In today’s edition:

🌳Difficult times for EU nature law

⚡️Solar power surges in China

🚜 Robot fruit-picking drones

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🌳 Nature (1-minute read)

EU’s nature restoration law in difficulty, despite climate policy wins 

What happened: EU lawmakers this week adopted new laws boosting Europe’s climate change fight. However, a parallel drive to restore nature and protect biodiversity in a separate bill to be finalised before the European Parliament elections next year looks to be on shakier ground.

The Details: The proposed package aims to restore degraded biosystems such as forests and marine zones. It also sets a target of drastically reducing the use of pesticides in crops, improving animal welfare, and limits on polluting emissions.

Shaky ground: Scandinavian countries are particularly worried about their essential forestry sector. At the same time, other member states believe the package scope goes too far, which some member states worry will lead to a decline in their agricultural output and ability to build renewable projects.

⚡️ Energy (1-minute read)

China to Let Power Prices Turn Negative in Solar-Rich Province

What happened: Power traders in China’s Shandong Province can now ask to be paid for using electricity as the province’s growing rooftop solar capacity threatens to overwhelm the grid.

Why? They appear when supply exceeds demand, typically during the middle of the day when solar generation peaks and adds to the round-the-clock supply from large coal and nuclear plants that are costly and slow to switch on and off. Shandong has the largest distributed solar capacity in China, with over 30 gigawatts.

Why it matters? Negative prices that encourage generators to switch off (typically seen on more advanced electricity exchanges in the US, Germany, and Australia) suggest another step forward in China liberalising its power sector. China rolled out eight pilot power markets in 2017 as part of a plan to liberalise prices and let market signals drive more decision-making

🚜 AgriTech (1-minute read)

Big business backs plan to unlock finance for sustainable fishing

Headline: A innovative financing model for fisheries (coordinated by WWF) could unlock $100m+ for sustainability efforts. The financing model — called the Fisheries Improvement Fund — will provide funding to enable the creation of Fishery Improvement Projects (FIPS).

FIPS? These are initiatives where fisheries make, track and report sustainable changes every six months, like procuring more sustainable feed, ending overfishing, and restoring biodiversity. Fisheries ultimately strive to gain certification from the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC).

Show me the money…The funding pot includes money from fish feed companies (like Cargill) alongside purchasers of fish (including Mars Petcare) and philanthropic firms (like Walmart Foundation). The funding help fisheries cover the upfront costs of FIP implementation.

Winner at the World Ag Expo is advancing autonomous harvesting using flying robots

Recognised as a winner in the “Top-10 New Product” competition, Tevel’s fruit-picking robot drones are designed to work in different environments and are adaptable to different tree heights. AI powers the robots, which continuously collect data on pieces of fruit, with the ability to pick apples, peaches, nectarines, apricots and more. With fruit farmers struggling to harvest fruit on time due to a shortage of pickers, Tevel claims their robots reduce growers’ total cost by up to 30% and gauge fruit ripeness 20% better than humans - all leading to a reduction in food waste.

💰 Deals of the Week (1-minute read)

👚 Resortecs raised $2.4M in seed for its circular fashion solutions, including its thermal disassembly solution, which is 5X faster than traditional disassembly methods and makes it possible to recycle up to 90% of the original fabric material.

💡 Ecoplanet raised $2.6M in seed for its real-time consumption monitoring, automated reports, and short-term saving measures to optimize energy costs

📦 HIVED raised $12.4M in Series A to reinvent parcel delivery and build the first mass-market zero-emission parcel delivery network

⚡️ Reverion raised $9.3M to develop and manufacture solutions for power generation producing and utilising hydrogen converted from biogas.

💭 Little Bytes

Quote: “Decarbonising industrial processes might be a significant challenge, but it’s one that offers UK sectors like steel, cement and chemicals the opportunity to compete in new, quickly growing markets for greener goods.” — Aldersgate Group senior policy officer Laith Whitwham

Stat: 1 in 5 cars sold in 2023 will be electric — International Energy Agency

Watch: Ugandan farm turns food waste into electricity 

🗞 In other news…

• BP faces shareholder pressure over weakened climate targets — with nearly one in five BP shareholders voting against the business’s weakened plans.

• The World’s biggest bug farm, with five floors of insect incubators, wants to decarbonize feed for salmon and shrimp.

• Four companies, including the retailer H&M and JPMorgan Chase in recent weeks have agreed to spend a collective $100mn on carbon removal credits by 2030.

• The UK Energy Security Secretary has suggested that countries such as the UAE and Bahrain are interested in investing in Britain’s plans to construct new nuclear power stations

🎣 Gone Phishing

Three of these stories are true, one we've made up. Guess which:

• McDonald's trials seaweed as an ingredient in McPlant burger

• Scientists build a football-playing robot

• Father of hundreds gets sperm donation ban 

• Parrots are taught to video call other parrots

✏️ Helpful Resources

• 4WARD.VC's 900+ Climate VC & Accelerator Database

• The Startup Climate Crew Slack — 1.2k+ members

• 4WARD.VC non-dilutive funding guide

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