CTC #55 - Closing the loop with a circular economy

Hey there,

Welcome to another issue of Climate Tech Canada! It’s circular economy month, so we’re spotlighting three Canadian startups that are using circular principles in their climate solutions. 

This week in climate tech:

• Climate accelerator Cycle Momentum snags $22.25M for funding matching

• Alberta’s environmental assessment challenge succeeds, but it's not all bad news

• Deep Sky and Svante ink new partnerships to expand carbon capture

Let’s get into it!

Circularity: a better way to build

For the last few hundred years, economic systems have been built on a largely unspoken belief: resources are meant to be extracted, consumed, and then disposed of. This is a linear economy, and it’s one of the reasons we’re facing a climate crisis today.

A circular economy is a different approach - it’s a system where materials never become waste and nature is regenerated. Circular economies retain and recover resources, keeping them in circulation through “maintenance, reuse, refurbishment, remanufacture, recycling, and composting”. Circularity is based on three core principles:

1. Eliminate waste upstream through design

2. Circulate materials by designing them to be kept in use, and at their highest value, as long as possible

3. Regenerate nature by designing for regenerative outcomes, i.e. that improve biodiversity

The diagram above from the Ellen MacArthur foundation (the OGs of circularity) shows how resources flow in this new model. I first came across circular economics in the book “The Circular Economy: A Wealth of Flows” by Ken Webster. It resonated with me for a few reasons:

• Solutions are often win-win, e.g. we can solve your waste problem by turning it into a new, valuable product, which solves our input problem

• It’s a natural fit for startups at the intersection of software and hardware, as materials need to be counted and tracked in order to be re-used, e.g. smart containers that can measure their own location or state of deterioration

• A linear economy just doesn’t make sense with a long-term view. Hucking waste into landfills isn’t a real plan

• There are strong policy tailwinds: the EU adopted a Circular Economy Action Plan in 2015, Canada is implementing its single-use plastics ban, and the EPA in the States has a 10 year plan to adopt circularity

Imagine a world where we stop sending products to landfills. A single use coffee cup is now a reusable cup that gets put into drop-off bins, as micro RFID tags tell sorting stations which type of cups go where; complex products can be disassembled into modular parts, swapping out obsolete or broken parts while retaining the whole; and anything that can’t be fully recovered can be composted and used to enrich depleted soils. 

That’s the optimistic view, but there are a few reasons why it could be a challenging space to work in as well:

• Re-use often depends on the upstream design. We can’t do much (at least yet) with plastic types that resist recycling

• Quantification matters a lot. Quantifying the impact of diverted waste, of displacing products made with virgin materials, etc. 

• Storytelling can be hard because of the multiple benefits and streams of activity involved. We have language now around things like upcycling, but narratives will need to be clear. 

• It’s introducing new models for consumers. For example, the concept that your takeout packaging needs to go back somewhere or that more products will be rented rather than owned so that producers can take them back at end-of-life. 

Putting circularity to work

Below are three Canadian companies that are integrating these principles into their work:

enim (Montreal, QC) is developing a hydrometallurgical process to harvest the strategic minerals locked away in obsolete electronics. Their process doesn’t require burning waste like typical methods, creating a smaller environmental footprint. Enim is an example of using waste as a resource, and the company sees the huge amounts of e-waste as the equivalent of an “urban mine”. Enim landed a $3M grant from SDTC earlier this year. 

Adaptis (Toronto, ON) is a decarbonization and circularity planning platform for building owners and developers. Their platform uses proprietary methodologies to help identify opportunities to reuse and recycle materials, and quantifies the financial and carbon savings through material reuse. Adaptis is adopting circularly by helping building owners design for less waste and keeping materials at their highest value and in use longer. Adaptis raised a $2M pre-seed round in March 2023. 

Reusables (Vancouver, BC) is building a platform for reusable containers in the foodservice industry. Their products replace single-use containers that can be used many times and are tracked via QR codes and a companion app. After being dropped off by consumers, the containers are cleaned and ready to be reused. Reusables are one of several startups in this space who are designing new waste-free systems. 

Want to dive deeper?

• Read A Wealth of Flows by Ken Webster and check out the Ellen McArthur Foundation

• Check out the Circular Opportunity Innovation Launchpad based in Guelph, Ivey business school’s Circular Economy Lab, or B.C.-based Metal Tech Alley

💰 Funding

💸 Cycle Momentum (Montreal, QC) secured $22.25M in funding from the government of Quebec and other backers to expand the accelerator’s climate tech programming. The funding will also be used to launch Origo, a funding matching program focused on supporting pre-seed and seed stage climate tech startups, helping increase deal flow and attract capital.

💸 Northleaf Capital (Toronto, ON) committed $200M in funding to California-based EV charging platform EVPassport. Northleaf will take a controlling stake in the company. The funding will be used to accelerate the build-out of EVPassport’s EV charging systems.

📊 Milestones & growth

🔋 Moment Energy achieved UL 1974 certification, an important standard for battery repurposing that gives purchasers greater confidence in the quality of Moment’s battery storage systems.

🔌 Hypercharge Networks launched Eevion to integrate EV charging into existing platforms like parking apps, fleet management, and more. 

💨 Carbon capture startup Deep Sky will partner with NY’s Isometric to develop its first Measurement, Reporting & Verification (MRV) protocol to validate carbon removal.

💨 Svante will partner with carbon capture project developer Storegga to deliver CCUS projects around the world using Svante’s capture technology and Storegga’s expertise in transporting and storing CO2. 

📊 Assent Compliance launched its new Supply Chain Risk Assessment Tool to help manufacturers mitigate risks in sustainability, toxic materials, human rights and more.

🔋 Windsor, ON manufactuer Flex-N-Gate is working with StoreDot to produce extreme fast charging battery technology for EVs at its new Flex-Ion facility.

🧂 B.C.’s Vortex Energy will partner with researchers at the University of Alberta to explore salt cavern storage for hydrogen 

💵 Vancouver’s Greenlines was awarded the first ever patent for generating carbon credits from low-carbon transportation. Greenlines is developing digital MRV systems for sustainable behaviour.

🗞️ This week in climate

Unconstitutional: The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that parts of the Impact Assessment Act are unconstitutional. At issue: the project list. Projects on the project list undergo a federal impact assessment. The criteria for being added are based on the size of projects, not whether they affect areas of federal jurisdiction. That’s what the SCC took issue with. 

It’s easy to call this a win for Alberta or a loss for the Feds, but ultimately it’s not a terrible thing for climate action. Lobbyists could get projects removed from the list and some projects with significant environmental impacts weren’t included on it. Ideally, we get a new iteration that adds clarity for project developers and more effectively targets environmental outcomes.

Provinces invest in climate solutions: Newfoundland and Labrador announced a new CCUS Innovation Challenge to develop the region’s offshore carbon capture abilities. The challenge is targeting CCUS for offshore oil production and storing carbon offshore.

Meanwhile, Alberta opened up $40M through Emissions Reduction Alberta to help small- and medium-sized businesses commercialize innovative emissions reductions technology. And Ontario announced the first round of funding from its Hydrogen Innovation Fund, backing six projects to expand the province’s hydrogen economy.

In other news

• Umicore is ready to start building a cathode factory outside of Kingston, ON that will produce enough battery materials for 800,000 EVs per year

• The feds are ready to work with N.S. and N.B.’s new plan to get to a net-zero grid and drop coal by 2030. The agreement includes $7M for Arc’s SMR in N.B.

• Insurance company Intact estimated that 90% of its Q2 losses in Canada came from just 14 severe weather events, costing about $611 million

• The Biden admin announced $7B to kickstart clean hydrogen hubs across the country to replace fossil fuels in transport, industry and electricity generation

• Global energy use will increase through to 2050, outpacing efficiency gains. The trend is driven by population growth, manufacturing and rising living standards

• The world’s largest offshore wind project produced power for the first time, a major milestone for an industry that’s faced setbacks recently. 

• Major EV charging networks ChargePoint and Blink are facing financial challenges due to reliability issues and competition from Tesla’s Supercharger network as more car manufacturers switch to Tesla’s NACS plug. 

📣 What’s going on

🗓️ Pitch Deck Workshop: Hosted by Work on Climate, this event will help founders learn to create winning climate-focused pitch decks. Led by brand strategist and designer Zoë Dove-Many, whose decks helped raise a total of $22.8 million in 2022. Nov 9th, online.

📌 Jobs

Featured postings from Canadian companies building climate solutions, featuring roles across Design, Project Management, Software Development, Human Resources and more.

➡️ Hiring? List your posting here.

That’s all for this week. If you’re enjoying the newsletter, share this week’s issue with a friend to help support our work!

Justin