The Climatetech Founder's Podcast

I’m looking for 20 Green Techpreneur readers who want to become GT Founding Members:

A Founding Membership costs $500 and benefits include:

*    LinkedIn for Sustainability Leaders Course

* Free advertising on The Green Techpreneur newsletter (1 ad placement)

*    Exclusive invites to members-only online events

* A GT website article (1-dedicated article subject to Terms & Conditions)

* Boosted networking in the GT online community

* Your name and company listed on the soon-to-come Founding Members’ section of the GT website

….and you’ll have my gratitude and some gifts and surprises! 🙂

Hello Green Techpreneur readers,

After interviewing countless founders and investors and writing about their founder launch journey, I figured it was time to share my story and tell you why I started The Green Techpreneur. I’ll join my interviewees in the vulnerability arena and reveal the behind-the-scenes blood sweat and tears, the hustle and grit that lies in front of, and behind those who choose the entrepreneurial path. Fasten your seatbelts and get ready for a wild ride.

The truth is that in March 2018, when I quit my job as a reinsurance journalist and moved from Brighton to London, I didn’t set out to build an online business or have any dreams of starting The Green Techpreneur. I set out to not be miserable.

I had worked two jobs for one year after finishing my MA in Multimedia Journalism: juggling a part-time, back office job at American Express alongside a 6-month unpaid internship and then a part-time role as a video journalist at Brighton’s local broadcast TV channel – LatestTV. In that chapter of life, two worlds collided.

The corporate world was well-organised and well-managed. I had monthly one-on-one meetings with my manager: a performance review where I was given a chance to discuss any training I wanted to progress in. My work was dull but voluntary overtime was paid 1.5x normal rates, and cake was often passed along the long rows of desks – there was always someone who had a birthday in Amex’s giant, shiny European HQ.

In a chance encounter, I had met someone at a party towards the end of my studies who referred me for an internship at LatestTV. LatestTV was a pub by night and a broadcast studio by day. It smelt of beer, musty furniture and sweat. Equipment was old, heavy, and often missing a piece or breaking down. LatestTV was born because magazine owners in Brighton had gotten a 2-year startup BBC grant to launch a news channel – it was part of a nationwide attempt by BBC, backed by some MPs, to bolster the dying local news sector.

Sadly, the programme was largely unsuccessful, and nearly all fledgling local news start-ups collapsed when the grant money ran out. What it did do, was offer an army of young aspiring journalists a brief window of opportunity to get their foot in the door of a highly competitive, struggling sector.

I would often work a half day at Amex and then run out to LatestTV, pick up a backbreakingly heavy old camera and tripod and whiz off on a news mission, writing the script for the 2-minute news package as I took a bus to the shooting location or interviewee. As a one-woman show, I learnt how to shoot, edit, write for broadcast and self-record my piece-to-camera.

My first paid job with LatestTV was to report on the controversy caused by a photo of Brighton’s naked bike ride. I spoke to local charities, priests, scientists, businesses, residents and politicians. I was paid £60 per day and had to produce two 2-minute news video packages a day. This left me often spending evenings and weekends doing unpaid overtime to catch up on video editing. It was tough, but my heart was in it.

For LatestTV, however, the writing was on the wall. BBC grant money was running out and the company was edging closer to bankruptcy. And after over a year of juggling two jobs, I was running out of energy. I’d gotten my foot in the door of a media career and it was time to move on. But across the UK, media was in trouble. It was incredibly daunting to be running towards an industry that was increasingly fighting for survival.

During my MA, I had done a one-week placement at a local London newsroom and had stayed in touch with one of the reporters. She had been out on the street protesting when her newsroom closed down not long afterwards and she’d begrudgingly gone on to get a job at a tabloid. It was a global phenomenon: in the booming age of social media, tech giants had become the winners and newsrooms the losers. Companies were spending advertising dollars to pay for ads on social media, not newspapers. Many media outlets have since transitioned to putting up paywalls – but less freely available, verified reporting comes at a cost to democracy.

I found that more jobs were going in finance-related journalism than most other news sectors. I got a role in a reinsurance news startup and moved into the world of risk management, cat bonds, insurance-linked securities and…churnalism. There was little to no original reporting. I regurgitated, rehashed and respun press releases, industry reports and articles. I churned and churned and churned – under pressure daily to spin out article after article – produce, produce, produce.

At least I had my weekends free. I tried to write a blog about environmental issues on the weekend. Two years earlier I had gone down the rabbit hole of learning about climate change and I couldn’t unsee what I saw. I had stumbled on an article that shocked me and then I dug in and dove deeper and deeper: oceans close to collapse, soil degradation, soon more plastic than fish in the sea, climate chaos, floods, droughts, freshwater depletion, an existential crisis ahead. I was shocked.

This was before the climate crisis had become front and centre of the news agenda. Why weren’t people talking about how bad things were? Why was most of the world walking around with their head in the sand? Why were people carrying on with life as normal? It was madness.

From that point on I became an activist. I made lifestyle changes to live more sustainably and started encouraging others to do the same. At the Amex office Starbucks cafe, hundreds if not thousands of disposable coffee cups were thrown away daily. I talked about it with my manager; ‘if everyone could keep a mug at their desk and take it down to the cafe, we wouldn’t have to produce so much waste.’ It was easier to create this change at the reinsurance news startup and the boss did buy reusable cups to keep at the office and replace disposables.

As time wore on, my churnalism role ground me down. I regurgitated content at speed day after day, had burn out, and lost all enjoyment I had once had in the creative process. I robotically moved through each day, counting down the hours until work was over and I could go home. In evenings and on weekends I felt exhausted and brain-dead. What had it all been for? Taking out a loan to do an MA in Multimedia Journalism, long evenings spent practising shorthand and studying media law, unpaid internships – to become this low-paid – (I was on 19k a year) – content factory worker? I became increasingly miserable and despondent. I had to break free.

After several months of trying to find a new role in London, I decided to quit my job. I felt I had nothing to lose.

I moved to London with £4,000 in savings and a promise to myself that I would never again live a life of existence. I would do whatever I had to do, but I wanted to truly live each day, not count down the hours until it was over.

I moved into a property guardianship – a scheme where empty buildings waiting to be sold are converted into temporary homes and rented out at a discounted price. I had a room in what had been an office block, and a makeshift shower and kitchen. I was elated. I remember snow falling in a cold winter spell in London and the sheer joy of being in the city with all its diversity and bubbling aliveness. The run-down grungy areas, the elegant parks, the modern skyscrapers and the old pubs.

I had an open highway ahead of me, a clean slate, and it was mine to write on.

I started applying for jobs and had gotten an offer for a role I knew I didn’t really want, but then a friend gave me a ticket to a tech conference that he’d been unable to attend and suggested I use it as a networking opportunity. I had often thought of freelancing as a better alternative to churnalism, but I imagined it would be nearly impossible to achieve – a far-off dream. But what if….what if the self-employment path was possible? I had to try.

Armed with a business suit and business cards that stated the areas I could write about, I made a point of speaking to as many people as I could, passing out my card and asking them if they needed a freelance writer. When I told a conference goer I had quit my job to move to London and become a freelance writer, he said, “it’s a bold move,” I replied that “fortune favours the bold.”

In that conference, someone referred me to a contact who gave me some unpaid work which led to me quickly finding paid freelance work. I had done the thing I thought was impossible, and the red sea had parted before my eyes. I was over the moon with my luck and I became more bold. What if the things we think are difficult are actually easier than we imagine and if we just take the next obvious step in that direction in faith, the next step will become clear?

So I kept on, pushing through fear and uncertainty, stumbling forwards. I quickly learnt that I could get into just about any conference if I requested a media pass. I loved learning about the latest innovation at tech conferences, and I’d look for and approach editors and ask them if they worked with freelancers. I joined and got support from the National Union of Journalists and started sharing my experiences in their panel discussions about freelancing. I joined Google campus’ co-working club and made a friend who was developing a business idea, she suggested I join The Allbright – a private members co-working club for women.

I’d meet these impressive, ambitious women, many of whom had quit the corporate world to pursue a business idea, and felt sheepish introducing myself as a freelance copywriter and journalist. I’d return to my makeshift home in the property guardianship and listen to and be inspired by podcasts about entrepreneurship.

I allowed myself to dream and created a vision board and goals for different areas of my life.

At the Allbright, I was matched with a mentor. I had three business ideas related to the environment, building networks, content and activism, but I was in analysis paralysis, afraid to run with one idea out of fear I’d make the wrong choice. My mentor helped me select an idea. Six months later, when the pandemic hit, my life changed; a window of opportunity emerged and The Green Techpreneur (GT) was born. It led to me getting a Forbes Contributor role to write about climatetech.  A year later, another mentor appeared who consistently supported The GT’s growth and encouraged me to grow my support base with board members.

I’ve long since been a fan of motivation and marketing coach Brendon Burchard. Two of his quotes have stuck with me and become my business mantras:

·      However small you start, start something that matters.

·      When you are willing to learn and believe in your ability to figure things out, then fear becomes tameable.

I’ve bootstrapped The GT – gradually building it as an online resource, podcast and network for climatetech. The course of my life has been shaped by chance encounters and referrals and I believe in the power of creating networks. You never know when one new contact will be transformative for someone’s business or life.

I’ve often rallied against the negative, fear-based bias in the media. Studies have shown it creates anger and frustration that can lead to populism and apathy. Why do we hear so much about murderers, criminals and random accidents, and not enough about all the amazing people and incredible visionaries working on solutions? We need to regain a sense that problems are solvable and that taking action delivers results to combat apathy.

By building The GT I’m creating the change I wish to see in the world. And this is what I love about climatetech innovators – they’re creating the change we need, not just sitting around talking about problems.

I built The GT over 2.5 years while juggling other work. When progress seems slow, I remind myself that I’m building something that matters, and when the way forwards is unclear, I believe in my ability to learn and figure things out. I’m still stumbling forwards.

This year I launched The Green Techpreneur website to transition from the newsletter and podcast into a one-stop shop for climatetech with features to encourage networking and business growth (a jobs board, publishing lists of startups looking for funds, a B2B advertising platform, a Youtube channel).

I’ve focused on plugging my knowledge gaps by taking courses in building an online business, marketing and lead generation. Along the way, I discovered that I’d spread my efforts too thin and I am learning to be more streamlined and strategic and focus on the route to profitability.

The progress I’ve made so far has been down to learning how to effectively use LinkedIn for audience growth and business development: I’ve built a valuable network without spending a penny on ads.

With comparatively little input, LinkedIn makes so much possible.

Here are a couple of stats:

·      The GT newsletter on Substack and LinkedIn has nearly 4,000 subscribers

·      The GT podcast has had 15,500 downloads

·      I have 8,700 LinkedIn followers in the climatetech sector

And although I’ve seen some climatetech leaders excelling at their LinkedIn game, the majority don’t have a consistent messaging strategy or the tools they need to succeed. That’s why I created a course – LinkedIn for Sustainability Leaders – where I’ve combined my own learning curve and observations about what works. If I’d had this knowledge when I first launched The GT, I would have saved many, many hours of time and grown faster.

I’m looking for 20 Green Techpreneur readers who want to become GT Founding Members and purchase the LinkedIn Leadership course for $500.

Founding Member benefits include:

*    LinkedIn for Sustainability Leaders Course

* Free advertising on The Green Techpreneur newsletter (1 ad placement)

*    Exclusive invites to members-only online events

* A GT website article (1-dedicated article subject to Terms & Conditions)

* Boosted networking in the GT online community

* Your name and company listed on the soon-to-come Founding Members’ section of the GT website

….and you’ll have my gratitude and some gifts and surprises! 🙂

Let’s #SparkTheTransition!

What the course covers:

·      Profile Optimisation

·      How to stand out as a sustainability leader – worksheet

o   Your mission, vision, and unique selling points

o   Share two types of news stories

o   Use global climate change influencers

* Purpose-driven posting

o   Relationship-building

o   Sales-oriented

* How to structure a post

* How to boost engagement

* How to use video

* How to research, select and use hashtags    

* Use AI tools to consistently grow your network and company followers

* Use AI tools for business development

* Tackling the algorithm

* How to share your story and founder launch journey

o   Proven viral messaging tactics

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A warm welcome to the 136 new subscribers who have joined since the last edition!

If you’re reading this and haven’t subscribed, sign up below to join a high-value and fast-growing network of over 1,760 climatetech entrepreneurs, investors, and industry leaders.

Here’s how The Green Techpreneur can help you:

For entrepreneurs

I interview extraordinary climatetech entrepreneurs and investors and share practical advice on how to build your business and find funding. It’s insightful, actionable and fun to read or listen to.

Do you want help with boosting your visibility, engagement & getting the connections you need to succeed?

For details visit...becomemorevisible and book a call if it resonates.

For climatetech investors

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As a fourth generation farmer, Pablo Borquez Schwarzbeck is acutely aware that in farming industries, long-term security and resilience needs an urgent overhaul.

The climate crisis and Russia-Ukraine war exacerbated food insecurity issues this year, leading to a $2.3 billion World Bank designated food security fund, but farmers aren’t getting the support they need to secure their produce and business in the first place.

“Farmers are often in a group that is largely taken advantage of,” says Schwarzbeck, “they take on 90% of the liability that comes with growing crops – it doesn’t really make sense for produce farmers to take all the risk and not get the majority of the return for that commodity.

“Most of the products that we consume come from emerging economies, and often the emerging economies are the ones that have the most fractured and broken or least accessible capital markets.”

But an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure – what if there was a better way to support farmers so their harvests and income was sheltered from climate and macroeconomic shocks?

The question plagued Scharzbeck. He had travelled extensively throughout North and South America to meet farmers: “that’s where I really understood that the issues that I saw back home were the same issues everywhere,” says Schwarzbeck.

Agricultural commodities are often sold through intermediaries which means only a small percentage of the profits remain in the hands of the farmers: “a lot of the farmers will fail to make the product available to the end consumers because they don’t know where these consumers are ultimately – the clients that are willing to buy the product,” says Schwarzbeck.

The average piece of produce travels 1,600 miles to your plate, is handled x4 – x8 times due to non-value add middle-men, is rebranded x2 due to a fragmented market–making it extremely difficult to trace where produce has come from. Produce is marked up x3 – x6 as a result of changing hands so many times.

Was it possible to disrupt and eliminate these intermediaries to put more power in the hands of the producer?

Schwarzbeck set out to find answers. He launched ProducePay as a fintech and digital marketplace solution that gives farmers access to capital and connects produce-growers directly to the end buyer.

ProducePay also helps growers find end buyers in its marketplace and underwrites the farming and trading risk for growers, which involves weather, logistics, etc

Within 8 years since inception, ProducePay has helped 700 farms – worth about $4 billion of produce – get access to capital and receive the best return on their commodities.

What services do you offer farmers and how are you disrupting the market?

ProducePay provides Pre Season Financing from $200k to $5MM up to 12 months before harvest. It offers a new Quick-Pay service, which is a first-of-its-kind  Quick-Payfinancing option that allows growers to maintain cash flow by getting up to 96% of the value of their shipments within 24 hours after a buyer accepts the product.

How does ProducePay strengthen farmers’ resilience?

We build strong technical infrastructure that connects farmers to the consumers and services to allow them to reach customers. As the alternative solution for farmers, we provide strong markets of consumption, strong pricing, along with the capital and the infrastructure to reach those clients – this we believe is the formula for maximising long-term yields.”

We built a mechanism for traditional funds in the United States to reach farms all across the world. And by doing so we help the people that are best equipped to grow the fruits and vegetables to reach global consumers.

The startup venture and investment world now looks at agriculture with a very different light because they have seen what the world without access to food looks like. And it’s very scary, right?

During the pandemic where access to food was in question, it was our ability to ultimately help these farmers get the product to these places like Los Angeles that allowed us to make sure that we brought healthy food to the local communities that we work in.

How does your sustainability programme work?

As part of its support offer for farmers, our sustainability and decarbonisation programme evaluates and offers support on:

EXPERTISE

Do they have the expertise, the company infrastructure, accountants and other experts to help them manage effectively?

COMMERCIAL

Do we need to help this person have the proper relationships to be able to move and sell the product?

SUSTAINABILITY

What we ultimately focus on is whether something could theoretically be done in perpetuity, or if you’re doing something that is creating short-term gain at the expense of the resources of the community.

 Sustainability includes social responsibility. Are they doing things that ultimately make sure the people that consume this food will do so in a way that is healthy? Are you preserving the water to the point you’re not exploiting those resources?

We’ve launched the first decarbonisation initiative in fruit and vegetable farming, and by that we ultimately partnered with different experts to figure out how to help farmers understand how their particular commodity can reduce the carbon footprint of their farms – depending on the crop they’re farming. This includes anything from how they irrigate, what they apply to the soils and ultimately how they tilled the land.

What sort of growth have you seen?

In the last 18 months, we’ve tripled our market share. A lot of that has to do with our ability to take our model and successfully replicate it across different countries in the Western Hemisphere.

We’re very happy to see our model resonating with other geographies across the world. The produce industry has become largely globalised, and a lot of produce today is being grown in emerging economies. So it is essential for the success of our business and for the network effects that we can replicate our model across different different geographies. 

We’re very excited to follow this through until we can bring a new reality that is largely available to the farming community across the world. We’ve grown from North America and the Americas and our next expansion is mostly focused in Europe. 

If you were to look back in 10 years’ time, where do you want to be?

I’d like to be sitting down with my daughter and telling her once upon a time, the farming industry was much more impaired because they they lacked the technology or the data.

Ultimately, I think I can feel proud that I’m passing the baton on by showing her that everyone can help their industry in their own way. I did it by creating better technology, infrastructure and availability of resources. In some ways we can all help, so hopefully I can be passing the baton to my daughter, so she can start thinking about what she can do as a fifth generation farmer.

Do you have a mantra or a life philosophy that keeps you going?

My mantra is Be Better. I think humanity’s best moments or best innovations come from pushing yourself to exceed beyond our former self. It’s about having the humility to understand that regardless of who you are, how successful, or how enlightened, you can always learn something. If you can always see yourself as being one step before your next step to self improvement, then you can always be kinder or more philanthropic.

I think intergenerationally. Is this something that I would want my children to see me do? If the answer is yes, it means you’re doing something that you can feel proud of.

If you want to connect with ProducePay, reach out to: [email protected] 

💥 Do you want help with boosting your visibility, standing out, & getting the connections you need to succeed?

For details visit...becomemorevisible and book a call if it resonates.

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Do you have a job or an investment opportunity you would like to advertise?

Get in touch to have it published in The Green Techpreneur.

You may enjoy catching up on….

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A warm welcome to the 149 new subscribers who have joined since the last edition!

If you’re reading this and haven’t subscribed, sign up below to join a high-value community of over 1,600 climatetech entrepreneurs, investors, and industry leaders.

Here’s how The Green Techpreneur can help you:

For entrepreneurs

I interview extraordinary climatetech entrepreneurs and investors and share practical advice on how to build your business and find funding. It’s insightful, actionable and fun to read or listen to.

Do you want help with standing out to attract enquiries, talent & investors?

For details visit...becomemorevisible and book a call if it resonates.

For climatetech investors

The Green Techpreneur publishes lists of pre-vetted startups seeking investment. Subscribe to be the first to know.

“When written in Chinese, the word ‘crisis’ is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.” —John F. Kennedy

Few crises are as pertinent today as the energy dilemma as we enter what is looking to be a lean winter. With millions of Europe’s most vulnerable facing the option to ‘heat or eat’ without government intervention for unbearable energy costs, the vulnerability of nations that depend on autocratic regimes to meet their energy needs has been laid bare. Energy independence is an immediate matter of national security and an environmental and social necessity. But a time of great crisis can also be a time of great opportunity; this is proving true for the transition to renewable energy – a climatetech sector that’s seeing growth like never before.

Anthony Agnew, Development Director of Yoo Energy, a sustainable energy fund and developer, working in wind, solar and battery early stage projects in Western Europe, has worked in renewables for 12 years. His clients span the globe stretching from Greece, the UK, Spain, Italy, Zimbabwe and Holland to the US and Latin America.

Anthony first discovered an entrepreneurial streak while studying Mechanical Engineering at uni – along with a friend, he built and developed a vodka business which grew in popularity. Shots sold far beyond the university bar: “at its peak, we were employing 36 people and selling vodka in China. It was a fascinating, interesting time, but it wasn't really where my heart was. I always wanted to go into sustainable energy.”

His next venture – an attempt to commercialise construction technology – was stopped in its tracks by the 2008 crisis. But it turned out to be the bend in the road he needed to move into where his true passion lay. He took the cue and launched his journey into green techpreneurship. Anthony set up a renewable heat and power installing business including solar pv, solar thermal, biomass & heat pumps and went on to find his niche as an enabler for renewable energy projects: “with any sort of project development or funding it's a case of just putting people together and making it work – it's all these disparate parts that you can bring together to create value.”

This year, he says, has been pivotal for renewable energy; from new government policies to an acceleration of investment, technology and projects, momentum is without doubt on the side of renewables.

“It's not a case of investor sentiment is quiet, renewables have been one of the highest performing sectors globally and it's a part of the super cycle. All of the government policy points that are coming out are increasingly helping that.

“So whilst the initial invasion of Ukraine certainly caused a bit of a pause on things, two months later, people realised that actually, it's going to drive up those power prices and certainly for the medium to short term, those power prices are going to stay high – that's the expectation for the next couple of years.

“Renewable energy and power generation is countercyclical, so it doesn't go up and down as stocks do; we always need energy and energy demand is typically going up anyway. There's now a greater demand and a greater return on investment in renewable energy power projects.”

Where is the renewable market headed?

Long-term planning for renewable power has really stepped up as a result of these high fuel costs. If you look at the US’ anti-inflation bill, it’s all about sustainability. The impact that can have in the US is huge. So it’s really exciting to see these things come forward as a result of the world suffering and showing that we can address some of these issues.

We're certainly seeing on the project side, in delivering sustainable assets, huge influx and growth.

And the COP agendas are furthering that. We've already seen New Zealand in 2018 banning all new offshore rights. We saw Quebec this year in April ban all new oil and gas licences, which for Canada, one of the top five oil and gas producers globally, is an incredible thing to state. That's huge. This is the ball rolling, there's the carrot and sticks and we're seeing more and more of that coming.

And aside from being forever a hopeful optimist, I'm seeing as I work on the forefront of all these technologies, that deployment rates are quickly and continuously on the rise. So we're seeing more people want to do renewables, in more markets, and more money coming into it – the whole thing is just growing and growing.

Where do you think there's a lot of potential, both geographically, and in the type of renewable energy?

I hope we’ll see a bigger upsurge in concentrated solar power because when you store heat in liquid salts, you can run it for an extra 4-8 hours and potentially almost get 24-hour power generation. This can be hugely effective in high solar yield locations like southern Spain. Solar with battery, wind with battery, anything with batteries helps the market.

I think we can get to 80% renewables deployment, without baseload power. You've got baseload power, which is something that generates power 24/7, like a nuclear power station, and then you've got intermittent power, like wind and solar, which is only going to create power when the wind blows and the sun shines, and then the batteries work to balance the load on those intermittent powers.

I believe it's absolutely possible to switch to running the world using fully sustainable sources. It's just a question of building momentum and also building these large networks of people who come together to make it happen.

What do renewable developers often get wrong and how they can improve?

For project development, you need to derisk the project as much as you can and you need to have five things lined up:

1. It's all about taking as much risk off the table as you can.

The investors are looking at it in terms of how do we get it past our debt providers and past the board?

2. You need to have the land and agreements for it in its place

3. You need to have the proven energy resource

- which is going to be the sun, the wind, or the supply of waste from a waste plant.

4. You’ll need to have the build permits

5. You need to have grid connection

Once you've got those five things, you've created value and it's pretty much plain sailing, then it's just engineering and construction which isn't risk by comparison to the early stages.

A lot of it comes down to making sure those parts are done really well. It’s showing the expertise you need to to derisk whatever it is that you're trying to do; having local people who have local knowledge and connections and who know how to get those permits as well as specific technical knowledge. Once you put those two together, they're quite potent.

Do you have any tips on derisking projects and getting the messaging right?

A lot of it comes down to the message and story; making sure it's presented in the best way possible.

It's always worth understanding your own strengths and weaknesses, because an investor will know or understand what your weaknesses are likely to be. You can say, ‘look, I'm not good at this, we need to get this part and we've done everything else.’

Keep it simple, don't over complicate things. If you have too many words on an investment memorandum you're going to lose everyone because investors are looking at 10-15 of these a day.

What type of support is needed to further accelerate renewable uptake?

The boulder is already running downhill. We just need more people to push the boulder and get obstacles out of the way. We already have the technologies we need to deliver.

There are so many fantastic technologies coming into the market. One of my clients is working with a technology to separate methane into hydrogen. If you run methane through an electrolyser it creates water and electricity – fantastic stuff. And they are sequestering the carbon into high value graphene. Graphene is this bonkers wonderful material, 10 times stronger than diamond and more conductive than copper. You can add it to concrete as an additive and you can get rid of reinforcing steel, for example, or you can use 40% less concrete, because it's that much stronger. 40% less, that use case alone, if it was fully deployed in the industry would create a 2% saving globally on carbon.

You always need support from the government to make it happen. But right now, you can build solar in the UK purely based on the current market pricing, and that's before Ukraine happened. You can build these without any support and they make money, so it's already happening, that ball is rolling. If it makes more sense to put solar on your house than not put solar on your house because you're going to live in a house for six years, then suddenly the world gets covered in solar.

UBS, for example, are advising their private wealth clients that renewable energy is where you should invest not because you like sustainability, not because you believe in the environment, but because it's outperforming everything else. And that's the perfect news story.

Do you have a philosophy or a business mantra?

Do the hard thing first. I think the most important thing is just to do the next thing, whatever is in front of you, just take that step and keep going.

Are there any mentors who've been influential in helping you on this journey?

One of the biggest influences in my life has been my wife. She's a trained executive coach and Head of Philanthropy at Barclays Bank. Having someone who thinks that well and that clearly is a huge challenge in your relationship and it can be very hard to take that advice in, but when you can set the child aside and be a bit grown up, there’s also huge potential for growth. She's been a wonderful engine in how I see the world myself and trying to basically get out of my own way all the time.

What do you do when it’s time to unwind after work?

I've got a four year old son who's just gorgeous. So playing with him at the end of every day is fabulous. I love food – so we often go out to Borough market. I'm a massive feeder, so having people around for supper and creating and cooking is a huge pleasure for me.

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Further reading:

How Earthbanc is Helping Finance Mass Adoption of Land Regeneration

How to Transform Waste into Energy and End Fossil Fuel Dependency

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From converting their office into a makeshift school for Ukrainian refugee children to planting 25 million trees to seeing 20% YoY revenue growth – Ecosia has continued to thrive and contribute throughout a year that’s been rocked with macroeconomic crises.

As a not-for-profit search engine, Ecosia punches above its weight in terms of impact; it’s planted an incredible 153 million trees, transformed entire communities and brought degraded land back to life. It’s a tribute to how the cumulative power of small actions taken by the collective over time does create truly powerful global change.

And it all started because as a teenage boy, Ecosia Founder Christian Kroll was touched by the plight of the poor during a trip to India and determined he would use his future career to learn how to harness technology to drive positive impact.

At university, Christian had created a comparison website and was earning money from commissions: “I realised how much money I was spending on online advertisement and that Google is a really good business model."

His university side-hustle became the idea from which Ecosia was born, but Ecosia’s explosive growth would only come after Christian persevered through several failed projects – it was his third attempt at building a search engine.

Today, Ecosia is the world’s largest not-for-profit search engine and one of the best-known cleantech companies of our time. Supported by 15 million users worldwide, it plants millions of trees every year across 26 countries and powers its engine with 100% renewable energy.

The Green Techpreneur caught up with Ecosia’s extraordinary founder, Christian, to share insight on how they’ve navigated today’s fast-changing business climate.

How has the last year been for Ecosia?

In terms of trees being planted, we’re at 153 million at the moment, so that’s roughly 25 million more trees since last year. Of course, if you compare this to the number of trees we need to plant, it’s still much less than we need. We’re planting more trees than ever, but we would like to plant much, much faster! We hope more people use us so we can plant more trees.

Do you have statistics on your year on year growth?

We’ve had about a 20% revenue increase compared to one year ago - all our progress and statistics are publicly available in the financial reports we publish. Everyone can check the numbers on our website.

What’s the goal that you’re working towards?

We need to plant a trillion trees as quickly as possible. We’re still far away from achieving that – by we, I mean not just Ecosia, but we as a global society – we have to scale up.

We calculated that if everyone used us instead of Google, we could plant around 300 billion trees every year and we would get to that 1 trillion very quickly – it’s not impossible but we need more users to do it.

How have you navigated the challenges of this last year with all the crises globally?

Covid is still a problem and we’ve also been affected by that with people not being able to come to the office and also people spending less online which means less revenue for us to some extent, but I think it’s affected us much less than other industries.

The other big crisis was the invasion of Ukraine by Russia – that was a big shock for us. As a company, we committed to upscale our investment in renewable energy to do our part to transition away from fossil fuels and all those autocratic leaders that hold us hostage.

In Ecosia, we made investments into renewable energy to not only power our own service, but multiples of that – 500% of what we consume ourselves. We calculated what Google could do if they did the same, they could almost finance the entire transition away from fossil fuels in the European Union within just a few years.

So if other companies did the same, we wouldn’t even have this problem, we would be energy independent and this invasion would probably not have happened.

Now with fossil fuels getting expensive and it hurting our economy, it’s a consequence of us not taking the measures we should have taken 10 years ago. Now we have to deal with it and we’re trying to do our part with investment in renewable energy.

We transformed parts of our office, which were not in use because of the pandemic, into a temporary home for Ukrainian school children and we supported a project that helped refugees find accommodation.

But one of the issues is that the climate crisis has gotten much less attention over the last two years. It’s always the elephant in the room. Yes, we need to deal with COVID. Yes, we need to deal with this war. But don’t forget about the big monster that is waiting for us. Our house is on fire and we should talk about that every day and act accordingly.

What strategies did you use to rebrand Ecosia?

When you build things, after a while they get outdated. Design-wise we had some old looks and things didn’t really fit together and nobody had the time to look at it.

We put in a joint effort to update it and make the brand a bit more exciting. We wanted to make it clear that this is more than just a search engine, it’s a big movement, it’s potentially the biggest movement to solve the climate crisis online.

We wanted to be bold in not only the looks but in the communication on our website, and we highlighted a few things that we felt were underrepresented.

Often, we get the question, ‘yes, you’re planting some trees, but you keep the profits for yourself?’ People misunderstand that very often and we have to correct it and say ‘no, we give 100% of our profits to solving the climate crisis, and this will be true forever. It’s impossible to take any profits out of the company. It’s impossible to sell the company.’

The new, more bold visual style fits better with what we’re trying to do at Ecosia.

You’ve just launched freetree.io as a new browser extension, was this something you built based on feedback from users?

To some extent, it’s something that we incubated within Ecosia.

Freetree.io is a browser extension that you can install in your browser and it allows you to plant trees when shopping online without having to pay extra.

For example, say you’re purchasing cat food in an online shop, if this shop is a partner, then freetree.io will automatically pop up and a share of your purchase value will go into planting trees. The good thing about it is that users don’t have to pay extra – it’s the shops that give a share of the purchase value.

The concept behind it is that online shops often pay commissions to partners to drive traffic; if I bring traffic to that shop I get a commission, we used that concept for tree-planting.

It’s super easy to install and it’s a great addition to Ecosia. Instead of just planting trees through searches, you can plant trees when browsing other websites: we have thousands of partners, so freetree.io works when, for example, you’re booking a hotel, purchasing something online, or subscribing to a service. If someone is a partner, you’ll automatically get a popup that asks you if you want to plant trees.

We’ve received good feedback so far and would like more people to use freetree.io – the more people use it, the more trees we plant.

What are the social impacts of tree planting with Ecosia?

We pay people to plant trees in very low-income countries, so the income financially supports the people there and it regenerates the degraded land so it’s fertile again. Many of the trees that we are planting generate income later.

We not only plant trees, we plant hope

We start a positive cycle. People realise, ‘this degraded land that has gotten worse and worse over time, I can turn this around.’ This is super inspiring - especially for younger people. We have community collaboration so people understand that the trees we’re planting are important for soil fertility, for stabilising the local water cycles and for the well-being of the entire community. All of that combined has a massive impact.

I sometimes think of trees as our superweapon in the fight against many different crises.

Do you have Ecosia forests made up of all the trees planted?

It’s more of a mosaic than one big Ecosia forest; we have more than 20,000 different locations where we’ve planted and most of them are a maximum of a few hectares big.

If you look at the circumstances on the ground, there’s often no space to plant one big forest, so it makes sense to have lots of small pieces.

What message do you want to leave the readers with?

The final message is to take individual action, whether it is reducing your carbon footprint, offsetting your CO2 emissions, or participating in environmental projects.

We have to be a lot more active when it comes to solving the climate crisis and it’s urgent that we do all these things and go beyond the small changes to approach the big topics.

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Sometimes a random encounter is all it takes to change the course of your life. This was certainly true for Uruguayan Santiago de los Reyes and Chilean Danilo Perez who met at a Latin American community networking event in New Zealand.

The two hit it off and together with mechanical engineer Freddy Gonzalez they started working together to bring Danilo’s innovation in energy-efficiency to market.

After years of painstaking research, Danilo had successfully turned his idea into a patented technology that makes anaerobic digestion and fermentation processes more efficient and faster to deliver, ultimately offering better quality renewable biogas energy at lower cost.

Vertus Energy technology unlocks an extra 60% energy from the same waste, and it does it three times faster than the current processes in place, reducing all ongoing costs while increasing both the quantity and quality of biogas processed. 

Benjamin Howard later joined the co-founding team, bringing expertise in commercial construction and a plan to help bring Vertus Energy technology to the UK.

“We all converge here in New Zealand as four migrants trying to do some good for the world. We got on pretty well and all have the mindset that we have to do something. It’s not an option to not do anything about the current energy situation that we live in,” says Santiago.

“Essentially, what we are trying to do is to develop a biological platform to make renewable gas more affordable and achievable in this energy transition era.

And with rising energy costs placing increasing financial pressure on consumers and businesses and the REPowerEU strategy aimed at reducing Russian gas imports significantly in 2022 and weaning Europe completely off of Russian energy by 2030 – the pressure is on to fuel the energy transition. Vertus Energy is ready to rise to the occasion.

What impact does your technology have on the energy industry?

Our technology impacts the biogas industry in two key ways:

BRIO is a small but powerful unit that lives inside the anaerobic digester. BRIO allows AD plants to process three times more waste in the same sized tank while delivering biogas with 60% more energy potential than ever before.

Our second technology, BODA, is carbon sequestration and conversion technology. BODA can either be used to “upgrade” the biogas from AD into Bio-methane or it can capture raw CO₂ and convert it into Renewable Natural Gas. BODA is a strong and powerful unit that eats CO₂ and H₂ to produce Renewable Natural Gas. 

Our technology unlocks an extra 60% energy from the same waste, and it does it 3 times faster than the current processes in place.

What challenges have you faced in setting up Vertus Energy?

We were looking to be that infrastructure company that would deliver the full anaerobic digestion plant along with our technology. However, with limited funding and resources, we decided to change our focus to developing a technology that can be implemented into existing anaerobic digestion plants. 

New Zealand is quite behind in the anaerobic digestion industry. Hence, one of the challenges we have right now is to develop a way to help regions that don’t currently have a mature biogas industry and to push the biogas industry forward.

Why is biogas a crucial part of the energy transition?

Biogas is the only fuel that can be upgraded and provide a direct drop-in replacement for Natural Gas without having to change any of the current distribution methods. This means that it can be one of the fastest renewable fuels to be implemented within the decade to help us towards net-zero targets and it keeps it affordable for consumers as we transition.

It can be produced from organic waste, which as humanity grows, is only going to increase. Biogas is very versatile. It can be used to produce electricity, heat, upgrade to renewable natural gas, replace many traditional fossil fuels in the transport sector and even provide sustainable aviation fuel from a carbon negative perspective. Its applications are truly endless. 

What are the opportunities for expansion for biogas as an alternative energy?

The biggest opportunity for the future for biogas would be to address energy security for communities that do not have reliable access to energy from renewable sources, but have organic waste that could be treated.

Currently biogas is used for a multitude of applications, but the Vertus technology will enable existing plants to deliver more biogas at higher energy quality, resulting in more fossil fuels being displaced. It will enable new plants to be much smaller and still deliver the amazing benefits of waste to energy.

Vertus could power schools, communities, households, restaurants, and the list go on, with energy from their own food waste. 

Who are your clients or pilot projects?

Large energy corporations who want to go green

We want to be working with any large corporations who want to decarbonise their energy production, distribution or assist their clients achieving energy security. The likes of Aramco, Shell, Exxon, Engie and those corporations who could really make a wholesale change for good in the fastest time possible.  

Existing biogas plants

We are currently working with a multitude of potential partners around the world. We are developing partnerships with some large existing biogas plant builders and owners in Europe to accelerate Europe's move away from Russian fossil fuel reliance that is currently causing so many issues.

Communities and local partnerships with cities and farmers

We are in partnership with an influential figure in Africa to establish how we deliver energy justice and energy security for communities and regions there. With our current base being New Zealand, we have developed many local partnerships. For example, an inner-city school which has a small educational farm, we now process some of their waste for them to prevent methane emissions.

The gas from our laboratory is going to be used to recharge electric scooters in the city and provide them with off grid power. We are working alongside several farmers who have a waste and renewable energy problem. We are surrounding ourselves with key partners that can help us scale our technology offering and we're working towards our purpose of energy justice for all. 

We want to be an energy innovation hub; we want to collaborate with everyone that wants to make this world a better place.

Can you give me 5 surprising facts about biogas?

1.     The most surprising fact is that it can be a carbon negative energy source and thus aid global cooling.

2.     It comes from a completely natural process that was first identified by the Egyptians nearly 4000 years ago. The first use of biogas in the UK was in 1895 when it powered streetlamps in Exeter from Sewage waste.

3.     It can either create and/or store energy for decades without losing any of its power.

4.     It's versatile. The energy it produces can be used in a wide variety of cases. From electricity generation through to Sustainable Aviation Fuel.

5.     It solves many societal and environmental problems in one application. It comes from organic waste and delivers high power renewable energy. Interesting fact: there is enough organic waste in Africa to provide the 600 million people that live in Sub-Saharan Africa with renewable electricity for life. 

Does your technology work with existing infrastructure?

Yes. In our business model we pay for the installation of our technology into existing infrastructure. It can have a real impact because it can be distributed through already established and well-connected networks.

Biogas and biomethane is an amazing part of the transition because it can utilise the current infrastructure without need of new engines because it can directly replace natural gas.

Why is it important that various alternative energy types are used together?

We could produce enough solar power in summer to power New Zealand throughout the whole year, but there is no storage capacity for that, and gases like hydrogen and biogas could provide an option for easier energy storage capacity and winter supplies.

There's a reason our energy matrix is so complicated and so intertwined. You have some renewable energies, you have some biofuels, and they all have their inherent best applications and their best delivery methods. And there needs to be that crossover to achieve what we need to achieve in the timeframe that we have available to us.

Scientific data suggests that if we only stick with carbon neutral technologies we have a 50-50% chance of averting climate disaster, essentially. So we have to start focusing on carbon negative fuels, which inherently is anaerobic digestion, and where that waste comes from.

So let's utilise waste and turn it into a resource and a valuable fuel that stops carbon and stops emissions from reaching the atmosphere. 

What is the most frustrating part of your work?

The thing I've struggled with most is getting across and really articulating how vital this type of technology is.

What gets you up in the morning?

Santiago: “What gets me out of bed every morning is that I'm sure that I’m going to get a new email in my inbox saying, “Yes, I'm really interested in what you're saying, let's have a chat.”

Benjamin: “As a team, we all come from different backgrounds and different cultures but we all have our own individual purposes that the company really feeds into, and I think as we grow and scale it will allow each of us to realise those personal purposes within Vertus Energy as part of the bigger purpose. We live at the bottom of the world, and we work with people everywhere in this planet.”

What difference do you hope Vertus Energy to have made in 10 years’ time?

I think the biggest difference is to have realised that change with decentralised energy networks that have brought the biogas and renewable gas industry to where it can be and where it needs to be to provide what the world needs.

Do you have a favourite quote or motto?

Santiago: I’ve been reading Atomic Habits the last few months and everyday do 1% more is something that is on my mind very strong right now. And that is what I’m trying to do in the lab, in the office, and in every relationship that I’m building with other people – everyday is 1% more.

Benjamin: ‘Sola Virtus Invicta’, which means courage is invincible.

As a team we’re already delivering on that, delivering a brand-new technology and gaining funding for the first time and everything that we went through last year. I personally feel that kind of epitomises what we're doing at Vertus Energy and that's what keeps us moving forward and making those big, courageous decisions to take those steps forward.

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Together with co-founders Aslan Shamsutdin, Murshid M. Ali and Petter S. Berge, Pratik Ghoshal, CEO and Co-founder of Skyfri Technologies developed technology which could streamline and automate solar asset operations to make solar power cheaper and solar capital investment significantly more sustainable.

Skyfri’s technology targeted a genuine market pain point and within just a few months of launching, company growth soared by 500%. And with Skyfri’s solar asset management solution offering immediate savings of operating heads by 20-30% for power plants that were previously manually managed, their skyrocketing growth is hardly a surprise.

Backed by climate investors SpeedInvest, Singularity and Link Venture, Skyfri manages about 185 sites worldwide and is dramatically accelerating growth through targeted acquisitions.

Pratik says there was a strong element of right place, right time serendipity to Skyfri’s growth: the solar market was in desperate need of a better management solution, to a point where money and investors may have started to flow out of the space if more efficient ways of operating weren’t found.

But the most important component of Skyfri’s success, he says, was not the market or the service or technology they provide – it was the people behind the name.

“What’s the most important thing I’ve seen in my journey as an entrepreneur?

“It’s that your team is your biggest asset.

“Most of the time you fail as an entrepreneur because you just don’t have likeminded people. You don’t have people who you can depend on. Because you alone can’t be a one man army.

“For me, having a co-founding team, not just a co-founder, was the key for Skyfri.

“I do my 10% of the work, they their 90% of the work and we all do it together. If we hadn’t found that team, we probably wouldn’t be here,” says Pratik.

To launch and build Skyfri just before the pandemic shook the world, the co-founding team had to take a leap of faith; “we started recruiting people to work remote, that’s how we grew. It was six months before I even met my co-founders in person – by then we had already raised funds.”

His motto? “The entrepreneur’s job is to make the receptionist rich.”

In this Green Techpreneur interview, Pratik talks all things growth, solar and team-building.

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Where did the idea behind Skyfri come from?

My co-founders were all serial entrepreneurs in Oslo, Norway. We’ve known each other since almost five years now - since 2017 when I was working as Head of Global Sales in a manufacturing company in Munich. They wanted to develop a solar project. I went my way and became a global asset manager in London, but we always kept in touch and thought we could one day do something together.

And incidentally, we found we were all facing similar issues. In 2020, we started connecting with each other; we had these solar power plants that didn’t work. We didn’t know what was happening, it was like a black box that we didn’t understand and our investment was at risk. So we decided to do something about it and we had a breakthrough from a technological point of view and that’s how Skyfri was born.

What are key elements to working together successfully as co-founders?

The most important thing is, you all share a common vision, you all have the same pain points, and you all are frustrated with the status quo. You have to be frustrated with the status quo to start something new. There’s no way the world moves ahead with incremental changes, you have to change things overnight, or at least have the ambition to change things.

What does your technology do?

We wanted to make solar plant management more systemized, we wanted to modernise it with automation. We target and transform three key underperformance areas:

We identify energy losses in real-time

When reporting happens on the asset management, you get a report after a month or a quarter and you suddenly realise that some of your plants didn't work. Something burnt out and needed replacement and by the time you know you already lost revenue and need to spend more to fix the issues. So we wanted to know exactly when things fail, or even futuristically predict when they might finish or start showing signs of underperformance. That's real-time management. 

We break the silos

We wanted to fundamentally change the system of operations, accounting and monitoring as siloed systems to have this be a single source of truth in a single integrated platform.

We do all of this autonomously 

The algorithm runs on machine learning, deep learning setup, and it monitors solar plants and does things automatically that previously needed a 20–30 member team depending on portfolio size. So the final value proposition to the investor goes back in the form of increased rate of return.

What’s your knock-on impact on the solar industry?

20 years ago it cost 5 million Euros to build one megawatt of solar power – now that figure is just 0.5 million Euros per megawatt: because of the immense drop in capital expenditure, it has already become a mainstream class asset but what would have derailed its potential is the lack of management of the solar power plants – and that's where we come in. We are seeing an increased amount of investment and we want to not only sustain that money, we want more to come in to reduce global warming.

If we had not done it, we probably would see the capital drain out of renewable energy investments.

What is it about entrepreneurship that gives you that kick, and makes you go ‘yes, this is what I want to do!’?

You of course have your freedom of thought, everyone has it in a free world. But the freedom of execution to channel the energy that you have without having to stick to a frame structure which already exists is what's most interesting.

And the second thing is, at the beginning of entrepreneurship, there’s a lot of energy and that's what makes you get up in the morning, and like my wife says, I’m less of a thinker than a doer. I like to do things, so there’s no better avenue than entrepreneurship.

Can you describe your entrepreneurial journey in three words?

Extremely busy, very interesting, very scary

What’s the scariest part about being a climatetech entrepreneur?

The scariest part is, ‘what if the team doesn’t feel the same way tomorrow?’

I’m not worried about the market, because it’s clear, the market is there, but I want the team to be equally passionate and what if tomorrow we wake up and start to see a lot of disconnect in the team? That’s the scary part. To keep everyone motivated in the team – that’s our biggest asset by far – I cannot overstate this.

The team has to stick together. Family is a cliche, but it’s a common vision, common mission that the team has to always feel, to always want to stay ahead of the curve by asking the most critical and even unpleasant questions – this is the motivation I want to see everyday in my team.

How do you create that team spirit?

We dislike the idea that there’s a value statement – because no one reads them – and the values may change over time.

What we think is there’s one value that doesn’t change and that is a sense of care. Care for each other, care for the people with whom you spend 85% of your waking time with.

And that care automatically translates into care for your customer. If you care for the customer and stand by them when they need help the most, that’s when you create lifelong loyalty.

And you can’t write it on the wall, so someone reads it and says; ‘I’ll be caring, I’ll be caring, I’ll be caring.’ It has to be your natural self, so he or she sees that care happening in the company all the time.

In the face of climate chaos, what gives you hope for the future?

I give a lot of credit to the youth of today. You have Greta Thunberg and she has inspired a whole generation of youth. They don't have the data points, but they just get it with the snap of a finger, that this is not sustainable, this is not how they want to live. That’s the movement that is happening in front of the line.

The second credit goes to the community of scientists that have been working tirelessly to prove beyond shadow of doubt that climate change is happening and we should do something about it.

If you could teleport yourself into your future, where would you be?

The company Skyfri would still be creating a lot of value as one of the most trusted and dependable in the internet enabled space. We will try to win the solar world and we’ll play a role in virtual power plants, the smart grid, anything that is on the supply side.

I don’t know what management capacity I’ll be in 10 years from now, because it’s nice to make room for the next generation to manage the company and we as co-founders step down at some point in time. I believe in that. But I want to be involved with everything that has to do with encouraging a sustainable lifestyle.

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For Tom Duncan, nature had always been more than just a place for recreation, it was an all-consuming way of life. 

He lived out on the land, in the vast, sun-kissed Australian outback, in an extended family farming community that would gather to help each other with the harvest:

“It was such a great time in my life, working together on farms in rural Australia. It was really instructive for me to learn about how nature works and some of the complex systems that farming operates within.

“There's moments of great beauty in nature and being immersed in it and just appreciating nature for its own wonder and amazement that we have so much biodiversity, so much abundance, and that's what really inspired me to this day to love nature the way I do, and do the work that I'm doing.”

“My mother was a positive influence on me, as a child we would pick native seeds and gum nuts, and make Christmas wreaths for people’s doors, to spread the Christmas cheer. We would sell these ornate Christmas wreaths at weekend markets out of the back of our family Holden station wagon.”

But Tom’s rural idyll was shattered by a boding realisation that extreme climate events were becoming more and more frequent. From a young age, he noticed a worrying pattern of the land increasingly being ravaged by more fires and more floods.

“Our farming businesses was hard work, long hours, and sometimes less than spectacular returns if there were extreme weather events.I could see the changing climate and water and soil fertility conditions on our farms deteriorate over the years - this was my wake up call.”

He decided he would be more than a witness to nature’s destruction and channelled his deep-rooted connection to the land into a life-long dedication to regeneration.

Fresh out of university, he travelled to Inner Mongolia and to the North Central Plains to work on large-scale grassland restoration projects.

After 15 years of working in land restoration he learnt that it’s “complex, difficult, it needs grassroots up as well as policy and incentive top-down to really succeed.” 

He noticed a disconnect between how we value, finance and incentivise regenerative and sustainable land management practices:

“I worked on some pioneering ecosystem service markets in Australia where farmers would bid to provide ecosystem services to improve water quality, biodiversity values and sequester carbon. 

“That project raised about $300 million and showed me that you could develop and deliver ecosystem services markets, but there just wasn't enough scale.”

For Tom, this was both deeply hopeful and deeply frustrating.

The solution to stopping runaway climate change was not only within reach, but in sight:

“By transitioning to regenerative agriculture across 2.5 billion hectares, humanity could sequester all of our global emissions every year.”

Yet there was no mass adoption of land regeneration; “it was still just the domain of government policy units and ad hoc programs, and when a government changes, the program might get scrapped or be toned down.

“I saw that there was a need for a mass market approach to financing land regeneration, and the creation of new incentivisation models.”

Tom founded Earthbanc – a digital green banking investment platform – as a groundbreaking private sector solution to bring regeneration to mass markets.

Earthbanc is bridging the market incentives gap with viable, proven and profitable investment solutions that are dramatically advancing the transition to a regenerative, sustainable future. Earthbanc’s climate fintech innovation was recognised last year when it won the Mastercard Lighthouse FINITIV program in Spring 2021, and the company is now ready to scale to the next level in the booming climate and fintech sector.

How do Earthbanc fintech solutions solve the problem of how to finance mass adoption of regenerative agriculture?

Finance has been missing from carbon project developments in a big way, and Earthbanc is solving that problem.

Earthbanc makes climate action profitable for any stakeholder.

It offers:

1. Verified carbon credits

2. Corporate and private investment accounts to invest in a carefully curated and audited portfolio of land regeneration/carbon removal projects

3. A regenerative finance (Refi) revolution for the masses: a soon-to-be launched app will enable anyone to easily invest in and profit from land regeneration projects.

Earthbanc’s green investments finance agroforestry, regenerative agriculture, mangrove and sea grass restoration, kelp forest protection, holistic grazing and more.

It’s aim is to enable sustainability-fuelled abundance as a core incentive for all of humanity.

It’s something that we need to live and we know that aligned incentives allow many different stakeholders to start moving in the same direction and toward the same goal.

A major problem that Earthbanc solves is providing the infrastructure and aligned incentives that not just allow trillions of climate finance funds to flow each year, but encourage it by verifying the climate and carbon reduction claims of the finance - enabling investors to trust in the outcomes by examining the data and claims. 

We sell carbon credits on our fintech blockchain platform

Earthbanc can be described as a carbon bank. We're the first fintech blockchain platform where you can deposit your carbon into a bank-like vault that sits on a blockchain. 

Farmers register on the Earthbanc platform, and we measure the carbon sequestration in the landscape of that farmer. 

How do you verify and measure carbon sequestration and credits?

Despite the growing corporate commitment to net-zero, its been difficult for carbon buyers to find third-party annually audited carbon credits. Earthbanc is solving this by offering the world’s first continuously audited offsets.

We use AI models that are trained on satellite remote sensing data from the European Space Agency, we then get that carbon credit verified as a true carbon reduction.

With venture backing from the European Space Agency, Earthbanc leverages AI, web3 and data science to annually audit the underlying carbon asset in carbon credits bringing increased transparency and credibility to carbon markets.

The company  has audited the carbon stocks of over 13M hectares of forest globally using satellites and proprietary remote sensing technology.

Who buys Earthbanc carbon credits?

We have large corporate buyers who are buying carbon on our platform every month. We’re selling hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of carbon, so a farmer can get paid for their ecosystem services.

What makes Earthbanc’s solution so potent in combating the climate crisis is its basis on expert knowledge of land restoration and paying farmers in areas of the world where the impact is the greatest – both for nature, and for people.

How fast is the carbon credit market growing?

Last year there was a 969% increase in nature-based solutions carbon futures contracts. It was hard to find a 969% growth in any asset class in 2021 – but it the growth was in futures contracts on nature-based carbon solutions which is what Earthbanc measures.

We mint the carbon on a layer one blockchain, and when we mint those carbon credits that are then available for sale on our market platform.

To democratise sustainable abundance through climate investing, Earthbanc is launching an app

The Earthbanc app will provide a carbon bank with easy on and off fiat ramps for users globally, including for the unbanked, bringing the next billion users into the regenerative finance revolution.

It's a desktop app that you can access on your laptop computer. It's not a mobile app yet, but once you sign up on our existing carbon investment platform, there’s a portfolio of carbon projects that you can purchase.

We've got a waitlist for the blockchain-based investments app, which is going to be launched soon. So we encourage people to sign up on the waitlist and register their email so they’re the first to find out how they can get access to these amazing opportunities.

Our platform will enable investors to access 8% fixed - 15% variable APY yields and finance nature-based carbon removal projects globally.

What impact do Earthbanc investors have?

At the individual level, Earthbanc makes investing in climate action easy and we make climate action profitable for those who are sequestering the carbon. They get the incentives that they deserve for carrying out regenerative land management methods.

There's a win for the farmers who are doing the hard work on the ground, getting their carbon incentive payments, and investors are able to benefit from the rising demand for carbon removal.

Earthbanc works with a network of NGOs and finances regeneration projects that protect the most vulnerable people and vital ecosystems at the forefront of the climate crisis

For a farmer on the ground in India, for example, if we talk about our mangrove restoration project, if someone buys carbon from that project, those farmers can start receiving a 91% increase in their annual salary.

This is just life changing for those people. These are some of the most climate vulnerable people in the world who are subjected to hurricane-driven storm surges washing away their homes, destroying their agricultural infrastructure, their power infrastructure. They're very vulnerable people so they need all the help they can get.

Planting mangrove trees prevents people from becoming climate refugees

By planting mangrove trees, it's creating a green wall against those hurricane-driven storms. This slows down the rush of water that comes every hurricane season, to a level where, by the time it reaches the villages it's just a steady trickle. That's incredibly important to protect those people's homes and pay them the carbon incentive to protect the most vital ecosystems on the planet so they don't become climate refugees.

Mangroves are where 50% of all fish clusters are born

In mangrove ecosystems in rivers, in estuaries, just like the Sundarbans in India, 50% of fish clusters are spawned. It's incredibly important for healthy oceans that we protect mangroves. For every 100 euros invested in this kind of project 200 euros of ecosystem services is created. This protects homes, creates livelihoods, and supplies fisheries with new fish stock every year, which is just vital for the health of oceans, and the communities that live off of oceans.

So that’s what a person who signs up to the Earthbanc platform contributes to in a really meaningful way. Now is the time that this is needs to happen in this decade of ecosystem restoration. We only have 5 or 10 years to avoid runaway climate change and this is a really meaningful way to help achieve that.

Where do the returns on land regeneration investments actually come from?

For a regenerative project like the planting of mangrove trees, which is the sort of core element of the project, it’s sequestering carbon.

Mangroves sequester carbon five times more densely than an average tropical rainforest, so your yield per meter squared is much higher in terms of carbon. That means there's more carbon revenue for these farmers, once we start measuring and auditing the carbon and a third party independently verifies it, the carbon credits are minted and sold and carbon revenue flows back to that farmer and its revenue that they otherwise would not have gotten

We're also supporting those farmers to start expanding their honeybee production and organic wild craft honey production and financing that. So once you've got your honey production and you're selling organic honey at a higher premium price, the income you're receiving from just that activity alone, is making more money for you than the $2 a day you're getting paid to deforest the trees to sell for firewood.

We are excited to scale up carbon markets with our technology and onboard millions of farmers around the world to help them monetise their carbon, and give investors access to this fast growing asset class.

Is there a daily routine, favourite drink, or habit that keeps you going as a climatetech entrepreneur?

My daily routine is made up of meditation, fair trade organic coffee and food, music and dance to get the body moving - and then into work mode teleconferencing with our team all around the world to kick start our day.

Do you have a favourite quote or motto?

I do have many quotes I like from philosophers and poets like Rumi that inspire about having wonder in nature, but there’re also some quotes that are fighting words.

“Do not go gently into that good night.”

That was used in a film called Interstellar, where humanity was destroyed by introducing novel, genetically modified organisms that started turning the soil into a source of toxicity, rather than fertility for growing food.

There've been a number of lab-based research done by genetic modification companies to release exactly those organisms into the agriculture industry.

So I look at the storyline of what Interstellar is telling us. It's incredible what humanity can do with its technology. We’re exponentially increasing technological capabilities without the exponential increasing of wisdom to manage it appropriately. When you combine those two things, you have a scenario where it takes a lot of energy to muster to fight this trend of absolute degradation of all ecosystems. So that's why I like that quote – ‘do not go gently into that good night.’

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Welcome to the 34 new subscribers who have joined since the last edition! If you’re reading this and haven’t subscribed, you can join a high-value community of 1,037 climatetech entrepreneurs, investors, and industry leaders by signing up below.

2-4 times a month I interview extraordinary climatetech entrepreneurs and investors and share insight on how to build your business and find funding. It’s insightful, actionable and fun to read or listen to.

This week I’m venturing away from the usual Green Techpreneur interviews to publish a special Easter edition about a topic close to my heart – Ukraine.

I lived in Ukraine for a number of years as a child and feel compelled to share my experience and shed light on Ukraine’s culture and history. It’s my little way of showing support and solidarity with Ukraine as they combat the horror unleashed by Putin.

…….The rugged, potholed dirt road in front of our house had a large water pipe that would break so often it almost seemed precued to leak, releasing a steady trickle of water that would deepen the rut that ran down the middle of the road.

The dirt road may have been a navigational nightmare for the car driver - bouncing passengers would have to steady themselves by gripping the sides of the vehicle – but to nine year old me, it was a playground.

My parents had moved to Ukraine to build a charity, Care in Action. As foreigners living in L’viv, we stuck out like a sore thumb. Just walking down the street speaking English would elicit stares.

It wasn’t long before our house became a meeting spot for a small group of neighbourhood kids that lived along the dirt road on the outskirts of L’viv.

Our Ukrainian friends would gather by our house in the afternoons - knowing we would be coming out to play. We played Badminton, capture the flag, catch, tag, and football in summer. In winter, we built snow castles and had snowball fights.

The neighbourhood kids were keen to practise their English. I remember when I first met Christina who lived down the street. It was winter and the dirt road was covered in snow. She used a couple of artificial-sounding, memorised English phrases she had learnt in school - “the weather is so chilly.” After a few years of playing together, our friends would take pride in speaking ever-more fluent English.

The girls would ask me to listen to Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys songs and write out the lyrics - so they could learn to sing-along to their favourite pop songs in English. When bell bottoms were all the rage in the West, they made sure they were on trend.

For Christina, there were a few surprises: I remember her shock at once coming to our house and seeing us eat tomatoes in winter - it was something she had never seen before. Like many Ukrainians, Christina grew up eating seasonal food, often grown in a backyard or plot of land, or purchased in an outdoor Ukrainian market. Some food is preserved for the winter in jars.

Christina’s family bred rabbits in a backyard cage. When I asked her the rabbits names, she told me that they were for meat. For many Ukrainians - living in the poorest country of Europe meant that you had to know how to survive.

She had some minor bone deformities because her Dad had been exposed to Chernobyl radiation, and some damage had been passed down through the genes.

Another surprise for Christina was that we had cooked meals - our Ukrainian friends thought Westerners ate mostly fast food. Their point of reference for life in the West was movies and pop culture; for most Ukrainians at the time, leaving Ukraine to visit Europe required a visa that was not easy to get. 

They lived in a country that bore the hallmarks of Soviet oppression - an entire system of governance built on corruption. Survival of the ‘haves’ and a small gang at the top at the expense and degradation of the ‘have-nots’. A bribe can get you most places, but without one your hands are tied.

Babuschkas would stand in markets for long hours, selling berries, jam, milk - whatever they could source from their land. In the biting cold of winter, a vodka bottle would help them withstand the cold. Their legs were thick and stubby, their deeply weathered faces shone out from behind their headscarves. I remember a Babuschka breaking down in tears of gratitude and relief when my Dad paid her more than what she asked for. For many Ukrainians, the reality was that winters were bitter and cold and poverty was grinding. Life was hard.

It’s hard to truly describe what oppression feels like. It’s an invisible blanket of misery that hangs in the air. A depression so thick you can feel it in the atmosphere, in the Ukrainian cultural love of the melancholy - an adopted sense of the dignity of suffering. It was like the land itself kept secrets - hidden tales of sorrow and tragedies that run so deep they dare not be revealed. Whispers and sighs that almost came out of Ukrainian fields and forests.

The Ukrainian experience of the Holodomor - the widespread famine that ensued when Stalin stole their wheat - was so harsh and so alive in their memory, that even as a pre-teen, it was something I picked up on.

A bitter memory of absolute cruelty and injustice; when millions of their own starved to death, because of the mechanisms of a bigger, more powerful neighbour next door. But along with that memory lay something else - something remarkable in the Ukrainian national consciousness: an ironclad determination to survive. An almost obstinate inner pride, an unbreakable, patriotic sense of being fiercely bonded in collective resistance, and in needing to defend what was theirs. Ukraine may have been the poorest country in Europe, steeped in problems, oppression and corruption- but it was theirs - their Ukraine. Their story.

I remember exploring deserted railway tracks on the outskirts of L’viv, balancing my way along the tracks; they were overgrown and led mysteriously through forests and meadows. What stories were they hiding? In that vast, fertile land, bordering Europe and Russia - with its birch trees, its crows and its fields, deserted railway tracks lay as remnants of old projects that had started and stopped and gotten nowhere.

Rusting skeletons that spoke of having been trapped between consecutive invading powers that pushed in from both the East and the West. Empires that were built and then crumbled. Only Ukrainians had been left behind, always picking up the pieces.

Now a generation of Ukrainians had grown up entirely outside of the Soviet Union.

I wasn’t in Ukraine during the watershed Orange revolution, but I remember meeting a Ukrainian student, an acquaintance of my parents, who had been studying in Germany. She was passionately, wholeheartedly and zealously involved in supporting the revolution. In Olga, I saw that underlying Ukrainian patriotism and fire come to the fore. A nation that summoned incredible determination from its history of struggle and rose up.

In 2014, once more, tens of thousands of Ukrainians took to the streets in protest as Yanukovych threatened to steer them off the path of Europe and freedom. Many were beaten, some were tortured. But their choice was clear and they would not waver. They had looked across their borders to both the East and the West. They saw a union of comparatively free and prosperous democratic nations to the West and yearned for the same freedom and privilege. To their East they saw Russian neighbours living in dictatorial oppression. When President Yanukovych bowed to intense pressure from Russia to scrap Ukraine’s association agreement with the EU, they chose to fight for their future.

In ensuing years, I heard of a Ukraine that sounded very different from the Ukraine of my childhood. For ambitious, intelligent young Ukrainians, there were remote jobs in foreign technology companies. Travel abroad had become easier, new airlines and cheap flights had brought tourists to L’viv.

They had overthrown the Russian puppet regime and elected their own leader who would work towards the Ukraine they dreamt of. There was something fresh in the air, a bubbling vibrancy - was this what hope felt like? A spring-like feeling that things were getting better after a long dark winter.

I will never forget the feeling of absolute dread I felt the night before the invasion. ‘Russian troops are now 100% in attack position’ - was the last thing I’d read.

And then the shock of waking up to see that the Russian army had launched a full-scale attack on Ukraine.

‘Not Ukraine,’ I thought, ‘my God, not Ukraine.’

I felt absolute devastation.

Horror, anger, agony, rage, heartbreak.

I had lived in Ukraine. I had seen their poverty, their struggle. It was all the more painful to know how incredibly hard their upwards climb had been.

It was like watching someone who you knew had suffered deeply, but who had painstakingly clawed their way up into a better place, being battered and beaten back down just as they had come to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Memories of Ukraine came flooding back.

Christina, Beata, Olena…childhood friends. What had become of them now?

Were poor, historically oppressed nations destined to remain that way? Is change possible if you fight long and hard enough?

Here I am, in my 30s, engaged in the rollercoaster ride of building a digital magazine. It’s not easy, but the incredible opportunity I have to build my own future and live in a free, democratic country isn’t lost on me.

Meanwhile, my old childhood friends in Ukraine are giving their last breath to defend the right to have a dream: to determine their own future and the future of their children in a free, sovereign country.

Once again, that vast land between East and West is battling imperial tyranny. And the battered bodies, psyches, and homes of a new generation of Ukrainians - once filled with hope - will become a living witness to the brutality of their continued struggle for freedom.

“You crucify freedom, but the soul of man knows no bounds.”

Russian bombs may be falling in Ukraine, but the attacks on the most precious thing we have: freedom, democracy, and social cohesion, are shaking the earth beneath all of our feet.

This Easter, please consider supporting Ukraine in their – and our – fight for freedom:

You can support Ukrainian refugees by donating to my parents’ charity.

In March Care in Action paid for 1,636 beds in hostels to help mothers and children fleeing conflict. Six apartments and a large house allowed 9 families at a time to have a secure place to rest, and 3,500 children and adults received 783 boxes of aid deliveries. Right after Easter, Care in Action will open an its own shelter and care centre for refugees.

In a world increasingly controlled by authoritarian regimes, Ukraine is bucking the growing tide of totalitarian oppression by bravely choosing to defend their right to freedom, democracy, and sovereignty.

In doing so, they are helping protect our democracies from one of the greatest threats today: an expansionist Russia and Russian attempts to destroy European and US democracies by funding disinformation campaigns, far-right political parties, and fuelling nationalism and anti-EU sentiment.

“The European Commission has identified Russian disinformation campaigns as the EU’s greatest threat because they are systematic, well resourced, and perpetrated on a larger scale than similar campaigns by any other country, including China, Iran, and North Korea.

“Even today, Russia is promoting an anti-EU campaign related to the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, designed to spread panic and distrust in European governments.

“Most often, their posts on social media (Twitter, Facebook, Telegram) and other online platforms (YouTube, Google) question the EU’s democratic legitimacy and play up sensitive topics in public debate such as migration, national sovereignty, and values.” – Carnegie Europe.

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“I was told with the World Fund, ‘this won’t work. You've been a journalist, Danijel, you've been working for Angela Merkel, and now you're raising the biggest climatetech VC in Europe? Forget it.’

“Just weeks ago, someone who had been my boss at a company I used to work for, told me; ‘you know what, Danijel? I would never have expected that something comes out of you because you've always been a dreamer.’

“And I was like, ‘Okay, think about this sentence. Maybe it’s because I'm a dreamer.’

Danijel Visevic is Co-founder of the recently launched World Fund, Europe’s biggest climatetech venture capital fund.

To setup a climatetech fund of this scale, the World Fund would have to operate differently from the get-go:

“We did a pre-closing, that's something very unique. Usually as a venture capital fund you have a first closing, then you invest, and you have a final closing a year later.

“But we knew if we want to raise 350 million Euros as a first time fund, we need a portfolio, otherwise, those institutional investors who can invest 10-20-30 million won't invest. So we needed a portfolio and we decided to do a pre-closing and ask investors to give us money before the first closing so that we can build a portfolio.

“Basically, we asked the pre–closers to take risk earlier, not to take any interest rates from those who come later. 

“And everybody told us, ‘nobody will give you money and go earlier into risk,’ and we had more than 150 investors who in a pre–closing gave us 100 million. Now we are very close to closing another 100 million at the first closing,” says Danijel.

His motto? “Just do things. Don't listen to people who say it won't work, you will only know when you have tried.”

Since its October launch last year, the World Fund has on average 9xed the value of its investments; “we really have shown that we can make money out of money, says Danijel, “so that's super important to get the traditional investors on board.”

He puts the funds’ success down to its exceptional, award-winning team: “so Tim Schumacher, my Co-founder, was awarded Best Male investor in 2020. Daria Saharova was awarded Best Female Investor in 2020 by the German Startup Award Association. Craig Douglas, our fourth partner, has been in the climatetech space already for 15 years and they all have a huge track record.

Something else they did differently, which increased investor confidence in their ability to understand and accurately assess the potential of climatetech innovation, was to build a team that consists almost entirely out of scientists; “they all have a venture capital or investment background, but they are chemical engineers, mechanical engineers, we have a nuclear physicist, a chemist, a mathematician.”

Danijel’s route into climatetech investing was far from conventional. He had spent the better part of 20 plus years as a journalist and a Green Party member – eager to make a difference. But he gradually grew wary of the limitations of media and politics.

In 2018 he transitioned from writing about the investment and startup scene to working for one of the most successful venture capitalists in Europe, Project A.

“I asked myself how I can contribute best to help reverse global warming and the climate crisis and save humankind. And I knew that being a journalist and writing stories is inspirational, but you are still, in a way, passive. I learned from politics that even if you deeply understand the consequences of the climate crisis, you can't achieve what's necessary. 

“And I knew that entrepreneurs with brilliant ideas were the most powerful. I saw the huge investment gap in Europe, and thanks to the network I had, we decided to build the World Fund.”

It was after seeing Greta Thunberg’s Friday for Future marches that you say you had your moment of going down the rabbit hole and doing a lot of research and really seeing the full picture and how just absolutely urgent the climate crisis is?

Yes, it’s hard to describe in words. I mean, urgent – whatever word we use – can’t describe what is ahead of us. It’s just catastrophic. It can’t be compared to anything that has happened to humankind before and it already started.

What gives you hope in the face of the climate emergency?

I can boil it down to two things. 

1) I know that humankind is brilliant, we have brilliant minds. 

And I'm lucky to be in a position as an investor to invest in those brilliant founders, who develop technologies that can make a leap and make a difference already within this decade and the next.

So it's possible to reverse global warming before we reach the tipping points and it's super, super, super urgent. But I also see this technology and these people and I see how powerfully we can disrupt with these entrepreneurial ideas. So this is something that helps me and gives me more than just hope, it gives me conviction. 

2) ‘In between the disasters there will be wonderful sunny days where you enjoy life.’

Global warming won't be reversible before we reach 1.5 - 1.6 degrees of warming. That means that what we have today will accelerate no matter what we do. If you read the IPCC report, global warming is not reversible before 2055. And what keeps me positive – it's a psychologist who said this in an interview about climate anxiety – even then, most of the time, there won't be catastrophic situations.

It's important for me because I have children; even then, they will have days and weeks of wonderful life. In between, there will be those disasters, but in between the disasters there will be wonderful sunny days where you enjoy life.

What sort of companies does the World Fund invest in?

We call it the CPP, the Climate Performance Potential, that we first assess before we dig deeper into a startup or a team of founders: 

We invest in companies that can save at least 100 megatons CO2 or equivalent in emissions per year. 

There's powerful climatetech out there that can already make a leap in this decade, and save more than 100 megatons. This is something we are excited about. 

Do you have examples of companies you’ve invested in recently?

I’m pretty proud of Juicy Marbles, a company from Slovenia that has developed a steak fillet mignon that’s purely plant based – it has the texture of, and it's bloody like meat. You can grill it like meat, it tastes like meat and it is healthier. It's made of fermented soya. It's addressing meat eaters, those men who really like to grill. 

The QOA company – a female-led spin off from the Technical University in Munich – have produced something that’s the equivalent of the cocoa bean. Producers of chocolate or anything else that uses cocoa can now use this instead of cutting down rainforests or planting cocoa trees in monocultures.

What’s your investment style? Are you hands on, or do you just invest funds?

We don’t offer operational support, but we do help companies with finding the right people for their team.

We also support companies with implementing their ESG. We, the World Fund, are leading in terms of ESG in Europe. On Preqin, a platform that compares funds, from among 4000 VC and private equity funds, we are the number one.

ESG standards are not just nice to have, they’re risk reducing and it increases the probability of your startup becoming successful.

We also help startups to get several funding rounds through our network of investors and this is very important. We have deeper pockets than other VCs.

If you need a follow-up round, we can reserve up to 30 million Euros per investment per company to make sure it gets to the point of generating revenue.

Are you looking at aligning your investment goals with German government decisions to invest more in renewable energy in light of the Russian/Ukraine war?

We're looking at the energy sector. The emissions we generate as humankind are mainly in the energy and the food agriculture sector – these are the two sectors where we invest the most.

I'm in close touch with German ministries and due to having worked with Angela Merkel, I have some contacts who need advice to understand the climatetech startup ecosystem better. They also want to redirect capital, so there's a Future Fund in Germany that will increase from 10 billion to 30 billion assets under management and that will be invested into startups with a strong focus on climate impact. Energy plays a huge role here and development over the last weeks and months in Ukraine and Russia have accelerated this.

Where do you see the biggest potential for growth in cleantech right now?

Energy

Energy consumption will increase until 2050. It will at least double and we have to get rid of oil and gas faster than we are now planning to. So of course, there's a huge opportunity for everything related to renewable energy, and increasing efficiency. 

Agriculture

There's huge potential in the agricultural sector in regenerative farming. The way we farm today is basically releasing carbon to the atmosphere. 

I think it’s 60 gigatons of carbon that our topsoil is able to save, and used to capture, before we started to do farming as we do it today. 

Let’s go back to regenerative agriculture and then topsoil will automatically save humankind by reducing the equivalent of all emissions 

Biodiversity 

This may sound a bit strange, but biodiversity is a huge market. It's only starting to come to the attention of people that even if we tackle the climate crisis, we could go extinct simply by having biodiversity break down. 

So this is something we have to save and when we, for example, plant trees or remove carbon, we have to ensure that happens in a biodiverse way. Ecosia, for example, the biggest non-for-profit search engine of Europe, is investing into building up biodiversity of forests, not planting trees in a monoculture.

Who are your role models?

Maja Goepel

Maja Goepel was advising the German government for many years on the consequences of the climate crisis and how to tackle the climate crisis. She's just a super positive person and a very self confident woman. She's just impressive, and because of this, she receives hate from old men. It’s not fair, but she has to fight just because she's a strong woman, but she stays optimistic, and she’s just inspiring every time I listen to her. 

The book she wrote was a bestseller for many weeks in Germany last year, Rethinking Our World, Unsere Welt Neu Denken.

Elon Musk

As difficult as this person is and however many people don't like him, it's Elon Musk. 

He has transformed an industry and I know it. I was working for Angela Merkel and I know how hard the German car industry tried to avoid electrification. I know how strongly they lobbied and they played this game for more than 30 years successfully. And then an entrepreneur came, Elon Musk, and disrupted the industry and now his company is worth five times more than all the German carmakers combined. He's kicking asses.

So this is the kind of entrepreneur I would like to invest in. A lot of female entrepreneurs also have this kickass mentality. It's this Elon Musk type of people – this is what will work, it’s the only thing that will save us.

I learned in journalism that storytelling is strong, but it's not active. I learned that politics is a lot of talking, but no walking, but entrepreneurs, like Elon Musk, are walking.

Danijel’s Documentary Recommendation:

Kiss The Ground - available on Netflix, it showcases the power of regenerative agriculture to combat climate change.

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Would you work on an oil rig for two years so you could save money to fund your seemingly impossible dream of becoming a Formula One racing driver?

Not many people possess that kind of ‘whatever it takes’ determination, but that’s exactly what Top Gear’s Original Stig and ex Formula One driver Perry McCarthy did: “I’m somebody who goes for things. If I think it’s a good idea and there are barriers in front of making the idea happen, the next job is to remove those barriers.

“My approach to pretty much everything – whether in racing or with business ideas – is to either smash through the barriers, dig under them, go over them, go around them, or whatever it is, find a way through the barrier.”

And smash barriers he did.

“Because much of racing is a financially dependent sport, performance is often limited or enhanced by exactly what kind of budget you've got. Every time these wheels go round for a junior formula or a top formula, it's an awful lot of money and money needs to be found sometimes, and I'm certainly not unique here.

“As a young driver I had no track record to even get sponsorship. I got a job working on North Sea oil rigs for two years, which paid me a lot of money. That was two years of working 12-14 hours a day, every week, and then a week off, to get the money together to even start motor racing.

“After all that time the amount of money I had to start, by motor racing standards, was small. I had to maximise it immediately.”

Perry was up against better funded racers who had been driving since they were about 10, and he had to make his mark and get noticed from the get-go so he could attract sponsors before his hard-earned savings ran out.

“When I first came into motor racing, I was very, very fast, but wild. It's important not to dull that fire, but it’s important to temper it to use it as a weapon and become more effective.

“There were a lot of things I was learning on track because I started incredibly late against many guys who have been racing for many years. But I had to make a decision. I couldn't use that as an excuse, because if I started racing at the age of 21, and I turned up with the attitude that ‘I don’t stand a chance because these guys have been racing cars since they were 10’, I’m finished already.

“My job was to turn up and beat them. That’s all there was to it. There was no learning year.

“I was able to do that. And I started winning consistently and then won the British Championship.

His unrivalled will to win took him from unknown underdog to one of the best-known names in motorsports: he drove for the Andrea Moda team in Formula One in 1992 – though never making it into a race – before moving into sports cars, including driving in the 24 Hours of Le Mans five times from 1996 and 2003. McCarthy also portrayed The Stig in the first two series of BBC’s motoring show Top Gear.

Whether Perry won or lost a race, he showed up with attitude – and it made waves – both on and off the race course.

“I did become well known very quickly in motor racing for my driving, but also for my attitude; ‘don’t stand in my way. I am going through anything and everything.’ Even in Formula One teams, when I was very young, people started knowing about this guy who was coming through and who would not stop.”

In this Christmas special edition you’ll learn how to apply the mindset of a champion to your climatetech business through Perry’s own story of success, failure, back-breaking accidents, and show-stopping wins.

What made you say, ‘I’m not just going to think about this very competitive and adventurous career, but I’m going to go for it?’

There are certain things that attract me and it's not the normal path because I often find things a little bit dull.

If I find the idea of something exciting, then it has my 100% focus. I don’t mean to sound bigheaded, but I know that I’ve got a number of attributes, and focus and determination are very high on that list.

I could have have an easier life if I’d set my sights a little bit lower, but that’s of no interest to me, so I’d rather endure the struggles.

What I’d say to anybody who is starting a business with any particular vision is that that's fantastic, and if they are equally determined and focused that is going to be needed. But the number one thing they will need to understand and be able to live with are huge disappointments.

Those who have a dream…you see this pool of contestants of those who have some ability and then those who have real ability but that pool dwindles because sometimes people cannot continue the path of suffering continued disappointment. It does make me smile sometimes when you see The X Factor, and a 19-year-old says; ‘Simon, this is my last chance.’ If you're 19 and you think that, you’re never going to succeed because it's a question of work, application and finding a way through those barriers.

You had a terrible accident early in your racing career, what made you decide to get back in the game?

I had a very, very bad accident which put me out for nearly a year after breaking my back. Then I was back into career asking ‘do I still want to do this, is my mind ok?’ I had to repair the body, I had to find some financing to actually even get back in. So it's challenges, challenges, challenges. The only thing that you do have to make sure is, when fighting all the time like this, you’ve got to make sure that there is a reward built in, and actually this is something you do want to do.

And it’s not just the scale tipping in favour – it’s ‘I'm obsessed with doing this and I absolutely believe that I can get to the top’ – then that was worth it.

Did you actively build a support group, or did it happen naturally?

There wasn't a great deal of sophistication about my approach years ago. It was walked around an industrial state, knock on doors, chat up the receptionist to try and get a meeting with a director. Sit in front of them. Tell them exactly how great motor racing is and where I'm going and just keep talking, engaging people, and just see what can be done. I was just knocking on doors, trying to get people to think ‘hey, this guy is really hungry. We like the idea of him going road racing, here’s a few 100 pounds or a few 1000 pounds.’

It was that imagination and determination, and a lot of people say ‘I can't get sponsorship.’ Did they walk around industry states knocking on doors? Did they send letters all the time? Did they make phone calls all the time? It's no stone unturned and this is what is needed and there was only one person who's gonna make that happen.

It wasn’t just ‘take the money and say thank you very much.’ See, they didn't have to do this really, they've done it for me and now I want to find ways to pay them back. I want to make sure that they’re happy. And sometimes the following year, they couldn’t do it because business was suffering, but I always made sure that nobody once had a bad taste in the mouth after dealing with me.

Was there a race or experience on the track that stood out to you?

I always got a real kick out of setting pole position and being the fastest of the fastest in qualifying. That meant a lot to me. My time in America was very good for that because I turned up to the States with a very small team with a small car against multi multi multi million dollar manufacturers and started tearing them apart. That was noticed big time. There was one particular race where I was in the level just below Formula One. And the only way I could get out there was to jump in a car that was being run from a friend's garden. No workshops, people, or team. We’d turn up with just this car with no testing, taking on some of the biggest stars that went on to be Grand Prix winners.

When you’re fighting for pole position in that, and when you’re fighting for fifth or sixth place in that, that's when people go ‘wow!’ My philosophy is – and it applies to so many walks of life – because so often I've been in a situation where it was impossible to win because of no testing, because of the car, because of no budget. It’s impossible to stand on the top step of the podium.

But you can win. You can win by coming 6th, you can win by coming 10th, you can win by coming 14th. Because if nobody else has been able to qualify that car for that kind of that race, what you’ve shown is you’re the one who’s qualified that car. You’re the one who’s fighting midfield.

If you never give up, and if you show that attitude and you’re dancing on the minute at every single corner, it gets noticed. You haven’t taken the silverware home, but you’ve won reputationally.

People go: ‘did you just see what he just did with that piece of rubbish?’

Perry’s top tips for Green Techpreneurs

Work on getting noticed

There are actually two careers: there's the career that you want to pursue. If it's business, you have to focus, you have to look at any gaps and try to fill those gaps and perform better and produce a better result. But the parallel career is that you have to be noticed.

The parallel career means that you have to get people to see what you're doing to be noticed, so that some of those barriers are removed by other people believing in you and giving you the chances you've been working for. It's no good being the best artist in the world locked up in a studio producing incredible work if you haven't organised an opportunity for it to be seen and desired.

Do you need to adjust what you’re doing, or work harder on getting noticed?

Even in dire moments, so much is what’s actually between the ears. You’ve got to keep thinking; ‘does this fundamental philosophy need adjusting? Or is it just that it needs to get noticed?’ Sometimes you have to tweak it. In any path or idea, if you could go from A to B – that would be ideal. From what I've experienced, it's more like a downhill skiing slalom race, where you have to zig zag and go sideways and then hopefully make some progress. Keep thinking, keep looking, keep developing, because if you don't, you might as well throw in the towel.

……………………With Christmas just around the corner, do you have any Christmas rituals or traditions that you practice? “I love Christmas and I love seeing friends and family.

“We’re very fortunate. A very good friend of mine is one of the most famous turkey farmers in the country – Paul Kelly. Paul and I have been friends since we were teenagers. The tradition is that every year, we get a fabulous turkey from Paul.”

Book Recommendation

Need a jaw-dropping and inspirational holiday read?

You can buy the newly released audio to Perry’s international bestseller, Flat Out Flat Broke here.

Or get a Christmas discount on the hardcover out now!

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