Business for Good Podcast

Dec 01 2024 156 ep. 44 mins 65

Business for Good Podcast artwork

Join host Paul Shapiro as he talks with some of the leading start-up entrepreneurs and titans of industry alike using their businesses to help solve the world’s most pressing problems. Whether it’s climate change, unsustainable agricultural practices, cyber threats, coral reef die-offs, nuclear waste storage, plastic pollution, or more, many of the world’s greatest challenges are also exciting business opportunities. On this show, we feature business leaders who are marrying profit and purpose by inventing solutions to both build a better world and offer investors a bang for their bucks.

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Bringing Clean Energy to African Businesses

Dec 01 2024 37 mins

Imagine trying to run a small business without a constant supply of energy. With electricity intermittency, you may not have access to wifi, a phone, a computer, a way to service your customers and more. One way to solve this problem is to have constant access to fossil fuels to run diesel generators, but this is an expensive and dirty way to operate, creating unsustainable costs f

One Good Human: Eric Schulze on Cultivated Meat’s Past and Future

Nov 15 2024 49 mins

Eric Schulze loves the intersection of science and food so much that after many years as an FDA regulator, he decided in 2016 to leave the federal government to join the then-nascent Memphis Meats (now UPSIDE Foods). He’d go on to spend the next seven years working to advance the cultivated meat pioneer’s science, technology, communications, and ultimate regulatory approval by

Chocolate without Cocoa Farming: The California Cultured Journey

Nov 01 2024 41 mins

We all know chocolate is sweet. The way that it’s made—not so much. From deforestation and climate change to child labor and heavy metal contamination, cocoa farming leaves a lot to be desired. But what if we could make cocoa powder without having to chop down the rainforest and engage in so many other unsavory practices? That’s what California Cultured is working on no

Will Pets Be the First European Consumers of Cultivated Meat? Meatly is Betting on It

Oct 15 2024 42 mins

If you follow the world of cultivated meat, you probably know that a few companies have gotten historic regulatory approval and have sold some limited quantities of product both in the US and Singapore. But earlier this year, Meatly—a company founded only in 2021 and with just a few million British pounds in their pocket—succeeded in getting regulatory approval to start selling

Investing in an Animal-Free Food System: Milk & Honey Ventures

Oct 01 2024 41 mins

Around the time his son was born in 2011, Beni Nofech saw a video that changed his life. After listening to an argument about the need to move away from the view that animals are mere commodities for humanity to use however we like, Beni adopted a vegan diet and soon found himself attending animal movement and alt-protein conferences. From there, he began making angel investments i

Can Bacteria Make Better Leather than Cows? Polybion Says So

Sep 15 2024 53 mins

You’ve heard of fruit leather, but what about making leather from fruit? Or more precisely, feeding fruit waste like mango pulp to bacteria which then convert those sugars into a leather-like material that can be useful for all types of purposes? That’s exactly what Polybion, a startup in Central Mexico, is doing. Co-founded in 2015 by two brothers with a passion for using biol

Are Chickpeas the Future of Alt-Protein? NuCicer is Working On It

Sep 01 2024 47 mins

Alt-meat today is typically made from soybeans, yellow peas, wheat, or some combination of those three crops. But there’s a whole world of plants out there, and maybe some of them can be harnessed to widen the world of ingredients available to manufacturers, perhaps even offering better functionality and flavor. One of the problems though, is that making protein isolates from mos

Better than the Reel Thing: How Oshi is Redefining Seafood

Aug 15 2024 47 mins

Seafood consumption is going up around the world, including in the US, with salmon being the fish species Americans love to eat the most. (The only seafood Americans eat more is shrimp, who of course are crustaceans, not fish.) The biggest wave of alt-meat so far has focused on beef replacement like burgers and sausages, given how many consumers already view red meat as bad for t

Turning the Tide on Fossil Fuels: Is Eco Wave Power the Future of Clean Energy?

Aug 01 2024 41 mins

Not everyone gets a second chance of life. But Inna Braverman got just that, and is using her second chance to try to solve one of humanity’s most pressing problems. Born in Chernobyl, Ukraine, Inna was only two weeks old when the nuclear disaster nearly took her life. When her mom found Inna blue and unresponsive from the pollution spewed from the damaged reactor, she used her

From Home-Made Smoothies to $200 million in Revenue: Daily Harvest’s Journey

Jul 15 2024 46 mins

Imagine thinking it would be a good idea to try to help people eat more fruits and vegetables, so you start making whole foods smoothies for your friends and family. Soon you’re selling them to more people than you personally know. Next thing you know, you’re running an all-vegan frozen meal company with hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, a billion dollar-plus valuatio