The Evolution of Green Commerce: BetterWorld’s Pioneering Approach to Sustainable Business

BetterWorld is combating the 33% of global emissions from the Consumer Packaged Goods industry by helping companies make better products for people and the planet: we provide AI tools for manufacturing, marketing, and financing guidance. 

For almost every CPG product that is bad for the planet, a solution/alternative exists. We don’t need to use the same toilet paper responsible for 15% of global deforestation, which comes wrapped in plastic or suntan lotion, which kills reefs: bamboo solutions like Reel, and Zinc alternatives like Manda exist! 

We are driving the shift to better supply chains, materials, impact strategies, and the new economy, which reduces global emissions, making the planet livable. 

In turn, we are building the next billion-dollar business from platform fees, capital referral fees, and data. 

Our solution consists of three platforms: 

1. BRAND PLATFORM: An AI brand platform to help companies make better products to reduce these emissions and finance their transition. Revenue includes:
2. CONSUMER PLATFORM: A marketplace for consumers to identify these Better products and tools to illustrate how good they are for people and the planet. 
3. INSIGHTS PLATFORM: An insights platform from the 200 data points gathered from each brand to help media and shopper marketing companies better promote these products and governments to subsidize them.

In 2016, I visited the first site of what is now Panasea, an aquaculture company that sequesters carbon by cultivating marine ecosystems with sea cucumber populations. We realized there are solutions for climate change that most consumers simply do not know about, so we started a podcast. 

From there, we began interviewing CPG companies who used novel solutions/alternatives like marine active ingredients: we helped them to become even better for the planet through the supply chain and material upgrades, and it caused an increase in revenue. We discovered the green revolution: better for people and the planet is better business. 

Now our mission is to help the 500,000 CPG companies in the market to be better and make more revenue. 

Jacob, our CTO, is a rockstar introduced by a friend: Mallory, our sales director and an awesome all-around sales and account management leader. James developed a tremendous amount of our product and is incredibly talented.

What is exciting is that multiple companies, from Everlastly to Planet Forward, are doing certifications, verification, and consumer data, trying to educate consumers or help companies improve. Amazon even launched a sustainability label recently. More than a trend, there is a massive movement toward green consumption of goods. Our revenue-first approach differentiates us: we support the businesses to grow and make more through revenue and help them not only to identify their transition (better packaging, materials, etc) but also to finance it through debt. 

We also create impact reporting and impact data profiles for consumers for companies to market better their Net Good differentiation and attributes (plastic-free, compostable, diversity-owned, chemical-free, etc). This allows consumers to see how good a product is for people and the planet. 

Data will play a huge role as well: when we analyze how to make products better, we amass over 200 data points, which can be fed into an insights platform for media companies, shopper marketing companies, and ultimately the government, all of which are part of the solution to drive markets to become better. 

As Amazon started as a marketplace and became a billion-dollar data company, so too will we grow from a SaaS platform to a data company.

We want to build our data set and technology first, gather all the solutions, and build our AI. Our inspiration is Giuseppe, a NotCo AI algorithm that makes plant-based alternatives to food products by analyzing the taste, texture, and smell of a food product at a molecular level and replicating it with plants. For every food product, there is a plant-based alternative; for every CPG product, there is a Net Good alternative

We created a vetting system of over 200 data points using common conventions like GRIs, to determine how good a product is for people and the planet: that system needs to be expanded and better automated.

We indexed over 9,000 companies and 3,400 products into our platform and a consumer-facing marketplace for demand generation: we need to build more companies and greater consumer-facing technologies and education resources.

We have already contacted Walmart and the CPG team of Amazon. We believe in the best case that we have amassed tremendous data, helped thousands of companies, and provided insights, and that makes us an acquisition target, not necessarily of P&G or CPG conglomerates, but rather of the major retailers, helping them to drive consumption and creation of Net Good products even further. 

What is critical is understanding what we believe will be valuable about the business: first, we will have a SaaS platform sold to thousands of CPG companies that collect data. Secondly, we will provide capital on the scale of LendingTree.com, third we will provide data and insights, helping media companies to append consumer spending data to sku level environmental impact data, empowering them to sell better, and by providing it to governments, allowing them to provide tax incentives – which they already do. The IRA has incentives for renewable energy, ultimately for use in supply chains, and the fashion act as the framework for incentives in material use. At scale, an IPO is foreseeable.