A plastic cup can take minutes to use and centuries to disappear. Yet the material that makes it possible still comes largely from one of the world's most valuable finite resources: oil. The same dependence runs through countless products and supply chains, leaving businesses exposed whenever commodity prices surge, trade routes fracture, or access to a critical input tightens.
COVID-19 made that exposure impossible to ignore. Factories stalled, shipping networks buckled, and companies discovered how little control they had over inputs produced thousands of miles away. According to John Soukas, CEO and Co-Founder of Norfolk Green Ventures, the lesson points toward a resource that could give industry another feedstock: seaweed.
