Hey everyone! Luke (CCO) here writing about day 4 of New York Climate Week! Climate VCs raised 19 billion USD in the last year alone, of which around 6 billion USD came from North America. The financing for sustainable solutions theme is consistent across many more panels. 2024’s Climate Capital Summit put on by Equal Ventures, Fenwick, Mercury and attended by hundreds of venture capital firms, portfolio companies, and larger established enterprise sized customers utilising climate technologies represented this exactly. With over 1700 attendees on the waitlist, another consistent theme is realising that most events are incredibly over subscribed to and don’t often off subscribed. This was our same experience when joining peers in the Bezos sponsored Nature Hub.
Listening to the Managing Partner of Tesla, CEO’s of two large global communication enterprise, Sunrun and Con Edison, the future role of technology was something consistently touted as a transition enabler. It won’t be possible without IT. Moving back to the Nest, it’s unsurprising to meet many UK companies and consulting firms with their delegations networking, exploring collaboration opportunities.
Though it’s been a privilege to understand more about the global policy landscape, momentum behind clean and emerging technologies, the focus cannot shift from large global enterprise, particularly the trillion dollar valued monolith’s – like apple. The day is concluding, with the numbers beginning to dwinfle, but the attendance was high at a fireside chat featuring, Lisa Jackson, Apple's VP of Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives, and Carter Roberts, President and CEO of WWF-US. Apple is actively working to reduce its environmental footprint through initiatives like renewable energy, energy efficiency, and sustainable materials. She also spearheads the company's $100 million Racial Equity and Justice Initiative and oversees Apple's education programs, product accessibility, and government relations.
It's not overly complicated, for large or small enterprise, to readily understand that they all have a role to play in
- Understanding the existing split of renewable vs. non-renewable energy.
- Increasing that ratio considerably in favour of renewable, toward 100%
- Making your group of suppliers, customers and wider value chain engage with that very ethos.
What is complicated is the lack of precision currently in play for moving through steps A to C. In this cycle, it’s clear that only a smart strategy is based on approaching the difficult problem with a simple solution, moving slowly and always being careful and concise with relevant data sets.
Finishing off the day, we joined AWS hosted session on AI use cases for sustainable development, mostly filled with a range of different businesses looking to understand how AI can support their understanding of sustainability. AWS VPs for EMEA and North America talked about the growth rate potential for investors and companies, as an off the chart acceleration of investment, expected between 2024 to 2030.
Luke
