You're listening to the reversing climate change, podcast by the team at Nori. The carbon removal Marketplace. This is a show about the innovators and entrepreneurs developing solutions to climate change. Hi everyone. This is Alexandra. Guerra from Nori, co-founder and director of corporate development for this bonus episode, we've invited Nicole. Systrom founder of Sutro Energy Group and the coal has written a
number. Article about the three ways CEOs can tackle climate change and build a net zero economy. So we thought we'd have a fun little conversation record it and share it with you guys. So that maybe you can inform Your Business Leaders on how we can achieve Net Zero economies through, changing our business practices. Hi Nicole, thanks for being here. Are you doing speak to be here? Yeah, we're great. So you wrote this thing, this three ways that you guys can
tackle climate change. It's on the world. Economic Forum will include a link into the show notes, but why? Can you tell us what are those three ways that we can tackle climate change? Sure. So, I guess I'd start by saying, I mean, I know your whole company is based around this
like climate is a problem. There's a role for a really everyone to play and I think it's been really heartening to see the corporate world start to really step up at least in a words over the past 12 months, I'd say. And now you know, the science is pointing us towards Kids, this is really the decade where we have to cut fifty percent of emissions in order to stay on track to hit our 2050 goals and and the corporate world really needs to start turning those
words into action. So that was really the motivation for writing this piece. And so the three outlined three ways that CEOs can really work on this. And the first one is supporting early-stage entrepreneurs in climate and climate technology and helping. The scales Solutions.
The second is lending climate innovators political Capital so helping early-stage companies really play in the political Arena where, you know, large corporations have a lot more infrastructure and experience and then finally making that 0, a part of your business strategy. So happy to dig into any of those that that are interesting.
Well, I thought it was really interesting that you had laid out one and two, so it's not just supporting early stage startups, financially, It's also about supporting them politically. I think that Rings? Really true for us because we see particularly within the space of carbon removal, that's one one part of the climate change space that it's very nascent and there's a lot that's constantly changing and shifting. So now there's the Biden Administration and they're
talking about a carbon bank. And, you know, we've been here three years trying to create a voluntary market, place for carbonyl with farmers and so like everything is constantly changing and we always want to be involved in those conversations but But that seems like something almost when I read that limited to businesses that are a little bit larger. So maybe a corporations that have some political pool or Capital as opposed to smaller organizations where maybe they
can't even help out in that way. Yeah, well, so I guess what I'm getting at here is from a climate Tech Innovation perspective, like many of these companies are there, small, right? And a lot of them are still working out of fear. I mean there's a lot of work to do just to get the technology developed or the business Innovation, you know like the financial Innovation whatever.
The the innovation of the company is it's like it's still these climate technology companies are still early in their life cycle and there's just a lot of hustle just so like do the work of the company itself but it's still important to remember that these all of these startups are happening within a political content within a policy context, within
a political context. I think, you know, maybe 10 years ago, 10, 15 years ago, on the kind of first round of what we call the Green Tech, then there was a lot of emphasis on the startup as a related to policy changes and like, how policy would affect the startup and a lot of business plans, a lot of companies got funded based on, you know, a carbon tax getting passed, like a future carbon tax, being passed and
then those things didn't happen. And I think investors and you know, entrepreneurs really got burned in their connection to policy, but I'm hopeful that we're sort of like the the circle is kind of coming back around right because we can't make The changes. We need to make as a global Society of the global economy without changing our laws and changing our policies. And I think a lot of startups
are realizing. Once again, your work with carbon removal is probably the best example is like how important policy is in order to get these companies, these early stage Climate Technologies, kind of kick-started and the way that we need them to be at the same time.
You know, most of the entrepreneurs of the early stages that I've met are they don't get into this because they know about policy, they get into it because they are passionate about climate in general, or they're passionate about
whatever technology. They have their technologists often at the very beginning and they don't, frankly have time to go figure out like, who to talk to in Washington, d.c. let alone, any one of the state government's if we're if we're speaking from a you know us perspective which I know this analogy extends to other countries around the world and a lot of larger companies do they do have their large enough to If you know, sort of whole regulatory, departments and, and
policy people on stand, and they Lobby all the time. Even they, they Lobby. They're very happy to Lobby on things that aren't necessarily directly in line with their business, you know, their business model, but it just seems to me like, there's an opportunity here.
I mean, at a minimum, what we need is the corporate world to stop lobbying against climate action, because there's a lot of that going on. Definitely, you know, companies and in the way and say, you know, oh, we can't do anything on climate because that will hurt us in some way, which it provides a lot of cover for policymakers to then not take the Bold action. We need to take.
So, I think at a minimum, we need to ask this kind of large, corporate lobbyists to stop lobbying against climate action. But then, furthermore, I think figuring out a way to, to lift up climate, technologists, and help them engage in the policy arena, in an effective way. I think can really help move the policy environment forward in a way that actually helps climate climate Tech get something done, right.
Because the other thing that I think can happen is those policy makers that are working on Innovation policy, which is, I think a lot of what were you and I are talking about at this moment. Like if innovators aren't part of that conversation, there's no guarantee that that policy gets made in a way that actually helps the innovator. That's exactly what I was going to say. It's really interesting because We're all playing a very essential role and we're all part of a crew really on this
one deck. So policymakers and Educators large established companies and corporations and we have to be communicating with each other and the unique role that early innovators or startups in the climate Tech, can space.
Or any space can play is that they can innovate and test because we have lower risk, we have lower Capital, we don't really have like a set A functioning a highly operating high-volume business model we can test and iterate and build new Solutions. That's something that policymakers can't do. And so yeah, it needs to be an open dialogue where learnings can be shared between the two and what the innovators learn or share, can be implemented or at
least considered in the policy that it's that's being made. I think that's my one concern is when policies. Do prescriptive. So I grant you you would take forever to innovate and fix the mistake of the assumption that you made in the policy that you wrote. If so, yeah, well I read like it's so rare.
I mean, maybe good policy. That's why we have professional policy makers like, you know, but because it is a hard thing to do. But, you know, it's like, I think about the 45 Q tax credit, right? Which is somebody people point to is like this is the, this is the policy, we have to support carbon removal.
But like if you're not A huge company like if you don't have a huge project that's removing massive amounts of carbon you can take advantage of it which stifles this whole carbon removal you know nascent industry we have so much Innovation going on. It's questions like that where like if innovators were at the table and I could say you know we have to lower this limit or how can we make this work so that it's more available to everyone.
Then I think you know we lift all the boats at once versus just like Chevron being the only company that's able to like take advantage of it, which I don't think is desirable for us to get where we're going. Yeah. Absolutely. Look. If I want to shift a little bit to the your point number three, which is make Net Zero part of a your business strategy. Yeah. Every business is different in its shape size, customers Market, what they're doing.
Can you tell us a little bit of some of the examples that you have seen to work to make Net Zero part of You run your business? Yeah, yeah, I think well maybe another way to State this make Net Zero. Part of your business strategy is my belief that like if you are a company you are a climate company. Like everyone needs to be asking, you know, if you are operating and doing business right now, you need to be asking
ourselves. The question of like, how does a change in climate affect what we do, and what can we do to be resilient to a changing climate and hopefully help mitigate against that climate. So I think, maybe One of the most public examples of this is Microsoft, right?
Like they do software, it's not like company that you're like oh there's a, you know, I guess their software, you know, running software consumes electricity and like they should be concerned about, you know, Energy Efficiency and that way, like fine. But, you know, I think Microsoft for actually for many decades now has been experimenting with different ways to bring climate into its work.
And innovate against it. I mean, they for a while they have an internal carbon tax but they sort of imposed on every business decision which I think is pretty wild. And Innovative. And now, you know, now they have a whole, they have a climate fund, they have a, you know, they just have a lot of people working on how climate should come into their decisions but also into their customers
decisions, right? And I think it's all from the perspective of, you know, we have a better more sustainable world than there's a better economy that helps Microsoft grow its earnings, right? So I, you know, I think every company can be Asking itself, what climate risk do? I have. And what opportunity do I have to to affect that and our benefit from some adopting, some kind of climate Innovation. I think just the very basic questions of, like, where are you cited?
How would a disaster affect your operations? Like what can you do to, to be resilient to that? Where do your people live? Are they safe starting from that? Basic perspective, makes a lot of sense to me and I also think You know, there's the kind of normal list of like, try to switch to renewable energy and do you know, become more efficient in your operation, which people should definitely do.
But I, you know, I think it's more, what the climate question really invites you to do is have take a broader long-term view on where your business is headed and and the impact it's having Beyond. May be just what you, you know, sell every day. I see the valley, what you're saying, right? Like, okay, one of the cofounders of a climate change startup so I'm not I'm going to disagree with with what you're stating here.
I'm going to push back a little where it's like, I don't know that every company or business should see themselves as a climate business. I think they should. It's kind of like it's interesting cuz we're seeing a shift, right? So before it was, how do I make? If I'm going to make a business, you know, it's to make money because that's the point or to have fulfilling work. Etc, I think we're seeing a shift now, especially in the Millennials where it's not just about the money.
Or the salary. It's through actual, like I belong. Do I feel like there's purpose in my work? What is the impact excetera? And we're seeing a shift in that way, which is good. So we could see a shift for more businesses make Net Zero part of their business strategy, but there are still. So I've been living in Peru for about six months and there's a lot of Industry, of course from there.
Because you have businesses who are taking Commodities and selling them to other foreign-owned organizations that then might sell them in the US or Europe or something. Right. And I wonder, you know, for those types where you have just communities that are just trying to survive like and we have a lot of that. Also in the US as well, like we have businesses that are just like, you know, they're trying to maintain their Community.
How do we speak to them in a way where it's like look, it's not a either or like how do we tie in climate when it just? So it's so separate from What the business owner owners are even thinking or the community is concerned about? Yeah, no I mean it's good that. I like the question it's a good push back. I guess what I would argue is that I'm encouraging people to at least ask the question, right to at least have it on their radar.
That this is a thing, I think, if you're a Fortune 500 company, like you should be having a lot of activity on this hands down. No, questions asked, right? I think what you're pointing to are these sort of smaller and Oddities and maybe in emerging economies where people are still kind of scrambling right to just to kind of make the business successful.
Which I for that group of people it may be enough to just have the conversation in your mind to start having the conversation and I haven't also tie it back to political power because I think one of the main reasons that policies on climate don't get past, is because of a storyline about how it's going to ruin an economy. How Switching to Renewables will be more expensive or regenerative, agricultural.
Practices would be more expensive and less people will have jobs and therefore, and, you know, that it's not. And then there's also the whole Trope of the problem with the developed world turning to the developing world, right?
And saying to emerging economies, like, don't develop those fossil fuel resources, you've got You're trying to like lift your country out of raised raised, the standard of living in your country and put, please leave all those resources in the ground that you have like, that's yes, totally agree. That's completely problematic. But what I, what I would argue again is people need to be asking the question and engaging in ways that they can, and where is that make sense to them?
I mean, it's not going to make sense for everyone to go all the way and like yeah, if you're a small business, like you don't need to hire a person to come up with a Climate strategy for what you're doing but I think there is some having the conversation asking the question, the more that we have this in our mind that, you know, in order for us to make the changes, we need to make, this is like a top-to-bottom, reorganization of
our economy. We have to decarbonize every last little corner of everything, and that route that is going to touch every business. Eventually maybe not tomorrow, but it will. Now I think you're absolutely right. And it's good response, which is all right. Just ask the question and maybe and I love that response. Mainly because it allows room for it to be non confrontational or to not be something that is threatening, right?
It's always strange when you ask these types of questions, because it might seem like We'll have to be one or the other. I have to like either give it all or or give Nan. And I don't think that the world is so black and white and we should at least give room for the idea and the exploration of what would happen if I were to consider this thing because I do care about it or I do believe it's important in some way and you are totally free not to take action on that.
But at least it's a gave some space in the more space. We allow for these types of conversations on how do we include climate Emmett in the decisions that we make everyday business or otherwise we will continue to as a society progress. But then there's always a question of time and urgency so well. So I think one of the hard the other sort of aspects of this conversation is like the focus on an individual company and like choices at that company level versus trying to change
the whole system. Right? And and I maybe that's part of what you're pointing to here is like a smaller company. It works within a system, right? Like it can't completely change how power is delivered you know or whether the trucks a company uses our gas powered or you know
electric right. But I definitely want to make the argument here that corporations, it corporations, just changed their mind, you know, about how to do something and we're all in on climate like this problem would be fixed. Like, that's not what I'm talking about. I think it's fine. Linking. It's a political power as well because that is event. That is actually how a system gets changed is you have to have policy but these two kind of things have to happen in tandem,
right? Like we need movement in the corporate sector, in whatever way makes sense for the company that, you know, you're a part of and running and some companies are larger larger Footprints of more power. They should be doing more versus a smaller company that you know is much more at the whim of the system around. It. But the more movement we generate within the corporate sector.
I think the easier it becomes repulses to move on, the kind of timeline that we're talking about, we need to have a move on. Yeah, again it goes. I think it goes back to the fact that there are key roles that we all play. In this effort, the private sector so corporations businesses, small medium size as well, innovators and entrepreneurs and startups and then policy makers themselves and the people who support them. So Ours, as well as consumers. We're all part of this.
And so having this having the space of the Forum to ask those questions and have those conversations is the key here and then and making those connections making space for them. So that again goes to your point. Number two, we I didn't even go into Point number one to me, I kind of just skipped over it because it's kind of like yeah I give give money to start up so let's just do a quick little. Let's just give some space to your point number 1 which is Fighting early-stage startups.
My point here is that, you know, especially if you're an established company You're typically not set up to have major game-changing Innovation. You're a large company with a lot of business lines and that business is to protect. And so the Innovation that you will do with in you are most likely to do within that within your corporate culture already
is more incremental, right? Like like a better widget you know a better dishwasher next time around a little more, efficient lawnmower that kind of thing. Versus, you know, what the study shows is that They're Sky Innovation, at least nowadays, really tends to come from with outside of large established businesses. And so, what I'm calling for here is the kinds of innovations that we will need for those kinds of innovations that we still need to address the climate crisis.
I'm encouraging those corporations with balance, sheets, or with philanthropy, to think about how to invest in and lift up, and support and partnered with these early stage companies in ways that help. Help, you know, move their products, forward move their development and help them scale. So that their products become the, you know, the climate tech companies that will probably become more widely available and therefore, we can have the impact that we hope they'll all
have. And then and then the other you know the other point is the Innovation pieces is forward-looking right but there are also solutions that already exist and encourage companies to get to think about how to help deploy those that are ready to go already. Because again, we're talking about decarbonizing every single corner of our economy. Every single Corner industry like that is it's a big task so yeah. So take some coordination. Yeah, great.
Well, I really appreciate you sharing some of your insights will include a link to the article that Nicole wrote. Thank you so much for your time here, Nicole. Oh, it was my pleasure. So fun to chat. Take care, you two. Thank you so much for listening. If you like the show, please rate and review it in apple podcast and or Stitcher. It really helps us a lot to get this content to a wider audience. If you think what we're doing is useful, interesting fun.
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