The Impact Innovator | Issue 288

In this week's The Impact Innovator edition:

• White House Adds $6 Billion in Funding for Climate Resilience
• Blackrock Raises $1 Billion for Energy Transition-Focused Infrastructure Fund
• Rwanda: Triodos and Oikocredit Finance $10M for Arc’s Solar Mini-Grids
• Fashion Recycling Platform Supercircle Raises $7 Million
• Estonian Cleantech Efenco Nets €4.5M to Accelerate Transition to Low Carbon Technologies
• Asia Set for Experiment to End ‘Alphabet Soup’ of ESG Reporting
• This Flow Battery Startup Is Powering an Island – And a Greener Future?
• On’s New Running Clothes Are Made From Air Pollution
• Researchers 3D Printed and Deployed a Communication Satellite in 90 Min

White House Adds $6 Billion in Funding for Climate Resilience

The Biden-Harris administration announced $6 billion in investments for communities to strengthen climate resilience, as the United States continues to add to its sustainability initiatives.?The funding was unveiled simultaneously with the publication of the?Fifth National Climate Assessment. The report assessed changes in the climate, the impacts of global warming, and opportunities and risks of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.?The administration said the fresh wave of investments will fund an aging electric grid infrastructure, reduce flood risk to communities, support conservation efforts, and advance environmental justice. Plus, the funding covers new resources to boost climate resilience efforts.

Of the $6 billion, $3.9 billion is dedicated to strengthening and modernizing the nation’s electric grid. Some states, such as Vermont, have already taken steps to strengthen their own power grids in the face of extreme weather events exacerbated by climate change. Green Mountain Energy recently announced its plans to reduce power outages in Vermont by?deploying?energy storage batteries and microgrids, as well as undergrounding and storm-hardening of power lines. The new funding stems from the second under the?Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships?program, which targets grid flexibility and improving the resilience of the power system against climate change impacts and has $10.5 billion for the program.

Blackrock Raises $1 Billion for Energy Transition-Focused Infrastructure Fund

Investment giant BlackRock announced today that it has raised nearly $1 billion in client commitments at the initial close of its energy transition and energy security-focused Evergreen Infrastructure fund,?Launched in June 2022, fund is a core, open-ended infrastructure equity fund that focuses on investing in infrastructure businesses in Europe and North America aligned with the themes of energy transition and energy security, in addition to a focus on thematic sectors including transportation, digital infrastructure and the circular economy.?According to BlackRock, the fund aims to partner with infrastructure businesses looking for financing to support their evolution and growth through the decades-long energy transition, including working with portfolio companies on the implementation of decarbonization activities, and tracking assessing and reporting on progress over time.

The fund will also track Temperature Alignment Key Performance Indicators, helping the portfolio management team align the fund to a 1.5°C temperature rise scenario, BlackRock said.?The cornerstone commitments to the fund at the initial close came from several European institutional investors as part of the Fund’s European Founding Partners program.

Rwanda: Triodos and Oikocredit Finance $10M for Arc’s Solar Mini-Grids

In Rwanda, electricity access provider Arc Power has secured $10 million in financing for its electrification plan. It is being implemented mainly in rural communities.?Arc Power has funds to continue implementing its clean energy expansion plan in Rwanda. The London, UK-based company has just secured $10 million in funding from Dutch investment company Triodos Investment Management and its compatriot Oikocredit.?The funding will support the development of Arc Power’s activities in Rwanda, through its clean energy expansion plan. In its first phase, the company led by Karl Boyce aims to provide access to electricity for 100,000 people, or more than 30,000 Rwandan households.

The company installs off-grid solar systems to power households, mainly in rural communities. This approach is in line with the policy currently being implemented in Rwanda, which aims to accelerate electrification while reducing emissions linked to energy production. According to the state-owned Rwanda Energy Group (REG), at the end of September 2023, the cumulative (electricity) connectivity rate of households in Rwanda was 74.40%, of which 54.19% are connected to the national grid and 20.21% have access to off-grid systems, mainly solar.

Fashion Recycling Platform Supercircle Raises $7 Million

Fashion recycling platform SuperCircle has raised $7 million in a pre-series A financing round.?The reverse logistics business, which has developed a digital platform to make it easier for brands like Reformation and Uniqlo to collect, sort and ultimately recycle clothes at the end of their life, will use the funds to improve logistics infrastructure, accelerate brand partnerships and enable strategic hires across the business.?The company sits in an emerging space as fashion businesses come under increasing pressure to find solutions for the growing problem of clothing waste. In the US alone, the volume of textiles sent to landfill increased nearly 30 percent between 2010 and 2018 to reach more than 11 million tonnes, according to the country’s?Environmental Protection Agency. Policymakers in places like California and the European Union are considering legislation that would make brands responsible for collecting and managing this waste.

SuperCircle is aiming to be part of the connective tissue of infrastructure needed to effectively link consumers and brands back to recyclers. The company’s tech and logistics platform plugs into brands’ consumer-facing take-back and returns schemes to push inventory that can’t be sold to recycling partners. Brands get transparency over where their old clothes end up, avoiding the?risk of a scandal?if it’s discovered they’ve been destroyed or dumped, as well as new consumer touch points and data. Though weaker-expected demand for new circular materials has?shaken the market?for fashion recycling technology in recent weeks, infrastructure like SuperCircle is seeking to build tests different territory.

Estonian Cleantech Efenco Nets €4.5M to Accelerate Transition to Low Carbon Technologies

Estonian?cleantech startup Efenco, which slashes?carbon?emissions in critical industrial heat applications, has closed a total funding of €4.5 million. This includes a €1.3 million financing led by Ivo Remmelg for EstBAN Syndicate and €3.2 million in grants from the EU’s European Innovation Council (EIC) and Estonia’s Archimedes Foundation. In addition, Efenco has secured an equity commitment of €8 million via the European Investment Bank by 2026.?The funds will be used for product engineering and to integrate advanced materials ensuring durability, functionality, and compliance.?Based in Tallinn, Estonia, Efenco was co-founded by Kristjan Tiik, Aleksandr Nagornoy, and Aleksander Vlassov. It has created a chip/tile they call HERC (high-energy ray ceramic chip) which assists in generating plasma during combustion. This increases conversion efficiency by over 18%, meaning the same energy can be created with over 18% less CO2 emissions.?

Its goal is to help remove 77 million tonnes of global CO2 emissions by 2033 – equivalent to 416Twh of new clean energy, or 40% of the EU industrial heat sector’s annual consumption. Efenco’s cold-plasma-assisted combustion technology can be rolled-out rapidly in a business model that requires zero capital outlay. It is already improving the efficiency of conventional energy production in industrial boilers by 20%. Efenco believes its solution can improve the combustion efficiency of natural gas by up to 40% and of hydrogen by up to 75%. Unlike all other plasma-assisted combustion technologies, Efenco’s cold-plasma-assisted combustion technology does not require an external energy source. It uses waste heat generated by combustion to generate plasma and enhance reaction efficiency.? The startup has already delivered 20% energy and carbon savings for a major utility company in Tallinn and has a further eight commercial pilot projects lined up. Already, it has six commercial partners lined up for scale-commercial pilot projects, including Adven, Thermory, and Bepco. The first of these is targeting 1,000 hours of continuous operation.?

Asia Set for Experiment to End ‘Alphabet Soup’ of ESG Reporting

Two of the world’s most influential ESG standards bodies are working toward a common approach for disclosures, an effort to improve reporting, reduce costs and streamline due diligence for companies. The International Sustainability Standards Board and Global Reporting Initiative will jointly launch a pilot project in Singapore Monday to create common ground for Asian companies to report on their environmental, social and governance impacts. The initiative is the first of several planned collaborations between ISSB and GRI. With global ESG assets?on track?to exceed $53 trillion by 2025, making up more than a third of total assets, investors have been increasingly frustrated by the lack of standardization in sustainability reporting that has made it harder to judge a company’s ESG credentials.The goal, said GRI Chief Executive Officer Eelco van der Enden, is to demonstrate “that there is no longer effectively an alphabet soup when it comes to reporting. This will also contribute to tremendous cost reduction since the landscape becomes clearer.”

Currently, 81% of listed companies in the Asia-Pacific region report in line with GRI’s guidelines, which cover how companies impact people and the environment. In contrast, ISSB’s standards are more focused on how sustainability factors affect a company and its investors.?One of the advantages of aligning standards, proponents say, is in deal-making. Most investors now include ESG in their mergers-and-acquisitions strategies; in the due diligence process, material findings often led to deal cancellation, according to a KPMG?survey?of over 200 M&A practitioners in the U.S. and Europe, Middle East and Africa. The wide variety in ESG standards and disclosure guidelines currently available to companies muddies the deal-making landscape, said ISSB Chairperson Emmanuel Faber.

This Flow Battery Startup Is Powering an Island – And a Greener Future?

Imagine being able to power an entire island using clean energy. It’s a lofty ideal, but it’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. After all, the greentech sector is one of the?biggest growth areas?in the global innovation and startup space. Players are tapping into areas like clean energy, electric transportation, and agritech to address issues in sustainability and climate change.?For clean energy in particular to work, one component is indispensable: batteries.?The company is currently working on a project that will let its batteries provide the power needs of Jurong Island, an area southwest of mainland Singapore that houses the nation’s energy and chemicals industry.??The project started in 2022 when VFlowTech was awarded a grant to build, test, and deploy its VRFBs on Jurong Island.

The location presents many opportunities for clean energy to make a difference. After all, Jurong Island is essentially a massive industrial estate – home to refineries, factories, and offices that consume a large amount of power. VFlowTech comes into the picture as a storage solution for solar energy generated by other players on the island. According to Kumar, VFlowTech’s proprietary battery system, named PowerCube, has the capacity to supply a 50 kilowatt-hour (kWh) load for 24 hours per unit. For context, the average family in Singapore consumes?12 to 17 kWh?of electricity each day.? Within Jurong Island, VRFBs could be a better alternative to lithium-ion batteries, which currently encompass?more than 90%?of the global grid battery storage market. Vanadium-based batteries have a lifespan of up to 25 years without capacity loss. In contrast, a heavily cycled lithium-ion battery would have a lifespan of seven to 10 years.?He also points to the lower environmental impact of VRFBs, as fewer batteries need to be built in the long run.?Moreover, VRFBs are safer compared to their lithium counterparts, as the energy is stored separately from the converter. They also use liquid vanadium, which is not flammable – an important factor for a site like Jurong Island, where a fire could lead to large consequences.

On’s New Running Clothes Are Made From Air Pollution

Polyester clothing is made in a process that uses ethanol—and that ethanol is normally made from petroleum or gas. But a?new line?of T-shirts, tanks, and shorts from On, the Swiss sportswear brand, is made, in part, from carbon emissions instead.?On partnered with?LanzaTech, a biotech company that?uses bacteria to transform emissions into chemicals. The company captures gas from a steel mill in China and then feeds it to microbes inside bioreactors. The process—similar to brewing beer—creates byproducts that can be made into ethanol that then can be turned into polyester.?Last year, after six years of research, the company worked with LanzaTech to prototype a pair of sneakers with a?midsole also made from carbon emissions. Sixty-four percent of the material that the brand uses for apparel and accessories is already fossil-free; the new clothing, called the Pace collection, is a step forward in reaching that goal in technical sportswear.?The final material, which the company calls CleanCloud, is engineered into a performance fabric.??

The company explored a few different paths to make ethanol from carbon emissions, and chose to work with LanzaTech after analyzing scalability, time to market, the investment needed, and the total carbon footprint. Right now, it’s only possible to make a material from 20% recycled emissions. That’s because polyester is made with 20% ethylene glycol—the part made from ethanol—and 80% from another material,?PTA, that can’t be made from CO2. On is also exploring ways to de-fossilize PTA. Some other clothing brands have launched capsule collections in collaboration with LanzaTech—like?holiday dresses from Zara. But On wants to make the material an ongoing part of its supply chain.?

Researchers 3D Printed and Deployed a Communication Satellite in 90 Min

When an emergency strikes, establishing telecommunications in the area is a primary hurdle rescue workers face. Now, researchers at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) in Spain have devised a simple solution using 3D printing that can begin establishing telecommunications in as little as 90 minutes, a?university press release?said.?Broadband internet is so ubiquitous these days that one does not realize its importance until it becomes unavailable. From work to entertainment or staying in touch with family and friends, works on the backbone of high-speed internet delivered through a cable or wirelessly these days.?The seamless connectivity hits a major bump when an emergency, whether natural or manufactured, strikes. In recent history, the volcanic eruptions in Tonga and the Russian aggression in Ukraine left the locals scampering for basic connectivity until?Elon Musk's Starlink?stepped in to provide it using its constellation of satellites.?A research team led by Carlos Monzo Sanchez, from the Faculty of Computer Science, Multimedia, and Telecommunications at UOC, has demonstrated how a nanosatellite can be?3D printed?in just 90 minutes and deployed using a hot air balloon to establish communications in an affected area.?

The setup is relatively simple and consists of three components, two remaining on the ground. These pilot telecommunications and base stations must be deployed at the emergency location. A 3D printer can then be used to build a nanosatellite, also known as CubeSat, and then launched over the area using a hot air balloon. The CubeSat connects the two ground stations and works as a repeater, allowing ground users to communicate. All components in the system use Long Range (LoRa) radio technology, which can provide services over a vast area. The CubeSat can also be deployed with photovoltaic cells to operate autonomously for long periods. The solution is highly scalable, and more CubeSats can be added over the location to improve communication options in scenarios where existing infrastructure may have been heavily damaged or have become inoperational.? The researchers chose CubeSats owing to their small size and ease of deployment and retrieval. The launch route of the CubeSat using the hot air balloon can be mapped using computer simulations considering the weather conditions in the area. Moreover, the satellites can carry GPS to help locate and retrieve them once regular communication systems resume.