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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

environment

Amazon to Fund Food Companies as Part of New $2B Climate Pledge Fund

Amazon announced today the launch of The Climate Pledge Fund, which will use an initial $2 billion in funding to back clean technology companies including those in the food and agriculture space.

The fund is part of the broader Climate Pledge, an initiative founded by Amazon and Global Optimism last year to achieve net zero carbon by 2040, 10 years earlier than the Paris Agreement deadline.

From Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund page:

In order to meaningfully reduce the amount of net greenhouse gas emissions, low-carbon solutions need to be developed in all sectors of the global economy. The Climate Pledge Fund will invest in companies in multiple industries, with an initial focus on: transportation and logistics; energy generation, storage, and utilization; manufacturing and materials; circular economy; and food and agriculture. Companies of all sizes and stages will be considered, from pre-product startups to well-established enterprises looking to scale. The scope of The Climate Pledge Fund is global and will consider investments in companies developing products or services that reduce carbon emissions and help preserve the natural world.

The fund announcement comes while the world is still in the throes of a global pandemic, which has had both positive and negative impacts on the environment.

There are plenty of opportunities for Amazon to make a big impact when it comes to de-carbonizing the meal journey. We cover a ton of startups that are fighting food waste, developing tools for sustainable and precision agriculture, and creating alternative proteins that don’t require resource intensive livestock raising.

The Climate Pledge Fund is accepting “indications of interest” right now via email.

Starbucks Pledges to Cut Carbon Emissions, Water Usage and Landfill Waste by Half by 2030

Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson announced in a letter Tuesday that the company aspires to become resource positive within the next decade. 

To meet that aspiration, Johnson set three goals for Starbucks: reducing carbon emissions from its direct operations and supply chain by half; replenishing half of its water usage with a focus on “communities and basins with high water risk;” and a 50 percent reduction in its waste sent to landfills from its stores and manufacturing facilities. As part of that last goal, Johnson announced it is joining the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy Global Commitment.

Starbucks has a lot of work ahead. The company, according to its own estimates, is responsible for 1 percent of all paper and plastic cups in the world, or 6 billion cups. It currently operates more than 28,000 stores across the world. 

As part of the pledge, Starbucks announced “five environmental strategies that will begin to move us toward a resource-positive future”: expanding plant-based options; shifting from single-use to reusable packaging; investing in “innovative and regenerative agricultural practices, reforestation, forest conservation and water replenishment” in its supply chain; investing in better ways to manage its waste; and developing innovations for more eco-friendly stores, operations, manufacturing and delivery.

“We agree with the consensus of scientific experts who note that without drastic action from everyone — governments, companies and all of us as individuals — adapting to the impact of climate change in the future will be far more difficult and costly,” Johnson wrote, “taking a toll on our supply chains, our business, and more importantly, the lives of everyone involved, including coffee farmers, our suppliers, Starbucks partners, customers and every community we serve.”

Johnson wrote that the company doesn’t have all the answers, and called on parties including entrepreneurs and its partners and customers to provide innovations and ideas.

Starbucks is among one of the biggest restaurant companies by revenue, and one of the largest to pledge to reduce its contributions to global warming causing emissions and pollution. McDonald’s and Taco Bell have also set ambitious sustainability goals. Drastic change is needed if we’re going to stem the worst effects of climate change, and business leaders’ commitment to the cause is both necessary and welcome, especially as world leaders continue to be dismissive of the threat life on the planet faces.

A Snapshot of the 6 Biggest Fast Food Companies’ Sustainability Pledges

Environmental issues are no longer an invisible threat. With temperatures warming, oceans are heating up and extreme weather events such as hurricanes and forest fires, as we’re currently seeing in Australia, are happening more frequently.

There’s only so much individuals can do to lessen our impact on the warming planet, including flying and driving less and cutting back on meat. It’s on governments and businesses, especially corporations, to stave off catastrophe.

As we start off a new decade, let’s take a look at the sustainability pledges of the top fast food companies by revenues. As emissions that result from meat and dairy production are on track to contribute 70 percent of the total allowable greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, the BBC reports, fast food chains’ decisions have a lot of impact on the planet, although most pledges have centered around packaging. As some of the largest brands on the planet, these moves will not only cut back on climate change causing emissions and pollution, but provide an example to other businesses.

1. McDonald’s

The world’s biggest restaurant company in 2018 was the first fast food company to commit to sustainability. McDonald’s pledged that by 2025, “100 percent of McDonald’s guest packaging will come from renewable, recycled, or certified sources,” and also “to recycle guest packaging in 100 percent of McDonald’s restaurants.” For this year, it also set a goal that “100 percent of fiber-based packaging will come from recycled or certified sources where no deforestation occurs.” The company has also invested in a wind farm and a solar farm that it said will produce “more than 2,500 McDonald’s restaurants-worth of electricity.” As far as plant-based options, the Golden Arches is expanding its Beyond Meat test in Canada.

2. Starbucks

According to the coffee giant, “an estimated 600 billion paper and plastic cups are distributed globally,” and Starbucks accounts for an estimated 1 percent of that total. It has set a goal to “double the recycled content, recyclability and compostability, and reusability of our cups and packaging by 2022.” It plans to phase out straws this year. (A small competitor of Starbucks, Blue Bottle, plans to eliminate disposable cups entirely.) Starbucks, which said it has invested in renewable energy, has also set a goal to design, build and operate 10,000 “Greener Stores” globally by 2025. Starbucks offers several plant-based milks, and is expanding its lineup of non-dairy drinks.

3. Subway

The sandwich company hasn’t made any specific pledges, and pins a lot of the responsibility of energy conservation on its franchise operators. Subway offers a meatless Beyond Meat meatball sub. The company says its paper products, including towels, tissues and napkins, are made from 100 percent recycled material. As for the rest of its materials, including cups, wraps, bowls and lids, Subway makes no further commitments to make them more sustainable.

4. Chick-fil-a

The popular chicken restaurant that closes on Sundays also hasn’t issued any major sustainability pledges. The company said last year it is “thoughtfully searching for sustainable design solutions that are recyclable, compostable or contain recycled content — starting with new bowls” made of recyclable PET plastic. Chick-fil-a has committed to reducing construction waste for its new locations. The chain offers no plant-based options.

5. Taco Bell

The Mexican-inspired food chain is the latest to issue a big sustainability pledge. It has committed to “making all consumer-facing packaging recyclable, compostable or reusable by 2025 worldwide,” as well as adding recycling and/or composting bins to all restaurants, “where infrastructure permits.” Last year, it committed to more sustainable beef. Taco Bell has long featured vegetarian and vegan options, and recently made them more prominent on its menu.

6. Burger King

The other burger chain also hasn’t set any firm sustainability commitments for the decade. Rather, it said it will “continuously review our policies on animal welfare, sourcing and environmental impact to ensure that we remain good corporate citizens in the communities we serve.” The company, responding to a Change.org petition, said it will stop giving out plastic toys, but only in the U.K. At least you can get the Impossible Whopper at every U.S. store.

Of course, the companies who did make pledges are not beholden to them. It’s up to investors and consumers to hold each company responsible to do their part to reducing their contributions to climate change.

If any company updates their pledges, we will revisit and update this article.

Startup Says its Spoons and Forks Compost in as Little as 10 Days

No offense to the humble spoon (after all, this site is named after it), but it’s not as necessary for modern American diets than its pointier sibling, the fork.

And although there’s been some innovation in terms of environmentally friendly disposable spoons in the form of Planeteers’ edible spoon, there are few options for plastic fork replacements that don’t destroy the Earth. Startup TwentyFifty aims to change that with its fork, which founder Zack Kong, a bioengineering graduate from the University of California San Diego, said is “the first compostable fork in the world that’s similar in function to plastic and wooden forks.”

The difference between TwentyFifty’s technically edible products — which currently include forks and spoons but will eventually encompass chopsticks, stirrers and straws — is its patent-pending manufacturing process that compresses wheat flour, soy flour, corn flour and water into strong utensils that can withstand higher temperatures. Essentially, TwentyFifty’s spoons won’t melt soaking in a bowl of hot soup for 30 minutes. Due to the nature of the ingredients of the utensils, the company says they will break down in a backyard compost pile in as little as 10 to 30 days, while competing compostable products need to be broken down in industrial plants.

“The other benefit of this product is not just the compostability, but it’s also an organic fertilizer,” said Albert Liu, a TwentyFifty board member and business advisor. “When these utensils compost, they add 2.7 cents worth of fertilizer to the soil. We use grains to make the utensils, then they go back into the earth to help grow more grains.”

The big hurdle for the company now is cost, with retail price per utensil around 50 cents each, wholesale at 25 cents and bulk at 15 cents. That’s hugely expensive compared to plastic, which could be as cheap as pennies per utensil. TwentyFifty anticipates prices to drop to 5 to 10 cents as it scales up and automates its production line, which will allow it to produce 10,000 to 20,000 units a day. 

TwentyFifty’s target market isn’t individual consumers, however, who could just use silverware. Rather, it’s aiming to partner with universities and municipalities. Liu said the company has a vendor agreement with UC San Diego, and has partnerships in place with Malibu, Santa Monica and San Francisco, which have all placed bans on single-use plastics. The utensils can also be found at a number of California cafes and yogurt shops.

Earlier this year, the New Food Economy found that so-called compostable bowls frequently used by Chipotle and Sweetgreen actually contained “forever chemical” PFAs, which as their name suggests, don’t break down. Meanwhile, plastic pollution continues to be a global threat. So if TwentyFifty’s utensils break down like the company claims, and more environmentally friendly alternatives become available, progress can be made toward preventing future waste.