As the world grapples with the dual crises of #globalwarming and #biodiversityloss, businesses are under increasing pressure to mitigate their environmental impact. While carbon accounting has gained significant traction over the past few years, biodiversity is often overlooked in corporate strategies. Enter Nala.Earth, a pioneering Nature Tech startup on a mission to change that by helping companies measure, manage, and report their biodiversity impacts. In this episode we had the pleasure of interviewing its Co-founder Anna Alex.
Anna Alex is a serial entrepreneur and visionary in the climate tech and sustainability space. She co-founded Outfittery, a leading fashion tech company, and Planetly, a carbon management platform. Now in her third venture, Nala.Earth, Anna is focused on making nature a core aspect of corporate responsibility. With a passion for combining innovation with purpose, Anna is dedicated to creating sustainable, nature-positive solutions that drive both environmental and economic progress.
You can listen to this episode here:
Science and Technology to Drive Change
As businesses become more aware of their environmental responsibilities, there’s a growing need for biodiversity accounting—just as we have carbon accounting to track emissions. Biodiversity accounting allows companies to understand their impact on ecosystems, make informed decisions, and disclose these impacts to stakeholders. Nala Earth uses innovative technology that provides businesses with a platform that integrates data from over 50 sources to gain a global perspective of their impact in their supply chains. .
In just a few years, Nala Earth has made significant strides in helping businesses understand and manage their biodiversity impacts. Anna and her Co-founders Nick Zumbuehl and Nicolas Somogyi have scaled their business in a remarkably fast pace and created important partnerships with companies like Hipp, a baby food manufacturer. This is a great example of how biodiversity accounting can be integrated into corporate operations. By mapping and managing biodiversity within their supply chains, Hipp is taking concrete steps toward a more sustainable and nature-positive future. With €1.7 million in pre-seed funding, Nala Earth is now poised to scale its platform and expand its reach across Europe, starting with the DACH region (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland). (Source: Nala Earth)
Website: https://www.nala.earth/
Contact Anna: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-alex/
Why Biodiversity Matters
As the human population has expanded, hundreds of species have become extinct and thousands more are threatened with extinction. These changes represent a loss in biological diversity, or biodiversity. Biodiversity loss goes hand in hand with the disappearance of natural ecosystems. Only about a quarter of Earth’s land surfaces remain untouched by human alterations. We see the evidence of our impact on natural ecosystems every day. We live and work in altered landscapes. And though we may be less aware of it, our impact on the oceans is also extensive.
What is the value of biodiversity? Most people appreciate the direct benefits provided by certain ecosystems. For example, as you know, we use resources—such as water,
wood, and fish—that come from natural or near-natural ecosystems. These resources have economic value, as the massive 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico dramatically demonstrated. Billions of dollars were lost by fishing, recreation, and other industries as a result of the disaster. But human well-being also depends on less obvious services that healthy ecosystems provide. The coastal wetlands affected by the Gulf oil spill normally act as a buffer against hurricanes, reduce the impact of flooding, and filter pollutants. The wetlands also furnish nesting sites for birds and marine turtles and breeding areas and nurseries for a wide variety of fish and shellfish.
Natural ecosystems provide other services as well—such as recycling nutrients, preventing erosion and mudslides, controlling agricultural pests, and pollinating crops. Some scientists have attempted to assign an economic value to these benefits. They arrived at an average annual value of ecosystem services of $33 trillion, almost twice the global gross national product for the year they published their results. Although rough, these estimates make the important point that we cannot afford to take biodiversity for granted.
Source: Simon, E. J., Dickey, J. L., Hogan, K. A., & Reece, J. B. (2019). Campbell essential biology (7th Global ed.). Pearson.
According to WWF, "THE AVERAGE SIZE OF WILDLIFE POPULATIONS HAS FALLEN BY A STAGGERING 73%"
There are four causes for Biodiversity Loss:
Habitat Destruction:
The massive destruction and fragmentation of habitats caused by agriculture, urban development, forestry, and mining pose the single greatest threat to biodiversity. According to the IUCN, habitat destruction affects more than 85% of all birds, mammals, and amphibians that are threatened with extinction.
Invasive Species:
Ranking second behind habitat destruction as a cause of biodiversity loss is the introduction of invasive species. Population growth of human-introduced
species has caused havoc when the introduced species have competed with, preyed on, or parasitized native species.
Overexploitation:
Unsustainable marine fisheries demonstrate how people can overexploit wildlife by harvesting at rates that exceed the ability of species to rebound. American bison, Galápagos tortoises, and tigers are among the many terrestrial species whose numbers have been drastically reduced by excessive commercial harvesting, poaching, and sport hunting. Overharvesting also threatens some plants, including rare trees such as mahogany and rosewood that produce valuable wood.
Pollution:
Air and water pollution is a contributing factor in declining populations of hundreds of species worldwide. The global water cycle can transport pollutants from terrestrial to aquatic ecosystems hundreds of miles away. Pollutants that are emitted into the atmosphere may be carried aloft for thousands of miles before falling to earth in the form of acid precipitation.
Source: Simon, E. J., Dickey, J. L., Hogan, K. A., & Reece, J. B. (2019). Campbell essential biology (7th Global ed.). Pearson.
To address these issues, WWF has compiled comprehensive resources to guide our actions. We highly recommend reviewing their most recent biennial report, published in 2024, as well as their collection of ideas for transforming our food, energy, and financial systems.
Biodiversity loss is closely linked to climate change through disruptions in the water, carbon, and phosphorus cycles. The burning of fossil fuels and deforestation increase atmospheric carbon, contributing to climate change, which in turn affects ecosystems and their ability to regulate water and nutrients.
Excessive use of fertilizers leads to nutrient runoff into water bodies, triggering algal blooms that deplete oxygen levels, block sunlight, and create "dead zones" where most life cannot survive. In marine ecosystems, this contributes to coral bleaching, further endangering biodiversity. At the same time, the increasing acidity of the oceans—driven by rising CO2 levels—damages marine life and disrupts entire food webs. The interconnectedness of these processes reveals how climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss form a vicious cycle, amplifying one another and creating a cascading environmental crisis.
More relevant resources about biodiversity loss:
The questions we address in this episode:
(1:55) what was your motivation of starting Outfittery in the first place, and then what triggered it to sell and change into a new adventure?
(2:00) after two years at Rocket Internet, you founded your first company, when was that?
(4:16) Do you still feel that special spirit of the early start up scene?
(6:23) what motivated you to leave Outfittery?
(7:37) when did you fall in love with sustainability?
(8:13) what does sustainability mean to you
(10:00) What sparked the idea of founding a carbon accounting company? (Planetly)
(12:22) How did it feel like selling your company Planetly at its highest point? And how was that transition?
(15:47) What did you take, then, from this experience to Nala Earth?
(17:00) How have you managed the learning courve founding companies where you are not the subject matter expert?
(21:00) would you call that your superpower is being the translator between worlds?
(22:00) Coming back to Nala Earth, maybe you can elaborate a little bit more exactly what you guys are doing.
(25:51) What kind of biodiversity metric system can you use or how do you track it?
(28:40) How do you help companies bridge purpose into profit?
(29:17) Who are your typical customers?
(30:00) How do you deal with Climate and Biodiversity loss naysayers?
(37:44) If I could be the fairy for you and grant you one wish, what would it be?
(40:23) How can we move past trends and make business model around important ideas, and have them as a part of the corporate strategy?
(43:11) Okay, so if you're looking ahead, the next one year, 18 months, what's ahead for you?
(44:28) Do you have any book recommendations?
(45:06) So what makes you confident that we solved the climate crisis?
(46:22) How can people you know stay connected or follow you or learn more about nala?
Memorable quotes from the episode:
"Sustainable brands don't have to be green and have leaves in their identity, let's break rules. Let's make the business relevant. This is now our mission with Nala, making Nature business relevant"
"I was struggling with being seen suddenly as an expert on biodiversity for example, but I have come to accept it as a role of translator between climate and nature and the business world"
"I always called it for-purpose for-profit. And I think this is the future."
"Biodiversity loss and the climate crisis are interrelated. We cannot solve the one without the other. And when I realized that it was a game changer for me"
"You can kill a company, but you cannot kill a culture. You cannot kill a mission."
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AI episode transcription:
Intro Narator: 0:02
You are listening to Sustain Now. In this podcast, you will learn from successful entrepreneurs and scientists about the newest climate change solutions to address the climate crisis, from food and agri-tech over energy material innovation to circular economy. This non-profit podcast is hosted by Frederica. She is a tech entrepreneur and climate enthusiast. You can find show notes and background information on wwwsustainnowch. Enjoy the show.
Friederike: 0:39
Welcome to Sustain Now, your podcast for a sustainable future. Today, we are thrilled to have Anna Alex, a serial entrepreneur and a visionary, as our guest. Anna has co-founded and scaled several successful companies, including Outfittery Planetly and now Nala Earth. Her journey is a testament to her passion for innovation and her unwavering commitment to make a positive impact on our planet, as Anna herself puts it we need to overcome this non-profit, for-profit idea and split in our heads.
Friederike: 1:17
In this episode, we will explore Anna's entrepreneurial journey, delve into the challenges and triumphs of building climate-focused startups, and discuss the critical role of technology in addressing the biodiversity crisis. Join us as we uncover the inspiring story of Anna Alex and her mission to create a more sustainable world. Tune in. Thank you for joining us today, anna. I'm so excited to dive into your journey across Outfittery Planetly and Nala Earth. You have been busy in the last few years.
Anna: 1:52
Hey, thank you for having me.
Friederike: 1:55
You've built and scaled several successful companies in different industries. Can you take me through each of these pivotal changes in your life? So first, what was your motivation of starting Outfittery in the first place, and then what triggered it to sell and change into a new adventure?
Anna: 2:13
Yeah, so maybe I start one step before that, even and this is when I entered actually the startup scene very early on, and I was so early in the startup scene that being in the startup wasn't a good career path. So most of my friends actually went to consultancies or went to big corporates or so and I realized pretty, pretty soon that this big corporate world isn't my world and it's not for me and that's not where I want to spend like my 40 years of working in. And then I ended up in the startup scene and I loved it and it was a perfect match between my energy and the spirit of the startup scene. It was non-hierarchically, non-political Everyone has a say when you have a good idea and so on and so forth. So let it be the intern or the CEO, it doesn't matter, and I actually love that spirit. And then it was kind of natural for me, after two years at Rocket Internet, to found my own company.
Friederike: 3:16
When was that? What time do we speak? Which year?
Anna: 3:19
That was 2012,. When I founded Outfitry together with Julia, who I met at Rocket as well, and, yeah, back then it really came completely natural to us. It was no question that we wanted to found our own business. I left, together with Julia, outfitry for six years and scaled it and learned a lot and we were a few hundred people on the team when I left the business eventually and were a few hundred people on the team when I left the business eventually. And I think, when I look back, I must say in this first startup, in this first company, for me it was falling in love with entrepreneurship, falling in love with the tools of entrepreneurship, with the thinking around scaling businesses using technology, raising a lot of money and so on and so forth. So all these toolbox of the for-profit entrepreneur and like scaling fast. So this was like the learning of those first two years.
Friederike: 4:16
Amazing. So you've really been from the rocket times. I think that was like a crazy times 2010, 11, 12. I actually found that as well. My company, 2012. So I know what you talk about was really like the high time of you know coming from. It's very boring into like wow, you know, like let's all found a company. It feels like all the entrepreneurs like Adria Locher, which we know as well, both like we all came from that time, so it was a really special time. Did that ever come back? Do you feel like that special spirit?
Anna: 4:53
I don't know I mean. so by now the startup team like matured, a lot of things got more professional, which is good in many ways. But yeah, some aspects of this I'm still missing as well. It was really. It was these gold digger atmosphere. It was these like the kind of the invention of the internet. You were, you just needed to pick a random thing and were like, okay, well, people buy this online and future, and no one yet really believed in this. It was good, I don't. I don't think it came back in that sense Now. Berlin as well matured by now. Back then, berlin was poor but sexy, was always a slogan. You could afford to live here for a few hundred euros, it was not expensive and just like crazy working all day, and then suddenly you had a huge company. So this happened to quite some people.
Friederike: 5:43
Did you grow up in Berlin? No, I'm from Hamburg actually, and so you went for Outfittery to Berlin or for Rocket you went to Berlin.
Anna: 5:52
Yeah, exactly, more or less so, a little bit before Rocket. So for my first internship in a startup, I went to Berlin. I fell in love with the startup scene and I fell in love with the junior product manager at this company, and he's now, these days, my husband and father of my two kids.
Friederike: 6:10
That's an amazing story too. You know, like a really, really full startup family. That's amazing. If you look back this you know you said six years you've been with Outfittery.
Anna: 6:23
What actually was the trigger why you left. So at some point I realized that Outfittery is getting into a stage of the company which drained more energy than it gave me and that I'm actually a woman for the early years I love building up. It was nothing and building something out of nothing. But at some point I realized, yeah, so when it gets a little bit bigger 200 people when it gets into calmer waters, so to say that this isn't my favorite stage anymore. And so, after my daughter was born, then I took a break and realized it has been an amazing trip and it gave me so much this first company that I built and this experience and everything I learned. But this is not what I wanted to do in the next years of working. So, yeah, I decided to leave. I'm still on the board and still admire Julia and the work she's doing there every day. She's still CEO of Outletric. I myself moved on and then found a plan at least, and this then, for me, combined this love with entrepreneurship, with love for climate, nature and sustainability.
Friederike: 7:37
Exactly. So when did you fall in love with sustainability?
Anna: 7:41
Yeah, you know, I cannot really pinpoint it, but there is one moment which now, looking back, I think was quite important for me, and this was many years ago, when I was hiking with my husband up a mountain, and then we were talking about what we care about, what's important for us in life, and so on and so forth, and then at some point I remember us agreeing that I will take care of the planet and the animals and he will take care of the humans.
Friederike: 8:13
That's great, okay, so what does sustainability mean to you, then, personally?
Anna: 8:32
it means to me not harming other life on earth, and not only not harming, but my vision it asked me now for nature is actually that we humans can be a keystone species, and a keystone species in an ecosystem is a species that enables other life around it to thrive, and I think we, as humans, got pretty far away from this. So it's always about exploiting the earth, exploiting the planet being the dominant species, and so on and so forth. So a lot of the stories that have been told are around that, but I believe this doesn't necessarily need to be the case. So a lot of the stories that have been told are around that, but I believe this doesn't necessarily need to be the case. So we can do more good than we harm the planet and the life around us, and we can be a core, keystone species for the whole ecosystem. But in order to get there, we need to change many, many, many things.
Friederike: 9:21
Do you remember a moment when you thought, okay, okay, maybe you can say as well one or two words about what planetly did, but this is what the world needs right now so planetly was, I need to say, a carbon accounting company.
Anna: 9:36
So we were one of the first companies who were in this climate tech sector and climate tech back then, which was only years ago so in 2019 when we founded, it wasn't really a term. So we went to the investors, raised the first money and the investors were like what is it? Is it team tech? How do we call you? I mean, you're doing something good for the climate, but then you have a strong business model at the same time. So what is it?
Anna: 10:01
In hindsight, I know that we've been at the very forefront of climate tech and I'm very proud of this, and by now, it's 25% of all VC money that is going into climate tech. But back then that wasn't the case and back then, investors weren't focused on impact, but investors were purely focused on money and it was, on the one hand side, it was a non-profit organization saving the world, and then the for-profit organizations exploiting the world, making a lot of money, and it didn't feel right to me. So I was very, very excited when I found a case with Planity where we actually combined both. We combined purpose and profit. I always called it for purpose for profit, and I think this is the future.
Friederike: 10:49
And it was quite. It was a crazy story how quickly you ramped it up and then you quickly sold it as well. Right, it was like how many years you had it.
Anna: 10:59
So we were running it for two years before exiting it and, yeah, this is a very exceptional story. So, I mean, most founders out there know that that you need to be rather thinking in terms of eight to 10 years when founding a company, and not two years. It was a perfect, I'd say, like not just product market fit, but kind of product zeitgeist fit that we have. So Fridays for Future was in the streets, the climate crisis was everywhere in the newspapers, amazonas was burning and so on and so forth, and finally, the world was ready to get a more nuanced way of looking at like, okay, shouldn't the ones who are destroying the planet be the ones who take care of this as well? Right, so we need to overcome this, this nonprofit for profits idea and split in our heads.
Anna: 11:56
And then, yeah, we scaled it pretty fast. So we worked with quite a bit some big companies very early on. We scaled the team pretty fast. We had over 250 people in just two years. We worked with 350 businesses in just two years, which is fast. And then, when we were about to do the next fundraising round, we got a very surprising acquisition offer from the US and decided to take it.
Friederike: 12:22
And I think you've been. I remember I think it was a few months after the acquisition, et cetera you shared quite an emotional LinkedIn post about that whole journey, that it was not that easy, how it looked like to hand over that sector. Do you want to share a little bit more about that?
Anna: 12:40
So what happened then is we sold the company. We did it out of good intentions. We wanted to bring carbon management and climate action to the US. We wanted, like the company who bought us already had tens of thousands of customers. We wanted to bring carbon management to all of them, make ESG big in the US, and so on and so forth.
Anna: 13:03
And then, only 30 days after we sold, the wind on the markets turned and it got harder on the stock market, first the stock markets, and then the later stage companies, and so on and so forth. The investors wrote these emails like keep your money together, let go of some people. It felt like these high times were over. This was the end of 2021 or beginning, actually Q1 to 2022. And ultimately, the company which acquired us decided to completely focus on their core business, which was in sustainability and ESG, and completely closed the ESG line. So, consequently, they decided as well to close Panoply, and obviously this was very hard. We were very, very mission driven. We had a team of over 200 people all standing in for this mission. We have been working like crazy to get there where we are and then suddenly realizing that when you sold your company, you are not the one who's calling the shots anymore is a hard realization for me. I mean, it sounds like a no brainer in hindsight, but understanding this was hard.
Friederike: 14:18
Were you then still on board, like you had still to lead the team? Was it, you know, like kind of an earn out that you had to be still part of that?
Anna: 14:26
so I was still part of this, not necessarily because I needed to, but because I wanted to, and, yeah, we had, we had some bigger plans uh, together, um, yeah, yeah, so I I still I mean what I did after they decided to close it is I did took care of all people. I this was basically my sole focus for the next few months to get everyone into work, and we had like 200 super well-educated sustainability experts there who were like very, very, um, yeah, the market was very keen to talk to them and I wanted to give them this confidence of, hey, this mission is not over. So maybe now it's over in that setup, but the mission is not over. And, yeah, now seeing what came out of the Planeteers team is so amazing. So, for example, now this third year, the Planeteer doesn't exist anymore.
Anna: 15:21
We still do have a Christmas party, and this just showed me like you can kill a company, but you cannot kill a culture. You cannot kill a mission. People founded their own businesses. People are now working in big corporates really pushing climate action forward in this setup, and it is still a very, very strong community community, a very mission-aligned still. So this is something that we cannot yeah, cannot kill.
Friederike: 15:47
That's amazing. What did you take, then, from this experience to Nala Earth?
Anna: 15:53
I learned a lot in many regards when I finally came to think about what's next for myself. I actually realized that for many years, me and it seems like the whole world has been a little bit in kind of a carbon tunnel, so carbon tunnel. What I mean by this is that for many, many years, we thought that carbon was the biggest problem that we have when it comes to sustainability. And while carbon and climate crisis is huge, there's another crisis, the biodiversity crisis and the loss of species, which is even bigger or equally big, and we cannot solve the one without the other.
Anna: 16:38
And when I realized this and when I understood that we're losing 150 species every day, sometimes our species we don't even know. This includes it's called plants and fungi and animals. It might be that there's a plant among these which is healing cancer. So we're losing things we don't even know, and this is so insane. We don't even know, and this is so insane. And so the climate crisis, or the global warming, is the biggest influencer for the loss of species and, at the same time, nature is our biggest ally in the climate crisis. And when I learned this, I was wondering, like why do the companies only track their carbon emissions. Shouldn't they get a tool to track their impact on nature and their dependency on nature? And this is how we came to found NALA.
Friederike: 17:34
We're doing exactly this helping companies to understand the impacts and dependencies and risk in nature and actually bring nature to the bottom so, when you look back, what were the things you took away and implemented in nala, is there anything you think like, okay, these are the three things I took from my old companies which are new, are working, or the three things I said this is not what I'm gonna do anymore yeah, what it took with me is, I think, this for for purpose, for profit, idea.
Anna: 18:06
So let's again combine a strong business model with a strong purpose. A lot of nature action is still in the non-profit space and, while I believe there is not a business model for everything, there are more business models of the thing there are for for nature, uh, nature tech. So this is something that I took with me. And then I think, maybe the second, like smaller aspect things need to look and feel cool as well. So only because you're you're running nature startup in the wider sense, you don't need to be green and have leaves in your branding and so on and so forth. But you're laughing, I'm. I spent, like already hours in my life arguing with designers who came up with some leaves and trees and the logos and so on. I was like no, no, no, this is not working. So let's get rid of this and let's really like break rules in that sense, and let's not put the ice bears on the forefront. Let's rethink this and really make it business relevant. And this is now. Our mission is, with Nala, making nature business relevant.
Anna: 19:19
I think in one of the interviews you mentioned that the learning curve was for you personally extremely steep in that segment and actually in all my three businesses that I founded, I haven't been the subject matter expert in this. So I wasn't a stylist when founding Outfitry, I wasn't a carbon management expert or some climate scientist at Planetly, and I'm not a biologist now at Nala, and so in all three cases it's actually a huge learning journey for me. So understanding this, being humble and talking and meeting inspiring people who have been in this field for decades, is actually so exciting, and for myself I can now see it a little relaxer. But I I always know that the first few months of like this, after I've decided to go into a space, at first like this pile of things that I don't know, it's just like adding up, it's getting higher and higher and they're like oh shit, I have never heard of this, oh no, of this not, and so on and so forth. And then then at some point and I know it's roughly always between four to six months then suddenly the curve is bending and then you realize like, ah, okay, I've heard of this. Oh, yes, okay.
Anna: 20:39
And then suddenly you become the expert in a room on a topic that you didn't know anything about before, and then suddenly I'm on stage and on panels and so on, talking about nature and how to measure that and so on and so forth, and this is hilarious. I was struggling with this, to be honest, for some time, like, or sometimes something was like I'm not the scientist, why should I be up on stage here? And then, at some point, I accepted it a little bit as being part of this role as translator between the worlds and translating let it be climate into the business world, let it be nature into the business world. So part of this is as well than giving nature a voice and a face and taking on this responsibility, but still I'm learning, so from from the biologists and from the people who are working in this space, for for decades, would you call that your superpower?
Friederike: 21:36
this translating things?
Anna: 21:38
oh, is that my superpower? Maybe, yeah, yeah, maybe, maybe. I think my my strongest superpower actually is the power of will I really want something, I get it.
Friederike: 21:54
That's a very good one to have as an entrepreneur.
Intro Narator: 21:57
That's the only way how to do it.
Friederike: 21:59
Coming back to Nala Earth, maybe you can elaborate a little bit more exactly what you guys are doing.
Anna: 22:05
Yes. So what we do is we make nature and biodiversity measurable and manageable for companies. We're working with huge corporates like, for example, volkswagen or BASF. For them, we look at their production facilities or as well into their supply chains. We look at their production facilities or as well into their supply chains. We tell them how well nature is doing at a point at the location where they are active, how good the biodiversity is there, how the water part, which we look at as well, is looking.
Anna: 22:45
So if there's a huge problem of water pollution or water scarcity, and if there has been land use change, so land degradation, if there was natural land, for example, that was deforested and all this together gives you a hint on how well nature is doing and then ultimately as well on which nature risk you as a company are exposed to.
Anna: 23:06
And to make it a little easier, I have a good example, which is the Tesla Gigafactory in Brandenburg. So what they did is they put the process, which is using a lot of water, into a water scarce area, which at some point, led to the situation that there was no groundwater anymore and they had delays in their production and stood behind capacity and lost billions with that. And this is a very, very concrete nature risk which so far, companies like to deny and pretend that our natural resources are endless, that the water is just there, that the ecosystem is just functioning, sending the insects and their bees to pollinate the things that we harvest. But that's not the case anymore. Nature is massively starting to send us invoices and nature is declining, so there are cracks in this whole system, and seeing this, managing this actively, will become an imperative for companies, and not just because they want to be a good citizenship or kind of like a good company, but because it just makes sense for them to have a clear view on their risk, that they're opposed to nature.
Friederike: 24:19
And how do you do that? It's now the example of the Gigafactory in Berlin. How do you measure that? Is someone going there? Then, specifically, do you use data which is publicly available?
Anna: 24:33
So far, people needed to go there, right. So this was the old way of doing things and you have very local data. What we're doing is we're combining different global data sets to make the companies a whole overview. We're using satellite images, we're using academic data. We're using academic data. We're closely collaborating with ETH Zurich, which has one of the leading biodiversity labs called Krauser Lab, and we're using all global data sets out there and we continue to fill up this data layer.
Anna: 25:04
So currently we're combining 15 different data sets and our approach to this is to always prioritize the global data, because otherwise the big corporates who have global supply chains, global production, cannot use the data, so they have no use in just I don't know having one single data point just from one factory. That doesn't make sense. So this is how we're going about this and as we speak, I mean there are satellites going around the earth. In a resolution that we've never seen before, we can track so many things from satellites. It's really amazing and I think we're just at the beginning of how we really leverage this very, very rich data that we have by now.
Friederike: 25:51
Because please correct me if I'm wrong like one of the challenges in this biodiversity tracking is actually which metric do you use, because there are so many different and one ecosystem could be very different than in two meters next to it in another ecosystem. What kind of biodiversity metric system can you use or how do you track it?
Anna: 26:11
So it is true that the metrics can be very complex, because nature is the most complex thing that we have on Earth, right, it's the most wonderful and complex system, and we only see the tip of the iceberg. As humans, oftentimes we do not understand how ecosystems are interacting with each other, how we're taking out the keystone species here, how it will have an effect on the whole ecosystem. What if we take out the wolves out of the ecosystem? That all trees will die, and so on and so forth. I can talk about it, why this happened, but we don't even see it. So this is why, yes, it can be very complex, and then, at the same time, there are a few key metrics which you need to understand and track in order to know where we are harming nature, and so our philosophy in this is don't let perfect be the enemy of good, and sometimes you see this in the mentality of some biologists and so on, saying oh, yeah, well, but then the ecosystem in Brandenburg and Brazil? You cannot compare with this. Yes, you can.
Anna: 27:27
So if there's just one metric that you as a company need to look at, then it is land use change or land cover. So where have natural land been converted into non-natural land. So where have land been sealed? Where have forests been destructed and so on? So land is always like the key ingredient for nature. Nature needs some space, and when we take away this space and continue taking away the space, nature is suffering. So this is the one metric, if I just need to pick one, and then, of course, you can go deeper. We look at ecosystems. There's a new species. Abundance is one of the key. So how many species do you have? There? You can track water pollution and water scarcity. These are aspects in our tools as well. So we're trying to bridge this high level view of okay, let's not make it too complicated, because then no one will listen to us anymore-level view of okay, let's not make it too complicated, because then no one will listen to us anymore. If you want to know more, you can dive into the more complicated KPIs.
Friederike: 28:40
What I understood from you is again bridging from purpose then into profit as well is that you took the risk analysis into it. So what is actually the risk on your company if you don't like, for example, this giga factory, what you've done before, is that something which makes it more tangible and more usable for businesses, because they see actually, okay, if I don't do that, that's the risk I'm doing?
Anna: 29:05
yeah, so this is what we're seeing. So this is actually what we're very excited about, because then suddenly it's not just the sustainability department which cares, but as well the finance department.
Friederike: 29:17
What are the typical customers? You are, you know, interacting. I think I saw as well that food and beverage companies as well. What are usually the target customers for?
Anna: 29:31
so we are very much focused on food and beverage industry. They have a huge dependency on ecosystems and on biodiversity. We see a lot of traction from the automotive sector as well, which actually surprised me, but they have quite direct dependencies as well on, for example, water availability, rubber for the tires they they need and these are the two strongest industries, I'd say, for now, in the nature action. Increasingly, assurances start to care about this as well because they see the risk aspect of things and I'd say these industries are at the forefront and in general, you can actually say that 50%, so 5-0%, of the global GDP is directly depending on intact nature. And then if you look at the services of nature that nature is providing, like cleaning our air, cleaning our water, having healthy soils where we can grow our stuff, then the services that nature is providing per year are double the global GDP. So twice the global GDP is what nature is giving us every year.
Friederike: 30:41
I read somewhere 125 trillion or something same amount of money. Never feel this. It's one of the few things which feels like most of corporates or people always neglecting and seeing as like no nature is still a source for us a resource for us instead of the other way around. How do you deal with that if you're getting confronted and you're like you know what? This is really more important, but people are still, let's say, more thinking in quarterly goals than in nature goals.
Anna: 31:14
Let's say more thinking in quarterly goals than in nature goals. Yeah, so, depending on the day I mean on most days I can take it quite well and saying like okay, so let's start maybe with a few numbers, or let's start with a few stories, or let's. I mean, there there is hope, in that sense that, if you think about it, five years ago there was rarely a company chief sustainability officer, for example, and by now most businesses do have that. So in the bigger picture that the market and humanity is educating themselves quite fast so this isn't the macro, but in the micro is then sometimes seriously, did you just say that Like this cannot be right? And then sometimes I'm like, okay, please, can you please reconsider this? This cannot be.
Anna: 32:04
Just yesterday I did a LinkedIn post about this. I was invited to the Deutschlandfunk, I spoke about Nala and what we're doing, and then I got an email from one guy afterwards who said like I want meat, a lot of it and very cheap. I was like, okay, thank you for this email, right? It's like, okay, is it worth answering? No, I mean, I think we're in a crazy world. So I think there are many, many people with very good intentions educating themselves fast, understanding that the planetary boundaries are nothing to mess with and we're doing it currently and that we shouldn't do it, and that we can use business as a force of good. And then, on the other hand, this world with a lot of disinformation, with Green party and green being the animal just because they were just there, whatever, is a crazy world.
Friederike: 33:05
so yeah, but I'm still hopeful can you share with us, like one or two things you're saying usually if someone comes up, you know what can we take with us. If someone comes up like ah nature, what do you usually use?
Anna: 33:20
so I I I'm stealing this from one of the most inspiring people I met in this space. Her name is ifat, she lives in geneva, actually, and what she she did is then. So let's pause for a second, let's breathe. And now this breath was given to you by the oceans, because they are turning 50% into the oxygen we breathe. And then the second breath was given to you by nature and by the trees the rest. And if we wouldn't have nature, we wouldn't be able to breathe, we wouldn't be able to live, we wouldn't be able to strive and to do this, and I actually liked it. She performed it better than I did.
Friederike: 34:12
It's very nice because it brings it in a totally different level. It brings it back to feeling yourself and feeling your own breath. I really like that. I think I'm going to steal that too. So, coming back to Nala, and I think you had a uniqueness of the last two companies you founded, like an amazing feeling for what is the right time to start in the Pacific industry. You came from fashion, then into the carbon markets, now into biodiversity. How is it now? Because it has been challenging, as you said, since 2022, the whole sustainability market. Some are already saying, oh, it's a clean tech, wave 2.0 is already over, and et cetera. What's your view on that? How is the market right now if you want to start something in that area?
Anna: 35:04
It definitely didn't get easier over the past few years. A befriended serial entrepreneur just said it, or yeah, put it quite nicely. A few days ago he said like so far, during like these wild internet times, we always were thinking of the first mover advantages, first mover in the market, then grabbing the whole market, like thinking Zalando, for example. And now what you're exposed to in the climate and nature type is you have a first move of disadvantage. Oftentimes, because you're working with new things as a company, you're not eager to, necessarily eager to be the first one, to be the most sustainable one, to be the first one let's say, switching to whole new shipping engines, whatever right, but you rather say like, oh okay, let's wait and see which mistakes the competition will do and then I'll do it as a second or a third. Why should I be the first right?
Anna: 36:12
And this is definitely challenging. And this is challenging for climate and nature tech companies which are dependent on bigger corporates to move and to get it and to start funneling their billions that they're making into that direction. So I think this is a kind of structural element. And then the not structural problems it's just in the macro or in this climate, as you said, there's inflation, there's war, there are a lot of other things to take care of, and somehow it sometimes makes sense to deprioritize nature.
Anna: 36:48
It doesn't make sense from my perspective, because if you look at long-term prosperity, if you look at long-term wealth, if you look at long-term prosperity, if you look at long-term wealth, if you look at what has the biggest potential, for example, for wars in the future, is water. If there's no water anymore where you live, you will move somewhere else. There's just no way around it. And so deprioritizing these long-term effects, I think this will really hit back. It will hit back in our whole world, being it like the stock market's driven or driven by politicians. It's way too short-term sighted, way too short-sighted for really seeing this, and I think this is really the root cause of all our problems. We don't look far enough into the future and we pretend it just doesn't exist. And beyond the next four years, after the next election, whatever, this time doesn't exist and that's not true.
Friederike: 37:44
If I could be the fairy for you, you know, and grant you one wish, what would it be?
Anna: 37:51
So I think for now I try to make it concrete. I could say like save nature whatever. Save the world. I mean, if you are that powerful of a fairy, then maybe just do that. But if you wanted a little bit more concrete, I'd say right now, since two days there is a COP16 happening in Colombia, which is the Conference of the Parties for Biodiversity. It's the small sister of the big climate COPs and important for people to know because I just learned this as well, like when we're now founding an ally that there have been the Paris moment for nature only two years ago.
Anna: 38:35
So the Paris moment for nature only two years ago. So the Paris moment was like the Paris agreement we agreed on. We wanted to limit the global warming to 1.5 to 2 degrees. This moment for nature was two years ago. It's called the Kunming-Montreal Protocol protocol and we agreed with almost 200 nations that we want to protect 30% by 2030. So this goal is called 30 by 30.
Anna: 39:04
And this is actually a great goal. I mean, 2030 is around the corner. We are far from really reaching this. So we are currently in around 17% when it comes to land protected land and only 8% when it comes to water. We need to get it up to 30% on both. We need to as well step up our game in terms of what does really protected land mean, and so on and so forth. So then there are different aspects, but this is a great start. So, in really putting this into action now and as we speak, people are negotiating at this COP biodiversity, germany did not yet put hand in any plan how to achieve this. So this will be my very concrete wish so get really the people behind this goal, really act on this, and don't let it be some empty target which no one is taking serious.
Friederike: 39:56
I think it's the same. Like, as you mentioned, the Paris Climate Agreement, I think I was also extremely positive and, like you know, this is what we're going to do now and this is amazing and now the realization comes in. But I also see it's quite positive. I think someone shared I don't know who it was on LinkedIn, like this classic curve, you know. Know, like you have the super hype which we probably experience now with ai is the same. You know super hype and then you go down and everything is bad.
Friederike: 40:23
You know, nothing is like this is a dead market and then it matures and my hope is really that we now on the maturing level of the market and it can be part of okay, let's create really a business model around it, let's have it as a part of the corporate strategy. So that's my wish that we come away from the just having it as a pledge to actually actions, and it's very nice with the, how you mentioned it, with the cop in in columbia. I hope I can grant that wish and it will be possible. Coming back now to exactly that sustainability space or, let's say, biodiversity space, what would you recommend other entrepreneurs thinking about? Hey, I really want to do something in that space. What would you recommend them, what they should focus on or how to build now a successful company in that space.
Anna: 41:21
First of all do it, no matter if this is now the most unvoked thing to do or not. Just do it. It's just wonderful to look back and know what you dedicated your lifetime and your working time to. It's wonderful to do this. It's at some point, I mean it is. It gives me so much. Then sometimes my kids are asking, mom, if you're not wizards here playing, then you're saving the animals, right? And I say like, yes, right, I'm trying to. Yeah, but yeah, so this is amazing. This gives me so much strength.
Anna: 41:57
I think, then, my advice would be to really try to find this business relevance, stay lean at the same time, prepare for hard years and for hard times, and really use this amazing technology that we have. I think there are still a lot of blank spaces when it comes to all these, as I said, like all this new data, all this satellite data, all this richness of data that we already have on nature. Seeing this and then maybe putting this together. Say it's AI, whatever right. Raise some money for that. Take money from some generous investors, I'd say as well. There are a lot of amazing impact funds, which is great, but I think it's very strong as well to take on some generalists and fuel some money into that direction.
Friederike: 42:51
What is generalists for you Like? Who are?
Anna: 42:54
generalists. These are just like the generalist funds, who are like investing into everything, not necessarily into impact topics, because we need to get it out of this impact bubble, we need to get it into mainstream, and I think investors can play a role in that.
Friederike: 43:11
Okay, so if you're looking ahead, the next one year, 18 months, what's ahead for you?
Anna: 43:22
So, from next year onwards, it's becoming mandatory for companies to report on biodiversity in the framework of the CSRD Corporate Sustainability Reporting Director, which is exciting because, even though regulation isn't the only driver, it's moving the masses and there are a lot of companies which already understood this years ago and started to take care of it, started to come up with their nature strategies, hired head of nature, for example, into their management teams, and so on, of course. And at the same time, there are these companies who are just waiting right, and now you get them with regulation. So I think it's a very, very exciting moment. Csrd is a brilliant idea. It's not bureaucracy, it's rather, for the very, very first time, a reporting system which might be in line with the planetary boundaries, and I think this is very exciting to see our economy transforming into that direction.
Friederike: 44:28
Do you have any book recommendations?
Anna: 44:31
I just read an amazing book about Humboldt. I loved it, how he was really discovering the world, being in the Amazonas region and Brazil and Chile Chile especially for the first time, and I mean so back then it wasn't normal to go there right and like really discovering all of this and seeing the world out of so curious eyes non-judging I found it very, very inspiring.
Friederike: 45:06
Nice, nice that I haven't heard before. I heard about the book. I think I really need to have that on my list too. And one last question, what I always ask. So what makes you confident that we solved the climate crisis?
Anna: 45:20
Sometimes I'm confident, sometimes I'm not. When I'm confident, I think it's that these topics will come back, although people like to think in trends and say like, oh, climate and nature is not on vogue anymore, that it will come back. Right, no matter what we do, if we do not care about it, then it will come back. There will be the next floods, there will be the next ecosystems like breaking down, there will be next crises and droughts and a lot of things that will happen, and this is a little sacrilegious and, yeah, probably it's not necessarily the rich nations which are suffering most from it, and this is really unfair, actually. But anyway, the topic will come back, and so we will have no other chance than to prioritize it and, hopefully, shifting our sites to slightly more long-term options so it will bite us in the tail, kind of.
Friederike: 46:22
Yeah, okay, great. How can people you know stay connected or follow you or learn more about nala?
Anna: 46:30
come and visit our website, nala.earth, or follow me on LinkedIn. I'm quite active on LinkedIn on the topic of nature, biodiversity, climate, fantastic.
Friederike: 46:40
So, wow, I knew it's going to be a great conversation. I really enjoyed it. I would have loved to have taken a little bit more time, but thank you so much for joining our podcast.
Speaker 4: 46:54
Thank you for joining today's episode. You can find the show notes, background materials and contact details of our guests on our website, sustainnowch. Follow and share our podcast on any platform available. Do you have a comment or interesting solution to take a deep dive? Please don't hesitate to go to our website, sustainnow. ch, and write us an email.
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