What We’re Reading
Braiding Sweetgrass [Robin Wall Kimmerer]
CEO Jessica Droste Yagan writes: I'm enjoying the way Robin Wall Kimmerer weaves together western science with indigenous experience to make it clear that, as in many things in life, AND can be more powerful than OR. Science and intuition, humans and nature can not only co-exist but thrive together in her worldview. It's exciting and hopeful.
From Meta to Twitter, What Everyone Gets Wrong About ESG — And Why It Matters [The Institutional Investor]
Chief Investment Officer Priya Parrish writes: We hear it often - including ESG factors in investment decisions can reduce risk and generate alpha. However, this article forces us to face the truth that often the most profitable route for a company is one that externalizes social and environmental costs. Yet this isn't inherently detrimental to shareholders, as every asset owner, from individual investors to pensions, own portfolios of hundreds of companies. One company's externalized costs is maximizing their profits while burdening another company, which affects the underlying investors. For example, Schroders found that in one year, listed companies around the world earned $4.1 trillion in profits, but they also created net social and environmental costs of $2.2 trillion. One specific example - the World Health Organization assesses the unpriced social burdens of obesity as equaling almost 3% of global GDP annually. The food and beverage business bears significant responsibility for this issue. This article is a must-read for understanding systems-level solutions to use our investment dollars to create the urgent change we wish governments could make more quickly.
Inflation Reduction Act makes climate funds even more compelling [Venture Capital Journal]
Vice President Ander Iruretagoyena writes: Even though global investment in the energy transition totaled $755 billion in 2021 – a new record – off the back of rising climate ambition and policy action from countries around the world, 2022 is poised to be even greater after President Biden signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act, the most substantive US federal policy impacting energy over the past 50 years. This landmark bill contains several climate provisions but overall its primary intent is to reduce carbon emissions by 40% by 2030, increase US energy security, and allocate at least $370B to clean energy investments over a 10 year period. One of the provisions for example increases the 45Q tax reimbursement for capturing and sequestering waste CO2 from $50/tonne to $85/tonne (+70%). This provides a higher incentive for asset owners and emitters to invest in and implement carbon capture technologies, which an analysis conducted by repeatproject.org, estimates that the new policy could 13x the potential carbon capture and storage achieved in the United States by 2030 to 200 millions tonnes per year.
Portfolio News
Afresh, the food waste avoidance platform for grocery stores, has secured 115 million in Series B funding. "The Series B round was led by Spark Capital. Insight Partners and VMG Partners also participated, along with Walter Robb, a senior executive at S2G Ventures and the former co-chief executive officer of Whole Foods Market. With the new investment, the San Francisco-based company’s total funding has reached $148 million."
Several of our portfolio companies are celebrating the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest investment to fight climate change in US history. In particular, Brightcore Energy, which supports retrofitting commercial buildings with renewable power, Measurabl which analyzes ESG data for commercial real estate, and PosiGen, which makes solar power accessible for low and moderate income communities, are looking forward to a cleaner, greener roadmap ahead. "That's tens of millions of dollars of economic impact in low-income communities and communities of color," PosiGen CEO Tom Neyhart says, "creating and sustaining jobs and supporting businesses in those communities." Browse our full Environmental Sustainability Portfolio.
Six of our portfolio companies have cracked into Inc Magazine's list of America's 5,000 Fastest-Growing private companies, including PadSplit (#290 on the list), and MarketWagon (#450), and Kaizen Health (#526). Well done! Browse Inc's full 2022 database to see growth rates and more here.
Workit Health, the addiction treatment tele-health platform, is expanding their reach into rural areas this quarter, including launches in Kentucky, Colorado, and North Carolina (bringing their new total up to 18 states). Of the 33,000 video treatment calls they facilitated in the past quarter, 21% of these were from clients in rural areas which are often underserved by traditional addiction treatment services. Workit is also celebrating 7,000 new members so far in 2022, representing an increase of 200%, year over year.
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