March 18, 2023 From Garbage to Gold A Miami-based climate tech company develops a method to create carbon credits from reducing food waste while the world’s largest carbon credit developer produces credits from railways. A Canadian biochar producer secures $38 million to expand its production and the EU plans for Net Zero.  Let’s jump right in!   Don't be Wasteful with Waste The global food system emits about a third of total annual GHG emissions, and food waste represents about half of this footprint. A study found that global food waste emitted 9.3 billion tonnes of CO2e (GtCO2e) or about the same as the total emissions of the US and the EU in 2017. To help address this concern, a climate tech firm CoreZero decided to rescue food waste and quantify the prevention of 221,800 tons of carbon emissions. The company then converted these reductions into the world's first carbon credits from waste.  With this approach, CoreZero aims to transform the 1.3 billion tons of food wa...

March 11, 2023 Carbon Credits From Waste One of Korea's largest banks seeks to convert wastes into biochar that can capture and store carbon, while a major baseball team buys carbon credits from a carbon capture company. Russia is developing its own carbon credit methodologies while the EU prosecutor is investigating allegations of fraudulent emissions in Bulgaria. Let’s dig in!   Carbon Meets Coffee Seoul-based NH Investment & Securities, one of South Korea’s largest securities firms, is tapping into agricultural carbon credits. The company seeks to convert spent coffee grounds into biochar, a solid material that has high levels of carbon. When buried underground, biochar can capture and store carbon with up to 100x more stability than the material from which it’s made of. NH can collect and use plant residues and animal waste from its parent company's massive supply chain in the agricultural sector, and turn them into biochar. By doing so, the firm isn't only pushing ...

March 4, 2023 Carbon Falling into the Deep A climate tech company publishes the world's first ocean-based carbon removal protocol while the largest carbon exchange releases its trading insight for 2022. Meanwhile, a forest carbon offset fund closes $242 million in funding while the Department of Energy rolls out $2.52 billion to fund two carbon capture initiatives. Let’s dig in!   Upgrading Carbon’s Biggest Reservoir MRV - measurement, reporting, and verification - is one key to showing that carbon reduction efforts are paying off and driving more investments into climate actions. Since the summer of 2022, Planetary Technologies has been testing its ocean-based MRV tech in the UK, Canada, and the US. Their goal is to remove up to 1 million tonnes of CO2 by 2028 while restoring coastal and marine ecosystems. Planetary’s MRV breakthrough is critical as it provides an open-source protocol that guides and boosts the development of ocean carbon dioxide removal projects. As the world’s f...

February 18, 2023 The Carbon Capture Bonanza A giant energy firm will invest US$26 million to advance knowledge on carbon capture and storage in Australia while a carbon farming startup was able to raise US$73 million to improve soil’s ability to capture carbon. A VC fund specially dedicated to the carbon removal industry also secures US$42 million in funding as the world’s largest exchange for carbon credits will begin to trade Cercarbono carbon offsets on its platform.   Let’s dig in. The Buzz to Net Zero Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a big buzzword in the world’s quest to reach net zero. Energy giant Chevron believes that it has a crucial role to play in meeting net zero targets “in almost any scenario”. As proof, Chevron Australia is investing US$26 million to advance carbon capture and storage (CCS) research in the country.  For the record, the energy firm had allotted a $10 billion dollar investment last year into low-carbon business initiatives. And that includes ...

February 4, 2023 From Orange Fires to Blue Carbon An IoT firm unveils the hidden economic and environmental costs of wildfires - over $148B and 30% of emissions. An oil and gas supermajor unlocks the key trends and insights surrounding the global energy transition out to 2050. America’s supercharged Un-carrier reveals its 2040 net zero target for the first time while two key players join forces to boost blue carbon credits.  First up... Don’t Play with Fire Within just one decade, eight of the worst wildfires on record have occurred and they’ve become even fiercer, burning about 2x more tree cover today as they did two decades ago.  Yet, the full impact of wildfires remains underestimated and their real costs kept hidden, which the IoT firm Dryad unveils in its new report "What lies beneath – the hidden truth about wildfire”.  The company estimated that wildfires cost the U.S. $148 billion and more. They're also a potential source of 30% of emissions by 2100. These and ot...

January 28, 2023 The $1 Trillion VCM Market A report says that the value of the carbon credits market can be worth $1 trillion in 2037.  The UK government considers a climate bailout of a steelmaker worth $372 million.  A global PC maker pledges to hit net zero emissions by 2050 while an e-commerce giant gets a go signal to trade renewable energy in India. Let’s dive in! The Trillion Dollar Question A lot of projections were made about how much the carbon credit market will be worth in the future. Some say it can be $50 billion or more, but under BloombergNEF estimates, the market’s annual value could hit a Trillion Dollars - as early as 2037.  The research analyst based its projection on a removal-only scenario. It means carbon credits from projects that actually remove CO2 from the air only count; avoided deforestation and clean energy projects are out of the equation.  Rescuing a Giant Once a giant steel manufacturer in the UK, British Steel has seen its worst day...

January 21, 2023 GMO Trees Are Sucking Carbon A climate biotech company raises $21 million to grow genetically engineered super trees. A team of scientists discovers a new technique to make recyclable plastics out of plant wastes.  An activist group scrutinizes forest projects' emission reductions claim while a study shows that logged and degraded tropical forests are a net source of carbon emissions. These interesting and controversial stories are all in this week's news arsenal. Let’s jump in! The Era of Super Trees Genetic engineering seems to be so common in today’s era of biotechnology. And true enough, even trees are not exempted - introducing GMO super trees grown by Living Carbon. This climate biotech company seeks to improve the ability of trees to absorb carbon via photosynthesis enhancement.  Living Carbon’s research shows that enhancing photosynthesis can boost biomass accumulation in trees by 53% more and they can capture up to 27% more CO2 than control plants. Th...

January 16, 2023 Dear Reader, We have some exciting news for you today. Carbon is becoming a headline across the globe; you've probably heard a lot of things about carbon in the last few months. And the amount of capital coming into the sector. The EU beefing up regulations, all the greenwashing stories…  And China building emissions trading centers over the past year. Stripe, Google & Co spending a billion dollars on carbon removal… and 600 of the largest public companies have pledged to get to net zero emissions.  Carbon prices have settled… But leading research groups are not changing their growth predictions of up to 100X by 2050. According to analysts, this means the sector could become worth Trillions of dollars. But when it comes to what to do with the information, no one’s likely telling you about the REAL opportunities that come with it. Sure, knowing the sector is likely to be the next big thing is great…  But you might be more interested in knowing what com...

January 14, 2023 Out of This World Carbon Tracking NASA provides a new way of tracking carbon from space while the first-ever NFL team resorts to carbon credits to offset air travel emissions. As New York reveals its new plan to cap-and-invest ~$1 billion carbon credits from large emitters, Alberta prepares for a future surplus of carbon credits. This week’s news is full of revelations. Let’s go uncover them all. NASA’s Way of Mapping CO2 Measuring carbon emissions often use estimations only or data available at the land surface. So, they don’t really represent the actual atmospheric CO2 measurements, which is what NASA is trying to change.  The agency's space missions, featuring its Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) 2 and 3 satellites, resulted in surprising findings. They map CO2 footprint as they orbit the Earth on various scales, from regions to continents.  Scientists were surprised to discover that both OCO satellites were able to track CO2 emissions right at the source,...

 December 18, 2022 Anti-Nuclear Politics are Changing Course, FAST You’ll be surprised… Many people around the world aren’t aware that European energy costs have exploded over the last 10 months. It’s staggering how bad it’s gotten for the average person in Europe who’s just trying to heat their home this winter.  In fact, Bloomberg reports that European households are now paying more than ever before for their electricity and natural gas.  Even as governments spend hundreds of billions to try and help consumers with this energy-crunch.   And unfortunately, this is only going to get worse in the coming months. . . Many pundits blame the Russia-Ukraine war - which played a key part. But this was only the catalyst that exposed Europe’s fragile energy policies. That’s because European nations like Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium - neutered themselves over the years by stalling their own energy generation. It’s something we profile in detail right here. Now they’re ...

 December 17, 2022 A New Credit On The Block Experts at COP15 said that reversing nature loss and restoring biodiversity also deserves payments they call biocredits.   The rest of this week’s stories are all about climate, carbon removal, and carbon credits.  Bezos Earth Fund offers $110M grants, the U.S. DOE invests $3.7B in carbon removal, and Amazon launches a new carbon credit label. Let's get to know all these stories. The Cost of Protecting Biodiversity Governments are working on more robust laws to prohibit nature degradation. But same with fighting climate change, efforts from the private sector also play a critical role. Enter biodiversity credits, a.k.a. biocredits. Negotiators at Montreal's UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) summit have focused their talks on the potential voluntary markets for biocredits. Some organizations believe that biodiversity credits can drive financing toward nature conservation. But there's currently no unified approach or method...