Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim
Speaker 1: Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: Our next guest is a Bloomberg New Economy Catalyst Class
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty two. Now, just a reminder, Catalysts are
Speaker 2: people whose innovations, efforts and objectives have a genuine shot
Speaker 2: at changing the world for the better. And we are
Speaker 2: so delighted to have back with us Anastagia Volkova. She's
Speaker 2: the co founder and CEO of the regenerative ad company Regrow.
Speaker 2: We got to talk about some of the accolades, tam.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well let's just start with just a couple of them. Okay,
Speaker 1: but we got it. We can't say I'm all or else.
Speaker 1: We're not going to get any time for an interview.
Speaker 1: Let's just go with this one. Time is named Regrow
Speaker 1: is one of the one hundred most Influential companies in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. Fast Company has named it one of
Speaker 1: the most innovative companies of the year. In Anastasia was
Speaker 1: named to the Time one hundred list of the next
Speaker 1: one hundred most influential people in the world.
Speaker 3: Can I say, aren't you happy? You called it first?
Speaker 3: With the catalysts.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, yes, you also have a PhD in
Speaker 2: visual drone navigation, which I always think is so cool
Speaker 2: and I think we talked about it last time. Good
Speaker 2: to have you back with us. I know you're in
Speaker 2: for all these quas accolades. I know now, but we
Speaker 2: don't have time. We want to talk to our So
Speaker 2: talk to us about what's going on this week and
Speaker 2: what's going on since we last talked to you in April.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if i'd be loves to be back. Thank you
Speaker 3: so much for having me. Absolutely, it's wonderful to also
Speaker 3: see all the momentum in food and agriculture space and
Speaker 3: the industry leaders generally, we believe that it's an industry
Speaker 3: that can decarbonize as soon as are things.
Speaker 2: Really changing and things are moving? What is to me?
Speaker 3: What does it look like? Okay, let's look at the
Speaker 3: most recent pieces. So to California builds a passing legislature
Speaker 3: and they are going to mandate climate disclosures for companies
Speaker 3: over one billion dollars in revenue trading in California. There's
Speaker 3: also a segment for half a billion dollar revenue company.
Speaker 2: Which does that mean? What do they have to show it?
Speaker 3: Literally? Means that they need to go and calculate how
Speaker 3: they are impacting climate in their own emissions as well
Speaker 3: as their purchase goods and services. So if you are,
Speaker 3: for example, a food company making food that ends up
Speaker 3: on the shelf or on the plate, you literally need
Speaker 3: to be thinking about what is the emission on farm
Speaker 3: because this is where the largest portion of those emissions sits.
Speaker 3: And by twenty twenty seven you will have to declare it,
Speaker 3: which effectively means that if you start measuring it, you'll
Speaker 3: start managing it. And all of the data that someone
Speaker 3: like Regro works on where one of the primary sources
Speaker 3: of the data that they can start understanding their supply
Speaker 3: shoes with and investing in it powers their decision making
Speaker 3: they can tangibly progress towards their net zero and emission
Speaker 3: reduction goals, which as you know, there are plenty.
Speaker 1: When you say that this is one of the industries
Speaker 1: that can decarbonize the quickest, are you including animals in
Speaker 1: this as well?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 1: Are you including cattle farming?
Speaker 3: That's right, agriculture, How.
Speaker 1: I mean this is like one of the worst things
Speaker 1: for the environment.
Speaker 3: It's very subjective, right, So when you start thinking about
Speaker 3: what are the animals supposed to do versus what we
Speaker 3: got them to do, how we disaggregated agriculture. Whilst in
Speaker 3: an integrated system, they're actually all very helpful. It's a
Speaker 3: more circular system. You can feed them better. Crops with
Speaker 3: a lot of emissions in the animal system are still
Speaker 3: in the crops. We produce most of the crops to
Speaker 3: feed animals, not to feed ourselves, so that's where the
Speaker 3: majority of the impact will come.
Speaker 1: First use the complication.
Speaker 3: I am saying that we need to decarbonize all parts
Speaker 3: of the burger and starting to list what are the
Speaker 3: parts that we should decribonize, But I am definitely saying
Speaker 3: the alternative burger is better for the environment. Yes, but
Speaker 3: there's things about the burger that are also not terrible
Speaker 3: for them.
Speaker 2: And a station when you work with the company, what
Speaker 2: exactly do.
Speaker 3: You do for them? We help them first uncover their
Speaker 3: school three emissions i e. Those that on farm, So
Speaker 3: if they come and pick their supply sheds, they say,
Speaker 3: I source this over there, can you tell me how
Speaker 3: is that impacting the environment? And we actually letter up
Speaker 3: the data from the field level, so we have dynamically
Speaker 3: generated data on a near real time basis that can
Speaker 3: say here's what's happening in the landscape, this is what's
Speaker 3: what's impacting the environment right now. Once they have that snapshot,
Speaker 3: they can also model with the platform that wee them,
Speaker 3: the ag resilience platform, the abatement potential, that is to say,
Speaker 3: what can I change for better? What can I reduce?
Speaker 3: How can I get to my mission production goal?
Speaker 2: So it's not about carbon offsetting, it's actually do so
Speaker 2: you don't create carbon in the first place.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's value chain investments. It's almost call it in setting.
Speaker 3: It's the opposite. So you take action within your value chain.
Speaker 3: You are not you're reducing your own emissions. You're not
Speaker 3: looking to offset them somewhere else.
Speaker 2: I hate offset.
Speaker 3: Sorry no, and European Commission is with you.
Speaker 2: Because you shouldn't be making You've got to reduce the
Speaker 2: carbon footprint. It's not a case. It's not exactly I'm
Speaker 2: not going to all right, so I'm creating a lot
Speaker 2: of carbon, but I'm going to go plant some trees.
Speaker 2: You're still putting the carbon in there, like we've got
Speaker 2: to reduce it overall.
Speaker 4: That's just no.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, we have to find ways of producing food in
Speaker 3: a way that doesn't harm the environment so much, it
Speaker 3: actually renews it and regenerates it.
Speaker 1: Is vertical farming one of those answers. Good question, It's
Speaker 1: very controversial.
Speaker 3: It's very controversial because you have to consider everything from
Speaker 3: the system perspective. Right, So on one hand, you have
Speaker 3: the transportation of say salad from Salinas, California, to New
Speaker 3: York City, and that's absurd, So you probably should consider
Speaker 3: growing it here, if you recycle some of the resources,
Speaker 3: if you're able to provide it with the water it
Speaker 3: needs without drowing more water into that farm over time. Okay, great,
Speaker 3: but you still look in at a system that largely
Speaker 3: requires artificial synthetic input fertilizers, and they sustain the system,
Speaker 3: is opposed to say soil out there that when healthy,
Speaker 3: sequestors carbon and provides water, cleaning, clean air, all of
Speaker 3: those ecosystem services to us living all around on those
Speaker 3: those environments.
Speaker 2: You know, it's interesting. We had Johannes Zuting of Powers
Speaker 2: twenty one on and they basically are making sure that
Speaker 2: you know, or helping developing the developing world, you know,
Speaker 2: create data sets. They don't actually have the data, but
Speaker 2: they're pulling from different sources and making sure it's year.
Speaker 2: But the whole idea is you need to collect and
Speaker 2: track transformative data to help bring about transformative policies and change.
Speaker 2: Talk to us about the importance of that having that
Speaker 2: data that you guys are providing right, the information, but
Speaker 2: also go hand in hand with governments states countries saying
Speaker 2: we've got to do better, and so you need the
Speaker 2: data to kind of meet.
Speaker 3: Absolutely it has to and we have plenty to update
Speaker 3: the listeners on with the IRA money, with the investment,
Speaker 3: with the Inflication and Reduction Act and the Embedded Climate's
Speaker 3: MARGE Commodities program, the Administration is looking to effectively accelerate
Speaker 3: the investment into low carbon commodities and agricultural sector. But
Speaker 3: also they have released recently an initiative specifically focused on
Speaker 3: the data and the MRV the monitoring, reporting and verification
Speaker 3: of emissions and practices, and they completely go hand in hand.
Speaker 3: So if we ever want this to be a truly
Speaker 3: bipartisan issue that is internationally accepted, we need to start
Speaker 3: looking at the data and not wondering where the money
Speaker 3: is going on. Because once you are seeing that the
Speaker 3: money is getting to where it needs to be, why
Speaker 3: wouldn't you invest more in because you are getting that
Speaker 3: return you're looking for. But it's the data that needs
Speaker 3: to tell that story.
Speaker 1: Talk to us more about this because I always wonder
Speaker 1: about incentives here. It's one thing for the state to
Speaker 1: actually require disclosures like California is doing, you know, and
Speaker 1: it's a side point. But my concern is that, Okay,
Speaker 1: all these companies are going to move to Texas, which
Speaker 1: is a state that will not require these types of disclosures.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's a conversation for a different day.
Speaker 2: You really grow in Texas.
Speaker 1: I mean, you could base your company in Texas instead
Speaker 1: of facing it.
Speaker 3: Anyone who trades in Texas, not anyone who's headquartered like
Speaker 3: in California. For the California bill, you just have to
Speaker 3: be trading in California. You are not headquartered in.
Speaker 1: California, so people won't get around it.
Speaker 3: I don't think you can move something to Texas and
Speaker 3: stop trading one of the largest economists in the world
Speaker 3: that is California.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's very true. Okay, maybe the lawyers will be
Speaker 1: busy trying to.
Speaker 2: Figure out a way maybe hopefully so.
Speaker 1: What's good But estion is really about is really about data,
Speaker 1: and you know where that data comes from and how
Speaker 1: you measure that data in this day and age.
Speaker 3: That's right when you're looking at this type of bill,
Speaker 3: people are getting concerned that this will actually put more
Speaker 3: burden on the suppliers, of which farmers is one of
Speaker 3: the categories in this industry, of course the primary category.
Speaker 3: So this data, you don't need to invent more ways
Speaker 3: to get this data. We already, as Greta Thamberg always says,
Speaker 3: we already have all the solutions. We just need to
Speaker 3: actually implement them. So regrow gets data from fire management system,
Speaker 3: statistical surveys, but importantly satellite imagery, so remote sensing of
Speaker 3: practices tells us a lot about what's happening in the
Speaker 3: land in a non invasive way, in a very scalable
Speaker 3: and cost effective way. Then we pass it through climate models,
Speaker 3: soil carbon crop models to understand what is the impact
Speaker 3: on the environment. So we see the practices from space,
Speaker 3: from local systems, tractor tells us what's going on. We
Speaker 3: don't have to ask the farmer for absolutely everything. We
Speaker 3: have to accept that agriculture has been running on data.
Speaker 3: It's a big business, it's a big industry. It has
Speaker 3: the data. If you provide the incentives and you assure
Speaker 3: the privacy, you will be able to get the system
Speaker 3: to a level of transparency where it can all actually
Speaker 3: flow in a direction of Paris one point five degree trajectory.
Speaker 2: What companies are you working with?
Speaker 4: We're working with General Mills, Kellogg, Cargil, folks across the
Speaker 4: supply chain, from those that provide input to the farmer's
Speaker 4: trade and aggregate and process the commodities all the way
Speaker 4: to those that you pick up their boxes off of
Speaker 4: supermarket shelves and plates or oldly for example, is another cool.
Speaker 2: One US only or is it global?
Speaker 3: Global? Global?
Speaker 2: So everybody's involved in it. So what has changed you
Speaker 2: guys have been around? Is it five six years?
Speaker 3: That's we're going to be twining seven? This no number?
Speaker 2: So what's changed from when you started in just kind
Speaker 2: of about thirty seconds?
Speaker 3: Oh, impact has changed? Right, three years ago, we weren't
Speaker 3: having this conversation. Absolutely every step you take during not
Speaker 3: only Climate Week but generally when you interact with corporate
Speaker 3: and governments, resiliences at the forefront. For us, we of
Speaker 3: course have grown in the response to that interest from
Speaker 3: the market, from the policy and.
Speaker 2: People are changing their practices because of the information they're
Speaker 2: getting from you.
Speaker 3: That's correct. People are establishing more ambitious plans. People are
Speaker 3: able to understand how to invest into the transformation because
Speaker 3: they can clearly see what the return would be. And
Speaker 3: important to Carol share the risk of the farmers upfront.
Speaker 3: You're not telling them to do something without no one
Speaker 3: was going to lead to.
Speaker 2: Can't wait to see her the next six years, seven years,
Speaker 2: hold for you that till twenty thirty.
Speaker 3: You're right on.
Speaker 2: Come back soon. We really appreciate an a stage of
Speaker 2: a Covia. She's co founder and CEO of Regrow here
Speaker 2: in studio