Who's Saving the Planet?

Yes, that's a photography pun. I'm a dad, the jokes come with the gig.  KT Merry is an internationally recognized high-end destination photographer who moonlights as a conservationist, traveling the world capturing images of endangered and at risk animals to generate revenue for the organizations seeking to keep those animals this side of extinct. Render Loyalty is her side-hustle and soul-salve, using the talents she's acquired professionally to explore and develop the passion she has for the environment. She's proving every day that when we do whatever we can, big or small, it matters, and our lives are made richer for it. 

Extracting metals from the earth is, by nature, not a sustainable practice. We have a finite amount of resources, after all. However, that doesn't mean that all methods of mining are created equal. Anna Bario, one half of the Bario Neal team, joins us this week to discuss how her company created a whole new vocabulary to define sustainability in the jewelry industry. From working with Artisanal Small-Scale Minors (ASM), developing a standardized code of conduct with her suppliers, using re-furbished or reclaimed metals and gems when possible, and educating her customer base about what sustainable practices they should be aware of and seek out, Bario Neal is establishing a new paradigm for wholistic, conscious and sustainable jewelry. And, because Jess Miles is invovled, you know there has to be a book list. Some of the titles discussed here: The Ends of the World, by Peter Brannen The Sixth Extinction, by Elizabeth Kolbert This Changes Everything by Naomi Kline

A net positive product is a new concept: a thing which by virtue of it having been made, has improved the outlook for earth and the humans who live on her. Simple in conception, but wildly difficult in execution. Humanscale, a company which makes office furniture, dedicated itself to becoming more than a company which makes office furniture a long time ago. Today, they have lapped the industry a dozen times over, with an unprecedented 26 products certified as Net Positive. Jane Abernethy, the Chief Sustainability Officer, joins us to pull back the curtain on how they achieved this laudable milestone, and why when sustainability is part of your company's root DNA it can elicit a cascade of positive effects for the team morale, creativity, and the bottom line.

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. 

Microsoft says it's going carbon negative. You just bought an offset for a flight you're taking (congrats, welcome back). Credit cards have carbon-neutral lifestyle plans in the works. All sounds great, but what does it really mean? And will these offsets actually reduce the amount of carbon they promise?  This week we speak with Margaret Kim, CEO of GoldStandard.org. Goldstardard is one of the organizations that certifies the carbon offset you just bought is actually going to go to work sequestering, avoiding or otherwise reducing the carbon you paid for. We go down the rabbit hole in to the murky realm of what a carbon credit can entail, how it's changed over the past two decades, and why you shouldn't always be so sure your money is going where you think it is. 

Generally when Mark Cuban makes you an offer, it's a good idea to take the deal and run. Lindsey McCormick had a different idea. Lindsey is the CEO and co-founder of Bite, the tablet toothpaste company which charged into the oral hygiene scene in 2018 and hasn't looked back since. Only a few months into what was then a project, Bite struck internet gold, going viral with a youtube video that collected over 2 million views with in a few hours of launching. Within weeks Bite had orders worth hundreds of thousands, which, as Lindsey puts it, felt like the baby bird she had been nurturing just grew into a pterodactyl, that was trying to rip her face off. But in a good way.  We're featuring Lindsey not just for her incredible story and absolutely winning personality, both which are fascinating, but because of the innovations she's popularized in plastic reduction and more thoughtful chemical use. Through this journey Lindsey has been able to retain 100% ownership over the company with her partner and co-founder, allowing them the freedom to make choices according to their ethics and morals. That creative latitude allowed them to focus on making the most sustainable, environmentally conscious and human friendly product possible.  Often young companies with immediate and immense success are pressured into chasing growth or padding the bottom line by outside investors looking to recoup their investments. Much to Mark Cuban's chagrin, we assume, though it's been a while since he's had us over to the owners box for cocktails so, hard to say, Linsdey and Bite took a different route. We're thrilled to have her on the podcast and excited to see what this young company evolves into next. Uber-pterodactyl? Who knows, but we're on board for the ride. 

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.