Sustainability

Our experienced founder team have spent more than 40 years, collectively, working in business sustainability, with a focus on agriculture.

Through one of IBG’s investors, we have access to, and take part in, more than a dozen sustainability conferences per year. With this exposure to best practice, networks, contacts, and resources IBG will be taking a leading position on business sustainability. This is not just across our manufacturing and distribution. We have bold ambitions to be driving force in regenerative agriculture, particularly in the olive sector. Our strategy will take an iterative approach as we begin operations and expand into a larger company.

“Inspired by nature, driven by excellence”

Alongside the text here, we will be developing a comprehensive 21stCentury sustainability plan, with targets and performance reporting aligned with global best practice in sourcing, operations and manufacturing, and distribution. Our impact will be much wider than just our product footprint though, as via sourcing arrangements we can drive regenerative agriculture in the supply chain.

Alongside that, our impact will be positive for forests, land use and ocean sustainability as our product will displace unsustainable feedstock supplies currently used in petfood, aquaculture, animal feed and fertiliser production. We plan to report on our progress annually, keep investors engaged in our progress and develop a live sustainability data dashboard, to deliver full transparency. We will be developing and reporting on, a full lifecycle analysis of our products in due course.

Sustainability in pilot/R&D phase

Our first phase of operations will be installation of our R&D units in Spain. These small units will be installed at both the University of Granada and near an olive oil mill in Andalusia, not far from Granada. Here we will both develop and test products, refining our product offering and specifications to our customer’s needs. In this phase our footprint will be small, but we will seek to minimize it in a variety of ways.

These include working with the lowest carbon transportation options possible, to minimise our climate footprint in these early stages. Operations of these units will require power, inputs and the movement of feedstock. Here we will be working on understanding our initial footprint and minimizing environmental impacts wherever we can. Our water use will be low, and minimised.

Building a large-scale sustainable insect manufacturing plant

During 2024 we will begin planning our first large scale plant. This will utilize the latest manufacturing technology, and IBG will minimize environmental impact wherever possible. As we develop this plant, we’ll gain a better understanding of our impact, report on it, and decrease it. We’ll be using solar power as much as possible, tracking our water and other input footprints, and develop a plan for becoming the employer of choice, so we can treat our employees as any world class organization should.

Clearly sourcing and building a large-scale plant will require an environmental impact assessment and there will be emissions generated by its construction. We will seek to minimize these and will be considering all the ways possible to either offset or inset our emissions over time.

Developing a sustainable insect supply chain

Our supply chain will consist of many inputs. The largest of these will be olive pomace and brewers spent grain, and/or other carbohydrates. Given our location in the heart of olive country, this will assist us in minimizing transport of pomace. Our other ingredients will be sourced as locally as possible, with our objective being to source all we can from the region of Andalusia.

There is plenty of local feedstock for these purposes. We already have a partnership with an olive mill, Casa Grande, and initially we will source pomace directly from that mill. As we develop IBG, we will be exploring how we can partner with feedstock providers, by creating joint ventures and/or commercial agreements which secure the volume and quality of feedstock we need, and cementing relationships with pomace providers, all of which will be local to our factories. We will follow established best practice in understanding our supply chain, where our pomace comes from, and how the workers key to supplying it, are treated by our supply chain.

Driving down impacts in distribution

One of our largest areas of impact will be in distribution of product. We plan to use the most sustainable, recyclable packaging possible and ship in bulk, within Spain initially. We’ll be exploring the lowest possible transportation suppliers and seek to use the latest technology in moving product to customers. For example, this will be by working with transport companies investing in the latest lower emissions vehicles.

Social impact, Just Transition, and the SDGs

IBG, given our experience in sustainability, understand the need to be a positive force for social good. This means mapping our strategy, as we develop it, to the Sustainable Development Goals and using all other relevant benchmarks. Whilst we will be using the latest technology with the lowest possible impacts, we also understand that we must be a world class employer and contribute positively to the communities in which we operate.

We’ll be developing plans as to how we will do this, during 2024 and beyond. The jobs we create will be long lasting, well paid and we aim to encourage rural regeneration in a part of Spain that desperately needs people working back in rural areas.

The big picture: From replacing unsustainable inputs to a regenerative insect company

Inspired by our purpose, vision, mission and values, IBG aims to make a serious and lasting contribution to how unsustainable products can become regenerative. Our goal is to be net positive on both social and environmental issues. We aim not only to disrupt and replace the unsustainable systems that supply current markets for animal and fish feed, but to produce large volumes of biogenic fertiliser to be used across Spain and the EU as a co-product.

Beyond that, our partnerships with biochar and materials partner companies will enable us both to sequester carbon in soils with biochar in frass fertiliser, but to be a leading force for good in how agricultural waste can also be used for purposes beyond just our initial products.

Lastly, with long term partnerships with olive pomace providers, we will be exploring how IBG can drive regenerative approaches to olive farming across Spain, and in the production of our other feedstocks.

IBG sees the big picture change we want to drive as having multiple facets, from rural jobs, to providing highly sustainable oils, fats, and materials and changing feed markets, to producing non fossil fertiliser that locks carbon in for decades to come. Our forthcoming comprehensive sustainability strategy, updated regularly, will reflect this ambition.