Galway Sustainable Capital, Inc

Sourcing local is one small way to do your part for people and planet. This week, we gathered with our Galway Sustainable Capital, Inc colleagues and DC WAVE - Women's Association of Venture & Equity members to talk more about Galway's recent office buildout where we leveraged sustainable materials and design. One of our local artists, Claire Sharp talked about the inspiration for her work that is on our wall as part of her commercial art leasing program. Kay Parry Helen Quick Jennifer Von Bismarck Sonia A. Khanna Alla Jezmir Kara Parmelee Cameron Ruble Sarene Marshall Maggie Nowlan Bianca T. Alex Mourant, CFA Derek Porter James Dennin

I continue to be buoyed by the energy, resolve, and dynamism that electrified NY Climate Week 2024. Some take-aways: ->A multi-year journey from an LOI to an executed PPA. At Sightline Climate (CTVC)'s inaugural convening, Tim Latimer of Fervo Energy emphasized the importance of building partnership and trust with future customers. ->Deep-tech product development requires a blended capital stack, including government financing and early partnerships with investor-customers. Under Leah Ellis's leadership, Sublime Systems, an early-stage emissions-free cement manufacturer, is leaning into its strategic investor Holcim's industry knowledge and operational expertise. ->Generate's "Creative credit strategies" breakfast illuminated the rise of innovative credit. Though “creativity” and “credit” aren’t the obvious companions, William Sonneborn underscored the need for innovative debt structures to finance the energy transition. 80% of the $8T necessary per year to build out new assets is projected to come from debt. ->Entrepreneurship and deep-tech innovation is an exercise in grit and resilience. Twelve’s Co-founder & CEO Nicholas Flanders shared the company’s capitalization journey at "De-Risking and Financing “Scale” in ClimateTech" hosted by Munich Re Ventures & Spring Lane Capital. Twelve received its first SBIR grant on the 10th try. Many other stepping stones before the $645M raise led by TPG's The Rise Fund. And a 4-year journey of collaborative discussions and relentless execution preceding the multi-year contract with British Airways. ->No more “Adaptation / Resilience” island and “Mitigation / Decarbonization” island. At SJF Ventures' "Made to Last: Adapting to a Changing Climate" Jay Koh underscored that there's a real convergence. The Lightsmith Group's portfolio company AiDash is helping utilities and other asset owners reduce wildfire risk through tech-enabled vegetation management. Utilities are increasingly focused on protecting electrical lines through AI-enabled identification and removal of hazard trees. Stressing the need to invest in resiliency efforts today, Amy Barnes painted a future of “more spongy” cities with nature-based solutions to manage heat and more porous building materials. -->The road to net zero is hard. I particularly cherished opportunities to raise a glass in honor of Generate's 10-year anniversary, celebrating Scott Jacobs, Matan Friedman, and Jigar Shah's legacy; toast dear friends Sierra Peterson at Voyager Ventures and Leshika Samarasinghe at Twine Ventures for boldly backing early stage climate innovators; cheer on Adam Fraser at Terraset for?bringing philanthropic capital to CDR; and salute Esther Morales' vision for scaling Clean Energy Leadership Institute's impact. Wonderful to be at #NYCW with my Galway Sustainable Capital, Inc colleagues Trent Yang, Jennifer Von Bismarck, Sarene Marshall and Jennifer Simpson, and to see so many friends and colleagues from across the industry.

We were honoured to have HRH The Prince of Wales with us today to announce ENSO’s groundbreaking partnership with Uber. This collaboration is a clear demonstration of the power of The Earthshot Prize community and marks a significant step forward in our mission to deliver cleaner, more sustainable tires globally—driving real change for our planet. #EarthshotPrize #Sustainability #CleanAir #Uber #MovedbyENSO

Just back from Climate Week: 1. Thank you SJF Ventures and Dave Kirkpatrick for hosting a discussion that was more productive than most. Insurance companies need better data to help with ROI arguments for resilience and sustainability investment – thanks Amy Barnes of Marsh McLennan for pointing that out. Companies need to make it more clear who owns strategic resilience and sustainability, not just reporting for it. And we have a budding set of climate entrepreneurs including Matt Stein of Salient Predictions and Mishal Thadani of Rhizome Data. 2. Fantastic to meet Kayla Ver Helst from Bank of North Dakota and STAND, focused on innovation to improve environmental stewardship in the state. We need to do more to welcome folks like Kayla and others from states doing their part to improve our environmental outlook. 3. Congratulations to Generate Capital on their 10th anniversary of investing in sustainability. 4. Did you know there is a Climate Museum NY in the works? https://lnkd.in/eVQnDvas 5. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has ramped up its effort to connect private capital to companies with proven technology through its Office of Clean Energy Infrastructure. 6. MSCi data shows improving integrity in the carbon credit markets: https://lnkd.in/eC2Ji8kZ 7. Thanks to Macquarie Asset Management for hosting us in their new offices and for their ongoing support. Thinking of friends dealing with devastating weather and climate events especially over the past few days. Good to see my colleagues in NY last week: Trent Yang, Sarene Marshall, Alla Jezmir, Jennifer Von Bismarck.

I've grappled with how to sum up #NYCW24. It’s like trying to explain Manhattan in a handful of words. Especially during #ClimateWeek, NY is ever the melting pot City that Never Sleeps. The alphabet soup of climate and policy acronyms mixes with the Subway ABCs (and it feels like I rode most of them!). Nearly everyone loves the energy and hates the logistics. Many, nursing sore feet and strained budgets, have called for avoiding the UN General Assembly week to reduce the cost and chaos. In terms of the content, a few of my take aways are: ?? Money, Money, Money. So many events focused on how to ramp-up funding, “crowd in” private finance, increase access to capital, find the “missing trillions” Metabolic. Many general answers exist (like “blended finance” to de-risk projects EY), but the devil is in the details. One poignant observation was that “finance people are learning how to speak environment, and environmental people are learning how to speak finance.” That’s a critical step to bridging worldviews and business processes. I’m very glad to have worked on both sides of this gap, including at Galway Sustainable Capital, Inc, where we are aimed squarely at this crossroads of financing to accelerate change. ?? Beyond Politics. Investors and major companies were out in force, communicating that “climate risk is business risk” Ceres, Inc.. Hurricane Helene drives that point home, as does the scramble to secure power for data centers on hot days. ESG risks (and opportunities) in business cannot be ignored. Preventing investors from considering these issues is “like forcing businesses in the 1990s to keep using fax machines rather than embracing the internet.” We need to embrace the infrastructure of tomorrow, from renewable energy to efficient buildings. ?? Show me the Data. ?We all know “you can’t manage what you don’t measure.” Lots of efforts, such as Climate Arc are aimed at improving the availability and accessibility of data to support climate-smart decision-making. This is another place where the devil is in the details. SMEs – like some in Galway’s portfolio – may lack capacity to collect and report data at scale. Tailored solutions, such as Galway's implementation of Position Green, will be critical. ?? Youthful Optimism, and Creativity. Young people have a sizable stake in the changing climate. They showed up in innovative ways. From the Junk Kouture show (featuring designer pieces from waste) to spontaneous fossil fuel divestiture protests, they’re pushing for inclusive, equitable climate solutions that also address the intertwined challenges of waste, health, and nature. Glad to see so many others connecting these dots, including Keep America Beautiful?, Deloitte It was great to take part with my colleagues Trent Yang, Jennifer Simpson, Jennifer Von Bismarck, Alla Jezmir, see old friends Rane Cortez Jennifer Denney Lawson Andrew Deutz Joel Paque Gwen Obermeyer Liz Tuohy Groo, CFA, and make many new contacts. Now back to work...

What an amazing week NYCW was! So energizing to be there with so many passionate and dedicated folks from around the world trying to solve the biggest issue (climate) facing the world for the next 30+ years. A few highlights -- Mark Patel gave a heartfelt speech Super Climate on why we need to scale fast - both to solve the climate issue as well as to get these new solutions down the cost curve quickly -- for every 100x scale, we reduce cost 75%+ across all climate solution sets (great research McKinsey & Company); Sanjay Wagle and Jay Koh @ The Lightsmith Group for evangelizing (since 2017!) that we are not getting there fast enough and that we need adaptation (and possibly climate intervention) to give enough time for us to scale all the mitigation solutions; Tod Hynes for his leadership in driving global climate financing and scaling with the Global Climate Finance Centre and fun look back discussion with Neil Auerbach on the scaling of the wind industry. Also a shout out to my colleagues at Galway Sustainable Capital, Inc who were also at Climate Week - Jennifer Von Bismarck, Jennifer Simpson, Alla Jezmir, Sarene Marshall