FLI-ing Right into Sustainability Challenges

When nothing is certain, anything is possible. All it takes for someone to be successful is to find their passion, build a coalition, and work until they transform the future.

Alice Murphy and Mark Hansen took this advice to heart when they founded FLI Right last April. “FLI Right is on a mission to transform the future with transformative technologies that aim to support each of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG),” says Hansen. They’ve been able to align a coalition of partners committed to their mission.

The company’s first technology maturation effort, the FLI T3 System, was leveraged from the work of Precious Plastic and aims to support SDG 12 — Responsible Consumption and Production. It does this by taking direct aim at our world’s plastic waste stock by empowering individuals and businesses to transform it into useful products — and potential revenue streams. For instance, local breweries can use the T3 to transform their plastic six pack carriers into tap handles or coasters. Plastic from e-waste (e.g., keyboards and phones) can be transformed into flowerpots. “The applications are limitless,” Hansen observes, “and, because of this, the T3 inherently supports several other SDG goals such as SDG 6 Clean Water and Sanitation and SDG 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth.”

Relating their challenges ranged from having to “become our own expert support staff,” as is common in new ventures, to the unique issues of “cracking the economics of plastic recycling,” — and sharing that the two have “dedicated our careers to the aerospace and defense industries, and share a deep passion for the heroes, events and technology that have changed the course of history in space, air, land and sea” — Hansen notes, “Part of our deeper purpose is to ‘imagine a life without limits’ (as Howard Hughes taught us).”

[Did you know:The U.N.’s 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) to transform our world address poverty, health, employment, economic growth and several aspects of ecological sustainability.]