She's Working Hard to Combat Climate Change with Lucy Hargreaves

February 7, 2023

71. She's Working Hard to Combat Climate Change with Lucy Hargreaves

She’s spent more than two decades fighting for climate action and sustainability worldwide. Lucy Hargreaves latest endeavor is leading an effort to advise, inform and shape global policy on climate change as head of public affairs & policy at climate-tech startup Patch.

Here are some important moments with Lucy from the podcast: 

At 9:17  Lucy talks about how society benefits from corporations using the Patch app.

At 19:41 Can we make a difference with climate change if everyone isn’t on board?

At 22:04 Is it tough to get people to convert to forward-thinking about problems as opposed to reacting?

Here are some ways to follow Lucy:

Website: https://www.patch.io 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucyghargreaves/ 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/lucyhargreaves4 

Discord: https://discord.com/invite/AU8543D

Important information from Homeowners Be Aware:

Here are ways you can follow us on-line:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/homeownersbeaware/

Website: https://homeownersbeaware.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-siegal/

If you'd like to reach me for any reason, here's the link to my contact form:

https://homeownersbeaware.com/contact

Here's the link to the trailer for the documentary film I'm making: Built to Last: Buyer Beware.

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Thanks for listening!

Transcript

George Siegal: 0:00

Hi everybody. Welcome to the Tell Us How to Make It Better podcast. One of the issues I talk about a lot is bad choices we make on where to live and all the damage that takes place every year in major disasters, I focus more on what's happening and how we should be building safer houses and leave the why it's happening to the experts. Now, one of those experts is my guest today, Lucy Hargraves. She spent more than two decades fighting for climate action and sustainability around the world. Her latest endeavor is leading an effort to advise, inform, and shape global policy on climate change as head of public affairs and policy at Climate Tech Startup Patch, where she's helping businesses of all sizes shrink their carbon footprints with just a few lines of code. I'm George Siegal, and this is the Tell Us How to Make It Better podcast. Every week we introduce you to people who are working on real world problems and providing actual solutions. Tell Us How to Make it Better is partnering with The Readiness Lab, the home for podcasts webinars and training in the field of emergency and disaster services. Lucy, welcome. Thank you so much for joining me.

Lucy Hargreaves: 1:11

Thanks so much, George. Really excited to be here.

George Siegal: 1:14

So let's talk about now why you're here. What is the problem that you have identified, and tell us what you're doing to make it better.

Lucy Hargreaves: 1:21

Right. So climate change is the problem that that I spend all of my time focused on now, trying to make that better and, and how I'm trying to make that better is through my work at Patch. So Patch is an API first platform for climate action and sustainability. We are currently focused on carbon markets and we basically provide the digital infrastructure to connect both the supply and demand side of the carbon markets. And by doing so, we're really revolutionizing and democratizing access to carbon credits. I lead global Public Affairs and policy for Patch, which has me doing a wide range of different things that I'm happy to jump into later. As a company, we were founded in 2020 and over the last two years have raised over 80 million dollars. We've expanded our team to over 65 people throughout North America and Europe. And we work both on the supply and the demand side of the carbon market. So on the supply side, we work with project developers that are actually developing carbon credits from a range of different project types. Everything ranging from sort of afforestation reforestation projects, nature-based solutions, all the way up to the, you know, sort of quote unquote sexier engineered tech that are, are really buzzy these days that a lot of people talk about, like direct air capture, concrete mineralization seaweed sinking and the like. So we work with them to list their credits and transparently surface information about the credit attributes. So everything from vintage, so what year the credit was developed in to technology type geographic location, sort of climate impact, et cetera. So we surface that information to buyers. And then on the demand side we work with corporate buyers in two main ways. So the first way we work with them is by putting together portfolios of carbon credits for mostly corporate buyers that have made some kind of net zero target and are undertaking the hard work of actually reducing emissions throughout their, their various scopes of impact but also have carbon credit purchases and removals as part of their journey to net zero. So we work with them to put together portfolios of credits. And then as an API first platform, that gives us a lot of other ways to work with corporations to help them offer carbon neutral products and services to their end users. So that can look like lots of different things. But to give you a couple of examples on the e-commerce side, we work with a number of e-commerce platforms to help them offer carbon neutral shipping on checkout through a little toggle button on on their, on their checkout link. We work with financial institutions to help them offer carbon neutral ETFs, mutual funds, credit cards, rewards programs, and the like. And a number of sort of shipping logistics companies. So the, the, the possibilities are endless, but it's that API functionality that helps us connect corporations and their end users and customers to the really strong supply network that we have of, of of carbon credits.

George Siegal: 4:22

Now, climate change is something that, that fascinates me because it's such a an important subject, but it's also become such a political subject. Where people trench in and take sides, does it really exist? Does it not really exist? And you know, I'm always a skeptical person to begin with, but when I made my documentary film The Last House Standing, it was about how we buy properties in places that we don't know how the dangers are and how vulnerable it is. And then we get wiped out. And I had scientists and people that are climate experts in the film that say, undeniably climate change exists. What the ultimate impact of it is then where the debate comes in is what we can do. I as a person who lives in Florida, when the last hurricane was approaching, there were people screaming, it's the Governor's fault because he doesn't believe in climate change. Right? So it's a controversial thing. So when people use your app, what's the thought process they have about what difference they can actually make and how soon that difference would be realized by everybody. Is it something 50 years down the road, is it something that could stop seawater rise in the next 10 years? What's the, the impact?

Lucy Hargreaves: 5:27

Yeah, so I mean, we need all solutions now as quickly as possible to actually impact our trajectory. When corporations use our platform, so it's not, to be clear, it's not a consumer facing app that, that we have at Patch. It's a, it's a platform that corporations can use. And what I like about it is because I, you know, I've spent many years on the policy and political side, so , I'm very familiar with sort of the longer term policy dialogues and solutions that are necessary, but take kind of a longer they're, they operate on a longer time scale. What's great about Patch and what we're offering is that, we're enabling companies to invest in climate solutions that are happening today. So these projects that project developers are standing up are generating credits today and actually avoiding and removing carbon from the atmosphere today. And, and like in the next 2, 3, 4 years. So it's a much shorter time scale and the impact is, is happening now or, or at least in the, you know, very, very short term. So there's a more direct connection between you know, investment made, money spent, and action taken. And these projects are being stood up all over the world. So these are not just North American projects, these are projects that are happening in North America, Europe, the global south that are involving local communities and tree planting. Efforts you know, they're developing you know, larger scale direct air capture plants that are creating jobs. So it's, you know, it's, it's more than just the climate impact, which is also, you know, part of the story that I don't think gets told a lot that these are, you know, they're, they're projects that are generating real climate impact today, but they're also projects that are employing local people, generating you know, employment opportunities in local communities and really engaging people in, in that effort.

George Siegal: 7:20

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Lucy Hargreaves: 8:14

Yeah. You're talking about the corporate buyers that we work with?

George Siegal: 8:17

Yeah, the co the, so on a larger scale. So it get, helps me understand it better when I go, okay, what is this huge conglomerate going to do? Like, what kind of things are they doing through the app and, and, and that make that they get their credits for it. How does that help all of us?

Lucy Hargreaves: 8:33

Yeah, for sure. Well, look, I mean, we know the, you know, there's sort of, there's two main things that we need to do on climate action. The first thing that we need to do globally, and you can put corporations in here, but also governments and individuals, is we need to reduce our emissions as quickly as possible and as rapidly as possible in order to make that transition the energy transition that we need to make to reach our global targets of 1.5 by mid-century. So we need to do that emissions reduction piece and that mitigation piece as quickly as possible. And the other thing that we need to do, because when we look at those, the, you know, the climate math that gets us to 2050, not only do we need to have that rapid emissions reduction, But we also know, and the I P C C released a report about this in April of this year. We also know that we need to scale carbon removals to a scale of 10 billion tons per year by 2050, in order to get that net zero target in place and lu global warming to 1.5 degrees. So it's, you need kind of like both. And and so when I talk to people about this, when I talk to corporations about this, you know, they need to do both. It's not as simple as just saying, well, we're gonna, you know, buy a bunch of carbon credits and you know, sit on our hands and not do anything else. So the conversations that Patch has with corporate buyers is very much in that vein that, you know, this is, this, the what you need to be doing is a very holistic project. What patch facilitates is one part of that equation. So we facilitate companies on their journey to buy carbon credits as part of that part of that equation. And what that does, when you think about the bigger climate math equation that I just explained, when you buy carbon credits, what you're really doing is you are channeling capital to these projects that need to scale. So I, I mentioned the 10 billion ton number earlier, the scale that we currently have is around 10 to 20,000 tons. So we are currently at a very micro, micro, micro fraction of where we need to be to get to 10 billion tons a year. So there's a lot of capital that needs to move into those projects so that they can grow and scale and commercialize at a much you know, in a much larger way to get from where we are right now to where we need to be in 2050. So the corporate investments that are being made through carbon credits into these projects really help with that, and they help get capital in the door. And they help provide these project developers with a bankable contract that they can then take to institutional investors. You know, governments and other large scale investors to get more capital in the door and scale their projects even further.

George Siegal: 11:26

No, I, I, I think that's great. You know, I had a guest on, in my first season who had 52 ways I think she wrote a book, 52 Ways You Can Make a Difference in Climate Change. And I kind of rolled my eyes when I first saw that, but then I go, wait, I'm already doing a lot of these things and there's things that I can also do that are easy to do. As someone who doesn't really leap into things, it made me think, wow, it's, it's getting people to understand this is what the problem is and this is what we can do to help. Right. So why do you think there's so much pushback from some people.

Lucy Hargreaves: 11:57

As individuals?

George Siegal: 11:58

I, yeah. As individuals, because I know,

Lucy Hargreaves: 12:01

yeah. It's, I, I don't know. I mean, I actually, so my take on this is that, The dial has moved significantly in the last five, six years. So like I've, I've worked on climate and sustainability and environmental issues writ large for, you know, over 20 years. I did my undergraduate degree in the late 1990s focused on climate and environment and sustainability. So I've been in a space for a long time and felt like, you know, there were a lot of headwinds along the way up until probably 20 17, 18, 19. And those were political headwinds. They were, you know I think the kinds of headwinds that you are talking about, like why is it, you know, there was a lot of people who just kind of didn't really buy into it and weren't convinced that this was something they needed to take action on. But there has been a shift and so I actually. I would actually disagree slightly with the premise of your question, because I think for most people now, they, they get, they get it. They, you know, climate change is not something, I mean, there will always be, you know, small groups of people who may disagree, but for the most part, climate change now is something that is pretty widely accepted, is something that's occurring and happening and something that we need to take action on. So I think it's a different starting point for the conversation.

George Siegal: 13:17

And, and let me say that, just to be, just to be clear, my question isn't about, you know, people agreeing or not agreeing with it. I think a lot of the frustration I, I sense from certain people is, Well, what difference can I make towards that problem? Is it a solvable problem? So, yeah, you're right. Are are people really arguing? It doesn't exist? No. But are they arguing how can we make a difference? Right. Yeah. That's still going on.

Lucy Hargreaves: 13:38

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I don't have a great answer to that. I think like if I was to speculate, I, you know, there's a lot of inertia in any behavioral change, right? It's hard if, whether it's taking action on climate change or looking at other. You know, other ways in which people might wanna change their behaviors. It's behavioral change is a hard nut to crack. When you're asking people to change habits that they've had for their entire lives, whether that's eating less meat or turning their lights off more regularly, or switching out the kind of car that they drive you know, It's hard to do that. And I think that's why we ki even though that personal commitment to change is important and I think part of the solution to climate change, we can't rely on individuals to carry the burden on this because it's for many different reasons. It's hard for people to make those changes. So the more that we can do you know, from a policy perspective and a broader kind of institutional perspective to lower the barriers for people making change the better. So things like making, you know, putting in place policies that will make electric vehicles more affordable or., you know, even better, cheaper than combustion engine vehicles. So things like that n you know, provide important and necessary nudges to individuals to make the right decision. But I, I, I really don't think we can put the burden on individuals to, to be the change here. I think that's a, that's a nice to have, but the more important change is you know, the broader environment in which individuals are living.

George Siegal: 15:19

Yeah, I would agree with you because I, I think we see that from with, with the damage that I was talking about in my film the last house standing. I talked to a builder who be believed it was the home buyer's responsibility to ask for a safer home, and I don't buy into that at all. I think if, if we had a choice of cheaper cars without airbags, people would probably choose that. Right? That sometimes you have to show people the way in a way that, why is this better for you? Here's how you'll be safer. You know, if we have houses not getting wiped out every year, I don't know how people would argue with that, but people won't automatically just agree to spend the money themselves. They kind of have to be guided in that direction.

Lucy Hargreaves: 15:55

Totally. And, and in an environment like the one we're in today, you know, in a, an inflationary environment, a recession likely looming around the corner, if not already started you know, those pocketbook questions are even more important for individuals, right? So I think we're, you know, it, it becomes an even more important time for governments to step up and use the policy tools that they have and the resources that they have to make make these decisions easier for people.

George Siegal: 16:24

Now with patch, you say you guys are are global. Are there some countries that are easier to deal with than others? I know there's some that are large polluters that probably don't think they're a part of the problem or won't do anything about it. Who's the toughest and who's the most open-minded?

Lucy Hargreaves: 16:39

It's funny, so I mean, I am not sure I'm gonna answer your question in a direct way, but it's, it's funny that, you know, different countries over time have different reputations depending on who's in power. Europe and the EU has, you know, they've. Long been recognized in the climate community as leaders and have, you know, are typically kind of four or five, six years ahead of where North America is from a climate policy perspective. So it, it always kind of feels like in North America we're playing catch up with them. You know, the US up until. The summer with the I R A and maybe slightly before that, but that was kind of the big win in the US over the last six months. The US has had like not a great reputation when it comes to climate action over the last five, six years. So yeah, it kind of, you know, that sort of swings based on, on political trends. But as a cohort, ev I think everyone has now kind of moved on to a, a different spot. Than we used to be five, six years ago, even in, you know, in Canada as well. The political dialogue has changed a lot in the last five, six years.

George Siegal: 17:43

But does it take global cooperation? Because if it, let's say the United States totally bought in, but the Asian countries did not, and they continued to pump all this garbage into the air, does it defeat the purpose or can you still get, you get what you, where you need to go if, if not everybody's on board?

Lucy Hargreaves: 18:02

Yeah. Yeah, it, it's a hard question. I mean, that's why we have U N F C C C and the work that is going on at the international level with COP 27 is to, you know, get countries to, to as much as possible be on board together. And that's, there's a lot of negotiations that go into that, right? Like when we negotiated the Paris Agreement in 2015 there's a lot of hard work and tough conversations to get there and, and a lot of watering down along the way. But I think you're always globally going to have a group of countries that are gonna be extremely progressive and out there on the front pushing the boundaries. And you're gonna have a group of countries that, for a variety of reasons, whether it's like lack of political interest or financial inability to contribute. You know, there can be lots of different reasons for it that are, you know, not as progressive and are more on I would categorize as slow movers or you know, playing catch up on some of these things. But I, I think because you have that range and diversity of countries, it doesn't mean that the more progressive countries should be less progressive. I think you're always gonna have to, you know, Move forward with high ambition. Regardless of what your neighbors are doing. And I think things like C B A M, which is the carbon border adjustment mechanism the EU is currently looking at and probably will implement within the next year. You know, we'll do a lot to force countries for trade reasons and competitive reasons to up their game on, on climate action. So yeah, there's slow movers and there's progressive movers, but just because there are slow movers, I, I think is not a reason for the, for the progressive ones to slow down.

George Siegal: 19:43

It seems like the toughest things to get accomplished are things that are forward thinking. When you look at, like, for disasters in this country, we're real good at preparing for cleaning up after them. We're real good at, you know, hopefully getting better at evacuating, warning, all that stuff. Yeah. But we're not doing a good enough job at building things that survive the disaster, because that's forward thinking and it's hard to get people to, to think that way. Do you, do you feel the same thing with what you're doing?

Lucy Hargreaves: 20:12

Yeah, totally. And absolutely a hundred percent feel that way. There's a, there's a phrase that, that we started using a few years ago that a lot of people in the climate community started using, which is the the cost of inaction is, is higher, right? So when you start to break that down, what it really means is just to your point, The amount of money, and lots of studies have been done on this by the insurance industry because obviously they have a, you know, they have a pretty big stake in in these kinds of questions. But really what it breaks down to is if we don't tackle climate change now and temperatures continue to rise at the level that they're projected to rise, the cost of inaction is just enormous. And so it's sort of a, it's a false dichotomy really to say that, well, we can't afford to spend money now on climate action. Because when you actually run the numbers and you you know, look at those projections, It's, and I don't have the numbers in front of me, sadly to quote, but it's, it's literally trillions of dollars more to actually deal with the impact of increased natural disasters, like, you know, more severe and more frequent hurricanes, more wildfires, more frequent wildfires, and more severe wildfires. So, Really the c the cost of inaction it on a number of you know, from a number of angles is just so great when it comes to climate change. So I agree with you that it's a, it's a hard conversation to have with people, but I think, you know, there has been progress made in the last few years to make that you know, a more clear decision from a financial perspective. To you know, policy makers insurance companies and banks. And so I think there's, you know, there's a lot of, there's a big shift happening on on how people are thinking about that.

George Siegal: 22:02

I don't wanna trash insurance companies if they happen to be big clients of yours, but I don't think that if, if they're doing those studies, I don't know that they're actually reading them, because I don't see big campaigns about make your home safer, do these things, let's avoid disaster. It's always, oh, we'll be there to hold your hand and help you clean up afterwards. And so to me that's, well, let's just get our money and keep going forward not solving the problem. And that's what drives me nuts. So that's what I like about what you're doing. Is you're trying to forward, think and, and help be part of solving a problem.

Lucy Hargreaves: 22:35

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I won't weigh in on the motivations of insurance companies. It's, it's beyond the scope of what I work on.

George Siegal: 22:43

No, I understand that. I wouldn't expect you to, I wouldn't expect you to pile on there. And, and I would say that's the same in, in almost everything. I made a film about parenting. About all the bad parenting that exists. Ah-huh. And the cost of raising a good child. One of the statistics was it was 1.4 million to society was worth, but if you raise a bad child, it costs society 2.8 million. Right. The after the fact cost is always higher for fixing things. So I would just think as a country we would be smarter about trying to avoid these things.

Lucy Hargreaves: 23:15

Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, that's a great parallel with the education system and a reason why, you know, governments worldwide should be investing more in early childhood education from a very young age because it, it makes a big difference and it costs less money to society over the long term.

George Siegal: 23:30

So there's so many things that make me wanna pull my hair out, but I, I would be bald if I actually if I actually did it. So, as an entrepreneurial person, and you certainly seem to be that way, what advice would you have for someone who has an idea or a thought of something they thought they could solve a problem and make things better, what would you tell somebody to do to, to give them that push? To get 'em going?

Lucy Hargreaves: 23:50

Yeah. Don't be afraid of failure. Find supporters. Don't be afraid to ask for help. Be persistent. And. Just get started. I mean, you'll, you'll be surprised whether it's climate or you know, whatever issue it is that you're passionate about and you want to work on, you'll be surprised how many people, once you start talking about that will step up to help you. So just, just get started and, and, you know, don't be afraid of the missteps that you will inevitably make along the way, because we all do these journeys are never linear. But, you know, be realistic. Be motivated be open to help and yeah, just get started one step at a time.

George Siegal: 24:30

All right, Lucy, I'm gonna put all your information in the show notes, but what's the best way for people to reach out and get in touch with you?

Lucy Hargreaves: 24:36

Yeah, for sure. So I'm on LinkedIn and Twitter, so don't hesitate to reach out. There, just shoot me a, a direct message. And and I'll also maybe drop my email in the show notes for you there as well so people can kind of reach out directly.

George Siegal: 24:49

Awesome. Lucy Hargreaves, thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate it. And continued success with the, with the app.

Lucy Hargreaves: 24:57

Awesome. Thanks so much, George. Really appreciate it.

George Siegal: 25:00

All of Lucy's contact information is in the show notes. There's also a contact form that goes to me. If you have any comments on podcasts you've listened to or suggestions for ones that you'd like to hear, I would love to hear from you. And if you liked what you were listening to today, please become a subscriber. Share the link, even leave a review. Thanks again for listening. See you next time.