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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

sustainability

Re-Nuble Aims to Use Food Waste To Make Indoor Agriculture More Sustainable

The role of indoor growing, ranging from small indoor vertical farms to large greenhouses, is vital to sustaining the world’s food supply. Controlled Environmental Agriculture is essential for growing crops in underused spaces, rooftops, and rows of vertical gardens. Seizing upon this vital resource, Tinia Pina, Founder & CEO of ReNuble, has taken up the challenge to help this idea scale. With a best-in-class nutrient and growing medium, Pina’s company has created organic compounds sourced from food waste for sterile, technology-driven hydroponic and soilless systems.

For the dynamic Pina, her vision for what became Re-Nuble started more than six years ago in the New York school system. “I also saw our outreach educational classes for this program were from 8 a.m. until 3 p.m.,” she recalled in an interview with The Spoon. “I noticed what the kids were bringing for class for lunch, and those options were very processed. With that diet, you see a direct impact on their level of attention. And I felt, from a systemic perspective, that will immediately impact the type of productivity and retention of the information we’re teaching. So overall, I always felt that people with better access to nutrition are spending more time being able to be fully immersed and retaining the information. And they are calling less out of work with fewer sick days.”

The genesis of Re-Nuble’s solution, Pina goes on to explain, came from her observation of how food waste was disposed of. “At that time, New York was spending $77 million to export its food waste to China, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. And that’s simply because we don’t have the composting infrastructure to handle it,” Pina said.” I wondered how we could make food waste a consistent alternative for conventional synthetic fertilizers by doing it for soils or hydroponic systems. So, we focused on using food waste as a viable alternative for chemical fertilizers in indoor grow environments.”

Specific to its product lines, Re-Nuble’s Head of Business Development & Strategy, Riyana Razalee, said in a company press release, “CEA is a large part of the future of farming, and so, we have to prioritize its role in decarbonization. Solutions need to address the gamut of the food supply chain, decarbonizing as many parts of it as possible. This vital issue is what our team is focused on”. The company states that for every acre of an indoor farm that uses Re-Nuble’s organic hydroponic nutrient, Away We Grow, the company can remove up to 5 metric tons of carbon emissions annually. That’s approximately one home’s energy use for a year.

In addition, its grow medium, ReNu Terra, supports the anti-peat movement. Companies, activists, and governments are demanding the reduction of drained peatlands. When farmed for agriculture needs, peat changes from a carbon sink to a greenhouse gas emitter, releasing approximately 1.9 gigatonnes of CO2e annually. This amounts to 0.4 billion gasoline-powered passenger vehicles driven for a year.

Pina said Re-Nuble has three customer segments now. First is the consumer market. Away We Grow could be part of a kit offered for an indoor growing system. “Consumers are eager to find more environmentally and people and animal-friendly solutions,” Re-Nuble’s CEO noted. The second segment is commercial farms such as Gotham Greens. The third, she said, is “disruptive farms.” For the last group, she stated, “There are severe supply shortages globally, and so there’s a lot of urgencies to find something that could be more sustainable, but even more importantly, something that they can afford.”

Video: Just Salad’s Sandra Noonan on Prioritizing Sustainability During a Pandemic

Start a conversation about sustainability in U.S. restaurants nowadays, and Just Salad will almost inevitably turn up in the talk. The New York City-based fast-casual chain has long been known for its efforts to make the restaurant experience a more environmentally responsible one, leading the charge on initiatives like reusable containers and carbon labels for menu items.

Like any other restaurant in the country, Just Salad, which now operates locations in several major cities, had to halt or restrict dining room service at all locations throughout 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. For some restaurants, this disruption might have also meant halting any sustainability initiatives. Just Salad had the good fortune to be able to do the opposite and increase its work of making the restaurant experience — in the dining room or off-premises — better for the planet.

“My focus was on navigating the pandemic with planetary as well as human health in mind,” Sandra Noonan, Just Salad’s Chief Sustainability Office, told me recently. 

Over a Zoom chat, Noonan and I discussed Just Salad’s sustainability work in 2020, including the chain’s new waste-free meal kits, the expansion of its famous reusable bowl program, and the complexities of bringing carbon labeling to restaurant menus. Our conversation, which you can watch in full below, also looks at sustainability issues and opportunities affecting the entire restaurant industry, including the concept circular delivery and the ever-growing trash problem plaguing today’s off-premises restaurant experience. Noonan also provided a wealth of insights and practical tips for restaurants looking to easily and affordable make their operations better for the planet and better for their budget in the process.

Watch the full video here:

Imperfect Foods Will Be a Net-Zero Carbon Company by 2030

Online grocer Imperfect Foods announced today its pledge to become a net-zero carbon operation by 2030. Via a press release sent to The Spoon, the company claims this timeline is 10 years ahead of most major retailers and 20 years ahead of the Paris Agreement Deadline.

Imperfect began as a service that rescued surplus fruits and veggies from supermarkets to sell at discounted prices to customers. A few successful fundraises later, the company is a full-fledged online grocer selling not just rescued produce but also meat, dairy, and pantry staples from other environmentally conscious companies.

To track its carbon footprint, Imperfect has partnered with Watershed, a software platform that measures a business’s carbon footprint across every touchpoint of its supply chain. Speaking in today’s press release, Imperfect said that through Watershed’s platform, the company can see which parts of its supply chain are emitting greenhouse gases and redesign operations based on that information.

Imperfect laid out a few steps for going net-zero carbon. It plans to have its first “zero-waste-to-landfill” facility operational by 2022, and a total of six such facilities operational by 2025. All six fulfillment centers will run off renewable power by 2026, and the company’s vehicle fleet will be electric by 2027. Finally, improving regional sourcing by 15 percent is a near-term goal, slated for 2022.

Imperfect’s announcement today is the latest in a string of recent stories about food companies’ various sustainability efforts, from Just Salad’s zero waste delivery aspirations to Burger King’s reusable cup program. Sweetgreen a chain that has pledged to go carbon neutral by 2027, is also using Watershed to track its carbon footprint.

There are also a few grocery-specific developments around sustainability of late. Kroger’s Zero Hunger/Zero Waste program addresses many sustainability issues, and Aldi says it will shift to sustainable packaging by 2025. Walmart, meanwhile, has a goal of reaching zero emissions by 2040.

For its part, Imperfect’s goal is to go beyond just sustainable food sourcing and “ensure [that] each internal process ladders up to an operationally net-zero carbon business model.”

 

Sweetgreen to Go Carbon Neutral by 2027

Fast-casual chain Sweetgreen announced today that it plans to make its business carbon neutral by 2027. The company says it will achieve this through its decisions around ingredient sourcing, building design, and energy usage, among other things. 

To reach this goal, Sweetgreen worked with climate-focused company Watershed, which makes software that can measure a business’s carbon footprint across every single touchpoint. Sweetgreen built its action plan for going carbon neutral around the results of that exercise.

For example, the company commissioned carbon assessments of its ingredient suppliers to get some of the more fine-print details, such as how the supplier handles manure and how much feed it uses. These calculations were included in Sweetgreen’s overall measurement of its own business. Going forward, the numbers will inform sourcing decisions (Sweetgreen did not share actual data). Ditto for menu development, which goes hand-in-hand with ingredient sourcing. Sweetgreen said today that it will introduce “even more plant-forward salads and soil-friendly ingredients” to its menu. 

The company also said it is “conducting an entire assessment” of the research and development process around new physical stores, from building materials used to furniture to finding more efficient means of energy. 

The details of how Sweetgreen plans to achieve some of these goals, and what its stores will look like as the company treks towards them, are not yet extensively available. How, for example, will the company integrate its carbon neutrality goals into its new drive-in store format? How will the Sweetgreen menu change based on the chain’s suppliers?

The company said in today’s press release it will share more progress as it happens.

India: Potful Fights Plastic Waste By Delivering Biryanis in Handmade Clay Pots

We’re always on the lookout for companies that combat plastic waste in unique ways. Zero Grocer offers plastic-free grocery shopping. Dishcraft is working on reusable takeout containers. Planeteer makes cutlery you can eat.

Over in India, a food delivery startup called Potful is showing its love for mother earth with actual earthenware. Potful cooks and delivers Biryanis in handmade clay pots. Order a meal, keep the pot, and Poftul even includes coriander seeds with orders so the pots can be turned into planters. The Biryanis are cooked to order and cost between 560 – 660 Rupees (~ $7.59 – $9.00 USD).

The company started a few years back in Bangalore and recently launched in the Hyderabad area of India. This approach to sustainable food delivery was intriguing, so I reached out to Lokesh Krishnan, Founder and CEO of Potful. Our emailed Q&A is below and has been slightly edited for clarity.

The Spoon: Can you please explain what a biryani is?
Lokesh Krishnan: Biryani is a mixed rice dish with its origins among the Indian subcontinent. It is made with Indian spices, rice, and meat, or vegetables and sometimes, in addition, eggs and/or potatoes in certain regional varieties. Biryani is popular throughout the Indian subcontinent, as well as among its diaspora. It’s a Persian dish and Mughals brought the recipe to India centuries ago. 

The beauty of the dish is it’s a meal in itself, very balanced (has carbs, proteins and fat) and affordable. Everyone in South Asia loves it irrespective of age, income groups. 

You are cooking and delivering biryanis in the same clay pot. How does this impact your ability to grow? 
Cooking biryani in claypot method is the most traditional and authentic way of cooking biryanis. The process is know as ‘Dum Cooking” and when you do, the flavours are intact and every grain of rice would taste different compared to any other form of cooking. We have built a time and weight based process using technology and have de-skilled the entire cooking process to scale rapidly. so scaling / growing is not an issue at all. 

How often would a typical person order a biryani? I’m just wondering about clay pots stacking up around the home.
There are markets where people order every single day but most will order at 3-4 times a month. People are very familiar with the dish and hence when they are not sure of something, the first thing which comes on their mind is biryani. Its the No. 1 online ordered dish in India today on any online food aggregator platforms. 

When did you launch, and are there any numbers you can share, such as order growth?
We launched our operation in Aug 2017 in Bangalore, the silicon valley of India. We operate under cloud / dark kitchen model and have 15 kitchens in the city as of now. We have just launched the product in Hyderabad (south of India) which is the mecca for Biryanis in India and our vision is to build world’s largest biryani company and put this dish on global platform. 

Can you expand this model to other foods?
Yes you can. But we would like to stay focused on biryanis for now. 

Anything else you think I should know?
While we make authentic biryanis through this process, it’s also important to see how we are doing this business. It’s about sustainability. We don’t use plastics. It’s about responsibility. The claypots are made in hand by artisans and hence as we grow it supports the livelihood of these people. We also send seeds with every biryani and encourage the consumers to reuse the pots and grow vegetables at home or even paint it and use it to decorate your home and garden. In addition, the food cooked in earthen pot is much more healthier than any other form of cooking because of the heat exchange. 

Chipotle’s App Puts a Positive Spin on Measuring Ingredient Sustainability

Chipotle today launched the Real Foodprint tool on its app to help customers better track the sustainability of the 53 ingredients it uses in meals. According to a press release from Chipotle, this also holds the quick-service brand “accountable” for its actions and choices around farming and sourcing ingredients. 

The Real Foodprint tool compares the average values of Chipotle’s 53 ingredients against the restaurant industry average in five areas: “Less Carbon in the Atmosphere,” “Gallons of Water Saved,” “Improved Soil Health,” “Organic Land Supported,” and “Antibiotics Avoided.”

To get that data, Chipotle has partnered with research firm HowGood, which aggregates ingredient sustainability information from Chipotle’s suppliers. It then compares that information to data on industry-standard ingredients via information from the United States Department of Agriculture, the World Health Organization, and the United States Food & Drug Administration, among others. The score Chipotle users see for each ingredient is “the difference between average data for each ingredient based on Chipotle’s sourcing standards and conventional, industry average standards,” according to today’s press release.

Chipotle may be the first restaurant brand to partner with HowGood for this level of data, but it’s not the first to bake ingredient sustainability information into its menu. Panera recently introduced “cool food” badges to its menu that indicate which items have a low carbon footprint. Also in 2020, Just Salad introduced a carbon footprint score for each menu item.

But as I wrote at the time of Just Salad’s news, it’s unclear if labels like “0.41 kg CO2e” and “0.77 kg CO2e” will have any kind of impact on consumer purchasing habits, since not all consumers even understand that “C02e” is the standard unit for measuring carbon footprints. Chipotle’s approach, which explains each number in layman’s terms (e.g., “gallons of water saved”) might be more accessible for mainstream consumers at this point.

The fact that Chipotle has also opted for positive language is unique so far among restaurants tracking sustainability on their menus. And it could set a new standard. Research has found that positive reinforcement can be a much more effective motivator than negative feedback or shaming. So telling someone how much water they’re saving on an order could make the idea of eating sustainable much more attractive.

Since the Real Footprint tool just launched, it is far too soon to tell if Chipotle’s “positive change in impact,” as the brand calls it, will lead to more customers ordering lower carbon footprint orders. If it does, we will certainly see similar efforts from other major chains in the coming months.

Hive’s Online Market Makes Ethical and Sustainable Shopping Easy

For many people during this pandemic the notion of shopping for sustainable or ethically sourced grocery products was probably tossed in favor of old comfort foods and just making sure our shelves are stocked.

Plus, shopping for more sustainable products is certainly harder than just grabbing the big CPG brands right there on display at your local grocery store. Or, at least it was. Today a startup called Hive officially launched its online marketplace that only sells sustainable and goods that do social good. The company curates the products it sells by only stocking those that have low impact ingredients, environmentally-friendly packaging, a low-carbon footprint and a commitment to social good. Oh, and the products need to taste good, too.

But in addition to selling these types of products, Hive tells you how the company (and by extension you, for buying from them) is doing good in the world. At checkout, you get a full report on your cart that shows how your purchases made a positive impact in terms of recycling, fighting deforestation or causes donated to. As you buy more, Hive keeps track to show you the cumulative effects of your purchases (and the positive reinforcement could keep you shopping on Hive!).

Of course, there are some products on Hive that are better for the planet than others. Take for example, chips, which come in plastic bags that can’t be recycled by most curbside pickup services. In these cases, Hive has partnered with TerraCycle. So if you purchase a bag of chips, you can pay an additional $1 and Hive will send you a pre-paid envelope. Put the chip bag and any other hard-to-recycle items you purchased from Hive in the bag and send it back to the company. Once they have a critical mass, Hive sends it to TerraCycle to be turned into something else.

Hive’s launch comes at a time when many food businesses are looking at what they sell and how they sell it. Zero Grocery recently raised $3 million for its plastic-free grocery stores. And if the name TerraCyle sounds familiar, that’s because it’s powering the new Loop service that sells well-known CPG brands in re-usable containers.

Hive is also coming along during a renaissance of sorts for smaller CPG brands, many of whom feature more sustainable attributes like upcylcing and plant-based ingredients. Many are also selling direct to consumers through their own websites. By stocking all these products together on a single marketplace, Hive creates a one-stop shop for conscious consumers.

Hive’s market is open to the public and shipping nationwide. The company is using ground shipments, so orders typically take two to five days to arrive. Which will give you plenty of time to think about the good your Hive purchases are doing.

The Sustainable Restaurant Needs Big Chains Right Now

A worrying point that comes up a lot in conversation these days is that sustainability has taken something of a backseat while food businesses scramble to fight the pandemic. So it was encouraging to read this week that burger chain behemoth McDonald’s is continuing its sustainability initiatives and just completed construction on its first “net zero energy-designed restaurant.” 

An email sent to The Spoon this week outlines what this “net zero energy” restaurant looks like in practice. The store is located on the Disney World property in Orlando, Florida. Among other things, it includes a solar-paneled roof, photovoltaic glass panels around the building, and an automated energy system and passive ventilation dining-room to circulate air and regulate temperature. There are also interactive elements, such as stationary bikes that produce electricity and tablet games for kids to learn more about sustainability.

But hold on. Said bikes and tablets aren’t available just yet. McDonald’s said in its email that the new location is open for drive-thru and delivery, but like other McDonald’s stores in the U.S., its dining room remains closed. Florida being one of the new coronavirus hotspots, this will probably be the case for some time.

The biggest takeaway here, though, is not about the tech-forward energy systems in place or even the giant Golden Arches made of shrubbery (see photo). It’s that McDonald’s pushing forward on sustainability initiatives is even more important right now, during a pandemic, than it would have been a year ago.

Why, you ask? Because at the moment, the restaurant industry is collapsing around us. Data from OpenTable recently suggested that one in four restaurants will go out of business permanently because of coronavirus shutdowns. For the ones that remain open or plan to open, the majority of them are struggling to even pay the rent. One can’t reasonably expect them to also use what little margins they have to develop ways to make the restaurant biz less damaging to the planet. 

But someone’s gotta do it. Otherwise we’re going to emerge from this pandemic only to find ourselves buried in an inescapable pile of to-go containers and with no clear plan on how to make sustainability cheaper and easier for all restaurants. 

That means big chains with billion-plus-dollar digital businesses must continue their sustainability initiatives, pandemic or no. Just like Amazon will invariably influence other, smaller e-commerce retailers, the moves massive chains like McDonald’s, Starbucks, etc. take always have at least some effect on the smaller restaurant players. If the pandemic ever subsides enough to let some of the dust from the fallout settle, a lot of businesses are going to need help pulling their sustainability goals back on track. Those that can afford to need to start writing that playbook now.

Uber Had a Busy Week

On Monday, Uber announced it was buying Postmates for $2.65 billion. The delivery service quickly followed that news with an announcement that it is also is starting grocery delivery in the U.S. as well as parts of Latin America and Canada through its stake in Cornershop. 

Put ‘em together and whad’ya got? A lot more competition for Uber to contend with. 

The pandemic has blurred some lines between grocery and restaurant over the last couple months. But each sector still undoubtedly has its major players. In the world of restaurant food delivery, that includes DoorDash, which still holds the largest marketshare in the U.S. It also includes Grubhub, which Uber tried to acquire but who instead got snapped up by Just Eat Takeaway.com. Combined, Grubub and Just Eat Takeaway.com will form the largest food delivery service in the world outside of China.

Over in grocery, Instacart has raised over $2 billion, and the Big Big guys like Amazon and Walmart have robust online grocery services that got many folks through the pandemic.

Uber’s simultaneous moves to expand its reach with Eats as well as diversify with grocery speak to the boost the company is trying to give its food business now that the pandemic has decimated its rideshare business. Uber posted a loss of $2.94 billion for the first quarter of 2020 and also cut staff in the recent past. But its Eats business is growing, according to first-quarter numbers. The Postmates acquisition will give Eats a bigger footprint in key cities like Los Angeles (where Postmates is the number one service). Meanwhile, online grocery is still in high demand, and with coronavirus cases still hitting new records, that demand is unlikely to change anytime soon. Now we’ll have to see if Uber can handle the competition in both the grocery and food delivery sectors.

Automation’s Next Stop? The Ghost Kitchen

Two things the restaurant industry will see more of in the near future: ghost kitchens and automation. And if The Spoon’s fireside chat yesterday is any indication, we’ll see more of both in the same place.

Yesterday, Spoon Editor Chris Albrecht discussed the state of restaurant robotics with Linda Poulliot, CEO of Dischcraft Robotics, and Clatyon Wood, CEO of Picnic. While the group covered a wide range of topics in terms of when and how we’ll see robots in the restaurant, one of the most interesting takeaways was that these machines could speed up the order fulfillment process for many businesses while also ensuring a higher level of sanitization and better ways to keep workers in the kitchen socially distanced. 

Wood, who indicated the ghost kitchen market is a lucrative one for robotics right now, at one point suggested a hub-and-spoke model where a machine like Picnic’s could prep food in a central kitchen before sending it out to smaller ghost kitchen operations for final fulfillment of orders. 

My bet is that we’ll see more of this kind of efficiency in the near future. While they would never work in a fine-dining setting, where the experience is as much about the food preparation as it is the food, this utilitarian approach to food prep makes sense for quick-service restaurants and delivery-only concepts that are all about making fast food faster.

You can tune into the video from the event by heading over to Spoon Plus. Members get access to this and past fireside chats, as well as premium reports, interviews and exclusive research.  

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Big Idea Ventures Raising $250M Fund Targeting Later-Stage FoodTech Companies

Big Idea Ventures (BIV), the hybrid VC firm-slash-accelerator, first caught my attention last year when it launched the New Protein Fund, a $50 million fund targeting seed-stage companies in the alternative protein space, and made its first investment in cell-based seafood company Shiok Meats. At the same time, BIV announced a twice-yearly accelerator program for budding alt-protein startups with locations in New York City and Singapore.

Now the accelerator is seeking its second cohort — and BIV is preparing to launch its second fund. Called Generation Food, BIV’s newest fund will target later-stage companies, Series A and beyond. It will expand its focus to tackle sustainability across the food supply chain, not just in the alternative protein space. The target amount? 250 million dollars.

I hopped on a call with Tom Mastrobuoni, a Venture Partner at BIV and the former CFO of Tyson Ventures (which invested in the New Protein Fund), and Andrew Ive, the founder and Managing General Partner of BIV, earlier this week to learn more about Generation Food. Mastrobuoni said that this fund will take a step back to tackle some of the larger, underlying issues plaguing the food system. He named six target areas:

  • Alternative Protein. With the Generation Food fund, BIV will continue to invest in alt-protein. However, they’ll focus on companies that are enabling general growth within the sector instead of particular food brands.
  • Innovative Ingredient Options. Better-for-you ingredients for healthy products including salt and sugar replacements.
  • Breakthrough Manufacturing. Improved manufacturing processes for proteins, as well as more sustainable packaging and low-waste water solutions.
  • Food Safety Innovation. Technologies that are making food safer and last longer, e.g. hyperspectral imaging.
  • Traceability and Transparency. Supply chain enhancements — but not just blockchain, which Mastrobuoni pointed out can be cost-prohibitive.
  • Logistics Enhancement. Ways to get food from A to B more efficiently, without relying so much on old-school methods like trucks.

At the same time, BIV will continue to use its New Protein Fund to fuel the Accelerator program. Thus far BIV has invested in 12 seed-stage companies through its Accelerator Program — which is split between Singapore and New York — and are about to kick off another. Ive said that he plans to start raising for the second New Protein Fund when the current one’s capital is about 75 percent deployed — in two years or so. He also plans to add at least one more cohort location.

Generation Food is a big step up for BIV, both in terms of scope and size. Ive told me that they were inspired to start the fund after speaking with large corporates, many of whom are making significant commitments to shareholders and consumers about how they’ll reduce their environmental impact — be it through packaging, water usage, CO2 emissions, etc. “Large corporates want to make these changes,” Ive told me. “They just don’t necessarily have the technologies in place to deliver on them.”

That’s where BIV can come in. Instead of corporations having to re-engineer their businesses to meet these targets, they can integrate technology from mid-stage companies which will do it for them.

Considering the volatile economic climate right now, it might seem like an odd time to launch a venture fund. But for BIV, COVID-19 is actually proving the relevance of food technology more than ever. “The pandemic is shining a light on the cracks that have always been just under the surface of the food supply chain,” Mastrobuoni told me. With the Generation Food fund, BIV hopes to drive innovation into spaces that can enhance sustainability and make the supply chain more resilient, should something like the coronavirus strike again.

Indeed, one of the things to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic is a heightened awareness around our food — where it comes from, how safe it is, and how inconsistent our supply chain can be (just try to find flour at your grocery store and see what happens). If we want to ensure a more resilient supply chain — especially in case another catastrophe strikes — we have to make our food system more sustainable now.

That’s the kind of argument that could help BIV attract the full $250 million for Generation Food.

Winners of the Next Packaging Movement by Perrier Announced

Sparkling water company Perrier today announced the winning projects of its The Next Packaging Movement at the ChangeNOW summit in Paris, France.

Announced last April, The Next Packaging Movement put out a call for startups and innovators that are creating packaging that isn’t just 100 percent recyclable, but also re-examine packaging entirely from source to end of life. Perrier received roughly 90 submissions and the company partnered with SoScience, European organization focused on responsible research and innovation.

The projects selected by Perrier were:

Biotic, an Africa-based startup that works with biodegradable plastic made from agricultural waste while creating jobs for African women.

Flexikeg, which delivers beverages in re-usable flexible kegs and already has a collaboration with Perrier.

Plastiskul, which creates micro factories for waste collection and transformation in developing countries.

The winners will each receive technical and operational support from Perrier as well as a minimum of €100,000 (~$110,000 USD), and up to a million Euros in total. Each project will also aim to bring their solution to market by 2025.

Of the winners, it looks like only Flexikeg currently has a website up, and it’s entirely in French. But from the looks of it, the flexible keg seems to be following a trend we’re seeing around of bags being employed to ship and store liquids. Bags are lighter and lay flat for easier shipping. The Albicchiere and Edgar connected wine dispensers both use bags of wine for refills, and the Olivery sends olive oil refills in pouches.

Perrier, of course, is contributing to the world’s big plastic packaging problem, but at least this is a small step in helping fix that.

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.