 So many people have been speaking about the climate crisis, but the real question is why is it that we're still not acting at the scale and speed that is necessary? For 150 years we built up a world based on the assumption that we can exploit the planet for free and it translates to very dramatic impacts happening right as we speak. The climate crisis is the threat multiplier, which means it exacerbates existing inequities in our society. We need to remember we're on the same planet and this is the planet that we need to make sustainable for the whole of humanity. Making much faster progress toward all 17 sustainable development goals is the best pathway to adjust the future for all and public-private partnerships will be absolutely crucial to this transition. We know that this transition will require a fast adoption of a lot of new technologies and the question today is how to find the appropriate way to finance this technology. Younger generations are demanding a sense of purpose. They want to look at companies and say, I am investing with you all for this reason. The solutions are there. What we need is governments to regulate, to invest, and we need business to act with values. History will look at us, people, politicians, corporate leaders. These times require not only solutions but speed. There is nowhere else to look than the mirror. We are the ones that need to do this. Welcome to the sustainable development impact meetings and our session on how technology and innovation can help to revive momentum in the SDGs. I'm Emanuela Orsini broadcasting to you live from the World Economic Forum studio here in New York City. Now in 2015, world leaders at the UN General Assembly set out 17 sustainable development goals, the SDGs, that would put the world on a path to sustainability, equality, peace, and prosperity. Now as we approach the halfway point of the deadline they set themselves to achieve these goals, 2030, a recent report from the UN shows that the global community is falling behind. But there is hope. Innovation can be a key driver in accelerating progress towards these goals. And uplink, the World Economic Forum's open innovation platform is showing how. Founded in partnership with Salesforce and Deloitte over three years ago, uplink and its partners are creating an innovation ecosystem that is allowing purpose-driven startups to thrive. The platform has hosted around 50 innovation challenges on water security, the conservation of nature, protecting the ocean, the circular economy, and many more topics. And it's now working with these winners of those challenges. We have over 400 top innovators to provide them with the investment, expertise, and visibility they need to scale. Now over the course of the next 45 minutes, we'll hear from some of these entrepreneurs and explore how their solutions are helping to close the SDG achievement gap and about some of the challenges they face to scale. We'll also talk to members of the private sector and hear how they're supporting key innovation initiatives, learn what else is needed for this innovation ecosystem to grow. And finally, uplink will launch its newest trillion trees challenge, so stay tuned for that. Now we're delighted to have with us today two leading private sector voices on sustainability and the circular economy. Suzanne van Tilburg, Global Head of Food and Energy Networks at Bravo Bank. Thank you so much for being here. Wesley Spindler, Managing Director and Global Circular Economy Lead at Accenture. Thanks so much for being here as well. We also have two exciting entrepreneurs from the uplink community, Rodrigo Levera, Founder and CEO of Green Mining and Devine Navallisi, CEO of Devine Bamboo Group. Thank you all for joining me here today. Thank you. It's great to be here. Now Suzanne, I want to start with you. When it comes to private sectors and early-stage startups, why is this a priority? Why should this be a priority for companies like Rabbi Bank to invest in them? Yeah, I think as an established bank, we are a cooperative bank with 125 years of roots, very active throughout the value chain. And what you see is that there's a lot of efforts in reaching the SDGs and taking all the stakeholders in that value chain alongside with us. And what we see, there's an urgency to modernize, incentivize and sustain that value chain. And in order to do so, it's just not enough to stick to traditional ways of financing, for instance, producing or consuming. So on all those levels, you do need innovations to find creative solutions, but also accelerate those transition pathways already out there. Look at regenerative agriculture or alternative proteins. So Rabbi Bank, for instance, is not an institute that can prescribe what is a healthy diet, but we can invest like in insect-based joint ventures, or we can invest in plant-based alternatives. And that can prove case the appetite for consumers, whether there's really a market for this, because what we can do as a bank is unlock that access to finance and to markets. So I think basically the startups, scale-ups are really helping us to unlock so many new potentials that we never, ever could reach ourselves. And next to that, it's a next-gen speaking. I don't want to generalize, but it's usually the voice of youth, and we think it's extremely crucial to really be aligned with the desires and ambitions and the top-of-mind worries and concerns of that next generation. So that's also, I think, indirectly addressed through startups usually. And can you give an example of how big established players can help to level the playing field for startups? Yeah, it's a good question, because as a bank, it's very difficult to finance startups, because we are financing big food corporates, large farmers, so there's like a venture capital usually, because the risk is just too high. So we could find alternative ways to just help a match-make, for instance, these scale-ups to large food corporates. So we have a program called FoodBytes that is really focused on food and ag solutions and is connecting startups and scale-ups to larger food corporate companies or investors that do have that specific funding to bring in that venture capital. And another way is just organizing global events. We have an FNA NEXT, Food and Agri NEXT event every year, in which we have European startups and scale-ups addressing a large public, including the policymakers from the EU, for instance, with lots of new ideas and new creative ways of addressing food and agri solutions. So there's different ways of doing that. It's just not only about the money, I think, though it's important of course, but there's other ways to get there. And have you seen some so interesting solutions that you like to share? Oh, too many. I wouldn't like to just highlight one maybe, an intriguing one that was brought under my attention only last week. And I still have to identify how it really works, but it's about a true price and how we can unlock, let's say, the true price in that value chain so that people do price in the externalities on the environment, societal health costs, bear in mind it's 12 trillion of health costs that we are faced with as a society, but also 7 trillion dollars that is just leveraged to another generation in the future because it's environmental costs, not priced in right now. So in order to avoid prices getting even higher beyond the inflation we already have, there seems to be a true price startup now experimenting and I'm going to establish contact and that was because of the forum's session that we got in touch. So thanks to you as well. We are even expanding, let's say, our horizon on new, very creative and exciting ideas. Okay, amazing. Now, Wesley, over to you. You have also been a long-time partner of the forum. Accenture has been a long-time partner of the forum. You've run three circular economy, accelerated programs in partnership with Amplink as well. So can you tell us about the types of technologies you've seen emerge over the last few years and the impact that they're having? Yeah, firstly I would say technology is really one of the cornerstone principles of how we look and assess the innovators coming into the program because we do feel technology is so important not only for circularity but it's also important if you cut across all of the various sustainability topics. So it's something we look for and it's not just digital technology, although that is very key. It's also physical technologies and biological technologies and actually what we've found, we've worked with 50 startups as you're aware over three years from 19 different countries, all sorts of solutions across all sorts of sectors and every single one of them has deployed at least one or more technologies in their innovation. So I think that's just a demonstration of how critical technology is to innovation and to scaling up. And I think when it comes to the digital tech in particular, we look at things, we've seen everything from metaverse to AI to big data, so on and so forth that organizations are utilizing just to mention a couple examples. Eon who was part of our first cohort, they work in the fashion industry and they've essentially provided a digital product passport for fashion products to provide more transparency, more traceability, and ultimately help reduce the footprint of those products across the lifecycle. Topolytics is another really interesting company. They use big data to really help bring visibility to the waste challenge, whether that be governments and regional actors or whether that be private companies, they can provide the visibility necessary to help the collection and recycling at end of use. So most companies don't know where things go after they exit their doors, but their solution brings that necessary visibility. So dozens of examples, those are just two ways that technology and in particular digital technology is really accelerating some exciting solutions. And have you seen these scale and how can they scale rapidly enough to achieve the goals? Yeah, we've seen scale in a number of ways for these innovators and in relation to their technologies, we've seen them integrate with partners like SAP, for example, and be able to really get into the systems and the implementations that all organizations go through. We've seen these innovators scale in terms of the partners and the customers that they're able to connect with that are looking out for these technologies. So an example, one of our organizations went from literally a handful of customers to 1500 because through the program, they really evolved their business model. And they're able to leverage the combination of technology and their solution and their story to get to such a wider audience, obviously, they have something that the market wants. And we're also seeing funding come in. And I was super pleased today, even we heard in an earth shop prize session, which is co-chaired by Prince William for the innovators in that program, again, who have technology at their core are of the 15 members of the new cohort for the earth shop prize. So that's another way. So I could go on and on, but a lot of ways that we're seeing the scale, the momentum building behind these disruptive innovations. Okay, amazing. And Rodrigo, this is a good segue to you. Can you tell us a bit more about the technology that you use in your startup, GreenMining? Sure. GreenMining is a startup on reverse logistics. So we are pretty much about trying to help retrieve more materials from urban areas back to the supply chain of the companies. And the main part is guaranteeing that we have 100% labor compliance, because nobody wants to have in your supply chain someone that was explored on labor force or child laboring. So to guarantee that everyone that touched the material, that collected material, have guaranteed we made a traceability system with using blockchain, where we have georeference information, a photograph, and all the material is weighted three times in the chain to guarantee that everything that was collected in every single place, can be a condominium, a bar, a restaurant, anywhere, was the same material and everyone that touched that material to its get to a recycling facility. So we have all the information, all the data. We started operating it and now we can make anyone operate with our system. So technology is really the driver to guarantee that we have traceability in a traceability way for recycling. So improve recycling, having more feedstock, ways of engaging people, technology can help everything happens. So you're based in Brazil, Sao Paulo. Can you tell us a bit more of the impact that you've had so far since you've founded your startup? Well, we are in Sao Paulo, but we are operating eight different states already. And I think there's two main parts of the impact that we talk about the ASG a lot. I usually say that the G should come first, because if you don't have governance, you don't know if you have social and environmental going on. But the point is that on the social part, we started hiring way speakers. So we signed a labor contract. That's as we started in 2018 to guarantee 100% labor compliance, but with the ones that know better about collecting materials, guarantee full personal protection, all the labor rights, everything, all taxes being paid. So this was the first enabler to us to connect with big companies and big international that are our clients today. So they couldn't connect with recycling before, because more than 90% of what was collected in Brazil was made by informal workers. So how can they connect with this system, this market? So the way that we made was a first connection to first availability of that. And now we develop new ways of guaranteeing total formalization of their revenue. So with a new project with the group of Ocicario, which is factory price station, we impacted more than 1,500 people getting, making them get their revenue, get more than 400 times better than before. So it's a huge change we're doing. So that's all the social part. On the environmental part, well, we are reversal justice. We were recyclables as much more recyclables we can get. So pretty much about additionality on the recycling system is less material that we have to explore from the nature. So this is a total 100% substitute. And that's what we want to have more euro mining, more green mining than the regular mining. Okay, amazing. Devine, let's go over to you now. Can you talk a bit about your company, why you decided to start it and tell us more. Thank you. My company is Devine Bamboo. We are based in Kampala, Uganda. It's a forestry and energy company using bamboo to tackle the issues of deforestation and climate change. We do that by producing a high heat blended briquette, which is an alternative for unsustainable cooking methods like firewood and charcoal. So in Uganda, like in most of Africa, over 90% of the population rely almost entirely on charcoal and firewood for their cooking needs. So this leads to a loss of about 200,000 acres of forest every year. And so we need sustainable solutions. So for example, just I think in the past month, the president issued a ban on charcoal production because it's such a huge problem. But I feel like and that's where the partnerships come in. We need to work with the private sector and the government to make sure that people have alternatives. It's not enough to just say charcoal is not good. You cannot cut the trees, but we need to have alternative solutions. Yes. So are you seeing interest from investors or partners, even in Uganda or on the African continent, in climate-based solutions like yours? Absolutely. We are. Since we started seven years ago, we've seen a lot of interest, not just from the consumers, because first of all, the bamboo briquettes, they cook twice as fast as traditional charcoal. They are more affordable. So on the client side, people are happy to use them and to recommend them. So through word of mouth that is growing exponentially and we have more demand that we can fulfill. But also from partnership side, we are working with non-government organizations like WWF. We are also seeing interest from multinationals, for example, DFCD, which is the Dutch fund for climate and development, who is looking for bankable nature solutions. So they've approached us and as well we are seeing interest from local development banks. So because the problems are huge, the solutions are there, but the private sector does need the collaboration between ourselves but as well with other sectors. So I'm happy to say that we are seeing a lot of development and interest in what we do. Okay, that's great to hear. So you two are two uplink entrepreneurs that are here as part of uplink day, as part of the Sustainable Development Impact Summit, but you're not the only ones. We had a huge community come to New York this week. It was part of the uplink innovation system, about 70 community members. We had about, I think, 30 top innovators, over 12 top investors, partners, funds all come together to collaborate, make connections in and around SDIM. And coming week I spoke to some of them today here in the studio, so let's take a look. The decarbonization goals that we have in the world are immense and the best numbers that we can find is that only a little more than half of that decarbonization is going to come from existing solutions. The other half has to come from things that have been discovered but not deployed or deployed but not at scale. And so what is the number one thing you look for when investing in a startup? Extraordinary humans who by dint of their force of will can push out the dome of the universe and bring something to life in an accelerated time frame that would not happen in business as usual. Hi, I'm Matthew Nord and I'm a general partner of the Soul Adventures. So my name is Joost. I'm the CEO and co-founder at Plan Blue. All right, and where are you based? We're based in Germany. My name is Bo Wang Takudi. I am a co-founder and CEO of a company called Armorsy. Hello, my name is Felipe Cardoso. I'm the CEO and founder of Echo Plan Plus from Brazil. We developed an innovative efficient production system for recycling lubricate oil plastic packaging. So this is a technology for contaminated plastic and this is very disruptive because it does not use water, it does not generate waste. So this is a new concept of recycling that we want to deliver to the society that recovers the contaminant and deliver a high quality recycled raw material to become packaging again. So thus creating a true circular economy. The oceans are very much an unknown area and as a former marine biologist, I really want to show how important the oceans are for many, many different reasons. And as a diver, I have seen the seaford degrade in front of my eyes and it's very important that we visualize this. Plan Blue does basically underwater remote sensing. So we have a technology that allows you to look at the seaford in very, very high detail but beyond the normal cameras. We deploy a technology called hyperspectral imaging which allows you to for example visualize the carbon sequestration potential of seagrass or how healthy it actually is. Armorsy is the climate smart marketplaces for medical supply starting with our own product which are circular PPE including recyclable washable medical gals lab coat and also fire resistant clothing. I am a Ph.D. material scientist by training. I see the gap in the safety PPE market firsthand. We are creating a new personal protective brand and e-commerce platform for high quality climate smart products. All right. And so why are you here today at Uplink Day and here at the sustainable development impact meetings? I'm here today because we want to connect with some investors with other startups. I think we have a lot of challenges, similar challenges to grow up our business. Just being able to share our missions of Armorsy to protect people on the planet and then also make connections that would foster and grow our company mission. Well I'm really excited for meeting new potential investors because we're doing a series A round. So I'm really excited about you know link up with ocean-minded people as well and really try to take Plan Blue to the next level. And as an entrepreneur what is one thing you need to grow your company? I think it's the realization that you don't know everything and you need support from others to help you actually go the next level. Nobody can can do anything alone so we need some partnerships, the right partnerships to grow up our business. What is one thing you would like to demystify about investors and funds that maybe startups don't know? I was an entrepreneur twice. I raised venture money both before becoming a venture investor and then after and I thought that the investors across the table were magical superheroes from outer space somehow capable of something I was not. At every interaction that illusion was shattered and I think the main thing is to be able to see the world from the other person's point of view to have empathy on both sides of the table and figure out how to help each other achieve one another's goals. It was great to hear more from the community and their biggest takeaways from uplink day their hopes from climate week so thanks to the whole community for being here. So now back to our panelists by the way Felipe you and Felipe that we just heard from Rodrigo you work with him can you talk a bit more about that? Yeah it's very interesting because he was a participant of this year 2023 I was from 2022 and I do the reversal logistics so he's one of my recyclers let's say I supply him one of the suppliers for sure with the bottles the oil bottles that we collect in meccans with maintenance of cars so we go there collect those materials and bring him to him and he says amazing amazing patent technology to recycle without using water so it's really really being recognized all over the world his his technology because it's unique it's preserved water and we love to work together because it's good for the world we have we do it with respecting people and he does respecting the earth. Yeah that's great great to see the collaboration among our circular economy entrepreneurs now I want to focus more on nature based solutions so Suzanne over to you why are nature based solutions so important to consider when we talk about startups achieving progress towards the SDGs and do you see funds ready to invest in them? Yeah oh the funds are coming yeah it's just how to get there now I think nature based solutions are are more essential than we realize and I think the narrative has been completely wrong so far so Food and Egg was always to blame and of course there has been a lot of pollution we we know a lot of problems were caused because of food and agriculture but if you look at the solution going forward there's not a more natural bigger carbon sink than land we talk about windmill parks and about solar parks but never about land parks and it's there for free the water is there for free the problem with water is there's no value on it there's no price on it so I think all in all if you talk about nature based solutions you talk about investing in nature and unlocking natural capital and that's that has to be priced when we are looking at innovation and startups they can prove how it really can ultimately be the one solution that can help convince farmers for instance with GPS monitoring on how carbon can be sequestered so without innovation without technology it isn't it isn't even possible to have nature based solutions because you need the data you need the definition of impact so what is the change in the land that is causing let's say a better let's say less reduction of biodiversity less food and waste loss how can we for instance improve soil health and then measure the impact in the soil on biodiversity or on the carbon sequestration so it goes hand in hand technology innovation goes hand in hand with nature based solutions because it's simply too complicated sometimes too locally determined also to just randomly put a price on it like we did with just producing agricultural products in the past this is about producing natural capital and it's an uncharted territory that requires technology and who are the other actors missing for getting on board on to this yeah to getting on board as well yeah I think what is missing actually is kind of a global alignment on on standardized definitions and frameworks I've been in sessions today with the COP28 UAE presidency and a very good initiative of a Boston consultancy group and will business council for sustainable development to really have a non-state actor involvement in COP28 addressing regenerative agriculture you could fill hours with discussing what is regenerative agriculture so we also said today let's at least try to define some principle KPIs on what needs to be done in that field so that at least we can improve that impact and we can also try to scale the region ag practices what we do miss however is also the regulatory frameworks that do allow those practices but also the incentivizing payment schemes reward schemes for farmers practicing that so it's very difficult to have a level playing field and explain to farmers across the globe what's in it for them what's their business case what's their return on investment of investing in soil health or region ag or agroecology whatever you want to name it so there's a lot still to do but there is a huge potential and we discussed the potential of Brazil with the COP30 presidency coming up they have gold in their hands to help define together with the UAE presidency and the others and all the stakeholders involved to set public private corporation tracks that can really unlock the potential of nature-based solutions but once again with a huge role for innovation so this is the real enabler that is explicitly recognized by the UAE presidency in the COP28 program and we're happy to see that just like finance finance and innovation yeah yeah exciting so divide maybe building on that you know can you talk a bit about the power of partnerships and connections for you also to help startups like yours accelerate um so again since our incorporation seven years ago we have benefited from so many introductions and partnerships from multinational corporations like WWF so for example we started out working with WWF Uganda we later worked with WWF in the Netherlands and in Switzerland and then WWF Switzerland introduced us to a family office who then invested in Divine Bamboo but even locally we've seen partnerships for example with the National Forest Authority again because of the huge deforestation challenge that we have in the country we were allocated some parts of degraded forest reserves that we can replant with bamboo and from those partnerships we were able to work with private foresters who then sometimes led to connections with for example the Ministry of Energy and then obviously how can I forget to mention uplink and the world's economic forum again this was somebody a friend of mine reached out to me and said there's this challenge I think you'd be perfect for it I just had a baby so I was I had in slips in like a week or maybe more but I thought it was really important it seemed like a very good fit for us we applied and a few months later we were in and even though it's been a few months I can already see there's a lot of potential with uplink so first of all I'm very grateful to be here in New York the connections we've made the introductions so I mean the est achieving the estuages cannot be done by one company or one sector it has to be we all have to come and work together and so we've been a beneficiary of that and I see a lot of potential for scale if we keep doing that if we keep collaborating within ourselves as startups so for example Rodrigo could have some insights when we were at the sales force meeting this morning we had a table full of entrepreneurs there's a lot of synergies to explore so again collaboration is very key if we are to achieve the estuages and I want to focus a bit more on the circulars accelerator program was focused on circular economy so your program has helped accelerate progress towards the estuages can you tell us a bit more what were some of the elements from the program that helped this and and Rodrigo you can build on that as being part of the program yeah I think the you know the program's goal is to build momentum as I said we see circular economy as a solution a solution set to environmental good whether that be you know waste improving production and consumption biodiversity nature so on and so forth so that in alone in of itself we think touches a huge amount of topics and across a number of estuages in addition to that the I think the impact the program's really had is coupling that with business value right so supporting organizations the startups that are part of our program in addition to a lot of the multinationals and other sorts of organizations that engage and enabling them to create business impact and and scale so doing environmental good is is critical and it is enabling estuages to move forward and but also being able to innovate being able to have these organizations grow and seeing that that impact across a number of of business domains is is also really key so our goal with that is to keep growing to keep seeing these solutions scale and take them to market in new ways and create new types of partnerships and collaborations that we we just haven't seen before and those again that are really really needed to help us move forward to our goals given the amount of time that we have left to 2030 and you see the business community latching on and also motivated with all of the collaborations that you're you're working with yeah absolutely I mean I've been working in this space specifically in the circular economy for over a decade now so I feel like I've seen quite a bit in and how the movement has evolved and I think when we look across the spectrum and the narratives that are out there the programs that are going from pilots to large scale the variety of stakeholders that are engaged the different types of companies are engaged the depth to which things are being done I think there's a lot of shift particularly in the last sort of two to three years and what that's hopefully leading us towards is using circularity as a concept for transformation right so that we are creating businesses of all types which are restorative of course but also are resilient and are also relevant and that I think is the the true transformation that we need to push towards next I think I can make it very tangible with examples because during the the program the support that was team the Accenture teams gave us to understand better to fit our solution to the market and mainly understanding our doubts the things that we have to build it to have a better product a better service was fundamental to reach the the complete service that we want to provide and then it it went to become an enabler for new clients to come in because we had the the problem much more complete after the program and the second part is about after the program because once the problems it just starts it never ends because the community that the circular has with uplink give us the opportunity to be in much more spaces much more forums and be real be known by the market and make connections and promote about the partnerships I love the SDG 17 partnerships it's fantastic and uplink is an amazing partner with the circular that helps those connections to help happen with government with companies we have so many stories from Davos I had the opportunity to go there and companies that are starting to let's say be more confident on working with us and opportunities that happens like in a snow pitch from one side to the other and then the prospect become a client so this kind of things is about the magic around the circular's uplink and that was opportunity that we had now I want to talk a bit about some of the barriers that are still left you know you've made amazing progress what else what are the some of the biggest barriers that you need to overcome to really accelerate well I think we are very focused on look on our clients so we love to attend the clients go for not new clients and I'm very let's say proud or happy on the results we've been growing twice each each year less to a couple of years but the funding is fundamental is very important and well the Brazilian market of VCs or funding we almost doesn't have impact funding going on and the numbers are very lower than the rest of the world so we're still crawling on that part I would say and that's another part that is very important to be here to be around the international VCs are much more let's say mature on that and it helps a lot and as you said the regulation government must be more fast on the new technologies the new opportunities because it can be faster if we have some regulation enablers to help to guarantee that all the law is being accomplished but maybe to be faster and can be faster and I was going to say that Brazil is very happy and very excited to receive the COP 30 and I think this can be a game changer from Brazil because it will be the first COP in Amazon in Brazil so we're very proud of receiving divine what about you any barriers that you see I would say that being seven years away from 2030 we've had about what seven eight years from 2015 while we've seen some change and some steps in the right direction I feel like we can do a lot more and we can move faster so for example I didn't mention that the government has been supportive in terms of policy for example so we have a lot of good policies in Uganda you have the bamboo policy you have the SDG you have the impact like there's a lot of policy there's a lot of theory and that's good but I feel like we need to to have more action we need to move faster so I would like to see like a little bit more speed from for example the public sector and then in terms of funding as well yes we've seen good developments from the funds like the DFC DE and the development banks but I feel like we could see Africa could benefit from more capital and I think yesterday with the session with agriculture with President Ruto of Kenya as well as Secretary Yellen they talked about this the gap in the funding in the middle where you have companies that are too big to get microfinance whereas they are too small for commercial finance from banks and so it would be very beneficial to see a lot of that investment coming to fund SDGs like the no-poverty gender equality access to energy to really accelerate the gains we've seen in the first eight years so we need to move faster that's what I would say so I'd like to ask you all are you hopeful we'll achieve these goals by 2030 Wes? That's a tricky question there's you know a lot that needs to be done as was said but I think I am hopeful because I've seen the transformation start I've seen a lot of evolution in a short amount of time and I do think we have the solutions we have the innovations we have the technologies that we need it's now about coming together in the right ways creating the right interlocks and really thinking outside the box you know to create unique scenarios where we we can drive new systems right and I think it really all comes down to us needing system changes regardless of the the topics we're talking about around the SDGs and and those systems aren't possible if we you know don't have a program like uplink to make some of those connections and and those communities happen so I am hopeful a lot to be done as was said but I think we have the solutions we need to be able to pivot in the right direction I'm totally positive I'm always positive so you can guarantee that what depends on us on the on entrepreneurs and and this this community this ecosystem that you all created it's amazing I think you can do a lot of progress and I'm very hopeful as well because we have seen progress the progress is going maybe not in the right velocity the right speed but it's coming and it can be speed up if we have the right investments and the way that investments come it needs to have like the balance of the credibility of the needs to be let's say no so not so risky we know but it's important because we know that the market needs that so it's a lot of companies needs what the entrepreneurs are doing so that's why there are clients there are payments there are things going so I think they're from inside there's no no big risk going on I think that you cannot be in this space and not be optimistic because first of all that's the fuel that keeps you going you have to be optimistic you have to know and to believe that things will get better because again you come to a forum like this and you see all these amazing startups you see all these funds and all these people from government like there are a lot of people who are doing their very best to make it happen and again if we keep collaborating and if we keep up the partnerships and connections I'm very optimistic that it will happen we will hit the goals yeah I'm very optimistic especially because of the voice of the youth they are going to determine our future and I love that my son is very critical my daughter's she says a vegetarian but she loves a bitter ball on the Dutch's neck with a lot of beef in it so that's okay some concessions still to make but but there's one thing I think what we need and that is more finance actors also in this field because if I look for instance at the forum we have beautiful conversations in Davos every year and it's so striking that in the food systems dialogues finance is invited so we have beautiful conversations and also in the nature positive discussions finance is invited and quite active around the table but in the finance dialogues there's not a lot about food systems transformation or about nature it's really about like the regular standard frameworks around finance governance or rules and regulations and so I think that that is something that we could improve so it's a call to action to our co banks we're a cooperative bank and we love working together with other banks but we really hope that there will be more private sector finance institutes deep diving into those transitions and see how we can together unlock that finance because we cannot do it alone so now I want to talk about our newest up lake challenge the trillion trees restoration at scale challenge which is opening today for submissions so we're looking for solutions that enable forest restoration at scale delivering carbon sequestration biodiversity conservation and livelihood generation opportunities to help revive our natural ecosystems so Suzanne can you tell us a bit more about the types of innovations that you're looking for with this challenge yeah it's so exciting I think trees are underestimated I mean they can help preserve biodiversity they can help manage water they can even protect against thunderstorms and things like that so priceless and if you look at how there's so much potential in providing a business case for instance with carbon credits through carbon sequestration Rabo Bank came up a few years ago with an idea born in Davos I have to say this because my CEO was sitting around the table with Microsoft CEO and they were discussing like okay so we heard examples of Costa Rica saying hey why is net natural capital actually not priced it's strange I do so much with my country to contribute to to nature and environment in the world so and then that made them think and then my CEO and Microsoft CEO they went sit around the table and they said well we could actually help unlock data and see if we can get small-scale farmers into agroforestry planting and then sequestering carbon that was a great idea that idea was born a few years ago it's millions of farmers already being helped supported in the program called acorn in which the GPS monitoring makes sure that you can have the right data in which there's a good high quality carbon credit generated that did the price of $31 last year at the auction which is quite high for a carbon credit so that's amazing but there's another program trees for farmers which is about degraded land about not actively used farmland with regular farmers that are banking with Rabo Bank and this is how we want to unlock even more planting of trees with that they can get the carbon sequestration and the carbon credit so an extra business case but there's three types of innovation and that's why we love the uplink challenge and see how we can gain traction and get complementarity on other innovations and scale-ups and startups because the innovation is not only in the business model with the carbon credits that will be generated ultimately it's also about the remote sensing that is our own in-house remote sensing so there's a lot of modern technology making sure we can get like this objective data and verification and monitoring data and thirdly and I think that's a very important one it's a kind of more soft innovation and finance innovation in the sense that we do see that there's this transition gap so usually there's a rental let's say period for like seven years and then a grace period of two to three years that's the biggest risk because the real pivotal moment in time where you can have a break-even point to get that revenue and the carbon credits is like in seven between the seven and ten years so who's gonna bridge that gap because regular loans are only for seven years the ten years and that's where blended finance comes in as a very important crucial innovation so we have an Agri three fund together with the Dutch government with EFAT and many others in which we can de-risk that period so the first seven years for 40% and eight till the 10th year for 100% de-risking that will ultimately help the farmers to be convinced that they can cross that bridge so yeah very much looking forward to all kinds of financing or technology or other related innovations that can make this one of the best uplink challenges ever well thank you so just a reminder for those watching 10 so for this challenge 10 to 15 winners will be selected and then they'll be recognized as uplink top innovators they'll become part of the uplink innovation ecosystem and they'll get access to selected world economic forum events like this week's SDIM they'll also get visibility through our form and uplink social media channels as well as targeted support and networking opportunities so if you have a solution for this challenge make sure to log on to uplink and apply before the deadline October 31st so that brings our session to the end thank you all so much for being here it was a pleasure thank you we hope you are all inspired by the innovative tech solutions helping our world become a more sustainable equitable place and how these solutions can help us accelerate progress towards the sg's now whether you're an innovator funder expert or anyone looking to get involved with the uplink innovation ecosystem make sure to visit our website now to close our session we're going to take a closer look at the trillion trees restoration at scale challenge thanks again for tuning in well there's a huge opportunity here and when you start to look at the value of our natural global biosphere some people have argued that the conservation restoration management of those natural assets may start to rival the whole tech industry and that's why you do see a lot of the tech companies jumping into this space and looking for opportunities because if we did end up truly getting a price on nature that reflected its value to human society it would be worth trillions and trillions of dollars and so there's a lot of opportunity to build new innovative models that can grow and and prosper in this space