{"id":1004681768,"date":"2023-09-22T03:59:14","date_gmt":"2023-09-22T11:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/?p=1004681768"},"modified":"2023-10-02T23:48:43","modified_gmt":"2023-10-03T07:48:43","slug":"climate-tech-tycoon-to-cre-its-time-to-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/climate-tech-tycoon-to-cre-its-time-to-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate Tech Tycoon to CRE: It\u2019s Time to Change"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

L to R: Chris Sacca of Lowercarbon Capital and Michael Beckerman of CREtech and CREtech Climate.<\/p><\/div>\n

What does the leading climate tech venture capitalist think of the commercial real estate industry? He thinks it\u2019s stuck in its old ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cBuildings built by conventional means are expensive, and it is a process that is risk averse,\u201d said Lowercarbon<\/strong> Capital<\/strong> Founder & Chairman Chris Sacca during the fireside chat that kicked off Climate Day at the CREtech conference<\/a> in New York City yesterday. \u201cBut that has made an industry that is averse to exploration and change.\u201d<\/p>\n

With $2 billion under management, Sacca\u2019s company is nearly 1 percent of the $220 billion U.S. industry focused on stopping and remedying the impacts of climate change. From low-carbon concrete to pocket-size sensors that can measure the water flow in an entire building, the technologies needed to meet ambitious sustainability goals exist or will exist, experts say, but they need to scale. Many of these fledgling enterprises were at the conference looking for funders and potential users.<\/p>\n

\n

LISTEN TO:<\/strong> CBRE\u2019s Rob Bernard on Unlocking Innovation<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cAs you build your buildings, we ask that you shift your lens to performance-based standards, instead of building it the same damn way,\u201d said the plain-speaking entrepreneur, who was clad in his signature cowboy shirt and cowboy boots.<\/p>\n

Sacca, an early investor in Uber<\/strong>, Twitter<\/strong>, Instagram<\/strong> and other tech giants who appeared on Shark Tank during a brief retirement from investing, seems emblematic of the new world order he is trying to sell.<\/p>\n

On Monday, his company announced it had raised $550 million for two climate-related ventures with a letter to LP partners. The letter contained a barb aimed at venture capital competitors: \u201cWe\u2019ve built all this without taking blood money from countries actively working to undermine democracy while trampling human rights and obstructing efforts to solve the climate emergency. Maybe your firm could try that too?\u201d<\/p>\n

Strategy, not shame<\/h2>\n

Despite what Sacca had to say about real estate, he’s observed a huge change in the tenor of conversations with CEOs across industries. Previously, companies who invested in climate tech were doing so out of guilt or philanthropy, he said. Today, investing in climate tech has become strategy because investors, tenants and employees are demanding it.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, it is a line of CEOs saying \u2018help, I\u2019ve made these commitments and I don\u2019t know how to meet them,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In addition to realizing that companies and the world will not reach carbon-reduction goals by doing things the old way, companies recognize that they are leaving money on the table. \u201cAll that carbon that goes into making your stuff costs too damn much,\u201d Sacca said.<\/p>\n

Climate tech is a \u201crigged game of sorts,\u201d Sacca said, since everything is more of a \u201csubstitute good\u201d than an invention. \u201cI don\u2019t need to reteach an industry what steel is,\u201d he said. \u201cI just need to give you a better one and get you to use it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sacca had a lot of praise for the $1.3 trillion Inflation Reduction Act, which will no doubt provide fuel for climate tech companies. The act was so momentous, he said, that it made Europe jealous. And, while there is some political backlash today against ESG investing, he does not see any reversals coming down the pike. \u201cThe reality is the money is going to the right states, and no senator is going to vote that down,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Digging up dinosaur bones is expensive,\u201d said Chris Sacca, founder & chairman of Lowercarbon Capital, during Climate Day at the CREtech conference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":756,"featured_media":1004681773,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21808,22251,23891,21742,21786,51037],"tags":[39330,52185],"class_list":["post-1004681768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-in-focus","category-national","category-latest","category-sustainability","category-trends","tag-cretech","tag-lowercarbon-capital"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nClimate Tech Tycoon to CRE: It\u2019s Time to Change - Commercial Property Executive<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/climate-tech-tycoon-to-cre-its-time-to-change\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Climate Tech Tycoon to CRE: It\u2019s Time to Change\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\""Digging up dinosaur bones is expensive,\u201d said Chris Sacca, founder & chairman of Lowercarbon Capital, during Climate Day at the CREtech conference.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/climate-tech-tycoon-to-cre-its-time-to-change\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Commercial Property Executive\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CPExecutive\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-09-22T11:59:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-10-03T07:48:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2023\/09\/unnamed.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"801\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"620\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Therese Fitzgerald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@cpexecutive\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@cpexecutive\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/climate-tech-tycoon-to-cre-its-time-to-change\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.commercialsearch.com\/news\/climate-tech-tycoon-to-cre-its-time-to-change\/\",\"name\":\"Climate Tech Tycoon to CRE: It\u2019s Time to Change - 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