ProjectXGlobal is pleased to contribute to The #DeepDemonstration partnership between EIT @‌Climate-KIC 2 and the @‌Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, exploring how to accelerate climate neutrality pathways, while also supporting farmer communities.

In a new report, experts from ProjectXGlobal, Circle Economy, Metabolic, Munster Technological University and Climate-KIC outline a practical roadmap for the Irish agri-food sector to reach climate neutrality by 2050.

The report considers many innovative solutions including:

Like many other shocks before it, COVID-19 has exposed critical vulnerabilities in global value chains, and entire industries to critical dependencies.

One dependency is the concept of ‘cost’. The need to account for the true cost of supplies in a value chain is becoming a priority. Traditional cost models are being re-evaluated and the ‘True Cost of Low Cost’ is a nascent movement within the procurement world and a principle of Project X’s adoption methodology.

Another area is ‘competition’. There are straightforward yet profound approaches to creating impact. We don’t create true impact by being exposed to the activities of impactful companies. Indeed, companies don’t own impact, they cause impact and these outcomes are what create ripples effects across industries.

New and improved business models will become accepted in the 2020s. These models will ensure organisations can safely operate and thrive in a world where shocks are the new norm. To paraphrase John Maynard Keynes, “the difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas, as in escaping from old ones”.

To escape tradition and future-proof organisations we must embrace ‘Consciousness Procurement’. This is about enhancing the act of buying (value chain supplies) with high levels of understanding, appreciation and respect. Quality, cost and speed will of course continue to be critical criteria — but becoming conscious of other variables will be the catalyst for leaders, companies and industries to deliver performance, resilience and productivity.

We must not prepare for the next COVID-19. Shocks will be different every time. Project X’s vision is to be able one day to show that the power of business procurement has bent biodiversity and GHG curves.

The planet is asking us for coordinated action at scale – it’s crucial that we deliver it quickly. The degradation of climate change and biodiversity loss is happening at an exponential rate and the average response is linear. We all know what is at stake. We all know the response is not sufficient. At Project X we take away excuses to act on climate change. There is no better time to act than now.

Our mission is to shift $1.3 trillion in procurement spend in 10 key industries in 10 years from unsustainable to sustainable sources. With higher consciousness, we can transform value chains at the pace the planet needs it.

We are pleased to invite Leaders First members and guests to our SUSTAINABLE BUSINESSES Ed-event.

This event and expert talks will focus on:

• Critical problem of over-consumption with case-studies from the Fashion industry
• Profitability via Sustainability – direction of investments, sustainable supply chain, managing risks
• Safeguarding the environment for human well-being and future generations

17:00 GMT | 18:00 CET – Welcome Remarks by Leaders First
17:05 GMT | 18:05 CET – Sustainability overview
17:20 GMT | 18:20 CET – Interviews with speakers
18:20 GMT | 19:20 CET – Live Q&A with all speakers
18:40 GMT | 19:40 CET – Closing Remarks by Leaders First

There will be a live Q&A session but please feel free to send questions ahead of the event.

Frederic is a venture capital investor with a focus on sustainability and the food and agriculture value chains. The theme of the event is Building a sustainable future of food through technology and collaboration

It’s an exciting yet challenging time for the food sector. New technologies are revolutionising the whole supply chain, and are playing a pivotal role in meeting an ever-demanding consumer demand for healthier and more sustainable food. Corporate players are on the hunt for cutting edge tech solutions, from AI and digital software, food waste, packaging and blockchain, to dairy-free food and drink products and meatless alternatives. Leading investors are joining the exciting journey of tech discovery as we explore new solutions and challenge existing assumptions.

Food Tech Matters, the go-to place for corporate innovation leaders and investors to discover the most innovative UK and international start-ups emerging on the scene, returns on 20-21st April 2021. Offering a new, enhanced format with more pitching sessions than ever before, a carefully selected line-up of the freshest talent championing revolutionary agri-food technologies will present to businesses and international investors. The diverse range of pitch session themes will include The Future of Agtech, Next-Gen Food & Drinks, Food Safety & Traceability, Apps and Food Processing. Food Tech Matters has quickly gained a fantastic reputation amongst up and coming brands with sights on becoming future leaders of the agri-food industry, enabling them to make the connections they need to transform their businesses.

The Food Tech Matters series has been curated around networking and partnerships, with the ultimate goal of ensuring the community makes valuable connections to power the future of food. The dedicated platform for 1-2-1 video meetings is a huge success each year and 2021 will be no different. All attendees are able to pre-book slots with other companies of their choice, and meetings will run across the two days. A new, bespoke service for the corporate and investor community is in store for 2021, with a dedicated team to work alongside businesses to understand the types of companies they’d most like to hear from and connect with.

“We have built a community of loyal supporters since the inception of Food Tech Matters in 2018”, says Briony Mansell-Lewis, Director, Food Matters. “Our aim is to make sure that the Food Tech Matters community gets the most out of the meet-ups and with such an exciting and diverse range of innovations hitting the market, there was no doubt that by expanding the pitching line-up and finding the most promising start-up ventures in line with the needs and objectives of our corporate and investor attendees provides the global food tech community with a distinctive opportunity to make valuable connections. We look forward to welcoming the community next April”.

Food Tech Matters will take place virtually on 20-21st April, 2021. More information at www.foodmatters.co.uk

The majority of attendees are senior leaders with roles which relate to sustainability, CSR, innovation, supply chains and procurement with an understanding of the challenges and opportunities for large businesses.

COVID-19 reminded the world that highly efficient globalised supply chains are exposed to a wide array of potential disruptions and bottlenecks. From navigating disrupted sales pipelines, to restricted materials, labour and logistics, the pandemic has led many businesses to reconsider their operations. As the global economy unfreezes and companies recover from the shocks of the pandemic, this is a unique moment to consider what it would take to “build back better” and become resilient to future shocks – not least the ever impending threat of climate change.

Amongst other serious sustainability led discussions we’re looking to examine in detail:

• In the post-pandemic world what are the key expectations from stakeholders in terms of transparency, agility, and responsiveness to future disruption?
• How should businesses engage their suppliers to co-navigate these issues, and what wider collective action is needed on a sector and industry-wide basis?
• Is the growing interest in localisation and “self-reliance” practical, and what are the business implications?
• What further disruptions might test supply chains over the next decade and how can businesses prepare for them?
• How has your business made its supply chains more circular, ethical and sustainable, and what could other businesses learn from these changes?
• From your experiences what opportunities could be leveraged to “build back better” with more resilient supply chains?

This meeting looked at the resilience of the supplies of conventional aquafeed ingredients, and how the feed industry is handling the challenges and changes to farmers’ sourcing policies. It also looked at the challenges faced in marine ingredient supply chains, and at the novel alternative aquafeed ingredients being developed.

There were a number of excellent presentations that you might want to review:

• Aquafeed composition and sustainability – a retailer’s view. Helena Delgado Nordmann, Tesco and Piers Hart, WWF.
• Speeding up the adoption of novel feed ingredients. Marcela Navarro, Feed-X.
• Building resilience into feed ingredient sourcing. James Deverill, Cargill Aqua Nutrition UK.
• Q&A Briefing note on the session.

BTN Europe is the leading business travel industry magazine, delivering in-depth analysis, interviews with industry leaders and expert advice to 30,000 other European travel professionals.

The session focussed on the post-COVID 19 learnings and findings as well as thought to concretely reduce CO2 emission in a short time. This was a very interesting and insightful session.

The focus was on midterm milestones and which transformations are needed to achieve the targets and to avoid a climate collapse for the next generation.

Titled Climate Emergency: Covid learnings and future strategies for a solid sustainability management in our eco-system. The ASTM (Association of Swiss Travel Management) were very happy and proud of the level of the discussions and have already seen great feedback and many positive comments.

If you want to listen to their discussion, please click the button below.

I co-created Project X in 2015 with the goal of bettering the world. It was designed to tackle ecological challenges on a massive scale by targeting the sustainability performance of the 10 industries with the biggest impact on biodiversity in the next decade – otherwise known as our 10 In 10 Programme.

Harnessing industrial purchasing power to scale innovations and catalyse the shift towards truly regenerative business has never been done before at this speed, but it is this grand challenge that we and our community want to own. And while it is clear that the sustainability agenda has rapidly grown in popularity, corporate purchasing trends show that our work is more urgent than ever. Companies ‘can expect disruptions to erase half a year’s worth of profits or more over the course of a decade’ – McKinsey Global Institute, August 2020.

Our planet is degrading at an exponential rate, and the average response is linear, and simply not enough to reverse the damage. Secretary-General of the UN, Antonio Guterres, says this: “Today, progress is being made in many places, but, overall, action to meet the Goals is not yet advancing at the speed or scale required. 2020 needs to usher in a decade of ambitious action to deliver the Goals by 2030.”

Unknown unknowns

If systemic environmental change is an achievable goal, why haven’t more businesses undertaken these challenges themselves? The short answer is fear.

Managing global supply chains exposes a business to many uncertainties in supply and demand, which in turn entails a great exposure to risks. The ripple effect of risk in interconnected value chains is a growing concern in times of chaos. I find many people focus on tangible risks, which are commonly perceived as operational and financial. However, intangible risks like trust, confidence levels and knowledge are actually behind much of the environmental challenge we face.

Uncertainty in a supply chain increases human stress levels, which in turn creates a lack of confidence and trust to make optimal decisions at each stage and most importantly in key moments of change. In times of transformation, fear of making the wrong decision reaches a peak level and ends up bringing about more wrong decisions.

Indeed, the fear factor is a death spiral for planet earth. It is time we remove fear and the inertia to act, and make ‘taking action’ a lower risk than a ‘failure to act. It is time we catalyse bravery and lower the risk to act.

Collective endeavour

The environmental crises we are facing cannot be addressed by a single person or sector. We are stronger together and this is core to Project X’s philosophy, principles and processes as a systems catalyst, and as a B Corp. We can only make the multiplier transformative change required at the pace the planet needs it, by trusting the collective force of our partners.

As a global community, we must collaborate at every level and in every link in the supply chain. And we must for us means bringing together the power of procurement, investment, innovation and knowledge to amplify the value of coordinated actions.

We know that soon systemic and collaborative generative business practices will become business-as-usual for industry incumbents. This was the foundation of our work with FEED-X – the first of many corporate multipliers with our 10 in 10 programme.

End-to-end transparency

Our experience of running FEED-X over two years revealed that we need more trust in supply chains at a B2B and B2C level. In the case of the feed sector, consumers are demanding a stronger connection to their food as well as the transparency and sustainability of its origin. Our experience showed that feed – an aspect not evident to the public – must be a positive and fundamental part of how the food and drink manufacturing industry will transform in the coming years.

Simply put, transparency builds trust; trust builds confidence; confidence builds loyalty, and loyalty builds premium. Communication allows us to have a conversation with everyone in the supply chain about the things that are important to make change happen. But the reason this is so hard is that there is a lack of ‘end-to-end’ visibility.

One of my favourite proverbs is “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now.” We cannot change the actions of our predecessors, but we can build the tools so that we can come together to make sustainable alternatives to the mainstream.

Project X is extremely proud to be doing what it can to better the state of the planet; the Feed X goal of shifting circa 107m tonnes of the global feed industry is well within reach. We welcome all action takers to join Project X on its mission and shift $1.3trn from unsustainable sourcing to sustainable sourcing by 2030. This is c $400m every working day until 2030.

The time is now. To take action and amplify action. We can only do this with you.