Podcast, Interview
Diego Saez Gil - How Pachama Uses Tech to Solve Climate Change
- Founders & Background: Diego Saez-Gil, co-founder of Pachama, previously founded two hardware startups; he grew up in the Yungas region of Argentina (Amazon rainforest border) and attended Y Combinator's Winter 2015 batch with BlueSmart.
- BlueSmart Exit: His previous company, BlueSmart (a smart suitcase with embedded tracking), raised significant capital via YC, scaled to over 60 employees, and was eventually forced to sell assets due to an unforeseen airline ban on lithium-ion batteries, resulting in a difficult exit without a full acquisition.
- Pachama Origin: Saez-Gil founded Pachama to apply technology to climate change, inspired by visiting the Amazon rainforest with his brothers and realizing reforestation and forest conservation are critical but underfunded solutions to carbon capture.
- Market Size: The global carbon market grew to over $80 billion last year, yet less than 2% of this funding reaches forest conservation and restoration projects due to high certification costs ($100k–$400k) and long timelines (up to two years).
- Technology Stack: Pachama uses remote sensing (satellite imagery and LiDAR) combined with convolutional neural networks to verify carbon storage with less than 1.5% error, enabling rapid, low-cost certification compared to traditional manual auditing.
- Data Partnerships: The company partners with the two largest satellite providers globally and is preparing to ingest LiDAR data from NASA's JEDI program to expand verification capabilities to the entire planet.
- Platform Function: Pachama operates a direct marketplace connecting forest projects with corporate buyers, offering transparency through real-time satellite updates, photos, and detailed descriptions of co-benefits like biodiversity and water conservation.
- Offset Costs: For a service or software company, offsetting emissions costs approximately $50–$150 per employee annually (based on 6 tons of CO2 per employee and credit prices of $5–$20), equating to protecting roughly 10–50 soccer fields of forest per employee.
- Global Opportunity: A Swiss university study estimates 1 billion hectares of available land for reforestation, which could plant one trillion trees and capture 200 gigatons of carbon (two-thirds of industrial-era emissions).
- Regulatory Tailwinds: The CORSIA framework mandates 160 million tons of annual carbon offsets for the airline industry starting in 2021, creating immediate demand growth in the voluntary and compliance markets.
- Project Types: The platform supports four main project categories: forest conservation (preventing deforestation), improved forest management (sustainable timber harvesting), reforestation (planting trees in historical forest areas), and afforestation (planting in non-forest areas).
- Biodiversity Tracking: The AI models analyze canopy shape and tree concentration to infer biodiversity markers, allowing buyers to select projects based on wildlife protection criteria beyond just carbon tonnage.
- Fundraising Success: The company successfully raised capital despite being less than a year old, with lead investment from Ryan Graves (Uber co-founder) and backing from Social Capital, Global Founders Capital, and others who recognized the scalability of the tech-enabled marketplace model.
- Investor Alignment: Saez-Gil explicitly informed investors that Pachama is a long-term, mission-driven company where profit serves the climate mission, attracting investors willing to support this timeline over short-term returns.
- Advice to Engineers: Saez-Gil advises software professionals to either join existing climate startups, pivot within large tech firms (e.g., Google, Microsoft) to climate initiatives, or apply "AI + X" logic to optimize complex systems like agriculture, power grids, and logistics.
- Policy Stance: Pachama advocates for increased government regulation, such as carbon taxes and cap-and-trade mandates, arguing that regulatory frameworks are necessary to force large polluters to offset emissions and accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels.
- Future Vision: The company aims to evolve into a comprehensive data platform for Earth's ecosystems, potentially providing an "operating manual for Spaceship Earth" with granular data on every organism, a concept inspired by Buckminster Fuller.
- Market Education: A key learning from early operations is the critical need for content and education to clarify the complex carbon credit market for both buyers and sellers, as lack of transparency has historically hindered trust.