Fitzsimons - putting her money where her heart is

Fitzsimons - putting her money where her heart is

November 28, 2014: Due diligence in investments has a slightly different connotation for retired politician Jeanette Fitzsimons.

It’s not that the former Green Party leader isn’t careful with her money – she is – but she’s even more careful about the environmental impacts of the companies she invests in.

Ideally, they will not only walk lightly on the Earth, as the saying goes, but they will actually leave the Earth in a better shape than it was .

Ms Fitzsimons and her husband Harry have invested a sum “that’s not large but not insignificant to us” in New Zealand clean-tech company CarbonScape.

CarbonScape has developed patented technology to produce low-emissions carbon products such as Green Coke (which can be used to replace greenhouse-gas-emitting coking coal in steelmaking), activated carbon (used for purifying food, air and water), chemicals and syngas.

The company uses microwave technology to short-circuit the natural carbon cycle, producing in minutes what it takes nature millions of years to do.

The products are effectively carbon-neutral, because instead of releasing stored ancient carbon back into the atmosphere and increasing the greenhouse effect that is causing climate change, CarbonScape’s products are made from waste biomass, such as branches from plantation forests. Because the carbon stored in them would be released into the atmosphere anyway as the branches decomposed, they do not add to overall atmospheric carbon levels.

Ms Fitzsimons decided to invest in CarbonScape earlier this year because she believes in putting your money where your heart is.

"It's exciting to be able to support really new, New Zealand-developed technology with the potential to replace significant amounts of coal internationally,” she said.

But the decision-making process was thorough.

“Due diligence usually means being sure that they’re financially viable,” she said. “I’m not an expert on that. I did what I could, asked lots of questions, but what I was extremely thorough about was the environmental diligence.”

Ms Fitzsimons travelled to CarbonScape’s Marlborough headquarters and spent time with chief technology officer Greg Connor, examining issues such as the energy efficiency of the process.

She also questioned CarbonScape executive director Tim Langley closely on whether there was enough waste biomass available to use as feedstocks.

“That’s very important,” she said. “I don’t believe that food-growing land should be used – that’s taking food from poor people to give energy to rich people. And it's very important to me not to encourage the cutting of old-growth forests for energy, anywhere in the world".

Steelmaking is responsible for about 7 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Ms Fitzsimons believes that substitution, recycling and increased efficiency can cut those emissions, but acknowledges that some new steel is going to be produced for the foreseeable future, and says that CarbonScape’s technology could significantly cut global emissions from steel-making.

The company has a conditional supply agreement to supply New Zealand Steel with 9000 tonnes of Green Coke for the Glenbrook steel mill. It also has a memorandum of understanding with New Zealand Steel’s parent company, BlueScope, providing technical support to take Green Coke to production scale.

CarbonScape is currently offering shares to the public through equity crowd-funding platform Snowball Effect. It had a target of $400,000, and has so far raised more than $500,000. The over-funding cap is $1.5 million.

An investors’ evening will be held at The Icehouse in Parnell next Wednesday (December 3). Present will be CarbonScape executive director Tim Langley, New Zealand Steel vice-president commercial David Hazlehurst, Baldwins IP attorney Tim Stirrup and Snowball Effect’s Josh Daniell.

Ms Fitzsimons hopes to attend.

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