Regen Supply

In July’s ReFi Singapore meetup, we gathered to shoot the breeze about repurposed spent grains. This sector has gained popularity in recent years, with several companies in Singapore already using spent grains in various products. 

The sector falls within the “Waste-to-X” category of circular economy businesses, which basically treats waste as a resource, rather than a problem to be disposed of. 

Leveraging her background in pharmaceuticals and MedTech, Florence Leong co-founded KosmodeHealth with the aim of reusing spent grains into health food. She’s now looking for partners and investors to commercialize the intellectual property that she’s accumulated over the years. 

Because I know absolutely nothing about this, Henry Soediarko, who runs the Climate Impact Asia Fund at First Estate Capital Management, kindly agreed to step in to offer some insights based on his experience investing in climate startups and FoodTech. 

Is Waste-to-X an emerging business and investment opportunity? Yes, was the answer. But there are regulatory obstacles preventing it from taking off. 

Hat tip to Varden (co-founder of Moonbeam) for lending his phone to record the chat, which includes the happy sounds of beer cans being opened. 

Read more on Medium or follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Professor Ben Horton, Director at the Earth Observatory of Singapore and Professor at the NTU Asian School of the Environment, weighs in on Neal Stephenson's climate change epic Termination Shock.

Basically, Pina2bo is a terrible idea and if you had shitloads of money, you should be donating it to a think tank to decide what to do with it. 

This podcast features Horton, his dog Atlas, the occasional hay fever-induced sneeze, and my two parrots in the background.

Read the podcast highlights on Medium here.

Read more on Medium or follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

In our conversation, former head of water strategy at Bayer and co-founder of Ixo, Hannah Oh, chats about how Ixo's "internet of impacts" Web3 infrastructure is being used to harness carbon financing to improve the lives of rural communities via... clean cookstoves.

Founded in 2017, Ixo is an impact-focused blockchain company that has been building its technology stack via grant funding.

But it's now focusing on commercial use cases via it's new base in Singapore.  Alongside it's work in Web3, Ixo also deploys its digital measurement, reporting, and verification (dMRV) infrastructure for companies to track their corporate social responsibility (CSR) investments, or to track the progress of their decarbonisation strategy.

Read the highlights from our conversation on Medium here. 

Read more on Medium or follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

By 2050, there is going to be almost as many decommissioned solar panels as newly installed solar panels. That’s according to data from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), dating back to 2016. 

Fast forward eight years. It’s 2024. Solar panel prices hit an all-time low in November 2023 and haven’t moved much, driving some European homes to opt for solar panels as garden fencing material. 

But with regulations regarding solar waste lagging behind, it’s a time bomb waiting to be dealt with when these panels are decommissioned 25 to 30 years from now. Especially since China, once the world’s largest importer of waste plastics, decided to literally stop dealing with trash in 2017.

To understand where the industry stands, I spoke to Dr Jeremy Ang, newly minted startup founder at Ambiguity Navigation and former research fellow at Nanyang Technological University (NTU). He’s created a process to extract silicon from decommissioned solar panels at higher purity and lower cost (aka “urban mining”) and is pushing for the solar energy industry to adopt circular economy principles. 

As with all ReFi Singapore meetups, the ask-me-anything session turned out to be surprisingly insightful, with friends from EDP Renewables (which acquired Singapore-based solar energy supplier Sunseap in 2022), Ong Gin Keat, Director at waste processing facility Envcares, and Henry Soediarko, Head of Portfolio Management at First Estate Capital Management chipping with industry insights. 

No time to listen to the whole thing? 
Read the writeup on Medium: https://medium.com/@shihan.fang/solar-waste-recycle-6be6f4cb2a82

Read more on Medium or follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

While the rest of the carbon world was caught up with debates about whether Verra's REDD+ offsets were "worthless", and the drama involving South Pole's Project Kariba, Australia's carbon credit system was facing a crisis of its own. 

Carbon offsets produced under Australian government standards are known as ACCUs, or Australian Carbon Credit Units.

In March 2022,  Professor Andrew Macintosh, the former head of the Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee (ERAC), which approves ACCUs, described the government's forest regeneration scheme (known as Human Induced Regeneration, or HIR) as a "fraud". 

Shortly after this podcast was recorded, Professor Macintosh and a group of researchers released a paper showing that HIR projects had limited regeneration in areas issuing ACCUs, and compared to baseline areas outside the crediting zone, HIR projects were non-additional. 

Read the Guardian article on the paper for more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/27/australias-carbon-credits-system-a-failure-on-global-scale-study-finds 

In this podcast, I chat with Guy Dickinson, the founder of Betacarbon, Clima, and Gondwana. These are a trio of companies that tokenize ACCUs, provide carbon advisory services, and develop carbon credit projects respectively. 

Whistleblowing is tough, and so is developing a carbon market that’s built upon science that’s constantly evolving. 

Dickinson says that there’s going to be a crunch in ACCU supply as the ERAC tightens its criteria for new projects. He also chats about upcoming regulatory developments in Australia, thoughts about Professor Macintosh, and getting transparency and access to the Aussie carbon market via the BCAU token. 

Read the highlights on Medium: https://medium.com/@shihan.fang/australia-accu-hir-betacarbon-d1801e7d45fc

Read more on Medium or follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Lawrence Xiao, co-founder of Nika.eco shares how his company is moving the carbon market forward into the digital age.

The company provides pre-project feasibility reports for carbon project developers and investors. It also provides digital measurement reporting and verification (dMRV) services at two stages of the carbon credit issuance process: to establish the accuracy of the carbon claims prior to issuance, and continued monitoring of the project after the carbon credits have been issued. 

In this sharing session at ReFi Singapore's April meetup, Xiao talks about:

- PlanetGPT, a one-stop platform for carbon prospecting that Nika.eco is building in stealth mode
- The new VM0048 methodology by Verra
- The skill sets required in the carbon markets as the industry moves forward into the digital age
- Why human verification is still needed even as dMRV becomes the norm

Read the highlights from the AMA on Medium: https://medium.com/@shihan.fang/machine-learning-artificial-intelligence-nika-eco-redd-6cde1acd390b

Read more on Medium or follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Digital Mission Ventures, also known as DM Ventures or DMV, is a Singapore-based venture capital firm that aims to build the redemptive startup ecosystem in Southeast Asia.

A startup with a redemptive business model can probably be described as a business built upon Christian values, rather than one that is purely driven by profits.

To understand how a redemptive business model works, I spoke to the former head of GrabPay, Chris Yeo, who co-founded DM Ventures. He’s also serving as the CEO of Doku, a Jakarta-based fintech payments solutions company.

In our conversation, he talks about:
- how he recognised that serving God shouldn't be a retirement hobby
- being open about his Christian identity while leading a Muslim-majority company
- the three tenets of redemptive startups
- the heart posture of a founder running a startup based on the redemptive framework

Read the highlights on Medium: https://medium.com/@shihan.fang/digital-mission-ventures-christianity-faith-startup-43b087868d99

Read more on Medium or follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Rather than heading down the academic rabbit hole in search of what lies ‘after growth’ (i.e. "post-growth" and "degrowth), I thought I’d tap on some ancient wisdom that’s been passed down the ages. 

In this series on faith-based business models, I speak to folks in the startup world who have successfully integrated their religious views into their everyday lives. This includes making business decisions based on religious ethics, in addition to seeking profits and growth. 

My guest for this podcast is Umar Munshi, Managing Partner at Hasan VC, a venture capital fund that invests in and supports startups that comply with halal standards. He’s got a preference for “camel startups” - check out his LinkedIn post to see if you qualify. 

In this episode, we talk about:
- Why buying a sports car as a fledging startup founder is a monumentally stupid idea
- Why Islamic finance offers a less predatory mode of financing for businesses
- What kinds of camel startups Munshi is looking for
- Applying the concept of justice in business
- How Islamic finance integrates philanthropy and charity in business-as-usual
- How Islam can be applied universally as an ethical framework

Read the written highlights on Medium here: https://medium.com/@shihan.fang/umar-munshi-hasan-vc-islamic-finance-53f6e5f91378

Read more on Medium or follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

I first reached out to Rene Velasquez, former head of carbon at environmental commodities exchange CBL, for insights on what happened the first time retail traders got access to the voluntary carbon market.

It ended badly, with Verra, the world’s largest carbon standard and registry, banning crypto company Toucan from tokenizing retired carbon credits in May 2022.

But the brief carbon-crypto affair proved to the world that there was appetite among retail traders for carbon credits. More importantly, that could provide new funding opportunities and liquidity for the voluntary carbon market, which, if deployed correctly, addresses deforestation and climate change concerns. 

Velasquez is now working on a “Robin Hood for the carbon market”, a blockchain-based platform for retail investors to trade carbon credits. He shared some insights during the ReFi Singapore meetup on 19 March on what went on behind the scenes during the Toucan/KlimaDAO/Verra kerfuffle, and what lies ahead as the voluntary carbon market braces for disruption.

Read the highlights on Medium here.

Read more on Medium or follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Dr Riza Suarga, Chairman of the Indonesia Carbon Trade Association (IDCTA), has a long career in Indonesia’s forestry sector which began with work in a timber plantation. He crossed the fence, so to speak, in the 2000s after finishing his PhD thesis on illegal logging, converting former enemies at Greenpeace and WWF into allies along the way.

Today, alongside his position at the IDCTA where he works on communicating the needs of the carbon market to the government and vice versa, he’s also the President & CEO of Agraus Resources, a carbon investment firm.

I spoke to Dr Riza to get his thoughts on whether changes to carbon regulations are afoot, with the new Indonesian administration due to be sworn in later this year.

Here are some highlights:
- The new administration under the leadership of  Prabowo Subianto, is likely to favour the voluntary carbon market to hit Indonesia's emissions targets, rather than a result-based payment scheme
- The lack of clarity as to how the presidential decree 98/2021 will be implemented is unavoidable as the regulators themselves are learning how to govern the nascent carbon market
- IDCTA is lobbying for the national registry to accept carbon credits issued by both international and domestic standards; buyers should have a choice
- On-ground sentiment is shifting in favour of conservation: most forestry companies in Indonesia prefer to participate in the carbon market, rather than the timber market
- Doubt on the integrity of deforestation avoidance carbon credits is having a perverse effect on conservation

Read the writeup of the interview on Medium. 

Read more on Medium or follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Prakash Somosundrum, CEO of Enjinstarter and Co-founder of AYA Foundation chats about ReFi and bringing tech innovation into the carbon market. This recording was done at the launch of ReFi Singapore. Pardon the poor audio quality!

In this AMA, Prakash chats about:
- The beginnings of Enjinstarter and AYA Foundation
- Bringing digitisation, AI, digital MRV and blockchain innovation into the carbon market
- Using carbon as a proxy for impact on the balance sheet of a "phoenix startup"
- Learnings from Enjinstarter that he's applying to AYA Foundation
- Top three problems that developers can start thinking about solving: carbon, circular economy, soil restoration

Read the highlights from the podcast here: https://medium.com/@shihan.fang/refi-singapore-launch-aya-foundation-b1bd5f272d37

Read more on Medium or follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Simon Schillebeeckx has three jobs. He’s an assistant professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at the Singapore Management University. He’s also the founder of Global Mangrove Trust, a mangrove protection non-profit, and the founder of Handprint, a B2B funding platform for impact projects. 

But because he’s triple hatting as an academic, conservationist, and an entrepreneur, he’s got some pretty interesting ideas on how regenerative finance could be our way out of the climate crisis. 

Here’s my favourite part: he’s got a moonshot idea of how a currency pegged to the value of nature could be much better than currencies created by central banks. It’s the last question - scroll to the end to hear it.

Read the highlights of the interview here: https://medium.com/@shihan.fang/think-positive-think-regeneration-chief-vision-officer-handprint-a5d815691573 

Note: There’s a part when he talks about quantifying impact based on trees planted is better than carbon credits. I asked him about how he ensures permanence - ensuring that the trees planted stay planted - after the interview. His reply is in writing on the Medium article.

Part 1 (01:02 - 41:10)

• How Simon manages to juggle 3 jobs
• How Handprint helps companies integrate regenerative activity into their business model
• Every department must play ball: how siloed departments at Adidas missed the mark on the Common Goal campaign
• How digital MRV (measurement, reporting, verification) can cut down costs while improving integrity

Part 2 (41:10 - 1:03:00)

• Does regenerative finance (ReFi) need to involve blockchain?
• How is sustainability different from regeneration?
• How regeneration responsibilities can be distributed among companies based on valuation
• Moonshot idea: a currency pegged to the value of nature

Read more on Medium or follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Imagine a future when nature and finance are both comfortably integrated into Web3. Imagine an economy that incentivises regeneration, rather than extraction. 

In this episode, I catch up with Jeff Ren, who wears two hats. He’s a partner at OKX Ventures and also an Asia Pacific Leadership Council member at The Nature Conservancy.

He drops in a Chinese saying: 人定胜天. Which refers to humanity’s determination to triumph over nature. It’s the cause of the climate crisis that we’re facing today. But it’s also our route out of this mess, if we can overcome the man made causes of this crisis. 

Can ReFi make that happen? Jeff thinks so. We chat about the following:

• The role of investment and technology in conservation
• His definition of refi 
• OKX Ventures’ current appetite for ReFi investments 
• What OKX Ventures looks out for when funding ReFi projects
• Whether tokenization is a distraction from bigger problems in the ESG space
• Where he sees ReFi going in the next 10-20 years

Read the highlights of the interview here.

Read more on Medium or follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

In this episode, I chat with Gabriel Eickhoff, the co-founder of ClearWind, which is developing carbon credit projects in Southeast Asia. He’s been in the carbon space since 2007 and was involved in the world’s first REDD+ project, Rimba Raya.

It was a long conversation so I’ve split it into three parts. The first part is a history lesson on REDD+ carbon credits, the second part is about market dynamics, and the third part is about controversy in the carbon market this year. 

Here are the time codes for each section:

• Part 1 (0:50 - 41:03): The history of the carbon market and the arrival of Verra
• Part 2 (41:10 - 1:18:53): Winning hearts and minds of the local communities and coping with vacillating demand-side signals
• Part 3 (1:18:58 - 1:53:37): Thoughts about South Pole’s Kariba project and media coverage of REDD+ carbon credits this year

Read the highlights from the interview here.

Read more on Medium or follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Bhutan has been quietly mining bitcoins with hydropower since 2017, when bitcoins were trading at US$5,000 apiece. With bitcoins now trading above $30,000, Bhutan’s bet has paid off handsomely. 

But Bhutan has no plans to expand “crypto adoption” beyond bitcoin mining. Instead, it is focused on positioning itself as a leading technology hub in the Himalayan region.

Last month, Bhutan launched a National Digital Identity (NDI) system for its citizens. The system is similar to Singapore’s Singpass but based on a self-sovereign identity (SSI) framework and built on a blockchain. It is also partnering with Singapore’s Garuda Robotics to monitor high transmission lines in its hills using drones.

I spoke with the CEO of Druk Holding & Investments, Ujjwal Deep Dahal, about the sovereign wealth fund’s plans to disrupt the Bhutanese economy by building local expertise in drone testing, blockchain, and artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML).

In this episode, we talk about:

• DHI’s Bitcoin strategy
• Focus areas for DHI as it pivots the country towards a digital economy
• Challenges that lie ahead

Read the highlights of the interview here, and a longer background feature here.

Read more on Medium or follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Donor funding has never been enough for conservation, says Dr Lahiru Wijedasa, Asia Forest Coordinator at BirdLife International. BirdLife has traditionally relied on donor funding but will issue carbon credits next year from its Lomphat Wildlife Sanctuary in Cambodia. 

In this episode, Dr Wijedasa chats about:

• Why carbon financing, while flawed, is the most promising avenue for conservation
• Why claims that 90% of forest carbon credits are “worthless” rest on scientifically shaky ground
• Why technology can solve some supply-side problems, but broader issues related to lack of on-ground expertise remain
• Difficulties in funding the Lomphat Wildlife Sanctuary, given that rainfall is seasonal and six months of dry season means half the amount of carbon credits compared to a tropical forest with constant rainfall
• Why sustainability professionals and carbon buyers should visit the projects themselves to witness the impact of their purchase

Read highlights of the interview on Medium here. 

Bonus post for the ReFi community here. 

Read more on Medium or follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

InterOpera’s head of strategy Koh Hong Yi is a former officer at Singapore's Monetary Authority of Singapore. He jumped into crypto in 2022 just as the market was crashing, and is now doing work in... security tokens. 

In this episode, Hong Yi chats about:

- the difference between cryptocurrencies, digital payment tokens, and digital assets within Singapore's regulatory framework
- attending Cop27 after starting in the company for a month
- the regulatory status of digital green bonds and carbon credits, and the future of nature-based securities
- and InterOpera's newly launched carbon exchange, OperaX

This podcast is Part 3 in a series about carbon credits. Read the highlights from the interview on Medium.

Read more on Medium or follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Wavemaker Impact executive Yap Su-E is in charge of picking the winning businesses that are emerging from the climate disruption. She chats about: 

- her portfolio companies that are involved in biochar production, solar panel installations, and regenerative farming
- visiting severely degraded farmland in Vietnam
- how humanity is recalibrating its extractive relationship with nature
- why she would never invest in a company that relies solely on carbon credits for profit
- and what gets her up everyday

This podcast is Part 2 in a series about carbon credits. Read the highlights of this interview on Medium.

Read more on Medium or follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Futures trader turned conservationist turned carbon investor Rich Gilmore chats about

- being the head of The Nature Conservancy in Australia  before co-founding Carbon Growth Partners
- how negative and sometimes misleading media coverage isn’t helping to solve climate change
- the impact of Verra’s standards overhaul and advice for new carbon buyers
- specifics on how carbon credits from the BlueMX project were issued and audited
- and why we don’t see more carbon projects from Southeast Asia. 

This podcast is Part 1 in a series about carbon credits. Read the highlights of the interview here on Medium. 

Sound Effect by Cristian_Changing from Pixabay

Read more on Medium or follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Nothing is ever enough until we hit Net Zero. But to cross the chasm between now and then, we should be paying attention to those creating solutions to better address climate change, in addition to calling out the bad actors.

Regen Supply aims to be a source of inspiration for anyone that wants to take part in climate action. Watch this space - I'll be interviewing the people behind impactful climate action initiatives to get insights on where they're going, and what drives them forward.

Credits: SoulProdMusic from Pixabay

Read more on Medium or follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.