Who's Saving the Planet?

As e-commerce has swallowed consumerism, we take for granted the speed and ubiquity of shopping online. Get anything ever in a day at most, feels like magic. But, all of those products have a story to tell in the journey they made from factory, to warehouse, to shipping depot, to transport, and finally the last miles to your door. Along that journey, the lowly, but none the less crucial, Yard Dog plays a pivotal role. And boy, is he dirty.  The Yard Dog or Terminal Tractor is a short-haul truck designed to move industrial grade shipping containers from one place to another. It's a workhorse of a beast, lifting and angling giant metal boxes from truck to loading dock and back, but most of the time it just sits idling, burning fuel, emitting GHG, and slowly wearing down. Kurt and his team at Orange EV saw an opportunity in the unsung and largely unseen terminal tractor to create an electric substitute that could operate on a fraction of the energy cost, last longer, and outperform his gas-guzzling cousins. They built the company on the premise that they could build a profitable enterprise, support the industry in which they were working, all while contributing to the fight to electrify the global supply chain. Since launching they've grown into a tremendous success story, operating a national network of fleets and service facilities. As with most success stories, it was a hard fought road, requiring determination, sacrifice and at times blind optimism. Kurt shares with us his evolution from the Ford Motor company, to a failed entrepreneur before he found success with Orange EV. 

This week Karin Dillie, VP of Partnerships for Recurate, joins us to talk about how they're building the technology for independent brands to resell their products on their own platforms. Love Frye boots? Now you can shop their site and decide whether you want a crisp new pair or one that's been pre-loved, for a fraction of the cost, all on the same trusted Frye website.  The resale market has exploded from independent thrift shops to billion dollar public companies in the past decade, fueled by a desire to escape the model of constant consumption and planned obsolescence. Consumers at the point of purchase can also see the estimated resale value of their products, potentially enticing them to shop for higher quality, longer lasting items knowing there's a better than decent shot they'll be able to recoup the value of that product down the road  Recurate offers an option for brands to keep the resale in house, offering products that have provenance- a known history of when it was first sold and the ability to authenticate it as a genuine article. Karin knows a thing or three about provenance from her time working at Southeby's, and a heck of a bunch about the resale econonomy from four years at the RealReal. Tune in to get her perspective on how the technology is advancing today and her vision about what's next for second hand markets. 

What if superior clothing retained re-sale value enough to justify a reach purchase, knowing you'd be able to recoup a hefty sum when you were ready to move on? We think that way about cars, why not suits? Why not indeed. Vanessa, CEO and founder of Another Tomorrow joins us to discuss how we can shift our thinking about clothes from a disposable commodity to a durable asset class.  Another Tomorrow is built on the premise that the best products are crafted with care, intention and integrity. Their garments are sourced back to the farm, with providence clearly - and proudly- delineated through their store. In order to reveal this inherent value to the customer they've embedded trackable QR codes into select garments affording consumers the ability to look beyond the physical product into the story about who made it, how the fibers were sourced and what that means for understanding the overall environmental impact of their purchase.   That QR code serves another purpose: it tags the garment as authentic, so at re-sale the buyer knows that their purchase is the real deal. This isn't a new concept- auction houses have long dealt in the nebulous arena of provenance with everything from first growth vintage wine to antique furniture. Vanessa and her team at Another Tomorrow have applied this philosophy to clothes, because we should care about the things we buy, where they came from, what they stand for, and how our decisions in purchasing them will impact the future. Nothing is too small; saving the planet can start with socks, it all counts. 

Imagine if you could actually see sustainability in manufacturing manifested, immediately and obviously. That's exactly what the team at Circular Economy Manufacturing have done with their creation and launch of the world's first Micro-Factory. The concept is simple: show people what it looks like to build closed loops into manufacturing using a living demonstration. The visionary behind the project is Barent Roth, a professor, engineer, designer, and sustainability advocate since well before it was hip to be green. Barent has worked in and out of the classroom to bring to life the principles that guide his teachings, culminating most recently with the erection of the Micro Factory.  The Micro-Factory itself is devilishly simple- you (the student, consumer, human, all of the above) watch as reclaimed plastic bottles are fed into a shredder, broken into pieces small enough to be heated via solar energy into a material that can be molded right before your eyes into something useful. It's self contained, runs on renewable energy, requires no transportation of materials, and is delightfully clever to behold.  Step into the world of sustainable design as Barent walks us through his methodology, philosophy, and infectious delight with all things sustainable. 

This week we return to the world of furniture with Kristin Smith, COO, President, and even an early investor, of Fernish. The EPA estimates that  12.2 million tons of furniture ends up in a landfill every year, a product of our disposable relationship with the furniture we buy and eventually, throw away. Furnish is one of a new crop of companies seeking to break that model through offering rental options that allow their customers to return the furniture when they're done, breaking the cycle of planned disposal.  Tune in to hear how Furnish baked sustainable principles into their production and fabrication processes, how Kristin sees the world of consumer behavior evolving, and learn about her personal journey to becoming COO. 

Paul Shapiro spent is career working to improve the wellbeing of animals through legislation, activism, awareness campaigns, and civic engagement during his 13 year tenure with the Human Society. The desire to affect positive change led him to write a book on the topic of improving our relationship with the way we cultivate, treat, and consume animals. After publishing his book he was left with a choice: talk about the problem, or get his hands dirty fixing it. In this episode we talk with Paul about the Better Meat Co, a meat-enhancement company he co-founded which uses mycelium based additives to offset a portion of the meat required from animals while improving the overall taste, health benefits and environmental impact of the product. So, your chicken nuggets may actually be 40% mushrooms, and that make them all the more delightful. 

Zach Lawless is one of the few people I've met who's gets just as worked up about all the ways recycling isn't all it's made out to be as Jess Miles does. And that's saying something.  Zach founded the GoodGoods to step in where recycling falls short, creating a closed loop process of reusing products instead of the energy intensive, largely wasteful, and often downright duplicitous promise of recycling. They work with local wine shops to collect empty bottles from customers, wash them, then reuse them. Simple, but also wildly complicated... tune in to get in the weeds.  Before it was the GoodGoods, Zach started another company focused on delivering fresh meals to people in reusable containers. That model was largely focused on office spaces, and when the pandemic hit they had to pivot the business pretty much over night. Zach pull back the curtain on what that it's like being a CEO in times of stress and transition, why he believes sustainability is a good business and what it takes to take the leap of entrepreneurship. 

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!

After six years working at Amazon, Sydney Badger had bigger dreams than maximizing efficiency. But, she also had a black-belt in maximizing efficiency. Public Habit is the marriage of expert supply chain optimization and, that most human of things, soul.  Public Habit is a made-to-order clothing company specializing in high end wool and cashmere products. Fashion, as we know it, is built on a model of planned obsolescence: items either go out of style or break down, forcing the customer to continuously refresh their wardrobe and further perpetuating the wasteful machine of commerce. Sydney seeks to flip that model on its head by only making clothes after the consumer has ordered them, reducing returns, virtually eliminating overstocked inventory, and allowing for optimization of material use and supply chain dynamics by shipping directly from factory to consumer.  Sustainability is a many faceted concept, and as of yet, perfection is still an ambition rather than a crossable rubicon. Sydney sources her materials from high-quality farms in Mongolia and other Asian sources, and manufactures the garments in China. The shipping is by far the most costly (in environmental terms) aspect of the business. But she believes that if we can slightly change consumer preferences, scale up the business model, and reach a threshold of demand, than the processes of manufacturing which are currently only available in China can be re-created in domestically, cutting down on the travel time while keeping all the efficiency.  We're all in the process of progress together, and as someone famous once said (my money's still on Voltaire but the debate continuous), we can't let better the be enemy of good. Public Habit is showing the fashion industry how to create supply chains that reduce waste to the benefit of the collective good while itself always striving to do better, and in our book, that's damn fine work. 

The answer, at its most maximalist expression, a significant reduction in the 30% of greenhouse gasses released through the production of heavy industry. The people making that hypothesis a reality? Meet Sean and G, founders of Solugen. The chemical industry is a multi-billion dollar dynamo that most consumers rarely, if ever, confront in their day to day lives. We don't spend much time digging into how our treatment plants work, what goes into the manufacturing of plastic, or any of the other countless industrial processes which use chemicals. However, the chemicals used to facilitate the production of the stuff we buy, use, and experience every day, are a massive contributor to our global greenhouse gas emissions and use of petro-chemicals in manufacturing.  Solugen has developed a means of using an enzymatic reaction to create cost-competitive chemical substitutes from corn syrup instead of synthetics. They've built something less expensive, safer, and better for the planet. No surprise they're hurtling their way to unicorn status- by the time you're reading this they'll likely have announced the close of their series C round vaulting them to past the billion-dollar valuation into the unicorn stratosphere.  In this episode we talk about the business, how it is and will continue to infuse sustainable practices into a notoriously intransigent business segment, and also the journey they went on from sleeping on warehouse floors to maximizing the time value of their terrestrial existence. For those brands out there considering a better, more sustainable alternative, reach out at info @ solugentech dot com.  And for those wondering, that picture on the show cover, that's their original sketch of how this good work. If you were wondering what a billion dollar cocktail looked like, now you know.