I hate waste. It drives me nuts; wasting time, energy, resources or food. I think about this all the time - how it affects the environment and business, when waste could be used and turned into a profit.
I’m far from the first person to make this statement, and certainly not the first person to recognise its potential for entrepreneurs.
One of my favorite examples of a business that connects entrepreneurship with sustainability is Crop Mobster, a community exchange program in the San Francisco Bay area that uses social media and instant alerts to spread the word about local food excess from suppliers in the food chain. The platform helps local businesses recover costs, prevents food waste and connects communities in a unique way. Crop Mobster is good for farmers, small businesses, locals, hunger relief groups, government agencies - everyone, really. Solutions like these address the growing food waste problem in America, where 40% of food goes uneaten (pdf). This is a major issue, especially considering the vast population that could use a nutritious, home-cooked meal.
Another successful business that has created a product out of environmental concern is Newlight Technologies. The company took methane-based carbon emissions that would have otherwise polluted the environment and combined them with oxygen to create a product called AirCarbon, a plastic that can be used in chairs, food containers and automotive parts. AirCarbon is carbon-negative, cost-effective for businesses, and it disrupts a $373bn-a-year (£241bn) industry.
Dell recognised the environmental and financial benefits of AirCarbon and is using it for the plastic packaging of laptops in a pilot program. It’s also worth mentioning the backstory of AirCarbon. The idea for the product came to founder Mark Herrema, then a Princeton student, while he was reading a newspaper story about the rise in heat-trapping methane emissions from dairy farms. He thought, why not take these harmful emissions and make stuff? Brilliant! I wish all ideas came to entrepreneurs this way!
Let’s not forget countries around the world, where there’s no shortage of entrepreneurship tied to social good. Entrepreneurs address all kinds of fundamental societal needs, such as waste removal, electricity, clean water and infrastructure, while turning a profit. RK Renew Energy PLC, for example, is a women-led initiative in Ethiopia that empowers impoverished women to produce and sell fuel-efficient stoves to refugee camps, where demand is high. Refugees benefit from less exposure to air pollution as well as a lower risk of fire incidences. The stove reduces the workload for girls in the camps and diminishes the risk of sexual violence, as girls would have had to venture out in search of firewood otherwise. Startups like these, that advance the circular economy, are what we need to foster job growth and wellbeing for citizens in every country.
In the US, we should be looking at other countries as a source of inspiration when it comes to advancing the circular economy. There’s no reason why we can’t do some good while making money, as these three startups show. Even a major corporation like Dell views these models as inspiration to continue to innovate, either by baking sustainability into existing practices like zero-waste packaging and closed-loop recycling, or funding startups that are changing the way we live.
I believe that every corporation should do the latter - help entrepreneurs with sustainable innovations at scale to really change our world. We always need to be thinking, can we reuse more? How can we cut down on waste? Benefit the environment? And create a positive impact on the community? I guarantee you, with a little creativity, every business - no matter the industry - can be inspired by an organisation like Crop Mobster or Newlight Technologies.
These startups also show us just how much Goal 8 and Goal 12 of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals are very much connected. Goal 8 promotes entrepreneurship and the growth of small and medium-size businesses, and Goal 12 focuses on sustainable consumption and production. More and more we’re seeing examples of monetised sustainability. It’s a trend I know will continue for years to come - for the simple fact that it’s good for everyone.
About Elizabeth Gore
Elizabeth Gore is the entrepreneur-in-residence at Dell, where she drives initiatives that support Dell’s goals around helping small and medium businesses scale and prosper, fueling the expansion of global entrepreneurship, thereby creating jobs that will drive the world economy.
Content on this page is paid for and provided by Philips, sponsor of the circular economy hub
