Alexia Akbay (she/her)

CEO, Symbrosia

A STEM enthusiast and entrepreneur; reducing livestock methane emissions using natural resources, significantly impacting sustainability.

Alexia Akbay had always been a STEM kid—that's what led her to the College of Arts & Science at NYU. But it was her inner entrepreneur—inherited, perhaps, from small-business owning parents—that inspired her inventive response to the climate crisis. “I came across a scientific paper,” she says, “about a seaweed that could dramatically reduce methane emissions from livestock. But it had never been agriculturally produced.” Akbay saw the possibilities for such a product at scale; the digestive process of livestock accounts for nearly 10 percent of global greenhouse emissions.

Getting such an operation up and running was no easy task. Akbay had to create a narrative and a plan that were in alignment with existing agricultural practices. The resulting company, Symbrosia, is sustainable at every level of the food chain—from the Hawaii-based aquaculture used to grow the product (which Akbay calls “SeaGraze”) all the way to market distribution. “The most important part,” she says, “is building relationships. You have to show farmers that there's added value in the product.”

Symbrosia is making a big impact. Integrated into existing livestock feed, SeaGraze reduces methane emissions by over 80 percent. Akbay plans to grow the company's reach by 100x over the next five years, catalyzing major reductions in global greenhouse gas. People are paying attention. She was named to the Forbes Social Impact 30 Under 30 and awarded MIT's prestigious Water Innovation Prize. Perhaps most impressive of all is that her model makes major climate gains without politicization or pie-in-the-sky climate-futurism. “We're modifying an existing system,” she says, “for a dramatic impact. I'm proud of that.”