In today’s edition:

🌞 Gender & corporate climate thinking

🪑3D-printed wooden furniture

💬 Quick-fire COP27 update

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💼 Big Business (1-minute read)

A gap in how male and female directors think about climate change

A recent annual survey of 700 board members demonstrated a stark revelation. Female board members prioritise action on climate change more than males. Two-thirds of female board directors said reducing the impact of climate change was a priority ‘even if it impacts short-term performance’, whereas only 45% of male board directors said the same.

So what: Causation does not lead to correlation. Companies with more female directors on the board may already be thinking more about climate concerns… but diversity of thought in all forms is certainly critical in ensuring effective and inclusive solutions to climate change.

Cooling: The survey also showed signs that directors’ enthusiasm for sustainability issues is cooling. Only 57% of directors said ESG issues were important to strategy, down 9% from last year.

U.S. and China Restart Climate Talks

What happened: President Biden and President Xi Jinping of China agreed on Monday to restart talks between their countries as part of international climate negotiations, a breakthrough in the effort to avert catastrophic global warming. Discussions between the world’s two largest economies, and two biggest emitters, had been frozen since August due to rising tensions over Taiwan. The pair announced on Monday that they had “agreed to empower key senior officials to maintain communication and deepen constructive efforts” on climate.

Why it matters: There’s “no credible pathway to 1.5C in place” today, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) insisted in a new report. If we are to hold on to 2C of warming, we need large economies collaborating as a signal for other nations to do the same.

US & Egypt strike deal for climate adaptation

The two nations plan to funnel over $15mn into climate adaptation and resiliency projects across Africa. The deal is part of the US Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience (PREPARE) to help African countries overcome the challenge they face when accessing funding to support climate adaptation initiatives. The opportunity for climate mitigation projects in Africa is significant — for every $1 invested, $4-10 in benefits is generated.

🤖 Future of Tech (1-minute read)

3D-printing wooden furniture

The challenge: Every year, 15 billion trees are cut down with the wood used to build and decorate homes. Yet, 50% of this wood is wasted as part of industrial processes.

Potential solution: Scientists from Israel have created 3D printing ink from a mixture of wood flour and plant extracts that can be morphed into different shapes, producing wood-like products. The material won’t last forever, instead, after 3-4 years, it can be ground down and used for printing again, supporting a circular economy model for the products.

Next steps: It’s early stages at the moment, with scientists constructing progressively more challenging structures (see the DNA helix below). But, with additional work, they believe it can be used to create self-assembling circular furniture.

Nigerian company turns e-waste into solar-powered lanterns

Challenge: It’s estimated that almost 90mn people in Nigeria don’t have access to grid electricity, and the millions of those connected to the grid have less than 12 hours of electricity and light daily with knock-on repercussions (reduced productivity, literacy rates and poor healthcare outcomes). For those able to afford diesel generators, these can often emit hazardous fumes.

Opportunity: Quadloop, a Nigerian-based company, has found a way to turn electronic waste into solar lanterns - the company aims to source 70% of its materials from electronic waste by recycling lithium batteries from dumped old laptops. Those lanterns are then distributed at a lower cost to small businesses to help them to stay productive if there are power outages. Two birds, one stone.

💡 Deep Dive (1-minute read)

Quickfire take-away from COP27 (week 1) 

A whirlwind first week at COP27 with commitments on everything from cleantech to climate adaptation. Here are four short, sharp takeaways to keep you up-to-date:

1. Protecting 4bn people from climate risks: The Sharm-El-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda set out a comprehensive global to-do list to help improve the climate resiliency of over 4bn people. It outlines 30 “Adaption Outcomes” to help protect those living in the most climate-vulnerable communities by 2030.

2. Sweeping new cleantech pledges: The Breakthrough Agenda (an international collaboration hoping to bring cleantech — including solar, hydrogen and net-zero industrial plants — prices down sharply this decade) confirmed Cambodia and Austria are now participants, meaning the initiative covers over half the global annual emissions.

3. New carbon markets initiative: The African Carbon Markets Initiative (ACMI) was launched by a collab of organisations. The ACMI wants to create a thriving carbon market for Africa through 300 million high-quality credits produced annually by 2030, unlocking $6bn in income and supporting 30mn jobs.

4. First agriculture-themed day: Agriculture has never had a dedicated day at any COP until this year, with Saturday’s theme being “Adaptation and Agriculture”. The Egyptian government honoured the day by launching “Food and Agriculture for Sustainable Transformation (FAST)”, an initiative to increase climate finance flows to farmers and bring up knowledge-sharing and policymaking efforts for sustainable food systems.

Looking ahead: Week 2 includes Gender, Water and Biodiversity days. Look out for the news emerging from Energy day (15 Nov), focusing on a just transition in the energy sector. The final day (17 Nov) — Solutions Day — will see governments and businesses share their ideas and build future alliances.

💭 Little Bytes

Quote:  “We have that done and dusted, which means that now that I’m going to be heading to COP, our pledge to reduce our emissions by at least 55% until 2030 can be increased to 57%.” - The European Union’s climate chief, Frans Timmermans

Stat: Up to 205mn people are expected to face food insecurity and need urgent assistance in 45 countries - World Food Programme

Watch: Climate time machine shows how the planet has changed since 1880

🗞 In other news…

• New law in France requires all car parks of a specific size to be covered by solar panels, as the nations look to increase its solar production by 10x current rates

• The global market for ‘nature tech’ is poised to triple to $6bn by 2030 - including satellite rainforest monitoring and tree-planting drones.

• The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) warn that economic losses from extreme weather hit $35bn in Asia last year and are set to worsen.

• Leading fashion brands, including H&M, Inditex and Stella McCartney, join new collaboration to lower deforestation and emissions through low-carbon alternative fibres.

Written by Colin and Ollie - Drop us a message!