Alexsandra is on to talk about the 2019 State of Green Business Report from GreenBiz. She talks about sustainability efforts undertaken by companies with food in their supply chains like General Mills, Land O'Lakes, Walmart, Monsanto (Bayer), Danone, and more to get more carbon dioxide removed and sequestered in soils.
Full Transcript
Ross Kenyon: Hello and welcome to Carbon Removal Newsroom. I’m Ross Kenyon. I am lead strategist with Nori, the Carbon Removal Marketplace. Joining me today, I have Alexsandra Guerra. She is Director of Strategic Planning at Nori. Alexsandra, you just saw a very interesting report go live. I was wondering if you could tell the audience a little bit about it and what is contained therein.
Alexsandra Guerra: Sure. So Green Biz, for those who have not heard of Green Biz, is an organization that looks at corporate sustainability, and they’re hosting a conference next week, which I actually will be at. But they released a week ago their State of Green Business Trends 2019, and it highlights 10 trends, including deforestation, but it’s really focused on what are corporations doing to address their sustainability. And one of the trends I wanted to highlight today is which is regarding soil health. So it’s called soil health becomes fertile ground for climate action. And it’s interesting.
So Ross really wants to make this the carbon removal newsroom.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, let’s try and keep it pretty tightly focused on that, which is why you chose soil health out of all the things here.
Alexsandra Guerra: Exactly. But the news really is that they’re talking about how corporations are focusing more on soil health, but they don’t really mention carbon removal. But then they start talking about all the money that’s to be made, like $1. 5 trillion and investors and NGOs and policymakers are looking to tap into this money, but...
Ross Kenyon: Do you think it’s a sort of framing issue? Is something else maybe happening?
Alexsandra Guerra: Yeah, I think the idea of carbon removal is still nascent. People still don’t know what that means. Some people who are in it or read a cool article on Google News, oh, did you see that cool thing that’s happening in Switzerland and they’re sucking carbon out of the air? Yeah, that’s cool too. And I think that there’s some people who are aware of that. But for the most part... Carbon removal is what we make it. Because people are talking about, I mean, this whole report talks about various actions that we could take that would essentially draw down and sequester CO2, but they’re not framing it.
I think carbon removal was mentioned once in the introduction, but not at all through the vast text of the impacts, who’s spending money on it. I mean, big corporations like General Mills, Land O’Lakes, they talk about the Soil Health Institute and what they’re doing to increase soil health and fertility and how important that is to reducing the emissions of the supply chain. But they’re not really framing it from that point. So that’s my news is it’s a big thing. Lots of people are talking about it. Corporations are focused on it, particularly those in ag.
This might be old news. But if we’re thinking about it from the perspective of green business, talking about this with the lens of corporate engagement, more money is going to this. And it’s time now to start talking about us and our listeners and What exactly is carbon removal and how should we shape that conversation and lead that conversation when it comes to corporate engagement?
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, I wonder if the increasing recognition of ecological methods of carbon removal relative to industrial ones is there just seems like there’s more co-benefits that come along with the ecological ones that they’re caring about soil health. And oh, by the way, it’s also pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and storing it in a permanent or quasi permanent fashion, as opposed to just sucking it out of the air and leaving it inert as a mineral under the ocean floor under in some basalt formation.
Alexsandra Guerra: Right. And I think that’s further away. So what you just touched on, which is like this industrial or further away, you’re sucking out of the air. People are focused right now on, okay, what can we do within our supply chain, our value chain? And consequently, oh yeah, it’s sucking carbon out of the air, but they’re still thinking about it in terms of sustainability. Whereas there’s this larger play of carbon removal markets, right? Like how do we Just look at all the carbon removal that’s happening in the world and start treating them as an aggregate as opposed to like, oh yeah, it’s a side benefit of this thing we’re doing in our supply chain.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, maybe it’s just the low hanging fruit is that there’s a lot of storage available in soil and fertility goes down every year due to what’s called conventional agricultural practices. So there’s a lot of reasons to go along with this. And then, yeah, that other technology is farther off on the horizon. So maybe if you keep reading these reports the next couple of years, I wonder at what point direct air capture and industrial carbon removal might rear its head or you think will be an ecological carbon removal for the foreseeable future.
Alexsandra Guerra: Oh, I hope so. I hope in like next year, you know, 2020 report talks about how carbon removal is now being used in reporting for corporates.
Ross Kenyon: That would be, that would be very nice. Yeah.
Alexsandra Guerra: Hashtag goals.
Ross Kenyon: Hashtag goals. Okay. Well, is there anything else that we should know about this? I’ll relax the stricture against anything non-carbon removal in case there’s anything that’s super important about this that you wanted to comment on.
Alexsandra Guerra: Well, I just wanted to quickly read through their key players to watch regarding soil health. So General Mills, of course, they just hired a soil scientist to lead programs to look into this. Lando Lakes, with their sustained platform, is ripe for growth and looking to work with farmers and provide economic incentive for that. There’s Midwest Row Crop Collaborative. Patagonia, the apparel company.
Ross Kenyon: I’m literally wearing one of their jackets right now.
Alexsandra Guerra: There you go. So they’re really focused on regenerative organic practices and of course the Soil Health Institute. So those are the five key players to watch according to Green Biz 2019.
Ross Kenyon: And we will be watching them on our end as well. We’re excited about what people are doing in this space. It seems like everything is happening around soil very quickly. Do you feel that way too?
Alexsandra Guerra: Yeah. Oh, yeah. And I have one more thing I forgot to mention. I’m going to read from it. Okay, guys, bear with me. Less than 5% of philanthropic capital in the United States is invested in rural solutions. Microfinancing has been the traditional method of investing in rural areas.
Ross Kenyon: You just couldn’t help yourself?
Alexsandra Guerra: I had to do it. Nori was totally mentioned in that report.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, we’re happy about that for sure. Well, thanks so much for sharing all that with us, Alexsandra. We are happy to have your insight on what’s happening on the corporate front. And I’m sure we’ll have you back on here again soon.
Alexsandra Guerra: Thank you.
Ross Kenyon: And if you like the show, please subscribe. Thanks. Bye.
