Sustainability In Your Ear

Earth911 talks about the challenge of making ethical and environmentally responsible investment decisions with Newday Impact CEO Doug Heske. Newday Impact is a financial services company that creates and manages a variety of socially and environmentally themed portfolios, which make it easy to invest to support your values. We dig into choosing stocks based on the greenhouse gas emissions produced...

Our guest, Chris Orestis, is the president of Retirement Genius and a nationally recognized expert on retirements issues. Every generation will feel the impact of climate change, and at a time when demographics are already working against the rising tide of seniors they need to factor in new risks during their retirement. While Millennials, Gen Z and children face long-term impacts on their health...

As the world prepares for the United Nations’ COP26 climate change conference, we talk with Rick Wayman, the new CEO of the Foundation for Climate Restoration (F4CR). They are working to return atmospheric CO2 levels to pre-Industrial Era levels by 2050. Members of the F4CR team have been on the show many times to discuss carbon capture and sequestration, an approach to permanently removing excess...

LastObject cofounder Isabel Aagaard joins us to talk about the company’s latest product, the LastPad, a reusable menstrual pad made to be washed and reused up to 240 times. Single-use menstrual pads are a huge waste issue, representing a large share of ocean waste and producing billions of loose plastic wrappers, coated paper and the pads themselves every year. The LastPad comes in three sizes, in...

Ronald Rael, cofounder of 3D-printed wood maker Forust and chair of the Architecture department at the University of California Berkeley College of Environmental Design joins Mitch Ratcliffe. Ronald co-invented a method for printing wood with realistic grain using sawdust and lignin, the natural adhesive in wood. Forust's 3D-printing system can mimic the natural grains and colors of different spec...

Earth911's Mitch Ratcliffe talks with Jody Potts, an Alaskan native Han Gwich’in environmental and indigenous rights advocate who recently was named to the Explore Fund Council at outdoor gear maker The North Face. That council guides the company’s grant-giving. She is working in particular to launch a program, Native Youth Outdoors, that encourages indigenous kids to get outside and involved with...

Lisa Mabe explains the Land To Market Verified consumer label, a project of the Savory Institute that intends to build 100 global hubs where the organization’s regenerative Ecological Outcome Verification (EOV) process can be applied to local farm practices. She explains how the label will provide consumers a connection to farmers and ranchers who practice regenerative techniques. With the informa...

Environmentally responsible investing requires we apply carbon sense thinking, says our guest, Doug Heske, CEO of Newday Impact Investing. Doug and Earth911's Mitch Ratcliffe launch a series of conversations about making informed decisions about stocks and funds, beginning with a comparison of the emerging solar and declining fossil fuels industry. In this episode, we'll  look at Sunpower, First S...

What if the money we used could also do good every time we spent it? There’s a movement among cryptocurrency developers to add a social purpose to the coins they make. Earth911's Mitch Ratcliffe talks with the co-creators of the World of Waves token, a cryptocurrency that has a “built-in tax” that “[support] as many charitable organizations in the world as possible while rewarding holders with sub...

Earth911 talks with Pascal Leroy, Director General of the WEEE Forum. October 14th is International E-Waste Day, when the world’s electronics producers and recyclers collaborate to increase the recovery and reuse of the more than 63.2 million tons of e-waste produced annually. But only 17.4% of that e-waste is currently recycled. The experience in the European Union, where 42.5% of e-waste is recy...

Mitch Ratcliffe talks with Kate Gaertner, the author of Planting a Seed: Three Simple Steps to Sustainable Living and an expert who has advised companies about enacting sustainable business practices for several decades. She recently shared an article on Earth911, Developing Habits for a Sustainable Life. We talk about the values-based decisions for sustainable living in the article and her advice...

The future is not written, we can make a better, sustainable future for our children according to Chunka Mui, cofounder of the Future Histories Group and co-author of A Brief History of a Perfect Future: Inventing the world we can proudly leave to our kids by 2050, with Paul Carroll, a former reporter and editor at the Wall Street Journal, and Tim Andrews of consultancy Booz Allen Hamilton. They c...

The Atlas of Disappearing Places, a new book by Christina Conklin and Marina Psaros, is a catalog of the coastal, island and deep ocean locations around the world most at risk during the Climate Crisis. It also forecasts how humanity, including individuals, governments and business, can collaborate to restore the planet. Humanity faces serious and difficult questions as it adapts to climate change...

Earth911's Mitch Ratcliffe talks with authors Daniel O’Connell and Scott Peters about their book In The Struggle. It is  a chronicle of the decline of the traditional small farm in California’s Central Valley, the resulting social and political movement by small farmers and farm workers, and the lessons for future generations seeking equitable, environmentally responsible communities. Under the on...

Earth911 explores the circular economy potential of subscription hot-water-as-a-service programs with Gordon Olson, cofounder and CEO of Fairfield, Montana-based Torii Industries. The startup is committed to making “green water heating available to all.” They are launching a “hot-water-as-a-service” business that provides customers with a newly patented water heater design that eliminates the oxid...

Recyclops founder Ryan Smith has a vision for locally grown recycling services. The company's Uber-like on-demand residential, apartment and business recycling service is available in 16 states and adds three or more new cities every month. With pickups starting at $12 a month, customers can place plastic, paper, cardboard, glass and other recyclables in a single-use plastic bag provided by Recycl...

Earth911's Mitch Ratcliffe talks with Jon Chambers, cofounder of 8BillionTrees.com, which offers a variety of ways to “shop and erase your carbon footprint.” They've planted more than 6.4 million trees to date and make is simple to calculate how much CO2 your daily habits produce. For example, 8 Billion Trees provides tree-planting to offset your streaming video habit, a birthday party or your pet...

Earth911's Mitch Ratcliffe explores the cultural barriers to a harmonious relationship with nature in conversation with author Philip Loring about his book, Finding Our Niche. Loring is the Arrell Chair in Food, Policy and Society at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. He writes that “reconciliation takes hard work at all levels, from federal governments to within individuals’ hearts and...

Earth911 talks with Eric Bjorling, Trek Bicycles' Director of Brand Marketing and Public Relations. He explains the sustainability commitments and business transformation ideas it published in its 2021 sustainability report. We found it one of the clearest and easy-to-understand examples of corporate environmental reporting. That's because it is also being used as an internal learning tool to crea...

Author, Business for Good Podcast host and The Better Meat Co. CEO Paul Shapiro joins Earth911 to explain prospects for clean meat made from fungi, animal cell cultures and plant-based proteins. The future of meat will involve far fewer animals raised on inhumane industrial farms, which are known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or “CAFOs.” In a CAFO, animals are packed into small spaces...

Herbicide-Free Campus is a growing student-led movement to eliminate the use of harmful herbicides, pesticides and other toxins on college and public school campuses. We can all learn from the experience of founders Mackenzie Feldman and Bridget Gustafson, who were student-athletes at the University of California, Berkeley when they started the organization. It now has chapters at seven universiti...

Sometimes the recycling setup is harder than getting your daily recycling sorting and cleaning done. Our guest, Harold Sokyrka developed the Kwik BagIt system, which includes reusable cloth bags and collapsible bag holders that keep the bags conveniently upright for easy filling, to make recycling easier and sorting more accurate. After becoming frustrated with available bins and bags, Sokyrka, wh...

The ChangeIt app for iPhone and Android devices promises to help "busy people that want to fight climate change." Earth911's Mitch Ratcliffe talks with ChangeIt creator Tiago Ferreira about how he designed the app, why it avoids calculating the user's total carbon footprint, and how early users are engaging with climate goals and the community. The app is designed to coach users through adopting n...

Earth911 explores the health implications and regulation of a substance that pollutes our food, water, and environment, Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS, with Lauren Olson, Zero Waste Manager at World Centric. Lauren shares how PFAS are used in food service items, waterproof clothing and other products, as well as the challenges they create when composting products. PFAS have bee...

Meet Zero Hour movement Youth Ambassadors Lindy Feaster and Lyne Odhiambo. They talk with host Mitch Ratcliffe about the No Youth, No Truth project, a multi-generational project to share stories of underrepresented youth and low-income communities suffering the brunt of climate and environmental disasters. This August, the No Youth, No Truth project will train youth spokespeople to connect with me...