🌱 This week in NatureTech #17

🐘 Long Read (12-Min Read)

Is the Future of chocolate cocoa-free? 🍫 

We’ve huddled up with our friends at World Fund, Planet A foods and NuKoKo to discuss the wonderful world of sustainable chocolate production.

• The current challenges with cocoa production today

• The top start-ups working in the space (See our map below)

• The opportunities and headwinds for the space

To save bombarding your inboxes we’ve kept this as an article on our website.

💬 Snippets for your lift conversations

• Big business: HSBC UK has launched a new initiative designed to support farming businesses transitioning to more sustainable practices by offering discounted loan arrangement fees.

• Big business: An ambitious vision for how the UK’s seabed can continue to support the accelerated delivery of nature recovery and the transition to clean energy has been set out by The Crown Estate, which manages the seabed around England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

• Funding: The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) will launch a call for grant proposals between €20,000 and €60,000 for data projects based in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific.

• Finance: The EU must create new financial tools to reward farmers who contribute to reversing biodiversity loss and climate breakdown, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said

• Finance: More than 500 financial institutions and representatives, collectively worth more than $29trn in assets under management, have written to national governments urging them to update and introduce policies to unlock investment into climate action, nature restoration and the Just Transition.

• Finance: The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has raised $252 million from the second green bond it has issued to promote its 'blue' finance projects amid rising investor interest in sustainable water and ocean-related investments.

• Market: After nine months of intense debates, the G20 Initiative on Bioeconomy (GIB) established the 10 High-Level Principles on Bioeconomy

• Market: Facebook owner Meta agreed to buy up to 3.9 million carbon offset credits from Brazilian investment bank BTG Pactual's forestry arm

• Law: Vanuatu, Fiji and Samoa want international criminal court to class environmental destruction as crime alongside genocide

• Law: The International Criminal Court (ICC) is formally considering whether people and/or organisations which destroy nature at scale should be dubbed criminals under international law.

• Research: South America is being ravaged by fire from Brazil's Amazon rainforest through the world's largest wetlands to dry forests in Bolivia, breaking a previous record for the number of blazes seen in a year.

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🎣 Deals

•  Dunya Analytics, a provider of science-based digital tools that simplify the measurement and management of biodiversity risks, has received $1.2 million in seed funding

• CarbonEthics, an Indonesia-based developer on community based mangrove restoration completed a seed round of $2.1 million 

• Swedish AI-based forestry tech company Katam Technologies raised $ 2.2 million for forest management in Asia and America

• Limenet, a startup that has developed tech ocean based carbon removal, raised $1.8Mn

• L’Oréal Groupe announced a tri-party agreement with biotech innovator, Abolis Biotechnologies and global specialty manufacturer, Evonik, to enable the discovery, development and manufacturing of innovative and sustainable ingredients for beauty products and beyond

💭 Little Bytes

📊Stat: More than 200,000 native species have been identified in the United States roughly 13 percent of the 1.5 million species worldwide

📺️Watch: Biodiversity boosting 'Vertical Meadows' pop up in the UK

💬 Listen: The sound of biodiversity: Nature soundscapes at Knepp

📆 Events

• 26 Sept - NetworkNature Annual Event 2024 | Busting myths - Virtual

• 30 September - Nature for Life Hub 2024 - Virtual

• 23rd - 28th September - Nature Events at Climate Week

• 8 October - The Global Nature Positive Summit 2024 - Sydney

• 9 October - frontiers in Nature-Finance: capital, compliance, and checks & balances. - London

• 16 October - greenwashing and greenhushing: navigating the corporate goldilocks zone - London

• 24 October - Bloom - Colombia

Going to be at Climate Week? Drop us a note Pat will be flying the NatureTech Memos Flag.

💼 Jobs

Special thanks to Theresa Lieb for this awesome list…

🐼 Corporate 🐼 

Tesco, Lead Nature Manager (Hertfordshire, UK) https://lnkd.in/etdq95Vc

Lego, Senior Manager, Global Sustainability Water and Nature (Billund, Denmark)https://lnkd.in/eNzNBStK

Danone, Sustainability Manager, Nature (Hoofddorp, Netherlands)https://lnkd.in/ex4DhJ-F

Danone, CDI — Nature Controller (Paris, France)https://lnkd.in/ekD_XqCK

ClimeCo, Project Manager, Nature Based Solutions (remote, US) https://lnkd.in/ei5mwwH9

IUCN, Programme Officer, Business and Nature (Cambridge, UK) https://lnkd.in/eauQUgTY

WWF, Knowledge Manager, Freshwater Practice (hybrid, Europe) https://lnkd.in/embs7iRY

🐝Finance🐝

BTG Pactual Timberland Investment Group, Portfolio Manager (New York, US) https://lnkd.in/ejmizFMP

Conservation International, Americas & Amazonia Bioeconomy Investment Lead - CI Ventures (Brazil, Colombia or Peru) https://lnkd.in/eAYe3znB

🦊 Nature-based solution projects & nature tech startups 🦊

Treeconomy, Product Lead (hybrid, UK) https://lnkd.in/ekn39H4k

Conservation X Labs, Senior Director of Development (Washington, DC, US) https://lnkd.in/eC5Wc_Mc

Carbon Farm, Product Manager (Paris, France) https://lnkd.in/er-nKPJ4