Polestar Capital is an asset manager and impact investor. We provide solution-oriented financing to promising initiatives that deliver meaningful (additional, effective and scaleble) impact, that banks and (equity) investors do not finance or finance insufficiently. In this slide we explain why we specifically focus on resource recovery projects in the Netherlands.

1. Why we finance resource recovery projects
▪ Over the last four decades, the global use of resources (biomass, fossil fuels, metal
ores and non-metallic minerals) tripled, from 26.7 billion tons in 1970 to 92.1 billion
tons in 2017.
▪ This is over almost twice as much as the earth can generate.
Based on current production and consumption trends, this number will double again
around 2050, due to a growing population and economy, and limited further efficiency
increase opportunities1.
▪ The growing extraction of resources has environmental, social, geopolitical and
economic consequences:
▪ Resource extraction leads to environmental degradation such as pollution
deforestation, biodiversity loss and water depletion. For example some 19 million
annual premature deaths are the direct result of pollution arising from the
extraction of natural resources in production systems1. And some 62% of all
global greenhouse gasses are emitted during the extraction and processing of
resources in production processes2 with climate change as a result. If resource
extraction increases these environmental adverse effects will increase too.
▪ A large share of resources is extracted in low-income countries where extraction
is cheapest and consumed in high-income countries where demand is highest. On
a per capita basis, high-income countries consume 10 times more resources than
low-income countries. This creates the risk of abuse of power and the exploitation
of vulnerable social groups.
▪ As resources are finite, they will become increasingly scarce, net importers will
increasingly become dependent on net exporters, creating insecurity for
businesses in importing and exporting countries.
▪ From an economic point of view, scarcity will lead to expensive, unreliable (supply
disruptions) and unavailable resources. Real price levels for metals, food, and
non-agricultural output in the last decade have already been higher than in the
100 years before.3
▪ This while existing (albeit innovative) technologies allow us to decouple economic
growth from resource extraction, by efficiently reusing and recycling already
extracted resources where they become abundant (as waste), often close to where
they are in demand.
▪ Currently only 9% of the resources we consume is circular, 91% is consumed and
lost, the majority hereof beyond recovery2. This creates an opportunity to become
more resource efficient via reuse and recycling. The Netherlands, a country with
limited resources of its own, is seen as a circular hotspot4 and can lead the circular
economy transition, supported by advanced recycling infrastructure, supportive
government measures, and an entrepreneurial ecosystem.
▪ At the same time circular companies/projects struggle to attract the
required funding to build scale and change their respective value chains so that they
become more circular. 65% of Dutch circular startups find financing difficult or very
difficult to secure the required financing.5 This funding gap is largest for SMEs (post
seed financing rounds), the stage that resource recovery make their technology
market ready, and transform their proof-of-concept into a scalable business model, a
process too capital intense for equity financiers, and too early for banks.
Global resource extraction with current trends1
The circularity gap:
only 9% of consumed resources is circular2
Polestar Capital – Why we finance resource recovery projects | Sources: 1. United Nations (2017) Assessing global resource use, 2. Circle Economy (2019) The
circularity gap report, 3. Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2013) Towards the circular economy, 4. Accenture (2016) From rhetoric to reality, the circular economy index
of Dutch business, 5. Oliver Wyman (2017) Supporting the circular economy transition – The role of the financial sector in the Netherlands
Expected funding gap Dutch circular startups,
1st 5 years of existence5:
This is why we provide the financing not provided by other financiers to resource recovery projects in the Netherlands
Interested? Please find more information on www.polestarcapital.nl