2020: The Year Of Climate

By Meriwether Hardie

Climate change is a term that I have grown up with, whether it was in conversation around the dinner table about weather changes felt on my family’s farm, or a topic that I studied in school, it is a term that has been ‘normalized’ in my life. Today, when I meet a friend for coffee, the term climate change is dropped casually in conversation or when I am out in a field with a farmer, we inevitably discuss changing precipitation patterns. Our Bio-Logical Capital team has a Slack channel that we use to post and share articles with each other on this topic – stories of despair and stories of hope. However, I recognize these conversations have felt in ‘fringe’ for the last decade. Depending on whom I am talking to, I chose my words carefully. Right now I want to build bridges, not shut doors.

*The author around 7 years old on her family farm, learning how to keep bees*

In 2019, I felt a major shift in the conversations that I engaged in across the U.S. with farmers, entrepreneurs, investors, teachers and consumers. And climate change took center stage. Last year we experienced the second warmest year, warmest month, and warmest decade on record globally. These weather patterns had devastating impacts on communities around the globe. From areas without rain (and extreme fires) to areas with too much rain (and serious floods), some lost homes, lost jobs, lost crops and some lost their lives.

Last year, the United Nations’ global climate science authority, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released a report on the potential impacts of a rise in global temperature of 1.5 degrees Celsius or more (which we are steadily heading towards) that included a warning that we have a “12-year” deadline to head off “climate change catastrophe.” Then, in January, BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager (with over 7 trillion in management), announced that climate change will be central to all their investment considerations moving forward. And not just for environmental reason, but because they believe that climate change is reshaping the world's financial system.

2019 brought much needed attention to climate change. Although I wish that 2009 or 1999 or even 1989 had been the ‘year of climate’ it is my hope that 2020 will be a year of true climate change – as defined by the mobilization of, collaboration with, and the movement toward climate solutions.

At Bio-Logical Capital, we are working on a number of new projects that provide me with hope. All of these projects are influenced by four key trends that I believe will gain global traction this year and that will help push us forward into the year of climate. These trends include the following:

1) The cost of clean, renewable energy

Solar power generation in the U.S. has quintupled over the last five years and the reason is simple: photovoltaic cells are more efficient and the cost of manufacturing continues to drop. In the right locations, and without government subsidies, utility-scale solar and wind are now cheaper than conventional fossil fuel-based energy resources. Although new tariffs could make the economics tougher this year for solar installations and net-zero buildings, I believe that existing commitments, state incentives, and continued technological innovation will keep this momentum going.

*Utility-scale solar and wind are now cheaper than conventional fossil fuel-based energy resources*

2) Converting to carbon sequestering building design & systems

Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) is a solid wood panel that is made by layering lumber boards in alternating directions, and bonding them together with structural adhesive. CLT doesn’t rust or corrode, it can last for centuries, and it complies with all current and expected building codes. It is both lightweight and strong, it has excellent fire and seismic attributes, and it is cheaper, faster and more environmentally friendly than building with concrete and steel.

CO2 emissions from the building industry account for about 40 percent or more of global CO2 emissions, and the manufacturing of concrete and steel each contribute about 5 percent of global emissions. Producing one ton of concrete emits nearly one ton of CO2 into the atmosphere. Harvesting and manufacturing wood products requires much less energy. When compared side-by-side, the carbon emitted to produce a ton of concrete is roughly eight times that emitted to produce a ton of framing lumber. Steel production emits about 21 times as much carbon as an equal weight of framing lumber.

In addition, CLT can act as a substantial carbon reservoir. Forests sequester carbon by capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and transforming it into biomass through photosynthesis. When a tree is sustainably harvested and its wood is used to produce CLT, this carbon stays stored in the CLT materials for the lifetime of the building.

*Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) is a solid wood panel that is made by layering lumber boards in alternating directions, and bonding them together with structural adhesive*

For all of these reasons, CLT has the potential to transform the building industry. Yet, we need to be conscious of how CLT is produced. Wood from sustainably managed forests is a renewable resource. Poor forest management results in deforestation, loss of top soil, damage to the watershed, loss of biodiversity, and other extremely harmful social impacts to the communities living in the areas of those forests.

I am eager to see how CLT continues to grow in its use this year, and I am also aware that we need to create clear certification, standards, research and studies to ensure that we support the growth of this market as a positive, non-extractive technology.

3) Using nature as design inspiration

Working with and within the natural world has been one of Bio-Logical Capital’s core design principles since our founding. We’ve been happy to see nature increasingly used by developers, city planners, farmers, and business leaders for design inspiration. Our mission thus far has been working predominantly in rural areas until this past year, when we brought this focus to a new landscape for our model – urban green spaces.

In the spring of 2019, our team began to help transform Larimer Square in Downtown Denver by replanting existing green spaces with native, edible, and perennial plants. During this process, we learned how extractive most urban landscaping plans are. It is a cycle of buying and using expensive, short-lived annuals grown in energy intensive greenhouses and planted multiple times throughout the growing season. By planting annuals, landscapers can safely guarantee a planting plan that is always green (or flowering) which is an aesthetic expectation not reflective of, nor rooted in, the natural world. With each successive plant installation, the landscapers throw out plants at the end of their life (that are often still flowering) to make way for a new planting of the same plant species. Beyond the environmental implications of such landscaping practices, this type of planting regime requires considerable labor to install, resources to maintain, and is not ecological or biologically reflective.

Our team realized that if we want to change the way that urban spaces are planted and cared for, that we would need to lead by example. This year we launched our own urban landscaping consulting arm as an extension of the consulting work we currently do. Instead of replanting multiple times a year, we are designing and cultivating regenerative, perennial landscapes. Short-lived annuals are replaced with long-lived perennials. Instead of defining a plant and its value by its flower and color, we showcase the natural life cycle of the plant. By using native or locally adapted plants that either evolved or grow well in the given climate, we reduce resource inputs and labor. When we align our planting plans with the ecology of place, we reduce the volume of plants needed for purchase, the overall labor budget, and operating costs from year-to-year.

We truly believe that all design should be rooted in the natural world, reflective of ecological processes, and inspired by biological principles. If we can take these practices to scale and truly reimagine how we plant our cities, we can have a transformative impact on our urban landscapes and the planet as a whole.

4) The value of soil and a ‘refocus’ on carbon markets

Our emerging understanding of soil’s role in climate stability and resilient agriculture is prompting a paradigm shift in how we feed the planet. Farmers, scientists, and consumers are increasingly recognizing the value and importance of building and maintaining healthy soils. A 2017 study published in Scientific Reports showed that carbon removal from the atmosphere through sequestration by agricultural soils could deliver annual emissions reductions equivalent to removing 20-40% of cars from our roads. Major food and retail companies are starting to shift their supply chains in favor of soil health, and tying in consumer education in their marketing campaigns as an integral part of this evolution (two such examples are Annie's Homegrown and Patagonia Provisions). Other companies have set ambitious plans to become carbon-neutral in the coming decades (like Amazon and Nestlé).

*Our method of high-density grazing at Philo Ridge Farm sequesters carbon back into the soil*

On the carbon market side, Indigo Ag, a Boston-based agtech company, announced in June that its Terraton initiative will pay farmers $15 per metric ton for the carbon that they store in soil on their farms. The company, which has raised over $600 million since it was founded in 2016, says it intends to remove one trillion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in part by using a patented microbial seed coating and digital technology that allow the company to monitor and track soil carbon and on-farm emission levels.

Nori, another player is this space, is building open source market infrastructure to allow for carbon removal projects to measure and monetize their activity. Nori’s voluntary marketplace, based on blockchain technology, and enables carbon removal suppliers (including farmers and foresters) to connect directly with buyers, improve efficiency, and reduce costs.

Providing farmers with financial incentives to farm differently (and invest in practices that often result in shorter term yields but longer term soil health and the future ability to continue to grow healthy crops on that land) have implications beyond just the financial payment.

After two years of applying soil health and regenerative grazing practices at Philo Ridge Farm we are starting to see the results of our work - we have increased soil organic matter by 1.7%.

This means that we:

Grow more and better forage, and we now can feed an additional 20 animal units on the same amount of pasture
Our land holds an additional 46,000 gallons of water per acre, which means we can hold an additional 9.2 million gallons of water in our pastures
We have sequestered ~8 ton of Carbon per acre -- that equates to roughly ~1,600 tons of Carbon (at $15 a ton, that could provide $24,000 per year of extra farm revenue)

My closing reflection is not a statement but a question that I have going into 2020– how do we scale? This question will guide our work at Bio-Logical Capital this year as we ask ourselves: How do we scale thoughtfully with the urgency of our climate? How do we collaborate more? How can we make climate change?