Sustainability In Your Ear

Latest Episodes:

Earth911 Podcast: EPAM's Dan Smythe on Sustainability and Consumer Influence Mar 28, 2022

Show notes

Dan Smythe, vice president of retail and hospitality at EPAM, an influential technology and business strategy consultancy, discusses the findings of the Consumers Unmasked 2 survey, which examined changing spending habits and sustainability preferences during the pandemic. He reports that people are actively considering companies’ environmental and social impacts when making purchasing decisions. For example, 46% of survey respondents said they buy sustainable products when the choice is available. Respondents also showed growing sophistication about corporate sustainability and social performance. Listen to a discussion of last year's survey results to hear how consumer concerns are changing.
EPAM is telling its clients to design shopping experiences that demonstrate honesty and transparency, now among the most important issues for shoppers. Rising interest in sustainainability and a willingness by 39% of respondents to buy used products to reduce their environmental impact, points to a sea change in the priorities of companies that want to keep their customers in the Climate Crisis Era. You can learn about EPAM at https://www.epam.com/.

Earth911 Podcast: Learning From California's Composting Law with World Centric's Erin Levine Mar 25, 2022

Show notes

Erin Levine, Resource Recovery Manager at World Centric, a Rohnert Park, Calif.-based manufacturer of 100% compostable tableware and food packaging, joins Mitch to discuss California’s mandatory composting law, SB 1383. After passage in 2016, the new law, known as the Short-lived Climate Pollutant Reduction Strategy, went into effect after five years of preparation on January 1, 2022. SB 1383 requires all businesses, apartment and condo buildings as well as individual homeowners in California are now required to compost food waste, and the law also aims to reduce by 20% the current surplus of edible foods sent to landfills. It is a game-changing move and raises many questions about the compostability of everyday products purchased in the state.
We’ve had WorldCentric on the show several times because of the company’s socially-driven mission and focus on reducing use of unrecyclable materials. They contribute a minimum of 25% of their profits to grassroots community organizations and environmental projects each year and pioneered the Certified B Corporation movement in business. In this episode, we dig into composting: What can be composted? How can composting collection can be improved? What are the different approaches to home and industrial composting we need to understand in order to send compostables to the right place for processing. What composting labels to look for, including the Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI) label. You can learn more about World Centric at https://www.worldcentric.net/.

Earth911 Podcast: Plastic Bank's David Katz on Grassroots Recycling Solutions Mar 23, 2022

Show notes

David Katz, founder of Plastic Bank, shares his vision for a regenerative society built on grassroots recycling programs that help low-income regions build resilient communities. The Vancover, B.C., startup compensates more than 30,000 plastic recyclers in the Philippines, Indonesia, Brazil, and Egypt. To date, Plastic Bank has stopped over 99 million pounds of plastic waste - the equivalent of more than 2 billion plastic bottles — from entering the world's oceans, and the pace of it collections is accelerating. The people who collect plastic are paid for the material they deposit at more than 511 Plastic Bank branches. Katz's team has partnered with more than 200 companies, including Procter & Gamble, HelloFresh, L’Oreal and Coca-Cola, to create circular economies in plastic packaging.
Their next goal is to capture 10 billion bottles, which still represents only 1.7% of the 583 billion produced in 2021, according to Euromonitor. David explains that a shift in mindset from extractive ownership to regenerative stewardship can break the economic mold and bring prosperity in regions where so much valuable material currently is treated as waste. Plastic Bank uses a blockchain-based data collection and reporting system that helps collectors track their earnings and which provides transparency and traceability for the plastic captured. Plastic Bank works with plastic recyclers to convert the collected bottles into SocialPlastic, a raw material for making new products. They sell plastic #1, #2 and #4 to industry to recover their costs. You can learn more about Plastic Bank at https://plasticbank.com/.

Earth911 Podcast: Investing to Empower Future Generations with Doug Heske, Part 1 Mar 21, 2022

Show notes

Mitch Ratcliffe sits down with Newday Impact Investing CEO Doug Heske to start a two-part ESG investing conversation how to invest to help the future generations meet the unique challenges of the climate crisis and global competition. More than 1.8 billion youth around the world are readying themselves to take their place in their economies and communities. But as we know, today’s challenges are more technologically and intellectually difficult than the ones their parents and grandparents faced. They can be ready for great achievements with the right tools and support, and Doug identifies the companies working to engage with youth around the world.
Youth, especially in Africa, need to become skilled at regenerative agriculture, the restoration of the planet and providing equitable access to food, water and other resources. They'll also need new tools to collaborate remotely to solve global problems, and the mental health services necessary to survive and thrive despite eco-anxiety. Today, we’ll walk through a list of stocks to consider if your priority is education and youth empowerment, including Zoom (NASDAQ: ZM), Atlassian (NASDAQ: TEAM), Chegg (NYSE: CHGG), Stride (NYSE: LRN), 2U (NASDAQ: TWOU), Talkspace (NASDAQ: TALK), Atai Life Sciences (NASDAQ : ATAI), and Compass Pathways (NASDAQ: CMPS). You can learn more about Newday Impact Investing's sustainable development equity portfolio at https://newdayimpact.com/.

Earth911 Podcast: Meet Kid-Powered RecycleMyBattery.org Mar 16, 2022

Show notes

Meet Rayansh Bhavit, a member of Edison, N.J.-based RecycleMyBattery.org, a youth-led program that has collected 150,000+ batteries for recycling. Rayansh recently contributed an Earth911 article about the organization's National Battery Day activities to encourage people to recycle batteries on February 18th. He and the 150 kids who’ve participated in RecyleMyBattery have collected more than 150,000 batteries of various sizes, which they send to the battery industry recycling organization, Call2Recycle, for processing.
Find out how the movement started and the results of this year’s National Battery Day efforts, and think about starting your own campaign for next year. Getting youth involved in environmental action is essential to creating the sense of empowerment and opportunity necessary to turn the economy toward sustainable outcomes. You can learn more at https://recyclemybattery.org/.

Earth911 Podcast: Saving the Wolves of the Rockies with Marc Cooke Mar 14, 2022

Show notes

We talk with Marc Cooke, an advocate for wolf protection and president of Wolves of the Rockies, which is fighting to stop wolf hunting in the West. The Grey Wolf faces extinction, again, after a dramatic recovery over the past 50 years. There were as few as 300 left in the United States when they were added to the Endangered Species List in 1970. By 2019 the total North American population had reached 6,000 and small wolf populations had been reestablished in a dozen states. That year, the Trump Administration moved to delist the Grey Wolf that year and hunters went after this beautiful animal with a vengeance. Twenty-five, or about a third of the wolves in Yellowstone National Park, were killed this winter. The states of Montana and Idaho have new laws that could eliminate 90% of their wolf populations. Wyoming allocated 47 wolf hunting tags. We could lose half the wolf populating in just one year.
Marc explains the controversy and next steps in the battle to protect the Grey Wolf. There is some good news. In February, a federal court judge issued a ruling that reversed the Trump-era decision to remove the Grey Wolf from the Endangered Species List. That does not mean the story’s over. The ruling could be overturned by a higher court if the Biden Administration decides to start an appeal. Your voice can cout in that debate -- visit RelistWolves.org to send letters to your representatives and the Department of the Interior. Find out more about Wolves of the Rockies at https://www.wolvesoftherockies.org/.

Earth911 Podcast: Digging Into Del Monte Foods' Sustainability Programs Mar 09, 2022

Show notes

Molly Laverty, Senior Manager of Environmental, Social and Governance at Del Monte Foods Inc., joins us to discuss the company's climate response goals, which include using 25% recycled plastics in packaging. Del Monte Foods is one of the largest food packaging companies in the U.S. and is working to become a sustainable provider of fruits and vegetables through investments in regenerative farming. We talk about the recently released Del Monte sustainability report and its plan for environmental progress, and how the food supply chain may change in coming years. Del Monte's CropTrak system, for example, could provide consumers end-to-end transparency to see into the source and distribution of their food. On the plastics front, only 4% of Del Monte’s total packaging by weight remains plastic-based—the rest is made of paper, metal and glass. By 2030, Del Monte aims to make 100% of its plastic packaging recyclable, reusable or compostable.
Del Monte is also entering regenerative farming, introducing the use of cover crop to prevent erosion and restore nitrogen and other nutrients in the soil between food crops. The company is also working to breed non-GMO sees that are drought resistant and reduce the need for pesticides. The company banned use of pesticides on their partner farms when pollinators are present to improve biodiversity in the soil and farmland. Del Monte also made progress on other ESG issues, including diversity in the senior executive ranks, surpassing the 50% level for participation by women and people of color in 2021. You can learn more at http://delmontefoods.com.

Earth911 Podcast: The Ocean Conservancy's Dr. Anja Malawi Brandon on Plastic Progress Mar 07, 2022

Show notes

Dr. Anja Malawi Brandon, an advisor to the Plastics Pact and U.S. Policy Analyst for the Ocean Conservancy, joins Mitch Ratcliffe to discuss three areas for potential progress in reducing our dependence on plastic and improving recycling rates. She explains how the Plastics Pact, a consortium of 100 companies, NGOs and governments, that has a plan for transforming the plastic recycling infrastructure by 2025. The organization recently released a list of "unnecessary plastics" that they recommend be abandoned in packaging. We also talk through the prospects for the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act in Congress; Anja was on the staff of the bill's sponsor, Senator Jeff Merkley (D - OR). And we discuss the recently started meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, of the UN Environmental Assembly to negotiate a global plastics treaty could introduce a framework for changing our relationship to the material.
Plastic is a convenience that has turned into a plague. According to a recent report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, plastic consumption has quadrupled over the past 30 years and plastic production currently accounts for 3.4% of annual greenhouse gas emissions. Only 9% of plastic waste is recycled globally, 6.1 million tons of plastic escape into freshwater environments and 1.7 million tons reaches the ocean each year. Plastic is in our water, our soil, our food and our bodies. You can learn more about The Ocean Conservancy at https://oceanconservancy.org/ and the Plastics Pact at https://usplasticspact.org/.

Earth911 Podcast: Wake Smith Opens Pandora's Toolbox for Climate Change Mar 02, 2022

Show notes

Wake Smith, author of Pandora's Toolbox: The Hopes and Hazards of Climate Intervention, shares his assessment of the climate response the strategies and technologies that can be used to end CO2 emissions and restore the planet to pre-industrial climate conditions. He is a lecturer on climate interventions at Yale and a Senior Fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School. He explains that we're not making sufficient progress on reaching net-zero before very late this century and why new institutions are needed to guide policy toward climate goals before parts of the world become barren and unhabitable for humans. Once we reach net-zero CO2 emissions, we face centuries of effort to return to the environment in which our species evolved.
We also discuss carbon capture and sequestration and a form of solar geoengineering, stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), which involves sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to deflect the Sun’s energy. Wake does not advocate extreme measures but urges nations to support research into SAI and other tech that could be deployed to ensure human survival. His comments on how our descendants may feel about us and what he's learned from his students about the importance of tying actions to consequences will get you thinking: Are we doing enough? Is the world we are entering governable with today's institutions? Pandora's Toolbox is available on Amazon and at Powell's Books.

Earth911 Podcast: Kathleen Rogers on Investing In the Planet for Earth Day Feb 28, 2022

Show notes

Kathleen Rogers, president of the Earth Day Network, joins us to talk about the goals for Earth Day 2022, which takes place on April 22. This year’s programs will focus on investing in the planet, from making sustainable choices among ESG stocks, as well as how to invest in a better future by getting involved in activism, taking action to create healthy communities, and the changes each of us can make to reduce our impact. We discuss the state of the climate crisis and the results of the United Nations COP26 meeting in Glasgow, Scotland, last November. A self-described "imperfect environmentalist," Kathleen explains changes she's made recently and offers 52 ideas to consider for Earth Day 2022.
The first Earth Day in 1970 was the largest public day of action in U.S. history. More than 20 million Americans went into the streets to support environmental reform. Following that first Earth Day, Congress and President Nixon launched the Environmental Protection Agency, Clean Air Act, Occupational Safety and Health Act, and National Environmental Education Act, followed two years later by the Clean Water Act. Before those changes, American air and water were far dirtier, so much so it is hard to explain how much it has changed. Only with the arrival of uncontrolled wildfires related to climate change do we have comparably bad air in the United States but for far fewer days per year. This year, we look forward to Earth Day leading to something as big as launch the EPA or Clean Air Act. Follow the plans for this year at https://www.earthday.org/.

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Sustainability In Your Ear

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected