Happy Tuesday. With Earth Day last Thursday sustainability is well and truly on the tips of everyone’s tongues and we love it. We’ll give you a run-down of everything that went on plus some other impactful nuggets.
In today’s edition:
🌎 An Earth Day round up
👔 H&M’s ‘suit for a day’
🍛 Lab-grown meat on the takeaway menu
Big Business (2-minute read)
Our Earth Day round up …
Earth Day (April 22nd) was a whirlwind, with more targets than an archery competition, here is a run down:
Government
The US pledged to cut emissions by 50-52% by 2030 from 2005 levels. Japan by 46% by 2030 from 2013 levels and the UK by 78% by 2035 from 1990 levels.
But… The head of the International Energy Agency supplied a reality check: “the data does not match the rhetoric” a sobering reminder that despite pledges carbon emissions are still set to rise in 2021.
Why it’s still important… 1) The ‘virtual’ climate summit defeated the irony of previous carbon-intensive in-person summits (See below)
2) it has paved the way for intensive discussions (including key players like China and Russia) in the coming months that could turn rhetoric into action. Hopefully so.
Corporate
Collaboration is king in the world of corporate pledges:
- Unilever, Amazon and Nestle along with the UK, US and Norweigan governments commit $1bn for the conservation of tropical forests across the globe.
- 160 financial organisations (responsible for $70 trn in assets) will partake in the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net-Zero – to unite on the net-zero transition.
- More than 50 firms signed up to Amazon’s Global Climate Pledge – aimed at collaborating on clean energy, energy efficiency and the circular economy.
H&M offering ‘suit for a day’ for job seekers interviews
High Street retailer H&M has launched a new campaign in the UK offering job seekers the opportunity to ‘borrow’ a suit for 24 hours. The free One/Second/Suit rental service is designed to allow anyone attending a job interview “to make a powerful first impression”. The suits simply need to be returned, post-interview, to one of the company’s preferred dry cleaning partners.
PepsiCo aims to regeneratively farm 7million acres by 2030
Regenerative agriculture involves farming practices that make soils more fertile, resulting in higher yields, while lowering environmental impacts (watch this explainer). PepsiCo is spreading regenerative agri practices across the 7 million acres used to grow the company products. They plan to do this through farm demos to educate farmers, alongside financial incentives for regeneratively grown produce. If successful, the initiative would be a win for farmers – who sell more produce, at higher prices, with lower costs; for PepsiCo – who have a more resilient supply chains; and for the environment – due to reductions in greenhouse emissions.
Success stories: PepsiCo UK has introduced ‘circular potato’ technology – using potato peelings to produce nutrient-rich fertiliser which reduces carbon emissions by 70%.
🤖 Future of Tech (1-minute read)
Unilever with the world’s first laundry capsule made from carbon captured from heavy industry
Typically derived from fossil fuels, surfactants are a critical ingredient for the cleaning action of many household products, from dish soaps to detergents. Unilever has partnered with LanzaTech and India Glycols to produce a surfactant made from captured industrial carbon emissions (a.k.a recycled carbon) instead of from fossil-fuels. Importantly for consumer uptake the product will come at no extra cost.
Power of three: A report by the Nova Institute estimates renewable carbon production will need to multiply x15 by 2050 to phase-out fossil fuels in consumer products. A perfect example of the importance of collaboration across the value-chain to realise circular business models.
A world’s first lab-grown takeaway
Meat and dairy account for 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emission, and a solution may emerge from the lab, rather than the field. EatJust – the startup that gained approval to sell lab-grown chicken (called GOOD meat) in Singapore, are now taking lab-grown meat to the Singaporian masses. A new partnership between restaurant chain, 1880, and GOOD meat means lab-grown chicken (both as chicken bites and as part of more complex meals like caesar salad and Katsu Curry) will be available for takeaway orders. It’s hoped this small (yet significant) step of making cultured meat affordable by scaling up production, thanks to investment from Singapore’s private and public sector, will provide a model for success for other countries.
💡Start-up Spotlight (1-minute read)
‘Teach a person to fish and you feed them for a lifetime’
Enter the Fab Lab: A Fab Lab — or digital fabrication laboratory — is a workshop full of advanced manufacturing tools (like 3D printers), to upskill local communities in digital and manufacturing skills, by working on communal projects. The Nepalese Lab is a prime example, the facilities were used to build a mobile food cart for local businesses leading to a six-fold increase in income. Each Fab lab is standardised, which allows for collaboration, sharing of designs and training across the 2,000 labs globally . In Nepal, it’s hoped the hubs’ versatile equipment will enable community-led responses to earthquakes (with a little remote help from member hubs!) alongside filling other critical product development gaps across health, education and the environment.
💭 Little Bytes
Quote: “Any plan to tackle the urgent challenges facing the global food system must address agriculture — the source of nourishment for billions of people and a key lever to address climate change and inequality,” PepsiCo Chairman and CEO, Ramon Laguarta.
Stat: The number of Rhinos in Nepal have increased by 16% to 752 since the beginning of 2021 – Nepal National Rhino Count
Watch: A portable recycling plant that can be setup in a day
🗞 In other news…
- Lidl Ireland fighting period poverty by offering free female sanitary wear
- Dutch citizens are using this doorbell to enable fish to pass through a canal gate
- First ever tidal-powered EV charging point for remote island community
- McKinsey’s new sustainability platform supports business to innovate to net-zero
- Google to tie bosses’ pay to environment and diversity
🎣 Gone Phishing
Three of these stories are true, one we made up, can you guess which?
