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 res…

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 pod…

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…

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 hom…

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.…

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: …

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 h…

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 …

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 cred…

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…

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, dig…

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, conservat…

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 Chine…

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+ …

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 H…

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…

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 S…

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…

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 buye…

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'l…