Excerpt from a Sydney Morning Herald feature looking at innovative Australian startups that are solving pressing environmental challenges.
Brewing palm oil from yeast
When Thomas Collier was 21, his then-girlfriend and now-wife went to Borneo to work on a documentary about how the palm oil industry was fuelling deforestation and threatening orangutans and other wildlife.
“When she came back, she told me about all the things she saw first-hand, which were quite upsetting,” Collier says. “I couldn’t do too much about it at the time, but it stuck with me.”
Collier completed a PhD at Macquarie University that focused on how to sustainably produce palm oil, a common ingredient used in food and in 70 per cent of cosmetic products, including soaps. He also visited Borneo himself.
