The Impact Innovator | Issue 276
In this week's The Impact Innovator edition:
Tim Cook and a surprisingly stone-cold Mother Nature had a staring contest at Apple Park during the Wonderlust event Tuesday. And in Apple’s telling, Tim Cook won.?He played himself in the keynote segment while Octavia Spencer, star of the canceled?Truth Be Told?on Apple TV+, played a feisty Mother Nature taking executives to task on environmental-initiative progress.?But in the end she chilled out, because Apple had some progress to show, including its first carbon-neutral products.??Apple’s first-ever carbon-neutral products come in the new Apple Watch lineup. It credited innovations in design and clean energy with reducing product emissions of “over 75% for each carbon neutral Apple Watch.”?These include?Apple Watch Series 9?in aluminum when paired with Sport Loop and?Apple Watch Ultra 2?when paired with Trail Loop. Those specific bands saw carbon reductions.
It’s an important stop along the way to Apple’s 2030 goal to make every product carbon neutral, including the global supply chain and the lifetime use of every device.? Apple noted other steps it has taken toward Apple 2023, and for the environment more broadly:
Microsoft?announced a deal yesterday (Sep. 7)?to purchase up to 315,000 metric tons of carbon?dioxide?removal over the next ten years. The deal is a bet not?only on carbon capture, a?polarizing technology, but also on Heirloom, a California startup that captures?CO2?directly from the air.?Heirloom “harnesses the natural properties of limestone” to “capture CO2?pollution from the atmosphere and permanently store it in a range of ways,?including in concrete,” a?press release stated.?Heirloom claims that its?technology?accelerates limestone’s natural ability to absorb CO2?from the air “from years to days.”
For Microsoft,?315,000 tons represents just a?drop in the ocean when it comes to fulfilling its?ambition?of?becoming carbon negative by 2030—at which point it hopes to?remove more?CO2?from the air than it produces. (At present, Microsoft emits the equivalent of 13 million tons of?CO2?every year.)?For Heirloom and the carbon capture industry at large, though,?Microsoft’s?investment could be a game-changer. In addition to the intangible?but invaluable vote of confidence, Microsoft’s?multi-year investment equips Heirloom—which has the only Direct Air Capture (DAC) facility in North America—with funding and stability to “finance...our rapid scale-up, fueling exponential growth like what we’ve seen in the renewable energy industry,” said Shashank Samala, the CEO of?Heirloom.
Apple?strongly believes” that companies’ corporate climate emissions disclosures should include the emissions that come from their supply chain, or what’s called Scope 3 emissions.?That’s according to a letter sent from?Mike Foulkes, Apple’s director of state and local government affairs, to?Scott Wiener, one of the California state senators?who?introduced Senate Bill 253, which would require business entities with annual revenues exceeding $1 billion to publicly disclose the greenhouse gas emissions associated with their operations.?
Scope 1 emissions are classified as those released from sources that are owned by an organization, including the emissions associated with burning fuel that goes into boilers, furnaces and vehicles. The Scope 2 grade are the indirect greenhouse gas emissions that a company incurs from such processes as buying electricity, heating and cooling buildings. Scope 3 emissions come from a company’s supply chain, or value chain, and are difficult to track. They tend to be the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions associated with a company.?Senate Bill 253?would require California to pass regulations by 2025 to require businesses with more than $1 billion in revenue to publicly disclose their Scope 1 and 2 emissions to a reporting organization starting in 2026. Affected companies would then be required to report their Scope 3 data starting in 2027. The bill also requires the state to review these rules in 2029 and update them “as necessary” by 2030.?In the letter, Apple acknowledges some amount of uncertainty in reporting Scope 3 emissions due to available data at this time.
Investors including?KKR & Co.?are providing more than $1 billion of fresh capital to Zenobe Energy Ltd. as the British battery storage and vehicle electrification company looks to expand in North America and Australia. London-based Zenobe landed $750 million from KKR and an additional $340 million from?M&G Plc’s Infracapital arm, which is an existing investor, the firm said in a statement Thursday. It plans to use the money on projects from electrifying yellow school buses in the US to building batteries in Scotland to ensure wind power doesn’t go to waste.?“We’re looking at fleet electrification opportunities and opportunities for grid-scale batteries across the world,” Zenobe co-founder Nicholas Beatty said in an interview. “KKR is very well linked into all sorts of people in North America that we could only dream of assisting us to expand our business there.” Alberto Signori, an infrastructure partner at KKR, said the firm is looking to support regional champions like Zenobe as they scale up globally. The investment is the first from KKR’s new strategy focused on the energy transition.
As part of its climate strategy, KKR will look to invest in renewable power, energy storage and waste-to-energy, while also committing capital to new areas like transport solutions as well as energy efficiency and management systems, Signori said. It also plans to help accelerate the transition of higher-emitting assets, like traditional utilities and industrial infrastructure, he said.?Zenobe currently employs more than 200 people in the UK, Australasia, continental Europe and North America. It’s worked on the electrification of about 70 electric bus depots and supports the operations of about 1,000 buses, including for Mobico Group Plc’s National Express in the UK and private bus operator Ventura in Australia.
While, the global flexible packaging market, worth over €200 billion annually, mostly relies on plastics, making up 70% of its materials, now many companies are shifting towards?sustainable?packaging to create a circular economy.??Finnish startup Paptic aims to?replace plastic?in nearly half of these cases with renewable and recyclable materials. They recently secured €23 million in Series A funding from the European Circular Bioeconomy Fund (ECBF), Ecolab, and Itochu Fibre Ltd.??This investment will help Paptic expand its material range, increase global availability, serve customers better, and scale its foam-based manufacturing technology. It also supports Paptic’s goal to be carbon-neutral by 2030.?While, the global flexible packaging market, worth over €200 billion annually, mostly relies on plastics, making up 70% of its materials, now many companies are shifting towards?sustainable?packaging to create a circular economy.
Finnish startup Paptic aims to?replace plastic?in nearly half of these cases with renewable and recyclable materials. They recently secured €23 million in Series A funding from the European Circular Bioeconomy Fund (ECBF), Ecolab, and Itochu Fibre Ltd.? This investment will help Paptic expand its material range, increase global availability, serve customers better, and scale its foam-based manufacturing technology. It also supports Paptic’s goal to be carbon-neutral by 2030.?The Finland-based company was founded in 2015 by Esa Torniainen, Karita Kinnunen-Raudaskoski, and Tuomas Mustonen and have gained recognition for their work in the toy industry, where they’ve replaced single-use plastic in pouches with Paptic material made from wood fibres. This fibre-based and recyclable material allows for the creation of a genuinely sustainable vegetable packaging solution. It encompasses all sustainability aspects, including the substrate, design, printing, and inks.
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The US-based company Ascend Elements, which specialises in the production of new battery materials derived from recycling, has generated a further $542 million in capital from investors.?Last year, Ascend Elements had already?raised $300 million?and secured two grants from the US Department of Energy totalling $480 million. With the fresh capital from the now completed D-financing round, the company will press ahead with the construction of its?factory in Hopkinsville?in the US state of Kentucky.?In June, Ascend Elements announced a?major order?worth up to 5 billion US dollars. Ascend further states that is has “achieved several significant milestones” over the last twelve months,” including signing its first commercial-scale pCAM contract, starting construction of?its Apex 1 facility, and securing two US Department of Energy (DOE) grants.”
As Ascend Elements states, the funding will be used to advance the construction of Ascend Elements’ ‘Apex 1’ facility in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, which is planned to be North America’s first sustainable cathode precursor (pCAM) and cathode active material (CAM) manufacturing facility, which will then be used in batteries. In order to keep up with competition from China, “Ascend Elements is commercializing an ultra-efficient method to make sustainable pCAM and CAM from black mass.” The company’s patented ‘Hydro-to-Cathode direct precursor synthesis process’ is said to eliminate multiple intermediary steps in the manufacturing process, thus providing significant economic and carbon-reduction benefits, “reducing carbon emissions by up to 93%.”
Global metals company Boston Metal has raised a whopping $262 million in a Series C funding round in part to help decarbonize the steelmaking process.?The Boston-based company plans to use the funding to accelerate its high-value metals business and grow its team globally. Boston Metals also aims to commercially demonstrate its molten oxide electrolysis (MOE) platform for decarbonized steelmaking.??The funding comes as the metals and mining sectors are facing pressures to decarbonize and reduce their carbon footprint through more sustainable production methods and improved efficiency. Boston Metal is developing a scalable technology that uses electricity to produce a variety of metals and alloys from feedstock.
Its MOE platform specifically has a lower environmental impact and is more energy efficient, and the company is deploying MOE to extract high-value metals from complex, low-concentration materials currently considered waste. It can create high-quality liquid steel from medium- and low-grade iron ores, which are more abundant. Namely, Boston Metal is using the MOE process for low-carbon emissions steel that eliminates Scope 1 and 2 emissions. Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions from steelmaking currently account for approximately 10% of global CO2 emissions. Investors in the funding round include Aramco Ventures, the corporate venture arm of Aramco; global investment manager M&G Investments; natural resource investment firm Goehring & Rozencwajg; and investment management firm Baillie Gifford. Breakthrough Energy Ventures, an existing investor, also participated in the round. Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund, BHP Ventures, and Prelude Ventures made additional investments in the funding round.
Britain will commit to provide $2 billion to the Green Climate Fund (GCF) to help developing countries cope with climate change, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Sunday at the G20 Leaders Summit in New Delhi.?The pledge would be the biggest single funding commitment the UK has made to date to help the world tackle climate change, a government statement said.?The Green Climate Fund (GFC) - the world’s largest such fund - was set up under United Nations' climate change negotiations to help channel money needed by poor states to meet their targets to reduce carbon emissions, develop cleaner energy sources and adjust to a warming world.?Britain has committed to spend 11.6 billion pounds ($14.46 billion) on international climate finance between 2021 and 2026.
"Today’s pledge represents a 12.7% increase on the UK’s previous contribution to the GCF for the period of 2020-2023," Sunak's office said in a statement. In July, the Guardian reported the country was planning to drop its flagship climate funding pledge, but the British government said those claims were?false. Government officials calculated it would have to spend 83% of the total aid budget on the international climate fund to meet the 11.6 billion pound target by 2026. The Group of 20 nations adopted a wide-ranging declaration on Saturday that including reiterating its?commitment?to scale up sustainable finance to help developing countries reduce their carbon footprints. It said $5.8-5.9 trillion is required by developing countries before 2030, in particular for their needs to implement their emission targets.
I discovered?Long Wharf Supply Co., makers of maritime-inspired knitwear in coastal Massachusetts, on a digital dive using some of my favorite search query strings—New England, fall, sweaters. From there, it didn’t take long to learn that founder Mike Lamagna has a thing for oysters, using yarns spun from their shells to create his SeaWell collection of sweaters and tees.?The oyster-threaded knitwear is perfectly safe for people with shellfish allergies.??Leveraging a patented nanotechnology, recycled oyster shells are processed to calcium carbonate powder and combined with pellets derived from recycled polyethylene terephthalate plastic (PET) water bottles. An extrusion process fuses together both recycled materials to create an rPET thread (recycled polyethylene terephthalate), enabling each garment to divert approximately five oyster shells, a waste of valuable biomaterial, and eight plastic water bottles from landfills, where about 60 million end up every day.?In the final stage, the rPET thread is spun with cotton or lambswool in different weights, depending on whether the finished garment is designed to be light and breathable or chunky and warm. Although Lamagna initially offered sweaters in a traditional ultra-warm lambswool as well as cotton, he has since converted most of the SeaWell line to his proprietary blend of 60% cotton and 40% rPET, developed to create a soft, breathable finished garment.?
In 2023, Lamagna expects to approach $10M in sales through DTC as well as wholesale to a small group of independent retailers, up almost 500% year to date. But it hasn’t always been smooth sailing.?Each SeaWell Sweater reseeds up to 30 oysters, naturally filtering up to 1,500 gallons of seawater every day. “To date, we’ve helped reseed over 900,000 oysters which naturally filter over 45million gallons of seawater every day,” Lamagna says. “And we’re imminently expecting to reach our 1 millionth oyster, helping filter 50 million gallons of seawater every day. That’s a huge milestone for Long Wharf, and over time, those oysters begin to grow on each other, reproducing naturally to form a wild reef that will filter these inshore waterways and harbors for years to come.”
Capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it, also known as?carbon sequestration, is one of many methods to mitigate climate change. Carbon dioxide is usually?stored?in underground geologic formations or biologic forms like forests, soils, or oceans through various methods. In a new research, scientists found that applying basalt dust in croplands can effectively sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide at the gigaton scale.?When silicate rocks like basalt get in contact with rainwater, the chemical process of weathering occurs, which removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and converts it into products that are transported and then stored in the ocean. Natural weathering can be?accelerated?by grinding silicate rocks into fine particles and applying them to the soil, thereby increasing the surface area and absorbing more carbon dioxide. This process is called enhanced rock weathering (ERW).??Meanwhile, the capacity of BECCS—which extracts bioenergy from biomass and stores its carbon dioxide emissions in underground geologic formations to prevent release—may eventually?decrease?because of the effects of climate change on crop yields and biomass feedstocks.
In comparison, ERW is compatible with existing farmland and is readily scalable by utilizing pre-existing agricultural infrastructure, says Zhang. The method also comes with ecological co-benefits. He adds that ERW can reduce the carbon footprint associated with fertilizer production,?mitigate?nitrous oxide emissions from the soil,?improve?soil pH levels and nutrient absorption, and?increase?crop yields as a result.?The inappropriate handling of finely ground basalt during the application can result in?airborne particulate emissions, thus posing a risk to?local air quality. There is also potential for nutrient accumulation in water systems as weathered minerals from ERW flow downstream, which could exacerbate issues like?eutrophication. Moreover, developing countries often lack the necessary infrastructure for large-scale processing and deployment of basalt, says Zhang. Addressing these issues is crucial before implementing ERW more widely.?Zhang suggests several ways to navigate these barriers. When it comes to research, regulatory standards for MRV can be crafted by the scientific community and ratified by relevant government agencies. Public investment can also focus on upgrading infrastructure and advancing agricultural systems, while the private sector can invest in technologies that enhance the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of ERW. Overall, exploring the potential of ERW remains worthwhile because its effectiveness as a carbon sequestration method may be resilient to future climatic changes.
The economics of space travel make an often-glossed-over aspect of human life complicated— human health. Sure, medicines taken to space from Earth could treat a common cold. But what if the concern were more serious, like a bone injury??Interesting Engineering?has previously written about the?five major challenges?to healthcare in space, one of which is distance from the Earth. Keeping astronauts safe, sane, and healthy during long-term missions has fueled a demand for space-based healthcare.?Redwire Corporation, a leader in space infrastructure, announced a milestone that could transform this very aspect: a human knee meniscus 3D printed with bioink using its upgraded 3D BioFabrication Facility (BFF) on the?International Space Station?(ISS). This facility allows for the printing with a variety of human cells, which isn’t possible in the presence of gravity.?Following the successful 3D printing in July, the print returned to the Earth onboard the?SpaceX?Crew-6 Mission to be thoroughly analyzed, after spending 14 days on the ISS where it was cultured in Redwire’s Advanced Space Experiment Processor (ADSEP).
This collaborative effort was conducted as part of the BFF-Meniscus-2 Investigation in partnership with the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences Center for Biotechnology (4D Bio3), a biomedical research center dedicated to exploring and adapting promising biotechnologies for the benefit of warfighters. The investigation was carried out by a team of accomplished astronauts, including?NASA's Frank Rubio, Warren "Woody" Hoburg, Stephen Bowen, and UAE astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi.?Redwire's 3D bioprinting achievement is just one facet of the company's expanding portfolio of innovative space technologies. The company has established 20 research facilities on the ISS, with 10 currently operational, dedicated to advancing research in low-Earth orbit (LEO).
Redwire recently unveiled plans to inaugurate a 30,000-square-foot microgravity payload development facility, complete with a mission operations center at the Novaparke Innovation & Technology Campus in Floyd County, Indiana— a strategic move to bolster its capabilities. This facility in the United States of America aims to ramp up the production of critical technologies that support human spaceflight missions and commercial microgravity research and development in LEO. Looking ahead, Redwire is gearing up for the SpaceX CRS-29 resupply mission to the ISS scheduled for November. The company will launch microgravity research payloads focusing on pharmaceutical drug development and?regenerative medicine. Interestingly, this effort will also include an experiment involving the bioprinting of cardiac tissue, a demonstration of Redwire's commitment to pushing the boundaries of space-based biotechnology.