Elena Harumi Stark

EVERYONE SAYS CLIMATE TECH HAS A FUNDING GAP. WE SEE IT DIFFERENTLY. The real bottleneck isn’t capital; global liquidity is abundant. It’s financial infrastructure: the rails that turn climate projects into investable, liquid, and tradable assets. That’s why at Contrarian Ventures, we developed the Climate Liquidity Stack: our mental model for how trust, financing, and secondary markets unlock capital across asset classes. Here’s what we found: ⚡ Utility-scale renewables are bankable, but secondary markets are still clunky, and assets aren’t as easily tradable as other financial products. 🔍Missing: smarter PPA tools, developer CRMs, workflow automation to cut soft costs. ⚡ Mid-scale infrastructure is stuck in “deal-by-deal hell.” 🔍Missing: platforms that standardize, aggregate, and securitize portfolios so institutions can invest. ⚡ Distributed assets (solar, heat pumps, EV chargers) are booming in adoption but remain uninvestable at scale. 🔍Missing: registries, standardized MRV, aggregation, and rails to bundle millions of small assets into liquid products. ⚡ FOAK technologies (hydrogen, DAC, storage) have no rails at all. 🔍Missing: venture project finance, MRV standards, and risk-sharing tools to make first deployments bankable. 🚀 Are you building the financial architecture to make green energy a true asset class? We want to hear from you. We believe now is the moment to build. Green assets are scaling. Institutional capital is searching for yield. The systems to connect the two are still missing. That’s the white space, and the opportunity. 👉 Swipe through the carousel for our key insights. 📄 Full deep dive is linked in the comments, written by our Principal Robina von Stein. Tell us what you think and where you agree or disagree. 📬 Subscribe to our Substack for more sharp takes, deep dives, and founder-first insights - straight from the Contrarian team.

44

5 Kommentare

“Unless there is climate justice for everyone, there’s no climate justice for no one.” Climate Mobility Talks featuring Dr. Bernhard Straub, CEO of Robert Bosch Stiftung, at the Berlin Climate Mobility Forum 2025 Dr. Bernhard Straub discussed the Robert Bosch Stiftung’s partnership with the Global Centre for Climate Mobility (GCCM), underscoring the role of civil society in addressing climate mobility globally. He highlighted the importance of supporting those on the frontlines with the resources and backing they need to drive real change. #ClimateMobility | #BCMF2025

84

1 Kommentar

💨 Unmasking Scope 4: The Missing Link in Climate Accounting 🌍 Most discussions on emissions stop at Scope 1, 2, and 3. Yet one of the most impactful dimensions of carbon reduction often remains outside the frame — Scope 4, or avoided emissions. Though not officially recognized by the GHG Protocol, Scope 4 is becoming a crucial concept in the transition to net zero. It focuses on the emissions prevented through smarter choices, innovations, and design: ✅ Switching from diesel to electric vehicles ✅ Using renewable energy and efficient materials ✅ Providing services that help clients reduce emissions ✅ Creating products that enable low-carbon lifestyles Traditional accounting only measures what is emitted. Scope 4 measures what is avoided — the positive ripple effect of sustainable actions that reduce emissions beyond a company’s direct footprint. Recognizing avoided emissions helps to: 🌱 Drive innovation and low-carbon solutions 🌍 Encourage investment in sustainable technologies ⚡ Highlight long-term systems change 🏗️ Promote responsible design and production choices Scope 4 reframes the conversation — from counting emissions to valuing avoided impact. The next era of sustainability demands this broader, forward-looking perspective. Nugroho Adi SasongkoFahad Al-ShubailyKevin RochfordFabio A.M.B. Catino #Scope4 #CarbonAccounting #Sustainability #NetZero #ESG #ClimateAction #GreenEconomy #Innovation Image credit: agendi

189

6 Kommentare

✅ Five reasons why boards should care about climate and sustainability 💡 Last year the Climate Governance Initiative interviewed 17 board directors from across the world to find out their motivations for pursuing climate action in their boardrooms. ... here's what they said. 🌍 These interviews were filmed as part of the "Mobilizing Directors for Climate Action" workshop in collaboration with the World Economic Forum 🔗 Prefer to view on YouTube? Click here ➡️ https://lnkd.in/eDHHA4St #sustainability #climate #governance #interview

50

2 Kommentare

🌍 Young people are driving the most innovative climate solutions worldwide — yet they receive less than 1% of climate foundation funding. That has to change. Today, together with ClimateWorks Foundation, we’re launching the 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗵 𝗖𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗙𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗦𝘁𝘂𝗱𝘆. This report maps where funding is flowing, exposes persistent gaps, and shows how philanthropy can step up to resource youth-led climate justice at scale. When we fund young people, we fund bold, lasting climate action. ✨ 🔗 Explore the highlights: https://ycjf.org/ycfs-2025 📊 Download the full study: https://lnkd.in/eBPng5CS   #YouthClimateFundingStudy #YCFS

183

7 Kommentare

Thinking about your company’s climate journey? 🌍 Here’s a sneak peek at our new guide for corporates on setting and achieving climate goals:  • Measure your emissions: set boundaries, choose a protocol, and kick off with a simple data plan  • Report: preferably using any global framework that fits—CDP, TCFD, GRI, or a locally acceptable one - BRSR, CSRD  • Set realistic reduction targets, aligned to your business goals  • Implement the strategies that make sense for you  • Monitor results to adapt and accelerate 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗮 𝗰𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗽𝗮𝘁𝗵 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝘁𝗼 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁? 👉 Read the full guide: https://lnkd.in/gh5kDiBP   #GHGEmissions #GHGprotocol #CDP #TCFD #GRI #BRSR #CSRD #Decarbonization #NetZero #ClimateAction #Sustainability #CorporateStrategy #HexaClimate #HexaCarbon

29

🌍Climate litigation is entering a new era. Attribution science is enabling climate victims to sue the world’s top polluters for damages and the first successful case may not be very far away. Check out Joana Setzer and Noah Walker-Crawford in this Grantham Institute - Climate Change and the Environment feature to find out what attribution science means for the courts & climate justice – by Chloé Farand ⚖️Polluters on trial: https://lnkd.in/e_7JR4tD

89

🛢️Fuel and #carbon prices are typically assessed based on their effectiveness in reducing emissions, while their broader societal benefits often go overlooked. This column evaluates one of the world’s largest environmental tax experiments – Germany’s eco-tax reform – and finds that it led to sizable reductions not only in carbon emissions but also in harmful local air pollutants. Estimates reveal that two-thirds of the monetised benefits of the eco-tax stemmed from health gains linked to cleaner air and accrued disproportionately to lower-income and more polluted areas, suggesting that fuel taxes can deliver pro-poor environmental gains, even when their cost incidence is regressive. Vox column by: Piero Basaglia (Université de Bordeaux), Sophie Behr (DIW Berlin - German Institute for Economic Research, Technische Universität Berlin), Moritz Drupp (ETH Zürich, Universität Hamburg) Read more here: https://ow.ly/2xvI50WIIgL

32

Love this new Forbes piece from Felicia Jackson: “Inclusive finance is the overlooked engine of climate resilience.” It nails a truth the market is finally waking up to: the fastest way to help vulnerable communities adapt is to finance the tools they choose—through institutions they already trust. That’s exactly the thesis behind the Incofin Climate-Smart Microfinance Fund: channel private debt into leading microfinance institutions so they can scale climate-smart lending—everything from drought-resilient seeds and smart irrigation to solar pumps and efficient cooling. Early signals are compelling. In year one, our work helped investees expand and track climate-smart loan books from $195M to $1.4B—a 7× step-change—while getting 100% of investees to tag and report climate-relevant finance. This is how adaptation scales: build the pipes, then let local ingenuity flow. If you’re an asset owner or allocator exploring resilient, inclusive climate solutions, let’s talk about partnering on this opportunity. https://lnkd.in/eS6x3Htf

30

2 Kommentare