Here is today’s sustainability, Net Zero and circular economy news, research and analysis. This daily update is designed for technology partners, management consultants, CIOs, chief sustainability officers (CSOs) and c-suite members.
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Our updates for Thursday, April 13, 2023 include…
A. Sustainability and Net-Zero Partnerships, Research & News
1. Software - IT Asset Management (ITAM): Device42 has expanded its IT asset management platform to feature Sustainability Insights -- which can help partners and customers to manage and reduce their carbon footprints.
2. Partnership - Arizona Energy Management: Franklin Energy, a provider of energy efficiency and grid optimization solutions, will implement residential and commercial energy efficiency services within the service areas of Tucson Electric Power and UniSource Energy Services.
3. Partnership - Microgrids: Schneider Electric and solar power expert GreenYellow have expanded their partnership and announced an Energy-as-a-Service (EaaS) microgrid solution, the companies said. Microgrids replace expensive, carbon-intensive electricity purchased from the grid with clean, self-generated and environmentally-friendly power sourced as solar photovoltaics (PV), the firm's said. The Microgrid service is available immediately in France, Spain, Portugal and Eastern Europe, Additional countries -- such as Germany along with parts of Benelux and the Nordics -- will "follow soon after," the companies said.
4. Partner Program - PepsiCo: The company launched the PepsiCo Partners for Tomorrow program to help customers achieve their sustainability goals. The initial launch will focus on U.S. customers with plans to expand the program to key global markets by 2024.
5. Talent - Chief Sustainability Officer: The Chemours Company, a global chemistry company, has named Amber Wellman as chief sustainability officer.
6. Research - Google Cloud Sustainability Survey: Executives fear that greenwashing and economic headwinds will stall sustainability progress, according to the Google Cloud Sustainability Survey 2023, which was conducted by The Harris Poll.
7. Research - Green Data Center Forecast: The U.S. Green data center market is expected to reach $24.20 billion by 2028, up from $13.79 billion in 2022, according to Research and Markets. That's a compound annual growth rate of 9.82%, the report said.
8. Research - Missed Banking Deadlines: Many financial institutions have pledged to eliminate carbon emissions by 2050, but a new report finds the biggest U.S. banks will fall short on their interim 2030 targets to reduce oil-and-gas emissions, Barron's Reported.
9. Research - Clean Energy Trend: A surge of clean electricity is set to cover new power demand globally this year, bringing within reach the Paris-aligned sustainable energy goals set by the International Energy Agency, The Wall Street Journal reported.
10. Research - Consumer Goods Companies, IT Spending and Sustainability: Consumer goods companies are boosting their technology budgets by 34% to align sustainability and operations and drive growth, according to a study from IBM and The Consumer Goods Forum.
11. Virginia - Green Energy Center: Green Energy Partners of Virginia (GEP) has secured 641 acres in Surry County, Virginia, and plans to create the nation's "first fully integrated Green Energy Center," the company said. The Surry Green Energy Center (SGEC) will include 1-gigawatt of data centers, a Green Hydrogen Hub, and four to six small modular reactors (SMRs) -- each generating on the order of 250 MWe. The SGEC may also incorporate energy storage capabilities to balance supply and demand at the fully integrated site, GEP said.
12. Home Solar Services: Sunrun has launched Sunrun Shift, a "new home solar subscription offering that maximizes the value of solar energy under California's new solar policy" known as the net billing tariff, the company said. By storing self-generated solar energy throughout the day, Shift "optimizes potential customer savings of going solar by increasing self-consumption during peak hours when rates are highest and reducing low-value exports back to the grid through the use of a new storage configuration," the company added.
B. Sustainability Funding, Financing, Mergers & Acquisitions
1. M&A - Cloud Services and Renewable Energy: Aruba, Italy’s largest cloud services provider, has acquired two hydroelectric power plants with a total capacity of 2MW, CloudTech reported.
2. Funding - Direct Air Capture (DAC) Startup: Noya PBC, a San Francisco-based climate tech company deploying Direct Air Capture projects to remove CO2 emissions from the atmosphere, has raised $11 million in Series A financing. The round was led by Union Square Ventures and Collaborative Fund, with participation from Lowercarbon Capital, Fifty Years, MCJ Collective, EQT Foundation, Climate Capital, Nexwell Group, and a confidential university endowment.
3. Funding - Clean Energy Accelerator FuelX, LiNa Energy and Solaires Entreprises have joined the Halliburton Labs clean energy accelerator.
4. Funding - Electric Vehicle (EV) Supply Chain: Energy Exploration Technologies -- which specializes in North America's Lithium supply for electric vehicle batteries -- has raised $50 million in Series B funding -- led by General Motors' venture capital arm (GM Ventures).
5. Funding - HVAC Efficiency: Conduit Tech, a start-up working to accelerate installation of high-efficiency HVAC systems, has raised Seed financing led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV) with participation from Emerson Collective, Picus Capital, Pear VC, and Collab Fund. The financial details were not disclosed. Conduit Tech is "building tools to help contractors design, sell and install high performance systems," the company asserts.
6. Funding - Smart Buildings Software: Infogrid, which develops sustainability focused smart building technology, has raised $90 million in fresh equity and converting CLNs (credit-linked notes), and a further $30 million of debt facilities in Series B funding. Funding came from Original Capital, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Northzone, TVC, JLL Spark, Committed Capital, Pictet, and several others.
C. Sustainability and Net-Zero Government Policies & Regional News
1. Latin America: Sphera and ERM partnered to deliver ESG solutions in Latin America.
2. Puerto Rico - Lawsuit: The U.S. federal government’s disaster response agency -- FEMA -- is being sued over its plans to rebuild Puerto Rico’s power grid in a way that limits a transition to renewable energy, according to conservation and community groups, NBC News reported.
3. Africa - Funding: Nedbank Group Ltd. has increased its green finance pipeline to more than 10 billion rand ($548 million) as more South African businesses invest in private power generation after the government lifted restrictions to help resolve the country’s energy crisis, Bloomberg reported.
4. Singapore - Partnership: Microsoft, together with Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and SGTech, have launched the Singapore GreenTech Challenge 2023. This nationwide challenge aims to "accelerate the development and use of innovative sustainability solutions in Singapore, as the nation makes progress on its green plan and works towards getting to net zero by 2050," Microsoft said.
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