VERGE Carbon conference chair Jim Giles joins the show to tell us all about the event, October 22nd-24th in Oakland, California. Alexsandra Guerra will be speaking, and a fair number of Norinauts will probably be there too. You can register with our 10% discount code V19NORI here: https://www.greenbiz.com/events/verge-conference/oakland/2019/verge-carbon.
Full Transcript
Ross Kenyon: Hello and welcome to Carbon Removal Newsroom. I’m Ross Kenyon, lead strategist with the Nori Carbon Removal Marketplace. Today I have with us Jim Giles, conference chair for Verge Carbon. I said I, I should use we because Alexsandra Guerra of Nori is here to walk us through exactly what will be happening at Verge Carbon.
Alexsandra Guerra: Hello, everybody. Thanks, Ross. Jim, so glad to have you on our podcast finally. Why don’t you tell the audience a little bit what is Verge?
Jim Giles: Audience group is typically people from Fortune 500 companies. And it’s really all about the business opportunities in the green economy and green technology. And historically, some of the main focuses for the conference have been transport on energy. But the conference has broadened. We now have a component on the circular economy. And this year, we’re introducing a fourth component, which is looking at the carbon economy.
Alexsandra Guerra: So that’s what you guys call verge carbon.
Jim Giles: Exactly. Yeah. So we define the carbon economy as technologies, people, ideas that are all about capturing, using and storing carbon. And, you know, our conference, it’s not a scientific conference. It’s not really about investments and startups. It’s really all about business opportunities. So we’re hoping to take, to show attendees like this carbon economy thing, it’s real. You can get involved in it right now. We want to demystify it for people and we want to show how they can, you know, incorporate it into their businesses starting now or if not now in the near future.
Alexsandra Guerra: So what are you guys seeing with regards to business opportunities that you actually started this whole new track of Verge? What are you seeing on the horizon?
Jim Giles: Yeah, well, obviously, you know, compared to the other parts of Verge, transport and energy in the circular economy, obviously, this bit is definitely more nascent. But we do see emerging opportunities. So for example, we’ll be running a session on carbon negative Building materials, so looking at some of the amazing work being done by companies like Solidia who are figuring out how to reduce the emissions from concrete by actually storing, sequestering carbon inside the concrete itself. We’re looking at new mass timber technology. So if you’re not familiar with mass timber, it’s basically a way of using wood.
It’s a way of having wood pay a larger part in construction. So you can, you know, there’s actually some mass timber buildings where they’re like 10 or 11 story buildings constructed almost entirely from wood. So eliminating much of the steel. And the concrete that normally goes into buildings and produces so many emissions. And these technologies all together are really paving the way for buildings that are not just low carbon, they actually sequester carbon. So there is carbon stored inside the building and you can imagine a future in which these buildings can be described as carbon negative or climate positive depending on the language you want to use.
Ross Kenyon: We’ve heard so many alternatives to that. Will you please figure that out, Jim, and then let us know?
Alexsandra Guerra: No, I really dislike the idea of carbon positive because as an engineer on a mass balance perspective, that makes no sense for me, but okay.
Jim Giles: I’m so glad you asked. I’m rooting for climate positive, which I know that like from a scientific engineering point of view, it’s a little bit vague, but I think it captures the spirit much better.
Ross Kenyon: That’s the first time I’ve heard that one. We’ve been using carbon beneficial lately, but climate positive sounds good too.
Alexsandra Guerra: Yeah, because it’s broad enough and you’re not telling me that there’s positive increase of carbon into the atmosphere. So climate positive is good. Anyways, that was a tangent. Why don’t you take us back to what you were talking about, Jim?
Jim Giles: Yeah. So what I was saying with the construction materials is like, you know, we’re not, and you actually, you can correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think we’re at the stage where we have climate positive buildings being constructed yet, but some of these materials are, We want to show that this market is emerging and if you want to get involved you can and we’ll introduce you to the technologies and the people and the companies that you can do deals with.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, there are buildings being built like this, but it definitely isn’t at the mass scale and no one knows about it except for I think a pretty specialized subset of professionals who are working with climate positive or carbon beneficial building materials. So we’re very grateful that you’ll be helping to get the word out about this and helping this scale.
Alexsandra Guerra: So you’ve touched a little bit, Jim, on the topics that will be discussed at Verge. It sounds like looking at building materials, at carbon negative or carbon sequestering materials. What else is going to be discussed in the sessions?
Jim Giles: Yeah, so we’ll definitely be having at least one session on regenerative agriculture. So for people who are not familiar with that, it’s a new suite of farming practices that, among other things, help to draw down carbon and store it in soils. And the big hope for regenerative agriculture is it can move the farming sector from being a source of carbon to being a sink. And again, this is an emerging area, but we are seeing real action by companies. So one of the companies that we’re hoping to feature is General Mills, a big North American company.
So it’s another area where we’ll basically be saying to the To the food sector is there is this thing called regenerative agriculture. It’s real. If you want to get involved in it, we can introduce you to the farmers that are interested in adapting their land so that it becomes a carbon sink. And also to the policy organizations and the other kind of players in this sector that you need to connect with to make this stuff happen.
Ross Kenyon: We’re so on the same page with you, Jim. I think it’s fair to say we are fellow travelers with Verge Carbon and our headspace is very similar to yours. So this sounds great. I’m excited for this event.
Alexsandra Guerra: So what do you see coming up for carbon removal in general? This is your, it’s maybe not your official opinion with regards to green biz, or maybe just Jim’s opinion. What do you see taking shape in the near future or longer term future for carbon removal with regards to the private sector?
Jim Giles: Yeah, I mean, I think we’re at a really fascinating point. And I think there’s a lot of pent up energy here. There’s a lot of motivation within the corporate sector to take action, you know, and to get involved in carbon removal. Things like... The IPCC report, for example, people really noticed that and I think a lot of the sort of leading thinkers in sustainability in the corporate sector started to realize that a science-based target, you know, ambitious as that is, is not enough and they need to think about actually getting involved in carbon removal.
The problem is we don’t yet have the right set of incentives for corporates to move over right now. So we have, you know, for example, a couple of things that listeners are probably familiar with, like the low carbon finance. Fuel Standard in California and the 45Q tax credit at a federal level. And those things are already catalyzing quite a lot of action. We’re already seeing a lot of carbon capture and enhanced oil recovery projects coming online because of those. But we need so much more. And I think if we could get some more of those incentives at the state and federal level, and I’m actually pretty hopeful that will happen, then you’re going to see all this kind of pent up energy finally being released because corporates want to take action, but they need the right incentives in place for that action to be economic to them.
Alexsandra Guerra: I think that’s a really good point, Jim. I was recently at the Collision Tech event. It was in Toronto last week, actually. And I was able to ask Cristiana Figueres what her opinion was on getting the private sector and solution providers like startups who are acting as quickly and agilely as possible to meet the demands set by policymakers. And she kind of described something that you’ve almost alluded to here, which is it’s a spiral that builds up where the private sector was asking for more certainty with regards to Climate action and what was going to be required of them from policymakers.
Policymakers came on an international level, had the Paris Agreement. Startups are now filling in the gaps, like how do we meet these goals? And it just continues to go around and around. So we’ll see continued connectivity between the private, the public, and the entrepreneurial sector to meet the demands.
Jim Giles: Yeah, I hope so. I mean, so while you were at Collision, I was at an event I’m sure you heard of, which is called Connect, which is a carbon capture event, much more of an industry focused event. And I was really encouraged just with these two incentives in place, the low carbon. I was really encouraged to see how many new projects are coming online. And the big one that people probably saw announced was this tie up between Occidental and Carbon Engineering to capture and improve. And so these things are coming online despite the fact that there really isn’t the right set of incentives in place.
I think if we did have the right set of incentives in place, there would be an explosion of activity.
Alexsandra Guerra: Absolutely. Well, I guess we’ll wrap it up for us. Ross, I just want to say I have been to some of the Green Biz events. Oh, I’ll actually be speaking at Verge Carbon.
Ross Kenyon: Oh, yeah. Don’t think you’re going to get off the hook. I was going to brag about you being there.
Alexsandra Guerra: So anyways, I highly recommend them.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, if you like Nori, if you like this podcast or other podcasts, Reversing Climate Change, we’ll have veterans from both shows that will be there, a bunch of Carbon 180 friends of ours who have quite a lot to say in an important fashion on carbon removal. The rates go up on June 7th. We have a discount code too if you would like to attend. It’s V19Nori. You can find that in the show notes there along with the dates. When is it again, Jim?
Jim Giles: October 22nd to 24th in Oakland, California.
Ross Kenyon: Oakland. So if you’re in the Bay Area or would like to go to the Bay Area, talk carbon removal. This early bird pricing will go up soon. We’d love to meet you if you like the show. We think that this event is, we go to a lot of events, but very few feel as closely intertwined with our intellectual and professional interests as this. As you’re describing the events, Jim, I’m like, yep. Yep.
Alexsandra Guerra: I feel like I’m going to be at so many Green Biz events. I’m going to Circularity in a couple weeks, so that’ll be fun.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, you’re leading the field there, Jim. This is Innovative Stuff. So if you’d like to hang out with us and our friends at Green Biz and Carbon 180 and so many other amazing speakers, Alexsandra will be speaking. What is your panel about?
Alexsandra Guerra: I wasn’t aware, but apparently we’re doing a two-part workshop On offsets. I thought it was one session, but no.
Ross Kenyon: You just got promoted. That’s nice.
Alexsandra Guerra: That’s cool.
Jim Giles: It’s one session. It’s just a long session. We wanted to make the most of you. So, that session is about, it’s kind of demystifying offsets, basically. It’s, you know, offsets, I think, are for many companies. And I think we’re so delighted to have Nori involved because I think you’ve got a really clear line on offsets and the difference between avoidance and removal. And so if that’s something that interests folks, come along and make sure you come to Alexsandra’s session.
Ross Kenyon: Well, thank you for the kind words, Jim, and the screaming of your child in the background. You’re a family man.
Jim Giles: I was wondering if you could notice that.
Alexsandra Guerra: We did. It was sweet.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, we were hoping we’d have a little intrusion in that way, like that classic video we were talking about. On the news. Yeah, the kid wandering in during the conference call. Well, thank you again. If you would like to attend this event, check the show notes for this episode. I’ll include all the relevant information. We hope to see you there. Please come say hi. And thank you so much for being here with us, Jim.
Jim Giles: Thanks for having me on.
