Why we need to talk about money to save the planet with Yi Li and Brent Loken

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Tease and seize a play. As a journalist, I have covered the intersection of tech and climate for years. I've reported on new companies and old companies, ground breaking advancements, and boots on the ground strategies.

And across the board, I've noticed an interesting thread. In climate tech, we don't like talking about money. Somehow we've been taught that profit is a dirty word or a capitalist distraction from the real work of saving the planet.

But what if we've had it backward? Early in my career I saw plenty of game-changing startups launched with massive grants and noble missions, only to vanish the moment the initial funding dried up. They just couldn't figure out their economic plan, and they weren't financially sustainable

in the long run. It's hard to watch this cycle play out over and over, especially when it comes to such an urgent issue. And it doesn't just hurt investors, it leaves communities.

The people these technologies were meant to serve stuck in the lurch. This is TED Tech, a podcast from TED. I'm your host, Sherelle Dorsey. FarmWorks CEO, Yi Li,

walked on the TED stage with a confession that might sound scandalous at first. She doesn't care about the traditional metrics of impact as much as she cares about her bottom line.

Yi is a technologist and entrepreneur who started with a perfect climate smart plan for Kenyan farmers. That's how FarmWorks was born.

But she quickly learned that a high tech farm doesn't mean anything if tomatoes are rotting in the shed because no one is buying them. Yealy's journey takes us from the quiet rows of an irrigation-fed field to the chaotic 5 a.m. energy of the Marrakeetee Hulsel Market in Nairobi.

Her story shows us how to translate big climate ideals into a language that actually works for the people on the ground. The language of income. Is profit the enemy of the planet?

Or is it an engine that can actually allow us to save it? with the good feeling that someone is there when it comes to it. Design with Tui Urlaub as soon as you wish. Everywhere in the travel office on tui.com and in the app.

For more than 15 million customers internationally, be smart, get wise. Download the WISE app today or visit www.wise.com. T's and C's apply. 3,000 farmers supported $6 million in direct income to farmers.

50 times the food waste prevented every month. These numbers represent FarmWorks' impact over the last five years. But what if I tell you, they are no longer the most important metrics to me anymore?

Today, the number one metric that I care about as CEO of FarmWorks is our profitability. Now, before you judge me and think, how did we let this capitalist on the stage?

Hear me out. Five years ago, I co-founded FarmWorks was the grand mission to build 1,000 climate-smart,

highly-productive farms across Kenya. We invested in water dams, net houses, drip irrigation, organic fertilizers. We had every right climate solution by the book.

But then harvest time came, and I realized when walking into our grading shed, there were craze of tomatoes rotting away because we didn't have enough waters.

Our storage room was bursting with onions. It looks almost funny, but I was standing there thinking, great, now what?

At the end of the day, every farmer has to answer one question, who is going to buy my produce and pay for all my hard work and investment?

Without the financial outcomes, climate initiatives cannot sustain themselves. This lesson hit me particularly hard a few years ago during one of our investor visits.

The investor asked our group of farmers, So how do you like working with farmworks so far? One farmer said, yeah, we like them a lot so far,

but you see, every two years, there is a new organization coming to us with a new project. They disappear after two years, so we'll see how long farmworks can last.

I feel my stomach drop in that moment. These farmers have gotten used to countless NGOs, donors, startups, rowing with grand climate emissions,

big promises, only to vanish when funding dries up. And without the financial sustainability, we too would be gone in just a few seasons.

In that moment, finding financial sustainability for farmworks meant we had to sell all of our produce. So that's when I threw myself

into Kenya's vegetable wholesale market. This is 5 a.m. at Marikiti, one of the largest wholesale markets in downtown Nairobi. It was chaotic.

So many sellers fighting for the best spot to sell, the customers are fighting for the highest-quality creative tomatoes, and I'm Chinese, so I'm very much used to crowds and competition.

But this was next level. I immediately knew I had to be part of this excitement.