🛢 ClimateHack Vol. 55: Oil companies tap into ESG funding

Hey There,

I enjoyed this short piece by The Guardian on why climate tribalism isn’t helping the climate movement.

It touches upon the rising infighting in the climate community between different groups on which technology or approach is the most impactful in the fight against climate change.

Here’s a good excerpt from the article to think on as we head into another weekend of expected record breaking temperates across Europe.

"Let's focus on moving towards our goals rather than pinning all our hopes on an ideal means of getting there. Whether you’re a fan of nuclear or solar, electric cars or trains, lab-grown meat or lentils: we are all on the same team. Let’s start acting like it."

In today's edition:

🇪🇺 EU’s Nature Restoration Law survives by “razor-thin margins”.
📊 Parisian finres raised €4.1M to underwrite climate and price risks.
🛢 An ESG loophole see’s Saudi oil companies tap into sustainability funding.

Digest x Climate

🦅 Interesting Data: This infographic shared by Mark Maslin, Professor at UCL, compares the driving forces behind the death toll of birds across the US.

📈 What’s up? The low-emissions energy sector is behind a soaring demand for lithium and other critical minerals, according to data from the International Energy Agency.

🏢 A new study from Northwestern University suggests that underground climate change (aka a rise in subterranean temperatures) is causing the ground to shift in Chicago, posing a threat to urban infrastructure.

🇪🇺 The Nature Restoration Law has survived a dramatic vote in the European Parliament, but only won by a “razor-thin margin”, thanks to “right-wing backlash”.

🔎 An AI language model created by Permutable AI has monitored ESG commitments and corresponding emissions data of the FTSE100 and found that less than 20% are on track to become net-zero businesses.

Carbon x Climate

💰 Low-carbon infrastructure specialist Nexus PMG raised $50 million in a growth equity round to expand its core service offerings, including financial modelling, site selection, and project management.

🛰 Dutch startup Meteory secured €550,000 in a funding round led by Shamrock Ventures. Its SaaS platform harnesses satellite data to track critical environmental changes, and leverages advanced data analytics and machine learning algorithms to help businesses and organisations better understand their environmental impact.

Food x Climate

🌱 Aphea.Bio, based in Belgium, secured €70 million Series C funding. It provides novel science-based solutions to support sustainable agriculture, with a focus on developing microbial strains that improve plant nutrient uptake.

📊 Parisian fintech finres raised €4.1 million in a round led by SpeedInvest for its AI-assisted decision-making platform which underwrites climate and price risks to support organisations and governments in their investments in the agricultural sector, in order to strengthen resilience to climate change.

🌾 UK-based NetZeroNitrogen secured $1.6 million, in an oversubscribed pre-seed funding round led by Revent and Zero Carbon Capital, to support its first stage of field trials for its nitrogen alternative for plants.

🧀 Austrian precision fermentation startup Fermify announced an extended seed funding round and confirmed partnerships with CREMER and Interfood to help bring its animal-free cheese to market.

🧪 Californian startup Calysta is using a patented fermentation platform to convert methane into single-cell proteins, which it describes as “protein without limits”.

🏭 US-based Liberation Labs has broken ground on its first precision fermentation production facility. It features a fermentation capacity of 600,000 litres and will produce bio-based proteins and other building block ingredients for CPG companies and industrial manufacturers.

Energy x Climate

🌡 Vilisto, based in Germany, raised €5 million Series A funding. It produces a smart thermostat for non-residential buildings, which uses sensors that detect motion, light, and sound levels alongside self-learning algorithms and has been proven to save up to 32% of heating energy.

🔋 UK-based energy storage startup Allye, which came out of stealth this month, secured £900,000 to turn electric vehicle battery packs into portable energy storage systems, which it will start rolling out to customers in Q3.

🇨🇳 A new report by Global Energy Monitor shows that China is on course to become the world leader in renewable power, potentially outpacing its own ambitious energy targets by doubling its capacity and producing 1,200 gigawatts of energy through wind and solar power by 2025.

🏭 Advanced nuclear fission startup Oklo is going public via merger with SPAC AltC Acquisition Corp to raise as much as $500 million, which it will use to scale up development of its supply chains and pilot manufacturing facilities.

Materials x Climate

🤖 French plastic recycling robotics company b:bot, whose machines offer consumers a cash reward to shred their plastic bottles, raised €20 million to double the size of its robot workforce by the end of this year and expand into aluminium can recycling.

🤝 US cultivated cotton startup GALY has signed a deal with Japan’s Suzuran Medical Inc. to use thousands of tons of its product to create medical supplies such as gauze and absorbent cotton.

🛒 UK supermarket Asda is rolling out products from Amsterdam-based sustainable household paper brand, The Good Roll, whose products such as toilet roll and kitchen towel are made from 100% bamboo.

👖 Levi’s has launched plant-based 501 jeans to mark its 150-year anniversary. They’re made with organic cotton, a wood waste-based biopigment, and a leather-alternative made from responsibly sourced natural rubber, cork powder and coconut husks.

Transport x Climate

🚛 Hydrogen-powered lorry startup HVS secured £30 million from Asda’s billionaire owners, the Issa brothers, alongside £21 million in taxpayer-funded grants. It is looking to begin production in 2026 of its zero-emission lorry, which it says will have a range of 350 miles and be refuelled in the same time that it takes to fill the tank of a diesel lorry.

⚡️ Switzerland-based aCentauri Solar Racing is partnering with Swiss VC QBIT Capital at TECHNOPARK® Zurich to develop a solar-powered racing car.

🚲 Dutch ebike startup VanMoof is struggling, currently trying to secure a bridge round to help it stay afloat as several of its key Execs depart.

Construction x Climate

🪵 Swedish developers are building the world’s largest wooden city in Stockholm, featuring 7,000 office spaces and 2,000 homes across over 250,000 square meters, at a cost of around €1.4 billion.

🇸🇪 New research from Sweden’s Lund University shows that taking inspiration from termite mounds could help future buildings achieve the same effect as traditional climate control, but with greater energy efficiency and without its CO2 footprint.

Wildfires x Climate

🔥 US-based Pano AI secured $17 million for its technology which uses high-definition cameras installed on mountaintops that scan the landscape to detect wildfires and issue warnings to local firefighters.

Funds x Climate

💰 Azolla Ventures announced a new $239 million fund to support early-stage startups that can "significantly alter the trajectory of climate change, but are overlooked by traditional capital sources".

🥤Coca-Cola and eight of its bottling partners from around the world have formed a $137.7 million venture capital fund to focus on sustainability investments within packaging, heating and cooling, facility decarbonisation, distribution and the supply chain.

🇨🇦 Protein Industries Canada is offering $10 million CAD to support food tech projects working with artificial intelligence to improve plant-based food production, to help accelerate the commercialisation of new foods and ingredients while making Canada’s plant-based sector more efficient and sustainable.

Fundraising x Climate

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Memes x Climate

In the most bizarre headline of the week, it turns out the world’s largest oil company has become an unlikely beneficiary of funds earmarked for sustainable investments.

(credit: Edward van der Hout)

Thanks for reading and for those headed out this weekend, please bring plenty of water, and make sure to find some shade. Heatstroke is no joke.

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Editorial by Arman, Curation by Nicola.