Dive Brief:
- Shell launched a climate tech platform called Onward, Thursday, focused on providing clean energy solutions and services to accelerate the transition to net-zero, according to an email sent to ESG Dive.
- The oil giant’s new venture has many legs, including an accelerator to back pre-seed and seed-stage startups in the climate tech and energy industries; an innovation lab that will utilize research and expertise of scientists, entrepreneurs and engineers to create sustainable products; and a digital platform to crowdsource solutions to energy issues through a community that ranges from artificial intelligence developers to researchers.
- Onward is a rebrand of Studio X, a venture created by Shell in 2020 to “help shape the future of energy,” that supported energy innovators with funding and resources. The updated platform’s five-member advisory board comprises experts ranging from academics and strategic advisors focused on sustainable investing to Nike’s chief sustainability officer.
Dive Insight:
Onward said its main goal is to “accelerate the overall pace of innovation in energy and climate tech and make a “permanent difference in energy production and consumption.”
The sustainable solutions company said all clients who utilize the digital platform would have access to the most recent research, learning material and projects on the energy transition. Onward said it also seeks to expedite energy resiliency ideas and products from the discovery stage to the marketplace through its innovation lab, which is designed to advance “moonshot” energy projects. Its accelerator will invest in and support startups in exchange for a small equity interest. According to Onward’s website, the company has begun taking applications for the 2024 cohort of its accelerator program.
Onward will build on Studio X’s work: the inaugural climate tech venture created an oil slick identification algorithm 3.5 times more efficient than prior methods and developed it in one-eighth of the time it would have taken an independent client to develop, according to the company. Last year, Studio X launched its third cohort of early-stage startups focused on developing technologies such as energy storage, hydrogen logistics and AI systems.
“The new identity is inherent to the mission itself: to move Onward toward novel energy solutions and Net Zero goals,” Jeff Allyn, Onward’s CEO, said in the press release. Allyn also said the expertise of the new advisory board would make these energy solutions “more accessible, expeditious, and impactful.”
The board will work with Onward’s executive team — including Allyn who has been Studio X’s CEO since December 2021 — to advise across strategy, research and project execution and also provide mentorship to innovators and entrepreneurs the company invests in through its accelerator program.
The new five-member board comprises of: Noel Kinder, Chief Sustainability Officer of Nike; Tina Sharkey, an entrepreneur and lecturer at the University of Southern California; Anousheh Ansari, CEO of XPRIZE Foundation, a nonprofit that designs and hosts public competitions to encourage technological development; Eric Drummond, CEO and founder of Innovation Corridor; and Nils Mellquist, an analyst and strategic advisor focused on sustainable investing.
This venture falls in line with Shell’s goal to become a net-zero emissions energy business by 2050. The oil major has said it aims to reduce emissions from its operations and from the fuels and other energy products it sells to its customers, per its website. The company also said it would capture and store any remaining emissions using technology or balance them with carbon offsets.
However, in 2023, the energy company announced it had abandoned plans to cut oil production by 1-2% per year until 2030, stating it had already met the 2021 target it had set for itself through asset sales. The same year, Shell also silently scrapped its plan to spend up to $100 million on carbon credits, which was part of its initial strategy to reach net-zero status by 2050.
Shell was slapped with a shareholder lawsuit in 2022 by environmental law firm ClientEarth over concerns that its board of directors had undermined the oil giant’s interests by failing to implement a strategy to cut carbon emissions in line with the Paris Agreement.
