Swiss Impact with Banerjis

Host - Ben Banerjee & Sveta Banerjee

Topic: How our eating habits is killing the Planet and what can be done?

Guests - Jeroom Remmers is the director of the TAPP Coalition Dr. Helena Wright, FAIRR Initiative Policy Director, Dr. Ameenah Gurib-Fakim , Forbes List for the 100 ‘Most Powerful women in the world,' 6th President of Mauritius.

The weekly show on how Impactful investments and businesses are helping to implement the 17 UN SDG’s worldwide to preserve the world for future generation.

Banerjis have enlightening and in-depth conversations with newsmakers, celebrities, thought leaders, entrepreneurs, project owners, investors, politicians and business leaders and encourage them to act now.

Jeroom Remmers is the director of the TAPP Coalition, an international foundation focusing on fair prices and taxes to make the production and consumption of meat and dairy sustainable (tappcoalition.eu). The foundation is supported by farmers, healthcare professionals, youth, businesses and charities. TAPP Coalition showed a 55%-majority of Dutch, German and French consumers support a meat tax, including environmental costs (GHG-emissions, nitrogen, biodiversity loss), on the condition that revenues of an excise duty will be used to reduce VAT rates on vegetables/fruits and compensate farmers and low-income groups. Remmers’ report ‘Aligning food prices with the European Green Deal’, and the report ‘Sustainability charge on meat’, presented at the EU Parliament 5th Feb 2020, received global media coverage and influenced the EU Commission's ‘Farm to Fork Strategy’. The Coalition's meat tax proposal was included in Dutch governmental proposals for a next government, sent to the Dutch Parliament, 22nd of April 2020. Dutch Governmental parties D66 and Christian Union included the TAPP Coalition plan in their election programs.

Dr. Helena Wright, FAIRR Initiative Policy Director, focuses on policy solutions related to the risks and opportunities of intensive animal agriculture. Helena works to promote greater understanding of the ESG risks in intensive animal agriculture and build sustained engagement in sustainable policies and business practices. She has worked for the World Wide Fund for Nature as Vice President, the think tank E3G, as well as the UK Government as a negotiator. She has a PhD from Imperial College, London.

Dr. Ameenah Gurib-Fakim was in the Forbes List for the 100 ‘Most Powerful women in the world’ and 1st among the Top 100 Women in Africa Forbes List 2017, 2019. She is honoured as one of Foreign Policy’s 2015 Global Thinkers. She has been the Managing Director of the Centre International de Développement Pharmaceutique (CIDP) Research and Innovation as well as Professor of Organic Chemistry with an endowed chair at the University of Mauritius. Since 2001, she has served successively as Dean of the Faculty of Science and Pro Vice Chancellor (2004- 2010). She has also worked at the Mauritius Research Council as Manager for Research (1995-1997).

Elected Fellow of several academies and societies, Dr Gurib-Fakim received several international prizes including the 2007 l’Oreal-UNESCO Prize for Womenin Science, the African Union Commission Award for Women in Science, 2009. On 05 June 2015, she was sworn in as the 6th President and the First Female President of the Republic of Mauritius and served in that capacity until March 2018.

In 2020, she was elected Honorary President of the International and Engineering Institute and received their 2020 5th IETI Annual Scientific Award. She also received the IAS-COMSTECH Ibrahim Memorial Awardfrom the WIAS in Jordan.