Both by Ring #21 - Impact also means finding solutions to sustainably improve one's sector

Featured with Thaïs Drozdowski, Co-founder & CEO @Inuk

May 31, 2024

Dear community,

As you probably know by now, we're here to talk about impact. And the beauty of this topic is that it never runs out of steam.

Impact is multi-faceted: it may concern ecological, energy, biodiversity, equality, inclusion and all sorts of issues. Impact transcends divisions, ideologies and positions, because it is embodied in tangible and measurable solutions to social or environmental issues.

And this month, we had the chance to interview Thaïs Drozdowski, who decided to set up Inuk to help companies take effective action on their own carbon footprint, and thus play an active part in decarbonising our economic activities. Inuk is an innovative company, not only because it uses tech solutions such as blockchain, but because it seeks to improve the sector in which it operates. In this respect, Inuk perfectly illustrates the model of an impact-driven company: a company with a holistic vision of its activities, and which impact multiplies as its economic performance increases.

This is what BOTH is about: showing how people, companies, investors and institutions can act and play their part in this transition.

🫵 Which entrepreneur, solution, project or concept related to impact would you like us to cover in this newsletter? Feel free to send us your ideas!

The interview

'The carbon credit market should not operate like a marketplace, but as a market of expertise.'

Thaïs Drozdowski, Co-founder & CEO @Inuk

What are the main challenges the carbon market needs to address? How could the sector maximise its impact?

The main challenges are linked to how the carbon credit market works. Currently, project developers must certify their own projects, which involves paying for expensive certification, reporting and using intermediaries to market their carbon credits. All these steps leave little value for the project developers, and some projects fail to emerge because of these. This is why we focus on verifying, certifying, and tracking the credits without charging project developers, allowing us to source quality projects.

In fact, many scandals have arisen from this certification issue. Certifiers, paid by project developers, have an incentive to certify as many projects as possible, leading to the certification of carbon credits with no real value — ‘phantom carbon credits’. At Inuk, we address this issue by funding project certification and carbon credit commercialisation ourselves, and by requiring project developers to work exclusively with us for several years, ensuring a strong commitment from them.

I would say that the market needs strict guidelines to prevent the creation of new phantom credits while allowing projects in need of funding to develop. Moreover, the market should not operate like a marketplace. It should be a market of expertise, with each company specialising in a particular area rather than attempting to cover multiple fields like agroforestry, agroenergy, human behaviour, or waste heat recovery. Clients should thoroughly investigate and understand the projects to be able to choose the right one for their company's activities, value chain, customers, and climate maturity.

Read the full interview

Ring ecosystem’s insights

When you are part of Ring Capital’s ecosystem, there's never a dull moment! Here's the latest news.

⛵️ Entourage will be taking part in the Vendée Globe race, with its partner Advens, to raise awareness on all types of isolation and precariousness.

🏠 Fratries is opening a 3rd coliving space in Nantes (France).

🚀 Goodvest is launching a new product, Goodvest Sérénité, a guaranteed capital investment opportunity. The pre-registration period has just opened.

🏆 Le Hibou has won the French Tech 120 award, which underlines their ability to become a world-class technology leader.

🌱 Maddyness has published an article on Soil Capital. Soil Capital’s ambition is to make regenerative agriculture a new standard by offering companies the opportunity to invest in their own value chain in order to offset their carbon impact.

👶👵 Vestack is working on a project with Tom et Josette, a leading network of childcare centres in nursing homes, for the construction of a new nursing home in Saint-Malo.

🇪🇺 Weefin has published an op-ed in Les Echos calling for harmonisation of European transition plans.

🎂 Happy 10th birthday to Youschool and Yespark. Ten years later, Youschool supports 40,000 people across France, through 23 training courses, and Yespark has become a purpose-driven company with the mission to make cities more mobile, sustainable and pleasant for all.

Ring news

🚀 Come and meet Generations’ team at their presentation webinar on June 12!

This webinar is an exclusive opportunity to meet the team behind Generations, Ring pre-seed & seed fund powered by EDHEC, to learn more about the fund's ambitions and latest news, and meet the start-ups already supported.