Catalytic investment from The Atmospheric Fund helps commercialize innovative Canadian technology
(April 26, 2019 – TORONTO) The Atmospheric Fund (TAF) is today announcing an investment in a technology and project which will reduce carbon emissions by transforming them into fishmeal and other value-added products.
Pond Technologies is a Markham-based technology company that will be installing its technology at Stelco’s steel plant on Lake Erie. Pond captures unfiltered emissions directly from the smokestack, and then pumps the emissions into a proprietary tank, or bioreactor, where algae consume it and grow. The harvested algae are subsequently processed to become food for farmed fish such as salmon and shrimp. Algae is a densely nutritious food source, and is among the fastest growing organisms on the planet. Algae account for approximately 60% of the oxygen production on Earth.
Impact investing is one approach TAF uses to scale up carbon-reduction solutions in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. TAF is investing up to $1.5 million in long-term financing of the Stelco project, having undertaken due diligence regarding the viability and scalability of the technology.
“There’s nothing fishy about feeding carbon emissions to fish. This is proven technology and a solid solution for reducing carbon emissions in the region. Modeling shows that this project should literally eat 1.85 million tonnes of carbon over 15 years,” says Tim Stoate, TAF’s VP of Impact Investing.
“As the first to commit capital to this commercialization phase of this project, TAF is pleased to help de-risk and bring more financial partners on board, including investment partner Inventiv Capital, a New York-based boutique investment company managing the $13.5 million investment into the project.”
Steve Martin, Pond Technologies CEO, commented, “TAF’s early support and enthusiasm is helping us to complete the world’s first commercial-scale, algae-based carbon capture plant. The Stelco project will show that emissions from industrial facilities can serve as an abundant, revenue-generating resource for high-value biomaterials.”
About TAF
The Atmospheric Fund (TAF) is a regional climate agency that invests in low-carbon solutions in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area and helps scale them up for broad implementation. We are experienced leaders and collaborate with stakeholders in the private, public and non-profit sectors who have ideas and opportunities for reducing carbon emissions. Supported by endowment funds, we advance the most promising concepts by investing, providing grants, influencing policies and running programs. We’re particularly interested in ideas that offer benefits beyond carbon reduction such as improving people’s health, creating new green jobs, boosting urban resiliency, and contributing to a fair society.
About Pond Technologies
Located in Markham, Pond is a technology company that provides profitable solutions to the global health and wellness challenges of climate change and nutrition. Pond’s proprietary growth platform, including patented advanced photonics, optimizes key growth inputs in order to provide a controlled environment that maximizes the growth of algae and other organisms. This enables industrial emitters to generate new revenue streams from the transformation of underutilized CO2 to valuable algae-based products, such as protein for animal feed and nutraceutical products like Chlorella, Spirulina, and Astaxanthin for human consumption.
About Inventiv Capital Management
Inventiv manages fiduciary investments targeting outperformance which are designed to drive institutional scale capital into solutions that support the United Nations Sustainable Development goals.
amazing stuff!