Impact Lunch Talks: Recent Episodes
Melanie Kontonikolaou
Businesses need and want to become more sustainable to make a positive impact on society and nature. But how?
Join Melanie and a group of experts for the bi-weekly lunch talks to learn more about sustainability in a business context. Every Impact Lunch Talk a special guest will share his/her insights about a wide variety of trending topics such as - Regulatory policies - CSR initiatives and social innovation - Insights in green and social start-ups - And much more
Keep up with hot topics in sustainability and contribute in fostering the power of business to solve today’s biggest issues.
The circular economy can provide companies with new opportunities for innovation and differentiation, as well as help them build more resilient and sustainable supply chains. In Europe,upcoming regulations and initiatives, such as the Circular Economy Action Plan, will have many implications on businesses and will confront them with new challenges as well as opportunities.
In this Impact Lunch Talk session we have Eva Vati with us. Eva Vati is CEO and Founder of Vati of Sweden, which educates, verifies and consults on how businesses become more sustainable. Eva will give us more insights in their upcoming module on Circular Economy, what will change with the upcoming regulations and how businesses can prepare themselves.
VATI of Sweden: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vati-of-sweden/
Eva Vati: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eva-vati/
Do you want to join the Community and participate live in one of our next Impact Lunch Talks? Then drop me a note at melanie@bitrock.partners and introduce yourself while sharing that one thing you would bring to the table. We are happy to invite one new community member per session and are curious to getting to know you!
With regulations such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the increasing expectations ofconsumers and investors, companies are increasingly pressured to disclose and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Companies were fast to communicate sustainability-centred marketing claims and ambitious net 0 goals. Now, it is time to turn ambition into action. It is time to develop effective decarbonization strategies, which not only reduce emissions but also create a competitive advantage. Easier said than done.
In this session, Finn Wentzler, Head of Partnerships at Global Changer, explains different decarbonization strategies, the biggest challenges, and low-hanging fruits for companies to accelerate decarbonization. Global Changer helps companies to reach net zero with a decarbonization platform to manage and successfully reduce emissions.
Global Changer: Global Changer: Übersicht | LinkedIn
Finn Wentzler: Finn Wentzler | LinkedIn
Do you want to join the Community and participate live in one of our next Impact Lunch Talks? Then drop me a note at melanie@bitrock.partners and introduce yourself while sharing that one thing you would bring to the table. We are happy to invite one new community member per session and are curious to getting to know you!
Consumer and legislation pressures companies to be in control of their supply chains. When choosing where to buy goods or services from - let it be as an individual or in corporate procurement - it is not easy to separate the wheat from the chaff and to identify suppliers whose products and practices are truly sustainable.
In this session, we have Fabian Hörst from Planetics with us. Planetics is a sustainable sports marketplace and central contact point for sustainability and fairness in sports. All their products are checked according to strict criteria. Fabian will talk about how to spot "black sheep" and greenwashing as well as the role of technology and collaboration in sustainable supply chain management.
PLANETICS: PLANETICS: Übersicht | LinkedIn
Fabian Hörst: Fabian Hörst | LinkedIn
Do you want to join the Community and participate live in one of our next Impact Lunch Talks? Then drop me a note at m.p.kontonikolaou@gmail.com and introduce yourself while sharing that one thing you would bring to the table. We are happy to invite one new community member per session and are curious to getting to know you!
Investors are increasingly focusing on sustainable investments and demand evidence of their impact. Impact investing, and thus the investment in companies who are making a measurable positive impact on society and the planet, is on the rise. Impact measurement is key and despite many ongoing efforts there is no common standard yet.
In this session we have Stefanie and Timo from Capacura with us. Capacura is democratising seed investments in impact start ups. They will share their insights in how to measure impact, the challenges as well as different trends and developments in this field.
ESG ratings build the foundations for more sustainable investments and therefore the redirection of investments to sustainable business.
At the same time there’s criticism: The lack of standardisation and transparency of ESG scores makes it difficult to compare companies. Different rating agencies measure differently as well as different things. Plus, focusing on operational risk instead of impact, ESG scores are criticised to paint a distorted picture of a companies sustainability efforts.
For this Impact Lunch Talk we will have Tilman Jundt with us. Tilman is working for Inrate, an independent rating agency, and will give us some insights in how and what is measured at Inrate as well as different trends and evolvements in this field.
Special guest:
- Tilman Jundt, Engagement Managat at Inrate
With companies like Patagonia, Ben & Jerry’s and more than 5.000 other companies worldwide and more than 950 new certified B-Corps in 2021 (+28% YoY, source B-Lab) the concept of B-corporation is on the rise. B Corps (the B stands for benefit) are businesses which use their business as a force of good and therefore balance purpose and profit.
The rise of conscious consumers and investors demand businesses to become more sustainable, while communicating transparently. At the same time, however, fair trade labels and other sustainability certifications were criticised as greenwashing tools. We wonder, is the B-Corp certification any different?
This time we have Karry Schwettmann with us. She is a certified B Corp trainer and consultant as well as an expert in impact communication. We look at the B Corp certification and will discuss whether and how B labs B Impact Assessment (BIA) is more than a marketing tool.
Special Guest:
- Karry Schwettman, B Corp Trainer & Consultant and expert in Impact Communication
Multinational companies are increasingly forced to take responsibility for their entire supply chain. Besides hot topics like the reduction of Greenhouse gases, consumer and legislation (e.g. Act on Corporate Due Diligence Obligations in Supply Chains) demand decent working conditions and the respect of human rights along the supply chain.
Today, we have Peter Woerle as a guest who co-founded the Worlds Originals, a start-up which wants to change how coffee is traded. They help farmers to enter the market directly and give them the chance to become a holistic producer and economically sustainable.
Taking the coffee industry as an example we will talk about how to ensure a fair value creation by skipping the middle man and bringing value creation back to the origin country. We will learn more about how companies can make their supply chain more sustainable, economically, socially and environmentally, by strengthening their suppliers on the ground.
Special Guests:
- Peter Woerle, Co-Founder of Worlds Originals
Community Guests:
- Tim Steppich, founder of ClimateU
- Melissa Bojang, Business Developer at WaterAid
Companies need to become more sustainable. And they need to deliver more than mere PR activities. These days companies are - or should be - on a path towards increasing their sustainability level. By doing so they will be able to not only reduce operational risk but will also tap into the potential of sustainable innovation and new business models to create and accelerate value (Source: Sustainability Maturity Path by PWC, adopted by Ecochain, 2020).
Becoming more sustainable, however, doesn’t happen overnight. It is a journey on which businesses will face various challenges along the way.
In this session, we will talk with Laura (Senior Sustainability Manager) about Idealo’s and Otto’s sustainability journey and will shed a light on topics such as strategy, importance of measurement and KPIs, governance and culture as well as different challenges and opportunities while striving to become sustainable.
Special Guests:
- Laura Martin Gomez, Senior Sustainability Manaager at Idealo
Community Guests:
- Marianne Lehnis, founder of Green Techpreneur
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Nel Steinkühler, Sales representative at NaturAlly AG
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Tilman Jundt, Engagement Manager at Inrate
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Voluntary carbon off-setting has become mainstream, as organisations are striving to become net zero or even climate positive. Due to the lack of regulations in the voluntary carbon off-setting market, it is often only a fine line between effective off-setting and greenwashing.
In this podcast we talk with Noah and Julian about the challenges of off-setting, such as ineffectiveness and lack of transparency, and how to overcome them, using blockchain technology and satellite imagery. Other topics we touch on are the need for accredited versus non-accredited offsetting projects, trends and technologies in the off setting market and much more.
Noah and Julian, together with two more co-founder have founded Carbon Stack, a start up which is creating local afforestation projects, while evaluating the CO2 uptake of forests with satellite images and documenting the projects on a public blockchain.
Special Guests:
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Carbon Stack: https://carbonstack.de/#intro
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Julian Kakarott, co-founder and CEO at Carbon Stack
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Noah Winneberger, co-founder and CTO at Carbon Stack
Community Guests:
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Laura Martin Gomez, Senior Sustainability Manaager at Idealo
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Ann-Kathrin Koch, Innovation Consultant at Capgemini Invent
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Marianne Lehnis, founder of Green Techpreneur
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Do you want to join the Community and participate live in one of our next Impact Lunch Talks? Then drop me a note at m.p.kontonikolaou@gmail.com and introduce yourself while sharing that one thing you would bring to the table. We are happy to invite one new community member per session and are curious to getting to know you!
We need for-profit companies to do business more conciously. We need concious business! What's conscious business? A business which is rooted in humanity and which has the mission to contribute to a greater good!
On this bi-weekly's Impact Lunch Talk we have Nicolas with us, who digged deeper into 4 conscious businesses in Germany. He will share more on the concept of concious business and the four pillars which characterize them: A higher purpose and core values, stakeholder integration, conscious culture and management as well as conscious leadership.
Special Guest:
- Nicolas Stahlhofer, Lead Business Designer at Tangity and Author of Conscious Business in Germany
Community Guests:
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Leon Seefeld, Founder at reframe.ventures
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Ann-Kathrin Koch, Innovation Consultant at Capgemini Invent
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Alessandra Iovine, Credit Analyst at BPI and co-founder of Energy and Climate Forum
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Do you want to join the Community and participate live in one of our next Impact Lunch Talks? Then drop me a note at m.p.kontonikolaou@gmail.com and introduce yourself while sharing that one thing you would bring to the table. We are happy to invite one new community member per session and are curious to getting to know you!
With over $37B of funding and growing by more than 2,5 times compared to pre-pandemic levels, Climate Tech is one of most trending investment markets (Source: Holoniq). But how promising is this development when it comes to solving the world’s climate issues?
In this session we will talk with Tim Steppich about how the climate tech market evolved in the past decade, about different types of investors and how they evaluate climate tech ventures, as well as about climate tech VC and technology as a double-edged sword.
Tim has gained experience in the Climate Tech market form various perspectives: in Venture Building, as a VC analyst and now connecting European climate-tech companies with global investors and talent, as a founder of the start-up ClimateU.
QUICK INFO
Special Guest:
- Tim Steppich, founder of ClimateU
Community Guests:
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Christian Engel, Venture Architect at Bitrock Digital Partners
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Ann-Kathrin Koch, Innovation Consultant at Capgemini Invent
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Do you want to join the Community and participate live in one of our next Impact Lunch Talks? Then drop me a note at m.p.kontonikolaou@gmail.com and introduce yourself while sharing that one thing you would bring to the table. We are happy to invite one new community member per session and are curious to getting to know you!
Most of the companies have realised that today being sustainable comes with a competitive advantage. It’s not any more a question of “If”, but rather of “how” to become more sustainable. How can a company make a positive impact on society and the planet while making money? By analysing more than 500 organisations Leon and his co-founder came up with 24 business model patterns.
In the next talk Leon will share some insights in the patterns they found as well as their work with Reframe Ventures to support companies in developing net-positive business models that generate positive social change and profitably fit the core business.
Special Guests:
- Leon Seefeld, co-founder at Reframe Ventures
Community Guests:
- Marianne Lehnis, founder of Green Techpreneur
- Alessandra Iovine, Credit Analyst at BPI and co-founder of Energy and Climate Forum
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Melissa Bojang, Corporate Partnerships Manager at WaterAid
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Do you want to join the Community and participate live in one of our next Impact Lunch Talks? Then drop me a note at m.p.kontonikolaou@gmail.com and introduce yourself while sharing that one thing you would bring to the table. We are happy to invite one new community member per session and are curious to getting to know you!