Weekly Radar #266 - Biodiversity Steams Ahead, Homes in 33, and Dropping in the Last Mile
This Week's Radar Snapshot:
- A UN task force is looking to bring transparency to biodiversity reporting and startups are looking to capitalize on the opportunity .
- How pre-fab company Cover is able to build a home in 33 days.
- Autonomous delivery network, Arrive, just filled a patent for a smart mailbox that has some interesting tech for drone delivery services.
Editor's Corner:
By: Drew Meyers
We had a fantastic week at CREtech New York, where we hosted a few events for our GEM Diamond members, including a dinner and a happy hour. It'll be nice to be home in Seattle for a bit after the busy stretch of conferences.
As always, links surrounded by the ❇️ emoji indicate exclusive GEM Diamond content. If you would like to have access to all links, please consider GEM Diamond membership.
CLIMATE
Biodiversity Steams Ahead
By: Logan Nagel
For years, climate-friendliness has been the main theme for green investing. However, there is a growing emphasis on biodiversity, with the UN-funded Taskforce on Nature-Related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) releasing its initially voluntary framework for measurement. Biodiversity considers all of an activity’s impacts on nature, not just the release of carbon into the atmosphere. The framework factors in things like impacts on habitat loss and pollution of land and water. The goal of the TNFD is to spur “nature-positive” business that helps rather than harms biodiversity.
Because different habitats and species occupy different scales from a garden to an entire region, there are many opportunities to make an impact. Alveole installs, services, and produces honey from beehives at commercial properties. Data companies like NatureQuant can help visualize how nature-friendly spaces are. And a new VC firm called Superorganism is planning to offer its biodiversity-first perspective to funding rounds. Like climate before it, investors and occupiers will increasingly demand biodiversity-friendly real estate, but it remains to be seen just how nature-positive the fundamentally disruptive process of development can get.