Zurich: The Future of Food - The science of your synthetic supper
Today’s agricultural farming practices and our eating habits hugely influence the environment contributing to climate change, loss of biodiversity or health issues. With a growing world population, further stress will be put on production and supply of food for the people. Global meat consumption alone is expected to double by 2050, due among other things to the growing demand from developing economies.
Can we afford this increase in producing that amount of meat? How can we further raise awareness on the topic and also encourage less meat consumption in the developing world? Who are the drivers of this development? What are the challenges to transform our current system and which are the next solutions to be identified in this process? What role does philanthropic capital and social/impact investing play?
As discussions on these issues have become viral in parts of Europe and North America, it has become popular to eat less meat, explore alternatives to meat, become vegetarian or even vegan. What other opportunities are there to change behaviour for a sustainable planet? Certainly, awareness is increasing but there are still many questions unanswered. We need to look at the system as a whole to understand the individual entry points to make a difference.
From shopping for food to making decisions in the investment portfolio, we often underestimate our range of choice to make a difference.
During the discussion, we want to raise awareness on options and potential pathways for change. What is the role of local food? How can agricultural farming practices adapt to climate change and water scarcity? How can we recreate biodiversity to increase food varieties and stabilize insect populations? What is the role of governments, philanthropists and investors towards food systems reforms and true costs? How can organic farming practices be supported?
Chair: Heiko Specking, Founder and Partner, specking+partners
Panel: Michelle Grant, ETH Zurich World Food System Center
Emilie Dellecker, Partner, FoodHack, Switzerland
Matthew Downes, Chef, Switzerland, Apéro Riche – Asian Style Swiss Fusion
Arjan Overwater, Food Entrepreneur, Netherlands
Producer representative
Academic representative TBC
Philanthropy Impact would like to thank our Zurich Committee for organising this event:
- Lucy Blythe, Philia International
- Inbal Faibish, Goldfarb Seligman (Zurich)
- Michael Fischer, Fischer Ramp Partner
- Tom Henderson, Rawlinson & Hunter (Zurich)
- Heiko Specking, specking+partners
- Amer Vohora, VALUEworks
- Oliver Widmer, Pestalozzi Attorneys at Law
- Zamir Wiget, WWF Schweiz
Philanthropy Impact would like to thank
Fischer Ramp Partner AG
For generously hosting this event
Download the event flyer as a PDF