Sustainability Champions

Series 1, episode 3 of the Sustainability Champions Podcast 🎙 Introducing Sparkle!  Sparkle’s story, quite fittingly, started with a spark. Founded by Hetal & Chirag Virani.     The social and cultural stigma surrounding periods in Surat, Gujarat, India while she was growing up, sparked Hetal to think about all the hurried whispers, hiding, guilty glances, and the almost sh...

Series 1, episode 2 of the Sustainability Champions Podcast 🎙 Atmosvu is on a mission to reduce single-use containers from ending up in landfill. Every Atmosvu customer is helping end single-use candle container waste. According to the team at Atmosvu, the U.S. retail sales of candle products are approximately $3 billion annually. Research indicates that only 8% of candle containers are recycled a...

Series 1, episode 1 of the Sustainability Champions Podcast 🎙 Maxim Gelmann is the Founder and Chief Stroodler at Stroodles.    Having started with their flagship product their famous pasta straws (which are made entirely of pasta and are edible... a perfect after-cocktail snack) Stroodles has become a movement for conscious consumerism. We are thrilled to welcome our audience to the Str...

Did you know coral reefs provide a buffer - protecting our coasts from big waves, storms, and floods? In a time with more frequent natural disasters due to the changing climate, there’s an important message to learn: when people live in harmony with nature, we minimize our environmental risks and can even benefit from strengthened ecosystems. Today’s guest knows all about nature’s role in our live...

In this Episode I speak with Rachel Finesilver, Manager of Sustainability and Responsible Business at Lloyds Banking Group, and Champion of Sustainable Banking. According to a report by Morgan Stanley analysts, the cost of stopping climate change and reducing net carbon emissions to zero by 2050, is 50 Trillion US Dollars. That includes a whole array of alternatives to our current carbon-inefficie...

According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, more than 90 percent of a bottle of standard cleaning product is just water. Considering that people in most developed countries have access to clean water, this current production scheme seems like a waste. Factories mix their cleaning solution with water, package it in bottles and ship it around the world. Shipping products with heavy water requires m...

There are 11 million diaper-age babies in the US. Each baby uses an average of 65 diapers per week. That results in over 37 BILLION disposables being tossed EACH YEAR in the US alone. With raising awareness of single-use plastic bags, bottles and straws, why are diapers, which currently make up 30% of non-biodegradable waste in American landfills, disregarded? In this Episode of Sustainability Cha...

One of the biggest problems hindering a stronger global response against climate change, is that the effects are not felt equally all over the world, but in certain areas to a much stronger extent. Polar ice caps melting, ice bears stranded on drifting ice, floods and forest fires reaching unprecedented scales - while the west bears the most responsibility for climate disasters, they rarely feel t...

In this episode of Sustainability Champions, I speak with Jules Hayward, Learning Executive Lead at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. In this conversation, we explore the importance of system thinking for finding global solutions and the fact that it’s easy to get overwhelmed when choosing how to shift our approach for the better. We discuss some interesting career tips for people wanting to have a...

In this episode of Sustainability Champions, I speak with Patrick Marsden, Partner and Co-Owner of MaCher and Champion of Sustainable Product Design. Not creating a product in the first place is the most sustainable thing you can do when creating products. Starting with the simple question “why” allows us to understand if the product is important to make in the first place and ultimately minimize...

In this Episode of Sustainability Champions, I speak with Bob Garner, Co-Owner of Casal dei Fichi and Champion of Sustainable Holidays. When we take a vacation, we oftentime enjoy luxuries beyond imagination in destinations around the world, whether artificial beaches and 5-star hotels in Dubai, enormous resorts in Mexico, or cruises that travel around the world. When we get our well-deserved brea...

In this Episode of Sustainability Champions I speak with Jakob Muus, Founder and CEO of Tracks For Trucks and Champion of Sustainable Supply Chains. Did you know that the road freight industry is responsible for roughly 6% of the European CO2 emissions? Our global world depends on intricate supply chains to move food and goods from centralized production facilities to sales points all around the w...

In this episode of Sustainability Champions, I speak with Francesco Majno, Co-Founder and CEO of Crické Food, and Champion of Insect Proteins. To facilitate our growing populations and to reduce the waste, inefficiency and the negative environmental impacts of meat farms, we need alternative proteins. On this podcast, we’ve already spoken about highly technical solutions like plant-based and cell-...

In this Episode of Sustainability Champions, I speak with Christine Riley Miller, Head of Sustainability at Samsonite, and Champion of Sustainable Luggage. We love seeing global companies commit to sustainability. It shows that being planet-friendly is possible even for the biggest players on the market, without disappointing their shareholders. When a company's products are made from sustainable...

In this Episode of Sustainability Champions, I speak with Ian Pritchett, Co-Founder and Director of Ssassy Property and Greencore Construction and Champion of Making Sustainable Homes. On a global scale, households are responsible for 24% of total greenhouse gas emissions. Building housing with energy and carbon efficiency in mind, doesn’t only benefit the planet, it also saves families a lot of m...

We’ve spoken with a number of companies revolutionising the food industry with plant-based, cell-based and cultivated meat, dairy and fish products on the Sustainability Champions podcast in the past. Over the past few years, these sustainable innovators have become the center of attention and investment all over the world because of the methods they are developing to produce animal protein that d...

Much of the agriculture industry is broken. Global concerns around food security, extreme weather and increased costs to both the consumer and the environment must be addressed. Currently, there are three ways of growing crops: outdoor, greenhouse and indoor; however each method has its challenges. Outdoor farming leaves us at the mercy of mother nature and as a result many farmers rely on pestici...

Transitioning to a more sustainable future takes time and effort. Despite piling consumer pressure and groundbreaking technological innovations, not all businesses are taking the steps towards protecting the planet. When the old ways of doing business are easier than the sustainable choices, companies could do with some support in transitioning, and today’s guest knows exactly how to offer a helpi...

This company has turned 1 million plastic bottles that would otherwise have gone to landfill or ended up in the ocean into luxury travel bags! What a great way to divert waste and reduce energy consumption. Cheap technology and fast-fashion products often break after just a few uses, wasting all the materials and energy used in production. Incorporating sustainability into our everyday lives often...

What if cows were treated so ethically that vegans drink their milk? The dairy, meat and fish industries have come under a lot of scrutiny over the years. As a result, many conscious consumers around the world are switching to a vegan diet to avoid animal products altogether. But what if there were an animal-friendly and humane approach to treating cows that would make their milk suitable for anyo...

Shockingly, microplastics are an ingredient used in a wide variety of industries - ranging from agriculture to cleaning to pharma. They’re called “intentionally added microplastics” and they make products more effective. At the same time, pesticides are a hot topic in farming: while they protect crops from weeds, fungi and insects, long-term exposure to these chemicals can damage the environment....

Yes, plastic made of potatoes is a thing. And that’s what we’re talking about in this episode of the Sustainability Champions podcast! All sectors within the design industry are under growing pressure to find ways to become more sustainable with the products they produce. As consumers demand companies to shift to more sustainable practices, companies are looking for better options, especially arou...

Startup Accelerators mentor and provide some funding to new companies, with the goal of helping startups reach success. Benefiting from experienced mentors, funding and access to contacts and a strong network, participants have a higher chance of seeing their company grow. As we’re witnessing a shift towards businesses focusing on solving some of our biggest environmental challenges, we’re thrille...

The clothing industry has massive opportunities to become both resource-efficient and good for the environment. Although fast-fashion results in tons of out-of-season clothes to be thrown away and producing clothing sustainably is currently costly, consumer demand and behavior is evolving. Today’s guest says that change is coming to the industry as big industry players begin making the shift to ec...

This may be a bit taboo, but I’ll say it anyway: we love meat. What we don’t love is the industrial farming methods used to produce meat. It’s bad for the planet, requires a huge amount of resources, and it’s cruel to animals. That’s why we love seeing bold solutions to our food challenges that deliver positive change, without compromise. Today’s guest makes a great point: “Meat is here to stay.”...