Break Some Dishes

Cara Buckley and her team at the New York Times have decided to focus on the optimistic side of climate change. They’ve found people acting out on their own to create individual, yet replicable acts that have saved their own unique communities and ecosystems. Verda and Jon have been inspired by this message, and in this episode get the opportunity to talk with Cara about this work and how it can save our planet. Discover more shows from SURROUND at surroundpodcasts.com. This episode was produced by Rob Schulte. Break Some Dishes is presented by Davies Office.

Karry King and Martin Schneider found themselves compelled to help their town of La Salle, Illinois after a toxic disaster and chemical fire at the Carus Chemical Plant. Discover more shows from SURROUND at surroundpodcasts.com. This episode was produced by Rob Schulte. Break Some Dishes is presented by Davies Office.

Verda and Jon gather up some of their favorite people for a fun presentation at NeoCon, a big furniture/interior design show. These guests represent some of our favorite episodes over the past year, and we had a blast putting them all together in the same room - like a fun, amazing person stew! Listen to this group talk about design through a lens of climate change and unique design perspectives.

Are we filling our landfills with furniture? We are so accustomed to buying cheap furniture because it's easy and accessible, but why aren't we investing in pieces that will last our lifetime and get passed down to the next generation? Should we treat furniture like art, or family heirlooms meant to be passed on, each piece carrying its own recorded history of ownership? Dave Bryant and Judd Rosengart think so, and so do we! Judd and Dave are founders of an amazing concept called Heirloom Design. They want to create a movement that recognizes beautiful design and keeps it out of landfills. Better yet, they want to preserve the legacy of each piece for the next owner, creating a family tree of ownership that will be forever preserved with the piece. We love this idea, so please tune in and break some dishes with Heirloom Design!

Finally, the interior design profession has come together and created an amazing pledge to impact climate change! This is long overdue, as the potential for interior designers in every segment of the industry is huge! Listen in as Jon and Verda talk with Avi Rajagopal, Editor in Chief of Metropolis Magazine and Gary Wheeler, CEO of ASID as they explain what they want to achieve with this pledge. We are excited, as we see this as a perfect first step to activate our industry to impact change and provide the infrastructure and resources to support everyone in this effort. The interior Design Profession can make a massive impact on climate change, and we are taking a monumental first step!!!

In this episode, Jon and Verda talk with Annie Bevan, Executive Director of Mindful Materials. We are all affected by the materials in our built environment. Can Mindful Materials finally be the "Easy Button" to understanding what we're putting in our spaces? Annie thinks so! Mindful Materials is industry owned and led and really wants to be a resource for all designers out there. We need manufacturers to be transparent and work to optimize impacts by reducing harmful effects of product ingredients. Let's start rewarding the manufacturers who are reducing their impacts. Transparency doesn't mean better, it means you understand. We need manufacturers to start working on reducing toxic chemistry!

Jon and Verda join Jane Abernethy and Annie Bevan in talking about material transparency on a panel with our host, Mortarr CEO Abby Murray. Jane Abernethy is Chief Sustainability Officer for Humanscale and Annie Bevan is the Executive Director of Mindful Materials. Who better to talk about material transparency than these two? Are we paying attention to what goes into product? Some of us are, but many companies still do not know what their suppliers are using in their product. Should we be sitting on furniture and carpet made with mysterious combinations of ingredients? Are we fixing the chemistry of making things? If you don't know about Mortarr, they are breaking a few dishes as well!

This episode of Break Some Dishes finds Verda and Jon talking to an amazing activist by the name of Auden Schendler. Auden has been the Vice President of Sustainability at Aspen Ski Company for over 20 years, and his voice carries an amazing message, actually more than one. We love Auden because he truly offers a unique perspective on tackling climate change. While he began speaking primarily about impacting climate change in a corporate setting, Auden speaks with us about "Corporate Complicity". What are corporations REALLY doing to affect climate change? Are they really doing enough? Are they really just transferring the blame to us? Hey...as Auden said, we didn't wake up today and decide we absolutely had to drive a vehicle that consumes fossil fuels. Auden brings a fresh perspective about rolling up our sleeves and jumping in the trenches to get stuff done!

Jon and Verda talk with Joey Roth about more than just coffee. Joey is an industrial designer who is focused on vessels, crafted from materials that get better with age. Joey wants to design product that people want to fix rather than replace. How long will it last? How long will it be valuable to us? These are important questions. Joey designs better coffee pods that will compost, not sit in landfills. Joey is trying to incorporate positive change in ritualistic behavior, and Verda wants him to address friction in these special moments. Can Joey do it? Tune in and see!!

Jon and Verda talk to a textile designer!! Finally, we get to break dishes with Lori Weitzner, renowned textile designer and environmental activist. Lori introduces us to the idea of "cultural sustainability". How can we preserve the old way of making things while bringing it to scale to serve our industry? Lori tells us to understand what is in abundance, and focusing on that material. She's worked all over the globe, and even activated a small village in the Philippines to apply their craft to textiles, and bring that back to their community. This is social activism at it's finest!

This episode's special guest is Greg Norris. Currently Chief Scientist for the International Living Future Institute and Director of the Sustainability and Health Initiative for Net Positive Enterprise at MIT, Greg Norris is one of the top LCA experts in the country. Amongst his most impressive projects is the creation of "Hand-Printing", where it's not just about choosing to be less bad, but trying to make things better by fixing what we've broken. While we all would love to do this, Greg's program allows large organizations to actually measure their positive impact. Imagine that! Greg has an amazing way of understanding our impact on the planet, and we think you'll love the way he connects!

In this episode, Verda and Jon talk to Marcus Erikson an ex Marine and scientist on a journey to understand what happens with all of our plastic. He has tracked it down the Mississippi, to the world's oceans and finally, into the desert, where it is killing camels. Our plastic trash is everywhere, literally. Join us as we talk with someone who is passionate about exposing it's whereabouts. One part depressing, one part fascinating and one part inspirational, this scientist is going to continue to blow the lid off our plastic problem!

In a departure from our usual science lased, data based episodes, where we chat with environmental engineers, scientists and deep subject matter experts, today we get to chat with one of our own kind! Doug Shapiro, Vice President of Research and Insights at OFS will share his own personal insights and those of OFS. Join us in learning how a company like OFS, who makes furniture, can create harmony outside, a wonderful community and beautiful furniture.

Jason McLennan started the International Living Future Institute. He created the Living Building Challenge, followed by the Living Product Challenge, the Living Community Challenge, The Red List, and the Declare Label just to name a few. Oh, and he also has written 7 books, but otherwise he's a bit of a couch potato and needs goals. When he's not creating new green standards, he's running his own architectural firm, McLennan Design, and when he's not doing that, he's breaking dishes with us! And we found out he's pretty damn good at breaking things!!

Todd Bracher and Tina Cheng are industrial designers in Todd Bracher Studio, but they are so much more than that. They are design strategists, game changers and innovators, and they challenge clients to break some damn dishes. With a multi-disciplinary team, they bring science to design. They are philosophic and thoughtful as well, and their science is not without poetry and art. Todd tells us that a tree is truthful design. It is part of it's eco system. A car or a table are opinions, and we tend to agree. Todd and Tina are in search of truthful design and they may have found it.

Brian Kelly wants to preserve the legacy of our trees. He is a photographer and archivist. Maybe even a tree whisperer? These silent sentinels are hundreds and even thousands of years old and are dying faster than ever before due to human activity and climate change. He is trying to capture their essence as quickly as he can before they are gone. Their legacy is what Gathering Growth, his foundation, plans to leave our children. Photographs of once great trees. We talked to Brian about the wisdom that trees bring to our everyday life. So, the next time you walk outside, don't forget to look up.

Petrice Jones is a successful actor. In fact, we would say he's officially "made it" in Hollywood. So, now he only needs to sit back and watch the money roll in, right? But Petrice is not that kind of actor. He's an activist, so when he saw something, he did something. Petrice noticed the pile of plastic water bottles that accumulated on set while he worked. So, he set out to change the industry by creating a re-usable water bottle that could be handed out on sets, instead of plastic ones. But why save the movie industry when you can save the planet? So, Petrice Jones started The One Movement. Every One Bottle purchased removes 44lb/20kg of low-grade ocean waste (equivalent to 2,000 single-use plastic bottles) and converts it into the raw materials needed to create a house, which he then builds. These are donated to the homeless waste collectors who clean up our waterways. So, not only does One Movement try to provide an alternative to plastic water bottles, it actually is removing ocean waste and impacting the social issues it causes. Wow. You'll love Petrice. We did.

Molly Morse is CEO of Mango Materials. She's also an engineer with a PhD. Wanna guess what she's up to? Get a load of Molly- she's making a biodegradable plastic! That's right...a plastic that doesn't last forever in our environment and wind up in our oceans. And as if that isn't amazing enough, she makes it with methane, a greenhouse gas that is even worse than carbon! That's right, she's taking methane out of our environment while she's making a biodegradable plastic. Interested yet? Tune in to episode 16 to hear Molly break some damn dishes. She's a badass.

Algae can be a good thing. It produces more oxygen and captures more carbon than all the forests in the world combined. A rise in global temperatures, excess nutrient runoff and human activities create harmful effects of algae blooms which pop up everywhere as a visible reminder to the invisible issue of water pollution. Enter this episode's resident hero, Ryan Hunt. Ryan's company Bloom, makes foam from this algae and is currently working with over 80 brand partners. By the end of 2020 his company had cleaned over 850 million liters of water and 524 million cubic meters of air. Maybe algae blooms aren't such a bad thing after all?

Bryan and Rebecca Pape are co-founders of MIIR, a design forward and generosity driven drinkware company with a social and environmental mission. A certified B Corp and 1% for the planet member, MIIR choses people and planet over the demands of Wall Street. What does that mean? Since 2010, they have partnered with some of the most respected nonprofits in the world to fund long term, sustainable projects in the water, sanitation and hygiene sector. Their coffee mugs and water bottles are beautifully designed and have a social impact! They don't just look good on your counter, they're saving our planet!!