Green Angel Syndicate (GAS) is one of the largest angel syndicates in the UK and the only one specializing in the new approach needed to fight Climate Change. Green Angel Syndicate searches out, assesses, and selects the innovations that will make a difference and then invest in them to enable their development.
Green Investment
The investment world has always had a problem with climate change, and unfortunately, there is a great deal of ‘greenwashing’ going on in the investment world right now. There are many acronyms out there that are hard to understand, take a long time to explain, and whose definition is broad and imprecise: ESG, SDGs, Impact, SDI, and others that are equally vague. Meanwhile, our world is still chronically short of the solutions it needs to address climate change. Green Angel Syndicate (GAS) helps to fight against climate change.
Founder and President Nick Lyth: “This is not a problem of definition. It is a problem of prioritization. If you understand the priority to be ESG, you will follow a certain path; if you understand the priority to be the SDGs, you will follow another path, and so on. None of these paths are necessary to address the problem of climate change. They may overlap at some point, but they do not set out to meet the challenge we are all facing with climate change. Meeting that challenge needs to be the highest priority.”
How Green Angel Syndicate Select Their Portfolio Companies?
Green Angel Syndicate numbers more than 300 members, many of whom offer the skills and expertise in support of the management team to:
– Select the innovative grassroots companies most likely to succeed in making a difference in the fight against climate change.
– Perform rigorous due diligence.
– Appoint non-executive directors and observers to the Boards of portfolio companies to actively help meet growth challenges.
This methodology means that GAS attracts pioneering entrepreneurs in the UK who are developing the means of reducing carbon and greenhouse gas emissions or removing carbon from the atmosphere so that you can adapt and thrive on our rapidly changing planet. With over 700 applications from entrepreneurs annually, they are inundated with great ideas. The more successful the portfolio companies, the more significant the impact in reversing climate change, and the greater the return on investment for the angel investors.
CO2 Prevention and Removal
They measure their impact in terms of the quantities of CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions that have been prevented, thanks to the activity of their portfolio companies. Each one of their portfolio company is developing a product or service that helps cut GHG emissions or restores and regenerates degraded ecosystems on which they depend for CO2 removal.
CEO Cam Ross: “Each week, we have more members joining who know that their investment and their involvement can make a real difference in the fight against climate change. Using CO2e as our core metric serves not only to bring clarity to the way we look at investments, but it also underscores our mission – to slow and then reverse the amount of this poisonous gas in our atmosphere.”
EIS Climate Change Fund
In 2020 GAS launched its own Climate Change Fund. The Climate Change Fund mirrors the syndicate in its investments but does not require active angel participation, thereby broadening the investment audience.
CO2e mitigations enabled by the GAS portfolio companies almost doubled in the first half of 2021, reaching 38,000 tonnes, cumulatively, by the end of June 2021. This is equivalent to taking 18,000 cars off the road for a year. They expect this to grow at an even faster rate as they invest in more companies and as their existing companies continue to grow. During the first half of 2021, the largest contribution to the GAS portfolio’s carbon emissions mitigation figure came from the energy sector (59% of the total), followed by transportation (26%), and then buildings (8%) and recycling (7%).
Bottom Line
Green Angel Syndicate is an angel syndicate focusing on the prevention of CO2 and the fight against climate change. If you want to read more, have a look at their website.
Website: https://greenangelsyndicate.com
Climate Change Fund: https://climatechangefund.co.uk/
