Humans. We make things. And we do it every day, everywhere, and for a reason: because we need to. So much so, that we do it —and will continue to— even when we know it poses a risk to the delicate balance of our biosphere.

In the last 1,200 years, we have lost half of the world’s biomass, and we were only able to produce 1% of that loss. What is more, the amount of objects and materials that were created by humans has exponentially increased over the last century. It is estimated that since 2020 the planet contains the same amount of anthropogenic mass as that of all living beings combined. This fact alone is enough to give us a new perspective on our relationship with nature.

So far, we have not found a way of supplying the demand for goods of the entire world’s economy without exceeding planetary boundaries —hard thermodynamic frontiers, the non-negotiable side of Earth.— We need new ways of producing, sustainable ways. And this is where Stämm comes in.

It has been estimated that 60% of this demand could be met through bioprocesses. That is, with products generated from animal, plant, microbial or fungal cells. In other words, we could literally grow more than half of the things we need: antibodies for treating diseases, meat for eating, and clothing for keeping us warm.

Bioprocesses have proven to be the most efficient way of obtaining materials in a sustainable way, yet we still need a profound transformation —almost a revolution— to make these bioprocesses easy.

Why do they have to be easy? Because easy means scalable, it means efficient processes that can generate huge amounts of products from a few materials, which opens the door to commercialization in high-demand markets.

Because easy means repeatable, automated, so that the interaction between the biological and digital worlds is so precise that bioprocesses can be designed and executed from computational models.

And above all, because easy means that they do not take place exclusively in large, complex, expensive facilities operated by many people. That they are accessible, so that they can happen everywhere and at very low costs, within the reach of even small local companies.

This is what we are doing at Stämm.

That is the paradigm we are changing.