The Entrepreneurs for Impact Podcast: Transcripts
#151:
Here's How You Purchase Carbon Removals with Philanthropic Capital — Adam Fraser, CEO of Terraset
PODCAST INTRODUCTION
Chris Wedding:
My guest today are my fellow collaborators at Terraset, the anti-GHG 501(c)(3) that purchases CDR, goodness, how many acronyms do we have here folks? Carbon dioxide removals using philanthropic dollars.
Adam Fraser is our new CEO, hooray. Alex Roetter is the founder of Terraset and also General Partner at Moxxie Ventures, an impact-focused seed stage VC firm, and Erzsi Sousa is also a board member and wizard brand strategist as well. So, it's kind of a Terraset party today on the podcast.
So, what are we talking about? We asked Adam why he took the leap from being CEO of a multinational impact NGO to come join Terraset. We talked about why his background not being in carbon removal is actually the best kind of background in many ways to be scaling a nonprofit that we hope is moving tens of millions of bucks in a few years here. We covered some of the debate between, let's say, engineered carbon removal solutions and nature-based carbon removal options. Again, I'm putting the debate there in dash lines, maybe gray, certainly not as black and white as it can be sometimes.
We covered the array of types of donors supporting Terraset, who are really helping to create a brand-new industry that is the carbon removal industry, which does not exist at scale, which needs to grow by something like 70% per year. That is the number of tons removed from the atmosphere through 2050. It's really building capacity. We covered how we think about the types of CDR startups and project developers that we support, both our current partners like Heirloom and Charm, as well as the others we'll be announcing later this year, and a whole lot more.
03:06
So, let's welcome Adam to the Terraset team, to the carbon removal team as well and please give Adam and Terraset a shout out on LinkedIn, Slack, or Twitter by sharing this podcast with your people. Thanks.
And now for a word from our sponsors. Just kidding. We don't do sponsors, but seriously, if you are inspired by what you hear on today's podcast, you can head over to terrasetclimate.org. Terraset is T-E-R-R-A-S-E-T, then climate.org and make a donation. Donations as small as $5, $10, $20, or look, we're more than happy to take giant checks as well. All are playing a role in supporting these high potential, high growth CDR startups to build this new industry, which has to exist, again, at scale in the decades to come to hit our climate goals. All right, y'all enjoy.
PODCAST INTERVIEW
Chris Wedding:
All right, special episode today, a party and take two with new party goers. So, Adam Fraser, look, welcome to the podcast. I guess welcome to our listeners to Terraset as our new CEO.
Adam Fraser:
Thank you very much. Great to be here.
Chris Wedding:
Now, I'm also going to introduce, of course, Alex Roetter, who you all have heard before when we first talked about the great things coming for Terraset. I was going to say, be sure you remember Adam's voice to not confuse Adam and Alex. So, Alex, don't do a British impersonation right now, okay?
Alex Roetter:
That would be terrible, and I will not do that. Though I have audio of myself as a five-year-old, because I lived in London when I was five, with a British accent, but it is timed out and it's not going to happen again today.
Chris Wedding:
Okay. So, this is not like, we'll put it in the show notes, Alex Roetter, GP at Moxxie Ventures who also can do an English accent.
Alex Roetter:
I'd have to transcribe the tape from an actual tape or something into an MP3. Not transcribe, I don't know what the verb is.
Chris Wedding:
Not that I'm trying to be just like you guys, I've never said this out loud on a podcast for sure, sometimes I have dreams where I have this wonderful British accent, which I won't do because I'm not dreaming, of course. But anyway, it's a thing.
All right, so why are we here? We could be here just to pretend we're having our normal weekly meeting. Our fourth important team member, Erzsi, is also here. We decided that having four people talk all the time on the show might be a touch confusing. Although, Alex was highly confident her voice would not sound like our voices. Erzsi, quick hello for the listeners.
Erzsi Sousa:
Hello, listeners.
02:10
Chris Wedding:
Man, sweet. That is just what we needed, Erzsi. Okay, so we will not start this pod about Terraset discussing Erzsi's awesome surfing accident, which she's fine and totally recovered. Adam, maybe you can start off here. What made you decide to leave a pretty sweet job as CEO of a multinational impact focus NGO to say, “I think it's time to join these three knuckleheads and help solve carbon removal from the atmosphere,”?
Adam Fraser:
That's a great question. I like knuckleheads. You're right though, I wasn't out there looking for a job. I was in what I would still consider a dream job, an impactful role in the world of sport, working with the world's leading athletes and changing lives and that's so powerful. Everyone listening to this should be helping us address climate change and carbon removal, but if anyone believes in the power of sports, I'll happily have that conversation with them as well.
But when I saw what you were all building with Terraset, I was hooked very quickly probably for three reasons. Number one, I like building things more than I like running them. In terms of my day-to-day, the chance to take something and build it to scale is always really exciting. This is the chance to build something new. I like to work with good people.
Chris Wedding:
We passed the test.
03:58
Adam Fraser:
Not knuckleheads. You did pass the test. Life is too short not to. I think that's a really important thing to remember in any aspect of business is, a lot of the time you can choose who you work with as partners, as colleagues, and choosing good people is a good rule. Then most importantly, the mission. Anyone listening to this is already likely to believe that we as a sector and society have a huge job to do tackling the climate crisis.
We at Terraset believe carbon removal is an absolutely critical part of that and we think we have a key role to play in helping CDR scale so that we all continue to have a functioning planet and society. It's a real privilege to be able to go and tackle big issues and that's something I wanted to jump into.
Chris Wedding:
Sweet. I think everyone listening gets the acronym CDR, which you'll hear about 37 times today. So, carbon dioxide removal, not to be confused, although quite confusing, with carbon capture, CDR. Meaning we're taking usually carbon dioxide, maybe other greenhouse gases, out of the atmosphere that we've dumped there in centuries past. Carbon capture, of course, being just capturing it at the top of a smokestack, let's say.
Adam, tying this topic to this morning, you mentioned that there is the rain event you haven't seen in a long time in New York City where you live, flooding at your children's school. By the way, potential bonus to our recording here, maybe your children come making papa noises during the recording. So, it is like literally in your backyard, if you will.
Adam Fraser:
I mean, it's in my backyard, it's in everyone's backyard. Funnily enough, when we were talking this summer, I can't remember the exact timings of where we were in figuring things out, but it was when New York was really suffering from the wildfire smoke from Canada. So, climate change is not something far away. It's not something happening to other people. Absolutely, we see the impact is greater in some places than others, but this is a real thing for all of us.
Chris Wedding:
I think we've all heard this, I want to say William Gibson quote, but maybe correct me, the future is here, it's just not evenly distributed, which I think is so often linked to it's just some tech innovation, et cetera. But the way you phrased it fits pretty well with climate change as well. It's here, not only distributed or not fairly distributed for sure.
Alex, let's go to you. Can you channel your inner Erzsi and Chris and explain why we chose to go after a CEO who look, doesn't come from the CDR space?
Alex Roetter:
I will try to channel my inner Erzsi and Chris. I mean, the main reason, if you think about the scale of what we're trying to do, we need to build a massive organization. Not by headcount, but by impact in terms of how much capital we can put towards purchasing carbon removal so that we create an industry that's on the order of five to 10 gigatons a year by 2050, which is about 70% annual growth between now and then. To do that, you need to be great at fundraising. You need to know how to run an organization. You need to understand the most impactful things you can do, how to measure them, how to run a learning organization and improve. Those skills are more important to us than bringing more climate expertise.
08:01
Well, all of us are new to climate. I wouldn't say any of us are climate experts, but we are ramping up. We're able to talk to scientific advisors when we have questions about projects. And the climate crisis being what it is and being so much worse, so much sooner than everyone thought, many people are ramping up on climate and that's okay. But we really need a seasoned person who has built.
I mean, what Adam has done at Laureus and growing that to the size that he did from the early days, that's what we need to do and then even more, so that's what we're so excited about it. Then, personally when I hire people, I always want to hire people that I can learn from and it was just very clear talking to Adam about what he's done and what he saw that we could do at Terraset I would learn a lot in the process of working with him. I don't know the first thing about running a nonprofit, so it seems like a good combination.
Chris Wedding:
Well, I know one way Adam's been a great teacher is to remind those of us who come from more of the investment startup world, we're not making investments. Let's change our verbs here, folks. These are not investors, they're donors, donor capital. This is not an investment in a company, although it relates in terms of support. It's purchases from these companies.
Alex, you referenced the stat 70% annual growth between now and 2050 to get to where we need to be with carbon removed from the atmosphere. For folks who were also with me and lots of others at the SOSV Summit earlier, I'll say this week, I'm not sure when this gets recorded, we heard Peter from Charm talking about a similar number, but maybe put that in context. I think for business owners, like holy cow, growing 70% per year for the next 25 years is totally insane, but Alex, how insane is this? What has to happen, by the way, but how insane is it?
Alex Roetter:
Right. It is a huge hill to climb, but it's not unprecedented. I mean, I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but if you look at the rate at which solar panel deployment has scaled, you look at the rate at which processors have gotten more powerful, this is doable, but it's a lot.
So, roughly there were about 3.4 million tons of CDR purchased in the first half of 2023. That compared to 2022 is only about a sixth of that. So, the purchasing is ranking up really quickly. We're still pretty supply limited in a lot of cases and obviously the two things are connected, so you can induce more supply by increasing demand. But a high-level way to think about it is, it is a very steep hill decline, but it's not impossible.
There have been other things that have grown this quickly before, but you can argue we've wasted a lot of time and sat around and we should have acted sooner. What's that old thing about the best time to start on climate change was 30 years ago and the second-best time is today? That's basically where we are.
11:14
Chris Wedding:
True. Yep. Adam, we've referenced your prior role building Laureus with a great team. Maybe tell us more about Laureus and what you've done there relates to what you will build here at Terraset.
Adam Fraser:
Great question. Laureus is an incredible organization that uses the power of sport to drive social impact. So, it's not about kids kicking a ball or kids running. It's about employability outcomes, education outcomes, gender equity, racial equity, inclusion. Very clear documented outcomes tracking to the goal sets, part of the UN sustainable development goals. Really understanding impact on communities and understanding how we can create opportunities for people and make the world a fairer and better place to live in.
A huge amount of that, including raising the money to do that work, tracks exactly to what we want to achieve at Terraset. We want to be outcome driven. We're not doing this for anyone's ego. We're not doing this because you all felt you needed something else to do with your time. We're doing this because we have to achieve the impacts I think having seen success at Laureus when we really focused in on what we were trying to achieve and what the impact was and working back from there is something that I would love to bring to what we're doing.
Chris Wedding:
All right, so we've danced around it a little bit. Hopefully many listeners will already know what Terraset does, why this is needed in the CDR marketplace. But Adam, maybe just go 10,000 feet, what is Terraset? Why is it unique? Why is it needed out there in the carbon removal space?
Adam Fraser:
Terraset is a 501(c)(3), a charity for non-US listeners as this hopefully becomes more international. A nonprofit that uses philanthropic capital to catalyze the carbon removal industry. So, we raise money from individuals, foundations, businesses, family offices. We use that money to purchase permanent high quality carbon removal from innovative companies doing that work.
We do that because we want to remove tons of CO2 from the atmosphere right now, but just as important is that getting that funding to organizations and to projects, lets them scale so that they ultimately can remove more. That our purchase is intended to be catalytic. It is something that helps drive financing in other ways. It is something that allows them to plan and grow.
Part of the appeal to donors, because other people are also looking to drive money to this space, but part of the appeal to donors from our perspective is because we're a 501(c)(3), donations to Terraset are tax-deductible. So, this is not about getting credits, it's not about offset, it's not about anything in those terms. It is about donating because you want to tackle this key issue philanthropically, and we're one of the very few ways to do that.
14:57
I guess in terms of how that's developing from the last time that you guys spoke on this podcast is that, we are out there doing it now. We have people like Grantham, Conscience Bay is strategic backers. We have purchased hundreds of tons of CO2 removal. We are purchasing more. We have new suppliers lined up as we speak and actually, really excitingly, because it proves the model to an extent, we have people finding us.
Now, my favorite thing that happens any week is when someone comes to us completely unprompted, unsolicited, they've seen us in an article because they were researching how they could get involved in this, that’s very exciting because it suggests that I guess two things. One, that our message is getting out there and two, that people are looking for this solution and that's how Terraset was formed, was people looking for a solution. Not finding one and creating it. So, hopefully we provide a path for other people to not have to do that and to be able to make a difference.
Chris Wedding:
Yes to all that and I know something else we feel was needed is to make it easier for folks, A, to have access to purchase. Many of these high promise, high growth startups can't field every potential individual or even family office who wants to make a purchase of their removals. I think part access, part of it's knowing what's good versus what's bad. A message we try to send is, look, we're not saying we're the best climate scientists to pick the best CDRs in the world. We are saying, look, we got our six criteria and we look for others, third parties who would provide the confidence in the quality of these removals. That we make it easier for donors, again, be it an individual or family office foundation to purchase a portfolio versus just one supplier of carbon removals.
I wonder, Alex, what else might you add to the why behind this? I mean, you were the one that reached out thankfully to our friend Allison over at Bullion. And so, “I got this idea, maybe it's crazy, here's why I think we need this.” Maybe go back to that origin of why you realized there was this need really before CDR was thankfully as top of mind as it is in the space.
Alex Roetter:
Well, I will say, I was surprised that something like this didn't already exist. In these days, my experience with the internet is any idea you have, if you search for it, you figure out someone else has already had the idea and already done it, which is neat in some sense. But it was very surprising and we spent a bunch of time looking until we just decided, okay, we're good enough at searching the internet, but we would have found it if this thing didn't exist, but it's pretty simple.
I mean, we need to, first of all, drastically cut our emissions, about 40 gigatons a year. That has to come down to, well, ideally zero, but it's probably going to get closer to something like five because some of these industries are pretty hard to evade. Also, we need to remove carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, both to make up for what we can't stop emitting and to remove carbon dioxide that's already in the atmosphere. So, we need to do that and in order to do that, we need a bunch of companies that provide that service.
So, there's venture capital flowing into that. We need a market for that service. There are policies that are being created to create that market. There are voluntary markets. There's other non-regulatory pressure that's creating that market, but then we also need customers. And this question of supply and demand, you basically need both of them to grow very quickly and in any one instant, maybe they'll be slightly more than supply than demand or slightly more demand than supply.
But in terms of purchasing something that you were doing for no reason other than a broader societal benefit, and it's an activity that the purchaser gets no personal benefit from, it seemed like a perfect fit for philanthropy and 501(c)(3)s. And so, we started looking around just to try to purchase some carbon that way, and we were surprised that it didn't exist. Talked to enough people that we got convinced the size of global philanthropy is large enough that this could be a meaningful pool of capital to improve demand enough to really induce an increase in supply.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah, I know one phrase that has seemed to resonate with donors is this idea of helping to create a brand-new industry, which has to exist at massive scale and does not today. This kind of capacity building has really resonated with Conscience Bay, with Grantham and others who, you're right, are not saying, “I flew this many miles, let's go buy offsets.” I mean, there's a place for that, but I think here it's no, beyond that, this needs to exist at massive scale and doesn't yet.
Maybe Adam, let's go back to you. We've referenced the kinds of donors, let's say, that have found Terraset to be a powerful vehicle to date. Maybe just drill a layer or two deeper on that. What else do you hear from donors? How do you see the ideal donor fit today, maybe in a year or two? How does that change, do you think?
21:00
Adam Fraser:
I'll answer the second part first and not try to be too clever because the answer really is anyone. If someone wants to go to terrasetclimate.org and donate $20, we need that. If someone wants to listen to this and call up and give us a million dollars, we need that too. We need all the money. An ideal donor right now, as you touched on, I would say is someone who believes in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, yes, but also supporting entrepreneurial growth.
That's where we are. That's where the projects we're supporting are. This is really leading from the front in creating something that needs to exist, creating businesses, creating jobs, creating a sector. I hope in two to three years, we've seen so much growth in the sector that that switches slightly and the ideal donor might be someone who this is either just a really apparent and obvious thing to them because it's continuing to develop. Or, is someone who's very excited in bringing things to scale and saying like, “You've taken it this far, here are tens of millions of dollars that we can do more with.”
It's interesting that we're also seeing some success when you ask about the donors we're talking to now. We're seeing success in people who were already interested in this space, but now have the chance to make that interest a philanthropic donation. So, even CDR companies themselves meeting individuals who want to support them and introducing them to Terraset, again, that demonstrates quite an organic growth in interest in this space, and we want to turn that into action.
Something I'm very conscious of is at, Terraset and, of course, you both have other hats, but at Terraset we are talking all the time about carbon removal and we talked to other people who talk all the time about CDR. It's important to remember that the majority of people I would say now, even with it on the front page of the New York Times and Climate Week or wherever you might see it, most people day-to-day do not know anything about CDR. So, we can't overcomplicate at this point.
We used to get that in my previous role in the world of sport, where I could give you detailed data on how engagement in a particular sporting activity could rewire neural pathways to help someone cope better with trauma. But I would often have to dial that right back for someone who'd never even considered that sport was about more than running around. So, it's the same thing here. We need to be able to answer the people who have detailed scientific questions, but we also need to be able to just get more people understanding what CDR is at the most basic level. Then finding the thing that hooks them into wanting to do something about this issue and to be part of building a solution.
24:18
Chris Wedding:
We've all referenced, I believe, this idea that we don't proclaim to have every single expertise around CDR inside these walls. And to that end, maybe one more message for listeners, we do plan to build some version of a leadership council to help us make sure we're on the right path here. Look, if you happen to be a person who's been around the block a time or two or 20, in an aspect of picking the right CDR projects, whether that's the finance, the operations, the environmental justice perspectives, come knock on our door, please.
Adam, you went one direction, which is most folks don't know what CDR is, that's true, but even if we go with insight of the environmental community, there's some disagreement. It goes something like this, which of course you've heard and some listeners have heard as well, “Wait, are we just giving permission to polluters to keep doing what they're doing? Therefore, why should I support CDR if this just allows oil and gas companies and others to keep doing what they've always done?” How would you want to respond or maybe throw the baton over to Alex, however you choose to—?
Adam Fraser:
Alex, I'll go, but feel free to jump in. We at Terraset are certainly not ever trying to give the impression that everything is fine and CDR will fix everything. I think Alex said in his answer before, cutting emissions by way above 90% needs to happen, it's absolutely critical to this work. We see the role of CDR as being tackling those emissions that are hard to abate, they're impossible to eliminate, or really critically, the greenhouse gases that are already in the atmosphere. Whether it's CO2 or others, the amount of time that some of them spend in the atmosphere is terrifying.
If we stopped all emissions tomorrow, they would still be up there and they'd still be up there for the long-term. So, I don't think this is in any way about permission for super polluters to keep polluting at the same level, for people to just not change their own behavior at an individual level, at a corporate level. We just think this has to be part of the solution.
Alex Roetter:
I agree with all of that and that's very clearly laid out in these IPCC reports. We need both emissions to come down and also removal for the reasons that Adam mentioned. But the other reason I don't worry about that is, there's no such thing as Terraset giving permission. So, my kids need permission to stay up late because I'm their parent. British Petroleum, the company that makes $240 billion a year in revenue, couldn't care less about what anyone at Terraset thinks about anything. So, we couldn't give permission or not give permission. It just doesn't mean anything.
If these companies that have massive historically economic success drilling oil and gas continue to do so, it's because there's a massive economic incentive to do so, and that needs to stop or else we will never get to where we need to get. So, that's regulatory, that's voluntary markets, not buying these things. That's the invention of other products so that you can get power cheaper. I mean, wind and solar is just cheaper now than burning coal, so it's not like coal doesn't have permission to burn anymore. It just doesn't make any economic sense because of the inventions on other carbon-free electricity sources. But because of that, I don't worry about giving them permission because they don't care at all what we think and there's no concept of permission, but this market needs to exist.
28:47
We need to do removal. We need also the incentives to run multi hundred-billion-dollar revenue oil and gas companies go away, some of which I touched on, but that will either exist or not exist. My extreme hope is that that diminishes rapidly for a variety of factors that really has nothing to do with the state of carbon dioxide removal. That's why I feel very good just trying to accelerate this as quickly as possible.
Chris Wedding:
Well, I think for all the parents, both on this Zoom call and listening, they love that analogy, Alex. Who needs permission? Maybe if I rule you, if I'm your parent, otherwise not so much.
Alex, you referenced regulation. I'm going to pull on that thread to think more broadly about policy. One thing we've heard when talking to some potential donors is the comment that, “Look, I think my dollars are better spent, higher leverage, et cetera, supporting policy development around carbon removal than years in advance, pre-purchasing carbon removals.” Maybe to share some of our thinking or responses around that important perspective.
Alex Roetter:
All right, so our goal is not to pull money from all other valuable climate initiatives at Terraset. Instead, we absolutely do need policy. We need carbon removal. We need innovations on emissions avoidance, clean concrete, clean steel, electric cars, battery storage, base load power, we need all kinds of things. But the fact of the matter is, out of the global film traffic market, 2% of it goes to climate, of that another one or 2%, depending on how you count goes to carbon removal. So, this isn't zero sum with some other climate activity or some carbon removal activity. This is hopefully expanding the amount of money that goes to climate removal in general.
So, if someone doesn't donate to us because they're putting a bunch of money into policy, that's great. That needs to happen as well. There's no one thing that is going to solve this problem. We need all of the things and so for different parts of climate, different people see the benefits of different parts and for personal or organizational reasons want to fund different parts, that's great, because we need all of it.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah, I think the point about two or 3% of all philanthropy going to climate causes is a good one. Look, that's too low given the impact now, but more importantly in the future of climate on the global economy, let's move that two or 3% to pick a number, I don't know, 3X that would be amazing. The point is, there's plenty more money to go around towards climate.
Another part is, yes, putting money towards policy change is highly catalytic, but if a result of that is, say, the government is going to be purchasing billions of tons around the world of CDR, you need companies at a scale with low enough tech risk and big enough projects to deliver those tons. I guess part of our role there is to ensure these companies from our donors as well as others, have some revenue early to get, say, other project financiers to underwrite projects or their venture capitalists to support their growth needs so that they're parallel pathing, if you will, to meet when the government is ready to write big old checks for purchases.
32:43
Speaking of purchases, some folks who know about CDR, they know of Frontier. So, a number of the biggest, most forward-thinking tech companies committing at least a billion that's growing towards doing similar work, usually pre-purchasing, sometimes on delivery, but purchasing these CDRs as well. So, some could say, “Well, gosh, do we need Terraset?” Because here's a billion dollars likely to be more from these large companies pulling in more companies. Adam, what might you say in response to that question, comment?
Adam Fraser:
Well, what Frontier are doing is absolutely fantastic and we are really happy to be fellow travelers in doing that. The team there is great and seeing the impact they are having is great. To your point of a billion dollars going so do we need Terraset, do we need to be doing more, we need so many billion dollars ultimately going to this space.
You can do the calculations in different ways with different numbers whether we're trying to do five gigatons or 10 gigatons and whether we're optimistically thinking we've got the price down to $100 per ton, which it isn't there. But we're talking hundreds of billions of dollars that will need to be at work removing carbon dioxide, removing greenhouse gases and that's a scary number. It's a huge number. It's a number that is achievable.
We can talk global economies and we can do comparisons to particular things, but actually to your point on Frontier's billion dollars and to Alex's point on the percent of philanthropic funding going to this space, there's a billion dollars a day given to charitable causes just in the USA. So, Frontier is a huge sizable commitment from those companies and I hope more companies do it, whether via Frontier or us or in their own way. But it's still equivalent to one day of philanthropic giving from the USA and so I just think that the market that can be accessed through this route, through this vehicle is going to be critically important in bringing as much money as possible to scale tackling this problem.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah. I see Alex is coming on, the way you phrase it makes me think of Alex's two favorite words, which I think are yes and, but go ahead, Alex, what would you add to that?
Alex Roetter:
I love what Frontier is doing. There's no question. I think they're the most visible public voice for the need to support this early industry and help it grow and be a large source of unwavering demand before it achieves mass cost competitive scale. So, I'm a huge fan of what they're doing. I do not think all of humanity should just assume that a handful of companies will continue to do that. I also think the scale of film property is so much larger as Adam mentioned. Also, I just don't worry about this problem.
The world in which we accidentally did Terraset, we didn't need to, and then we over solve the climate problem faster than we thought. With the benefit of hindsight, we could have spent a little more time on vacation. This is just not a world I worry about. If that happens and we over solve this more quickly, we're all happy to move on to other things. I don't think we should be worried that we might be over solving climate too quickly and it's going to totally be fine. The cost of being wrong in the other direction is catastrophic.
Chris Wedding:
Well, since listeners can only listen to your words, Alex, they won't really appreciate that Erzsi, Adam, and I are smiling or laughing at the precision and enthusiasm of your comments. Yeah, well said.
37:22
I've got two others here, at least. One is around engineered carbon removal solutions versus nature-based. And again, I know that for somebody that were on the SOSV Climate Tech Summit, there was a comment about nature-based solutions, which wasn't like a five-star review. Clearly a huge need. Clearly some of the tech risk lowest cost, easiest to scale perhaps. I don't know, Adam, how do you think about maybe our portfolio construction? Is there the need to have this black and white dichotomy between, wait, are you in the engineered solutions camp or are you in the nature-based solutions camp?
Adam Fraser:
It's been fascinating for me in my short time with Terraset already to see the green-on-green fire still happens in this space. Shortly off the back of Climate Week, what I found inspirational about Climate Week was the number of people trying to solve this problem, the number of people looking at it in different ways. The way that it was starting to feel more joined up, not just about engineered versus nature-based CDR, but around biodiversity, around nature, around all the factors that need to go together in terms of us having a sustainable planet.
But we do have this thing where even the highest profile people in the world are having this debate. People may have seen Bill Gates saying at Climate Week, he believes in engineered CDR and not in planting trees and then Mark Benioff saying in reply, “I'm pro trees and pro oceans.”
At Terraset, we are pro all of those things. We care about there being a planet to live on. We care about the quality of life on that planet. We believe that to get there, we need fewer greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and we know that we need to be removing an increasing amount of what's already up there. Whether it happens via engineered solutions or nature-based solutions, we don't mind.
In terms of our portfolio, the key thing is that the things that we direct funding to have to hit our key metrics. So, we want to purchase and scale removals that are additional, verifiable, ethical, validated, scalable, and long-term. And that long-term permanence as people will phrase that as well is where some nature-based solutions fall down. There are engineered solutions as well that have a huge amount of work to do on all of those areas, but they're all part of the answer. I agree with the point you posed in your question, I don't think that we gain anything by putting a strict line between these things and say, “I'm an advocate only for engineered solutions. I'm an advocate only for nature-based solutions.” We should be taking bets and trying to bring as many solutions as possible to scale.
Chris Wedding:
And I think that as folks continue to see our announcements, even later this year, they'll see the diversity of projects that we're purchasing from continue to change even more so next year. Alex, maybe for you, we've received applications from dozens of CDR companies, some are and some will be receiving our purchases. What advice or what messages might you send to the CDR project developers, tech companies as they think about partnering with Terraset?
Alex Roetter:
That's a good question. So, Adam laid out very clearly what we think is very important. Projects that are additional verifiable, long-term ethical, scalable, and validated. So first, you do two things. One, if that's wrong or we're missing something or one is more important, we would love to learn. We are all new in climate, we would love to learn if there should be something else, because anyone probably running a company doing CDR is more of an expert in some or many aspects of CDR than we are, so we look into that.
42:15
Two, think about your project initiative. Where are you? How do you do against those projects? Then, please apply to us. Currently, we have more good projects than we have the ability to fund today, so we appreciate everybody's patience, but be in touch. We need this whole ecosystem to exist and that requires investing across different technologies, different locations, different methodology. We want to have a massive impact and part of that is purchasing from a lot of different projects.
Chris Wedding:
Great. So, Erzsi, just so folks know, you're still here feeding us wisdom through Zoom chat as the puppeteer can, what are we not communicating that we should communicate?
Erzsi Sousa:
Good question, Guru Chris.
Chris Wedding:
I have the easy job, by the way.
Erzsi Sousa:
The master puppeteer. It's a good question because we communicate a lot within our group and we don't talk as much externally about what we are doing. Now that Adam is here is to literally just talk about what we're doing and what we've been up to, so that's the big piece is we've been up to a lot. We haven't necessarily talked about it and we're excited to talk more about that because, this is me channeling Alex now is, we can talk about some kudos and some good stuff that's happening, but we really want to make an impact. We want to do this stuff, move the money, make the products possible. Get more of that movement in the industry and we have been doing that and we want to talk more about it so that we can scale it up even more. We haven't been communicating as much because we've been up to a lot behind the scenes and we're excited to talk more about that now that we've got Adam chartering the way.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah, and I think we can put in the show notes our somewhat recent, maybe August, I think, Substack post where we go through what we’ve been up to, purchasing hundreds of tons of CDR from Heirloom and Charm. The almost million dollars of donations that have come, again, from Adam's point earlier, individuals writing $20 checks to help build this new industry to strategic foundations, Grantham and Conscience Bay helping us to build that capacity. Joining 1% for the planet as this vetted nonprofit who their corporate partners can direct some portion of their revenue in this 1% for the planet, so lots more to come.
Well, listen, let's call it here for now, gang. Adam, you now wear the CEO hat, so I guess we go to you before we wrap. Should I ask you how it's been live here? Yeah.
45:33
Adam Fraser:
How it's been live here or how it's been with Terraset? Both have been great. We talked a lot here about some of the challenges, some of the issues people raise. We talked a lot about the problem. I feel incredibly energized by the role that we're playing and it's just part of a much bigger picture, but the role that we're playing in finding solutions and the faith I have that there are solutions to be found and that there's an impact.
So, as a final point, a final word, I would encourage people to stay optimistic. A lot of the people who you talk to on this podcast, a lot of the people who listen to this podcast are charting lonely courses at some point. They're out there pushing new solutions, new technology, new ideas, and that can be lonely and people can feel like they don't know how they can contribute towards this. We are a vehicle for people to be able to contribute, and we're a vehicle that hopefully adds to people's optimism.
Chris Wedding:
Yeah, in other words, if you're feeling pessimistic, get to work, right? Lots of solutions to work on. We're just one of many. All right, gang, we'll call it here. Good times. Talk soon.
Adam Fraser:
Thanks Chris.
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