Inevitable

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Ep 81: Matt Eggers, Investor & Company Builder at Breakthrough Energy Ventures Feb 13, 2020

Show notes

Today's guest is Matt Eggers, Investor & Company Builder at Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a $1.1 billion, patient capital fund dedicated to building companies that will have a massive impact on greenhouse gas mitigation. He also serves on the Board of the Institute for Market Transformation.

Matt is a seasoned cleantech leader, investor and advisor with 20 years of experience delivering results in diverse companies. Matt’s recent past experience includes serving as a Vice President with Yardi Energy. He has also been the Vice President of Sales, North America for Tesla and the Vice President of Operations for Sunrun, a national leader in home solar power service operating in 11 states. His earlier experience includes leading the stack operations team and serving as Director of Product Management at the fuel cell company Bloom Energy. In that role he led development of the plan to massively scale manufacturing of Bloom’s core cell technology and developed the features and specifications for the second generation “Bloom Box.” Before Bloom, Matt worked for Genentech where he led the commercial launch of Herceptin Adjuvant, a breast cancer drug with over $1 billion in sales. Matt’s early career experience includes serving as an Associate at Morgan Stanley Venture Partners where he championed investments in biotech and enterprise software companies. Matt has a BS in molecular biology from Duke University and an MBA from Stanford University.

In today’s episode, we cover:

Mission of Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV) and its high-network individual investment model
Success metrics anchored around half-a-gigaton carbon atmospheric reduction and financial return for investors
BEV’s long investment time horizon (20 years)
BEV’s investment criteria
Pivot Bio, a portfolio company, addressing carbon emissions found in fertilizer
75F, a portfolio company, offering AI-driven software to drive efficiencies with HVAC systems
Matt’s climate journey from a farm in Iowa to BEV
Matt’s perspective on the climate problem and its multifaceted solutions
Putting a price on carbon
Inadequate funding in the climate space
Disrupting the dairy industry’s carbon footprint via low-emission Casein
The patience required with Climate Change investing (cf. traditional software venture investing)
The role of corporate strategic investors and banks
Policy developments at the municipality-level that factor in Climate Change and affect homeowners

Links to topics discussed in this episode:

Breakthrough Energy Ventures: https://www.b-t.energy/
“Additionality” with respect to carbon markets: https://resource-solutions.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/RECs-and-Additionality.pdf
Conceptualizing a gigaton: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/07/01/meet-the-gigaton-the-huge-unit-that-scientists-use-to-track-planetary-change/
Pivot Bio: https://www.pivotbio.com/
74F: https://www.75f.io/
Genentech: https://www.gene.com/
Casein: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casein

You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22 or @mcjpod and email at info@myclimatejourney.co, where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.

Enjoy the show!

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at info@ovr.vc.

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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Ep 80: Phil Duffy, President & Executive Director at Woodwell Climate Research Center Feb 10, 2020

Show notes

Today’s guest is Phil Duffy, President & Executive Director at Woodwell Climate Research Center.

Expertise Climate modeling, extreme weather risk, societal impacts of climate change, domestic climate policy, international climate change negotiations, climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies.

Dr. Philip Duffy is a physicist who has devoted nearly 30 years to using science to address the societal challenge of climate change. Dr. Duffy frequently engages domestic and international policy- and decision-makers, including delegates at the United Nations climate conferences, and the United States Congress. Dr. Duffy is frequently quoted in major national media outlets such as The New York Times, the Washington Post, Science, the Boston Globe, NPR, CNN, and MSNBC. He serves on committees of the National Academy of Sciences and advises state and local policymakers. Dr. Duffy is particularly interested in working with diverse groups to address climate change, including faith leaders, business leaders, and thought leaders across the political spectrum.

Prior to joining WCRC, Dr. Duffy served as a Senior Policy Analyst in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and as a Senior Advisor in the White House National Science and Technology Council. In these roles he was involved in international climate negotiations, domestic and international climate policy, and coordination of US global change research. Before joining the White House, Dr. Duffy was Chief Scientist at Climate Central, an organization dedicated to increasing public understanding and awareness of climate change. Dr. Duffy has held senior research positions with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and visiting positions at the Carnegie Institution for Science and the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. He has a bachelor’s degree magna cum laude from Harvard in astrophysics and a Ph.D. in applied physics from Stanford.

In today’s episode, we cover:

Overview of Woods Hole Research Center
Origin story & nature of the work
Role of natural solutions
Physical climate risk
How Phil’s views on the nature of the problem have evolved over the years
What are the highest impact solutions
The role of political will
The future of capitalism and GPD growth
Carbon removal and direct air capture
Solar geoengineering
Nuclear
How Phil would allocate a big pot of money to maximize its impact in the climate fight
Phil’s advice for others looking to find their lane

Links to topics discussed in this episode:

Woods Hole Research Center: https://whrc.org/
George Woodwell: http://whrc.org/staff/george-woodwell/
John Holdren: https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty/john-holdren
Susan Natali: http://whrc.org/staff/susan-natali/
Wellington and Woods Hole: https://whrc.org/wellington-management-and-woods-hole-research-center-announce-initiative/
McKinsey and Woods Hole: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-investment-climate/climate-scientists-partner-with-mckinsey-to-push-companies-to-self-regulate-idUSKCN1T52CU
NOAA arctic report card: https://arctic.noaa.gov/Report-Card

You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22 or @mcjpod and email at info@myclimatejourney.co, where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.

Enjoy the show!

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at info@ovr.vc.

Connect with Override:

*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Ep 79: David Keith, Professor at Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Kennedy School, and Founder of Carbon Engineering Feb 06, 2020

Show notes

Today’s guest is David Keith, Professor at Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Kennedy School, and Founder of Carbon Engineering.

David has worked near the interface between climate science, energy technology, and public policy for twenty-five years. He took first prize in Canada's national physics prize exam, won MIT's prize for excellence in experimental physics, and was one of TIME magazine's Heroes of the Environment. David is Professor of Applied Physics at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and founder of Carbon Engineering, a company developing technology to capture CO2 from ambient air to make carbon-neutral hydrocarbon fuels. Best known for his work on the science, technology, and public policy of solar geoengineering, David led the development of Harvard’s Solar Geoengineering Research Program, a Harvard-wide interfaculty research initiative. His work has ranged from the climatic impacts of large-scale wind power to an early critique of the prospects for hydrogen fuel. David’s hardware engineering projects include the first interferometer for atoms, a high-accuracy infrared spectrometer for NASA's ER-2, and currently, the development of pilot plants for Carbon Engineering and the development of a stratospheric propelled balloon experiment for solar geoengineering. David teaches courses on Science and Technology Policy and on Energy and Environmental Systems where he has reached students worldwide with an online edX course. He has writing for the public with A Case for Climate Engineeringfrom MIT Press. Based in Cambridge, David spends about a third of his time in Canmore, Alberta.

In today’s episode, we cover:

Overview of solar geoengineering
How concentrated an area can it be deployed in
Steps that go into testing it
'History of solar geoengineering
Potential risks of deployment and potential risks of not doing the testing
Potential for unintended consequences
How hard it is to deploy
How much research is needed (and for what) and how much it will cost
Bridge versus longterm solution
Where it fits into overall climate solutions portfolio
What fossil fuel companies think of solar geoengineering
David’s advice for others looking to help facilitate research in this area and/or learn more about it

Links to topics discussed in this episode:

David Keith: https://keith.seas.harvard.edu/people/david-keith
Geoengineering: https://geoengineering.environment.harvard.edu/geoengineering
The Planet Remade: https://www.amazon.com/Planet-Remade-Geoengineering-Could-Change-ebook/dp/B011PWUT8Y
Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative: https://www.c2g2.net/
Vaclav Smil: http://vaclavsmil.com/
Holly Buck: https://www.ioes.ucla.edu/person/holly-buck/

Additional Reading:

David Keith, “Let’s Talk About Geoengineering,” Project Syndicate, March 21, 2019.
David Keith, “Toward a Responsible Solar Geoengineering Research Program,” Issues in Science and Technology, Spring 2017.
James Temple, “What is Geoengineering—And Why Should You Care?” MIT Technology Review, August 9, 2019.
Lizzie Burns, David Keith, Peter Irvine, and Joshua Horton, “Belfer Technology Factsheet Series: Solar Geoengineering,” Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Technology and Public Purpose Project, June 2019.

Jon Gertner, “Is It O.K. to Tinker With the Environment to Fight Climate Change?,” The New York Times Magazine, April 18, 2017.

You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22 or @mcjpod and email at info@myclimatejourney.co, where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.

Enjoy the show!

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at info@ovr.vc.

Connect with Override:

*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Ep 78: BJ Fogg, Director, Behavior Design Lab at Stanford Feb 03, 2020

Show notes

Today's guest is BJ Fogg, Founder & Director, Behavior Design Lab at Stanford, with an appearance by William Shan, one of his students who is project managing the launch of his new Behavior Design for Climate Action online training program.

BJ teaches good people how behavior works so they can create products & services that benefit everyday people around the world. He is a behavior scientist, with deep experience in innovation and teaching. At Stanford University he runs the Behavior Design Lab. He also teaches his models and methods in graduate seminars with students from various majors.

On the industry side, BJ trains innovators to use his work so they can create solutions that influence behavior. The focus areas include health, financial wellbeing, learning, productivity, and more.

BJ wrote a seminal book, Persuasive Technology, about how computers can be designed to influence attitudes and behaviors. That book, together with his early innovations, inspired an annual global conference on the topic. His Stanford students have gone on to co-found Instagram, as well as launch a global movement focusing on “time well spent” and the Center for Humane Technology. Starting in 2010, BJ’s Stanford lab started shifting focus away from Persuasive Technology toward a new domain they named “Behavior Design,” a set of models and methods about human behavior (with nothing to do with technology.)

BJ’s new book Tiny Habits will be published in over 15 languages.

Fortune Magazine named BJ a “New Guru You Should Know” for his insights about mobile and social networks.

In today’s episode, we cover:

Overview of BJ’s work
How his work has evolved since he started doing it
Who BJ’s work is meant to help, and some details on the framework/process it follows
How (and why) BJ first became interested in helping address climate change
What he and Will are going to do about it, and how they plan to help
How others in similar positions might apply their skills and station to help with the climate fight
BJ’s advice for others looking to find their lane.

Links to topics discussed in this episode:

BJ Fogg: https://www.bjfogg.com/
Behavior Design for Climate Action: https://www.behaviordesign.info/climateaction
Tiny Habits book: https://www.tinyhabits.com/

You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22 or @mcjpod and email at info@myclimatejourney.co, where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.

Enjoy the show!

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at info@ovr.vc.

Connect with Override:

*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Ep 77: Clay Dumas, Partner at Lowercarbon Capital Jan 31, 2020

Show notes

This was an experiment using a new app Talkshow, which is a live discussion broadcast via twitter where listeners can text questions as we talk!

Today's guest was Clay Dumas from Lowercarbon Capital, to talk about what they are up to with the fund and their newly opened roles! It is also always great to talk shop with Clay on everything climate change.

Clay is a partner at Lowercarbon Capital where he invests in startups and research organizations developing technology to reduce emissions, suck carbon out of the air, and cool the planet. He is also a partner at Lowercase Capital. Previously, Clay served as an Executive in Residence at the Pramana Collective, a strategic advisory firm in San Francisco. Before that, he was the Chief of Staff for the White House Office of Digital Strategy, a team tasked by President Obama with connecting people with purpose. In 2017, he was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. At the start of President Obama’s second term, he served as an aide in the Chief of Staff’s office. Before joining the White House, Clay worked on President Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns. He graduated from Harvard in 2011.

In today’s episode, we cover:

Genesis of Lowercarbon from the team behind Lowercase Capital
How Lowercarbon fit within the vision of Chris and Crystal Sacca
Clay’s journey from presidential campaigns to venture capital to Climate Change investing
Major insights and takeaways after three-years of working in the space
Attitudes, motives and incentives across institutional investors backing Climate Change companies
How the social impact and financial opportunity are immense in the Climate Change space
Lowercarbon’s investment focus
How Lowercarbon differs from other institutional investors
Jobs and opportunities at Lowercarbon
Technologies in which Clay is interested

Links to topics discussed in this episode:

Lowercarbon Capital: https://lowercarboncapital.com/
Lowercase Capital: https://lowercasecapital.com/
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2019 report: https://www.ipcc.ch/2019/09/25/srocc-press-release/
Impact Investing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_investing
Carbon Engineering:https://carbonengineering.com/

You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22 or @mcjpod and email at info@myclimatejourney.co, where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.

Enjoy the show!

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at info@ovr.vc.

Connect with Override:

*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Ep 76: Jigar Shah, President & Co-Founder at Generate Capital Jan 30, 2020

Show notes

Today's guest is Jigar Shah, President & Co-Founder at Generate Capital.

Jigar was the founder and CEO of SunEdison (NASDAQ: SUNE, TERP), where he pioneered “no money down solar” and unlocked a multi-billion-dollar solar market, creating the largest solar services company worldwide. He is the author of Creating Climate Wealth: Unlocking the Impact Economy. After SunEdison, Jigar served as the founding CEO of the Carbon War Room, a global non-profit founded by Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Unite to help entrepreneurs address climate change. Generate Capital, the Carbon War Room and SunEdison all follow from Jigar’s vision that business model innovation will unlock the largest wealth creation opportunity – resource efficiency. Jigar is committed to helping entrepreneurs and large companies alike implement resource efficiency solutions using “pay as you save” project finance models. Jigar holds an MBA from The University of Maryland and BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. He sits on the boards of sPower and the Rocky Mountain Institute. Jigar lives in New York City and is trying to find the perfect cocktail.

In today’s episode, we cover:

Overview of Generate Capital
'Generate’s business model and approach
Industries and solution types they are interested in
Example project
Jigar’s backround and experiences leading up to Generate
How Generate measures success beyond returns
How Jigar thinks about the nature of the climate problem
The role of the new blood coming into the space
Capital types and capital gaps
Capitalism, GDP growth, and climate change
Where economists get it wrong
How optimistic is Jigar for the future?
The most effective ways to address this issue
How Jigar would allocate $100B to maximize its impact on the problem
How you and I can help

Links to topics discussed in this episode:

Generate Capital: https://generatecapital.com/
McKinsey’s resource revolution paper: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability/our-insights/resource-revolution
Scott Jacobs: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacobsscott/
Matan Friedman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matanfriedman/
WeDriveU: https://www.wedriveu.com/
SunEdison: http://www.sunedison.com/
NEXTracker: https://www.nextracker.com/
Greenpeace: https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/
Breakthrough Energy Ventures: https://www.b-t.energy/ventures/
Carbon War Room: https://rmi.org/carbon-war-room/
Sunil Paul: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sunilpaul/
International Energy Agency: https://www.iea.org/
Craig Venter: https://www.jcvi.org/about/jventer

You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22 or @mcjpod and email at info@myclimatejourney.co, where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.

Enjoy the show!

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at info@ovr.vc.

Connect with Override:

*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Ep 75: Gary Cohen, President & Co-Founder of Health Care Without Harm Jan 27, 2020

Show notes

Today's guest is Gary Cohen, President & Co-Founder of Health Care Without Harm.

Gary has been a pioneer in the environmental health movement for thirty years. Cohen is President and Co-Founder of Health Care Without Harm and Practice Greenhealth. He was also instrumental in bringing together the NGOs and hospital systems that formed the Healthier Hospitals Initiative. All three were created to transform the health care sector to be environmentally sustainable and serve as anchor institutions to support environmental health in their communities.

Gary was Executive Director of the Environmental Health Fund for many years. He has helped build coalitions and networks globally to address the environmental health impacts related to toxic chemical exposure and climate change.

Gary is a member of the International Advisory Board of the Sambhavna Clinic in Bhopal, India, which has been working for over 25 years to heal people affected by the Bhopal gas tragedy and to fight for environmental cleanup in Bhopal. He is also on the Boards of the American Sustainable Business Council, Health Leads and Coming Clean.

He has received numerous recognitions for his achievements, including: The MacArthur Foundation’s Fellows Award (2015), the White House’s Champion of Change Award for Public Health and Climate Change (2013), the Huffington Post’s Game Changer Award for Health (2012), the Frank Hatch Award for Enlightened Public Service (2007), and the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship (2006).

In today’s episode, we cover:

Overview of Health Care Without Harm and origin story
Gary's background and path leading up to it
Their initial starting point and strategy
Progress to-date
Team composition
How they measure success
How decarbonization fits in
Biggest levers to bring about decarbonization of health care
Barriers impeding progress
Changes that would be most impactful
How Gary would allocate $100B to maximize its impact on the problem
How you and I can help

Links to topics discussed in this episode:

Health Care Without Harm: https://noharm.org/
Practice Greenhealth: https://practicegreenhealth.org/
United Nations Development Programme: https://www.undp.org/
International Monetary Fund: https://www.imf.org/external/index.htm
Health care energy impact calculator:http://www.eichealth.org/
World Health Organization: https://www.who.int/

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at info@ovr.vc.

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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Ep 74: Timothy Freundlich, CEO of ImpactAssets Jan 23, 2020

Show notes

Today's guest is Tim Freundlich, CEO of ImpactAssets.

Tim is a long-time innovator in new financial instruments in the social enterprise sector, which he now applies as the head of ImpactAssets, the $1 billion boutique donor advised fund and investment note offerer for impact investments. While previously at Calvert Foundation for 12 years, he conceived of and launched the donor advised fund. He was also instrumental in building the $250mm Community Investment Note with more than $1 billion invested into 300-plus nonprofits and for profits globally.

He co-founded and serves as Managing Partner for Good Capital that, in addition to its flagship Social Enterprise Expansion Fund LP, founded the 2,500-person annual Social Capital Markets (SOCAP) conferences in San Francisco and four Impact Hubs in the US; co-working, meeting and community space serving approximately 2,000 social innovators.

Tim is a sought-out industry speaker and regularly featured and quoted in media such as ThinkAdvisor and WealthManagement and has appeared on TheStreet and Forbes. He received a BA from Wesleyan University and an MBA from the University of San Francisco. Tim and his wife, Julie, live in San Francisco with their sons, Milo and Gus.

In today’s episode, we cover:

Overview of ImpactAssets
Origin story and how the model works
How it is different than a typical institutional asset allocation
Who the target customers are
Traction and progress to date
Some example success stories
Long vision
Impact, if successful
What comes next
Barriers holding them back
What could change to help them move faster
Advice for people looking to allocate their philanthropic capital to maximize its impact

Links to topics discussed in this episode:

ImpactAssets: http://impactassets.org/
Tim Freundlich: https://www.impactassets.org/about_us/team/timothy-freundlich
UN Sustainable Development Goals: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/
Seth Goldman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seth_Goldman_(businessman)
Beyond Meat: https://www.beyondmeat.com/
MSCI KLD 400 Social Index: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/domini_400.asp
Calvert Impact Capital: https://www.calvertimpactcapital.org/
What is a donor-advised fund? https://www.nptrust.org/what-is-a-donor-advised-fund/
Toniic: https://toniic.com/
CREO Syndicate: http://creosyndicate.org/

You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22 or @mcjpod and email at info@myclimatejourney.co, where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.

Enjoy the show!

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at info@ovr.vc.

Connect with Override:

*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Ep 73: Akshat Rathi, Reporter at Bloomberg News Jan 20, 2020

Show notes

Today’s guest is Akshat Rathi, a London-based reporter, covering science, energy, and environment for Bloomberg News. He has a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Oxford, and a BTech in chemical engineering from the Institute of Chemical Technology in Mumbai.

He tells stories of the people and their ideas tackling the biggest problem facing humanity: climate change. And he is currently working on a book about scaling up climate solutions.

Previously, Akshat was a senior reporter at Quartz and a science editor at The Conversation. He has also worked for The Economist and the Royal Society of Chemistry. His writings have also been published in Nature, The Hindu, The Guardian, Ars Technica, and Chemistry World, among others.

In 2018, Akshat won Journalist of the Year at the Drum’s Online Media Awards ceremony, he was a finalist for the John B. Oakes award for distinguished environmental journalism, and he was shortlisted for British Science Writer of the Year by the Association of British Science Writers. In 2019, he was shortlisted by the British Journalism Awards for the best science journalism category.

Akshat has won fellowships from Columbia University and City University of New York to enhance his reporting work. He has also served on the advisory panel of the 2019 Cairncross Review on the sustainability of high-quality journalism in the UK.

In today’s episode, we cover:

Akshat’s most recent role at Quartz
How and why Akshat came to be a climate journalist, and where his concern about this issue came from
His transition from PhD to journlism
The importance of rigor in science journalism, and how Akshat defines it
The state of media business models, and the implications for climate coverage
Some different paths to introduce more scientific expertise in the newsroom
Akshat’s assessment of the problem of climate change
Akshat’s thoughts about market forces vs regulation, a carbon price, US role vs developing countries, carbon removal, fission & fusion, solar geoengineering, and more
Role of the fossil fuel companies in the transition
Consumer and corporate offsets
Adaptation and resiliency
How Akshat would allocate $100B to maximize its impact towards decarbonization
Akshat’s advice for others looking to figure out how to help
A teaser for Akshat’s upcoming role with Bloomberg News (which he’s since started!)

Links to topics discussed in this episode:

Quartz: https://qz.com/
UN Climate Change Conference - December 2019: https://unfccc.int/cop25
The "would you nationalize sausages?" question: https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2019/12/10/would-you-nationalise-sausages-wins-the-weirdest-question-of-the-election-award/
Bloomberg News: https://www.bloomberg.com/
ProPublica: https://www.propublica.org/
Climate Home: https://www.climatechangenews.com/
Carbon Brief: https://www.carbonbrief.org/
Heated: https://heated.world/
Emily Atkin: https://twitter.com/emorwee
Climate Feedback: https://climatefeedback.org/
NewScientist: https://www.newscientist.com/
The Economist: https://www.economist.com/
AAAS Fellowship: https://www.aaas.org/programs/science-technology-policy-fellowships
Breakthrough Energy Ventures: https://www.b-t.energy/ventures/

Enjoy the show!

Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at info@ovr.vc.

Connect with Override:

*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Ep 72: Joey Bergstein, CEO of Seventh Generation Jan 16, 2020

Show notes

Today's guest is Joey Bergstein, CEO of Seventh Generation, recently acquired by Unilever. Seventh Generation’s mission is to inspire a consumer revolution that nurtures the health of the next seven generations. The company is a leader in positive business practices through the use of renewable plant-based products, industry-leading transparency with respect to ingredient disclosures, and recyclable packaging.

Joey joined Seventh Generation in 2011 and, together with the Seventh Generation team, has been transforming its business, more than doubling revenue during this time, while fulfilling the company’s mission to incite a consumer revolution that nurtures the health of the next seven generations. Following the sale to Unilever, Joey was appointed CEO. Growth is accelerating, as is the company’s ability to impact millions of people around the world.

A graduate of University of Western Ontario’s Richard Ivey School of Business, Bergstein began his career at Procter & Gamble where he held marketing leadership roles over the course of ten years across North America and in Europe. Since then, his career turned to beverages where Joey served as VP Global Business Development and then VP Marketing at Molson and finally at Diageo where as Senior Vice President of Global Rum, Joey led a global team that doubled the rum business to over $1 billion, transforming Captain Morgan into the fastest growing premium spirit brand in the world.

In today’s episode, we cover:

Seventh Generation overview and origin story
'Discussion about it’s unique principles, and when/how those came to be
Joey’s career arc, and what led him to Seventh Generation
When/how/why he became passionate about helping address climate change
How he thinks about the problem, and the best ways to solve it
Some examples of initiatives within the company to help with this issue
How they prioritize which projects to take on, and how they measure results from an impact standpoint
Discussion about B corps, and their role going forward versus changes that need to come with capitalism overall
What else matters in the climate fight, beyond the work of Seventh Generation
How Joey would allocate a big pot of money to maximize its impact on climate change
Joey’s advice for others looking to determine how to best help

Links to topics discussed in this episode: