š CAT Newsletter 235 - 2024-09-01
CAT 235 - 2024-09-01
Hey CATs,
Welcome to issue 235 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§ Knowledge base deepdive
CAT Mini Grants: Did you know you that any CAT member can apply for a mini grant for projects that advance climate advocacy and benefit the community? Check out this public knowledge base page for additional details on project eligibility, the evaluation process, and how to apply!
#ļøā£ Slack channel highlights
#greener-webdev:Ā MĀ started a thread about how CATs got interested in the topic of greener web development! Have a read through the answers so far and/or join the conversation inĀ the thread.
#greener-infra:Ā OĀ asked forĀ opinions on Amazons sustainability reportsĀ andĀ shared a quote from the Goldman Sachs report.
#greener-data-ai:Ā PĀ shared anĀ article on sustainable AI. Have a read andĀ share your thoughts in the thread.
ā¤ļø Help a CAT
BĀ is looking for charities or companies inĀ #local-ukĀ who accept donations of cables.Ā Any pointers?
PĀ asked whether there's a no-code website builder that creates lightweight websites without being bloated with unnecessary code.Ā NĀ sharedĀ SproutĀ andĀ NĀ andĀ DĀ also suggested some alternatives.Ā Any more thoughts from anyone?
š CAT events
Thu, Sep 19 - London [in-person]:Ā Green IO ConferenceĀ where CAT will have a booth and participate in the NGO roundtable
Other local events events were shared inĀ #local-chicago,Ā #local-denver,Ā #local-latin-america,Ā #local-london,Ā #local-netherlands, andĀ #local-san-francisco-bay-area.
š© Community networking
#cat-roulette will be back in September. 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, Sep 6th. More info
Media, events, and news
šŗ CAT recommendations
š± A cutting from Branch issue 8
The perfect data paradox
"If you don't want to be a pioneer, these reasons for avoiding using imperfect data will serve you well. They are answers that are routinely used when lobbying, when answering customer demands for emissions data and when satisfying your investors.
But, if you hear them, or you're thinking about speaking them ā remember that there are others who have already chosen solutions over avoidance, and there are many more lining up behind them.Ā "
ā¶ļø CAT videos
10-15 minute videos providing accessible explainers to climate related issues.
Planet A: How can we harness gravity to solve our energy needs?
Gravity batteries are a new big hope for storing excess renewable electricity. The idea is ingenious. Does it pass the reality check?
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
Volts: EV charging for urban neighborhoods?
Access to charging is a barrier to EV adoption for folks without a driveway or a garage, but what if charging your car in an urban area was as easy as charging your phone? Enter startup Itselectric, which has developed curbside level-2 chargers that connect to building electric panels, making installation quick and efficient. In this episode, co-founder and COO Tiya Gordon discusses the companyās award-winning charger design and vision for a future of ubiquitous urban charging.
Zero: The greenest reason to drill: clean power that's always on
Before he founded the geothermal startup Fervo in 2017, Tim Latimer was a drilling engineer for the oil and gas industry ā a job he loved. āHonestly, if it wasn't for climate change, I probably wouldnāt have ever changed my career,ā he says this week on Zero. Now Latimer is applying his drilling know-how to Fervoās wells, supercharging their energy production in the process. The company opened its first power plant in Nevada late in 2023, and is now in the process of opening another plant in Utah. Latimer and Akshat Rathi chat about opportunities in geothermal, the infernal permitting process, and why Fervo has its sights on expanding into Kenya, Indonesia, Turkey and the Philippines.
Catalyst with Shayle Khan: Making sense of gas flaring
Oil producers waste a lot of natural gas. Last year they flared 150 billion cubic meters of associated gas into the atmosphere, equivalent to about half the global carbon emissions of aviation over a 30-year period.
In this episode, Shayle talks to TomĆ”s de Oliveira Bredariol, an energy and environmental policy analyst focused on methane at the IEA. So far, multiple major global initiatives havenāt made a dent in flare volumes, which have remained largely flat since 2010. Shayle and TomĆ”s talk about the reasons why and the potential solutions.
Environment Variables: Green Software with Gaƫl Amongst the Whales
Host Chris Adams is joined once again by Gaƫl Duez to discuss the latest news in green software around AI. They discuss insights from recent reports by Google, Meta, and Amazon, as well as looking at the implementation of the GSF's Software Carbon Intensity metric. Similarly, the conversation touches on the distribution of renewable energies and the use of different means of measuring carbon in reporting, and how this can affect the behavior of consumers and organizations alike. Tune in for an enlightening discussion on the latest in green software
Green IO #43 - Digital sustainability in a Tech behemoth: Japan with Trista Bridges and Paul Beddie
How can a country defining itself as an high-tech spearheader can embrace IT sustainability? Japan is a fascinating example of both the contradictions and the synergies that such a journey creates. In this episode, Gael Duez welcomes two long-time Japan-based experts: Paul Beddie, VP and Sustainability Lead at Capgemini, and Trista Bridges, the co-author of Leading Sustainably, and a member of EcoVadis' Purpose Committee. Their exchange on IT sustainability initiatives in Japan led to many takeaways including: the stakeholder-oriented nature of Japanese society, the emergence of Japanese startups focusing on sustainability, the role of regulations in driving sustainability efforts in Japan, And much more.
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.
Tue Sep 17 2024 - How to Build a Culture of Inclusion at Your Startup
Join us to hear from Rachel Crowther, founder of Squash. In the fast-paced world of climate startups, itās easy to overlook the importance of an inclusive culture. However, diverse teams are more creative, resilient and agile.
Thu Sep 19 2024 - Green IO London
The go-to conference for responsible technologists in London. Get the latest insights from thought leaders in Tech Sustainability and hands-on feedback from practitioners scaling Green IT.
Thu Sep 19 2024 - How to: Embrace Imperfect Climate Action - with Sami Grover
Join Sami Grover, writer and author of 'We Are All Climate Hypocrites Now' to explore how embracing our limitations can unlock the power of a movement. Sami will help us move past blame, shame and carbon footprints to practical pathways to action that actually make a difference.
Wed Oct 02 2024 - BBC Climate Creatives Conference 2024
Climate Creatives returns for its fourth annual conference in association with BBC Academy Fusion.
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.
Fri Oct 11 2024 - Better Software
Italian Conference about Sustainable IT
Mon Oct 14 2024 - SxSW Sydney
From a grassroots start in Austin TX, 1987 to a new, second home in Sydney Australia. Tech Innovation with track focus on Energy, Climate & Sustainability
Tue Dec 10 2024 - RIPE GreenTech Hackathon
Hi CATs! We are co-organising a Green Tech Hackathon for the RIPE community to help make IT more sustainable (with both technical and non-technical ideas). Please register if interested! When?: 10-11 December | Where? Amsterdam & Online | Registration deadline? 30 September
Thu Sep 19 2024 - Green IO London
The go-to conference where responsible technologists based in South-East Asia can get the latest insights from thought leaders in Tech Sustainability and hands-on feedback from practitioners scaling Green IT.
š° News Highlights
Grist: The forgotten fight to ban gas-powered cars in the 1960s
Half a century ago, an obscure state senator fought to ban gas-powered cars ā and almost won.
Today, as the fight to ban the internal combustion engine is in the headlines once again, the story of Nicholas Petrisā fight for an emissions-free engine is instructive: It takes state pressure to get industry to shoulder the expense of innovating cleanly, and it takes public pressure to turn a zany bill into a national movement. Conversely, however, even national popularity can fail to realize legislative or legal success in the face of concerted industry opposition.
Carbon Brief: Five charts - How climate change is driving up food prices around the world
Global food prices have seen huge fluctuations in recent years, soaring to record highs in 2022 before dropping in 2023 and rising again slowly this year. Carbon Brief has produced five charts ā each focused on a specific area (Europe, UK, USA, Mediterranean and China) ā to show how climate change can impact food production and price.
Irish Times: Google plan for new data centre rejected in face of electricity supply pinch
South Dublin County Council cites insufficient national grid capacity and lack of renewable energy among its reasons for refusal.
The refusal comes amid a growing backlash against data centres here amid a spike in the amount of energy they use at a time when Ireland is struggling to meet its targets to cut carbon emissions. Data centres used about 21 per cent of all electricity generated in the State last year, according to the Central Statistics Office, compared to 5 per cent in 2015. That number is expected to hit 27 per cent by 2028.
Medium: Cathleen Berger - 2024 progress on the climate pledges of tech companies. And then there came AI.
Mozilla Corporation's former Head of Environmental Sustainabilty's on the recent set of reports from the largest tech companies globally, and their
"Last year, only two major tech companies were still increasing their absolute GHG emissions and the rest seemed to slowly stir in a positive direction ā even if still falling shorting of their climate commitments and required reductions. Now, the āAI-ficationā of everything has uprooted (and shattered) much of the desperately needed reductions. Climate commitments? Not on the current trajectory."
The Economist: Why Texas Republicans are souring on crypto
Playing the stateās energy market has become more profitable than mining bitcoin.
"Many crypto miners, including Riot, signed contracts with energy suppliers that locked them into fixed rates for up to a decade. On the hottest and coldest days, when demand for electricity peaks and the price soars, the bitcoin miners either sell power back to providers at a profit or stop mining for a fee, paid by ERCOT. Doing so has become more lucrative than mining itself. In August 2023 Riot collected $32m from curtailing mining and just $8.6m from selling bitcoin."
Datacentre Dynamics: Meta data center electricity consumption hits 14,975GWh, leased data center use nearly doubles
Meta is aggressively building out its data center footprint, with capex hitting $8.5 billion in the last quarter. It expects costs to rise over the next year as it develops its generative AI infrastructure.
Video: An experience report with Mastercard - Making Cloud Sustainability Actionable with FinOps
Mike Jaco and Vik Saluja of Mastercard share an experience report of how Mastercard gathers and analyzes its cloud carbon-focused cost and usage data, and what actions they believe practitioners should take to better inform leadership of cloud sustainability issues. _Editor's note: This video provides a rare gliumpse of how these projects work - it outlines how Mastercard used an external team to help them choose tooling, how much they saved in cash and carbon, and some of the challenges they faced. _
Green Coding IO: When does it make sense to replace old hardware from a CO2 impact perspective?
A friend recently sent me a news headline in which a company is promoting that they will use their servers 15 years. While this initially sounds like a great idea, once you think about it, for a little while, you realize modern servers are far more energy efficient than old ones. This got me thinking, when is the point where the energy efficiency of the modern server outweighs the embodied carbon of the new machine.
Green Web Foundation: EU sustainability regulation experts: can you help us?
We're excited to get to work on our recently funded project by the European Commission's Next Generation Internet Search Initiative to address the lack of transparency/discoverability of environmental sustainability data.
We think we have some good ideas on how to create a burgeoning data eco-system to solve this problem building on our carbon.txt prototype. For this project's first stage, running until 30th Sept 2024, we're looking for expertise on the EU's CSRD sustainability regulations and how they will be adopted in practice.\n
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. Remember: if you're looking for advice finding a role, check our #climate-careers 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.
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.
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.
Verna - Software Engineers (multiple) - circa Ā£70k + share options - Permanent - Totally remote
Verna builds software to help people manage land in the best way for the environment ā enhancing biodiversity and drawing down carbon, whilst making sustainable returns. Our main B2B SaaS product supports ecologists and planning professionals to ensure that developments enhance nature. Verna has been backed by the UK Government and investors including Octopus Ventures. We have substantial, and growing, revenues and reserves.
We are looking for two software engineers to expand our product development team. We seek talented, flexible, creative engineers who are happy to get stuck into all aspects of developing compelling, effective, and accessible product experiences.
Like ecosystems, teams are more vibrant, innovative, and resilient when they are more diverse. We welcome applications from everyone, and particularly people from under-represented groups of every kind.
Fresh Food Connect - Board Member - Volunteer
Fresh Food Connect is a nationwide nonprofit that mobilizes gardeners to support hunger relief through homegrown produce donations. We're looking to expand our board this year and would love to consider a CAT community member.
Are you passionate about food/ag systems, hunger relief, gardening, local climate solutions, and/or community building? Do you have experience in tech development, strategic partnerships, legal, or finance? If so, please consider applying! Bonus if you're in San Diego or Seattle, our next two expansion cities.
Zendo - CTO Co-founder - Monthly stipend (Ā£2.2k) until first investment round in Nov + Equity - Permanent - Onsite only
We are an early stage (pre-seed) energy tech startup on a mission to mitigate the climate impacts of AI. We believe in a greener, fairer and more resilient energy system, which we can achieve through software solutions that help data centres optimise energy consumption, monetise spare capacity and support the grid.
We are seeking a CTO co-founder who is passionate about this space to join our team and lead the development of our technology platform and infrastructure. We are currently on a VC-backed venture builder in London. See JD for qualifications!
Icebreaker One - Senior Project Manager - Up to Ā£550/day - Contract - Totally remote
Icebreaker One is a non-profit that helps organisations across the economy share data more effectively to achieve their net-zero targets. Our programmes are collaborative efforts with a wide range of stakeholders to develop legal, technical and procedural solutions for trusted data sharing. We have been successful in winning new projects for the second half of 2024 and consequently need an experienced project manager to join our existing PM team to ensure our work is delivered on time and within scope.
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