{"id":48808,"date":"2019-06-08T03:11:25","date_gmt":"2019-06-08T10:11:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theaegisalliance.com\/?p=48808"},"modified":"2026-08-27T12:48:39","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T19:48:39","slug":"iron-man-tony-stark-clean-world-tech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/ar\/2019\/06\/08\/%d8%aa%d9%88%d9%86%d9%8a-%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a7%d8%b1%d8%ac-%d8%b9%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%85-%d9%86%d8%b8%d9%8a%d9%81\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Downey Jr. Used a Las Vegas Stage to Launch the FootPrint Coalition, Then Built a Climate-Tech Fund"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"epyt-video-wrapper\">\n<div  style=\"display: block; margin: 0px auto;\"  id=\"_ytid_95384\"  width=\"480\" height=\"270\"  data-origwidth=\"480\" data-origheight=\"270\" data-facadesrc=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/i7jBHN8bJmc?enablejsapi=1&#038;origin=https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com&#038;autoplay=0&#038;cc_load_policy=0&#038;cc_lang_pref=&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;loop=0&#038;rel=0&#038;fs=1&#038;playsinline=0&#038;autohide=2&#038;theme=dark&#038;color=red&#038;controls=1&#038;disablekb=0&#038;\" class=\"__youtube_prefs__ epyt-facade epyt-is-override  no-lazyload\" data-epautoplay=\"1\" ><img decoding=\"async\" data-spai-excluded=\"true\" class=\"epyt-facade-poster skip-lazy\" loading=\"lazy\"  alt=\"Robert Downey Jr. Launches The Footprint Coalition\"  src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/i7jBHN8bJmc\/maxresdefault.jpg\"  \/><button class=\"epyt-facade-play\" aria-label=\"Play\"><svg data-no-lazy=\"1\" height=\"100%\" version=\"1.1\" viewBox=\"0 0 68 48\" width=\"100%\"><path class=\"ytp-large-play-button-bg\" d=\"M66.52,7.74c-0.78-2.93-2.49-5.41-5.42-6.19C55.79,.13,34,0,34,0S12.21,.13,6.9,1.55 C3.97,2.33,2.27,4.81,1.48,7.74C0.06,13.05,0,24,0,24s0.06,10.95,1.48,16.26c0.78,2.93,2.49,5.41,5.42,6.19 C12.21,47.87,34,48,34,48s21.79-0.13,27.1-1.55c2.93-0.78,4.64-3.26,5.42-6.19C67.94,34.95,68,24,68,24S67.94,13.05,66.52,7.74z\" fill=\"#f00\"><\/path><path d=\"M 45,24 27,14 27,34\" fill=\"#fff\"><\/path><\/svg><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>LAS VEGAS \u2014<\/strong> Robert Downey Jr. walked onstage at Amazon&#8217;s Re:MARS conference in June 2019 still wearing the Tony Stark joke, then spent the keynote trying to retire it. Between robotics and nanotechnology, he said, <strong>&#8220;we could clean up the planet significantly, if not totally, in 10 years.&#8221;<\/strong> He called the new vehicle the Footprint Coalition. The website went live as he left the stage: a newsletter form and not much else.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;God I love experts. They&#8217;re like Wikipedia with character defects,&#8221;<\/strong> he said, after a round-table of them had briefed him. Matt Damon did a cameo. Amazon Alexa did another. Downey admitted he is <strong>&#8220;a one-man carbon footprint nightmare colossus&#8221;<\/strong> and that he carries <strong>&#8220;this quiet sense of crisis.&#8221;<\/strong> He did not explain the engineering. He said even a small dent would be the most important thing he had ever done.<\/p>\n<p>The Coalition did not stay a punchline. On January 27, 2021, at a World Economic Forum Davos Agenda panel, Downey unveiled <a href=\"https:\/\/www.footprintcoalition.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">FootPrint Coalition Ventures<\/a> \u2014 rolling AngelList funds that let accredited fans co-invest with him in climate-tech startups. He framed it as a rejection of the idea that a handful of mega-corporations would solve what he called a global existential threat.<\/p>\n<p>The operation split into three arms: a venture shop, a media shop that turns environmental science into watchable video, and the FootPrint Coalition Science Engine, which seeds non-traditional researchers. Portfolio companies have included biodegradable-polymer maker RWDC Industries, insect-protein firm \u0178nsect, and Source, which pulls drinking water from air. The storytelling side grew from the Coalition&#8217;s &#8220;Downstream&#8221; channel, co-hosted with managing director Rachel Kropa, into <em>Downey&#8217;s Dream Cars<\/em>, a series about converting his classic-car collection to electric, hybrid, and biodiesel.<\/p>\n<p>Downey and his wife Susan had already produced an eight-episode YouTube docu-series on AI. He still talks about artificial intelligence as the tool that gives him hope and the environment as the thing that keeps him up. The off-hand Iron Man line in Las Vegas \u2014 clean the planet in ten years \u2014 did not hit the calendar. It did become one of the more durable celebrity-led climate-tech platforms in the industry.<\/p>\n<p>Site: <a href=\"https:\/\/footprintcoalition.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">footprintcoalition.com<\/a>. Related from The AEGIS Alliance: <a href=\"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/2017\/06\/15\/major-country-just-banned-killer-whale-dolphin-breeding\/\">the country that banned orca and dolphin breeding<\/a>, and our <a href=\"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/2018\/10\/18\/youtube-down-ddos-gsh\/\">report on the 2018 YouTube outage<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Featured Image Credit: Tony Stark (AP Photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Robert Downey Jr. used Amazon&#8217;s Re:MARS stage to launch the FootPrint Coalition. The Iron Man joke became venture funds, a science engine, and a media arm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48809,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,191912,191911,193176,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-activism","category-environment","category-technology","category-us-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/tony-stark-robert-downey-jr-iron-man.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48808"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1198650,"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48808\/revisions\/1198650"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}