Clean Tech, Climate Change, and the Future of Energy feat. Phoebe Wang ’13

Owl Have You Know

Climate change is on the news and in our faces every day, from wildfires to record-breaking heat waves. And today, we are talking to a Rice grad who’s working to combat these developments, through clean energy, carbon management and venture capital investments.

Phoebe Wang is a cleantech venture capitalist who serves as an investment partner at the Amazon Climate Pledge Fund. Previously, she was an investment director at Shell Ventures where she led investments in early- and late-stage startups working on technologies to accelerate the energy transition, including in the areas of hydrogen, carbon management, energy storage, mobility, and power.

During her 10-year tenure as a venture capital investor, Phoebe has invested more than $150 million in frontier technology startups such as Antora, Celadyne, ZeroAvia, and many, many more.

In another episode from our 2023 Alumni Reunion series, host Maya Pomroy ’22 and Phoebe chat about her passion for fighting climate change for the future generations, her work with Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, and winning a C3E business award.

Owl Have You Know is a production of Rice Business and is produced by University FM.

Episode Quotes:

Paving the way for a sustainable future in clean energy and climate control

11:33 [Maya]: So you were very optimistic about clean energy and climate control, so we can shift it back to having clean air for everyone. So, what progress do you hope to see over the next few years? What are you most excited about?

11:49 [Phoebe Wang]: So right now, whenever we are looking at technology, we have a lens of whether, when at the mature stage, the technology can sequest or can abate gigaton equivalent of CO2 because we need to have that level, so that we can move towards, a future that is livable for our next generations. So that's something not very easy to do. But fortunately, we have a ton of innovation, a ton of entrepreneurs, and a ton of venture capital coming into this industry.

Nurturing unicorns, jobs, and sustainability through strategic investments

04:13 - So far, I’ve invested in over 30 companies out of those, three are unicorns and have created tremendous job opportunities in local markets. And then also have had a big impact on the carbon markets. We're now looking at a lot of different areas with the CO2 lens. And, in addition to that, we’re looking at how to preserve biodiversity because we don't want to have unintended consequences if we only apply the carbon lens when we make investments.

On the roots of her interest in clean tech

01:35 - My interest in cleantech, or what we call climate tech, stems early on – like when I was very little. I grew up in Asia, and then, if you see over there, pollution is such an important issue. And it is actually a global issue now. So, back then, I almost did environmental engineering, but the job market was not very good that decade ago. So, I actually switched over to material science engineering. Now, it's kind of coming full circle that I'm looking at investments in climate tech.

Show Links:

• Transcript

Guest Profile:

• Phoebe Wang on LinkedIn
• Phoebe Wang - C3E

Listen to The Sky Is Not the Limit feat. Rawand Rasheed here: https://business.rice.edu/owlhaveyouknow/season-4-episode-1