Carbon13 invests in six new ventures from the Venture Launchpad, with impact beyond just emissions
Carbon13, the Venture Builder for the climate emergency, is today announcing new investments into six ventures through its accelerator, the Venture Launchpad. Each venture has received £120,000 pre-seed investment.
The six ventures, which include cutting edge technology for biochar-based polystyrene alternatives, smart wall HVAC systems, net-negative insect proteins, AI powered circular fashion and food waste management, are united by the cross-cutting theme of waste.
Commenting on the investments, their impact potential, and the profiles of the six ventures, CEO & Co-founder of Carbon13, Dr Nicky Dee, said: “All our ventures contribute to net zero, but tracking emissions tells just part of the story. We can see other key benefits such as health from improving air quality and avoiding ecotoxicity and microplastics when discarded. Other companies will prompt new economic pathways as they disrupt the “normal” way of doing things.”
The global emissions abatement potential of our next six investments is only one part of their impact story.
The simplicity of a greenhouse gas target belies the complexity of planetary systems. This latest raft of investments illustrates this, with a cross cutting theme of waste. The six ventures are not driven solely by their emissions abatement targets: for them, true impact means change that goes beyond that.
In almost all systems, waste is produced: from food and textile waste, to microplastics or excess emissions, these are the result of inefficient processes. The ventures being invested in by Carbon13 in this latest cohort are looking to reduce or utilise that waste. They show that waste can create value (i.e leveraging food waste to create new products), or it can be eliminated by making changes within the system to make it more efficient (i.e replacing polystyrene with a carbon negative alternative).
All the ventures have an impact goal for greenhouse gas emissions as standard, because abatement is the cornerstone of the Carbon13 mission. Emissions reductions are crucial, but these six ventures showcase the importance of looking beyond one single metric of impact.
They tackle other planetary issues which are not captured in a standard life cycle assessment, such as microplastics. A simple target doesn’t illuminate the whole story.
For example, textile waste: According to the European Environment Agency, textile products consumed in the EU generated greenhouse gas emissions of 121 million tonnes.
But their impact goes beyond their emissions: almost half of the textiles are discarded and less than 1% are recycled into new clothes. Textile production causes 20% of water pollution worldwide, and washing synthetic products contributes more than half a million tonnes of microplastics to the bottom of the oceans every year.
Food waste is a similar story. Wasted edible food and drink in the UK accounted for approximately 18 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in 2021/22. The price isn’t solely paid by the environment: this level of waste costs the UK £19 billion a year.
For the six ventures receiving investment from Carbon13’s latest programme, waste represents an opportunity. Abatement is only part of their impact: by tackling complex systems to reduce waste, create value and refine efficiency these ventures showcase how climate tech can have legacy beyond emissions.
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