⭐️ The Carbon Lowdown: Climate 100 Special Edition ⭐️
Welcome to The Carbon Lowdown! A fortnightly newsletter from Supercritical.
⭐️ Introducing the Climate 100 by Supercritical ⭐️
Welcome to a very special edition of The Carbon Lowdown! Over the last few months, the Supercritical team has been hard at work putting together the Climate 100, an index celebrating the UK's private tech companies that are setting the standard for climate action. There are some remarkable climate leaders within the UK tech community and whilst the climate world can feel bleak at times - we want to celebrate those rising stars.
❓What is the Climate 100?
The Climate 100 spotlights UK private technology companies that are setting the standard for climate action. Companies can advance with five cost-effective and achievable actions, detailed in the full report. This is a benchmark for tech companies to measure their impact, a celebration of progress, and an invitation to double down on climate action!
Additionally, we have also created the VC leaderboard - looking at the average company score of VC firms whose portfolio companies are within the Climate 100.
🗝 Our key findings
Fintech businesses top the tree when it comes to overall climate action - Monzo takes #1 followed by Oaknorth #2 and Tide #3
EdTech companies score the highest on average - with climate close behind, followed by the food, transport, real estate and fintech sectors
52 of the top 100 companies were founded since 2016, suggesting that younger companies are quicker to measure their footprint than incumbents, perhaps recognising the urgency
Interestingly, later-stage companies are minimising risk ahead of potential IPOs, we saw a huge jump in climate progress between Series B and C (explained by investors taking a keener interest in business practises, including climate)
A spend of £4.98 per full-time employee per week would put companies in the top 100. The cost of two of the actions which would have the most significant impact on emissions, namely measurement and offsetting, costs businesses around £61,500 per year for the average business in the Top 500 - a drop in the ocean compared to their average of £65M in funding raised
The people we have to thank tend to be passionate founders or, in the more mature business, passionate team members. Hiring a formal sustainability lead might come later, but a driven individual usually kickstarts the process—beginning with measuring the company’s carbon footprint. Of the top 10 companies, only 70% had a climate role in the business; as we expand to the top 100 this drops to 30%.
Investors have an important role to play in encouraging growing companies to decarbonise—several of the companies we spoke to in the top 100, told us that part of their motivation was investor pressure. Looking at the top scorers, Latitude, Molten Ventures and Tencent lead the way: their portfolio companies had the highest scores on average with 37, 34 and 32 respectively.
➡️ Why did we create the Climate 100?
We feel so passionately about the importance of climate action and want to celebrate those who have shown great progress towards net zero and exemplify great climate leadership. This list also exists as an invitation to tech startups and VCs to double down on climate action!
💥 Who are we looking at?
We are focusing on companies where hypergrowth is in their DNA, the tech sector. We believe they’re up to the challenge of 14,000x growth. That’s how much annual carbon removal rates need to grow to meet 2050 requirements, according to the latest IPCC report. That’s approximately the growth Amazon has experienced since 1997.
To create the Climate 100 we compiled a list of pre-IPO, UK-headquartered, VC-backed tech companies with over $20M USD in funding and 30+ in headcount.
👀 Our methodology at a glance
Our ranking is set to provide a checklist for the actions technology companies in the UK could be taking to show climate leadership. The criteria were:
If the company measured their carbon footprint;
If the company has implemented a carbon reduction plan;
If the company has set a climate target or commitment, such as a net zero or carbon neutral target;
If the company ever purchased conventional, avoidance offsets (e.g. offsets which protect existing forests from being cleared);
If the company ever purchased carbon removal offsets (e.g. projects like direct air capture which actively remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere); and
If the company has reported on their climate progress publicly. Communication is key!
🎙Keen to learn more? Our founder and CEO, Michelle is hosting a free webinar talking through how companies can go from zero to climate leadership for less than the price of a 🍺 person each week - we would love for you to join!
You can sign up here 😀
This newsletter is carefully crafted by Fi Watters and Tom Previte
Fi is a Climate Consultant at Supercritical with a MSc in Climate Change from King's College.
Tom specialises in selling carbon removal at Supercritical and hosts The Carbon Removal Show podcast.
