Inevitable

This episode is part of our Skilled Labor Series hosted by MCJ partner, Yin Lu . This series is focused on amplifying the voices of folks from the skilled labor workforce, including electricians, farmers, ranchers, HVAC installers, and others who are on the front lines of rewiring our infrastructure. Today's guest is Alejandro Carrillo , a rancher who lives in El Paso, Texas and stewards his famil...

Today's guest is Taj Eldridge . He calls himself the DJ Khaled of climate and you’ll know why when you hear him speak.  Taj’s professional portfolio spans a variety of roles that live at the intersection of diversity, inclusivity, and climate. He’s currently involved in three exciting pursuits. As general partner at Include Ventures , Taj works with a team of experts to build a large and dynamic p...

Today's guest is Eric Reinhardt , CEO and co-founder of Helio , which makes it simple for customers to transition off fossil fuels and fully electrify their homes.  The home electrification process in most of the U.S. is not a seamless experience. Homeowners approach electrification with different needs. Some have to upgrade broken equipment, whereas others opt for a total rehab. But having to pie...

Today's guest is Jill Tauber , Vice President of Litigation for Climate and Energy at Earthjustice .  Earthjustice is the premier nonprofit public interest environmental law organization. They wield the power of law and the strength of partnership to protect people's health, preserve magnificent places and wildlife, advance clean energy, and to combat climate change. The work they do is not only e...

Today’s guest is Emily McAteer , co-founder and CEO of Odyssey Energy Solutions , helping emerging market project developers to finance, build and operate distributed renewable energy at scale.  How the Global South modernizes is the original climate justice debate that has been a key topic of global policy discussions for decades, going back to the Kyoto Protocol of the 1990s and even earlier. Th...

Today's guest is Felicia Marcus ,  the Williams C. Landreth visiting fellow at Stanford University's Water in the West program.  Felicia is also an attorney, consultant, and member of the Water Policy Group. She most recently served as Chair of the California State Water Resources Control Board, where she implemented laws regarding drinking water, water quality and state's water rights, as well as...

Today’s guest is Lauren Salz , co-founder and CEO of Sealed , which modernizes houses with the latest HVAC, weatherproofing and smart home technology, while covering the upfront cost to homeowners. Home efficiency and electrification is a critical front for combating climate change. Incentives for residential heat pump installation are one of the big winners of the Inflation Reduction Act. The oft...

Today's guests are Geert van de Wouw and Vikas Gupta from Shell Ventures .  Shell Ventures was established in 1996 as one of the first corporate venture funds in the oil and gas industry. Although we’ve published over 300 episodes to date, Geert and Vikas are actually the first guests we’ve had from the oil majors come on the show. Although tons of anger has been directed at the oil and gas indust...

Today's guest is Tom Green , CEO and Co-founder of Vesta . The ocean is one of nature's largest carbon sinks, as it absorbs upwards of 30% of cumulative human emissions. Vesta is tackling the dual problem of shoreline erosion due to sea level rise and carbon emissions reduction with olivine sand that speeds up the ocean's natural carbon cycle. They call it coastal carbon capture, and it's one form...

Today's guest is Dr. Leah Stokes , a renowned climate and energy policy expert, strategist and researcher, helping leaders build clean energy practices into their long-term plans to secure our future.  But her resume doesn’t end there. Leah is an award-winning author of Short Circuiting Policy , an associate professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara and co-host of a top climate podc...

Today's guest is David Wallace , co-founder and CEO of CODA Farm Technologies , which provides remote monitoring and control for agricultural irrigation pumps and irrigation reels.  The looming water crisis is often described as one of the major symptoms of climate change. You hear about it in the news, coupled with drought-stricken images of dried up riverbeds and diminishing reservoirs. The West...

Today's guest is Scott Arnold , a HVAC technician and small business owner based out of New York.  With heating and cooling accounting for nearly 50% of energy costs, upgrading outdated appliances can not only save homeowners money but also provide a cleaner environment to live in and a healthier planet overall. Scott’s company is working to help customers purchase and install heat pumps as an alt...

Today's guest is Sue Brown, Executive Group Director of Sustainability at Worley .  As a leading global provider of professional project and asset services in the energy, chemicals and resources sectors, Worley is on the frontlines of doing the actual work to engineer and build everything we’re going to need for the clean energy transition, and they’re doing so across industries and the globe. Wor...

Today’s guests are Dave Finocchio and Anna Robertson , co-founders of The Cool Down . Since the beginning, media businesses have been in the game of building audience segments and mobilizing those audiences to do something. Most American media has learned how to mobilize audiences on various platforms to click or view ads. To buy stuff. But in the wake of the climate crisis, there are certainly be...

This episode is part of our new Skilled Labor Series hosted by MCJ partner, Yin Lu . This series is focused on amplifying the voices of folks from the skilled labor workforce, including electricians, farmers, ranchers, HVAC installers, and others who are on the front lines of rewiring our infrastructure. Today’s guest is Josh Svaty , a farm owner and operator who also happens to be the former secr...

Today’s guest is Rachel Delacour , co-founder and CEO of Sweep .  Carbon accounting helps organizations measure their emissions so they can understand their overall footprint, share findings, and plan future reductions. Sweep’s business intelligence tools specialize in using data to map a company’s carbon emissions and helping them realize feasible goals while managing future growth. In doing so,...

Today’s guest is David Roberts, aka Dr. Volts, who runs the Volts newsletter and podcast. David has been reporting on and explaining clean energy topics for almost 20 years. He talks to politicians, analysts, innovators, activists, and more about the latest progress in the world's most important fight. David’s work is deeply researched and an invaluable resource for people who want a better unders...

Today’s guest is Insiya Jafferjee , CEO ad Co-Founder of Shellworks .  When we talk about excellence in packaging today, we typically think of companies who create an elegant and exciting unboxing experience. Think Apple. But as sustainability continues to gain awareness in the popular conscience, how far away are we from celebrating companies who create small footprints from their packaging? How...

*This episode is part of our new Skilled Labor Series hosted by MCJ partner, Yin Lu . This series is focused on amplifying the voices of folks from the skilled labor workforce, including electricians, farmers, ranchers, HVAC installers, and others who are on the front lines of rewiring our infrastructure. To kick off our new Skilled Labor Series, this episode is co-hosted by Yin Lu and Sam Steyer...

Today’s guest is Michele Demers , Founder and CEO at Boundless Impact Research & Analytics .  As companies pursue sustainability targets, having an accurate measure of their carbon footprint provides transparency, accountability, and benchmarks to reach and improve on. Boundless is an industry research and impact analytics platform that provides quantitative and evidence-based research and data fo...

Today’s guest is Khaled Hassounah , CEO and Co-Founder of Ample .  When entirely new platforms emerge, the initial product attempts on those platforms often look like what we already know, and they typically don't take full advantage of inherent differences from the historical way of doing things. For example, when the internet first emerged, media resembled digital newspapers. When mobile first e...

Today’s guest is Genevieve Guenther , author, activist, and Founding Director of End Climate Silence .  Dr. Genevieve Guenther is a Renaissance scholar and literary critic who turned to climate activism after having a child and becoming increasingly alarmed about the world she might leave to her son. Using her training in rhetoric and cultural politics, she works to revamp the ways that we think a...

Today’s guest is Gagan Dhillon , CEO & Co-Founder of Synop .  In many climate conversations about mobility, solutions inevitably turn into conversations about fleets. But understanding what fleets are, how they manage access to fuel, and how all of this will change as fleets adopt EVs are critical to clean transportation at large. Synop automates EV operations by helping businesses handle tracking...

Today’s guest is Camila Thorndike .  Most recently, Camila managed Senator Bernie Sanders' portfolio on climate, energy, environment, territories, and tribes. The focus of her tenure was the Build Back Better Act passed in 2021 out of the Senate budget committee and House of Representatives. The majority of the bill's climate policies were retained in the subsequent Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) p...

Today’s guest is Jason Aramburu , CEO and co-founder of Climate Robotics .  Earth’s soils contain 14 times more carbon dioxide than the atmosphere. To harness this natural resource, Climate Robotics is using existing technologies and converting crop residue into biochar before sequestering it deep in the ground for thousands of years. The company uses advanced robotics and artificial intelligence...