Climate

Carbon accounting platform acquired by Sage as ClimateTech heats up • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 12, 2022Posted in Climate, StartupsNo Comments

Spherics, a UK-based carbon accounting platform for SMEs to understand and reduce their environmental impact, has been acquired by accounting giant Sage. Terms of the deal were not disclosed but it’s understood Spherics had raised £1.25m in equity financing from angel investors and £300,000 in grants. Spherics was a smaller startup playing in a similar space to larger ones which include Normative, Plan A, Klimametrix.global, Persefoni and Planetly.com (other carbon accounting players, like Watershed and Climatiq, operate more like consultants). Sage had previously stated it plans to support SMEs to get to net zero, and this acquisition appears to be part of their strategy. Spherics automates the process of calculating emissions by ingesting data from a company’s accounting software and matching transactions to gauge an estimate of their carbon footprint. It can also apply carbon emission factors to procurement categories (such as delivery, accommodation, electricity, and travel). “We know that SMBs care about the impact they have on the environment, and our research shows that they want to work with suppliers and partners that can help them understand and address it,” said Amaya Souarez, EVP Cloud Operations, Sage, in a statement. “By combining Spherics’ innovative software with Sage’s digital network, we are connecting businesses with their customer and supplier emissions data, enabling easy and collaborative climate action across value chains which helps to reduce carbon.” George Sandilands, CEO & Co-founder, Spherics, added: “Our vision and mission align very much with Sage’s core values, and we are excited to embark on this new journey to help SMBs knock down barriers to a more sustainable future. Global emissions are still rising fast, and we need immediate and meaningful climate action across the world.” Headquartered in Bristol, United Kingdom, Spherics is the second Bristol startup to be acquired by Sage in the last year, after Brightpearl was picked up in 2021. Bristol seems to be making a habit of Climate Tech, also producing Ecologi Zero, real-time carbon footprinting software for businesses.

Fears of climate tech underinvestment are probably overblown • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 11, 2022Posted in Climate, climate tech, EC Food Climate and Sustainability, investment, VentureNo Comments

There’s been a lot of hand-wringing over whether the world will get its act together enough to prevent catastrophic warming. There’s certainly a case to be made there — we’ve spent the last several decades kicking the can down the road at every opportunity. Well, here we are again, with the can again before us and the end of the road fast approaching. Lucky for me, I tend to be an optimist. I still think we’re in for a world of pain, and we’ll probably have to rely on some exotic technologies like fusion power and direct air capture to pull ourselves back from the brink. But in my opinion, when the chips are down, humanity tends to pull through. If we use computing and software as a guide, we should expect to see a nearly fivefold increase in the capital committed in the next 30 years. That is why I think many of the gloom-and-doom scenarios regarding climate tech investments tend to be overly bearish. Take the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) forecasts, which for years habitually underestimated the growth of solar power. The agency has since added better models to its toolkit, but it and others still make predictions that go on to be proven overly pessimistic. In reality, renewable energy and other climate tech is likely to follow an adoption curve that’s similar to other industries. It might even follow an accelerated version given how broad and deep the impacts and benefits of climate tech are likely to be — and the very real prospect of Armageddon if we do nothing. To see how climate tech stands to outperform today’s forecasts, you only have to look as far back as 1970, when the computing revolution was beginning. Exponential trends The overarching trend of investment in the computing and telecommunications space over 50 years has been exponential. But that simplistic analysis papers over the significant growth that happened in the early years. It also fails to pick up on key technological advances that sparked wider adoption.

AgriWebb’s software seeks to boost yields, lower environmental impacts for farmers and ranchers • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 10, 2022Posted in agriwebb, AgTech, Climate, Startups, sustainable foodNo Comments

AgriWebb is on a mission to help livestock producers feed the world efficiently, profitably and sustainably by providing its comprehensive, ground-truth database for beef production worldwide. The Australian startup, which builds a livestock management platform for ranchers and farmers, wants to digitize farm records and the meat production process from the cow to the consumer and drive the industry’s animal and environmental welfare transparency. The startup said today it has raised another $6.8 million of funding led by Germin8 Ventures and iSelect Fund. In total, AgriWebb has raised $27 million in Series B and about $29.3 million since its inception in 2014. It did not disclose its valuation when asked. Its app allows users to visualize their operations and give insights on animals and grazing, including the best grass location and which animals gain weight. On top of that, it lets ranchers improve their sustainable land management for better profits and leverage the on-farm data they’re recording to make more intelligent business decisions, according to the company. AgriWebb claims more than 16,000 farmers and ranchers globally are using its cloud-based platform and managing approximately 19 million animals on over 136 million acres of grazing land across the globe, including Australia, the U.S. and the U.K. The global beef market is estimated at $500 billion, but the pure farm management software market in its core geographies is estimated at around $3.5 billion, the company executive chairman Justin Webb told ZebethMedia. AgriWebb’s key markets include Australia — where more than 15% of the national herd is managed using its platform — the U.K. and the U.S. Additionally, AgriWebb has partnerships in Brazil and South Africa, Webb said. Unlike most competitors who act as a point solution focused on one or two areas of farm management, AgriWebb’s platform brings together animal management, grazing management and team communication; task and compliance management; and daily record-keeping in one place, Webb explained. “Its grazing insights enable ranchers to maximize productivity, eliminate waste, and validate grazing and animal management decisions in a way that other record-keeping systems can’t touch,” Webb pointed out. Webb founded AgriWebb with John Fargher (chief revenue officer) and Kevin Baum (chief executive officer) in 2014. In Australia, the three founders discovered that farmers were not only interested in the advantages of technology but were also desperately cobbling their own solutions with scrappy spreadsheets and notebooks. “Livestock producers deserve better technology to help them maximize their business and consumers need more reliable provenance for the animal and environmental welfare of their food,” Webb said. “AgriWebb has always been about serving the farmers, and this round of funding doesn’t change our mission; it simply magnifies it.” The latest funding will be used for the international expansion of AgriWebb to ranchers and farmers in the U.S., the U.K., and Latin America, both directly and via partnerships. AgriWebb has secured customers in 28 of the 50 states since its U.S. launch in 2021 and plans to continue rapidly expanding. In addition, the latest funding will enable the company to establish its database. Apart from the funding, AgriWebb recently joined two project proposals to the USDA CSC program, one led by American Farmland Trust and the other by Farm Journal’s Trust in Food initiative, Webb said. Both aim to improve the U.S. beef supply chain’s climate footprint and scale regenerative agriculture practices, Webb continued. One project is focused on improving transparency in the beef supply chain and understanding the GHG impact of different practices; the second aims to scale the adoption of practices through payments for practice changes. “There’s a misconception that agriculture is at odds with climate, but the importance of sustainability and implementing sustainable practices is far from lost on farmers and producers,” Webb said. “In fact, the long-term sustainability and viability of their land are of utmost importance. Talk to any landholder and you’ll understand their long-term goal is to pass on their land in better condition to the next generation. Sustainable and regenerative practices can and do exist in tandem with productive and profitable farms, and we remain steadfast in our endeavor to support producers now and in the future through data that measures, manages and improves the sustainability of the food supply chain from farm to plate.” The company raised its first Series B from investors, including Telus Ventures, Grosvenor Food & AgTech and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation in January 2021. “AgriWebb fits with Germin8’s thesis to invest in the full-stack enterprise software companies within AgTech that bring essential enterprise value to farmers in alignment with practices that are sustainable,” said managing partner at Germin8 Ventures Michael Lavin. “There are very few software offerings capable of accelerating the regenerative agriculture practices our climate stands to benefit from, and even fewer that target livestock production rather than being at odds with it.”

Recalled EV? Automakers shouldn’t get to count it toward fleetwide fuel economy • TechCrunch

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 9, 2022Posted in chrysler pacifica, Climate, EC Food Climate and Sustainability, Environmental Protection Agency, National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration, RecallsNo Comments

In February, I received a letter from Chrysler saying that our 2017 Pacifica Hybrid was subject to a new recall. Several of the minivans had inexplicably caught fire and, given the evidence, the automaker suspected it might have to do with the high-voltage battery pack. The recall notice told us not to recharge the vehicle or park it near a house or garage — or any other building, for that matter. The fix? The company didn’t have one nor could it tell me when it might. Having covered recalls like this before, I figured we’d be in it for the long haul. And I was right. A few days ago, nearly eight months after the recall first went out, Stellantis, Chrysler’s parent company, said it had a fix. There would be a software update and dealers would inspect and replace any suspect batteries. Troublingly, the automaker still hasn’t found what caused the dozen fires, but it said the fixes would prevent them from happening. Yes, I’m glad that Chrysler and Stellantis have a remedy (which they’re legally obliged to provide) that (I hope) will eliminate a very serious fire risk. Obviously, I’d prefer if the remedy were also accompanied by an explanation for the blazes — I wouldn’t want to learn firsthand if the forthcoming fix doesn’t address the cause. But Stellantis assured me that it has been validated to address the conditions under which fires have occurred. As the energy transition continues, there are going to be bumps in the road, and I understand that it’s impossible to design an entirely problem-free vehicle. But recalls that prevent EVs and plug-in hybrids from charging result in additional pollution. Maybe there should be consequences for that.