Climate

For founders developing high impact and scalable solutions to help preserve and protect our planet.

The CDL Climate Stream at CDL-Paris, CDL-Oxford, and CDL-Vancouver will provide high impact contributions to climate challenges by unlocking the potential of cutting-edge research and accelerating its path to commercialization.

CDL startups work with CDL mentors to sharpen objectives, prioritize time and resources, raise capital, and engage with experts working on the frontiers of climate research. With the CDL process and structure, we will help founders accelerate the commercialization trajectory of novel innovations to become massively scalable ventures that have substantial positive climate and societal impacts.

The startups attend five in-person objective-setting sessions between October and June. CDL is a non-profit organization. There are no fees for participation and CDL does not take any equity. Learn more about the CDL program.

All CDL Alumni Companies ▶︎

Who Should Apply?

The CDL-Climate Stream is particularly suited to technical founders who are tackling climate, natural resource and environmental challenges predicated on novel innovations across a wide variety of enabling technology categories. This stream is tailored towards early-stage companies (early venture or growth) or even projects (pre-incorporation); however, startups at all levels of maturity will be considered.

Example Innovation Areas

Mobility, Transportation, and Infrastructure
Future of Food
Sustainable Materials/Manufacturing
Building & Cities
Renewable & Alternative Energy Transition
Greenhouse Gas Reduction, Carbon Sequestration and Removal
Risk Analysis & Management
Waste/Circular Economy
Resource extraction & Processing
Resource Preservation and Optimization

The list above is not exhaustive. To discuss mutual fit between your venture and CDL-Climate, please contact the CDL Climate at climate@creativedestructionlab.com.

Our Mentors

CDL mentors include accomplished entrepreneurs, experienced operators, active angel and venture investors, world-leading scientists, engineers, and technologists. Mentors meet every eight weeks in Paris, Oxford or Vancouver to help founders set objectives over the program’s nine-month duration.

Companies accepted to the CDL Climate Stream benefit from mentors and partners with the experience, motivation, network, and capital to navigate the complex process of developing and implementing climate-related technologies. Mentor and venture relationships are built through CDL engineered interactions and in some cases extend beyond the program through ongoing advisory roles.

See all Climate mentors ▶︎

Gaetan Bonhomme

Partner, Breakthrough Energy

Magali Anderson

Chief Sustainability Officer, LafargeHolcim

Sally Walker

Founding Partner, Human Digital Thinking

Jane Walerud

Partner, Walerud Ventures

John Lefebvre

CEO & Founder, MySOL Energy

Bill Brown

Chairperson, 8 Rivers Capital, LLC

To learn more about CDL Climate or to schedule an introductory meeting with the CDL team, please contact the CDL Climate team: climate@creativedestructionlab.com.

CDL-Vancouver

Vancouver

CDL-Paris

Paris

CDL-Oxford

Oxford

“One of the most challenging hurdles for clean-tech companies is how to speed up deployment and implementation cycles at scale. Throughout our 9-month journey as part of CDL-Vancouver 2017/2018 Prime Stream, Clir harnessed invaluable support and mentorship from the CDL community, covering global expansion, sales strategy, technical roadmap, and financing strategy with CDL mentors participating in our seed round in 2018. CDL’s mentorship driven model helped Clir build a repeatable and scalable sales model, which directly supported our Series A round in 2019, also led by a CDL affiliated mentor at an institutional VC firm.”

Clir Renewables

CDL-Vancouver Alumni '18

“Electrification of our planet’s transport systems is a massive, global challenge and scaling hard tech solutions in battery management relies on a robust commercial model. The mentors on the CDL-Paris 2020/2021 Climate Stream embraced our big ambition and worked by our side to develop the financing, licensing, roadmaps and sales approaches that led to us securing new, industry-leading clients in 2021. We gained long-term advisors for the company and benefitted from the energy of a large community of scientists, business leaders and investors sculpting our business model into a more potent mechanism for delivering battery state estimation methods to electric cars.”

Jordan MacKenzie

CEO, Bioform

“Eliminating single-use plastic waste is a global challenge that takes resources, ambition and focused vision. Our CDL mentor group has played an integral role in developing our fundraising model and market strategy to ensure that we build a strong foundation for rapid growth. The CDL-Vancouver climate stream has given us access to world-class expertise and to an extensive network of business leaders and investors. These relationships have helped us develop the core of our business so that we can deliver on our mission to accelerate the global transition from single-use plastics to sustainable alternatives.”

Greyparrot