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As the global climate and environmental crisis accelerates, the urgency for sustainable alternatives to fossil fuel-based products has never been greater. Today, biobased productsderived from renewable agricultural, marine, and forestry materialsare gaining momentum as critical tools in reducing our reliance on non-renewable resources and mitigating environmental harm. From everyday household goods to advanced industrial materials, biobased alternatives are transforming entire industries and creating pathways toward a lower-carbon, more resilient future. Biobased products offer a broad range of applications, including lubricants, detergents, inks, fertilizers, and bioplastics. To qualify as biobased, the USDA requires that products must contain a minimum of 25% renewable content unless an established minimum is defined for that category. Consumers are taking notice: A striking 64% now prioritize sustainability in purchasing decisions and are willing to pay an average 12% premium for products with proven eco-benefits. The environmental payoff is significantbiobased products prevent the release of 12.7 million metric tons of CO annually, the equivalent of removing nearly three million cars from the road. HISTORY OF BIO-BASED PRODUCTS The use of biobased materials is far from new. Ancient civilizations utilized wool, plants, and plant oils long before petroleum ever entered the picture. In the early 20th century, many industrial chemicals were still derived from biomass. During the 1930s, automotive pioneer Henry Ford famously experimented with soybean-based plastics for car parts. Wartime resource shortages, particularly during and after World War II, prompted renewed interest in renewable alternatives. The modern era of biobased innovation was catalyzed by policy action. In 1999, President Bill Clinton issued Executive Order 13134, laying the foundation for a national biobased product strategy and encouraging early adoption of renewable technologies. This pivotal moment helped bring the promise of biobased materials into the mainstream. THE PRESENT-DAY BOOM Fast forward to today, and the biobased sector is thriving. The USDA now tracks 139 biobased product categoriesup from just five in 2005excluding food, fuel, and feed. This explosive growth reflects both market demand and technological progress. These products displace approximately 300 million gallons of petroleum annually in the U.S. alone, which equates to removing another 200,000 vehicles from circulation. In total, the industry has contributed over $393 billion in value-added economic output, signaling both its ecological and economic relevance. A significant trend in 2024 has been the surge in biobased alternatives to single-use plastics. From bamboo cutlery and soy-based straws to potato-starch trash bags and palm leaf plates, sustainable materials are now widespread in consumer goods. Biobased products have also expanded into less obvious categories, such as safety equipment, filters, adhesives, clothing, and even perfumes. The built environment offers some of the most compelling examples, with fibers and fabrics emerging as a particularly fast-growing segmentadding 127 newly certified USDA biobased products in the past year alone. Products like Biobased Xorel, a high-performance textile used in commercial interiors. While its molecularly identical to a petroleum-based counterpartboth made from polyethylenethe key difference lies in the feedstock: sugarcane. The sugarcane plant yields significantly more per acre and produces 9.5 units of renewable energy for every unit of material, compared to just 1.4 units from corn. Even more impressively, sugarcane does not require genetic modification, and in Brazilthe worlds leading producerit is cultivated on only about 1% of the countrys arable land, meaning it doesnt compete with food crops or contribute significantly to deforestation. While many biobased materials are already on the market, a wide array of new solutions are still in the experimental phase, signaling even greater potential on the horizon. Researchers are exploring everything from synthetic spider silk, with its incredible strength and flexibility, to self-healing concrete designed to increase infrastructure lifespan and reduce maintenance emissions. In particular, synthetic spider silk is gaining attention as a potential replacement for environmentally damaging plastic fibers in construction. Yet, amidst the progress, concerns about greenwashing persist. Fortunately, third-party certifications such as the USDA Certified Biobased Product Label help cut through the noise, ensuring material origins are verified and measurable. LOOKING AHEAD: INNOVATION AND OPPORTUNITY As the biobased sector matures, technology is redefining its possibilities. Advanced biorefinery processes and synthetic biology are giving rise to new materials and offering petroleum-free alternatives for commercial interiors. Equally important is the integration of carbon capture and utilization, turning waste emissions into viable material inputs. The path forward also relies on scalable production, improved supply chain resilience, and continued transparency. Emerging technologiessuch as genetic editing, bioprinting, and AI-driven process optimizationare laying the groundwork for a dynamic, circular, and responsive system of biobased manufacturing. A CALL TO ACTION Biobased products present a powerful opportunity to rethink the materials we rely on every day, but success depends on more than technological innovation. Governments must continue investing in supportive legislation and incentives. Industries must demand transparency and take full stock of environmental, human health, and social equity impacts. Consumers, empowered with information, ust look beyond labels and ask: Whats the true cost? By replacing environmentally damaging materials with renewable, sustainable alternatives and by prioritizing certifications, transparency, and lifecycle impact, we can build a world where sustainability isnt just a trendbut the default. The future of biobased products is not only promisingits essential. Gordon Boggis is CEO of Carnegie.
Category:
E-Commerce
Earlier this year, while the U.S. government was cutting billions in foreign aid, a refugee education program called Yeti Confetti did something remarkable: It took a single grant and scaled from serving 35 to 1,400+ students in Lebanon and NYC. They anticipate doubling that within the next few months. While hundreds of humanitarian organizations suspended programs because of the U.S. foreign assistance freeze, Rocket Learning, an education tech platform in India, is reaching 3 million children across 10 states and territories at $1.50 per child per year, a fraction of comparable traditional early childhood programs. This dichotomy was reflected in two types of conversations I heard during the United Nations General Assembly week in September 2025. In one, senior leaders from development agencies were genuinely grappling with an existential moment, with deep cuts in international aid worldwide. Then, there were the people closer to the work who had already moved ontoo busy delivering and craving for scale. WHAT GOT US HERE WONT GET US THERE The decades-long development of infrastructure created real expertise and crucial services to communities that desperately needed support. That matters and still does. The challenge isn’t the people or the expertiseit’s the operating system. That system was built for a world with more money than innovation. We now live in a world with more innovation than money. Layers of oversight, risk-averse funding cycles, and multiple intermediaries mean the infrastructure can’t move at the speed or cost-efficiency the moment demands. In 2024, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated that 305 million people worldwide would need humanitarian assistance by 2025. Despite the growing need, by November 2024, less than half (43%) of the requested $50 billion had been received. Climate disasters aren’t slowing down. Neither is conflict. Neither is displacement. When the gap between need and allocated resources grows this wide, shouldnt the calculation change? This isn’t about replacing institutional knowledge but about restructuring who holds resources and how they flow. It’s about multilateral agencies recognizing that their greatest value might be directly platforming solutions rather than implementing them or hiring intermediaries. It’s about foundations embracing risk, treating innovation as a core strategy rather than a side portfolio. WHAT THE DOERS KNOW Theres a solution to a problem the traditional sector has been trying to solve for yearshow to reach more people, faster, with less money. There’s an entire generation of entrepreneurs who never waited for perfect conditions or for permission. Take Kate Kallots Amini in Africa. Her data platform is solving the continents critical data scarcity and information inaccessibility by providing hyper-accurate, granular data localized to smallholder farms. Its now benefitting 7.5 million people across 25 countries, including partnerships with the governments of Barbados, Côte dIvoire, and Sierra Leone. Rocket Learning, mentioned above, became the Indian government’s technical partner for 230,000 rural childcare centers, with students scoring 30% higher in their classrooms than others. The detailed economic analyses reveal a remarkable benefit-to-cost ratio of $1,274 per child. The solutions that work have these traits in common: They’re cheaper: Technology enables reach without decreasing marginal costs. They’re faster: Different organizational structures enabling different speeds. They’re sustainable: They generate revenue, create jobs, and outlast any single funding cycle. Moving resources directly to entrepreneurs introduces different risks. Safeguarding protocols exist for good reasons. But the current approach also carries riskthe risk of reaching fewer people, taking longer, at a higher cost per beneficiary. We need to be honest about which risks we can afford at this moment in time. WHAT HAPPENS NEXT The bottleneck isn’t ideas. It’s the infrastructure connecting local entrepreneurs addressing the pressing challenges of their communities to resources and scale. Here’s what would accelerate impact: Early and direct capital is where the leverage is highest compared to the years of pilot data that traditional funders want. Bespoke support from people who’ve done it before, not another workshop on Theory of Change. Networks for scale toconnect proven solutions to government partners, procurement processes, and private sector distribution channels. Many entrepreneurs can build great products but lack relationships with decision-makers who control access to millions of beneficiaries. Patient growth capital because one-year grants don’t match the timeline of building sustainable organizations that scale to millions. Validation infrastructure so development agencies can shift from primary implementers to validators and amplifiers of what’s working. Using institutional credibility and expertise to assess, endorse, and help scale entrepreneur-led solutions that meet rigorous standards. For funders, this isn’t charity. It’s leverage. Wed be backing solutions that become self-sustaining, building systems that outlast any administration’s foreign policy shifts, reaching more people for a fraction of traditional cost-per-beneficiary, and getting closer to aid independence, which countries in the Global South are hungry for. The future of global development is happening right now in Tripoli, Kolkata, Mombasa, Ho Chi Minh, in the hands of entrepreneurs who saw that the system couldn’t move fast enough and decided to build something that would. This transition asks people to reimagine systems they’ve spent careers building. Thats not easy. The expertise and relationships built over decades matter. The question is how to channel those assets toward what’s demonstrably working. The ground has already shifted. The doers never stopped moving. Lets join them. Hala Hanna is the executive director of MIT Solve.
Category:
E-Commerce
Have you ever tried to complete a jigsaw puzzle without all the pieces? Thats what its like to run a business with siloed systems. Business data is critical in every industry, but if its siloed across departments, teams, and peoplethat is, if your puzzle pieces are scattered across your homeyou may never figure out how to make that information work for you. Left unaddressed, this fragmentation can eventually undermine customer trust, brand integrity, and employee retention, severely impacting your business goals. True integration isnt just about building more efficient systems: Its about centering the entirety of your customers needs in every system you build. From my time as CEO of Sollis Health, as well as my background creating seamless, loyalty-building customer experiences across industries, heres what Ive learned how to connect vital data points, ultimately breaking these silos. FRAGMENTATION FRUSTRATES YOUR CUSTOMER In traditional healthcare, patients are shuttled between clinics, hospitals, and specialists, and each stop possesses only part of their medical record. If this gap between providers isnt closed, medical data falls through the cracks, causing confusion, inconvenience, and even negative health outcomes. Other industries face a similar challenge: Siloed customer data in banking, retail, and fitness makes the customer experience more confusing and difficult, impacting loyalty and damaging brands. Take the travel industry, for years frequent travelers of franchised hotels were unable to immediately access their folios, which are itemized records of all charges incurred during their stay, via hotel apps or websites. Its only been within the past five or so years that many hotels integrated their systems and resolved this problem. Like pushing together two puzzle pieces that dont fit, poor integration creates friction and weakens the bond between your brand and your customer. Damage that bond and you damage the brand. As a result, trust erodes and loyalty declines, and what could have been a lasting relationship is reduced to a one-time transaction. SYSTEM INTEGRATION REVIVES BRAND LOYALTY Of course, integrating siloed systems is easier said than done. Shortsighted thinkers may regard this process as merely a perk or upgrade, not a loyalty strategy. But any situation where customers are left to connect their own dots leaves them feeling unseen and underserved. That unseen feeling has tangible results. If you dont consider qualitative feedback as valuable as operational data, you run the risk of overlooking a vital opportunity to connect the dots for customers and secure their loyalty. Consumers are increasingly willing to share medical and personal data if it improves outcomes, according to this McKinsey report. Integration thats seamless and private isnt just welcomed but increasingly in demand. At Sollis, we fulfill that demand (and put our data to good use) with Qualtrics, which harnesses the power of AI to review and summarize qualitative, free-form feedback. Instead of using guesswork to improve the customer experience, this vital feedback guides our next move, whether thats adding additional benefits to a membership tier or opening in a new market. System integration is more than streamlining or maintenance. An investment in an entirely new technology system can enhance trust between you and your customer if it enables you to remember their preferences and history. This signals that you understand them, making it possible to anticipate their needs, deliver a seamless experience, and build the kind of loyalty that lasts. CONNECT the dots for your customers Frustrated by their jigsaw puzzle, some business leaders make the mistake of passing on their incomplete set of pieces to the consumer. Siloed systems push the burden onto the customer, whether its a patient managing their own referrals or a hotel guest juggling multiple logins. Business leaders seeking to relieve customers of the burden of being their own managers must build systems that anticipate their needs and then address those needs proactively through seamless, personalized solutions. Sometimes, the solution is as simple as a tech upgrade. Sollis recently adopted Metriport, a tool that (with a patient’s explicit consent) pulls data from the Health Information Exchange national database, then uses AI to summarize key conditions, allergies, recent scans, and other medical data. This gives our clinicians a brief but thorough view of a members medical history prior to their appointment, providing a more coordinated care experience that saves time for clinicians and patients alike, while streamlining treatment. Our patients dont have to spend their time tracking down a lifetimes worth of medical records every time they need care, and our clinicians are at far less risk of overlooking key data that could impact decision-making. Siloed systems dont just slow operations: they fail your customers, often at critical junctions in the customer experience. True integration is not a back-end fix, but a tool for understanding your customer holistically. When companies connect the dots, they move from treating customers as transactions to recognizing them as people. Like a completed puzzle, the picture finally comes into focus. Brad Olson is CEO of Sollis Health.
Category:
E-Commerce
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