February 23, 2023

2023 trends: biomass, ESG, batteries and more

40 minutes

It’s the first year of what we hope is an annual event: Nat Bullard has released his first climate trends report. He was the chief content officer at BloombergNEF until last year, and now is a senior contributor at BNEF and Bloomberg Green. He’s also a venture partner at Voyager Ventures.

There’s so much in this 141-slide deck that we’ve split the conversation into two episodes. In this first part, Shayle and Nat dig into topics like:

Land use. For example: we grow 40% of the U.S. corn to offset 10% of U.S. motor gas demand. Also, despite a growing world population, land used for agriculture globally has been shrinking. What do these trends mean for alternative proteins and sustainable aviation fuels?

ESG. In 2022, there were more anti-ESG than pro-ESG regulatory developments. And while ESG fund flows were positive last year, they’re still only a fraction of their peak in 2021. Where is ESG investment heading and should we even be putting environmental, social and governance criteria in the same bucket?

Batteries. Battery costs rose in 2022, but battery system costs rose faster. And yet there’s still rising demand for utility-scale batteries. Meanwhile, the top ten battery manufacturers of 2022 were in Asia. What do these trends mean for the battery market and manufacturing supply chains?

For a full transcript, click here

Recommended resources:

Nathaniel Bullard: Decarbonization: The long view, trends and transience, net zero

Catalyst: Climatetech’s surprising bottleneck: Land access

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