Who's Saving the Planet?

92 million tonnes of clothes end up in the garbage every year. That's more than one full dumpster truck every second. The fashion industry has long been built on a model of planned obsolescence: each season new styles pushed out the now arcane pieces from last year. Except, with the rise of fast fashion, seasons are compressed into weeks, at times days. As these companies push out new product, generally low quality, designed to be destroyed, we need to get rid of the old. Hence, 92 million tonnes of waste, every year. Re/Curate is combatting this cycle of waste through providing brands the technology to verify and re-sell clothes under their label on their own digital platforms. They work with top brands like Steve Madden and Outerknown to securely re-sell items that they've vetted on the brand's own platform. Effectively, this means when you buy something new you have a fair sense of what its value will be when it's resold, sort of a baked in discount if/when you decide to move on from the product while opening up the brand to customers who may not be able to afford a new purchase but love the brand.  How is this different from your normal re-sale platform, or thrift store for that matter? Tune in to find out! 

Madeline Fraser came up with the idea for Gemist when she tried to design herself a custom ring. The ordeal proved successful but a headache. How is it that the custom jewelry process is so antiquated? The serial entrepreneur had an idea: let the consumer be in charge. After all, one size does not fit all when it comes to jewelry design. And so she brought the industry into the modern age with a unique home try-on experience (akin to Warby Parker eyeglasses). Not only that, the company's jewelry is handmade in Downtown Los Angeles using sustainable materials and ethical practices. That's enough to bring a twinkle to our eyes!

Agriculture and farming can play a tremendous role in reducing America's carbon footprint and farmers can lead the way in offsetting greenhouse gas emissions. One way of doing this is through Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) — a method designed from the ground up with sustainability in mind. CEA growers include greenhouses, vertical farms, and other indoor farms that combine traditional farming know-how with engineering, plant science, and technology to optimize the life of the plant. They don't have to worry about seasonal constraints; they use less water; use zero pesticides; they reduce virgin land use for crop production; they have shorter supply chains to reduce food waste; and much more. Special guest Marni Karlin is the perfect source to walk us through how all this works. She's the executive director of the CEA Food Safety Coalition. Tune in to learn all about how agriculture can reduce carbon emissions and improve overall impact to the environment. 

What if we knew everything about everything we bought? Nuts to bolts, cradle to grave, all of it. Would we make better choices? Would we treat our stuff better? Jakob and August, founders of ASKET, are betting the farm on YES.  ASKET was founded on the principles that we should buy better stuff, less often, treat it with care, and wear it until, well, as long as possible. This is  the antithetical business model to some of the world's most successful fashion companies that rely on our need to chase the next and newest trend through continuous consumption and irreverent waste. We can't continue to live like that (quite literally), but convincing people to abandon their addiction to the cheap, pretty, disposable lifestyle is a heavy ask.  In order to prove their quality ASKET took an unusual step: they make public all of the thinks the know about their clothes, form how the fibers are sourced, the mills where the clothes are assembled, all the way through to how often you should wash it (hint: not as often as you think). They have a stated goal of 100% traceability and transparency, a lofty, but noble pursuit. In this episode we talk about how far along they've come, but also what it takes to create a business that is the polar opposite from what success has looked like in the fashion industry. 

Third-generation sustainability superstar Alex Shadrow is our guest. She's an entrepreneur who says it's in her DNA to solve the fashion waste crisis! Better known by her moniker "Sustainabae" — a name she certainly lives up to — Alex tells us the story of her eco-warrior family, how she became a member of Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps, her passion for fashion and why being the COO of resale website List Perfectly is a dream come true. Also, she's an Instagram star with some 65K followers! But before heading over to her IG, hear what she has to say. There's a strong case to be made that resale and secondary sales can significantly reduce carbon footprints, not just with clothes, but all types of items — and that's where ListPerfectly comes in: an e-commerce solution for sellers to crosspost products on a bunch of major channels (i.e. Poshmark,  Mercari, Instagram, Shopify, eBay etc.). We also discuss Alex's past startup ventures, the challenges women entrepreneurs face, her year of not buying anything new, why Adidas beats Nike and the next step in her professional journey. 

If we intend to meet our climate goals, we need to decarbonize the transportation sector. That means moving away from fossil fuels to clean energy. But cars are just a tool. Whether a car is filled with gasoline or powered by electricity, without easy access to fuel, a car loses its usefulness. The electric vehicle market has definitely left it’s awkward teen year and is in the midst of its glow-up. (Bye-bye hybrid Prius, hello Tesla, Volvo, and Porsche). The problem is while states like California are on track to meet their target for electric vehicles on the road, they’re lagging behind on installing the infrastructure (namely charging stations) to power that many vehicles. Thankfully, that’s how Elective Vehicle Charging Station (EVCS) comes in. This week, WSTP chats with Gustavo Occhiuzzo about his journey to founding EVCS and its sister company Green Commuter, the transformative power of new parenthood, and the gap between deploying EV infrastructure and EV vehicles. Want to dive deeper? Check out The Weekly Deep Dive: Electric Cars by WSTP’s Claudia Hill!

Before Shari Siadat was a children's book author, before she was a corporate executive, or a mother of three, she was a child struggling with the distance between the way she thought she should look and person she saw in the mirror. We all have our own issues with body image, self-esteem, representation, all reflected through an internal kaleidoscope of how we imagine the world sees us. Shari ran the gauntlet of self discovery, from conforming to an imposed ideal to realizing her natural beauty, and she's built a suit of glitter and gloss armor for the rest of us as we wage that war of self acceptance. TooD is a beauty brand founded in the idea that we're all different, that make up should be about celebrating those differences rather than covering them up, and in doing so we should accept nothing less than the best ingredients of ourselves, the planet, and the people who make the products. Founded in 2019, TooD has since become a viral sensation among people of all ages and proclivities for its bold, bright aesthetic, stereotype defying mantra and honest composition. We discuss in this episode the very personal journey Shari took to become a founder of a cosmetics company- something she'd never imagined for herself- how the birth of her third daughter taught her to recognize something within her own identity and the process of rejecting the status quo when it comes to sourcing ingredients for beauty products.

While Jason Carney is not one to shy away from the responsibility he's shouldered as a pioneer in his field and a leader in his community, he does so quietly, with a measured and learned restraint. Such is the calm you'd expect from a man used to listening to other peoples problems, which he is. But Jason is also someone unafraid of introducing change into a system too often rooted in the old, closed ways of doing business.  Jason is the founder of Energy Electives, a firm he founded to provide solar power to his community in Tennessee. He's also the president of the Tennessee Solar Energy Association, a non-profit dedicated to bringing renewable energy- and education about renewable energy- to underserved communities. Along the way, Jason earned a rather auspicious accolade, as an energy man but also something perhaps bigger. He is the first African-American man licensed as a solar technician in his home state of Tennessee. In this episode we talk about his road to realizing his passion for solar energy, how that informed his faith and how his faith informed his ability to communicate his passion. We talk about what it's like being the first person who looks like he does to do what he does, and what that means for the next generation of aspiring renewable energy pioneers. And we talk about solar technology, why it's magical, and how beautiful a thing it is. 

Inventor and engineer David Weaver started out at Kodak some 40 years ago cleaning optical equipment by hand. Today, he's at the helm of his own eco-friendly cleaning product company — Aphex BioCleanse Systems. Its water-based active ingredient, Hy-IQ Water, contains no phosphates, surfactants, toxins or pesticides... it's just water. And it kills bacteria quicker without polluting our waters or hurting aquatic plants and animals. How? Hydrogen ions traveling at the speed of light; they breach the cell walls of exoskeleton germs, and — so far — have proven more effective in killing pathogens than alcohol-based solutions. Aphex's method can be used in various products: hand sanitizers, produce cleansers and hard-surface disinfectants. You can also use it in swimming pools instead of chlorine tablets. It's even safe for human consumption! (David proves it). Tune in as Tony Noto and Jonas Donnenfield get a physics lesson they'll never forget. 

Getting companies to do things is hard. Getting companies to take climate seriously has been a slow, long, march, with many a setback and all too few victories. It's a fight Bill Weihl knows well, and recently he decided it was time to change the strategy.  For six years Bill served as the Green Energy Czar at Google, followed by another six years as Facebook's Director of Sustainability. He was in the room when these titans of tech were evolving their consideration of what role industry has in our collective effort to combat the climate crisis, pushing for a move toward renewable energy and corporate responsibility.  After that decade on the inside, he came to the realization that he could do more to impact the actual impact these companies have on the climate from the outside.  Bill founded Climate Voice as a means of influencing corporate action through mobilizing their employees through petitions, pledges and old-fashioned grass roots organizing. Their goal is to get the big five corporations- Amazon, Facebook, Google, Apple and Microsoft, to commit 1 in 5 lobbying dollars to keeping the degree rise in global temperature below 1.5 Celsius.  In this episode we talk about the mechanisms available to individuals within giant organizations, the importance of community, the frustrations that come with the terrain of pushing for climate activism, and what it means to grow as a person, colleague and corporate citizen. Big thanks to Bill for coming on and bravo for the work he's doing with Climate Voice. 

Leo Alvarez and his team over at Protera had a busy 2020. Not only did the startup snag $5.5 million in venture capital, it traded its San Francisco digs for a new HQ in the 'City of Lights' — Paris. But what's next on the company's agenda really grabbed our attention here at WSTP: wielding deep learning tech to predict the 3D structure of proteins. The goal is to transform food ingredients to not only rid them of unhealthy additives but also improve their shelf life. Not only that, their method allows our favorite edible treats (Nutella, for example) to maintain their texture and taste but without using ingredients like palm oil, the production of which is devastating for the environment. Leo also schools co-hosts Jonas Donnenfield and Tony Noto on Protera's impressive AI engine (MADI) which wields an expansive knowledge of protein data to design these new functional proteins that can transform foods for the sake of the planet! It's high-tech — but easy to digest. Tune in!

Suicide and mental health are discussed at length in this episode, which could be triggering. If you, or anyone you know is struggling with mental health, the suicide prevention lifeline number is 800-273-8255. When we first heard that the Air Force was working with the virtual reality company Moth and Flame, we were expecting something along the lines of jumping out of planes at low orbit or piloting a next-generation drone, in space. What we didn't anticipate was a conversation, intimate and at times wrenching, crafted in virtual reality and designed to evoke the emotional reaction you'd get from sitting across the kitchen table from an old friend or family member.  The US Air Force has been working with Moth and Flame to design a scenario to prepare service members for the emotional stress of helping a brother or sister in arms who's struggling with mental health, to the point of considering suicide. Unfortunately, this is a more common experience for members of the military, and just as important to their health and safety as training for what happens down range.  In this episode we speak with Master Sargent Shawn Dougherty, 18 year veteran, husband and father, about his experience piloting this initial roll out of the virtual reality campaign. From the VR side, Moth and Flame CEO Kevin Cornish joins us to talk about the process of building the scenarios, working with the military on something distinctly different than he had first envisioned, and the potential for VR to help us prepare for distinctly human interactions. 

If a tree falls in a city, but no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Cities across the U.S. are losing their urban canopy. In fact, more trees fall in cities than in our national forests. (Roughly 46 million tons of wood and biomass waste!) Most of the wood that comes down is either abandoned in people’s yards, sent to a landfill or ends up in a burn pile. Ben Christensen is the CEO and founder of Cambium Carbon; a company focused on addressing urban wood waste. Cambium Carbon imagines a future that creates green jobs, supports local economies, and fights climate change. This week Ben sits down with WSTP to chat about the importance of greenery in urban areas, the threat of the Emerald Ash Borer, carbon smart wood, and local community investment. With that, we’ll leave you with one final thought: Earth Day is this week. In honor of Cambium Carbon (or maybe just in honor of WSTP . . .), go hug a tree!

The magnitude and complexity of the threat posed by climate change can't be solved with one silver bullet. Rather than looking for one solution, Dr. Michael Boesen decided to raise an army of scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs and developers with the skills required to build the solutions we need. Since it's going to take all of us to save the planet, we might as well start getting all of us in the fight. Massive.Earth, self described as "the first massive mobilization of talent to solve the climate crisis," is one part launch pad for aspiring companies and one part matchmaker for talented people looking to get involved, without necessarily changing their careers or leaving their jobs. The idea being: entrepreneurs have the hutzpah (takes a bit of crazy to start a company, I can attest) but sometimes lack the expertise, and the experts have the knowledge but perhaps aren't too keen to abandon their career. Massive.earth is a means of bringing them together on the terms that work for both: mentorship, guidance, advice and support.  Dr. Boesen went down this road himself, leaving behind a very successful career as a software and hardware engineer to apply his skills on a climate positive initiative. As any scientist would, he did research, which culminated in a white paper on the state of climate change initiatives. From this, they distilled a catalogue of 7 missions core to the pursuit of a sustainable planet: Decarbonize Electricity Reduce Impact of Rural and Urban Areas Clean Non-Electrifiable Activities Protect and Grow Nature Back Optimize Food Climate Justice Adapt and Geo-Engineer What's left, is of course, to begin. Follow on as we discuss the mission and vision of Massive.Earth, and if you too have talent (and who doesn't, certainly you do, faithful WSTP listener) consider joining in the fight. Even a few hours a week, from smart people, applied judiciously, could have a massive impact. 

Soil erosion, the degradation of the health of soil through over-tilling and rampant use of chemicals, is an existential threat to our ability to grow food, sequester carbon and live in harmony with nature. In many ways, it's the whole ball game- if we're unable to arrest the dependance on techniques and chemicals that deteriorate soil health, then worse agricultural conditions will result in smaller harvests leading to more intensive and invasive agricultural processes which in turn accelerate soil erosion.  We need to get off that train before it takes us over the agricultural cliff. Jason Green, CEO of Upward Farms, is here to do just that.  Upward Farms is an indoor agricultural ecosystem which uses aquaponics to create controlled environments for growing plants. Essentially, it's a living laboratory dedicated to understanding the interplay between plants, microbes, and the environment in which they grow.  The relationship of between the plants and the soil is much more complicated than a simple dichotomy. Billions of tiny microbial organisms interweave a lattice work of communication and support to bolster the health and wellbeing of a complex ecosystem in which plants grow. We're just beginning to grasp the complexity and chart the various pathways that these organisms use to communicate, defend against decease, support ailing members of their chlorophoric tribe, and perpetuate the growth of a healthy, harmonious ecosystem.  Jason's team at Upward have committed to understanding the agricultural ecosystem with same reverence and curiosity we general reserve for ourselves, specifically that most complex of human organisms, the brain. Through their work, they aim to do much more than just grow vegetables efficiently indoors (although, that is certainly part of the business model). Theirs is an ambition to help us better understand the entire nature of a healthy agricultural ecosystem, so we can tackle that most dire and pressing threat- global soil erosion. 

Here's an age old question: how do you make marketing a force for good in the world? Welcome to the world of Andrew Forman's win-win-win business strategy. Win 1: Generate piles of money for philanthropic causes. Win 2: Provide people an avenue to do some good while also getting the stuff they want.  Win 3: Use companies' intrinsic motivation to improve their bottom line through a marketing strategy that will maximize Win 1 and Win 2.  Givz wasn't the company Andrew intended to start, but as is the case with most entrepreneurs, he listened to the needs of his clients and the reception of the customers to pivot into a business model that had real traction and could grow into a substantial company. The premise is simple: what if those discounts that companies offer you (Buy NOW and get 20% Off!) changed slightly, so that instead of getting to keep a few dollars for yourself, you were able to donate that money to a cause you cared about. And, well, that's basically it. But the story gets a whole lot more intricate from there. What Andrew and his team needed to prove was that people would actually prefer the charity option over keeping the money for themselves. And that companies could get as good a return on the charity model as they could on the discount model. And that the money would actually go to causes which would do right by the people they set out to help.  A tall order, but one he was up to the task for. Givz has donated over $1,000,000 to charities of their members choosing while proving to businesses that people are at least just as, if not more likely to be compelled by an altruistic message (give to charity) than a self serving one (get a discount). Perhaps, humanity, we've got a shot.  In addition to the planet saving and the business modeling, stick around for the wholesome father talk, because who doesn't love that. 

Imagine a world where offsetting your carbon footprint was as simple as ordering more butt paste for your newborn infant (relevant, I promise). If we're going create a better world for the generations to come, my baby son Rye included, featured co-host on the intro with myself and Jess Miles,  we better start cleaning up our act today.  Wren is a carbon offsetting platform created by a band of industrious and optimistic sustainability pioneers who believe we can tap into our better nature to unlock a wave of altruism that will kick-start our internal eco-conscience. By doing one thing, thinking about our overall carbon footprint, maybe that will provoke more thought around the other, daily choices we make? Maybe it will encourage us to advertise our altruism, making doing right not only the right thing to do, but the popular one too.  Join us as we sit down with Landon Brand, co-founder and CEO of Wren. We dig into the various means of addressing carbon offsets, the mechanisms involved, how we can unlock our inner altruistic self and spread it like a carbon sequestering wildfire.  www.wren.co

Let's say you're on the beach one day with your metal detector (as we do) and happen upon a chest of buried treasure, as it were. Your first call is your mom, clearly, but then after that, ring up CEO of Boundless Impact, Michele Demers, and she'll tell you where you can put your money to get a healthy return and save the planet along the way.  Michele has been in the impact investing world since she worked for Pierre and Pam Omidyar, founder of Ebay, directing them toward initiatives that could meaningfully improve the world through a  combination of philanthropy, political influence and capital investment. From there she recognized that the ecosystem of impact investing was far too opaque, with the fakers raking in money that should instead go to the genuine makers.  Boundless Impact is a quantitative and qualitative research firm that assigns a specific score to individual companies using a variety of methodologies, including life cycle analysis. Through their work they're able to direct investments toward the companies which have the best shot of succeeding, both in terms of their bottom line and mission.  Stick around to the end, where Michele gives us her professional insight into where we should be looking to find the next Tesla, Impossible Foods, or another company you've never heard of that will one day be an everyday staple.

At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, personal protective equipment (PPE) like medical grade gloves flew off the shelves in an effort to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe. But PPE supplies aren't exactly eco-friendly. In fact, 100 billion pairs of single use gloves end up in landfills every year, and they take over 100 years to break down. Fikile Mthwalo came up with a solution — Glubbs. This biodegradable alternative breaks down 10x faster than conventional rubber gloves. Tune in to learn how Fikile, a Brooklyn based creative/star of stage and screen, tapped into her passion for the environment, entrepreneurship and her artistic savvy to not only protect us from harmful germs, bacteria and viruses — but also reduce our carbon footprint (and look stylish while doing it!).

For a long minute in venture capital world (and on Shark Tank, for those of us playing at home) if you were pitching your new start up, it was useful to say you were the "Uber of X". Whatever X may be, cupcakes, thoroughbred racehorses, custom fitted clogs, you wanted to be the business in the middle that aggregated the sellers and made it simple, easy and efficient to connect to the buyers. Yaniv Kalish, CEO and founder of SolarKal, set out to be the Uber of commercial solar installation, and by golly, he got there! Unlike taxis, the process of spec'ing out a solar project, from understanding the electrical needs, the physical capacity of the space, the budget, and so forth, was extraordinarily complex, so much so that the time it took to figure out which solar panels to get and who to trust to install them wasn't worth the energy savings to mid-sized businesses. Yaniv recognized this inefficiency and set out to solve it, unlocking the potential of solar while providing a much needed service to both the buyers and the sellers. Today, SolarKal is the industry leading marketplace for solar installation, facilitating over $100,000,000 in transactions in 2020. However, unlike Uber, Yaniv didn't part with huge stakes in his company to get there. We talk about what it takes to bootstrap a business, how to weigh the benefit of outside capital with the sacrifice it could mean for the business, and the importance of building the right team from the start.