Oscar Williams

2 weeks ago | politico.eu | Russell Hargrave |Oscar Williams

LONDON — The U.K. government has announced that supercar brands McLaren, Aston Martin and Bentley will be exempt from new electric vehicle sales quotas, as it finalizes a long-awaited industry review. Under the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate, manufacturers are fined if they miss targets for new electric vehicle sales as a proportion of total sales each year. The fines ratchet up every 12 months, with an earlier intention of phasing out sales of new diesel and petrol cars by 2030.

Dec 10, 2024 | springwise.com | Oscar Williams

Spotted: As the world accelerates its transition to electric mobility, the looming challenge of managing 100 million end-of-life EV batteries over the next decade or so cannot be ignored. Representing 40 per cent of a vehicle’s cost and generating up to 10 tonnes of CO2 emissions per battery, these power sources are a critical ecological and economic issue. Enter a Paris-based startup that’s leveraging technology to extend battery life, enable reuse, and minimise waste.

Dec 10, 2024 | springwise.com | Oscar Williams

Spotted: Plastic waste is one of the most pressing environmental challenges of our time. Only an estimated nine per cent of all plastics ever produced have been recycled. The rest is incinerated, landfilled, or ends up in the environment, contributing to pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Addressing this, a German startup is helping to make plastic packaging more circular with a plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) process.

Dec 5, 2024 | springwise.com | Oscar Williams

Spotted: Deploying climate technology at scale is crucial to achieving global net-zero goals, but financing such projects remains a challenge. McKinsey estimates that meeting net-zero targets by 2050 will require annually in investments for physical assets – far exceeding current funding levels. Addressing this issue is a London-based startup, Tangible, which aims to help climate hardware companies span the so-called ‘valley of death’ to access debt markets critical for scaling their operations.

Dec 4, 2024 | springwise.com | Oscar Williams

Spotted: Biodiversity is a key measure of our planet’s health, but it’s under serious threat, with tens of thousands of species significantly declining in the last few decades alone. This threatens more than the environment – it undermines economic stability, with of the global GDP being dependent on nature’s services. Traditional conservation methods – which use infrequent, manual field assessments – can’t keep up and fall short in capturing the dynamic and complex changes within ecosystems.