Impact In Sight (by Interseed.co): Recent Episodes
Interseed
Impact In Sight highlights stories of founders and funders driving Green Innovation.
This podcast was produced by Interseed (interseed.co). Interseed helps founders and talents grow their impact in the food & agriculture, clean energy, and circular economy.
In this episode, we spoke to Maria Svantemark, co-founder and CEO of SustainLab. SustainLab is a sustainability management SaaS helping companies spend less time on data handling, and more time on accelerating change.
We invite you to join our conversation with Maria, who is currently based in Stockholm, to hear about:
- Maria's journey into entrepreneurship
- SustainLab's unique team culture
- And how SustainLab builds flexibility into its product
LightBlue reconciles sustainability with business excellence, capitalizing on their unique 8 years of practical expertise in the field of Food Waste Prevention, and 12 years in sustainability performance. They highlight the business case of preventing food waste, building a performance-based strategy integrating key departments and leveraging new metrics that impact your bottom line.
They guide, train and accompany organizations in integrating circular business models to move towards zero food waste to landfill and low carbon operations.
Also, LightBlue recently has been awarded by the United Nations: Best Small Business (among 2,000 applicants)! How cool is that?
Timestamp
00:27 What is Interseed?
00:52 Interseed updates! 50 users sign-ups! Look out for September!
02:08 What is LightBlue Environmental Consulting
03:45 Knocking on doors to find opportunities
04:35 Focusing on food waste over time in hotels and the beginnings of LightBlue Environmental Consulting
06:50 Starting with basic methodologies of tracking
08:55 Releasing their digital food waste monitoring app (Food Intel Tech) with cloud-based analytics and becoming a comprehensive food waste monitor system
12:25 Benefits of the food waste monitoring system (reducing 20% food waste) especially through a mindset change
14:00 Their 8 days baseline and audit
15:30 Motivation for people to start adopting the monitoring system
17:50 Span of operations: capacity building, technical workshops, technology (Food Intel Tech), consulting, pledge on food waste certification program, and repurposing excess food waste.
22:10 Thoughts about external frameworks and focusing on practicality
23:15 Practical challenges of auditing (Covid-19, adoption, lack of understanding and motivation, inaccurate reporting, communication, technical etc)
29:35 Motivating the team and looking out for passion and reliability
30:50 Embracing diversity of solutions such as adding benchmarking, and gamification to the app
32:45 Values of the company
34:25 Working with the team during the pandemic and pivoting to digital services, working with universities, training consultants, etc.
41:50 Ways Benjamin recharges
44:10 Benjamin's recommendations
46:19 Ways to make a positive impact
49:00 Jobs opportunities
In this episode, we're talking to Rachel Lee and Rachel Han, co-founders of Package Pals. Package Pals is a Singaporean local initiative that hopes to extend the lifespan of packaging by redistributing them from consumers back to retailers.
Join us on this zoom-recorded episode to hear about:
- The co-founders' gap year adventures
- how a little mutual inspiration and a network can go a long way in starting up
- and how they manage to give their volunteers creative autonomy yet maintain a distinctive visual style in their marketing.
Let's unpack how Package Pals' work contributes to a circular economy with Rachel and Rachel.
In this episode, we're talking to Rachel Lim, an impact investment analyst from Silverstrand Capital. Silverstrand is a Singapore-based family office investing in regenerative agriculture.
Join us to discover:
- Silverstrand's investment philosophy
- Some of the discourses surrounding the regenerative agriculture movement
- how Rachel found herself being involved in this exciting field
Let's sow the seeds of understanding about the field of regenerative agriculture with Rachel from Silverstrand.
Today, we have Sean and Ruixiang with us, the co-founders of Soda Lemon Sg. They aim to transform the way our society views glass both as a resource and as a material by handcrafting quality pieces from glass that is originally destined for the landfill.
Join us to discover:
- Why they decided to focus on an artisanal business model
- How they nurtured and kept their idea and collaborative spirit alive even during hectic times
- Why going back to school is part of their long-term approach towards R&D
Let's cut to the chase, and explore glass circularity with Sean and Ruixiang of Soda Lemon Sg
Today, we’re speaking to Jolene, the founder of Urban Tiller. Urban Tiller enables local vegetable farmers in Singapore to sell fresh vegetables within 8 hours of harvest to consumers. Produce from local farms are grown hydroponically, organically and in an environmentally sustainable way.
Join us to discover:
- How she launched a logistically intensive business in just 2 months, in the middle of the covid-19 pandemic
- How exactly she convinced local farmers in Singapore, to sell on her platform
- And how literature played a significant role in shaping her mind as a founder¿
Let's discover how impact is grown with Jolene from Urban Tiller!
Today, we’re speaking to Victor and Wanqing, co-founders of Hatch.
Hatch is a training and job matching company that specialises in Digital Marketing and User Interface, User Experience (also known as UI/UX). To date, 87% of their graduates have been matched to their desired jobs in Singapore.
Join us to discover:
- Why they believe so strongly in providing growth career pathways for youth at risk
- How they earned the trust of larger organisations in the social sector through dilligence and persistence
- And how they transformed from a student group to a company
Let's crack open youth employment with Victor and Wanqing from Hatch!
We spoke to Zhi Min, the co-founder of Yonah. Yonah is a technology-based company that develops its own drones to solve logistics problems in some of the most remote areas in the world.
Their flagship system (the NEMO UAV) was designed to be able to fulfil its medical logistics purpose in rural locations, and requires no runway!
Join us to discover:
- how a chance meeting in Papua New Guinea brought the two co-founders together
- how Zhimin went from struggling with physics in university to leading a hardware team
- how they created and maintained relationships with funding partners to help them achieve their mission
Let's discover how impact takes flight with Zhimin and Yonah
In our very first episode, we will be speaking to Edward, the co-founder of givfunds. Givfunds provides low-cost loans for social enterprises in South Asia and Southeast Asia, making Edward both a founder AND a funder.
He and his co-founder have done 25 deals last year which is significantly more than a traditional impact investor and he aims to ramp up the numbers in the coming years.
Stick around to hear
- How he interacted directly with social entrepreneurs on the ground during his lifechanging trip to Bangladesh
- What he looks out for when working with the social entrepreneurs
- His thought process about ‘additionality’ when making an investment decision.
Let's delve into the fundamentals of funding with Edward and Givfunds
This podcast highlights the stories of founders and funders that are driving impact on the socio-environmental front.
What we're especially interested in is taking a closer look into the motivations, tactics, and adventures in their ongoing journey. Along the way, we'll be asking questions like, how do you rally and organize your team to build a product. Or how do you talk to potential institutional funders, and convince them that your initiative is worth funding? Or how do I negotiate with a potential client? Or even, how do I make a living from running an impact start-up?
We hope that you'll find these stories as insightful as they are inspiring.
This podcast is produced by Interseed. We help founders to grow their impact. Find out more at interseed.co