⚡Chocolate
It’s Monday. For anyone who missed out on Friday’s newsletter, here it is. This morning has us feeling:
Google Maps for Toilets
When in India, if you have to go, you’re in luck! Google Maps now lists over 57,000 public toilets across 2,300 cities in India.
The context: This move was made in support of PM Narendra Modi’s Swachh Bharat Mission, a movement that aims to eliminate open defecation in India through the construction of household-owned and community-owned toilets. Between 2014 and 2019, 110 million toilets have been built, increasing access to 600 million people. However, despite the construction of these toilets, there is still a major utilization problem - many people still don’t use them.
The solution: Adding the search functionality to Google Maps is intended to drive up the utilization rate by making it easier for people to find and access the toilets. Plus, the platform will also help the Indian government monitor visits, ratings, and reviews to help them gain insights and take action to maintain the toilets. You’d be surprised at how many people are taking the time to review the toilets - last year, there were 32,000 reviews, photos and edits added to public toilets across the country!
Our take: With 697 million people in India having access to the internet, including 200 million in rural areas, it’ll be interesting to track the utilization rate of this tool. We’re excited to see the private sector get involved in such a meaningful way, but we’re not optimistic about the impact. According to some experts, the problem is not access but is behavioral - many people still don’t use these toilets despite having access. More will need to be done to actually change the culture around open defecation.
Unfortunately, we see this pattern time and time again. When driving social change, many solutions are quickly developed, whether tech-driven or otherwise, that may boast impressive numbers. However, these solutions often don’t think about the behavioral changes needed for the solutions to actually have an impact. For more on this, read this awesome perspective from the Stanford Social Innovation Review on behavioral change!
Social Risk is Business Risk
Every company has social risks that are intrinsic to their business. Often times, these aren’t generic, but highly specific to the strategies, policies, and operations of the particular business. It’s now necessary to treat these social risks like any other risks to protect your business. If you can understand your social footprint and impact during the planning stage, you can better protect yourself from these business disruptions and act competitively.
In 2019, Nike was under fire for reducing pay for some sponsored female athletes while they were pregnant, but Under Armour and New Balance have honored their contracts (e.g., Allyson Felix, above, beat Usain' Bolt’s gold-medal record one year after being dropped by Nike 👏👏👏). As companies evaluate how they will contribute to the constantly changing world, understanding and managing social risk will both protect their bottom line and provide them the footing to become more competitive.
TLDR: Social risks could make you less competitive. It’s not only necessary to understand them but to proactively manage them. Hopefully, this encourages a do good, do well mindset.
Choco-coin
The blue pill or the red pill: Would you donate a blockchain token to farmers in Ecuador who grow your cocoa, or would you use it to get a discount on your next bar?
The Other Bar is an experimental chocolate bar designed to help fight global poverty.
“The whole idea is to use technology to influence consumer behavior and basically turn every product into a capitalist impact engine.” says Guido van Staveren, founder of the FairChain Foundation, a Dutch organization that partnered with the United Nations Development Programme on the pilot, a limited run of 20,000 packs of chocolate
Changing the status quo: Currently, coca farmers only receive 3% of the value of the cocoa used to make chocolate. That’s around $1,900 for a metric ton. Fairtrade Chocolate prices it at $2,400 a metric ton. Van Staveren believes that it’s not enough; his project will pay $3,400 a metric ton and the token inside the wrapper could boost incomes further.
The benefit: When a consumer decides to send the token back to the farmers, the funds plant new cacao trees. Each token is equivalent to a quarter, so four tokens results in one tree. Plus, the tokens are funded by money other companies would spend on marketing.
“Don’t spend your marketing on these famous faces, spend your marketing dollars on your own crowd, your own customers, and let them invest in impact.”
Our take: We love the idea of giving the power of change to the consumer. Democratization is important and consumers like agency. However, while the Other Bar is increasing the pay to these farmers by 42% above Fairtrade, which is already higher than the regular market pay, what if you directly gave farmers the extra funds to plant trees instead of giving consumers the option?
Miranda Wang & Jenny Yao, Co-founders of BioCellection
"My dream is to be able to see that something that is a sad piece of plastic—that would right now go to the ocean or landfill—could be used to make a brand-new Patagonia jacket, or a brand-new pair of running shoes, or could be used in other industrial applications.”
See this article to learn about their journey.
BioCellection: Today, only 9% of plastic packaging gets recycled worldwide. The rest goes to landfills, incinerators, and oceans. We aim to protect our environment by creating innovative recycling processes for post-consumer waste plastics that no one else can recycle and by converting them into virgin quality building blocks for sustainable supply chains.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10
Renovating Democracy: He has signed on the “Giving Pledge,” committing the majority of his wealth to philanthropy; now Nicolas Berggruen, Chairman of the Berggruen Institute, is rethinking the way technology and social media are impacting democracy. In his new book Renovating Democracy, Berggruen considers how to govern in the age of globalization and digital capitalism. Berggruen is joined by The WorldPost's editor-in-chief and book co-author Nathan Gardels for a thought-provoking conversation with Asia Society President and CEO Josette Sheeran.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16
Feeding Our Future: Perspectives Across the Value Chain in Food Sustainability
Interested in learning more about the different areas of innovation across the value chain in food sustainability? Please join the NY + Acumen Impact Circle on World Food Day for a discussion on the future of food sustainability. We 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: Typically early-stage startups raise a convertible note from angels followed by Series A, B, C, etc., hoping to continue to seek funding or to arrange an exit. Early-stage fundraising can be very challenging and discouraging as entrepreneurs ‘pound the pavement’. This is even further the case for social enterprises. Join us for a discussion on the best practices of opening and closing a round from the entrepreneurs who have executed successful fundraising rounds to learn how they have raised capital to fund their solutions to 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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