BMUN LXX BVC

  Hello delegates! We are almost a week away from conference weekend, and we are so pumped to meet you! BVC Office Hours First of all, those of you who have submitted a position paper should be able to see your scores and feedback on Huxley by now. Please email me if this is not the case. If you would like feedback on your position paper or have any questions about the topic or general committee, you are welcome to meet with the dais during office hours. Here is the office hours link, where you may sign up for a 15-minute time slot.  Suggestions for Debate As noted in a previous committee-wide email, your solutions can focus on any aspect of sustainability during crisis, meaning it does not have to focus on how women are impacted (although these solutions are also welcome!). For the debate, I would suggest come prepared with a speech or “mini-pitch” of your business idea. Once everyone has had a chance to pitch their idea, delegates will interact with one another to create ...

  Hello delegates, Seeing as most of you have finished your position papers, it’s time to start thinking about solutions for committee! As a reminder from the topic synopsis, the dais formulated 3 focus areas for this committee. Plastic production, wildlife conservation, and supply chain disruption are 3 areas that you are able to, but not limited to, explore for your innovative solution.  Plastic Production For this topic, there are several types of solutions you can create. If you create a plastic alternative, I would recommend having scientific research and past precedent to support your innovative solution. You can create a circular economy model, where people reuse plastics somehow. If this is the type of solution you’re aiming for, I would be extremely clear about your target audience, where exactly you plan to implement this solution, and how this could potentially be implemented internationally. Wildlife Conservation Your solutions don’t necessarily have to relate to ...

     Past blog posts have discussed topics such as packaging and personal, protective equipment (PPE) throughout the pandemic. On the other hand, it is important to understand how company supply chains have affected sustainability during the pandemic.      A supply chain is a system a company uses to receive and deliver its products. This can include ships, trucks, planes, or any other method of transporting goods. Several big-name companies have an adverse impact on the environment, and this issue has even worsened during the pandemic. Namely, one article highlights how Amazon is not sustainable, ethical, or even the most affordable. In 2020, Amazon emitted 60.64 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, which is a 15% increase from the year before the pandemic began ( CNBC ). Amazon’s supply chain system is notoriously unsustainable, as transporting items to your house in under 24 hours requires plenty of energy and labor to achieve.     ...

  Hello, delegates! Happy Friday. Berkeley Venture Capital is a specialized committee, and thus runs on different procedure and day-to-day structure. As always, reach out to bvcbmunlxx@bmun.org (or my email, cwherritt@bmun.org ) if you have any questions. As the committee page states, BVC is a full tech committee. This means that you are allowed to use your laptop at any time. We understand the depth of research and collaboration that comes with the internet, especially in a venture capital committee, and want to grant you access to the internet.  In the first committee session, every delegate will get the opportunity to pitch their ideas to the rest of the committee and start to form groups with other delegates. You and your team are going to form a company with the goal of creating a solution that would improve sustainability in the face of global crisis for the other committee sessions. The company's product can be a combination of ideas that you had coming into committee,...

Single-use plastic waste is a massive issue in today’s world with about 300 million tons of plastic waste produced each year. With traditional plastic, it can take hundreds of years to biodegrade. This creates a huge environmental crisis which has only been exacerbated by the pandemic – a time when work-from-home has increased the amount of plastic takeout boxes which is often improperly disposed of, with a study referenced in the article showing an increase of around 25 to 30% since the pandemic began.  While there are several companies working on this crisis, the one that will be discussed in this article is called Notpla. Notpla is a London-based startup creating an edible and biodegradable alternative to plastic.  Unlike traditional plastic, the version created by Notpla biodegrades in around four to six weeks. Moreover, it is created from seaweed! It is described in the article as “The membrane is made from seaweed farmed in northern France. It's dried and ground down int...

Cities around the world have already spent the last two years focusing on controlling the spread of COVID-19. Now, cities are starting to also focus on a different aspect of the pandemic – how to deal with waste generated by personal protective equipment (PPE). Cities and municipalities across the globe have found that the most common types of PPE waste include discarded surgical masks and plastic gloves. Single-use equipment designed to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 are turning up in rivers, blowing across streets, and will inevitably wreak havoc on natural ecosystems. To put the problem into scope, joint researchers in Nanjing, China and La Jolla, California recently calculated that waste generated from the pandemic has surmounted to over 8 million tons across 193 countries. And to worsen the news, the advocacy group OceansAsia has warned that potentially 1.5 billion face masks could end up in the marine ecosystem in just one year. The task at hand for the regional and local go...

 Hello delegates! As you're all writing your position papers, the dais thinks it is important to explain why we chose these topics.  This year's topic is Innovation Through Crisis: Furthering and Sustaining Environmentalism . As we are emerging to a post-pandemic society, the environment has experienced many changes. For instance, the demand for one-use plastics increased by 40% in 2020 at the peak of the pandemic . The United Nations stressed that COVID-19 has undone decades of progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals , including goals towards sustainable development. COVID-19 and climate change alike do not affect everyone equally; in fact, such global crises highlight structural inequalities for the impoverished, for women, and for people of color . Your challenge is to come up with a business proposal that addresses environmental sustainability during COVID-19 or any other global crisis. During times of such crisis, entrepreneurship and the private sector can pla...