Happy Tuesday. A whirlwind week for sustainable tech – from french potato farmers to the online delivery boom this edition really does have the lot.
In today’s edition:
🍟 Free spuds from Burger King
📦 Reducing the impact of home deliveries
🚖 Some tough news for Uber
Big Business (2-minute read)
Would you like spuds with that? Burger King dishing out free potatoes
French potato farmers have suffered from a serious drop in demand during the pandemic, with restaurants being forced to close. With the announcement of a second lockdown, Burger King France decided to step in by buying up an extra 200 tons of potatoes. Throughout February, each Drive-thru customer will receive a free one kilo bag of potatoes with their order. The move is the latest in a flurry of campaigns to help out during the pandemic (which has already included helping indie restaurants and encouraging people to also buy from its fast food rivals).
But why? The campaign has already generated a massive PR buzz and is undoubtedly triggering some trips to the local drive-thru. Keeping suppliers happy and afloat is an added bonus for BK’s supply chain security.
Closing the gap on global malnutrition
2 billion people across the world suffer from malnutrition. Dole Food Company, the world’s largest producer of fruit and veg, have launched the ‘Sunshine For All Fund’ – a yearly $2million investment supporting innovative development in the following areas:
- Crop Nutrition, Health & Protection: To ensure a sustainable food chain through solutions like regenerative agriculture and carbon sequestering.
- Food Safety & Traceability: Supporting demand for transparent and traceability food from farm to fork, by using machine learning and blockchain.
- Nutrition & Ingredients: To provide nutritious food via novel ingredients alongside education on the importance of good nutrition to our daily lives.
Dole has a track record of investing in agrifood innovation, like supporting Fortuna Cool, a Philippines based startup creating cheap, biodegradable ice boxes from coconuts.
🤖 Future of Tech (1-minute read)
Online shopping becoming more sustainable
Home deliveries have surged during the pandemic, causing an uptick in delivery truck emissions and surplus packaging. Olive is a free app allowing consumers to combine purchases from various retailers into a single, weekly shipment in reusable packaging.
Lean, Green Packing Machine – Environmental benefits come from reducing the emissions from multiple deliveries. Olive currently recycles any packaging it receives but is investigating retail partners sending goods to them in reusable containers.
Show me the money – Olive makes 10% commission from sales with retail partners. Brands save money by sending one package, with multiple orders, to Olive’s warehouse, rather than hundreds direct to customers.
The challenge – Changing consumer behavior, so the convenience of consolidated deliveries outweighs the convenience of two-day shipping.
AI Sensors can ‘smell’ disease on farms
Roboscientific have developed sensors that can ‘smell’ diseases from livestock and crops. Air passes through the sensors, which detect the presence of volatile organic compounds (chemicals that form the smell associated with disease), and notify farmers of infection. Proactively detecting disease will allow producers to cut out the slow, costly process of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests currently used to detect infection. The technology also has potential for developing countries, where disease contributes to the wastage of around 630 million tonnes of produce every year.
📈 What’s Up, What’s Down📉 (1-minute read)
📈 Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Branded Funds
New Year New Me: More than 250 investment funds were rebadged as ‘sustainable’ last year, according to data from Morningstar, 87% of which rebranded themselves with terms including “green” and “ESG”.
Sceptics claim repurposed funds are simply trying to capitalise on feverish demand for ‘sustainable’ investment. According to Morningstar investors can rest easy – the % of repurposed funds awarded top ESG ratings is ‘very similar’ to funds launched as ESG.
📉Uber and the Gig Economy
Uber’s stock slid 5% after a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court means they must classify their UK drivers as workers instead of contractors. The impact:
Uber’s drivers are now entitled to minimum wage and paid holiday.
Potentially having to pay backdated driver wages
Additional operating costs with driver’s working hours being the time they are logged into the app, not just when carrying passengers.
Little Bytes
Quote: “All rich countries should move to 100% synthetic beef” – Bill Gates
Stat: 45% of global emissions can be attributed to consumption and production systems
Watch: A plant which absorbs pollution on busy roads
