift their business models and explore creative funding opportunities  → [3]  sus.lab continues to be the core partner of the CDR accelerator program remove working with and researching the current CDR startup ecosystem. Stay tuned for what we have in the pipeline! 👀 Access the reports here:  [1] BMW Foundation, remove, sus.lab: From Awareness to Action: The Six Building Blocks for Purchasing Carbon Removal ” [https://lnkd.in/eVxnPTiB] [2] sus.lab: “Navigating governance of CDR certification in the VCM: Insights and perspectives” [https://lnkd.in/eN_rKVS4] [3] remove, sus.lab: “Surviving in a Nascent Market: Unveiling Key Challenges and Strategies for European Carbon Removal Startups” [https://lnkd.in/gujaBsBs]

Edit from 13.06.24: APPLICATION WINDOW HAS CLOSED! We have received a large number of applications and are no longer accepting new ones. We highly appreciate your interest in joining our team and encourage you to follow us to keep up-to-date with our work and future job opportunities. Job alert! 📢 (Closed) We are looking for a motivated intern to work on our industry-collaboration projects in the areas of decarbonization, circular economy, or biodiversity. You are a great fit if you... ...have strong communication, organizational and analytical skills 🤓 ...are accustomed to learning about new technologies in the context of business and policy 🔭 ...are available for 6 months, starting in July/August/September 2024 📅 Send us your CV if you are interested - see the attached documents for more details. #internship #sustainability #decarbonization #circulareconomy #biodiversity #research #technology #policy #industry

🚀 Report launch! 🚀 Carbon dioxide removal (#CDR) is a powerful tool for offsetting hard-to-abate and legacy emissions, but it remains poorly understood and underused. Currently, CDR deployment falls short of the climate-relevant scale required to meet the 1.5°C climate target. It’s time to change that! More leaders and organizations have to commit to proactive CDR strategies. We’re here to help them turn intentions into action. Our new report, “From Awareness to Action: The Six Building Blocks for Purchasing Carbon Removal,” is a must-read for decision-makers and #sustainability leads. It outlines the six steps to creating a successful CDR initiative, from stakeholder engagement to securing C-level buy-in. Discover how to implement a CDR #strategy to meet net-zero commitments and become a sustainability leader in your sector. This report, a collaboration between the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt, remove and us at sus.lab | ETH, features insights from insider interviews, the latest research, and practical guidance on CDR in a corporate context. 🌍Dive deeper! 👉 bit.ly/PurchasingCDR Have questions or want to engage? Don't hesitate to reach out to us: Oliver Akeret Gudrun Thorsdottir Aliénor von Roten

The Circular Building Innovation Booster has launched its newest call! You can submit your idea until the 19th of September.

🔥Report launch!🔥 🛣 Navigating governance of CDR certification in the VCM: Insights and perspectives In our latest report, we explore challenges, opportunities, and trajectories of good governance for high-quality CDR certification. Our research, based on interviews with 20 system actors and industry experts as well as learnings from other industries, provides clarity on the current CDR governance and offers insights into the discourse on future developments. The interviewees expressed diverse perspectives, leading us to explore a selected set of 5 governance topics. Here's a sneak peek of some of the questions we dive into: 🔁 Does short-term heterogeneity in quality requirements result in a race to the top or the bottom? 💸How should payment structures be set up to best align incentives? 🛡️ Who should be held liable for reversals, and what mechanisms should be used? Curious to learn more? Check out the full report https://lnkd.in/eN_rKVS4 Big thanks to our interviewees who shared their insights and our reviewers who generously gave feedback on previous versions of this report: Edwin Aalders Travis Caddy Freya Chay Mike Davies Christian Ehrat Justin Wheler Neil H. Tim Hansen Anu Khan Anna J. LEHNER Eva Pitterling Friedel Pretorius Eve Tamme Marianne Tikkanen Vikash T. Louis U. Joana Vieira Duarte Frances M. W. Stéphanie Arcusa Sifang Chen Alexis Dunand Volker Hoffmann John McCarthy Leo Mercer Benedict Probst Sue Rodway-Dyer Ingrid Schulte Have questions or want to engage? Don't hesitate to reach out to us: Gudrun Thorsdottir Dianne Hondeborg Michèle Wicki Oliver Akeret #cdr #carbonremoval #certification #carbonmarket #vcm #mrv 

🗓️ Join the upcoming conference on Negative Emissions Technologies on June 6th! 🌍 Organized by the Innovation Booster Carbon Removal the conference is a great opportunity to hear from key industry players and innovation startups about their strive for carbon removal. 🎟️ Register with the link below!

Last week's CDR colloquium was all about neustark ♻️ We had the pleasure of having Elmar Vatter, neustark’s Project Lead Marketing & Communication, who shared insights on what establishing a tech startup and developing its business case entails. We then embarked on a field trip and visited neustark’s storage site at Spross in the heart of the Zurich, where CO2 is injected into demolished concrete and stored durably. Our key takeaways: 👨👩👧👦 When founding a startup, the key is to hire talent whose skills complement your own. 🤸♀️ It is crucial to understand the rapidly evolving environment of the CDR ecosystem, remain agile, and adapt quickly to change. 👀 Bringing a potential customer to your site can be a game-changer: organizations and individuals can receive hands-on education that increases their understanding of and confidence in the technology. We were thrilled to welcome over 30 participants from the CDR community at ETH Zurich and beyond. This diverse group included Master's students, PhD candidates, and Postdocs from a range of disciplines, along with teams from the Innovation Booster Carbon Removal Spring 2024 cohort. A big thank you to Elmar for his presentation, guiding us on the tour, and answering all of our questions. Our recommendation to all organizations and individuals out there: Get in touch with Elmar, tour the facilities, and get your CDR journey started 🚀 #cdr #concrete #neustark

🚨 An exciting opporutnity to join SusTec at ETH in the field of decarbonization! At sus.lab, we are dedicated to bridging the gap between groundbreaking research and practical applications. We envision collaborating with talented individuals like you to translate research findings into impactful industry projects. 🚀 Our expertise spans a wide range of decarbonization topics, including #CCS, #CDR, and beyond, offering numerous opportunities for collaboration. 🤝 Find the detailed job description below for more information.