Cretech climate

Fund Companies Are Paying More Attention to ESG Matters, Survey Shows

Fund companies are getting better at voicing their concerns about sustainability issues and acting on them against corporate management, a new survey shows. Seventeen asset managers participated in the ETF stewardship survey conducted annually by Texas-based investment firm Sage Advisory to determinehow well fund companies are acting on behalf of their investors on environmental, social, and corporate governance, or ESG, issues. …

1 big thing: Coal’s global staying power

Environment ministers from the G20 face a stark reality as they gather this week in Italy: Coal is proving quite resilient despite steep declines in some economies, Ben writes.

Americans Support Federal Action to Reach a 100% Clean Energy Grid

Voters across the country in both blue and red states support the federal government moving the country to 100% clean electricity, according to new polling from Third Way, in partnership with University of California, Santa Barbara political scientist Matto Mildenberger and using underlying data from Data for Progress national surveys. The polling estimates support from likely voters in every congressional district and state in America. It demonstrates that the majority of voters in all 50 stat…

3. New cash for climate modeling firm ClimateAi

There’s a new entrant into the increasingly crowded climate change risk management space. ClimateAi, a firm that applies artificial intelligence to climate modeling to create business insights, announced the close of a $12 million Series A round Wednesday, Andrew writes.

ilke Homes picked to deliver 622-home modular site

The modular housing company is to build the UK’s largest low-rise modular housing development – a 622-home scheme in Beeston, Nottingham.

Health and beauty retailer Boots selected ilke Homes to unlock a 43-acre site close to its UK headquarters, which has been allocated for residential development since 2014.

Poor neighborhoods are hotter than the rich areas right next to them

Looking at a map of annual temperatures across the U.S., it’s clear that the entire country is getting hotter. But when you zoom in on a new app that shows county-level heat data, disparities emerge. That app is based on research that looked at surface temperatures within more than 1,000 U.S. counties and found that for a majority, areas with higher rates of poverty can be nearly 7 degrees hotter in the summer than the richest communities nearby. …

Carlyle Launches Renewable-Energy Infrastructure Unit

Private-equity giant Carlyle Group Inc. is launching a company to develop renewable-power-generation and storage projects in a push to reorient its energy business toward sustainable investments. Funds Carlyle operates will inject as much as $700 million in the new venture, Copia Power, enabling it to arrange projects worth over $6 billion, according to Pooja Goyal, Carlyle’s co-head of infrastructure and head of renewable and sustainable energy. Copia will focus on developing large-scale so…

Watch: Can venture capital solve real estate’s wicked problems?

Billions of venture capital dollars have flowed into real estate to improve the experience of residents, office tenants and landlords themselves. But where’s the money for the really important stuff? The climate crisis, the national housing shortage and other wicked problems?

Green Data Centers? Cloud Giants Launch Tools To Help Companies Reduce Carbon

Two cloud giants are rolling out tools to help companies track and manage the carbon footprint of their data. Both Microsoft and Google, two of the three largest data center users in the world, unveiled products and features this month that allow companies to monitor the environmental impact of their cloud usage and actively manage how much carbon it produces. The data centerindustry — particularly hyperscale cloud providers — is increasingly promoting…

Startup Claims Breakthrough in Long-Duration Batteries

A four-year-old startup says it has built an inexpensive battery that can discharge power for days using one of the most common elements on Earth: iron. Form Energy Inc.’s batteries are far too heavy for electric cars. But it says they will be capable of solving one of the most elusive problems facing renewable energy: cheaply storing large amounts of electricity to power grids when the sun isn’t shining and wind isn’t blowing. …