In today’s edition:

🚴‍♀️ Paying citizens to cycle

🚰 Nature-based solutions for freshwater

🏠 A home for all within planetary boundaries

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💼 Big Business (1-minute read)

Ford to reshape operations for a new era of electric vehicles (EVs)

Ford Motor plans to release 3,000 employees as it reshapes its labour force and orientates its business around electric vehicles. This reshaping comes from the carmaker investing $50bn in its EV business and adding over 6,000 jobs to expand its EV production capacity.

Importance? Carmakers must support a fair & equitable transition to a green transport sector through upskilling employees whose skills are at risk of becoming less relevant in the shift to electric vehicles. Releasing 3,000 employees seems a drastic step. In contrast, The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) has launched a Skills Partnership with carmakers to upskill engineers for EV production, create new employment opportunities and maximise the auto industry’s competitiveness during the green transition.

French government to pay citizens to cycle

In an effort to both lower emissions and compensate for high energy prices, the French government is increasing financial support for people willing to swap their cars for bikes.

The details: Citizens and organisations can apply for a 'conversion bonus' if they give up a polluting car, van or truck and buy a regular bike, e-bike, cargo bike or electric-powered bicycle trailer. The subsidies are proportional to income and other factors, with the highest amount of EUR 4000 going to low-income people and organisations based in low-emission zones.

Huge Potential… to lower emissions since 60% of home-work journeys of less than 5 km are made by car and just 5% by bicycle. A recent study reported that if the entire world pedalled as much as a pro-cycling nation, the Netherlands, global carbon emissions would fall 3%.

Ukraine plans for ambitious "green" reconstruction

Reconstruction following Russia’s invasion is providing Europe’s most energy-intensive economy with the opportunity to become a hub for green electricity. Ukrainian authorities and international partners (i.e., the EU Commission and World Bank) have outlined plans for the country’s post-war recovery. The plans set 3 main energy goals, including producing and exporting renewable energy and hydrogen, energy-efficient buildings and creating a “green” economy producing sustainable ammonia, green steel and batteries. It’s great to see Ukraine finding positive situations from such terrible events.

🤖 Future of Tech (1-minute read)

Global secondhand apparel market to grow 127% by 2026 - driven by tech

ThredUp’s latest report has highlighted that the second-hand fashion market is expected to grow 16x than the broader retail market by 2026. This is in part driven by tech solutions supporting brands in streamlining the sticky bits of the resale process (Clothes return, tracking, payments)

Brand shake-up: 62% of Gen Z and Millennials say they look for an item secondhand before purchasing it new. Even fast fashion brands are taking note, Primark just announced a partnership with a vintage wholesaler.

Potential Impact: Second Hand displaced nearly 1 Billion new clothing purchases in 2021 that normally would have been bought new = reduced raw material

Caution: Not all resale / second-hand marketplaces are created equal - studies have shown that some schemes incentivise additional consumption and environmental impact.

Engineered wetlands remove waste from freshwater

The situ: The Dongjiang River in southern China provides drinking water for 40mn people. But with limited wastewater treatment facilities in rural areas, sewage is seeping into the river.

Finding a solution: With the support of Conservation International, people from villages along the Dongjiang River Basin have constructed water treatment systems that mimic natural wetlands’ ability to decontaminate water.

How do they work? The “constructed wetlands" initially facilitate the flow of contaminated water through traditional infrastructure (i.e., septic tanks) and then into specially engineered natural ecosystems such as marshes, plants and soil that further absorb pollutants without exposing the wastewater to the broader environment.

Our take? Demonstrates the potential of nature-based solutions and biomimicry to solve human challenges. The wetlands also support biodiversity like habitats for native waterfowl, fish and frogs.

💡 Deep Dive (1-minute read)

A home for all within planetary boundaries: Meeting housing needs without transgressing national climate and biodiversity goals

The challenge: The UK is facing profound governance challenges with the deepening housing crisis and climate change. The government aims to build 300,000 new homes yearly to match demand and keep housing costs affordable, but it's increasingly clear that this is a challenge deeply interwoven with sustainability goals.

What’s new? A new study has revealed that England would use up its 1.5C carbon budget (the cumulative amount of emissions a country can emit over a specific period) by 2050 on housing alone if the government sticks to its pledge to build 300,000 homes a year with the current construction methods. Plans would also place legally binding targets by the UK government to halve wildlife declines by 2030. Globally, 24% of threatened species on the IUCN red list are threatened by commercial and residential building developments.

Potential solutions:

• Radically retrofitting existing houses - so all homes could be zero carbon by 2050 would save 38% of the cumulative carbon budgets. Initiatives like Energiesprong will be key, or The Green Finance Institute is working on designing lending products that enable homeowners to borrow to invest in energy-efficient improvements.

• Satisfying greater housing need through existing stock - Policy & tax reforms to support cutting the number of second homes, stopping people from buying houses as financial investments and making people live in smaller buildings - like closing second home tax loopholes

• Innovation - Building Information Modelling (BIM) is the process of creating a digital description of every aspect of a building using a combination of technologies - supporting the reduction of construction waste and more environmental building design.

A balancing act: Climate change and the housing crisis are inherently ‘wicked problems’ – difficult to solve, long term and involving numerous policy areas and actors. Meeting both needs will require integrated, strategic planning and cooperation across sectors.

💭 Little Bytes

Quote:  “Meeting the explosive growth in demand for lithium products in the coming years poses a host of daunting challenges, but these challenges must be met if the transition to renewable energy and the global fight against climate change are to stay on course” - BCG’s report on lithium supply chains.

Stat: Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Macdonald’s ‘responsible for 39% of UK’s branded packaging pollution’ - Surfers Against Sewage.

Watch: Seville using ancient technology to fight heatwaves

💰 Deal room…

• Lunar Energy said it has closed $300 million in its goal to makehomes completely energy independent by creating, storing and using the power they themselves generate

• Agritech Startup Loopworm Raises $3.4 Million in Seed Funding that aims to optimise insect farming for smallholders for aquaculture, pet foods and supplements

• Dryad brought home €10.5 million to speed up early wildfire detection technology well as growth monitoring of forests using solar-powered sensors

• Vive Crop Protection, a Canadian developer of sustainable crop protection products, closed a $26 million Series C investment round.

🗞 In other news…

• A new study finds that Planting trees across tropical farmland can help to restore biodiversity without sacrificing crop yields.

• Japan plans to undergo a major shift in energy policy to focus on next-generation nuclear power plant facilities

• The spread of malaria is related to climate change because temperature and rainfall are key parameters of climate change, study finds.

Written by Colin and Ollie - Drop us a message!