Good morning. It's been a sunny few days and the clocks have now moved forward to grant us an extra, precious hour of sunlight in the evenings - It officially feels like Spring! If you're looking to kick off your Spring cleaning this week, here's three swaps to green your clean, along with more eco-friendly cleaning product suggestions.
For any new subscribers, welcome to our re-branded By Shax newsletter (ex-Kwip) and thank you for reading. If you missed the announcement a few newsletters ago, you can read it here. As always, if you have any feedback or comments to help us improve (or if you just want to chat), simply reply to this email or shoot us a note here.
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SUSTAINABILITY
Improving climate data
Climate X, a London-based startup, has completed a £4.1m seed funding round to scale and expand its platform which shows the risks posed by extreme weather events to physical assets. Climate X, using its AI-powered platform Spectra, provides location-specific risk ratings and loss estimate analytics for extreme weather events linked to climate change to clients. It enables firms to meet regulatory compliance and build resiliency by incorporating climate change-related risks into business decisions, pricing and investment strategies. Climate change-related risks are expected to cost the global economy up to $23 trillion by 2050, disproportionately impacting marginalised communities. The U.K. government has already announced mandatory climate-related financial disclosures by public and private enterprises, enforceable for financial reporting periods, starting on 6 April 2022. However, data and tools to assess and manage climate change-related risks have been historically limited and have struggled to meet the increasingly sophisticated needs of customers and regulators.
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INNOVATION
Rhino bonds
The World Bank has issued the world's first wildlife conservation bond, raising $150 million to help efforts to increase the endangered black rhino population in South Africa. The five-year 'rhino bond' will pay investors returns based on the rate of growth of black rhino populations at South Africa's Addo Elephant National Park (AENP) and the Great Fish River Nature Reserve (GFRNR). After five years, investors would get a return of between 3.7% and 9.2% if the population increases, and no return if there is no change in the black rhino population. Black rhinos are two-horned species of the endangered rhino family and are found only in Africa. Between the 1970s and 1990s, their population fell by 96% to below 2,500 due to poaching to meet demand for their horns in China and the Middle East, according to Save The Rhino International, a London-based non-profit organisation. Later, large scale conservation efforts were taken up which led to their increase to between 5,000 and 5,500.
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THE LOW DOWN
- Royal Mint to turn electronic waste into gold
- Microplastics found in human blood for the first time
- Amazon launches five fully-electric HGVs in the UK
- SEC asks companies to divulge pollution and climate risks
- Obama to host new nature documentary on Netflix
- The UN will extend weather warning systems to everyone on the planet
- Gates Foundation, Qatar to spend $200 million on climate-adaptive agriculture
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#ShowerThoughts
- If you dislike someone you last saw as a kid/teenager, they may dislike that version of themselves too.
- Considering how many humans and animals die each day it's surprising that seeing a dead body is a relatively rare experience in daily life.
- Parenting isn’t an 18-year sentence. It’s a life sentence with the possibility of parole after 20 years. You’re never really free again.
- Refusing to wear a helmet is your brain not considering itself important enough to protect.
- If humans permanently lost the ability to taste, our diets would probably improve significantly.
r/Showerthoughts
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#RiddleMeThis
Rebus puzzles, also known as word picture puzzles or picture riddles, use images or words to convey a phrase or message, typically a common idiom or expression. To help you solve them, make sure to look at word placement, size, color, and quantity. Can you guess the word below?
'meta meta meta meta'
Solution is puzzle #9
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