Who's Saving the Planet?

Put your money where your mouth is, perhaps more effect would be to put your moneys where your values are. Carbon Collective is an investment platform that identifies companies dedicated to creating the technology, infrastructure, commerce and business necessary for a sustainable future, and they put your money to work supporting those companies. The value proposition is simple: if you think that not destroying the earth is good business, then investing in the businesses doing the most to save the planet while divesting from the companies actively destroying it is a great long term investment strategy. This week Zach Stein, CEO and Co-Founder of Carbon Collective joins us to talk about how his company is using simple metrics to unlock an investment strategy appropriate for anyone keen on the survival of civilization and the environment. We discuss the path to creating carbon collective, how their model differs from the status quo, and what makes for a winning investment strategy. Or, at least one that won't kill us along the way.  Note: Nothing in this podcast (and certainly nothing from me) should be taken as financial advice. 

We often discuss saving the planet in terms of technological breakthroughs, political movements or individual choices. This week we examine a more fundamental element necessary for our survival: empathy. Jordana Guimaraes is many things. She is an author, an entrepreneur, a global ambassador for fashion, and a champion of human rights. She joins us to peel back the curtain on how her journey unfolded, the challenges she had to overcome both personally and professionally to realize her vision. The through line for all of her works has been a deeply held compassion for her fellow humans, expressed in many forms but always a driving force in her life story. Jordana is the co-founder of Fashinnovation, a global platform at the frontier of technology and sustainability in the fashion industry. After a career in PR she built fashinnovation to highlight the changing landscape of one of the world's largest and important industries. Along the way she also authored a book, It Could Be You, an exploration of homelessness, that is a vehicle for philanthropy. 

They say culture eats strategy for breakfast, and if that's true it's unlikely Raven Hernandez, CEO and founder of Earthrides, will be hungry any time soon. She's an attorney, entrepreneur, and visionary rebuilding the relationship between ride sharing companies and the people who actually drive the cars.  Earthrides offers a fully electric fleet of cars, largely owned by the company themselves, with employees rather than just contract workers. She's taken the proven model for ride sharing but infused it with a deeply felt conviction of honesty, integrity and purpose. In the episode we get into the company, how and why she founded it, and how her lived experiences are informing the culture of Earthrides, which sets it apart from the competition. 

Who gets a voice when it comes to the environment? After all, we all have to live on this little blue dot together. Everyone, regardless of identity, has a right to define humanity’s relationship with the environment. However, environmentalism has a long and unfortunate track record of exclusion towards BIPOC and other marginalized groups. If we truly want to save the planet, we need to work towards a future that is just and equitable for all. Who’s Saving the Planet is celebrating Earth Day this year by collaborating with Isaias Hernandez, (@queerbrownvegan), Sally Garcia (@callmeflowerchild), and Reza Cristian from Sustain the Mag to discuss how sustainability and social justice intersect! Isaias Hernandez is an environmental justice activist and influencer, and he is the creator behind Queer Brown Vegan, an educational platform and safe space for other like-minded individuals to learn terminology in the environmental movement. Sally Garcia is a BIPOC environmental activist and influencer who is working to make America’s National Parks more safe and equitable for all. Reza Cristián is the founder and editor-in-chief of SUSTAIN THE MAG, an online media platform where eco-conscious warriors cultivate a healthy, planet-friendly lifestyle. Sustain disrupts complacency and refuses the old habits of our over-consuming, throw-away society. Listen, share with friends, and get out there to keep saving the planet!

Imagine if you could wave your phone across a hoodie and instantly get information about where the cotton was sourced, how much the workers were paid, what the carbon impact of your purchase would be, specific to that individual product and delivered straight to your palm.  That's the world EON is building, and it's going to be here sooner than you think.  Natasha Franck, CEO and founder of EON Group, is pioneering technology that uses Near Field Communication to deliver information directly to the consumers about the products their buying and unlock a treasure chest of insights in how consumers interact with their stuff. They are powering the technology that can accelerate circular business models, resale channels, authentication, and, the ability to build integrity into fashion industry.  Recently EON announced a $10 million series A round, providing the fuel to carry Natasha's vision into the future. But, for the better part of a decade, she had just the vision to keep her going, well before the dollar showed up. Tune in to hear about the transformative potential of the technology, the impact it could have on sustainable manufacturing, and the people who made it happen.  

Imagine a substance which is as durable, malleable, and practical as plastic, except it's produced through extracting methane from the atmosphere, making it carbon negative, and is fully biodegradable by microorganisms, the same "as a leaf or a twig." No need to imagine it, just hop into a Target and you'll find Aircarbon cutlery on the shelves.  It's been a nearly two decade journey for CEO Mark Herrema, starting in a converted garage and landing, for the moment, behind the counter of Shake Shack. That's where you'll find Newlight's cutlery, made from their flagship product Aircarbon.  In this episode we dig into the transformative potential of their technology, the moment of epiphany which lead to its creation, and the journey from an idea to a decades long struggle against doubt and biology. Today Newlight is an ascendent technology company with over $100 million in venture funding, but that's hardly how the story begins. Join us for this episode as Mark recounts their early beginnings, the fortitude to see it through and leaves us with a vision for a more sustainable future. 

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! 

Nate Storey, the Chief Science Officer of Plenty, has a vision for the next evolution of agriculture, and it has nothing to do with a farm. At least not the kind humans have cultivated, so far.  Plenty is a unicorn a few times over, having raised over half a billion dollars to recreate our conception of how our food is produced. They have created a means of farming indoors, using hydroponics and carefully crafted lighting, to maximize the crop yield while minimizing the resources needed to produce staples of the modern cuisine, including fruits and vegetables we need for a balanced diet. The bet Nate, and his team, are making, is that when we run out of room, in order to survive here on earth, we'll need to go up. However, with every technological innovation, especially in the world of agriculture, costs are often unforeseen but never avoided. Pesticides increase yields but destroy ecosystems, the plow explodes the productivity of the farm but at what cost to the soil health? Nate discusses how he views Plenty's role in evolving our relationship with food, what we can learn from the past and how it will help inform the decisions we make today which will impact the future to come. We all need to eat lunch, and that lunch is never free.  This episode was edited and mixed by David Weitzenhoffer. The Watermelon was entirely his idea, and he has my full support. 

Within our lifetimes, actually within this decade according to our guest today, your grocery store will have three options for a burger: traditional (a la once living cow), plant based, and cultivated meat.  If you're new to cultivated meat yet, you're not alone. But soon, you will, and Leonardo DiCaprio is going to make sure of that.  Our Guest today is Dr. Neta Lavon, the VP of Research and Development (VP of R&D, great ring to it) for Aleph Farms, one of the largest and fastest growing cultivated meat companies on earth (and soon, in space, too). In the summer of 2021 they closed a $100 million fundraising round to bring their cultivated meat products into commercial production, and secured the backing of a very vocal climate advocate, the one and only Leo.  Cultivated meat is cellularly identical to meat harvested from once living cows. The cells are grown in a controlled setting and grafted to an organic skeleton, which provides the structure so the product resembles what we've come to expect from a traditional steak. All, with no cow on the premises. Meat production today accounts for 60% of the GHG of overall food production, and beef is the worst offender of the lot. That's before considering the clear cutting of forests, water use, pesticides and fertilizers grown for feed, and downstream effect of the waste. Aleph's technology promises a future where we are able to enjoy the luxury of beef, without the cost to the environment. 

Over one hundred million tons of fabric is produced for the textile industry ever year. The scale of that production is hard to comprehend, but for comparison, the Empire States Building weighs about 365,000 tons, so we make about 274 empire states buildings worth of textiles each and every year.  Circ is here to answer the question: what are we going to do with all the clothes made from that mountain of textiles once we're finished with them? The traditional alternatives have been to trash clothes we no long use, accounting for 17 million tons of textiles added to landfills in the US alone.  Recycling has long been a better alternative, but the process of untangling fibers so they can be reused was prohibitively expensive and technically bedeviling. Enter stage left, Circ.  Without getting into the details (which Peter does with elegance in our conversation) Circ has created a means of taking clothes made from multiple types of fibers and breaking them down into component parts so those fibers can be reused again. They've already attracted serious interest from investors and international brands who see the clear need for their technology, both from an environmental and business perspective.  Join us as we talk with Peter Majeranowski, CEO and founder of Circ, about the problem they're tackling, the potential impact the solution could have on the fashion industry and the environment writ large, as well as his journey from Navy officer entrepreneur.