Good Morning
What we’re reading this week:
Exxon’s Climate Fight With Investors Won’t Be the Last (T)
Can We Engineer Our Way Out of the Climate Crisis? (NYT)
The Greendicator
Top Deals of the Week
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German climate technology startup Cloover, which supports small clean energy installation businesses, raised a $114M seed(!) round led by Lowercarbon Capital (RT)
Syre, a Swedish textile recycling company, raised a $100M Series A led by TPG Rise Climate (FN)
280 Earth, a DAC startup, raised a $50M Series B led by Builders VC (BW)
Doconomy, a Swedish fintech providing banks with tools to drive climate action, raised a $37.2M Series B led by UBS Next and CommerzVentures (EU)
Reactive Technologies, a startup measuring grid stability, raised a $31.4M Series D led by M&G Catalyst (BW)
Verse, a startup helping organizations reduce emissions by managing their electricity consumption, raised a $20.5M Series A led by GV (PRN)
Geothermal energy startup XGS Energy raised a $20M Series A extension led by Valo Ventures and VoLo Earth Ventures (BW)
Harbinger, an electric truck manufacturer, raised a $13M round led by Greycroft (FN)
Caeli Wind, a platform for analyzing and marketing wind energy locations, raised an $11M round led by Notion Capital (FN)
Water intelligence (for farms, cities and manufacturers) company Ketos raised $10M in equity funding led by Tenfore Holdings (FN)
Aeromine Technologies, a startup developing rooftop wind energy solutions, raised a $9M Series A led by Veriten (VC)
Fiberwood, a startup developing fossil-free insulation and packaging materials, raised a $8M round from Metsa Spring, Stephen Industries, and others (BW)
Subeca, a startup providing low cost and easy-to-use water technology to enhance sustainability for utilities, raised a $6M Series A led by SUEZ (PRN)
ThinkLabs AI, a startup developing technology to enhance grid planning, raised a $5M seed round led by Powerhouse Ventures and Active Impact Investments (FN)
Green Theory
The climate weight of global freight
Whether passing freight trucks on the freeway, or spotting tankers in the bay, the signs of our global shipping systems can be hard to miss. Between planes, trains, automobiles, and ships, how much freight do we move, and what emissions do they produce?
Globally, freight is responsible for about 6-8% of all emissions. Among transport types, trucking emits almost two thirds of the total emissions, while moving less than one fifth of our freight-miles. Shipping by boat offers the inverse proportions: moving over 70% of our goods for just one fifth of the emissions. Rail and air freight round out our shipment methods, and they each generate roughly the same total emissions, even though trains haul over 40 times as much as planes. Below, you can see the amount of freight distance hauled, and total emissions generated by each transport type.
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While as many as 40 million freight trucks crawl the continental highways of the planet, a mere 100,000 vessels comprise the global merchant fleet. By weight, about a third of the capacity simply moves crude oil around. Only 40,000 boats ship 86% of our ocean freight, while the remaining majority use their relatively minuscule capacities to navigate calmer seas and inland waterways.
For comparison, passenger road travel emits slightly more than global freight transport, but the sheer scale of freight boats means retiring a mid-sized container ship is the equivalent of replacing 17,000 gas cars.
Cleaner shipping
Trucking alone releases around 5% of global emissions, on a fleet of a few dozen millions of vehicles. Although passenger cars make up a slightly larger share of emissions than trucking, you’d have to build one billion electric vehicles before you would’ve offset as much as with 50 million e-trucks. Manufacturers from Tesla to Volvo are focusing on electrifying freight vehicles, while innovative startups such as Terawatt Infrastructure are making freight-scale charging a reality.
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Fixing trucks and enhancing our grid infrastructure will solve for a majority of freight emissions, but what about the majority of freight-distance hauled? The Clean Shipping Act aims to increase standards for US ocean freight, striving to slash emissions by 45% in the next 6 years. While that goal may sound far-fetched, Project Drawdown estimated a 22.5% efficiency improvement simply by slowing down vessel speeds. When it comes to freight, the fastest speeds typically connect to the highest emissions.
Slowgistics
As certain consumer companies push ever-faster delivery speed to be an essential aspect of modern luxury, we pay an enormous cost for buying into it. Airplanes move a vanishingly small amount of global shipping, but flying freight emits 1 in 200 tons of carbon dioxide every year. Goods moving via rail, road, and sea are far easier on our planetary systems, but even within these categories, vast differences in efficiency come from the underlying vehicles themselves, and also how we choose to use them.
As the relative efficiencies of our freight options show, shipping choices make a big difference in the footprint of our purchases. Whether you’re building a sustainable business, or buying something online, looking for slower shipping options lets us resist the dual trends toward heedless speed and emissions in logistics. And if you’re trying to decarbonize on a systems level, don’t overlook the weight of freight emissions.
The Closer
We get asked the question all the time - hey, why don't I see that many lightning bugs anymore? The simple answer is, maybe your community is no longer a good habitat for them… That’s why it's important to leave your backyards and street sides as untouched as possible every autumn to preserve the larvae and small insects living in the leaf litter. -USFWS