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John Shegerian: Welcome back to Green to Good, and I am so excited and honored to have my good friend and just one of the best guys I’ve ever worked with in my life, Kevin Anton, here today. He’s the Chief Sustainability Officer of Alcoa. For a shameless plug, he also is a board member of Electronic Recyclers International, which I get the honor of being the CEO of. Welcome to Green is Good, Kevin Anton.

Kevin Anton: Hey, thanks, John. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today.

John: Well, Kevin, you’ve been on before, and instead of me reading your amazing bio, besides all the great work you’ve done, last year you won the Charles Martin Hall Award as the Aluminum Ambassador Advocate for American Metal Markets. You’ve done so many things and been awarded so many great accolades. I want you to share your journey a little bit on how you became the first Chief Sustainability Officer at Alcoa in 125 years.

Kevin: Sure, John. So, as you know, John, I really have a financial background, so I’ve worked in metals and mining for some 30-odd years in various financial roles, anything from the most junior positions of paying my boss’s expense reports early on through merger and acquisitions and strategic planning, a short stint in commercial, where I ran the sales and marketing and trading operations for Alcoa’s commodity business, and then a return to finance. Through the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009, I was the leading finance organization for Alcoa’s commodity business. When we came out of that, and one the nice things we did at Alcoa through the financial crisis, is we didn’t take our eye off the ball on we need to solve for the short term, but we also need to be solving for the long term. During that time period, we launched a sustainability steering committee. Klaus Kleinfeld, our CEO, asked me to take the leadership role of that committee, and we did that for 2009 and into 2010. Klaus and I had a discussion, “Let’s take this and put even more focus on it at Alcoa, and Kevin, I’d like you to become the first CSO in Alcoa’s history.” We had a little conversation about it, so yeah, this actually fits really nicely for where I am in my career and what my interests are, and starting with Alcoa’s great sustainability reputation and track record, it’s kind of the perfect job.

John: It is, and you are the perfect person for that job. For our listeners out there, if you can follow what Kevin has done, he has a great Twitter account, @kevinanton at Twitter, and he is doing great things at Alcoa. He’s going to share them today, so I’m so glad you joined us, Kevin, and I’m so glad our listeners are out there, because this is going to be a special segment. Tell me a little bit about Alcoa and sustainability. It’s almost like peanut butter and jelly. These go so well together. Alcoa has always been into sustainability. Tell me a little bit about that whole focus there now.

Kevin: So, John, it’s really important to understand that we are the largest integrated aluminum country in the world. That means we start with mining and go all the way through to the products you see, like the aluminum beverage can, like wheels on trucks, so we have a very wide expanse here. Let’s talk a little bit about some of the products we make. So, aluminum in transportation is great, and we’ll talk more about that in a bit. But you think about the trucks you see on the road and how we can drive down the weight of those trucks and drive up the fuel efficiency. The aluminum can infinitely recyclable, so that aluminum can that you had yesterday afternoon maybe when you were out in the park or on the beach or at home with your family, you put that in the recycle bin yesterday afternoon, and we’ll have that back on the shelf before the 4th of July as a new beverage can. Then we recognize that we have stewardship obligation. We are a mining company. We do have large facilities around the world, and we take incredible pride that the areas that we’re mining today will be re-vegetated with original species by next year.

John: When you talk about infinite recyclable, can you just share with our listeners what that really means, and how much aluminum is recycled with regards to what you’re really doing?

Kevin: Yeah, and the nice thing about aluminum as compared to other materials, if you think about when you recycle aluminum, the basic material doesn’t lose any of its properties, so if it’s an aluminum can for the first time or the 50th time, it’s just as strong, just as resilient as ever. Same thing in automobiles, same thing in buildings. If you look at some of the other materials like the plastic, like the paper, like steel, they need to go through a major transformation to then have a second life, and often the second life is a downgrade of the first life. For us to recycle aluminum, all we have to do is use 5% of the energy that we used to make aluminum the first time, and then it’s back in place, ready to go for its second, third, fourth, fifth life.

John: So, when you recycle aluminum, it really sets the water market to 95% or so energy savings.

Kevin: Yeah. And then the other thing, John, we like to talk about is how much aluminum is recycled. 65% of aluminum cans get recycled, and the benchmark, if you look at glass or plastic, is probably closer to 30%. If you look at aluminum in buildings and aluminum in cars, they both have recycle rates approaching 90% or more. So, we’re keeping aluminum out of the landfills, so we’re proud of that, and there is a larger market for recycled aluminum than there is recycled aluminum available.

John: So, Kevin, you know, you were involved with finance for years, and you’ve been the CFO of many divisions, and now you’re the CSO, the Chief Sustainability Officer. Talk a little bit about where sustainability interacts and actually crisscrosses with finance, and is going green really good for the bottom line?

Kevin: Yeah, and that’s a great question, John. When I started in the sustainability role, a lot of the NGOs and a lot of fellow Chief Sustainability Officers who maybe had a different background, maybe more of a communications background, maybe more of an environmental background or a policy background than I did, they welcomed me. The sustainability folks understand that there’s a great business case for sustainability. What they don’t have is necessarily the language of the CFO. So, that’s kind of what I bring, and one of the joys of being in this position is I can bridge all of the great things that are happening on the sustainability front, help convert them to dollars and cents, and say yes, there is a business case for sustainability, whether it be projects that reduce water consumption, products that increase energy, or assessing new markets.

John: Got it, got it, got it. So, you know, Kevin, Alcoa is massive. I mean, it’s 61,000 people approximately across 30 different countries. How do you not only create these great sustainability programs and activities here in the United States, but how do you populate them and drive the message across your entire business?

Kevin: Well, if you look at how Alcoa has been run under Klaus, we really have a couple key strategic business priorities, and one of them is capitalizing on the Alcoa advantage. That’s the franchise of the parent company. What we do there is we’ve got lots of processes, whether it be human resources, procurement, financing, where we take the same processes and deploy them across the world. We’ve got mechanisms to identify new best practices and them make them standard practices, so we’ve got this infrastructure for doing everything and passing best practices across the world. So, when I came into this role, part of what I did was just build on that infrastructure. So, people asked me, “Kevin, what’s your sustainability strategy?” I said, well, we don’t actually have a sustainability strategy. What we’ve done is we’ve embedded sustainability into the business strategies of each of our operating locations and businesses, and just make it part of the fabric. And then, like any good manufacturing company, we’re very metrics-driven, so we’ve established the appropriate metrics at each of our businesses, so we then have a way to measure their performance.

John: So, when we talk about sustainability and aluminum, talk a little bit about, you touched on it earlier, in terms of cans and trucks and then transportation and cars. Talk a little bit about how, as the world becomes more sustainable and we all drive cleaner cars and want to fly in lighter airplanes with greater fuel efficiency, how aluminum plays such an important and critical role in the greening of the world.

Kevin: Yeah, thanks, John. I think one of the examples I like to use is truck wheels. When you drive down the interstate, keep an eye out. You’ll see a shiny, bright wheel passing you by. Odds are that’s an Alcoa wheel, and the way we go to market with that product is we’ve got a little online web tool we make available to the trucking companies. It’s a product called the Calculighter, and it allows the trucking companies to go in, put their own data into the system, and calculate out this is what I get in GHG savings, this is what I get in fuel savings, this is what I get in maintenance and tire savings, and allows them to see the whole value proposition aluminum brings. If you’re talking aviation, 90% of the alloys on airplanes that are flown started with Alcoa, and now carbon fiber is all the rage. That was the next step the airlines went to kind of get the next step change in fuel economy. Well, that drove Alcoa back into its R & D facility, and we’ve now come up with aluminum lithium alloys that are lighter and stronger than the carbon fiber, so we’re kind of playing hopscotch here with technology.

John: Let’s go back to the Calculighter. So, for our listeners out there that want to employ this great tool, they can just go to your website, alcoa.com, and find the Calculighter?

Kevin: Yes, they can.

John: That is awesome. So, you’re using the internet technology with regards to leveraging that for people’s greater good to understand how much they can save using your new technology with regards to Alcoa wheels.

Kevin: Yes, typically we do sell a premium product, but typically the payback is less than two years.

John: Wow. So, the ROI, if you’re going to use Alcoa wheels, is about two years.

Kevin: Yes.

John: Talk a little bit about, though, all these new cars that are coming out at Ford and GM and all these great iconic brands, the greening of the car industry. How does Alcoa play a huge role with regards to that?

Kevin: First of all, we’ve got the new CAFE standards in the U.S., which are driving the automotive companies to make their cars more efficient. But then we’ve just looked at some data that we had, a couple studies that recently came out, and as recently as 2008, slightly more than 50% of consumers put fuel economy as the number one driver in making a car choice or a truck choice. That number is now over 80% in 2012, so the consumers are now pulling for this, which is fantastic. It’s driving the automotives to see this as a competitive advantage. As a result, they’re looking at every option to drive fuel economy. We’ve been talking to the automotives for the last decade about all the things we can do with aluminum. Now, with this whole change in regulation and consumer demand, they’re knocking on our door. So, we’re getting phone calls from all three of the OEMS, domestically and around the world. All the OEMs are calling us. So, big things we’re going to be seeing in the future model years, more aluminum sheet in the products and doors and door liners and trunk hoods, trunks, lids, and hoods, the body and weight as the automotive folks call it.

John: So, that makes the cars lighter and makes them more fuel efficient.

Kevin: Yeah, it makes them lighter, makes them more fuel efficient, and we believe with an improvement in safety, too. We reduce the mass of the car, it’s quicker to stop than you can stop today.

John: For our listeners out there, if you just joined us, we’re so thankful to have Kevin Anton on with us today. He’s the Chief Sustainability Officer at Alcoa, and if you want to learn more about Alcoa and all the great things they’re doing with regards to the world of sustainability, go to alcoa.com. They have a great website. I’m on it right now. You click onto the Sustainability button, and it’s just a myriad of opportunities and thought leadership positions that they take that inspire us all. Kevin, talk a little bit about Alcoa and the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and your being included year after year after year, and why that’s so important and that’s such a great indicator of what you guys are about and what your DNA really is.

Kevin: Yeah. We’re proud of it. We are the sector leader for the Dow Jones Global Sustainability Index. We’ve been included in Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes for 11 years running, and that makes us a very unique company, to be able to say that. We like the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. They have a very, very rigorous process; a very database process. It drives to transparency; it drives to accountability, and those are things that are right in our sweet spot, so we really put a lot of time and effort into it. We think it’s a leading indicator of where the world is going because it’s not a static index; the requirements change and get harder and harder every year, and if you’re not on top of it, you can end up out of it. It’s one of the key measures. It comes out about 4 in the morning, and I will tell you, I’m awake waiting for that e-mail to see did we make it and where did we make it.

John: You’re like George Clooney waiting for the Academy Award nomination.

Kevin: Exactly. The media response, forwarding that note to our CEO because he’s also watching.

John: So, I’m going to take a little break from aluminum per se, and I also want to talk about some of your other great work in the communities that you do. For instance, Alcoa’s known for taking some plants and reinventing their traditional aluminum recycling properties into new and wonderful lives. Can you explain about what you’ve done in that sector?

Kevin: Yeah, and I’ll talk about two of them, John. One is in Troutdale, Oregon, which is pretty much complete, and another one that sits in Badin, North Carolina, which you have some firsthand experience in. So, first of all, in Troutdale it was a World War II vintage aluminum factory that Alcoa acquired when it acquired Reynolds in 2000. The plant was pretty much shut down or in the process of shutting down when we acquired it, so we worked with the Port Authority out there in Troutdale, the local government, the community, and we were able to redevelop the site, and now it is a FedEx distribution terminal, hundreds of millions of dollars invested, probably 1,000 direct jobs plus untold indirect jobs from that. So, we’ve been able to actually turn this into a phoenix, and we’re proud that the U.S. EPA-sponsored award for best brownfield development a couple years back is called the Phoenix Award, and we won it for that site.

John: That is so great. So, you took an old property, a legacy Alcoa property, and you recycled it.

Kevin: Yeah. Some people would think of these legacy properties as liabilities. We actually think of them as opportunities. They have great logistics, great workforces available, and we just have to find the match with the new use. The second one we’re working on is in central North Carolina, a site that Alcoa had operated for 100 years, and unfortunately a few years back we had to shut it down. So, we’re in the process now of repurposing the site, and we’ve got an engineering firm located there, we’ve got two or three folks who are talking about coming in, generally green tech-type properties, and then our base load tenant, John, as you know, is ERI. So, a 150,000-square-foot facility that used to cast aluminum, and now it is become the state-of-the-art modern electronics recycling plant.

John: Yeah, and that’s thanks to Kevin, a little truth in advertising here. Kevin, we were their first tenant in Badin, and it is one of the most wonderful properties we’ve ever been in. We’re so proud of it, and we’re going to become the largest southeast e-waste recycling facility, thanks to Alcoa and Kevin Anton’s vision in Badin, North Carolina. If you haven’t had a chance to go there before, go there now. If you’re looking for a great industrial place to open up your business, please contact Kevin, because that location is just one of the premier locations in the southeast part of the United States. Kevin, I’m going to go back to aluminum now. Talk a little bit about growth. We’ve talked a little bit about what you’ve done now with your R & D to combat the carbon with regards to airplanes. Talk a little bit about transportation, trucks, and where are you guys focused? Not where the hockey puck is today, but where is the puck going?

Kevin: Well, John, just to put a backdrop to that, as you know, I’ve been in the metals and aluminum business for 30+ years, and we’ve traditionally seen that aluminum grows at GDP rates. But there’s been a decoupling over the past five years. We’re now growing at double GDP.

John: Double GDP?

Kevin: Yeah. And why is that? That’s because of the great value proposition from the material, and very, very much a sustainability-driven and efficiency-driven one, so our big growth right now is in the automotive sector, and all conversations will come back to automotive because it’s so exciting for us. So, what we did, I talked before about how the OEMs called us up. We built an expansion on our Davenport, Iowa rolling mill about $300 million coming online later this year. When we put the shovel in the ground, the facility was already sold out. Since then, we’ve broken ground in Saudi Arabia at our joint venture company for another auto expansion. And then I’m really proud because I’m talking to you today from Knoxville, Tennessee. We’ve got a large rolling mill here, and over the last few days we just announced that we’re going to do a similar expansion to the one we did in Davenport here in Knoxville, and the growth is phenomenal. We will now see aluminum-intensive vehicles in the parking lot when you go to the mall. In the past, it’s traditionally been the high-end cars like the Jaguars or the Audi A8s. This is going to be run-of-the-mill inside everybody’s reach to have an aluminum-intensive vehicle.

John: That is awesome. You know, Kevin, we’re down to the last three minutes or so. I know there are many other Chief Sustainability Officers or Chief Sustainability Officers-in-waiting that listen to this show. Talk a little bit about what other companies can learn from the great activities that you’ve done and created and you’re driving over at Alcoa with regards to sustainability.

Kevin: I think there are two ways to look at it, John. I’ll start first with leadership. Alcoa has a Board of Directors that has recognized sustainability as an important success factor for our organization. Just last week, I met with the Board, and at every board meeting there is a time carved out to discuss what’s going on in the sustainability world, so I’ve got incredible sponsorship from the Board. I’ve got incredible sponsorship from Klaus. But that’s only part of the solution. So, we’ve done great top-down; but we also then do a lot of programs from the bottom up to get our employees engaged. We have a volunteer program that we work very, very hard on. Last year, 60% of the Alcoa employees took part in a volunteer activity related to the environment or education in their community. Right now, we’re working with our employees on wellness and trying to help create a structured environment to give our employees the opportunity to change their lifestyles and make themselves healthier. So, if you’ve got leadership from the top sending a message and lots of engagement programs from the bottom coming up, creating opportunities for suggestions, creating lots of opportunities for people to improve their community, their workforce, their product, it all comes together in the middle, and that’s what allows us to be on the Fortune Most Admired or the Dow Jones Sustainability Index or Maplecroft for Innovation. So, it’s great when you get some external recognition, but the real key is getting the bottom workforce engagement and getting everybody involved.

John: We’re down to the last minute, Kevin, and a couple things. What do you want our listeners to walk away with today about Alcoa and aluminum? What are the one or two highlights?

Kevin: OK. It’s a growth market. We’re running sustainable solutions. Aluminum is the ultimate recyclable product, and I think one of the things your listeners, and I think I’m talking to the converted already, but I just want to make sure that everybody recycles that aluminum can. For all the great statistics we have, there’s still a billion dollars worth of aluminum that ends up in landfills in the U.S. every year, and the U.S. is quite frankly lagging many, many other countries in its recycling rate and its recycling infrastructure. So, that’s my personal plea to everybody. Don’t throw it out.

John: Thank you, Kevin. And not only are you amazing, but you are a great friend of mine and a great friend to the environment. Watch Kevin more on Twitter, and you can go see more about Alcoa at alcoa.com. Kevin Anton, you are truly living proof that green is good.

John Shegerian: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Engage. Engage is a digital booking platform revolutionising the talent booking industry. With thousands of athletes, celebrities, entrepreneurs and business leaders, Engage is the go-to spot for booking talent, for speeches, custom experiences, live streams, and much more. For more information on Engage or to book talent today, visit letsengage.com.

Hi, this is John Shegerian. I never could have imagined when we started the Green Is Good radio show back in 2006, that it would grow into a big podcast called The Green Is Good podcast. And now we’ve evolved that podcast to the Impact Podcast which is more inclusive and more diverse than ever before. But we did look back recently at some of our timeless Green Is Good interviews, and decided to share some of them with you now. So enjoy one of our great Green Is Good episodes from our archives. And next week, I’ll be back with a fresh and new episode of the Impact Podcast. Thanks again for listening. I’m grateful to all of you. This is John Shegerian.

Announcer: Welcome to Green Is Good, raising awareness of each individual’s impact on the environment, and helping to create a more beautiful and sustainable world. Now, here’s John Shegerian, Chairman and CEO of Electronic Recyclers International, and Mike Brady.

John: Hey, Mike, welcome to another show that we have of Green Is Good.

Mike Brady: Looking forward to it John. I mean, every week we get to… You know, I’ve said it before but I’ve got to say it again, if you’ll just indulge me. Number one, I love the time that you and I get to spend together and hang out. But it is so cool to learn new stuff every week. This is kind of like watching… I don’t know … the Discovery Channel and the Science Channel. But getting to ask the questions and getting to talk to some super cool guests, we learn great things about what we can do to change our environment to preserve it. And at the same time, while being green, saving some green. There are so many great money saving ideas that we get to share. We learn firsthand and get to share with our audience.

John: That’s the cool part. And you’ve always said this, Mike, the little things add up to a big difference. And that’s the fun… That’s the feedback we’re getting from our audience and that’s the feedback that you and I share with each other every day.

Mike: And you know, what is really cool is the fact that we get to reach an even broader audience. Each and every week, more and more people are finding out about the show. And of course, it’s available as a download application on iTunes, right?

John: Yes.

Mike: So, that is very cool.

John: And are going to tease a little bit about where else we’re located nowadays.

Mike: Yeah. Soft Rock 98.9. In addition to our sister station, we’ve KRDU. 11:30am. We’re also expanding to an hour. So, that is very cool. We’ve got two segments. So that means twice the guests, twice the fun.

John: And so we’re both AM and FM now.

Mike: Exactly.

John: Wow. And the fun part is because of our great tech people that we are also on the Apple iTunes network, which totally takes us to a great audience, anywhere people are. That’s the fun of what we do. Our message can be gotten by anybody around the world nowadays.

Mike: This is very, very cool. So we’re making technology work for us and spreading a very good, good message, because one of the things when we first got started, a lot of people were saying, “That’s okay. I kind of like some of the green stuff but isn’t it a little political?” Well, the answer, if you’ve listened to us before, on KRDU 11:30 am, the answer is a patent no. There’s no agenda other than leading healthier lives and taking better care of the world that we all share, so that we’ve got something to leave our kids and our grandchildren and future generations.

John: You know, you and I, get emails everyday, Mike. And I know we’re always sending them to each other for people who want to come on the show.

Mike: Right.

John: So people constantly ask me, “How can I come on the show? Or how do I qualify?” And it’s really as simple as our name. I mean, if you’re doing something in the green world or something that has to do with sustainability, which is people, planet, and profits, and it’s in the name of good, which is Green Is Good. We want you on.

Mike: Yeah, absolutely. The sustainability part is so good because it’s like any other endeavor in life. I mean, how you start is one thing, but really in the final analysis, it’s how you finish. So sustainability means the ability to sustain itself to keep going. You got a great idea. You’ve got a business model, something that is going to make a difference in the planet. That’s great. You get it started. But what keeps it going? That is sustainability.

John: You know, Mike, today we have a guest today in a sector that we’ve never covered before.

Mike: Okay, what’s the guest? What’s the sector?

John: We have a legendary name. We have Peter Mondavi.

Mike: Okay, I guess I can guess the sector. Would it be about why?

John: You would be right. And so we have an exciting show about what Peter’s doing with his winery in the green and sustainability field. And so I think it’s about time to get Peter on the line today.

Mike: Well, I love it. It’s going to be a very colorful show. Pun totally intended, because it’s not only about green, but we’re going to throw in a little purple too. Peter Mondavi. Our guest today on Green Is Good.

John: And don’t forget. The second half of our show today, we have Lyndon Rive from SolarCity. He’s going to tell you how to make your house a solar house today.

Mike: That’s all coming up right after the break here on Green Is Good.

Announcer: If a little green is good, more is even better. Now, back to Green Is Good with John Shegerian and Mike Brady.

John: Hey, welcome. Today, we are so honored to have Pete Mondavi Jr, who’s the leader of the Charles Krug winery. Pete, welcome to Green Is Good, and thanks for taking the time to come on with Mike and I today.

Peter Mondavi Jr.: Well, thank you. Thank you for the invite. I look forward to it.

John: Well, we just have to tell you straight up. We want to learn about what you’re doing. And you’re our first winemaker. Besides having a big time world famous family name, you’re our first winemaker ever on the show. So we’re so excited to learn about what sustainability means to the winemaking industry and what it means for your wonderful brand, Charles Krug.

Pete: Glad to be the first one on here.

Mike: Let’s celebrate with a toast. Okay?

John: Alright. So tell us a little bit… Why have you taken your Charles Krug brand that’s been around a long time into the Green Revolution? How did that start? And how does that look?

Pete: Well, really, it starts in our backyard. I mean, literally, because my brother, Mark and I, who both run this place, were born and raised here. We grew up. We started here when this Napa Valley wasn’t like it is today. It was a very rural agricultural community, very little traffic. Napa River was just beautiful, teeming with fish, steelhead runs. My brother is an avid fisherman. So we’d go down there fishing as a kid all the time for steelhead. Over the years, we saw that diminish. The steelhead… I mean, the quality of the river, which kind of measures the local environment quality, just diminished and degraded over time. And we’re not the only ones here in Napa Valley. There’s quite a few leading the sustainable charge that God, we really need to address just our backyard here.

We do own about 850 acres of land throughout Napa Valley from the very south end and Carneros towards up in the hills and [inaudible] mountain as well, and several places in between, which have… The farming there can have a significant impact on the health of the Napa Valley and most importantly, the Napa River, which runs right through the Napa Valley. Just to kind of give you a context, the Napa Valley is probably about, 20, 25 miles long, and on average, maybe a mile wide. And that’s it. So all the vineyards have a huge impact on the river.

So, we moved our vineyard operations some years ago, maybe about five, eight years ago, more towards a sustainable agricultural commitment to enhance the Napa River. I do know it’s actually coming back to life again. We’re getting more steelhead, salmon runs coming up here. So why we did it was really for future generations.

John: Okay. How did you do it though? How expensive was it? What kind of investment was it? And what does that really mean in terms of your practices and how you carry on the winery business then?

Pete: Well, it’s really an evolution. It didn’t turn on a switch, and all of a sudden, do it. We were looking at it. We’re looking at organic techniques. Other neighbors were pursuing this as well. We kind of learned together and advanced things. I mean, some of the things we do is… Now we’re going to more cover crop. Before we would till the heck out of the soil. It’d be a beautiful vineyard. I mean, nice green leaves and then all your manicured dirt. But all that dirt, when you get wind, you get rain, the top soil would run off into the river, just plugging up the river with silt. So we went to cover crops. So now we literally plant a variety of weeds, literally, in the vineyards. And that keeps the topsoil locked in. It does other beneficial things too. It also harbors beneficial insects in there.

We put up things like bat boxes that eat enormous amounts of bugs at night when they come out. Songbirds, they eat a lot of bugs as well, or during the daytime hours, obviously. We put raptor boxes up in our boxes, and those birds will take care of some of the rodent problems we may have in parts of our vineyard. So we do these things, naturally avoiding or at least minimizing the use of chemicals and stuff. And if we do have to do some applications, we try to do natural-based applications, which are much more sensitive to the environment. Mold and mildew, coarser sprays. For that we try to get on top of it and we will leave our vineyards, meaning we will literally come in if there’s a problem with mold or mildew, we’ll take leaves off, expose the bunches of grapes to more breeze, more sunlight, to reduce the growth of any mold or mildew out there. These are just some of the examples of what we’re doing out there. And we didn’t do them all at once. We’ve evolved and learned.

Mike: That’s really amazing too because when you first started out, I mean, this whole thing about natural pest control, natural mold and mildew control, you started out by telling the story about how you put in cover crops to save the topsoil from running off and becoming silt in the river and choking off the river but losing the topsoil. And you did that by weeds. So I guess the vision right now of a really good sustainable vineyard would be, well it is well manicured, but if you see weeds between the vines, you know they’re doing something right.

Pete: Yeah, exactly.

John: So you started this, and it’s been an evolution. How many years ago did you start this, Pete? And is organic farming becoming the norm now? Are you the leader of this and other people are following you? And because the Green Revolution has taken off so much, has this also become a great marketing tool for yourself also?

Pete: Now, the sustainable is in… let’s talk Napa Valley.

John: Sure.

Pete: I think it’s starting to become the norm.

John: Great.

Pete: I can’t tell you exactly how many vineyards are in the [crosstalk] [inaudible] or not.

John: Right.

Pete: A much smaller portion are in the organic, but that’s gaining some momentum there. So, the train is moving and it’s not going to stop. So I can see everybody around. There’s lots of cover crops, so on and so forth. So, well on the road to sustainable farming here in Napa Valley. And as I mentioned, the Napa river is benefiting from that. Now, from a marketing standpoint, it’s much more subtle. We do talk about it not necessarily on the label. But on presentations, some of our sales material may reference the fact of sustainable farming. We don’t make a huge deal out of it.

John: Does it give you a different marketplace, though? Instead of just certain markets carrying it, will Whole Foods carry your products, as opposed to if it wasn’t organic or sustainable winemaking practices?

Pete: Yeah, you can count it selectively. So where are those buyers in those areas, those communities, that tend to be more sensitive to sustainable farming? Yeah, we’ll talk about it more and tell them what we’re doing. Truthfully, out there, there are some markets that are less sensitive to that. I wish everyone was ultimately very sensitive to it. But it really is a market by market approach.

John: I want our listeners to know this was not just some light endeavor by you and your dad and your brother. This was a $20 million investment over the years that you guys have made into organic and sustainable practices at your winery.

Pete: Yeah, that’s the price tag for replanting most of our vineyards, because we’ve been here, the family has been here on these properties for 65 years.

John: Wow.

Pete: And because a vineyard lifespan is about 30 years, we needed to start replanting. So over the last decade or so, we’ve been replanting our vineyards and moving them into the sustainable program as well. The idea here is my brother, Mark, and I are a third generation here. Fourth Generation is coming along. Some of them show interest in the wine business. Some of them are still too young to do that.

John: Got it.

Pete: So we want to have this so we can sustain it for multiple generations to come along as a family business.

John: So, talk about that. Let’s go right into the family business issue. You know, your name is a legendary name in the wine business, which, of course, I’m sure, in many ways, is a curse and a blessing with all the pressure on you to keep producing great wines. But what is it now in a world of big business and big brands, and multinational companies? How is it that the Mondavis get to stay independent and stay successful?

Pete: It’s kind of a combination of things. First of all, it is difficult. There’s a lot of consolidation out there amongst the wineries. There’s becoming a handful of these super producers or whatever want to call them gobbling up brands throughout not only Napa Valley, but California and around the world. So they’re becoming very, very large suppliers of wine. And also, the distribution network. Really we go through a three-tier distribution network. Some states have multiple distributors, but every state at least has one major distributor that we ship our wines through. And that distributor in a major state could represent literally 10… maybe even up to 15,000 different bottles of wine. We’re eight amongst those. And so, because of the consolidation of distribution, that is very challenging.

However, we’ve been around, as I mentioned, for so long. We have a very good relationship with our distributors, and they like what we’re doing, they like our brands, they support us. So that helps us kind of stay afloat in the distribution network. And I think we’re kind of unusual in that situation to have that heritage and a direct family connection with all the distributors because all the distributors actually are family owned. They’re not publicly traded [crosstalk] on Wall Street.

John: Gotcha.

Pete: So they are private, they are family. And I think we relate very well to the family there. The other thing that being a family business, selling through these distributors, is we take a distributor change very seriously, and struggle over a distributor change if one happens, whereas some of the larger corporations that have so many brands, they will just realign their brands because it’s to their best interest, disregarding, potentially, a distributor’s performance.

John: Gotcha.

Pete: So, we change the distributor if they’re having a very difficult time with our brand, which happens very infrequently.

Mike: Well, Peter, as you mentioned, too, with a long term and in very almost familial relationship, that your company has with the distributors, I would think that the fact that you are practicing sustainable farming and growth operation, that that would, by definition, make a real difference with your distributors as well, that that would really resonate because it is more about family and about thinking for the future and future generations. Are we correct?

Pete: Oh, absolutely. And also it sets us apart from the kind of big mainstream wineries who may not have as extensive a sustainable program. It sets us apart from those and makes us a bit unique out there amongst those thousands of brands. Like I got a report the other day. I saw it on the internet. I think the United States now has 6000 wineries.

John: 6000 wineries.

Pete: 6000 wineries.

John: So talk about how do you measure success with 6000 wineries out there and the history that your family has and that you have. What is your yardstick now for success? You’re running a sustainable winery. You would love the fourth generation, your children to come into the business. What are some of the yardsticks that you look at on a month to month, year to year, generational basis.

Pete: Well, really, first of all, we look long term and generationally. The most important yardstick here, which has kept us independent and family owned is family comes first. I mean, the first thing is this is going to remain a family-owned business. And that’s the most important thing and the kind of easy to measure. His whole family owns it or not. And then is it profitable to the family? Is the family living appropriate lifestyle stuff? You know, we are. Do we have the returns that Wall Street would command? Absolutely not. I think we’re well below those returns, given the amount of assets and the investments we have. But you know what? It’s the love and the pride of the business, the quality of the product, the lifestyle of the family business, that really makes it a success for us. So, we have quite a bit different yardsticks than that of a publicly-traded winery.

John: You said there are 6000 wineries. Is Charles Krug and Peter Mondavi family… Are you the leading organic wine grape producer in Napa Valley?

Pete: I don’t know if we’re the leading one. We probably have, as far as the acres are concerned, probably more acres under sustainable than most of the others. We could probably be in the top 10. This is not documented. But just knowing our acreage and some of the acreage of some of the other growers here in Napa Valley, we’re probably in the top 10.

John: I know you explained some of the the bats and the blue birds, and how they play a role in your organic farming practices and sustainable practices in the winery. What other things are you doing in terms of sustainability with regards to your business and your home? Because I know you have some other interests in terms of restoring buildings, which is really recycling buildings, again, a form of sustainability. I know you also have some fish-friendly farming stuff going on. Tell our listeners about those things, too.

Pete: Yeah, lots of things. I’ll start at the home. I do have solar cells. We have TV panels on our roof. It represents about 25% of our consumption right now. I’d love to increase that. We have a couple of hybrids that we drive around. Another thing unusual… We didn’t remodel the house a couple of years ago, we did not add air conditioning.

John: Wow.

Pete: We added extra insulation. It’s an Adobe construction. [inaudible] I think it’s fairly conservative there. You know, things like that to kind of conserve at home. Here at the winery, recycling our water that we use here in the winery for sanitation purposes. We recycle that through the vineyards. We’ve done excessive amounts of insulation. I think that’s because we keep our resellers cool [crosstalk] 65, 60 degrees.

John: Right.

Pete: And just dumping more money into an excessive amount of insulation, I guess, is by far the best return. That’s where most of our money goes here, energy money, is in refrigeration. We’ve oversized our cooling tower because that actually saves money as well. Of course, all our lighting is predominantly [crosstalk] [inaudible] out here.

John: So it’s safe to say Pete, this is a DNA thing with the Mondavi family. You guys talk a good talk, but you also walk the walk across the board.

Pete: Yeah. I think that’s the most important thing, is to have it affect every aspect as much as we can.

John: How about the fish-friendly farming program? What’s going on with that? What does that have to do with the winery?

Pete: Fish-friendly farming is kind of an extension of sustainable and to a certain degree organic farming. What that does is a lot of our vineyards border either the Napa river or tributaries to the Napa river. And what that does is it’s farming practices that are specifically sensitive to the health of the Napa River and its tributaries, i.e. the cover crop, minimizing any spraying, developing… This is probably one of the big things and very expensive things, is developing the riparian area. Through working with the county here and biologists, we’ve kind of recreated the original, the natural riparian area, because a lot of invasive plants have come in, and invasive plants actually harbor bad insects, bad diseases, to the grapevines. So we’ve replanted areas with the original native vegetation, which is great. They don’t harbor these bad insects and some of the diseases as well. So what that does is it creates a great environment for the river. You layer it. So you have a ground base that filters out any sediment that may work through the cover crop area. And taking care of trees that have shadows over the water keeps it cooler. So it’s really farming techniques that are ultimately sensitive to the river itself.

John: Pete, we also want our listeners to know, what are your short term and long term goals here. You’ve told us about the history. You’ve told us what you’ve done in terms of sustainability and the DNA of the Mondavi family. What are the short and long term goals for Mondavi and for Charles Krug the brand?

Pete: Well, long term, obviously, is to remain family owned, estate driven wines coming off the acreage of vineyards that we have here, and really promote this for multiple generations to come, and also create a local environment here that is just a beautiful, healthy environment for people to raise their children as well as our children and future grandchildren. A little shorter term, we just want to make sure we’re financially viable so we can get to the long term goals.

John: Is it your belief that this is the future of the food and the wine industry, that the consumer is going to be wanting organic products more and more, and that this is the future waived that’s here to stay, it’s not just a fad, it’s a trend forever?

Pete: I believe it’s a trend especially when it comes to food, consumables. Definitely a trend that people are looking for sustainable, organic, not only for their potential health, but I think for the health of the environment as well.

John: Hey, Pete, a little bluebird told Mike and I that your family is planning something special. We’re down to the last couple of minutes here. And we want to hear in the last two minutes of our show, what’s special coming? The bluebird gave us a little heads up here. [crosstalk] We want [inaudible]

Pete: Yeah, we have something very special, very big, coming in next year, but we’re in the planning stage right now. The year would be 2011.

John: Okay.

Pete: And we’re going to celebrate Charles Krug 150th anniversary, the first winery in Napa Valley.

John: And how are you going to celebrate?

Pete: Well, a whole variety of ways. I’m not going to spill the beans.

Mike: Not too much.

John: Wait a second. What was that blue bird… Okay. [inaudible]

Pete: A lot of stuff in planning. So stay tuned on that. But we’ll definitely involve our historical buildings. You mentioned earlier that we refurbished, essentially kind of recycled. So that’ll definitely be part of the celebration. These are the buildings built in the 1800s by Charles Krug.

John: And just for listeners to know, where can they buy Charles Krug products in the United States and beyond?

Pete: Well, we’re only distributed in the United States.

John: Okay.

Pete: Some of the restaurants, for instance, Morton’s has several of our products. Depending what wine you’re looking for, there are some local stores that will have. And it’s really difficult to say exactly where in each market. But go to your local wine store and ask for Charles Krug. We are distributed in all 50 states.

John: Perfect.

Pete: So if there’s a nice wine store there, they can definitely get access to the wine through the distributor.

John: Perfect. So Mike, and I want to encourage all our listeners to buy Charles Krug wine, to support the Mondavi family for keeping up with their sustainability and being a leader in the Green Revolution and sustainability practices. Pete, next year, when you have the big Charles Krug event, Mike and I would like to have you back on so you could talk about it and share with our listeners what you’re doing. I’m sure it’s going to be a big wonderful bash. And you could give us an update on how things are going at your wineries. And Pete Mondavi, Mike Brady and I, just want to say thank you for coming on Green Is Good. You are living proof that green is good.

Pete: John and Mike, thank you very much.

Mike: Our pleasure, sir.

Announcer: If a little green is good, more is even better. Now, back to Green Is Good with John Shegerian and Mike Brady.

John: Hey, welcome back to Green Is Good. And don’t leave us because we’ve got a great guest coming up, Lyndon Reeve, who is the CEO of SolarCity, which Mike and I have heard about… About a year ago, Mike, we heard about SolarCity?

Mike: Yeah, just about a year ago now. The whole Solar revolution, John, has been something that has just really intrigued me since I guess back in the early to mid ’70s. It made so much sense. I mean, what have we got especially here in the central valley, in the summers, holy smoke. I mean, we’ve got nothing but sunshine, sunshine, sunshine.

John: And the technology is improving every year. So it makes it easier and more affordable to get these in people’s homes or businesses. And as you say, we are… I think you brought in an article once … a matrix of… that we live in one of the sunniest parts of the whole state.

Mike: Absolutely. This area is just absolutely ripe for solar power. And you know the joke back in the early ’70s, I remember with some of my friends, when I was living again in another very sunny climate in Tucson, Arizona. We would talk about solar power. And one of my friends said, “You know what? There’s never really going to be solar energy until somebody figures out how to put a power meter on the sun.”

John: Well, okay.

Mike: There is that profit motive, but more companies, including the company that we’re going to be talking to a representative of today, have found ways to really make a good living and make a good product. Of course, the whole thing about sustainability, the three P’s, right, John?

John: Right. Profit, people, and plan. I know I put it in backwards orders, but you’re right. Those are the three P’s that we talk about all the time.

Mike: You really need all three. You’ve got to have… I mean, if you’re taking care of the planet, you’re taking care of the people. It’s great to do things out of the goodness of your heart. But let’s face it, I mean, you need to be able to feed your family, [crosstalk] and business needs to make a profit. So, here we go.

John: Right. And one of our earliest guests, Josh Dorfman, said, this is a very… You know, The Lazy Environmentalist, he told us back about a year ago, that SolarCity has one of the most affordable and cost efficient methodologies to get the solar up on your house, and I think even your business. So it’s going to be fascinating today to share with our listeners, how this can be done, and inspire others to start making this move, because energy is one of the important areas that we all help with this green revolution.

Mike: You know, it’s going to be very cool too, because one of the things that has changed in solar technology is you don’t need the panels to be as big and it’s not as…

John: Good point.

Mike: Let’s put it this way. It didn’t used to be very attractive. Well, now it can be a lot more sensitive and environmentally aesthetic. I mean, to the environment as a total, it looks good. So we want to talk about that today too.

John: I’m excited to get Lyndon on the phone. He has a great story. He’s a serial entrepreneur. And I think learning more about SolarCity and getting our listeners educated to what they offer is going to be great for all of us.

Mike: And we’re going to be Lyndon Rive of SolarCity when we come back from the break. So stick around for a whole lot more of Green Is Good.

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Announcer: If a little green is good, more is even better. Now back to Green Is Good. With John Shegerian and Mike Brady.

John: Welcome back to Green Is Good. We are so honored today to have Lyndon Rive on the phone with us. Lyndon, thank you for being a guest on Green Is Good. And welcome to Green Is Good. We’ve been talking about your great company, SolarCity, for the last year or so. So it’s an honor to have you finally on our show.

Lyndon Rive: Thank you so much for having me.

John: Well, Lyndon, you’re a lifelong entrepreneur. You started starting businesses when you were 17 years old. You have got a huge history of success already under your belt. The last company you sold to Dell, I think in 2007, Everdream. You co-founded SolarCity in 2006. What made you get involved with the Green Revolution? What was your epiphany? What was your magic moment? And how has it gone since 2006?

Lyndon: So you know, the last company was a company called Everdream, as you mentioned, and it was focused on Enterprise software. After doing Enterprise software for nine years, the excitement just wasn’t there. Both myself and my brother are extremely passionate about the environment, and we’re looking at what can we do to really address some of the environmental challenges that we face. We looked at all different parts of renewable energy and realized that solar is one renewable energy technology that essentially is infinitely scalable. It can go almost everywhere in the US. And people seem to be able to relate to it. But the challenge with solar is the cost and the adoption rate was extremely slow.

John: Right.

Lyndon: So we decided, what can we do to fix this problem? Instead of just sitting on the sidelines and complaining, what can we do to really help the adoption of solar? And this is why we started SolarCity.

John: Tell us what the model is and how you’re different from other solar companies. Why does a guy like Josh Dorfman, who is a wonderful source of information, The Lazy Environmentalist, come on our show and even say, “Hey…” tell our listeners, “You should be looking up SolarCity,” which by the way, you can look up at SolarCity.com? Why are you becoming the name brand and how are you differentiated from your competitors?

Lyndon: You know, it’s actually quite simple. We listen to the customers and ask them what’s preventing you to go solar. The number one reason that we get from our customers is the upfront cost. So for the first year of starting the company, that has been our primary focus. So we focused on reducing the cost, but reducing the cost wasn’t enough. Even at 10 or 20% less than the competitive rate, it was still too expensive, it was still $20,000 to get a solar system. So this is where we invented the Solar Lease program.

John: And you were the first to do that. What does that look like? You were the first to create this?

Lyndon: That’s correct. So the goal of the program was, how do you get somebody to go solar, but not investing a single cent and saving money on day one?

John: Mike, I like this. This sounds good already.

Lyndon: So we came up with the Solar Lease program. The homeowner can now go solar, not invest a single dollar, and start saving money from day one. So let’s say your electrical is $200 a month, you’ll get a solar system. Your new electric bill, combined with your lease payments, will add up to about $170 a month. So you’ll save $30 a month, use clean power, and make no investment.

John: Okay, so now you go from being a software enterprise guy, highly successful, Everdream was a huge success, and now you come up with this idea with your brother. And now it’s 2006. Are people telling you you’re crazy? Are people telling you this ain’t going to work? I mean, how does that look at that point?

Lyndon: It’s actually traditional entrepreneur feedback when you start a company. Most people go, “You know, it’s probably not the best place for you to start a company.” When we started the company, most recommendations that we’re getting is, “If you’re going to start a solar company, start a solar panel manufacturing company.”

John: Right.

Lyndon: We actually did look at that. And we just thought, that’s not going to move the needle. We have to eliminate the barriers to adoption. And that’s not done on the technology side. The technology works. The technology that’s out there today has been proven. They are all high quality. So you get many different panel manufacturers, and most of them are really good quality. This is a proven technology. So we felt that the reason for getting into the service business would address most of the challenges for homeowners for adopting solar. And traditional investors don’t like service business because there’s no barrier to entry, your competition can copy you left and right. They prefer technology plays. Smart investors who have done service plays before know that if you get the right team, they will be able to execute the competition.

John: So, how hard was it? How much money did you raise in 2006? And how was the adoption of your new concept as you started going?

Lyndon: So 2006, we just had started. We decided the best way to grow was to buy two smaller companies. So we had the start of the team. So we had experience. We had all the licenses that we needed to do the installations. But we didn’t focus on the financing. 2007, we started focusing on the financing. But in the interim, we started focusing on reducing the cost of installation because we didn’t have financing in 2007.

John: Right.

Lyndon: So we came up with this program known as a community program. So you go into a community of homes, and you tell the community, “Look, instead of me just selling one half, if I sell 50 homes in this community, I’ll give you all a discount.” And that launched us. That made us number one in the state just by that single program.

Mike: Really? So you just took it from a sheer volume standpoint, making it more affordable for the homeowners. And I guess one of the things too, is Lyndon, when nothing succeeds like success, you make one sale, get that initial neighbor to buy into it, he starts talking or she starts talking to their neighbors, and pretty soon you’re able to deal in volume and everybody wins.

Lyndon: Absolutely. It’s a three-part win. The customer wins because they get lower [crosstalk] installation cost and we win as [crosstalk] [inaudible] volume in a certain area.

John: Cost. A company. And the environment wins.

Lyndon: Absolutely. That’s the third part.

John: Wow.

Lyndon: You’re right.

John: This is wonderful. So that’s how you got going. Go back to this. I want to just bring up… We have a lot of entrepreneurs that listen to the show. So I want to go back to a subtlety, talking about the right team to execute. When you move from Everdream over to this concept that you and your brother had in ’06, did you bring a lot of your Everdream team with you?

Lyndon: Actually, we did. Just so the listeners know, my brother and I started the previous company together as well.

John: Okay.

Lyndon: So we’ve been working together…

John: A long time.

Lyndon: A very long time.

John: Got it. That’s nice.

Lyndon: So, a very long time. Uniquely different. He’s the best in the world when it comes to technology, operations, and execution. That’s his clear strength. And then my strength is business development, sales marketing.

John: Perfect.

Lyndon: So we supplement each other very well. But yeah, we did bring many of the employees from Everdream to SolarCity. In the two acquisitions that we made in the early stage that were core to the company, we interviewed probably 30 or so different solar companies. And it was crucial to find the right culture.

John: Got it.

Lyndon: So, we managed to breed this culture where work hard, play hard, but focus on execution as a priority, and then strategy, as 1%. A mistake that many entrepreneurs make is there’s too much focus on strategy. You need a strategy.

John: Sure.

Lyndon: That only requires 1 or 2% of the time. Identify the strategy, and then focus the rest of the time on executing the strategy.

John: Right. So, ’07, you started executing and you raised money?

Lyndon: Yes. So the challenge with raising money, specifically for a solar lease program is volume. So we really encountered this problem. In 2007, the biggest reason why we weren’t able to offer the leasing program is the volume was not interesting to the banks.

John: Got it.

Lyndon: It’s fairly complicated to structure this program. And unless you’re going to do large volumes with the bank, they don’t bother.

John: Right.

Lyndon: So this is why we launched the community program. The community program allowed us to get to volume. Once we achieved the volume, then we were able to structure a relationship with the banks to do the leasing program. So we had a bowl of each other. We had to do one, and then the other.

John: Got it.

Lyndon: 2008 was the year of launching the leasing program that made us the largest residential solar company in the country.

John: And by then you were venture backed?

Lyndon: Yes. So venture funding, we’ve raised a total of just under 18 million.

John: Wow. Good for you. That’s amazing. And so then you took the show on the road. So now you’re across America?

Lyndon: We are in 4 states today. We covered most of California, Arizona, Colorado, and Oregon.

John: Are you number one in California?

Lyndon: We are.

John: And how are you in Arizona and Colorado?

Lyndon: Arizona, definitely by a healthy margin. Colorado, we just opened up the doors two weeks ago, three weeks ago.

John: Wow.

Lyndon: So, we still are very new in Colorado. And in Oregon, we’ve just launched there as well. So those are two new states for us.

John: I mean, no pun intended in terms of the blue sky here. But solar power is less than 1% of the US electric market right now. Is this as many hours as you want to work and as much as you want to dream? SolarCity has that far of an opportunity in front of it?

Lyndon: Absolutely. In our lifetimes, the solar industry will see infinite growth. The market is there. People see the value. They like the notion of getting cheaper, cleaner power. It’s a very clear value proposition. I’ve sold many things in my life, and it’s rare to find something that’s crystal clear.

So consumers want it. The market wants it. The environment needs it. So I see solar adoption for the next 20 years to continue at the growth rates that it’s been going.

Mike: Well, Lyndon, let me just give voice to a question that’s been running around in my head right now. As John mentioned, less than 1% of the power provided is by solar power. But when things finally kick in, where do you see the saturation point being for a typical home? In your best guess of a scenario, how much of the electrical power would be supplied by solar within the next five years?

Lyndon: So our average customer in California, our solar systems provide them between 60 and 85% of their power on average.

Mike: And that’s at the present rate.

Lyndon: That’s at the current rate. Exactly.

Mike: Okay. All right.

Lyndon: Now, we could provide more power, but we’ll leave a little buffer in there for energy efficiency improvements.

Mike: Okay.

Lyndon: So, we could do 100%, but then the energy efficiency… solar power would just be wasted if they do energy efficiency improvements.

John: Got it. So, I mean, when you go into a community now in a household, what is your sell through rate in terms of the leasing program versus the household buying it? And is this only for household SolarCity? Or are you morphing into a business opportunity also for businesses?

Lyndon: You know, we’re known for our residential business.

John: Right.

Lyndon: But most don’t know that a little over 50% of our business is commercial.

John: Oh, so SolarCity is for businesses out there. So anyone who’s listening out there that’s interested in this proposition for their business also, can go to SolarCity.com, and also get an opportunity to avail themselves of your program for their business.

Lyndon: Yeah, and for business, it works very similarly. So instead of doing a lease, we do a power purchase agreement, which is known as a PPA.

John: Right.

Lyndon: And how that works is we sell the business, like kilowatt hours. We sell them, essentially, the electricity. And the cost of electricity for business is, in most cases, either at the same price and sometimes a little less. The savings are not as great as for residents just because the cost of power for residents is higher than for commercial. But they do see some savings. And then they get to lock in the energy rates, and most importantly, they get to use clean power.

John: And for the homes. I want to also go back to the homes. Is the value proposition almost always favoring the SolarCity model when you go into a home in terms of saving the household money on their energy bills?

Lyndon: When you get into a small electric bill, let’s say around 80 or $100, is your electric bill.

John: Sure.

Lyndon: Then it’s hard to show savings on the solar lease program.

John: Gotcha.

Lyndon: Anything over $150, you start seeing savings with the federal lease. And this applies to California. This is not the case in Arizona, Oregon, or Colorado. Their small electric bills work.

John: Got it. I understand.

Lyndon: Just because California, the electricity is sold in different tiers. The more power you use, the more expensive it is.

John: Got it. So the answer is, in most cases, yes. California being a little bit of its own animal. But for the most cases, you take this across America, for anybody’s bill size, your program should work very, very well.

Lyndon: Yeah. And you know, some homeowners prefer to buy it. So in that case, we’d absolutely sell it to them.

John: Got it.

Lyndon: Other homeowners like the notion of leasing a system. So they have a production guarantee. We guarantee the output. So if we say it’s going to produce 10,000 kilowatt hours a year, we guarantee. And if it doesn’t, we’ll pay the difference.

John: That’s wonderful. You’re a young man, Lyndon, with years of business ahead of you. So take us through the 1%. 1% is today. When you and your brother sit down to dinner and talk about what the future is and how many states we have in this nation and beyond, how far can you take 1%? What number is SolarCity aiming for to create a solar economy here in America?

Lyndon: Yeah, I think we can definitely shoot for 20%, almost growing 1% per year.

John: Wow. That’s incredible. That’s incredible.

Lyndon: It’s a dramatic growth. But my forecast is that probably between 10 to 15 years from now, a primary source of new power will be solar.

John: Okay.

Lyndon: So remember, you have this massive legacy infrastructure that you can’t displace.

John: Right.

Lyndon: So over 20 years, 20% of our power can come from solar. But my forecast is that 10 to 15 years from now, a primary source of new power will be solar.

John: So, you know, with any good information and with any great business concept or empirical information, you always have the naysayers. You know, Al Gore has his naysayers. And everybody who’s doing something that’s groundbreaking or paradigm shifting, always has its detractors. Tell us about the debate among environmentalists and the advantages of large scale solar power plants and the threat to the environment. Where does SolarCity stand on that with regards to some of the people who like to sometimes throw arrows at great concepts?

Lyndon: Sure. So the debate is centrally around large solar farms in the desert that will disrupt the environment.

John: Gotcha.

Lyndon: SolarCity’s position is that all renewable power is important to solve the environmental challenges that we face. So we’re talking large scale and small scale solar.

John: Right.

Lyndon: Now, we have not been too involved to see the details of that debate, as our primary focus is rooftop solar. We do do large scale. So we do a megawatt or 2 megawatts. But most cases it’s on a roof. So there’s no disruption to the environment.

John: Gotcha.

Lyndon: And our focus is just a distributed solar. So it’s within the grid infrastructures. You don’t have to worry about transmission lines or anything to that extent of carrying the power to the source. It’s at the source.

John: So really, you’re steering clear. You’re not in the solar farm business and are not part of that discussion at this point.

Lyndon: Not at this point. But I want to make clear that I am a big supporter of solar farms, as I think it’s needed combined with distributed solar.

John: Got it. Your office is set up in Northern California. How many employees do you have now?

Lyndon: We have about 520 employees.

John: So tell us about your green DNA. I mean, besides selling a great product that’s helping transform society and the way we look at energy and use energy, what are the green DNA items that SolarCity is incorporating within its own company?

Lyndon: So, everything from a fleet. So work vehicles are the most fuel efficient work vehicles. Our sales team drives around with Priuses. All our paper brochures, everything is on recyclable material and ink. We won the TERA-Award for our corporate environmental contribution. So the TERA-Award is a big award given to corporations for what they’ve done, not just as a business model of selling solo, but within the company, what are the steps you’ve done to be environmentally friendly.

John: Wonderful. Who gives out that award, by the way?

Lyndon: TERA does.

John: Okay.

Lyndon: It’s actually fairly hard to win it. You’re competing against some really passionate companies.

John: So Lyndon, basically, you and your brother, not only talk a good talk, but really at SolarCity, you have a great walk. You walk the walk over there.

Lyndon: Yeah. It’s really rare that you have a company where every employee not only cares about the success of the company, but actually really cares about what we’re doing. I would like to refer to it as the double bottom line. The first bottom line is, you’ve got to make sure it’s a sustainable business, and the second bottom line is make sure that you’re doing, environmentally, the right thing.

John: Hey, listen, we’ve got about three minutes left, and I want to ask you two questions. First of all, why don’t you dispel the biggest myth about solar power, number one. And then number two, I want you to take our listeners into where the future is for SolarCity, and where are you going from here?

Lyndon: So the biggest myth is that solar is too expensive. That has to be addressed. Solar is affordable today. In fact, it’s been affordable for the last two years. You can save money from day one, with no investment. And there’s no reason why you should not do that. So that’s the biggest mess. And this applies to homeowners and to business owners.

John: You’ve done a great job today, dispelling that. And I want our listeners to go to SolarCity.com to see how they could save money so they could contact your company. So you’ve dispelled that. What’s next for SolarCity and how are you going to go from 1 to 20%? I want to hear your vision here.

Lyndon: So it’s really important to make this offering available to more homeowners [crosstalk] if you want to expand the company nationwide.

John: Sure

Lyndon: We’re already in 4 states. We are going to expand to additional 5 states in 2010.

John: Wow.

Lyndon: So that’s going to be the majority of our focus. We are helping the green economy grow as we do employ… Today we employ about 520 employees. We hired over 150 people over the last six months. We expect to hire another 100 in the next six months. So it really is a good solution not only for the environment, but also the financial economy that we face.

John: Well, you’re helping to build the green collar economy.

Lyndon: Yeah, exactly. It’s green collar workers. The construction industry has been hit hard, and there are very talented people there that can apply their skills to installing solar.

John: Well, Lyndon, Mike and I, want to say thank you very much for joining us today. We want to tell our listeners again, if you want to see and learn more about Lyndon’s wonderful company, SolarCity, go to solarcity.com. And Lyndon, we’re going to have you come back a year from now to give us an update on the progress of your wonderful company and your vision. We wish you all the luck in the world. And Lyndon Rive, you are living proof that Green Is Good.

Lyndon: Thank you so much for having me.

Announcer: This program will be available for downloading in a couple of days from our station’s website. Keyword: podcast. Thanks for listening and join us again next week at the same time for another edition of Green Is Good.

John: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by the Marketing Masters. The Marketing Masters is a boutique marketing agency offering website development and digital marketing services to small and medium businesses across America. For more information on how they can help you grow your business online, please visit themarketingmasters.com.

John Shegerian: This edition of The Impact Podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet, and your privacy. It is the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company in the United States and maybe even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business, properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit eridirect.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of The Impact podcast. This is a very special edition. We’ve got Chastity McLeod with us. She’s the director of technical packaging at Nestlé USA. And packaging and sustainability network lead for Nestlé North America. Welcome to The Impact podcast Chastity.

Chastity McLeod: Thank you, John. Thanks so much for having me, so pleased to be here.

John: Well, it’s a real honor, and before we get talking about all the great work that you and your colleagues at Nestlé you’re doing in the sustainability and circular economy space, let’s talk a little bit about Chastity. Where did you grow up? And how did you even get here to this very important role that you have in Nestlé?

Chastity: Well, thanks, John. It’s been a little bit of a winding road that got me here. I actually grew up in South Carolina. I’m the youngest of 11 kids. First, to go to college and when I graduated, I entered the field of packaging in Ohio. Worked for a company there and then about 2 years after that, I joined Nestlé, so I’ve been here for about 17 years. I started my career as a technical packaging engineer here in the US and about 4 or 5 years into my career, I had the awesome opportunity to move to Europe. I lived in Germany for almost 3 years and to be honest, that was about 10 or 12 years ago, but it was a really eye-opening experience when it came to like how the Europeans treat waste, and quite frankly having grown up in the US and when I grew up, I didn’t even have recycling in my small town. It was really eye-opening, so I came back to the US. I headed up technical packaging for frozen and chilled globally for a while. I did a stint in product development and a few years later, I ended up in packaging. Well, this is not a new thing for Nestlé. Obviously, our sustainability ambitions have been communicated in 2018 and it was just a great opportunity for me to step into a space that I really loved and had a lot of passion and a lot of energy for, throughout my career, and all the moves are described. I did a lot of work in sustainability. I started to build up some good industry connections there and so, when I took this role in 2019, it was a great chance for me to kind of start driving that actually ambitions around sustainability.

John: Chastity, you bring up a good point about eye-opening because when I’ve gone to Europe as well on stainability and circular economy issues, it’s been eye-opening for me. Eye-opening for you because they were so far ahead of us when it came to circular economy and sustainability, DNA, and working towards those goals already ahead of us in the US?

Chastity: Yeah. That’s much ahead of the goals but just in terms of how they manage their waste, right? It was almost like a national pastime, the management of waste, right? Every day, here in the US, we have a day where they come to pick up our trash, there, it was different days for different things. Black for everything that was recyclable that might be incinerated or landfill, blues is for cartons, [inaudible] which is yellow. It was everything plastic. And plastic, you wait a month. You actually filed that up in your garage and wait a month until they came and picked it up. We were responsible for our own glass. We had to take our glasses to different bins so that they would be sorted into brown, white, and green. And this was 10-12 years ago, right? And it was just a completely different way of living your life when it came to the end use of materials that I just never had experienced before, so I was really kind of energized by that and the fact that we could do a lot more in the US.

John: Chastity, the truth is none of us in the US were even ever exposed to that before because that didn’t fit. I grew up in New York City. We didn’t have that in New York just like you didn’t have that in South Carolina, so Europe was far ahead of us in terms of those issues. The separation and as you say managing their trash and a great way of putting it. For our listeners and viewers to find you and all your great colleagues and all the great work you’re doing at Nestlé, they could go to nestleusa.com. It’s such an honor to have you Chastity because growing up in the United States, Nestlé is a comfort brand. It’s a brand that’s iconic and we’re so proud of it. And 97% or more of our households in the United States have Nestlé products in our household. It’s a brand that matters to all of us. It’s not just some of us. With that in mind, can you talk a little bit about some of the great important work that your team is doing in packaging and sustainability at Nestlé?

Chastity: Yeah, be my pleasure and I want to start off by saying, I don’t just say this because I work for Nestlé because I work very hard, and a lot of people across our company work very hard to hold us accountable day in and day out. Sustainability might be the buzzword right now. It’s not a new thing for Nestlé, right? For years and years, we have been working to drive the waste out of our processes to leave our communities better than we found them. We’ve had our CSV strategy in place for years, ahead of this and I’m just so glad that the notion of packaging and sustainability is getting the attention that it deserves because it’s a really important matter and Nestlé is really working hard to do its part in this space. We have delivered our Ambitions in 2018 that all of our packaging will be reusable and recyclable by 2025. And we are working feverishly to make that happen. It is a multi-faceted approach that we’re taking, John. It is not a simple solution, so there are lots of different approaches. One of which is really focusing on our materials and trying to make sure that they are actually designed through the process to be recycled, so you’ll hear us talk about the notion of design for recycling, which means that we are actually designing materials that can be recycled from the inception.

John: Give us an example of what it was and where you’re going.

Chastity: Great example, it will be, in the past, if we launched a new product, that product might have a coloring in it because black is a historically been a symbol of premium. Today, we have golden design rules that we follow internally that say. We have to eliminate carbon black from our portfolio. And so, minimizing the use of pigments that keep things from being accepted into the recycling stream is a great example of the thing that we would do today that we might not have done in the past or that was a part of our packaging in the past and were eliminated going forward.

John: Understood. I’m so glad you said at the top of the conversation that sustainability even though, yes, it’s a buzzword and the great thing is that we are truly moving from a linear to a circular economy now and there seems to be no going back. It’s an unstoppable trend that Nestlé’s been really doing for much longer than just recent times. This has been a DNA issue there and that’s why I really started this show 15 or 16 years ago, Chastity, because what I realized back then even was that unfortunately, mainstream media doesn’t really cover the great stories of our important and iconic brands that are truly moving the needle on critical issues. They’re focusing more on the more catastrophic fire type of issues that catch our attention more but good news, unfortunately, doesn’t sell so and doesn’t sell advertising, so it’s so great to be able to have you on to share the good news. That means so much to me and to our listeners and it’s important that they know all the great work that Nestlé’s doing. Thank you for sharing that and giving us a little perspective. It’s really important, Chastity.

Chastity: Yeah. It is my pleasure. As I said, I mean, there are things that we’ve been doing for a very long time. It’s our job to get the work done, right? And ever since I’ve been in this job, we’ve been doing things like making our packaging fit for purpose, right? Which is when we say that what we mean is that we are using packaging, that has the bare minimum of packaging that we need in place to protect our product, and make sure the quality of the ingredients stays where they are, but we’re using a little material as we can and then to your point about circularity, making sure that we put PCR and other post-consumer recycled materials back into our packaging to move that end of life from linear to circular. And so, all of those things are things that we’re doing to help make our packaging more sustainable.

John: What are some of the challenges, you stepped into this role and if we know anything about sustainability, it’s a journey. We are never at the finish line. We can always be doing more as just people in our households, as single human beings as families, and as organizations and corporations go. It’s a journey. Where do you believe when you took this very important role at Nestlé? Where were you on the journey and how’s it been going since you took this role?

Chastity: Since I took this role, I would say I’m very excited about all the progress we’ve made, right? We committed to transitioning our portfolio from eliminating things that can’t be recycled to being fully recyclable by 2025 and that’s a huge ambition. And there’s a lot of work to be done, so we’ve been very busy with that business. At the end of the day, I think there are a lot of positive things happening. There are some challenges as you asked, one of which is we have a pre-fragmented infrastructure here in the US. Our recycling infrastructure varies from state to state. And so, we tried to do is just invest in the general infrastructure itself and trying to make sure that material recovery facilities that are out there. We are starting to invest in those to help them be more efficient, collect more, and be as effective as we can, to help draw a circularity. The fragmented and nature of the recycling industry is an ever a present issue not just for Nestlé but also for anybody who’s trying to drive recyclability across the industry, but we have to work with folks. We have to work with a credible coalition, people that are doing great work in this space and it’s our responsibility to help and invest in those material recovery facilities and partner with the people who are trying to advance circularity as much as we are.

John: You make a great point about the patchwork quilt of the laws across the different states. Imagine we’re here, doing this conversation together in 2022, Chastity, and imagine how much we know about the importance of responsible recycling but only 11 states have even a bottle redemption law and that makes no sense to me, that just shows you in that industry, how fragmented things are on a state-by-state basis. With regards to your very ambitious goals of 2025, how hard is it to go back to your packaging manufacturers and ask them to create new products that disrupt the legacy products they’ve been making for you for all these years, so that way you could hit your goals? Is that a constant give and take and collaboration that’s an ongoing journey together?

Chastity: Absolutely. It’s a journey but sustainability is good for business and I think people have to remember that, right? Sustainability does not have to be counter to your business ambitions. Our suppliers, a lot of them, we’ve been doing business with them for many years and they understand our ambitions and our objectives and our goals, and they’re not dissimilar from their ambitions, objectives, and their goals because they also want to do the right thing for the environment. And so, I found that we work together. When we were very clear about what our emissions are, they partner with us to find the solutions that we need. Some even go out and acquire technologies and businesses, a matter of even made counter theirs because they want to help us and deliver their ambitions while they deliver theirs and do the right thing for our consumers, customers, and the planet.

John: For our listeners and viewers, we got Chastity McLeod with us today. She’s the director of technical packaging Nestlé USA and packaging sustainability network lead for Nestlé North America. To find Chastity and her colleagues, you can go to nestleusa.com.

Let’s break down your title because this is really important. You’re the director of technical packaging for Nestlé USA but the packaging sustainability network lead for Nestlé North America. Now, you mentioned your great experiences in Europe, Chastity. Now, I assume as the packaging sustainability of network lead for North America, there’s a packaging and sustainability on network lead for different regions around the world. How often do you meet and share best practices, and best supplier information so this way the ocean is rising together at Nestlé across the whole planet? How does that work? It would be fascinating to understand that.

Chastity: We have global packaging sustainability who kind of coordinates with folks who, as I said, I’d do this for Nestlé North America. I have colleagues who do this and other parts of the world, and we meet weekly depending on, so it’s very difficult for China to meet at the same time as the US, so we have to work across time zones and things, but at the end of the day, we’re in constant contact with each other and sharing best practices and initiatives that we have whether it be investment opportunities and infrastructure or work that we’re doing with new technologies that are coming about. We share those things really frequently with each other. And then, even here within the US, we have different operating companies for Nestlé and so, when I say network lead, that means I’m pulling together those operating companies that we can continue to share best practices and even talent, right? Because the people who helped us advance this internally are just as important as the initiatives that were tackling. It’s my role to make sure I’m keeping us connected both here in the US and across North America, as well as with our Global colleagues who are also doing awesome work in their businesses.

John: I think that’s so interesting and wonderful because what most people don’t really understand if they’re not in the business that you are and I am is that it’s truly one environment and one world. If there’s a catastrophic environmental experience in Japan, it affects all of us in the world. If there’s a catastrophic event in the United States, it affects all of us. It’s really just one environment and one world. It goes across borders, so working across borders, and collaboratively makes so much sense to come up with the best solutions. I just love that.

Talk about some of the challenges that you face or things that keep you up at night. You have very ambitious goals, you’re only 3 years away from them, are you going to get them? What hurdles do you still have to overcome?

Chastity: The biggest hurdles we have are just making sure that one, we have the materials that we need to be circular, right? We made strong commitments around the usage of PCR in our materials. We want to make sure we have access to those. That goes hand in hand with our investment and with our Closed Loop Leadership Fund, which I’m sure, if you’re not aware of, John, we’ve invested $30 million in our Closed Loop Leadership Fund, which is a group that’s really focused on upgrading recycling, infrastructure, bolstering the packaging materials, collection process, and securing access to food grade materials that we can then use in our packaging. And so, relationships like that really help us drive our ambitions and partners like Closed Loop are just great for the industry at large and it is pre-competitive, right? We have folks like Unilever and PepsiCo who are all in there. And when we invested in Closed Loop, we did it for a couple of reasons. One is, obviously, the drive circularity but the other ambition of Nestlé is to make sure that is catalytic, right? No one person can solve this problem alone and so, the hope was that by investing in something like Closed Loop, others will invest as well and we will infuse as much capital as we can until these materials recovery facilities, so they can be as efficient as possible.

John: Well, I have to tell you a little bit of the truth about advertising. Ron Gonen the founder of Closed Loop is 17 years a good friend of mine and Closed Loop is an investor in our company. I’m really proud of that because it’s really great that Nestlé made a $30 million investment. We all know and if we don’t know, the world should know the important work Closed Loops doing across all sectors of circular economy and circularity, and Nestlé being in there, moves the needle. It shows the world how much you care not just about Nestlé itself but about the world at large, the environment at large, and I’ll tell you that it’s really impactful that you guys made that investment. I’m really proud of you guys for doing that because it really gets others to then similarly move and write cheques like that to help that fund grow, so they can do more good with that capital.

Chastity: Yeah. It’s a great initiative and we’re very excited to partner with them.

John: Let’s talk about other great organizations. At the top of the show, you mentioned other partnerships and obviously, the patchwork quilt of laws makes it difficult to sometimes get things done efficiently and effectively. Talk about other organizations you work with to help expedite your goals and also make the world a better place.

Chastity: I can tell you, there are a lot of things that are difficult, but I have a saying that I always go back to and things are hard, right? And so, at the end of the day, what we have to focus on is all the good things that are happening and to your point about the organizations and companies that are out there doing really awesome things like TRP, right? The recycle partnership that is really laser-focused on, making sure that consumers have access to curbside recycling. They do a lot. They have a tremendous understanding around the infrastructure in the US and what it’s going to take for all of our companies to be our ambitions, in terms of consumers having access to recycling. Last year, in partnership with Walmart, the recycled partnership, Ellen MacArthur Foundation, and other companies, like Monde, PepsiCo, and Unilever, we sat together and we actually created a tool called Plastic IQ that basically a tool for smaller companies, unlike the Nestlé’s on the world where we have a lot of tremendous amount of resource that we can put towards this, the smaller companies that might not have a resource to that effect and what we did with plastic IQ was created a tool that smaller companies can use to actually develop sustainability strategies for their businesses. And so, companies like TRP, U.S. Plastics Pact, Ellen MacArthur Foundation, and even APR, which is a great partner of ours that helps us validate that when we say things are recyclable, they are, so it’s not just us patting ourselves on the back that we did a little bit of work and that we made the advancements that we said. There are just numerous organizations out there that are just so important for the movement of sustainability and we’re just excited to partner with them all.

John: And for people to find Plastic IQ, they could go to plasticiq.org?

Chastity: That’s correct. Keefe Harrison and her team are doing great work there and if you go to that website, you can learn more about the Plastic IQ tool.

John: Unfortunately, when the media covers sustainability or the environment, they seem to be two drum beats, two stories, one, of course, is the positivity of Tesla of Elon Musk. He’s a larger-than-life human being in figure and good for him and good for Tesla and all the great work they’ve done. And then they cover the boogeyman of post-consumer waste plastic. And it hurts my heart because we don’t get out, like you said, enough of these great stories about what you’re doing. So, let’s disavow our listeners and our viewers of post-consumer of plastic. As you said, by 2025 or soon thereafter, most of your packaging is going to be recyclable and so, that means that and I assume other great brands like yours are following suit, so really the change is here, the change is happening and the good news is that the all the plastics that are coming out now in the packaging world are highly recyclable compared to 20 years ago or 15 years ago,

Chastity: Yeah. Our ambition is to make sure that all of our packaging are recyclable or reusable by 2025, right? And that ambition, we said in 2018 and we’ve been working towards that feverishly and that’s still our ambition is to deliver that.

John: Chastity, how can we be better consumers? So, when we buy your great products even though we’re still not set up like Europe yet and we know that every state and every city really, unfortunately, is different with regards to how they handle trash in the United States. How can we be better consumers in how we handle our trash? Do you have some favorite tips that you share with people when you get together with friends, relatives, and in other social settings?

Chastity: Yeah. Besides them telling me about packaging from other companies that it doesn’t work for them because they’re all saying, “Hey, am I getting [inaudible]? I’m like, “I don’t work for them. I’m sorry.” [inaudible]. It all matters but the tip that I give to them is this, right? That there’s a great thing that has happened in the last few years and there’s a label on all over packaging, how to recycle label. That gives you a great indication of what you can do with your packaging and there’s guidance that we basically have to have in place before we can put those labels on our packaging. So, they are great indicators of what you can and cannot do with your packaging from a recyclability standpoint. And if you have questions you go to how2recycle.com. It is right there on the packaging. It gives guidance on how you can manage your packaging.

John: Before I let you go today because you mentioned earlier how sustainability has been part of Nestlé’s DNA, how big relatively speaking? You’re in the technical packaging section and also you’re the sustainability network lead for Nestlé North America but this is just packaging, how big is sustainability as a whole, a macro at Nestlé in terms of different divisions and people? Just give us a little bit of roughly, how large sustainability is and how much it means to Nestlé.

Chastity: It’s too hard to be quantified in terms of a number of people but what I can say to you is sustainability is a part of everything we do, right? It’s a part of our ingredients, the work that we do, how we source our ingredients, what we’re doing in the space of regenerative egg, and how we manufacture our products, right? The types of energy that we use to run our facilities and we have ambitions around, not just packaging but we have ambitions [inaudible] zero, right? We want to have zero emissions by 2050. This is a huge ambition for us. We talked a lot about packaging here but whether it’s in the space of ingredients, packaging, manufacturing, or transportation, all facets of those things have sustainable, elements to them that we’re driving for improvements in efficiencies and reductions in a day in and day out and have been for years.

It’s a really important part of who we are and what we do and if you want to learn more about that, you can pick up our annual CSV report. It details a lot of that and it’s a very transparent document.

John: And can people find that on nestleusa.com and download it?

Chastity: [inaudible] and find out exactly if it’s on the site. I don’t know if it’s on nestle.com [inaudible] Nestlé site, but I think if you google Nestlé CSV, it will pop up for sure.

John: Let’s just say this though, let’s agree upon this, at Nestlé, sustainability is a DNA issue across every sector and across the whole company and the whole ecosystem.

Chastity: Absolutely.

John: That’s just wonderful. And for our listeners and viewers again to find Chastity and all the great work she’s doing in packaging and sustainability and her great colleagues, to learn more about everything they’re doing in sustainability, please go to nestleusa.com

To also learn about the great initiative that they’ve created with regards to plastic recycling for smaller companies, you can get more involved with sustainability and responsible plastic recycling, please go to www. plasticiq.org. Chastity McLeod, you are amazing. You’re doing such important and impactful work. Again, we’re so thankful for not only what you’re doing in the time you spend today but for making the world a better place and I thank you so much for spending some time with us today, Chastity.

Chastity: Thank you so much, John. It was a real pleasure. Thanks for having us and thanks for all the great work you do as well. We appreciate you

John: This episode of The Impact podcast is brought to you by Closed Loop Partners. Closed Loop Partners is a leading circular economy investor in the United States with an extensive network of fortune 500 corporate investors, family offices, institutional investors, industry experts, and Impact partners. The Closed Loop platform spans the arc of capital from venture capital to private equity, bridging gaps, and fostering synergies to scale the circular economy. To find Closed Loop Partners, please go to www.closedlooppartners.com.

John Shegerian: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet, and your privacy and is the largest fully-integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company in the United States and maybe even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit eridirect.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact Podcast. This is a very special Christmas edition of the Impact Podcast. I’m John Shegerian, and today we have with us a very special young man. His name is Colton Burpo a book was written on his life, it’s called Heaven is For Real. Colton, I just want to say it’s an honor and I’m really grateful for you to be on the Impact with us on this special Christmas edition.

Colton Burpo: Well, thank you for having me.

John: You know, you and I were talking about it a little bit off the air. For you, this is, I guess, 18 years in the making, for me, this is 10 years. I was blessed 10 years ago to be introduced to your family by a common family friend, Lynn Vincent, who wrote the original book, Heaven is For Real and you were such a gracious young man. When I ordered a bunch of your books, a couple of cases from your mom and dad and I asked for you to sign the books. I have one of the original copies right here, given out many dozens of copies, and people have been just moved by your story. But you were so nice to sign these books. Not only did you just sign your name, but under the words, Heaven is For Real and inside the cover, you actually wrote, “And you’re going to like it!” With an exclamation point and that just, man, that just moves everyone. When people see what you did at 10 years old by signing these books and signing it that way, that just is a huge exclamation point on faith and the reality of heaven and we’re all hopefully all going and things of that such and I just want to say thank you again. I love this copy. It sits on my desk. People ask me about it all the time and I get to retell that story and I get to show them that page that you signed. So, thank you for that. Thank you for that.

Colton: You’re welcome.

John: You know, Colton, it’s been quite a journey and I don’t want to tell your story. I want you to share with our listeners from three years old what really happened and what transpired since then in terms of the book, the movie, and everything else you’re doing with your wonderful ministry.

Colton: Yeah. So Heaven is For Real, kind of, how it started or the real-life experience that happened was when I was three years old about ready to turn four, I had appendicitis or my appendix ruptured and it was ruptured for about five days before doctors caught it. So when the doctors did finally catch that I had a ruptured appendix, I went into emergency surgery right away. And during that first surgery, I got to go to heaven and heaven is for real, kind of, stems off of that experience where then I came back from heaven and just started talking about it with my dad, my mom, my family friends, and they just started kind of saying like, “How does Colton know this?” Or my dad always told me now that I’m older, he said, “Yeah, when you were younger, people would always just come up and say, ‘Did you hear what your son just told us?'” He said, “No, what did he say this time?”

So it’s been a very big part of my life just being able to talk about having with people, give people hope, and that’s kind of been a big thing about my life and above all else, what I love to do is to give people hope but also to point them to Jesus because that’s how I got to heaven. I mean, it was really cool but how I got to have it is during that surgery, I was lifting out of my body. I could see the doctors working on me and I could see my mom and dad in separate rooms, but I was then sitting on Jesus’ lap and at the time I was freaking out I had no idea what was going on. And then Jesus had some angels sing to me to calm me down and it was just really cool because, at the time, they sang some of my favorite songs. Some of my favorite songs at the time were like Joshua fought Jericho, Jesus Loves Me. I did ask them to sing, We Will Rock You by Queen but they did say no.

John: Oh my gosh. That’s so cute at three years old.

Colton: That actually happened. Well, the thing is my dad, like my family’s a wrestling family. So my dad was a wrestling coach. I did wrestling basically my whole life. My little brother, Colby, he does wrestling. So wrestling tournaments, I remember all my Saturdays being there and that was one of the songs that played at a wrestling tournament.

John: Right.

Colton: Yeah. When it comes to like music people like to kind of poke fun at me because they’re like, “Colton, you don’t really have like an actual genre you listen to. You just listen to a bunch of things here and there,” and I’m like, “Yeah. Well, if it’s an 80s song, I can probably recognize it because my parents loved the 80s.” Newer stuff, good luck. My brother makes fun of me for being an old man since I don’t understand a lot of the current trends and I’m just like, “Why?” But, yeah, it’s cool.

John: So you on Jesus’ lap, the angels were singing to you. Is that a memory, 18 years removed, you’re now 21. Is that still vivid? As vivid as it was when you were retelling the story after?

Colton: Mm-hmm.

John: Wow. That’s fantastic. How was heaven? Can you explain what heaven felt like? Is there a feeling that you could explain verbally? Is there a verbal way of actually explaining the whole feeling around you while you were there?

Colton: So how I would describe heaven is I would say the feeling is heaven feels like home because we get to finally be with God. Like in heaven– another way that I like to describe it for people is to have three pictures in your head. The first one is – have a perspective of a kid because how I remember heaven was very simple as a kid. As I’ve been growing up learning more, I’d start to make things complicated because adults love to make things complicated. I’ve come to find out. So I try to view heaven through the perspective of a kid because it keeps it simple. The second is – think of heaven as a city that never stops growing. So, heaven is constantly growing for all the people that are coming in all the time. And with heaven, there is room for everyone but not everyone does make it to heaven. And then the third one and this is kind of the one that I used to kind of describe having to people so that they can get an idea is think of heaven as a perfect version of earth. Like heaven isn’t like those old Tom and Jerry cartoons where you just kind of sit on a cloud, play a harp, and sing the whole time.

In heaven, there are actually things to do. There are people, there are animals, there are angels, there’s also grass, there are trees, there’s water, there are buildings. There are more colors in heaven than there are down here on earth. There’s also food in heaven. Yeah, in heaven, I remember eating a lot of pizza and mac and cheese. And that might still be some of my favorite food today.

John: Listen. It was good for heaven, why not here on earth as well? You gave me hope now.

Colton: You got me there. Yeah. That’s some of the things I like to just talk with people about like because in heaven, it’s perfect. In heaven, there is no sin which for us, we don’t know what that’s like because here on earth, in all honesty, there’s not really anything that’s perfect.

John: That’s true. That’s true.

Colton: So it’s cool because like even in heaven, like when I was in heaven, I was a little kid. But it was weird because, for me, I met my sister who has miscarried before I was born so she was my older sister. She was in between my oldest sister Cassie who’s now 24 and me. And when I met her in heaven, she was actually the first person I met. So when I was brought up to heaven, after Jesus had the angels sing to me to calm me down, he had one of the angels fly me to heaven and when the angels sat me down, it was like on this road that led through these gates into heaven. There was a little girl that came running out of heaven and just gave me this giant old bear hug.

John: Did you know who she was when she did that?

Colton: At first, no. I was your typical three-year-old, four-year-old boy who still believed in cooties. I kind of just went, “Who are you? Why are you hugging me? What’s going on?” And after she let go she told me who she was that she was my sister and she was just so happy someone from her family was finally in heaven. And with my sister in heaven, she looks a lot like my older sister Cassie, but when I saw her she was a little bit smaller, but she was bigger than me and she had brown hair like my mom instead of blond hair. So, yeah, for kids like if kids are miscarried, if they’re aborted, or if they died at a young age, they go straight to heaven and they grow up in heaven. It’s really cool. And another cool thing is in heaven, for the adults, we get new bodies. So another person I met in heaven was my great-grandpa. My dad’s grandpa, Pop, and I actually met him when I was in the throne room of heaven, and Pop just kind of walked up to me and he said, “Are you Todd’s son?” I went, “Yeah, well, I’m his grandpa.”

It was cool because in heaven if I wasn’t with Jesus, I was with Pop and he was taking care of me. So it’s really cool because family is still a really big thing in heaven. But with Pop, when I saw him, he was in his prime like his late 20s. Because he wasn’t old in heaven, nobody’s old, nobody needs glasses or anything to help them walk around. Everybody’s young and healthy and the really cool thing is that in heaven, everybody has wings. What I remember is everybody was wearing white robes, they had different colors sashes. I don’t really know what they stood for. I just remember I had a red one, Pop had a blue one, Jesus had a purple one. Another thing is in heaven, we also have lights above our heads. They’re not really like halos, they’re more like flags. And then, yeah, everybody in heaven except for Jesus and the Holy Spirit, have wings, so you’re able to walk or fly everywhere. And, yeah, it’s really cool.

John: No kidding. Wow, that is powerful stuff. For our listeners who just joined us, this is the Christmas edition, a very special edition of the Impact Podcast. We’ve got Colton Burpo who was the subject matter star of Heaven Is For Real, the best-selling book and movie. And you could find Colton, his family, their books, and all the ministry that they’re doing to give hope and healing to people around the world at www.heavenlive.org, heavenlive.org.

You know, Colton, from three years old to now, a lot has happened and a book was written by best-selling author Lynn Vincent, Christian writer, Lynn Vincent who’s a common friend of mine and your families obviously, and that’s how we met originally. Talk a little bit about the book coming out and all that hubbub around the book and the movie and how you dealt with all of the attention that Hollywood and book writing and fame and fortune can thrust upon a wonderful family like yours.

Colton: Well, I’m not sure if you’ve ever gotten the chance to talk with my parents in detail.

John: No.

Colton: But part of the reason why from when I had my experience, was it 2003? Yeah. So the book didn’t come out until 2010. So there was a good seven-year span before we even wrote a book, and the only reason we wrote a book is because God said, “Do it.” So we were like, “Okay.” My family, we never wanted to be famous. We were from Imperial, Nebraska. It’s a tiny town of 2,000 people. In the corner of Nebraska where Colorado and Kansas meet Farm Town. And just kind of living there, I grew up there my whole life, and we never really expected all this to happen. But, yeah, when God said, “Do it,” we did it.

John: Colton, you guys just didn’t do it. I mean this book has sold– the last I saw, over two million copies. You might have even a better number now, but I mean the millions of lives that you’ve helped, I just know from just my little self, handing out your book to people. People have written to me the most heartwarming and thankful and faithful emails. I can’t even imagine how you guys were inundated with millions of copies and then a movie being made on the book. I mean, how do you deal with it?

Colton: In all honesty– so when we originally wrote the book we definitely did not expect it to become what it was. My dad was kind of planning for having just big boxes of books in our garage because we weren’t able to sell it. Like that’s where we were with it. We just kind of went we have no idea what’s happening, God. We don’t know what’s gonna go. And it was funny because we actually didn’t go through the hoops or try and seek out like, “Oh, we want to make this into a book.” How it goes is my dad when God finally said, “I want you to write a book.” My dad said, “No.” But then God just kind of reminded him, he’s like, “You know that piece you felt when you heard about your daughter in heaven.” “Oh, yeah, God, I wouldn’t trade that for anything.” Why would you keep that to yourself?

So then my dad describes it as a Gideon moment or a Gideon prayer where he said, “Okay, God, if this is you, the publishing world has to come to find me in Imperial, Nebraska. I don’t know how to write a book. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to do it. You got to bring it to me and I will do it.” So my dad was like, “Okay, done deal.” So when my dad got a phone call, it was from our book agent. His name was Joel Kneedler, and he was on the phone with my dad and basically called him and said, “Mr. Burpo, I heard about your son’s story and I would like to help you make a book out of it.” My dad is kind of sitting there and he kind of describes it as he felt like it was Joel on his phone in one ear talking with them about making a book out of our experience and then he felt like God in the other ear saying, “Now, you made me a promise. Are you going to keep it?”

Thankfully, we did get some help from our mutual friend, Lynn, because we had no idea what we were doing. It kind of came down to what’s going on, I have no clue. Okay. That’s kind of been the story of our lives with Heaven is Real Ministries. We have just been stepping in faith like, “Okay, God, are you sure?” And he’s been able to lead us every step of the way thus far and especially when Heaven is Real became what it was where it became super well known. It was selling millions of copies. I’m one of the first people that told my dad, “Dad, you’re not that great of an author. That has to be God.” And it’s actually really funny because back in 2017, my dad wrote another book, you know, God is for Real. With that book, we wrote it because when we’ve been doing ministry, we’ve been getting a lot of hard questions from people. Like, “If God is a good God, why do bad things still happen to good people?” And, “I don’t like church people? Is that okay?” Like just these questions that people have and God challenged my dad to write that book and said, “All right. I want you to explain me to people.” “Okay, any more ideas? Cool.” And that one was cool because I did read that one and oh, trust me, that gets me to read Heaven is For Real. You got to meet me. And yes, I was a kid. But when I was 10, 11, the only books that I was wanting to read were comic books.

John: I don’t blame you. You’re a kid, yeah.

Colton: When my dad told me, “Colton, you need to read the book.” I said, “Why? I lived it.” That didn’t go over too well. So I ended up reading the book because my dad was like, “No, people are going to be asking questions based on what is in the book? So like you need to know what people are gonna ask you?” I’m like, “Okay.” So when my dad wrote this other book, he had me read it. He was like, “Colton, what do you think?” I’m like, “Well, in the past seven years, you became a better writer.”

John: Only a son can say that to his father. Colton, that’s funny. That is good.

Colton: That’s the other thing that I find interesting or some people just don’t realize but my family were normal people. You think we’re normal kind of. And it’s just really cool because yeah, even with Heaven is For Real, when it was in its heyday. I would say from probably like 2011 to 2014, when it was really big in the news. I was interviewing on The Today’s Show, Kathie Lee and Hoda, Fox & Friends like doing all that, I’m doing events like once a month. I remember, I think my freshman year of high school, which was 2014 like 2013-2014. I missed about 60 days of school just because I was gone for Heaven is For Real. And that was also the year our movie came out so very busy. I got to experience what a press junket was. It was terrible.

John: It wasn’t that much fun?

Colton: No. It was awful. Just to sit there and it’s like five-minute increments. You have a four-minute interview and then a one-minute break to swap out the interviewer. So they were actually like the people running the show, they were starting to get irritated with my family because we were like, “We got to go use the bathroom. We got to go stretch our legs for a little bit.” They were like, “No, no, we got to do this.” And it’s like, “We’re not really cut out for this.” It is kind of funny, some people might laugh about this or not. But back in 2014, there was originally going to be a movie that was going to be releasing like the same weekend of Heaven is For Real, and at this moment, I had already seen the screen test of the movie, so I was like, “Okay. I’ve already seen the movie like three to four times before it’s in theaters, and me and then the actor that played me, Connor – Connor Corum, he’s the little kid that played me. We kind of came to a general consensus because the movie was Captain America the Winter Soldier, and he and I both agreed that if that movie did come out on the same day of Heaven is For Real, we are skipping the red carpet of Heaven is For Real and going to see the other movie.

John: That’s awesome.

Colton: Because hey, I’ve already seen this movie.

John: Did you go to a Hollywood-esque opening in LA or New York when Heaven is For Real came out?

Colton: No. When Heaven is For Real came out, it was sort of red carpet hexes, I think. Again, I don’t really know anything about that whole world. It was like, “Oh, okay, make sure I’m dressed up super nice. Got it.” And it’s kind of funny but my friends always give me a hard time whenever I like almost nonchalantly or just say, “Oh, yeah, I’ve done this,” or, “Oh, yeah, I’ve met that person.” “Wait, you do White House Press junket or like the presidential press thing but you got to go do that?” Yeah, that’s cool. It’s kind of crazy because I’m able to just say random things like that and people are just like who is this kid?

John: How was New York when you did Hoda and Kathie Lee and Fox & Friends, did you enjoy New York when you were young and went there with your parents?

Colton: I did. We went to New York quite a few times. I was also able to catch like for me, I’m a super huge music guy. So one thing my mom and I did, one of the times we were there it was her and I went to go see The Lion King Musical, which for me like when I was born or around that time, that’s when the original Lion King came out. So I remember watching that thing on VHS over time, it is one of my favorite movies growing up so when it was like, all right.

John: That’s wonderful.

Colton: So, that was a lot of fun and even being able to just be in New York City was kind of cool. Like I’ve been able to travel all around the United States. I’ve been able to travel out of the country as well.

John: Really? Where did you go out of the country? Where’d you go out?

Colton: So I’ve been able to go to Canada, Mexico, Spain, Singapore, Brazil, and then I was also able to go to Kenya.

John: Kenya. Wow. How was it like Singapore is far and Kenya is far– listen, I’m talking to a young man who’s been to heaven, so it’s everything is relative in life Singapore and Kenya, I guess, are not that far but how did you enjoy those trips?

Colton: Well, being there. Awesome. Traveling there, terrible.

John: Yeah, I agree.

Colton: The flight that we hopped on from the United States to Singapore, we had– what was it? It was like a 13-hour, it was either an 11-hour or 13 hours flight from Minneapolis to Japan and then it was either 11 or 13 from Japan to Singapore. So we really spent almost a full day just on a plane. It was like, you know, when you go to sleep on a plane, which is already super difficult, you wake up and you still see water, it takes–

John: You’re right. A little bit disappointed.

Colton: But it was really cool because and like if I get the opportunity to travel outside of the country more, I would, because I really love just being able to see what God is doing. Like, for me, I don’t think there’s anything special about me or my family like yeah, we got to experience this really cool thing but at the end of the day, we’re just normal people.

John: That’s so nice.

Colton: A lot of people give me a hard time because now when people figure out who I am because I work in construction now. And people are like, “Wait, you’re the kid from Heaven is For Real, like the book and the movie, why are you working?” “Because I still need to make money and make a living.” “What’s going on with that?” “What do you mean?” It’s kind of interesting that some people, they assume certain things where it’s like, “Oh, you guys, must be super-rich.” It’s like, “No.” I mean at the end of the day, for us, we just live our lives and we try and help people as much as we can along the way.

John: You are a special guy, it’s a special family. For our listeners who just joined us, it’s Colton Burpo. He was the young little boy once when he’s told the story Heaven is For Real. The little boy’s astounding story was his trip to heaven and back. He’s now 21, he’s with us today. This is our Christmas special. You can find Colton, his wonderful family, and their great ministry at www.heavenlive.org. I’m going to correct myself because I have one of your original copies where it says over two million copies in print when I looked it up Colton during the show on your website it actually, I stand corrected over 12 million copies have been sold of Heaven is For Real. The ministry that your family is done and how wonderfully humble, you are at 21, where 21-year-olds who are far less successful and made such a far less impact than you’ve made, and your mom, and your dad and your siblings. It’s just incredible how level-headed you are and it’s just a joy to have you here tonight with us. Let me ask you a question – what do you want to do from here on out? I mean, you have this ministry and for our listeners also, the book is, it’s not only Heaven is For Real anymore on the ministry. But Heaven is For Real, Heaven Changes Everything, Heaven is For Real For Kids, Colton has done, Heaven is For Real For Little Ones, Colton has done.

Your family and you, Colton, and like you said Dad wrote God Is For Real, you’ve become a prolific family with a fantastic ministry. Tonight, I know I’m in Fresno speaking with you, you’re in Colorado. You’re 21 and the world is still in front of you. What’s your goal as far as you could see, I mean, and sometimes, at 21 and it’s hard at 21, you’ve got so much in front of you. What do you really want to do as of today? I know this can change tomorrow. I’ve had 21 year olds before that are now older, but what are you thinking of today?

John: Well, it’s been interesting especially I would say this last year for me because I would say the plan that I had for my life has changed drastically.

John: Talk about that. How did it change like what do you want to do? You know, there’s an old saying – man plans and God laughs. And I think that affects all of us. I think if we just open ourselves to that. Talk a little bit about that, what you wanted to do and where you’ve gone now and where it’s taking you?

Colton: So for me, it’s been interesting because since I’ve been able to kind of experience I guess the same side of everything, the one thing I always tell people is being famous is overrated. It sucks. I don’t sugarcoat that. Being famous isn’t fun. And I don’t see myself as famous, people call me famous and I’m like, “Nah,” but when it comes to what I used to want to do or kind of what I was kind of setting my life to do is when I graduated high school around– I graduated high school in 2017, and I ended up going to a 2-year Bible school down in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It’s a little school called Victory College. It’s based out of Omega church down there in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Victory. I went to that college because God said, “Go here.” So I’m like, “Okay, looks like I’m going here.” So, I did two years there where I did their Worship Arts Ministry. So I was spending two years there studying to be like a worship pastor and it was really cool because even at that school, I would kind of describe it as like a trade school for ministry because we had people who are actively doing ministry teaching us, “All right, like if you are in other countries, this is how you can share the gospel to people of different religions and it’ll make sense to them,” or people just giving us tips and tricks of like, “Hey, this is what we have done that has worked for us, here you go.”

It was really cool because they even taught us different things of like how not only to run a church, but at the same time how to properly read the Bible, how to study the scripture. So it was a very good two years for me but I finished that two-year school in 2019 of May. And my family at the time, they were living here in Colorado, as well, so I moved up here for the summer trying to figure out what I was doing next. If I was going to continue my education. I was looking at a few schools in the area, but it almost felt like there was just something in me saying, “No. No, it’s not for you. No, no.” And like I was looking at possibly getting on staff at a few churches, trying to stay in Oklahoma, doing like an apprenticeship at a church, just going to school. My original “plan” was to go to college, get a business accounting degree, or something. I was trying to figure it out, but it was almost as if God just kept saying, “No, that’s not for you.”

I finally got to a point where it almost felt like God stranded me up here in Colorado, which there are worse places to be stranded. But it was kind of cool because, during that time, I had no idea what I was really doing with my life. Like I had a general perception of, “All right, I want to continue doing ministry, God, what did that look like?” it’s been interesting because since I’ve been up here, I just kind of went, “Okay, God, if you’re keeping me up here, I need a job. If you’re keeping me here, I need to be doing something. I don’t want to just be living at home, doing nothing. Come on. We got to move. We got to do something.” I can really only describe it as like God moving. I was able to get a job as an apprentice electrician up here in the Vail Valley of Colorado or Eagle County or whatever actually called and I’ve been up here for about a year just learning how to be an electrician, residential and commercial. And it’s been really cool because it was something that I never expected I would enjoy but I’m able to find like a bunch of some real-life applications.

I’ve been able to, in all honesty, see a bunch of illustrations of what it’s like when God comes and fixes up like different things in me where it’s like, “Oh, so this thing isn’t wired properly. So that’s why it’s not working. All right. I just have to rewire it. So that is wired correctly. Okay.” So there’s like little things like that that I see where it’s like, “Well, that’s cool.” I’m also learning a really useful trade, so I’m grateful for that. And the thing for me is I mean, I’ve been able to still do ministry here and there. My family isn’t super busy with Heaven is Real as we used to be. We kind of took a hit to our ministry back in 2015.

John: Why is that? What happened?

Colton: Well, back in 2015, I think I was 16 years old. I was a sophomore in high school. What happened was there was another family or another Heaven story that recanted, saying I made it all up. And one of the bigger news agencies here in the United States, they put a picture of my dad and I on the front page saying boy from heaven recants story.

John: Oh my gosh, I didn’t even know that.

Colton: In the actual article, it says, now it really wasn’t the Burpol family, it was this other family.

John: The write facts, but the wrong photo.

Colton: The image was done. So that did kind of hurt our ministry for a bit because it’s interesting but our family, we just tried to kind of live our lives and we were like, “Hey, this is our testimony. This is what happened to us. This is what we know.” And our family has experienced a decent amount of hostility just because we dare to say that miracles still happen and that Jesus is Lord. So it’s been interesting just seeing that side of it because, I mean, since the time I was about eleven to now, some people view me as a liar, I made it all up.

John: That’s horrific.

Colton: I kind of had to grow up with that or be kind of more guarded whenever I talk with people or make friends because if anybody can, they will try to twist my words or try to do things with it. I just have to be aware of it. It kind of sucks, but it’s how I’ve known life.

John: It does suck. There’s nothing wrong about saying it sucks. But as an outsider, being me, I’ve been to Billy Graham Crusades, I really used to enjoy when he was alive going to his crusades and I felt like just what you said, I think he lived a life of hope, faith, truth. But I think he also, like you said, you have experience with your family, he had his detractors that tried to trip him up and disparage their fear of miracles, fear of the truth, fear of faith. And I think that kind of behavior really stems from other’s insecurities and fear with what the truth is and what faith in God really represents. So it’s a very sad state of affairs that you had to be subjected to that as such a young person, but because your ministry was so important and was received so well, only then the detractors come out. And when I talk to other ministers and pastors that are friends of mine they say, “The devil really doesn’t care about those who don’t live in faith. It’s only when you’re making a big difference that they really come out and try to do their work.” So it’s obvious. It’s obvious that your work was working and that the detractors represented the other side trying to get in your way. But look at how, I would assume, how you evolved. You can’t be this wonderful human being at 21, in this level-headed and humble without those experiences making you better. Making you better. Right?

Colton: I will say, I did go through like I felt like almost a year or two of my life where I honestly wanted to just give up ministry entirely. Just everything that was happening all the just mean and nasty things that were happening to my family like whenever we go and do ministry events, we have to have like security because we’ve had threats on our life and just kind of all the pressures that come with being recognized and known by a lot of people. Now there is a good two to three, well, not really three but more like two years that I consider just saying, “You know what? Is this even worth it?”

John: I don’t blame you.

Colton: And I will say one thing that I am really grateful for is the fact that God is very patient because for me, now, like most people if they met me they wouldn’t think, “Oh, he’s a bad kid. Colton is a good kid.” I mean, I grew up a pastor’s kid, so a lot of people just assume things about me, and then I had the Heaven kid thing on top of it. So some people when they ever say, “Oh, you must be an angel.” I’m like, “No. I’m still human like you.” But I had to get to almost a breaking point where what used to work no longer did work. Like, I literally, just basically get down on my knees and just go, “God, where are you? God, what’s going on? I need you.” I had to get to a point where I needed to grow in my relationship with God because for a while it almost felt like I was just coasting off of the fact, I’m like, “I’ve been to heaven. I’m good.”

John: Which I can’t blame you. I think I would’ve felt the same way, “Hey, I’ve been there. I’m going back one day. This is what’s in-between.” That’s interesting, though. That’s fascinating what you just said. I really appreciate what you just said. None of us are immune to being brought back to our knees and to being humble. Humbled.

Colton: Yeah. For me, the one thing, like, I’ve had some people ask me like, what’s the one thing you miss most from heaven? And as I’ve kind of grown-up, my answer is kind of changed and matured as it does when you get older, you start to either understand a few more things or your different seasons of life, different moments of life. And for a while, I was like, “Well, I really miss my sister.” For a bit, I was like, “I really miss playing with lions in heaven.”

John: Wow, that’s really cool.

Colton: There are animals in heaven. So we get to play with them. But the one thing that I’ve kind of come back to and it’s been my answer for a while now is in all honesty, just being in God’s presence all the time. In heaven, you get to experience what it’s like to be in the presence of God, the father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit all at once and there are no distractions. Because here, since we do live in a fallen world or in an imperfect world, we have to almost like fight to get God’s presence, there are so many things that can just distract us and pulls away from spending time with God. Whereas in heaven those don’t exist. That’s the thing that for me, I do miss the most just being that close and in constant fellowship with God and that’s kind of been one of the things driving me recently just I’ve been coming to realize that I really need God. I joke with my friends all the time, I’m like, “Yeah. Without God, I suck. With God, I think I’m gonna be okay.”

John: That’s wonderful.

Colton: And for me, the one thing that I try to do, and a lot of people, they kind of look at me, like, “Wait. What? What’s going on? Are you super solid in your faith?” And I’m like, “No, honestly, I’ve had to work on it. Just because I got to experience the super amazing thing like you can encounter God. You can have a miracle happen, but at the end of the day, you may never know him.” And that’s what God wants us to do. He wants us to know him. And in the last few years were, in all honesty, it just felt like I’ve taken my walk with God more seriously, or at least, I recognize it more as, “Okay, God, I need you today. Can you help me out?” Since I’ve been able to live with that mindset, it’s been really cool to see what God’s been doing with that. The idea is God’s given me what he’s wanting me to do because for me like in all honesty, when people see the world getting super crazy around us and all the division in our country, with the election, with politics, everything happened in all around the world. A lot of people are freaking out they’re like, “What’s going on? Why is it so crazy? For me, I don’t know. I’m viewing it a little differently because I’m like, “You know what? The world is getting crazier. That means Jesus is coming back soon. All right, let’s go.”

It’s changed my perspective and I was like, “Okay. What am I doing today to be a light for Jesus?” What can I do to help someone? What am I able to do with the resources I currently have? And it’s cool because whenever I’m brainstorming or trying to figure out like, “Okay, God, what are you going to have me do?” In all honesty, most of the time it’s like I don’t know what I’m doing, but I have these few things in front of you right now that I just need to steward or take care of. I have these few super huge dreams in the future and I have no idea how I’m getting there. But I know God’s taking me there. For me, there are a few things that I want to do like I’m a little bummed that I never got to meet or talk with Billy Graham because he’s a man that I’ve heard so much about, I’ve been able to read about just like hear stories about him, and like one goal that I have in my life and I don’t know if it’s a good goal to have or not but it’s kind of one of these God dreams that there’s no way I can accomplish it myself so it’s gonna have to be God doing it, but I don’t know what it’s going to look, I don’t know how it’s going to happen, but I want to be involved with the largest revival in human history like bigger than anything that has ever been done before and at the end of the revival, Jesus comes back. Like that is what drives me right now and I’m like, “Okay, how am I going to get there? Who’s gonna go with me? How am I going to be doing this?”

Because right now, yeah, I’m 21. I’m single. I’m trying to figure out what I’m doing with my life, but that’s kind of the goal where I’m going with like, “Lord, I want to help lead a revival. I want you to be known. How do I do that?” And it’s been cool because right now it’s felt as if God’s kind of taken me out of the spotlight or taking me kind of out of the view of most people to kind of help work on me privately. So that the time when God says, “All right, it’s time to go.” I’m able to have the character to uphold what God has called me to because if God was going to give me what he was wanting me to do now, I would get crushed by it. Like the analogy that I would use is similar to just working out at a gym. Like if all you are able to do is let’s say, for me, I weigh about 140. If I’m only able to only bench, let’s say, a hundred twenty pounds because I do not hit the gym regularly. My job is very physical but I do not work out regularly. It’s kind of a habit that I started off the beginning of Corona and then when work started picking back up, I drop it.

If all I can handle is a hundred twenty pounds, I won’t go and put 50 pound plates on both sides just so that I can do 220 pounds like, no, that would crush me. That would probably kill me. Right now, God has been kind of helping me just grow gradually into what he’s putting in front of me. To me, I see the process and I’m like, “All right, so it’s gonna suck for a bit. I’m going to be sore. I’m probably gonna be super tired and kind of like a meh-mood but right now, God, you’re doing something cool. Okay, let’s go.” And the thing for me is right now, what I’m learning is, in all honesty, how to be a man who stands for something because when you met me as a little kid, I was able to go, “Hey, this is what I saw. This is heaven. You can believe me if you want to but this is what I saw.” And having to kind of grow up and figure out, “Okay, who am I? Because I could fall into the trap of almost the pedestal lifestyle of everybody was looking up to me, seeing me or seeing an image of me or the thing I found that has been more almost just fulfilling, more life-giving is being able to rely on who God says I am.” And it has been something that I had to learn like it’s not easy. I’ve had to take time to be able to spend time reading my Bible, spend time praying, spend time with God, like acknowledging, “God, you’re here, what do you want to say to me? Holy Spirit, you’re here, you live in me, you’re with me at all times. What are you trying to do right now?” And just living with that mindset because that’s been in all honesty, the thing that’s helped keep me sane.

Because I’ve already come to the conclusion of I have no idea what is going to happen. And like I don’t know if I’m gonna still be living in like five years. I don’t know if I’m still going to be working as an electrician in the next three years. Like, I honestly have no clue what life holds for me but I know who holds my life in his hands and because my God works things for good, I can trust his plan.

John: I love that.

Colton: And I just have to remind myself of that.

John: You know, Colton, you’re so brutally honest, and the challenges that you faced are good to hear because I don’t think anyone gets through this journey without difficulties and challenges and losses and pain. Even Jesus didn’t get through this thing unscathed, why should we as mere mortals get through this unscathed. Since this is our Christmas edition, a very very special edition and you’re here and it’s just a blessing to have you with us today, a couple of things. One, do you have a message that you want to share, a message of hope, faith, that you can share with us as we enjoy this holiday after a very very difficult year with the tragic Covid-19 blanketing the earth, a very tough year socially and politically in this country and also, is because of your unique experience with Heaven is For Real and going to heaven and coming back, though you don’t know what tomorrow holds which is such an honest comment, because so many of us want to feel like we’re in control, and as you said we are not in control, do you feel safer and more comfort that even though you don’t know what tomorrow holds that you do know because of your relationship in your walk that when time is up here, whenever that is, you do know where you’re going to be going? Does that give you comfort every day?

Colton: It does. For me, it’s crazy if I look at the statistics of my job because it’s one of the most dangerous jobs to have.

John: Wow. I didn’t realize that.

Colton: Yeah. Easily at my job if let’s say I’m working on some electrical circuit and someone decides to turn it on, I could fry and die very easily. That’s my job. There’s also a lot of sketchy things that happen in construction that are probably best not mention in public.

John: I got it. You don’t have to mention but I get what you are saying and the danger is real. I get it.

Colton: Oh, yeah. Not only that but just kind of living with that mindset of, you know, I have no idea what’s going on, but I’m okay with that because, at the end of the day, I know the ending. Jesus wins. And because I put my hope and trust in him, not in anything else, I put my hope and trust in Jesus and God and the Holy Spirit. Because I put my trust in them, I’m able to live my life in a way where I still have my moments where I’m scared out of my mind, I have moments where I do kind of struggle with being very hard on myself or getting lost in my own thoughts in my head, but I always have to bring myself back to, “All right, it’s gonna be okay. God’s still in control. He’s gonna work it out.” And that’s been a thing that’s just helped me, in all honesty, stay sane, and for me, there are I would say two things that I’d want to kind of, close-out. Two things that I talked about with people a lot and they’re two conversations I remember having with Jesus. They stick with me just because they’re really important.

The first conversation I do remember having with Jesus is Jesus told me, “Colton, this is how you get to heaven.” And Jesus said, “If you love me and follow me, my dad’s okay with that.”

John: That’s awesome.

Colton: That’s one thing that I would say, it’s super simple, but it is very hard because the tension that I would say most people face and especially Christians, is the tension of truth and love. For us to live our lives where we just you’re speaking the truth all the time, “This is how it is. This is the law. This is what is supposed to happen. This is how it goes,” like that will not turn anyone or that will not change anyone’s opinion or anybody’s mind by just telling them how they are very wrong and going about it that way doesn’t work. But at the same time, if you take the only love approach where, “Oh, it’s okay. Whatever you’re doing is fine. It’s all okay, at the end of the day everyone makes it to heaven and it’s all sunshine and rainbows,” but that’s not true love’s. Because we have to balance the tension right in the middle or we have to balance between the two and the only way that I’ve learned and like I said, this is something I’ve been learning, I’m still learning, is how to find that middle ground of – to speak truth in love. It’s both, not one or the other. To be able to know what is right. To stand for something.

However, to still have that viewpoint or that aspect of love because I know for myself, I’m not a perfect man. The thing that separated us from God and us deserving to go to hell, I’ll be one of the first people to say, “I deserve it.” Just personal mistakes I’ve made in my life, the things that I’ve screwed up with. It’s like, “Oh, I do not deserve to have a relationship with God. I should not have that opportunity.” But because God loved us so much, he sent Jesus as a sacrifice so that he could die and come back to life so that we can have a relationship with his dad and we can only do that through believing in him. We can only do that by following him and by having a relationship with him.

The second conversation, I remember having with Jesus, I remember I was looking around heaven and I noticed that everybody was young, they were healthy and like everybody was happy. And I noticed that with Jesus, he still had his markers or the wounds that he had from when he hung on the cross in his hands and his feet. And I remember asking Jesus, I’m like, “Jesus, how come you’re the only one in heaven with markers?” Now, I remember Jesus got down on a knee. He looked me right in the eyes and said, “Colton, it’s to remind me how much I love you.” And one thing that God uses to kind of speak with me at times is I kind of call him like mini-movies, more Church-y term is like visions, but I remember there was a period of my life where I was having like a really rough time – mentally, emotionally, just in the dumps all the time. And it almost felt as if life sucked. Nothing would ever work out. I’m the worst person to ever exist. Like it got pretty bad. But what happened is I remember in this kind of like mini-movie in my head.

In this story, there was a man who did something really bad but instead of trying to fix it or trying to get help right away, he ends up just picking up a shovel and start digging a hole. So he starts digging, digging, digging. And this man ends up digging a hole so deep that you can’t even see the top of the hole anymore. And whenever people would come up and just ask like, “How are you doing?” The man felt like he had to put on a mask just saying, “Oh, I’m doing great. How are you doing?” When on the inside, he felt just broken, messed up, an outcast, nobody would ever understand, and just felt alone. But in the story, something finally clicks for the man. He realizes he’s not alone. Jesus, he’s there but Jesus isn’t at the top of the hole reaching down screaming, “Give it to me. I can save you.” Jesus is in the hole with the man, he’s reaching out his arm, saying, “Give it to me,” almost whispering. And the man stops away Jesus and say, “Nah, Jesus, I got this,” and starts digging deeper. Finally, the man just throws down the shovel and just collapses. He’s exhausted, mentally, physically, emotionally. Everything is, he’s out. And Jesus reaches back out his hand and says, “Give it to me.” So the man finally goes, “Okay.” So reaches out and grabs Jesus’ hand. And I remember in the story, Jesus flips over his hand and through the hole in his hand, through the markers, he sees the hand of the man. He sees me. And one of the things that I don’t know what people’s experiences are with church, Christians, I don’t know.

But the one thing I do know is God made us like it says that he knit us together in our mother’s wombs. God designed us, he made us special. And God loves us so much that he wants to have a relationship with us. And the thing is I don’t believe anyone is ever too far gone because the God that I serve, the God who created heaven and earth, he’s a lot bigger than everything. Like God the Father, he’s massive and he was the creator of everything. Literally, anything is possible and just to kind of give hope to either your listeners, anyone who ever gets to listen to this, God does love you and wants a relationship with you. All we have to do is humble ourselves. We have to say, “God, I’m sorry. I’ve been trying to do it my way and it hasn’t been working out. God, I need you.” And just being able to come to that point where we recognize our need for God because God wants to be in our lives. He wants to be involved, but he can only do it if we let him.

John: I love it. On that, we’re going to leave it. We got to leave ourselves open for God. Colton, you wrap this thing up better than any person on the planet. For our listeners out there, this has been a very, very, very special Christmas edition with ColtonBurpo. He is the subject matter, he is the person who was the focus of the best-selling book 12 million or more copies, Heaven Is For Real, a little boy’s astounding story of his trip to heaven and back. Today, we have the man, the young man who’s now grown up, Colton Burpo. And to find his great ministry that he is part of with his mom, his dad, his siblings, please go to www.heavenlive.org, heavenlive.org. Not only Heaven is For Real there, but also all of the great books that the Burpos have written including Colton’s follow-on books – Heaven is For Real For Kids and Heaven is For Real For Little Ones. And, of course, Heaven Changes Everything and his dad’s book, God is For Real.

Colton Burpo as a human being, I’m just so grateful for you personally and for your ministry. As a Christian, God bless you and your family, your message is so important. I’m so lucky and blessed to have been able to host you today and get to share your experience and your word with our listeners. Continued success. I look forward to the day that I get to meet you finally in person and shake your hand, give you a hug, and thank you for all that you’ve done and faith and hope for people around the world. God bless you. Again, Colton Burpo and thank you for joining us on the Impact Podcast.

Colton: Thank you for having me.

John Shegerian: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet and your privacy and is the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company in the United States and maybe even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit eridirect.com. Welcome to another edition of the Impact Podcast. This is a very special edition of the Impact as we’ve got Neil Rees with us. He’s the vice president of Workplace Services and the head of ESG at Agilent Technologies. Welcome to the Impact Podcast, Neil.

Neil Rees: Thank you, John, and thanks for the opportunity.

John: Neil [inaudible] here in Fresno, California, and we’re so lucky to have you. You’re sitting in the UK today, and thank you for staying up a little extra late to be with us today. Before we get talking about all the interesting things that you’re doing and important things at Agilent, can you share a little bit about your background, how you even got here?

Neil: Yeah, sure. I have been with Agilent for thirty-four years.

John: Wow!

Neil: Yeah. It’s an interesting thing, my kids, they’re in their early 20s. They’re like, “Wow, sorry about that, Dad. What happened? [inaudible] good[?] because nobody else wants you?” Actually, it’s been a privilege. Agilent is a mission-driven company. We’ll probably get into that. I’ve had a wonderful ride for thirty-four years. I started in finance, my first fifteen years was in finance and then the company asked me if I’d like to look after the corporate real estate and environmental health and safety. I moved across and has done that for the subsequent years. Particularly, the environmental health and safety piece led me into the world of ESG. We all lived in the UK for most of that, so I got to spend 4 years with the family in California. Then we moved to Singapore for a while and then back to the UK. It’s been multiple careers in one despite the thirty-four years.

John: Yeah, for thirty-four… It’s so funny you said that because I have children also in their 20s and 30s and that generation doesn’t understand starting somewhere and staying there for a long period of time. The generation of our children seem to move around a lot more than we moved around, huh?

Neil: Mm-hmm. I think so too. Yeah, although I say I feel like although I’ve been in one company all that time, I’ve had different roles, different jobs, different countries.

John: Right.

Neil: That’s the beauty, I think, of a company like Agilent.

John: It is.

Neil: It’s very focused on talent development, very focused on providing opportunities, mission-driven, which I love. So, yeah, it’s been fabulous, don’t regret a moment of it.

John: You’re now the vice president of Workplace Services and the head of ESG, talk a little bit about when was that role created for you because obviously, like you said, you’ve had a huge breadth of experience there, but that title itself is how many years are you into that title?

Neil: We formalized our ESG program about a year ago, but prior to that, it was corporate social responsibility, prior to that, it was well known as environmental health and safety. I’ve had so many- the environmental sustainability piece of that throughout. That’s about seventeen, eighteen years. It’s really, as to say[?] in more recent years that we’ve started to use the term ESG. Agilent was [inaudible] Hewlett-Packard in ’99. Right from that point, we’ve been publishing corporate citizenship reports and we’ve been publishing our environmental data for more than twenty years now. We felt it was time to maybe move that into, I guess, today’s vernacular with our ESG program.

John: We’re going to get to that a little bit because you bring up a fascinating part about today’s vernacular with regards to what it was called ten or fifteen or twenty years ago. Let’s talk about sustainability though as a general overall concept. Why was and is sustainability important to Agilent and what is your specific role and contribution supposed to be as the role was created?

Neil: It’s super important to Agilent, a mission advancing the quality of life. I mean, you [inaudible] have a mission like that as a company. I’m not[?] really thinking about sustainability.

John: Right.

Neil: That’s why it’s always been on my mind[?] directly back to [inaudible] when Agilent was spun out. I feel the Workplace Services’ role that I’ve had has been really the perfect platform for that because that’s all of our corporate real estate. It’s all about Scope 1, it’s all about Scope 2, it’s all of the energy [inaudible] sites. My role includes travel which is Scope 3, but that’s a big part of it. Costly[?] is in my organization. It’s been a very useful to have the two roles combined because it’s kept the ESG role quite grounded because I know when I take off my ESG hat and put on my Workplace Services hat, I’ve got to go deliver this. The team’s got to find solutions and technologies and things to meet these commitments. It’s actually been a very nice combination.

John: Right. You have a health lab, so explain what the health labs does to advance sustainability to Agilent.

Neil: The labs, the [inaudible] labs?

John: Yes.

Neil: One of the interesting things… A large part of what we do is supplying analytical instruments into labs.

John: Okay.

Neil: Most labs around the world, you’ll find one or more Agilent instruments. We have cancer diagnostics and things too, which we’ll get into perhaps.

John: Right.

Neil: On the lab front, what is interesting about most analytical labs is they are very heavy consumers of power. You’ve got all of those instruments, you’ve got all these fume hoods, you have circulating high volumes of air through the lab. They consume a lot of energy. The nature of a lab often- not always, but often says that they’re dealing with nasty chemicals, either coming in or going out, more with waste and that type of thing. Compared to an office or a hospital or even a heavy industry, a lab context is actually a huge consumer. Eighty-five percent of lab managers have sustainability goals and typically as part of their own net zero commitments that their own companies have made. We see an important part of our contribution, if you like, is not just how Agilent is operating in our own net zero goals, but how can we help our customers? How can we help them improve the sustainability of their lab? We do that through a couple of different mechanisms. One is we obviously want to make sure that our products, our instruments, our consumers little energy as they can that produces less waste, [inaudible] consumers little packaging as they can. We have a program we call Design for the Environment. We want to make sure our instruments are designed with the whole life cycle in mind, including your recyclable materials and that type of thing. That’s one piece of it. The second is just helping the lab manager run the lab more efficiently. What is interesting is when you think about asset utilization, our instruments, generally, in a lab utilize about 35%, have 35% utilization. Most lab managers, only about 4% of lab managers actually even have optimization data available to them. So, another piece of what we’re trying to do is to help lab managers with the utilization, the optimization of all of the instruments in their lab, not just Agilent’s but all of the other universe of instruments. We have analytics, we have software, we have tools that help them get as much as they can out of the instruments. It’s really cool stuff as artificial intelligence is in there that tells them it is an instrument, you’re not performing properly, it measures the power supply, that kind of stuff. So, anyway, a long story short, John, it’s all about labs and heavy consumers. There’s a real opportunity in here for us to help our customers.

John: You help them achieve their goals and therefore, that creates even more stickiness with them and Agilent.

Neil: Correct. Now, we’re doing these data analytics. If they want for all of their instruments in the line[?], not just- so it’s not sticky in that sense. We’ll support competitor instruments. If we can help them achieve their net zero goals and other environmental goals, that’s obviously great for us and great for them.

John: If you’ve just joined us, we’re so excited to have with us today Neil Rees, he’s the vice president of Workplace Services and head of ESG programs at Agilent Technologies. To find Neil and his colleagues, you can go to www.agilent.com. Neil, how big is Agilent by the way? How many employees do you guys have around the world?

Neil: Seventeen thousand, roughly.

John: Seventeen thousand.

Neil: Yeah, in about thirty countries around the world.

John: Your role, Vice President of Workplace Services and head of ESG programs. Now, I’ve had the honor to interview hundreds upon hundreds of leaders in sustainability in ESG over the last fifteen years. Would this be considered the chief role of ESG or chief sustainability officer role at Agilent? Is that what you’re doing? Then you have people underneath you champing the protocols and programs that you’ve created?

Neil: Yes, that’s totally right. Yeah, I’m heading up the ESG program. We think about ESG as really a thread that runs through the whole company. Again…

John: It’s part of your DNA.

Neil: Yeah, exactly. It’s part of our mission and so we have purposely not created some huge ESG program office because we want the responsibility for ESG to be down in our manufacturing operations and our R&D organizations and our sales organizations because we feel that’s more authentic to- we operate as a company and how we can achieve our goals the best.

John: Wow. Neil, talk about the challenges and the opportunities. Obviously, you’re the leader now of these very important initiatives, and 17,000 people though, that’s a lot of people to communicate to. So, talk about, how do you leverage technology and other methodologies to communicate among the 17,000 people and ensure that this ESG is part of your DNA and everyone is executing towards that to make the company the best that it can be always?

Neil: Yeah, we are a very matrix organization that there’s no doubt about that. That’s [inaudible] we operate. I would actually say the challenge is not getting the ESG word out to all the employees because again, they’re in a mission-driven company. They know about our focus, ESG sits right in there. If any, I think our challenge is to contain all of the groundswell of ideas and efforts and opportunities that they’re coming up with because we’ve embedded it in all the organizations. It’s not like we need to be constantly pushing out the message. It’s more of a pull, quite honestly. We have the opposite problem. Nice[?] problem to have lower 17,000 very creative, very focused employees, all wanting to make a difference.

John: Take it one step further though. You have clients and obviously, you’re trying to help your clients reach their net zero and other goals that they have within. How much feedback do you get back from your clients, Neil, with regards to how to better help them so you create more products and services that can be more even relevant to your clients as well? Is that a constant process as well getting feedback from your clients as to their needs and wants with regards to your services and technologies?

Neil: That’s a great question. What we have seen from our customers over the last 5 years or so, initially from the procurement organizations in those customers, is they’ve been asking us, what is Agilent’s goals? What is Agilent’s exhibit[?] plan? Because they only want to do business and they only want to have their supply chain with companies that are committing to net zero because obviously, we become part of their Scope 3. Now, the big change that we have seen over the last year or two is now not the procurement department but the lab managers, saying, “Hey, I’ve been tasked with making my lab more sustainable. My company has a net zero goal. I know my lab is a heavy consumer. How can Agilent help me? So, that’s what we’re seeing. We’re getting customers inviting us to round tables and work sessions to help brainstorm on what we can do to help them.

John: Got it. Neil, when I started my company, my most recent company was about 2004, ESG wasn’t part of our vernacular. It wasn’t even part of the lexicon or vernacular both you[?] and the United States or anywhere I would travel. It was then sustainability was becoming a thing, chief sustainability officers and that had its moment when Al Gore won Nobel Peace Prize for Inconvenient Truth. It went up for a while, but then as 2008 crisis hit and other challenges hit, it waned. Now, it seems as though these 2, 3 or 4 issues of ESG, the movement from the linear to circular economy, the net zero goals are here and not only here but here to stay not only with great leaders like you and great companies like Agilent but from the financial institutions, the black rocks of the world and other traditional legacy, financial institutions are greatly supporting this whole movement of linear or circular economy in ESG. What do you think about this? Do you think it’s finally here to stay, and what does ESG definitionally mean to Agilent? Because it means so many things to so many people. So, it’s interesting to hear your interpretation and Agilent’s interpretation of what ESG means in 2022.

Neil: Yeah. I think it’s here to stay. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. Interestingly, there is, and I’m sure you’re seeing this too, a little bit more noise about, is this the end of ESG because maybe there’s going to be a recession and there’s [inaudible]?

John: Right.

Neil: The ground war in Europe is causing consumption of coal to go up. Is that a short template[?]? I think so. I honestly think that companies and employees that work for them will want to continue to be focused on companies that are doing good in the world. That’s our focus. I mean, we don’t want to really get caught up in [inaudible] and things. What we do in Agilent is [inaudible]. It comes back to our mission in advancing the quality of life. We want to do what we can to make sure that we run our business in the most sustainable, ethical way, that we’re providing great opportunities for our employees, safe environments to work, diverse environments to work and we want to help support our customers do that same thing. Those, if you like, are our guiding principles. We won’t hopefully get detracted by the proponents that would take us off with one direction or the detractors that would say, “Hey, this is a little baloney, and you’re wasting your time.” We want to do good as a company, but we’re in business too.

John: Of course. I always say to people this, you can’t make the world a better place or advance the quality of life as per your mission without making a profit, and there’s no shame in saying that, no shame at all. Talk about that, Neil. Obviously, you’ve been at Agilent for thirty-four years, so you have a fascinating and a ringside seat to companies’ total progression. How do you go about choosing what opportunities to tackle first and how do you structure that and make your goals in terms of 22, 23, 24? Because someone like you who has that breadth of experience, obviously, you know all the suits and strong points of where Agilent plays in but also, you know where you need to shore up. So, how are you choosing and how are you and your colleagues choosing what to tackle first on your sustainability in ESG journey?

Neil: We recently purchased the [inaudible] panels on our manufacturing site in Shanghai in China.

John: Wow!

Neil: Based on resources and things that are available at the time, it was a choice, China or California, let’s say. The reality is that the grid in China is significantly dirtier than the grid in California, which is 50%, 60%, maybe even higher now with hydro and renewables, whereas in China, the grid is 95% coal or something. Based on with that situation, we said, “Hey, we’re going to put it on the roof in China.” That actually has a much bigger impact on our carbon footprint and yet sends a great message to our employees in China and hopefully to our customers and others in China.

John: Sure.

Neil: Kind of way more impactful. That’s how we weigh up decisions on what we’re going to do. It’s really about what has the biggest impact. As I said, we get tons of ideas from our employees, which is a nice problem to have, and that we sort through them and figure out what’s our strategy.

John: Obviously, I did the homework on you and Agilent and I know you’re working on and about to release in the near future your ESG hub and report. Explain what went into the making of that and when it’s coming out, where our listeners and viewers and fans can find that report and enjoy it as well.

Neil: Yeah. It’s coming at the end of this month. They can find it on agilent.com. It’ll be right there on the homepage. As I said, we’ve been publishing a corporate sustainability report for nineteen, twenty years now. We’re transitioning to ESG. Really, what that means for us is we are adding additional disclosures, so we are following our net zero announcement last year. This year, we’re going to include the TFFD, the Task Force for Financial Disclosures, so we can have more data in there for people to comb through. We’re going to tell people about our 4P’s. Our whole ESG strategy in Agilent is driven on our 4P’s people. We want to have a great diverse workforce because we need that to continue to innovate and develop new technology solutions.

John: Sure.

Neil: Our products touch almost everybody on the planet. When you think about, we’re analyzing to make sure people have clean water, safe food, cancer diagnostics. So, we touch almost everybody on the planet in some shape or form. That’s people. Our products, I talked about- that’s our second P and how we’re giving our customers products that are not only more sustainable, but they then go do amazing things with those products. They’re advancing [inaudible] technologies. They’re measuring greenhouse gases. They are working on cancer, personalized medicines and that type of thing. So, that’s our products. Then we have the planet, of course, all of those things combined to make the- not just the environmental sustainability, but the social side of the planet. Again, back to our cancer diagnostics, we’re really in this world where you can understand and sequence DNA. That is really advancing the fight towards cancer… Then there’s Prosperity, that’s our fourth P. You mentioned a little bit earlier about there shouldn’t be any shame in being a business to make money. We view it as shared prosperity. We obviously want to make money as a company, that’s the only way we can invest in continuing to evolve all these amazing technologies. We think of prosperity beyond wealth, people having good health care, health care access, clean water, basic things, safe food to eat. That’s how we think about prosperity. That’s our fourth P. Back to your question, our ESG report is going to lay out those 4P’s and provide some stories around what we’re doing to contribute to each of them.

John: Neil, I’m very excited for that to come out and I’m so glad. Like you said, our listeners and viewers can find that on agilent.com at the end of this month, which is July 2022. Just for people’s reference on this show, we’ll air very soon before it comes out. Someone like you, with all the experience you have and with a great brand like Agilent, you’re always wanting to make things better. What are you thinking about next year? What’s on your agenda for the second ESG hub and report? Are you already formulating it, and have you already laid out the plan for the team for your second ESG hub and report?

Neil: Good question. No as the sure answer. We’re just getting through the [inaudible] of this one [inaudible] think about next year. I will say maybe at a higher level, I think we want to continue to tell a story about how Agilent is contributing and how we’re enabling our customers to contribute because it’s not just about our ESG story and our carbon commitment because we’re providing technologies and products that enable our customers to not only reduce their carbon footprint or meet their goals, but these technologies then go on to help support the planet. If I can give you an example of [inaudible], I think it’s just fascinating. Obviously, deforestation is a big issue in the world and quite a bit of that deforestation is being caused by tropical rainforest being torn down to grow soya, palm oil, and that’s becoming a real problem for the food industry. I think it was just last week or so, I thought[?] the CEO of Unilever and Nestle, I think it was right to the financial times, both committing that they’re going to stop deforestation in their supply chain by 2025. That then begs the question, well, how are you going to do that? The palm oil, soya, there’s a commodity, so they’re grown halfway around the world. They go through multiple intermediaries and commodity exchanges. How do you know what you thought isn’t indirectly or directly the cause of some big deforestation? This is where Agilent’s technology comes in. We’re working with a university in Belfast on this ability. You can sequence the soybeans and [inaudible] from the DNA and that you can tell exactly where they came from, what their provenance was, and did they come from where they said they came from? It’s those kinds of things, technologies, that we’re introducing to try and solve some of these problems. I mean, saying no deforestation is a fabulous thing, but how do you do that?

John: Right.

Neil: So much of the ESG journey, particularly on the E, I suppose, is reliant on technologies that don’t yet exist. If we’re really going to get to 2050 net zero or hopefully earlier. That’s just one example where we’re going to help the food manufacturers really trace the source of their soybeans, their palm oil and to help them with their commitments.

John: Free COVID and now, hopefully in a post COVID world, do you travel a lot and get to see a lot of your employees in different countries, in different settings? Is that part of what you do? Or how does that really work in terms of the breadth of experience that you get? Even though I know you lived in the UK for many years and in California and Singapore, is traveling part of what you do as well?

Neil: A little bit. Yeah. We are trying very hard not to travel, obviously. The great thing I would say about, if there’s any silver lining out of COVID and I’m not sure there is, but if there is one, it’s that we’ve all learned to do much more with video and that type of [crosstalk].

John: Hundred percent.

Neil: We have leverage that hugely as a company. I think naturally, there is going to be some travel that starts.

John: Right.

Neil: We’ve been restricting travel, but there’s going to be some that comes back but nowhere near how we did travel pre-COVID. Will I go out in my Workplace Services role to look at a construction site? Probably, because you can’t do that so much of a video. Can we support our customers through video? We think so. One thing very interesting for us is we’ve invested in virtual training labs because if a customer buys an instrument, they need to be trained on how to use it. In the old- if I can call them the old days, they would jump on a plane and fly to a training center. Now, we’ve equipped some TV, world class type studios in some of our big sites and now, we can broadcast that training to the customer. Guess what, they didn’t want to get on a plane in the first place. They’re very happy.

John: Exactly, and you saved massive carbon footprint expenses for your clients. That sounds like a wonderful win for everybody, including the planet.

Neil: Yeah. We’re doing some augmented virtual reality for our… We have folks that go out to repair instruments, but now, we can give the customer an app. They can put on their VR goggles, they can look at the instrument, and we can say, “Well, tweak this here and you pull that over there and you may be able to fix it and it will avoid a [inaudible] to come out.” It’s terrific. This is the way, the future.

John: Obviously, the future is bright for Agilent. What’s next? Can you tease us on anything that’s coming up? Anything new that you’re excited about that you can tease us about in terms of Agilent and new products and services you’re coming out with?

Neil: Let me see. I think it’s going to be just continuing on the path that we’ve been on. We have some great new things in our cancer diagnostic area. That’s [crosstalk] something.

John: That’s important stuff.

Neil: It’s super cool. Last year, we acquired a company called Resolution Bioscience up in Seattle. I had shared with you in my own layman’s terms the whole biopsy thing where you [inaudible] stick it under our… Well, guess what, now, through Resolution Bioscience, you can take a blood sample, so you don’t have to do that whole invasive… It’s called a liquid biopsy and it works on the basis so that even cancer cells ultimately break down and can be found in the bloodstream. You can do a liquid biopsy, just take a blood sample, you can analyze it, you can identify, diagnose what kind of cancer. That’s something that’s super cool. That’s just how advanced the whole cancer diagnostics business [inaudible] even further.

Again, it comes back to personalized medicine. I honestly think this is the age of biology and sequencing and genomes and that type of thing. The way that you can sequence things and really, you identify the best treatment path. It gets you the treatment faster and more effectively saves money. I mean, what’s not to like?

John: I love it. Neil, thank you so much for being with us today. Coming in from the UK is Neil Rees. He’s the vice president of Workplace Services and head of ESG programs. You can find Neil and also his new ESG hub and report and his colleagues at www.agilent.com. Neil, you’re doing such great work. Thank you for advancing the quality of life, making a huge impact with Agilent and making the world a better place for all of us.

Neil: Thank you, John. Thanks for the opportunity. It’s been a pleasure.

John: This episode of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Closed Loop Partners. Closed Loop Partners is a leading circular economy investor in the United States with an extensive network of fortune 500 corporate investors, family offices, institutional investors, industry experts and impact partners. Closed Loop’s platform spans the arc of capital from venture capital to private equity, bridging gaps and fostering synergies to scale the circular economy. To find Closed Loop Partners, please go to www.closedlooppartners.com.