Earth911.com's Sustainability In Your Ear

Dr. Anja Malawi Brandon, an advisor to the Plastics Pact and U.S. Policy Analyst for the Ocean Conservancy, joins Mitch Ratcliffe to discuss three areas for potential progress in reducing our dependence on plastic and improving recycling rates. She explains how the Plastics Pact, a consortium of 100 companies, NGOs and governments, that has a plan for transforming the plastic recycling infrastructure by 2025. The organization recently released a list of "unnecessary plastics" that they recommend be abandoned in packaging. We also talk through the prospects for the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act in Congress; Anja was on the staff of the bill's sponsor, Senator Jeff Merkley (D - OR). And we discuss the recently started meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, of the UN Environmental Assembly to negotiate a global plastics treaty could introduce a framework for changing our relationship to the material.Plastic is a convenience that has turned into a plague. According to a recent report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, plastic consumption has quadrupled over the past 30 years and plastic production currently accounts for 3.4% of annual greenhouse gas emissions. Only 9% of plastic waste is recycled globally, 6.1 million tons of plastic escape into freshwater environments and 1.7 million tons reaches the ocean each year. Plastic is in our water, our soil, our food and our bodies. You can learn more about The Ocean Conservancy at https://oceanconservancy.org/ and the Plastics Pact at https://usplasticspact.org/.

Wake Smith, author of Pandora's Toolbox: The Hopes and Hazards of Climate Intervention, shares his assessment of the climate response  the strategies and technologies that can be used to end CO2 emissions and restore the planet to pre-industrial climate conditions. He is a lecturer on climate interventions at Yale and a Senior Fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School. He explains that we're not making sufficient progress on reaching net-zero before very late this century and why new institutions are needed to guide policy toward climate goals before parts of the world become barren and unhabitable for humans. Once we reach net-zero CO2 emissions, we face centuries of effort to return to the environment in which our species evolved.We also discuss carbon capture and sequestration and a form of solar geoengineering, stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), which involves sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to deflect the Sun’s energy. Wake does not advocate extreme measures but urges nations to support research into SAI and other tech that could be deployed to ensure human survival. His comments on how our descendants may feel about us and what he's learned from his students about the importance of tying actions to consequences will get you thinking: Are we doing enough? Is the world we are entering governable with today's institutions? Pandora's Toolbox is available on Amazon and at Powell's Books.

Kathleen Rogers, president of the Earth Day Network, joins us to talk about the goals for Earth Day 2022, which takes place on April 22. This year’s programs will focus on investing in the planet, from making sustainable choices among ESG stocks, as well as how to invest in a better future by getting involved in activism, taking action to create healthy communities, and the changes each of us can make to reduce our impact. We discuss the state of the climate crisis and the results of the United Nations COP26 meeting in Glasgow, Scotland, last November. A self-described "imperfect environmentalist," Kathleen explains changes she's made recently and offers 52 ideas to consider for Earth Day 2022.The first Earth Day in 1970 was the largest public day of action in U.S. history. More than 20 million Americans went into the streets to support environmental reform. Following that first Earth Day, Congress and President Nixon launched the Environmental Protection Agency, Clean Air Act, Occupational Safety and Health Act, and National Environmental Education Act, followed two years later by the Clean Water Act. Before those changes, American air and water were far dirtier, so much so it is hard to explain how much it has changed. Only with the arrival of uncontrolled wildfires related to climate change do we have comparably bad air in the United States but for far fewer days per year. This year, we look forward to Earth Day leading to something as big as launch the EPA or Clean Air Act. Follow the plans for this year at https://www.earthday.org/.

Judi Townsend, founder of Oakland, Calif-based Mannequin Madness, is on a mission to keep mannequins in use to reduce the environmental impact of the retail industry. The shop sells full mannequins, dress forms, torsos and butts, limbs, replacement parts and even dog and cat mannequins. Mannequin Madness is recycling more than 100,000 lbs. of mannequins each year and it has grown into a thriving business since it was founded in her backyard more than 20 years ago. Her customers include retailers, artists, and fashion and sports enthusiasts who want to display clothing in thier home.Judi is an example of the many small, local or regional entrepreneurs that can build systems to ensure the continued use of products in a more sustainable economy. We’re going to grow a circular economy from the ground up. We’re going to grow a circular economy from the ground up. Learn from an innovator who is making local and specialized reusee and recycling happen.You can learn more at https://mannequinmadness.com.

Stephen Crolius is the co-founder and president of Carbon Neutral Consulting, a New York-based sustainable business consultancy. He and his team recently released The Ammonia Report, an analysis of the prospects for using ammonia as a maritime fuel instead of heavy fuel oil, the petroleum-derived traditional source of maritime energy. So much of what we buy today is shipped halfway around the world. Sometimes, the components of a product are shipped from the U.S. to Asia, processed and then shipped back. Almost all of that shipping activity burns oil today, which accounts for about 1.8% of humanity's annual carbon footprint, according to the European Commission’s Climate Action office. We need to change the fuels used to power sea-going freight vessels to sustainable alternatives, and several are emerging. One of those is ammonia.Stephen previously served with the Clinton Foundation’s Climate Initiative and as president of the Ammonia Energy Association. Ammonia has been used in fertilizers since the early twentieth century, a development made possible by the emergence of the Haber-Bosch process for mass producing the chemical, which revolutionized farming. Now ammonia is coming into use as a fuel or an intermediate storage medium for energy that can be processed to yield pure hydrogen in fuel applications. You can follow the developing story of ammonia fuels at https://www.ammoniaenergy.org/articles/.

Newday Impact Investing CEO Doug Heske returns to talk about investing to create a sustainable, circular and equitable economy that we can hand to our children and grandchildren with a sense of pride. This week we’re looking at diversity, equity and inclusion (often shortened to “DEI”), the idea that the dignity and value of every person that must underlie a just society. Doug’s team at Newday Impact has developed methodologies to identify companies that are making genuine progress on DEI issues, as well as screen out companies that, similar to greenwashing, "socialwash" their actual diversity and inclusion performance, and that can make them a long-term risk as an investment.Investors are increasingly factoring assessments of a company’s DEI performance into their decisions. They recognize that hidden debts, whether that’s the loss of economic value from excluding large swaths of the population from full participation in the economy or the latent cost of environmental damage, add up to consequences that can kill not only a company but a market or the planet. We discuss several companies with exceptional DEI characteristics, Lowe’s Companies (NYSE: LOW), Apple (NASDAQ: APPL), Walgreens Boots Alliance (NASDAQ: WBA), Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE) and a stock we touched on last time we talked, Target (NYSE: TGT). You can learn more about Newday Impact Investing at https://newdayimpact.com/.

Christian Kroll, founder of Ecosia.org, discusses the revolutionary search engine that plants trees with each search. He shares his firsthand experiences of deforestation that inspired him to create Ecosia in 2009. The podcast highlights how Ecosia has planted over 143 million trees, contributing to a significant reduction in CO2 emissions. Kroll also emphasizes the importance of balancing technology and sustainability, prioritizing user privacy, and the rise of social enterprises that focus on environmental and social missions.

The founders of Cambium Carbon, CEO Ben Christensen and CFO Marisa Repka, explain how they salvage wood from the 36 million trees that fall each year in American cities to create a hyper-local lumber supply chain. Currently, most of those fallen trees are mulched, burned or landfilled, all of which contributes to global warming.  The company's Carbon Smart Wood is sourced from downed trees — also referred to as “urban wood” — and it can be used in furniture and buildings in place of trees from clear-cutting operations. They also dedicate 15% of their revenue to replant new trees, which provides urban green cover. Cambium Carbon is a social enterprise that has organised an alternative, thoroughly tracked wood supply chain for designers, architects and builders while helping to preserve local sawmills and the jobs they provide. Their Traece wood tracking system, which allows customers to learn where the wood in their home or office came from, enables a new level of accountability and storytelling in wood products. We also discuss the potential to apply their strategies to other commodities. Find out more about Cambium Carbon at https://cambiumcarbon.com/.

Sam Teicher, co-founder and Chief Reef Officer at Coral Vita, a social enterprise that grows resilient corals on land and transfers them to the sea to restore dying reefs, joins Mitch Ratcliffe to discuss ocean restoration. Check out his recent article, Coral Vita and the Vital Importance of Restoring Coral Reefs, on Earth911. More than half of the world’s coral has died since 1970 — if that doesn’t set alarm bells ringing, consider that a University of California Santa Barbara study published in Nature in August 2020 found that sea-sourced meat is essential to feeding humans in 2050. We must increase sea yields by up to 74% to keep up with demand, but coral reefs are a critical feature of the food chain in the oceans — if they disappear, we cannot meet the dietary needs of humans — the entire ocean ecosystem could collapse. But there are also glimmers of hope, such as a large, healthy reef recently discovered near Tahiti that has not suffered bleaching. And as Sam explains, resort and seafood companies are beginning to recognize the importance of protecting and restoring reefs that are the foundation of their businesses.Coral Vita's Grand Bahamas facility is the first to take a social enterprise approach to restoring coral. Sam is building the foundation for an industry that has the potential to bring coral back around the planet while creating good paying jobs that are good for the environment. He previously worked on climate resiliency initiatives for the Obama White House and Global Island Partnership. Sam is also an inaugural Earthshot Prize Winner and a Forbes 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneur. He also co-authored the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal #14: Life Below Water. You can learn more about Coral Vita and adopt a coral at https://coralvita.co/.

Newday Impact Investing CEO Doug Heske returns to talk about how to design an investment portfolio to achieve environmental improvements in our world. Just as buying sustainable products can help reduce your environmental impact, your investing can change the direction of the economy. And 2021 was the biggest year in the history of environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing by more than twice the previous record, with $120 billion flowing into the green economy, according to Bloomberg. Green economy momentum is building but investors are concerned about greenwashing and are not confident they can choose companies that are making real environmental progress. Doug explains how Newday Impact portfolio managers make decisions based on the environmental impact of companies, ETFs and bonds to produce ESG results. Visit visit Newday’s Sustainable Development Equity page to follow along with the conversation.If you've heard our previous conversations with Doug Heske, which covered investing to improve animal welfare, make clean water available for all, lower greenhouse gas emissions, and create a responsible energy grid, this episode brings all the threads together. He explains how to set your priorities and choose a diversified portfolio while keeping the planet's health squarely in mind. Doug also discusses the importance of overseas investing, particularly in Europe; he urges caution when considering the stock of companies in other regions where transparency is not practiced. You can learn more about Newday Impact Investing, a financial services company that manages a wide range of socially and environmentally responsible portfolios, visit https://newdayimpact.com/.