Graeme

There are not enough resources to provide sufficient food for a 9.5 billion population in 2050. Our first pilot, FEED-X has the goal to enable at least 10% of the global food industry to adopt alternative nutrients into their value chains. This will significantly reduce the sector’s environmental impacts, particularly on deforestation, carbon emissions and unsustainable fishing practices.  FEED-X is at a key stage in understanding potential risks before we get to work on accelerating innovations across the feed sector. This stage is called Category De-Risking.

Last week, Project-X brought a number of high-profile FEED-X stakeholders together in London, including WWF, IKEA, Skretting and Climate-KIC for an event to discuss the outcomes of the latest stage of the project – Category De-Risking (CDR). This stage has identified the key criteria which will guide us in finding the innovators who will radically transform the global feed industry. The event was an opportunity for our partners in FEED-X to share how their involvement in the project is contributing to meeting the strategic aims of the industry and the challenges around its transformation.

Project X facilitated a discussion on the CDR stage that has used six ‘lenses’ or themes to assess the risks posed by scaling-up innovations in the feed value chain.  Experts from Harvard University, Wageningen University Research, Utrecht University, Edinburgh University, Blonk Consultants, Brand Legacy and FAI Farms presented their key findings. Integrating the risks assessed across these six themes will enable future adoption of sustainable innovations by investors, insurers and purchasers. The collaboration and quality of discussion was evident throughout the workshop with participants staying on to further explore the findings.

“Our CDR is a key stage in the FEED-X programme. Through an independent, transparent and objective process we have worked in a coordinated approach with a distinguished group of researchers to identify the risks associated with scaling sustainable innovations across 6 important themes which include ethical, environmental, legal, social acceptability, nutritional and economic assessments.” – Marcela Navarro, Project X

James Rose, Skretting Operations and Procurement Director stated:

“At Skretting, we have seen that the biggest limitation in implementation of novel ingredients is scale. This project allows a game-changing discussion to mobilise the necessary resources and highlights why we’re involved in the project – we can make a real impact to global sustainability. And, of course, we see a direct link with our mission of Feeding the Future. I acknowledge all the great work done by the Project X team and research partners to get us to this stage. I look forward to understanding the outcomes of the CDR phase and moving into the search phase of the programme.”

Similarly for Muriel Mambrini, a member of the One Planet Network remarked that:

“The study has the great power to open the views and possibilities of providing innovation to the sector, and to ground the selection of feedstuffs by the actors of the feed industry based on their overall positive environmental impact.”

Other key representatives in the supply chain such as Christoph Mathiesen, Sustainability Developer, IKEA of Sweden AB, shared their commitment to this transformation:

“IKEA Food is committed to securing a more sustainable supply chain for our food business. We know that animal feed such as salmon feed can have a negative impact on the climate, environment and biodiversity. We see the collaboration with Project X as a great opportunity to support sustainable food systems and accelerate the innovation in animal feed.”

The strategic role of FEED-X was also shared by Daniel Zimmer, Director of Sustainable Landuse at EIT Climate-KIC, an EU supported organisation who said:

“We are very enthusiastic about our support to Feed-X project. This project fits perfectly in what EIT Climate-KIC is trying to do – to transform large systems that have detrimental impacts on climate change. For this reason, it is a cornerstone of our project portfolio and of a larger programme we are currently developing with many of our partners, including Project X, on the production of alternative proteins.”

Cristina Torres, an Aquaculture expert from WWF Chile stated that:

“Looking for innovation in feed means thinking outside of the norm and having to look through different lenses that include ethical, environmental, legal, social acceptability, nutritional and economic themes and the FEED-X program does that and beyond, including a CDR stage to truly find scalable solutions for the aquaculture world.”

CDR lays the critical ground work and assessment criteria for the FEED-X Challenge. This stage calls for innovators to register their interest in the programme and invites them to submit their innovations in the next stage of the FEED-X programme. Click here to read more about it.

The event was kindly hosted at the headquarters of law firm BWB – the first B-Corp law firm. Natalie Knight-Wickens, Senior Associate, said: 

“We have been delighted to provide Project X Global with legal advice relating to agreements for the supply of services and employment advice. In particular, where Project X Global has sought to work with large joint venture partners to provide reports, we have worked to negotiate clear deliverables, intellectual property protection and proportionate limitations of liability into the contracts.

As a B Corp ourselves, it’s wonderful to be able to provide services to a prospective B Corp, empowering them to effect change.”

Certified B Corporations are businesses that meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose.

Certified B Corporations achieve a minimum verified score on the B Impact Assessment—a rigorous assessment of a company’s impact on its workers, customers, community, and environment—and make their B Impact Report transparent on the B corporation website. Certified B Corporations also amend their legal governing documents to require their board of directors to balance profit and purpose.

B Corp pending status is only given to new organisation like Project X who have included the B Corp change to their Articles of Association and who have started the Certification process.

Much of the accreditation process requires evidence of real and historic actions that can only be achieved in the second year of trading. For Project X Global that second year commenced on 1st January 2019, so we are pleased to achieve our pending status, but are determined to achieve full B Corp accreditation in the first half of 2019.