Sharing sustainability

• Can you guess which industry is responsible for approximately 18% of greenhouse gas emissions, is the leading driver of Amazon rainforest deforestation, and uses up a quarter of the Earth’s freshwater resources?
• The answer: Livestock agriculture. 
• That’s not all. Vast amounts of land are used to grow crops that feed livestock instead of people. But if enough people across the globe switched to an entirely or predominantly plant-based diet, we could feed billions more people, and free up 75% of agricultural land!
• Vikas Garg founded abillion, a 500-backed sustainability platform, to help users find and promote vegan products. But he didn’t use social media himself! “I was amazed by all the misinformation spreading on these platforms and how they were dividing society in the name of likes and clicks. I thought all these platforms should have some form of values or ethics,” he shared.
• “I took a pause and thought — is it possible to design algorithms to create social benefits and spread information that turns mindless scrolling into mindfulness? That was the idea behind abilllion.” he explained.
• Vikas shared that abillion is the world’s largest consumer-review platform for plant-based products. There are over a million products from around 240,000 businesses, and 130,000 restaurants in 188 countries have been reviewed.
• “abillion is the world’s first consumer-to-consumer marketplace for all things vegan. Anyone in the world can get on there and list a (vegan) product or service to sell. Our 12.3 million users worldwide can effectively support these small business owners through our marketplace,” he added.
• The company also rewards users in the form of money to make a donation to a selected charity; users have donated almost US$3M to save animals, feed the poor, and support humanitarian causes to date.
• What’s next for abillion? “We want to keep expanding our reach, getting more people involved and creating a positive transformation in society. We still have a long way to go. We want to create an economy within our ecosystem that genuinely makes people want to live more sustainably and make this way of life second nature to them,” he shared.
• Read the full story here.

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