Shows
New Ventures Podcast# 99 Keeping the Coffee boom going.What is the problem ? Coffee production and exports have boomed in Vietnam . The issue is to keep the boom going.What is the solution ? Doing much the same things that contributed to the boomin the first place. Organising farmers, supporting them with information and working with buyersWhat is the evidence? In Vietnam farmers have options to hold on to their cropsWhat is the caveat? The futures market could increase price volatilityWhat should organisations do ? Companies...2025-07-2144 min
New Ventures Podcast# 98 Cooperatives help farmers grow better coffee.What is the problem ? Coffee production in Peru has improved significantly. It is now being affected by climate change.What is the solution ?A cooperative with research and training focus to help farmers improve quality and adopt appropriate seeds.What is the evidence? Peru coffee which used to sell at a discount is now sold as a premiumWhat is the caveat? Would cooperatives have the ability to invest and hire in an era of climate change?What should organisations do ? ...2025-07-1751 min
New Ventures Podcast# 97 Africa can boost chicken production.What is the problem? Nigeria is importing meat even as its potential to produce domestically is untapped.What is the solution ? Create linkages between small holder farmers and meat companies.What is the evidence? Farmers in Nigeria are already benefiting..What is the caveat? Farmers need training and services (inputs, purchase agreements, insurance)What should organisations do? Non-profits and companies should work together to create these marketsSections Section 1: First 10 minutes : Getting to know Kachi and Heifer’s work in Nigeria.Section 2: Ne...2025-06-3054 min
New Ventures Podcast# 96 Markets exist even if niche.What is the problem ? Markets need to be found: for imperfect and traditional vegetables, for cellular agriculture outputs.What is the solution ? Products that meet needs: nutritious and tasty snacks, substitutes for in-demand products.What is the evidence? Customers are accepting new products.What is the caveat? It takes time to build products and markets.What should organisations do ? Scale through niche markets and conserve capital.Sections Section 1: First 10 minutes : Getting to know how Andre’s life has changed in the last three yearsSection 2: Ne...2025-06-0645 min
New Ventures Podcast# 95 Bringing Market Actors Together for Sustainable Growth.What is the problem ? In poor counties farmers are producing too little food. Productivity levels are very low.What is the solution ? Help companies sell inputs to farmers, help farmers sell and save moneyWhat is the evidence? In Mozambique the seed market has expanded by 6 times and now there are local entrepreneurs working with small holder farmers.What is the caveat? It takes time. Public sector, NGOs and donors may disrupt the market.What should organisations do ? Provide information bring buyers and sellers together.Sections 2025-05-121h 00
New Ventures Podcast# 94 Insects have potentialWhat is the problem? Animal protein contributes to disproportionately large amount of emissions. What is the solution? Insect feed can be solution. They can be a nutritional additive for the food we eat. They can also be a substitute for animal feed. What is the evidence? Insect feed has got to the point where it has moved to commercial production. Insect feed can be produced using waste from breweries and markets which is an added advantage. Yet another advantage is that the byproduct is organic fertilisers. What is the caveat? However costs are still high...2025-04-221h 00
New Ventures Podcast# 93 More food even with climate change.What is the problem ? We have to increase food production in the face of climate change , we have to make vulnerable communities resilient and we have to do all this without increasing emissions.What is the solution ? There are numerous climate smart technologies and practices.What is the evidence? There are several examples in the ASEAN region where food production is increasing in the face of climate change even as producers adopt sustainable practices.What is the caveat? People need to be convinced about the economic benefits of sustainable solutionsWhat...2025-03-131h 00
New Ventures Podcast# 92 From Projects To ProcessesWhat is the problem ? The amount of water available for irrigation and livestock is reducing. Safe drinking water is also not available in many parts of the world.What is the solution ? Getting to the root of the problem, identifying the causes, adopting locally specific interventions and involving the community.What is the evidence? Even in the areas of Bangladesh where saline water from the sea is creeping in it is possible to have enough fresh water and grow more food. What is the caveat? There is a propensity on the part of...2025-02-1454 min
New Ventures Podcast# 91 Demystifying agroforestryWhat is the problem ? Agricultural practices is depleting the soil fertility and making farming unproductive.
What is the solution ? Regenerative farming , integrating trees and livestock in farming operations. Integrating trees is called agro forestry.
What is the evidence? Agroforestry has worked in Africa (Niger, Zambia), Asia (China and India), South America (Argentina) and Western nations as well.
What is the caveat? There is no one “miracle tree” and “no one miracle practice”.
It all depends on the context. Top down approaches don’t help.
What should organisations do ? NGOs and agricu...2025-01-291h 00
New Ventures Podcast# 90 Reducing the carbon in your tipple.Diageo is reducing its emissions by innovating in its packaging. It is trying to introduce circular economy in the traditional glass bottles. The company is also trying to use new types of material: aluminum and paper. At the same time, Diageo faces climate risks. Agricultural commodities and water are the inputs to manufacturing your favour beverages. In response, Diageo is supporting regenerative agriculture and water conservation projects.
Innovation involves working thoughtfully with partners (start-ups and non-profits). It also involves crucially a high tolerance of failure. Mark Sandys is the Chief Innovation Officer at Diageo, the British multinational...2024-12-1855 min
New Ventures Podcast# 89 AI is riding on digital innovationsDigital innovation in agriculture is already bringing solutions to farmers that helps them use their mobile phones to obtain a range of useful services. They can get information about product prices and advice on pest control. They can also buy farm inputs as well sell their products. Almost always underbanked, they can also get credit. Is AI adding an extra fizz to these solutions? We discussed with Daniele Tricarico about the GSMA report AI for Africa: Use cases delivering impact.
We learnt that AI is adding an extra layer of additional benefits to these existing solutions and...2024-12-1558 min
New Ventures Podcast# 88 How to reduce food waste?Too much food is wasted by consumers. Reducing this wastage is important. It is good for the climate and for one’s own wallet, not to mention the conscience.
Everybody agrees that it is important and yet reducing food waste is hard. People waste food not because they don’t care but often they do not know better ways to buy, store, cook and eat. Luckily, there are a whole set of tools from the discipline of psychology to help people become aware and have the right skills and behaviour.
Dr. Sophie Attwood behavioural scientist and...2024-12-0856 min
New Ventures Podcast# 87 Building a new economyThe World Fair Trade Organisation certifies small and medium enterprises which practice fair trade principles. Chief among them is that 50% of their profits are contributed towards a cause. The objective of WFTO is to prove that innovation and entrepreneurship is consistent with stakeholder capitalism. Innovation – the process of increasing productivity – is not just restricted to a shareholder capitalist system. WFTO members include food processing enterprises both in the Global North and Global South.
Leida Rijnhout, based in the Netherlands, is the Chief Executive of the World Fair Trade Organisation. She has extensive experience in Netherlands and in the...2024-12-0151 min
New Ventures Podcast# 86 What is climate consciousness?Rabindranath Tagore, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 was also a leading thinker on education.
The central tenets of his thoughts on education were learning among nature, striking a balance of the arts and science in the curriculum and internalising a spirit of internationalism. Tagore was also a practical man and he put his ideas in action by setting up a school for children and an University.
His ideas on education are key to creating the consciousness
that is needed for to solve the climate crisis and (if we ever get out of this mess) avoid creating...2024-11-1841 min
New Ventures Podcast# 85 PAYG is vital for Kenyan farmersIn Kenya there has been droughts for the last four out of 5
seasons. Most farmers depend only rains and are very vulnerable to changing weather. SunCulture provides irrigation solution to small holder farmers. The challenge is to make the product affordable to farmers. This means right sizing the pumps, working with suppliers to reduce costs and providing financing solutions. It also means using subsidies such as results based financing and carbon credits efficiently.
Hack Stiernblad is the Chief Growth Officer of SunCulture responsible for market expansion and raising donor funds. SunCulture provides solar irrigation solutions to farmers...2024-11-0947 min
New Ventures Podcast# 84 How banks assess climate risks?Financial institutions have to take into both short term and long term horizons in assessing climate risks. This is not easy for banks in the emerging world. It requires expertise, access to data and new management processes.
In this podcast, Rutang and myself explain the types of climate risks and we demystify climate risk scenarios which help financial institutions straddle these time horizons. Then we apply the concepts to banks in four emerging countries.
Dr. Rutang Thanawalla is a risk assessment expert for financial institutions with experience across global commercial banks, credit rating agencies and consultancies. He now f...2024-11-0245 min
New Ventures Podcast# 83 Preparing for the next droughtWith climate change El Nino droughts will become more frequent and more intense. To be fore warned is to be fore armed. Warnings will have to be taken seriously and farmers should not plant their seeds hoping that rains will come only to face a total crop failure. Kvuno, a social enterprise spun out of Solidaridad, the international NGO, is developing a digital database of farmers in Southern Africa. This digital platform can be used to provide inform and help farmers learn how to adapt to the changing weather patterns. It can also be used to provide farm inputs...2024-10-3050 min
New Ventures Podcast# 82 Food Security or Nutritional Sufficiency?A child substantially shorter than their age in the first
three years often fails to reach their full potential. It is often caused by poor nutrition. Save the Children, an international NGO with roots in the UK, has been implementing a three year project in Bangladesh with support from the European Union and UK AID to reduce stunting. Reducing stunting involves household members changing their behaviour. Unfortunately, climate change is making it harder.
Sections
Section 1: First 20 minutes about the context and how the project was structured
Section 2: Next 40 minutes about the project lessons...2024-10-231h 04
New Ventures Podcast# 81 Rude awakening in SeychellesSeychelles is the richest country in Africa but as a small island country it is also being impacted severely by climate change. Sadly it is not just climate changed caused by humanity as a whole, it is the damage to the environment that is caused by the individuals living in and visiting the islands. The environment damage is making it hard to grow food and the island is becoming more dependent on imported food.
A GEF funded project is trying to reverse this using an integrated approach called Ridge to Reef. Listen to Johan Mendez, a...2024-09-2447 min
New Ventures Podcast#80 There Is Always Hope.
A top down infrastructural project, in the Aral Sea area, goes terribly wrong. Instead of increasing cotton production and prosperity, the project leads to unprecedented droughts and poverty.
The Global Green Growth Institute is implementing a project funded by the South Korean government to rehabilitate the region. Oyunchimeg Amartuvshin, Senior Program Development Officer, Central Asia of the Global Green Growth Institute takes us into the details of the project.
Sections
Section 1: First 15 minutes about Oyuna, GGGI and the Aral Sea problem.
Section 2: Next 35 minutes about GGGI’s...2024-09-1351 min
New Ventures Podcast# 79 Franchisee models for agriculture?The Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture helps small holder farmers access quality inputs and sell products at fair prices. To do that the foundation has developed the Farmers Hub, a franchisee based business model which helps both agri-entrepreneurs and businesses to invest in products that serve small holder farmers. This approach has helped farmers adopt new technologies for paddy, mangoes and vegetables. The access to better markets and improved technologies is helping improve income.
Sections
Section 1: First 34 minutes about the approach of the Syngenta Foundation’s Farmers Hub approach.
Section 2: Next 15 minutes about ho...2024-08-2949 min
New Ventures Podcast#78 The future of rice : low carbon?Saran Song is the CEO of Amru Rice, Camobodia’s
largest producer and exporter of organic rice from Cambodia. In this podcast he talks about the contract farming business model, the advantages that farmers can derive from growing organic and sustainable rice and peers into the future of rice.
Sections
Section 1 : First 10 minutes introducing Saran and his company Amru Rice
Section 2 : Next 31 minutes about the how and the whys of organic and sustainable rice
Host : Sanjoy Sanyal, Founder Regain Paradise
www.regainparadise.org
Guest : Saran So...2024-08-0841 min
New Ventures Podcast# 77 Demystifying AI solutions for foodHeather Couture is an international consultant in computer vision (applying artificial intelligence to images). In this episode, she explains the different types of modern artificial intelligence and its use in a variety of food-related applications. It is used for monitoring crops and trees in fields and automating activities such as harvesting and spraying inputs. Artificial intelligence is also applied for monitoring aquaculture, preventing food waste and predicting weather events.
Sections
Section 1 : First 15 minutes Helen introduces herself and help you understand what AI terms really mean.
Section 2 : Up to 32 minutes AI applications in agriculture ...2024-07-2543 min
New Ventures Podcast# 76 Celfre Energy and Futurepump – Solar irrigationFuturepump is a small company from the UK with a factory in India manufacturing solar pumps. One of its partners in Africa is Celfre Energy, an even smaller company, which operates in Zimbabwe. Celfre Energy started by importing one Futurepump and creating awareness among farmers. It raised grants and then used the money to import a container load of pumps. This was the first time that farmers were being introduced to a solar pump product in the company. The fact that Futurepump’s product comes with a warranty of ten years and is simple to use has helped farmers to...2024-06-2943 min
New Ventures Podcast# 75 Davis & Shirtliff and Futurepump – Solar irrigationFuturepump is a small company from the UK with a factory in the UK manufacturing solar pumps. It is distributing its product in Africa through Davis & Shirtliff, a large company with a 78 year old history. The partnership is bringing the pumps to small holder farmers across 11 countries in Africa. As climate change is having a “real negative impact” on farmers, solar irrigation pumps help farmers “take backs some control.” Partnerships between start-ups developing innovative products and large companies are key to bringing climate products to the market.
But partnerships are not easy to build. In the case of Davis...2024-06-2839 min
New Ventures Podcast# 74 Preferred by Nature – RiceRice millers in the Central and East Java provinces in Indonesia are facing a shortage of paddy from farmers. Production has been impacted by changing rainfall patterns, pest attacks and the occasional non-availability of pesticides and fertilisers. The industry association Indonesia Rice Millers and Traders Association -PERPADI has partnered with Preferred by Nature, an international NGO to implement sustainable rice practices for both farmers and millers. For farmers this means practices that optimise the use of chemical inputs (even if they do not go fully organic) and water. For millers this means shifting to electricity instead of using diesel. B...2024-05-2346 min
New Ventures Podcast# 73 WWF Philippines – Sustainable tunaFishing methods of small-scale fishers are more sustainable because they capture less bycatch (fish that is discarded). Unfortunately, like in many places of the world, the livelihoods of small-scale fishers in the Occidental Mindoro province in Philippines are vulnerable both to climate change and overfishing by large fleets. The fishing community supplies both domestic and export markets. WWF Philippines was able to utilise this linkage with export markets to help implement a project (with EU financing) that help connect the fishing communities with local food processing companies. The fishing association has obtained the Marine Stewardship Certification. WWF Philippines is no...2024-05-1545 min
New Ventures Podcast# 72 Economic resilience or food security?Description:
Small fishing communities in South Africa (and many other parts of the world) have often been discriminated against. First there is colonisation and (in the case of South Africa) the apartheid regime. Then there is the interest of national governments to create an industrial fishing sector. And yet these communities live on thanks to the strong bonds to the ocean and age-old cultural traditions.
A new threat has now emerged: climate change. Climate change is leading to erosion, flooding and hurricanes. Green energy infrastructure projects (needed to reduce global emissions) threaten the fragile ecosystem and livelihoods of these vulne...2024-05-1050 min
New Ventures Podcast# 71 Community engagement key to food security.Bangladesh is acutely vulnerable to the climate crisis. BRAC, the world’s largest NGO is implementing adaptation clinics in very vulnerable areas. The process involves understanding the specific problem the community is facing and then implementing a solution, while taking the community along. The results are extremely encouraging.
Sections
Section 1: First 25 minutes about BRAC’s approach
Section 2: Next 20 minutes about how this approach is applied to the various geographies
Host: Sanjoy Sanyal, Founder Regain Paradise
www.regainparadise.org
Guest : Tausif Ahmed Qurashi
Senior Programme Manager, Climate Cha...2024-03-2747 min
New Ventures Podcast# 70 Cellular food – Anytime soon?Cellular meat is not going to flood your supermarket shelves anytime soon. Across the world, only four companies have got regulatory approval. They are organising tasting sessions in restaurants and “pop ups” but it will take several years for companies to scale up manufacturing processes to produce sufficient volumes of products at reasonable costs (even assuming that it is only the adventurous, conscious and rich customers who will be the early adopters of cell based meat and dairy products.
But cell based meat, milk and seafood can wean customers
off the real thing in a way that plant...2024-03-0842 min
New Ventures Podcast# 69 Measuring soil organic carbon.
A rancher in South America is worried about the condition of his land. He knows that improving the soil condition will help in growing more grass which his livestock can feed on. He wants to leave his land in a better state to his children so that they can inherit his profession as well and decides to more regenerative practices. A NGO in East Africa has been already working in improving the agricultural practices of thousands of small holder farmers. This allows them to grow more food and not cut down forest trees in an effort to feed their...2024-02-2635 min
New Ventures Podcast# 68 Pledging to protect the land.The Luangwa region and the Kafue regions in Zambia hosts some of the finest national parks in the world. Unfortunately, these forests and the wildlife are under threat. An average farming family who lives near these
areas cuts down 60 to 70 big trees in a year just to use as firewood for cooking food. Falling soil fertility and a growing population is forcing them to cut down more trees and convert to farmlands. More recurrent droughts and floods, because of climate change is making the situation worse. To protect the forests and the wildlife, Community Markets for Conservation (COMACO), a Za...2024-02-1652 min
New Ventures Podcast# 67 Rainwater is not seeping in.Years of repeated tilling the same piece of land with a hand
hoe has compacted the soil in Malawi into a hard layer.
Plant roots cannot penetrate this “hard pan” and they grow
laterally, instead of vertically. Rainwater does not penetrate
the soil either but rushes along the furrows created in the
land, washing away the top soil. This is drastically reducing
agricultural production plummeting Malawi, whose
youthful population is dependent on agriculture, into crisis.
Climate crisis is making things worse. There are heav...2024-02-0243 min
New Ventures Podcast# 66 Sustaining simple pleasures.The wine and the alcohol industry has been around for millennia and obviously is not the major cause of climate change. But then like every other industry it has to reduce its emissions and environmental impact. More importantly, the wine industry is being impacted by unpredictable weather events. Drought, sudden frost and wildfires are affecting the quantity and quality of grapes. Transporting wine requires a lot of energy. Glasses are heavy to ship around. Transporting bulk wine across the continents, selling wine in paper cartons, reducing the weight of glasses and using completely recycled bottles are all part of...2023-12-1433 min
New Ventures Podcast# 65 Foodtech is not just tech.In the last five years, plant based foods have started appearing on supermarket shelves, on restaurant menus and even on the assembly chains of fast food outlets. There is still skepticism however. Customer demand in the US and UK seem to be flattening out and there are no real entry barriers to new companies bringing out new products. It is not unusual for a new industry to stall after initial period of excitement. During the initial period, many new companies rush in and then there is a shake out. A few companies survive and they are able to expand...2023-12-1248 min
New Ventures Podcast# 64 Finding out what’s going on.Extreme events occur not just because of climate change but also local damage to the environment. The effects are also sometimes hard to foresee. Not all events are well reported either. ClimateNode wants to scan websites, news reports, scientific papers to understand what type of climate events are happening, their causes and effects. ClimateNode has developed its technology on surface water flooding in the UK. ClimateNode uses natural language processing. Natural language processing helps categorise and scan documents and build a library of documents that can then be used by large language models. This type of analysis would supplement...2023-12-0523 min
New Ventures Podcast# 63 Partnering smaller companies.There are 150 million mid-market companies across the world who do not have the resources to invest in measuring climate metrics. Software can help them understand what standards are applicable, pull out and validate data sitting at various places in the company systems, suggest and help manage personalised projects and then communicate results to stakeholders. Misio starts with what is important to the organisation and who really cares to define how artificial intelligence models can be used. Regulations are driving the need for software but smaller impact companies and their venture capital investors are also using the software. Smaller impact...2023-11-2836 min
New Ventures Podcast# 62 Stopping Land Degradation.In the Sahel, farmers do not have the money to buy
chemical fertilisers. They use organic methods of farming
which works well when they do. Unfortunately, the
temperatures in the Sahel are already more than global
averages. Rainfall is scarce but when it does the downpours
are heavy. The top soil is often carried away, making the
soil infertile. People clear forests to grow food. Without
trees the ability of the soil to retain water reduces. Well
thought out agro forestry projects where...2023-11-2142 min
New Ventures Podcast# 61 New food...What's cooking?There are six subsectors to the alternative protein industry.
Plant based meats, precision fermentation and cellular meat
are the main ones. Plant based “mock meat” has been
around in Asia for centuries. There are relatively less
technological barriers to get products out but companies
will still have to overcome taste, nutrition, cost and
regulatory barriers before products reach mass markets.
Precision fermentation should come next. Cellular meat is
farther down the path. For precision fermentation, the
technology has to be adopted from...2023-11-0841 min
New Ventures Podcast# 60 Measuring and managing biodiversityThe Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures
(TNFD) is driving the demand for AI software. Some
companies also want to go beyond just meeting the
standards and genuinely develop a nature strategy. Xylo
Systems, helps energy and property companies understand
baseline biodiversity data, analyse possible impacts and
develop potential projects. They do so by integrating both
open source data as well as data from proprietary remote
monitoring sources. Artificial Intelligence and Machine
Learning helps in processing large volumes of image and
2023-11-0238 min
New Ventures Podcast# 59 Usable and Understandable Energy PlansTransition Zero has used artificial intelligence to measure
emissions from coal and gas power plants. It has trained
software to learn from satellite images and verified
published emissions. The trained software can then estimate
emissions only from satellite pictures of power plants where
the published data is not available or needs to be verified. It
is now helping countries develop net zero ambition plans.
Satellite data provides a variety of inputs to the modelling
software both on physical infrastructure (electricity grid
...2023-10-2533 min
New Ventures Podcast# 58 To adapt, invest in tuna processing.Arnab Sengupta has worked with about six agricultural commodities and knows a lot about tuna. Tuna is consumed fresh and in canned forms. It is caught in the deep sea near some of the small island developing states and then processed in Thailand or Ecuador. The processing industry employs a lot of people because the fish has to be cleaned perfectly in a way that has not been mechanised. The industry, by working with non-profits, scientists and governments, has addressed many of the concerns with regard to over-fishing. Climate change is, however, making its presence felt. It is too...2023-10-1844 min
New Ventures Podcast# 57 Managing risks, Communicating strategies.The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive are complex (climate is only one of the five pillars of sustainability) and that creates the need for software to manage the process of meeting the new standards. Metabolic a consultancy used its experience of working with clients to develop Link a product that enables users start with data that they have and identify hotspots and define projects with the aim of managing impact and risk. Link also helps managers to communicate a science based story inside and outside the organisation. The ultimate vision is to help organisations collaborate with others to address problems. U...2023-10-1039 min
New Ventures Podcast# 56 Using credit lines effectively.Credit lines are a very common instrument of moving climate finance from international development financial institutions to intermediaries in developing countries.
Unfortunately and very surprisingly, not all of these lines get utilised. Rainer and Sanjoy who have worked with credit lines for many years explain how credit lines can be made more effective. The market needs to be assessed, potential products tested, the processes have to be thought through and there needs to be far better coordination between teams within the local financial intermediary.
Technical Assistance should also be more strategically deployed and one key...2023-09-2746 min
New Ventures Podcast# 55 Preparing proactively for climate migration.A small country like Bangladesh is vulnerable to both extreme events and slow deterioration of living conditions due to climate change. People migrate in droves when extreme events occur, they migrate in trickles as agriculture and fishing becomes unviable. The Climate Bridge Fund, supported by the German Development Bank, and implemented by BRAC, the world’s largest NGO aims at increasing the resilience of people as they migrate to urban areas.
They fund two types of projects. Some projects are implemented by small NGOs who work in informal settlements to improve sanitation conditions and help people seek ne...2023-09-1845 min
New Ventures Podcast# 54 PAYG everything is a reality.BBOXX started selling small solar home systems in Rwanda thirteen years back. It was heady times as several entrepreneurs from the Western world rushed to provide modern electricity to millions of customers in Africa . The industry soon attracted enormous global investor interest.
Like all hype cycles, reality dawned as some of these companies collapsed.
Listen to this podcast with Christopher Baker-Brian of the BBOXX , a company which has lived to tell the tale.
Sections In these 35 minutes we discuss:
The storms the company has come through. How the...2023-08-2138 min
New Ventures Podcast# 53 Breaking the cycle of subsistence farming.A very small part of arable land in Africa is irrigated and with climate change already happening, there is neither time nor money to build grand irrigation projects. What can be done, however, is to collect rainwater, which now comes in sudden heavy downpours, using age-old techniques. Add on solutions that measure soil moisture, predict weather and connect farmers to market and you can transform agriculture in Africa. Requires a commitment to support local organisations and foster partnerships for the next thirty years.
Listen to this podcast with Anton Earle of the Stockholm International Water Institute which...2023-08-0646 min
New Ventures Podcast# 52 More intelligible ESG DataMichael Poisson helps us understand the types of companies in the crowded ESG scoring industry. The industry is very crowded with various types of companies offering different data products based on the customer needs. Incoming regulations will lead to standardised products. Companies use broadly two types of approaches. One way is to make sense of publicly available data and the other is to use technology such as artificial intelligence and quantitative modelling. To some extent, these approaches are merging not least because all publicly available
information cannot be believed.
I host this podcast with Michael...2023-07-2731 min
New Ventures Podcast# 51 Why join a climate programme?What you learn at a world class incubator? In this podcast , two entrepreneurs reflect on the time they spent at Carbon 13, Cambridge’s climate venture builder. Why did they apply? What happened when they meet their other cohort members? Did the experience help them? What is the progress they have made since then?
Finally, it seems to boil down to know to the maximum; “Know myself”
Sections Section 1: First 20 minutes about the businesses of Andy and Natalia
Section 2: About their experiences in Carbon 13
Host: Sanjoy Sanyal, Founder Regain Paradise
New Ve...2023-07-031h 02
New Ventures Podcast# 50 Partnering to solve the climate crisis.Human wildlife conflict has social causes and is being exacerbated by climate change. Solving it requires an integrated approach. Technology is key but you cannot air drop it in these frontiers of climate change. To make real impact organisations of different types must come together and their funders will have to support these partnerships. Listen to this fascinating podcast to know how software technology is being tested among the Masai tribes in a partnership between two very different organisations and understand how these unusual partnerships can be nurtured to meet the twin crises in biodiversity and climate crises.
2023-06-0857 min
New Ventures Podcast# 49 The stage is set for climate talent.Deep Science Ventures is building climate businesses with a plan. What is required to reverse global warming? What are the constraints in reaching outcomes? What technology solutions can remove these constraints? Who are the best people to develop the technology? How can we give them opportunity to think about the problem?
Listen to this fascinating podcast about they are building companies in Direct Air Capture and Renewable Energy from these first principles.
Sections Section 1: First 18 P minutes on the Deep Science Ventures approach
Section 2: Next 35 minutes on the approach in action
2023-05-0952 min
New Ventures Podcast# 48 Data mining for better mining.The mining industry contributes more than 4 per cent of the global greenhouse gas emissions. That is about the share of cement and chemicals & amp; petrochemicals taken together. It also consumes water in areas where it is in short supply. Things can get worse. The transition to electric vehicles and renewable energy will increase the demand for minerals and rare earths several times over. Ore quality is declining and companies are digging deep to meet the increased demand. Listen to this podcast to know how IntelliSense is using artificial intelligence to help mining operations not only reduce the use of...2023-04-2638 min
New Ventures Podcast# 47 Humanism, Climate Change and TagoreCan the tools that we have – science, technology and business – address the issues that we face from climate change? After all, these are the very things that has brought us to this problem. So it is right to be skeptical. But then in the limited time these tools are all that we have. It is not practical to think that we will build everything afresh . This difficult problem can be solved if we use the same tools with a different mindset. This is why the philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 may need...2023-03-1537 min
New Ventures Podcast# 46 Something priceless out of nothing.2 people attract 15 volunteers. These 15 volunteers are supported by people across the UK. Seeing the success of this first group, scores of groups spring up across the UK and the world all working on recycling plastic waste for products such as survival blankets for people who have nothing else to keep warm during the winter. The groups partner with corporate organisations, charities and public bodies. Scaling this organisation does not take money, it needs “admin time”. Is this how future of climate business should look like?
Sections Section 1: First 6 minutes about the
Section 2: Next...2023-02-2323 min
New Ventures Podcast# 45 Reinventing investing for climate crisis.Description: Suppose millions of people come together to fund innovations that have the highest impact on solving the climate crisis. The areas they target are the priority areas science is telling us to focus on, not just the VC flavour of the year. The innovations they support are examined by intelligent common people as well as by experts. The innovators license out the technology so that solutions scale rapidly. That is what Time for Planet is trying to build and making progress on.
Sections Section 1: First 22 minutes about how Time for Planet is reinventing investing
S...2023-01-301h 00
New Ventures Podcast# 44 Rescuing food from being wasted.Wasted food leads to a greenhouse gas emissions. Not only is food waste causing global warming but climate change will lead to greater food waste. Extreme events will damage crops. Unseasonal flowering will lead to short term surpluses. Food is wasted because as consumers we have some unsustainable habits and because retailers are seeking efficiency. Oddbox provides growers an option to sell the fruits and vegetables rejected by retailers and compensates them for cost of growing.
Sections Section 1: First 17 minutes about “what” is Oddbox doing
Section 2: Next 18 minutes about “why” food is wasted and “how” Oddbox’s sol...2023-01-1336 min
New Ventures Podcast# 43 Collaboration is must for innovationThe inside story behind the dramatic drop in renewable energy prices is often quite mundane. In this podcast, we discuss how nitty gritty technical and commercial details led to the rapid decline of offshore wind prices in the UK. The story is really that of a trusted organization bringing together industry players to collaboratively explore solutions to common problems. The Carbon Trust is now expanding the approach to floating wind and expanding the integration of wind energy to existing infrastructure. In promoting innovation in energy access it is trying some of these same tools on the energy access situation...2022-12-2043 min
New Ventures Podcast# 43 Collaboration is must for innovationThe inside story behind the dramatic drop in renewable energy prices is often quite mundane. In this podcast, we discuss how nitty gritty technical and commercial details led to the rapid decline of offshore wind prices in the UK. The story is really that of a trusted organization bringing together industry players to collaboratively explore solutions to common problems. The Carbon Trust is now expanding the approach to floating wind and expanding the integration of wind energy to existing infrastructure. In promoting innovation in energy access it is trying some of these same tools on the energy access situation...2022-12-1642 min
New Ventures Podcast# 42 Circular Economy & Green HydrogenGreen hydrogen is necessary to decarbonise industry. It is possible to make green hydrogen from electrolysis process from renewable energy but the UK government has given out grants to test various ways of making green hydrogen from biomass. A few of them will go to the demonstration stage in the next few years. Post demonstration they can go to commercial stage. Depending on which technology makes its way down this path, green hydrogen can be produced much more cheaply and help both the agriculture and industrial sectors in the UK. Phoebus Power is experimenting with ways to use waste...2022-12-0644 min
New Ventures Podcast# 41 Nurturing businesses to seed investment.Helping climate businesses to get their first customers and the first seed investment is a very tough job. The Greenhouse at the at the Centre for Climate Change Innovation gets it done for about 60 to 70% of the companies they support during a twelve month process. More creditable: most companies they have supported are still in business defying the high mortality rates of start-ups. In this podcast, Naveed Chaudhry talks about the incubation process, the types of companies supported, the angel investing ecosystem in the UK. He goes on to provide two critical insights: specialised VC investors should be ready...2022-11-291h 01
New Ventures Podcast# 40 A future without sufficient climate money.Every report on climate finance claims that we need trillions to adapt to climate change and moans that the money is not coming through. In this podcast Jaideep Prabhu, the international frugal innovation guru, contemplates the future where not enough money is available soon enough. His message is one of hope.
Sections Section 1: First 22 minutes about how you can do a lot with less.
Section 2: How can we reorganise to transition frugally
Sanjoy Sanyal, Founder Regain Paradise
New Ventures Website www.regainparaise.com
Guest - Jaideep Prabhu, Professor of...2022-11-1251 min
New Ventures Podcast# 39 Understand risks, proactively reduce vulnerabilityClimate change will not cause disastrous impact. Vulnerability to it will. To reduce vulnerability, public and private managers will have to be clear headed about risks and plan for them. It is not hard to guess that all businesses will be subjected to greater physical risk. What is hard is to assess to what extent and in what time frame. Cervest uses machine learning and statistical modelling to make sense of very complicated scenarios. Its customers include organizations that have to mandatorily disclose climate risks, organizations managing global supply chains and architect firms building prominent new buildings.
...2022-11-0347 min
New Ventures Podcast# 38 Architect for health, not looks.Heatwaves, fires and flooding will impact physical and mental health and will cause additional pressures on public health facilities. This means that not only health facilities but also offices, building and public spaces will have to be designed keeping in mind the health of people who will use them. Architects have to build for this new world also keeping affordability and a growing shortage of construction material in mind. New technology will help but it is also important that architects learn from what worked in the past.
Section 1: First 14 minutes about Sumita and her approach to architecture2022-10-1945 min
New Ventures Podcast# 37 Investors should use satellite climate data.If we use climate data, we can take actions today at low cost and avoid a lot of pain later. Kayross collects climate data observed by satellites and then makes them useful for public and private investors by combining various sorts of data and interpreting the results using clever algorithms. Investors can
use this analysis to take informed effective decisions to manage risks and take positive action. With authentic data, they can also guard themselves against greenwashing.
Sections Section 1: What is observed? (1-11 mins)
Section 2: How does it help investors? (11...2022-10-0443 min
New Ventures Podcast# 36 Climate angels must specialise.Every city in the world where people have some spare cash to invest in their future should have a group of green angels to support climate innovators. Nick Lyth tells you how to do it and what you can achieve.
Section 1: What have we achieved?
Section 2: What companies do you support?
Section 3: What processes do we follow?
Sanjoy Sanyal - Director
www.regainparaise.com
Nick Lyth - Founder and President
https://greenangelsyndicate.com/
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/nick-lyth-51919512022-09-2549 min
New Ventures Podcast# 35 Nature can protect islands from man.Listen to Johan Mendez explain the implementation of an ecosystem based adaptation project in Seychelles
These are the parts of the podcast :
First 10 minutes : the climate change and environmental damage in Seychelles
10 -16 minutes : what is ecosystem based adaptation and why is it important ?
16-29 minutes : what really happened in the project?
29-40 minutes : doing more of these projects
After 41 minutes : developing and implementing these projects, measuring impact.
Sanjoy Sanyal
Visiting Fellow Cambridge Judge Business School
Founder, Regain Paradise, a climate financ...2022-09-1455 min
New Ventures PodcastEP 34 Ships need to use greener fuels.Dr. Sanjay Kuttan, Chief Technology Officer of the Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonization and Ken Hickson, veteran sustainability commentator explain why moving to new fuels is really the only way for the shipping industry to cut emissions. It is not easy to make the transition, however. The Centre located in Singapore, one of the world’s most important places for the maritime trade is playing a key role in this transition. It is funding critical projects and helping build an industry-wide collaboration.
Sanjoy Sanyal
Visiting Fellow Cambridge Judge Business School
Founder, Regain Paradise, a c...2022-08-2945 min
New Ventures PodcastEP 31 Can digital technologies help businesses deliver basic services?Listen to George Kibala Bauer, Director Digital Utilities, GSMA for a fascinating tour across Asia and Africa, as he talks about how private sector businesses are learning and experimenting and how the deep industry experience of the GSMA is helping to build these businesses.
The GSMA Foundation has been running the donor funded Mobile for Digital Utilities Innovation Fund and has provided catalytic capital to support innovation in providing energy, water and sanitation services to underserved communities in emerging economies.
Sanjoy Sanyal ( Director)
https://www.regainparadise.org/2022-06-2055 min
New Ventures Podcast# EP 30 How will the refrigerant industry change in this decade?While refrigerants cool commercial and industrial facilities they heat up the atmosphere. The refrigerant gases leak and while they stay in the atmosphere for a shorter term than carbon dioxide, they heat up the atmosphere to a much greater degree. This Catch 22 problem will become worse in a heating world.
Luckily solutions exist. One solution is to move to natural refrigerants (air, water and chemicals such as ammonia, butane, carbon dioxide and propane). To enable companies to effectively manage their refrigerants three steps are required. First, measure what is used and where it is used and how much...2022-06-0738 min
New Ventures Podcast#26 Travin Singh explains how reducing food loss helps improve profitability.It is possible to add revenue lines with upcycled products
CRUST Group makes beer from bread and rice that would be otherwise wasted. It also makes a sparkling drink from the parts of fruits that would otherwise be lost.
As it has learnt to make and sell these products, it also offers to partner with customers to take their food waste and convert that to a sustainable product. This helps their partners improve incomes, reduce costs and earn sustainability points.
Reducing food wastage is key to feeding the world in an era of...2022-04-2729 min
New Ventures PodcastAndre Menezes explains how a plant-based alternative to the world’s favourite meat was developed during the pandemic.The recipes were tested in an empty kitchen in the Central Business District of Singapore.
As the foodie haven Singapore locked down in the early days of the pandemic, the team of Tindle took an empty kitchen up and turn out recipes which they tested with top chefs.
The recipes were developed in 2020, the product was launched in 2021 and in 2022 the company is launching its products in US, UK and Germany.
The trick is to have common easily available ingredients with recipe ingredients ensuring quick international acceptance.2022-04-1330 min
New Ventures PodcastDr Avishek Kumar explains how the advantages and applications of vanadium redox flow batteries.The clean energy transition will need more efficient methods of energy storage. A Singapore based company is making progress.
Flow batteries have the following advantages:
Better performance (both in terms of storage capacity and lower degradation over time)
Operational safety
Lower carbon footprint.
Listen to Dr. Avishek Kumar of VFlow Tech explain how the advantages help in large scale applications of renewable energy storage: electrification of remote island installations and microgrids both in Asia and Africa, and in EV charging infrastructure.
And how being located in Singapore...2022-03-2932 min
New Ventures PodcastDigitalization helps in managing the complex web of energy production and consumption.In this podcast, Emir Nurov , Co-founder of Resync, explains how digitalization technologies helps three types of customers.
First, they can help building owners take control of both the energy consumed and energy produced (given that many buildings are now also producing energy). The Resync system helps building managers both by alerting them to important decisions that need to be taken and automating routine decisions.
Second, they can help renewable energy power producers and the companies that set up, operate, and maintain the renewable energy plants to choose and maintain equipment. In addition to helping large r...2022-03-1532 min
New Ventures PodcastLuci Petlack talks about how consumers leading the transition to a sustainable economy.Consumers can send powerful signals from their spending habits.
Let’s first say what sustainability is not.
It is not about spending more money. It is not about feeling guilty. And there is no one way to achieve sustainability.
Sustainability is being thoughtful about what you eat and what you buy.
As sustainable consumers, we need to be consciously deciding where and how to spend your money.
In this podcast with sustainable lifestyle blogger Dr. Luci Petlack we try and understand the many different things consumers are doing to conne...2022-03-0129 min
New Ventures Podcast#21 : Thomas McMahon explains how transparent pricing and efficient settlement is key to developing carbon markets.Voluntary carbon markets are an important part of the transition path to a low carbon economy as companies reorient their businesses and technologies. No wonder then that carbon prices have been rising steadily in the carbon exchange that is being built by AirCarbon.
AirCarbon is a Singapore based company building an exchange for the world's most global commodity : carbon. Using a clever combination of tokens and blockchain technology, it is solving the problem of carbon prices being opaque. It was launched in late October 2020 and even during the pandemic has attracted 200 member clients. The technology allows geographical por...2022-02-1639 min
New Ventures Podcast#20 : Lessons from Let's Plant Meat on marketing alternative proteinGetting close to the customer experience and targeting early adopter markets.
For many people across the world, Thai is the preferred cuisine for a Netflix evening takeout or a special dinner. Smith Taweelerdniti, founder of Let's Plant Meat, is developing plant based meat for Thai dishes. The trick he says is to try and meet the whole customer experience of savouring the Thai Basil chicken and not just to make the product taste like meat. Targeting early adopter markets - for example expat communities in digital nomad havens of Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Phuket - provides the company...2022-02-0234 min
New Ventures PodcastKarim Jabbar talks about carbon financing programme for off-grid solar.Verification of carbon credits takes time and effort, so only large project developers have been able to invest in the upfront costs of carbon credits. Solstream's algorithm tracks the small quantities of solar electricity produced by millions of solar home systems distributed across vast rural areas and converts them into carbon credits. These credits are now digital assets which can be sold by the solar home system company or held on as a digital asset whose value should come up as more large companies make net zero declarations. These carbon credits should be more valuable than that produced by a...2022-01-1954 min
New Ventures PodcastSanjoy Sanyal In Conversation With Troy CarterIn this podcast, Troy Carter, co-founder & CEO of Earthshot Labs talks of putting together an international collaboration to help learn what it takes to protect nature. Earthshot Labs is pioneering a high tech solution to help empower communities with small scale, low-tech and high-touch fixes to the ecological crisis. With the use of simulations they would learn about what needs to be done. With the use of data, they would be able to access carbon money without the current difficulties.
All this would sound like science fiction except Earthshot Labs has just received funding from a very well...2021-12-2120 min
New Ventures PodcastSanjoy Sanyal In Conversation With Kavita GandhiIf you are an innovator in clean energy, smart grids, carbon markets and electric vehicles anywhere in the world there are four reasons you should consider being in Singapore.
IP Protection. R&D support. Green finance. Supportive customers.
And the Sustainable Energy Association of Singapore should be on your list of organizations to visit. In its capacity as an industry association, it wants the industry to grow. And has a focus on providing the ecosystem for innovative young companies.2021-12-1531 min
New Ventures PodcastSanjoy Sanyal In Conversation With Kevin HillThere is something beautiful about timber that makes it the construction material of choice for some of the iconic tourism projects . Add to that, the efficiency that comes from prefab constriction.
For timber to have its rightful place in the sustainable world, digital technologies will have to tell you exactly where it comes from and about how its cultivation is protecting nature and communities.2021-12-1341 min
New Ventures PodcastSanjoy Sanyal In Conversation With Eugene WangTo understand the international nature of new food, you can follow the career of Eugene Wang. He took his Taiwanese Buddhist family's recipe to California ten years back to make seafood substitutes. The New England crab cakes made from plant protein are his personal favorite. Then he came back to Singapore where space is at a premium to work on making protein powder by fermenting microalgae. Now he is in the Netherlands working with international food companies.
Along the way he talks of the importance of how making alternate food is not that hard but getting the "cor...2021-12-0941 min
New Ventures PodcastSanjoy Sanyal In Conversation With Sunil Kumar Yadav, Head Building Performance & Sustainability (ASEAN) SiemensNot all companies can say exactly where they are on their path to a net zero carbon footprint. Siemens can. And the technology it uses to do so is now also available to others.
Listen to this podcast with Sunil Yadav, Head Building Performance & Sustainability to know the four components of the solution that Siemens has for buildings and data centers. Together, they will help you define your path, reduce energy consumption, procure renewable energy, manage and measure your progress.
Sunil also talks of the advantages of being based in Singapore and the overall state of the AS...2021-12-0731 min
New Ventures PodcastSanjoy Sanyal In Conversation With Lekha PatmanathanIn a warming world, the need for cooling will only rise. nEXERGY, a company founded by Lekha Patmanathan helps customers in Singapore and the ASEAN region use ClimaCheck, to monitor cooling systems. Cooling solutions are expensive equipment and squeezing performance out of them not only helps companies manage their expenses but also avoid expensive upgrades. Electrical utilities have partnered with Lekha’s company for the same reason: a distribution utility that helps its customers become more efficient stands to benefit by being able to meet increasing customer demand with the existing generation infrastructure.2021-12-0146 min
New Ventures PodcastAnton Root talks about REDD+ land and forestry projects.Net zero pledges by large global corporations should help grow this market.
Balancing quality of projects with streamlined processes and transparent information is key.
Anton Root, Head of Research at Allied Crowds , a company that enables finance for the SDGs demystifies the market for us.
The market size of voluntary carbon offset markets in land and forestry is small but changing fast. Net zero pledges by large global corporations should help grow this market.
This allows various types of organizations (combinations of commercial and community organizations) to come together. However, project deve...2021-10-0739 min
New Ventures PodcastMartijn Veen talks about results based financing.If quality clean technology products exist, results based financing can help create markets for them
How can you ensure that markets do not collapse when incentives are withdrawn?
In this podcast, Martijn Veen Global Head of Energy at SNV tells us how. There are four things really:
There has to be a data driven mechanism to allocate incentives.
The processes have to be clear and transparent
There needs to be some experimentation ahead to understand what will work
The incentive provider will have to work with commercial capit...2021-09-3031 min
New Ventures PodcastMartijn Veen talks about "If quality clean technology products exist, results based financing can help create markets for them."How can you ensure that markets do not collapse when incentives are withdrawn?
In this podcast, Martijn Veen Global Head of Energy at SNV, tells us how. There are four things really:
There has to be a data driven mechanism to allocate incentives.
The processes have to be clear and transparent.
There needs to be some experimentation ahead to understand what will work.
The incentive provider will have to work with commercial capital providers.2021-09-2931 min
New Ventures PodcastSujay Malve talks about building a microgrid business out of Singapore.Why should industrial and commercial customers in ASEAN adopt microgrid solutions?
Canopy Power, the company founded by Sujay Malve, has been setting up microgrids for remote resorts in the Asia Pacific region. Customers have been benefiting from the money saved from diesel. But post pandemic, Sujay hopes that a focus on attracting sustainability conscious customers seeking a staycation would drive customer demand. New categories of customers -for example fisheries which export to Western markets – are also switching to cleaner power.
Canopy Power is in Singapore and though the pandemic has created multiple travel restrictions the Si...2021-08-2734 min
New Ventures PodcastKen Hickson reflects on his long career and building sustainability.What can Singapore tell us about urban sustainability?
Ken Hickson has been working in Singapore since the early 1980s. He published his first book on sustainability in 2009. In a weak moment, he would say "give up" because it is "like banging your head". But the moment quickly passes. In this inspiring podcast, Ken, who just celebrated his 77th birthday, talks about businesses which are bringing sustainability to the built environment in Singapore. He talks of his brand new project that he is working on for the London Design Festival and why the carbon embedded in the building materials...2021-08-2036 min
New Ventures PodcastThe Power of CrowdfundingCrowdfunding can be a powerful tool. Not, however, if you think of it as the next cool thing.
In my conversation with Davinia Cogan she provides the following advice.
Entrepreneurs will have to do the ground work and prepare for a campaign. Incubators will have to really understand their companies and support them with fundraising over several years.
And foundations will have to work closely with platforms to tailor their initiatives to what the market needs.2021-07-1532 min
New Ventures PodcastDavinia Cogan tells Sanjoy Sanyal that crowdfunding is a serious option for clean energy business.Crowdfunding is a serious option for funding clean energy businesses
The market took a bit of a hit last year but is still in a very respectable shape
Davinia Cogan, who has literally written the book on crowdfunding for clean energy access talks about the different types of crowdfunding and how the markets have reacted to covid.
In Davinia's words her interest in crowdfunding was piqued because it was so frustrating to see companies not get funded. But she worries that some of the problems with the other types of impact investing may mak...2021-07-0922 min
New Ventures PodcastDavinia Cogen tells Sanjoy Sanyal that crowdfunding is a serious option for clean energy business.Crowdfunding is a serious option for funding clean energy businesses
The market took a bit of a hit last year but is still in a very respectable shape
Davinia Cogan, who has literally written the book on crowdfunding for clean energy access talks about the different types of crowdfunding and how the markets have reacted to covid.
In Davinia's words her interest in crowdfunding was piqued because it was so frustrating to see companies not get funded. But she worries that some of the problems with the other types of...2021-07-0922 min
New Ventures PodcastSanjoy Sanyal talks to Nancy Wimmer on rural renewable energy businessWhat makes rural business in climate friendly technologies so hard to build?
Nancy Wimmer should know why. Thanks to support from Good Energies Foundation she has spent a decade in Bangladesh, a country that has built rural renewable energy businesses like no other. A few highlights of what she has learnt:
It requires dogged determination .
It requires specialized financing structures.
It requires obsession with quality.
It requires public sector entrepreneurship.
And if building it is hard , keeping it going is harder.2021-06-2537 min
New Ventures PodcastTrailer - Nancy Wimmer and Sanjoy Sanyal of New VenturesTrailer - Nancy Wimmer and Sanjoy Sanyal of New Ventures2021-06-2000 min
New Ventures PodcastGavriel Landau, the founder of Charm Impact talks to Sanjoy sanyalGavriel Landau, the founder of Charm Impact, is developing a crowdlending platform for local clean energy entrepreneurs.
Can crowdlending make access to finance more equitable?
Gavriel Landau is certainly trying. Through Charm Impact he would like to make crowd funding accessible to teams run by entrepreneurs who have been neglected by institutional investors: local founders, women business owners. And he knows a thing or two about crowdfunding as well. Charm Impact has funded itself through an equity fund raise.
Gavriel talks about the advantages of crowdfunding. It gets you access to a group...2021-06-1831 min
New Ventures PodcastTrailer Gavriel Landau by Sanjoy SanyalTrailer Gavriel Landau by Sanjoy Sanyal2021-06-1400 min
New Ventures PodcastKiran Pereira with Sanjoy and Rajiv talks about circular economy in construction.Should the construction industry care about sand? And, if so, how?
In a carbon obsessed world of climate professionals, it is easy to forget about sand. In his excellent book describing various solutions to avoid a climate disaster, Mr. Bill Gates says "concrete is even harder (to find a carbon friendly way of making). To make it, you mix together gravel, sand, water and cement. The first three of these are relatively easy: it is the cement that is the problem for the climate."
In this podcast Ms. Pereira, the author of the book Sand Stories...2021-06-0236 min
New Ventures PodcastKiran Pereira with Sanjoy Sanyal talks about crowd funding for a book project.Learning so much about a sustainability topic that you just have to share?
In this podcast, Kiran Pereira tells me how her curiosity about a common (too common) natural product just kept her going. To write a Masters thesis, to contribute articles, to start her website and then to publish her book. If this is a dream you share too, as Kiran says, this podcast is a must listen. And do read her book and visit her site2021-05-2912 min
New Ventures PodcastTrailer Kiran Pereira by Sanjoy SanyalTrailer Kiran Pereira by Sanjoy Sanyal2021-05-2900 min
New Ventures PodcastToby Hammond of FuturepumpToby Hammond talks to Sanjoy Sanyal about building a global team and crowdfunding.2021-04-2749 minNew Ventures PodcastSebastian Groh talks about the future of the gridNew Ventures first episode: This is Dr Sebastian Groh building a peer to peer grid in Bangladesh. Listen to his journey, what drives him and what his plans are for the future.2018-06-2743 min