Podcasts about supply change

General Kalamity gets an unexpected delivery It took over a year, but General Kalamity is about to get an item he special ordered for Camp Parmenter back in 2021. It is something he never thought he would see. However, the General quickly learns that his shiny new toy comes with its own set of problems. Meanwhile, from his studio located in the tunnels beneath Middling Fair, Lenny Treetop is recording an episode of his "Basically Podcast Show." As usual, Cindy is there to serve as his unofficial co-host. But when Lenny spills some tea about what is happening in the underground labyrinth, Cindy is not pleased. She was deeded the tunnels by Romeo Sykes and the Badger People and sees them as her responsibility. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

General Kalamity gets an unexpected delivery It took over a year, but General Kalamity is about to get an item he special ordered for Camp Parmenter back in 2021. It is something he never thought he would see. However, the General quickly learns that his shiny new toy comes with its own set of problems. Meanwhile, from his studio located in the tunnels beneath Middling Fair, Lenny Treetop is recording an episode of his "Basically Podcast Show." As usual, Cindy is there to serve as his unofficial co-host. But when Lenny spills some tea about what is happening in the underground labyrinth, Cindy is not pleased. She was deeded the tunnels by Romeo Sykes and the Badger People and sees them as her responsibility. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this episode of the Transfix Take On, I'm joined by Jose Soccoro, an industry vet whose career spans from JB Hunt to OK Foods and today we're taking on a change in the supply chain! We cover everything from the dire need to treat carriers better, learning how to listen with intention, and being open to new technology that's changing the way trucking operates. You don't want to miss this one! Disclaimer: All views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Transfix, Inc. or any parent companies or affiliates or the companies with which the participants are affiliated, and may have been previously disseminated by them. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are based upon information considered reliable, but neither Transfix, Inc. nor its affiliates, nor the companies with which such participants are affiliated, warrant its completeness or accuracy, and it should not be relied upon as such. All such views and opinions are subject to change.

Welcome back to another season of Moneda Moves mi gente. This season we are talking about food: It makes the world go round. Some might say food is everything we are: An extension of our regions, our tribes, to paraphrase the late chef and journalist Anthony Bourdain. But it's also an interesting business opportunity. Last year, venture capitalists invested more than $20 billion in this space even after economic conditions had tightened. And as we know on this podcast, Latinos (alongside people of color) are among the biggest creators of business in this country. Throughout this season, Moneda Moves is bringing funders investing in the future of food and founders paving the way for intimate conversations on how they invest, fundraise and build truly scalable companies. Our panel today is from our first live event in Chicago, where we have founders from the consumer packaged goods space to the food tech space. On the mics we have Perteet Spencer, Founder of AYO Foods, who launched the company to celebrate ingredients, flavors and culture of West African diaspora. We also have Michelle Ruiz, founder of food tech company Hyfe, who brings more than ten years of manufacturing experience from the likes of Exxon Mobile. Also joining us is Shayna Harris, managing partner of Supply Change Capital, investing in early stage, high growth food tech businesses and culture-first brands. Shayna has more than two decades of experience as a food industry leader and operator. She and her co-founder Noramay Cadena just closed a $40 million fund. Congratulations! A trifecta of women that are joining us in our conversation today to talk about what the future of food looks like, from both a funding and scalability perspective. Finally, a shout to our collaborators who helped put on our first live podcast event, DishRoulette Kitchen, a nonprofit working to provide funding and education for BIPOC restarateurs across Chicago, and Industrious where the event was hosted. Let's dive in. Welcome to Funding the Future of Food.  Follow Supply Change Capital On Instagram: @supplychangecapital Follow AYO Foods On Instagram: @ayofoods Follow Hyfe On Instagram: @hyfejefe Follow Moneda Moves on Instagram: @MonedaMoves Follow your host Lyanne Alfaro on Instagram: @LyanneAlfaro Main podcast theme song from Premium Beat. Our music is from Epidemic Sound.

In this episode, we hear from Aoise Keogan-Nooshabadi, Co-founder and the COO of Supply Change. Supply Change is a social enterprise platform, which allows buyers to find social environmental suppliers based on location, trade, and social impact, enabling the procurement of everything from food and drink to marketing, cleaning, road signage, flooring, energy and more.Aoise is one of this year's winners of the Cambridge Social Innovation Prize, which is awarded by Trinity Hall and the Cambridge Centre for Social Innovation at the University of Cambridge.Cambridge Centre for Social InnovationCambridge Social VenturesFollow the Cambridge Centre for Social Innovation on:FacebookInstagram LinkedInTwitterYouTube

Today, we ‘Embrace Boldness' on She Rebel Radio with guests Aoise Keogan-Nooshabadi and Beth Pilgrim, co-founders of Supply Change and Procurement specialists. They share their bold mission, future vision and how they set out to solve a bold problem in the redirection of spending to social enterprises.    Find out more about Supply Change    Connect with host Lulu Minns Part of our International Women's Day Podcast Series & Sponsored by Natwest Top 10 with a commendation as Featured in the Telegraph 100 Female Founders to Watch List  

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Shayna Harris (@mamashayna) and Noramay Cadena (@noramayc), co-founders and managing partners at Supply Change Capital, a VC firm that believes in a future of food that is sustainability-mindful, supply chain efficient, better for you, and culture rich. They invest at the intersection of food, culture, and technology to catalyze early stage sustainable businesses that modernize the food system.Noramay Cadena is an aerospace engineer turned investor whose professional career has spanned a diverse range of operating and investing environments, from early-stage startups to Fortune 50 companies. She previously launched MiLA Capital, an early stage fund that invested in over 20 manufacturing and supply chain companies. She also leads investments for Portfolia's Rising America Fund, a micro fund investing in Latinx, Black and LGBTQIA founders. She serves on the advisory board of the Homeboy Industries Ventures and Jobs Fund, and as a founding board member of Latinx VC, an organization increasing the Latino ecosystem of funders and founders. She was appointed to the board of the Housing Authority Commission of Los Angeles (second largest housing authority in the nation) by the Los Angeles Mayor. In 2020, she was named one of 50 renowned women in robotics, one of 10 Latinas making waves in venture capital, and one of the top 100 influential Latinas in the United States. She's a Kauffman Fellow and holds a MBA, a Master's in Engineering Systems and a Bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering – all from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She's also a Director Member of the Latino Corporate Directors Association (LCDA).Shayna Harris brings an insider's eye to the industry, from architecting the 21st-century chocolate supply chain at Mars to building the groundbreaking food tech company Farmer's Fridge. She advises Fortune 100 companies and startups on navigating the fast-changing food terrain, and writes for Forbes. She has spent her career at the intersection of food, sustainability, and innovation. She's driven by a deep personal belief that food is a human right, and it should have a positive impact on all it touches. She cares to connect with people in authentic and personal ways; spanning from the farmers that she lived with and learned from in southern Mexico, Brazil, and Cote d'Ivoire, to the board rooms of Mars, Oxfam, and Farmer's Fridge. She's also a builder – she has never taken a role with a job description. Website: Supply Change CapitalLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/noramay/ and linkedin.com/in/shaynaharris/Twitter: @noramayc and @mamashaynaShow Notes: How both Shayna and Noramay ended up in the VC industry Supply Change Capital's origin story How Noramay and Shayna came to develop Supply Change Capital's investment thesis at the intersection of culture and climate in the future of food Their fundraising journey and storytelling around their thesis What differentiates Supply Change Capital The FOODS framework for evaluating founders Their Supercharge III post-investment support program in partnership with Verde Associates Their favorite up and coming food trends Some of Supply Change Capital's most interesting investments: Aqua Cultured Foods and Hyfé Foods How Shayna and Noramay stay educated in the rapidly changing future of food market How Shayna and Noramay protect their time as VCs How they've approached building out the Supply Change Capital team More about the show:The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 300+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. More about us:Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.The Vitalize Team:Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVCCaroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

"The pandemic definitely accelerated it, and helped people realize that we can't continue as normal. We have to do things, we have to act in a way that is considerate for everyone in our society." — Aoise Keogan-Nooshabadi, Co-Founder of Supply Change In this episode Meet SheEO Venture Supply Change! Co-founders Beth Pilgrim and Aoise Keogan-Nooshabadi join SheEO Activator Hannah Senior to tell us more about what Supply Change does, supporting social enterprises to make sure they're procurement ready, and meeting buyers where they're at. They also discuss: Challenges that social enterprises face in securing contracts and how Supply Change helps The return on investment of social enterprises — and how they may not always have a higher cost Impact reporting for social enterprises and buyers Building their custom tech platforms The growth of social enterprises since the pandemic Trying out revenue models as a new business Their time in the SheEO community thus far We invite you to join us as an Activator at SheEO.World. Take action and engage with Beth and Aoise, and with Supply Change on Twitter and LinkedIn.

General Kalamity gets an unexpected delivery It took over a year, but General Kalamity is about to get an item he special ordered for Camp Parmenter back in 2021. It is something he never thought he would see. However, the General quickly learns that his shiny new toy comes with its own set of problems. Meanwhile, from his studio located in the tunnels beneath Middling Fair, Lenny Treetop is recording an episode of his "Basically Podcast Show." As usual, Cindy is there to serve as his unofficial co-host. But when Lenny spills some tea about what is happening in the underground labyrinth, Cindy is not pleased. She was deeded the tunnels by Romeo Sykes and the Badger People and sees them as her responsibility. (Run time: 12 min) Lending their voices in this episode are Bonnie Kenderdine as Cindy and Chief; Paul Barrie, of the "Window to the Magic" podcast (windowtothemagic.com) as 10 Toes; and Kreg Steppe, from the "Technorama" podcast (chuckchat.com/technorama) and "The Topic is Trek" podcast (thetopicistrek.com) as the Soldier. >> Special Guest Star: Paul Barrie, from the Window to the Magic podcast>> Special Guest Star: Kreg Steppe, from the Technorama and The Topic is Trek podcasts>> Become a comedy4cast patron with Patreon and get episodes before everyone else!>> Follow us on Twitter>> Become a fan and comment on Facebook or MeWe>> Follow us on Instagram>> Call the new phone line: (213) 290-4451>> Drop us an email at podcast @ comedy4cast.com>> Not able to be a Patreon patron? Consider just buying Clinton some coffee>> And be sure to check out everything happening over at The Topic is Trek, the other podcast Clinton does>> Original cargo container image courtesy of Morten Hjerpsted from Pixabay>> Certain sounds effects courtesy of freeSFX and FreeSound.org Looking for a transcript of the episode? Find it here.

Regan Brown and Bill Mann of The G.B. Group, Inc. sit down with Luke Markes, Northern California Division Manager and returning guest, Danny Pittl, Outside Pro Rep for Northern California, both of Behr Paint. Join them as they discuss the supply chain issues and how Behr Paint was able to meet demands through the ever-changing market. 

On this episode of The First Close we interview Noramay Cadena and Shayna Harris, co-founders and Managing Partners of Supply Change Capital. Supply Change Capital invests in early stage companies at the intersection of food, culture, and technology and focuses on three verticals, (1) food and ag tech, (2) ingredient tech, and (3) culturally appealing brands. They have invested in CulinaryFlo, Zero Grocery, Aqua Cultured Foods, Whetstone Media, AYO Foods and Agua Bonita.Supply Change Capital believes in a future of food that is sustainability mindful, supply chain efficient, better for you, and culture rich.Noramay and Shayna met in 2009 at MIT while getting their MBA and in 2020, came together to form Supply Change Capital. Noramay and Shayna combine food domain expertise with tech and investing experience. Noramay is an aerospace engineer turned investor. She previously launched an early stage fund that invested in over 20 manufacturing and supply chain companies.Shayna Harris brings an insider's eye to the industry, from architecting the 21st-century chocolate supply chain at Mars to building the groundbreaking food tech company Farmer's Fridge. She advises Fortune 100 companies and startups on navigating the fast-changing food terrain, and writes for Forbes.In our conversation, we discuss their approach to changing the food system through the lens of sustainability, health, and diversity, how they leverage data and proprietary frameworks to constantly improve operations within the firm and their approach to building community and professional networks.Learn more about Supply Change Capital ›

In today's episode, host Lindsay Pinchuk is joined in conversation with Shayna Harris, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Supply Change Capital, to answer all your questions about financing and fundraising. Shayna Harris and her partner, Noramay founded Supply Change Capital in 2020 to address the enormous gap in who gets funded and how wealth is created. 97% of venture funding goes to white men. White men are 30% of our population. Today, Supply Change Capital has invested in five women-led businesses, one of which has raised over $2 million in capital. Tune into this week's episode of Dear FoundHer… for an in-depth conversation about fundraising for your business. Learn more about the different ways you can raise money and the importance of strengthening your network so you can find the right investors that will help your business succeed. Quotes • “I realized that in order to really achieve sustainability in the food system, we needed to have a lot more entrepreneurship in the ecosystem.” (07:17-07:25) • “If you're going to invest in the future of food, we thought it was critical that you were investing in entrepreneurs that represent the diversity of the U.S.” (12:28-12:35) • “Your angel investors are those first small checks that are a few hundred or a few thousand depending on the access to your network that can kind of help you get going. They are the folks that are really betting on you as a founder.” (15:44-15:54) • “The research has shown that women and people of color don't have equal access to those friends and family networks for their ideas.” (18:18-18:24) • “If there are founders in your town, network or in your industry that you admire, they can be a really good way for you to get introductions to investors.” (32:25-32:33) • “When you take venture capital funding at a certain valuation, you're going to be expected to hit some pretty aggressive goals in the subsequent months and years.” (38:02-38:10) • “When starting a business, you know you're ready when you can't stop thinking about it. You just have to go for it.” (39:32-39:47) Connect with Shayna Harris: http://www.instagram.com/mamashayna http://www.instagram.com/supplychangecapital www.supplychangecapital.fund Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe. Want even more resources for growing your business? Join the Dear FoundHer Facebook Community for more discussion with other female founders, business owners, and entrepreneurs: https://www.facebook.com/groups/dearfoundher Subscribe to Dear FoundHer on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! For more from Lindsay Pinchuk: • Visit her website to grab one of her FREE quick guides: https://www.lindsaypinchuk.com/ • Or follow her on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lindsaypinchuk/ Use code FoundHer for 50% off your first month with both HiveCast and Fireside Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

TYRANNY, CENSORSHIP, TRUCKER PROTESTS, CANADA, MEDIA, SUPPLY CHANGE, RELIGION, MONARCHY

Investing in options — or contracts allowing you to bet on which direction you think a stock price is going — hit a record high in 2020. Today's Stocks & Topics: HIMX - Himax Technologies Inc. ADR, Supply Change, SWKS - Skyworks Solutions Inc., Dividends, RBLX - Roblox Corp., IIPR - Innovative Industrial Properties Inc., The American Innovation and Choice Online Act, VAW - Vanguard Materials ETF, MMS - Maximus Inc., Quick Ratio, BMY - Bristol Myers Squibb Co., Options.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

(Featuring Melinda McLaughlin, Senior Vice President of Research, Prologis) Urbanization, digitalization, and demographics are the key trends to watch for understanding the future of logistics real estate. https://www.afire.org/podcast/supplychangecast/ The global pandemic has forever altered the logistics real estate landscape. Supply chain decisions have become more holistic, more data-driven, and more urgent than ever. Underlying this shift are the same forces of urbanization, digitalization, and demographics that have changed the way we live, work, and shop over the past few decades. The future of the supply chain and its concurrent effect on retail will determine demand for logistics real estate for years to come. So what are the trends driving demand for logistics real estate in a post-pandemic world? On this episode of the AFIRE Podcast, Melinda McLaughlin of Prologis discusses the demands of supply logistics in the age of e-commerce, as well as the changes the pandemic brought to the market. Her insights highlight broader trends in the future of logistics real estate.

How to create, and be part of, an ethical supply chain? That's the question we're addressing today, in the first of our 2021 WISE Ways to Lead webinars delivered by Pioneers Post and NatWest. The first episode featured Jo Salter, founder of ethical brand Where does it come from, who explained how to build an ethical supply chain. In part 2, Pioneers Post's global editor Julie Pybus talks to Aoise Keogan-Nooshabadi, co-founder of Supply Change, an organisation that helps social enterprises win and deliver contracts, working with buyers in the construction industry, local authorities, housing associations and corporates. She tells us how social enterprises can get themselves into the supply chain as an ethical or more social alternative, and leverage that trend to build back better, during and post-pandemic. The episode concludes with Jo and Aoise answering questions from the webinar's audience. Keep an eye on our Twitter @pioneerspost or sign up to the Pioneers Post newsletter for more info on the next WISE webinar, coming soon.

Shayna Harris from Supply Change Capital, a fund focused on the future of food, culture and sustainability, joins the show. Shayna shares how by 2045 when the "minority" becomes the "majority", food choices will change and the founders that serve minority communities in the food industry today will be incredibly successful then. She also talks to Scott about her first experiences becoming interested in the board room, how diversity can transform venture capital, how her time at Farmer's Fridge and in the coffee industry instilled her passion for operations, forming her premise for launching Supply Change.

We discussed the following issues: 1]International Supply Change. 2]Dual Front Threat. 3]Climate Change. 4]Farmer's Issue.

Podcast

We started out by discussing Barry’s illustrious career and what design thinking really means. So why Silicon Valley? Why did design thinking evolve in Silicon Valley, and how did it start? In 1979 there were only nine design firms in the Bay Area. And today we have the largest concentration of designers in the world. All the major consultancies are based here. And world-famous corporate design groups, most famously Apple. What I discovered is that there was some design activity before Apple in the 70s. And I researched further and found some more activity in the 60s. And I kept digging until I got back to August 4, 1951, which is the date in which Hewlett Packard hired the first professionally trained designer to work in what is now Silicon Valley. So Apple really came at exactly the midpoint and was a fulcrum that pivoted everything. How did Apple’s view of design as much more than just sleek products influence others in Silicon Valley?Steve Jobs said "design is not the way it looks, design is the way it works." He wanted to move us away from thinking that you can take technology and put it in an attractive box and call it design. Instead he moved us toward a more comprehensive idea that design is not something separate from the actual product. Design thinking has almost nothing to do with the appearance of products and everything to do with a strategy for creating innovative experiences. It's not the aesthetic skin, or the radius, or the fonts or the color. It's the entire experience of using a product, and it's delivering that experience. So in Apple, and subsequent generations of designers in Silicon Valley, they really began to work around that idea, and we saw a real shift in thinking. I learned from IDEO that design thinking can help develop business processes, not just products. Was IDEO first at thinking of design as more than just products? IDEO was a real pioneer in exploring the margins, exploring the perimeter around what we can call design. So at one point IDEO introduced the concept of Human Centered Design, and began to guarantee that everything that went out the door would not just look good and work well. But it would have gone through a rigorous Human Factors Analysis by very highly trained Human Factors professionals. And this really opens the door to a much wider range of ideas that feed into the design process. Do you work with a lot of companies to do organizational design work as opposed to service, or product, or experience design work?That is an increasingly important part of the practice at IDEO. It can, in some respects, be traced to a recurrent experience that many of our clients had, which is that we'd present them with something and then something internal to the culture would kill an otherwise good idea. Or cause it to go through so many reductions that by the end of it, it was not an exciting product any longer. So you've probably heard many of the standard cliches about how organizations can develop antibodies to kill off exciting new ideas. And why? Because of threats to people's positions, because of uncertainties as to where this will lead, a fear of risk, which I think is a very dangerous thing for individuals as well as organizations. So we began to look not just at the product that we were being asked to work on, or the solution we were asked to find, but also at finding a hospitable home within the client organization for that product. How do organizations design for success? I certainly don't have the answer to that beyond saying that it's imperative that you do so and that you create an effective means or modality for doing exactly that.We’re working on another project for the Los Angeles County voting district, the largest and one of probably the most diverse voting districts in the United States. They're using a voting machine that was developed in the 1960s. So they initially asked us to redesign the voting machine. And we preferred again to take it to the next largest context. So really, we’re looking at how to design for democracy. And the process included thinking not just of the person who goes to a neighborhood polling station on election day to vote, but also the guys who drive the trucks that deliver the machine to those 4,200 polling stations, the retired school teachers who assemble the machines, the volunteers working in the polling stations, and the attendant to the blind person who is voting. So gathering and solving for the greatest diversity of stakeholders is no guarantee of success, but leaving them out is a guarantee of failure.Subscribe to Supply Change on your favorite podcast player to hear more great conversations. 

Around the U.S., in more and more states, entrepreneuring farmers, scientists, and retailers are building supply chains to cash in on an untapped and lucrative market. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build an entirely new industry. There are just a few problems. It’s cash only, there’s no infrastructure, and it’s federally illegal. We’re talking, of course, of the legal marijuana trade. Ron Volpe, Chief Supply Chain Evangelist and Global Vice President Apps Business Development at Tradeshift, met with Steve Albarran, co-founder and CEO of Confident Cannabis at the National Cannabis Industry Association trade show in San Jose to talk about the complicated case of the cannabis supply chain. Here’s what he had to say. Ron Volpe: What challenges are unique to the cannabis industry? Steve Albarran: A lot of the rules are being written in real-time. The foundation for how this industry operates is new. Everything from processes and the default ways of doing business is new. And there's very little infrastructure right now. And it’s born in an era of technology. So we get to use new technology to build it from the ground up, unlike almost every other tangible product industry. It's really exciting for companies to think strategically about the best way to do things. It's also a highly diverse industry. Since Interstate marijuana commerce in the US is illegal, every state has its own regulations and structure. That represents both an opportunity and a challenge for companies like Confident Cannabis. Ron Volpe: What about the banking problem? How do you manage a business that can’t open a bank account? Steve Albarran: This is one of the toughest problems that the industry faces. Literally every stakeholder in the country wants to transition to banks. But because of legacy laws, it isn’t changing any time soon. So the way businesses are dealing without credit and banks is by using credit unions. Maybe 70 percent of operators in legal states use a credit union within that state. The problem starts when consumers at retail locations aren't able to use credit cards. This is because the credit card payment processors move money across state lines, which isn’t allowed for something federally illegal. Sometimes they're able to use debit cards. But most of the time they're obliged to pay for their products with cash. And that means that cash is accumulating at a retail store. This creates all sorts of difficulties for the retailer. It makes it more challenging to pay employees and vendors, it means armored cars are doing pickups at least once a week, and it makes it more challenging to get cash out of the store into a secure account. There’s also a lot of penalties to holding cash. Credit unions and banks don't like huge cash deposits because it creates a huge compliance burden for them. Similarly, the IRS charges a 10 percent penalty if you pay taxes in cash. So nobody wants cash. But there's really no other way to get paid at the moment. Ron Volpe: Tell us about the network of labs and how you manage quality control of marijuana? Steve Albarran: Every batch of cannabis, whether it's flower, concentrated, or edible, is highly variable from one batch to the other and highly variable from one vendor to the other. We need to know the potency in the purity of every batch. Labs have to test for compliance, and that creates a lot of data. So we needed to have a data pipeline from these labs. All of the vendors in the supply chain have Confident Cannabis accounts to test their inventory before they sell it. hat allows us to show the buyers in the market 100 percent of the inventory in any state in real-time, with all the live data they would need to assess the quality and therefore the price. Ron Volpe: What will the industry look like in three years? Steve Albarran: When the current United States administration changes, we’ll see a lot of change. It's unlikely that we'll see federal legalization in the current administration. But once federal legalization happens in the US, it'll be a game-changer. That's when all of the big companies will be able to come into the industry. So the game will instantly level up. It will be harder, stronger, tougher competition for the incumbents. But there will also be more opportunities for the incumbents because they’ll have a much larger market. Everybody in the industry today is moving the chess pieces around so that when it is legalized federally, they’ll be well-positioned. Ron Volpe: How does supply chain technology differ in the cannabis industry? Steve Albarran: We really pay attention to flexibility as a feature. This industry changes very quickly. What you think might be something that works for California today might not work six months from now. And what works for California today doesn't work for Oregon. So everything from database architecture, to product roadmap, to user interface must be flexible. Secondly, our industry is populated by SMEs. The way these companies make purchasing decisions is very different from other businesses. There's no real procurement process. So the user interface has to look and feel a lot more like a consumer app, the advertising has to look and feel a lot more like consumer advertising. A lot of the large stuffy enterprise businesses have had a hard time coming into this industry because the great people in this industry really don't want that kind of stodgy language. Steve Albarran is the co-founder and CEO of Confident Cannabis. This has been another Supply Change episode. Join us next time when we talk with Barry Katz, author, professor, and the first IDEO fellow. Download Supply Change and listen in on your favorite podcast player.

Stephen Donofrio of Forest Trends describes his organization's work with supply chains and the ecosystem marketplace. Please note that Stephen makes frequent references to his powerpoint during his discussion. He also refers to the website for Supply-Change.org. For the best listening experience, we recommend downloading these materials while listening to the talk. Resources Presentation Powerpoint Supply-Change.org Follow us on Twitter! @GCF_Eval

Beth Pilgrim is CEO and the co-founder of Supply Change, a platform connecting social enterprises with public sector organisations to help them drive impact in their local communities.In this episode, she describes how Supply Change is opening up public sector procurement to help more social enterprises win tenders and secure contracts.We cover:Beth's background and how she came to co-found Supply Change.The biggest barriers social enterprises face in accessing public sector supply chains – and how Supply Change addresses them.What lit Beth's "fire in the belly" for social enterprise and impact?Is buying from a social enterprise a riskier proposition than buying from other businesses? Some public sector procurement officers think so. Beth explains how Supply Change's due diligence process mitigates risks to buyers and helps social enterprises become public sector contract-ready.Why access to flexible social investment is so important to many social enterprises.Are there any priority areas in which the public sector is particularly interested in working with social enterprises?Why Heidi is so excited about Beth's world vision for 5 years time.How to contact Beth and Supply Change.Enjoyed the podcast? Please leave a review or rating! And if you are interested in being interviewed and are from an existing social enterprise creating a proven impact, please contact presenter Heidi Fisher at Make An Impact CIC.

The past two years have seen rapid progress in the emergence of norms and best practices for setting and implementing commitments to eliminate deforestation, ecosystem conversion and human rights abuses from supply chains. There has also been a proliferation of tools and approaches for the evaluation of company progress and performance. In this webinar, we’ll discuss how companies can use newly available tools and platforms to deliver on their supply chain commitments. We’ll also assess how they can accurately and effectively measure and demonstrate that success. We’ll discuss: • What is the Accountability Framework, and how can it be used to strengthen and accelerate company commitments? • What are the latest developments and new norms around supply chain transparency? • How the Accountability Framework and Supply Change guide corporate reporting • How companies can measure progress and outcomes related to corporate commitments Speakers: • Dr Leah Samberg, Staff Scientist with the Rainforest Alliance and the Accountability Framework Initiative • Philip Rothrock, Senior Associate with Forest Trends Supply Change Initiative Introduced and moderated by Ian Welsh, publishing director, Innovation Forum

The history lesson Let's do a quick supply chain technology history lesson. The first digital solution was electronic data interchange in the 1980s. Though very rigid and limited, it allowed a mainframe computer to be able to go through a translator and send forms and data streams off to suppliers. It was like a request for proposal, but for very simplistic one-line requirements for things like part numbers. You could also send out purchase orders in that format, and suppliers could send back invoices and advanced shipping notices. But it was rigid and difficult to add additional information, and certainly had no option for discrepancies. Then companies moved to something called material resources planning (MRP) to gain more accurate inventory management so they could tie inventory to the production line. That gave them a more accurate production line inventory level ordering process on the direct material. In the mid-90s procure-to-pay came along. These were the e-procurement tools and invoicing tools that allowed for a more robust sourcing engine that allowed for data flows outside the limits of a bill of material. So there were significant impacts on how work was done and how accurate the data was. Impact of artificial intelligence on the supply chain Over the last two years, more data has been created in the world than in all of history. Our supply chain organizations were never built to accommodate that level of data. AI, by automating things like repetitive tasks, allows us to use that data, draw insights from it, and then run a better business and a better supply chain. AI is what we've been waiting for for some time now because many organizations are data rich and insight poor. AI allows you to operate an insight and outcome driven supply chain, which is much more valuable to the enterprise.and better for your end consumers. How the “internet of things” will shape the supply chain The Internet of Things allows an enterprise to get an even better grasp on demand. Laundry detergent companies, for example, are able to measure detergent usage within a particular consumer’s washing machine and feed that data back up the supply chain. Instead of managing based on when a truck leaves a warehouse to when it arrives at a store, they’re managing production scheduling based on when a consumer uses up laundry detergent. It’s changing the way we manage all kinds of manufacturing by letting companies create and manufacture products far closer to the specifications of what their end consumers want. The data point becomes not just a way for you to manage a supply chain better, but by using the Internet of Things it allows you to know more about what consumers want as an end product. Blockchain and the supply chain One of the challenges of managing a supply chain is that you've got multiple players—it’s not just a linear supply chain. But the challenge of managing and synchronizing supply chains is not necessarily the technology, but the level of trust that exists within that supply chain. And that’s the potential of blockchain, the level of trust that blockchain brings to those relationships is potentially far greater than what we have now. Blockchain could make hiding data on one side or the other of that relationship impossible. Potentially, the shared data will be entirely transparent and everyone will be able to look at the same blocks of it. That's going to change supply chain management forever. Right now companies actually hire third-party consultants to be in the middle, cleansing data to make sure that the data is transparent. Blockchain eliminates the need for that person in the middle because transparency is built-in. Transparency in the supply chain Supply chain transparency is the dream that every supply chain organization has. For instance, it's never been more critical than it's become over the last few years to make sure that the products that you buy don’t involve slave labor, and all of these technologies bring us closer to that dream. Blockchain brings the trust, AI brings the power, and IoT brings the voice of the user to the customer.

Supply Change episode 5: an interview with Justin Dillon, founder and CEO of FRDM Welcome to another edition of supply change. We’re excited to host our first guest, Justin Dillon, the founder and CEO of FRDM. FRDM is a business platform used by Fortune 500 companies to measure and mitigate the risk of forced labor in supply chains. On how FRDM got started Years ago, before I even got into activism, I was in the entertainment industry and the music industry, and making a living by writing and performing songs on record labels. I grew up believing that you're supposed to leave the world in a better place than you found it and you're supposed to use whatever you've been given to make the world a better place. I learned about human trafficking and modern-day slavery through newspaper articles and books. And I decided I needed to make a contribution to ending it. I wanted to bring what I was good at—which at the time was music, and eventually film—to the table. I just started walking into this space saying, “how can I be helpful?” So I started going to all of the musicians that I was working with or knew from Moby to Natasha Bedingfield to the Cold War Kids. I asked them to be in a film to help drive awareness. And then I got celebrities like Ashley Judd and Cornel West. We all just got together and created this film that ended up going into theaters. I thought that was going to be the end of my journey into this, I thought “I'll make a film, I'll get back out. I've been helpful, I did my job.” What ended up happening was the film kind of took off. And it took me with it. I found myself being an accidental spokesperson for this movement. Then more and more opportunities came my way to be helpful, which led to me working with the State Department, the Obama administration, Google, and the United Nations. So that was the journey that led me to enterprise software. On seeing firsthand the appalling problems in the supply chain What I've seen in the last 10 years of working in this space is that you can get the government involved, civil societies involved and media involved in fighting the problem, but the marketplace has probably the best chance to impact change. And so for me, the journey to building the best software in the world was understanding how to connect the dots for companies by going to the source and understanding what the problems look like. I’ve done raids with police into textile mills, documented child labor in the sparkle mines of India, and documented kids getting rescued on boats in Lake Volta in Ghana. One story in particular that resonates was when I went with an undercover group into some textile mills outside of Delhi. I posed as an American buyer of textiles and walked into these mills that had four or five-year-old children working in them. And then we worked with the police the next day to go and get these kids out of these mills who were working there 16 hours a day and then sleeping underneath the tables. When we can allow children to be in charge of their destiny, they will do amazing things and change the world. People talk about disruption, scale, changing the world, and transparency. If we can connect the world's purchases, and actually start to disrupt the people that would enslave somebody, we can change the world and we can change our businesses at scale. On building enterprise software that inspires action I built enterprise software the same way I've built songs, movies, documentaries, and movement campaigns. Everything is built with the same device, which is, we're not the hero. FRDM is just here to give you the tools to be not only heroic, but successful in your business. The big lie is that people think they can't change the world and do well in business. But we have this hidden power with procurement that allows us to shape the way that the world works, where we can bring our values of freedom, diversity, and sustainability to the marketplace. It's almost like a forgotten tool for companies. FRDM helps them use it to achieve their values in the supply chain. We’re able to bring companies supply chain visibility, so they can tell their suppliers, “this is what we believe. And we want the companies we buy from, to share our same beliefs, and we're bringing the power of our procurement to the deal.” That's the most incentivizing way of creating change that I've ever seen, because everyone from your first tier suppliers to the guy that was controlling that mill has to change. On the FRDM tool and how it works It’s a predictive analytics tool that can give you a 360 view of where any kind of risk, whether environmental, social governance, human trafficking, etc. is entering your supply chain, and roughly where it enters. Most companies with their first-tier suppliers have a sense of who they're doing business with, how much they're spending on that supplier, what industry that supplier’s in, the location of that supplier, and also what products or services they sell. And bonus points if they know if it's tied to the US PSC taxonomy. With those five data points, we’re able to build or offer our customers access to a platform that can give them a view of where risk might be entering. There are all kinds of reports that are out there that are just disparate and all over the place. And they're very hard to read and synthesize. It’s hard to know where and if they impact your supply chain. So we do all of that, including anything that we might be seeing in the world. And we give you an easy way to look at all that data to measure your supply chain and see where the heat maps are for risk. You can see which companies or verticals you need to push further, which may just be classic due diligence, any type of audit reports, and anything that you might have on those particular suppliers that allow you to either investigate or push a little bit further to get that information. On vertical and business hotspots We call ourselves social tech: we're here to solve both social and financial problems in the world. Our biggest customers are financial services, healthcare, and aerospace — almost all indirect spend. These are companies that need to look at these kinds of challenges that never had a target on their back before because consumers weren't really asking for it. And what we find is some of the greatest impacts happens when you start getting the financial services companies of the world asking their suppliers these questions. But the industries that have the most problems in their supply chain are pharmaceuticals, mining, apparel, and electronics have had challenges for a while. And anything with palm oil, which is in something like 60% of the products you buy in a grocery store. So these are all things that you don't really think about when you're buying either as a business or as an individual. They have these deep back stories that would make every human want to stop them and avoid their products. So that's why we built an enterprise software company: to be able to help companies and help those people. Want to stay up-to-date on all our exciting guests and episodes? Subscribe to our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.

Apps: the secret sauce to digitization Apps are the secret sauce for supply chain innovation. The ability to digitize transactions and activities is critical to the future of supply chain procurement. As the Harvard Business Review said: “over the next five to 10 years, supply chains will change dramatically...Those who move quickly to digitize their supply chain will gain efficiencies, develop new business models and revenue streams, and create competitive advantages.” The particular power of apps B2B apps can have an incredible impact on the status quo. One app that we’re particularly fond of right now is called FRDM, an app that identifies slave and child labor in your supply chain. That’s the definition of a good business app: it solves existing problems. We have to make sure we're designing and working with app partners that are solving real problems in the market. Apps can also serve niche areas that drive activity at the center of the supply chain, element by element. So when procurement has criteria for things that matter, not just about price or quality of service, we can actually bid things out that are going to change the world. Your digitization on-ramp Companies can’t digitize their supply chain on their own terms overnight, they need a place to start. Apps are a good first step towards digitization. Hundreds of apps offer different niche opportunities to digitize a particular process for a particular company. So instead of spending a year trying to figure out your digitization strategy, just get apps. If you don't like a particular app, you can pull it out and put another one in that does a better job. You can constantly, dynamically, build your app suite to allow your users to do their jobs faster, more accurately, and more completely. Solving real problems There are a million cool consumer apps out there, but the reality is we've got to make sure the ones we’re using in the B2B world address real challenges. Consider food waste. Over a third of everything produced gets thrown away in the European market. We have enormous food shortage problems and we're throwing away a third of the perfectly good food because we don't have a way of bringing it to those in need. What if an app could create marketplaces that would help find, reprocess, resell, and transport that food? Today, in the traditional procurement space, these things are all very high touch big implementation efforts, almost impossible to leave once you get in them, and you're stuck with the same tool. But these types of app solutions are going to make it easier for a CPO to buy the products and services they need. With an app ecosystem on a platform, you're going to be able to interchange applications, build out new applications, add new marketplaces to deliver on solutions, and be dynamic, fast and digital. Supply Chain Transparency Supply chains have always struggled around visibility and transparency. Increasingly, the ability to deliver a transparency solution has become critical. Right now it requires too many tools for companies to invest in. This is one area where there's been immense innovation over the last couple of years where we could really deliver value with apps. Where will the apps space be in five years? For one, you're going to see supply chain organizations moving towards becoming “supply chain control towers,” where they're managing data, not processes. The apps ecosystem and apps will help manage processes. Secondly, from a people perspective, there will be fewer people working in traditional supply chains and more people working in the data space. Data available in the supply chain is going to be much more about monitoring processes and leveraging technology than it has been in the past. Thirdly, apps will be doing all the transactional work going forward The chief procurement officer and the chief supply chain officer will be driving so much innovation and value that they're going to have to have the skill sets to be able to work hand in hand with the CFO and the CEO on strategy. Supply chains will individually become much more valuable, and those that have the skills to deliver on innovation won't have to worry about the transactional work anymore. Subscribe to our podcast to hear more about the challenges and innovations in the supply chain. Find us on your favorite podcast service.

Episode 3: Design Thinking — engineering a better supply chain Episode three is all about design thinking. Roy Anderson interviews Ron Volpe to go deep into what design thinking is and how it applies to the supply chain. So, what is “Design Thinking?” And how does it fit in with the supply chain? To understand the role of design thinking in the supply chain, you first have to recognize that in business, “the road is littered with products and services that nobody needs.” And often the reason those products failed is because the creators were designing the products based on what they thought the market wanted, rather than what the people actually wanted to buy. Design thinking is about designing products, services and processes, always with the end-user in mind. When you apply design thinking to the supply chain, you have to think of every stage of the process, from “farm to table.” And your ultimate objective has to be designing it for the end user. Is the process of design thinking a quick exercise or a long term process? Generally, there are three steps for crafting a solution with design thinking: empathy, ideation, and experimentation. So when you apply design thinking to the supply chain, rather than thinking, “well, this is what we think somebody wants, and this is how we think the supply chain would work,” you can do something called “walking the supply chain.” That means going from a manufacturing plant to a distribution center to a store so you can understand the full journey of each product. Understanding that supply chain journey helps build empathy around both what your customers and partners are looking for. And even more importantly, it gives you a better understanding of how your end users are using your product. Another way to gain insights is through analogous observations. That means finding industries that have unique forecasting challenges, visiting a company in that industry, and looking for analogous processes that you could take back into your own organization. One example is with the forecasting challenges on short shelf-life products. So consider the Los Angeles Times. If you think about newspapers, once they make the number of newspapers they’re going to make, that's it, they either sell them or they don't sell them. So understanding how many papers to circulate and where to distribute them is really critical. If you’re in a completely different industry than newspapers, but still have challenges forecasting short shelf-life products, then understanding how the Los Angeles Times manages the challenge in forecasting might be something you’d want to adopt. **How do you apply what you’ve learned from other industries to your own? ** Every workshop should have a challenge statement, and every analogous observation should be built and designed to relate to your particular challenge statement. It forces you to seek out the tools and craft to build a sustainable supply chain rather than just focusing on the product you’re selling. Supply chain people want to learn more about supply chain innovations. And learning from other industries becomes not just a way to learn more, but it becomes a way to develop alliances with other industries and companies. People love the workshops and analogous observations. You get the excitement of learning new ideas and getting inspired by other industry innovations. But the challenge is taking your learnings, developing prototypes, and committing to agree on the things you’re going to do in the next 30 days to pilot your learnings. The hard work is continuing to have your teams together focusing on those changes after the really exciting workshop. One way to do that is to create teams from both companies to keep the relationship alive and manage the creation of those ideas over an entire year. Carrying it forward for a year requires stamina and buy-in and a dedication to see it through. Is it difficult to keep the good ideas in practice without losing momentum? The critical component is getting senior leadership to buy-in. Without senior leadership buy-in from both organizations, you’re not going to get momentum to finish the task. The reality is senior leadership for both organizations need to agree and commit to saying, “I'm in it for the long haul.” Because if they’re not, it’s just a fun exercise to do for two or three days. The greatest buy-in you get is when you’re able to launch new ideas faster than you would in any other way. And the second boost in buy-in is when your solutions that you’re generating are more innovative solutions. So how does someone like a chief supply chain officer really benefit from a design thinking process? One benefit is to develop new ideas, get them launched faster, and drive innovation within the supply chain. The other benefit that comes out of this is that the relationship is infinitely better between the two organizations working together. You should be able to answer: who's the end consumer you’re designing for? Why is it better if that person ends up with a better product and a better process, and how can you work together to make this a deliverable? Start thinking about designing your supply chain as if your supply chain was an end-user product. If you think about designing for your end user, you start thinking differently about your relationship with the supply chain. What’s the biggest concern for people thinking about implementing design thinking? Design thinking has a messy aspect to it, and finance doesn’t want to be messy. It's sometimes a little harder to get the finance team to get outside of the box and be okay with the fact that you’re going to fail fast so you can succeed faster. It's certainly good to recognize that the way a finance team approaches this kind of process might be slightly different, but it's still very valuable to have finance as a part of the process. Subscribe to our podcast to hear more about the challenges and innovations in the supply chain wherever you get listen to podcasts.

The burning question: why is it called “procurement” anyway? It used to be called “buying,” then it was called “purchasing,” then “procurement.” For awhile it turned into “supply chain management,” but it’s also been called “strategic sourcing.” Confused yet? There’s no need to be, because whatever you call it, it’s always been about buying what your company needs. And while we’ve been quick to change titles, we’ve unfortunately been slow to adapt to new innovations. Does everyone actually hate procurement? No. What it comes down to is departmental silos and lack of communication. One department might see the results of procurement and be disappointed with them, without understanding the underlying restraints and methodology that go into procurement’s purchases. In other words, everyone’s a procurement professional, but not everyone is in the profession. Think about it like this: when you buy a car, or a refrigerator, or even your groceries, you’re doing the work of a procurement professional. But buying for a company with thousands of people and internal customers vastly increases the complexity of purchasing. The definition of quality Procurement spends a lot of time deciding what is the right product to buy. Sometimes they default by saying, “it’s all about quality,” but that’s a little more complicated than it seems at surface level. For instance, why would one person buy a Honda Civic and another buy a Mercedes Benz 300 series? They’re both quality cars, but their qualities are different. Procurement has to know if the quality of the product is meeting the quality standards of the customer. The definition of quality is always different depending on whom you ask, and it can be very difficult to define depending on your internal customer. Determining what your internal customers’ specifications are for quality is one of procurement’s most important jobs. The paradox of choice Another aspect of procurement is what goes into deciding how many choices to give internal customers. A classic article, “The Paradox of Choice” stipulates that the more choices you give customers, the more likely they are not to purchase anything at all. That can be true with your internal customers as well. Roy Anderson, Tradeshift’s Chief Procurement Officer, uses an example of a company that saw its spend skyrocket on spiral-bound notebooks in August and September—not because their employees needed spiral bound notebooks for work, because their children were going back to school. In this example, what the employees were ordering through procurement was not helping the company in any way. The once and future procurement: one tool vs. apps The old way procurement solved problems was by trying to get a single tool in front of the whole organization, then forcing everyone to use it. The problem with this approach is that employees have diverse and specialized needs so the tool that might work for one department could be wholly inadequate for another. The future of procurement is much more customer-centric: you need a suite of tools that meet the needs of diverse internal customers. The power of an app enabled network is that it lets people use applications that are unique to their requirements. The result is better solutions for your company, your suppliers, and more digital activity to generate data to do analysis on. Free for you: advice from the procurement pros The first piece of advice from Roy is to listen carefully to your internal customers. You can’t understand what they need unless you are willing to devote attention to them. When you do that, you can do a better job of balancing between the needs of the whole organization and the needs of your internal customers. Roy’s second piece of advice is to communicate clearly with your internal customers. They need to understand why changes are happening and why it’s important to streamline processes, add accuracy, and get digital data. Without communicating how that can help deliver better services, it will just cause internal confusion and consternation.

Meet the women who are helping organisations improve their social impact by connecting them with social enterprises. Supply Change is one of the six social enterprises that joined Investec's social enterprise incubator, Beyond Business, in 2018. Please note: This podcast is for information purposes only and doesn't constitute a personal recommendation or investment advice. The views expressed here don't necessarily reflect those of Investec. Hear from other Beyond Business entrepreneurs · Investec · Investec Facebook · Investec Twitter · Investec LinkedIn

Investec — Meet the women who are helping organisations improve their social impact by connecting them with social enterprises. Supply Change is one of the six social enterprises that joined Investec's social enterprise incubator, Beyond Business, in 2018. Please note: This podcast is for information purposes only and doesn't constitute a personal recommendation or investment advice. The views expressed here don’t necessarily reflect those of Investec. Hear from other Beyond Business entrepreneurs

Welcome to Supply Change, the inaugural Tradeshift podcast on the future of the supply chain. The supply chain world is fast evolving with new technologies, approaches, and cultures, and the way your business strategizes supply chain operations is more important to your success than ever. That's why we’re starting a discussion to explore what really matters in today’s supply chain environment. Looking back to look forward Companies and entire industries have tried for years to address persistent problems along the supply chain. Traditionally, buyers and suppliers have a difficult time connecting with each other. Much of the dysfunction comes from company to company miscommunication, and from a procurement perspective, the industry has had a hard time catching up with innovation. So how do we fix this? Two new approaches are emerging: The role of Design Thinking in the supply chain Ron Volpe’s work centers around applying design thinking to supply chain innovation. A Harvard Business Review article featuring Ideo was instrumental in his work, leading to collaborating with Ideo to redesign supply chain processes and creating new ways to help streamline and break down supply chain silos. Procurement’s human touch Roy’s journey took him across the whole world of procurement, from Raytheon to Metlife and Mutual Insurance, to Netscape, MIT Media Labs, Goprocure and Tradeshift. And the most exciting part of all that experience in the procurement space is beyond the “bits and bytes,” it’s the human interaction of the supply chain. When you have a wide variety of customers, you have to be able to explain to them why they should use better, more innovative suppliers, even if that means change. The Grieving Process of Change And, shocker: people don’t like change. Even in the supply chain. Change can trigger the grieving process: you have to work through why something painful is happening to you and what it means for the way it’s going to affect your life. And that holds lessons for your work along the whole supply chain. You have to be more than just a technological solution, you have to be able to help your customers adapt and change and see why moving to something unfamiliar and different will benefit them in the long run, even if it doesn’t feel like it in the short term. The World is Always Changing Keeping things the same for the sake of keeping things the same has never worked, and doesn’t work in the supply chain. Students going in to school today are preparing themselves for jobs that haven’t even been invented yet, and change in the supply chain is no different. There’s going to be new relationships and new suppliers that you’ll have to find and build relationships with that don’t even exist yet in fields that you would have never expected. And that’s the exciting part of working in procurement today. Next week, we’re going to be discussing why people “hate” procurement. Join us as Roy tries to change their mind. Subscribe to our podcast to stay up to date.

How does a quick service restaurant company with over 2000 outlets change its supply chain? With the help of Compassion in World Farming, Panera has become a leader in responsible sourcing for the industry. What Doesn't Kill You is powered by Simplecast.

How does a quick service restaurant company with over 2000 outlets change its supply chain? With the help of Compassion in World Farming, Panera has become a leader in responsible sourcing for the industry. What Doesn't Kill You is powered by Simplecast.

Teaser NARRATOR Donuts, deodorant, buns and burgers. They're killing us -- and not just because of what they do to our bodies. No, it's because of what the soy, beef, and palm-oil that they're made of -- and they paper they're packaged in -- do to the environment. More specifically, it's because of the way way we get these commodities -- by chopping or degrading forests -- which is one reason that tropical forests now emit more greenhouse gasses than they absorb, according to a study published last month in the journal Science. But what if I told you we could end this by 2020 -- just two years from now? I'm not saying we can end all deforestation by 2020, but what if I told you we can purge deforestation from these four commodities -- the ones that drive most of the world's deforestation -- by ramping up ten activities that we're already engaged in -- and have been for decades: that these activities are time-tested, and they're lined up like dominoes, ready to be activated? It's like a giant, simmering pot ready to boil. Would you believe me? I hope so, because that's exactly what I'm saying, and it's not just me saying this. It's more than 250 economists, ecologists, and agronomists from around the world, and they're drawing on the experience of environmental NGOand small farming communities from Africa to Asia to Latin America -- as well as the big agribusinesses -- who are, quite frankly, the critical actors in all of this. Today we're looking at these ten activities, how they fit into 100 more that are getting a lot of attention these days -- as well as where they came from, why they work, and how you can learn more about them.   NARRATOR Earth. We broke it. We own it -- and nothing is as it was. Not the trees, not the seas - not the forests, farms, or fields -- and not the global economy that depends on all of these. But we can restore it. Make it better: greener, more resilient, more sustainable. But how? Technology? Geoengineering? Are we doomed to live on a... Bionic Planet? Or is Nature itself the answer? That's the question we address in every episode of Bionic Planet, a podcast of the Anthropocene -- the new epoch defined by man's impact on earth -- and nowhere is that impact more deeply felt than in the forests, farms, and fields that recycle our air and provide our food. Today we're looking at lists: two of them, to be specific. One involves 100 solutions that can not only slow climate change, but end it and even reverse it. The other involves ten activities that can accelerate a cluster of the big 100. In between our examination of these two lists, you're going to have to sit through a little history class -- because you won't understand where we're at or where we're going if you don't understand where we came from and how we got here. Act I NARRATOR I'm opening today's show with a book review of sorts -- a very short one like the ones that Sister Mary Ann used to ask us to deliver in her English class at Christ the King school in Chicago. It compares and contrasts two best-sellers related to Climate Change. One is called "Drawdown", and it's a recipe book of sorts... for saving the planet. I love this book. The other is called "This Changes Everything", and it's a mess. I hate it -- even though it's more entertaining than the first. What I love about Drawdown, which is edited by environmentalist and entrepreneur Paul Hawken, is that it focuses on concrete, doable ways of fixing the mess. Specifically, it summarizes 100 solutions that can not only slow climate change, but -- cumulatively -- end it and even reverse it. Of these 100, 80 already exist and are even being implemented, while 20 are listed as "coming attractions". He categorizes about a quarter of the solutions under either "food" or "land use", and they include things like green agriculture, forest protection, and indigenous peoples' land management -- all of which I cover in this podcast What I hate about "This Changes Everything" is that it's shrill, sloppy, and dismissive of workable solutions. Its basic story arc is this: "Gee, I just realized this climate stuff is serious, and so I spent a year or so investigating it, and I found that all of the so-called solutions out there only fix part of the problem... none of the fix the whole thing. We need something radical! A total reset of human nature! And I'm just the person to tell you how to do it, and it involves the post office." On the one hand, in writing the book, Naomi Klein sounded the alarm, which is great, and she even pointed out that we need to radically alter the way we run our economy... which is true... but then she dismisses anything that isn't a magic bullet like the ones that kills vampires... or is it warewolves? Anyway... and either way, she ends up floating a solution that's just as imaginary as those two creatures, while not just ignoring but actively dissing and dismissing solutions like the ones that Hawken highlights in his book  Now, I get the Daniel Burnham aspect of this -- he's the Chicago architect who said, and I quote, "Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized." So, I can see why Klein -- and, in fact, most mainstream writers -- steer clear of wonky, tedious solutions. They're boring. But our job as reporters isn't just to entertain. It's to act as a kind of scout... going out into the wilderness, seeing what's happening there -- what the threats are, how to avoid them... and then reporting back in a way that clear and concise. I'm excited about Drawdown for two reasons: first, because it achieves this, and second, because it's become a best-seller -- and it should, because these wonky, tedious solutions aren't little. Each is massive in its own right, and Drawdown looks at 100 of them. What's more, the book's goal isn't just to slow climate change, but to actually end it and reverse it. If that doesn't stir your heart, I don't know what will -- and on that note, I'd to share with you the second half of that quote, which we almost never hear. "Make big plans," he says. "Aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty." Nothing there about being simple and pithy, and the emerging solutions to the climate challenge are not always simple, but they are noble, logical, orderly, and beautiful. The Paris Agreement, for example, is a masterwork of diplomacy -- a massive mosaic of thousands of smaller agreements that respect every country and culture on the planet. Likewise, the solutions I'll be examining today emerge from diverse sectors and societies, yet they all fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, and they're also integral to the success of the Paris Agreement. I'm focusing mostly on the corporate sector, because that's where we need to focus our attention if we're going to fix this mess. The ten solutions we'll be examining in the final segment come from Tropical Forest Alliance 2020. But what is Tropical Forest Alliance 2020, and how does it influence corporate activities?  Act 2 Marco Albani We're basically a platform for private-public collaboration NARRATOR That's Marco Albani who runs Tropical Forest Alliance 2020.  MARCO ALBANI Created by US government and CGF MUSIC: Zydeco NARRATOR We're going to be focusing on two organizations today, and the Consumer Goods Forum is one of them. It's a coalition of CEOs and top managers from more than 400 retailers, manufacturers, and service providers in 70 countries. It coalesced in 2009, but traces its origin to the aftermath of World War I, when French food merchants were beginning to engage in international commerce again, and needed to know that they were getting good stuff. But they soon learned that the "war to end all wars" achieved nothing of the kind, and it wasn't until 1953 that the International Committee of Food Chains was born. This was a commercial enterprise focused on making sure farmers in far-away places were delivering good food to merchants and shopkeepers closer to home, but the parameters of quality control gradually expanded to include labor conditions and environmental impact. By the 1990s, environmental pressure groups had forced the creation of certification standards for the sustainable production of palm oil and timber & pulp, while other industry groups emerged to promote general food safety. Then, in 2009, just as climate negotiators were gathering for year-end talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, three of these industry groups -- the Global Commerce Initiative, the Global CEO Forum, and the International Committee of Food Chains -- merged into the Consumer Goods Forum, which is dedicated to promoting fair labor and environmental practices among companies whose sales add up to $3.5 trillion per year. Now, I'm not so naive as to believe that these companies are all selfless and beneficent. In fact, I even think many of them are selfish and sociopathic, as legal scholar Joel Bakan maintains. But there are ways of changing that, and these multilateral organizations are one. In fact, research from the Forest Trends Supply Change initiative shows companies that belong to organizations like the Consumer Goods Forum not only make more environmental commitments than companies that don't, but they're also much better at reporting progress towards delivering on those commitments, which is why this matters: MARCO ALBANI 2010 GCF Resolution NARRATOR Beef, soy, palm oil, and pulp & paper. There they are again -- the big four commodities responsible for most of the world's deforestation, because farmers around the world are chopping forests to grow them. So it's a pretty big deal when 400 companies line up behind a specific pledge to end that.  But, of course, it doesn't end there. Just as the Kyoto Protocol showed us that government can't do this on its own, common sense tells us that the global, profit-driven corporate sector isn't going to fix our problems on its own, either, despite what free-market fundamentalists like to believe. We need government, we need NGOs, we need indigenous groups... we need them all working together. So, in 2012, the Consumer Goods Forum and the US government launched the group we're primarily focusing on today: Tropical Forest Alliance 2020 -- or TFA 2020 -- to get all these sectors working towards the goal of changing the way we produce the big four deforestation commodities, so that by the year 2020 we no longer chop forests to do so. MARCO ALBANI And since then grown... more than 400 partners... business, producers to consumers. MUSIC: zydeco? NARRATOR So, you've got the Consumer Goods Forum representing business, and you've got Tropical Forest Alliance 2020 -- or TFA 2020 -- representing all of these diverse interests. Then, in 2014, as climate negotiators were gearing up for the Lima talks, things get serious. UN General Secretary Ban Ki Moon holds a massive rally in New York designed to turbocharge TFA 2020's mission. The result is the New York Declaration on Forests, which is a pledge to cut the global rate of deforestation in half by 2020, and to end deforestation by 2030 while restoring hundreds of millions of acres of degraded land. The pledge is endorsed by 36 national governments,  20 sub-national governments -- meaning states and cities -- 15 indigenous organizations, 53 environmental NGOs, and 52 multinational corporations. The list of companies is interesting: it includes traditional good actors like Danone, Unilever, and Kellogg's -- but also companies with a reputation for doing the wrong thing, like Asia Pulp and Paper -- a longtime environmental pariah once known for grinding pristine forest into pulp. Dewi Bramono turn story around NARRATOR That's Dewi Bramono, Asia Pulp and Paper's Director of Sustainability and Stakeholder Engagement, who we'll hear from later in the show. Most of the audio in today's show comes from an event that Forest Trends hosted in September during New York Climate Week, and Dewi Bramono's presence in that room is proof that companies can change. The New York Declaration on Forests is a big deal, because you got all of these companies publicly committing to tackle deforestation, and the declaration isn't just a simple statement, but is actually 10 specific goals that -- like all of those 100 solutions in Drawdown -- feed on and reinforce each other. The challenge is holding these companies to their word. MUSIC: ends Now we come to 2015: you've got these two global networks and this very public commitment -- how do you turn this into action? In part by getting everyone on the same page, so the governments of the UK and Norway ramped up funding for TFA 2020, and the World Economic Forum essentially adopted it -- giving it a place to live in Switzerland. That same year, the organization I work for -- Forest Trends -- launched the Supply Change initiative -- that's Supply-Change.org -- to track not just corporate commitments, but the progress that companies report, and you may have noticed I use them as a resource quite a lot. Now we come to last year -- 2016. You've got all of these commitments and all of this transparency, and TFA 2020 needed to pull it all together so we could see how far we were from the goal. They asked a dozen leading NGOs to help out, and they put a research-oriented group called Climate Focus in charge. Then, at last year's climate talks in Marrakesh, they published two reports: one focused on progress towards all ten of the goals outlined in the New York Declaration on Forests, and one focused exclusively on Goal Number Two, which says that, by 2020, we will no longer be chopping forests to produce the big four deforestation commodities. MUSIC: End zydeco MARCO ALBANI Goal Two Assessment - 1 NARRATOR Specifically, it's a mixed bag. Using Supply Change data on almost 700 companies, they found less than half of the companies that had made commitments were actually disclosing progress -- although those that did report progress were usually on track to meet their goals. They also found huge variance from company to company -- meaning some great success stories, some shining examples, and a lot of lessons-learned.  MARCO ALBANI Goal Two Assessment - 2 NARRATOR It's crunch-time, and we need to very quickly harvest the lessons of the last eight years to see what works and what doesn't. Then we need to scale up what works, and do it fast. So Tropical Forest Alliance 2020 called in "Climate Focus". They're the research-oriented NGO that led the creation of the two earlier assessments. CHARLOTTE STRECK We started with the New York Declaration NARRATOR That's Charlotte Streck, who runs Climate Focus. CHARLOTTE STRECK Then we had a series of workshops... FADE OUT NARRATOR You get the picture. They didn't just pull this out of thin air, but instead they talked to more than 250 organizations, put their findings out for review, adjusted them, and finally presented them in New York. SOUND: fade charlotte back in MUSIC: pensive NARRATOR So, let's pause again to get our bearings. We started with 100 activities that can reverse climate change, and we dove into one of them: ending deforestation, which we realized is part of a cluster of activities related to land-use and agriculture. We in turn found that this cluster was broken into ten specific goals of its own, enshrined in the New York Declaration on Forests. Then we dove into one of those ten goals -- Goal Number Two, the most immediate one: purging deforestation from the big four commodities by the year 2020 -- and we found it's doable. And now, after diving down to this one goal... we're going to open things up again... to look at the ten priority areas that can help us achieve the goal of purging deforestation from these four key commodities in just two years, which will in turn help us achieve the other 9 goals in the New York Declaration on Forests, which will in turn help us achieve a few dozen of the 100 activities that will help us reverse climate change. MUSIC: END NARRATOR Before we move on, some key points. First: Charlotte Streck This is not a step-wise approach NARRATOR And also, if we do achieve the 2020 goal, the game isn't over.  , MARCO ALBANI Need to keep long-term MUSIC: ?? NARRATOR I'm about to unveil the ten priority areas, but first I have a question for you: do you like this show? If so, would you like more episodes -- maybe better produced to boot? With a second set of ears and more time for editing? You can make that possible by giving me a good rating on iTunes or wherever you access the show; you can tell friends about me. Or, best of all, you can become a patron at bionic-planet.com I've set the patronage page up so you can support me per episode, but with a monthly cap. So, if you think $5 per month is good for a five-episode month, you can pledge $1 per episode, but with a $5 monthly cap. That way, if I don't manage to generate five episodes in a month, you're not paying for something you didn't get, and if I go nuts and deliver 20 episodes one month, you won't get whacked, either. By the same token, you can offer $5 per episode... or 10 or 50 or whatever.  I'm sitting on a ton of material -- Interviews and audio I gathered as far back as June -- and I'm itching to share it with you in ways that make sense. But I've got a day job, and I've got to pay the bills, too, and I'm not even close to breaking even on the podcast. I like the idea of being listener supported, but am also open to big sponsors, advertisers, or investors to cover my costs, hire some help, and scale this up. The web site, again, is bionic-planet.com, or you can e-mail me at steve@bionic-planet.com MUSIC: end music Act 3 SOUND: drumroll NARRATOR And now, the moment you've all been waiting for. The ten priority areas for purging deforestation from the supply chains of the big four deforestation commodities by the year 2020. Beginning with  SOUND: gong CHARLOTTE STRECK point 1 NARRATOR So, what does this mean? I'll let Michael Jenkins explain it. He runs Forest Trends, which means he signs my checks... but I think the group does good work, too, which is why I work for them. Michael Jenkins Forest Trends Illegality Report 1 NARRATOR He means illegal conversion of forests to farms or fields. MICHAEL JENKINS Forest Trends Illegality Report 2 NARRATOR Let that sink in for a moment. In fact, let's hear it again. MICHAEL JENKINS Forest Trends Illegality Report echo NARRATOR So, while we do need better legal frameworks, we also need to enforce the laws already on the books -- as Brazil showed when it slashed deforestation 70 percent between 2004 and 2014. If you listened to Episode 20, you heard how good-acting companies can also support enforcement -- something Charlotte also alluded to. CHARLOTTE STRECK companies can help NARRATOR Companies that are good with the law can also boost their bottom line by building up trust with importers abroad -- as Asia Pulp and Paper is doing in Indonesia. DEWI BRAMONO legality NARRATOR It's the right thing to do -- and it certainly can't hurt their status with global buyers. SOUND: drumroll NARRATOR And that brings us to... SOUND: Gong CHARLOTTE STRECK 2- palm certificatin NARRATOR Palm oil is in everything from donuts to soap to after-shave. You probably use it but don't even know it. CHARLOTTE STRECK Palm Oil is one of the main drivers NARRATOR Remember we talked about certification on the start? Supply Change data shows that of the big four commodities, companies are making the most progress in reducing deforestation around two of them: palm oil and timber and pulp -- mostly because we started seeing certification of these back in the 1980s. Today, about 21 percent of palm oil is certified by the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil, or RSPO. The challenge is twofold: getting consumers to pay a premium for this, and extending certification to more forests. CHARLOTTE STRECK We don't have sufficient demand SOUND: drumroll NARRATOR Then comes the next priority SOUND: gong CHARLOTTE STRECK 3 beef intensification NARRATOR "Sustainable intensification of cattle grazing"... that basically means raising more cows on the same piece of land, so that you don't have to keep chopping forests to graze them.  CHARLOTTE STRECK Beef is responsible for more... NARRATOR In episode 7 of Bionic Planet, we saw how Kenyan farmers are using agroforestry to increase milk production -- they plant trees in among their crops to pull nitrogen from the air and infuse it into the soil, and they turn the leaves into silage for their cows. That's just one solution, and there are dozens of them. Ideally, we should all eat less beef, but for now we can reduce the amount of land used to raise the ones we do have. CHARLOTTE STRECK we know that we can SOUND: drumroll SOUND: gong NARRATOR Which brings us to... CHARLOTTE STRECK 4 palm and cocoa intensification NARRATOR Cocoa is not one of the big four, but it's a huge contributor -- and it's mostly produced by small farmers working in cooperatives. CHARLOTTE STRECK More than 30 percent of palm oil and 90 percent of cocoa NARRATOR The report shows that small palm-oil producers can increase their productivity 85 percent without chopping more trees. CHARLOTTE STRECK  These smallholders NARRATOR So, that gets us through three of the big four, plus cocoa -- or cacao, as the threes themselves are called. Ignacio Gavilan what about soy - 1 NARRATOR Yes -- what about soy? That, by the way, is Ignacio Gavilan, Director of Sustainability, for the Consumer Goods Forum. IGNACIO GAVILAN what about soy - 2 SOUND: drumroll NARRATOR And that brings us to... SOUND: gong   CHARLOTTE STRECK 5 sustainable soy NARRATOR Up until 2006, farmers across the Brazilian Amazon were chopping forest like mad to grow soy, but then something changed: Companies like McDonalds -- responding to pressure from groups like Greenpeace -- voluntarily stopped buying soy from Amazon farmers who chop trees to grow the stuff. The soy moratorium is just one example of a successful multilateral effort to fix the climate mess.  CHARLOTTE STRECK it is important NARRATOR Certification programs are ridiculously expensive and notoriously difficult to manage -- I mean, this is really complex stuff. A company like McDonalds buys beef from slaughterhouses like Marfrig or JBM, and those slaughterhouses buy from thousands of small farmers. To really do this right, we have to scale up  SOUND: drumroll NARRATOR And that's where the next priority area comes in SOUND: gong CHARLOTTE STRECK 6 - accelerating implementation of jurisdictional NARRATOR "jurisdictional" means governmental -- it can be federal, it can be state, it can be county, or even city. If you get an entire state like Sabah in Malaysia or California in the United States to make sure it's farmers are producing fruits and veggies in a sustainable way, companies can buy there without spending a fortune to certify each producer individually. CHARLOTTE STRECK we have screened 34 NARRATOR The state of Sabah, in Malaysia, for example, is working with several NGOs that have coalesced into an alliance called "Forever Sabah" Cynthia Ong jurisdictional 1 NARRATOR That's Cynthia Ong, who runs a group called "Land, Empowerment Animals, People" or LEAP. She's also one of Forever Sabah's co-executive directors. CYNTHIA ONG jurisdictional 2 NARRATOR Even big companies like Asia Pulp and Paper have realized they can't access certified material on a large scale one plantation at a time. DEWI BRAMONO landscape jurisdiction NARRATOR There are scores of efforts underway -- the Rainforest Alliance is also doing great work, which you can learn about if you listen to episode 23 -- that episode will have the raw audio from this event without me interjecting every few minutes. It's kind of long, but if this episode sparked your interest, I think you'll find the full event worth listen to. SOUND: drumroll NARRATOR But for now, we move on to... SOUND: Gong CHARLOTTE STRECK 7 - land security and land rights NARRATOR This is another one we've addressed here before: indigenous and traditional communities tend to have a strong connection to their land. Studies have shown they usually -- not always, of course, but usually -- maintain their forest and want to keep it, but their legal rights to the forests are often in limbo. That leaves them vulnerable to speculators, and also less willing to invest too much in the forest CHARLOTTE STRECK Uncertainty of land. NARRATOR Another thing to remember: people in developing countries buy stuff, too SOUND: drumroll NARRATOR Which brings us to: SOUND: gong CHARLOTTE STRECK Goal: Mobilizing demand in emerging markets NARRATOR Remember earlier, when we talked about certification? We learned that 21 percent of all palm oil is certified by the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil, or the RSPO. One reason it's not higher is that people still, for the most part, buy whatever is cheapest, so it's not worthwhile for producers to spend all that money getting certified -- and that's even more so in developing countries. Kavita Prakash-Mani of WWF is working to change that. Kavita Prakash-Mani 21 percent CHARLOTTE STRECK In addition to this: domestic demand NARRATOR We're getting near the end here, folks -- so far, we've talked a lot about producers and consumers, but what about investors? SOUND: drumroll NARRATOR That brings up our next priority area: SOUND: Gong CHARLOTTE STRECK Redirecting Finance NARRATOR This is something we cover a lot on bionic planet, and it's the core of what we cover at Ecosystem Marketplace. Investors are still backing the bad actors, and they'll continue to do so until they realize that environmental bad actors are also financial bad risks -- but they'll only realize that if we all hold the bad actors accountable and support the good ones. We've seen some progress on this front over the past year, with HSBC manning up to some investments that led to deforestation and pulling the plug. You can learn more about that in an article I wrote for Ecosystem Marketplace called "Why HSBC's Recent Response To Greenpeace Really Is A Very Big Deal", and I link to that in show notes for this episode, which is episode 22 at bionic-planet.com. We're also seeing governments like Norway's stepping up with finance for sustainable forest management. Stina Reksten private-sector-capital 1 NARRATOR That's Stina Reksten of Norway's International Climate and Forest Initiative. She's helping to launch a new fund, together with the Global Environment Facility, Unilever, and IDH -- which is a Dutch sustainable trade initiative. STINA REKSTEN private-sector-capital 2 NARRATOR But that's just a sneeze in a hurricane compared to the $55 trillion global economy CHARLOTTE STRECK we have the finance NARRATOR But finance doesn't flow with guidance SOUND: drumroll NARRATOR And that brings us to... SOUND: gong CHARLOTTE STRECK data NARRATOR This is where we come in. I already mentioned Supply Change -- that's supply-change.org -- and we did another episode -- episode 11 -- focused on a platform called TRASE, which lets you trace soybeans from specific municipalities in Brazil to ports around the world. There are plenty of other efforts, and Nicole Pasricha of Rainforest Alliance outlined one that they're participating in. Nicole Pasricha point 10 NARRATOR That might sound boring and wonky, but the whole issue of comparability is critical -- because if you can't compare what different countries, companies, and counties are doing, you can't reject -- or reform -- the bad guys and reward the good Remember Ignacio Gavilan of the Consumer Goods Forum? He pointed out that member firms didn't know how much soy they used. So his group created a solution IGNACIO GAVILAN soy ladder NARRATOR Ignacio Gavilan wrapping up this edition of Bionic Planet -- which is a bit different than most episodes. I usually like to dive deep into an issue, but this time, we kept it pretty high-level. I hope to revisit all of these activities in more detail, and if you think that would be of value, be sure to help me out by sharing Bionic Planet with friends and giving me a good rating on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you access podcasts. You can also help by becoming a patron at bionic-planet.com -- where you can show your appreciation for as little as $1 per month. If today's show sparked your curiosity, be sure to download episode 23 as well. That one will contain the full audio from the Climate Week session that I harvested for this. If you're a paid patron, I will not be charging for episode 23, but rather just uploading that as a public service. Until next time, I'm Steve Zwick in Rotterdam. Thanks for listening!

Many companies, large and small, have made commitments to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains by 2020. Now, with only two more years to deliver on 2020 targets, the pressing question is: will it happen? To help address this need, Climate Focus on behalf of TFA 2020, has prepared the Commodity and Forests Agenda 2020: Ten Priorities to Remove Tropical Deforestation from Commodity Supply Chains. The report is a framework for action at the global and regional level in order to accelerate progress in addressing commodity-driven deforestation. In this webinar join experts from TFA, Proforest and Supply Change debate the new report's conclusions, and how companies can up the pace in really eliminating deforestation risk from their operations and supply chains. With Marco Albani, director Tropical Forest Alliance 2020 Isabella Vitali, Latin America co-director, Proforest Stephen Donofrio, senior advisor, Supply Change (a Forest Trends Ecosystem Marketplace project) Introduced and moderated by Ian Welsh, publishing director, Innovation Forum  

If you know anything about IKEA Group, the giant Scandinavian furniture company, you know that most of their products are made of wood, and you may even know that they're one of the "good" companies that tries to buy only products that are sustainably harvested. They've pledged that, by 2020, 100 percent of their wood, pulp, and paper will either be recycled or certified by the Forest Stewardship Council as sustainably produced. So far, they're on track to achieve that, according to the Forest Trends Supply Change initiative -- which tracks the progress companies report towards achieving environmental commitments. The Supply Change entry for IKEA shows the company was 61 percent of the way towards achieving its 2020 goal as of March of this year. Two months earlier, my colleague Kelley Hamrick at Ecosystem Marketplace published a report called "State of Private Investment in Conservation 2016", which I was flipping through this morning while researching today's show. In so doing, learned that IKEA has also started investing in forests all across Europe -- explicitly to make sure those forests are managed in ways that serve a larger public good, and in so doing help the company meet its sustainability commitments. As of January, when the report came out, IKEA had purchased about 100,000 hectares of forest in Romania, Bulgaria, and the Baltics, and it had earmarked more than 1 billion more dollars for investing in sustainable forestry. Make no mistake: they're doing this to make money, but do do so in a sustainable way, and that means this qualifies as "impact investing", which is any investment that's designed to generate both a profit and a larger public good. The Global Impact Investing Network has identified more than $30 billion of impact investments in the last three years, and Kelley's report, which I alluded to above, identified about $8 billion earmarked for impact investments specifically involving forests, farms, and fields -- all of which need to be better managed if our civilization is to survive the climate challenge. Now, $8 billion is nothing to sneeze at, but it really is just a sneeze in a hurricane compared to the $55 trillion global economy. What's more, on top of that $8 billion, another $5 billion was allocated, but went uninvested. Today we speak with Noelle-Claire LeCann and Richard Fronapfel, who run impact investment group AlphaSource Advisors and see big opportunities for people who want to make money by helping the world better manage its forests, farms, and fields in the Anthropocene

In this webinar, the findings from two new reports from Forest Trends' Supply Change initiative and the Tropical Forest Alliance 2020 are discussed and debated. While there is growing evidence that companies are setting goals to manage deforestation within their commodity supply chains, analysis shows that much remains to be done to increase the momentum toward the necessary transformational action. These two new reports show how leading companies are working towards deforestation-free commodity supply chains. Hear from expert speakers from Forest Trends' Supply Change initiative, TFA 2020, Unilever, Golden Agri-Resources and CDP.

This webinar, co-hosted by Forest Trends and Innovation Forum, examines the trends among corporate commitments to reducing deforestation from the “big four” agricultural commodities – palm, timber & pulp, soy, and cattle – which are responsible for more than a third of tropical deforestation each year. The discussion reflects on the key findings of the second annual report of Forest Trends' Supply Change project, which tracks the progress on 579 public commitments made by companies from all around the world. 

Toby Webb talks to Stephen Donofrio about the importance of bringing a range of brands, NGOs and other stakeholders together to work collectively around deforestation commitments, and about Stephen's new report, Supply Change.