Networking days
In June, a thousand representatives of businesses in the fields of food, mobility, and animal nutrition gathered in Uzwil, Switzerland to discuss how innovation, technology, collaboration, and education can address the challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss, and wealth inequality. The scale and makeup of the Bühler Networking Days event has created a potent force to help accelerate impact towards a more sustainable future.
Stuart Spear, January 2023
The Bühler Networking Days 2022 took place against a backdrop of growing climate crisis as temperatures in many places around the world soared to unusual levels. The event’s focus was a call for immediate joint action, at scale, across a range of issues. On June 27 and 28, leading academics, business leaders, entrepreneurs, and innovators argued for the urgent need to improve energy and food security, reduce waste, cut water usage, lower CO2 emissions, improve biodiversity, rethink mobility, and close the gap on wealth distribution. As the event made clear, we have the tools to address these challenges. Through technology, innovation, and education we can create a more sustainable future for all. What is needed now to realize this potential is even greater collaboration across sectors and industries – and this was the driving purpose behind the Networking Days.
“Together, we can, and we will, create a better, more sustainable, and fairer world for future generations.
Stefan Scheiber, CEO Bühler Group
The first illustration of the power of collaboration was the size and make-up of the event itself. Guests had traveled from 95 countries, and between them represented companies that feed 4 billion people and provide mobility for 2 billion people.
Opening the conference, Bühler Group CEO Stefan Scheiber described how vaccine research, advances in digitalization, and the development of communication at scale during the Covid-19 pandemic showed the potential for businesses to address global challenges. “We have experienced the power of science and innovation with industries collaborating at a new scale,” said Scheiber. “In our industries – in animal nutrition, food, and mobility – the innovation rate has never been as high as it is now, which creates impact because we need new technologies and widespread collaboration to tackle new challenges, and at the same time secure the future of our businesses in a responsible way. We need technologies, we need collaboration, and we need responsible leadership to shape the future.”
But for collaboration to work businesses need clarity of purpose. Ranjay Gulati, Harvard Professor of Business Administration, and author of “Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies”, warned that business leaders should not get too distracted by the complex metrics surrounding environmental, social, and corporate social responsibility.
He said that companies are far more likely to achieve social impact if they have a clearly articulated purpose. “The first way in which purpose can accelerate impact is by providing direction,” explained Gulati. “Purpose creates a compass and an oriented framework around where you are going in turbulent times when you have lots of things going on around you.” The professor added that focusing on social purpose also motivates and inspires employees, while a clearly expressed business motivation often provides useful clarity and orientation for business partners.
In his book on deep purpose, Gulati cites Bühler as an example of a company that has successfully adopted this approach. Bühler’s target is to have solutions ready to multiply that reduce energy, waste, and water by 50 percent in the value chains of its customers by 2025. Professor Gulati explained that once a social purpose is decided on, it must be properly explained to all stakeholders both internally and externally, so that it becomes part of the corporate DNA and is expressed through all company actions.
Dole Sunshine Company, the agricultural multinational corporation formed in 1851, has also adopted Professor Gulati’s approach. Company President Pier Luigi Sigismondi told the Networking Days audience that his company’s social purpose is to create “a more equitable world where everyone, irrespective of their age, race, income, location, or gender, has the right to nutrition that comes from the goodness of the earth”.
Purpose creates a compass and an oriented framework around where you are going in turbulent times.
Ranjay Gulati, Harvard Professor of Business Administration and author of “Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies”
Sigismondi explained how Dole Sunshine Company had arrived at the decision to frame a social purpose: “At Dole, we have emerged from 30 years of being focused on short-termism and thinking that our only responsibility was to deliver profit,” said Sigismondi. “In the Covid-19 crisis we asked ourselves, what can we do to drive our business with success and with purpose in a way that we can live with our conscience and that is meaningful for all of us?”
In the past couple of years, Dole has partnered with NGOs, businesses, and start-ups to achieve its goals. Initiatives include a target to remove fossil-based plastics from packaging by 2025, turning fruit waste into fibers to create fashion products, improving accessibility to nutritious fruit-based snacks for children, and raising public health awareness by projecting malnutrition facts onto the sides of buildings and trash cans in New York, Los Angeles, and Baltimore.
How much do we understand our supply chains? I am convinced this is where we must come together to share data and trace material flows.
Christian Klein, CEO of SAP
In a session exploring how good corporate leadership is essential for businesses wishing to accelerate social impact, Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, outlined his approach to recruiting future business leaders. Nadella explained that he looks for three key attributes: an ability to generate energy, deliver results under constraints, and create clarity when none exists. “We live in a complex, uncertain world. There will always be ambiguity in our work, but true leaders always bring clarity and make a call even during uncertain times,” said Nadella.
Speaking in the same session, keynote speaker Christian Klein, CEO of SAP, the German multinational software corporation with over 400,000 customers globally, spoke of the need for leaders to thoroughly understand their industry and business, especially when it comes to complexity within supply chains.
True leaders always bring clarity and make a call even during uncertain times
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft
“We are all on social media, sharing data all the time, and yet when it comes to businesses, how much do we understand our supply chains? I am convinced this is where we must come together to share data and trace material flows,” said Klein. “End-to-end traceability means you can think about how to measure demand in realtime and adjust your inventory right down to the raw material.” He added that it is only by fully understanding your supply chain that it is possible to improve standards on issues such as Scope 3 emissions, which include emission hot spots in the supply chain.
In a session on the power of innovation to accelerate change, guests heard from three start-ups driving sustainability through high-tech advances in cellular agriculture, satellite monitoring of restoration projects, and carbon removal. In a historic moment, Stephanie Michelsen, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Jellatech, presented the first sample of sustainably grown cell-based collagen ever to be seen outside a laboratory. She uses a cutting-edge technology to produce a smarter, high-quality collagen and gelatin with cellular agriculture.
As key ingredients for the pharmaceutical, biomedical, and food industry, the market for collagen and gelatin is worth USD 8.4 billion annually and is currently solely reliant on animal by-products. To rapturous applause, Michelsen told attendees that cellular agriculture has the potential to eliminate all the environmental damage caused by rearing livestock. “Collagen and gelatin are just the starting point for us. There are so many other exciting proteins from animals and nature that we can now grow in a lab,” she said. Jellatech is currently fundraising to move the technology from laboratory scale to a pilot project and beyond.
Clara Rowe, CEO of Restor, a non-profit start-up that uses satellite imagery to monitor restoration projects globally, pointed to three statistics that outline the climate contribution potential of restoration. “Forest restoration alone is estimated to be able to prevent up to 60 percent of the species extinction that is expected today, to improve food security for over a billion people around the world, and sequester about 299 gigatons of carbon – that is about 30 percent of the carbon that has accumulated in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution,” said Rowe. By providing greater transparency to restoration projects, Rowe argues Restor has the potential to build trust and accountability, inspiring additional investment.
Collagen and gelatin are just the starting point for us. There are so many other exciting proteins from animals and nature that we can now grow in a lab.
Stephanie Michelsen, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Jellatech
Dr. Christoph Gebald, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Climeworks, described how his company is removing CO2 from the atmosphere and permanently storing it deep in the ground to help reverse climate change. Launched 13 years ago, Climeworks now operates the world’s largest plant, built in Iceland to capture atmospheric CO2. “This technology is here to stay, and 30 years from now this industry will be very big. It will be removing CO2 on a gigaton level from the atmosphere, and it will operate synergistically with other climate change technologies like solar and wind,” explained Gebald.
Forest restoration alone is estimated to be able to sequester about 299 gigatons of carbon – that is about 30 percent of the carbon that has accumulated in the atmosphere since the industrial revolution.
Clara Rowe, CEO of Restor
During Networking Days, Bühler announced how it planned to achieve its own climate change targets. Bühler is calculating the impact of its different processing solutions on waste, energy, and water consumption, land use and CO2e footprint, which includes other greenhouse gases in addition to CO2 such as methane and nitrous oxide. Bühler is also assessing how its technological advances impact on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the benefits for circular economy. “By evaluating the impact of our solutions, we can then start tracking their overall accumulative impact,” said Bühler CTO Ian Roberts.
In 30 years from now this industry will be removing CO₂ on a gigaton level from the atmosphere.
Dr. Christoph Gebald, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Climeworks
Bühler is also using new technological solutions to track avoided CO2e emissions. Roberts explained that Bühler is now able to provide a service by working with customers to quantify their CO2e footprint. “We can do product assessments, look at where the processing hot spots are, build action plans to drop your CO2e footprint, and have it externally certified,” he said.
Bühler also announced joint ventures and partnerships during the event aimed at securing reliable protein supplies to meet demand as the global population grows. Anticipating growth in the plant-based meat market, and as a market leader in the upstream processing of pulses, through partnerships and joint ventures, Bühler is building an ecosystem offering complete bean to burger solutions.
A strategic partnership with the fine-grinding and air-classification specialist Hosokawa Alpine has resulted in the ability to engineer the dry extraction of protein from pulses with protein concentrations of around 50 to 60 percent.
Additional partnerships were announced with Endeco, a starch and protein plant design and construction specialist, Flottweg, a specialist in separation technology, and MMS, a provider of membrane solutions across the food and bio-pharma industries. The three new partners bring unique knowledge to complement Bühler’s processing solutions in the field of plant-based protein extraction.
While climate change is seen as one of the biggest challenges of our age, guests were alerted that mounting global inequality could, over the coming years, become equally destabilizing. Addressing the audience on the theme of inequality, President and CEO of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development Peter Bakker described the three biggest challenges of our time as the climate emergency, loss of nature, and mounting inequality. “I think most of you will by now have got the memo on climate change,” he said. “I would argue that you are not yet comfortable with your role when it comes to inequality. When we are all back in this room [at the next Networking Days in three years], inequality will be as urgent as climate change is today. Society is no longer going to put up with big differences in wealth and with deep structural differences in access to opportunities.” He warned the time had come for business to start talking about inequality, system transformation, the need to innovate, behavior change, and financial flows.
Society is no longer going to put up with big differences in wealth and with deep structural differences in access to opportunities.
Peter Bakker, President and CEO of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development
Izzy Obeng, CEO of Foundervine, a start-up accelerator dedicated to removing the social and economic barriers faced by today’s entrepreneurs, called for businesses to do more to improve diversity within their ecosystems and for companies to invest more in their local communities. She presented stark statistics and stated that only 1 cent in every euro of venture capital funding went to all-female teams in 2020, with 15 cents per euro going to mixed-gender founding teams. In comparison, 84 cents per euro go to all-male founding teams. Only 38 black entrepreneurs managed to raise venture capital funding between 2009 and 2019, representing only 0.5 percent of the total capital allocated over the 10 years.
“As leaders we have a real opportunity to set the standards that give a voice to those that traditionally have not had one,” said Obeng. “You must strengthen communities that have been historically marginalized and see where your companies and you as an individual can provide opportunities for financial inclusion and wealth building.”
To successfully address such complex challenges as wealth inequality, biodiversity loss, and climate change, businesses will increasingly need to depend on a skilled, resilient, and versatile workforce. During a session on the role of education in accelerating change, leading representatives from academic institutions called for greater cooperation between academic institutions and the business world to help build future skills. In particular, speakers described the need for more opportunities in experiential learning for students and called on businesses to work with local academic institutions to best achieve this.
As leaders we have a real opportunity to set the standards that give a voice to those that traditionally have not had one.
Izzy Obeng, CEO of Foundervine
“You can see companies absorbing a workforce prepared in universities or you can see companies being part of the education system, which is what we see at Bühler, and many other companies based in Switzerland,” explained Joël Mesot, President of ETH Zurich. He described the merit of the Swiss education system and the recognition of the need for a social contract between companies and society to take care of the next generation for the good of the whole community. “It means we can send our students into industry rather than an academic laboratory or they can spend a semester in an exchange with a real company. It gives them exposure and allows businesses to see talent, so that together we are bringing up the next generation of talent,” said Martin Vetterli, President of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL). Speakers also warned that the traditional model of episodic education that ended with university was no longer fit for purpose when catering for a dynamic job market requiring constant re-skilling.
First launched in 2016, the Networking Days are held every three years as an opportunity for businesses in the food, animal nutrition, and mobility sectors to share ideas while inspiring and motivating change. “Let’s ensure that over the coming months and years we are creating the impact that is absolutely necessary,” said Scheiber.
Closing the event, he emphasized the range of opportunities available to address the current global challenges. “These two days have proven how massive the potential is to drive meaningful change in so many important areas. I’m so encouraged by the countless interactions and the common desire to accelerate our impact, across industries and on a global scale. Together we can and we will, create a better, more sustainable, and fairer world for future generations,” said Scheiber.
Together we are bringing up the next generation of talent.
Martin Vetterli, President of Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL)
Gupfenstrasse 5
Uzwil
9240
Switzerland
