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As the world gravitates towards sustainable practices, the importance of sustainability factors in investment strategies is more crucial than ever, especially in the private equity sector. This blog post aims to provide insights from a Rio webinar hosted by industry experts Thomas Pruden and Matthew Alcock, focusing on how private equity firms can leverage sustainability to enhance portfolio resilience and achieve long-term success.

The London Build Expo 2024 was a blast! With over 700 speakers crammed into a few action-packed days, we did our best to catch as many of them as possible. Sustainability took centre stage, underscoring its vital importance in the construction industry. Here are some key takeaways from the two days:

Hey everyone! Luke (CCO) here writing about day 4 of  New York Climate Week! Climate VCs raised 19 billion USD in the last year alone, of which around 6 billion USD came from North America. The financing for sustainable solutions theme is consistent across many more panels. 2024’s Climate Capital Summit put on by Equal Ventures, Fenwick, Mercury and attended by hundreds of venture capital firms, portfolio companies, and larger established enterprise sized customers utilising climate technologies represented this exactly. With over 1700 attendees on the waitlist, another consistent theme is realising that most events are incredibly over subscribed to and don’t often off subscribed. This was our same experience when joining peers in the Bezos sponsored Nature Hub. 

Hey everyone! Luke (CCO) here writing about  New York Climate Week! Entering the third day here in New York, we started off listening to two juxtaposing sentiments – there are countless tech solutions available to public and private enterprises today, to get going with decarbonisation. This means focusing on the type of power you are using for your own operations and engaging with your suppliers to make the great switch to renewables. It was great to hear Barbara Humpton, CEO of Siemens US recall word for word the same dialogue around the convergence of the technological and the industrial revolutions, as she had outlined on stage, minutes later in the Nest’s garden eatery. Inspiring to see so many CxO of fortune 500 companies, followed by their entourage of colleagues.  

Hey everyone! Luke (CCO) here writing about  New York Climate Week! Juggling the time zones is only eased by endless blockades of the NY grid system, and the many, many events being hosted across the city somehow managing to run like clockwork. Following a morning spent networking at the Nest, I was fortunate to join 100 sustainability practitioners from enterprise, financial services, the public sector, and tech start/scale up’s at the launch of Climate IQ. This is an open-sourced data platform tackling the fundamental challenge of scaling accessibility and credibility of physical climate data.  

Hey everyone! Luke (CCO) here writing about how Day 2 has been at New York Climate Week! This morning we joined our network at the Nest, meeting with dozens of other sustainable tech entrepreneurs, sustainability managers/directors, and practitioners looking for solutions. It’s been a fully packed day following a later evening networking with senior sustainability officers, from private backed businesses to larger enterprise. Consistently the messaging seems to come back down to, “I’ve limited resources and time with high board expectations”, “there are too many competing standards, regulations, frameworks and I’m not sure how to be optimal or efficient in preparing the data”, “data looks complex, and I can’t continue or even afford to pay for abstract consulting or tech solutions”. 

Hey everyone! Luke (CCO) here writing about  New York Climate Week! New York City's annual Climate Week has emerged as a pivotal platform for global climate action. Launched in 2009, this event brings together leaders from around the world to discuss and accelerate climate solutions. Held during the United Nations General Assembly, Climate Week offers a unique opportunity for policymakers, businesses, and NGOs to collaborate, share best practices, and announce ambitious climate commitments. 

This year's theme for International Women's Day is choosing to challenge and call out gender bias and inequality. In support of this, we are introducing the wonderful women of our team and have asked them to share their experiences on what they #ChoosetoChallenge. 

Aya Sakamoto

Aya is Product Manager and Principal Consultant at Rio. She is of Japanese heritage and was born and raised in Geneva, Switzerland until moving to the UK to complete her studies. Aya is focused on supporting Rio ESG’s client base, leading projects, and managing the development of the Rio platform.

Around 20,000 recycling, waste, resources and sustainability professionals will head to Birmingham’s NEC for RWM Exhibition on 12-13 September 2018. The industry’s most influential names and organisations will attend to discover the environmental innovations shaping the sector.

Join us at stand 4G101. We're also hosting two rather distinct seminars on Wednesday and Thursday...

We had a really interesting time together at Ditto Sustainability's event on 27 June at the City of London offices of investor, IP Group. The subject of discussion was 'Will the Circular Economy save the Planet?' and about 50 of us crowded the rooftop room. I acted as compere for this afternoon meeting, and this was really fun because the speakers were well informed, sharp, and up to the task of replying to some rather provocative questions from me and the audience.

Here's the video of the day...