Solve For Nature

Tim Sperry, the CEO of Carbon Limit, is a scientist entrepreneur who has founded two climate tech companies using novel Carbon Capture & storage technologies. After losing close family members as a child to lung cancer, he developed a strong passion for protecting nature and solving global CO2 pollution. He has found early success by creating effective yet efficiently adaptable solutions to so...

Chris O’Brien is the Founder and CEO of Hungry Giant, a company founded in 2006 and headquartered in Austin, TX. Hungry Giant is a cleantech business commercializing waste management and recycling equipment. A revolution in food waste management, Hungry Giant solutions use new technologies that turn food waste into a useful, reusable resource. They recently launched their Bio-Dehydrator solution....

Erin has been involved in resource recovery for 18 years and in the last decade has focused specifically on the sales and marketing of finished compost. She has supported commercial compost facilities throughout the West Coast and has worked closely with the end users of compost, particularly the agricultural industry. Erin is a Certified Composting Professional through the US Composting Council a...

Daniel Mandler is a Professor of Chemistry in the Institute of Chemistry at the Hebrew University and the incumbent of Archie and Marjorie Sherman Chair in Chemistry. He holds also an adjunct Professorship at the Nanyang Technical University in Singapore. His research interests span from analytical to physical electrochemistry sol-gel technology, thin films and polymers, coatings of medical device...

Lizzie Horvitz is back to discuss her challenge and how it went! If you don't remember, she founded Finch, a browser extension that helps you select sustainable products on Amazon. It's a tool that educates people on the ins and outs of sustainability, making it easier to shop sustainably online, add more transparency to online purchases, and dispel lots of the myths around the nonsense marketing...

Adarsh Ambati, age 16, of California, has been utilizing his talents to design new technologies to help conserve nature! He designed a moisture sensor-based smart sprinkler system that integrates real-time weather forecast data and soil moisture levels to provide optimum levels of water for huge water savings. He also designed a very low-cost, rapid diagnostic to detect the presence of an emerging...

If you missed the first episode with Veeral, go back and check it out! Veeral Hardev is the VP of Strategy at Ubiquitous Energy, a company that is becoming the world leader in transparent solar technology, aka clear solar panels! Last time he was on the show, he decided to take on a sustainability challenge. Let's hear how it went, as well as dig a little more into Ubiquitous Energy and their sola...

Sonja Michaluk is back, but this time with backup from her sister Charlotte! Winner of the Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes for her work protecting wetlands and drinking water sources using a novel bioassessment method she created, Sonja came up with a sustainability challenge to take on with her sister in our first recording, and is back to talk about how it went. I was so impressed with Sonj...

Sonja Michaluk of New Jersey works passionately to protect wetlands and drinking water sources using a novel bioassessment method she created. For more than a decade, she has collected scientific data and shared it with policy makers to help conserve ecologically sensitive wetlands, critical habitat for threatened species, wildlife corridors, and old growth forests. Through her Conservation Commun...

Lizzie Horvitz has been passionate about sustainability since the age of 16 when she lived off the grid. It was there that, depending only on wind energy and rainwater, she saw the solution of climate change before fully understanding the problem. She founded Finch, a browser extension that helps you select sustainable products on Amazon. It's a tool that educates people on the ins and outs of sus...

Javad Mohammadi is an assistant professor in the Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. His research interests include multi-agent optimization and machine learning in networked cyber-physical systems, including smart grid-interactive buildings, power grid, and electrified transportation systems. In short, he's solving problems and f...

Climate change can be seen as a disaster or an opportunity. Paul Laycock and his company VinZero is a new global company with a goal to cut major emissions from one of the biggest emitting sectors globally: construction. Paul and his staff at VinZero are passionate about facilitating the construction industries digital journey to meet net zero outcomes via digital solutions. According to VinZero,...

Today I'm following up with Michael Bayliss, host of the Post-Growth Australia Podcast (PGAP), activist for within the environmental and post-growth movements, Communications Manager and former Victoria/Tasmanian President at Sustainable Population Australia (SPA). Last time we spoke, he decided to taken on a personal challenge, but the challenge ended up taking a life of it's own and evolved...

Anna DeSimone is the author of Live In A Home That Pays You Back , Housing Finance 2020: New Mortgage Programs for the New Generation of Homebuyers , Retirement Planning and Investing , and Welcome to the Agrihood: Housing, Shopping, and Gardening for a Farm-to-Table Lifestyle . She is a nationally recognized expert in housing finance, and author of more than 40 professional guidebooks and over 60...

Jill Wagner of Terraformation and the Hawaii Island Seed Bank returns to talk about the results of her sustainability challenge and how her mission of reforesting the planet is progressing! Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time for a long conversation, but I'm looking to having another one with her someday! Find Jill Wagner and Terraformation online: Terraformation Homepage Jill Wagner's Blog...

Anthony Ricchio is an entrepreneur and sustainability influencer I connected with on Instagram and had some interesting chats on sustainability so I decided to invite him onto the podcast and have our sustainability discussion via video chat! The resulting chat ended up being an enlightening, open, and stimulating conversation on sustainability! Find Anthony Ricchio online: Anthony Ricchio on Inst...

Today we continued our discussion about Hawaii being a case study for the direction the entire world is going: pollution leading to reducing the capacity for our planet to sustain life. Joshua Spodek is host of This Sustainable Life podcast and author of Leadership Step By Step. He guided me once again through exploring my own feelings while stopping me from evading negative feelings about my own...

Yishan Wong is an engineer and entrepreneur who has worked at big name companies like Paypal and Facebook, and was CEO of Reddit. After leaving Reddit, he used his knowledge of the tech industry and combined it with the knowledge of Solve For Nature former guest, Jill Wagner , to found Terraformation, a company designed to take down climate change through tech-powered reforestation. He's a brillia...

Inflation Reduction Act just passed through the senate, house, and is now heading for President Biden's desk. Today we’re going to talk about what’s in it, and then have a discussion on sustainability and whether this bill is making us more sustainable or not with Joshua Spodek, Author of Leadership Step by Step, Professor at NYU, and probably the most sustainably living person in the USA. Tune in...

Today, I have something a little different for you. Usually, I'm interviewing someone on my podcast, but today, I'm the one getting interviewed! Some of you may know, I recently moved to Hawaii and ended up buying a home here. However, in looking for a house, I found myself feeling conflicted about it, and Joshua Spodek, host of This Sustainable Life podcast, suggested we talk about it. It was a g...

John Hartman is currently CMO of Ando, the leader in sustainable banking. He is an award-winning marketing executive who's worked with brands such as Oakley, SkullCandy, Volcom, L'Oreal, Lancome, Intuit, RayBan, HugoBoss, AAA, AARP, Intuit, WarnerBros and Taylor Guitars. Ando has disrupted the traditional banking industry by investing customer money exclusively in green initiatives...

David A. Dodd is the head of the globally recognized International Sustainable Resilience Center, Inc (ISRC), and having dealt with two near death experiences, David has a unique take on resilience at both the macro and micro scale. After surviving his two near death experiences, he was determined to make a positive impact on this world. In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina hit, David shifted his focus...

Steve Melink is the Forbes Books author of Fusion Capitalism: A Clean Energy Vision For Conservatives, and founder/CEO of Melink Corporation, a Cincinnati, Ohio-based company considered a pioneer in renewable energy solutions for the commercial building industry. He also is a national speaker on sustainability, clean energy and zero-energy buildings, and has consulted with federal and state legisl...

Joshua Sam Miller is an environmental activist, mindful musician and immersive media producer dedicated to raising world-wide environmental awareness by curating immersive sound and visual experiences in support of ocean conservation. His work as a multi-disciplinary artist and conscious entrepreneur is motivated to support a healthier, more sustainable world. He believes that modern society has c...

Veeral Hardev is the VP of Strategy at Ubiquitous Energy. He has over a decade of experience commercializing novel nano-materials products for the electronics industry. Why's that important? Because Ubiquitous Energy and the group of MIT and MSU scientists that started it, are looking for new ways to reduce humanity’s carbon footprint by seamlessly integrating solar power technology into everyday...