Cavalry becomes one of the first climate neutral VCs

Cavalry, one of Europe’s leading early-stage venture capital funds takes action against climate change. By analysing and compensating the emissions from their worldwide operations, Cavalry joins the list as one of the first climate neutral VCs, powered by Planetly’s carbon solutions.

Industry:	Finance, Venture Capital
Location:	Berlin, Germany
Employees:	14

72,1 t

carbon offset

Offset portfolio projects

300+

Data points analyzed

About Cavalry

Background & Goal

Cavalry Ventures is a Berlin-based early-stage venture capital fund that actively supports European startups with entrepreneurial know-how and financing. The firm builds upon a strategically curated investors network and supports its portfolio companies in all mission critical areas such as go to market or product.

Cavalry has a long history in investing into groundbreaking technologies, companies and ideas. Climate Action shall not stay a rough idea, but be incorporated into the company’s DNA. Going forward into this direction marks a new milestone on the road, which is paving the way for climate neutrality in venture capital. Planetly supports Cavalry on that mission, providing expertise and solutions.

“Climate change is the greatest challenge of the 21st century. We want to be part of the solution and not only reduce our own footprint, but also encourage our portfolio and our network to rethink in a sustainable way.”

Rouven Dresselhaus

Co-Founder & Managing Partner

Footprint

The Cavalry’s Footprint

Did you ever wonder, what “calling in the Cavalry” means in terms of CO₂e? We also did, which is why we asked our investor the Cavalry VC to conduct a carbon footprint analysis with us.

Cavalry’s carbon footprint comprises the sum of greenhouse gases that are released into the atmosphere by all aspects of the company’s operations. While the venture capital provider holds a lot of assets in various companies, the footprint analysis is focussed on Cavalry’s own business activities itself.

Those activities can be summarised by their operation of the office, business travels, employee’s daily commuting and food supply, as well as the emissions of their company car and conducted events. The various types of emissions are calculated in CO₂ equivalents (short: CO₂e) to make them addable and comparable.

72,1t

The biggest emission sources:

29,8 t CO₂e

Business travel, employee commute

28,1 t CO₂e

Office electricity & heating

13,0 t CO₂e

Employee drinks, food, breakfast and dinner

Analysis

The results of our analysis

Cavalry’s biggest carbon footprint is caused by its business travels, scouting and visiting potential new investments and existing portfolio companies. The second biggest footprint is left by the operations of their office. Lastly, employees nutrition made up the third biggest part of their footprint. All those activites are brought down to zero for the year 2019, which served as the base year for all calculations.

Outlook

How a VC aims to reduce emissions ongoing

Cavalry has a strong business sense when it comes to their investments. Furthermore, their aim is to develop an equally strong ecological sense. This is why they were starting the whole process of analysing their footprint. However, their ambitions don’t stop here.

In recent months they have developed new business policies, that aim to reduce their overall footprint. These policies include traveling less by aeroplane, utilizing trains and video conferences instead. Apart from switching to a green energy provider they are also looking into the direction of employing those principles within their portfolio companies.

The VC’s core competence is always to bring added value to its portfolio companies. By adding up on this in ecological terms, Cavalry provides its investments with crucial knowledge in the ever more important area of sustainability.

Projects

One of the first VCs to offset their emissions

Cavalry received a broad selection of potential offsetting projects. Eventually, they decided for projects located in Costa Rica, Germany and Peru.

The three projects selected in those countries comprise reforestation, creation of wind power as well as the rewetting of bogs. The latter, a German project that aims to rewet an area of 68 hectares swamp land in the country’s northern part, generates 660 tonnes CO₂e savings per year.

The Peruvian project conserves 182,000 hectares of one of the most threatened ecosystems in the tropical, Peruvian Amazon, through forest management and community programmes. Is generates a yearly emission reduction of 515,268 tonnes CO₂e.

A third chosen projects provides clean electricity to 50,000 people thereby reducing up to 15,000 tons of CO₂e per year.

All projects enjoy the highest verification standards, such as the Voluntary Carbon (VCS) and the Gold Standard. Moreover, the support numerous Sustainable Development Goals, set by the United Nations.