SDG Alpha - Issue 11
Hello friend, and welcome to SDG Alpha, a fortnightly newsletter about Innovation, Impact Investing, and Sustainability in Ireland.
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Thank you for reading; now, let's begin.
A clean slate can be very appealing. It's liberating to look upon an untouched piece of paper, or a whiteboard, and get a sense of the tremendous potential it presents. It offers us a chance to do things right, to let our ambition run free, without being required to consider existing complications or commitments. This time, there will be no holding us back. It's a compelling proposition, and one that, for instance, drove the pilgrims on to the Mayflower, and across the Atlantic - although that slate wasn't quite as clean as we might have been led to believe.
Here's another more recent example: an article (paywalled, I'm afraid) in the Business Post earlier this described a plan to develop a new "eco-town", potentially located in the Irish midlands. The developers, a renewable energy company, want to create a "global town of the future", a zero-carbon community for 80,000 residents, with schools, a hotel, and plenty of jobs - although the detail is light on that piece. The developers highlight the need for a "big, bold, and courageous" move to get Ireland on track to meet its climate targets - and, I have to admit, part of me feels how compelling this argument is. We're not doing enough. How many times will our cities burn and drown before we stop sleepwalking into oblivion? A new town, built on the very latest environmental principles from the very start - doesn't that sound like the panacea we need right now?
And yet...
I actually grew up in one Ireland's few "planned" towns; Shannon, in Co. Clare, was mostly flood-prone fields less than a century ago, before the decision in the 1940s to create a transatlantic airport, industrial zone, and residences for the thousands who came seeking work - including my parents who moved there in the early 80s. I have very little complaint about growing up in Shannon, but at the same time, I rarely tell people that it's where I'm from - because it's a town with almost no sense of identity, no sense of community.
"Planned community" is like "scheduled fun" - it rubs humanity up the wrong way. We're too messy and diverse in our needs and experience to fit neatly into the visions of a small number of well-intentioned people, who are setting out to create a utopian solution to our problems. And, the biggest problem to my mind is that it's just not something that can scale: is the intent to move the 5 million inhabitants of the State into clean-slate eco-towns? The 8 billion on the planet? Doesn't seem very practicable.
We need solutions that help us deal in situ with the challenges we face in villages, towns, and cities across the world. We need to support communities who want to resolve the problems that exist in their own backyard, and not walk away from them.
Here's my round-up of news, resources, and events from the world of Impact Investment and Sustainability in Ireland for Issue 11:
I previously mentioned that CARO and Codema are running Climate Action Week, from Sept 13th: it's a great initiative intending to showcase the Dublin region’s climate action progress, and inspire action among the public. Here's a few of the events that look particularly good: Friday, 17th Sept, there's a panel on EV ownership in Ireland;a webinar covering Smart Logistics from the team at Smart Dublin, on Sept 15th; DLRCC are hosting an online session titled: "Your Business: More Sustainable, More Profitable", with an excellent line-up of speakers; and two final items for your creative and cultural side - an outdoor film screening in a solar-powered cinema, and a list of books [PDF] to help better understand the climate crisis.
On the topic of events, The Sustainability Summit has an impressive speaker roster, with keynotes from Mary Robinson, and... well, it doesn't really matter, because Mary Robinson is speaking and that's more than enough reason to sign-up. Free registration, takes place Sept 22nd.
I spoke earlier about the importance of developing solutions that come from the very heart of the communities being challenged, and it's something that the team at Business In The Community have been doing from Day 1; they're hosting a three-day event from October 5th, titled "The Sustainability Revolution", and it looks like a very practical, and actionable seminar on building the leadership we need to drive change.
A handful of acquisition and fundraising items that stood out (over what has been a very busy month!); Action Zero is a newly-formed green energy solutions company, created by the merger of Energy Services and Straightline Energy Solutions - interesting to see an energy services company bringing a new technology product to market; ESB and DCarbonX announced plans to co-develop a green hydrogen storage facility off the coast of County Cork; Limerick-based ESG reporting company Accuvio announced they had been acquired by Diligent, the US-based governance software provider; and Zipp Mobility closed out at €1.3M round of investment, following their successful launch of eScooter services across UK and Poland.
Two educational resources next, covering sustainability from the depths of the oceans, to the stars in the heavens: first, the Marine Institute have developed an online course to help promote the value of developing aquaculture projects that adopt a multi-species approach, across multiple levels of the food chain; second, a new event from the Recovery Centre aims to help kids develop an awareness of how sustainability needs to influence space exploration. Ad astra!
Neat story from Enterprise Ireland about a small, but mighty, piece of impact innovation from an Irish startup; Grian Water have developed MyGug, a micro-scale aerobic digester that turns household and garden waste into biogas.
Almost there... Social Entrepreneurs Ireland, a charitable organisation supporting the development of Irish social enterprise, recently announced their new awardees under their Impact Programme; congratulations to Byowave, Mother Tongues, Peer Education Technologies, Positive Carbon, and Shapes of Grief.
And finally, beer: the Irish pub, long the home of traditional community across Ireland, is getting an enviromental boost, with a little help from Budweiser, who are funding the installation of solar panels in 100 local venues. I wouldn't drink it myself, mind, but pubs running on 100% renewable electricity, funded by a behemoth multinational brewer is exactly the kind of unexpected partnerships I like to see :) Cheers!
To close out the issue, it's time for "Three, Sixty", where we pose three questions on the theme of sustainability to an impact entrepreneur or innovator, to get a better understanding in sixty seconds of how they're working to achieve the SDG targets. I'm really thrilled to welcome Niamh and Ruairi Dooley, the sibling co-founders behind BiaSol, an exciting young Irish company who are repurposing brewing waste into baking flour.
On a personal level, what impacts of the climate crisis are you most concerned about?
We are most concerned about food waste as most of it, about 80%, can be avoided. In Ireland, we generate more than one million tonnes of food waste every year! On a global level, food waste accounts for 8-10% of greenhouse gas emissions.
One manageable step we can all take is to reduce food waste and that's an easy way to start tackling the climate crisis on our hands.
With the global population continuing to grow and natural resources becoming more stressed, it is time to start valuing and respecting our food systems and resources more and more. Food is the energy we need to survive and when you take a look around sometimes you wonder if we have forgotten to appreciate this.
One can't help noticing the change in behaviour over a few generations. Remembering back to childhood where the summers were spent in the West with our grandparents. They wasted very little and could see value in every resource. I think by looking back sometimes we can learn from the past and we as a population can learn from the resourcefulness of previous eras to reduce waste.
Which of the UN SDGs did you start BiaSol to address?
BiaSol was founded from the need to innovate current food systems, improve the availability of nutritional foods and promote behaving sustainably. We primarily address Goal 3, but also fit with Goals 12 and 9.
What is important to us is to provide consumers with sustainable and nutritious food products. We believe food is medicine so we have aligned ourselves with Goal 3 - Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. As lifestyles have become more fast paced our diets have suffered. Foods have become more processed to become more convenient and ‘ready to use’ which can ultimately strip out essential nutrients. 75% of the Irish adult population does not meet the recommended daily allowance for fibre, and fibre has been proven to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, colon cancer, and IBS.
BiaSol also aligns with Goal 12 - Responsible Consumption and Production Patterns. Our aim is to challenge existing food systems and see if there is a more viable production process that can be implemented. When we noticed that brewers' spent grain is not fulfilling its potential we began to design a production pattern that can help us utilise the full nutritional density it has to offer.
What motivated us to start BiaSol was our realisation of how much food the world will need by 2050, an increase of 60%. We all know the demand on the planet is already at a tipping point so the way we think needs to change. We can relate to Goal 9 - Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure in terms of innovation. Upcycling is not a new word but it's niche in the food industry and we believe there is tonnes of potential to innovate in food so we can sustain our growing population into the future.
How does your business model enable the transition to a low carbon, or more sustainable future?
Our business model is centred around using byproducts or food waste to create nutritious foods that are good for you and our planet. By reusing resources already in the food chain we will help other businesses reduce their carbon footprint and become a part of the circular economy.
If food is wasted and ends up in landfills it breaks down and produces methane, a greenhouse gas which is more potent than carbon dioxide. In Ireland, we generate more than one million tonnes of food waste every year which represents a carbon footprint as high as 3.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent!
To really tackle food waste there needs to be collaborations and partnerships within the industry and also to generate awareness among consumers. One such example is our partnership with local breweries, we repurpose brewers' spent grains from a local brewery into baking flour and this flour is then used to make pizzas in this same brewery which has a bar and restaurant. Customers can even pair the pizza with the same beer the flour is made from!
Our vision for BiaSol is to operate a business that doesn’t contribute to the problem of waste but instead are leaders to the solution. We may only be a drop in the ocean but we hope to have that ripple effect!
And, that's a wrap for Issue 11 of SDG Alpha! Hope you found it useful, and if you did, please share :)
Stay safe.
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