Giant Leap’s impact thesis for Who Gives A Crap

Small Steps Vol. 56: Our Theory of Change for toilet paper ??; volatility as opportunity for impact founders ??; and simulating hospitals for tech adoption ??

This is the Small Steps newsletter, a fortnightly rundown of the impact stories we're thinking about at Giant Leap. Subscribe here .

Kick start

???The toilet paper industry costs us 1m trees every day, while 1 in 5 humans on the planet don’t have access to basic hygiene facilities.?

?? These problems are at the centre of our first “Theory of Change” analysis, where we break down Giant Leap’s impact thesis for each investment we make.?We’re starting off with Who Gives A Crap (WGAC), which sets a new standard for sustainability and social enterprise in toilet paper.?Check it out here ??

Read our Theory of Change for WGAC

What we’re thinking about?

? When markets get volatile, founders should get excited. Why? Because startups have?little to lose and everything to gain . Take recent volatility in the Australian energy market, with a?rapid increase in wholesale prices ?resulting in some retailers telling?their customers to leave . It’s going to be painful in the short-term, but the shock also improves the attractiveness of rooftop solar and batteries, creating a potential medium-term market surge for renewable tech startups and retailers like Amber Electric.?

?? Carbon offset vs “insets”.?The best way to address your carbon footprint is to avoid emissions ever occurring. That’s the thinking behind?carbon “insets” , in which upstream suppliers engage in carbon reduction projects and “sell” the resulting credits to downstream buyers. It’s an opposing concept to carbon “offsets” where the downstream buyer purchases a carbon credit from a third party to offset their supply chain emissions. The potential is huge in the agriculture space, where farmers want to go regenerative but are struggling to find the means, while downstream buyers are buying offsets from random carbon projects. Why not just pay your climate-friendly farmers a premium??

?? Digital doctors. Hospitals are slow to adopt digital innovation because 1) it’s a high risk environment and, unlike drug trials, there’s no clear pathway for clinical validation, and 2) the lack of standardisation in data systems makes it (unnecessarily) challenging to build scalable software. The University of Melbourne’s?Digital Health Validitron Program ?brings an interesting piece of infrastructure to the playing field, digitally simulating clinical environments to build and validate digital health products as if they were going through clinical trials.?

New paths

?? ?? Academy Xi is on the hunt for a?Head of Student Recruitment .

?? Perx Health is chasing a?Customer Program Manager .

???? ?? Coviu is on the lookout for an?Account Executive .

?? Seer is seeking a?Patient Support Officer .

?? Also, check out our?Giant Leap Fund jobs board ?for over 90+ available positions, express your interest in working at one of our companies?here , or check out more jobs at ethical companies on the?global B-Work job board .

Giant Leaps

?? Congrats to Swoop Aero on their?$18 million Series B raise , which included Giant Leap and Main Sequence.

?? Congratulations to Chris Naoumidis and Alex Naoumidis from Mindset Health who have made it onto?Forbes’ 30 Under 30 List. ?

??? Hex featured in the Guardian talking facts about impact mission being a key differentiator?for employers looking to attract the best Gen Z talent .?

?? Applied ranked 39th in?Escape’s massive list of global purpose-led organisations . The list had over 13,000 applications.?

?? ♀? Working with Stefanie Safahi and Britt Boxall from Folklore, our Investment Analyst Hannah Mourney has set up the VC Women Down under list. If you are also a woman in VC in Australia,?you can join via this form .?

?? Giant Leap’s new impact calculator, which we featured in our last edition, also got a write up in?SmartCompany ?this week.?

For the road

??? A dose of optimism.?In the?Circular Economy Show podcast ?fashion model turned circular economy champion and author, Lily Cole, is optimistic about a circular economy future, pointing to unprecedented policy action globally and 25% of industry committing to end plastic waste. She’s also buoyed by rising stakeholder activism — take Mike Cannon-Brookes vs. AGL as a prime example — and traction for universal basic income globally.

?? Should health data live on after death??Coined ‘e-morality’, the debate around just how researchers will use health data after death is heating up. The general health community consensus is that post-mortem data should only be used for the public good. But as the?RACGP’s newGP explores , frameworks need to be put in place to ensure there’s no commercial exploitation.?

?? Eat better, live longer.?Civvic Labs ?is a new partnership between Vichealth and Launchvic aiming to solve the problem of non-communicable diseases responsible for 70% of deaths worldwide and 11 years of suffering for every Australian by going upstream in the food system (learn more in?this podcast ).

?? The MedTech Actuator has opened applications.?You have until July 15 to apply,?the form ?takes around 7 minutes to complete.?

?? You’ll never guess where the world’s largest plant is…?It’s a?patch of fibre-ball seagrass ?(Posidonia australis)?that stretches over 200 square kilometres (20,000 rugby fields) off the coast of Western Australia in Shark Bay. The plant is remarkably resilient, finding ways to survive in areas of Shark Bay that are almost twice the salinity.

?? Some retro design?reimaginations of well known brands .?

?? And a?delicious looking bat .

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