Two Hands

What an amazing financial innovation ecosystem in Scotland. Today was Demo day at FinTech Scotland‘s Financial Regulation Innovation Lab (FRIL). This is the final day before the banking, university and government judges decide the winners of the ESG regulatory reporting challenge. Here I’m pictured with Fintech Scotland dynamic CEO, Nicola Anderson. Thank you to Giovanna Cucchi and Trish Quinn for their incredible hard work putting all together. Stephen Ingledew OBE, Nicola and Mickael Paris, you must be so proud. The FRIL partners - EY, the banks, financial institutions, and Strathclyde Business School and University of Glasgow - were deeply engaged, showing great respect. Brilliant.

This morning, Two Hands had a super exciting discussion with The Sustainable Restaurant Association’s (SRA) Managing Director, Juliane Caillouette Noble. We are strongly aligned on the impact we intend to achieve. SRA is active in 73 countries across six continents with over 10,500 professional kitchens, yet they feel like they have only just begun. Interestingly, Juliane mentioned multinational restaurant groups are using the UK to pilot sustainability initiatives before expanding them globally. This aligns with Sustainability Ventures’s Hannah Robinson's insight that London is a global sustainability leader, second only to Boston. This also aligns with Two Hands strategic decision to prove its global scalability in the UK following 5 years commercial operations in Australia and China. We were thrilled to hear many things from Juliane: -      The digital trust of end data and supply chain transparency provided by blockchain technology aligns strongly with SRA’s goals. -      The significant issues facing producers and restaurants require a total food system solution, rather than placing the burden solely on farmers and restaurants. -      Fitting well with SRA’s mission is Two Hands’ blockchain-authenticated, scope 3 reporting of carbon footprint, biodiversity, and sustainability metrics (such as water quality, air quality, soil quality, pollinators, and farmer well-being) reported by food portion directly to consumers, restaurants, and aggregated at an institutional level. -      Like Two Hands, SRA is passionate about supporting farmers and fishers and achieving the best outcome for both ends of the supply chain. Also, like Two Hands, SRA believes in collaborating to achieve end goals. SRA provides a comprehensive suite of services to restaurants, including chef training, sustainability certification, and waste solutions. The shared values to solve huge issues in food supply chains are worth pursuing. Many thanks to Conor Carey of London & Partners for the kind introduction.

Two Hands is pleased to announce our selection by FinTech Scotland for the “Shaping the Future of ESG in Financial Services” innovation call!   Two Hands' mission is to increase prosperity for farmers and fishers, revolutionising food systems for a sustainable future.  In Scotland, agriculture employs 67k people with over 51k landholders. Post farmgate, a further 44k people are employed in 1.3k food and drink businesses, generating a turnover of £10.7 billion. This underscores the sector's significance to financial services.   But that’s the financial numbers. What about ESG and its crucial connection to financial services?   - Food systems account for 41% of total global greenhouse gas emissions (GHGe). - Food loss and waste account for 50% of food systems' total GHGe. - There is a demographic time bomb with the average age of Scottish farmers being over 60.   Cutting-edge technology enabling re-imagined, sustainable food supply chains can lead to increased prosperity for farmers and fishers while bringing transparency and digital trust in scope 3, ESG reporting at scale to consumers, end-buyers, and aggregated at institutional level.   Consider these powerful numbers: UK farmland stores 9.7 billion tonnes of carbon while emitting 0.15 billion tonnes of GHGe annually.  Farmers are the stewards of this carbon inventory and GHGe and must be incentivised to progress to net zero and beyond.  However, there are many outside the farming sector attempting to greenwash their way to monetising farmers’ carbon stewardship. Two Hands' digital trust, using blockchain technology, eliminates this risk.   The financial sector is a critical stakeholder in this equation. The sector might be wondering how it can be part of the solution while adhering to stringent financial regulations and delivering sustainable profits.   Two Hands offers an innovative path. We are eager to partner and collaborate with financial services firms to foster this innovation, addressing profitability and reducing risk.   We look forward to collaborating with FinTech Scotland, the University of Strathclyde, and the University of Glasgow on this pioneering initiative.

Join us at the #ESGInnovationSummit tomorrow at Dynamic Earth, Edinburgh! 🌍✨ Experience an incredible event focusing on the transformative role of digital technology in driving ESG impact. Discover how innovations in IoT, analytics, AI and cloud are helping to improve climate outcomes. 🌱💡 Our Director of Partnerships and Ecosystems, Wendy Shearer, and Partner Account Manager, Fiona Ball, will be there. Don’t miss out – there are still free tickets available. We hope to see you there! 👋🤝 #ESGImpact #TechForGood #ClimateTech #Innovation #EdinburghEvents #IoT #AI #Analytics

Prof. John Gilliland OBE DSc is delivering a keynote at next week's Da Byw livestock conference in North Wales. His key message to farmers? "Don't be afraid of this journey, but know your numbers." Davina Fetherstonhaugh

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Great and insightful article by Abi Kay and Farmers Weekly. Here we are in 2024 thinking how sophisticated we are and yet we have this meat scandal expose and recent news about record levels of food-derived illnesses.  These reports underline the persistent challenges plaguing our food supply chains. When today’s toddlers reach high school, they will be gobsmacked their parents spent most of their life with no idea of their food’s safety and nutrition. Food supply chain opaqueness makes it all too easy for bad actors. Also, the fact food passes through many hands between farmers and consumers makes it too easy to place fault on someone else. These factors create fertile ground for bad actors to thrive, ultimately jeopardising the health and trust of consumers. This reality not only harms farmers and consumers, but also the reputation of Scottish and UK food. In the Total Quality Management (TQM) world, a fundamental is costs of prevention are less than costs of correction. In fact, the National Food Crime Unit has shifted their focus to prevention from tracking down all the bad actors. Technology provides a preventative solution through #blockchain working with other technologies. But there’s a watch out as there has been so much blockchain hype without substance. Critically, the tech solution goes past just a tech coding capability to require seasoned business and interpersonal acumen to ensure the technology operates with integrity.  That is, to humanise the technology. At Two Hands, the sentiments in Abi Kay's article resonate deeply. Two Hands is one of the very few companies globally to have a commercialised, blockchain-authenticated, food supply chain solution.  Our insight is, critical to the technology to operate with integrity is where all supply chain participants are collaborative and where the performance of each participant is transparent. Importantly, this high-level of authentication is summarised by food portion direct to chefs and consumers through a unique and customised smart tag. On this smart tag, chefs and consumers can watch a video of the farmer, their region, sustainability story and a blockchain dashboard. Most interestingly, our experience is this collaborative, transparent supply chain leads to cost savings that pays for the technology. As a result, none of the farmer, end-buyer, consumer or supply chain participants pay for the significantly higher level of food safety Two Hands is seeking is a world in which the level of implied trust in the days when humans lived in villages, is brought to the global village.