Accelerating early-stage climate innovation
The 2023 Climate Innovation Grants saw 19 teams propose innovative solutions to address climate change. The proposed solutions include a range of sectors closely linked to climate, including removing bottlenecks in renewable energy adoption, agriculture, fashion, transportation, materials, among others. After careful revision by external judges, CBEY awarded over $15,000 in grants to five environmentally-focused ventures. The grant provides independent feedback and seed funding for these early-stage innovative solutions. From here, ventures will continue to receive support from CBEY to bring their ideas to fruition. Ventures with a for-profit idea have the opportunity to receive further grant support through the Sobotka Seed Prize for Sustainable Ventures.
About the recipients:
Carbon Loop
Perry Bakas (Yale School of Management), Harrison Meyer (Yale School of Management, Yale School of Environment), and Conor Rooney (Yale Energy Institute, Department of Chemistry) created Carbon Loop, a company seeking to convert CO2 into sustainable fuels using their novel electrochemical reactor. Carbon Loop is interested in decarbonizing sectors that are challenging to electrify, such as aviation, shipping, and petrochemicals, by scaling direct CO2 electrolysis to green methanol.
Catala
James Licato (Yale College), Claire Chouinard (Yale School of Engineering), and Jaehong Kim (Yale School of Engineering) are founding members of Catala, a team developing membrane technology for industrial water treatment. The company seeks to destroy organic contaminants in water byproducts that accompany oil production.
Effective & Sustainable Healthcare
Matthew Andersen (Yale School of Medicine), Sadde Mohamed (Yale School of Medicine), Alejandro Kochen (Yale School of Medicine), and Kyra Seiger (Yale School of Medicine) are developing a comprehensive “Climate Change & Health” curriculum for Yale School of Medicine, to educate medical trainees on quality and sustainable healthcare practices at the hospital level. Highlighting the intersection of healthcare and planetary health, the curriculum focuses on energy consumption, waste reduction, and low-value care.
Laister
Farzana Mubassira (Yale School of Environment), Tasnim Ahmed Tahasin, and Mehedi Hasan Bappy are the founding members of Laister, a Bangledash-focused startup developing a small-scale portable digester that converts household waste into cooking fuel and fertilizer. By producing cooking fuel at the household level, the company seeks to address food and energy scarcity while providing waste management solutions.
ReWind
Shubh Jain (Yale School of Environment), Courtney Megerian (Yale School of Environment), and Dylan Judd (Yale School of Environment) are founding team members of ReWind, a wind turbine recycling startup that seeks to instigate a circular economy in the renewable energy sector. The company seeks to recycle and recover most of the turbine blade materials in an energy-efficient manner.
The CBEY team is very grateful for the team of judges that participated in this process. Some of the judges included:
- Tory Grieves(MBA/MEM '18) is the Director of Strategic Initiatives at S&P Global Sustainable, matching customers with the sustainability products, insights and solutions to meet their unique needs.
- Lizzie Horvitz (MBA/MEM ‘16): is the Founder of Finch Insight, a data solutions startup that tracks social & environmental sustainability from the angle of consumer behavior.
- Peter Yolles (MBA/MEM ´97): is the Founder and Managing Partner of Echo River Capital, working on climate adaptation by investing in impactful water-related technologies that improve human health, the environment and climate resilience.
- Maria Martinez (MEM ‘19): is the Director of U.S. Policy & Advocacy at Breakthrough Energy. Previously served as a Manager and Associate at Gates Ventures.
- Morgan Pierce (MEM '20): is a Senior Manager of Innovation Strategy at McDonalds.