Sustainability (ad)ventures
2 February 2021 | 5pm 7pm
Join us for Sustainability (Ad)ventures, pioneering sustainable food solutions approaches on Tuesday 2 February at 5pm GMT.
This dynamic online event chaired by design and circular economy entrepreneur, thinker and do-er, Clare Brass, founder of Department 22 and creator of the Royal College of Art's SustainRCA initiative, will introduce several creative design entrepreneurs and pioneers of new sustainable food solutions in their businesses. Guest speakers include the founders of Provenance, ZELP, Aeropowder, FreshTag, SafetyNet and Bug Recipes.
Don’t miss the opportunity to talk to Clare and our founders at this interactive sustainability online event!
Sign up for free:Â http://bit.ly/InnovationRCASustainabilityAdventures
Chaired by Clare Brass
Clare Brass is co-director of Department 22, creative agency for sustainability and circular economy with a focus on the food sector, working with clients including Sainsbury’s, The Co-op and Marks & Spencer. She was head of sustainability at the Design Council before setting up SEED Foundation, working on user-centred environmental challenges such as food, water and waste. She set up and ran SustainRCA at the Royal College of Art where she was also senior tutor and head of entrepreneurship for the Innovation Design Entrepreneurship programme. A mentor for the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, she teaches regularly for Imperial College Business School and Brunel University. Since Lockdown, Clare and her colleagues have been working on a revolutionary new way of enabling more people to access better food.
Guest Panelists
Jessi Baker (Provenance)
Jessi is the founder of provenance.org. Provenance is a platform that empowers brands to take steps toward greater transparency. With their software, businesses can share information and stories about products and their supply chains, including verified data to support those statements powered by blockchain. By connecting this information to things – in store, on pack and online – we can all discover the origin, journey and impact of our products to enable more positive, purposeful purchases. Jessi is an Art and Science hybrid, with a Master’s in Engineering from Cambridge University and Design from the Royal College of Art. Across the US and Europe, she has worked with many brands on technology and digital design strategy including Adidas, The Four Seasons, The Guggenheim Museum, Will.I.Am, British Airways and Louis VuittonÂ
Francisco Norris (ZELP)
Francisco Norris is an Argentinian-Italian design technologist with a farming background. He holds a Master’s Degree in Information Experience Design from the Royal College of Art, and has experience developing technology for Google and Panasonic, amongst others.
Francisco is the founder of ZELP and currently leads a team of engineers and scientists in the development of an innovative technology capable of neutralising methane exhalations as they are emitted by cattle, while gathering unique data to increase welfare and productivity on-farm.’
Ryan Robinson and Elena Dieckmann (Aeropowder)
Ryan and Elena are the co-founders of Aeropowder, a circular economy startup tackling the problem of waste feathers.
They met playing badminton, and by chance they were both studying at the same university. At Imperial College, Ryan received his PhD studying the effects of air pollution on the lungs, Elena graduated with a MA in Innovation Design Engineering from the Royal College of Art and has recently received her PhD after investigating the potential of waste feathers from Imperial College.
They both share a passion for solving tangible problems in the world and a desire to create a more sustainable future. Their work with Aeropowder has culminated with the release of pluumo, the world’s first feather-based thermal packaging material for deliveries. Their goal is to enable the local production of sustainable materials, anywhere the world, wherever there are feathers.
The pair have been recognised for their work by becoming an Echoing Green Climate Fellows (2017) and being featured on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe List for Social Entrepreneurs (2017).
Rui Xu (FreshTag)
Rui Xu is a young entrepreneur who founded FreshTag, a sustainably produced, pH-sensitive packaging solution to eliminate food waste in 2019. As a recent graduate designer from RCA, it has always been her dream to combine science with art to produce a fruitful result which bears not only business value but more importantly social-economic impacts that benefit the society and shape our world.