“For every 100 beef burgers we eat, that’s around 750 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions, and that’s a conservative estimate,” says Abdulrahman Hassaballah, a PhD candidate in the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering.
In contrast, “For every 100 insect burgers, that number is 10 pounds.”
Hassaballah, fellow graduate student Anish Ajay Kirtane and business administration junior Olivia Burgner earned first place in UB’s World’s Challenge Challenge (WCC), and $3,000, for their work on a sustainable beef alternative that addresses three of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The sustainable beef alternative, Numu, would address climate action, responsible consumption and production, and zero hunger.
“Beef is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than all the cars in the world combined,” according to Kirtane. “It takes a lot of land to grow food and there is a lot of deforestation. The maintenance associated with it is huge, and we don’t really notice it.”
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