Giant Leap's impact highlights in 2022
Small Steps Vol. 66: Showcasing metrics for people and planet 🌲; hopes for plastic recycling in the bin🗑️; and tipping points for COP27 🚀 .
Kick start
😃 We are incredibly proud to share our Portfolio Impact Highlights, showcasing the work of our incredible founders in FY 2022. Quick snapshot, our portfolio founders:
Saved the equivalent emissions of almost 12,000 cars taken off the road for a year
Measurably improved the health of over 20,000 people
Supported over 120,000 women in the workplace with fairer policies.
What we’re thinking about
🗑️ Life’s fantastic, without plastic. Last week, it was revealed that RedCycle, which claimed to be Australia’s biggest recycler of soft plastics, had been stockpiling millions of plastic items in warehouses and was shutting down operations. Meanwhile, the Founder of Terracycle, a US based recycling darling with mega customers including Nestlé and Walmart, is “really stressed right now” after documentary producers found they had sent soft plastic waste to Bulgaria instead of recycling it in the UK.
Turns out, recycling soft plastics is complex, expensive, and has little reward for efforts, which is why just 9% of Australian plastics are recycled. And Judith Enck, a former Obama-appointed EPA leader believes plastic recycling “will never work” (which probably explains this guy’s whole vibe).
For us, the controversy has increased conviction that the best solution is to design emissions intensive and environmentally harmful plastics out of our lives at every opportunity. We’re excited by the amazing founders creating biodegradable and reusable alternatives, or redesigning supply chains.
🚀 Tipping points for climate tech. With COP27 underway, there’s a huge opportunity to help more countries reach their tipping point for climate tech: the point after which requisite investment and infrastructure has been set up, and rapid adoption occurs. These charts of clean technology adoption suggest the tipping point threshold for solar is 5% of total generation capacity, and 87 countries have reached it.
To grow that number, we’re looking to developed countries to address funding gaps for developing countries and make good on promises to provide up to $100b in annual climate transition funding (after falling short by more than $50b last year). Another takeaway from the graphs - Australia has surged ahead in rooftop solar (#1 at 16% of total energy production capacity) and batteries (#2).
New paths
🧠 Seer Medical is hiring clinical and marketing roles.
🛫 Swoop Aero is on the lookout for flight operators and engineers.
🧻 Who Gives A Crap is seeking Senior Product Managers.
💥 Tripple, an impact family office, is looking for a General Manager.
🔥 Also, check out our Giant Leap Fund jobs board for over 80+ available positions or fill out our expression of interest form. There’s even more jobs at ethical companies on the global B-Work job board.
Giant leaps
💡 Evrnu’s recyclable fabric was featured in TIME’s best inventions of 2022. With national clothing brand agreements in hand, they’re building a new facility powered by clean energy to recycle up to 17,000 tonnes of textiles every year.
🌲 Cat and Jo, founders of carbon management platform Trace, were fearless in their $1m Seed raise - and Giant Leap is delighted to be on the journey!
For the road
💪🏽 Backing indigenous business. As we reach the end of Indigenous Business Month with its headline message “Actions Today, Impact Tomorrow”, Humans For Good put together this great resource of indigenous businesses we can support (including choccies, art, and popcorn), as well as other ways we can support and learn about the community.
💌 Prime time for impact brands. Currently, our food system generates an estimated negative value to the tune of -$1.9 trillion when you factor in its hidden cost on environment (e.g. emissions, land use), health (e.g. obesity, pesticides) and society (e.g. modern slavery). Impact brands like Who Gives A Crap and Oatly change the game because they remove these hidden costs, helping consumers live their values. And as consumers vote with their wallets, the impact brand is on the rise: 35% of consumer goods companies founded in 2020 had an impact mission, up from 3% in 2005.
🤸♀️ Accelerating impact-driven women. Applications are open for SBE’s accelerator program, which aims to fuel growth of women-led businesses. Speaking of, Amazon announced a $53m commitment to women-led climate tech businesses - bonus points for impact.
🏥 Healthtech consolidation. While funding has dropped in healthtech, acquisitions are actually on the rise as companies running out of cash seek a quick sale to a larger organisation. Rockhealth breaks down M&A archetypes to watch for in this acquiring environment, such as buying companies to buy growth (i.e. inorganic growth) in a recessionary market where organic growth has slowed.
🩺 Dr. Youtube. In an interesting step for healthcare, Youtube will let doctors and nurses apply to be labelled as reliable, aiming to add credible medical advice to Youtube’s content feed of pet videos, reactions to pet videos, and reactions of reactions of pet videos.
🤔 The older we get, the less we laugh - and laughter is one of the most powerful ways to build bonds, generate creativity, and strengthen resilience.
🎵 Lesson here: get giggling, asap. This might help.