Climate Hive presents What Do You Solve?

What does it take to build a climate company that can deliver both extraordinary financial value and extraordinary climate impact? On this episode of What Do You Solve? we sit down with Nelson Switzer, climate technology investor, co-founder and managing partner of Climate Innovation Capital, and author of The Gigacorn Hunter: Seven Principles for a Climate Investor. For climate founders, raising capital can feel like a second full-time job. Nelson brings a perspective shaped by years on both sides of the sustainability and investment worlds. Trained as an environmental engineer, he went on to work in senior sustainability and environmental roles at organizations including RBC, Centrica, PwC, and Nestlé. He shares the personal journey that took him from that work to co-founding a climate investment firm—and ultimately raising a $100 million fund to support climate companies. Nelson also unpacks the idea behind The Gigacorn Hunter: companies with the potential to create billion-dollar enterprise value while delivering climate impact at the scale of a billion tonnes of carbon. He takes us back to the moment of insight that led him to coin the term “gigacorn,” and explains how the idea became a framework for thinking about the companies and opportunities climate investors should be looking for. This is a valuable conversation for founders preparing to raise funds, as well as investors and anyone working to scale climate solutions. We explore how to think about the relationship between commercial success and climate impact, what makes a climate company compelling to capital, and how founders can approach the challenge of building something capable of scaling far beyond a promising early technology. Learn more about Nelson and his work: Nelson’s website: https://www.nelsonswitzer.com/ *The Gigacorn Hunter*: https://www.nelsonswitzer.com/the-book Climate Innovation Capital: https://www.climateic.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nelsonswitzer/?isSelfProfile=false Subscribe to *What Do You Solve?* for more conversations with the people working to turn climate challenges into solutions that can scale.

What if a road could clean polluted water? What if packaging could help regenerate soil instead of becoming waste? In this episode of Climate Hive: What Do You Solve?, Kevin Drolet and Mike Higgins sit down with Alain Bélanger, Founder & CEO of Beyond Sustainable Tech, to explore a very different approach to sustainability: stop designing things to simply do less harm and start designing them to actively regenerate the planet. Alain and his team are rethinking some of the infrastructure and materials we encounter every day. One of their biggest ideas? Modular, regenerative roads. Instead of conventional road construction that requires extensive excavation and drainage, Beyond Sustainable Tech is developing road systems designed to sit on the existing landscape, manage water where it falls, filter pollutants before they reach waterways and, when needed, be lifted, moved and reused. The technology incorporates materials including specially engineered biochar and non-recyclable materials, with applications ranging from remote infrastructure and mining access to energy projects, fragile ecosystems and potentially smart cities. But roads are only part of the story. Alain also shares his vision for regenerative packaging: packaging designed not only to protect a product during transportation, but to have a useful second life that can contribute to soil regeneration, pollution management and circular material systems. We discuss: • Why “sustainable” may no longer be ambitious enough • How roads contribute to water pollution • The hidden environmental impact of tire particles, PFAS, hydrocarbons and microplastics • How modular roads could reduce excavation and infrastructure damage • Why temporary access roads matter for mining, energy and remote projects • Turning non-recyclable materials into useful infrastructure • How biochar can be engineered for different applications • The opportunity to make roads part of smart-city infrastructure • Why packaging could become a regenerative resource • Rethinking carbon credits and customer participation • Why Alain believes solving climate challenges requires collaboration, not just competition Alain has spent decades working across forestry, materials and sustainability, with efforts and partnerships contributing to the planting of more than 100 million trees. Today, he is applying that experience to a bigger question: What happens when the infrastructure around us becomes part of the solution? Learn more about Beyond Sustainable Tech: https://www.beyonders.tech/ 🎥 Subscribe to Climate Hive for a new episode of What Do You Solve? each week: @climatehiveconnect

What if expanding access to education for girls could also be part of the climate solution? On this episode of What Do You Solve?, we sit down with Guðný Nielsen, founder of Katla Carbon, for a wide-ranging conversation about girls’ education, women’s opportunity, and the ways these issues connect to climate. Guðný traces the path that brought her to this work, including years with the Red Cross, where she saw the barriers many families face in securing an education for their daughters. She also shares how engaging with Paul Hawken’s Drawdown helped her discover a way to connect education and climate action—and why that idea became a mission she felt compelled to pursue. We talk about why educating girls can have effects that reach far beyond the classroom: shaping health, opportunity, family and community decisions, and the possibilities available to future generations. Guðný explains how Katla Carbon is working to support girls’ education in climate-vulnerable regions and why she believes this approach belongs in the broader conversation about climate solutions. This is a conversation about the people and possibilities behind climate action—and about how a founder’s experiences can lead her to see a challenge in a new way. Learn more about Katla Carbon: https://www.katlacarbon.com/ Related reading: Malala Fund, Cost of Not Educating Girls https://malala.org/news-and-voices/cost-of-not-educating-girls Subscribe to What Do You Solve? for more conversations with global game changers on climate!

What if water data were as accessible as weather data? In this episode of Climate Hive: What Do You Solve?, Kevin Drolet and Mike Higgins sit down with Snehal Verma, CEO and Co-Founder, and Mohammad Aatish Khan, COO and Co-Founder of NatureDots. NatureDots is building predictive intelligence for water, helping aquaculture businesses, water utilities, energy companies, conservation organizations and researchers understand what is changing in a water system before it becomes expensive or catastrophic. The conversation starts with small-scale fish farmers, whose entire harvest can be lost when water quality shifts in a matter of hours. From there, we explore how NatureDots uses AI, digital twins, virtual sensors and billions of data points to make water intelligence more accessible, affordable and actionable. They also unpack why water remains a massive data gap, how predictive insights can support risk mitigation and insurance, and what it takes to build a water-tech company at the intersection of climate, nature and AI. Learn more about NatureDots: https://naturedots.com/ In this episode: 💧 Why water data should be as accessible as weather data 🐟 How real-time alerts can help fish farmers avoid devastating losses 🌎 What changing water regimes mean for communities and industry 🤖 How NatureDots combines AI, digital twins and virtual sensors 📈 Predicting water risks from hours to months ahead 🏗️ Why water intelligence has applications across aquaculture, utilities, energy, conservation and insurance 📚 Chapters 00:00 Introduction 01:23 Solving water intelligence through AI 04:14 Why NatureDots began with fish farmers 12:40 Expanding water intelligence across industries 14:52 Climate change and changing water regimes 22:59 How NatureDots technology works 30:02 The origin story behind NatureDots 35:34 Founder challenges and bootstrapping 👉 Like, comment and subscribe for more global conversations with climate game changers. #ClimateHive #WhatDoYouSolve #NatureDots #WaterIntelligence #WaterTech #AI #Aquaculture #ClimateTech

Every day, wastewater treatment plants are doing essential work most of us never think about. But in the process, they can also release nitrous oxide, or N₂O, a largely overlooked super pollutant with roughly 273 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over 100 years. In this episode of Climate Hive: What Do You Solve?, Kevin Drolet and Mike Higgins sit down with Jose Porro, CEO & Founder of Cobalt Water Global, to unpack one of the least-discussed climate problems hiding inside wastewater treatment. Jose has spent years studying nitrous oxide emissions from wastewater systems and is now building an AI-powered emissions intelligence platform designed to help treatment plants identify, understand and reduce those emissions. The surprising part? Reducing nitrous oxide isn't only a climate win. Because N₂O production is closely linked to how the biological treatment process is operating, the same changes that lower emissions can also improve plant performance and, in some cases, reduce energy consumption and operating costs. Jose explains why wastewater facilities often aren't already doing this, and the answer isn't necessarily a lack of motivation. In many cases, they simply don't have enough visibility into what they're emitting. Cobalt Water Global combines emissions measurement, wastewater data and AI to help operators understand when emissions are occurring, why they're happening and what operational changes could reduce them. We also get into the bigger picture: • Why nitrous oxide receives so little attention compared with CO₂ and methane • How wastewater treatment produces N₂O • Why the same biological process can produce very different emissions under different conditions • How AI can mimic the analysis of a wastewater emissions expert • Why reducing emissions can also reduce operating costs • How cities in the US, Canada and Europe are approaching wastewater emissions • Why Europe is moving faster on N₂O monitoring and reduction • The relationship between nitrous oxide and agriculture • Why methane could be the next major layer of Cobalt Water Global's platform • How wastewater could become a source of recovered energy, nutrients and water • Where carbon credits could fit into emissions reduction • Why Jose describes himself less as an entrepreneur and more as a missionary solving a problem The long-term vision is bigger than nitrous oxide alone. Jose sees Cobalt Water Global evolving into a broader wastewater emissions intelligence platform, providing visibility into N₂O, methane, CO₂ and other emissions while helping utilities operate more efficiently. 🎥 Subscribe to Climate Hive for a new episode of What Do You Solve? each week: @climatehiveconnect Connect with Jose -https://www.linkedin.com/in/jose-c-porro-13893752 Learn more about Cobalt Water Global - https://cobaltwater-global.com/