VC firms create $60 billion-plus climate tech alliance with backing from the UN

cnbc.com:

A group of venture capital firms including Tiger Global and Union Square Ventures on Tuesday set up an alliance aimed at making private tech investing more climate-friendly.

Called the Venture Climate Alliance (VCA), the coalition of more than 20 climate tech and generalist funds seeks to get the VC industry to increase its commitments to climate tech, a branch of technology devoted to finding solutions to the climate crisis.

The alliance lays out guidance that its VC members and their portfolio companies must follow to ensure they meet the requirements to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

According to a statement, the VCA's stated aim is to «ensure that methodology and metrics are at the heart of how we determine what is a good climate investment, and what investment will have the greatest positive effect on the mission to build tech for a regenerative world.»

Portfolio companies are given guidance on how they should decarbonize their operations, such as using emission-free data centers, deploying less energy-intensive software in their tech stack, or rebuilding supply chains around low-carbon alternatives, the statement said.

Other funds signed up to the VCA include climate VCs World Fund, 2150, and Prelude Venture. Collectively, the investment firms involved manage a combined $62.3 billion in assets, according to Dealroom figures.

Generalist VC firms will need to make routine assessments of their carbon footprint, align their early-stage startup bets with net-zero goals. For climate tech-specific investments, VC firms signed up to the alliance will have to ensure the technology they're investing in has the potential to save at least 100 megatons of carbon dioxide emissions.

It is not the first initiative to bring