Zero Foodprint

My nonprofit organization, Zero Foopdrint, has established a mechanism for incentivizing a renewable food economy in California and we are working to scale our programs up with partners in other regions. Our expansion to Colorado kicks off in April 2021, our Asian and European affiliates will launch this summer, and we are targeting expansion to the Northeastern United States over the next twelve months. In each place, we are working with businesses, governments, and consumers to fund the implementation of regenerative agriculture in their regional food systems.

Funds from the Elevate Prize would be used to establish and grow these regional funding engines for climate beneficial agriculture and healthy soil by enabling us to hire a local staff and build robust public-private collaborations in each region, with the highest priority being the American Northeast. We have many critical stakeholder partners already engaged in New England and New York, from regional governments, to advocacy groups, farm technical advisory groups, research organizations and consumer outreach groups.

I began my career as a chef and the co-founder of Mission Chinese Food, a restaurant named top 20 most important restaurants in America. In 2012, my wife and I became parents and began focusing on climate solutions, and started Zero Foodprint with restaurant-industry allies in 2015. For a few years, we championed regenerative agriculture through a restaurant called The Perennial, which Bon Appetit called the most sustainable restaurant in the country. Through this work, we began to understand that leading by example was not sufficient to the challenge posed by the climate crisis, because the food system lacked an effective financial mechanism for scalable change. That is, many chefs and citizens were trying to make better choices within a fundamentally broken/extractive system.

In 2019, we closed The Perennial and focused on Zero Foodprint, which has accelerated its regenerative impact through a collaboration with the CA Dept of Food and Agriculture and CA Air Resources Board (which oversees the cap and trade program). Together we laid groundwork for Restore California, a massive and scalable private sector framework for funding regenerative agriculture, which not only sequesters atmospheric carbon, but also improves climate resilience and prosperity for small farmers.

Zero Foodprint is mobilizing the food world to remove carbon from the atmosphere by building healthy soil.

We are creating a new and optimistic food economy that directs a few cents at the point of sale toward agricultural carbon sequestration projects. We make grants for farmers and ranchers to implement cover cropping, compost application, reduced tillage and other practices based on their carbon return on investment. Through collaborations with state agencies (CDFA, CARB CARCD) and counties (Sonoma, San Mateo) we are applying the success of Community Choice Aggregation policy in renewable energy to the challenge of transitioning and improving land stewardship in the food system.

Since launching in 2020, our Restore California program has distributed $330k through to 18 farm projects to remove ~7000 tons of carbon from the atmosphere.  There are also synergies with compost/organic matter diversion efforts at the regional level, as evidenced by our partnership with Boulder and Denver to launch Restore Colorado as part of their regional food waste commitments. At scale, Zero Foodprint could implement regenerative carbon sequestration projects  on millions of acres.

Zero Foodprint is a trailblazing effort to activate public-private collaborations designed to establish a renewable food economy that restores the climate.

Zero Foodprint's approach utilizes choice architecture, collective action, and government collaboration to enable direct action to address the climate crisis. We are building a table to farm movement that closes the loop by sending a few cents per purchase to fund regenerative carbon sequestration practices such as planting cover crops, switching from chemical fertilizer to compost, etc. 

Zero Foodprint works with USDA-NRCS approved technical experts ranging from conservation districts to cooperative extensions who are the boots on the ground, advising and overseeing improved farming practices whether it is a conventional grower taking their first step or a sustainable producer implementing additional, climate beneficial practices. 

The current food economy does not incentivize these practices, and in fact federal farm policy disincentives healthy soil through subsidies and regulations that perpetuate "conventional" farming practices that deplete soil and release carbon into the atmosphere. Zero Foodprint is making it possible for everyone to directly improve the food system, rather than just a few folks buying nice ingredients and hoping things change.

Our approach translates everyone's desire for locally beneficial, meaningful climate action and better food into reality with a few cents per purchase, deployed systematically and directly into regenerative agriculture.

According to Project Drawdown, improved agriculture and land stewardship represent the largest climate opportunity. Regenerative cropping and managed grazing provide $40 in public benefit for each dollar invested. Healthy soil conserves water improves resilience and removes carbon from the atmosphere, while creating better health outcomes and farmer profitability. Transitioning to climate beneficial farming is a no-regrets solution with beneficial multiplier effects for the climate and long-term economic prosperity. We simply must align all the incentives as part of a new food economy that enables citizens to"vote with their dollar" for healthy soil.

We are in collaboration with state and local governments and business leaders in California and Colorado to scale up these ambitious and truly transformative efforts. Healthy Soils legislation is already underway in over 20 states in the US and regional governments don't have a financial mechanism to operationalize these goals. We are bringing citizens and businesses together to fund a transition to regenerative agriculture, while increasing access to sustainable food, and empowering people to take meaningful climate action with a few cents per purchase. Zero Foodprint offers a delicious pathway to climate action that benefits farmers, food businesses, consumers, ecosystems, and the planet. 

Zero Foodprint (ZFP) works with food producers, food businesses, and the general public. We anticipate making grants to 55 farmers and ranchers in 2021: 31 grants that have already been selected, 14 California projects expected in our next application cycle, and ten pilot projects planned for the fall in Colorado, Georgia, and the Northeast. On the food business side, our membership has grown to 60 businesses and is on track to reach 100 by the end of 2021. We maintain active social media accounts and provide materials for ZFP members to communicate the value of regenerative agriculture to their communities, serving an educational value to thousands of food consumers. 

ZFP is currently in the process of finalizing Direct Service Provision contracts with local governments in California (San Francisco, Alameda, San Mateo, Sonoma, Santa Clara) and we lead collaborations in Colorado (Denver, Boulder) to scale change on acres through our Restore grant program, which will impact tens of thousands of citizens in each municipality. ZFP’s Restore grant framework has also been adopted by REGEN1, a collective impact collaborative including Google, Sodexo, Compass Group, Whole Foods, and others. ZFP has been endorsed by California state agencies and regional governments in Colorado.

Zero Foodprint primarily measures impact in terms of metric tons of modeled carbon sequestration. We are on track to achieve a climate benefit of 25,000mt CO2e in 2021: ZFP has already approved Restore California grants modeled at 14,250mt CO2e and we expect to draw down an additional twelve to fifteen thousand metric tons between our fall application cycle in California and pilot projects in other states. As we expand geographically and begin managing compost projects as direct service providers for California county governments, we will double our impact goal in 2022 to 50,000mt CO2e. 

Over the next year, ZFP will focus on recruiting new members in California, Colorado, Georgia, and the Northeast, with a goal of each region contributing at least $100,000 in annual member contributions to support regional regenerative farm projects. Restore Colorado has already recruited 25 members this year in partnership with county governments and local nonprofits; we have philanthropic seed funding and committed partners to build Restore Georgia; for Restore Northeast, allied organizations have helped us recruit restaurants and farmers for pre-launch commitments. Region by region, we are building circular economies that reinvest in healthy soil.

Zero Foodprint is growing rapidly, as we scale our Restore California model to other states and work toward establishing ourselves as a national organization, so our most pressing need in the next year is capacity-building to meet the demand for our expansion. Winning the Elevate Prize would offer the visibility, introductions, and funding we need to mobilize the entire food system, from producers to consumers, around agricultural climate solutions. 

The Elevate Prize would increase awareness and participation in Zero Foodprint's work, build our team, and engage more deeply in innovative public-private partnerships. ZFP’s optimistic message of regeneration is primed for amplification through MIT Solve’s network, and funding from the Elevate Prize would also allow us to hire regional coordinators to connect Zero Foodprint with community stakeholders across the country. I look forward to connecting with mentors and colleagues who can help activate additional sectors of the economy, beyond the food world, in a larger collective action to draw down carbon through regenerative agriculture.

The Elevate Prize would focus attention on the opportunity we have to transform our farmlands and food economies into carbon sinks through regenerative agriculture. Organizations like Project Drawdown have identified the food system and land use as the largest climate opportunity--with even more potential than the energy and transportation sectors. ZFP’s network of businesses, consumers, and governments is elevating this solution in terms of both awareness and action by providing grants for the transition from extractive to regenerative land management.  

On a personal level, I feel that my climate communication skills have improved enormously with practice, but I am eager for the coaching that would come with the Elevate Prize, and I would love to expand the audience for ZFP’s online communications beyond our current culinary and environmental niches. In other words, I know how to connect with chefs and activists, but my ambitions for Zero Foodprint include reaching a mass audience and inspiring climate action on a grand scale. I believe that the mentorship of the Elevate Prize, together with the platform, audience, and brand of MIT Solve would allow Zero Foodprint to reach its full potential. 

My experience as an Asian-American restaurateur has been crucial to mobilizing the restaurant community around climate action. Zero Foodprint’s membership represents a wide range of cultures, price points, and formats, from a Palestinian bakery to corporate dining rooms to Mexican haute-cuisine. This year, we strengthened our focus on climate justice, especially through my participation as a topic leader within the American Sustainable Business Council ’s Regenerative Agriculture and Justice working group. 

ZFP’s Board of Directors is currently 66% women and 22% BIPOC, and I will deliberately welcome additional perspectives to our board as I transition from Director of Partnerships to Executive Director this summer. ZFP's grant application process was designed in consultation with community stakeholders to increase access to historically underserved producers, reflecting the organization’s values around diversity and justice. Zero Foodprint staff is also available to work with members and grant applicants in English, Spanish, Mandarin, and Cantonese; recently, California’s Healthy Soils Program emulated our decision to eschew English-language essay questions in order to increase access to non-native English speakers. As Zero Foodprint’s staff grows, I will continue to seek out representatives of the diverse stakeholder communities engaged in Zero Foodprint’s work. 

When I co-founded Zero Foodprint in 2015, I was a chef-restaurateur seeking sustainability in the food world, and that lived experience has given me credibility among entrepreneurs. ZFP's core team are industry leaders who see restaurants as an important source of cultural and fiscal capital. But we are creating a new framework for everyone to take meaningful climate action by aligning the food economy with a shift to climate beneficial farming. We have been named Humanitarian of the Year by the James Beard Foundation and I won the Basque Culinary World Prize. 

Further, Zero Foodprint’s public-private collaborations offer an unprecedented opportunity to scale funding for agricultural climate solutions. In California, we work with the Department of Food and Agriculture and the Air Resources Board, and we are establishing Direct Service Provision relationships with counties seeking our expertise administering grants for regenerative agriculture in relation to SB1383 a  regulation requiring scaling up compost infrastructure and procurement taking effect in 2022. We are also working with the REGEN1 network to administer corporate funding for regenerative agriculture. 

As public investment in soil health gains momentum, Zero Foodprint is uniquely positioned to generate funding for and to oversee implementation for agricultural climate solutions. 

During the recession in 2008, I co-founded a pioneering business called Mission Street Food, which illustrates my capacity to recognize emergent opportunities and respond with creativity, collaboration, and grit.  MSF trailblazed the pop-up restaurant genre by hosting guest chefs and weekly thematic menus benefitting local food pantries. Though we started with an initial investment of about four hundred dollars, The San Francisco Chronicle memorialized Mission Street Food as “the most influential SF restaurant of the past decade,” for the way it broke conventions, capitalized on new social media, launched the careers of a diverse group of chefs, and gave back to the community. I look back on the project as a reflection of the changing socio-economic and informational landscape of its moment, and I sense another major shift underway today: people are hungry for meaningful, local climate solutions. 

My vision for Zero Foodprint emerges from my experience as an entrepreneur whose idiosyncratic talent is developing new pathways for collective action, from hunger relief to the climate crisis. After all, none of us can solve systemic problems on our own, but together, we can demand a regenerative food system and maybe even save the world. 

The Battery: Battery Powered presentation (begin at 1:06:30 mark) 2.23.21

James Beard Foundation: 2020 Humanitarian of the Year 9.25.20

Basque Culinary World Prize Acceptance Speech 7.16.19 

Mind of a Chef: Chef Anthony Myint On The Early Struggles Of Mission Chinese Food 5.9.18 

MAD Symposium: The Audacity of Hope and Szechuan Peppercorn 8.28.16

Having launched Restore California in 2020, we have observed the value of pilot projects to inspire regional participation in our work. In other words, soil health--and soil wealth--are experienced locally, and communities need to see Zero Foodprint making grants to farmers close to home, ideally within their food supply chain. As an Elevate Prize winner, I would use the funding to accelerate Zero Foodprint’s efforts to establish regional programs for regenerative agricultural projects across the US, through seed funding for pilot projects and by hiring regional program coordinators who can engage local stakeholders. 

 As ZFP’s work with regional governments expands in 2022 and beyond, I would like to add a position to my leadership team focused on public-private partnerships, in order to optimize collaboration in support of regional climate resilience and regeneration. While we began in the restaurant industry, we believe there is a broad, cross-sector opportunity to directly invest in a shift to climate-friendly food production, much in the way citizens can directly invest in the transition to renewable energy through Community Choice Aggregation Programs. We are establishing these precedents, pioneering these frameworks, and activating opportunities in multiple industries and regions. 

In California: Zero Foodprint’s USDA-NRCS grant supports collaborative work with the California Department of Food and Agriculture, the California Air Resources Board, the California Association of Resource Conservation Districts, and the 95 regional RCDs to develop our Restore California program (2020-23). Zero Foodprint has been selected to administer carbon farming grants for the REGEN1 network of California corporations, currently sponsored by Google, and launching early 2022. ZFP is negotiating direct service contracts with Alameda, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Sonoma counties to begin January 2022. 

Outside of California: ZFP is partnered with Boulder County, City of Denver, and Colorado-based regenerative agriculture nonprofit Mad Agriculture on a grant from USDA-NRCS to build the Restore Colorado program. In the Northeast, we are informally working with the James Beard Foundation, OpenTEAM, Glynwood, Stonyfield Organic, and regional chefs to sign up pre-launch members and pilot projects. Drawdown Georgia and the Ray C. Anderson Foundation have committed funding and staff time to developing Restore Georgia. 

Internationally: ZFP licenses intellectual property to three independent affiliates (in Asia, Scandinavia, and German-speaking nations). ZFP is a constituent member of the 4p1000 consortium of soil health organizations.