5. Climate auditor

In the sustainable future, companies are required to report not only their financial performance, but also their environmental footprint on the world. However, many companies lack expertise in climate issues in relation to financial performance, and therefore need external help to both analyse and report on their sustainability initiatives. They also need help formulating strategies on how businesses can transition from linear to circular, and perhaps even become “climate-positive”.

•Monitor, analyse and report on the climate footprint of • companies Formulate strategies to reduce climate impact

•Energy and the environment • Science • Climate economics • Finance • Legal affairs

In recent years, the urban farming movement has spread worldwide, and investments are being made in many large cities, partly in courtyards and on roofs, but also indoors and underground using hydroponics and vertical farming methods. This means planting vertically and that the roots of the crops obtain their nutrients from water that circulates, which requires less than 10 per cent of the water used for conventional farming.

In China, vertical farming company Plenty was recently funded by investors such as Softbank’s Vision Fund and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to build 300 vertical farms in the country. And in the UK, the possibility of converting some of the country's 150,000 closed coal mines for hydroponic farming is being explored, which not only means more sustainable farming, but also creates jobs in areas that have suffered from economic instability since the coal mine closures in the 1980s.

Several exciting initiatives in hydroponic farming are also being undertaken in Sweden. One example is the food tech company Green, which boasts Europe’s largest vertical farm in an industrial building just outside Huddinge centre, where a harvest of about 80,000 pots of herbs and lettuce per month is expected – which will be nearly one million pots per year. Another example is Ikea, which recently announced plans to become self-sufficient in lettuce through hydroponic farming in containers outside their stores.

One pioneer in vertical farming is Plantagon. The company has farms in locations such as the basement of the DN skyscraper in Stockholm, where herbs and leafy vegetables are under cultivation. We met Mia Kleregård, former CEO of Plantagon’s production company in Sweden, for a discussion on the future of sustainability and urban farming.

Sustainability is one of the most important issues of our time. Only recently have we, both consumers and businesses, realised that our previous way of life is unsustainable. The formula of consuming as much as possible and using up the earth's resources in order to deliver profits every quarter simply does not equate, which is why we are sitting where we are today. Increased consumption does not increase happiness, and that’s what people are beginning to realise on a large scale.

The demands for businesses to become sustainable are enormous and this process keeps moving forward. The time when we could accept just “doing less badly” is behind us; now it is a question of creating circular processes, or even contributing with a positive impact. Businesses that are not sustainable will no longer exist by 2030.

By 2030, vertical farming will be a natural part of urban planning and the urban scene. Neighbourhoods will be built from the standpoint of symbiotic thinking, where people will have access to food and offices near home in order to reduce their climate impact. Looking a bit further into the future, by about 2050 around 70 per cent of the world’s population will live in urban areas. At that point, it will no longer be sustainable to continue farming outside cities. Plantagon’s vision is to make cities all over the world more self-sufficient through urban farming. We hope that large-scale vertical urban farming will help to solve food shortages in the future, while also helping to create jobs in vulnerable regions. Vertical farming is clearly the future.

In part, basic knowledge is required in areas such as agriculture and technology. However, I would say that the most important qualities are passion, innovation and entrepreneurship. As a company, we want to rejuvenate and create things that do not yet exist, and that requires an ability to think outside of the box.