Turning greenhouse gas into plastic and providing affordable dental care landed these two companies on Fortune's Impact 20

Fortune

The Fortune Impact 20 is a list of relatively small companies that have built their business models around world-changing ideas, using the profit motive to solve social and environmental problems.

Transcript

00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:03 There is an access to care problem

00:05 around the country amongst our pediatric population

00:09 in underserved communities.

00:11 We want to give every family, everyone,

00:13 regardless of where they came from, what background, what

00:16 insurance type, the key to access high-end dental care.

00:21 What we have in AirCarbon is a really unique and high

00:24 efficiency solution to help companies

00:26 decarbonize their materials and their supply chains.

00:29 Really proud of the fact that we are in society today.

00:32 If you go into a Shake Shack, you

00:34 can use a straw that is made from greenhouse gas.

00:36 [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:41 The Impact 20 is a list of 20 startups,

00:44 usually venture capital backed and/or private equity backed,

00:48 that are pursuing business models that

00:50 are going to have a positive impact on people and the planet.

00:54 Some of them are working in safe tech and tech for good,

00:57 coming up with apps or programs or AI that

01:00 can solve a social problem.

01:02 Some of them are in education.

01:04 Some are working on the climate change issue.

01:07 They're trying to figure out ways to help other businesses

01:09 or help consumers reduce their carbon footprint.

01:14 What New Light does is it turns greenhouse gas

01:16 into a material called AirCarbon that we're

01:19 using to help companies decarbonize

01:22 by taking greenhouse gas and putting it

01:24 into people's supply chain as a replacement for plastic.

01:27 Some of our partners include Shake Shack and Sony and Disney.

01:31 We've got a partnership with Sumitomo

01:33 in the automotive space.

01:34 We've got a partnership with Nike in the fashion space.

01:36 We've delivered over 100 million units into the market.

01:38 And so we're really just getting started,

01:40 but we're also now finally at a full commercial scale.

01:45 So the way the process works is it's

01:46 very similar to what happens in the ocean every day.

01:48 We feed greenhouse gas to microorganisms in a salt water

01:52 solution.

01:52 And those microorganisms consume the gas

01:56 and use it to grow and make a material inside their cells

01:59 called PHB, we call it AirCarbon.

02:01 We push those cells through a high pressure filter

02:03 that effectively separates the AirCarbon

02:05 from the rest of the microorganism biomass.

02:08 That turns into a fine white powder,

02:10 and then we melt that fine white powder into pellets.

02:13 Once we have the pellets, we can use them

02:14 in pretty much any plastic processing equipment

02:17 out in the market today.

02:18 The startup space is where you find often

02:23 sort of the freshest ideas and the most experimental, novel

02:27 approaches to solving social problems.

02:29 Our Change the World list, which runs

02:31 at a different time of year, focuses a little bit more

02:33 on bigger companies that have already figured out

02:36 how to make change in a big way.

02:38 The way we see it is that the companies on the Impact 20

02:41 may be coming up with the ideas that

02:43 are going to be big 10 or 15 years down the line.

02:46 So we're trying to introduce readers to them

02:48 while they're new and young.

02:53 We are a large group multidisciplinary dental

02:56 practice and DSO.

02:58 We have 44 locations throughout three states--

03:01 Texas, Arizona, and Colorado.

03:04 You could be in a major metropolitan city like Houston,

03:07 and you might say, well, there's a dentist

03:09 on every corner here, right?

03:11 But as you get into the nuance of the different insurance

03:14 types and what's accepted amongst the different

03:17 practices, where the specialists are,

03:19 if you need specific surgery for your child or relative,

03:23 you may not be able to get in and see a doctor within three,

03:27 six month, nine month period.

03:29 And so where do these patients go?

03:31 We have an access to care problem around the country.

03:35 Our goal is to go in and to try to solve that as much as we

03:37 can.

03:38 You can get all the services under one roof.

03:41 So today we have pediatric dentistry, oral surgery,

03:44 general anesthesia services, endodontics, even prosthodontics

03:48 all built in to the service model.

03:52 I think working in an environment where you can

03:55 utilize the group practice model, I can utilize supplies.

04:00 I can buy at higher purchasing amounts.

04:03 I can share the space.

04:04 So a typical chair that may not be occupied,

04:07 maybe on one morning, I can now bring in another service.

04:10 Team members are cross-trained across the different specialty

04:14 lines.

04:16 People drive miles away to come see us just

04:19 to maintain affordability.

04:21 It's something we think about every day

04:22 because that's what drives the mission.

04:24 And we have to be really smart to make sure

04:26 that stays at the forefront.

04:27 There are tons of companies out there

04:29 that are striving to have a positive social and

04:32 environmental impact.

04:33 We really wanted to focus with the Fortune Impact

04:35 20 on the best of the best.

04:37 The most exciting thing about the Impact 20

04:39 is getting to see imagination and creativity at work

04:42 in these relatively new companies.

04:44 Very often, they're attacking a very familiar problem

04:47 in a very fresh and novel way.

04:50 And to see the potential in that,

04:52 to see where it's already getting traction,

04:53 and to imagine what it could be one year or five years or 10

04:57 years down the road, that's really thrilling.

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