KPMG has chosen NSW-based moral oil startup Levur as the most recent winner of its annual Nature Constructive Prize, with reef restoration firm Coral Maker taking house the Folks’s Alternative award.
Levur, co-founded by CEO and COO duo Tom Collier and Joanne Barber in mid-2023, was awarded the $100,000 main prize, and can along with its fellow 4 finalists share in $250,000 value of tailor-made advisory providers.
KPMG launched the competitors in 2022, focusing this yr on the regenerative economic system and sustainable meals methods, with Levur becoming a member of previous winners Xylo Programs, a biodiversity intelligence platform, and various plastic producer ULUU.
“The purpose of the problem is to form a greater future by supporting entrepreneurship that’s centered on serving to folks and planet. We’re extremely proud to be serving to fast-track the expansion of those superb companies,” said KPMG CEO Andrew Yates. “Levur was the last word alternative due to their extremely modern software of science and the size of the problem they’re tackling.”
In a bid to counter the devastating results of palm oil manufacturing, which is staple of a variety of client merchandise and has brought about widespread deforestation, Levur has labored to supply an artificial oil various an identical to these present in nature however with out the environmental hurt, by utilizing a precision fermentation course of to information microbes in an analogous method to brewing beer.
Collier, who’s finding out his doctorate at Macquarie, stated successful felt like a pivotal second for the younger enterprise; “It’s a validation of the mission our group has labored so exhausting to make a actuality and a strong reminder of why we began this journey; to guard our planet and create options that go away an enduring impression. Because of this prize, we’ll be capable to scale quicker and attain extra markets.”
“We’re already seeing the strategic advantages of KPMG’s advisory help and the doorways it will open, serving to to commercialise our sustainable various to palm oil,” Collier continued, including; “Creating long-term impression takes a village, and we’re deeply impressed by the work of our fellow finalists. We’re proud to be a part of a group devoted to driving significant change.”
These finalists embrace Coral Maker, which took house the $20,000 ‘Folks’s Alternative’ award as voted on by KPMG workers, and ‘First Nations’ prize-winner Native Botanical Brewery, together with Lord of the Bushes, which adopts drone know-how for pest administration, and Rainstick, which makes use of electrical energy to imitate the pure results of lightning to develop higher and extra environment friendly crops.
KPMG stated the third cycle of its annual competitors attracted a file variety of entries, together with the broadest vary of start-ups. The 5 chosen finalists in the end pitched to a panel which included former Fujitsu vp Nicole Forrester, now chief regeneration officer at WWF-Australia, and KPMG’s nationwide nature and sustainability leaders Carolin Leeshaa and Josh Geelan.
