TED: Jason Clay: How big brands can help save biodiversity

• Amazon. What can I do to save the rainforest? Get someone to make a product that is sourced from the rainforest that can show that the rainforest is worth more as resource than pasture. It failed. The people who made money from the rainforest were not the same people who were cutting the forest. 
• The average European cat has a larger carbon footprint than the average African.
• The average American consumes 43 times more than the average African.
• Should consumers have a choice between sustainable or not sustainable products, or should all the products on the shelf be sustainable. 
• Are consumers equipped to make the choice between products? Do they have time to make an informed choice? There are so many ifs ands and buts. It's a minefield.
• Sustainability needs companies to work together, countries need to work together. And the where what and who have to be managed.
• There are 1.5 billion producers. 500 commodities determine the trade of all of these companies. If you look at the companies working with these commodities and the same company names kept coming up. What percentage do they touch. 100 companies control 25% of the trade of the 15 most significant commodities, e.g. Cargill. 100 companies you can work with. They leverage 50% of production. 
• After 40 years the organic movement has produced 0.7 of 1 percent of global food.
• We can't wait that long. Consumers can't do it.
• They bring in stakeholders and design standards. It's difficult. 
• Salmon. 60% came to the table, some were suing each other. But they got standards for salmon aquaculture vetted by all the organisations.
• What brings them to the table. Big business' risk is NOT having commodities. Availability. For producers the buyer determines HOW they produce.
• They're getting the big companies to the table. They're pulling out all the stops. 
• Cargill have research that says they can double palm oil production in the next 20 years without cutting down a single tree, do it on already-degraded land in only Borneo. If Cargill makes a decision 50 percent of the palm oil businesses move. If Cargill only supplies sustainable palm oil, then all the palm oil China receives is sustainable.
• Mars 20% or trees produce the cocoa. So they are identifying traits in those 20% of trees that make them the right tree. Mars is driven by their need for commodities.
• Coca Cola wants to enter the European market. They enter into an agreement with growers in Turkey to produce fruit for the juices they want to ship into Europe. AND they buy carbon in the trees to offset the shipment costs. They are bringing the externalities, the cost to nature, back into the price of the juice. This way we don't just keep taking from nature, we put money back into fixing it through the big companies.