The BioDesign Newsletter

Issue #026

Last week was Climate Week NYC, the highly anticipated climate event of the year. Coinciding with the UN General Assembly and having become a stage for many climate-related events, Climate Week NYC brings together business leaders, policymakers and campaigners to strive towards a sustainable future. 

A Pact for the Future

The theme for this year - It’s Time. Although it’s been time for a while now, the theme aimed to bring the feeling of further urgency to the climate emergency and the looming 1.5˙C temperature increase. 

Kicking off at the UN General Assembly was the adoption of a Pact for the Future from World Leaders, at the UN NY headquarters. Consisting of 56 actions, the pact aims to accelerate the progress of the Sustainable Development Goals with a particular focus on peace and security, global governance, climate change, digital cooperation, human rights, gender, youth and future generations. There are concerns that the road map to achieving the set-out goals is in the range of non-existent to blurry. 

Tech Giants Back Carbon Credits

Beyond the rink of the UN Headquarters, carbon credits were taking centre stage in many discussions. If implemented a carbon credit scheme would require companies to purchase carbon credits if they surpass their agreed carbon emission goals in a year. Carbon credits would provide the finances to support the transition from fossil fuel to renewable energy, while also incentivising companies to reduce their emissions. Major corporations including, Netflix, Meta, Nike and Morgan & Stanley have supported carbon credit schemes. 

Earthshot Finalists Announced

The Earthshot Prize brought more eyeballs to the high profile week with their Earthshot Prize Innovation Summit where they announced the 15 Earthshot Finalists of 2024. The finalists are catagorised into five Earthshots: Build a Waste-free World, Protect and Restore Nature, Clear Our Air, Revive Our Oceans and Fix Our Climate. From each Earthshot there will be one winner, with each of the five winners will receive £1M. Here is the list of this year's nominees, including NFW who partnered with Ralph Lauren for the Team USA Olympic collection. 

Notpla secure £20M as they look across the Atlantic

NotPla, the 2022 Earthshot winner, took over the Nasdaq tower in New York to celebrate, and announce, the completion of their Series A+ round that secured them £20M. With this new round of investment, they plan to accelerate their expansion into the North American market as well as continue their development of new seaweed-based packaging solutions. 

PACT secure £9M in seed round

The Cambridged-based material company also announced a successful round of equity funding. The seed funding round closed with PACT raising £9M. Similar to other next-gen material innovators, PACT are looking to industries beyond the fashion to limit their dependency on the exclusive sector. This investment will support the scaling of their collagen-derived material. Read more here.

This, of course, is not everything that happened during Climate Week NYC so for more details and stories, here’s the Climate Week NYC page.

Aisha Kuijk writes the next issue of Behind The Breakthroughs

At the heart of every innovation is a breakthrough. Our Behind The Breakthrough Series showcases the stories, challenges and insights of the designers, scientists and innovators pushing the boundaries in the sustainability space. The next issue of the Behind The Breakthroughs Series, Participating in the greatest story ever told: From roots to soles and back, is written by footwear concept artist Aisha Kuijk.

Aisha embodies nature's approach, collaborating with major brands and innovators including Timberland, and Vivobarefoot, and pioneering material innovators, like Mycl, Bananatex and Woolmark to reimagine shoes so they might coexist with nature.

In this piece, Aisha Kuijk takes us on a journey through the forest and shares her lens of how she designs footwear that feeds back into the earth.

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