The journey of building a carbon negative future is going to require all hands on deck.
Lisa Dyson, Ph.D., founder and CEO of Air Protein, fully joined in on the mission before she founded her startup. The idea was initially sparked when the scientist visited New Orleans, LA, after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
“As a scientist, I was thinking about climate science and how climate scientists have been telling us that we’re going to have these weather events that are going to be more intense and more frequent,” Dr. Dyson recalled at the 2023 AFROTECH™ Conference in conversation with James White, executive chair of Air Protein and former CEO of Jamba Juice. “And just seeing how that impacted people’s lives, it caused me to want to see how I could be a part of creating a different future, a different reality, and join the many people that are out there, and started working on climate solutions.”
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During the fireside chat, Dyson shared how Kiverdi, her first company, “was all about converting CO2 into products of value so that industry could scale economically attractive solutions that were better environmentally.” By 2019, the company’s work led to new venture Air Protein, which was inspired by NASA scientists’ usage of carbon transformation in the 1960s. Today Air Protein uses modern food-making technology to create a sustainable meat alternative, per its website.
“Looking at the food industry itself, it actually is one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases,” Dyson explained. “More greenhouse gases are emitted from the food industry than the entire transportation sector. And it’s also a contributor for deforestation. With Air Protein, we’re innovating on new ways to make food that’s inspired by work done by NASA, where in that case, you really are thinking outside the box. You’re thinking off the planet really. How do you make food in a situation where you don’t have acres and acres of farmland? And so we’re building a way to make food with only air, water, and energy as inputs. So no land required whatsoever.”
As Dyson continues to make strides with Air Protein, which has raised over $100 million, she mentioned the different possibilities for a carbon negative future, including carbon capture, carbon sequestration, and biofuels. In addition, she shared tips for those who also want to be a part of not only building a carbon negative future but also getting to net zero. She advises people to spend money on more sustainable products and hopes that movement will spark more big name companies to invest further in innovation to create additional sustainable products for the market.
“Even if you’re in tech, there is the carbon footprint of the data centers,” Dyson said. “There’s who you partner with. You can choose the partners that have the sustainability commitments and they’re living up to them. You can choose the raw materials that are better sourced than the ones where they’re not concerned about that.”
She continued, “There’s a lot of different ways depending on what you’re doing in your business, and if you’re working for a corporation, you can convince them to start a group within there, focus on sustainability, and bring ideas to the leadership.”
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