Startups

Cypress River's Approach to Sustainability

For the last ten years, Cypress River Advisors has navigated the complex market environments on behalf of our global clients. Change is a constant, also air pollution. Asia is the design, development and production center for the world. As the world factory, pollution has become the norm. More than 80 percent of the people living in urban areas are exposed to air pollution that exceeds WHO limits. We understand this on a very personal basis because Cypress River Advisors employees live and breathe in these megacities. We went to experts like John Spengler, a member of the original Six City Study, at Harvard School of Public Health to understand the health impact.

Our work in financial technology and communications value chain has given us a first-hand understanding of the massive amounts of electricity and infrastructure required to enable the communications and computing. At a macro level, the findings from our research are sobering:  Fossil fuels produce eighty percent of the world's energy. The share of fossil fuels is expected to increase globally. Needless to say our energy chocies impact on the health of our children, environment, and climate. 

As a consequence, over the last several years Cypress River supports research and development of real-time open-source air and water quality monitoring networks at UC Berkeley, Harvard, University of Michigan, and Taiwan’s Academia Sinica. Our goal is to accelerate the growth of high-density real-time sensing networks to guide timely decision-making on air quality at home and on bad air-quality days.

We also recognize mobility and computing in general unquestionably leaves a footprint on the environment. As a result, we have worked with the insurance and mobile recycling industry to embed recycling and reuse of mobile devices as part of a carrier service offering. This not only generates billions in revenue but enables sustainability at scale. Extending the life of mobile devices will help minimize the impact of mining in a world where we will see 20.4 billion IoT devices in 2020.

For a business to thrive in today’s market, its operations must be sustainable. Sustainable does not mean less profitable. Cypress River’s work on the hardware supply chain has seen energy storage as a new source of revenue not only for mobility but at utility scale. Here’s a clip from our interview with Dan Kammen, former White House science advisor.

As we look toward 2019, Cypress River Advisors will continue to work with our clients to create new value sustainably. We work hand-in-hand with the leadership to adapt and refine their market strategy and processes. It is vital that sustainability is included as a business requirement. Why?

Sick customers do not have disposable incomes.

Those of you who have worked with Cypress River know: we want our clients to thrive not just survive. That is the only path to long-term profitability.