#2. DAO structures; how ReFI can finance climate change (IMF, WEF); Ecological ecosystem restoration
Frank Meehan
Improvability AI Chair | IC SparkLabs Cultiv8 - Climate, Food, AgTech VC | Ex Board Director @ Spotify, Siri, Lifesum | SparkLabs Group Co-Founder
Welcome to Brave New Earth - my newsletter about Climate Tech, Decentralised Finance and DAOs.
It’s born out of my long experience investing in, and building solutions for, the climate, sustainability and web3 sectors - and my strong belief that DeFi can really power the financing of the brave new founders and innovators that are both improving the planet and scaling valuable businesses. This newsletter will explore that intersection of climate and crypto - delving into the most exciting climate, sustainable solutions, insights and news across the sectors.
Thanks to everyone that's subscribed to date. In this edition, I focus more into DAO structures, how DeFi/ReFi can finance climate solutions (by the WEF and IMF), and delve specifically into more sustainable solutions for the agricultural sector.
DeFi/DAO's
If you are in the DAO community you've probably seen this post from Vitalik, about the three types of organizations where decentralization is important.
It's a very detailed and interesting read - highly recommended. I've highlighted a diagram from the post about an ideal structure for DAOs, with autonomous pods and a decentralised/diverse core governance.
A timely post by Michael Casey Chief Content Officer at CoinDesk, published by the International Monetary Fund .
The core thesis of the article is that we need to recognize "that the world’s insufficient response to our energy crisis is not a failure of technology—it’s a failure of funding" and that "the financial innovation spurred by the open-source developer communities of DeFi and crypto" can help solve this. Something the Brave New Earth team are working on already...
A brilliant article on the same theme was published yesterday by the Ev?n Cheikosman who is is the Policy Analyst for the World Economic Forum 's Crypto Impact & Sustainability Accelerator #cisa.
Evin's dives into how "Web3 climate tools and services share values inherent to ReFi and are foundational to the scale of global coordination needed to tackle climate change" - and I've highlighted an excellent diagram below from Evin's article about ecological economics.
Other reads:
A great Substack on ReFi for Climate by Alex Filotimo - a particular highlight is #17 a deep dive into regenerative Web3 startups.
领英推荐
Blockchain takes on Climate Change by the team at Coinchange
Messari Raises $35M to expand the "Bloomberg of cypto" One of our earliest Web3 investments - Messari raises $35m to continue to give investors "a clearer picture of the crypto landscape, while laying the groundwork for a future era where much of the current corporate compliance and reporting regime will become unnecessary" Ryan Selkis
Climate Solutions: Agriculture and Ecosystems
Dendra Systems uses drone technology and AI developed over several years to provide ecosystem restoration - particularly after mining and construction projects - using targeted drone seeding programs and predictive insights.
PepsiCo last year pledged to “spread regenerative farming” across 7 million acres by the end of the decade, and to sustainably source 100% of its key ingredients and crops by the same date. In the first 12 months of the new strategy, however, it inched a mere 345,000 acres towards its goal. Oliver highlights how Jim Andrews, CSO at PepsiCo, has implemented "fundamental, centre-of-the-plate business transformation and established a network of farms showcasing regenerative farming to other farmers, and helping loans and grants to cover the upfront costs involved in transitioning to a regenerative approach. A truly active and far reaching program focused on real supply chain change.
A report by the Environmental Defense Fund. The US alone must cut agricultural emissions by 23% to hit climate change targets, and that's why so much more investment is needed into sustainable agricultural and food tech - and the core thesis behind our Cultiv8 fund with over 36 investments in the sector already.
Decarbonizing Grocery by McKisnsey's Bartosz Jesse and team.
Virginia Tech Receives $80M grant for pilot programs on regenerative farming by Courtney Mabeus-Brown
About me
Since 2017, I’ve been working in the climate and sustainability sector, starting with co-founding SparkLabs/Cultiv8 Ventures in 2017, which has 36 investments in sustainable agriculture/food tech and climate tech. We've just started deploying our second fund into the Ag/Food tech sectors.
I also co-founded Equilibrium.ai in Jan 2020, which developed a comprehensive climate/ESG data management platform for corporates, which we self funded until Aug 2021 when we were acquired by FiscalNote.com - who subsequently became a public company on the NYSE in August 2022.
I am currently running the climate and ESG business for FiscalNote; also am an investment partner for Cultiv8 Ventures; and a core contributor for BraveNewDAO.earth. The views in this newsletter are mine, and not representative of any of the above compani
Vice President @ Vericap | MSc Climate Change & Finance @ Imperial
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