Alexandra Harbour is bullish on building decarbonization.

As a principal with the San Francisco-based venture capital firm Prelude Ventures, she's optimistic that the tide has turned enough towards climate technology that the sector can withstand tech's broader economic downturn.

"The interesting thing about what I've seen, at least in the past three years of climate tech, that hasn't kind of seemed to be the case before is other industries waking up to the fact that climate is a part of their operations, whether or not they acknowledge it," she says.

She's investing in companies like window manufacturer LuxWall and carbon-accounting software firm Persefoni. And she's encouraged by the Inflation Reduction Act, including its $100 million for building decarbonization that's coming through the General Services Administration.

She's also really excited about the potential of state and local building-decarbonization mandates, like New York City's greenhouse gas standards for large buildings and Boston's Building Emissions Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

How is the economic slowdown affecting climate tech investments?

I think that despite the economic slowdown, great climate tech companies are still able to access capital. The real challenge is for companies that require a lot of capex upfront, but haven't had a chance to work out fundamental proof points like revenue. Those businesses have struggled a little bit more at the commercialization stage, because people are reticent to put a bunch of debt or equity financing out for a factory or equipment if they're not seeing a clear path to a massive revenue opportunity.

We saw a flurry of fundraising activity in 2021 and at the start of 2022. I think that most venture-backed companies right now are working to conserve that cash through 2023 and into 2024. While we haven’t had the same large-scale RIFs [reductions in force] and markdowns that we’re seeing right now in crypto/traditional tech, the real test for venture-backed climate tech companies is likely to come in late 2023 and early 2024 as they re-emerge on the fundraising circuit at or above those previous valuations.

What motivates companies that are buying carbon removals — they're not offsets, and they're not even necessarily expressible in terms of tons of reductions. Is that anything but goodwill?

It is partly goodwill. I think maybe the more important piece is they are ensuring that as supply becomes available, they have access to that supply. I think that right now, for industry leaders, it's kind of about securing supply to high quality, whether they're removals or substitutions, like for example, Twelve's jet fuel. I don't know necessarily that a lot of these companies have a path to true net zero without some level of offsetting or removal.

Once you know what your operations are, once you've found the connections between what is economical and what is carbon-beneficial to do at a certain point, maybe you come to things that are uneconomical and carbon-beneficial. And that is kind of the trade-off where you say, 'Hey, we're still going to do this because the carbon benefit is so high.' Or, 'Actually, it doesn't make sense to do this, and so we're going to go over and procure removals or very, very high-quality offsets.'

With the downturn, how much appetite are companies going to have for the uneconomic part?

It's a really interesting question. And I think it's something that's still sort of shaking out right now. There are absolutely companies that are at the vanguard of this that are full speed ahead. They're doing it; they've already committed the capital. I think that there are others that are maybe in a let's-wait-and-see stage. And this was kind of always how carbon markets were, to be honest.

There's the bell curve of the early adopters. And then there's the middle of the bell curve that's like, 'Well, you know what, maybe we just want to do this accounting piece right now. And we're going to hold off on purchasing any credits until we really understand what we're trying to do with them.' And then obviously, there's the laggards.

How important is the SEC climate disclosure rule to what's happening, and what happens if it gets watered down to not include Scope Three emissions or gets delayed or doesn't come out?

I think that from an industry timing perspective, it matters. What we saw in 2021 and 2022 were a bunch of companies rushing to get started, and a lot of it was because of this regulatory pressure.

I think that the train has left the station on climate and carbon; I think that everyone is going to continue to push forward efforts around tracking and reducing their emissions. I think that the SEC guidance, specifically on Scope Three, is going to determine how quickly people do that. And I think it's going to determine how quickly we see solutions getting adopted, implemented and iterated on in the space.

You're an investor in carbon-accounting software company Persefoni. Do they require a strong SEC rule, or not necessarily?

I don't think necessarily. A lot of carbon accounting is really just understanding what your risks are, what are climate-related risks to your business? I think that we'll see people engaging in carbon accounting, period, because it is sort of a risk-mitigating activity.

The big question for carbon accounting companies becomes, specifically, how much data do you have access to? Because a lot of Scope Three accounting comes down to network effects. I think the big thing that is going to suffer if Scope Three doesn't pass is the level of granularity and accuracy of that data.

I think that people will continue to pay for software to understand their risk. But if Scope Three isn't passed, then maybe first of all, the bar won't be set as high. And also, there will be less connective tissue between everybody who's reporting their Scopes One and Two in a vacuum.

To what extent is all this driven by Europe? The U.S. doesn't really have any kind of enforcement yet compared to the E.U.

I think Europe presents a credible vision for what the path we're going down might look like in 10 to 15 years.

I think the fact that people are also having to align or conform to regulation that already exists in Europe means that companies are building this muscle somewhere in the firm, even if it's not in the U.S. Whether or not they choose to apply that to the U.S., it's still something that's happening.

The E.U. just came out with something called the E.U. battery amendment. It's basically this piece of regulation that requires every battery in the E.U. to have a passport. So you know where the raw materials came from and where it's going at end of life. And that's also something that we're seeing, too, in the IRA around some of the EV tax incentives, is you have to understand where the components of the battery came from and where it's manufactured.

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