Scaling Green-Tech

Helin Cox, Chief Technology Officer at Climeworks, discusses the cost and scale-up of direct air capture on Episode 33 of Scaling Green Tech, a podcast by Adopter.Cox breaks the cost of direct air capture into three parts: site selection, plant operations and maintenance, and the technology itself. Within the technology, cost comes down to how much CO2 a plant captures per year for a given investment, and how much energy that takes. Both are governed by the sorbent, which is why Climeworks runs a 30-person team on material synthesis and modification, and why sorbent life matters as much as sorbent performance. Climeworks tests those materials against real site conditions in Zurich, in a mid-scale rig that conditions air from 40 degrees Celsius at 15 per cent humidity down to minus 25, and in a mobile testing unit shipped to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where Riyadh reaches 45 degrees at under 10 per cent humidity. Cox places direct air capture against roughly 40 gigatonnes of annual fossil fuel emissions, of which she says 80 to 90 per cent must be dealt with through emission reductions, leaving carbon removal for hard-to-abate sectors.This episode is relevant for carbon removal buyers, CDR and DAC project developers, climate hardware founders scaling first-of-a-kind plants, and deep tech investors assessing risk-adjusted returns. Guest profileHelin Cox is Chief Technology Officer at Climeworks.Cox’s early career was spent at Honeywell UOP, working first as an R&D development engineer and then in the field, starting up first-of-a-kind industrial plants and learning where laboratory results fail in operation. She went on to commercialise new technologies at UOP and eventually ran its new product portfolio for renewable and sustainable technologies, covering green hydrogen, blue hydrogen and long-duration energy storage. At Climeworks, she leads a technology organisation of more than 100 people across materials, equipment, process design and testing.Climeworks is a Swiss carbon removal company founded in 2009 that develops direct air capture technology, develops and operates carbon removal plants, and sells carbon removal to corporate buyers. The company runs an innovation centre in Zurich housing wet chemical labs, a maker space and mid-scale testing, operates the Mammoth plant in Iceland, and has opened a project development office in Calgary to assess opportunities in Canada. Alongside direct air capture, Climeworks offers a portfolio of carbon removal that includes nature-based solutions and biochar.Company website: https://climeworks.com/Find Helin Cox on LinkedInTopics coveredExplaining direct air capture Where Climeworks sits in the carbon removal marketInside the Climeworks innovation centre in ZurichThe direct air capture cost stack: site, operations, technologySorbent performance, sorbent life and energy demandMid-scale rigs and the mobile testing unit for real site conditionsVoluntary buyers, offtake agreements and risk-adjusted returnsRegulation, 45Q and Canada's investment tax creditThe lift-off price and what solar cost reduction actually came fromFail-fast culture, the maker space and the stage-gate processGeneration 3 structured sorbents at MammothAdvice for founders scaling first-of-a-kind technology

Declan McEvilly, Co-Founder of OnePlanetCapital, discusses efficiency investing and what makes early-stage climate technology investable on Episode 32 of Scaling Green Tech, a podcast by Adopter.McEvilly argues that climate technology should be reframed as efficiency investing, on the basis that the technologies worth backing make an end user measurably more efficient, with carbon reduction following as a consequence. He contrasts this with what OnePlanetCapital call voluntary contribution businesses, meaning companies that ask a consumer or corporate to pay a premium for a sustainable option, a category that has struggled through higher interest rates and a cost of living crisis. The fund screens every opportunity against three carbon tests and requires each portfolio company to agree on a measurable KPI before investment is completed. Across six years and around 60 investments, McEvilly reports on portfolio trends and performance. This episode is relevant for pre-seed and seed climate technology founders preparing an EIS or SEIS raise, angel and retail investors evaluating climate funds, and B2B marketers working on investor-facing messaging and pitch deck narrative for deep tech companies.Guest profileDeclan McEvilly is Co-Founder of OnePlanetCapital. He has worked in venture capital and private markets for close to 15 years, focused on helping private companies fundraise and grow. He co-founded OnePlanetCapital six years ago after identifying a gap in UK private market investment schemes, which at the time offered investors little climate-focused exposure. As Sales Director, McEvilly manages OnePlanetCapital's relationships with financial advisers, intermediaries and investors. OnePlanetCapital is a specialist climate technology investor backing UK businesses from seed to pre-Series A. The fund invests under the Enterprise Investment Scheme and Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme across energy, transport, construction, packaging, and waste and recycling. It has made around 60 investments. The fund was originally the OnePlanetCapital Sustainable EIS Fund and now operates as the Climate Change EIS Fund.Company website: https://www.oneplanet.capital/Find Declan McEvilly on LinkedIn.  Topics coveredExplaining a climate VC fund to a five-year-oldOnePlanetCapital's investment thesis and the three carbon scopesReframing climate technology as efficiency investingRepositioning a fund from sustainable to climate technologyThree value drivers for retail climate investorsHardware versus SaaS in climate portfoliosRunway, burn rate, and why startups actually failUK startup infrastructure and the scale-up cliff edgeRaising in the US and the valuation trapWhat makes a good pitch: problem, solution, tractionContent, thought leadership, and selling trustClimate adaptation and grid transition as growth sub-sectors

Will Tope, CEO of LiNa Energy, discusses low-cost sodium batteries and how deep tech companies find product-market fit on Episode 31 of Scaling Green Tech, a podcast by Adopter.Tope explains that LiNa Energy did not invent a new chemistry. The company revived the ZEBRA battery, a sodium-based design from the 1980s that is inherently safe and heat-tolerant but historically too expensive to manufacture. LiNa's contribution is the electrolyte: a ceramic component that once had to be baked slowly in thick tubes, now re-engineered as a thin layer around 60 microns thick and produced through a faster, lower-energy process. That change brings the battery cost close to the price of its abundant raw materials. It positions salt batteries as a low-cost option for long-duration storage in hot markets such as India and the Middle East, where lithium-ion systems struggle.This episode is relevant for energy storage founders, deep tech CEOs, grid infrastructure investors, and commercial leaders working on go-to-market strategy, business development in long sales cycles, and marketing for hard tech companies.Guest profileWill Tope is the CEO of LiNa Energy. He trained as a chemical engineer and began his career as a process engineer at the Fawley Refinery near Southampton. He then spent over ten years on the commercial side of oil and gas, covering energy origination and mergers and acquisitions, including sell-side work in Aberdeen and buy-side work in the United States. Towards the end of that period, he was chief of staff for a new trading group at ExxonMobil, where a focus on power first led him to grid-scale batteries. He joined LiNa Energy in 2021 and later stepped up to CEO.LiNa Energy is a Lancaster-based company developing solid-state sodium batteries, also described as salt batteries, for long-duration and grid-scale energy storage. The company runs two laboratories and a pilot manufacturing site in Lancaster, and has run pilot projects in India with Tata and testing in the Middle East. Its technology targets hot climates, where conventional lithium-ion systems carry higher real-world cost.Company website: https://www.lina.energy/ Find Will Tope on LinkedIn.  Topics coveredExplaining LiNa Energy and salt batteries to a five-year-oldThe elevator pitch and reviving the 1980s ZEBRA chemistryThe electrolyte bottleneck and why the old design was expensiveManufacturing the thin ceramic electrolyteFrom individual cells to container-scale battery systemsCommercialisation stages and the Lancaster pilot manufacturing lineFrom oil and gas at ExxonMobil to climate founderBusiness development versus sales in deep techEscaping the pilot graveyardFinding product-market fit in hot markets: India and the Middle EastCustomer signals versus investor advice on data centresMarketing, "external eyes," and what is next for LiNa Energy

Jonathan Jackson, CEO of Previsico, discusses forecasting surface water flooding and scaling a university spin-out on Episode 30 of Scaling Green Tech, a podcast by Adopter.Previsico gives property-level flood warnings up to 48 hours ahead. Jackson explains that surface water is now close to 60% of UK flood risk, driven by a changing climate, urbanisation and ageing drainage. The company began as a Loughborough University spin-out built on Professor Dapeng Yu's flood model, with the UK government as its first customer, which reversed the usual startup order of finding a problem before building a product. Jackson traces the commercial journey from Innovate UK grant funding and an angel round through venture backing from Foresight Group, and into the US via a customer-led, site-by-site expansion rather than a country-by-country one.This episode is relevant for climate adaptation founders, deep tech and university spin-out teams, insurtech and climate tech investors, and B2B founders working out how to sell a preventative product to a market that underestimates its own risk.Guest profileJonathan Jackson is the CEO of Previsico. He describes himself as an entrepreneur rather than a scientist, having started in telecoms before building several businesses that moved offline industries online, including Farming Online, which he describes as the UK's longest-running B2B internet business. He joined Previsico after becoming entrepreneur in residence at Loughborough University, where he met the company's scientific founders and helped spin the business out.Previsico is a flood forecasting company that provides property-level surface water flood warnings up to 48 hours in advance, combining a hydrodynamic flood model with real-time weather data and IoT sensors. The company was spun out of Loughborough University and works with insurers, corporates, councils and housing associations in the UK and, increasingly, the US.Company website: https://previsico.com/Find Jonathan Jackson on LinkedIn. Topics coveredExplaining flood forecasting simply, and the surface water flooding gapWhy surface water is now the biggest and hardest-to-predict UK flood riskLaunching with the product built and the government as first customerWorking with academic founders versus commercial and developer teamsRaising as a university spin-out: grants, angels and proof pointsSequencing fundraising around insurer contracts and venture roundsDifferences between UK and US investors and due diligenceCustomer-led international expansion versus country-by-country growthMarketing a preventative product to a market that underestimates its riskCase studies and social proof as the core marketing assetSelling climate adaptation without relying on climate beliefBuilding a commercially driven business with a social mission

Episode summaryDarren Ralphs, Content Lead at Sylvera, discusses how B2B content strategy is adapting to AI search and LLM visibility on Episode 29 of Scaling Green Tech, a podcast by Adopter.Ralphs argues that Sylvera's visibility in tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity depends less on publishing volume than on signalling recency and authority. He points to Sylvera's practice of mining long-tail search terms from sales calls and Notion documentation, a technique he links to stronger LLM citation performance. This approach, combined with a systematic refresh of ageing blog content, contributed to Sylvera topping Adopter's GEO readiness report on the climate data sector, ahead of every other company assessed.This episode is relevant for founders resourcing a small marketing team, B2B marketing leads in climate tech, and content marketers exploring GEO and LLM visibility strategy.Guest profileDarren Ralphs is Content Lead at Sylvera. He joined the company in December 2024 and leads thought leadership and long-form content as the sole dedicated content marketer on Sylvera's marketing team, working alongside a product marketer and external SEO agencies. Sylvera assesses and rates the quality of carbon credit projects for both buyers and developers in the carbon markets. Founded in 2020, the company has grown from fewer than 10 people to around 150, with offices in the UK, New York, Singapore, and Japan. Sylvera's offering has expanded from carbon project ratings into a data platform, a geospatial product, and green commodities.Explore the Sylvera website: https://www.sylvera.comFind Darren Ralphs on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darren-ralphsTopics covered- Explaining content marketing using a simple analogy- What Sylvera does and how its offering has expanded since 2020Sylvera's scale, customer base, and expansion into developer sales- Differentiating Sylvera through policy expertise and platform breadth- The State of Carbon Credits report as an annual funnel-filling asset- Measuring report success through database growth, signups, and SEO uplift- Refreshing the top 50 blog posts and the resulting traffic uplift- Long-tail keyword strategy sourced from sales calls and internal documentation- Adopter's GEO readiness research and Sylvera's top ranking- Diversification risk and maintaining visibility across multiple product lines- Building mid and lower funnel content by ICP- Founder-led content and Sylvera's LinkedIn engagement gap- Using AI in the content production workflow- Common AI writing tells and their effect on reader trust

Darren Clifford, Co-Founder of Adapt [us] Capital, discusses the investment case for climate adaptation on Episode 28 of Scaling Green Tech, a podcast by Adopter. Clifford argues that adaptation is more underfunded than mitigation, with roughly 0.25% of global capital flowing to it, despite demand for adaptation products rising predictably as the weather gets hotter and more volatile. Adapt [us] Capital backs pre-seed companies that meet three tests at once: a venture-grade team and market, demand driven by changing weather, and a measurable improvement to quality of life. He uses portfolio company Temperate, a passive radiative cooling business, to illustrate the thesis, alongside Bactery, which builds soil-based batteries for resilient backup power. Clifford frames the whole portfolio as a hedge against a future where changing climate could erode between 5% and 25% of global GDP by 2050. This episode is relevant for climate adaptation investors, pre-seed and seed-stage climate founders, family offices and high net worth LPs evaluating adaptation funds, and operators working on go-to-market for hardware and deep tech in new geographies.Find out more about Adopter here: https://www.adopter.net/Explore the Adapt [us] Capital website: https://aucap.vc/Find Darren Clifford on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/djclif/

Freya Burton, Chief Sustainability Officer and Head of Europe at LanzaTech, discusses carbon recycling, sustainable aviation fuel, and the 20-year journey from a four-person startup to a public company on Episode 27 of Scaling Green Tech, a podcast by Adopter.Burton describes how LanzaTech captures waste carbon from industrial sites such as steel mills and uses microbes to ferment it into ethanol, a process she likens to brewing beer with carbon instead of sugar and bacteria instead of yeast. She traces the company from its 2005 founding in New Zealand by Dr Sean Simpson and Dr Richard Forster, through a 2008 pilot and a 2012 demonstration plant in China, to its first commercial plant in 2018 and six plants today. The conversation turns to why LanzaTech narrowed its focus to sustainable aviation fuel after listing on the Nasdaq, and how it reframes its work around energy security and economic value rather than emissions alone. Burton also explains why getting fuels policy right has taken more than a decade of work across the UK, EU and US.This episode is relevant for founders scaling capital-intensive climate tech, carbon capture and utilisation investors, sustainable aviation fuel producers and buyers, and policymakers working on fuels regulation. Guest profileFreya Burton is the Chief Sustainability Officer and Head of Europe at LanzaTech. She joined the company in 2007 as one of its first four employees, working in borrowed lab space, and has since held roles spanning safety, human resources, external affairs and policy. She previously served as the company's Chief People Officer and spent a long period based in the United States before moving into her current sustainability and Europe-focused leadership role.LanzaTech is a carbon recycling company that converts waste carbon from industrial emissions into ethanol and other chemicals using a gas fermentation process. Founded in New Zealand in 2005 and now listed on the Nasdaq, the company operates six commercial plants worldwide across steel mills, ferro alloy mills and a refinery. It supplies ethanol made from recycled carbon, and related materials, to consumer brands in fashion, fragrance and household goods.Explore the LanzaTech website. Find Freya Burton on LinkedIn Topics coveredExplaining complex deep tech simplyHow carbon recycling works: the brewery analogy and the microbesReaching commercial scale with a first-of-a-kind technologyA non-linear founder journey: finding problems and solving themBuilding company culture and the risk of leader burnoutHow commercial strategy shifts from startup to public companyNarrowing focus to win a single marketLeading with value and energy security, not sustainability aloneBuilding partnerships on data and proof pointsWhat investors prioritise at different stages of growthFunding capital-intensive tough tech, and marketing it to mainstream audiencesNavigating regulatory uncertainty and advice for the next stage of scaling

Dr Robert Sorrell, CEO of the Royce Hydrogen Accelerator at the Henry Royce Institute, discusses materials innovation and the hydrogen value chain on Episode 26 of Scaling Green Tech, a podcast by Adopter.Sorrell treats hydrogen as one part of the wider energy mix rather than a fix-all. The strongest near-term use is as a feedstock for ammonia, fertilisers and industrial chemicals. Long-duration storage of surplus offshore wind is another priority, particularly in the UK. Shipping and aviation also stand out, because batteries cannot match the energy density needed for large vessels or long-haul flight. The episode also covers the $1-2 per kilogramme cost target for green hydrogen, the materials problem of cryogenic storage at -253°C, and the funding gap atthe proof-of-concept and prototyping stages.The episode is useful for hydrogen founders, deep tech investors, electrolyser and fuel cell developers, and policymakers working on the UK's hydrogen strategy.

Karen Polizzi, Co-Director of NAPIC (the National Alternative Protein Innovation Centre), and Prithvi Kodialbail, Head of Partnerships at Extracellular, discuss the commercialisation of cultivated meat on Episode 25 of Scaling Green Tech, a podcast by Adopter.The first cultivated meat burger cost approximately $27,000 to produce. Since then, regulatory approvals have come through in Singapore and the US, cultivated products have appeared in restaurants, and an infrastructure layer of companies has begun filling the gap between R&D and commercial scale. Polizzi and Kodialbail trace where the bottlenecks remain - manufacturing costs, regulatory harmonisation, and access to facilities - and describe how NAPIC and Extracellular are each working to close those gaps in the UK. The conversation also makes the case for food security, rather than sustainability, as the most compelling argument for alternative proteins, set against real long-term agricultural risk in the UK.This episode is relevant for cultivated meat founders, alternative protein investors, food science researchers, and policymakers working on UK novel foods regulation.Find out more about Adopter here: https://www.adopter.net/Explore NAPIC here: https://napic.ac.uk/Discover Extracellular here: https://www.extracellular.com/

Mahima Sukhdev, Chief Growth Officer at GIST Impact, discusses the evolution from ESG 1.0 to ESG 2.0, nature value at risk, and what it takes to grow a data company in an emerging market on Episode 24 of Scaling Green Tech, a podcast by Adopter.Sukhdev argues that ESG 1.0 was designed to produce glossy numbers for glossy reports, and was never intended to change how decisions are made. GIST Impact was built on a different premise: that climate, nature, and social data should be traceable, methodologically rigorous, and fed directly into the places where decisions happen - portfolio construction, stewardship, capital allocation. Founded 18 years ago as a research lab, GIST has watched this shift play out in real time. A major Indian bank is already seeing default rates rise in its agricultural loan book in ways that can only be explained by climate and nature risk. Clients like Allianz and StoreBrand are now using nature data to build portfolio-level analyses that would have seemed out of reach just a few years ago. GIST's recently launched Nature Value at Risk (NVaR) Solution - built on 25 critical ecosystem services and the Natural History Museum's Biodiversity Intactness Index - is its most detailed attempt yet to put a financial number on what happens when ecosystems fail.This episode is for asset managers, impact investors, corporate sustainability leads, and founders building in the ESG data or nature risk space.Find out more about Adopter here: https://www.adopter.net/Explore GIST Impact here: https://www.gistimpact.com/