Many corporations and budgets have rushed to sign up for the environmental, social and governance trend that has swept markets in recent years. The criticism for the lack of criteria and responsibility was not long in coming.
Synthetic biology pioneer Ginkgo Bioworks (DNA) has focused heavily on its ESG panel. Clearly, the option of replacing less sustainable equipment and products with products that can be grown can benefit the environment. The company also thinks deeply about points unrelated to the market. To deploy its generation platform, it widely promotes the control of biotechnologies and defends social issues such as gender equality and diversity.
There is no doubt about the company’s public commitment to ESG. Its 2021 sustainability report says: “We who are concerned about other people and the planet now demand to be able to believe in a bigger world. “
That’s what makes the company’s announcement so curious. Ginkgo Bioworks and Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Investment, representing the kingdom, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to expand key biotech capabilities.
Considering that Saudi Arabia is precisely a bastion of human rights, ending this generational partnership would challenge the company’s ESG claims.
Ginkgo Bioworks operates in two business segments: foundry and biosecurity. The foundry’s core business operates automated biology labs and sells mobile programming as a service to biotech companies. therapeutics, cosmetics, materials, food and more. Few systems have been commercialized, however, it is still early.
The biosecurity segment was born out of the coronavirus pandemic to process giant volumes of coronavirus control samples. It will be responsible for the majority of the company’s earnings for 2022, but segment contributions are expected to decline as the pandemic subsides.
However, Ginkgo Bioworks believes it can leverage the infrastructure built during the pandemic to create a global biosecurity control and surveillance network. Instead of processing coronavirus tests, it can screen airport passengers, sewage, and other samples to stumble upon emerging biological threats. A global biosecurity network can act as a true firewall to trip and respond to threats faster.
This may not stand out among most investors, but the strategy turns out to take a page from the playbook to build. This is no coincidence; Ginkgo Bioworks co-founder Dr. Tom Knight is an electrical engineer who helped build some of the first nodes, or touchpoints and transmission points, for the first internet.
Biosafety nodes can function in a similar way. If Ginkgo Bioworks can build infrastructure on key regional and global issues, for example, primary transportation hubs, then it can passively assess a significant portion of humans to develop preparedness for emerging biological threats.
The kingdom is becoming a global transportation hub and thanks to its central location between Europe, Africa and Asia. It is also located in a region where outbreaks of the MERS virus originated in animal populations, which is the most sensitive on the list for the near future. pandemic. A biosafety node in Riyadh may be just one valuable component of the network.
The obvious challenge is that the kingdom can use biotech infrastructure for malicious purposes. Like the Internet, biosecurity infrastructure is neutral. This requires safeguards. Ginkgo Bioworks would have little legal and physical control, and potentially misaligned incentives, for such uses of infrastructure.
Saudi Arabia is far from a champion of human rights. The kingdom orchestrated the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The killing took place 3 weeks before the Future Investment Initiative (FII) conference, which is being held at Riyadh’s announcement. Ginkgo Bioworks coincided with this year’s event.
This only briefly cooled enthusiasm for foreign investment, as evidenced by this year’s list of participants. Although Saudi Arabia has plenty of money to attract corporations and its public image, investors deserve not to forget the kingdom’s long list of misdeeds through foreign standards. . Like what:
To build a biosafety node in Saudi Arabia, Gingko Bioworks wants to expand laboratory automation, next-generation sequencing and trendy biotechnology functions in the kingdom. The infrastructure can only be used for malicious purposes, such as tracking, tracking and punishing citizens. or critics of the kingdom.
The question is: do the potential benefits of installing a biosafety node in Riyadh outweigh the ongoing violations of human rights and foreign laws?Should investors or managers forget about misdeeds or the option of infrastructure being used for human rights abuses?
A memorandum of understanding does not amount to formal collaboration and does not oblige Gingko Bioworks or Saudi Arabia to proceed. However, the company explains what safeguards are in place to ensure its infrastructure is not used against Saudi citizens and foreign laws, and explains how a partnership with the kingdom fits its ESG claims.
No corporation or corporation is perfect, and Ginkgo Bioworks has done a wonderful job of responsibly developing artificial biology. Laws and morals differ from culture to culture. The global is a big, messy and confusing place. But some things are so confusing. Respecting and valuing all humans is a basic price for our species that does require intellectual gymnastics and justification.
The announcement between Ginkgo Bioworks and Saudi Arabia highlights the issues with ESG boards. It also generates a much-needed verbal exchange within the artificial biology network about what exactly it is we seek to build and how we measure success.