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Insights From New York Climate Week

CEO of VegTech Invest and host of The Plantbased Business Hour, Elysabeth Alfano, recaps her time at NYC Climate Week 2024. She shares the popular topics of discussion and her excitement about food being a focal point in the food systems transformation discussions.

Podcast link here, transcript as follows.

Elysabeth: Hey everyone, after a couple days of decompressing from New York Climate Week, oh my gosh, I just thought I’d give a recap of how that went. You know, I’ve been saying since COP28 in December that food is now considered one of the three pillars for impact in climate change. So that would be electric vehicles, otherwise known as transportation, novel energy, getting rid of fossil fuels, and food innovation and ag innovation.

A lot of that is regenerative, so not monocropping for industrial animal feed and getting cover crops like beans and legumes into the system for straight beans and legumes consumption. I like rice and beans. So did the Incas and the Mayas. Or innovation for diversified proteins. Now there’s about 20% where we don’t overlap and that would be regen meat, but there’s about 80% of the regenerative conversation that does make a lot of sense.

© Climate Week New York

In terms of mitigating climate change, not having the emissions from animals and not having long transportation and having the development of food, again, legumes and beans and other foods, closer to home, so less transportation. All this building on great knowledge of the past while innovating with AI of the future. All this stuff is sitting squarely within a reasonable conversation and sector perspective that we all share.

So, I’m excited to see that I’ve been talking about this since December of COP28, but most people have been saying, “Oh, I don’t know. I have yet to see it.” Well, if you had any doubts that food is considered one third of the climate equation, that was more than apparent at New York Climate Week. Everyone was talking about food systems, and most of them were talking about it in a regenerative way. But remember, there’s 80% of overlap there for us, so that’s not a bad thing.

I’ve been in many of these regenerative conversations, always talking about how if you really want to feed the world, you’re going to have to focus not on resource-intensive animals, but more efficient food systems. Not everybody agrees, but at least my point of view is out there, and then we all agree on the 80% where we overlap. So, I was just in so many conversations and so many panels.

© Climate Week New York

I was in a purpose-driven innovation ecosystem panel explaining this. I was also at the Tilt Collective, obviously, where many people of our sector were. So that was preaching to the bubble, but other than that I did not spend any time in the bubble. I really spent it in the S&P, Wall Street Finance sector and in the regenerative agriculture, VC, financing food systems transformation through a regenerative lens of that 80%. I was in those conversations.

On a very optimistic note, no longer does one need to convince the mainstream finance media people that food is part of the climate conversation. So, I feel that is just an enormous step forward and I’m so happy about that. I’m sad that the regenerative conversation under its leadership and its vision and its messaging and its money has come together and just come from behind and taken what we used to have, which is the “better for the planet and better for everyone’s health” halo.

Our messaging has disappeared

I haven’t seen any messaging coming from our sector. I haven’t seen any leadership there. So, in a lack of messaging, the rest of the world has sort of passed us by and they’ve taken that “better for the planet and healthier for the people and healthier for the animals” slogan. Regen has really taken that messaging and now owns it.

So that’s very hard to see, particularly because this was not an overnight situation. It’s been happening since 2021. It’s now 2024, so that’s three years of really no messaging from our sector. So, this is what I see when I’m outside the bubble and I see how much the world is embracing the regenerative perspective. Again, 80% overlap and 20% not overlap. So don’t misunderstand, you’re not going to see me talking about how it makes sense to have animals in the equation.

NY Climate Week
© Climate Week New York

I’m just telling you there’s 80% good there and someone said to me, and I just love this quote, and this is a paraphrase. So, I already believe this. This is why I spend my time outside the bubble. I’m not interested in where I disagree with people. I certainly didn’t fly to New York to bicker with people about where we disagree. I’m certainly not going to do that. I’m interested in where we agree and moving the needle forward against industrialized animal agriculture, obviously.

Moving the needle

So, someone said to me, “Don’t worry because if everyone’s doing their job, even though you disagree, the weight of where you agree is so heavy that you’ll move the needle.” Since we have gone backwards in the last three years, I’m interested in moving the needle forward. So, I really did feel that coming out of New York Climate Week. I certainly didn’t agree with everything that was said but was happy to see an understanding without a doubt that food is one third of the climate equation. That’s going to mean getting rid of industrialized animal agriculture, and that’s going to be more plants, more legumes, more non-monocropping, more cover crops that are healthy, and less deterioration of the soil.

That’s really where everyone’s talking about is that let’s not deteriorate that soil with the industrial crop of feed for animals. All that protein and fiber. Are we giving that protein and fiber to people? No, we’re giving it to animals who are well-fed. The animals are fed. That’s not the problem. It’s the people that aren’t going to be fed when you have this kind of inefficient system, so I’m happy to see that food and its need to change and that its need to change away from large, industrialized players, particularly in the animal sector, large, industrialized animal agriculture. I’m happy to see that it is getting traction.


Elysabeth Alfano is the CEO of VegTech™ Invest, the advisor to the VegTech™ Plant-based Innovation & Climate ETF, EATV. She is also the founder of Plant Powered Consulting and the Host of the Plantbased Business Hour.

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