Climate Takes Critical Materials

Welcome to Carbon13’s podcast “Climate Takes” where we ask founders, investors and builders for their “takes” on their industry and climate challenge, as well as setting a call to action, asking what will it take to solve the climate emergency?

On Climate Takes Critical Materials, we cover the most global question of this podcast so far: the supply chains of critical materials, with Sarah Montgomery, founder and CEO of Infyos.

About the episode

Critical materials are the stuff we need for the world’s energy transition, its energy storage, and even the screen you’re reading this on. In this episode, we deepdive into the enormous challenges that face their global supply chains – in effect the arteries of our economies.

The world needs to triple its installed renewable energy capacity by 2030, that’s solar, turbines, and long duration energy storage. We’re not talking AAA batteries, we’re talking giant installations in an industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars annually.

But, one battery maker alone can have over 10,000 suppliers. This complexity brings risk when one link in the chain fails: a renewable energy project can be killed entirely by a 12 month delay in materials supply.

There are huge challenges for compliance, including regulatory, geopolitical, ESG and due diligence – 75% of global battery production is connected to forced labour. 

Our expert in this is Sarah Montgomery, CEO of Infyos, an AI supply chain operating system for energy and mobility.

Sarah has been recognised as a one of the world’s most impactful leaders on Forbes 30 Under 30 and has been featured in publications including Financial Times, Sifted and Business Insider. Sarah is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Battery Alliance and IRMA’s Working Group on Circular Economy. Sarah speaks Chinese and has previously built the China expansion at the supply chain technology scale-up Everledger backed by Tencent.