Sustainability In Your Ear

Learn about the role of green hydrogen, which is refined using renewable energy, in decarbonizing heavy industries like steel and cement manufacturing, as well as how it will fit into the transportation sector. Our guests are Aidan Tuohy, the lead author of a new report about green hydrogen, and his colleague Jeffery Preece, director of Low Carbon Resources Research and Development at the Electric...

Leslie Adkins, Vice President of Marketing and ESG Development at Trex, joins the conversation to discuss how the company pioneered a recycled alternative to lumber for decks, fences and other applications. Trex was founded in 1996 on the premise that there must be a better use of the “mountain of single-use plastic film packaging generated every day that is not being recycled.” The company develo...

The transition to more sustainable shopping is underway, and we’re pleased to welcome eBay’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Renee Morin, to discuss what the Ecommerce giant is doing to make the its marketplace more sustainable. Buying used is one of the most effective ways to reduce your environmental footprint because nothing new needs to be manufactured. Of course, getting reliable used products...

Meet Victor Dewulf, cofounder and CEO of Recycleye, a London-based company that makes machine vision systems and robots capable of separating waste on the high-speed conveyor belts at materials recovery facilities (MRFs). Recycleye also hosts Wastenet, the largest databank of images of products and materials that can be used to train computers to sort waste, which is some of the most dangerous wor...

The rise of electric vehicles comes with hard choices. The availability of cobalt and lithium needed to make batteries, for example, may be so limited that we must begin new mining projects to make enough batteries for the EV fleet of the future. We talk with Trent Mell, CEO of Electra Battery Materials, whose goal is to make North American battery manufacturing self-sufficient and circular. The c...

Meat production accounts for the lion’s share of greenhouse gas emissions in the human food supply. Meat represents 57% of greenhouse gas emissions generated by feeding people, according to a recent study published in the journal Nature Food. Yaakov ("Koby") Nahmias, is the founder and president of Future Meat Technologies, an Israeli company that grows meat from animal cells in bioreactors. Futur...

Maen Mahfoud, founder and CEO of Replate, uses technology to connect sources of surplus food to non-profits that can get it into the hands of people in need. Humans waste an immense amount of food because it has been difficult to move surplus produce, meat and packaged foods to the places where it can be used before it spoils. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that Americans waste betwe...

Wes Carter, president of Atlantic Packaging, a Wilmington, N.C.-based maker of sustainable boxes, shipping solutions, recyclable mailers, and six-pack carriers, explains the complex supply chains that feed our lifestyle. Atlantic Packaging is working to reduce its environmental impact and waste at every step between a manufacturer and the home. Listen to this wide-ranging conversation to hear how...

The future of the food supply can be more regional and sustainable. Stephanie Hughes recently launched Raw Bulk Foods Online, an Australian source of zero-waste foods delivered from the farm to the customer’s door. “We exist to clean up the planet [by] delivering your everyday pantry items direct from Aussie farms to your door minus all the junk,” Stephanie explained as part of the company's Kickt...

Zach Stein, cofounder of Carbon Collective, how to the company's Climate Index can help investors identify ESG investments that accelerate progress toward the zero-carbon economy. Investors can have influence that can reshape business practices. It takes time and energy to understand how companies are changing to reduce their environmental impact, create positive social outcomes and improved trans...

Josh Weber, cofounder and executive chairman of nZero, a Nevada company that tracks Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions for large organizations, explains the complexities of tracking corporate greenhouse gas emissions. Tracking emissions is the first step toward business taking responsibility for the previously unacknowledged environmental and social costs of delivering products and services. It will be so...

Dan Smythe, vice president of retail and hospitality at EPAM, an influential technology and business strategy consultancy, discusses the findings of the Consumers Unmasked 2 survey, which examined changing spending habits and sustainability preferences during the pandemic. He reports that people are actively considering companies’ environmental and social impacts when making purchasing decisions....

Erin Levine, Resource Recovery Manager at World Centric, a Rohnert Park, Calif.-based manufacturer of 100% compostable tableware and food packaging, joins Mitch to discuss California’s mandatory composting law, SB 1383. After passage in 2016, the new law, known as the Short-lived Climate Pollutant Reduction Strategy, went into effect after five years of preparation on January 1, 2022. SB 1383 requ...

David Katz, founder of Plastic Bank, shares his vision for a regenerative society built on grassroots recycling programs that help low-income regions build resilient communities. The Vancover, B.C., startup compensates more than 30,000 plastic recyclers in the Philippines, Indonesia, Brazil, and Egypt. To date, Plastic Bank has stopped over 99 million pounds of plastic waste - the equivalent of mo...

Mitch Ratcliffe sits down with Newday Impact Investing CEO Doug Heske to start a two-part ESG investing conversation how to invest to help the future generations meet the unique challenges of the climate crisis and global competition. More than 1.8 billion youth around the world are readying themselves to take their place in their economies and communities. But as we know, today’s challenges are m...

Meet Rayansh Bhavit, a member of Edison, N.J.-based RecycleMyBattery.org, a youth-led program that has collected 150,000+ batteries for recycling. Rayansh recently contributed an Earth911 article about the organization's National Battery Day activities to encourage people to recycle batteries on February 18th. He and the 150 kids who’ve participated in RecyleMyBattery have collected more than 150,...

We talk with Marc Cooke, an advocate for wolf protection and president of Wolves of the Rockies, which is fighting to stop wolf hunting in the West. The Grey Wolf faces extinction, again, after a dramatic recovery over the past 50 years. There were as few as 300 left in the United States when they were added to the Endangered Species List in 1970. By 2019 the total North American population had re...

Molly Laverty, Senior Manager of Environmental, Social and Governance at Del Monte Foods Inc., joins us to discuss the company's climate response goals, which include using 25% recycled plastics in packaging. Del Monte Foods is one of the largest food packaging companies in the U.S. and is working to become a sustainable provider of fruits and vegetables through investments in regenerative farming...

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 infrastruct...

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 th...

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...

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 b...

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 worl...

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 Imp...

How do you reduce your digital life’s environmental impact? Making changes to reduce your environmental impact around the house is straightforward — you can eat less meat, reduce your purchases of single-use plastic or turn down the thermostat by a few degrees to make a difference. But when you go online, there aren’t many obvious choices to cut your impact. Enter Ecosia.org, which has planted mor...