Earth911.com's Sustainability In Your Ear

Tune in to a special Earth Day 2024 episode about accelerating the path to a circular economy. Sustainability In Your Ear Mitch Ratcliffe shares lessons he learned at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's circular economy-focused REMADE conference, which met at the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Washington DC earlier this month. Scientists and business leaders gathered to discuss and share research about enabling a circular economy. REMADE focuses on reducing waste and creating circular systems in the industry, which accounts for 30.2% of annual human CO2 emissions — and the conference has a decided tilt toward recycling, specifically industrializing it at a massive scale so that consumers no longer need to learn materials sort them at home for better recycling. As you'll hear, that requires an enormous investment, and it's a form of technological utopianism promising solutions so simple people don't have to think about it. Many of the scientific presentations at the event explored advanced recycling technologies for plastics, textiles, and metals, industrial decarbonization techniques, and how to design products for easier recyclability. These important and compelling initiatives will move us toward a make-recapture-remake approach to the products humans rely on daily.

The built environment, particularly office buildings other urban facilities, are responsible for 39% of the global energy-related emissions, according to the World Green Building Council. About a third of that impact comes from the initial construction of a building and the other two-thirds is produced over the lifetime of a building by heating, cooling, and providing power to the occupants. Our guest today is leading a key battle to reduce the impact of the built environment. Tune in for a wide-ranging conversation with Rob Bernard, Chief Sustainability Officer at CBRE Group Inc., which manages more than $145 billion of commercial buildings, providing logistics, retail, and corporate office services across more than 100 countries.Rob cut his sustainability teeth at Microsoft, as its Chief Environmental Strategist for 11 years, as the company was developing its world-leading approach and collaborating with other tech giants to lobby for policy and funding to accelerate progress. He discusses CBRE’s Sustainability Solutions & Services for commercial building owners, as well as the accelerating progress for renewables, carbon tracking, and economic, health, and lifestyle benefits of living lightly on the planet. You can learn more about CBRE and its sustainability services at cbre.comTake a few minutes to learn more about making construction and building operations more sustainable:Earth911 Podcast: Cityzenith’s Michael Jansen Uses Digital Twins to Reinvent Urban PlanningEarth911 Podcast: Concrete.ai CEO Alex Hall On Mixing Embodied Carbon Out Of the Built EnvironmentBest of Earth911 Podcast: Lowering Construction Impacts With Green Badger’s Tommy LinstrothBest of Earth911 Podcast: William Ulrich on Learning From Y2K To Design the Circular EconomyBest of Earth911 Podcast: Autodesk Spacemaker Aides Building Efficiency With AI InsightsHow to Assess Your Business’ Environmental and Social ImpactsPassive House Design: Changing the Future of New Home Construction

Youth face the greatest impact of climate change, and will certainly have to live with the consequences of the extractive economy for the longest time. They also have the opportunity to pass along a better world to future generations and Pragna Nidumolu, founder of EcoTeens, is working to make that happen. When she was 14, Pragna launched an organization dedicated to creating dialogue and campaigns to encourage youth to recycle and reuse products and packaging responsibly. She also produces a podcast, Green Stories, and contributed an article to Earth911 recently, How Youth Can Help Stop Plastic Pollution One Bottle Cap At A Time. The article discussed EcoTeens’ Million Voices campaign to encourage the consistent recycling of plastic bottles with the caps on, which still remains a challenge for many consumers because municipal recycling programs have conflicting practices.Pragna discusses how to address youth eco anxiety, the potential for AI to help spread environmental practices, and the process of building a youth organization. Tune for an inspiring conversation with the next generation of environmental leaders, then get started on your mission to save our species, protect nature, and preserve the planet. You can learn more about Ecoteens at https://www.ecoteens.org/

Join Earth911's Mitch Ratcliffe for a special World Water Day conversation with model and activist Georgie Badiel and Newday Impact Investing's Dan Keeler. If you'd like to watch instead of listen to the show, which includes the world premiere of The Georgie Badiel Foundation's new fundingraising campaign video, visit our YouTube channel. Georgie's team supports a network of village wells in her homeland, Burkina Faso, that provides clean water, solar-powered community learning centers and gardens for more than 340,000 people. The organization trains women in the region to serve as engineers who install and maintain the wells, creating jobs and new life opportunities to girls who, like Georgie did in her youth, had to carry water miles every day. As many as 200 million hours per day of women's time is lost to carrying water around the world. By donating only $10 a month, you can help bring clean water to 36 people in a year.We also talk with Dan Keeler of Newday Impact Investing, which dedicates at least five percent of its revenue to supporting environmental organizations, including The Jane Goodall Institute, EarthEcho International, and The Georgie Badiel Foundation. Dan explains how ordinary investors can participate in environmentally responsible investing through Newday's Ocean fund, clean water portfolio, and other financial services. You can learn more about The Georgie Badiel Foundation and donate to help support women-operated wells in Burkina Faso at https://www.georgiebadielfoundation.org/

Honeywell International is one of the largest companies in the world, ranking 115th in the Fortune 500 and operating in 70 countries around the world. With lines of business in aerospace, building technology, workplace safety, and digital technology, Honeywell is applying its expertise to reduce its environmental impact. Since 2018, Honeywell has reduced CO2 emissions by 18%, progressing toward its Scope 1 and 2 carbon neutrality goal for 2035. Our guest, Dr. Gavin Towler, the Chief Sustainability Officer at Honeywell, led those efforts. He brings more than 30 years of experience in the chemicals and fuels industry to the conversation today and has helped Honeywell reduce the emissions associated with its refrigerants and electric vehicle solutions while engaging the wider industry to encourage environmental progress.  An essential aspect of Honeywell’s progress is its focus on reducing operational carbon intensity, the amount of CO2 it generates to earn revenue, which fell from 60.5 MT of CO2e per $1 million of revenue in 2018 to 49.5 MT in 2022. Some of the projects Honeywell is pursuing include emissions management systems for oil and gas facilities that monitor and measure emissions and recover flare gas that traditionally was burned as waste. The company also launched battery energy storage systems to backup electric grids and is a leading producer of blue hydrogen, made from natural gas, at a facility that scrubs 98% of the CO2 produced by the process. You can learn more about Honeywell at https://www.honeywell.com/

Earth Hour 2024, the "Biggest Hour for Earth" of the year, takes place on March 23rd. Since the World Wildlife Fund launched the event in 2007, Earth Hour has symbolized a commitment to the planet by simply turning off lights for one hour. However, despite its noble intentions, awareness of the movement was limited, with only 52% of the global population aware of the event. Our guests today, Phil Wilce and Antonia Simon, are Creative Director for Europe and Senior Experience Consultant, respectively, for EPAM Continuum, a research and strategy firm that worked with the World Wildlife Fund to reinvigorate the campaign and its outreach efforts as the climate crisis becomes more pronounced.The project represents an opportunity to explore how to tell stories about the environment and humanity's impact on nature, something everyone listening to Sustainability In Your Ear thinks about in work and life.The project's cornerstone was identifying a new target audience, "the inactive middle," a group of people of all ages and backgrounds characterized by a lack of action driven by eco-anxiety and eco-fatigue. The strategy focused on transforming Earth Hour from a singular event into a gateway for nature-positive action, and a significant part of the design was introducing the "Biggest Hour for Earth" as a critical message. Some enjoyable new activities around Earth Hour in 2024 include an in-world Fortnite experience built to bring young people to the program.You can learn more about Earth Hour at https://www.earthhour.org/ and about EPAM at https://www.epam.com/

We can all take decisive action to protect the environment: reusing goods instead of sending them to landfills. By passing items on to others, whether through family, businesses, or community efforts, we avoid the need for new resources and reduce carbon emissions. May Al-Karooni, shares her story about founding Globechain.com, the largest dedicated reuse marketplace in the world, with just £800 (about $1,000). She aims to build a platform that enables worldwide reuse of excess inventory and lightly used goods. Globechain.com facilitates connections between corporations, charities, and individuals to repurpose a wide range of items. It prevents usable goods from contributing to landfill waste and supports non-profits and individuals by offering access to free items.May explains how over 10,000 member organizations participate, and the unique economics that make like-new items free to those who can use them. Companies pay to list what they give away, receiving environmental reporting and sustainability credits for ESG reporting. If you've thought about starting your own reuse company, May's journey provides a blueprint you'll want to consult. You can learn more about Globechain at https://globechain.com

The built environment will evolve constantly, and NextCity.org reports that 75% of the infrastructure that will be in use by 2050 has not yet been built. That calls for a lot of concrete, and we need to avoid the emissions associated with that growth if we are to provide housing, workplaces, and everything that connects humanity on an equitable basis in a decarbonized world. Meet Alex Hall, CEO of Concrete.ai, which uses an artificial intelligence-based mixing platform to create affordable, lower-carbon concrete for any job based on the application and available materials. Concrete.ai claims its mixing solution reduces carbon emissions by an average of 30% compared to traditional concrete, and its goal is to eliminate a half-billion tons of concrete-related emissions annually. Concrete, as we have discussed several times on the show, is one of the biggest sources of CO2 emissions in the world, accounting for between six percent and eight percent of annual carbon emissions. In the United States, we use 415 million cubic yards of concrete each year — that translates into about as much concrete as is in Hoover Dam being poured every 3 and 3/4 days. Concrete.ai’s technology, which is called Concrete Copilot, is an interesting solution because it can be applied to many different combinations of materials. That is especially useful in locations where supplies are in short supply and therefore expensive. You can learn more about Concrete.ai at https://concrete.ai

Meet Electra Coutsoftides, CEO of Xworks, who is building a business network to catalyze recycling progress. Xworks designed its platform to enhance waste handling and trading by accredited waste professionals. The U.K.-based company provides digital compliance reporting capabilities, making it easier for businesses and recycling programs to meet regulatory requirements. Members are verified before joining to ensure user trustworthiness, a keystone in any successful network. That confidence that trades are legitimate is essential to promoting a more efficient and reliable environment for trading and collaboration. In the past, these business conversations have taken place at industry conferences rather than in real time. A digital network can accelerate the industry’s progress. Suppose we can streamline connections, save time, reduce costs, and improve the integrity of transactions within the waste and recycling industry. In that case, we can make it more profitable to clean up our mess. You can learn more about Xworks at https://xworkstech.com

Kathy Hannun, president and cofounder of Dandelion Energy, introduces an untapped heating and cooling capacity source for homes -- geothermal energy. Typically associated with high temperatures and geologically active areas such as hot springs or locations at the intersections of tectonic plates, geothermal heat pumps tap into the consistent year-round temperature of Earth’s outer crust to maintain a comfortable home environment. Dandelion emerged from Google X Lab and is transforming the heating and cooling choices available to New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts homeowners.The Dandelion Energy system includes a heat pump inside the home and buried pipe systems, called ground loops, that transfer heat to or from the building. Geothermal technology is more efficient, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly than traditional furnaces, offering lower operating costs and reduced environmental impact. Kathy shares how the company started and its partnerships with utilities in the Northeast that are embracing geothermal to preserve their business and cut the peak energy demands that tax the power grid and increase emissions during high-demand events like cold snaps and heatwaves. You can learn more about Dandelion Energy at https://dandelionenergy.com/

Clothing and textile recycling has historically been scarcely available to consumers. It has yet to be successful, with clothing piling up in warehouses or being sent overseas instead of becoming a new generation of apparel. Stacy Flynn, CEO and co-founder of Evrnu, a textile innovations B Corporation, works to reduce the fashion industry's environmental impact with a circular, recycled cotton fiber called Nucycl. In this crucial conversation, Stacy discusses how we can encourage companies to stop making products while washing their hands of the environmental consequences of the take-make-waste approach to business. Fast fashion has inspired youth to wear clothing just a few times, but clothing can last and become an integral part of one's identity, not just when it's new. Making clothing last and recognizing and celebrating a fashion brand's durable clothing is one way to help create a movement for sustainable clothing and textiles for the home and office.Evrnu made a significant mark in the sustainable fashion industry with a technology that recycles cotton garment waste to create premium, renewable fibers. This process gives a new life to discarded textiles. It reduces the need for virgin resources, reducing waste and pollution. Nucycl is a biodegradable material made from cotton that can be engineered for various uses, from intimate apparel to waterproof outdoor gear. Evrnu is pioneering innovative solutions that are both environmentally responsible and economically viable. With the growing demand for sustainability in the fashion industry, EVRNU's goal of making all textiles recyclable by 2030 and achieving a net-neutral fashion industry by 2050 are bold targets we wanted to explore. You can learn more about EVRNU at https://www.evrnu.com/

Chance Cutrano is director of programs at the Resource Renewal Institute in Fairfax, California. He and his team are experimenting with blending two activities, rice and fish farming, to reduce the emissions from rice fields while creating additional income for farmers. It's a practice recovered from antiquity that led to the launch of the Fish in the Fields program, which lowers carbon equivalent emissions created by rice farming by as much as 66% while improving biodiversity. Fish in the Fields recently won the 2023 JMK Innovation Prize from the JM Kaplan Institute. Nature does an amazing trick: it uses everything. Wherever there is an untapped source of energy, nature facilitates the differentiation of species to evolve a creature, large or small, that will consume that energy. Human industry went the other way, dumping every leftover item of waste instead of finding a way to use it — the consequence is a society that cannot live within the planet's ability to provide enough resources each year. Farming is an excellent testing ground for integrating previously disconnected industries. For example, last year, we talked with Lundberg Family Farms's Bryce Lundberg, who embraced a regenerative approach to growing rice that supports migratory birds during winter when fields are flooded.Farming, which can be closely tied to nature when it breaks with industrial thinking, is a natural incubator of complex systems that minimize or reduce waste while contributing to the restoration of biodiversity. It might be the place where businesses will learn regenerative practices. The transition to a green, carbon, and resource-neutral economy will see many companies, communities, and nations begin to tear down the arbitrary silos in which they operate today to create circular flows of materials and energy at levels of efficiency we cannot dream of from the confines of the take-make-waste worldview.You can learn more about the Resource Renewal Institute at https://www.rri.org/fish-in-the-fields

As we enter 2024, closing the books on 2023's record heat, economic and geopolitical turmoil, and a raft of climate change stories in the mainstream press, we're fortunate to have Project Censored's Andy Lee Roth return to the show to discuss the most under-reported environmental stories of the last year. Andy last visited with us to discuss 2022's under-reported stories. Tune in for a wide-ranging conversation about the hidden environmental stories reported on independent news sites like The Guardian, High Country News, and other news sources tracked by Project Censored.The mainstream press has responded to rising public concern about climate change with more practical information — they've assigned sustainability as a beat and hired columnists to deliver action-oriented articles. But at the same time, they do not do the enterprise reporting required to uncover significant environmental abuses by companies and governments. We're getting more attention to the climate crisis but not enough digging into its continuing sources, from misleading research funded by private companies to the lack of oversight of new products and chemicals, like per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances. The news is what we make it, and in this era of transactional politics, too often, it is what we are willing to pay for. Now more than ever, an independent press is necessary. You can learn more about Project Censored's 2023 under-reported environmental stories at https://projectcensored.org

Despite its other environmental impacts, including toxic waste that requires centuries or millennia of storage in facilities designed to protect future generations from the genetic and acute effects of radiation, nuclear power is considered by some influential environmentalists an essential component of the post-fossil fuel economy. For example, James Hansen, the NASA scientist who raised the alarm about global warming in Congressional testimony in 1987, advocates expanded nuclear energy generation. Meet Jay Yu, founder, executive chairman, and president of Nano Nuclear Energy Inc., and James Walker, CEO of the company. Nano Nuclear develops smaller, portable nuclear microreactors that can be moved to where electricity is needed on a truck. These microreactors can generate between 1 and 20 megawatts of energy, enough electricity to power as few as 400 homes or up to 20,000 homes, depending on their needs — and that's plenty for many large manufacturing companies to use in a crisis when other sources of power are down. Nano Nuclear is working on two designs, the Zeus and Odin reactors, for different uses. Jay and James offer arguments for considering the role of microreactors in various settings we've discussed on the show. Ocean freight shipping, for example, accounts for 2% of humanity's annual carbon emissions, and a microreactor is about the same size as a diesel engine, so it could easily replace today's engine. Bringing inexpensive electricity to low-income countries could provide power to run water desalination plants and air conditioners as the planet warms and create economic opportunities that have never developed in the fossil fuel era. When you introduce new energy platforms, there is a chance to reorganize society for greater fairness. But there is still the question of what to do with spent nuclear fuel. The United States shut down its Yucca Mountain storage project, the country's only deep geological long-term storage facility, for many reasons, including the well-justified protest by the indigenous communities that live near the site. You can learn more about Nano Nuclear Energy at https://nanonuclearenergy.com/

2023 was a challenging year for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing, even though more capital continues to flow into ESG-reporting companies. In 2024, as inflation cools, consumers are expected to continue migrating to sustainable products and services, fueling higher returns for ESG-aligned stocks. Explore the first steps you can take to begin with Ben Vivari, cofounder of Till Investors, which helps investors evaluate and invest in green and socially responsible funds. Ben contributed an article to Earth911, published today, How to Invest for a Healthy Planet, a valuable introduction to ESG investing that looks at how you, the individual investor, think about risk. He identified three "fighting" styles, Avoiding, Rewarding, and Engaging companies based on their ESG disclosures.Ben shares the news and research sources ESG investors should know and use when making decisions. Your choices as an investor to choose responsibility for the future in addition to profits make a difference — learn about your potential power and exercise it. Till Investors has also published a guide for new ESG investors, Sustainable Investing: An "ESG" Starter Kit for Everyday Investors, available on Amazon. You can learn more about Till Investors at tillinvestors.com

How do you kickstart an industry? The $100 million XPrize for Carbon Removal recently announced its 15 winners in the first competition stage to achieve gigaton-scale carbon removal. With more than 1300 entrants in the XPrize process, the carbon removal prize may be the largest experiment in innovation in human history. The goal is to lower the cost of carbon removal to well below $100 per ton and ultimately to store atmospheric CO2 for centuries to halt and eventually reverse climate change. The XPrize Carbon Removal competition's Executive Director, Nikki Batchelor, and Mike Leitch, the project's technical leader, join the conversation to discuss the 15 milestone winners who earned $1 million each. When the final awards are announced in 2025, the winner will receive a $50-million prize, and the runners-up will split $30 million. Both for-profit and university teams were among this year's winners, and they represent a variety of natural and technical approaches to capturing CO2 from the air and sequestering CO2 in the ocean, farmland, and rock formations. Natural approaches, such as enhanced rock weathering, biomass processing, or supplementing agricultural land with biochar, are many people's preferred carbon drawdown options. However, we need to place many bets to create diverse solutions if the industry is to grow. Technical solutions, including direct air capture and various ocean-based approaches, must be explored and readied to help keep the planet from warming more than 2C. At this point, genuinely catastrophic climate impacts will be inescapable. Given the pace, or more accurately, the lack of progress in reducing emissions, society needs to experiment safely and deliberatively with various carbon removal pathways. Explore some of these strategies to understand how the nascent carbon removal industry is taking shape.

Nutritional supplements, which the Centers for Disease Control report that 57.6% of adults consume, have significant environmental impacts. One family of supplements, Omega-3 oils, the healthy fats about 20 million Americans take each month to support brain and circulatory health, is responsible for the decline of krill in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica and overfishing of pelagic fish, such as anchovies and sardines, along the coast of Africa. Meet Corinna Bellizzi, Head of Sales and Marketing at Orlo Nutrition, an Icelandic nutritional supplement company growing algae to produce Omega-3 and related supplements. They remove the need to harvest krill or pelagic fish, which eat algae to produce Omega-3 oil coveted by fishermen. We recently spoke with Philippe and Ashlan Cousteau about how Omega-3 oil production relies on harvesting krill. These tiny crustaceans capture and sequester massive amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere. Their lifecycle is responsible for as much or more carbon sequestration as the Amazon rainforest. Orlo’s production facilities are colocated with a geothermal plant in Iceland, allowing the company to use renewable energy and CO2 captured from the sky to feed its algae. The result is a methylated form of vitamin B12 that contains the same amino acids as beef that removes about 1.1 Algae growth in labs and ponds could be the basis for a food and nutrition revolution, as well as replacing fossil fuel-based plastics with biodegradable alternatives, as we learned from Algenesis earlier this year. You can learn more about Orlo Nutrition at https://orlonutrition.com/

Fashion makes us feel elegant and affluent, creating unique looks that allow people living in crowded societies to set themselves apart with unique styles. But fashion also comes at a substantial environmental cost. According to many estimates, 10% of the world's carbon emissions and 20% of wastewater are generated by making, shipping, and selling clothing, much of which ends up in landfills long before the clothing's usefulness is exhausted. Meet Kurt Kipka, Chief Impact Officer at the Apparel Impact Institute. This nonprofit is working to reduce the apparel industry's negative environmental and social consequences. The Apparel Impact Institute created a methodology called Clean by Design that helps textiles and clothing manufacturers identify issues, get funding to trial new strategies, and propagate solutions across the industry. The organization emphasizes the importance of objectively measurable progress toward using less energy, water, and chemicals and reducing waste in the manufacturing process. The American Chemical Society, funded by the plastic industry responsible for the rise of the materials that enable fast fashion, claims the volume of fashion production will grow by 300% before 2050, which is unsustainable. Our society might be buried in its clothing waste. Kurt outlines the path to a more sustainable fashion industry, including using natural and recycled fiber, decarbonizing production, and shorter supply chains built around local clothing hubs that sell, resell, repair, and recycle clothing. Today's fast fashion item that costs $10 and is worn three times before being discarded could become a durable piece of clothing that is sold, resold, loaned, and traded in many times, with the fashion label earning revenue at each turn as the facilitator of the experience of shopping for quality, long-lasting clothing. You can learn more about the Apparel Impact Institute at https://apparelimpact.org/

Drinking water is at risk of becoming scarce in the face of climate change. More than 50% of the nation has experienced drought since 2000. Rich “Raz” Razgaitis, CEO of Bluewater North America, a water purification company, joins the conversation to discuss the rising incidence in the water of per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances, or PFAS, the forever chemicals used in everything from the lining of fast food containers and firefighting foams to cosmetics and waterproof clothing. A recent United States Geological Survey study found that as much as 45% of U.S. tap water is contaminated with PFAS. Rich last joined us in early 2022, before the company he co-founded, FloWater, was acquired by Bluewater.Water filtering, use, and reuse will become a more prominent feature of daily life in the coming years. The USGS study, however, is a wake-up call about chemical contamination. It found at least one type of PFAS in almost half of 716 samples taken from taps around the nation from public and private water sources. The Eastern seaboard and Midwest have the most contaminated water systems. And several cities in the West with heavy industry and military bases also have PFAS-contaminated water. You can learn more about Bluewater North America at https://www.bluewatergroup.com/us

The volume of electronic waste doubles about every six years as technology plays a more significant role in daily life. In 2019, the United Nations estimated that only 17.4% of electronics were recycled. The United States recycled only 9.4% of its e-waste that year. But in Europe, the recycling rate was 42.5% in 2019. There are many ways to improve, and one is the growing market for refurbished technology. Meet James Murdock, founder and chief marketing officer of Alchemy Global Solutions, a trade-in, refurbishing, and remarketing services provider for technology and telecommunications companies. Alchemy also sells refurbished phones, tablets, and laptops at Loop-mobile.com.The constant upgrade cycle for phones, tablets, and laptops keeps people on a wasteful and expensive spending treadmill. According to Statista, the average phone user keeps their phone for about two-and-a-half years, even though manufacturers claim that they make their products to last between six and eight years. Trade-in programs have become a familiar part of our digital life. Like the auto market, where used cars account for 74% of sales annually, a used phone is now considered a smart, sustainable choice. Alchemy, based in Britain, offers services in the U.K., Ireland, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, South Asia, and the United States. The company has refurbished and sold 4.6 million devices since its founding to create a circular market for technology. You can learn more about Alchemy at https://www.alchemyglobalsolutions.com/