Around the world, the cost of wasted food is set to total $540 billion this year. It’s an issue top of mind for Matt Rogers, CEO of Mill, a startup seeking to turn food scraps into something useful. What began as an at-home food recycling system is now tackling the commercial sector.
This year Mill launched a commercial-scale system that processes food waste on-site, while using AI to provide kitchens better insight into what they are throwing away. This allows them to adjust what and how much they buy and produce. Beginning in 2027, Whole Foods plans to start implementing the technology to turn its in-store fruit and vegetable waste into chicken feed.
Mill also announced a new partnership with Compass Group to roll out its services across corporate dining facilities, hospitals, universities, and stadiums starting next year. —Kyla Mandel What is a climate solution (other than your own) that isn't getting the attention or funding it deserves?Carbon dioxide removal. About 14 years ago, I started investing heavily in climate. One of my early focuses was finding ways to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
As I thought about what the world might look like in 15 years (energy diversification, reduction in fossil fuel emissions) I saw a chance to help build a new field before there was a clear market for it. That’s the type of bet we need to take to make carbon removal happen at scale. The key to success: taking a broad ecosystem approach to invest in both the people building solutions and the public, private, and academic infrastructure in play around them.
This involved footing the bill for early and seminal National Academy of Sciences research that helped make the case for carbon removal. It also involved funding nonprofits that built support for the idea of carbon dioxide removal and helped advance policy discussions in Washington. That research later informed non-profit and subject matter expert recommendations that Congress folded into major legislation through the Inflation Reduction Act.
It was a full-circle moment: research we funded converted to U.S. policy years later. Today, billions of dollars in federal funding are available, and dozens of companies are working on carbon removal. There’s more to do: Carbon removal still needs more support and engineering talent, but the progress shows what’s possible when you invest in a solution early and bring the ecosystem along for the ride.
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