Good afternoon.
What we’re reading this week:
Barclays increased its 2030 sustainable finance target to $1T (RT)
The Nicest Place Online? It Might Just Involve Identifying Sea Slugs. (NYT)
The Greendicator
Top Deals of the Week
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Silicon-battery material company Group14 raised a $214M Series C at a $3B+ valuation from investors including Microsoft and Oman’s sovereign-wealth fund (WSJ)
Plant-based food tech startup NotCo raised $70M in funding at a $1.5B valuation led by Princeville Capital (BW)
Sun King, a provider of off-grid solar energy products in Africa and Asia, raised a $70M Series D extension round led by LeapFrog Investments (TC)
Equinom, a startup breeding new non-GMO varieties of the plant-based food industry’s primary source crops, raised $35M in funding from Synthesis Capital (BW)
Battery management tech company Element Energy raised a $28M Series B co-led by Cohort Ventures and one of the largest clean energy generation companies (PRN)
Basecamp Research, a startup designing protein products using a proprietary knowledge graph of natural biodiversity, raised a $20M Series A led by Systemiq Ventures (BW)
Cabinet Health, a startup developing a refillable and compostable medicine storage system, raised a $17M debt / equity round led by the Global Impact Fund (BW)
ArkeaBio, a startup developing a vaccine to reduce methane emissions from animals, raised a $12M seed round led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures (PRN)
Eion, a startup helping farms capture carbon with green rock dust, raised a $12M Series A led by AgFunder and Ridgeline (TC)
EV charging company EnviroSpark raised a $10M funding round led by Ultra Capital (PRN)
Forest restoration startup Kodama Systems raised a $6.6M seed round led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Congruent Ventures (PRN)
3Bee, an Italian startup using technology to support bees / pollination, raised a $5.3M Series A led by the Grow Impact Fund (PRN)
Mad Capital, a lender offering flexible and customized funding for organic and transitioning farmers, raised a $4M seed round led by Trailhead Capital (PRN)
Green Bioactives, a Scottish startup aiming to scale production of plant-derived natural products, raised a $3.2M seed round led by Eos Advisory (PRN)
Everimpact, a carbon monitoring and monetization start-up, raised a ~$1.8M seed round led by Motion Ventures (BW)
Green Theory
Robbing Big Banks…of Customers
We need no new oil and gas plants to get to 2050, according to the International Energy Agency. And yet, banks across the world are locking in emissions, and financing future forest fires, by funding new fossil fuel infrastructure. Just how much? In 2021, San Francisco’s RAN reported:
2020 [fossil fuel financing] levels remained higher than in 2016, the year immediately following the adoption of the Paris Agreement. The overall fossil fuel financing trend of the last five years is still heading definitively in the wrong direction…
JPMorgan Chase remains the world’s worst banker of fossil fuels over this time period, though its funding did drop significantly last year. Citi follows as the second-worst fossil bank, followed by Wells Fargo, Bank of America, RBC, and MUFG. Barclays is the worst in Europe and Bank of China is the worst in China.
Desiring to stop funding fossil fuels in more ways in 2022, one may have vowed to break up with their bank, especially Chase, as one Green Bite author did. If you banked with JPMorgan Chase over the last 3 years—alongside around 60 million others in the US—you, too, personally funded over $1,000 for expansion projects like destroying Indigenous cultural objects with explosives.
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The search for the perfect climate bank
There are plenty of banks or banking services, from large institutions to new startups, claiming to be green. Unpacking which ones merely disguise a fossil fuel funder narrows the field. For instance, the outdoor-loving environmentalist considering more conscious banking (and buying gear) might look to REI’s credit card, but it’s just an affiliate card issued by pipeline-pushing US Bank, which also runs Elan Financial, and its “conscious choices” for credit at Sunrise Banks.
Beneficial State Bank stands apart with its continued pledge to stay fossil fuel-free, but it’s only available to those on the West Coast. Offering a full suite of banking services and credit cards, customers bank knowing they’re not funding fossil fuels, or other “contra-mission” endeavors. The bank does service Aspiration’s for-profit credit card, which brings a weird twist to an already green credit card suite. An independent startup, Aspiration raised hundreds of millions of dollars, and captured the attention of the entrepreneurial scene from fintech to climate. In 2021, Aspiration seemed like it had everything a tech-forward green credit customer could dream of: flashy startup branding, a tree planting project to offset your emissions for you, and more. Longtime Green Theory readers will know this already raises some alarms. Further, Aspiration took its celebrity funding to try and create an absurd, and doomed, SPAC merger in 2021, eventually leading to the CEO stepping down a few months back. Amidst these controversies, the company suggests using US Bank before its own, actually fossil fuel-free, bank of issue. Beneficial State Bank presents an exceptional green banking option for those in California, Oregon, or Washington, despite the wrinkles of Aspiration.
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In lieu of accessing your own special credit unions by locale or group membership, which could very well be fossil fuel-free, a few Community Development Financial Institutions top lists of ethical choices: TCM Bank and Amalgamated Bank. Since these listicles’ residue of partner content, subtle greenwashing, and guerilla marketing obscure reality, getting to the bottom of these banks requires a few extra steps. TCM doesn’t seem to make any fossil fuel statements about their own portfolio, despite some false claims listed on other sites. Amalgamated has a fossil-free fund, which implies the rest of the bank isn’t rid of these investments. If imperfect, these banks still almost undeniably offer a more sustainable service than JPM Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, or Bank of America.
To Those Still Clutching Sapphires
While none of these suggestions center on the optimal point scheme or financial value maximization strategy for your banking choices, the search for the ideal green bank asks whether the marginal additional savings from a polluting, spending-driven credit card reward is worth more than the peace of divesting further from new fossil fuel projects.
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Environmental activist and author Bill McKibben, who wrote The End of Nature and founded 350.org, recently published a blog post telling people to cut up their credit cards outside these big four banks, such as Chase, on 3/21/23. Decrying the expansion of new fossil fuel infrastructure and resource extraction, he urges solidarity—not in switching to a new bank, or calling to defund ExxonMobil—just cutting up your credit card outside a bank branch. Does this protest send the right message? McKibben posits that, for individuals, changing banks is tough, especially with a mortgage, so the symbolic gesture of card cutting is more important. Some would argue that reordering a new plastic card and carrying on is a net negative outcome, and McKibben leaves readers without a new bank to trust.
Changing banks isn’t easy, but it’s much easier than buying an EV, or shifting from an average US omnivore to vegan. We do have a choice in where we bank as individuals, but we don’t have the luxury of time to waste in slashing emissions as a society.
Green Theory Post Script: The Woahs & Woes till Ando Froze
Even a smug, new Beneficial State Bank customer and Green Bite writer, looking down on Aspiration fintech at the end of 2022, could have stumbled into another startup’s blunders: Ando Bank. Securing funding in late 2021, the company appeared in our newsletter, and one author decided to give it a try. The San Diego startup bank funded hard-hitting climate projects, focused on Drawdown Solutions such as solar development, rather than gimmicks or questionable carbon accounting.
The app, though slow, offered free check writing and mailing in a few taps, and the bank delivered paychecks from days to a week early. Nationwide ATM fee coverage came as a counter to the lack of brick and mortar branches, and a $0 monthly fee complimented the absence of a credit card. The experiment in trust seemed successful, and after many months of service, it was time to switch billing from Chase to Ando, and close Chase banking accounts.
Unfortunately, that’s right when Ando announced a new monthly “Sustainability Fee,” and promptly shut down 66 days later.
Many warned of using a startup bank, but the FDIC-insured institution, though young, paid out all account balances and, like a respectful employee, provided 2 weeks’ notice. That may not be enough time for everyone to open a new bank account, so relying solely on one of these banks—however valiant their funding criteria—presents a risk. Extending empathy to any readers who also hopped on the one-way Ando train to failed aspirations of climate banks.
The Closer
Noctilucent clouds — the rarest clouds in the world — glowed like shimmering cobwebs in the sky over the San Francisco Bay Area early Friday morning.