Episode summary

Darren Ralphs, Content Lead at Sylvera, discusses how B2B content strategy is adapting to AI search and LLM visibility on Episode 29 of Scaling Green Tech, a podcast by Adopter.Ralphs argues that Sylvera's visibility in tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity depends less on publishing volume than on signalling recency and authority. He points to Sylvera's practice of mining long-tail search terms from sales calls and Notion documentation, a technique he links to stronger LLM citation performance. This approach, combined with a systematic refresh of ageing blog content, contributed to Sylvera topping Adopter's GEO readiness report on the climate data sector, ahead of every other company assessed.

This episode is relevant for founders resourcing a small marketing team, B2B marketing leads in climate tech, and content marketers exploring GEO and LLM visibility strategy.

Guest profile

Darren Ralphs is Content Lead at Sylvera. He joined the company in December 2024 and leads thought leadership and long-form content as the sole dedicated content marketer on Sylvera's marketing team, working alongside a product marketer and external SEO agencies. Sylvera assesses and rates the quality of carbon credit projects for both buyers and developers in the carbon markets. Founded in 2020, the company has grown from fewer than 10 people to around 150, with offices in the UK, New York, Singapore, and Japan. Sylvera's offering has expanded from carbon project ratings into a data platform, a geospatial product, and green commodities.

Explore the Sylvera website: https://www.sylvera.com

Find Darren Ralphs on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darren-ralphs

Topics covered

- Explaining content marketing using a simple analogy

- What Sylvera does and how its offering has expanded since 2020Sylvera's scale, customer base, and expansion into developer sales- Differentiating Sylvera through policy expertise and platform breadth

- The State of Carbon Credits report as an annual funnel-filling asset

- Measuring report success through database growth, signups, and SEO uplift

- Refreshing the top 50 blog posts and the resulting traffic uplift- Long-tail keyword strategy sourced from sales calls and internal documentation

- Adopter's GEO readiness research and Sylvera's top ranking

- Diversification risk and maintaining visibility across multiple product lines

- Building mid and lower funnel content by ICP

- Founder-led content and Sylvera's LinkedIn engagement gap- Using AI in the content production workflow

- Common AI writing tells and their effect on reader trust

Episode summaryDarren Clifford, Co-Founder of Adapt [us] Capital, discusses the investment case for climate adaptation on Episode 28 of Scaling Green Tech, a podcast by Adopter. Clifford argues that adaptation is more underfunded than mitigation, with roughly 0.25% of global capital flowing to it, despite demand for adaptation products rising predictably as the weather gets hotter and more volatile. Adapt [us] Capital backs pre-seed companies that meet three tests at once: a venture-grade team and market, demand driven by changing weather, and a measurable improvement to quality of life. He uses portfolio company Temperate, a passive radiative cooling business, to illustrate the thesis, alongside Bactery, which builds soil-based batteries for resilient backup power. Clifford frames the whole portfolio as a hedge against a future where changing climate could erode between 5% and 25% of global GDP by 2050.This episode is relevant for climate adaptation investors, pre-seed and seed-stage climate founders, family offices and high net worth LPs evaluating adaptation funds, and operators working on go-to-market for hardware and deep tech in new geographies.

Find out more about Adopter here: https://www.adopter.net/

Explore the Adapt [us] Capital website: https://aucap.vc/

Find Darren Clifford on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/djclif/

Freya Burton, Chief Sustainability Officer and Head of Europe at LanzaTech, discusses carbon recycling, sustainable aviation fuel, and the 20-year journey from a four-person startup to a public company on Episode 27 of Scaling Green Tech, a podcast by Adopter.

Burton describes how LanzaTech captures waste carbon from industrial sites such as steel mills and uses microbes to ferment it into ethanol, a process she likens to brewing beer with carbon instead of sugar and bacteria instead of yeast. She traces the company from its 2005 founding in New Zealand by Dr Sean Simpson and Dr Richard Forster, through a 2008 pilot and a 2012 demonstration plant in China, to its first commercial plant in 2018 and six plants today. The conversation turns to why LanzaTech narrowed its focus to sustainable aviation fuel after listing on the Nasdaq, and how it reframes its work around energy security and economic value rather than emissions alone. Burton also explains why getting fuels policy right has taken more than a decade of work across the UK, EU and US.

This episode is relevant for founders scaling capital-intensive climate tech, carbon capture and utilisation investors, sustainable aviation fuel producers and buyers, and policymakers working on fuels regulation.

Guest profile

Freya Burton is the Chief Sustainability Officer and Head of Europe at LanzaTech. She joined the company in 2007 as one of its first four employees, working in borrowed lab space, and has since held roles spanning safety, human resources, external affairs and policy. She previously served as the company's Chief People Officer and spent a long period based in the United States before moving into her current sustainability and Europe-focused leadership role.

LanzaTech is a carbon recycling company that converts waste carbon from industrial emissions into ethanol and other chemicals using a gas fermentation process. Founded in New Zealand in 2005 and now listed on the Nasdaq, the company operates six commercial plants worldwide across steel mills, ferro alloy mills and a refinery. It supplies ethanol made from recycled carbon, and related materials, to consumer brands in fashion, fragrance and household goods.

Explore the LanzaTech website.

Find Freya Burton on LinkedIn

Topics covered

• Explaining complex deep tech simply

• How carbon recycling works: the brewery analogy and the microbes

• Reaching commercial scale with a first-of-a-kind technology

• A non-linear founder journey: finding problems and solving them

• Building company culture and the risk of leader burnout

• How commercial strategy shifts from startup to public company

• Narrowing focus to win a single market

• Leading with value and energy security, not sustainability alone

• Building partnerships on data and proof points

• What investors prioritise at different stages of growth

• Funding capital-intensive tough tech, and marketing it to mainstream audiences

• Navigating regulatory uncertainty and advice for the next stage of scaling