š CAT Newsletter 223 - 2024-06-09
Hey CATs,
Welcome to issue 223 of the ClimateAction.tech (CAT) Newsletter - your weekly summary of what's happening inside the CAT community, and in the wider world of climate and tech. New to CAT or looking to re-discover the community? Try outĀ our onboarding checklist.
Remember you can unsubscribe from this newsletter at any time - the link is at the bottom.
Stay safe & healthy š š š±
CAT Community News
š Get involved
Our fundedĀ mini grantĀ projectĀ "How to become a Climate-Conscious Product Manager" case studies and CAT conferenceĀ is looking for case studies - practical examples to bring the theory to life and inspire action. Do you know of a cool actions towards making a digital product and/or organization more climate conscious and more sustainable (successfully or not)? MessageĀ @FranƧois BurraĀ orĀ @Antoine Cabot!
#ļøā£ Slack channel highlights
#2-greener-software:Ā JĀ shared thoughts on the latest Green IO Podcast episode whereĀ JĀ with S and GĀ discuss how to trigger more actions among tech people to reduce the carbon footprint of our code and explored how the Nordic countries handle the environmental footprint of digital technology.
#3-questions-and-ideas:Ā AĀ andĀ A discussed a peer to peer internetĀ that serves from phones and laptops and computers all around the world (ideally from 100% green powered places).
ā¤ļø Help a CAT
NĀ asked aĀ Denmark specific question: is there any official site or source to find out which type of electricity an el provider (e.g. Norlys) is providing or which electricity mix this company is buying from the market?nCĀ is looking for resources or data sets listing alternative routes to current flights which can be replaced by train.Ā Any pointers?
JĀ is researching the climate chat bot space and is looking for a good place to find common questions people have about the climate (ideally paired with accurate answers).Ā Reply in the thread!
Local highlights
#local-italy:Ā FĀ shared theĀ 2024.bettersoftware.itĀ conference happening in October! Maybe a good chance for some CATs to meet?
#local-new-england:Ā RĀ said hi!
#local-new-york:Ā MĀ is a lead for the Climate Emergency Day campaign, at Climate Clock and is looking for collaborators!
š§ Knowledge base deepdive
Greener Data & AI: Curious about the environmental impacts of LLMs such as ChatGPT? Log into the CAT knowledge base with your CAT Slack account to explore articles, papers, and other resources related to greener machine learning. And help a fellow CAT make greener choices by adding your own recommendations.
š CAT events
Lots of local and in-person events were shared in this week:Ā #local-australiaĀ #local-californiaĀ #local-franceĀ #local-germanyĀ #local-londonĀ #local-netherlandsĀ #local-italyĀ #local-switzerlandĀ #local-uk
š© Community networking
Get to know other CATs and make some friends in the community. Every 2 weeks, we match 2-3 CATs so you can connect over a quick 30-minute call. Simply joinĀ #cat-roulette, pick your region and wait for a message fromĀ DonutĀ about your match! Our next round of matches will go out onĀ Fri, June 21. More info
Media, events, and news
šŗ CAT recommendations
š± A cutting from Branch issue 8
Solarpunk Meets Better Business: Reimagining a Sustainable Digital Future
"In a world hurtling towards environmental catastrophe, business as usual is no longer an option. The digital sector, with its heavy reliance on fossil fuels and ever-increasing carbon footprint, has been a significant contributor to the multiple existential crises ā or 'polycrisis' ā we now face. But what if we could reimagine our relationship with technology and the environment? What if we could create a world where business, technology, and nature are in harmony?"
ā¶ļø CAT videos
10-15 minute videos providing accessible explainers to climate related issues.
Planet A: The problem with recycling electric car batteries
For years, we have been promised that batteries from electric vehicles are recyclable. With eye-watering efficiencies of more than 90% of recovered materials such as nickel, cobalt and lithium. In a lab environment yes, but are these numbers actually achievable on a commercial scale?
š¤Ā Podcasts
The latest climate-related podcast episodes. Don't forget, if you're looking around, there's a list of podcasts maintained by CATs
Outrage and Optimism: 248. Cheaper, Faster, Better: How We'll Win the Climate War
This week, Christiana, Tom and Paul bring the politics with a discussion on the upcoming UK election. Our hosts chat to Tom Steyer, Co-Executive Chair of Galvanize Climate Solutions, a mission-driven investment platform, about clean power S-curves, the Climate War and Texas.
Christiana questions whether economic competitiveness will win over "political tentacles" in the urgent timeframe we face, particularly in the context of Trump's current position of advantage in the US electoral race. Tune in to hear what Tom Steyer and our co-hosts think.
Catalyst with Shayle Khan: Drew Baglino on Tesla's Master Plan
In this episode, Shayle talks to one of the executives behind the Tesla's Master Plan Part 3, laying out the company's model for a decarbonized economy - making the case for why it's economically viable.
Environment Variables: The Week in Green Software: Building Green Software 2
In this episode of the TWiGS, host Chris Adams welcomes back Anne Currie, Sara Bergman, and Sarah Hsu, authors of the book Building Green Software. They dive into the latest updates and hot topics at the intersection of sustainability and software engineering. The discussion highlights the importance of making software and hardware more efficient and explores cutting-edge topics like serverless computing on Kubernetes with WebAssembly, the circular economy for electronics, and the potential for dynamic pricing in cloud services based on renewable energy availability.
Green IO #40 - Triggering action in green software: a Nordic perspective with Satu Heikinheimo and Janne Kalliola
Why do we do so little to decarbonize software despite already knowing so much? šļø In this episode, Gael Duez is joined by Janne Kalliola, author of "Green Code," together with Satu Heikinheimo, Planet Diplomats' founder, to discuss how to trigger more actions among Tech people to reduce the carbon footprint of our code
Carbon Copy: AI's main constraint: Energy, not chips
As hyperscalers scramble to build new data centers, experts agree that energy is a major bottleneck ā but the technologies exist to serve new loads cleanly.
So, are growing concerns over AI's power demand justified? How are they contributing to America's growing hunger for electricity? And what technologies and grid management techniques can address it?
Drilled Media: The Coordinated Attack on Shareholder Activism
The backlash against ESG is continuing, with a string of lawsuits aimed at shutting down shareholder activism. We don't often talk about shareholder activism in the vein of protecting protest, but it's absolutely part of the story. Andrew Behar, CEO of shareholder advocacy group As You Sow, joins us to explain what's going on, and why anyone who cares about basic rights needs to be tuning into the ESG fight.
š Submitted events
Want an event listed here? Use this event listing form to submit the details so we can add it in the newsletter.
Thu Jun 27 2024 - TEDxSydney Salon ā Net Positive: Visions of a Net Zero Future for Australia
Somewhere between the dystopian visions of ecosystem collapse and unrealistic utopian fantasies, the roots of Australia's Net Zero future are already taking hold.
Tue Oct 08 2024 - The Global Nature Positive Summit 2024
Global Nature Positive Summit aims to boost private sector investment to protect and repair our environment. With a focus on solutions to climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss.
š° News Highlights
ClimateVoices: Featuring Holly Alpine
"In this issue, I'm pleased to be interviewing Holly Alpine (nƩe Beale), who founded, developed, and led the global Community Environmental Sustainability program for Microsoft's Datacenter Community Development team. Holly also co-founded and co-led Microsoft's Sustainability Connected Community (SCC), a group of 10,000+ employees leading positive environmental change at every level of the company." Holly spent years working internally to stop the firm helping the oil and gas industry drill, before leaving this year..
BBC: Ban fossil fuel ads to save climate, says UN chief
The world's fossil fuel industries should be banned from advertising to help save the world from climate change, the head of the United Nations said on Wednesday. UN Secretary General AntĆ³nio Guterres called coal, oil and gas corporations the "godfathers of climate chaos" who had distorted the truth and deceived the public for decades. Just as tobacco advertising was banned because of the threat to health, the same should now apply to fossil fuels, he said.
The Guardian: Corporations invested in carbon offsets that were 'likely junk', analysis says
Some of the world's most profitable ā and most polluting corporations ā have invested in carbon offset projects that have fundamental failings and are "probably junk", suggesting industry claims about greenhouse gas reductions were likely overblown. Delta, Gucci, Volkswagen, ExxonMobil, Disney, easyJet and NestlĆ© are among the major corporations to have purchased millions of carbon credits from climate friendly projects that are "likely junk" or worthless when it comes to offsetting their greenhouse gas emissions, according to a classification system developed by Corporate Accountability, a non-profit, transnational corporate watchdog.
Green Web Foundation: Understanding the latest Sustainable Web Design Model update
In this post, we cover why and how these changes have been made by the Sustaianble Web Design Model team, how that affects the estimation results when using the updated methodology, and how we plan to implement these changes for use in our open-source CO2.js library.
Interesting Engineering: Tree-based batteries to power Europe's fight against China's lithium dominance
Finland-based Stora Enso, one of the world's largest owners of private forests, has a sustainable solution to the world's increasing demand for energy storage: batteries made from trees. Currently, anodes in most batteries are made from graphite, whose supply is controlled by China. By using a material that is a by-product of another industrial process, the companies aim to set up a more stable and consistent supply chain for the production of anodes in Europe.
Climate Action Network Europe: Election Parliament Scoreboard
The EU Parliament Scoreboard looks at the individual voting behaviour of every MEP during the 2019-2024 legislative term and scores them against the voting recommendations of the five European environmental organisations. This provides a measure of each MEPs commitment to environmental sustainability ā with the result being a score out of 100. Results are aggregated in the scoreboard for political groups and national parties represented in the European Parliament.
Climate Court: TUI's "Fair Friday" Campaign Ruled Misleading: Greenwashing Through Greener Hotels Can't Mask Flight Impact
As part of its Fair Travel campaign, TUI added ā¬2 to every booking, payable by the consumer, and would double it to ā¬4 itself, in order to fund its sustainable commitments and initiatives (including sustainable aviation fuels). The Dutch Advertising Code Committee agreed with the complainants here, stating that regardless of the small financial contribution, flying as a mode of travel continues to negatively impact our climate. Nor could such a small contribution ever go towards building a more sustainable future, as claimed by TUI
The Register: Contrary to its fine print, Google says it won't confiscate repair returns that have unapproved parts
Google has disavowed language in its terms'n'conditions that says the Pixel and Chromebook giant will confiscate devices sent in for repairs that contain unapproved parts. The Register asked Google, which likes to celebrate its commitment to sustainability, to explain its rationale for refusing to return devices with unapproved parts, whether the policy existed prior to the July 19, 2023 date on its Terms & Conditions page, and whether it will provide any data on the number of times service has been refused for devices with unapproved parts. In response, a Google spokesperson said it won't do what its policy says.
Jobs
Remember only jobs listing salary ranges are listed here - to get your job listed, you need to list a salary range. Folks can still look in the #jobs channel.
Open Energy Transition - Full-stack/Backend/Frontend Software Engineer - EUR 40-80K/year for full-stack/backend, 30-60K for frontend/UX - Permanent - Totally remote
Open Energy Transition is a non-profit energy tech company that uses and develops open-source software solutions and contributes to open data to accelerate the world's transition to sustainable, accessible and reliable energy. Our goal is to increase the pace and reduce the cost of energy system planning decisions through open collaboration and innovation. We are looking to hire 2 software engineers for two projects: a cloud compute solution for solving large energy models, and a solver benchmark website that compares various OSS/proprietary solvers on energy modelling benchmarks. The goal is to build robust, secure, and efficient open-source software to be used for energy and climate modelling and play a part in accelerating the climate transition.
Marble - Founder in Residence, Geothermal - Anywhere - 2.5-3K per month - Contract - Flexible - remote ok
Dive into the geothermal revolution and help unlock clean, sustainable energy for our planet. We're on the hunt for entrepreneurial engineers/scientists from geothermal, oil & gas, or similar sectors. If you're passionate about innovation and ready to explore cutting-edge approaches to power the net zero economy, we want you.
PowerX.co - Senior Full Stack Software Engineer - $136,000 to $204,000 - Permanent -
PowerX is building energy management solutions for businesses, starting with restaurants. We believe that by equipping restaurants with the best tools to use less energy and save money, we can tackle climate change, one store at a time. PowerX is seeking a Senior Full Stack Software Engineer to play a foundational technical role in our product journey. In this role, you will be tasked with developing our product, which includes collaborating with other engineers, product owners, designers, and data team to architect, implement, and maintain new and existing features.
Salesforce - Director, Tech Sustainability - NYC: $172,200 to $290,500; Seattle: $157,900 to $266,300; SF: $172,200 to $290,500 - Permanent - Onsite only
The Tech Sustainability Lead will spearhead Salesforce's T&P Sustainability program, guiding the company towards our ambitious emissions reduction goal, ensuring compliance with evolving regulations, all while fostering innovation.
BlueConduit - Data Scientist - $125-145K - Permanent -
BlueConduit was founded in 2019 in response to the Flint water crisis. First in Flint, and then across the country, we pioneered the predictive modeling approach to lead service line identification and replacement, accelerating the removal of this significant health concern and saving communities millions of dollars in avoided digs. We are passionate about using data science and AI for public good, improving social equity, and protecting the environment, and are now working in new ways to help serve communities' needs outside lead service line replacement.
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