“Global Challenge, Global Solutions” is a series hosted on Climasphere highlighting inspiring, innovative, and creative global solutions to the challenge of climate change in the lead up to the next major climate conference, COP22. These solutions have been provided by members of the Earth To Marrakech coalition, a group of more than 50 media organizations, civil society groups, and businesses from around the world who are raising their voices in a collective call to move from words to action on climate change. Let’s send a message, from Earth To Marrakech: The solutions to climate change are out there, and they’re inspiring. 

Beef-Flavored Plant-Based Burgers

Im­possible Foods is working to produce cheese, eggs, and meats utilizing only plant matter. Their trade­mark product is a cheese­bur­ger that tastes like the real deal but is made from plants. The com­pany be­lieves its meat-like fla­vor and tex­ture will con­vince even ar­dent bur­ger lov­ers to eat less meat.

Their tech­no­lo­gical dis­cov­ery is based on util­iz­a­tion of heme, a pro­tein found in both meat and plants. Com­bin­ing plants such as hon­ey­dew mel­ons and coconuts, Im­possible Foods has cre­ated something that, ac­cord­ing to crit­ics who have tried it, looks, smells, and tastes similar to ground beef. By provid­ing con­sumers with meat and dairy products made en­tirely from plants, Im­possible Foods’ cre­ations will en­able people to sat­isfy crav­ings without causing ser­i­ous harm to the en­vir­on­ment.

RELEVANCE OF SOLUTION
Op­er­a­tions pro­du­cing meat and dairy products cover 30% of the Earth’s land sur­face, and the in­dus­tries are a ma­jor source of wa­ter and air pol­lu­tion. With meat con­sump­tion ex­pec­ted to double glob­ally by 2050 be­cause of pop­u­la­tion growth and rising af­flu­ence, the en­vir­on­mental im­pact is ex­pec­ted to worsen. A simple and ef­fect­ive solu­tion is to provide meat and dairy products made en­tirely from plants.

TRIPLE BOTTOM LINE:

ENVIRONMENTAL
Pro­du­cing Im­possible Foods’ bur­gers uses 99% less land, 85% less wa­ter and emits 89% less green­house gas emis­sions than con­ven­tional an­imal-de­rived beef.

SOCIAL
Im­possible Foods’ products are free of cho­les­terol, hor­mones, an­ti­bi­ot­ics, and slaughter­house con­tam­in­ants.

ECONOMIC
Re­quir­ing less land and wa­ter makes plants a cost-ef­fect­ive al­tern­at­ive in pro­du­cing meat and dairy-like products.