The NatureBacked Podcast

Latest Episodes:

New Age of Investor Activism, with Grünfin's Alejandro Jimenez Jan 30, 2023

Teaming up with other investors to push for a change towards greener and healthier products from global firms is gaining traction, and industry behemoths like Unilever and Nestle are listening, said Alejandro Jimenez, head of investments at Estonian green investment platform Grünfin.
“Part of our goal is to make you feel you have the power; this is democratized. You have accessibility, and your money is doing something good and helping make this change. So more of these coalitions are indeed popping up," Jimenez said.
Learn more about:

how investors push change in behemoths like Unilever, Nestle
benefits of investing through exchange-traded funds (ETFs)
why Grünfin focuses on Paris Agreement

“In the New World, activism needs to think about a lot more broadly than just shareholders and think about consumers, employees, the supply chain, what governments are saying, and all that kind of stuff,” Jimenez said.
In the NatureBacked podcast of Single.Earth, we talk with investors and entrepreneurs about their vision of the new green world.
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Eating Construction Waste with MycoCycle Jan 23, 2023

Mushrooms will open a new nature-backed market for turning construction waste into new raw materials, said Joanne Rodriguez, founder of MycoCycle.
“There is no waste in nature - that’s a manmade construct. And so, looking for solutions in nature to solve these problems is critical to how we battle this climate change,” Rodriguez said.
Learn more about:

Where mushrooms and cannabis meet
The opportunities of biomimicry
The beginning of mycelium rush

In the United States alone, 660 million tonnes of construction and demolition waste is added to landfills annually. That’s twice the amount of municipal solid waste, she said.
“I see us as the only ones doing this with the nature-backed solution. We are seeing others work in recycling construction and demolition debris or hard-to-recycle industrial waste streams. That’s usually coming through chemical recycling,” Rodriguez said.
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Building Climate Change Resilient Crops with ClimateCrop Jan 16, 2023

Making potatoes and other crops more resistant to climate change and growing them faster using gene-editing techniques is the challenge ClimateCrop is looking to solve over coming years, said Yehuda Borenstein, founder of ClimateCrop.

“We have an opportunity to upgrade plants and give them more resilience without a lot of investment in capex which is quite rare when you fight climate. Usually, you fight climate with capex,” Borenstein said.
For many listeners, this surely raises ethical concerns, but Borenstein said the company works outside the GMO sphere. “We are only cutting a certain area in the DNA. So we don’t introduce any foreign DNA,” Borenstein said.
Learn more about:

How to tweak photosynthesis
Which crops ClimateCrop can fix?
Which are the first in line?

In the NatureBacked podcast of Single.Earth, we are talking with investors and entrepreneurs about their vision of the new green world.
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Turning Plastics Greener and Cheaper With Applied Bioplastics' Alex Blum Jan 09, 2023

A trip to a refugee camp in Bangladesh led to a documentary and sowed the seeds for a material startup, which promises to cut plastics production costs and emissions using cellulose, said Alex Blum, founder of Applied Bioplastics.

“What we’ve done by mixing cellulose with regular plastic in a way that is inexpensive to accomplish is that we’ve created a replacement for durable plastics that cost less than the original plastic while cutting the carbon footprint in half,” Blum said.
Learn more about:

Details of one of the weirdest founding stories
Why is the adoption of bioplastics limited so far?
How to scale material innovation globally fast
Should you be proud when you staff $3 a day?

Applied Bioplastics team of 20 has so far raised $1.2 million and seeks to raise a further $1.24 million. You can check their campaign on Raise Green platform through this LINK.

Blum’s “Blossoms From Ash” documentary about the Rohingya genocide won several awards and is available on Amazon.
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Beyond COP15: Much Needed Solutions for Biodiversity Dec 21, 2022

United Nations’ biodiversity summit COP15 finished with a historic deal earlier this week in Montreal. At NatureBacked, we discussed the essence of the agreement and how protecting biodiversity will become common.
Nations agreed to protect 30% of the planet by 2030 and to protect vital ecosystems such as rainforests and wetlands and the rights of indigenous peoples. The Montreal summit was seen as a last chance for nature’s biodiversity.
“We have this global agreement that this is the thing - biodiversity needs to be protected. And action needs to be taken on this,” Merit Valdsalu, chief executive and co-founder of Estonian greentech startup Single.Earth, said in the podcast.
“As a startup founder, it is now, I think, the craziest time where we can say that the United Nations just validated our utopian startup idea,” she said.
Single.Earth is building a nature-backed currency of the future, minted from nature’s work in keeping our planet livable.
The Montreal agreement can change the world for the better, said Katherine von Stackelberg, a scientist working at Harvard and Single.Earth.
“Everyone agrees we want to be nature positive. Make disclosures mandatory piece; everyone’s moving in the right direction. But again, the devil is in the details,” said von Stackelberg.
“There’s still this idea: we’re going to get nature into the economic system instead of thinking, how can we make the economic system more like nature? Because that’s not that difficult. If you’re going to be successful, you have to commit to something like a nature-backed currency. Nature is the only asset that has any value fundamentally and from which all else comes.”
Von Stackelberg and Valdsalu said Single.Earth has the solution ready for turning the UN’s biodiversity targets into tangible actions.
“The crazy utopian idea that we had - we have this, it’s working, we are creating a new currency based on nature; we have the first tokens dispersed, many tokens minted, it’s there, it can be used. It’s no longer about whether we are going to become nature-positive or net zero by 2030. We can do that today,” Valdsalu said.
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Ask a Farmer
Answering questions about food and farming in Canada

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Stirring Up Coffee Industry, with Green Coffee Company and Coffee Cloud Dec 19, 2022

There are numerous opportunities for a revolution in the coffee industry, said guests at Naturebacked’s holiday-season coffee episode.

We talked first with Josh Ziegelbaum from Miami-based private equity firm and asset manager Legacy Group, the key investor behind Green Coffee Company, the largest coffee producer in Colombia, which it built from the ground up starting in 2017.
The Green Coffee Company is raising $100 million to expand its offering into roasting and distilling spirits from coffee waste.
Learn more about:

How to build a coffee unicorn in 10 years
The opportunity to use the coffee industry leftovers
How to change the industry’s social, and environmental standards
Innovator’s dilemma in an old industry

Later, we talked with Miroslav Kovac from Coffee Cloud in Croatia. He has turned the startup, which was born as a hardware company, into a data analytics firm for the coffee industry to reduce waste and slack from the process.
“It’s not easy to go to the coffee virtually. In some countries, it’s not always takeaway coffee. Coffee is a social situation. Let’s say in the Balkans, where people are sitting and having coffee, it’s some kind of state of mind to sit and join the coffee for one or two hours and talk about everything,” Kovac said.
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Emerging Consumer Demand Will Drive ClimateTech, With James Vincent Dec 12, 2022

Pressure from consumers will likely be the key driver pushing climate tech towards the mainstream over the coming years, said James Vincent, co-founder of brand advisory and investment firm FNDR.
“We’re a few years off from that because we haven’t done the homework yet. We haven’t shock-absorbed the need for culture to absorb the new metrics of what’s important in the world,” Vincent said.
James Vincent worked as a brand agency executive with Steve Jobs for 11 years through the launches of iPod, iTunes, iPhone and iPad, before launching FNDR in 2017.
Learn more about:

Essentials of starting your brand development
Why do electric airplanes need fuel engines?
Why a typical AirBNB review is so positive
Why the iPhone is called iPhone

At Slush 2022, FNDR launched its first investment fund, but Vincent stressed the company was not a VC firm.
“We take founders through our processes to pull the genius out of the founder. So we think the founders often almost always have the genius somewhere, they’re just not quite saying it right, or they’re not segmenting it or sequencing it correctly,” Vincent said.
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Fixing Electricity Production with Scale Microgrid's Tim Hade Dec 05, 2022

Surging growth in distributed energy production, driven by innovations in solar and battery technologies, is helping the energy sector to cope with climate change, said Tim Hade, COO and co-founder of Scale Microgrid Solutions.
“We’re getting to the point right now where distributed energy is starting to displace coal and gas - that’s going to be sort of a choppy road over the next decade or two,” Hade said.
“Our current energy infrastructure has way too many single points of failure. We need to figure out a way to make it more reliable and more resilient in the face of ever-changing climate catastrophes,” Hade said.
“On-site solar generation and batteries can provide 80% of the facility’s power need today. And then figuring out the other 20% is where we spend a lot of engineering R&D time, trying to figure out how to get a zero or low-carbon solution.”
Learn more about:

Innovations unleashing distributed energy production
Challenges of hydrogen distribution
The continuing surge in distributed energy production in the U.S.
Fast-evolving battery technologies

“When you look at the ramp rate when it comes to battery technology, we’re accomplishing a lot of things in months that people thought would take decades,” Hade said.
“We’re experimenting with all sorts of cool technologies in that space, different battery chemistries, and longer-duration storage, as well as alternative sustainable fuels like green hydrogen, is an example."
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Death of a Client: Beautiful endings with Joe Macleod Nov 28, 2022

Industries have too often left the control over the end of the product lifecycle to individuals at a time when it could open many opportunities for the reuse of materials, said Joe Macleod, founder of andend, the world’s first customer-ending business.

“There’s a massive gap at the end of the consumer lifecycle that holds circularity,” Macleod said.
Learn more about:

Solutions for better off-boarding experiences
Concept of Death and the world’s largest graveyard
Business opportunities around death
When will Facebook have more dead customers than live ones

Joe Macleod is the author of:

Ends.: Why we overlook endings for humans, products, services and digital. And why we shouldn’t
Endineering: Designing consumption lifecycles that end as well as they begin
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Tackling the Biggest Opportunity with Matt Ward Nov 21, 2022

Climate investing and the climate, in general, is the biggest opportunity we’ve ever had, said Matt Ward from early-stage climate investment syndicate 4WARD.VC.
“Either we pull it off and succeed or pretty much we all effing die and go to war, and the world goes to absolute s-h-i-t. So what would you rather bet on? Would you rather bet on humanity being creative, coming up with solutions, and doing the hard thing? Or would you rather bet against humanity?”
“Will we stop climate change? No. Will we fight climate change and try to make the best of worlds that we can and still have something livable? Yes,” Ward said.

“My goal with this is, I’m going to make as big of a dent as I can. Whether that is enough or not, I don’t know. But I’m going to aim towards it being enough and being positive on a climate from a world perspective.”

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Looking for Solutions with Anders Wijkman Nov 14, 2022

A universal basic dividend that would distribute some of the profits generated by corporates in industrialized countries to the citizens in low-income countries would be a step forward in the current troubled situation, said Anders Wijkman, Honorary President of the global think tank Club of Rome.
“If you look at the world at large, we are moving in the wrong direction. Almost every possible environment indicator is pointing downwards, not upwards. So I’m not happy. I am quite pessimistic,” Wijkman said in the episode recorded at the GreenEST Summit in Tallinn.

Learn more about:

The Limits of Growth: looking back at the 1972 report
What kind of carrots do European farmers need for change?
How to change course for the world’s energy systems

”If you look at history, major transformations were always happening in the context of crises, wars, pandemics. We are not good at changing course, we are resistant to change as long as we think life is relatively good,” Wijkman said.

Anders Wijkman is a former Member of the European Parliament, Assistant Secretary-General of the UN, and Policy Director of UNDP, among many other climate-linked tasks over his long career.
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Curing Climate Anxiety with Firstime’s Itamar Weizman Nov 07, 2022

Action and information sharing are keys for fighting climate anxiety, said Itamar Weizman, the head of climate investments at Israeli investment firm Firstime who suffers from self-diagnosed climate anxiety.

He said the five stages of climate anxiety are similar to the five stages of grief.
"A lot of people are stuck in denial, especially in America, right? People are just: I don’t want to hear about it. There is nothing going on. I can continue business as usual. Everything is fine. The world isn’t burning, the world isn’t dying, and the world isn’t crashing,” he said.
“My goal is to bring as many people as I can through these stages to acceptance, so they can restart with action. If we don’t go through all of these stages, from denial to anger to bargaining, depression, and acceptance, we don’t go into action,” Weizman said.
Learn more about:

How to travel to COP27, and what to expect
Language requirements for Firstime investments
Beehero's unique insight into hives
How First Airborne drones inspect wind farms autonomously

Recommended documentaries:

David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet
John Chester: The Biggest Little Farm

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Flabbergasted by Cultivated Meat, with Meatable's Daan Luining Oct 31, 2022

Industrial agriculture, one of the most significant contributors to climate change, is facing a revolution that will move meat production to factories from farms, said Daan Luining, a co-founder and CTO at cultivated meat startup Meatable.

The 2018-founded Dutch startup Meatable - one of the frontrunners in the new field of cultivated meat - has raised $60 million so far. It aims to sell its first lab-grown meats to consumers in 2024-2025.
“We replicate what nature is doing without the entire animal attached to it. So we give the cells food, what they usually would consume if it were still attached to the animal. So these are sugars, proteins, and salts,” Luining said.
While there are still some two years to industrial production, the founders gave tasted the first results of their work.
“It almost brought me to tears. It was a huge moment for me. Huge,” Luining remembered the first bite of Meatable’s cultivated meat..
“Every time, it’s flabbergasting.”
Learn more about:

Why Singapore first?
Vegan meat vs. no-cruelty meat
Is there a difference in taste?
Early signs of recovery in the investment market

In the NatureBacked podcast of Single.Earth, Tarmo Virki talks with investors and entrepreneurs about their vision of the new green economy.

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Moving the Needle with Climentum's Yoann Berno Oct 24, 2022

Rules of capitalism need changing to move the needle in the fight against climate change, said Yoann Berno, a partner at the Nordic investment firm Climentum.

“Unfortunately, our leaders, political leaders, are too short-sighted. They’re just responding to this crisis as they responded to COVID. As they will respond to the next crisis, I think it would be a great moment to pause, reflect, and then choose the course - to be a bit more visionary looking 10, 15, 20 years out, now is an opportunity to do it. Unfortunately, they’re just losing this opportunity,” he said.

Learn more about:

How to move to Capitalism 2.0
Is the carbon price too low?
When will people wake up?
investing in heat pumps, geothermal, and hydrogen
how to manage graveyards of wind turbine blades

Climentum launched in July 2022 a 150 million euro fund for investments in climate startups. It has invested in Continuum and one.five so far.

You can hear more of Berno in his Climate Insiders podcast.
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Looking For Big Impact in Changing Resource-Intensive Industries with Norselab Oct 03, 2022

Oslo-headquartered Norselab looks for startups transforming resource-intensive industries like food, transport, and construction, said Maria de Perlinghi, a partner at the Norwegian impact investment firm.

“We believe that the next frontier or the code that we have to crack now is in the major global industries, where we know that there are huge challenges,” she said.

“We’re not at all shy of going into those industries and supporting companies that contribute to transforming those industries.”

Learn more about:

Doing good: with the product or corporate functions?
Robots collecting seashells
The future role of ESG
Challenges of launching a high-yield impact fund

“The first principle that we always look for is what we call product-driven impact. So we will not focus so much on how a company is run or the operations of a company, which would be more typical for the ESG approach - we will really look at the core products of the company, the way the company makes money, and whether that can contribute to one of the Sustainable Development Goals," de Perlinghi said.

In the NatureBacked podcast of Single.Earth, Tarmo Virki talks with investors and entrepreneurs about their vision of the new green world.

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Climate Tech Investments Accelerating Further, Says Extantia Sep 26, 2022

Climate tech is booming thanks to troubles in the European energy sector. Still, the proportion of investments in climate tech has to grow from very low levels, said Sebastian Heitmann, co-founder, and partner at Extantia Capital.

“The goal is to significantly increase this over the coming years,” Heitmann said. “In our world, the current situation is an acceleration. And we see more interest than before.”

Berlin-headquartered Extantia Capital invests primarily in startups developing technology for renewable baseload power sources or carbon capture.
Learn more about:

Conviction and frustration behind founding Extantia
Why energy is crucial for climate change
Will nuclear/fusion solve climate change
Why carbon is in focus for the fund

“At the end of the day, CO2 is a molecule. We cannot blockchain it away,” Heitmann said.

In the NatureBacked podcast of Single.Earth, Tarmo Virki talks with investors and entrepreneurs about their vision of the new green world.

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Taking Cows Out of Dairy Industry with Those Vegan Cowboys Sep 19, 2022

Making great cheese is the holy grail of plant-based milk products. This company is certain it has found the solution.
"The product is identical to what the cow is producing," Sheriff Will Van den Tweel said in an interview on the sidelines of the Startup Day Festival in Tartu, Estonia.
Those Vegan Cowboys is a Dutch-founded Belgian startup where some 25 people are working on replacing cows in the dairy industry. The company's founders sold their previous startup Vegetarian Butcher to Unilever in 2018.
Learn more about:

How a farmer and a politician founded the two companies
Can cowboys switch to farming herbs?
How can cheese be like cheese when the cow is removed from the production
How much of the milk is replaced by plant-based alternatives already
When will they launch?

"We, as people, need to have some pain to change. And I think if you also look at what is happening in the environment, you ask yourself - going further like we are doing now probably doesn't make it easier for children, and we need some changes. And that's what we want to contribute to," Van den Tweel said.
"There are a lot of investments going into this area and also venture capital going into these types of businesses," he said.

In the NatureBacked podcast of Single.Earth, Tarmo Virki talks with investors and entrepreneurs about their vision of the new green world.

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A Good Climate Tech Hype with At One Ventures Sep 12, 2022

There's a good hype around climate tech, and some related sectors, like food tech, remain hot despite the downturn, said Helen Lin, a partner at Silicon Valley-based At One Ventures.

"When there is an economic downturn, investors typically take a flight to safety. So the more you look ... like a brick of gold to an investor, that is, a stable store of value that is not going to be hugely volatile, the more they will actually flock to you," she said.
At One Ventures is backing early-stage disruptive deep tech companies that have the potential to upend the unit economics of established industries while dramatically reducing their footprint on the planet or pioneering industries that are actively regenerative. Since its 2020 launch, the firm has made 28 investments.
Learn more about:

How dying Hawai coral reef created the fund
How startups could revamp old, massive industries
Cows methane emissions
When will carbon capture become interesting for investing

"Carbon is important. It's also not the only variable in a very complex equation of fixing all the problems the planet has right now," Lin said.

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Fastscaling Startups with Patrick Flesner Sep 05, 2022

"Startups do not fail because they run out of cash. They run out of cash because the leaders fail," said Patrick Flesner, partner LeadX Capital Partners and author of the bestseller book FastScaling.

Learn more about:

How fast is too fast scaling? Should you build a plane while flying or before taking off?
How investors should separate good and bad cash burn
Is 2 million profit per year enough for a startup?
Growing from founder to leader: when to leave decisions to staff?
Why Netflix startup series Kings of Stonk is worth watching
The secret sauce of writing a bestseller

Patrick's next books, The Leadership House and Leading Effectively, are due later in 2022.

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Nordic Deeptech Unicorns In Sight, Say Butterfly Ventures Aug 29, 2022

Nordics and Baltics boast one of the highest concentrations of unicorn startups, and several deeptech firms are set to follow the first unicorns, which have been digital software companies, said partner Juho Risku from investment firm Butterfly Ventures.

"Those digital companies were made 10 years ago, 15 years ago, or even longer. I think there are quite a few in the making at this very moment," said Risku.

The 2012-founded Butterfly Ventures unveiled in the summer of 2022 a new 100 million euro seed entry capital fund, which focuses on science-based deep tech and hardware startups in the Nordics and Baltics, focusing on megatrends like climate change and the aging population.

Learn more about:

Why over 20 multiples are more likely among deeptech startups
The critical factor in the VC-entrepreneur relationship
How to raise a fund through COVID and war
Impact of Santa on Nordic innovation in Finland

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Scooters and Carbon Accounting Win Major Share of Climate Investments, Say OpenOcean Aug 22, 2022

Scooters and carbon accounting firms grab a major share of climate-related startup investments, said Nina Gunell from Helsinki-headquartered investment firm OpenOcean.
"Definitely there are areas that are getting a lot of investments, although there maybe doesn't need to be that many solutions in the end," she said.

OpenOcean was founded in 2009 by the founders and early investors of database firm MySQL. Sun bought MySQL for $1 billion in 2008, just before Oracle acquired Sun in January 2010.

Learn more about:
* when should software startup start to think about its emissions and ESG
* how should startups survive 2022
* why it matters if trees grow 20 years longer in forests
* log rolling

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Boosting Carbon Impact Startups in Food, Agriculture with Startup Wise Guys Aug 15, 2022

Startups focusing on food, agriculture, biodiversity, and forestry offer some of the best opportunities to impact global carbon emissions significantly, said Max Bauchau, who runs Startup Wise Guys Sustainability program.

The 2012-founded SWG has invested in around 300 startups over the years. Bauchau said the accelerator-investor, which boasts an 80% survival rate, will start a new sustainability program in October 2022 in Copenhagen.

Learn about:

Why Denmark is home to SWG Sustainability program
Why do carbon investors focus on food?
How can 80% of early-stage startup investments survive?
How to apply for SWG Sustainability program

In the NatureBacked podcast of Single.Earth, we are talking with investors about the vision of the new green world.

A few key takeaways from Max Bauchau:

Food and agriculture …. represent, according to different studies, around 24-25% of all CO2 emissions in the world. So this is a segment that needs to be tackled, that needs to be worked on.

We believe that Denmark is a fantastic sandbox for those kinds of companies. We have some very large companies active in Denmark's agriculture and food. And therefore creating innovation can really be a great sandbox for those companies to create to partner with those larger companies, and to really figure out what's the best way to approach this or this client, and how to create a sustainable solution that really has an impact on the world.

It is no surprise that Scandinavia is one step ahead of the rest of the world regarding sustainability. So a lot of the mentalities are already changed here. Investment is going towards sustainability; it is going towards impact startups.

Ideally, we have companies with small recurring revenues, so there is validation from the market. And we are also looking for great teams. That is, again, a very important factor. We could invest in pre-revenue businesses. That is fine, too, if we strongly believe in the team.

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Evergreen Climate Investments With Kiko Ventures' Arne Morteani Jul 25, 2022

The $450 million Kiko Ventures became the first evergreen climate fund when it launched in June 2022, said Founding Partner Arne Morteani.

When IP Group launched Kiko Ventures, it said it plans to invest $240 million in climate tech startups over the next five years.

Learn about:

focus areas of the fund
benefits of evergreen fund structure vs VC funds
lubrication-as-a-service
a triple whammy for a climate tech investor

In the NatureBacked podcast of Single.Earth, we are talking with investors about the vision of the new green world.

A few key takeaways from Arne Morteani::

There's lots of stuff that needs to happen, from carbon capture to next-generation solar, you name it. And all of these things need investors that are patient and can be there for the whole ride. All things equal, every entrepreneur should want full lifecycle investors that you can be with an evergreen structure.

It allows you to invest without doubt of running out of time and money in the way you would be doing within the traditional fund. And without this 10-year fixed mandate investment mandate that you would have in a traditional fund, you get an enormous amount of flexibility.

We just invested in what really is rocket science as far as heat pumps go. I mean, it literally is rocket science.

Cleantech, in many ways, is much more diverse and much more generalist than the actual generalist funds. And so a strategy where you just do everything a little bit, but focusing on stage isn't a logical strategy.

So we want to flip it on its head and say we're thematically focused first, and stage second.

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Tokenising Nature's Work in Special Episode with Single.Earth Jul 18, 2022

Single.Earth has minted the first tokens from the work nature does to owners of lands in Brazil and Europe, and has started to roll out MERIT tokens to the market, co-founders Merit Valdsalu and Andrus Aaslaid said in this special episode of the NatureBacked podcast.

Learn about:

the first over-the-counter deals
upcoming consumer-launch
the impact of crypto-winter
how to grow a team 10-fold in half a year
is there an ICO coming?

**
In the NatureBacked podcast we are talking with investors about the vision of the new green world.

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Investing in Sustainable Technologies With Futury Capital Jul 11, 2022

Sustainable technologies and sustainable business models are often intervened in today's world,, said Shahin Dashti, an investor at Frankfurt-based Futury Capital which is working on launching a new sustainability-focused fund.
Learn more about the impact of market turmoil on startup investments and about the unique roots of sports and regional policies on the back of Futury. We had a rare chance to speak also about football in this episode!
In the NatureBacked podcast of Single.Earth, we are talking with investors about the vision of the new green world.

A few key takeaways from Shahin Dashti:

**
It's happening anyway if we want it or not because those are the laws of the market. Often sustainability is not only about the business model, which is sustainable for the planet, but also the sustainable business model itself. And that it's not only dependent on short-term trends but can last for a long time.
**
If you look at how many funds have been raised in the last years or months, this money has to be deployed contractually. So it means those fund managers, in the end, have to make the investments. There is no alternative to that other than giving the money back to the investors like the LPs, which I think will not happen that likely. So they have to make investments.

**
You could argue that now there's some headwind on the fundraising market. But as I said, I see this as an opportunity. And it means that all the good ones will survive.
**
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Exploring Infinite Games of Family Offices With Alex Felman Jul 04, 2022

Companies of the future will naturally focus on the environment and impact to be able to make a business for hundreds of years, said Alex Felman from Felman Family Office.

Learn more about family offices and what makes the investment firms of family wealth different from venture capitalist investors from the episode recorded on the sidelines of the TechChill conference in Riga.
In the NatureBacked podcast of Single.Earth, we are talking with investors about the vision of the new green world.

A few key takeaways from Alex Felman:

I believe that most companies moving forward will have to be very impact- or environmentally-oriented with how they do business.

For example, we tend to invest to exit. And, I mean, that could be five years, it can be 15 years, it could be 20 years.

Generally speaking, you probably want to have an investor who, once they're on the ride, is there until the ride runs out. It's probably an investor you want.

Looking at more environmental sustainability issues, we are actually looking at problems of these longer timeframes that may not fit into a more standard kind of VC timeframe.

If you're only trying to optimize for financial gain, it puts a very narrow perspective on your investment space. But suppose you're maximizing for other things or multiple things. In that case, it gives you much more flexibility to consider investment opportunities that you wouldn't consider otherwise.

**
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Tapping Climate Mitigation Opportunities with Bethnal Green Ventures Jun 27, 2022

Many startups are working on climate adaptation, but there are less-crowded opportunities around climate mitigation, said Dama Sathianathan, partner at Bethnal Green Ventures.
London-headquartered Bethnal Green Ventures has invested for 10 years in #TechForGood companies like Fairphone and over 100 other firms.
Learn more about open opportunities in the climate tech sector from the episode recorded on the sidelines of the Latitude59 conference in Tallinn.
In the NatureBacked podcast of Single.Earth, we are talking with investors about the vision of the new green world.
**
A few key takeaways from Dama Sathianathan:
**
I would love to see more (startups) around climate mitigation, like how do we think about disaster risk reduction in zones prone to natural disasters?
I'd love to see more climate mitigation products and services.
**
The number of times I see carbon offsetting platforms or ESG data platforms, I'm like, Okay, now calm down. We have seen 100 over the past year. Perhaps there is something else that needs addressing and looking into.
What are some of the needs we need to solve? There are loads around sort of conservation, biodiversity, even more, sustainable farming and agriculture practices, looking into increasing the security of our supply chains, when it comes to food supply chains, there are loads and loads of opportunities in this space.
**
There are so many amazing ideas out there. You just need to look. Go and find them.
**
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How To Invest A Billion In Climate? With Giant Ventures Jun 20, 2022

A giant wave of purpose-driven founders, coupled with consumers raising interest in the environment, and the availability of climate-focused capital, should enable a rosy future for the climate tech sector, said Madelene Larsson, an investor at Giant Ventures.

London-headquartered Giant Ventures has invested in some 20 companies and plans to invest a billion dollars over 2020s. It had just started to raise its second fund when we recorded the podcast in late May 2022.

A few key takeaways from Madelene Larsson:

**
Of course, it was a better environment to raise the fund before we saw the market pullback that we're currently seeing. We're not going to shy away from that. But we do hope there is fundamental support for purpose-led technology and climate tech. Right. So we are kind of progressing well with our fundraising.
**
I think this was sure increasing focus on the sector. And when investors start to focus on the sector, you also kind of automatically see more startups in the space, and, you know, people are coming up with new ideas because they see that the funding is there.
**
I think climate tech is quite a hot space at the moment. And there's for sure, you know, a lot of capital following that sector. So you see a fair amount of startups trying to greenify, if you will, are trying to be maybe more climate-friendly than they are.
**
I think there are some big opportunities to be had in-home electrification and kind of EV enablement. As I mentioned, I think consumers will be pushed to kind of going green, and they will be more affordable going green than it kind of has ever done before.
**
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Great Time For Deep Tech Investing With Outsized Ventures Jun 13, 2022

Startups should focus on their cash burn and seek to build a 36-month runway as the downturn in markets and economies has started, but it's a great time to be investing in deep tech as founders are increasingly keen to tackle world-changing challenges, Outsized Ventures' general partner Isabel Fox said in an interview on the sidelines of the Latitude59 startup conference in Tallinn in late May 2022.

London-headquartered Outsized Ventures is a 2021-founded deep tech investment firm that invests in Seed+ rounds in founders that are going to have a big impact on the world for the better.

A few key takeaways from Isabel Fox:

I think people want to do stuff that's going to have a purpose and an impact. So you're finding more and more great talent wanting to address some of the world's greatest challenges.
The first thing you'll see is more founders wanting to find solutions to our problems. So we definitely see an increase in fabulous people trying to work through whether that's carbon counting, whether it's sustainability projects, which they think can get off the ground.
**

I still think more money will come into the area. It sort of leads with the quality of the founders and the ideas, and what they're trying to build, and the money will be there for great founders, as you know, and I think that's starting to happen. But we need to obviously speed up what we're doing in order to save our planet.

You definitely hear from corporates that they're looking at it. But I don't think many of them actually even have a strategy. They're working through the plans with the consultants, and when you start to look at the costs of going carbon neutral by 2030, they've got to make a significant investment to get there. Of which I see sort of the start, but I'm probably like you: I'm not seeing them make that full, big commitment of quite a few 100 million, in some cases to sort of drive that. So I think, I think it will be right, I think there'll be panic right at the end. And people then want to sort of see how they can get out of it, rather than necessarily fulfill that obligation.

So my advice to founders has been: to watch the cash burn, get prudent on that, and try to increase your runway to 36 months. So you have the luxury of time, and hopefully, the world may have stabilized sooner than we think.
I think being tight, and being focused is not a bad thing. I always think that it's about being savvy, it's about being prudent and nimble.
**

I think the stuff that we're backing and the stuff that you like are big plays that have a huge impact on the future of society. That's not going to change much. For me, actually, in deep tech, I think it's a great time to be investing. We still got the problems in the world; we still need to solve them. And these opportunities are so huge that even if we have a bad two-year period now in the macro economy, they're going to come through the other side, very, very strong.

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New Materials, Food Innovations in Focus for Inventure Jun 06, 2022

Startups creating new materials, including for food industries, can have a significant climate impact, making them interesting targets for the Nordic investment firm Inventure, partner Tuomas Kosonen said in an interview on the sidelines of the TechChill startup conference in Riga in late April 2022.
Inventure is a Helsinki-headquartered seed-stage investor, known for its investments in companies like Wolt and Swappie.
**
A few key takeaways from Tuomas Kosonen:
**
We are not an impact investor. We are a pure financial investor, but in the past years, all ESG-related topics have raised their meaning, coming from all also from the portfolio and from LPs. We have to be very aware of all these topics.

That's something that is like super important on the agenda of pension funds, insurance companies, and public money. And, of course, it is super nice to see what kind of impact money can make. So if the big money or institutional investors would not care for it, most of the investors, at least, wouldn't put that much effort into that one. But actually, you might not even qualify for the money, like the LP commitment, if you're not part of that.

Especially what we have done in the past is on new materials, so like, plastic replacement, or like carbon nanotubes. That's something that has a huge environmental impact. So that's something we are now looking for in the coming two years.

Food-related companies will have a direct impact line quite fast, much faster, some material technologies. And then the food, I guess, is superheated as well. Yes, and we have looked at meat replacement companies; unfortunately not invested single one of them yet. There have been some quite interesting ones.

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Climate Focus Brings Best Results, says World Fund's Alexis Caporale May 30, 2022

The companies that will deliver the highest climate impact will also provide the highest financial returns, was the founding thesis of World Fund, said Alexis Caporale.
"And now we're seeing it, and it's just incredible. They just do better, they're more resilient, their customers are more engaged, and their teams are more engaged," he said.
World Fund is a 350-million euros climate-focused VC, which has unveiled seven investments so far, including Treecard, Juicy Marbles, QOA and Space Forge.
**
A few key takeaways from Alexis Caporale:
**
The companies that will deliver the highest climate impact will also be the ones delivering the highest financial impact - that was the founding thesis of the fund. And now we're seeing it, and it's just incredible. They just do better, they're more resilient, their customers are more engaged, and their teams are more engaged. I mean, talent is probably one of the most complicated things that a company faces when they need to scale and purpose mission-driven founders are able to attract better talent, and for that, they remain in the company.
**
We see that those companies which focus on the energy transition, so basically, electrification and beyond, are getting lots of inbound from the market because everyone is trying to understand how to stop depending on Russian commodities. So for those companies focusing on electrification, there are more opportunities, but you have to you also have to be very careful because some of these opportunities can be just short-lived.
**
Everyone is gonna be tweeting about the economy, VCs, and how valuations were crazy, and how we're never gonna do that again.
**
For Barcelona, climate tech is really, really, really moving a lot. Spain has some characteristics in some industries, like food, for example, or agriculture.
There are lots of things going on in Barcelona; you will see Barcelona becoming a hub for climate tech. Sooner rather than later.
**
Check out the following Barcelona-based climate tech startups: Wallbox, Heura, Submer, FlexiDao, Holaluz.com and TAPP Water.

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Chasing Uncompromising Impact Unicorns with Norrsken VC May 23, 2022

Stockholm-headquartered Norrsken VC is on a mission to find not just unicorns but impact unicorns, startups valued at over $1 billion which at the same time can impact the lives of more than 1 billion people, Agate S. Freimane said on the sidelines of TechChill startup conference in Riga.
The VC firm was born out of Norrsken Foundation – a non-profit foundation founded in 2016 by Niklas Adalberth, co-founder of Klarna - with the belief that entrepreneurs building rapidly scalable businesses are our best bet to solving the hardest and biggest problems of our time.
**
A few key takeaways from Agate S. Freimane:
**
"Why we coined the term unicorn was because it was so rare. And these days, it's not that rare anymore. The bar has lowered, though, I think, impact unicorn is still pretty rare ... it's a really high bar."
**
"Even if you have a very deep, meaningful impact, if you don't have a strong business model, you're not able to attract capital - you're not able to grow. So hence, you don't really scale your impact."
**
"Maybe someone says that there are just not enough startups in this space. It's also because a lot of entrepreneurs thought that there's no point starting these businesses, that there is no capital, and it's kind of what comes first, you know, exactly the chicken or egg. Do the startups come first or capital? Maybe at the moment, there is a lot of capital, but that's just going to inspire more entrepreneurs to dare to actually start businesses in these sectors."
**
"I think Europe is at the forefront of the climate tech movement globally. What I see right now is that Europe is at the forefront of the public sector and the regulatory environment for taxonomy. And so we see in Europe, more so than anywhere else in the world regulation pushing big old school businesses on the path of sustainability. But the reality is that a lot of these businesses don't have the tools to achieve this. And then, it's up to the startups to fill that gap to enable the industries to shift."
**

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Speedinvest Looks For Further Climate Tech Investments May 16, 2022

Speedinvest was among the first European early-stage VC firms when its founders started to take Silicon Valley's getting-hands-dirty practices from their own entrepreneurs' journey to the Old Continent, said investor Andreas Schwarzenbrunner.

Vienna-headquartered Speedinvest has invested in some 250 companies, including 20 investments in climate tech startups. The firm manages assets of about half a billion euros.

A few key takeaways from Andreas Schwarzenbrunner:

"I think there's a gap between the software digital-focused climate tech companies versus ones that are really into more development of new ideas, R&D, infrastructure, and hardware."

"I think there the investor scene needs to adapt because if you're serious about climate tech, and if you are serious about decarbonization, and reducing emissions, the investor scene, including us, has to realize that there is no way around hardware.

At the end of the day, if you really look at the hard problems in climate tech, there are so many things that can't be solved otherwise. It's about reducing emissions when you use concrete and steel; it's about new ways of electrified mobility and charging infrastructure.

If you look at energy storage and hydrogen solutions, there's no way around building the storage facilities and all those things. Investors need to adapt and realize that if you're serious about it, you have to tackle these problems."

"We also see that this climate tech is basically a maturing asset class ... you can see the rise of investors in climate tech, money that goes into that space. And for us, we also want to double down on this, and we want to continue to invest and even invest more in climate tech companies over the years to come."

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Fixing the Mess We Created, Tackling Climate Emergency with Carbon13 May 09, 2022

Carbon13 backs early-stage climate founders in launching their business ventures, says co-founder Michael Langguth, making it one of the first climate-focused accelerators.
The next showcase day of Carbon13 teams is held on 24 May 2022 in Cambridge.
**
A few key takeaways from Michael Langguth:
**
"There are still a lot of climate tech startup investors that will only invest in software. And I think that's, that's a bit of a fallacy. You can't; you can't be a climate VC and just invest in software; you have to do some of the hard problems, as well."
**
"If you think of the math, it's not possible for us to sequester so much carbon through nature-based solutions, or things like direct air capture, that we don't have to reduce the other bits. The truth is, we're not going to be able to do this. There are a lot of very hard-to-decarbonize sectors, like concrete, steel production, and others."
**
"The other big thing is that we will be launching a Berlin cohort next year, we do see some inertia in European or EU-based founders coming to the UK, or generally, it's, I guess, some people want to start a business where they are. So we're coming to Berlin, to where we see a huge potential in terms of the number of people wanting to work on climate solutions."
**

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Sustainable Transformation in Focus for Japanese New Nordic Fund Nordic Ninja May 02, 2022

Sustainable transformation and overall net climate impact are in focus for Rainer Sternfeld, managing partner at a 100 million euro fund Japanese investment Nordic Ninja when he seeks investment opportunities among Nordic and Baltic startups.
Sternfeld was the founder of climate data startup PlanetOS, bought by Intertrust in 2017.
**
A few key takeaways from Rainer Sternfeld:
**
"I am still very optimistic that Europe is still the best place for cleantech, Europe is still the best place to talk about clean energy, and we can figure it out rather easily. We don't have that many disagreements as maybe in other sectors, and we can afford it."
**
"You have a massive amount of energy going towards moving atoms, as we say, at Nordic Ninja. That 'moving atoms' means moving people, moving goods. And so when you move atoms, we have, by the way, I think about 40% of the capital allocated in our fund so far into reducing the amount of energy that is spent moving atoms or, or getting rid of moving atoms altogether, like in the case of Veriff, which is an exception."
**
"I don't eat meat, but I know that obviously, a lot of people eat meat, and they will be eating meat in the next decades to come, even though that is going to be reduced, reducing in terms of percentage share, they still will do that. So if we are going to have people eating meat, it should be done as efficiently as possible. Like, what if there was a way to reduce methane emission of cows, like 80%?
Of course, I would support doing that even though I don't eat meat, right? It's still a net impact."
**

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Why Old-School VCs Struggle to Get Into Climate Investing? With Rodrigo Sepulveda Schulz Apr 25, 2022

The public sector could boost climate tech development when many funds struggle with fitting climate into their 10-year lifecycle, says investor Rodrigo Sepúlveda Schulz, who was co-founder of impact investment firm Expon Capital and an early investor in companies like GetAround and Glovo.
In the podcast interview, Sepúlveda Schulz also outlined the 12 questions startups have to answer to raise venture capital.
**
A few key takeaways from Rodrigo Sepúlveda Schulz:
**
"There are a number of new funds coming up, focusing exclusively on Climate Technologies. It has a number of challenges, but it has to be done. First is the 10-year timeframe for a fund to return the money is maybe too short for those guys; maybe we need to go to a 15-year timeframe."
**
"What do you do with all the old equipment? Do you throw it away or just reuse it? I repair most of my stuff. And if something's I don't buy new stuff, you know, I love brands such as Patagonia, which you could go and take your jacket repaired for the rest of your life. We just need to be more conscious of what we do in our choices. I think the younger generation gets it, but it might be too late for them."
**
"In my personal time, I spend a lot of time with wine. So people think it's like a funky hobby, but in wine, we've seen in the past 10, 15 years, harvests happening two to four weeks earlier than they used to historically. It's not a joke. When Donald Trump says global warming is a joke, it's not a joke."

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Unhooking Europe, Led by Baltic Founders with Change Ventures' Yrjö Ojasaar Apr 18, 2022

We spoke with Yrjö Ojasaar, co-founder of Change Ventures, about the investment firm's focus on founders from Baltic countries and he shift in global trends towards climate tech.
Change Ventures has raised two funds totaling around 50 million euros, and its investments include companies like Veriff and Printify.
A few key takeaways from Yrjö Ojasaar:
**
"There's been overall world trend where we have externalized the environmental issue, to where we don't take into account, what is the effect, the long term effect on society on carbon on availability of materials on prices on any of that. It's sort of been accepted as well, that we'll put that down for a zero. And that's why virgin materials ... has been price competitive, we have now realized that the cost is not zero."
**
"We've been really hooked on this cheap energy, but it's been like getting energy from coffee. Instead of sleeping, exercising and eating well, I'll just have one more espresso. One more espresso. You get this quick boost. And then you need another quick boost, and you need another quick boost. But how long can you keep going without changing the fundamentals?"
**
"I think solar, wind, those technologies are going to have a much faster rollout, and more energy, more investment, more attention dedicated to them. And they're going to be much faster in scaling. So there are going to be positive impacts in the long run. And, of course, with electric vehicles and alternative energy vehicles, and even, you know, cold fusion and things like that. They're all going to get a boost from trying to unhook ourselves from the traditional petrochemical type of industry."

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Finding Radical Climate Solutions with Pale Blue Dot's Hampus Jakobsson Apr 11, 2022

We spoke with Hampus Jakobsson, co-founder of Pale Blue Dot, on how climate problems could be fixed and what are the biggest challenges.
Malmö-headquartered Pale Blue Dot raised 2021 a fund of 87 million euros for investments in climate-focused startups.
A few key takeaways from Hampus Jakobsson:
**
"I would love governments to say: you have to solve this problem. And we have to decide how hard that solving is. And if you haven't done it, if you're the CEO of an oil company, you will go to jail in 2030. But we're going to be super nice. We're not going to throw you to jail now, 2022. So we're just gonna say for the coming years, there are fines, and the fines are going to increase in the scale, but in 2030 you will go to jail. So you go to jail, your biggest shareholders go to jail, your board goes to jail."
**
"I always try to tell people that for me, the climate - we have to start looking at it like, like child pornography, pedophilia, or child labor or something. If somebody comes to you and says, Hey, I'm going to pitch you this great idea: it's a carpet factory I'm running in Bangladesh, and I'm giving all the kids mittens, and now it's great because they don't hurt their fingers so much anymore. And it's really interesting because they actually can work slightly longer. So we get more revenue out of it, but it's like a double bottom line ... more profitable, but also actually better for the kids. We all would be like, can you go? Can you please leave this room? I don't want to ever talk to you again, you're a horrible person, I'm going to call the police now."
**
"I think you can actually say we want this change faster. And you can say, we will go from fines to jail on some of these things, and I think that the third one is on people and culture, we can just say we don't accept mittens on child laborers."
**
"I think that that's the way we should approach some of these problems, saying no, no, no, no, I'm not after that best child labor camp. I'm after no child labor. And I think that that's a requirement you can actually ask."

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Deepdive of East Europe Startup World with Flashpoint's Alex Konoplyasty Apr 04, 2022

We spoke with Alex Konoplyasty, co-founder of Flashpoint Ventures, about big global trends, the possible implications of the war in Eastern Europe, and why it's still early days of greentech investments in the region.
London-headquartered Flashpoint manages assets worth 450-500 million and is known for investments in the firms like Chess.com and Guesty.
A few key takeaways from Alex Konoplyasty:
**
"In this type of environment, we recommend our portfolio companies raise money as soon as possible. If they're raising money now, they should like to keep raising. If not, they should go out and start rasing right now, as fast as they can. Valuation is less important; I think it's more important to capitalize yourself for the next couple of years to make sure you have capital."
**
"We don't know how the consumer is going to adjust to this, like the terrible shock that is happening around the energy. Maybe they adjust in the way that we don't expect today, then maybe it's not going to be so bad as we expected, right? And we've seen historically people do adjust in shock situations - when it's gradual, it's sort of okay, but when it's like shock, people tend to change their behavior."
**
"In 2015, after Crimea, I decided that I didn't want to do anything with Russia. At all. We don't do any business in Russia. Like, we didn't do anything there after 2015. It was a very strategic decision for us."

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Urgency of Tackling Climate Change with Balderton's Shikha Ahluwalia Mar 28, 2022

We spoke with Shikha Ahluwalia about the climate's role in all investment decisions, Balderton's own green strategy, and how to invest in climate-friendly companies across the sectors.
London-headquartered Balderton has raised around 5 billion US dollars for its funds, and is known for investments in startups including Revolut and Betfair.
A few key takeaways from Shikha Ahluwalia:
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"We're definitely not doing enough to tackle climate change. As investors, and the investing scene in general, we have a unique responsibility to address the issues of the next well, not even 50 years, the next eight years until 2030."
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"Ultimately, we all need to learn to be less greedy and think about the world we're building for generations to come. And that's not five generations down the line. I'm talking about our children: my children, your children, and it's very, very near. So I think that the idea that investors need to be doing much, much more is super important. Returns in terms of impact on the planet, in terms of impact on the climate, need to be measured alongside financial returns."
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"We should be asking, how do we set up a process in a way that it becomes top of the agenda to invest into climate-friendly companies as part of investment decision making?"

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Big Game of Energy Transition with Helen Ventures' Terhi Vapola Feb 28, 2022

We spoke with Terhi Vapola about climate tech, energy transition, and Helen Ventures' investments in the fields like EV charging and power grid optimization.
A few key takeaways from Terhi Vapola:
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"What we want to do is work with the most innovative startups ... working with people who don't just talk, I think there's plenty of talking and has been for a long time. What we need to do is actually get those things done."
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"If you think about the existential crisis that we are dealing with, we need to find the solutions. And then at the same time, if you look at the regulatory changes, and ... Green Deal and the amount of public support into making money available for for the actions, which can help us to address it, I think it's a fantastic thing. "
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"The bi-directional charging is a great opportunity ... those pilots are taking place as we speak ... of course, you need to have the adoption of the EV charging taking place even further to really balance it. But the steps into that, are like real today already."

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Looking into Climate Fintech World with Octopus Ventures' Natasha Jones Feb 21, 2022

We spoke with Natasha Jones from London headquartered Octopus Ventures about the intersection of climate change and fintech startups, the booming collaboration in climate tech, and the challenges of ESG investing.
Here are some of the key takeaways from Natasha Jones:
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"The data is really clear - if you can move your pension to a green and sustainable pension, it's 27 times more effective than going vegan, which, as someone who tried to go vegan and failed, it seems a lot easier to just select a green pension provider."
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"I think what's super interesting is now the regulatory push to clamp down on greenwashing. And that's tied to consumer distrust as well. I think in France a survey said 60% of consumers distrust green labeling from banks. I think for our space, that creates a kind of an opportunity."
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"I think the first thing to note ... just a huge amount of collaboration. I think other sectors tend to be a bit more cagey on sharing IP, on collaborating between different stakeholders, from entrepreneurs all the way to policymakers and investors in between. Climate tech is really different in that sense. Everyone's very keen to collaborate to find different solutions. And I think that's what makes it really optimistic space to be in."

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Building GreenTech Ventures with Brainforest's Leo Caprez Feb 21, 2022

We spoke with Leo Caprez about the urgent need for innovation in the climate tech sector as the world is facing increasing challenges from accelerating climate change.
A few key takeaways from Leo Caprez:
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"A lot of also very smart and driven people have woken up to the issues that we are facing: we have very, very little time to solve a massive problem. The decarbonization that obviously has to happen first, is so massive that nobody knows how we actually can get there. So we need all the innovation that we can get right now in a very short period of time. It's a frenzy right now."
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"Lots of those technologies are available now that can be used in this space, just think about remote sensing with satellites and drones and machine learning capacities that only since a few years are available, and the costs are coming down. Actually now it's viable economically, to analyze vast areas of forests on their carbon content. It's still pretty tricky. Actually, there are lots of startups that are attracted to tackling this issue right now."
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"For any kind of VC player, it's not easy to navigate this space, because there are lots of shiny things also."

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Jumping on Climate Change Opportunities with Icebreaker.VC's Aleksi Partanen Feb 21, 2022

We spoke with Aleksi Partanen from Icebreaker.vc about the opportunities created by climate change, the urgency of the current situation, and (of course) about breaking the ice.
A few key takeaways from Aleksi Partanen:
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"People are becoming more aware of the issue we're facing that this planet will not be able to, to hold us all, or at least not stand everything we do or would like to do. And that, on the other hand, brings a massive amount of opportunities."
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"Let's look at Nasdaq IPOs. How many are actually impact-driven? I can't come up with one."
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"This planet is running out of time. The faster we try to help as many people as possible, the higher the likelihood that some of these will turn into actual change."

The Rich Somers Report
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Valuing Ecosystem Services with Single.Earth's Co-founder Andrus Aaslaid Feb 21, 2022

Single.Earth CTO and cofounder Andrus Aaslaid speak about why Single.Earth was founded and how the company plans to monetize ecosystem services.
A few key takeaways from Andrus Aaslaid:
"All we have done so far in the world ... as a humanity, we have been optimizing the economic processes quite a lot to be able to maximize profits. Somewhere in the middle, we forgot that this will put more and more strain on ecology."
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"We need birds and bees and all other creatures on the planet because if we focus 100% on global warming and trying to suck as much carbon out of the atmosphere as possible, sacrificing everybody else, yes, it will be one cooler planet, probably, but we might very well find that we are alone and starving on it because we had thrown everything else away in a process."
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"Money is what drives it all around. And so far we have looked at our capital investments only from the gains perspective -- if we create something, then how much profit it will make. And if investors are investing somewhere, then what will be the best return on that money. We've been optimizing all the processes based on the, well literally what's good for the shareholders."
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"We need a whole lot more attention towards it that capital would also seek that our environment would sustain so that the money everybody's making would be possible to spend on the planet before it overheats and goes to hell."

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