Our ideology
We're optimists.
We believe in the power of science to solve humanity's biggest problems and the power of markets to scale the benefits to everyone.
We believe the climate crisis is the single largest threat to humanity over the next century and decarbonisation the biggest opportunity to remake our world to be cleaner, greener and more equitable.
Who we are
Pippa Gawley
Founder &
Managing Partner
Pippa is the co-founder and General Partner of ZCC. Her obsession with deep decarbonisation technologies began in California eight years ago as an angel investor, where she was an active member of the impact investing ecosystem. Upon returning to the UK, she set up ZCC in 2019, seeing the opportunity presented by early-stage investments in frontier hard tech companies for removing barriers to decarbonisation. Prior to investing, Pippa held a variety of roles in technology companies. She holds a Masters degree in Manufacturing Engineering from the University of Cambridge.
Alex Gawley
Founder &
General Partner
Alex is the co-founder and General Partner of ZCC. Before founding ZCC with Pippa in 2019, Alex spent 14 years at Google in technical leadership roles such as Director of Product Management for Gmail and Google Calendar, founder and Managing Partner of the internal innovation lab, Area 120, and several other product management roles in ads, mobile and maps. Prior to Google, he held several product, marketing and analysis roles at Barclays, HSBC and Capital One. Alex has a Masters degree in Astrophysics from the University of Cambridge.
Chloe Coates, PhD
Research & Analysis Lead
Chloe is the Research and Analysis lead at ZCC and is based in London. She is a chemist by training and, prior to joining ZCC, worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge. Here she researched degradation mechanisms in nickel-rich lithium-ion batteries. Chloe holds a PhD in Materials Chemistry from the University of Oxford.
Sarah Jones, PhD
Principal
Sarah is a Principal at ZCC and is based in London. She holds a PhD in Bioprocess Engineering and has been supporting the commercialisation of scientific innovation in various roles. This includes working in university tech transfer offices at Imperial and Oxford, at the Creative Destruction Lab accelerator, where she launched and led the Climate program, and now at ZCC.
Max Werny, PhD
Venture Associate
Max is a Venture Associate at ZCC and is based in Berlin. He holds a PhD in Catalysis from Utrecht University and a MSc in Chemistry from the Technical University of Munich. Prior to joining ZCC, Max worked at Extantia Capital, sourcing investments and leading deep dives on critical raw materials, battery recycling and direct lithium extraction. He also gained operational experience at Heraeus Precious Metals, leading projects related to the valorisation of CO2 and the H2 economy.
Zero Carbon Capital Ltd work with Sapphire Capital Partners LLP to deliver the Zero Carbon Funds.
Boyd Carson
Partner
Sapphire Capital Partners LLP
Johnathan Graham
Senior Fund Manager
Sapphire Capital Partners LLP