 Hello everyone, I'm Ioana. I'm a journalist at TNWU and I'm very excited to have here with me today three very inspiring women in the industry to talk about such a vital topic actually. So I'm really happy to be with you Sierra Cat Michel. Would you like to say a few words about your work first? Sure. My name is Sierra Peterson. I am one of the founding partners at Voyager Ventures. We invest in early-stage climate technology companies in North America and Europe. Climate stabilization is my life's work. I have been working on climate stabilization for 18 years first as a policymaker here in Europe then in the Obama White House and I helped to build three companies that financed more than three billion dollars of energy efficiency in solar projects across North America and I started investing first as an angel and later as a fund investor in climate technology companies eight years ago. Amazing. Cat? Cat Berlangen. French. Sometimes people get confused. I've spent probably like the entire of my career the intersection of tech and impact, the non-profit space first and then in international organizations for UN agency as an entrepreneur which is still always my favorite hat in an open data company which was sold to Capgemini afterwards and then more recently as a policymaker, same club as Sierra, I led President Macron's team called the French Tech for four years so it was a startup team that was there as chief impact officer. So one of the first at a late-stage company in Europe for a couple of years at UX analytics a late-stage company called Conten Square and today I sit on the board of the European Innovation Council, which is the European Commission's flagship initiative for deep tech. It's a 10 billion euro fund to boost the deep tech ecosystem across Europe. And you, Michelle? Hi everyone, I'm Michelle and co-founder and CEO of Supercritical. We're a carbon removal platform that helps corporates access carbon removal offsets everything from tree planting all the way up to direct air capture as they put together their plan for net zero. We help a lot of software companies like Tide, XTX, Markets, IMC to access carbon removal portfolios. Previously I started a company called Songkick completely different. It was a mobile app which I started in 2007, exited to Warner Music in 2017 and it's been a couple of years in VC investing in climate tech before starting the company. So I think we have the best we could get at this point to talk about this and it's obviously really important to talk about the different options when it comes for a company to commit sustainability. But before that maybe you could give us a bit a landscape overview. I mean to what extent our company is actually implementing sustainability practices. Maybe Michelle? Yeah, absolutely. So earlier this year we published a report ranking the top 500 VC backed startups in the UK. So it was UK based data and we looked at who was measuring their emissions, who had a plan for reduction, committed to net zero, buying offsets of any kind and we found that we ranked the top 100 to kind of celebrate the great work that a lot of the fintechs were doing in the space but 76% of these top VC backed companies were doing nothing. So didn't even know what their emissions were and I think there's a lot of misconception that as a software business you're in the cloud you don't have any emissions, which is just frankly not true and more to the point for these businesses as they go on the path to IPO or grow, they're going to start to be regulated around reporting on these things. So it's a real problem I think. And what's your experience, Cuff? Well, so I was in... So I came in as Chief Impact Officer at Conant Square at 1,700 people. I think today they're about 2,100. By the time I had joined they ran over 15 different geographies had acquired over seven companies, three of which were over 300 people and then we were starting the ESG journey, right? And and I mean to Michelle's point I 100% agree that it becomes operationally a lot more difficult to embed climate action into your operations, into your culture, into the how and why that you do things at a later stage. And once you get to that stage a lot of it will feel a little bit like transformation. Whereas I think early on and I really think that freshly founded companies have the best chance of doing this. There are a lot of safeguards, a lot of decisions that you can make with your eyes wide open so that you don't have to correct them later on. Of course. What do you think, Ciara? Yeah, certainly. I think about the landscape for the lens of risk exposure. As an investor we recognize the exposure to risk in terms of tenuous supply chains for energy, for inputs to manufacturing, for critical minerals, critical materials, the foundation of economic production. And you know that call that sustainability, call that climate, it really is securing the possibility of stable production at the foundation of the economy. And an ongoing potential for upside if one can secure supply chains and really secure inputs for economic production. That's actually a really good introduction to my next point because it's clear from what Michelle said already. It's that we're not really there yet in terms to how much companies are investing into that. So beyond the obvious necessity that we need to save our planet. I was wondering what are your insights in the business case behind sustainability and climate action. I mean you can speak Ciara from an investor's perspective. Certainly. So the risk exposure is real. I think we've seen that here in Europe with the spike in electricity and energy prices that's precipitated more by geopolitics than anything else. But the solution for that is energy efficiency, which has an elegance alignment of incentives. Using less energy makes one less reliant on potentially untrustworthy trading partners and saves money immediately. Okay, and how about your experience at Compton Square? I mean, you know, Compton Square is not a not a climate tech company, right? And and I think why that makes that so interesting is that a like as we were saying earlier people tend to think that if you're not a climate tech company, you're not a climate company. And I believe that all companies are climate companies because you will have an impact on the climate whether that's somewhat positive or completely negative. And so as a company you still have this responsibility to minimize harm. Now how seriously you take that when you were an early stage founder that's barely like getting out of your first seed round and you know it was scrambling and don't really have a lot of headcount. It's not like you can hire a chief sustainability. I think they're going to be market forces that it will inevitably push you in that direction. We talked a little bit about regulation earlier as companies grow, especially those of you are in Europe, you'll be subject to something called the CSRD, which is the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, which is the European Commission's I mean, this is my sort of description of it, European Commission, Commission's like big bet into ensuring that greenwashing you know, both greenwashing and and and sort of weird reporting doesn't really happen. The truth is that today, I'm like looking in the room today that will mostly concern the 50,000 or so companies that have 50 million in net turnover in the room, more than 250 employees or 250 million in assets. But the truth is that it becomes very difficult to sort of retro engineer all of this. So you know as early as now you're going to be looking at making certain decisions to make sure that you don't have to sort of cross it when you get there, but so going back to market forces of regulatory, definitely employees. I don't know this is your this is your experience, but in Europe in particular, Western Europe in particular and product and develop teams, the question comes up a lot for recruiters, but they'll ask what your sustainability policy is for procurement as well for those of you, especially that are doing business with enterprise or government, the question will come up and some of those processes are a lot more rigorous than others. And then of course like just the natural market forces that we're seeing in the consumer and the in the corporate space. Okay. Michelle, do you agree with the importance for in terms of employer branding? Yeah, absolutely. I mean one one of the things we found we ran a survey of employees and we found I'm gonna get the number wrong but it's something like 38 percent of Gen Zed employees said they would quit if their employer changed their climate policy and peeled back from some of the sustainability initiatives or didn't have one so it is increasingly important for sure. I think it's just you know, we discussed earlier where DNI was in the in the startup community maybe five to ten years ago is where climate is now. Like it's just people are starting to understand it, starting to implement it and I think the biggest barrier is that people think it's too difficult to do and what we've found with the startups that we work with that it can be less than five pounds per employee per week to take action to measure to remove to a certain extent it doesn't have to be that full of friction, but I think not knowing prevents people from acting. The other force I would say is that VCs are starting to ask ESG questions in their DD process, right? It's it's lightweight, but as this progress and you answer those questions year on year and you're not making any progress it's going to become I think more of a challenge. Okay, Sierra from from a VC perspective, do you think that it's crucial for an investor to see that a company he's about to invest in is committed to sustainability? Is that a driver for investments? Absolutely. I mean again, it comes back to risk, you know, if you have uncertainty in your procurement that is subject to geopolitical risk that has potential for real fluctuations in energy crisis or fluctuations and inputs for food, for example you are running real risk at scale so tight business models where the unit economics makes sense where there's the possibility for stripping out exposure to fossil fuels for polluting production that may or may not carry a future price that's essential for us to see as we invest in companies that truly scan scale to global That's the downside. The upside is that the decarbonization of the global economy We're looking at a hundred trillion dollars spent on that over the next couple of decades That is a massive market opportunity. It is at global scale and it really is something that we see as Rewiring the foundation of the global economy mobility energy itself the built environment like these are huge global markets that can be built in Yes, absolutely, and I think actually it's I Don't know if founders here agree with that But I would feel a bit overwhelmed by the options available. I would be able to choose So I think it would be great if we could hear about that. What are some options? You think are best or maybe What should founders consider given on their company stage as well? What do you think at? I'm going to guess that we have an audience of mostly early-stage founders Yes, so I think at a stage where you know, you're five to ten people the decisions are a little bit more about what you don't do Versus maybe what you do as you're starting out so it can be everything from the decisions of where you hire What are your remote policies? Where are you going to have your data centers, you know, so? Different countries have completely like different carbon emission profiles and that's something that's going to be something You're going to pay very expensively You litter quite literally actually but also from a climate perspective a little bit later And I think that's something that we tend to overlook as a power of CTOs very early on So when I was doing this work in a B2B SaaS company the team that I spent by far the most time It was the CTO office because the key decisions at that point when you're at sort of scope three emissions And a lot of it have to do with your servers are going to be questions that are related to where the servers What models are we using? What's your procurement policy when we're expanding into a new country and deciding? You know how we're going to set all of this up some of the basic like hygiene on code and And like web performance as well that has direct link to To sort of the carbon profile of the product itself Michelle yeah, I think it starts with measuring your emissions, you know, we're all Working in tech and we know that data is so important and until you know where the sources of your emissions are You don't really know what to do about it, right? So we work we've worked with a lot of companies who might have previously had a recycling policy or planted trees with their You know as an off-site opportunity, but whether that's actually having impact on their emissions They it was disconnected, right? And I think until you start to measure you don't really know and what we found with most of the small You know early-stage startups that we work with it's largely your business travel your Work from home policy whether people are commuting into the office your cloud computing You know there is emissions related to that no matter what and then your advertising spend on Google Facebook You know wherever else it might be and frankly for most of these early-stage companies They can limit their business travel and maybe you know donate meat in the in the office But that's really eating around the edges. It doesn't have a massive impact And so they have to rely on their suppliers like Google Facebook Amazon to decarbonize which they have great You know plans for it and what we found is that actually the biggest impact of their climate budget is to buy these Early-stage carbon will technologies like that is where they can have the biggest impact That is where they can have catalytic kind of climate impact, and that's what we encourage our customers to do Yeah, what's what's the role of any investor in that? How can they help advise past their portfolio companies in choosing the right option for them? Yeah, I mean I think to Michelle's point you know it really is you know when you think about options for Decarbonization and for creating truly sustainable business practices. It starts with the obligation to measure You can't actually take real action that has impact unless you know what you're trying to impact in the first place And being thoughtful about catalytic approaches You know this idea of offsetting your way to sustainability. That's a myth Truly, I mean I say this as with love as the early-stage designer of carbon markets, but it is a myth Instead procurement of permanent carbon removal that actually does have impact alongside being thoughtful about the sources of emissions Within one's business model and taking steps to reduce risk within that by Thinking through what can we do? cost effectively within our own businesses and and working with your investors to present this as a Really insurance and de-risking of overall scale and then being thoughtful about overall spend on carbon removal mm-hmm and Would you say that any any any three of you that when choosing an option? Maybe founders should should consider the fastest impact the most powerful impacts the most stable impacts How how could they navigate through that do a hierarchy? Yeah, I mean In fairness like it to the founders in the room It's really hard, right? Yeah, it like we wish there was you know Maybe you came to this panel and thought we'd be like hey Here's an off-the-shelf list of things that you need to check and you just have to sort of take them off And everybody has done this is exactly the way to do it and if you do it This will be the you know cleanest most sustainable most impactful cost-effective way to doing it and the truth is it's still a bit of a jungle out there And and and so I think as a founder right now your your first especially You know early stage a lot of this work is going to be founder led and your first Step on this longer sustainability journey is really just to educate yourself The so many things are moving also right now and what we tell you right now may not necessarily be valid You know a year or two or three years down the line. I know that you've had a similar experience or yeah I think when I I mean when I was Looking into what it takes to measure carbon emissions It can be incredibly overwhelming and you can have this tendency to like my role at the VC fund like They asked me to help them get to net zero and I spoke to loads of consultants And I was asked to measure my wastewater for a 20-person team And I just I got so overwhelmed with the detail and I think don't let perfect be the enemy of good There is an 80-20 of like what are what's going to matter to measure and get that right and the rest of this stuff you can estimate or be be more okay with you know a bridge and Just get started because you do it and then you learn and you iterate and we all do this with product development Right the same approach with a sustainability policy as well. I think yeah Yeah, I mean that you mentioned education you mentioned action That's that's very important thing and I'm wondering Sierra if you share this perspective Certainly, I think this is also the sense of Agency doesn't necessarily need to be exclusively at the corporate level. There is the possibility for you know true Personal level change and that can be in recognizing one's role in the solutions set And I say this from also personal experience You don't need to be a physicist or a chemist or or someone with a truly Hardcore scientific background to build a meaningful business in climate There is a role for everyone and I think that you know, it's important not to lose sight of that We think about the effective solutions set it is corporate. It is personal. It is integrated Okay, and if we reverse this question a bit Do you think there is a very common pitfall for companies that are trying to implement sustainability practices? Can you repeat that sorry yeah, if if there's a common pitfall a common challenge or common mistake Companies made when approaching this topic. Yeah I mean, I think something that I've seen in a lot of non-climate our companies is to assume that Climate is the job of the head of climate, you know or the head of sustainability and to kind of Silo it in a corner over there and you know not give it the space that it needs I think climate is a cross-functional Executive Issue that needs to be handled really at the exact team level Regularly the same way you handle, you know all of the sort of financial reporting and other key KPIs And if you pigeonhole it into a corner, it's really not going to find its way into its right place in the company Okay, Michelle Yeah, I think the biggest mistake is when you see with the 76% of companies that are doing nothing It's nothing Even if you start out with it's a really passionate product manager's job to get the emissions measured and do it in all hands That is better than nothing and then you kind of go up and definitely the best best case scenario is that it's sponsored at the Exec level and it's a board level KPI right as it should be but doing nothing is the worst mistake I think that's a very big powerful message actually and you mentioned that already Sierra. You just need to take action, right? Yeah, I mean we see you know climate Accent a cat's point that this is a risk And you know true business driver akin to that of normal financial accounting We expect that it will evolve in a similar way. It has not yet, but it's only a matter of time This is fundamental to the performance of businesses worldwide whether or not You're all paying attention. It is the physical change is happening around us and it will influence every single business on this planet It already is in some cases Okay, I think I think what's what I'm taking out from this is try and take action be educated I consider what I need to do for my company and unfortunately We are out of time So I would like to thank you for being here and sharing your insights and thank you all for being here as well Thank you