Morning All. Usually swarming with executives, Davos is virtual this year and we’re placing bets on how many world leaders will forget to come off mute.
In today’s edition:
💵 Musk tweets a $100M prize for Carbon Capture Tech
🏭 Unilever will pay a living wage across its supply chain
🎣 ‘Bait to Plate’ – seafood and blockchain
Big Business (2-minute read)
Unilever sets aims for a supply chain living wage
Consumer goods giant, Unilever, pledged that its 60,000 suppliers will pay all employees a living wage by 2030, with the aim of building a ‘more equitable and inclusive society’. The firm also announced it would spend €2bn annually with suppliers owned by minority groups by 2025. A new Supplier Development Programme will give these suppliers access to new skills, financing and networking opportunities to encourage further diversity. The Business Case for the Living Wage: Increasing pay has a range of ancillary benefits that may outweigh costs:
1) Direct benefit to the economies in which Unilever operates: stimulating consumer spending (on Unilever products), job creation and supporting small businesses.
2) Improved job quality: promoting productivity across Unilever’s suppliers, and reducing employee turnover leading to cost savings for staff hiring and training.
3) Improved reputation: amongst the nearly 60% of consumers willing to change shopping habits to reduce their impact, according to a recent IBM survey.
Overall, The living wage can create a virtuous cycle of economic growth, making Unilever a more resilient business; ready for future environmental and societal changes.
Starbucks, Unilever and Dairy Farmers of America form strategic alliance to tackle food waste
If food waste was a nation, it would be the world’s third-largest greenhouse gas contributor. Starbucks, Unilever and Dairy Farmers of America have formed The Food-Waste-To-Energy-Alliance to repurpose food waste into renewable natural gas (RNG) and low-carbon fertiliser. Food waste from Starbucks and Unilever’s operations will be mixed with cow manure, provided by American Dairy farmers. This process happens in the absence of oxygen in a sealed tank called an anaerobic digester (Provided by Vanguard). Starbucks and Unilever will then buy back the RNG to heat and power offices, while Dairy Farmers of America purchase the sustainable fertiliser.
Orstead Press Ahead with Green Hydrogen Pilot
The Danish power company, will test using offshore wind energy to produce renewable Hydrogen, supporting the EU’s goal of producing 10 million tonnes of renewable hydrogen by 2030. The project’s expected to produce 1000kg of renewable hydrogen daily (which will provide fuel for road transport in Greater Copenhagen).
🤖 Future of Tech (1-minute read)
Elon Musk pledges 100 million to crack Carbon Capture
Tesla chief and billionaire entrepreneur, Elon Musk, took to Twitter last week promising a $100 million prize for the “best” new carbon capture technology technology. Carbon capture (CC) is the umbrella term for tech that traps and stores carbon dioxide before it is released into the atmosphere. We’ve taken a deeper dive into the ugly economics of CC previously:
- Existing carbon removal solutions (reforestation and soil sequestration) are unlikely to scale to the size of demand.
- New technologies have a chicken-and-egg-problem. They are expensive, so don’t attract a critical mass of customers, needed to scale and become cheaper.
Some current game changers we have our eyes on:
- Climeworks “injects carbon from the air into underground basalt.”
- Carbon Cure “injects carbon into concrete.”
- Project Vesta “converts carbon in the ocean into limestone on the seafloor.”
All that glitters is not green: For the reasons above, any CC funding is good funding. However, Musk’s altruism could be linked in with previously stated ambitions to use CC to make net-zero rocket fuel for his SpaceX rocket flights.
Blockchain brings sustainability to the seafood supply chain
Seafood is one of the most traded products on the planet, making it notoriously difficult to trace from bait to plate. Bumble Bee’s blockchain system provides consumers radical transparency to the seafood supply chain. By scanning a QR code, customers can trace produce back to the waters it was caught and the communities involved. Mobilising partners across their supply chain provides data on how seafood is processed, ensuring traceability, but also gives Bumble Bee a raft of info to streamline their operations. The result: Reinventing the consumer experience and empowering purchasing decisions, while piling pressure on other food industries and producers to improve supply chain transparency.
🤿 Deep Dive
The next hurdle in the quest for the zero-carbon car: Materials
Manufacturers and policymakers are working hard to curb the auto industry’s emissions, with the European Commission targeting 30 million zero-emission cars by 2030. Also, by 2030, with the rise of Electric vehicle (EV) adoption, it is predicted that at least one-third of vehicle emissions will be from the production of cars rather than the tailpipe. Two barriers to zero-carbon production spring to mind:
Collaboration: In an industry where competition is fierce, knowledge sharing seems counterintuitive. However, opportunities for Pre-competitive collaboration do exist where challenges are too large or too slow for one player to implement alone e.g. methods for recycling end-of-life materials. The shared pain point of proposed carbon taxes should be enough to incentivise collaboration around decarbonising materials.
Cost: Suppliers (and consumers) will be concerned about the additional cost of this undertaking. Yet, a recent McKinsey report suggests abatement in car manufacturing is possible without additional expense using technologies and practices available today. 50% of carbon-friendly changes would even provide cost savings (e.g. Cast aluminium) which could be reinvested into decarbonisation of other car parts.
This is the automotive industry’s next big challenge, and it must be attacked in ways never considered possible before. The cost of not doing so may be damaging for both companies’ bottom lines and carbon emission targets.
Little Bytes
Quote: “Machine learning and AI hold the biggest promise. When used correctly, both technologies have the power not only to drive meaningful business outcomes but improve quality of life both in the physical and digital worlds.” Krishna Tammana, CTO, Talend
Stat: ‘The world invested more than $500 billion in 2020 in energy transition sectors such as renewable energy, electric vehicles and charging, and electric heat’ BNEF
Watch: AI helping people and sharks share the ocean
Gone Phishing
Three of these stories are true, one we made up, can you spot which?
Haggis launched into each of space in celebration of Burns night
Ikea launches new chair ‘The Bernie ’ after Bernie Sanders
A rampant Squirrel has started attacking New York locals
- Jeff Bezos Beverly Hills estate now protected by Robots
🗞 In other news…
Alphabet shuts down its Loon internet balloon project in Kenya
Reddit’s former CEO in forest-planting business
French Vegan Restaurant first to achieve Michelin star
Nissan confirm expansion of UK electric vehicle production
- Embryos created at Christmas are viable – raising hopes for two remaining Northern White Rhinos
