In today’s edition:

⛽️ Nord Stream methane leeks

💎 En route to sustainable diamonds

🌾 Energy VS Food

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💼 Big Business (1-minute read)

What do Nord Stream methane leaks mean for climate change?

What’s happened: Researchers are rushing to calculate the greenhouse-gas emissions resulting from mysterious leaks in major gas pipelines that connect Russia to Europe. Given the tense energy situation between Russia and the West following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a real-life geopolitical whodunit has ensued, with NATO now attributing the leaks to sabotage.

The green lens: It has been estimated that 115,000 tonnes of methane have been released during the initial pressure drop in Nord Stream 2 (with the warming potential in the short term of annual carbon emissions from two million cars).

Our take: The event, although huge, accounts for around 0.14% of the global annual methane emissions from the oil and gas industry, according to estimates from Capterio. It does reinforce (again) how geopolitics and the climate movement are increasingly intertwined.

Sustainability Success Stories

• Schools set for solar “rooftop revolution”: To lower the environmental and commercial costs associated with heating buildings, every school in Ireland will have solar panels put on their roof. The announcement comes after a similar scheme offering over €2k to support the installation of solar panels for businesses, public organisations and community groups.

• BMW to re-engineer waste from UK manufacturing plants: The automotive giant has partnered with waste management specialists, Axil integrated Services, to support circular economies throughout the chemical, technical and logistics processes in BMW’s UK sites (incl. MINI and Rolls Royce). One change will involve using waste-capturing technology to track and attribute waste to specific business areas to focus attention/resources.

• Climate solutions for African smallholders: Drinks company, Diageo, has invited startups to apply for seed funding of $525k to monitor and lessen the impact of climate and water scarcity on smallholder farms in Africa. The goal is to build resilience in the communities Diageo works with while better managing climate risks to shore-up supply chains.

In-road electric vehicle (EV) charging coming to Detroit

Detroit has announced an agreement with wireless charging specialists, Electron (who supported similar projects in Israel, Sweden and Germany), to develop a public in-road wireless charging system for EVs in the city centre. The roadway would charge vehicles while they are in motion or stationary (without needing to be plugged in) and is expected to open next year.

The importance? Wireless charging roads could help overcome the strongest headwinds facing wide-scale EV adoption - range anxiety and poor charging infrastructure.

🤖 Future of Tech (1-minute read)

A step closer to sustainable diamonds

Challenge: Diamonds often come from small artisanal mines. This poses issues of ensuring ethical and environmentally friendly working practices, and reports have previously linked the diamond supply chain to child labour, conflict and slavery.

Diamonds on the blockchain: HB Antwerp (one of Europe’s largest diamond manufacturing ecosystems) has developed the ‘HB Capsule,’ with Microsoft. The Internet of Things (IoT) device uses blockchain technology and data analytics to track all the stages of natural diamonds’ journey - from the mine to the retail store. The Capsule can only be opened by authorised people who are next in line to interact with the diamond and is meant to provide transparency of the end-to-end journey of the diamond supply chain.

Hold up: Transparency is the first step to increasing scrutiny of practices across a supply chain. However, this alone will not prevent nefarious actors or gaming of the system from making mines appear more ethical than they are.

Batteries to grow your plants

Challenge: Used alkaline batteries make up around one-fifth of landfill hazardous household materials. And, when crushed, mercury and other toxins leach into the environment.

Enter Tracegrow: The cleantech startup has developed a way to turn used batteries into a new product - fertiliser. Tracegrow’s process extracts the zinc, sulphur, and manganese from the batteries and converts them into a micronutrient foliar fertiliser (applied directly to the leaves) approved for organic farming. The process is proven to reduce carbon emissions and enhance crop productivity

What’s next: €2.5m. investment from Nordic Foodtech VC, a fund dedicated to investing in early-stage companies aiming to ‘radically renew’ the global food system.

🗞 Not in the News (1-minute read)

Food VS Energy? Combing the two could be the answer

Converging crises: As the global economy continues to suffer from the after-shocks of COVID-19, the continued crisis in Ukraine, and the effects of climate change - energy and food prices are soaring, leading to food and energy insecurity increasing globally.

A potential solution: Agrivoltaic farming is an AgTech solution that integrates solar photovoltaic (PV)/solar panel projects with agricultural activity on the same land.

The benefits: Lower greenhouse gas emissions, protect biodiversity and lower dependence on fossil fuels, all the while boosting yields - for example

• Crop shading: Solar panels provide shade to crops, meaning better protection from intense weather and keeping the soil moist by preventing water evaporation.

• Animal welfare: By enabling permanent vegetation to be planted between and below the solar panels while providing easy shade access.

• Biodiversity boost: Provide an opportunity to create habitats that support insects and pollinators (like bees) and plant cover crops to boost soil health and carbon sequestration.

A long road ahead… The main challenge is creating a model for managing both the farming activities and the operation of PV plants that can be reproduced and scaled.

Essential to net-zero: By allowing solar power to be developed in areas that would otherwise encounter pushback against renewable development. AgTech supports agriculture and energy on the same piece of land - benefiting multiple stakeholders simultaneously.

💭 Little Bytes

Quote:  “Our reckless consumption of resources has for too long exceeded the capacity of our planet, even as we continue to under-deliver on meeting people’s needs, in many ways and many places.” Royal DSM’s co-chief executive, Geraldine Matchett

Stat: In a world first, wind and solar met 10% of global electricity demand

Watch: Indian farmer creates mobile solar pant to irrigate crops

🗞 In other news…

• 2 Korean companies team up in a proposed $20bn-plus green hydrogen project in Queensland, Australia. Paving the way for a flow of green energy exports between Australia and Korea by 2032.

• United Airlines is betting $1bn on flying cars as it eyes up electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft to attract business customers

• New research shows that malnutrition can be treated by encouraging the right gut bacteria through a specially devised diet made from cheap ingredients - providing a potential solution to tackling hunger.

• UK electric vehicle maker, Arrival, announces its first van using its micro-plant model of manufacturing - now plans for large-scale production

• Most US-based corporates not linking executive pay to climate action, analysis finds

Written by Colin and Ollie - Drop us a message!