Why this impact team is trekking for a month across Greenland
The Arctic used to be one of the main focal points of the climate crisis. Amid worsening conditions elsewhere around the world, and massive political upheavals diverting funding from climate projects, a team of investors and entrepreneurs are setting off to put the Arctic back on the map.
Novitske, general partner at Norrsken22, an Africa-focussed tech growth fund with a big impact focus, is speaking to Impact Loop from Kangerlussuaq alongside Daphne de Jong, founder of Ven, which specialises in ins...
“Our biggest challenge is we've probably overpacked,” Lexi Novitske laughs, from a room in the small town of Kangerlussuaq in Western Greenland.
Novitske, general partner at Norrsken22, an Africa-focussed tech growth fund with a big impact focus, is speaking to Impact Loop from Kangerlussuaq alongside Daphne de Jong, founder of Ven, which specialises in insurance underwriting for the climate transition (think new energy infrastructure, green data centres, green hydrogen). They and their team are about to set off on a one month, 1,500km snowkite trek across Greenland.
“We're fully packed on two sleds, each with our camping gear, fuel, and, of course, all the food we'll need for for the month,” says Novitske. “Not very many changes of clothes, though, so at least on that sidewe're light.”
The challenge(s)
You may be wondering why an impact investor and San Francisco-based founder are trekking across Greenland for a month. Part of the answer is adventure, of course, but there’s an impact motivation underlying the expedition. The team will be taking measurements along the way, things like snow density and depth, to contribute to risk analyses for Greenland’s ice sheet.
“It’s very important to understand what's going to happen with the ice sheets,” says de Jong. "And actually there's very little real, in situ, data on the ice sheet, beyond aircraft and satellite information. So we're trying to cross-reference the real-world data with that information."
The data serves a scientific purpose, but also is intended to bring what’s happening in places like the Arctic back to the world’s attention.
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