ESG Feature – Food


Food insecurity is rising and with an expected 2 billion more mouths to feed by the end of this century, can we produce enough nutrition without damaging the environment? Mark Dunne examines one of the world’s biggest sustainability challenges.


The 1973 film Soylent Green portrays a bleak view of our future. At the heart of the dystopia is a housing crisis caused by rapid population growth while pollution has largely killed off plant and animal life. The result of these factors, and the main theme of the film, is a lack of food.


Those who are rich enough can spend more than $200 on a lettuce, tomato, onion and stick of celery. The choice for every-


28 | portfolio institutional | February 2023 | Issue 120


one else is limited to a high-energy protein wafer marketed as Soylent Green. The product feeds a growing and predominately poverty-stricken population, but at the end of the film we dis- cover that our late friends and family have become part of a cir- cular economy, where nothing goes to waste: Soylent Green is processed dead people.


The film was set in 2022 and although we have access to fresh


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44