This Week in MCJ (10/3/20)
One foot in front of the other.
Hey everyone,
For as much as there is going on in the broader world, climate change is not a problem that is going away, so the best thing we can do is keep putting one foot in front of the other.
We had a great response to our recent member survey, and thank the many people that took the time to share their thoughts and feedback. There were several key takeaways we wanted to share:
~80% of members are active in the MCJ Slack each week, underscoring how the community is one of the central benefits of membership.
A focus on programs and events is the leading request from members, selected by ~65% of respondents.
Our Net Promoter Score is currently +60, which we view as signaling a high-satisfaction among members, and it represents a 10% improvement over Q2’s NPS (+54).
Not something we take for granted, and something we plan to monitor and report on over time so we (and you!) will always know where we stand. And if you aren’t a member yet and want to be, you can learn more here.
Until next week!
Jason
📼Episodes
Here’s this week’s episode, in case you missed it.
Episode 124: Nicolas Pinkowski, Co-Founder of Nitricity
Nicholas is a PhD student at Stanford in mechanical engineering, where he's focused on studying energy systems. He's also the co-founder of Nitricity, which produces ready-to-use nitrogen that uses only air, water and renewable electricity. Nicolas and his team recently won the MIT Clean Energy prize, at which I was a judge. One of the things the competition grants to the winner, in addition to money (which I'm sure he and the team care a lot more about), is to join me on an episode of the MCJ podcast.
We cover a lot in this episode, including how Nitricity came to be, the impetus for its founding, progress made to date, and some of the twists and turns along the way. We also discuss the company’s longterm vision and what's coming next. We also touch upon the experience of starting a company within an academic environment and the pros and cons of doing so. Finally, we delve into what society can do to foster more of this type of innovation, that holds promise of delivering both impact and profit.
📼Climate Tech Startup Series (CTSS)
CTSS is a new series for members, where we feature founders of early-stage companies, sharing their startup’s business and mission. Members can check out our recent episode below and find an updated list here.
CTSS Episode 11: Amperon with CTO & Co-Founder, Abe Stanway
Amperon provides real-time energy demand forecasting for energy retailers, utilities, grid operators and traders. Founded in 2017, the company is tackling the problem whereby energy retailers and utilities lose 8 - 12% of their revenues (on $200B sold) annually due to poor electricity demand intelligence. An outcome of this lack of demand visibility is billions lost in retailer margins, higher electricity costs, and inefficient grid operations that yield a greater carbon footprint. The problem is rooted in the analog meters that retailers use traditionally, as the data resolution is intermittent and prone to errors. Amperon addresses this by sourcing its data from smart meters, which provide a near real-time feed on demand and are 2-3x more accurate.
CTO Abe Stanway walks me through a company overview and how Amperon is helping energy stakeholders to maximize their revenues while driving efficiencies through the grid.
🗽Empire State of Mind
MCJer Meghan Bush, who helps lead the #nyc regional community, shared (PDF)the insights of a recent survey she conducted among members of her group. Of the many interesting findings was the broad domain and industry expertise represented: “Collectively, our climate domain expertise appears to skew broadly. Our skillsets tend to skew towards connecting and organizing, though we also have a fair share of builders/executors.”
💪 Womxn in Climate
With around 200 members (and growing!), #womxn-in-climate is one of the most active channels in MCJ. Our intention is to build a close community, and create a “place to share resources with, shine a spotlight on, and actively support and empower womxn working in climate.” We host monthly general meetups (next - 10/28/20), organize weekly offers & asks, and are creating monthly meetup for womxn founders (next - 10/7/20). MCJers Hannah Davis and Erin Delatte Lindgren lead the group. Please reach out to them if you have any questions or would like an invitation for our general or founder meetup!
👋Volunteers Wanted: MCJ Welcome Committee
Do you like meeting new MCJers? The MCJ Welcome Committee is looking for volunteers to greet new members on Slack and provide them with tips on navigating the community. If you’re interested, please DM committee leader, Brianna Miller, on Slack.
🏗 What You’re Building
Projects and ventures being pursued by fellow MCJers.
New newsletter: “The Instigator”
MCJer and former CEO of The Nature Conservancy, Mark Tercek, recently announced his newsletter, “The Instigator.” The newsletter is “aimed at tackling huge environmental challenges in ways that make business sense.”
⚖️ Share your Climate Justice stories
MCJer Maki Tazawa, whose interest in facilitating conversation around climate justice and diversity, equity & inclusion (DEI) led to the creation of #dei-climatejustice, started a thread around members’ individual experiences. If this topic speaks to you, we welcome your stories and perspectives.
👋 Welcome New MCJers!
Below are new members who joined the community and introduced themselves in the past week. You can learn more about them on #introductions, where you can welcome them to the community.
Sendhil Cheran: A physician (Radiologist) based in Raleigh, NC, Sendhil is an aspiring impact investor. Having made his inaugural investment in a lithium ion battery startup, he’s looking forward to meeting founders and exploring new opportunities.
Spencer Frasher: Based in NH, Spencer has a 15-year career in marketing (Google, Atlassian, Meraki). He’s happy to offer companies his expertise around storytelling.
Julien Soufflet: A consultant and project manager based in NYC, Julien is exploring new career opportunities related to climate and is eager to take on new projects.
Dionna Glaze: Working at Google in Seattle on next-gen cloud security products, Dionna spends her “20% time” on the “24/7 carbon free energy project.” Dionna is looking for climate allies at other cloud providers (Azure, AWS, Oracle).
Benjamin Cohen: From NY, Benjamin has a background in renewable energy and private equity and venture capital (in the U.S. and China). Currently, he leads strategy for a renewable energy SaaS startup.
Nathaniel Koloc: A talent consultant and executive recruiter focused on the restorative economy, Nathaniel operates his own firm and happy to offer free consultations. He’s looking for climate companies that are encountering challenges building their team.
Carolyn Ginder: Based in Washington D.C., Carolyn works at ecomedes (featured on CTSS) and is looking forward to meeting folks tackling the climate crisis.
Lindsay Baker: An environmentalist in the building industry, Lindsay was most recently the Head of Sustainability at WeWork. She’s currently a Sr. Fellow at the Rocky Mountain Institute, where she’s incubating a new advocacy nonprofit.
Aaron Ratner: Aaron works at a company that serves as a platform for development companies deploying climate tech solutions. He’s open to connecting on sustainable project finance and venture capital.
Mike DeFeo: A PM at Plaid with a background in finance, physics and electrical engineering, Mike is looking to connect with others around startup ideas related to energy electric power.
David Dean: Based in LA, David has a background in technology, startups, and operations is eager to orient his career around climate.
A warm welcome to the MCJ Community!
💼Climate Jobs
Here are some jobs shared by members of the MCJ community that we think might be of interest to you. Many of these opportunities and the MCJers who shared them can be found in #climatejobs in the MCJ Slack.
Analyst/Associate at Generate Capital in San Francisco, CA (job listing).
Lead Platform Engineer at Weave Grid (Remote) (job listing).
Industrial Venture Associate, Startup Success Manager at Third Derivative (various locations/remote) (careers page).
Various roles at The Good Food Institute (careers page).
Computer Vision Engineer at Glacier (job listing).
Lead Software Developer at Open Technologies (Remote/Metro-Vancouver) (job listing).
Senior Product Designer, Business Development Manager, Senior Data Scientist and Geospatial Data Engineer at Overstory (all Amterdam-based with exception to the BD role which is remote or U.S. based) (jobs page).
Data Engineer, Data Scientist at Climate Trace in London, U.K. (engineer listing; scientist listing).
Blue Carbon Finance Fellow at Conservation International in Arlington, VA (job listing).
☀️Report: Where Solar Matters
MCJer Laura Zapata, who co-founded Clearloop (featured in Ep. 114 with Gov. Phil Bredesen, President & Chairman), shared research her company performed to map out where investments for new solar projects should go in order to optimize for cleaning up the electricity grid. The results were featured in PV Magazine and CleanTechnica.
📢Climate News
Highlights of news this week related to climate change.
The New York Times reported on a series of research papers that support the viability of a joint collaboration between startup Commonwealth Fusion Systems and MIT in achieving sustained nuclear fusion. Additional information was published by MIT News and a fascinating thread developed on Twitter in response to the news.
People are still tweeting about the NYT's piece on the SPARC nuclear #fusionenergy release, so as a fusion PhD student I'm going to explain what it is and isn't... 🧵 nytimes.com/2020/09/29/cli…
The Wall Street Journal reported that Shell announced it would eliminate up to 9,000 jobs due to the continued drop in demand in oil resulting from the pandemic.
📰🎧Recommended Reading/Listening
Below are recently published articles and content that we find interesting and/or that were shared by fellow MCJers.
Decarbonizing Transportation: “Carbon Free Boston”
The New York Times: “What Made This a Record Fire Season? It Started With Lightning”
Financial Times: “Clean energy group NextEra surpasses ExxonMobil in market cap”
🎟Climate Events
As a reminder, we have a MCJ Events Calendar, where you can view and post events for the rest of the MCJ community to attend. When posting an event, please refer to this checklist.
*We’re highlighting a few upcoming events below; please refer to the events calendar for a complete list.*
Past
Elections as a Lever on Climate Action Series: “Making an impact in the 2020 Election”
We had a wonderful panel discussion on opportunities for taking action on climate by means of the ballot. Our deepest thanks to Eliza Nemser and the Climate Changemakers team for taking the lead in putting this entire series together as well as to the panel participants: Audrey Lee, Caroline Spears, and Cody Simms. You can view the recording here.
Upcoming
MCJ Ideas Jam (Wednesday, October 7th, 9 AM PST/ 12 PM EST / 4 PM GMT)
Nicolo Giorgi and Candice Ammori are hosting the fourth MCJ Ideas Jam. Come pitch your climate startup idea, provide your feedback on the ideas pitched, and/or spark your own ideas in the process. Our guest experts are first to give the pitchers feedback and helpful direction, and space will be opened for the general MCJ community to provide their feedback and collaborative ideas, both during the event and after.
Please RSVP here as a pitcher or general audience member.
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