Looking for Gold in Food
Whether through pandemics or geopolitical shifts, the world is a rapidly changing place. But as the world adapts to a constantly shifting environment, there are certain things we forget. Mother nature is one of them.
While economic development accelerates every year, we profit at a huge cost. And sometimes, individual effort may not be enough to help some of the dire effects of industrialisation and waste. But could the situation improve? Could we see the world become more environmentally friendly any time soon?
In this article we’ll briefly talk about some of larger companies that are doing their part to help combat climate change in a big way.
Amazon
Amazon is often considered the “everything store” and is, perhaps, infamous for its ruthless corporate mentality (1). But aside from that, the company recently launched a $2 billion Climate Pledge Fund that aims to support the development of sustainable technologies and services from companies, both small and large, in order to help achieve net zero carbon emission in the US by 2040!
Not only this, But Amazon has a number of other pledges in order to make the planet a safer place:
- Announced 91 renewable energy projects around the globe. Together, these projects totaling over 2,900 MW of capacity will deliver more than 7.6 million MWh of renewable energy annually, which is enough to power 680,000 U.S. homes (2).
- Made two investments from its $100 million (2). Right Now Climate Fund in nature-based solutions and reforestation projects around the world, including a reforestation project in the Appalachians in the U.S. and an urban greening initiative in Berlin, Germany.
- Reduced the weight of outbound packaging by 33% and eliminated more than 880,000 tons of packaging material , which is the equivalent of 1.5 billion shipping boxes!(2)
S2G Ventures
S2G Ventures, although not as well-known as Amazon, is a multi-stage food and agriculture venture capital fund (3), investing in entrepreneurs whose products and services meet the shifting demands for healthy and sustainable food.
Founded in 2014, the fund looks specifically at those involved in infrastructure and logistics, food safety and technology as well as food retail and restaurants.
From biotechnology to agriculture, here are just some of the investments that S2G Ventures has made in recent years (3):
| Beyond Meat |
This world-famous brand, as you probably know, is dedicated to making meat alternatives and spreading the popularity of meatless products worldwide. |
| Augean Robotics |
In the more technology-driven field, Augean Robotics focuses on engineering automatic solutions for farming labour shortages and providing farmers with a helping, robotic, hand. |
| Egg Innovators |
Animal cruelty has plagued the farming industry for decades. That’s why this company is dedicated to transforming the farming industry and helping popularise family farming on a mass scale |
| AgVoice | Is a hands-free enabled, voice-interactive mobile technology for food and agriculture professionals to capture insights on the go. Users can improve productivity and workflow management, increase documentation accuracy, and gain valuable insights to optimize the use of resources in crop and animal production for a sustainability and environmental impact, by using proprietary analytics and processing of raw voice files including captured time stamps and location data.
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| RippleFood |
With its innovative products and proprietary technology, Ripple creates an ever expanding portfolio of healthy high protein, low sugar products that kids and adults alike can enjoy. |
| Apeel Sciences | Apeel Sciences is tackling the epidemic of food waste by harnessing the power of plants to increase the shelf life of fresh food. By teaming up with fresh food growers, suppliers, and retailers Apeel Sciences works to ensure that food stays fresh from farm to table without relying on chemicals. |
Whether it is robotics or meatless produce, S2G Ventures is an excellent example of a company with a lot of financial power that is ready to promote specifically those companies that strive to preserve the planet for the next generation. With more funds like this, we could be seeing an increasing number of startups and brands being increasingly aware of the environmental side-effects of their operations.