The black mamba is the most venomous snake in sub-Saharan Africa. One bite can kill a person in just a few hours. It is also the namesake of the all-female anti-poaching unit that operates in the 56,000-acre private Balule Nature Reserve at Kruger National Park in South Africa.

The name choice represents “the strength of the mambas, and their quick reactions,” said Valeria van der Westhuizen, communications manager for the Mambas. “Strength of the woman in South Africa, strength of the Mamba.”

The Black Mambas were founded in 2013 and comprise of 14 women largely from the Phalaborwa community that resides near the park. Prior to the group’s formation, poaching for rhino horn and bushmeat in the reserve was rampant, with poachers—many who came from the local communities—fetching up to US$26,000 for one horn. Leitah Mkhabela, the supervisor Mamba, said that a reason for the nearby communities’ involvement was that they didn’t feel the wildlife belonged to them, as most had never had a chance to even see the animals. Poaching was a way to make a lot of money, quickly.

This is why one of the Mambas’ mandates is to educate on the importance of conservation as well as gather information from locals about poachers.

“The community needs to benefit from the reserves that are near,” said Mkhabela, highlighting a wider ongoing discussion across Africa on protected areas. “If the game reserves can benefit the local communities by providing freshwater sources or giving bursaries for higher education, we are going to see a decrease in rhino and bushmeat poaching.”

Through the Bush Babies Environmental Education Program, the Mambas take members, especially children, from the communities to the reserve to see the wild animals. “There are some people who live just 10 km from the reserve, but have never seen a rhino, lion or elephant in their life,” said Mkhabela.

Aside from educating the local communities, the Black Mambas track 126 km of the park’s border every day, looking for snare traps, inspecting the electric border fence and searching cars. Their work has reduced poaching in the reserve by 75 per cent.

“In 2013 when this project started, we used to come back from sweeps with 80 fresh snares,” said Mkhabela. “Today if we sweep the whole area we might come back with just five, some of which are old.”

Cecilia Njenga, head of UN Environment Programme South Africa said that the Black Mambas highlighted the importance and effectiveness of local knowledge and commitment, crucial to combatting the illegal wildlife trade.

“The Black Mambas are an inspiration not only locally, but across the world to all those working to eliminate the scourge of the illegal wildlife trade,” said Njenga. “We recognize the rapid and impressive impact they have made, and the courage required to accomplish it.”

While the rewards of protecting wild animals is unparalleled, Mkhabela says the job isn’t for everyone. With salaries being minimal, at roughly US$224 per month, living conditions rough, and the dangers from poachers always present, it takes guts to be a ranger.

“I have to put my life at risk every day, making sure that South Africa’s iconic wildlife is safe,” said Mkhabela.

For example, in 2017, Mkhabela and two other Mambas were staging an ambush in Balule when three poachers, whom they were pursuing, spotted them due to a full moon that evening. The women—who patrol unarmed—were lucky enough to escape unscathed after finding a blown-out section of the park’s electric fence, which an elephant had brought down earlier that day.

But for Mkhabela the risks are worth it. She says that being women and mothers, the Mambas understand what it means to care and protect.

“We need to speak for the animals because if we don't speak for them, nobody will speak for them. We have to fight for them, because if we don't fight for them, there's nobody that will fight for them. We know what love is,” she said.

In 2015, the Black Mambas were bestowed with UN Environment’s Champion of the Earth lifetime achievement award. Since winning, Mkhabela says that the anti-poaching unit has received even more admiration from the communities than previously, and this has given the Mambas confidence in the value of what they are doing.

Mkhabela says that there are another 10 women currently in training to become Mambas and she hopes the project will grow further and receive more funding.

“I'd like to see many more girls from the community getting jobs as rangers,” she said. “We need the Black Mambas project to continue. We cannot let the poachers win.”

World Ranger Day, an initiative of the International Ranger Federation, is on 31 July to celebrate the work rangers do to protect the planet’s biodiversity and commemorate those killed in the line of duty.

Through collective action, environmental protection can be achieved. This is what the Kalinga indigenous people in the Philippines demonstrated to the world when they stopped the famous Chico River Dam Project from being constructed, and it is what inspired Joan Carling to make her lifelong mission fighting for human rights in land development.

“In the very principles that indigenous people carry it says that we must retain our reciprocal relations with Mother Nature,” says Carling who is from the Kankanaey tribe in the Philippines. “That reciprocal relationship is the one that I believe is being undermined by the western concept of development.”

Carling, 55, began her career as an activist more than twenty years ago in Cordillera, a northern region of the Philippines. The area, which is home to 1.3 million indigenous people, sits on the country’s mineral belt—rich in gold, copper and manganese.

The country’s Mining Act of 1995 allowed transnational corporations total control of the mineral-rich lands including full water and timber rights and even the permission to evict communities from approved areas.

So Carling, along with others from the Cordillera People's Alliance, began to gather information on the impact of mining as evidence to use to petition the government. She says that the reason why the alliance was able to stop some of the planned projects from happening, is because of the evident impacts on the natural environment, such as the polluting chemicals in rivers. After a unity pact was signed by elders from all provinces to oppose mining companies, a provincial governor also vowed a no-entry policy on mining operations in his district.

“It became clear that unless people on the ground took action, politicians would not be held accountable,” Carling said.

Carling—like her indigenous predecessors—has also spoken out against dam building. While she acknowledges that many people see dams as a renewable source of energy, she says that not only have they destroyed many river ecosystems around the world, they have also led to human displacement.

A recent study by the University of Sussex and the International School of Management in Germany found that countries that rely on large hydropower dams for their electricity suffer higher levels of poverty, corruption and debt compared to other nations.

“It’s become clear that there is a bias for dams because there is a huge profit generated by dam builders, a huge opportunity for corrupt officials to put money in their pockets. That profit is driving the dam business, more than responding to needs,” she said.

Still, many developing countries consider dam construction as an expressway ticket to economic development. Carling knows this, and that’s why she has not outright advocated for a ban on dam projects, but “a human rights-based approach to energy development”.

“Indigenous peoples are not the enemies. We are not against development,” she said. “But one of the strongest recommendations by the World Commission on Dams is for countries to do an options assessment in relation to energy needs. There are different options, it's not only dams.”

That is why Carling is exploring new territory: partnerships with the private sector. She hopes that by collaborating with environmental champions in business, they can help show sustainable development is possible.

Carling was bestowed with UN Environment’s Champion of the Earth lifetime achievement award in 2018.

Leyla Acaroglu was 19 years old when, sitting in her first design lecture, she heard something that would change the way she saw the world forever.

Her design professor was giving a lecture on the Gaia hypothesis: the theory that everything in nature is interconnected. As designers, he underlined, they would probably one day make a creative decision that would have far-reaching environmental impacts that they wouldn't even know about.

“I sat there looking at this picture of a tsunami and thinking ‘What! Why didn’t anybody tell me this? Why is this the first time I’m learning about this?’,” said Acaroglu.

“I just couldn’t reconcile that experience,” she said. So, Acaroglu decided to make it her life goal to work in sustainable design and help people create better products and services that would lessen their environmental footprint.

Today, Acaroglu is a UN Environment Champion of the Earth for her efforts in spreading sustainable design solutions. She passionately believes that we are in the midst of a major cultural shift towards the circular economy, simply because there are no other options for our planet.

“Changing the way we do things is a design challenge. Design is not just the act of creating a really comfortable chair, design is the act of taking any resource and forming it into something new,” she said. “We're setting ourselves up for failure unless we figure out how to circularize the system.” 

Acaroglu, who is 36-years-old and the founder of two design studios— one of which focuses on learning experiences to support companies’ transition to a circular economy— says that most business structures that a government allows to be created are designed to be “very rigid and linear.”

“We don't have policies that support these hybrid social innovation models. There's only a couple countries in the world that allow that to happen,” she said.

Her philosophy is that rather than just selling a product, which is the consumer’s responsibility to discard at the end of its life, companies should design products that are modular, recyclable and economically viable to recondition and reuse, from the beginning.

Acaroglu says one effective tool to assess a product’s impact on the environment is life cycle assessment, as it looks at the impact of activities in the economy across the entire supply chain.

Apart from training companies, she also created thecircularclassroom.com to help students think from a young age about products having a circular rather than linear lifecycle. She designed a curriculum for Finland and is currently building an entire learning system for Thailand, which will be delivered outside of the main school system.

“Our siloed approach to education is not equipping young people with the tools that they would need to bring about the new economy that we are going into,” she said.

A self-described fan of Buckminster Fuller—the eccentric futurist who became famous in the 1950s for his invention of the geodesic dome—Acaroglu said what she admires the most about Fuller was his ability to infect people with ideas about the future and how to change the world.

“We live in magic,” she said. “There is no other known lifeforce in this universe. And we have the power to destroy or create within that magic.”

Champions of the Earth, the United Nations’ highest environmental honour, celebrates outstanding figures from the public and private sectors, and from civil society whose actions have had a transformative positive impact on the environment. If that is someone you know, nominate them to be our next Champion.

When Izabella Teixeira told her parents that she was going to work on environmental issues in the early 1980s, they were noticeably upset.

“They didn't know what it meant, they didn't think I could survive financially from it,” Teixeira said. “It wasn’t something people outside of science understood.”

But the former environment minister of Brazil, and current co-chair of the International Resource Panel, ignored her family’s concerns and accepted a job at the Secretariat of the Environment in the State of Pará (SEMA)—the precursor to the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama)—to work under the renowned environmentalist Paulo Nogueira Neto.

“At the time it was very painful to go against my family,” she recounts.

Teixeira, who is today a UN Champion of the Earth for her policy leadership that spans 30 years, admits that the most valuable lesson that she learned for environmental protection is the importance of dialogue.

“I understood from Nogueira Neto that if you are looking for a solution you need to dialogue not only with those in your tribe, not only those converted, but with everyone,” she said.

That is why Teixeira has spent most of her civil service life placing different players together, from private business to indigenous non-governmental organizations. The efforts have paid off, sprouting into remarkable feats, such as the reversal of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest from an annual loss of 27,772 km² in 2004 to 4,571 km² in 2012. Her policies regarding land use also resulted in the creation of 250,000 km² of conservation areas, or the equivalent of 75 per cent of the global forest safeguarded.

When Teixeira eventually became vice-minister for the environment, her mother came and congratulated her for having a vision that many people, including herself, only realized was important 30 years later.

Today, Teixeira is still fighting for the sustainable use of resources as well as trying to encourage political engagement in biodiversity conservation. And while these are tremendous tasks, she is optimistic that they will materialize, particularly because of the young people’s mindset.

“My generation grew up with the obligation to understand what pollution and environmental degradation means,” said Teixeira. “For this generation, protecting the environment is the default, it is part of their core values.”

The International Resource Panel co-chair says she is continually impressed by how young people package environmental protection into every part of their lives, such as not accepting jobs with companies whose values are not aligned with theirs.

“For my generation that would never happen,” she said.

Today’s generation understands that prioritizing the environment in policymaking is not only about protecting nature, it is ensuring that people lead better lives, that the economy thrives and that the planet remains healthy for future people, Teixeira emphasized.

Brazil’s present government has a new vision about how the country’s natural resources should be managed, which is largely based on giving states more power. Nevertheless, Teixeira says the public keeps environmental protection front and centre, demonstrated by the fact that the Bolsonaro government rescinded from pulling out of the Paris Agreement, despite the pledge he had made on his presidential campaign.

Teixeira was awarded the Champion of the Earth title in 2013. Six years later, she is still defending the planet doggedly.

“We as human kind can make the difference in a positive way by learning from our experiences,” she said. “I think being a Champion of the Earth means more than hope. It means acting to change based on the future.”

Champions of the Earth, the United Nations’ highest environmental honour, celebrates outstanding figures from the public and private sectors, and from civil society whose actions have had a transformative positive impact on the environment. If that is someone you know, nominate them to be our next Champion.

The city of Hangzhou in eastern China was once described by the Italian explorer Marco Polo as the, “finest and most splendid city in the world”. Today it is once again on the map thanks to a range of initiatives to cut air pollution and increase the livability of the city.

Indeed, many cities across China have suffered from the effects of air pollution. To remedy the situation, China introduced an Air Pollution Action Plan in 2013 to reduce dangerous particulate matter (PM) 2.5 levels.

For the city of Beijing, the solution has been to drastically eliminate the use of coal: the city closed its coal-fired power stations and banned people in surrounding areas from burning coal for heat. The city’s efforts were so effective that, while in 2013, Beijing ranked as the 40^th worst city for PM 2.5 by the World Health Organization, it ranked in 187^th place in 2018. As part of nationwide efforts to curb air pollutants, other cities in China followed suit and dramatically reduced their PM 2.5 levels.

The new 2018-2020 Three-year Action Plan for Winning the Blue Sky War, announced in July 2018, is the successor of the original air pollution action plan. It calls for a reduction of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide by more than 15 per cent compared with 2015 levels by 2020.

Hangzhou’s bike-sharing success

The bustling city of Hangzhou, home to nearly 10 million people, is world-famous for being home to the high-tech industry, including the world's leading e-commerce group, Alibaba.

However, like other cities in China, Hangzhou has had to tackle the scourge of air pollution. Since most of the Hangzhou’s PM 2.5 pollution comes from vehicle emissions, Hangzhou city authority started China’s very first public bike-sharing scheme. Launched in 2008, the primary purpose of this initiative was to a provide a convenient public service for short journeys in the city. They ended up with two knock-on benefits: less traffic and a reduction in air pollution.

In 2017, when the number of bikes hit a peak, a total of 10 companies, including commercial ones, operated more than 882,000 bikes. The number of bike trips is estimated in the range of hundreds of millions since 2008.

Furthermore, the integration of the public bike-sharing scheme with other public transport in the city has increased its attractiveness and ease-of-use. “This healthy transport has made our city better and its air quality is good,” says Tao Xuejun, general manager of the Hangzhou Public Bicycle Service.

China was known as the “Kingdom of the bicycle” in the 1980s. With economic progress, many people moved to motorized forms of transport. The re-emergence of the bicycle in Hangzhou since 2008 may have been somewhat unexpected but its contribution to helping reduced air pollution is undeniable.

In 2017, the Hangzhou bike-sharing scheme won an award from the Ashden charity which said that “the combination of convenient and free bicycles, well separated bicycle lanes and good public transport appears to have led to reduced use of cars and their associated congestion, pollution and greenhouse gas emissions”.

“Hangzhou is a great example of how cities can introduce initiatives like bike sharing to encourage people to get out of their cars and reduce air pollution,” says Rob de Jong, Head of UN Environment's Air Quality and Mobility Unit. “We really need to encourage city governments and planners around the world to design cities for people, and not cars - leading to safer and cleaner living spaces”.

Switching to non-polluting vehicles an international priority

Tackling air pollution by removing cars from the road is the focus of UN Environment’s Share the Road Programme. The Programme is centered around the concept that everyone begins and ends their journeys as pedestrians, and in cities, some people rely almost exclusively on walking and cycling. Yet, investors and governments continue to prioritize road space for cars. To make the switch to more eco-friendly means of transport, UN Environment supports governments and other stakeholders in developing countries to systematically prioritize and invest in infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists.

Bike-sharing schemes have not been without criticism, however. As the number of bicycles grew rapidly across China, many found their way to massive dumps, as companies went bankrupt because of insufficient demand. Vast piles of impounded, abandoned or broken bicycles have become a familiar sight in many big cities.

Hangzhou itself has had to cut the number of bikes. Cities around the world are learning from this example and ensuring they have full control over the number of bikes released into the city within their bike-sharing schemes.

Other initiatives in Hangzhou to reduce air pollution

Conscious of the risk air pollution poses to health, Hangzhou has implemented many other measures to improve air quality. It expanded its metro system to reduce traffic and invested in thousands of electric buses and taxis.

The city also developed an innovative battery-swapping mechanism for the its electric taxi fleet, allowing one electric taxi to travel for 230 kilometers on two to three fully charged batteries every day. Hangzhou’s goal is to reach a total fleet of 1,000 electric taxis, ultimately aiming at a zero-emission taxi fleet.

For more information, please contact the Breathe Life team here.

You walk into a burger restaurant. What’s going through your mind? Double meat with extra bacon and cheese? Brown bun or added slice of avocado? Environmental degradation or ecological preservation?

You probably don’t think about the latter. But maybe you should.

Research shows that if cows were a nation, they would be the world’s third largest greenhouse gas emitter. As humans, meat production is one of the most destructive ways in which we leave our footprint on the planet.  

Hectares of rainforest in South America are cleared for cattle, to make our favorite classic burgers and steaks. One average quarter pounder beef burger drains around 1,695 liters of water, depending on where it is made, from precious resources.

Yet our demand for meat is going up. The Food and Agriculture Organization projects an increase of 76 per cent in global meat consumption by 2050. More meat will be eaten than ever before in our history.

And we will pay the environmental and human price—unless we make a change now.

Hidden costs add up

“We need to be realistic. Cutting meat out of the diet entirely is for many people just not an option,” said James Lomax, Sustainable Food Systems and Agriculture Programme Management Officer at UN Environment.

“Livestock production is a really important source of vitamins and protein—and income generation—for the world’s poor. And, small organic husbandry operations have a very different environmental footprint compared with industrial type livestock production,” he said.   

From grazing and pastoral systems in Africa and Latin America, to draft power in Asia and industrial farms in Europe and North America, each system has advantages and disadvantages, he added.

 “But at the core of the environmental issue is the way meat is produced, and crucially, consumed. We must explore ways to strike an ecological balance. Reducing intensively farmed meat consumption is good for people and the planet. That means eating a sustainably reared or alternative burger or steak now and then, rather than an intensively-farmed mass-produced version three times a week.”

The human costs

Massive demand for commercial meat supply has other consequences. Agriculture uses more freshwater than any other human activity. While raising animals takes up about 80 per cent agricultural land, livestock contribute to 18 per cent of the world’s calories.

Animal feed made from soy—one of the largest export commodities from South America—is leading to widespread deforestation and displacement of farmers and indigenous peoples around the globe.  

It is notoriously hard to pin down how the human diet—including meat consumption—contributes to death or disease, because of the many other factors at play. Yet we know that eating processed meat in excess has negative implications for our health.

Antibiotics used to rear livestock and keep animals disease-free often end up in our food, contributing to antibiotic resistance in humans. Recent concerns also highlight that fast-food chains use meat laden with antibiotics.

What are the alternatives?

We need to eat less or sustainably reared meat in parts of the world where meat consumption per person is high. Even replacing red meat with chicken can be more environmentally friendly.

Manufacturers of vegan and plant-based meat alternatives point out that their products typically contain less fat and cholesterol than their processed beef equivalent. There is a small but growing trend for meat-free “meat”. 

UN Environment’s Champions of the Earth winners Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat have done research to strip the basic building blocks of meat down to protein, fat, water and trace minerals, recreating meat entirely from plants—at a fraction of the cost to the environment. 

Research by Beyond Meat and the University of Michigan Study found that the amount of water in your average swimming pool can produce 312 beef burgers or 60,837 Beyond Burgers.

The research also shows that Americans eat around three burgers a week. If one of these was swapped for a Beyond Meat plant-based alternative burger for one year, it would be like taking the greenhouse gases from 12 million cars off the road for a year.   

Both companies say their burgers require between 75 – 99 per cent less water; 93 – 95 per cent less land; and generate 87 – 90 per cent fewer emissions than regular beef burgers, consuming nearly half the energy to make.

These calculations factor in primary raw materials like ingredients, including coconut oil, citrus extract, potato starch and water, and transport, lighting and cold store distribution.

It’s time to weigh up the real cost of that burger.

Ahead of the United Nations Environment Assembly next March, UN Environment is urging people to Think Beyond and Live Within. Join the debate on social media using #SolveDifferent to share your stories and see what others are doing to ensure a sustainable future for our planet.

When Bertrand Piccard was preparing for the world’s first ever solar-powered flight around the world, he had a problem. Cockpit temperatures were projected to skyrocket from minus 40 to above 40 degrees Celsius between night and day. Staying alive in those conditions would be impossible.

But he was not deterred. His dream to navigate the globe in a solar-powered aircraft to show the world that low-emission travel is not only possible, but necessary, was just beginning.

In partnership with Solar Impulse, Covestro - a leading producer of advanced polymers and high-performance plastics which also supports the Young Champions of the Earth prize - engineer Bernd Rothe was already looking for a solution.

Rothe was researching super light cockpit insulation which could withstand the violent temperature swings and meet the mechanical needs of the aircraft.

Inventing a unique solution

“Solar Impulse was looking for something special,” said Rothe. “Polyurethane foam is considered the best industrially available insulating material. After some research, we designed a polyurethane rigid foam which is strong, yet light enough to be picked up with one finger.”

The unique foam saves 70 times more energy during its lifetime than is required for its production. It is made from small gas bubbles enclosed by polyurethane. By experimenting with different gases trapped inside the cells of the foam, and the type of polyurethane used, the engineers managed to solve multiple challenges at once.

“We were really excited when we worked on this foam, because we realized these characteristics have implications for everyday items as well,” added Rothe. “Not only could we find a solution for the Solar Impulse project, our findings would go beyond this.”

For example, the new thermal insulation significantly improves the performance of refrigerators we have in our kitchens. “The better insulating properties of the foam allow us to significantly decrease the thickness in the walls,” explained Rothe.

#Solvedifferent in our everyday lives

“This means it’s possible for us to increase the volume of the fridge, without using more resources to make bigger fridges. We are not only making it possible to use less materials, we are also improving the efficiency of their insulation.”

In developing countries, only half of food produced reaches consumers on average. The new thermal insulation can also improve cold chains by keeping refrigerated food at cooler temperatures for longer.

“As a project leader for solar impulse, I learned that everything is possible. When we started this project, the goal was to fly without fuel. We did it. It is entirely possible that one day, we will make plastics without oil. We continue to push the boundaries of science to make sure that we no longer push the boundaries of our planet,” he said.

Mark Radka, chief of UN Environment’s Energy and Climate Technology Branch, said: “Our fast-paced lifestyles can no longer come at the cost of our environment. We must pick up the pace on technology innovation to bring sustainable solutions into everything we do.

“From refrigerating our food to lighting our homes, our daily lives too often have an environmental cost. Used wisely, technology can help us live cleaner, more sustainable lives.”

What’s next?

Insights gained from the Solar Impulse project have been analyzed by Covestro and are now merged in a new initiative by the Solar Impulse Foundation: The World Alliance for Efficient Solutions. The World Alliance brings together more than 1200 members to raise environmental awareness within industries.

Together with the support of the Solar Impulse Foundation and companies in the alliance support network, including Covestro, members can submit their efficient and clean solutions to receive the Solar Impulse Efficient Solution Label, and form part of the #1000solutions portfolio. These will be presented at the UN climate conference in December 2018.

“Today there are already thousands of marketable solutions that could promote economic growth and preserve nature at the same time,” said Piccard. “However, they are often hidden in start-ups or research laboratories. Few know that those solutions are just waiting to be applied in a profitable way.”

Ahead of the United Nations Environment Assembly next March, UN Environment is urging people to Think Beyond and Live Within. Join the debate on social media using #SolveDifferent to share your stories and see what others are doing to ensure a sustainable future for our planet.

• Producers of revolutionary plant-based meats, Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods win the 2018 Champions of the Earth award, the UN’s highest accolade for the environment. 

• Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods produce sustainable alternatives to beef.

• Both businesses received their award during the Champions Gala event in New York.

26 September 2018 – Producers of sustainable, plant-based meats, Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, have received the 2018 Champions of the Earth award for their breakthrough alternatives to meat-based food products. The United Nations named both companies Champions of the Earth for Science and Innovation.

The U.S. based companies came together at the annual Champions of the Earth awards ceremony on the sidelines of the General Assembly with a message to the world: It’s time to change the think about our food and our future.

The U.S. based companies put aside market competition and came together at the annual Champions of the Earth awards ceremony on the sidelines of the General Assembly with a message to the world: It’s time to change how we  think about our food and our future.

With a breakthrough approach to their respective products, Beyond Meat and Impossible foods are delivering sustainable choices to consumers worldwide. Livestock cultivation is responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide and together the process employed by these Champions of the Earth aims to show the world ecologically conscious decisions don’t have to mean sacrificing quality, convenience or in this case – taste.

“This proves that positive climate action can taste even better!” Erik Solheim, head of UN Environment said. “Saving the planet requires something of a gastronomical rethink in some parts of the world, and Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods prove that this doesn’t mean our taste buds are making the sacrifice.”

Working with top scientists in the fields of biology, chemistry, biophysics, plant and food science, along with engineers, the Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods teams strip down the core components of meat and extract them from plants instead, using ingredients like peas, beetroot, coconut oil and potato starch.

“At a high level, meat is composed of amino acids, water, lipids, trace minerals and water,” said Ethan Brown, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Beyond Meat. “Animals use their digestive and muscular systems to convert vegetation and water into meat. We’re going straight to the plant, bypassing the animal, and building meat directly, with the added benefit of being more sustainable. We get better every year and are on a relentless march toward that perfect and indistinguishable build of meat from plants.”   

Started in 2009, Beyond Meat created a cutting-edge burger made from peas, potatoes, beet juice and coconut oil, without gluten, soy or GMOs. The Beyond Burger launched to sell-out demand in 2016 and made headlines for being the first plant-based burger to be so meat-like it was sold in the meat case at Whole Foods Market. It is now available at more than 22,000 grocery stores, restaurants, universities, hotels, theme parks and sports stadiums.

Impossible Foods was founded in 2011, launching its Impossible Burger five years later. The burger contains wheat, coconut oil, and potatoes. The revolutionary technology that causes this burger to “bleed” and have the signature iron aftertaste normally only experienced in beef burgers, is the addition of a key ingredient called heme, an iron-rich compound produced from yeast that gives meat its taste and helps give blood its color.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that big global problems are not someone else’s responsibility,” said Dr. Patrick O. Brown, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Impossible Foods. “This problem wasn’t going to be solved by pleading with consumers to eat beans and tofu instead of meat and fish. And it wouldn’t be enough just to find a better way to make meat; to succeed we would need to make the best meat in the world.”

The awards were presented during the Champions of the Earth Gala in New York coinciding with the annual UN General Assembly meeting, which brings heads of states, ministers, and leaders of the public and private sector together to discuss some of the most urgent global issues.

The gala, attended by over 400 guests centered around some of the most radical positive forces for environmental change around the world.

Other winners of the Champions of the Earth Award were: the Zhejiang River Chiefs program, tackling water protection, pollution prevention, and ecological restoration; Joan Carling, a prominent activist championing indigenous and environmental; Cochin International Airport, the world's first fully solar-powered airport; and Emmanuel Macron & Narendra Modi for their international cooperation on environmental action and for spearheading the International Solar Alliance.

NOTES TO EDITORS

About UN Environment

UN Environment is the leading global voice on the environment. It provides leadership and encourages partnership in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing, and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations. UN Environment works with governments, the private sector, the civil society and with other UN entities and international organizations across the world. 

About Champions of the Earth

The annual Champions of the Earth prize is awarded to outstanding leaders from government, civil society and the private sector whose actions have had a positive impact on the environment. Since being founded thirteen years ago, the awards have recognized 84 laureates – ranging from leaders of nations to grassroots activists – in the categories of policy, science, business and civil society. Visit the website here: http://web.unep.org/champions.  

For more information, please contact:

Keith Weller, UN Environment, Head of News and Media, keith.weller@un.org