When Arebeth Pease was fired from tech startup MasterClass last year, she had a bevy of job prospects. But the missions of many tech companies rang hollow, she said.
Pease, 42, was drawn to Span, a startup that makes electrical panels for smart homes and is in a category of fast-growing companies looking to combat climate change. She joined Span in September as operations manager, with the startup’s focus on climate change being the main selling point.
“We are really doing work that matters,” he said.
As tech companies cut benefits and cut jobs, the economic slowdown has served as a red flag for many workers, leading them to question whether their company’s role in society was actually making the world a better place. The result? More are now flocking to climate startups, as investors pour money into the field.
Last year, climate startups in the US raised nearly $20 billion, nearly tripling the $7 billion in 2020, reports Crunchbase, a data provider. At least 83 climate-focused companies in the world are worth more than $1 billion, says HolonIQ, a research firm.
Climate technology is “one of the few bright spots in the economy and one of the few industries that tend to be extremely resilient to the downturn,” said Rick Zullo, an investor at venture capital firm Equal Ventures.
At least 135 funds focused on climate investment, with $94 billion under management, have been created since 2021, the Climate Tech VC newsletter reported.
When Julia Collins pitched her climate-tech startup to investors in 2019, she devoted the first slide to a dramatic explanation of the climate emergency. She had created Planet FWD, a software provider that helps companies manage their climate impact, and Moonshot, a snack company that uses regenerative ingredients, local suppliers, and recycled packaging. “I had to spend a lot of time leading people through the learning curve,” she said.
That has since changed. “We’re way past the point of having to prove climate change or that it’s a big market,” Collins said.
Many tech workers have also gone through a climate awakening. Olya Irzak, one of the founders of Frost Methane Labs, has spent almost a decade advising people who want to work in climate companies. But during the pandemic, more people started reaching out to her.
“People were sitting at home for a long time, asking a lot of hard questions,” Irzak said.
Diego Sáez Gil, one of the founders of Pachama, a company that finances reforestation and sells carbon credits, said he recently hired people from Meta, Google, Amazon, Airbnb and Tesla, some taking pay cuts.
“The people who come to the weather are missionaries,” he said. “They realized that ‘the planet is falling apart and I’m working to get people to click on ads.’”
By: Erin Griffith
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6561904, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-02-08 00:00:07
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