Matthew Stotts 🌐

Dear CSOs, think of SBTi as the GPS for your company’s climate strategy 🌍🧭 …. CSOs are often navigating a complex landscape of confusing climate standards and initiatives. To clarify what the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) is and how it can be instrumental in your sustainability efforts, here’s a handy analogy to think of it as your professional GPS: 🔍 Finding Your Route: Just like a GPS helps you find the best route to your destination, the SBTi guides your company in setting realistic and science-backed goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It ensures you're on the right path to meet global climate targets, specifically those outlined in the Paris Agreement. 🎯 Setting Milestones: Imagine you're on a road trip with several stops along the way. The SBTi helps you set clear milestones for your emissions reductions, ensuring you're making steady progress. These targets aren't just pulled out of thin air—they're grounded in the latest climate science. 🏆 Achieving the Destination: Ultimately, the SBTi aims to help you reach a 'climate safe' destination. This means your company is doing its part to keep global warming in check, ideally below 1.5°C. The SBTi framework supports you in making this journey with precision and accountability, ensuring your efforts are both ambitious and credible. 🔗 Complementing Other Standards: You might have heard of other frameworks like VCMI. Think of these like different maps or tools you can use on your trip. While VCMI focuses on the integrity of carbon credits and how to use them as part of your carbon footprint reduction strategy , SBTi is about your emissions reduction path. They can complement each other, but SBTi is your primary guide for setting and achieving science-based targets. By utilizing the SBTi, you can navigate the complexities of corporate climate action with confidence and clarity. It offers a well-defined route to achieving substantial and credible emissions reductions. For a deeper dive into setting science-based targets, I recommend downloading the SBTi’s comprehensive guide. It's an essential resource for steering your sustainability efforts in the right direction. 👇 https://lnkd.in/dJnFDhYB

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REDD up by 27% YOY, for 1Q2024. If you read about Carbon crisis, prices crashing, double check the source. Likely the author has an agenda that opposes Voluntary Carbon Markets(VCM) and/or anything that smells of capitalism.

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This is a good and important read on #FOAK projects and the ClimateTech Valley of Death, with good insight from some very sharp investors. One often overlooks aspect of this challenge is WHO will build these early commercial projects that are smaller and don't often appeal to top tier EPCs. Developing and building these projects will be a critical, often binary factor in the outcomes. https://lnkd.in/gbedmkmt

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Partnering with startups can help companies to "solve a product problem, create a new avenue for revenue, accelerate R&D, or accelerate time to market for a specific product," according to Otilia Barbuta, principal at HP Tech Ventures, the venture capital arm of HP. She was talking at a breakout session at Circularity 2024. "There are solutions in the market created by startups and in this circularity realm, I think it's more important than ever to partner with [them]." #climatetech #startups #climateVC

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Is SF Climate Week banter a good barometer of the macro climate tech investment mood? Key nuggets to ponder: 💰💰💰 Climate solutions (like most science/engineering and hardware based deep tech) are capital intensive. They require an "all of the above", creative financing approach to obtain the capital needed to scale (from CVCs, government, public-private partnerships, green banks, debt financing...). 🤖 AI - Everything, Everywhere (all at once). As in most sectors, AI is white hot. It can be a key component of climate solutions, but also a demand accelerant ⏩ More AI = ↗ compute and power demand ⚡= ↗ need for energy storage and grid enhancing solutions 🔋. 🏛 🤵 Political Angst. Real worry that a new administration will cut or impede climate tech catalyzing funding (e.g., DOE funding from IRA). #climatetech #climateweek

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Over the past few days, I’ve been visiting lots of #farms in Europe and seeing the #regeneration and #destruction that management practices can have in the #land, #nature and environment. These practices are relatively unknown to the consumer and the huge gap between regenerative practices and industrial agriculture as well as the #positiveimpact that regenerative management can have! How do we create #impact in food systems? It starts with the health of farms #soils. Lots of positive externalities come from restoring soils. Soil health is an #outcome and regenerative practices have to be outcome driven. I’ll be talking about creating ‘impact in food systems and regenerative agriculture’ at the Impact Investor Global Summit in London Tuesday next week alongside fellow panelist’s Rosie Wardle, Carli Roth, Matteo Squilloni and Charles Avery. With lots more discussion about regenerative agriculture, sustainable farming and organic conversions - it’s an excellent time for this panel which touches on #naturalcapital, #farming and #foodsystems. Especially in the wake of the latest season of Clarksons Farm where #AndyCato and George Lamb with Wildfarmed joined #JeremyClarkson and Charles Ireland on the farm. Maybe Regenerate Outcomes will be there next season 😉 Our team at Regenerate work across Private Equity, Outcomes and Venture Capital, all working across regenerative agriculture. Come and see us at the event! Regenerate Asset Management European Investment Fund (EIF) Synthesis Capital The Rockefeller Foundation New Private Markets Ryan Cameron David Bates Nicholas Burlington Addy Windsor-Clive Erik Bruun Bindslev Oliver Martin Jeremy Stroud Timothy Coates Taimur Malik Philippa Saxon Matt Jordon Tom Dillon Christopher Heathcote Jake McNaughton

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Mark Carney OpEd: We must stop prevaricating and expand carbon markets. I would add one critical point: Enough with the self-flagellation. Plenty of reason to be optimistic, and there is a lot of work to do! ✅️We have the ICVCM. We have strong science-backed standards. ❌️We allow tabloid journalists (often financed by oil nations) to spread misinformation. They tout "academic articles" attacking carbon, but do not retract even after articles are proven flawed by science.  ❌️We have big NGO executives with 7 figure packages pontificating about more 'equitable distribution'. We have corporate executives with 8 figure salaries finding excuses in those articles to delay fair pricing (imagine the benefits for communities at $50/ton?). ❌️We have Verra (and others) pandering to eco-radicals whose only objective is to derail carbon. You will never appease a fanatic - they do not want 'better carbon markets', they do not believe in markets - they believe in taxes and prohibitions. ❌️We have nationalistic USA and EU politicians opposing nature based credits (e.g. REDD) in compliance markets. Why? Because money  would flow from rich countries to poor countries via private sector, without voter protectionism. Without ability to use them in foreign policy. ❌️We have newcomers, particularly some 'rating agencies' using the old Silicon Valley trick of telling VCs: "This market is broken, but we are going to fix it". Obvious trick. Nothing is broken, Sherlock - except, perhaps, your morals. ✅️Nature Based Solutions like REDD are MILES AHEAD of any industry in nature when it comes to impact.  Find a business operating in remote, rural areas that is better. Logging? Agriculture? Tourism? We invest in some of these sectors, and I can tell you that the best actors in those are miles behind a half-decent REDD developer. 🤷‍♀️There are bad events, as in ANY market. The Financial Times will show 500 audit scandals a year across all industries. And in carbon there will be errors, and bad actors. This does not make the carbon markets any worse than healthcare or education, where these things happen too. 📊Keep high standards. Ensure auditors work. But stop double-guessing the industry's own process. If Barclays has a case of bad accounting,or misconduct in UK, the central bank will not close all their branches - even if they are guilty. They will be fined, they will be forced to improve processes. But they will not be brought to bankrupcy. Why are we more unforgiving with an industry that is inherently more beneficial for the planet than transport, fashion, chemicals, etc? Have we gone mad? ⚡️In all this debate, I can understand (although I despise) the self-serving interests of polluters. But not the number of ideology-fuelled 'naive people' who are being played to keep the status quo. 🔥 The market will be massive, but we have no time to waste.Time to wake up. Time to get going.

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🌱🚀 Exciting News! Xefco, one of our portfolio companies, just secured A$10.5 million in funding to revolutionize the textile industry and reduce emissions! 🌎💡 With their innovative water-free textile finishing and dyeing solution, Ausora, Xefco is poised to make a significant impact. Their technology not only preserves precious resources but also cuts energy consumption and costs. Plus, it's already gaining traction with leading apparel brands like Zara and The North Face. At Investible, we're committed to backing visionary companies like Xefco that are driving positive change. This investment reaffirms our belief in their potential to transform industries and tackle pressing environmental challenges. #ClimateTech #SustainableInvesting #ImpactInvesting #MandiriInvestibleGlobalClimateTechFund 🌿📈

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A fascinating categorization of #CDR in an article exploring the "#CDR #emissions gap" in the latest edition of Nature Climate Change: > Conventional CDR on land: This includes #afforestation, in which trees are planted when previously there were none, and #reforestation, which means restoring areas where the trees have been cut down or degraded. > Novel CDR: This includes all CDR methods that are not based on #forestry and #landuse change, such as #biochar, #directaircapture (#DAC) and #bioenergy with #carboncapture and storage (BECCS). I understand this grouping, but I would argue that categorizing #CDR by Engineered Solution and #NatureBased solution might be more telling. I suspect it allows a more accurate assessment of scalability and #CarbonInvestmentEfficiency (#CIE). https://lnkd.in/gzTdydN3

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Very excited to share our new #fundinginstrument: the D-SAFE. It's modeled after the standard #SAFE (simple agreement for future equity). The D stands for "Development," and it's meant to address the specific #financing needs of #startups developing their first few pilot plants or commercial facilities. The D-SAFE gives the CEO the option to convert the #equity into a loan once the project is fully funded and underway, a feature that allows the CEO to redeem this capital to the investor – rather than automatically take on further dilution. It also makes it easier to finance new project developments with additional capital partners. The team Elemental Excelerator has been working on this for a while, and I'm excited to see it out in the wild. Our goal is to have the dollars recycle back to us as soon as the projects get larger financing so that we can re-deploy capital for #impact. We've already issued eight of these D-SAFEs to various portfolio companies and are excited for more! You can learn more about what this means in our announcement here: https://lnkd.in/gU74XqQU Huge props to everyone involved! Dawn Lippert Avra van der Zee Danya Hakeem Amir Chireh Mehr Mason Darryl Gunter Aparna Reddy Mike Curtis Lisa Kanehiro #financialinnovation #climatetech

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Climate Capital Guidebook: The Biden-Harris Administration is releasing a new Climate Capital Guidebook to provide a simple, comprehensive map of capital programs across the federal government that are available to climate-related start-ups, small- and medium-sized businesses, and their investors. While larger, institutionally-backed climate companies may have the resources to identify and access federal funding opportunities, smaller enterprises may face greater challenges in navigating these federal programs. https://lnkd.in/eJ3QV4Fw #climatechange #climatetech

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It takes 50 years to reabsorb deforestation emmissions! You often hear/read me drone on about the critical importance of avoidance carbon credits, particularly in the context of avoided deforestation. Steve Zwick elegantly summarised why those in the nature based solutions space insist on avoidance credits, citing this 2019 paper from Nature: One hectare of deforestation emits 355 tons of CO2 (all at once). One hectare of reforestation absorbs 6.7 tons of CO2 per year. In other words, it will take 50 years for newly planted trees to reabsorb the carbon released by every hectare deforested today. Reforestation is great, but stopping deforestation and degradation is critical. When you find yourself in a hole and want to get out: first, stop digging. https://lnkd.in/eyjqSEED

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📢 Last week The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) confirmed that both Verra's Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART) program met the rigorous Core Carbon Principles (#CCPs). Proud to be one of the members of the group that helped create these principles, can’t wait to see more and more standards to be aligned with them. This is a significant achievement for the voluntary carbon market, marking a major step towards ensuring the highest levels of integrity and transparency in carbon credits. So who will be next? Thoughts? #CarbonMarket #VCM #CarbonCredits https://lnkd.in/ecYWpexc

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I highly recommend this interview. I really appreciate your perspective and thoughts on this difficult subject, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson. Thank you for your work. You did an amazing job helping the interviewer reflect on his own reluctance to change- which I believe most of us struggle with. I also appreciated your focus on the importance of community, being responsible to each other, and how the results of our actions or inactions today will impact children and future generations. Here's one excerpt that resonated with me: "We know how to transition to renewable energy. We know how to insulate buildings. We know how to put reflective roofs on buildings. We know how to improve public transit. We know how to shift our transportation toward electric. We know how to avoid food waste. We know how to reduce our consumption. There’s a million things we could do. It’s just a matter of shifting the status quo, building the political will, shifting the culture in order to make all of these things happen as quickly as possible. There’s room for innovation, but there’s absolutely nothing that we need to wait for." Very inspirational! #frontiertechnology #climate #future #truth

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Climate solutions are sometimes hiding in plain sight (or in your filing cabinet). If you're a business or non-profit executive, consider giving your employees an option for their 401k that is aligned with their values, divested of businesses they don't want to contribute to. You're essentially re-focusing investment dollars into climate solutions... helping to unlock trillions faster than you realize. I highly recommend talking to Breene Murphy He helped me see it's simpler than I thought it would be AND can help your own financial bottom line. It's a win-win-win. #innovation #climatesolutions #investment #401k #unlockingtrillions #vc #nonprofit #endowment #financier

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Bill McKibben's latest post on the impact of climate change on economies resonates with me. We have seen major climate disasters in recent years, and it's clear that they are not just impacting local economies but also global ones. It's concerning that big businesses continue to resist change, despite the long-term economic benefits of sustainable practices. Why do some businesses choose to churn through resources when it's ultimately bad for their bottom line and branding? Sustainable solutions are the way forward, and the data shows that they ultimately provide better returns. By using resources sustainably, we can ensure the longevity of our brands and economies. It's time for businesses to shift their thinking and embrace climate change solutions. Short-sightedness and small-minded thinking will only lead to further danger for all of us. Let's work together towards a sustainable future. #climatechange #solar #batterystorage #DER #climatechangesolutions #decarbonization

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It was so great to be 65 people and take action on climate. 💡 I learned something new - that without increased transmission capacity, it will be difficult to transition to a 100% clean power grid. Battery storage alone is not enough to adequately and efficiently balance a grid with significant solar and wind generation, we need to add total capacity and improve interregional transmission across the entire U.S. power grid.

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🇺🇸 The U.S. Federal departments and offices have just released the "Voluntary Carbon Markets Joint Policy Statement and Principles”. We at International Carbon Registry celebrate more clarity on the direction of this important market and its role in the climate crisis. Notable developments include: • The emergence of multi-stakeholder initiatives that have set out standards and principles for high-integrity credit development and responsible credit use; • Improvements to key crediting methodologies, their guiding standards, and tracking systems; • New and improved analytical products and services that aim to strengthen credit transparency and quality comparability, such as carbon credit rating services; • Technologies to support robust measurement, monitoring, reporting, and verification (MMRV); • Multilateral rules, guidance, and procedures developed under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement and the international aviation sector's global carbon market-based measure, which shape certified emissions reductions and removals that often find their home in VCMs'; and • Advances in the development of market infrastructure to improve transparency and liquidity, as well as the integrity of market transactions.

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Huge thanks to GreenBiz Group and LaRonda Peterson for giving me the platform to talk write about my report. I love how you’ve framed it:   “The founding CEO of Verra explores how carbon markets — already a crucial tool in our climate toolbox — can catalyze the global shift to a green economy.”   The article can be read here: https://lnkd.in/duZ87Wve   And a link to my report is in the comments.   #CarbonTransitionTool #VoluntaryCarbonMarket #CarbonCredits

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