Earth911.com's Sustainability In Your Ear

Anna Yona, cofounder with her husband of Engelskirchen, Germany-based Wildling Shoes talks with Earth911's Mitch Ratcliffe about making shoes that are easier on the planet. They make a wide range of shoes for women, men and kids, practicing sustainable design and manufacturing using a minimalist design philosophy the produces a light, comfortable and durable shoe. These high-cut shoe, which are made with certified organic cotton, hemp, and synthetic and recycled rubber and cork soles, have held up wonderfully over hundreds of miles of walking. A Certified B Corp., Wildling is working to reinvent shoes after starting out as a response to Anna and her husband became frustrated with the shoes available for their children. They work continually to reduce the environmental impact of their shoes, which are hand-made in factories selected for their environmental and labor practices. Many shoemakers are taking important steps toward sustainability, and Wildling is a leader.We recently tested a pair of Panther high-cut shoes from Wildling Shoes and named it a Greener Shopping Difference Maker. On our scale of three degrees of sustainability, Difference Maker is the second level and represents a product that reduces environmental impacts by at least 50% compared to traditional designs. These shoes are better for the planet. In 2020, Wildling’s shoes averaged 0.258 pounds of Scope 1 and 2 emissions per pair. Since Scope 3 emissions typically account for 90% or more of the total carbon emissions associated with a product, we estimated that the total carbon footprint of the average pair of Wildling shoes is about 4.5 pounds per pair. You can learn more about Wildling Shoes at https://us.wildling.shoes/

Dr. Ganesan Visvabharathy, founder of Hawthorne Development Corporation discusses the evolution of the built environment and green building standards necessary to achieve a zero-carbon society. A sustainable built environment is the foundation for lower energy use but will take a generation or more to put in place. Hawthorne recently completed two net-zero projects, the Eco Terra complex, a 348-unit luxury mixed-use apartment complex in Chicago that is the largest green project in the U.S., and MERU, a net-zero carbon and net-zero energy certified elder care facility in Virginia. "Dr. Vish" explains that the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification program can set more aggressive standards to accelerate progress. We talk through the features to look for in a sustainable home or apartment, how construction is changing, and the most impactful changes a homeowner or landlord can make to reduce their environmental impact.Hawthorne has been using green construction ideas since it was founded in 1984. The company has worked to ensure that buyers were able to maintain their homes easily to keep energy efficiency levels high, and uses building practices that help prevent erosion and reduce costs by, for example, using bioswales, rain gardens and native plants instead of concrete stormwater runoff paths at building locations. You can learn more about Hawthorne Development Corporation at https://hawthorneworld.com/ and at https://solarmicronics.co/

How can we finance the myriad startups and small business transitions that will bring the sustainable economy to full flower? Our guest, Dimitry Gershenson, is cofounder and CEO of Enduring Planet, argues that the climate crisis has made the human and business response inevitable. Enduring Planet was launched to non-dilutive financing in the form of unsecured loans, to climate mitigation companies that help reduce emissions, carbon removal startups that capture CO2 from the atmosphere, and firms that provide climate adaptation and resilience services that will be needed in response to climate change. He shares the key trends in the market driving new financing and how his team selects companies based on similar criteria as a venture capital firm without taking stock, providing loans based on the borrowers’ cash flow. Enduring Planet also seeks out diverse and inclusive companies and organizations delivering goods and services in marginalized communities.Dimitry explains why Enduring Planet invested in Compost Colorado and AQUAOSO, an agricultural data company, as examples of recent deals. Interest in investing for sustainability has soared in recent years. Bloomberg reports that in 2021 more than $1.6 trillion of debt financing went to corporate and infrastructure transitions to renewable, low-carbon and low-impact business approaches. That brings the total invested in sustainable paths to more than $4 trillion, or about 4.2% of the value of the world’s economy last year. Tune in to get a sense of the financing activity at the grassroots of the sustainable economy and be introduced to debt financing for sustainability-focused startups. You can learn more about Enduring Planet at https://enduringplanet.com/

Jürgen Pretsch is the founder of SHÄP, a recently launched rental marketplace that focuses on connecting people with items to rent in local communities. SHÄP works to reduce unnecessary purchases and enable sharing without creating a shipping footprint by bringing neighbors together. Reuse and sharing are the best ways to minimize the environmental impact of the products you buy. But connecting with people who want what you have, especially people near you so that it is not necessary to ship something thousands of miles, is difficult. And if you don’t want to sell something because you may use it again, you may want to rent it to earn some extra income. SHÄP is available in Manhattan and will focus this year on urban metropolitan areas where there is a higher likelihood of finding a match for the products people want to rent.Clothing reuse company Thredup and market research firm GlobalData reported in 2021 that the secondhand clothing industry is growing 11 times faster than retail and could be work $84 billion by 2030. That’s just clothing. But the reuse/rental market has been challenging for companies, as previous guests in this business have explained. Bringing the transaction down to the local level, which has worked for tool- and car-sharing startups, for example, can also dramatically reduce shipping emissions while fostering local communities. SHÄP members also deliver the goods they rent to encourage new social connections. That may be a limiting factor for some who don’t want to handle the day-to-day management of their stuff, but it can also forge lasting relationships between members who value SHÄP as a connector. You can learn more about SHÄP at https://www.shap.market/

The flower industry has a heavy environmental footprint but some growers are changing their agricultural and shipping practices. Toine Overgaag, president of family-owned Westerlay Orchids,  grower and seller of live orchids, based in Carpenteria, Calif., joins Mitch Ratcliffe to discuss sustainable agriculture practices in the live plant industry. Westerlay uses natural predators instead of pesticides to deal with pests, energy and water management technologies, and recirculates waste exhaust CO2 to increase photosynthesis of plants.The company distributes more than four million orchids primarily through local and national supermarket chains, including Trader Joe’s, Kroger and Safeway.We talk through the environmental implications of the flower-growing industry and how to improve them. Westerlay uses slow shipping, ensuring trucks are full before moving the flowers to minimize the impact of sending flowers to stores and customers. The company produced CO2eq emissions of about 2.7oz per unit sold and reported 331 tons of emissions from ocean and freight shipping in 2021. That’s about the equivalent of the emissions of 23 average Americans, based on 2020 figures. Toine, whose family is Dutch, joined the MPS, a certification program for The Netherlands flower industry, which has awarded Westerlay an “A”rating each year. You can learn more about Westerlay Orchids at https://westerlay.com/

Are the laws of the United States fitted for sustainability? Our guest today, attorney Maya van Rossum, argues that it is time for a new approach, environmental constitutionalism. She is adjunct professor and director of the Environmental Law Clinic at Temple’s Beasley School of Law and founder of Green Amendments for the Generations, a campaign to add environmental amendments to state and the U.S. constitution. Our evolving insights into the uneven health, economic, racial and social impacts of climate change demand that we rethink our approach to legislation and the Constitution. We need to enable the creation of laws and policies that will make a tangible difference for the marginalized victims of climate change and future generations, not just the voters who are alive today.The second edition of Maya's book, The Green Amendment: the People's Fight to Secure a Clean, Safe & Healthy Environment, will be published by Disruption Books in November. We’ve made it legal to pollute, sometimes after jumping through a few hoops, but legal to pollute almost anywhere in the United States. A green amendment isn’t the silver bullet, but it can be the yeast to activate a vibrant legal and political discussion that, over time, can lead to significant changes. You can learn more about Maya and Green Amendments for the Generations at https://forthegenerations.org/

There is momentum around sustainability in society but millions of companies and billions of people are not engaged with the ideas and taking action. Many simply don’t know where to start. We talk about inspiring change in organizations with Susan Hunt Stevens, cofounder and CEO of WeSpire, which develops tools, services and informational campaigns that help companies improve their sustainability performance, their inclusivity, social impact and employee wellbeing. WeSpire’s technology uses behavioral science to present goals, motivating information and actions that employees can take to contribute to the organization’s sustainability goals. But choosing the practices to emphasize, deciding where to start, and understanding the best way to engage employees, partners, and customers in your mission is the hard work that is just beginning for so many companies.Across the board, these programs are more important than ever as employees, especially younger ones, are looking for purpose and meaning in their work as the pandemic continues to disrupt life. WeSpire’s programs have been used by companies with more than 2 million employees. It’s an opportunity to reset not just environmental goals but also the way your business shares information internally and externally, its role in the community and much more. You can learn more about WeSpire at https://www.wespire.com/

Animals are key to our restoration of the planet, Kate Wall and Mark Hofberg of the International Fund for Animal Welfare explain in a report titled Thriving Together: The Critical Role of Animals in Achieving the SDGs. The world’s progress toward a sustainable society has been charted by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a set of 17 goals that include environmental, social and economic projects deemed necessary to creating a just, equitable world that can live on its current resources instead of borrowing from the future. The SDGs address people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnerships that we need to put in place by 2030, but they do not include animals — they are mentioned once in the 8,600 or so words that document the SDGs.When we take care of animals, we take better care of people. Biodiversity is the basis of the web of life and need to recognize that when you remove even a few nodes from a network it can make the entire system fragile. Unfortunately, we’ve removed hundreds of species from the natural world in which we evolved and the cost is falling on women, animals and all of us through greater exposure to zoonotic diseases that a resilient nature can help prevent. To make your impact, Mark and Kate suggest that listeners follow and support the Leaders Pledge for Nature, an international agreement that the U.S. has not signed, and Congressional action around a national biodiversity strategy and national wildlife corridors. You can learn more about the International Fund for Animal Welfare at https://www.ifaw.org

Computing opens the door to a more efficient economy but the energy required will generate more greenhouse gas emissions. We talk with Kirat Singh, CEO and cofounder of Beacon Platform Inc., a developer of cloud computing infrastructure for Wall Street and financial institutions. Beacon’s system is built in part to reduce the environmental impact of processing large amounts of financial data. As more companies shift their computing from private data centers to the cloud, there is an opportunity to introduce significant efficiencies based not only on how the cloud is powered but also the way computing jobs are managed, the networks used to move data between the cloud and customers, and other factors. Prior to founding Beacon, Kirat launched large data platforms at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan, and Goldman Sachs.Computing is expected to consume up to 20% of all electricity generated by 2030. In the era of high-speed trading, banks use massive amounts of power to crunch data and identify opportunities to profit in the stock market — as much as half of a bank’s carbon footprint is generated by computing. We need to establish information technology design and operational practices that emphasize better environmental outcomes. You can learn more about Beacon Platform Inc. at https://www.beacon.io/

Encouraging regenerative farming practices can start with conscious shopping choices, but there are many challenges ahead. Mattheiu Kohlmeyer, founder of La Tourangelle, a Berkeley, Calif.-based maker of artisanal cooking oils, some of which are produced using regenerative farming techniques, discusses the ins and outs of growing healthy, affordable regenerative foods. La Tourangelle makes a variety of oils, including almond and avocado oil, sunflower, grapeseed and olive oils — it sources nuts and seeds from regenerative farmers in Eastern Europe and California, upcycling nuts when possible to reduce its environmental impact. The company also uses post-consumer recycled materials in packaging and its spray oils use no chemical propellants or aerosols.Regenerative farming can restore soils — the U.S. looses about 5.6 tons of topsoil per acre per year, and by leaving soil untilled, allowing natural biology to play out in the absence of chemicals, it is estimated that healthy soil could sequester a quarter of a billion tons of CO2 annually. Mattheiu recently contributed an article at Earth911, Regenerative Farming Practices: Food for a Healthier Planet. Regenerative farming is a comprehensive practice and one made harder in the midst of an historic drought in the West. You can learn more about La Tourangelle at https://latourangelle.com