More than just office yoga: Farmwall’s fresh approach to scope 3 emissions

In February 2019, Geert Hendrix showcased his urban farming startup, Farmwall, at the inaugural AgriFutures Australia evoke^AG. in Melbourne. There, AgriFutures Horizon Scholar Indiana Rhind, eager to apply her agricultural engineering skills to sustainability challenges, was captivated by Geert’s closed-loop aquaponics system.  

The rest, as they say, is history.  

Indiana is now a Co-Founder and CTO at the certified social enterprise on a mission to use indoor farming to grow both plants and wellbeing.   

Geert and Indiana explore why, as the scars of COVID begin to heal, now is the right time to scale a corporate wellbeing solution. 

Q: There’s a lot of interest in indoor farming, with the global market expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 13% between now and 2030. How does Farmwall fits in this marketplace?

A: (Geert) Farmwall shifts the dial on sustainability by growing wellbeing and engagement around food in corporate office spaces.  

We do this with our vertical indoor farm units, called Farmwalls, which grow microgreens and leafy greens in a closed loop aquaponic system.   

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Q: So your value proposition is less about growing mass market volumes of sustainable food, and more about empowering people to make sustainable food choices?

A: (Geert) Very much so. We’re an engagement and education organisation that uses our tech to connect with people for the benefit of their own wellbeing, and the wellbeing of the environment.  

We’re all about positive behaviour change. People who understand more about the food system are more interested in their food: in connecting with it, growing it, and in making sustainable choices.  

Geert Hendrix, CEO and Co-Founder, Farmwall, and Indiana Rhind, Co-Founder and CTO, Farmwall. 

Q: Are you a certified social enterprise?

A: (Geert) From the get-go, we decided we wouldn’t have a business model based on the short-term taking of profits from equipment sales. Instead, we’d leverage that technology for bigger outcomes. And that approach helped earn our certification as a Social Trader – recognition that we put people and planet first. 

Q: How does the Farmwall service work?

A: (Indiana) We use a circular economy subscription model based on equipment hire with a supporting employee engagement program. We visit each Farmwall site once a week, or more if the partner chooses a higher tier service. During those sessions we engage with employees, educating them on food and nutrition; helping them make salads or smoothies. 

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(Geert) Basically, we create moments for people to disconnect from what they’re doing that day, and instead, connect with greenery, and connect with each other. It’s always around the fresh food nutrition thematic. 

Q: Let’s go back to the time of that first AgriFutures evoke^AG. Tell me about your path from 2019 to now?

A: (Geert) We’d initially piloted programs in hospitality, working with chefs around zero waste. And we’d also been delivering corporate wellbeing programs for partners including MIRVAC and Westpac to engage people in urban farming and create a real sustainability experience – with the main goal being to lower stress and drive better use of underutilised corporate spaces.  

And the outcomes were significant: 77% of participants said the experienced reduced their stress. Those results helped accelerate our scale trajectory to where we had all 14 units leased across Sydney and Melbourne.  

But then March 2020 came around, and the world changed. Our wellbeing programs were the first line items cut from corporate budgets, and we went from $500,000 in annual revenue to literally zero.  

Q: How did you get through?

A: (Geert) We scaled back to Melbourne and focused on doing the basics really well – delivering our programs, measuring our impact, and looking for more corporates and SMEs who want to give our program a go.  

We also expanded into schools with our Future Food Farmers program.  

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Q: What’s the current market for corporate wellbeing? A friend of mine reluctantly participates in compulsory aerobics classes at his office…

A: (Geert) The usual suspects are an onsite gym, yoga classes, a wellness coach. But scope 3 tends to be where Farmwall find our way in, working under an organisation’s employee benefits/ employee perks scheme. 

If you take a tablespoon of free red cabbage microgreens from the Farmwall and add it to your dinner at home, you get the same nutrition as eating up to 40 tablespoons of mature red cabbage. That’s a perk. 

The difference between the supermarket discount code your friend might receive, and a Farmwall subscription, is that our perks have wellbeing and sustainability outcomes attached.  

Q: Scope 3 are the indirect or value chain emissions from a company’s activities, and we tend to think of action as switching to renewables or encouraging practice change from suppliers. Where does Farmwall fit?

A: (Geert) Scope 3 also includes making sure your employees are more environmentally conscious – cycling to work, or reducing waste, for example.  

Fresh basil is one of the highest food waste products per category in supermarkets.

If an employee snips some basil from the Farmwall on their way home instead of buying it from the supermarket, they reduce food and packaging waste, and contribute to their employer’s scope 3 reductions. 

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Farmwall also tracks and measures how we’re shifting the dial on sustainability – providing powerful data for corporations to use in their scope 3. Before we go into a new workplace, we benchmark employee understanding of plants, nutrition, and circular economy principles and behaviours. Then we’ll ask those questions again multiple times throughout the year to measure if understanding has improved, and behaviour changed. That’s an important scope 3 metric, too. 

We do this as part of our well-being packages, where we issue surveys for employees to fill out periodically during the subscription and collect data during each visit. Aspects like who is engaging, what activity is like around the Farmwall, and any change in office or personal practices they mention, which we then use to create a report for the employer.  

Q: You’re preaching to the converted when you talk about the need to engage schools and grow sustainability literacy. Tell me more about your school program.

A: (Indiana) Our Future Food Farmers program includes a term-long lease of a Farmwall unit and educational program adaptable for primary and secondary students – designed to fit into a school’s science, food technology, agriculture and careers curriculum.  

Being a social enterprise, we align our higher-tier corporate wellbeing packages so that they directly sponsor Future Food Farmers. Our end goal is that corporates will be providing new school programs for free – or heavily discounted – to take the pressure away from teachers to [lobby for] agriculture to be included in their school’s curriculum. 

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(Geert) Even though we’re convinced governments should have started this 10 years ago, we’re taking steps ourselves to build the programs that get kids interested in the food system.  

We don’t have to do this kind of stuff. But we really want to make a change when it comes to engaging people with food systems – and schools are a perfect place to start. 

Q: What’s next for Farmwall?

A: (Geert) We are raising our seed round now, but it’s a tricky landscape – despite us having been in 50 schools, and with 100% of our capacity currently under lease, and a recent launch into Creative Cubes coworking spaces across six locations.  

 

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All the corporates we speak to prove Australia is still a bit of a no man’s land on ESG – companies are trying to figure out how they’re going to achieve their targets. But they’re starting to come out with problem statements to the startup landscape, so we’re getting ready for when the market shifts and embraces ESG to derisk climate change.  

But I’d be interested to talk to investors who might see a clearer pathway into Europe or Western Asia – where the market for what we’re doing is a lot further evolved. 

To find out more about the AgriFutures evoke^AG. Startup Program visit evokeag.com/startups 

Applications for the 2025 evoke^AG. Startup Program open in September. Contact [email protected] for more information.