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Ben Wilding
CEO of Sun Bear Biofuture - sustainable everyday essentials
Ben Wilding is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Sun Bear Biofuture, a company specializing in precision fermentation to produce sustainable everyday essentials.12 He took on this role in June 2022 and is based in Rye, England.2
Background and Experience
Ben has a diverse background in technology, business, and sustainability:
- He holds a master's degree in sustainability and behavior change.1
- Prior to Sun Bear Biofuture, he founded and managed his own businesses, including Cameron and Wilding, a digital agency that operated for over 10 years.2
- He served as the Chief Operating Officer of Ntegra, where he led a business transformation.2
- Ben has extensive experience in digital strategy consulting, working with various clients from multinational corporations to NGOs and public sector organizations.2
Sun Bear Biofuture
At Sun Bear Biofuture, Ben is leading the company's efforts to develop sustainable alternatives to common products:
- Their primary focus is creating an alternative to palm oil using precision fermentation.3
- The company aims to reduce deforestation and protect endangered species, including sun bears, which inspired the company's name.13
- Under Ben's leadership, Sun Bear Biofuture was awarded a £500,000 Innovate UK Smart Grant to further their research.3
Personal Interests
Outside of his professional life, Ben is passionate about sustainability and community engagement:
- He enjoys working at his allotment and participating in local community gardening projects.1
- Ben believes in the collective power to reverse climate change and sees technology innovation as crucial in combating the climate crisis.12
Ben Wilding's leadership at Sun Bear Biofuture combines his experience in technology, business management, and commitment to sustainability, driving the company's mission to create more environmentally friendly and healthier everyday products.4
Highlights
What if all leaders had to work the land to produce their own food?
Here's some pics from my early start to the day - my happy place, the allotment.
I'm in the phase of startup life where I'm working and reworking a pitch deck getting ready to start our Seed raise. It feels like I'm glued to a computer screen a lot - not my happy place. It does not feel like I'm helping humanity...
Connection comes from my hands in the soil. How many leaders are really connected to our planet? Probably not that many.
Perhaps it should be legislated that world leaders have to grow food.
How do you stay connected with nature?
I partly stay motivated in our mission to produce alternatives to vegetable oils that damage the planet, such as palm oil and cocoa butter, by walking past the saddest looking bumblebee graffiti I've ever seen on a daily basis.
#climatetech #sustainability #innovation #vegetableoils #altoil
Big news with the joining of Foundation Earth and EIT Food to develop internationally accepted environmental scoring of food products.
In short, ecolabels for food products! Power for the consumer to make more sustainable food choices at the point of purchase.
It just so happens that this is what I wrote my dissertation on and used the Foundation Earth labels in my willingness to pay experiments. When there's a sea of different bodies and label styles and choices it can only make adoption more confusing and that's what you're trying to remove so I love this.
It's also very cool because the innovative fats and oils ingredients we make at Sun Bear Biofuture are specifically designed to greatly reduce the environmental impact of vegetable oils on our planet.
However a big challenge producing a functional ingredient that kind of sits behind the scenes is being able to shout about the sustainability credentials we have. These labels will help us shine through and increase the speed of change!
https://lnkd.in/dF3V9j8Q
#ecolabels #sustainability #innovation
