Startup says new sustainability board hires, engagement platform for young adults, and contract with engineering firm will move it closer to its new carbon goals.
Israeli cultivated meat pioneer Aleph Farms has unveiled new plans to eliminate carbon emissions from its production by 2025 and achieve carbon neutrality across its supply chain by the end of the decade.
The company outlined its new sustainability goals last week, announcing that it had hired engineering firm Black & Veatch to devise sustainable infrastructure that can enable large-scale production.
Aleph which "grows" beef from the cells of living cows, eliminating the need to breed and slaughter cows, has been cultivating lab-grown steaks since December 2018. It intends to open a pilot plant - dubbed the ‘BioFarm' - next year.
Didier Toubia, chief executive of Aleph Farms, said that building food system resilience for future generations was "at the core" of the company's vision. "We have to rethink the way we use our natural resources, but our sustainability approach encompasses not only aggressive environmental goals. It also targets social, nutritional and economic objectives," he said.
The company said a new dialogue platform that solicits the opinions of so-called Generation Z - young adults born between 1995 and 2005 - and the appointment of "top-level thought leaders" Danielle Nierenberg, Aimée Christensen, and Marc Buckley to its sustainability advisory board would help move it closer to its carbon goals.
Toubia added: "We are identifying challenges and bottlenecks, engaging with experts and youth leaders, raising awareness and driving innovation across the entire value chain in order to accelerate the necessary global transition of our food system into the right direction."
The firm's head of sustainability Lee Recht added: "The way food systems across the world utilise the world's finite resources wields a major influence on the direction in which climate change, food security, and socio-economic consequences will follow."
Proponents of lab-grown meat argue it will free up land for other forms of agriculture needed to feed the world's growing population, significantly reducing carbon dioxide emissions and helping address the major environmental impacts that arise from livestock production. Others argue that despite decades of research, it is still not clear whether cultured meat can be produced efficiently, at scale, and in way that does not harm the environment.
The new targets follow an exciting 12 months for the food technology start-up, which raised $12m in Series A funding in May last year and worked with astronauts to 3D print steaks on the International Space Station last September.