⚡Burning Trees
Good morning! For anyone who missed out on yesterday’s newsletter, here it is. There’s a lot to cover today, so let’s get into it!
Big Moves on Plastic
Yesterday, we covered Biocellection, Miranda Wang and Jenny Yao’s company focused on developing a groundbreaking technology to recycle post-consumer waste plastics. Until their vision comes to life, we wanted to highlight some other big moves being made in plastics:
Giant Trash Net
What would happen if you designed a device three times the size of France and deployed it into the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? The Ocean Cleanup project did just that, and they have successfully picked up plastic from the oceans for the first time. Each year, ~800,000 metric tons of fishing gear is lost at sea and 8 million metric tons of plastic waste flow in from beaches. This vast cleaning system is intended to trap 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic without disturbing marine life below, and the Ocean Cleanup project intends to recycle these.
Coca-Cola’s Marine Soda Bottles
Sticking with the ocean, Coca-Cola produced its first-ever sample bottles using recovered and recycled marine plastic. These 300 sample bottles were made with 25% recycled marine plastic from the Mediterranean Sea and beaches. Broadly, Coca-Cola has been building partnerships with and investing in companies that build technologies that convert plastic into food-grade PET for bottles. It seems like the plastics collected by Ocean Cleanup project may be in your soda bottles before you know it!
Unilever’s Plastic Goals
Unilever aims to halve its use of non-recycled plastics by 2025 by:
Reducing use of plastics by 100,000 metric tons
Making all their plastic packaging reusable recyclable, or compostable
Collecting and processing more plastic packaging then it sells by 2025
Gran Chaco: South America’s #2 Forest on Fire
Background: The Gran Chaco spans from Bolivia and Brazil to Paraguay and Argentina. It not only has over 3,400 plants and 900 animal species, but it is also home to at least 30 indigenous peoples. Just like the Amazon in the north, agriculture and cattle are the primary reasons for deforestation of Gran Chaco in Paraguay. Since 2001, more than 31,000 square miles of forest have been cut down.
Paraguay’s ambition: Currently holding the rank as 8th largest beef exporter in the world, Paraguay sells 350,000 tons of beef each year. In the next 10 years, the government hopes to cut its way into one of the top 5 spots. Lately, the Paraguayan ranchers have also realized that they can profit from the trees they cut down. Instead of just burning the wood, they turn it into charcoal to sell it to Europe, the Middle East, and the U.S. This makes deforestation more profitable and incentivizes it further.
Throwing salt on the wound: When countries like the U.S. receive these goods, the Paraguayan charcoal is often labeled as “natural” or “environmentally certified,” giving the illusion that they’re sustainable. No harm, no foul.
But wait, there’s more: Paraguay also sells a lot of leather, a byproduct of their beef industry, which ends up on the seats of car companies like BMW, Porsche, and Ferrari and even your shoes.
Our take: Big fires are easy to focus on, but what’s much harder is understanding the unintended and sometimes unseeable consequences of having a nice BBQ on a Sunday.
Short Takes
According to the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the amount of renewable electricity bought voluntarily has increased by nearly 300% since 2010 as a result of the increasing affordability of wind and solar electricity.
Domino’s faced a setback after a federal appellate court ruled that a blind customer can sue the chain under the Americans with Disability Act after he couldn’t fully use its website through screen-reading software. This ruling may cause businesses to take website accessibility concerns more seriously.
Oh, Brexit … Boris Johnson’s allies admitted this morning that the hopes of a Brexit deal at next week’s EU summit are effectively dead.
Renée Tirado, Gucci’s Head of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
“You’d be surprised at how diverse Gucci already is, but like a lot of companies, as you go up the food chain, the diversity kind of drops off. That’s not unique to Gucci, that’s across the board. So what I would like to see—no, not what I’d like to see, what I’d like to develop and invest in, is really figuring out how do we assess the talent we already have, invest in them appropriately, and provide a real developmental track and treat them like the future leaders of the company.”
Check out her profile in Vogue!
Renée Tirado is Gucci’s new global head of diversity, equity, and inclusion, a first-time appointment in the brand’s 98-year history. Reporting directly to CEO Marco Bizzarri, Tirado is tasked with transforming Gucci’s inclusion and community initiatives. Interestingly, she doesn’t come from the fashion world. Make sure to read her story and her vision in the link above!
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10
Renovating Democracy: Nicolas Berggruen, author of Renovating Democracy, on how technology and social media are impacting democracy. He’ll be joined by The World Post’s editor-in-chief and book co-author Nathan Gardels and Asia Society President and CEO Josette Sheeran.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16
Feeding Our Future: Perspectives Across the Value Chain in Food Sustainability
Join the NY + Acumen Impact Circle on World Food Day for a discussion on the future of food sustainability. They will explore different perspectives across the various parts of the value chain, including investment, production, distribution, and waste/renewability.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17
War Stories from the Trenches - Fundraising for Startups Solving the World’s Greatest Challenges: Early-stage fundraising can be very challenging, and this is even further the case for social enterprises. Check out this event for a discussion on best practices for opening and closing a round to solve the world’s greatest challenges.
MONDAY OCTOBER 28
Conversations on Plant-based Entrepreneurship: Vegpreneur is a global entrepreneurs community that is made up of innovators who are building a plant-based future and they’re hosting an evening panel on the state of plant-based entrepreneurship at General Assembly. Light snacks and refreshments will be served.
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