On July 21, the planet Earth experienced the hottest average global temperature on record (62.76 degrees Fahrenheit). The next day was even hotter (62.8 degrees), according to a model from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.
The previous record was recorded on July 6, 2023, averaging at 62.74 degrees Fahrenheit.
The Pittsburgh tech sector is positioning to combat this. The city has been dubbed a "top ecosystem" for climate tech by research firm Startup Genome, and, according to Pitchbook, climate tech startups in the city raised $1.2 billion in venture capital funding between 2018 and 2022.
Notable fundraising rounds include a 2022 $67 million raise from Watt Fuel Cell, a clean tech firm, and a 2023 $17.8 million Series A raise by Optimus Technologies, a startup that is developing decarbonization technologies for trucks.
Ecotone Renewable, a company that utilizes an emission free system than converts food waste into an organic fertilizer, has raised over $1 million in venture capital funding and is seeking to raise more.
"What gets me excited about running this process every day is that I want to have a measurable impact on global climate security," Founder and CEO Dylan Lew said. "It's exciting to see that [our] investors are aligned with our mission as a company to not just bring in strong returns, but also have a positive impact on the environment and the communities that we serve within."
Lew also said while a lot of the discussion surrounding climate change is speculative on what the future could look like, he reminds himself to focus on the now because "people around the world are already being affected by this."
"This is not some big, nebulous problem; it is already in effect, and we're going to continue to feel those effects," Lew said. "The big trade off of this line of work that I've signed up for is the uncertainty and instability that are really natural as a part of it."
Those who haven't raised funds yet are eager to do so. Robotics engineer Georgia Crowther is the CEO and founder of The Reclamation Project, a startup that is aiming to automate and consolidate the plastics recycling process, and she said her company being recently selected for a residency at the Robotics Factory helped her to connect with industry members to learn more about the business side. The program also provided The Reclamation Project with $100,000 and free office space for a year.
Crowther was inspired to start the company after her experience working at a 3D printing company after graduating from Carnegie Mellon University.
"I worked at a company that was 3D printing really, really big things, which means that sometimes we were 3D printing really big mistakes out of plastics and basically we couldn't find a way to recycle that plastic, and we couldn't find a recycled source of plastic to build things out of," Crowther said. "Realizing that there's a gap in our recycling chain where if you're a mid-scale manufacturer or you're just trying to recycle still a lot of trash but not industrial amounts of trash there just aren't solutions."
Crowther noted that more sustainable methods are both cost effective and beneficial to reducing emissions.
"Every time you don't recycle plastic you are, in some ways, fueling the need for new virgin plastic, [which] drives a lot of our need for new fossil fuel," Crowther said. "On the other hand, the plastic that we're not recycling is just sitting around. It's either in landfill, which means it's potentially becoming microplastics, entering our water stream, or it's being incinerated. The incineration process releases a lot of CO2 and a lot of other poisonous and greenhouse gases in the process."
Startups aren't the only tech companies in the Pittsburgh ecosystem with an eye on climate change. Duolingo Inc. has established an Environmental Working Group and frequently highlights climate change efforts across the globe on its weekly podcast in a sub-series called "Climate Heroes." Autonomous truck company Aurora Innovation Inc. published a report earlier this year that found that autonomous trucking could improve energy efficiency up to 32% per loaded mile.
