This Week in MCJ (5/29/21)
Is divesting the only way?
Hi all,
Another week in the books!
It was a busy one in the climate world, as they all seem to be these days. One specific piece of news that stood out in my mind is this one re: Exxon having 2 board members replaced due to not moving aggressively enough on climate action. As I have been getting up to speed on the problem of climate change and the best levers for action, the word “divest” comes up a lot. While divesting can certainly increase the cost of capital and put pressure on these companies to change, this news shows that divesting is not the only way, and that there are other levers such as shareholder activism that can, at minimum, be powerful complements.
What other examples are there of things the dominant narrative has been saying are non-negotiable that might not actually convey the whole story? Don’t get me wrong, the deep institutional knowledge from people that have been working on addressing the climate problem for a long time is essential and invaluable. But to me, this news shows that sometimes some fresh thinking can be helpful too.
On another note, check out these topic-specific curated playlists that Sarah made, grouping prior MCJ pod episodes!
The Future of Flight
Carbon Capture
Climatetech Incubators & Accelerators
There are so many now, that simply going through chronologically can be overwhelming. Hopefully this helps, thanks Sarah!
Have a good week, everyone.
Jason & Team MCJ
🎙Episodes
This week's episode is a fascinating discussion with Arch Rao, Founder & CEO of Span. Span is reinventing the home electrical panel. The existing home electrical panel has seen very little innovation over the last 75 years. Span is a smart digital electrical panel that makes it easier to integrate renewable energy and distributed energy resources into your home.
✨Highlights
Climate News this week! The Biden administration has quietly taken actions this month that will guarantee the drilling and burning of oil and gas for decades to come. This is a departure from President Biden’s pledge to aggressively cut the pollution from fossil fuels that is driving climate change. ExxonMobil faced a historical loss this week. The company conceded defeat on Wednesday afternoon in a months-long proxy battle, after the oil and gas giant lost a vote over the future of its board to a newly created investment firm. This week, JPMorgan Chase announced they will target more than $2.5 Trillion over 10 years to advance Climate Action and Sustainable Development. Whle this is undoubtedly good news, we should also remember the company has been one of the single most climate-damaging companies on the planet. They spent $317 Billion in fossil fuel funding from 2016-2020.
Above is an action shot from the hike that MCJers in Southern California went on last Saturday! If you’re in the Los Angeles area, check out the #so-cal channel for the next gathering.
💼Climate Jobs
Jobs, fellowships, and career opportunities shared by members of the MCJ community. More opportunities can be found in #climatejobs in the MCJ Slack. Check out this google doc!
📚Startup Resources
Resources, accelerators, and grants for startups and individuals.
On Deck’s Climate Tech fellowship is a 10-week program for participants with deep and diverse subject matter expertise to exchange ideas, accelerate each other’s careers, and build or join impactful climate tech organizations. The upcoming cohort starts on July 10th. You can apply here (it takes less than 5 minutes), and check out the website, FAQ, or register for a live Q&A session hosted on Tuesday, June 15th at 12 pm PST for more information.
👋 Welcome New MCJers!
You can learn more about new members on #introductions, where you can welcome them to the community. Don’t forget to check out the Member Directory, you can learn more about fellow members and find people to connect with.
Jake Harrison: Jake is a microbial geneticist and corporate innovation leader. Now pivoting to address the climate disaster and looking for solutions that scale.
Matthew Newton: Matthew is an egineering Mgr at Bloomberg, Board Member at The Knowledge House. Interested in solutions to climate change’s impact on urban communities.
Mike Barg: Mike recently started a company focused on reducing e-commerce waste through reusable packaging. He’s excited to be part of MCJ.
Zecca Lehn: Zecca is the General Partner of Responsibly Ventures; excited to be part of the community.
Max Shevyakov: Max is an active investor. Previously, he was the founding CEO of BorrowLenses, acq by Shutterfly. Max holds MS and BS in CS from Columbia University.
Andrew Dudley: CEO of conservation technology company Earth, and Co-Host of Earth Live. Hopes to connect with people passionate about conservation, sustainability and human rights.
Insiya Jafferjee: CEO and founder of Shellworks, passionate about natural materials as alternatives to plastic. Excited to connect with other climate nerds.
Andy Posner: Founder & CEO of Capital Good Fund, a nonprofit lender focused on using financial services to address poverty and climate change in America.
Luis Galdo: Luis has worked for the past 8 years developing technologies in the waste to energy market.
Arooshi Dahiya: Arooshi is the founder of Oleo. They’re making ESG reporting easy, time-efficient and accessible to all enterprises.
Jonah Wagner: An associate partner at McKinsey & Co, and recently decided to leave the firm to look for operating roles in cleantech.
Martin Daniel: Martin spent last 5y as a DS lead at Airbnb where he launched the AirClimate group. He recently started a ClimateTech company.
Lina Zhu: Lina currently works at Mosaic Materials focusing on DAC. Lina is excited to be part of MCJ.
Toby Kraus: Toby is a co-founder of Lightship an EV technology company focused on bringing RVs into the electric age.
Derek Meng: Derek currently works at an independent engineering firm providing technical due diligence on utility-scale energy storage project.
Olly Bolton: Based in Europe, Olly is the CEO at Earthly.org here and really excited to be a part of this community.
📌Community Board
News and initiatives from members of our community. MCJers mentioned can be DMed in Slack.
📚MCJ Bookclub will be reading The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. Check out Nitin’s post here!
🗽The NYC channel is planning a June meetup! Vote for a time that works for you here.
🔋Erika Reinhardt created the #electrification channel! If you’re interested, join the channel and learn more about electrification.
👩🏫MCJ June Office Hours! Looking for June mentors to host Office Hours. If you are interested in participating as a mentor please reach out to Sarah Adams via Slack DM or email.
🎟Climate Events
Check out the MCJ Calendar! We encourage members to host community events such as expert Q&As, book clubs, topic discussions, location-based meet-ups, and more! If you want to add your event to the calendar, email us the details at events@myclimatejourney.co. For third-party events, please use the #events channel in the MCJ slack!
Upcoming
MCJ Ideas Jam (Wednesday, June 2nd @ 12pm ET)
This is a monthly pitch event where MCJers pitch their climate business or idea to the community and guest experts. We’re pleased to announce this month that we have @Turab Bajwa from Closed Loop Ventures joining us as a guest expert. RSVP here!
MCJ Townhall (Thursday, June 3rd @ 3pm ET)
To accommodate for Memorial Day Weekend, we are adjusting the town hall. For those new to townhalls, this is an opportunity for MCJ to share the state of the community and what it's working on. Open to members and non-members! RSVP here!
DEI-Climate Justice Monthly Meet-up (Friday, June 4th @ 12pm ET)
Maki Tazawa and Charlotte Mallo host the monthly meetups for the #dei-climatejustice channel. All are welcome to join, share ideas and issues they are facing, and brainstorm on moving forward the dialogue on these important subjects. Please RSVP here!
Icebreaker: Meet an MCJer (Friday, June 4th @ 1pm ET)
Meet MCJers through several 10-min 1:1 casual conversations with a fellow community member, facilitated by the video chat platform Gatheround. RSVP here!
New Member Orientation (Friday, June 4th @3pm ET)
A weekly event to help onboard recently joined and existing members to the community. Attendees can expect a casual conversation about how to navigate the community. Please RSVP here!
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