A $300 Million Bet That Sustainability Will Sell

Suzy Amis Cameron wants to change the way the world consumes and she’s raising $300 million to make it happen.

The multi-hyphenate entrepreneur and environmentalist’s new venture, Inside Out, will invest in and develop brands, innovations and infrastructure that aim to solve environmental and social challenges, while also turning a profit.

Initial investments include the acquisition of Italy-based sustainability consultancy and creative agency, Wrad, and a 25 percent stake in Sheep Inc, a “carbon negative” knitwear brand that sells $300 hoodies made using fully traceable, regeneratively farmed merino wool. It’s building an eco-industrial park in Ashburton, New Zealand, where Amis Cameron lives with her husband, the filmmaker James Cameron. Part regenerative farm, part research and manufacturing complex, Iora is intended to serve as a model for sustainable production.

“It’s business for the environment,” said Amis Cameron. “Our goal at IO is to really hit all of these issues head on and make the world a better place for all of those generations that we will never meet.”

The venture is seeded with more than $65 million of Amis Cameron’s own money, with plans to raise another $300 million in three tranches of $100 million each. Investments will be split across seven verticals, including fashion, textiles and home, global food production, wellness, and science, research and technology.

Business for the Environment

Inside Out has been nearly two decades in the making. The first seeds took root in 2006, when Amis Cameron co-founded the Muse School, a private educational institution with a focus on sustainability and wellness. Her work since then has led to business interests and advocacy on a range of topics that all connect to climate work. She founded the OMD Movement, a campaign that encourages people to swap at least one meal a day for something plant-based and executive produced a series of award-winning documentaries chronicling, among other things, the environmental impact of fast fashion and the harmful effects of toxic chemicals in clothes.

Amis Cameron’s involvement in sustainable fashion began in 2009, when her husband’s film “Avatar” first came out. She worked with the Oscars to launch the campaign Red Carpet Green Dress, encouraging actors to showcase more sustainable styles during awards season. But for the last few years she’s been thinking of ways to give her work more heft and scale.

“It became very clear probably six, maybe seven years ago, really thinking about how do I evolve this, take it to the next level and make a real impact globally?” said Amis Cameron.

It was on a trip to Paris in 2022 that she bumped into Erik Stangvik, and the answer to that question became clearer. Now a co-founder and managing director at Inside Out, Stangvik is a social entrepreneur and strategist who ran The Body Shop’s franchise in the US and co-founded entertainment and lifestyle business Zoup-ah! before taking on a range of philanthropic and advisory roles. The pair were staying in the same hotel when flight delays left them at a loose end and they got talking.

“We were at a point in our lives where we were both highly vested in sustainability … and what we were going to do with the next decade of life,” said Stangvik. The conversation led them to discuss the ways in which consumption shapes not only the way people feel, but the world around them. Inside Out is based on the idea that offering people different choices about what they eat, wear and put in their homes can make a big difference.

“It’s a holistic portfolio of companies that can drive systemic change,” said Stangvik. “We have big, hairy, audacious goals.”

As well as investing in and launching its own brands, Inside Out’s media and education arms will focus on raising awareness of the challenges IO is aiming to tackle and the solutions available.

The venture is launching at a precarious moment for impact-driven investing. A backlash against so-called “woke capitalism” led by the US is becoming increasingly institutionalised, with the Trump administration pulling back on measures that would encourage large investors to consider environmental and social risks, as well as profit when making investment decisions. Meanwhile, many sustainability focused brands and innovations have struggled to scale profitably, dampening investor enthusiasm for the space.

Amis Cameron and Stangvik are unphased.

“We know we can create these systemic shifts by creating very profitable businesses,” said Stangvik. Investors that don’t agree, don’t belong on the cap table. “We’re not really concerned with bringing in capital as much as bringing in the right capital,” he added.