Dear reader,

We thought about grabbing your attention with a catchy allegory, but we don't operate with "the planet is on fire" clichés. So let's get to the point instead: you are receiving this email because you signed up to our newsletter at Variable. And hopefully you did so because you are just as motivated to contribute to solving climate change and reducing carbon emissions as we are.

We are kicking off our newsletter series called "Demand Change" where we bring interesting stories about decarbonization, share news and knowledge and make announcements about our upcoming product updates.

tl;dr

We are Variable: we help companies decarbonize their value chain.

Demand Change

What can a software company really do to contribute to greenhouse gas emission reductions? Simply put: we can create less demand for fossil energy and more demand for decarbonization, faster. By creating more transparency and enabling companies to demand change in their value chain.

Going forward, we'll be sharing how we, our customers and the economy is doing exactly that, and we hope you all stay with us on this journey. We can promise two things: we'll always remain scientific and we'll never participate in greenwashing.

And before we dig in, let's get one more thing straight: climate change is ultimately a political issue. And even though - or in fact, because - we are a tech company, we will never shy away from taking a stance.

The Big Picture

The current geopolitical situation put the importance of decarbonizing the economy into a curious highlight. Russias heinous attack on Ukraine suddenly exposed the systemic issues with Europe's fossil fuel dependency and highlighted the obvious consequences of decades of failed climate policies and progress on deploying renewable energy capacity. Climate risk - specifically, transition risk - suddenly became very tangible. Renewable energy is freedom energy, and reducing fossil fuel demand and improving energy efficiency are crucial parts of the solution.

As Bloomberg Green’s recent article put it: "The continent’s decades-long timelines for overhauling energy supply systems that support more than 440 million people are now being revved up under extraordinary duress. Policy is changing in real time as political leaders in capitals across Europe adopt new positions by the day and missiles land on Kyiv."

News from Variable

We are very excited about the upcoming launch of our new product. You can sign up for early access here. It's going to have a free tier and is generally designed to suit the needs of SMEs. Because in order to decarbonize the economy carbon accounting has to be for everyone. Stay tuned!

Industrial Process of the Week

We haven't lost any of our marbles, quite the contrary, this video makes us want to collect them again after watching them roll off from the hot molten lava blob through the elaborate industrial marble run. Send us your favorite industrial process or manufacturing video, we'll feature a cool one every week.

Decarbonization Story of the Week

Swedish metals company Boliden recently announced a low carbon zinc product. Zinc is used for galvanizing steel, to protect it from corrosion. Steel products designed to withstand harsh weather conditions can be covered by zinc with up to 7% of the total weight. Our customer Vestre uses hot-dip galvanized steel in many of their products. While galvanized steel is a very carbon intensive material, it's recyclable and lasts long, needing less frequent replacements. Using low carbon zinc to galvanize steel would be an important improvement to create products with lower carbon footprint and increased lifetime.

With all that, it feels apt to close with the famous words of The Chemical Brothers: World (you're holding back) The time has come to World (you're holding back) The time has come to World (you're holding back) The time has come to Galvanize Come on, come on, come on

Stay tuned, stay safe, demand change!

- Adam & The Variable Team