Food Tank recently participated in “Blueprint for the Future: Oceans, Food and Finance.” The event also featured Mark Kaplan, Co-Founder of Envisible and a member of Food Tank’s Refresh Working Group, and his business partner Jayson Berryhill.
The United Nations Global Compact Ocean Stewardship Coalition backed initiative connects startups, investors and corporations to implement ocean- and food-related business solutions to accelerate impact towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
The UN Global Compact Ocean Stewardship Coalition, Envisible, and Startup Portugal launched the UN Accelerator Network Tuesday, September 20th during the UNGA “Blueprint for the Future: Oceans, Food and Finance” working dinner hosted by the UN Global Compact and Wholechain. The working dinner featuring fully traceable ingredients assembled corporate leaders from ingredient supply chains, retailers, producers and UN Global Compact officials.
- Led by UN Global Compact Ocean Stewardship Coalition and Envisible with Startup Portugal, the Accelerator Network is the cross-cutting innovation hub of the Ocean Stewardship Coalition.
- The Accelerator Network will build collective capacity and routes to market for Youth, Entrepreneurs and Start-Ups to scale impact driven solutions through a facilitated process of engagement with Corporations, Investors, Tech Centers, Incubators and Academia.
Beginning with Startup Portugal, the UN Global Compact Ocean Stewardship Coalition and Envisible will collaborate to:
- Take a comprehensive view at the role of the ocean and food supply chains in achieving the 17 SDGs;
- Explore attractive and viable solutions, establish principles, guidelines and best practices for sustainable use and management of the ocean and agricultural land;
- Explore ideas and inspire innovations for technical and operational improvements to ensure healthy and productive oceans, land areas, and improve sustainable ocean and agricultural business;
- Identify areas and topics for further consideration or action by Governments and the United Nations, with the objective of enhancing global and local ocean and land governance.
“At the UN Global Compact we strive to build partnerships that can foster new ideas and solutions for the world to meet the 17 SDGs. Scaling up ocean solutions has never been more important,” says Erik Giercksky, from the United Nations Global Compact.
“It is clear that Portugal’s natural resources, talent and entrepreneur community, can position us as a global hub and leading market for ocean technology. This partnership with the UN Global Compact and Envisible aims to put our ecosystem at a leading position while putting our resources towards contributing for the global innovation goals within the blue economy. As our governments take public action to support the blue economy’s projects, it is fundamental that we connect the corporate and private organizations to also invest in these opportunities, taking its potential growth to a more sustainable future, non-dependent of public funds.This week, the Portuguese prime-minister announced the goal of doubling the number of Portuguese startups within the blue economy. Our Minister of the Economy and Maritime Affairs challenged us to engage the Portuguese Startup Community in this strategic sector. This partnership is definitely the start of this journey!” says António Dias Martins, executive director of Startup Portugal.
“I have been fortunate to have started successful startups, and failed. I have led public private partnerships and pivoted to work as a corporate leader within some of the world’s leading sustainability brands. As the co-lead of the Ocean, Food and Finance Accelerator Network and lead startup, Envisible’s goal is to break the cycle of inequity in business by providing entrepreneurs equitable access to the resources they need to succeed and supporting diverse solutions and entrepreneurs more representative of the United Nations and of the communities that disproportionately suffer the impacts of Climate Change,” says Mark Kaplan, Co-Founder of Envisible.
The startups involved in this accelerator network will receive mentoring by experts and business leaders, interact with established ocean businesses, have the opportunity to pilot products and services, discuss investments, capitalization, procurement, marketing and sales networks. Going through this process will provide select startups additional recognition by potential clients, investors and partners to help them scale.
Universities, accelerators and startups focused on corporate collaboration and bringing to market ocean and food-specific solutions that address the Sustainable Development Goals should contact Mark Kaplan at mark@envisible.co to express interest in joining the Network.
About Startup Portugal
Startup Portugal is a non-profit association with the mission of promoting entrepreneurship and innovation in Portugal. In liaison with different entities and partners, it develops several initiatives that contribute to the growth of the ecosystem and to a greater culture of entrepreneurship in the country.
About Envisible
Envisible is a sustainable seafood company and creator of the Wholechain traceability system. Envisible supplies a private label retail product line of 16 sustainably sourced frozen seafood products sold at supermarket brands across the United States. The product line consists of wild and farmed species sourced from five continents and fully traceable on Wholechain. Wholechain also traces commodities like beef, leather, soy, vanilla, and ocean-bound plastics, and is a former winner of the Fish 2.0 Competition at Stanford for Supply Chain Innovation and of the FDA’s Food Traceability Challenge.
About UN Global Compact
As a special initiative of the UN Secretary-General, the United Nations Global Compact is a call to companies everywhere to align their operations and strategies with Ten Principles in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption. UN Global Compact’s ambition is to accelerate and scale the global collective impact of business by upholding the Ten Principles and delivering the Sustainable Development Goals through accountable companies and ecosystems that enable change. With more than 15,000 companies and 3,000 non-business signatories based in over 162 countries, and 69 Local Networks, the UN Global Compact is the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative — one Global Compact uniting business for a better world.
For more information, please contact:
Mark Kaplan
