My entire career has been centered on creating and marketing advanced technologies – as I often say, I’ve been lucky to have a front row seat to decades of innovation in a wide variety of emerging tech-driven market sectors. Today, as the world becomes more and more aware of the impacts of climate change, it is technology that plays an increasingly impactful role in driving sustainability as an engine for climate justice. One area where this is particularly evident is in the alt-protein sector, where innovations in plant-based and cellular meats are rapidly advancing us towards the elimination of factory farming.
Why is this important? Factory farming is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. According to the United Nations, animal agriculture accounts for around 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, with the majority of these emissions coming from livestock such as cows and pigs. This is where companies like Rainier’s client Steakholder Foods come in. Formerly known as MeaTech, the Israeli food-tech company is at the forefront of the alt-protein revolution, using cutting-edge technologies to create meat products that are cruelty-free, sustainable, scalable and delicious.
Steakholder Foods uses a combination of 3D printing and cellular biology to create meat products that are biologically identical to traditional meat but without the environmental impact. This means that consumers can enjoy the taste and texture of meat products without contributing to greenhouse gas emissions from factory farming.
The alt-protein sector is exploding in Israel, with a number of innovative companies like Steakholder Foods leading the way and dominating the press. In fact, Israel is becoming known as a hub for food-tech innovation, with a recent report from Startup Nation Central and the Israel Innovation Authority revealing that there are currently over 800 food-tech startups operating in the country. Time Magazine wrote that the Israeli government is promoting alternative proteins as an economic growth engine, a technology to mitigate the climate crisis, and as a food security asset. And last year, Israel’s Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology named food tech as one of five national R&D priorities.
While the alt-protein sector is making strides in reducing the environmental impact of food production, another area where innovation is driving sustainability is in renewable energy. Solar photovoltaic (PV) technologies are experiencing rapid advances, with the International Energy Agency stating that solar PV is now the cheapest source of electricity in history.
One company at the forefront of this growth is Rainier’s client NexWafe, a German solar wafer company leading the charge to significantly improve the efficiency, cost, and footprint of solar panels. NexWafe is driving nothing short of a revolution in solar energy through a technology process called epitaxy. NexWafe’s resulting products are thin, engineered green wafers that are more efficient and less expensive than traditional wafers and sit at the heart of a modernized solar panel. A McKinsey report on the European “path to competitiveness” in the solar supply chain expects “new technology companies like NexWafe to have GigaWatt-sized [solar wafer] capacities by 2024 to 2025.”
While sustainability technologies are not a brand new thing, the domain has certainly gained a great deal of momentum in recent years. To me, it’s a powerful statement that technology businesses have come to pursue not just opportunism but also altruism.
Another key indicator is the meteoric rise in impact investments, those investments made with the intention to generate positive, measurable social and environmental impact alongside a financial return. In October 2022, the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), an international think tank on impact investing, released a study that estimated the private impact investments grew to approximately $1.2 trillion at the end of 2021 – up 63% since 2019.
In its 2022 Energy Transition Investment Trends report, low-carbon economy analyst firm BloombergNEF noted that “climate-tech” companies, i.e., those developing technologies and business models to decarbonize the energy, transport, buildings & infrastructure, industry and agriculture sectors, raised a total of $165 billion. NexWafe, as an example, has already raised €65M from 12 investors including big names like Ecosummit, InnoEnergy, Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures and Reliance New Energy Solar.
Clearly, investors and technology businesses alike increasingly aspire to do well by doing good.
From our perspective as a long-time tech PR firm, our client portfolio at Rainier Communications is noticeably shifting towards more and more green technologies that are designed to enable a more sustainable world for us all.
Our team enthusiastically embraces the idea that technologies that can help change the trajectory of global warming and can be instruments of environmental justice. Frankly, it is extremely gratifying and fulfilling for us to represent these impact innovators. In our central role helping to publicize these companies, we sit in yet another front-row seat, witnessing firsthand this tectonic shift towards green technologies. And we always have been, we at Rainier are committed to doing our own part by giving sustainable technology businesses a “credible voice” in the marketplace.
Image caption: Born out of a deep connection to a beloved culinary tradition and a passion to pass it on sustainably, Steakholder Foods applies advanced biology and cutting-edge 3D bioprinting to make real meat sustainable, delicious, and clean.
