Good Morning
What we’re reading this week:
The Environmentalists Undermining Environmentalism (Atlantic)
US will award $2.8B for projects to boost EV battery manufacturing (CNBC)
New ocean tech fund makes waves (Axios)
The Greendicator
Top Deals of the Week
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Sweden-based H2 Green Steel raised a $254M Series B co-led by AMF, GIC, and Schaeffler to build the world's first large-scale green steel plant (PRN)
Nourish Ingredients, a food tech company creating animal-free fats using synthetic biology, raised a $28.6M Series A led by Horizons Ventures (TC)
Sensat, a seven-year-old London startup that aims to lead the digital automation of infrastructure projects in the energy, rail, and telecommunications sectors through the use of "digital twins" or simulations, raised an $18.9 million Series B round led by National Grid Partners (NUK)
Makersite, a four-year-old startup based in Munich, Germany, whose software helps clients like Microsoft and Procter & Gamble make sustainable product and supply chain decisions, raised an $18 million Series A round co-led by Hitachi Ventures and Translink Capital (TEU)
Net Purpose, a sustainability-focused investment platform, raised an $11M Series A led by ETF Partners (TC)
Parity, a six-year-old Toronto startup that claims to use AI to eliminate energy waste in multi-residential buildings, raised an $8 million round from Wyse, RET Ventures, and ArcTern Ventures. (BK)
Free electric ride-hailing business Freebee raised an $8M Series A led by bp ventures (PRN)
Reverion, a startup extracting electricity out of biogas and existing fuel-cell technology, raised a $7M seed round from Germany’s Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection, European Social Fund and XPrize (TC)
e-Zinc, a zinc-air battery startup, raised $7M in venture debt from SVB (BW)
Synonym, a 10-month-old, New York-based startup that's building a financing and implementation platform to quickly bring new biomanufacturing facilities online, has raised $6.3 million in pre-seed funding. Andreessen Horowitz, Giant Ventures, Blue Horizon, Thia Ventures and other venture funds active in decarbonization were part of the round. (TC)
Climatiq, a one-year-old Berlin startup whose API allows developers to embed carbon metrics into any piece of software, thus making it easier for organizations to assess the environmental impact of daily operations and processes, raised a $5.8 million seed round led by Singular (EUS)
Continue AI, a one-year-old New York startup that says it synthesizes millions of data points to enable corporations to build roadmaps to meet their ESG goals, raised a $5.7 million seed round co-led by Grove Ventures and Maple Capital (CT)
Vecmocon, an Indian startup that is building battery management systems, vehicle intelligence modules, instrument clusters, and chargers for EVs, raised a $5.2 million seed round. Tiger Global and Blume Ventures were the co-leads. (TC)
GreenPlaces, a Raleigh, N.C.-based "climate platform" that integrates with tools like Rippling and Workday to make sustainability reporting more seamless, has raised $4 million in seed funding led by Felicis (GP)
Waste4Change, an eight-year-old Indonesian startup whose aim is to help companies by increasing rates of recycling and enabling better waste management, raised a $5 million Series A round. AC Ventures and PT Barito Mitra Investama were the deal co-leads. (TC)
GreenPlaces, a sustainability reporting platform, raised a $4M seed round led by Felicis (PRN)
Switch Bioworks, a startup based in San Carlos, CA, that is developing an all-natural nitrogen fertilizer, raised a $4.3 million round. Investors included Emerson Collective (A)
UK-based carbon accounting platform Spherics raised a $1.4M round from angel investors (TC)
MycoWorks, a nine-year-old startup based in Emeryville, CA, that creates imitation leather out of mushroom roots for clients such as Hermès, raised an undisclosed strategic round from GM Ventures (CNN)
Green Theory
Dumping Meat > Dumpster Meat
We spent the last couple of weeks looking into the fuels that power our infrastructure, but what about emissions from fuels for our bodies? Unlike electrons, which are all more or less the same to the end consumer, food calories each come with their own emotional, social, and biological affinities. Still, our foods vary in the emissions they cause, just as our sources of power, and the physical footprint of agriculture takes up half of all habitable land on the planet. With some going hungry as others struggle with obesity, how can we more adequately address the global need for food, and make the best use of our precious land and resources?
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Reducing food waste presents an accessible path for individuals to help out, but may obscure bigger opportunities. When perfectly good food slides from a ceramic plate to a trash bag, we all know something’s wrong. Could it not have gone to a hungry mouth, or at least the compost? In the trash, that organic waste will likely generate methane in low-oxygen landfills. Further, regardless of where the food goes now, the resources used to produce and transport it have been wasted. Because of this dynamic, food waste reduction advocates usually focus on rescuing food at the critical moments right before food exits the economy and enters the garbage. Estimates for food waste greenhouse gas emissions vary from 2-10% of total emissions, and campaigns and laws from California to South Korea aim to keep good food out of the trash. Still, these campaigns have a mixed effect on changing consumption behaviors, even if they’re helpful for lowering emissions. One study found that informing diners that their leftovers would be composted increased the amount of waste generated. Cramming that last scrap of food into your mouth rather than the compost bin does technically spare the calories from even more waste, but with diminishing returns to nutrient uptake—especially at the end of a large meal—overstuffing ourselves isn’t going to save the planet, or feed more people. Perhaps there are better stages in a food product’s lifecycle to target.
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Vegans, vegetarians, and “climavores” alike have a simple, upstream solution: buy less animal. Animal agriculture generates 6-17% of annual emissions, and there’s no doubt that tossing a carrot in the trash pales in comparison to the waste of throwing out a beef burger. In terms of emissions, water, land, and life, wasting meat sits among the most resource-intensive activities a person can undertake, and for what? Even top food waste reduction champions will admit: it’s hard to perfectly plan the right amount of fresh food for you or your household. Rather than policing the final stages of food production and consumption, we can lower the wastefulness of food from the start with less meat. In his recent article, Why do Food Waste Advocates Give Meat a Pass?, Brian Kateman questions if food waste crusaders have their sights set on the right moments. In his final paragraph, he sums up his argument with the efficiency imperative for change: “Wherever you stand on the ethics on meat consumption and the politics of climate change, the numbers don’t lie—it’s just not very efficient to feed the world by raising livestock … If we could all be getting more for less, what are we waiting for?” Inspiring as the opportunity (to eliminate the wastefulness of animal agriculture) may be, the planet’s still waiting.
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Recently, plant-based meat sales have slowed, raising alarm that Kateman’s question could take even longer to answer. You may have heard of big names in the industry such as Impossible or Beyond, and one branding advisor thinks lack of differentiation is hurting the new food category. Instead of inspirational lifestyle messaging about the virtues of these foods versus factory-farmed meats, or confrontational advertising setting one veg burger apart from other plant-based meats, the category is stuck hoping that “plant-based” is all they need to say. When a new category forms, just announcing the “hot” new thing may be enough, but once it matures, the firms must compete with one another for the category’s market, the writer explains. He cites a few reasons plant-based meat may be lagging in this respect: lack of available margin for advertising, the personae of the founders, or the inability to focus on flexitarians. The founders’ visions could be the most critical reason for the outmoded marketing; do Beyond and Impossible simply view one another as adversaries, or do they both see factory farms as their shared enemy? For a more optimistic outlook, Synthesis Capital has modeled the “S-curve” of alternative meat adoption, claiming that—with meat price parity approaching—plant-based meats stand ready for explosive growth, instead of facing a branding crisis in a mature plant-based category. Dr. Catherine Tubb, Research Director at Synthesis, explains the hurdle “to get to the tipping point for alternative proteins. Products still need to be cheaper, more convenient and taste better.” Answering Kateman’s question (“what are we waiting for?”) Tubb would likely add that “[v]alue chains [for meat] are mature, and public opinion remains, for the most part, supportive, as customers are accustomed and attached to their roast dinner or BBQ steak.” Through a combination of better taste, price, brand, or other factors, plant-based meats will need to evolve to expand.
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In the decades to come, with more mouths to feed, as communities struggle to contain landfills, food waste reduction advocates would be wise to look upstream, and cut waste off at the source. To be sure, the appeals of plant-based alternatives have room to improve, yet none can argue with the resource efficiency of non-animal foods relative to meat. A 2016 study found that replacing just US beef with plant protein could feed 190 million more people on the same resources. Instead, in 2022 alone, over 10 billion animals and counting have been slaughtered in the US, just to end up as trash in a grocery store, restaurant, or kitchen. Whether we clean our plates with tongues and forks, or rags and napkins, our attachment to meat wastes more food than it gives us before we even take a bite.
The Closer
It is officially spooky szn in Joshua Tree National Park.