According to the World Bank, annual waste generation is expected to rise from 2.01 billion tons in 2016 to 3.40 billion tons in 2050. That’s an increase of 70 percent. This, countered with China’s banning of imports of recycled products, has increased the need to look for more innovative and long term solutions to manage the world’s waste.
One company encouraging such solutions is Chivas which holds an annual competition for social entrepreneurs, the Chivas Venture competition. Right now, there are 20 finalists vying for the top prize, and the winner, who receives funding to grow their business, will be announced at the TNW Conference in May in Amsterdam. Here are five of the 20 finalists who are turning their attention to transform waste into profits.
#1 Copia — Food Waste
Hunger exists because of a lack of logistics; not for a lack of food, says San Francisco-based Copia which brings logistics and partnership working to address the issue of food waste. The startup works with communities in two ways: To help businesses track and manage their food waste and to donate edible excess food to those in need. Now operating in 13 US cities, this year Copia will feed three million people with high-quality food that would otherwise be in the trash.
Copia has been defying the status quo since day one, says founder and CEO Komal Ahmad. “We don’t settle for the way things ‘have always been’ — we strive to break boundaries and push innovative thinking. In 2016, we partnered with Super Bowl 50 to execute the first-ever zero food waste Super Bowl. And we were invited to partner with the Academy Awards to ensure that for the first time ever, no food went to waste during Oscars weekend.”
Winning the competition would allow them to open in over 200 new locations and grow their team to help more hungry people in need.
#2 Revive Eco — Coffee Grounds
As former bar and café workers, the Scottish Revive Eco founders saw coffee grounds being chucked in the bin on a daily basis. Wanting to do something about this waste and the UK’s annual production of 500,000 tons of coffee grounds Revive Eco are now on their way to diverting every ounce of that away from landfill.
It wasn’t an easy road. “Initially we knew very little about how we were going to go about creating a solution to this problem,” admits co-founder Scott Kennedy. “Coming from a non-technical background, we were naive enough to question everything and try to find methods to do things differently from day one.
In addition, they also extract natural chemicals from the coffee grounds which form the basis for a substitute to palm oil and thereby offer a more environmentally friendly alternative for the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries.
“Our mantra is very much that we strive to create a profit with purpose,” says co-founder Scott Kennedy. “Social impact is engrained in everything we do, and our very business model ensures that profits and purpose go hand in hand. The more coffee grounds we collect and process, the greater revenue we generate, which then enables us to grow and process more and more material.”
Funding from Chivas would allow Revive Eo to launch their first industrial coffee ground processing plant, increase their processing capacity from 5kg of coffee grounds per hour to over 100kg per hour and produce more sustainable materials to disrupt global industries.