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Singapore renewable energy finance firm Positive Energy scales back as Covid stymies investment

Posted on by dishanth
Singapore renewable energy finance firm Positive Energy scales back as Covid stymies investment

The startup endured a tough 2020, shed staff and its co-founder relocated to the Netherlands as the firm’s only remaining employee. The startup’s struggles reflect the difficulties of renewables entrepreneurship in the Covid era.

Singapore-based renewable energy financing company Positive Energy has scaled back operations after enduring a difficult year impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Positive Energy is a digital platform that connects renewable energy projects to investors, and aims to simplify and speed-up renewable energy project financing. Founded in 2017, the Asia-focused firm makes money by taking a cut of deals made on its platform.

Having raised seed funding and launched the platform in 2019, the firm ran into difficulties after failing to secure further financing in 2020. The platform was suspended late last year, and the company let go employees in Singapore, where it was headquartered, as well as business heads in Vietnam and India.

Co-founder and chief finance officer Vincent Bakker joined another firm at the start of this year. Co-founder and chief executive Nicolas Payen is now the sole employee, and has relocated from Singapore to the Netherlands.

Positive Energy recently landed a waste-to-energy deal that saved the company, and the platform is up and running again, Payen told Eco-Business.

Positive Energy is not the only player in the renewables space to face difficulties over the last year. The pandemic has applied the brakes to development capital, and investors have pulled back in emerging markets, meaning fewer potential deals to run on Positive Energy’s platform. The Covid-induced fall in electricity demand has also slowed the planning and execution of energy deals.

Payen said that although 2021 still presented uncertainties, if Covid vaccinations are rolled out quickly, a return to peak energy demand would follow, and that would mean a need for additional clean energy generation and investment.

“We have seen a number of countries declare net zero ambitions, and a lot of investment will be oriented towards climate friendly technology. So the fundamentals of our business are very strong,” he said.

“We will see growing momentum among climate technology venture capitalists this year. If we get the capital support we need, we can play our role in the energy transition.”

Payen said he remained focused on the company’s mission — rethinking the energy funding process to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy assets globally.

 

By Robin Hicks
Source EcoBusiness 

Oxford Offsetting Principles: Academics launch new guidelines for carbon offsetting

Posted on by dishanth
Oxford Offsetting Principles: Academics launch new guidelines for carbon offsetting

Academics from the University of Oxford have today launched a new standard for carbon offsetting, in a bid to ensure the growing number of net zero strategies adopted by state and corporate actors are effective in their stated goal of halting increases in the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases.

As things currently stand, a patchwork of voluntary and regulatory standards govern approaches to offsetting and how net zero is defined, a lack of cohesion that critics claim has led to a glut of low-quality offsets that undermine the credibility and effectiveness of net zero strategies.

The hope is that new principles, dubbed The Oxford Offsetting Principles, will help provide greater clarity to the broader industry on what consitutes a credible offset and become a key resources for cities, governments, and companies looking to avoid accusations of ‘greenwash’ as they seek to design and deliver robust net zero commitments that align with climate science.

“Adopting the Oxford Offsetting Principles and publicising their adoption can create the demand for offsets necessary to reach net zero emissions,” explained Professor Cameron Hepburn of the university’s Smith School of Enterprise and Environment. “Creating demand for long-lived greenhouse gas removal and storage is vital, whether we like it or not, to reaching the Paris goals.”

Credible net zero aligned offsetting is contingent on a number of key elements, according to the guidelines. First up, companies or state actors must prioritise emissions reduction before embarking on offsetting programmes, demonstrate the environmental integrity of any offsets that are sourced by the organisation, and disclose how all purchased offsets are then used.

Next, they should prioritise offsets that directly remove carbon from the atmosphere and offsets that remove carbon from the atmosphere permanently or almost permanently by shuttling it into long-lived storage.

Finally, all credible strategies should support the development of a ‘net zero aligned’ offset market.

Dr Ben Caldecott, Lombard Odier associate professor of sustainable finance and COP26 strategy advisor for finance, predicted the principles could prove a boon to the growing number of financial institutions looking to clean up their operations and portfolios.

“The Oxford Offsetting Principles can be used by financial institutions to design and deliver credible plans for achieving net zero,” he said. “Financial institutions can also assess the plans of investees and borrowers. This can inform risk and impact analysis, as well as engagement and stewardship activities.”

The new report also highlights the need for a “credible approach” to nature-based carbon offsets, such as forest restoration.

Professor Nathalie Seddon, director of the university’s Nature-based Solutions Initiative, emphasised that nature-based offsetting should be approached carefully. “Irrespective of any carbon benefits, scaling up the protection and restoration of ecosystems is vital,” she said. “While carbon offsets can help to fund some of this work, nature-based solutions should be valued and funded for the broad suite of benefits they bring, now and into the future. However, nature-based solutions are not an alternative to geological storage and rapid decarbonisation of the economy.”

 

 

By Cecilia Keating

Source: Business Green

Unilever pledges to invest €1bn in eliminating fossil fuels from cleaning products by 2030

Posted on by dishanth
Unilever pledges to invest €1bn in eliminating fossil fuels from cleaning products by 2030

Unilever has announced it is to invest €1bn in measures that could allow it to eliminate fossil fuels from its cleaning and laundry products by the end of the decade, an intervention it claims is critical if it is to deliver on its goal of reaching net zero emissions from its products by 2039.

The company intends to transition the products across its cleaning brands – which include Persil, Sunlight, Domestos and Cif – away from chemicals made from fossil fuel feedstocks and replace them with renewable or recycled sources of carbon, such as carbon captured using carbon capture utilisation technology or recovered from waste materials.

Unilever said the €1bn of funding will specifically finance biotechnology research, CO2 utilisation technologies, low carbon chemistry research, and biodegradable and water-efficient product formulations, while also helping the firm halve its use of virgin plastic by 2025.

In addition, the funding will support the development of brand communications that explain the various technologies to customers.

Peter ter Kulve, Unilever’s president of home care, predicted the newly launched ‘Clean Future programme’ would help “radically overhaul” the business. “As an industry, we must break our dependence on fossil fuels, including as a raw material for our products,” he said. “We must stop pumping carbon from under the ground when there is ample carbon on and above the ground if we can learn to utilise it at scale.”

The chemicals in Unilever’s cleaning and laundry products make up the greatest proportion of the company’s carbon footprint, accounting for roughly 46 per cent of its emissions. The firm expects its new programme to reduce the carbon footprint of its product formulations by a fifth.

The Anglo-Dutch company confirmed that work is already underway to wean its products off fossil fuel derived carbon across various global locations. For example, in Slovakia the company is working with biotechnology company Evonik Industries to develop the production of rhamnolipids, a renewable and biodegradable surfactant used in its Sunlight dishwashing liquid in Chile and Vietnam. Meanwhile, in Southern India Unilever is sourcing soda ash – an ingredient in laundry powders – from CO2 capture technology. The company intends to scale up both initiatives in the coming years.

Similarly, liquid detergent made by Persil – one of Unilever’s largest and most popular brands in the UK – has been reformulated to rely on plant-based stain removers. The new line is to be sold in British supermarkets from later this month.

And in order to demystify the different production processes to its consumers, competitors, and partners, Unilever has today published a ‘carbon rainbow’ model geared at outlining the range of alternatives to fossil fuel derived carbon. Non-renewable, fossil-based sources of carbon are labelled on the Carbon Rainbow as ‘black carbon’, while captured CO2 is referred to as ‘purple carbon’, plants and biological sources are branded ‘green carbon’, marine sources such as algae are labelled ‘blue carbon’, and carbon recovered from waste materials is described as ‘grey carbon’.

Ter Kulve urged other businesses to adopt the ‘carbon rainbow’ system. “Diversifying sources of carbon is essential to grow within the limits of our planet,” he said. “Our suppliers and innovation partners play a critical role through this transition. By sharing our Carbon Rainbow model, we are calling on an economy-wide transformation in how we all use carbon”.

The investment announced today comes just months after the company announced it would spend €1bn on a range of nature-based initiatives in support of its over-arching net zero emission goal, including reforestation, water preservation and biodiversity, through a Climate and Nature Fund.

 

 

By Cecilia Keating

Source: Business Green

‘Oil has no place in our future’: Rockefeller fund returns shine after ditching fossil fuels

Posted on by dishanth
‘Oil has no place in our future’: Rockefeller fund returns shine after ditching fossil fuels

The returns from a $1.1bn fund managed by the heirs of the billionaire founder of Standard Oil have oustripped industry averages, despite their decision to divest from fossil fuels five years ago.

A case study published by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) on Monday notes that its investment portfolio has exceeded expectations and outstripped industry benchmarks since the company decided to largely exit fossil fuel assets.

According to the study, the RBF posted an average annual net return of 7.76 per cent over the five-year period that ended in December last year. But in the same period, an index portfolio made up of 70 per cent stocks and 30 per cent bonds, including coal, oil, and gas holdings, returned a full percentage point less, at 6.71 per cent.

The RBF portfolio was also revealed to be less volatile than the industry benchmark, with 27 per cent less “annualised standard deviation” than the yardstick – meaning it has had smaller swings in its value and may be considered less risky.

Valerie Rockefeller, the great-great-granddaughter of oil magnate John D. Rockefeller and chair of the RBF board of trustees, said: “Oil is obviously a definitional part of my family’s past. But it has no place in our future.”

In its heydey, Standard Oil controlled 90 per cent of the US’ oil production, making John D Rockefeller the country’s first billionaire with a fortune worth well over one per cent of the entire American economy. After a Supreme Court antitrust ruling in 1911, the firm was broken up into nearly three dozen separate companies, which included the predecessors of ExxonMobil and Chevron Corporation.

Following its high-profile decision to divest its endowment from coal, tar sands, and oil and gas in 2014, RBF’s investment portfolio is now 99 per cent fossil fuel free.

The divestment movement has matured somewhat since RBF signed on, Valerie Rockefeller noted. In 2014, the movement boasted $50bn in global assets under management; but the value of funds pledging to divest from fossil fuels has since ballooned to around $12tr, as more and more universities, governments, companies, and foundations have pledged to cut fossil fuel investment. Oxford University became the latest high-profile member of the club when it announced last month that it would divest its multi-million-pound endowment from fossil fuel assets.

RBF said in the new report that it hopes that its financial performance would encourage other big investors to turn away from carbon-intensive coal, oil, gas, and tar sand projects.

“The rationale for continued investment in gas and oil is fading fast,” president and chief executive Stephen Heintz said, confirming that the fund’s departure from fossil fuels had also shielded its endowment from coronavirus-induced market volatility over recent months.

“We spent the last five years proving oil was bad not only for the environment but for the bottom line,” Heintz added. “Covid-19 did it in two months.”

Demand for crude oil has plummeted as flights have been grounded, commuters told to stay at home, and economic activity suppressed, sending markets into turmoil. Energy-related carbon dioxide emissions are now expected to drop eight per cent in 2020, according to a report by the International Energy Agency which noted that renewables were the only power source set to grow this year.

Ed Crooks, vice-chair of the Americas for energy consultant Wood Mackenzie, argued in a blog post earlier this month that the Covid-19 crisis was highlighting the “superior resilience” of electricity businesses.

While clean energy has not been immune to Covid-induced downturns – investment in wind power and interest in roll electric vehicles, residential solar and renewable technologies competing with “bargain basement” oil and gas prices have all been adversely affected by the pandemic – Crooks said that there have been “some signs” that the “pandemic could accelerate the long-term transition to lower-carbon energy”.

“Renewable energy has been holding up reasonably well, and certainly better than oil. Well over half the world’s oil consumption is used in transport, which has been one of the sectors hit hardest in the downturn” he wrote. “Electricity demand has also fallen — in the US it was down about six per cent in April compared to the same month of 2019 — but it has not collapsed the way the oil market has. Prices have also held up much better for electricity than for oil.”

In related news, a new study from the Global Sustainable Investment Alliance this week reported that global sustainable assets currently stand at over $30tr, having doubled between 2012 and 2018.

Over the period European assets have grown from $8.8tr to $14.1tr, while US assets have tripled to $12tr, and Japan has seen a 200-fold increase.

Source: https://www.businessgreen.com/