Marcela Navarro

Exciting decisions were made on 17 September 2019, and these decisions have opened up significant doors to address the challenges we are all facing from climate change.

It was the FEED-X 2019 Finalists’ Day, and was a key milestone for the FEED-X programme, marking the end of the FEED-X programme’s Search & Select stage.
Project X launched the search for innovative solutions to common sustainability problems in the feed and aquaculture sectors in early May, and received over 124 expressions of interest from innovators eager to commercialise their ideas. After a careful period of shortlisting by a handful of carefully curated external experts, 15 of the best innovators were selected to be assessed on FEED-X Finalists’ Day.

On the day, a group of 10 challenger innovations were selected by a panel of 13 subject matter experts in the fields of nutrition, feed, environment, alternative protein, aquaculture innovation, finance, assurance. These experts were from Skretting, the World Bank, WWF, DTU Aqua, and family offices, amongst others.

The successful innovators have been invited to progress to the next stage of this acceleration programme; compressing the time otherwise required to scale the adoption of sustainable alternatives into corporate value chains.

FEED-X has lead partner support from one of the largest animal and aquaculture feed suppliers in the world – Nutreco, and its aquaculture division Skretting – which represent a significant share of the global feed market and €5.9 billion of purchasing power. Financial support for the FEED-X programme has also come from Ikea (IKEA Supply AG), WWF and EIT Climate-KIC, and additional technical support from UNEP-One Planet, Cambridge University and other universities. The co-ordinated approach between organisations in the FEED-X programme has given entrepreneurs rare access to markets and allows them to commercialise-at-scale for brilliant, and sustainable alternatives worldwide.

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“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.” James Rose, Operations & Procurement Director, Skretting

“At IKEA, we always strive to make things better. Nothing is so good that it cannot be improved. Through the FEED-X initiative, connecting expertise from the full value chain, we want to make a big leap by improving the sustainability footprint of salmon. We are proud to take part in this industry transformation, making salmon an even better product for people and planet” Jesper Juul Andersen, Category Area Manager, IKEA of Sweden

We were delighted that our CEO, Marcela Navarro was invited to speak this month at one of the key conferences in the impact investment space, the TBLI Conference 2019, in Zurich.

It was TBLI’s 35th European conference and workshops and panel discussions were around ‘Next Gen Investment’, ‘Gender-Smart Impact Investing’, ‘Blockchain & Impact Investing’, ‘Shaping an Investment Strategy Around SDGs’ amongst others.

Marcela joined a panel to discuss ‘Climate Strategy at Scale’, to share the lessons she has learnt, and experience she has gained, from being a part of a strategy implementation and programme roll-out for industry leaders RBS and Cummins. She was met by equally driven individuals representing ESG prioritising organisations. These individuals included: Raffaela Lombard from Lombard Impact, Andre Laude from International Finance Corporation, Dr. Silke A. Krawietz from SETA Network, and Marcel Brenninkmeijer from Good Energies Foundation.

Since John Elkington coined the phrase, ‘triple bottom line’ (TBL) in 2015, the TBL space continues to grow and grow. However, in 2018 John suggested we rethink what the phrase really means and recall it to be amended. In 2015, the phrase ‘triple bottom line’ was a sustainability framework that examined a company’s social, environmental, and economic impact. However, since then, in business lexicon, the word ‘economic’ has become ‘financial’. John questioned whether the purpose and means of the TBL phrase has been diluted and whether ‘systems change’ was no longer a goal we are all trying to reach.

It is truly exciting that we, Project-X, are able to be at the forefront of this revolution. Through our continued efforts in research and research implementation, we hope to continue to see this kind of progress far into the future.

The concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has shifted in recent years as it’s becoming increasingly evident that businesses gain from having a leading edge in sustainable development. They have recognised that this approach is good for the planet, it helps social goals be reached – and in addition it leads to customer satisfaction. 

This year, on 21 May 2019, Edie Live hosted our very own Chief Executive and Co-Founder, Marcela Navarro on a panel with multiple other influential guest speakers, including:

• Mike Hanson, Head of Sustainable Business, BaxterStorey
• Simon Graham, Head of Innovation, De Courcy Alexander
• Jamie Hall, Operations Director, Mitie Energy

Interesting discussions evolved as the panelists shared their own experiences and how they believe the concept of CSR has already shifted, and will continue to shift in the years to come.

Moreover, the discussions were carried out to Twitter, where engagement continued for days after the panel was hosted. The exciting momentum created at Edie Live was clear to see.

Events such as these demonstrate how the power of collaborative effort has the potential to take place in corporate climates. If you’d like to listen to the panel yourself, please check out this link.