Sustainability In Your Ear

Latest Episodes:

Earth911 Podcast: Judi Townsend's Circular Economy-Inspired Mannequin Madness Feb 23, 2022

Show notes

Judi Townsend, founder of Oakland, Calif-based Mannequin Madness, is on a mission to keep mannequins in use to reduce the environmental impact of the retail industry. The shop sells full mannequins, dress forms, torsos and butts, limbs, replacement parts and even dog and cat mannequins. Mannequin Madness is recycling more than 100,000 lbs. of mannequins each year and it has grown into a thriving business since it was founded in her backyard more than 20 years ago. Her customers include retailers, artists, and fashion and sports enthusiasts who want to display clothing in thier home.
Judi is an example of the many small, local or regional entrepreneurs that can build systems to ensure the continued use of products in a more sustainable economy. We’re going to grow a circular economy from the ground up. We’re going to grow a circular economy from the ground up. Learn from an innovator who is making local and specialized reusee and recycling happen.You can learn more at https://mannequinmadness.com.

Earth911 Podcast: Stephen Crolius on Ammonia's Role as a Post-Carbon Fuel for Shipping Feb 21, 2022

Show notes

Stephen Crolius is the co-founder and president of Carbon Neutral Consulting, a New York-based sustainable business consultancy. He and his team recently released The Ammonia Report, an analysis of the prospects for using ammonia as a maritime fuel instead of heavy fuel oil, the petroleum-derived traditional source of maritime energy. So much of what we buy today is shipped halfway around the world. Sometimes, the components of a product are shipped from the U.S. to Asia, processed and then shipped back. Almost all of that shipping activity burns oil today, which accounts for about 1.8% of humanity's annual carbon footprint, according to the European Commission’s Climate Action office. We need to change the fuels used to power sea-going freight vessels to sustainable alternatives, and several are emerging. One of those is ammonia.
Stephen previously served with the Clinton Foundation’s Climate Initiative and as president of the Ammonia Energy Association. Ammonia has been used in fertilizers since the early twentieth century, a development made possible by the emergence of the Haber-Bosch process for mass producing the chemical, which revolutionized farming. Now ammonia is coming into use as a fuel or an intermediate storage medium for energy that can be processed to yield pure hydrogen in fuel applications. You can follow the developing story of ammonia fuels at https://www.ammoniaenergy.org/articles/.

Earth911 Podcast: Doug Heske on Choosing Stocks to Encourage Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Feb 18, 2022

Show notes

Newday Impact Investing CEO Doug Heske returns to talk about investing to create a sustainable, circular and equitable economy that we can hand to our children and grandchildren with a sense of pride. This week we’re looking at diversity, equity and inclusion (often shortened to “DEI”), the idea that the dignity and value of every person that must underlie a just society. Doug’s team at Newday Impact has developed methodologies to identify companies that are making genuine progress on DEI issues, as well as screen out companies that, similar to greenwashing, "socialwash" their actual diversity and inclusion performance, and that can make them a long-term risk as an investment.
Investors are increasingly factoring assessments of a company’s DEI performance into their decisions. They recognize that hidden debts, whether that’s the loss of economic value from excluding large swaths of the population from full participation in the economy or the latent cost of environmental damage, add up to consequences that can kill not only a company but a market or the planet. We discuss several companies with exceptional DEI characteristics, Lowe’s Companies (NYSE: LOW), Apple (NASDAQ: APPL), Walgreens Boots Alliance (NASDAQ: WBA), Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE) and a stock we touched on last time we talked, Target (NYSE: TGT). You can learn more about Newday Impact Investing at https://newdayimpact.com/.

Earth911 Podcast: Ecosia.org's Christian Kroll On Planting Trees With Every Web Search Feb 16, 2022

Show notes

How do you reduce your digital life’s environmental impact? Making changes to reduce your environmental impact around the house is straightforward — you can eat less meat, reduce your purchases of single-use plastic or turn down the thermostat by a few degrees to make a difference. But when you go online, there aren’t many obvious choices to cut your impact. Enter Ecosia.org, which has planted more than 143 million trees to offset the environmental impact of web searches.
Christian started Ecosia in 2009 after seeing the devastating impact of deforestation first-hand while traveling after graduating from college. The company was also the first B Corporation in Germany. While the search engine does produce CO2, the trees planted offset more emissions than ecosia.org creates — they estimate that the trees planted result in a net reduction of CO2 of 2.2 lbs. per search. To put that in context, Ecosia estimates that if it had the same volume of searches as Google, it could plant enough trees to remove 15% of humanity’s CO2 emissions each year. You search and plant trees, as well as learn more, at https://www.ecosia.org/.

Earth911 Podcast: Cambium Carbon's Founders on Carbon Smart Urban Wood Feb 14, 2022

Show notes

The founders of Cambium Carbon, CEO Ben Christensen and CFO Marisa Repka, explain how they salvage wood from the 36 million trees that fall each year in American cities to create a hyper-local lumber supply chain. Currently, most of those fallen trees are mulched, burned or landfilled, all of which contributes to global warming. The company's Carbon Smart Wood is sourced from downed trees — also referred to as “urban wood” — and it can be used in furniture and buildings in place of trees from clear-cutting operations. They also dedicate 15% of their revenue to replant new trees, which provides urban green cover.
Cambium Carbon is a social enterprise that has organised an alternative, thoroughly tracked wood supply chain for designers, architects and builders while helping to preserve local sawmills and the jobs they provide. Their Traece wood tracking system, which allows customers to learn where the wood in their home or office came from, enables a new level of accountability and storytelling in wood products. We also discuss the potential to apply their strategies to other commodities. Find out more about Cambium Carbon at https://cambiumcarbon.com/.

Earth911 Podcast: Coral Vita's Sam Teicher Explains the Critical Need to Restore the World's Reefs Feb 07, 2022

Show notes

Sam Teicher, co-founder and Chief Reef Officer at Coral Vita, a social enterprise that grows resilient corals on land and transfers them to the sea to restore dying reefs, joins Mitch Ratcliffe to discuss ocean restoration. Check out his recent article, Coral Vita and the Vital Importance of Restoring Coral Reefs, on Earth911. More than half of the world’s coral has died since 1970 — if that doesn’t set alarm bells ringing, consider that a University of California Santa Barbara study published in Nature in August 2020 found that sea-sourced meat is essential to feeding humans in 2050. We must increase sea yields by up to 74% to keep up with demand, but coral reefs are a critical feature of the food chain in the oceans — if they disappear, we cannot meet the dietary needs of humans — the entire ocean ecosystem could collapse. But there are also glimmers of hope, such as a large, healthy reef recently discovered near Tahiti that has not suffered bleaching. And as Sam explains, resort and seafood companies are beginning to recognize the importance of protecting and restoring reefs that are the foundation of their businesses.
Coral Vita's Grand Bahamas facility is the first to take a social enterprise approach to restoring coral. Sam is building the foundation for an industry that has the potential to bring coral back around the planet while creating good paying jobs that are good for the environment. He previously worked on climate resiliency initiatives for the Obama White House and Global Island Partnership. Sam is also an inaugural Earthshot Prize Winner and a Forbes 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneur. He also co-authored the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal #14: Life Below Water. You can learn more about Coral Vita and adopt a coral at https://coralvita.co/.

Earth911 Podcast: Newday Impact's Doug Heske on Getting Started With ESG Investing Feb 04, 2022

Show notes

Newday Impact Investing CEO Doug Heske returns to talk about how to design an investment portfolio to achieve environmental improvements in our world. Just as buying sustainable products can help reduce your environmental impact, your investing can change the direction of the economy. And 2021 was the biggest year in the history of environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing by more than twice the previous record, with $120 billion flowing into the green economy, according to Bloomberg. Green economy momentum is building but investors are concerned about greenwashing and are not confident they can choose companies that are making real environmental progress. Doug explains how Newday Impact portfolio managers make decisions based on the environmental impact of companies, ETFs and bonds to produce ESG results. Visit visit Newday’s Sustainable Development Equity page to follow along with the conversation.
If you've heard our previous conversations with Doug Heske, which covered investing to improve animal welfare, make clean water available for all, lower greenhouse gas emissions, and create a responsible energy grid, this episode brings all the threads together. He explains how to set your priorities and choose a diversified portfolio while keeping the planet's health squarely in mind. Doug also discusses the importance of overseas investing, particularly in Europe; he urges caution when considering the stock of companies in other regions where transparency is not practiced. You can learn more about Newday Impact Investing, a financial services company that manages a wide range of socially and environmentally responsible portfolios, visit https://newdayimpact.com/.

Earth911 Podcast: Disover Floatovoltaics with BlueWave Solar's Mike Marsch Feb 02, 2022

Show notes

Mike Marsch, the head of solar development at BlueWave, explains how floating solar panels can plan a key role in deliver widely available community and privately owned renewable energy generation capacity. The Boston-based certified B Corp's mission is to “revolutionize energy with simple, powerful solutions.” But solar faces challenges from communities that are concerned about local views, and floating solar has been opposed by vacation destinations along coasts. We must overcome some of those objections to find a way to talk frankly about the benefits and urgency that make floating solar an important feature of our energy landscape. We explore where and how floatovoltaics can be deployed, and the environmental benefits of using human-made reservoirs to catch more of the sun's energy.
Solar power is a keystone of the post-carbon economy, the goal we need to achieve as soon as possible to halt CO2 emissions that are raising the planet’s temperature. Fossil fuel-generated electricity is responsible for much of the increased occurrence of drought and extreme weather, it is also leads to rising sea levels. But the tide could turn. The International Energy Agency reported that as of 2020 solar the cheapest source of electricity. Floating solar panels enjoy advantages over land-based solar farms because the water cools the system, which makes it more efficient. You can learn more about BlueWave at https://bluewave.energy/.

Earth911 Podcast: Rethinking Recycling with Delterra's Shannon Bouton and Ella Flaye Jan 31, 2022

Show notes

Our guests, Shannon Bouton, CEO of Delterra, and Ella Flaye, the organization's regional director for Asia, lead the environmental non-profit's “rethinking recycling” initiative in emerging economies. Around the world, more than 2 billion people live without waste removal and recycling services. Despite the challenges of the pandemic, Delterra’s recycling and waste management services have scaled over these last few years and currently serve nearly 50,000 people, with plans underway to reach a quarter of a million people by the end of 2022. The non-profit was incubated for three years and funded by the business consulting giant, McKinsey & Co. The non-profit has already diverted more than 1,000 tons of waste from landfills and the oceans while achieving up to 60% recycling participation rates in several Indonesian and Argentine slums, well above the U.S. recycling engagement levels.
Delterra's first programs have also created lives livelihoods for more than 450 affiliated waste workers -- a marginalized and often overlooked faction of essential workers -- by providing them safe, fair and dignified working conditions. We explore what they've learned during the organizations early projects in Buenos Aires’ vast Barrio Mugica and in Indonesian communities, where low-income people, especially women are working to organize recycling programs. You can learn more about the program at https://delterra.org/.

Earth911 Podcast: Compology's Jason Gates on Waste Monitoring and Reduction Jan 26, 2022

Show notes

Jason Gates, CEO of Compology, is taking the recycling battle to the dumpster. Compology makes AI-powered smart cameras that monitor how full dumpsters are and help understand and manage what they contain — the process reduces unnecessary pickups, which lowers fuel waste, and improves the processing of the contents of each bin. There’s no question the current economy is wasteful, but the challenge remains to figure out where that waste is located and how to reduce it, recycle it and return it to use without cutting down more trees, mining more raw ore or other extractive activities. Compology tracks the bin over time to provide the first end-to-end waste monitoring for business, including advice delivered through its app. These tools let companies and government organizations plan their production, manage waste to reduce contamination and help them meet their sustainability goals. Compology may also have the solution for large landlords who want to implement recycling systems for apartment complexes and other facilities that rely on private haulers to remove and recycle waste.
Jason explains how Compology cameras work, the six types of contamination they can spot and how the bin user gets alerts. For example, uncompacted cardboard boxes take up space, leading to more pickups than necessary. In the future, the system could also track food waste and help divert it to composting programs. We also discuss the security and privacy benefits of monitoring waste to prevent confidential data from being exposed. When tracked in detail, the economy can be optimized and we would not simply reduce waste, but route it back for recycling or reuse. Learn more about Compology at https://compology.com/.

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Sustainability In Your Ear

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected