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John: Hi. This is John Shegerian. I never could have imagined, when we started The Green is Good radio show back in 2006, that I 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.

John: 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: Welcome to Green is Good. Mike, it’s so great to be back in studio with you today.

Mike Brady: Always. I just don’t know where the time goes, John, because it seems like we were just here yesterday, but it’s been another week already. Here we are getting together for another hour to entertain, empower, inform and hopefully, really, just kind of lift the spirits of our listeners. When we talk about things environmental, we’ve said so many times on this show, John, that there’s an awful lot of stuff that needs attention right now. And somehow, sometimes all of the focus can seem a little daunting. But you are such a solution-based guy, and we’ve got another great solution-based show today.

John: Oh, yeah. Like you just said, inform. One of the words that we have to add to your adjectives and verbs today is educate because today, we’re very lucky to have 2 amazing guests on. The first half of the show, we’re going to have the head of sustainability from UCLA, which is one of the greatest learning institutions in this whole country, if not world actually.

Mike: No kidding. UCLA is world-famous in what- Really, if you’ve ever been down there and taking that trip around Sunset Drive, it is beautiful and it was carved out of some gorgeous woodlands years and years ago. So, I think just because of the surroundings being so beautiful, the whole concept of sustainability kind of might be in the DNA to begin with.

John: Absolutely. A funny story, you and I have talked off air about my eminent domain teacher professor, let me say, at law school, Gideon Canner. Well, he made a point to us. This was back in the day, Mike, years ago, sitting in class. He made a point about real estate in Los Angeles. I know you have a history in Los Angeles. Here is his point. When USC was built, it was considered the primo primal best real estate in all of the land.

Mike: Right.

John: And when UCLA was built, it was considered the farmland and the forest, and it was considered the cheapest property since it was a UC school, et cetera. He said, “Now look at how times have changed and who’s sitting on the best land now in the whole city, if not in the whole state?”

Mike: You bet. There’s a quantum difference if you’ve ever- Especially, if you’ve done the Southern California College tour, if you’ve got kids that were looking to go to either UCLA or USC, you really notice the difference in the surrounding areas. Absolutely.

John: Yeah. The fact that UCLA has a sustainability coordinator who is now going to share with us, on the first half of the show, all that they’re doing there, both in their DNA and also in terms of their teachings, is so important because as I’ve learned as an entrepreneur and as we’ve seen with the Green Revolution in America, Mike, first, it starts with education before you can motivate people to change their behavior. Whether a lot or a little, we have to educate people first to why it’s, not only in our own selfish best interest, but actually, in our legacy, in our children’s, in our grandchildren’s best interest.

Mike: Well, there you go. And you talk about enlightened self-interest. That’s what we are going to do today is enlighten us all about our self-interest in taking care of our environment.

John: I think our listeners should come on back in here with Nurit Katz to talk about what’s going on at UCLA, at Green is Good.

Voice over: If a little Green is Good, more is even better. Now, back to Green is Good with John Shegarian and Mike Brady.

John: Welcome back to Green is Good. We’re so honored today to have Nurit Katz on with us live from Westwood, California, from UCLA’s beautiful campus. Welcome, Nurit, to Green is Good.

Nurit Katz: Thanks. I’m very excited to be here.

John: Now, Nurit, you’re UCLA’s sustainability coordinator. You’re actually UCLA’s first sustainability coordinator. Your resume is so long, I don’t want to take our precious time to read everything on it. But tell us, what does that mean to be UCLA’s first sustainability coordinator? What do you do in your role, at that important role, at UCLA?

Nurit: Thanks. My role here is, basically, to help be the connection between all of our different sustainability programs. Sustainability at a university is really, very broad. UCLA’s, kind of, like a small city. We’ve got 60,000 people. Sustainability touches on energy conservation and water management and recycling. So, my job is to have that bird’s eye view of how it all fits together and really provide the system’s perspective and help move things forward.

John: When did you actually take that position at UCLA?

Nurit: I started in this position in November of 2008.

John: Wow. Okay, excuse me. If you were to look at all the universities, the big and great universities like UCLA across America, how many universities actually have sustainability coordinators? Are you a small group, a growing group, a large group?

Nurit: We’re definitely a growing group and growing pretty rapidly. I’m not sure of the exact number. I would estimate probably about 150 or 200 schools now…

John: Wow.

Nurit: …Have these type of positions. We certainly weren’t the first and some schools have full sustainability offices with a lot of different staff.

John: I got you.

Nurit: Yeah, it’s a growing and really fantastic group of people and we collaborate a lot.

John: Mike and I are honored to have you on today because you’re our first sustainability coordinator from a major university across America. We’re so honored to have you on today. Nurit, to segue, what do you see is the role of a university in the whole sustainability movement and the Green Revolution?

Nurit: I think universities have a very important role to play. On the one hand, as I said, UCLA is basically like a small city in scope. One role we can play is setting an example in walking the walk and showing how it is possible to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while saving money in a tough budget climate. And really kind of showing how to do the nuts and bolts of sustainability.

John: Right.

Nurit: But I think the most important role we have, of course, is our primary role as a university, which is educating the leaders of tomorrow. If students can leave our university with both formal and informal education and sustainability, and really learning how to do the interdisciplinary work it takes, and learning to collaborate and leaving with a culture of sustainability, then I think that’s where the real impact lies and you get the ripple effect.

Mike: Nurit, one of the questions that comes immediately to mind is, generationally, do you find that with incoming students, younger people in their late teens, early 20s, they are more inclined to be of a green mindset, to begin with, before they begin their formal and continue their informal education?

Nurit: Yeah, I do. I think I’ve definitely seen a shift. I was here at UCLA, in graduate school in ’05. And over the past 5 to ten years, I think there’s been a huge shift and this younger generation is definitely carrying the torch. Some people have referred to this generation as, “generation and,” because they’re really starting to redefine the questions and say, “Maybe it doesn’t have to be business versus environment. Maybe we can do well while doing good.” One of the most exciting shifts I’ve seen is, actually, I attended the business school here at UCLA Anderson. During the time I was here, I saw the organization, Net Impact, which is a national organization of business professionals and MBAs who are focused on having a positive social impact in solving global problems, like sustainability. I saw that group grow from just a handful of students to over 180 students, and being the second largest club at the business school. So, there’s just been a seismic shift that is particularly exciting in business students, I think. Where students are really coming from this perspective that business and government, and that we all really need to work on these issues.

John: And I want to give a shout out now to Nurit’s great website, www.sustain.ucla.edu. Nurit, what are the opportunities for undergraduates now? So many young people listen to our show around the world and they’re hungry. Now that the economy is so fractured in so many ways, people want to know, how do they step into the Green Revolution? What are these opportunities? What do they look like?

Nurit: Absolutely. I can speak specifically about UCLA’s programs, but I’ll start with more of the bird’s eye view of what’s going on in this field right now. I think there are a lot of opportunities. There are certainly new opportunities and jobs that didn’t exist before, like chief sustainability officer and VP of environment. Jobs like mine, where the function is sustainability. Some students may be interested in that but there’s a whole host of other ways to have an impact in this field. There are technical positions, environmental engineering, solar panel installer, and all sorts of technical pieces. And then there’s also traditional business positions within sustainability-oriented companies. For instance, being the marketing person for a wind turbine company. There’s a whole field of consulting now, both with large firms and boutique firms, doing sustainability management consulting. There’s the whole nonprofit sector, and a ton of really important advocacy happening there. And there’s also, of course, public policy and government. So, pretty much, anything that a student is interested in and whatever their passion is, there’s a way to get involved in this.

John: Nurit, like I said at the top of the show, your resume reads like a who’s who and what’s what. I would think you’re about 75 years old already, which is just simply truly amazing. You have 2 master’s degrees. But one of the things that jumps off your resume is that you founded the UCLA Sustainable Resource Center in 2005, way before you ever had this job. Tell us a little bit about what that was like back in 2005 and what the legacy of that Sustainable Resource Center is.

Nurit: Sure. The Sustainable Resource Center is a program that’s funded by The Graduate Students Association. And it actually was a program that evolved out of an existing program. I certainly can’t take credit for starting efforts here at UCLA. There were students interested in environmental issues years and years ago and they formed an environmental coalition. I came in at this interesting moment right after the university had formed, with student and staff efforts, a sustainability committee. The committee existed before my position and that has higher level administrators, staff, faculty and students. I was a representative on the committee as a student at that time and I did see a need at the time because my position didn’t exist. There did seem to be a need for outreach and education around sustainability. So, I took an existing graduate student association program and grew it and expanded it into the Sustainable Resource Center and hosted a lot of educational events on sustainability that brought in leaders from around Los Angeles, in California, and did a lot of outreach and kind of provided that touch pointer, that nexus, for sustainability, which now is institutionalized. The Sustainable Research Center continues as a graduate student program and is, kind of, focused more on grad students now.

John: Speaking of grad students, speak a little bit about for our recent college grads that still want to get further educated but are not sure if they should get an MBA, a JD, a PhD or who knows what? What opportunities are there for graduate students in the sustainability field and in the Green Revolution?

Nurit: Again, similarly to what I mentioned in terms of careers, there are so many different ways to plug in. We have, for instance, here at UCLA, a lot of different programs. Some in the sciences, such as atmospheric sciences or environmental health science, public health. But again, whatever field students are interested in, you can certainly bring sustainability into that. We have a very unique program at UCLA called leaders in sustainability. Rather than being a separate degree program, although you certainly can go and get a masters in sustainability, this program is actually almost like the equivalent of a graduate minor. It’s an additional certificate where students from all different programs, and we’ve got students from medicine, law, management, policy, planning, and just about anything you can think of, all take a core class together in sustainability and do projects together, and really learn to work across disciplines. You’ve got law students and engineering students working together. So, there are opportunities like that. And then there are, of course, formal full masters and PhD programs related to sustainability.

John: Speaking of that, UCLA has an amazing Extension Global Sustainability Certificate Program, where you’re actually an instructor in.

Nurit: Yes, and I’m really excited about that program. UCLA Extension began this program in fall, and it’s really just exploded. I’ve been really excited to get to see what kind of students are coming to this. I teach the core class. It’s the very first class students take and it’s just an incredibly diverse and dynamic group of professionals. I have people coming from real estate, banking, engineering, aerospace engineers. I’ve got an environmental lawyer in the class right now. I’ve also had actresses. People are coming from every discipline you can think of. Some of them are coming with the hope to gain knowledge to bring back to their current profession, and others are looking for a career change. I’ve got somebody who’s in undergrad right now, all the way through retired. And we have a lot of people that have about 10 to 20 years work experience when they’re coming to the program. So, it is a fascinating and dynamic and exciting program and I feel very blessed to get to be a part of it.

Mike: Nurit, because we have such a broad audience and it truly is global, is there an opportunity to take this extension course via the internet?

Nurit: Yes. Actually, one quarter this year, they did offer the course which I teach online. And a growing number of their courses are being offered online. My course is the introduction, but then there’s 4 different focus areas you can look at. There’s energy and technology, policy and law, design. And so, whatever your focus area is, there’s electives for each of those topics. You could take classes in lead and green building, or you could take classes in solar. I’d say a growing number of these classes are going to be available online, although there’s certainly no substitution for the kind of networking and group learning that you get in the classroom environment.

John: Just to inspire, which you’re just amazing, Nurit, at what you’re doing and what UCLA is doing in combination, what are some of the hot- Give us like the top 5 hot careers now in the field of sustainability. What are you seeing? Because you’re right on the ground floor, what do you see that students want to do? What do you see is a great need in the marketplace for right now, in terms of the top 5 hottest careers in sustainability?

Nurit: I have to think about that. I definitely think a lot of students come to me with an interest in actually pursuing a position that is sustainability related. Kind of like my job, actually. So we’ll be offering a class on teaching, on sustainability administration in the university but a lot of students are interested in doing that in the private sector. Being the sustainability person for Google for instance.

John: Right.

Nurit: And then also, I’d say consulting is pretty hot. A lot of people are either joining larger firms or starting up their own practices or wanting to start their own practices in sustainability consulting. And that’s everything from strategic management to energy audits and helping people green their businesses and things like that.

John: In terms of university sharing best practices, you said there was- Again, there’s no exact number out there right now. It’s still an evolving industry, but how do you work with all the other universities and the other people that are sustainability coordinators across California and across America? How do you guys share best practices? Do you have a conference? Is it online? Is it formal? Is it informal?

Nurit: It’s, kind of, all of the above. UCLA is very lucky to be a part of the UC system, which is a fantastic university system with ten campuses here in California. We, as a system, actually recently received an award for some of our sustainability efforts. We really do work together in that way. It’s larger than just UCLA. There’s a UC policy on sustainable practices that we all work with. And so, the sustainability professionals at each of our universities, we have bi-monthly calls with each other. In addition to, we just recently had a huge conference that happens every year, the California Higher Ed Sustainability Conference. And that was where it was the UC system, the CSU system or Cal State, and also the community colleges all work together to host this conference. Really, it’s been growing over the past 8 or 9 years. Now, we generally get about a thousand people. And so, it’s not just the sustainability officers but its staff, faculty, administrators and students. It really is a conference where everyone is sharing best practices and really focused on actually sharing knowledge that other campuses can apply. On the national level, there’s actually an organization called the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education or AASHE. Their website’s aashe.org. They are a fantastic networking point for all of these different campuses and resource. You can go and look up everybody’s different climate action plans, or find out what all the different campuses are doing. And they also host a conference, a national conference, similar to our California one. It also usually draws about 1500 people, I think.

John: Wow.

Nurit: Yeah, it’s definitely a movement.

John: And it’s exciting to be where you’re sitting at this given time.

Nurit: Absolutely.

John: Let’s pivot. Now, instead of the broader picture, let’s talk about specifically UCLA and the green DNA at UCLA. Talk about what’s going on in terms of talking the talk and walking the walk with regards to climate change, energy, recycling, water. What’s going on on your campus, specifically?

Nurit: How many days do you have? There is so much going on that, really, one of the biggest challenges of my job is not creating new programs, but actually keeping track of and helping everyone know what’s going on. Constantly, I have a student come to me and say, “I have this great idea. We want to do XYZ.” And I say, “Oh, well, did you know so-and-so across the campus is already doing it?” Trying to make those connections and break down those silos is definitely a challenge. But we’ve got a lot of really pretty big initiatives. As I mentioned, the UC system has a sustainable practices policy. And so, that set some pretty aggressive targets for us as a university. For instance, in climate. We actually need to get our greenhouse gas emissions down to 2000 levels by 2014, and to 1990 levels by 2020.

John: Wow.

Nurit: And through a combination of energy and transportation, and a number of different initiatives, we’re actually on target right now to reach both of those goals by 2012.

Mike: Outstanding.

John: Wow.

Nurit: That’s really exciting. It’s about 8 years ahead of state targets. So that’s a big one. And it, really, is something that requires both measures in the facilities. We have a huge energy conservation program where we’re retrofitting a lot of our HVAC systems. It’s big facilities projects like that. But then there’s also the behavioral piece. We have a new green office certification program, and we’re working with a number of different universities developing similar programs, including USC. Trojans and Bruins can work together. That’s, basically, a way in which we reach out to and educate staff about what they can do in their offices and their departments.

John: I got you.

Nurit: And that all kind of fits together.

John: Is there water or any recycling initiatives on campus also?

Nurit: Absolutely. Under the UC policy, our targets are 75% waste diversion by 2012 and zero waste by 2020.

John: Huge.

Nurit: It is huge. It’s very aggressive and challenging because Subaru, for instance, now has a zero waste factory. There are a number of different companies with zero waste facilities, but a university, like I said, is kind of like a city. So, we have visitors and just so much that we can’t control. So it is a challenge but we’re well on our way. We’re over 60% diversion right now.

John: That’s great.

Nurit: And we’ve recently overhauled our recycling system going for a single stream recycling, which we’re hoping will help, kind of, facilitate and increase in.

John: So, UCLA is truly the blue and gold. The secret here on the show with Nurit Katz today is the blue and gold is truly really green.

Nurit: Yes, blue plus gold equals green.

John: We love it.

Nurit: That’s one of our mottos.

John: Perfect. So now, you’re sitting in a wonderful and much bigger city, a sprawling city like Los Angeles. We’re down to the last 4 minutes or so. Can you share a couple of pieces of information on what’s going on in the greater Los Angeles area and how UCLA is into relating with the Green Revolution and the sustainability movement in the greater Los Angeles area?

Nurit: Sure. Absolutely. Los Angeles is really an amazing test bed for a lot of these initiatives and we have no shortage of problems when it comes to sustainability.

John: Sure.

Nurit: Traffic and air pollution. But that just means that we have an opportunity to lead in so many ways. And so, a big part of what the university’s role is really in the community. We’re part of an initiative called Clean Tech Los Angeles, and it’s a partnership between UCLA, USC, Cal Tech, the mayor’s office, the LA Business Council, and a number of different partners to, basically, try and make Los Angeles- Help Los Angeles grow into a clean tech hub for the nation. And so, UCLA faculty are doing all sorts of cutting-edge research right now, turning CO2 into fuel, building the latest and most exciting solar technology and desalination technology. They’re working with local businesses to license some of this technology and develop it. We’re helping develop this downtown corridor for Clean Tech. And then we also work on the policy side. UCLA has a really exciting new center called the Luskin Center for Innovation. It’s focused on bringing together the sharpest minds at UCLA to solve problems in Los Angeles. And for the first few years of the center, the focus is on sustainability. A recent project that is really exciting, and you can check out the report online, was researchers at the Luskin Center looking into a solar feed-in tariff program for the city and helping evaluate what the potential for that program would be and how it should be designed. The title of the report, that’s published online, is Bringing Solar Energy to Los Angeles and Assessment of the Feasibility and Impacts of an In-basin Solar Feed-in Tariff Program.

John: Wow.

Nurit: And so, I think we’ll see how that gets applied and it’s really an amazing partnership with the university. Hopefully, we’ll get to see that policy in place in LA. There’s so much exciting stuff going on.

John: Nurit, we’re down to about the last minute or so and, Mike, I want to read you something from Nurit’s- I’ve seen the correspondence that’s gone back and forth between our offices and Nurit. She has one of her favorite quotes at the bottom of her email, which just sums up really what Nurit’s all about. You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give. That’s Winston Churchill, and that sounds just like Nurit Katz. Nurit, there’s so many people out there that want to be the next Nurit Katz. Can you share, just in the last thirty seconds or so, one or two pearls of wisdom to educate or at least inspire some of our listeners to be the next Nurit Katz, who want to be the next Nurit Katz?

Nurit: Wow, I’m really touched by that. Thank you. You know what? I think that this is an amazing time. I believe in being an intelligent optimist. I really do believe that it is worthwhile to be hopeful and that having hope and creative positive energy doesn’t mean that you don’t recognize the scope of the problem. I would encourage people to keep their hearts open and not be overwhelmed by the problems that they see, but just try to look at the places where we can affect change.

John: Nurit, you are truly an amazing person and we’re so honored to have you on and you’re always welcome back. For our listeners out there that want to see more of the great things that Nurit is doing, and UCLA is doing, please go to www.sustain.ucla.edu. Nurit Katz, you are an innovator. You’re a motivator. You’re an educator. And truly living proof that green is good.

Nurit: Thank you so much. It’s been an honor.

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Voice over: If a little green is good, more is even better. Now, back to Green is Good with John Shegarian and Mike Brady.

John: Welcome back to Green is Good. Mike, is Nurit Katz a rock star, a green rock star or what?

Mike: Well, you know what’s amazing too? Not only does she do all of that and she does all the sustainability for UCLA, but she’s also doing the iron man for team and training. She’s not only a rock star. Geez. Oh, man. Talk about a physical hero.

John: Can I share a secret, Mike?

Mike: Yeah.

John: What did you say to her when we got off the air?

Mike: I just said-

John: During the commercial.

Mike: I said, “I absolutely love you. You’re amazing.” I love the way that she closed everything out. She’s an intelligent optimist. I just absolutely love that and the fact that she quotes Winston Churchill who, as you know, John, is one of my personal heroes. What an amazing individual.

John: I’m going to say that again because I enjoyed saying it so much the first time. You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give.

Mike: Sir Winston.

John: Oh, man. It doesn’t get better than that.

Mike: No, it sure doesn’t.

John: It doesn’t get better than that. And Mike, that’s why we’re here. You and I get, constantly, every week, sometimes you and I have had a tough day and we come into the studio and we’re a little bit low on energy. And we see each other, give each other a hug, but when we have these amazing inspirational guests, you and I, I know we always walk out of the studio on a cloud. And I hope our listeners get a little bit of that lift also.

Mike: Yeah. I sure do too, John, because really, it’s kind of like going to church. You do it and you just come away feeling so uplifted in. What we talked about, again, you being such a solution-based individual and to take what Nurit said about being an intelligent optimist, yes, there are some big challenges for us all in our daily life, in our daily walk, as members of families, maybe heads of household, trying to hold onto a job that it becomes increasingly tough in these really challenging economic times, maybe trying to find a job. But we look just outside our own little circle and we look at the world around us and we think about the environmental challenges that we face, and it can seem overwhelming. But that’s what’s really important about this show, our guests, and you, John, being a solution-based individual just realizing that, “Okay. It’s like eating an elephant.” You’re not going to do it all at once, but you got to start. Get a fork and just one bite at a time. Everybody doing one small thing could make a massive difference, and that really is the mantra of Green is Good.

John: Yeah, and you summed it up much better than I could, Mike. And that’s why we do what we do. And we’re so honored to have this platform. We’re thankful to Clear Channel and thank you to all of our guests who take their time to come on and share their inspirational and motivational messages. And our second guest, Mike, is no different. We have Gia on from EcoPlum. EcoPlum and Gia have an amazing history and a great mission. And again, another great woman ecopreneur. And it just fits. The first half was UCLA and Nurit Katz, now we’re going back to business and how business can make a difference. I think our listeners have to come on back and listen to Gia at EcoPlum on Green is Good.

Voice over: If a little green is good, more is even better. Now, back to Green is Good with John Shegarian and Mike Brady.

John: Welcome back to Green is Good. We’re so excited to have on Gia Machlin from my hometown of New York, New York. Gia is the president, CEO, and the founder of ecoplum.com. Welcome to Green is Good, Gia.

Gia Machlin: Thank you so much for having me, John.

John: Hey. Gia, your resume, it would take me the whole 22-minute show to read your resume on there. You, already, are a very successful woman entrepreneur. Talk a little bit about your past before you founded EcoPlum, what you were doing before and how you came to the epiphany or the decision to found EcoPlum.

Gia: Sure. Before I founded EcoPlum, I was in a very exciting business called health insurance.

John: Wow.

Gia: Yeah.

John: Hey, but timely-

Gia: I know you all want to do that. And actually, to make it even more exciting, I was making software for a health insurance company.

John: Oh, boy.

Gia: It was a very successful company and I enjoyed what I did, but I didn’t really feel like I was contributing all that much to society. I felt like I really needed to get into something that made more of a difference.

John: And what year was that? What year did you have that shift-change and thought on what you wanted to be doing with your life?

Gia: About 2005.

John: Wow, okay. What is EcoPlum and why did you come up with that name as opposed to other names that were out there in the universe?

Gia: Sure. EcoPlum is a green shopping reward site and an eco chic online magazine that makes it fun, easy, and rewarding to go green. We came up with this, I say we because my husband came up with it. We must have gone through lists of about a thousand names and everything was either taken or we didn’t like it. And my husband said, “I know, EcoPlum.” I didn’t like it at first, but then it grew on me and now I love it.

John: What does EcoPlum mean to you and why plum?

Gia: Plum, in the dictionary, if you look it up, one of the definitions is actually extremely desirable, rewarding, profitable or the like. Like, a plum job, for instance.

John: Yeah, very nice.

Gia: In our case, it has a double meaning because we’re a green shopping reward site. So the plum stands for the rewards that we give away, but it also stands for most desirable. And we spend time picking out and trying out the best of the best green products and writing about them. And they’re our plum picks.

John: Wow. So, wait a second. Explain what the mission statement is of EcoPlum and what you exactly do. And then we’re going to talk about your great website as opposed to other green websites out there.

Gia: Absolutely. Our mission is to foster environmental stewardship by educating and empowering people to make responsible choices. We want to engage with a community of people who’s conscious of their daily habits, purchases and their impact on the world’s limited resources. I have a blog called, Confessions of a Reformed Consumer, and it’s about my personal journey from being this…

John: That’s great.

Gia: …Over-consuming waste-producing materialist to being an informed environmentalist. We also have monthly columns by industry experts that cover eco-friendly beauty, green entertainment, green interior design, local and organic cooking, greening our schools, and we’re adding new ones all the time.

John: So, wait a second. Break it down for our listeners who want to go to your site. Mike, are you in front of her site now?

Mike: I am indeed. And it’s funny. It’s so easy to navigate. One of the things, kudos to you, Gia, because most green sites use the color green. Go figure. But who knew that you could take the Earth and really stylize it and shape it like a plum? The green and the plum colors look really good together. This is an amazing sight, John. It’s really easy to navigate and I was just caught by what I saw first. Is it pronounced bagasse dinnerware?

Gia: Bagasse.

Mike: Bagasse dinnerware. And all this stuff, John, is compostable. It’s all made from sugarcane.

John: Awesome.

Mike: Yeah, this is really, very cool. I’m on the site and if you’re listening right now and you got your laptop or you’re sitting in your office, at your desk, go onto the site. It’s ecoplum.com. It’s a great site. You’re going to love it.

John: Explain to our listeners then, and thank you, Mike, for that, Gia. Can they go on the site and buy green products? Or can they-

Gia: That’s correct. It’s the combination of a commerce site and an online magazine. They can go on our website and they can buy products. All of our products have been screened by third-party certification agencies and they can buy them and when they buy them, they earn eco chip. Eco chip can then be used for more purchases or donated to environmental causes.

John: Interesting.

Gia: We also have information on our site and that’s where all of the monthly columns that I just talked about come in.

John: I got you. It’s a learning experience. It’s potentially a buying experience. It’s an earning experience. And it’s also social experience and people get the share their best habits, best practices, and their tips.

Gia: That’s right. If you think of content, commerce and community.

John: Wow.

Gia: It really is those three things.

John: When you had this epiphany and you started this great company, when you looked at- Okay, you created it with your husband, ecoplum.com.

Gia: Actually, I didn’t create it with him. He just came up with the name.

John: Okay. All right. Well, that’s sort of a collaboration. Who were your competitors in this space or were there none? And who are your competitors today?

Gia: Sure. When I first started or conceived of EcoPlum, there weren’t too many sites out there. I have to say a ton of them came into existence in the last couple of years. But many of the sites out there catered to true-blue environmentalists. They offer products for people who kind of already know what they want, but we’re here to help people who are new to the green experience, a green newbie. For example, a busy working mom, or a person who just wants to do the right thing but doesn’t know where to start.

John: I got you.

Gia: We do the legwork for you, so you can easily find what you’re looking for.

John: I got you. That’s so great. As you just mentioned, you have a blog on the site called Confessions of a Reformed Consumer, which is such a great name. And you talk, in that blog, about MIGGs. Help me out here. What is that?

Gia: That’s a MIGG.

John: What is that?

Gia: A MIGG is a term to describe a person who, it’s my term actually, maybe isn’t doing what they should be. Not changing their wasteful habits, or doing as much green as they should be because they maybe feeling somewhat in- They may have feelings of insignificance, helplessness, maybe even a little bit of laziness and distrust. It’s me. I was a MIGG 5 years ago. It’s most of my friends. It’s a lot of the parents at my kids’ schools. It’s the guy next door. It’s your average everyday person to whom the environment is not a priority. The reason I came up with MIGG, it stands for something. MIGG, M is for my actions are just a drop in the bucket. I stands for I’ve got bigger issues to deal with right now. G stands for global warming? Not in my lifetime. And the second G stands for greenwashing is everywhere. Who can I trust? So, my point is if I can change so dramatically, then so can others. I was a MIGG. It was much bigger than me. I had other things to worry about. It wasn’t front of mind. And then, I just got informed and had an, “Aha,” moment and really changed my lifestyle. That’s what I’m trying to get other people to do as well.

Mike: Interesting. What was your, “Aha,” moment? How did that happen?

Gia: I think it was when I was reading a blog where someone talked about the fact that it took 700 years for a water bottled to decompose or to begin to decompose. And I drank water out of bottled water everyday.

John: Right.

Gia: In fact, I actually thought it was healthy. I wasn’t drinking soda. I was drinking water.

John: Right.

Gia: It didn’t even occur to me that that one act was really very wasteful, which I have to myself something that’s available for free, that I was creating waste that was going to be around for 700 years, for one drink.

John: I got you. And so, you decided that one small change can lead to another small change, which eventually, in combination with other people making small changes, can lead up to big solutions.

Gia: Absolutely. As more people become conscious of their impact and what they can do to change it, then hopefully, they’ll start to demand that companies respond with better products. And that’s when we’ll really begin to see a large scale change.

John: We have so many people that listen to our show, both consumers, obviously, entrepreneurs, existing entrepreneurs looking for pearls of wisdom, entrepreneurs and waiting, kids coming out of college, kids going into college. With EcoPlum from day 1 to now, how’s the ride? What’s the journey? How does it look like?

Gia: How’s the journey been for me?

John: Yeah, and for EcoPlum. In the beginning, when you started talking to your MIGG friends, neighbors and family members, and started sharing what the EcoPlum Vision was, how was it received then? How is it being received now, now that it seems like we’ve passed that tipping point in the US and other parts of the world, frankly? And the Green Revolution really is alive and is really not a fad. It’s really a trend that’s here to stay.

Gia: Yeah. Definitely, people are catching on. There’s been quite a big transformation. But I have to say, John, that still, there’s a lot of education and a lot of things that people still need to be made aware of so that they can think about their daily habit.

John: Sure. In terms of, you’ve already been a massive success in your previous life as an entrepreneur, and now this is a new entrepreneurial venture for you. Obviously, it’s going well. I’ve been on your site. Mike’s on your site now. Really, it’s such a relevant and important site, ecoplum.com, for our listeners out there who just joined. What’s your definition of success here? And when you go to bed at night and closing your eyes, what’s your goal with ecoplum.com?

Gia: Well, I define success as the right combination of money, lifestyle, personal fulfillment, and contribution to society. That’s really important because I think, in the past, like many other people, I put a lot of emphasis on money and not so much on lifestyle and personal fulfillment and contribution to society.

John: Sure.

Gia: That’s how I define it for myself.

John: Right.

Gia: For EcoPlum, it’s pretty much the same. I wanted to be a financially sustainable company whilst creating an environment of personal fulfillment for the people who work here and making a huge contribution to society, which is really our primary mission.

John: Right.

Gia: I guess for EcoPlum, success is defined by our community. Will they find meaningful information that they can integrate into their lives, including shifts in their purchasing behavior? If we do that, we’ll have made a huge contribution.

John: What parts of your site are getting the most access? When you track what people are looking at the most and what information they’re hungering for most, in terms of our listeners also, what are you seeing? What is the general population looking for, in terms of the Green Revolution and learning how they could become part of the solution? What do you see on your site?

Gia: A lot of people like the blog. A lot of people can really relate to it and relate to friends who are still kind of figuring things out. We also get a lot of traffic on our Eco-tip section, where we give small tips for making little changes, like you said, that lead to bigger changes and can eventually make a big difference.

John: One question that Mike and I have been asking all of our guests of recent times, given that the economy is still in very rough shape, but the Green Revolution has taken hold, where does this leave EcoPlum and all the other great green ventures that are out there? Is this an exciting time? And if you were to sum up your feelings now, are you hopeful? Are you discouraged? What’s the general feeling now and what’s your visibility on the future for not only EcoPlum, but for, in general, the sustainability movement?

Gia: I am absolutely hopeful. I am so hopeful because I think, like you said, people are starting to catch on. Companies are starting to catch on, which is really huge. They’re starting to look at what their supply chain is and how they’re making their products and what they’re putting in their products. We’re still at the very beginning of that process, but it’s huge. This is really the future.

John: How are you getting the word out there about EcoPlum? You and I met online, obviously, through all the social media channels. Are you accessing Twitter, Facebook and the Google search engines? What’s your vision? In a new media world, how are you pushing out the message of EcoPlum and the brand of EcoPlum?

Gia: We’re very active on social media. We have a Facebook page that has a lot of engagement, a lot of conversation. We’re on Twitter and everything else. And that’s just been great. I have people that I communicate with in New Zealand and Australia through Twitter that are huge supporters of EcoPlum.

John: That’s awesome.

Gia: So, it’s really been great. We utilize a lot of social media and other traditional channels like going on this show.

John: Hey. I know you have 2 wonderful children, Noah and Talia. Because you’ve gone from healthcare to the environment and green, are you the cool mom now in school?

Gia: I’m pretty cool.

Mike: If you do say so, yourself.

Gia: If I do say so, myself. We sponsor a lot of things at my kids’ school.

John: I got you.

Gia: I have to say they’re having a good time.

John: Your traditional background in the healthcare world was B2B. But EcoPlum, obviously, for our wonderful listeners out there, is more of a consumer-focused site. What’s the role for EcoPlum in the B2B world and in the business world? What do you see the role for EcoPlum is in that world?

Gia: We’ve been exploring the area of bringing personal sustainability programs into the workplace, which is something I know that Saatchi & Saatchi S has worked with, and some other big companies. It’s something we’re very interested in because it’s reaching the consumer where they work and getting them to think about their habits and changing their habits, as well as helping green businesses with their green employee engagement programs, getting the employees more involved with greening the company. Those are areas that we’re looking into right now.

John: Perfect. What other things about EcoPlum, do you- I love your tagline, by the way, where it pays to buy green. And there’s no shame in saying that. Rewarding people who are just putting their toe into the Green Revolution and inspiring them, and motivating them to slightly change their behavior. It’s a wonderful, workable, and can be a very successful model. Ecoplum.com, where it pays to buy green. What is your vision though for the future? From this point on, what’s- You’ve gone through the pioneer years now and now a little wind is coming at your back, as it is for other green entrepreneurs. What do you see the visibility as for where can you take EcoPlum? And what’s your game plan for the next couple of years?

Gia: I think the possibilities are pretty endless. We are coming out with a new site design and a lot of new features in the fall. We’re going to have a big announcement. We’re very excited about it. And like I said, we’ve got some business ideas that we’re working on and we’re going to be building up that side of the company. It’s just going to take off from there.

John: That is so great. There’s a lot of people that listen to our show. Mike and I get tons of emails from students, from women, from people who want to be entrepreneurs, for people who want to be the next Gia Machlin, seriously. And so, as your road of success as an entrepreneur prior to EcoPlum and now post your first big victory in life in terms of entrepreneurship, and now reinventing yourself in the Green Revolution, what pearls of wisdom of your journey do you want to share back with our listeners to inspire them that they can do this also and give them some rules of the road?

Gia: I know this has been said before but it’s so true. Just follow your heart, do what you love to do, and you will be successful. I love helping people. I love educating. I love communicating, information, and I’m just having the best time. And when people write to me and say, “Gia, your blog is inspiring,” I am just on top of the world. All you got to do is do what you love.

John: That’s so funny. So, you feel, yourself, as an entrepreneur, that you’re really participating actively in changing the world.

Gia: Absolutely.

John: Isn’t that amazing? I had the honor and the total enjoyment, and this doesn’t happen to me too often, that I’m going to share this with our listeners, to meet you in person last week. We were at a green, sort of, social mixer in New York together. And one of the things that I- First of all, I have to share with our listeners that you’re an honors graduate with an MBA program from Columbia. But one of the things at the mixer that I learned is Columbia was represented there because they are now, themselves, starting a sustainability education program.

Gia: That’s right. The Earth Institute, which is part of Columbia University, is now launching a masters in sustainability.

John: The first part of today’s show, we had Nurit Katz on who’s the director of sustainability at UCLA, and she was truly an amazing and inspirational guest. So, what this trend looks like now, Gia, is that great universities, like Columbia and UCLA, are really going in headfirst into this whole Green Revolution.

Gia: That’s right. Absolutely. I’m part of the Columbia Business School Sustainable Business Committee. This was our first year. We put on a series of events, it was called Making Green from Green, around greening business and sustainable business. And I see this as a huge trend right now.

John: I’m going back to the whole concept of MIGG. When you changed from being a MIGG to being a woman ecopreneur, how did the household change in terms of the DNA of your children, your husband, and you and your behavior in the household, in terms of water conservation, as you said, bottles usage, and recycling. What happened in the Machlin household?

Gia: A lot of little things changed. I think some of them were a little bit difficult at first for the rest of the family to warm up to. And then now, my daughter who is only 7, was offered bottled water at the beach the other day. And she said, “Oh, no. Thank you. I have my own water bottle.” She just left it at that. But then later, she said, “Mommy, because then that bottle’s going to get into the ocean and hurt the fish.” So, they get it. Everybody’s really doing what they can and it’s been an incredible transformation in our household.

John: You’re going to create a great legacy with EcoPlum for the environment, but you’re also leaving a tremendous legacy in the DNA of your children.

Gia: I hope so.

John: Well, that’s great. I just want to say, Gia, again, Mike and I are so honored to have you on today. And for our listeners out there, we want you to go to Gia’s great site, ecoplum.com, where you can learn, buy, earn rewards and share knowledge. Gia Machlin, you are truly a visionary ecopreneur and truly living proof that green is good.

John: Thank you so much, John. This is great. Thank you, Mike.

Mike: Our pleasure.

John: 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. 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 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. I’m John Shegerian and I have with me today my longtime friend, Mark Newton. He’s the head of corporate sustainability for Samsung Electronics. Welcome to the impact podcast, Mark.

Mark Newton: John, thanks so much. What a great opportunity. We’ve been talking about this for years and looking forward to chatting with you.

John: This is special because I know you personally, and I know your journey, but our listeners and our viewers don’t and that’s what we’re going to get into today. And then talking about all the important and great things you’re doing at the iconic brand, Samsung – the leading brand in manufacturing electronics on the planet. What an opportunity, and what a great position you have. But first, I want you to just a little bit what I know, listeners for the Mark Newton [inaudible] How did you even get on this journey of sustainability, and how did you get here to where you are today?

Mark: Yeah. Well, I think everyone that’s in my role came at it from a different direction, and my story isn’t any more unique than others, except maybe it’s longer than most. I graduated from the University of Texas in 1993. And I had a Ph.D. in Chemistry and got hired right out of school by Motorola. And this was before cellphones. So, everyone’s got a pager and I got put into the land mobile products division, which was the two-way radios that you see in all the taxis and police cars and that was the core of their Innovation Center. We got a nasty gram from the Netherlands. One of our customers had ground up some of our two-way radios and said, “Hey, did you know that there’s hex chrome and cadmium, things like that in your products? We ground them up.” Yeah, and Motorola was like, “What? why’d you grind up our products?” And because I had a background in polymer chemistry and they didn’t really know what that meant. They handed me the project because these substances were found in plastics and back then nobody was designing for anything but performance in electronics. And so, nobody had even asked these questions before. Nobody knew why we would be using these substances.

So, it wasn’t that hard to figure out, I’ve managed to track down our suppliers and asked them why they were used and they’re used for pigments and heat stabilizers and things like that and then I asked him if they had alternatives and they said, “Yeah, but you never asked us.” So I said, “Okay, great. Well, are there any more expensive?” and they said, “no,” I said for this is going to be an easy one. And so, we were able to resolve this problem, but the light bulb went off, right? We didn’t know anything that was in any of our products. We didn’t know the composition of hardly any of the materials nor did we care. So, I decided with the support of my management, to go on a quest and understand what was in all of our stuff. And they gave me a small team. They move me up to the Corporate Research Center in Schaumburg, Illinois, and everyone thought I was crazy and everyone thought that was what I was going to do for the rest of my career, but it really didn’t take that long because when you get down into the supply chain, especially with materials, there’s a lot of commonality with the different sorts of suppliers and so, it all came down to a fairly relatively manageable set of materials as complex as electronics are and then figuring out like what’s in them.

Took a couple of years and we decided as we were going through it to actually start thinking more proactively about creating design guidelines so that when we’re creating products, we could avoid some of these substances that we knew were going to be coming our way. I did some benchmarking early on to show that substance restrictions started, let’s say in the toy industry where the food industry had a pretty repeatable lag before they hit the electronic sector. And so using that sort of methodology, I was able to track what substances were probably going to be hitting us, and one of the first that we tracked back then was to transition away from lead and solder. And so, before I knew it and after I actually left Motorola and went on to work for other tech companies, I realized that that was one of the very first designs for environmental programs in the tech industry. So now, every tech company has a sustainability R&D function and has sustainability officers, and throughout my career, I’ve taken on more and more responsibilities. It’s gone from materials and circularity issues with recycling to energy efficiency and climate impacts to social impacts and ethical sourcing and philanthropy. It’s been a fantastic journey. I’ve been able to work for some iconic companies along the way.

John: Well, you know Mark and I say this only with love and respect, when I met you and I just got in the industry and knew nothing about real recycling, I came role[?] You were the first leaders in sustainability that I was ever exposed to. And I quickly learned that you were truly. This was a DNA issue to you and you were really one of the thought leaders and true leaders in sustainability way before it was cool to be talking about ESG, circular economy, chief sustainability officers, or anything else. I believe, when we met, you were delved. Can you share some of the great brands and the seats that you’ve sat on leading up to this very important position that you have today at Samsung?

Mark: Sure. Actually, when I left Motorola, I left sustainability altogether and tech. Well, not tech so much, but I went to go work for an inventor named Dean Kamen, who some folks may know. They’re listening to his podcast, is the inventor of the segway and it was a fantastic opportunity to leverage more of my basic scientific skills. I was their Chief chemist and we worked on all kinds of great projects, separating oxygen from the air and creating engines that could run off of dung and all kinds of neath things as well as these medical devices. But I missed the electronics world. I had already spent a fair amount of time at Motorola, and I had an opportunity to go work for Apple. And so, I did. So, I went to work for Apple.

Right around the time when the iPod was first being developed and weren’t for Steve’s deal with the big 3 record industry companies to create the service that he had around the iPod. It would have just been another MP3 player. So, I’ve missed the boat on just about every IPO and stock opportunity in my entire career. I jumped out of apple just at the right time before they started making money and went on to Dell who at that time was actually just on fire. They were eating everybody’s lunch and so I came to Dell to help them develop their environmental technology programs to transition to lead-free and to put together some of their basic policies around recycling and environmental sustainability. During that time period, they did something quite innovative and it was ahead of any regulation with respect to recycling. They partnered with Goodwill and kicked off that reconnect program, which was a great success and a great way to leverage the fact that consumers want to hang onto their junk, but they love to donate.

And so, the way to get these scrap, this crap out of their hands, which is piling up in basements and garages and closets, everywhere, was to leverage an infrastructure that they were comfortable with and that was the donation process. So, it was a great partnership. It help to drastically increase our collection rates and then also met Goodwill’s Mission, which was to put people to work. So, that was a fantastic partnership and the issues just continue to evolve at Dell and I was given more and more responsibility. And when I left, I had an opportunity to go work for one of those iconic companies that have sustainability just integrated into their business model and that was Timberland. So, it was a big leap jumping out of tech and going to the apparel and outdoor sector, but it was just unbelievable.

I say I need to paint things with a broad brush, but I’d say the apparel outdoor sector really had a much better handle on sort of social impacts and supplier issues with respect to labor and human rights. And the tech industry was further ahead on some of the materials and environmental technology issues. And so there was a great opportunity to bring some of that into the apparel sector, working with the sustainable apparel coalition and other partners, but then also to learn and build competence on the social impact side and bring that back to the tech sector when I came back and took on my current role with Samsung.

John: Madic[?] You know, being that you were already working in sustainability at Dell and then went over to Timberland, those skill sets though that you had were very transferable to cheerios change, is that not sort of true?

Mark: Yeah, I think so. I mean, there’s still a huge amount of intersection between technology and gear, outdoor gear and apparel. I mean, just look at today. Just look at the collaboration that we’ve announced fairly recently, at Samsung to address microplastics in the ocean. I mean, there’s millions of tons of microplastics, on the seafloor bed, and there’s more and more coming in all the time. And these things are shed. These are fibers that are shed through laundry and in other ways and they get into our water system and into the food system. And so, working with the innovator like Patagonia who really understands the ecological issue and the science behind the materials with bringing together, like a Samsung who totally understands washing equipment and all the engineering around that was a really kind of great and natural partnership that we announced at the Consumer Electronics Show this year.

John: And now you’re at Samsung, you’ve got the head of corporate sustainability position for Samsung Electronics, America. You know Mark, what I’ve learned over the years and much has been through your eyes as well. You’ve been a tremendous inspiration and mentor to me in this journey here at ERI. Sustainability means a lot of things to a lot of people and also to organizations. It can mean different things. With regards to Samsung, who is the leading global manufacturer of electronics on the whole planet. I think you sell the give or take and you correct me, correct my numbers, 500 million new devices a year. Some numbers like that.

Mark: I’m not going to contradict you, John. Sounds like a big number. I agree.

John: What is sustainability mean now in the position you’re at Samsung?

Mark: That’s a great question.

John: Yeah.

Mark: I’m glad you asked that actually because I’m not going to really answer in terms of like environmental or social responsibility. I look at it very differently. I guess I’m a pragmatist. I’ve never been accused of being a tree-hugger, but I’ve come to really appreciate this work because of the positive impact that we can make. But the way I look at sustainability is more in terms of externalities that are not on the balance sheet, right? So these are things that we need to consider. Some of them are social and environmentally related, right?

John: Okay.

Mark: These are things that we don’t really quantify in our P&L and because we don’t have that information at the table, then we have an incomplete amount of information to make the best decisions, right? So the idea is really kind of to bring these externalities in to integrate these considerations in the business and that way we can have the best information in front of us to make the best decisions. And if we do that, we’re going to stay in business longer, which is another way to describe sustainability.

John: Right. You’ll be able to sustain but one of your taglines, one of Samsung’s taglines is “together for tomorrow.” What does that mean to you and what does that mean to Samsung in terms of you executing that vision in terms of the United States and way beyond?

Mark: Yeah, so together for tomorrow and this idea of co-prosperity is just this laser-focus that we have on our customer as well as other stakeholders that we interact within the course of doing our business. But I would say that it’s part of our DNA. It’s the way that we’re focused as a company that’s consumer-oriented, but at the same time, we have done a whole lot of impact studies and we know that this stuff is really important to Gen Z, right? And so these are our employees. This is our next generation of customers. And one of the things that we know also is that Gen Z make up like 20% of our population, but they have less than a half percent of spending power. So, you can’t reach them through normal marketing, right? It’s got to be through education and engagement and so for that reason, we’ve really started to, I think, communicate more effectively about some of the things that we’ve been doing for a long time. One of the things I noticed when I came to Samsung was that I really hadn’t heard much about what they were up to. And so, the first thing you think is while they’re not doing anything. Well, that’s not the case.

It’s more of a case of communicating effectively. And now that we know how important this is to the most important and most quickly-growing segment of our customer base, we’re starting to think about not just talking about what we’re doing but why we’re doing it. And one way that we try to put this together is the idea of connecting the dots between everyday changes, and small things that you can do in your life because these are such big intractable issues that we’re dealing with. You know, existential crisis, climate change. Give me a break. But then connecting the dots to that meaningful impact so that it is clear that the things that we do in our everyday lives. If the things that we can do, the small things we can do as a company add up to something that’s large and meaningful. And so talking about them both at the same time is the way that we’re trying to communicate this.

John: For those who just joined us, we’ve got Mark Newton with us today on the Impact Podcast. He’s the head of corporate sustainability for Samsung Electronics America. To find Mark and his great colleagues, you can go to www.samsung.com

Mark, you know, you’re talking about education. Are we seeing a sea change right now of Gen Z and other millennials and other generations now voting more with their pocketbook with regards to the true impact that brands are making than ever before, or am I misreading that?

Mark: No, you are reading it right now. Like I said, Gen Z has a relatively small amount of purchase power on their own, but they actually have a very large influencing power so indirect purchase power. You know, your kids tell you what to buy, right? But the fact of the matter is that this has been studied extensively by so many groups and it’s clear that the trend is moving towards a situation where there is an expectation. It’s becoming basically, table stakes for companies to be focused on this. And to some extent, if it can be communicated effectively, and there’s credibility and real trust that is built between the company and the customer that there is a definite impact towards a purchase and we see that. We see that in the data both from a demographic standpoint, based on age group, as well as year-over-year advances in the propensity to actually put your money where your mouth is but besides purchasing, it’s about working for companies that care. You know, Gen Z really wants to be part of the solution. Another thing that we find interesting is that they’re over-indexed compared to most other age groups with respect to social responsibility. So this idea of where something comes from and how people are being treated during that process is much more disproportionately more important to this generation than to other age groups. So, this is usually a topic which most companies, don’t really message, right?

John: Right.

Mark: It tends to be sort of like a reputation management topic or something that you talked about from a compliance standpoint. This is actually something that our consumers care about more and more. And so it’s something that will be going to continue to message as we develop[?]

John: I also want to glance over something you just mentioned. Given that we’re at almost zero employment right now, and we’ve just lived through not only the covid tragedy but also, we’re living through the great resignation. As an improvement tool, what you’re also saying is companies that actually care and make an impact have a greater chance of retaining and recruiting the best talent that’s out there right now.

Mark: That’s exactly right, John.

John: That’s interesting. That’s really interesting. You know Mark, shameless plug this is my Samsung phone. I have it. I carried. I love it because you guys are truly one of the great innovators on the whole planet. Talk a little bit about the importance of innovation not only in making great products but also in innovating in what doing in your sector and sustainability and how they go together and why that matters?

Mark: Yeah. Sure. I mean, we really, really see sustainability as a lens for innovation. This is just another lever that we can pull when we’re trying to find ways to really excite and delight our customers, but what we have learned, I think also as we develop these technologies is that in terms of the way that we present them. I think that the most effective way is to do it as sort of a gift with purchase rather than lean into these as the reason why you want to buy the product. The reason is the same reasons before, right? It’s cost-effective, it helps you with your productivity, and helps you connect all the things that technology does for you. It’s reliable. All of that stuff, right? That’s the reason why right? And we know that sustainability is, a consideration, but we’re going to deliver sustainability to you, whether you want it or not. I mean, that’s kind of our focus. And so, we really feel as though there’s ways for us to do this that open up new possibilities in the way that we’re developing products. So, I mentioned the collaboration with Patagonia on microplastics.

John: Right.

Mark: That’s a fantastic innovation that is really brought about by an understanding of some of these issues with single-use plastics and water stewardship. Another thing that we’re focused on which is really kind of fun and cool is upcycling. So, as you know, recycling is super important. We need to definitely have all these materials to continue to feed the product development cycle but the fact is that the best way, really, to lower your impact is to keep using a product and especially a lot of these devices have very high levels of functionality sensors and all kinds of other things, cameras storage connectivity, but maybe they’re not good for phones anymore or something like that, right? So, why can’t we use those for other sorts of devices? So we’ve got some programs that we’ve spun up around that are very exciting. As well as ways to get this idea into the hands of all consumers through our galaxy upcycling at-home program that we do and our partnership with SmartThings. Another thing which is really kind of cool is since we live in such a connected world, right? Is the ability to use technology in a way that helps us make better choices. So, SmartThings is a Samsung Company, and it is sort of an IoT-connected hub enabling service. And one of the things that we can do through our SmartThings app that we’ve developed is the idea of managing and monitoring the energy use of all your connected devices in your home. And so having this knowledge is real power and being able to identify like what appliances have the biggest load when you’re running them. And then also knowing something about your utilities so that you can understand when the best time is to run some of those. If you can choose different times of the day to run them. Those are the kinds of things that are going to help us make better decisions and live our lives more efficiently.

John: Well Mark, one of the things that I don’t get to deal with that much is the issue of packaging. I work more on the core materials that are within the electronics themselves and as do you, but talk about the challenges and also the progress you’ve made with regards to packaging and sustainability.

Mark: Sure. I mean, it’s the first thing you throw away, right?

John: Right.

Mark: So as we shouldn’t be shipping, that much of it. When I was at Dell, actually, I worked with a fantastic packaging engineering team. And we came up with this idea called “cube, content, and curb” And so cube, let’s not ship any more air than we need to with the product, right?

John: Right.

Mark: Content. Let’s innovate, let’s bring recycled content in there. Let’s make sure that we’re not contaminating the plastic was something that’s going to make it hard to recycle. And then, related to that is the curb. Let’s not over innovate with regrettable choices. Let’s make sure whatever we’re doing actually makes it so that we can easily recover this stuff so that they can go into curbside recycling. So it can go through the morph and we can actually recover these materials, and keep them out of landfills. And I think those guiding principles are just spot-on and so we have a very similar approach here at Samsung and one of the things that we’ve been able to do is to essentially eliminate single-use plastics in our mobile packaging. And you know, that’s the first step. We have a lot of other packagings for other types of products. And some of those types of products, the cushioning, and things like that are critical, and finding alternatives to things like EPS foam and stuff like that is a real significant challenge. So, we’ve taken on that challenge and the other opportunity is to incorporate recycled content. And so, all of our packagings has at least 50% recycled fiber. And then another thing is to make sure that the fiber you are getting is sustainably sourced, right?

So, all of the wood pulp that we use in any of our paper and cardboard is certified by SFI or PEFC, or FSC. So, those are the kinds of ways that we think about it, you know, use as little as possible. Use as much recycled content as possible. And when we do shift, shift to things that can be easily recycled. It creates a challenge though because at the same time, we want to incorporate recycled plastics and most of the recycled plastics that you get, especially ocean plastics, come from packaging. So if we’re eliminating plastics and packaging, well, where do you put that stuff, right? So it’s a challenge and that’s again, where we’ve got some innovation going on. So, with the ocean plastics, for instance, we’re recapturing fishing nets, that would end up in the ocean. And there’s a lot of them. There’s like three-quarters of a million tons of fishing nets that get wasted every year. And so, if we can just get one of those back, it’s great, but they’re made out of nylon, and there’s not a lot of uses for nylon and in electronics products.

And so we have to be innovative and figure out ways. Well, how do we take that stuff? How do we clean it up? How do we blend it in with other materials that can give us a resin that we can use? And so we’ve been successful in that application. We found some great uses for materials like that, but you really have to think out of the box because this material, the polymers that are out there that are easy to collect that are in the trash, are usually not the stuff that you want to put back into products.

John: That’s so interesting. I’m going to get back to that. I want to talk more about design for sustainability in the sector. I want to go back to Samsung. You now are the head of corporate sustainability for Samsung and Samsung’s Electronics of America. Mark, Samsung is the number one brand on the planet in manufacturing electronics. So, describe a little bit given a unique and rare position you’re in as the leading brand and being at the top of the food chain yourself now in sustainability. It’s both a responsibility and I assume a heavy responsibility but also a blessing because everyone’s watching you. You’re being watched. So you have the opportunity to inspire, but also people are going to want to also throw darts or worse at you. Explain that opportunity and how you toggle that and make that more into an inspirational venture, instead of, of course, the other side.

Mark: Well, okay. That’s a loaded question. But I’ll take a stab at it. It’s actually a very difficult thing because if you step out in front, too far in front on a particular issue,  timing – a mature sense of timing is almost everything in this business.

John: Yeah.

Mark: And so, if you step out too far in front and you really haven’t thought through some of the implications of the innovations that you wanted to bring forward, then yeah, you’re going to be the first one to take an arrow, but at the same time if it’s the right thing to do, then you take those arrows. And so, I would say, a great example of that is energy efficiency. So, energy efficiency is our bread and butter. We’re not shy about getting out in front of our skis on energy-efficient. Somewhere around 80% of the home appliance products that we have that can be energy star certified are. And so over the last 10 years, I think since 2009, we’ve avoided over 300 million metric tons of CO2 emissions through the efficiency improvements of our products. And that goes directly to customers. So, I mean, that’s an area which I don’t care what side of the politics you land on climate change, right? Who can argue with energy efficiency?

John: Virtually, nobody.

Mark: Nobody. I mean, it’s wasteful not to be efficient. And so, it’s one of those things where I think it’s you pick your battles, you find the topics that are material to your business. And that way, when you are focusing on a ring through to the stakeholders and your customers.

John: And you inspire other organizations like yours, then other OEMs and others to follow suit and to lean into this.

Mark: That’s right. Yeah. I mean, we’re not making any friends in some of our trade associations and we’re quite disruptive when it comes to innovation and our support of voluntary standards and things like that. But we do that because we know we can win.

John: Right

Mark: We have the scale in the engineering horsepower and the customer-based and the product portfolio to be able to deliver on that and some companies don’t have those advantages. And so, that’s the reason why we leaned in on some of these more progressive issues.

John: You know Mark, let’s go back to the issue of design for sustainability. Now, you were, as I said earlier, you’re truly the Godfather of sustainability, especially in our industry, and truly one of the great leaders in sustainability, overall in the world. I know it sounds odd, but I have a great view of this. And I’ve traveled a lot and dealt with a lot of wonderful brands and I know this to be true, but we were early. You were way early and I followed you and I was still early and you were way before me. So, talk a little bit about where we are today, you know, imagine, there were no chief sustainability officers when you were doing what you were doing, and then I followed you, and even when I got in the business, there was no chief sustainability officer. Now, not only do we have heads of corporate sustainability and chief sustainability officers like you but we’ve also involved this whole issue of sustainability in ESG and in circular economy discussions. So, let’s talk about the issue of circularity in the circular economy. If we’re now to believe which seems to be true that we’re moving generationally speaking from a linear to a circular economy, and there’s probably or should be no going back. Electronics being part of that ecosystem which are one of the fastest-growing solid waste streams on the whole planet offer us a huge opportunity. And I always say, and you tell me if I’ve got this right or if I’m missing the mark here. That is one of the greatest untold stories in the circular economy because when folks like you create recycling, both recycling and upcycling programs that go unnoticed, but are making a huge impact, it’s a huge opportunity. And what I mean by that is all the materials that you know, and that you’ve dealt with for so many years that come out of electronics, steel, plastic, copper, aluminum. Now gold, silver, lead, played in now. Even the battery stuff, the cobalt, the lithium, and nickel. It’s all recyclable when done responsibly and can all go back for beneficial reuse. So, truly you’re sitting on top of one of the great circular economy stories that are out there and isn’t part of what you’re doing further growing that and messaging that to your constituents at large.

Mark: Sure. And it fits into our climate strategy too. You know this thing has all the materials that we mine and we process in making the products. All have climate impacts for a mobile product. You know, 80% of those impacts plus are associated with the manufacture of that product. And for that reason, if we think about a circularity strategy. We’re talking about recycling all the time. We’re drumming, and have been drumming it into our kids for generations. You know, what we don’t really talk about and what we should be talking about, especially if we’re going to try to solve this climate crisis is extending the life of these products. And that is not contrary to popular belief juxtaposed to the business interests of companies that are manufacturing products. We find that there are customers that want to buy brand-new stuff. They’re always gonna be there that do that. But then, there are others that want to keep their products moving forward longer and there are many of them. And then, there are others that could never get into a flagship product, for instance, but might want a refurbished, a product, like our certified renewed products that comes with Samsung genuine parts, a new battery, and a full warranty, but at a significant discount and it gets them into those products once they realize what they can do.

So, it’s very integrated. You know, the way we think about this and our scale is a big part of it. We collect through partnerships with you guys. I mean, the innovations that you guys bring to us and the capabilities you bring to us is just amazing and absolutely essential to our circularity goals and our ability to execute but through you and some partners like yourself, we’re collecting over 100 million pounds of electronics every year in the United States. And that’s only about 10% of what we do globally. It’s incredible. So, we’re on track to, I think something like 10 million metric tons of e-waste by 2030 globally. I can’t even put my head around the number like that but it creates this opportunity to get that material back. But there are two ways to look at it.

One is this closed-looped idea which I think is somewhat constraining. It’s good to do. It’s important to do but probably what’s more important is to think about the materials that are coming through your waste stream as maybe a feedstock for other processes. Maybe your own but others. And also, think about more broadly, waste products that are coming from other industries as potential feedstocks for yours. And so, although I like the idea of closed-loop recycling, I think for a long time, it put constraints on the idea of what a circular economy looks like.

John: You’re 100% right in that, Mark. Like you said, all the materials that come out of in the United States that say the 100 million pounds of responsibly recycled electronics that Samsung engages in, on an annual basis which is one-tenth. So, let’s assume a billion pounds a year internationally. Those materials even if they don’t go into new cellphones and tablets, can go into other items for beneficial use and it’s staying out of landfills and staying out of the environment.

Mark: That’s right.

John: Let’s go back to something you just said though about climate change because the listeners, I need them to hear this from you. When you recycle, for instance, aluminum that comes out of your old electronics. Speak a little bit about the energy savings and the climate intersection that creates and the energy savings from recycling all those materials that come out of old electronics.

Mark: Sure. I mean refining metals like aluminum and steel is like 95% more energy-intense than recycling them. So, it’s critical and as a result of that, there’s a very high recycling rate of materials like that. 80% to 95% recovery of aluminum and steel. And so that’s great. That’s a real success story, I think. And we need to think about that when we’re considering some of these other materials that we want to bring back in. I think batteries are a big one. If you think about it, batteries now as we move more towards portable electronics and integrated electronics in peril and all kinds of things, right? Batteries are going to be more and more important. Never mind all the batteries we need for our EVs and all the batteries that are going to be used for energy storage. If you look at the road map for lithium-ion technology and you talked about the cobalt and the lithium and the nickel. There’s really only line of sight out to about 20-25 in terms of where those materials are going to come from. Even if you want to dig up cobalt into congo which nobody wants to do. It’s you have to get really smart on mining these materials from waste and I think it’s a travesty. I don’t know how to solve this problem, John. I’d love to have your insights on it because we’ve hit a wall. No matter how convenient we make this, no matter how much education we put out all the way from elementary school up through the- you know when you get your utility bill in the mail as a homeowner. It’s all about recycling, recycling, and recycling. But we’ve hit a wall like 20% is about all we can get back for electronics. So, that’s a big challenge. And the other challenge is logistics when we get these materials, they’re usually not where we want them.

John: Right.

Mark: We dig them up out of the ground in places that are very well defined but then we peanut butter spread them all over the planet, once we put them into products. And so getting them back is a logistical nightmare but also very costly and inefficient. So, these are things that are very, very challenging problems that we need to address because we don’t have another alternative. We literally don’t have the number of planets that we need for all the materials that are going to feed the rise of the middle class on the planet which we all want.

John: If you’ve just joined us, now, we’ve got Mark Newton. He’s the head of corporate sustainability for Samsung Electronics America. Mark, you mentioned earlier, first of all, the upcycling and the secondary and tertiary markets that your great mobile devices can continually be used in. Talk a little bit about the huge announcement you recently made which is I think, a massive wind for everybody and the environment of course as a whole and the planet as a whole with regards to convenient repair and the partnership you just did with iFixit. Do you want to share a little bit about that groundbreaking relationship and announcement you recently made?

Mark: Sure. Well, it’s a deliberate part of our strategy which we’d said, many years ago to expand the convenience for repair for our customers. So, we already had a very extensive authorized repair network but a couple of years ago, we realized that we could do better and we decided to expand that to independent service providers. And so, we have now a much more extensive repair network for our customers where they can go into small, and medium-sized businesses and get their products repaired with Samsung authorized parts without necessarily having to go to an authoritative repair center where we would normally do warranty returns and things like that. So, so that really opens it up. And then going even further, we understand that there are some people that are going to want to do some basic repairs on common things that are safe for them to repair and can be repaired in a way where the product will be reliable. And so, that’s something we’ve been working on for quite some time and as you said, we just announced a partnership with iFixit, and iFixit is uniquely positioned to interact with small repair shops as well as individuals that are interested in repairing their product in terms of providing them parts as well as tools and instruction on how to do that. So they are a natural partner. We’ve been partnering with them for quite some time on a number of different issues and this just seemed like a really natural extension. What we’re trying to do is to make a repair as convenient and accessible and safe as possible.

John: You know Mark, a few years back, I had the absolute pleasure of having lunch with you in New York City. This is way before covid and then you took me down to your Innovation Center in Downtown New York, and you really gave me a great window and visibility on the future of electronics, and I was very moved and inspired by that afternoon we spent together. Before we sign off today and say goodbye, can you share a little bit about two things, 1.) What gets you out of bed every morning working at Samsung, one of the most iconic and ubiquitous brands now on the whole planet? and 2.) What’s the future hold? What challenges do you get up in the morning looking to tackle but also what things excite you besides tackling some problems and challenges as what’s out there to keep doing in the future to stay ahead and make the world a better place which I know you do every day.

Mark: I’ve been so fortunate to be part of such amazing companies and so, the little things that myself and my team were able to do have a huge impact and that’s what gets me up in the morning. I really feel like even the small things that we do make a big difference, but I’ll tell you as far as we’ve come, we have so much to do and the easy apples have already been picked up, right? So these are the tougher ones too.

John: Right.

Mark: I talked about metals recovery. I think we really need to do a much better job about that. My fractional weight more of our products are made from metal than plastics and we have a very robust plastics strategy in terms of eliminating it from our packaging and also adapting it into our products, but I think metals, although we do some of that, we’re not as deliberate as we should be. Some of this is just happening. We talked about steel and aluminum. Just by using steel and aluminum, you have probably 60% to 80% recycled content in your product. But that’s just a starting point and we need to be focused more about this little more deliberately, I think. I also talked about reuse. I think that we’ve talked a lot about recycling and it’s super important. If you don’t have recycling, you don’t have a circular economy. But at the same time, if we look at the intersection between circularity and climate, if we’re not building products to be durable and infrastructure for those products to be used longer because the product can be fine, but the infrastructure could change, right? And so all those things have to go together then really we’re missing out on some great opportunities in order to impact our footprint.

I think think the number is something like adding another year to your mobile phone can reduce the life cycle impact of your phone by 30%. Yeah, it’s dramatic and so it’s just the opposite though on home appliances. Most of the climate impacts are associated with use about 80%. And so it doesn’t make sense at all for you to have a very inefficient washer or dryer or TV or refrigerator in your house when you can swap it out for something more efficient. So, that’s something, I think reuse is really important and we need to be thinking more about that in communicating more. And then the last thing I’ll point out is something that I think is more aspirational and that is considering a shift to more of a service model. There are some pros and cons to that from a sustainability standpoint, but it sets up the right behaviors when you have an interaction with your customer where there’s an expectation that the material is going to come back to you, right? Then you have an incentive to design that in a modular fashion.

You have the infrastructure set up for the reverse logistics and you also have an incentive for that product to be used for as long as possible and upgradeable without it necessarily having to result in another piece of equipment that you’re going to send because now you’re doing something like instead of selling a TV, you’re selling the ability for someone to have amazing content viewed in their home, right? And the TV just becomes a device for that and so I think manufacturers have an opportunity to shift. This isn’t anything that’s revolutionary. If it was revolutionary, you’d go back to Ray Anderson’s interface, and in the way, you revolutionize the carpet in this exact same way, right?

John: Right.

Mark: And before that, the carpet materials weren’t even designed in a way that they could be recycled easily, now, they are. Before that, if you got a cigarette burn on a carpet, you replace the whole carpet. Now you replace the square. Well, imagine if you have a product that’s let’s say a display that’s modular and a pixel goes out on the TV where you replace a segment of that array rather than the entire TV, and we are already producing TVs like that. So I think with the idea of creating modular products and driving efficiencies through that coupled with a service model which is already playing out in the cellphone industry. A lot of people don’t own their own cell phones. They pay for their phone service and they get a free phone with it, right? They’re considered to be free. So why can’t we do that with other products, and sectors? And I think that there’s an opportunity there.

John: We’re seeing potentially in the future electronics become part of the shared economy.

Mark: That’s right. Good way to put it, John.

John: That’s got it. Well Mark, obviously, I’m the CEO of your fan club. I’m so thankful that you were able to make it on the Impact Podcast today. For our listeners and viewers out there to find Mark and his team of great sustainability experts at Samsung. Please go to www.samsung.com, you can click on the sustainability section. You could find all the things they’re doing in circularity and together for tomorrow, they really embody that, and Mark, I really appreciate your time today. I also appreciate you not only for those reasons, but I appreciate you as a friend and someone who’s inspiring me for the last 20 years to just do better every day. Not be perfect, but do better. And I know you’re making the world a better place. You’ve made the better world, a better place during your whole career and for that, I’m really grateful, but I’m even more grateful that you’re, my friend. Thank you for joining us today on the Impact Podcast.

Mark: Thank you, John. It’s my honor.

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 Loops 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. 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: Hi, this is John Shegerian. I never could have imagined when we started the GreenIsGood radio show back in 2006 that it would grow into a big podcast called the GreenIsGood podcast. Now, we’ve evolved that podcast into the impact podcast, which is more inclusive and more diverse than ever before. But we did look back recently at some of our timeless GreenIsGood interviews and decided to share some of them with you now. So enjoy one of our great GreenIsGood 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.

Mike Brady: 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, welcome to GreenIsGood and Mike Brady it’s great to be in the studio with you today.

Mike: Well, John Shegerian the pleasure is all mine, sir. I mean every week we get a chance to talk to some really cool people. We get to learn stuff, we get to share we get to learn together just you and me as his partners on the show and our audience gets to find out all this cool stuff. It’s just like we’re actually doing something that makes sense.

John: Mike I got to tell you on the weekends I catch up well with my regular work and then also on my social stuff and I got a lot of emails this last weekend.” Thanks for the show, John. I love the show. I’m on Apple, iTunes listening to it, or I’m on your website or clear Channel’s website, listen to it.” And it’s so fulfilling. What we’re doing together when I get those little emails and thank you’s from people. I’m really excited because today we got 300 emails today. Someone had written about our show somewhere. We got 300 requests in the last 24 hours or so for people just to be on the show.

Mike: You’re kidding.

John: No. I mean, I know we’re onto something great. I know the Green Revolution is here to stay and also I bow down to you Mike because I’m so excited about our one-hour format because you and I get to have now two great guests. Every time we do a show together and that to me is really delivering the goods for the people out there listening to us.

Mike: Well, there’s so many people like you say John the want to make a difference did know that every change starts small. We get overwhelmed. We see so many problems, so many things that need to be addressed and we think how in the world are we going to be able to do this? I can’t possibly do it. Well, that’s why there’s such a thing as teamwork.

John: That’s right.

Mike: Because nobody’s got it all has the entire skillset in and of themselves, but when you get people together doing small things on a global scale, that’s really what affects a lot of change.

John: And this is like a reset on our society. Almost everything that we do in touch can be made green or greener. We’re proving with all the different guesses we’re having from so many different backgrounds that everything that we do in our daily lives can be rethought and be made greener and I think we get to share that with our audience and make them rethink everything we’re doing.

Mike: It’s really cool too. It’s like a renewal. If you will of our sense of interconnectedness, you would think that that would be a no-brainer because you were talking about social networks and all this stuff. We’ve got so many different technologies that supposedly are there to bring us closer together, but still, sometimes people feel more disenfranchised and more alone than ever. So, what’s up with that?

John: Well, it’s the paradox of social media and social networking. In one way it democratizes information…

Mike: That’s right.

John: Which is wonderful.

Mike: That’s excellent.

John: It’s wonderful for us. It’s wonderful for our children and our grandchildren. But also, as you said, you could live almost on the social network and not have real personal relationships in terms of one-on-one, like yours, yours, and my friendship and partnership. And then you’re missing out, you’re missing out on the personal touch. I tell this to people who work with me all the time. It’s wonderful to text message people, and wonderful to email, but you can’t email a handshake. Nowadays, the personal touch is worth more than it was even when we were kids.

Mike: That’s a great point. So it’s a really social networking and all our technology should add to rather than replace it.

John: That’s right.

Mike: Okay.

John: And or push us apart. Well, today’s show we’ve got again two great guests today instead of just one, because of this new one-hour format you’ve taken us to Mike. We have two great guests today. We have the first up top today. We got Rich Littlehale from YouRenew.com, which reaches one of these green youth entrepreneurs who has come up with… As you just pointed out, the word renew. He’s come up with a website concept to help people recycle their electronics using technology.

Mike: Right.

John: And using the power of social media, and social networks, to help connect people with solutions to recycle their cell phones, their laptops, and other small electronics that need to get recycled.

Mike: How cool is that?

John: And then we have Jessica Lundberg coming on after that on the second half of the show and Jessica’s from the famous Lundberg Farms, who are one of the biggest rice producers in America if not the world, and they’ve been green and sustainable back way before it was cool.

So, she’s going to be a generational legacy speaker and futuristic speaker on just our food and what we eat and the importance of eating green and sustainability when it comes to farming practices. So we’ve got two amazing guests today and that’s why we’re so glad all our listeners are out there listening to GreenIsGood.

Mike: Well, I can’t wait, John. So we’re going to take care of a little business and then we’ll get back to what promises to be a great show. So stick around for more of GreenIsGood.

Voice recorder: If a little GreenIsGood, more is even better. Now back to GreenIsGood with John Shegerian and Mike Brady.

John: Welcome back to GreenIsGood. Mike, today our first guest is Rich Littlehale. who’s the fearless co-founder of YouRenew and Rich is over in Connecticut, so he’s calling all across the country, and he’s just finishing up at Yale University. So, he’s not only an entrepreneur and leading the Green Revolution, with his great website, YouRenew.com. But he’s also a student finishing up at one of the greatest universities in America. Welcome to GreenIsGood Rich, and we’re so thankful and humbled to have you on today.

Rich Littlehale: Thanks. Thanks so much for having me guys. I’m very excited to talk.

John: Now, wait a second. How do you get to go to Yale University and still have time to come up with this wonderful website, great website, YouRenew.com.

Rich: I mean, one of the things that have been helpful is just from a young age. I’ve always had a strong work ethic sort of pushed through by my parents and I think for me this is something… The whole area of sustainability and in particular E-Waste, it’s something that I’m passionate about. So, I think as you guys know, I mean when you’re passionate about something it’s easy to work a few extra hours every night on something you care about.

John: Were your parents in the Green Revolution? Did you read a lot? Did you watch something on television? What made you want to even get into this segment of society instead of going to become an investment banker, or anything else you could become out of or the next president out of Yale University, by the way?

Rich: I part of it was just kind of right place right time and a little bit of us my co-founder and I stumble upon this. I had always wanted to do something in the green space. For no reason besides, I had grown up and often spent a lot of my summertime in nature camps and stuff like that. Actually, a camp up in Maine called Camp Wonky, really instilled in me a passion for the environment and taking care of, sort of that part of nature. And for me, I had… I don’t think there’s a better business than a business that has a triple bottom line that works on people’s planet and profit. For me. I was really looking for something in that area to drive it towards. We stumbled upon this and I thought it would be doable and here we are.

John: So you’re the next Zuckerberg or Gates. In your dorm room, cooking up this new business concept. And so, what does YouRenew.com do? How’s the response being? Explain what our listeners can expect if they go right now while they’re listening to the show on YouRenew.com.

Rich: Well, so the site is very easy. Essentially, what we try to think of was, there are a lot of ways that you can make an impact on responsibly reusing recycling E-Waste, and for us, YouRenew.com we wanted to really leverage technology to create a simple transparent, and convenient process with incentive monetary, the incentive to trade-in or recycle your old electronics. So the way the website works, it’s very simple. First, you just want to search for your device and we have a catalog of thousands of devices in nine different categories. And once you find your device, we have a picture of the that makes it really easy to find that device. You answer a few questions about that device and based on the answers to your questions were able to come up with a market, a price that we’re willing to sort of either pay for that device or in some cases we can’t pay for it, but we’re happy to send it to our electronics recycling partner. And so, after that, it’s very simple. You fill out a quick information name, address, and email. We give you a free shipping label. You grab a box and throw your device in, put the shipping label on, tape it up, and send it in. You’ll get a check a few days later and report just telling you that we’ve received your device and it’s being taken care of responsibly. It’s gotten a great response so far. It hasn’t even been up for a year and it’s been pretty exciting. Tens of thousands of people use those. So we’ve been excited about it and look forward to the future.

John: So, right now with set up mostly for cell phones or laptops or what kind of devices our listeners can get motivated to get to that site and use it?

Rich: So we have nine different categories of devices currently. So those categories are cell phones, MP3 players, so like iPods and stuff. Digital cameras, calculators, laptops, gaming devices, external hard drives, video games, and Blu-ray DVDs.

John: Beautiful.

Rich: So, those are the categories that we’re currently [inaudible].

John: Right. I’m sure that you’ll expand as time goes on as you evolve it into Kindles and all the new inventions that are coming out every day and every week and every month.

Rich: Yeah, exactly. I mean that’s one of the reasons why a full gamut of options for people is necessary because it’s amazing how quickly technology evolves and new things come out. Looking forward to seeing the Apple tablet when it comes out.

John: So now, it’s easy for people to use. They can do it from their home, their office anywhere, just have to log in, go to YouRenew.com and you’re saying the response has been good. Now, you’re saying you saw a void in the marketplace. People have extra E-Waste, electronic waste, laying around in their desk drawers or their homes? Do you fill the void in the marketplace?

Rich: Yeah, exactly. I mean, E-Waste is the fastest-growing stream of trash in the United States. And so there needs to be a lot of different solutions that help cope or help fix that problem and support both people in larger organizations in a way to responsibly reuse or recycle their electronics. So the void that we saw was that a lot of these devices, the most important thing that you can do with devices at its end of life, is taken care of responsibly. But when devices are still in good condition, which often most of them are because we’re upgrading so quickly. I mean, the new Motorola Droid comes out or the new iPhone comes out and we have to go get it. But the old BlackBerry still works. We wanted to sort of facilitate a process where using technology, we could help people quickly and easily get cash for their old stuff. Give them that incentive to go and do the right thing with their old electronics, and then take those devices and connect them with people across the country who were willing to use those devices either because they can’t afford brand new devices or because maybe their model just broke. It’s connecting those two different marketplaces which are really interesting and really fun and is important for keeping devices out of the waste stream.

Mike: This is really cool because I went onto your sidewall like John is asking you some questions. And Rich, I was going to ask, it does seem like there’s a confluence of a couple of things. You can’t watch television or listen to the radio these days and not hear about cash for gold, cash for gold. So, people, they’re already familiar with that concept. And you make a great point about it. Almost as soon as new technology comes out. You’re talking about the droid? Well, yeah. And six months ago, he got this cool new BlackBerry, which is still good. So what do you do? I think about how many drawers I look around in people’s houses. Not that I snoop, but you go someplace, and somebody reaches into a drawer in a kitchen. And there’s two or three little old pocket calculators and stuff that you know, “Hey, you don’t want to throw that stuff away. What do you do with it?” So this is perfect.

Rich: Yeah, you hit the nail on the head there. It’s really exciting. And that was one of the things my co-founder and I realized is 21 and 22-year-old college students that have an old graphing calculators, and old cell phones. We look around our dorm rooms and there are thousands of dollars of value. that could be reused responsibly somewhere else. And they could put a lot of cash in our pockets. And just connecting the dots there and making sure that it’s being handled the right way. It is an exciting process.

John: So, we have a lot of people who listen to the show, who are entrepreneurs who want to be you. Their students, the young students there, they’re older folks who are looking to do a reset on their careers. So what have been some of the good and bad experiences that you’ve had while you’ve launched in starting to scale your company?

Rich: Well, I guess I can start with some of the bad experiences or some of the more the learning experiences. Let’s see, I mean, I think when we originally started the business we… One story I love to tell is, actually, when we started the business we thought that a good way to launch into the market was the partner with charitable organizations and help them do fundraising drives, which it still is, and it is a great means and something that we still do. One of the mistakes I made, however, early on was realizing really how… It was a silly mistake, as a first-time entrepreneur. Just how detailed you really want to be with your process and your pitch. So the mistake I made was, that I went into a pitch and just didn’t have some of the important questions that they had answered. That was really just due to a lack of experience. It wasn’t because we were doing something bad with anything. It was just really because we didn’t know what we were talking about. And so I think, as a young entrepreneur, it’s really important to really make sure that when you’re going in, you’re speaking with people and you’re trying to create partnerships that you sort of run the full gamut of all the checkpoints of what’s important, and you sort of have checked all your boxes, and you’re really prepared to speak about what you’re doing. And I think besides that, there have been some very long hours. One funny story is I was up till 5 am, on a Saturday night, two days before the site launch, because we had promised to get it out. By March March 2nd I believe it was, so it was a little bit of a race to the finish. But I think the good things, I mean, those are the most important things. I mean, there are so many, I think it’s obviously the relationships that I’ve been able to make both inside and outside the company. And that’s been the most important thing, because what I realized, especially as a young entrepreneur is you can’t do it all on your own. You really need to find mentors and advisors and partners, who are willing to help support your solution and try to give you the right way to go about things. And that’s been one of the really powerful things. And I think, some of the other things have just been learning a lot more about business. Learning how to read financial statements and learning how to organize inventory, design web design, and create websites. So, I would recommend that anyone at any age goes and tries to do it because you’ll definitely learn a lot no matter what.

John: I mean you’re just graduating from Yale undergraduate studies in a couple of months, and you’re really getting a real-life MBA it sounds like.

Rich: Yes, that is unquestionably true. I think in particular because when I started this, I really was… I actually took off school before my co-founder, so I was really on my own and I think sitting there sort of twiddling your thumbs in 100 square foot office. In the beginning, it was an interesting experience and an interesting path into the business world. And from there to where I am now, I definitely learned quite a bit.

John: I mean, what are the goals now? You’re going to be graduating this April or May?

Rich: Yeah.

John: What are your goals? I mean, now that you’re going to… One job of graduating is done. Now, you’re going to go back to your full-time job of scaling your company and growing your company. What are your goals as a young man and as a young entrepreneur with YouRenew.com?

Rich: I think in particular, what I’ve really been always interested in as I’ve been most interested in creating a piece of the puzzle that is part of a larger movement. And it’s possible that our piece will and has already will evolve into other services and more devices and other types of relationships. For instance, our fastest-growing part of our business is actually working with corporations and municipalities and helping them find responsible outlets for their old devices that are through Corporate Renew.com. But I think for me… I mean, this is a fascinating time in this market and I just want to be a part of the end solution, which is creating a system where everybody in America… We’re recycling rates, for instance, for cell phones, which are currently around 10%, or more like 90%.

John: With four billion cell phones out there right now in the world, that’s an amazing statistic you got. So let’s just our listeners hear that again, you’re saying, so far, only about 10% of all cell phones are being recycled in a responsible way right now?

Rich: Yeah, it’s truly incredible. It’s a truly incredible statistic. I mean, there are hundreds of millions of turnovers every year. And for us, I mean, it’s a very special time for this industry. Eventually, I think that people are going to be mining out of these old devices versus mining out of the ground.

John: Right.

Rich: That will be a great thing because it will mean that we’ll be constantly reusing all the metals, and the plastics, and the glass, and all these devices, or the actual devices, which is what we specialize in.

John: Which is reuse, which is a great form of recycling, but you’re just referring to urban mining having a huge future ahead of it. Also, everything in your cell phone can be reused and recycled, all the metals, the plastic, and the glass.

Rich: Exactly.

John: That’s great.

Rich: I think for us, our goal is to continue to focus on building value for our customers. And really try to use technology as a leverage point to make this process easier.

John: How many Yale students or co-founders with you or co-partners with you?

Rich: One co-founder.

John: One co-founder from Yale?

Rich: Yeah, exactly.

John: How many of your colleagues at Yale are jealous that you guys already have a job when you graduate?

Rich: Well, luckily this year the economy is a bit better. So I think some of the people graduating this year, from what I understand they’re doing a bit better than last year. But still, I think people are people who are very supportive. We’ve been very lucky and fortunate to have a lot of supportive people in the Connecticut area and Yale.

John: Well, the Yale answer to Zuckerberg and Gates. That’s what I’ve been told.

Rich: Hopefully. Most importantly, this is why it’s exciting. The company will have a huge impact environmentally and profitably.

John: It’s a clean site. Mike’s on and now while we’re talking with you, it’s a clean and wonderful site. I’ve been on it many times and used it already. But Who’s your competition out there? Do you have ten competitors, five competitors? Have you created a whole new industry? What’s it look like?

Rich: Well, the industry is… It’s very interesting because it’s rapidly evolving. I mean, there are a lot of people who specialize in asset management and reuse. And then that ranges from people, for instance, networking equipment.

John: Sure.

Rich: I know, you guys have had cisco.com, which is a great solution.

John: Yeah.

Rich: Companies that are more like ours focused on some of the handheld electronics were focused on, for instance,[inaudible] flip swap, which is just focused on cell phones.

John: Right.

Rich: There are a few companies but we were really looking to… I think for us, I mean, which is exciting, we’re trying to differentiate ourselves a bit and finding different types of points of leverage and partnerships that can really help scale our solution and utilize our solution.

John: How big can you get? Literally, when you go to bed at night, Rich, and sometimes I know it’s late at night, whereas an entrepreneur when you think five years down the line, how big can your company be? How many employees? What kind of sales number dances around in your head? What’s going on?

Rich: I think is incredible, but I think that this is… Whether we are on our own or this or we’re part of another company, I think it’s it for me, I mean, I want to be over the billion mark. Because it is that big of an opportunity. It is that big of a need. Most importantly the devices exist. [(25:00)]I mean, anyone can go run the math on this, and it’s not like people aren’t working on it already. There are lots of people who are already pursuing this option. But I think if given the correct execution and going down the right path, there will be winners. And I think that we want to be a part of the winning team and I think that numbers well over a billion dollars.

John: What do you do day-to-day? Are you the coder? Are you the visionary? Are you the architect? What are you doing every day? Push the company forward, what’s your genius? What’s your partner Bob Casey’s specialty?

Rich: I think when we originally started, and this is pretty much how it stayed. I was the CEO and Bob was the COO. So I mean, I would say that in some ways I’m the strategist visionary and sort of pitchman and going out there and trying to make relationships and sort of sell the product and also help people really understand and communicate clearly. Also, I have a focus on that technology and I don’t code myself, but really work with our technology team to build and continually iterate for the best product and Bob. Bob is the master of the details really, our COO, and really has a knack and an amazing ability to take and put operations and streamline them and really make them the best the greenest, and the most profitable. So we started that way and it stayed that way ever since. I’m no longer CEO, I’ve actually stepped down recently. We are the more experienced and seasoned company veterans. But for me, I’ve pretty much stayed in that visionary role and trying to create the partnerships that are going to leverage this to the scale that we want.

John: Well, we’ve got about a couple of minutes left and I want you to give a couple of pearls of wisdom on some questions that we have to our listeners out there. A, what is your green DNA look like? Both in your personal life in your business life? And what do you have to say to our listeners that want to green their life more besides going to your great website YouRenew.com, which will definitely be a help to all of our listeners? What else can you say in terms of green DNA? And to our entrepreneurs out there? What is one last pearl of wisdom that you can leave them with?

Rich: Well, I think in my personal life. I mean, I think that the God there’s a lot of things I mean, I think in particular, one of the things that I try to do is I always try to educate myself. Besides the things that I think anyone and everyone should do at any company is setting… Making sure everybody’s recycling everything responsibly from paper to plastic, etc., and also really trying to focus on buying the right types of lights and streamlining operations in the most energy-efficient ways.

John: Right.

Rich: I think one of the things that I’ve I’ve really loved doing and has been helpful in trying to really educate myself as much as possible on a whole myriad of different issues in the green space whether it be you know geothermal energy to E-waste to solar energy to recycling plastics to buying organic foods and local foods and something that. I actually do it a lot and I think that as a result of having constantly read about that. Those kinds of things and educating yourself number one, you’re just going to naturally draw yourself towards that and do those kinds of practices. But two, it helps in connecting other people who are interested in the same space. For instance, I know there are a lot of people who will come up to me now and say, “I have this green idea of how do I get started.” Sometimes it’s outside of the box of what I’ve worked on because I’ve read things on and I can at least say, “Well you know, you should probably try to connect with this person or you should try to connect with this organization.”

John: So you being seen as a green leader now and you’re now only talking a great talk but you’re walking a great green walk.

Rich: Thank you. I hope so.

John: No, that’s part of it. Listen, Mike and I are so thankful that you came on today, Rich, but we’re going to have you back on and you’re going to give us an update not only as a graduate of the great Yale University but as the co-founder and entrepreneur behind YouRenew.com We’re going to have you back on and all of your thoughts have been great. We want to just urge our listeners to recycle all their electronics out there and go to YouRenew.com and get your cell phone in and your PDAs recycled and all the other great things that recycle. Rich Littlehale, we just are hats off to you and we just want to tell you, that you are living proof that GreenIsGood.

Voiceover: If a little GreenIsGood more is even better. Now, back to GreenIsGood with John Shegerian and Mike Brady.

John: Welcome back to GreenIsGood. We got the second half of our show today, which is really exciting also because we got Jessica Lundberg from Lundberg Farms on. Mike, we sit here in Fresno, California, which is really the heart of the farming world now.

Mike: Pretty much.

Rich: Yeah, agricultural world. It’s interesting. Our show is evolving so much that a couple of shows back we had the wonderful Peter Mondavi on to talk about sustainable farming with regard to the wine industry.

Mike: Right. And it was interesting because I really started thinking about the geography just from Peter’s description of the Napa Valley as 25 miles long, only about a mile wide.

John: Yeah.

Mike: And just all of the things that they’re doing to really preserve the environment there, but make it an even better crop of grapes.

John: That’s right. As he said, his major concern was his legacy of being able to pass down Earth and property and a better environment up there as a whole for the next generation of farmers. His children and his co neighbors [inaudible] children up there to take over their farms and resend respectively farm the properties.

Mike: And still leave his children with a good viable sustainable business.

John: That’s right. And then here we’re going to have now today on the second half of the show. Jessica Lundberg, who’s her family’s been farming forever back to the 1930s here. And she’s going to talk about what they’ve been doing since then, which is so interesting. Because I believe Mike in the near future we’ll have some local people come on from Fresno to discuss their sustainable practice also because I think the seems like this is the movement with regards to organic farming and sustainable farming practices.

Mike: Well, more and more people are thinking about it. Not only from a health standpoint. I mean, people start thinking about, we are what we eat and well if we’re eating a lot of pesticides in our food. Also, what we’re starting to find out too, is a lot of the organic techniques.

Actually, make a lot of sense economically when Mr. Mondavi was talking about using rafters. [inaudible] when you drive out 180 and you just head out towards Kerman and just get out in the farm country. You see the owl boxes. Okay, that is natural pest control. No poison. You want to get rid of the rodent population or keep it in balance. Well, owls take care of that.

John: That’s right.

Mike: Nobody’s complaining except maybe the mice.

John: Right. And I know and they’re not a sponsor of the show or anything but like you have brought up before the democratization of organic foods with the owl products and other great products that you and I could just run in and buy and they don’t cost any more. But there are made with more sustainable practices now than ever before.

Mike: And more and more people are finding. What we found out in our shows though. We just recently launched on the FM, but we’ve been on her sister station care to you, 11:30 a.m. for so long. We’ve talked to more and more people.

Well, the studies are showing that if the price point between organic and your standard brand you’re going to buy is just a few cents, maybe a few cents more expensive. People will make the choice for organic more and more. But when the price points are even or even last for organic. I mean that’s a no-brainer right there.

John: So, a no-brainer. And if some of our greatest politicians have been told us that all politics are local as you just pointed out. Mike, what’s more local, and what’s more important to us than the food we actually consume? And making sure that that’s green and organic and sustainable and in terms of taking care of ourselves first, but it doesn’t matter if the air is bad, if you and I aren’t even here anymore.

Mike: Yeah, no kidding. I can’t breathe. Nothing else matters.

John: Right. So, I mean, the same thing goes for food. If the food we’re ingesting is poisoning us along the way, we’re not getting anywhere. We’re going backward. So so I think Jessica is going to give a great education for our listeners on the importance of as you pointed out sustainable farming and organic farming and what her family’s doing to lead the Green Revolution and to have led the Green Revolution for many many years previously.

Mike: Well, I can’t wait to talk to Jessica Lundberg and we will do exactly that coming right up. So stick around for more, GreenIsGood.

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Voiceover: If a little GreenIsGood, more is even better. Now, back to GreenIsGood with John Shegerian and Mike Brady.

John: Welcome back to GreenIsGood for the second half. Wow, what a second half. It’s going to be today. We have Jessica Lundberg from Lundberg Family Farms and Jessica your family is legendary when it comes to sustainability and green and way before was ever cool or hip or really the Green Revolution and taken hold in America. Thank you so much. It’s humbling to have you on the show today with Mike Brady and me. Thank you for coming on GreenIsGood.

Jessica Lundberg: Thank you for having me.

John: So tell us, about your family’s history a little bit. When did Lundberg Family Farm start? When did they go green? Why do they go green back then?

Jessica: Well, we’ve got a pretty long history in farming and my dad’s family were corn and cattle farmers in Nebraska and they moved to the United States in the 1800s. But really my grandfather… The reason that we came here was after the Dust Bowl in the early 1930s. Farming was really difficult for people and life were really hard and he had stayed and was working the homestead. He really wanted to make a go of it. But he had the opportunity to come out to California and make a fresh start. And he saw that as a tremendous opportunity for his family. So they moved out to California in 1937 and he came with my grandma and then my dad my uncle, but he also came with a knowledge of what happens when you don’t take care of the land. And so, he had seen what happened in the Dust Bowl when you over farm and you over ranch and you aren’t considering the health of your soil. So, when he came to California, he was told by the land barons of the time, the land brokers that were selling ground, that this is the land of milk and honey. You can grow anything you want. Well, that’s true. California is absolutely beautiful. We have one of the most diverse agricultural systems in the world, but where he settled is Richfield, California, which is Northern California. We have very heavy, heavy clay soils, which are perfect for growing rice because we don’t have a lot of drainages. We have a hardpan layer about 3 to 5 feet down, which keeps the water from draining. And we have a beautiful water source coming off of the Feather River. So, he started farming here in 1937. And with this idea that the soil should be cared for, as the soil is an organism in itself. And we’ve got to take care of the soil. In fact, he came up with the idea that you need to leave the land better than you found it and how do we keep improving the system? So he came almost like one of the first environmentalists like you said before it was really cool. It wasn’t a matter of being cool to him. It was a matter of being able to farm healthy foods in a healthy way that supported his family.

John: So he was a sustainable farmer back from right from the beginning of your family business here in California.

Jessica: Yeah, that’s exactly right.

John: Now, he picked Richfield, he opened up the family business. Take us from there. I mean, I know there’s a process that’s part of it called the cage roller. What is a cage roller? What was your grandfather’s involvement with that?

Jessica: Well, okay, so we’re farming in the 30s. The late 30s, my dad and uncles are young boys and they were growing up with their dad farming. They had several opportunities to happen with the Green Revolution that came out in the 40s and the 50s, but then my dad and uncles have grown men, farming with their dad and they had an opportunity because they had some customers. Some people that moved here from New York City ask them, “Would you grow rice for us?” And these were people who like you mentioned worth of very beginnings of the macrobiotic food movement. So at the time my dad and uncles were… They were members of the local co-op and for them to be able to farm rice and keep it in their own storage bins and then millet themselves. They would have to pull out of the local co-op. So they built the smallest rice mill in California and started their own business. So, my grandfather was very influential in helping them develop these philosophies, but then he was also a real encourager of them to be inventive. Know your soil. Know your rice. No, your plants, and think of ways that you can do it better. So he was a tremendous encouragement. So when it came to, how do we handle our straw? How do we make our soil better? Well, most of our rice farming neighbors around us were burning the straw. They saw it as it was cheap. It was easy. It was something that they considered the straw was a waste product and they just need to get it off the field. But keep in mind, if you’re thinking the straw is actually a nutrient that adds to the organic matter. It’s not a waste product. It doesn’t become an issue of how do we get rid of it? It becomes an issue. How do we use it? That’s where the straw cage roller came into effect. My dad and uncles all sat down. They brought in a couple of guys that were helping them on the farm and they said, “All right, we’re going to use this straw. We’re not going to burn it. How do we do this?” Oh, you should’ve seen the stuff that they tried. Some of these inventions they had, the huge big rubber wheels that they had made. They had things with big cleats on them. They had this one tractor that had big wheels that they thought would work but it actually was floating like a boat across the field pushing a big wall of water. So through trial and error, they discovered, “Okay. This is the best way to do it. We’re going to develop the big roller made out of rebar iron that we pull behind the field, allowing the water, that’s in this flooded field to flow through it.” But it’s heavy enough that it matches the straw into the soil and it really allows you for on-site composting. So they just sat down, and they start thinking what’s the issue? What do we want to do with it? The health of the soils is the priority and how do we get there? So it’s really ingenious.

John: Wow, and so wait a second. So this is your grandpa, how many sons did he have?

Jessica: My grandparents have four boys and it was all four boys that went into business together. In 1969 is when they built the smallest rice rill in California. That’s when our business started Lundberg Family Farms.

John: And that’s when they came up with the cage roller?

Jessica: They came up with the cage roller I believe in the mid-60s.

John: Okay.

Jessica: It was 1963 when my grandpa and my dad and uncles all agreed, “We’re not going to burn any more rice double on this ranch.” Because my grandfather like I mentioned, came as almost one of the first environmentalists and he said, “Okay, for one. This is environmentally sustainable.” But he says, “This isn’t good for our neighbors, and our farms have to think of ourselves as the neighbors to our cities and it’s not good for our employees.” So, he saw this more as a holistic process. Not just, “I am one Cog.” He saw himself as, “I’m part of a greater community and this isn’t good for any of us.”

Mike: Well, the biggest thing to Jessica’s, I think people that are familiar with the story of Tom Joad and The Grapes of Wrath and know about the Dust Bowl. A lot of people don’t realize that it didn’t just happen to people from Texas in the Panhandle and in Oklahoma and the plains states, but that really affected that was like a double blow. The country was in the middle of an economic depression. And when Congress really started to understand what was going on, there were members of Congress there were getting dust off of their desks in Washington realizing that that had originated had been blown Mid-Continent had started way out west.

Jessica: That’s exactly right.

John: Wow.

Jessica: It’s interesting because something similar years and years later happened in California. That was interesting because my dad and uncles are kind of the innovators of how we use this straw, but they saw more of we want the straws, the tool because it adds to our organic matter. It makes our soils healthier. Well, jump then later about 30 years to around the year 2000 in California. There was its folklore in a way, but it actually happened in the state capitol. There was smoke from the rice fields of blue into Sacramento and set off the fire alarms in the state capitol building.

John: Wow.

Jessica: They said, “Okay, this isn’t good.” It was then that it was legislated that all rice farmers in California would have to conform to no burning or at least a limited percentage of burning. And that’s when people step back and said, “Oka. Now, what do we do with this?” And they started looking at people like my dad and uncles, who have been doing this for years and proven that you can do it and use that as a model.

John: So, let’s go back to 1969. The four brothers including your dad, were your grandpa’s still alive at this point?

Jessica: Yeah, my grandpa was alive. I believe he died in 1971.

John: Wow.

Jessica: So if he’s still alive, he got to see the business start. He got to see them build the mill. He saw them start with their first organic customers and at the time organic wasn’t even defined. My dad and uncles, they’d farm with their dad without using chemicals. The Green Revolution has started. They went along with a lot of their neighbors and used synthetic fertilizers, but they also sat back and question this and said, “You know, we need to be really involved in our farming practices and we need to be making decisions for the health of our farm and not listening to other people and just following along with what everyone else is doing.” So when we had the opportunity to sell directly to people, who wanted rice farming, who did it differently, they started with about 60 acres. Trying it going back like father did with 60 acres and working up building a business off of the idea that we’re going to grow as much of this as people will buy from us. And so, it started small because they also had the idea that we can’t put the farm under. This has to be… You’ve heard of the three three-legged stool of sustainability with environmental social and economic.

John: Right.

Jessica: They said, “We believe in this. We believe this is a principle that we want to farm on. We want to support our families on this. We’re going to make sure it’s economically sustainable also, so we’re going to grow as much as people will buy from us and we’re going to just keep pushing this market, letting people know what we have to sell.”

John: So your family really now that I’m understanding this for our listener’s knowledge, really we’re into the whole issue of green DNA. Before that was even cool in terms of everything they did have to revolve around people planning and profits to make sure the business would succeed. You basically invented what organic farming was?

Jessica: They were there right at the beginning. In fact, if people know the history of the Rodale family and working with organics and macrobiotics, and kind of going through the whole defining process of organics. My dad and uncles were right there at the beginning. Talking about this, having these dialogues, “What is this process? And how do we define it?” So they didn’t even use the word organic. So, I don’t believe until the late 70s up until then. I think they call it ecological farming.

John: Now, define, why? When you look back, which is always somewhat easier when you look in the rearview mirror, why did your dad and his brothers succeed and your grandpa obviously succeed as opposed to some of your competitors? What is set them apart? Why did that resonate? How did how has that evolved? How is that going currently as we sit today?

Jessica: I think a lot of it was, they believed in trial and error and they believed they were farmers, to begin with. And I think that was really key to them, that they were very genuine people, and they believed in the processes. They believed in organics. They believed in healthy foods. They believed in selling foods to people here in the United States that we’re going to eat. But the success, I think a lot of it was for one that they were farming as a family that they could rely on each other and spread the risks, which also meant they spread the benefits. I think like you’d mentioned this really strong business idea, you grow your business based on consumer demands. You can’t push it any faster than it’s going to grow, then you can support the health of your farm and the economics behind it. But then they also really believed in this idea of connecting the farm with their customers and meeting their customers. In the idea of when we first started up, having a truck that they’d fill with rice and drive up and down the coast of California and Washington, and Oregon. And getting out at little stores and meeting people and shaking their hands and saying, “We’re farmers.” And getting to know what people want? And talking to them about it and then going that extra step of creating a business to sell products that they made and paying a fair price that supported the way that they were growing it.

John: So they didn’t also just because they were creating a special product that hopefully was even better than the competitors. It was at a fair price. It wasn’t more expensive. So everyone could still afford the great product that it was.

Jessica: Right. So it was on both ends though. It had to be affordable for people. It had to be very high quality because they believe that from the beginning. Very high-quality. Just because it said organic doesn’t mean that people should take a lesser quality product. So from the beginning, it was the best. And then though, to also pay a good return to the growers, to themselves, and to their other growers. As they start taking more people on it, has to cover the cost of farming. I think that’s part when you talk about the true cost of food. A lot of times people forget that there are costs that aren’t recovered. Sometimes when you talk about good healthy food. And so they had this idea that if it costs more to incorporate the straw to follow your fields more to let the fields rest that they were going to incorporate that pay a fair cost to the farmers for growing it, which meant themselves and their other growers. But then, as you said, deliver a quality product at a price that people can afford.

John: Well, Jessica in truth in advertising, as I told you before, we went on the air. I’ve been a huge fan of your family since 1980. When I was at Boston University, Michio Kushi was instructing everybody to eat their short brown rice. And I still eat your short brown rice. I think it’s the greatest rice out there. But tell us where your company is today? Now that the Green Revolution has taken hold and sustainability is cool and hip, tell us a little bit about the family. In terms of what your role is? Are any of the original… Are your dad and the original founding brothers still alive? How big is the company in terms of without giving away any secrets in terms of finances, in terms of employees and market size, and everything else? Give our listeners a little taste of that here.

Jessica: Sure. Well, I’m happy to share because it’s really exciting. The things that I’ve seen happen over the last few years. Well, as I said, the business started in 69 and we’re basically just short grain brown rice. Through the 1980s, we got into rice cakes and several other varieties of rice, and then we start doing things like boxed items like puddings and hot cereals, and risotto. And then into some snack foods like chips. We have rice syrup and rice pasta. And so now, just in a nutshell, we have over 150 different products. We grow 17 different varieties of rice and have just categories of products that are gluten-free that are whole grain. We also do white rice. That was a tremendous debate. In the 1980s, we were brown rice. In fact, the name of our company was Lundberg Brown rice, not Lundberg Family Farm.

John: That’s right.

Jessica: That was a debate, but we decided as a family, we decided rice is good nutritious food. And there are varieties of rice around the world that people enjoy as white rice. And people need to have a balanced diet, but that can be done with white rice, but I got to tell you, we’re still biased to the brown, all rice brown rice. So that was a tremendous debate.

Oh, you should have been in that room, but we do have brown rice and white rice and the 17 varieties and 150 different products. And then our family has grown all four of the brothers, my aunt’s, and my mother are still alive.

John: Wonderful.

Jessica: But it’s…

John: Forty years later. That is the opposite testimony to the…

Mike: That’s great advertising.

John: That’s great advertising for the health of your products. That’s great.

Jessica: All four of the brothers have stepped off the board because they wanted their children. They wanted the company to continue. They saw this session as one of the things about sustainability if you wanted to keep going, you’ve got to allow people to step up, which has been a tremendous gracious gift they do.

John: Wow.

Jessica: Now, we have still a family-owned company and we have an eight-member board of directors that’s all family and there are 11 of us cousins and out of the 11 cousins, seven of us work here every day. So and then beyond just the family, we have unjustness 185 employees that work throughout our operations and we are an integrated company. So we still have our family farm. We still farm rice. I manage our seed nursery. So I handle our specialty varieties with seed selection and plant breeding and looking for new varieties and keeping the purity of the varieties that we have. But we do everything from our seed to farming, to our drying and storage, the milling. Some of our products are actually manufactured here on-site. We do all of our shipping off-site. We have a sales force and we do our own marketing communications now where we started just being West Coast and selling mainly in California in the early 70s. Now, we sell 90% of our products are sold in the United States, but all over the United States. So there are very few places that you can’t go. If they have a natural food section you wouldn’t find some of our products.

Mike: Well, it’s really cool what we’re talking about here. I took the liberty of going on to your site and just looking at the different products where you’re talking about. The plethora of products that you’ve got is some of the recipes in there, just making my mouth water, but also organic doesn’t have to mean all you have to spend forever anybody [inaudible] ever made risotto from scratch, knows that kind of a labor of love. But looking here, you’ve got a variety of heat [inaudible] foods right here.

Jessica: There’s some pretty… That’s one of those things that we’ve tried to do as a company we wanted to have whole grain healthy products, but we also didn’t want people to be intimidated by rice because rice is a staple around the world. And it’s something that we as American consumers, actually don’t know very much about, and for us being farmers and having this connection to this amazing world of these different flavors and textures and aromas that you can get just from something as simple as rice. We wanted people to not be intimidated. So we started creating some of these easy-to-use products. Like you say boxed items like risotto in a box. All you do is pour the rice out of one pouch for the spice out of another pouch. You put in a little bit of oil if you want it. You add water and you stir. So the reason for that is not not to make it less elegant but more to… Okay, this is a primer. This is how we get too used to it. See if you like it and if you like it you’ll graduate to buy the Arborio and do something fabulous on your own.

Mike: Well, there are so many great recipes as well as a list of products and really a shout-out to your website, which is just so easy to navigate and has so much great information. If you’d like to check it out. It’s www of course, Lundberg, L-U-N-D as in David, B as in Baker, E-R-G Lundberg.com. Boy, I tell you. This is really, I don’t let John talk because I’m hungry.

John: Listen. I love you, bro. I could live on the brown rice I have. In fact, as a college student and beyond, whenever I’ve always wanted to get back into the health mode. Your brown rice is always to me. The number one staple that I owe that I always go to. So, you’ve got fans right here in the studio Jessica.

Jessica: Good.

John: Tell us a couple of, in terms of green DNA, were down to the last couple of minutes. You and your family are just unbelievably inspirational and you are inspirational. In the last couple of minutes that we have, talked about a couple of the other types of projects you work on in terms of GMO, in terms of your solar panels, and stuff like that.

Jessica: All right. Let me see if I can just tell you a few.

John: Sure.

Jessica: One of them back to the fields, because we use cover crops. We also will [inaudible] have waterfowl that’ll come into our fields and we have created some relationships with some people locally that have volunteers that will come in and gather those duck eggs. And we take them to license hatcheries. Hatch out the birds and release them in over 20 years. We’ve probably released about 20,000 birds back to the wildlife. So that’s our program called Our Egg Aid.

John: Wow.

Jessica: So that’s one thing. But then another thing you mentioned solar panels.

John: Yeah.

Jessica: Around 2000, we as a company, especially my cousins and I, we saw that. Yes, we are farmers. We believed we were doing well, by the soil, but we said, “You know, but now we’re also a company.” We’re a rice company making products. Where’s our next big use of resources? We said that’s electrical energy. We need to be responsible for that. So we started looking for, how do we tangibly give back? How do we do something to be responsible for our electrical energy use? So, of course, we jumped in and looked at the conservation of how much we’re using. But then we said, “How can we manufacture electricity?” There were great programs in place. We jumped in and put into different solar panel projects, one on the ground, over by our dryers, and another on the roof of our warehouse. That’s not nearly enough. We’re generating about 12% of our energy on-site. So we said, “Okay now what can we do until we’re able to bridge that gap.” So we went out and purchase recs or renewable energy credits. Those credits will go back. A portion of that covers our electrical use saying that we’re purchasing the equivalent in credits and some of that money goes in towards supporting other projects that are being used throughout the state to develop renewable energy. So we felt that was one way that we could step in and help support renewable energy, even though we couldn’t generate all that here on site. But we’re also looking at potentially covering the rest of our warehouse, putting solar panels on top of a new office that we’re looking at building in the next year or so. And then, you mentioned the non-GMO project.

John: Yeah.

Jessica: We feel, we’re still farmers, were still connected to the land. We for sure believe in the health of our products and in the consumers, right? To know what’s in their food and to choose healthy food. So we got involved in the non-GMO project and we’re one of the founding members and we sit on their board of directors. The non-GMO project that we’re specifically involved with. It’s a nonprofit organization that was created by leaders, like us representing all sectors of organic and natural products throughout the US. And Canada. We wanted to be able to offer consumers a consistent non-GMO choice of organic and natural products that are produced without genetic engineering or recombinant DNA Technologies. Not because our company believes that there are there parts of genetically modified crops of food and fiber that just haven’t been proven with their benefits either to farmers or to our health or to agriculture, or to the environment. So that’s just something that we don’t support as a company. And we feel that people need a choice. So we’ve stepped up as part of the non-GMO project to support their efforts, to label projects, or to label products, through companies and retailers who want to support products like that.

John: Jessica, before we sign off today. Tell us if you were stuck on an island for six months alone, out of your 150 or so wonderful Lundberg Family Farm products. What one product would you take with you to sustain yourself?

Jessica: It’s a funny thing. I was just short-grain brown.

John: Oh, there you go. Well, Jessica Lundberg, I just want to say thank you for coming on. Mike and I are so thankful. We have humbled Lundberg Family Farms. All our listeners should go to lundberg.com and we got to just tell you something, the people out there are thankful for your family. The planet is thankful for your family and Jessica Lundberg, you are living proof that GreenIsGood.

Voiceover: This program will be available for download 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 GreenIsGood.

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 Loops 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 really special edition of Impact, because we’ve got with us tonight Spencer Rascoff and his daughter, Sophia. Welcome to Impact.

Sophia Rascoff: Thank you.

Spencer Rascoff: Thank you for having us.

John: Well, we’re going to be talking about your new business venture that you’re doing together. But before we get talking about your new business venture, I love our audience that don’t know you yet to hear a little bit about both of you.

Spencer, why don’t you kick it off and share your amazing and unbelievably successful background.

Spencer: Sure. Thank you. I am a tech founder and entrepreneur. I’ve started nine companies. My first one was a company called Hotwire which is an early online travel company that we sold to Expedia. I then left Expedia to start Zillow and ran Zillow for about a decade. I retired from Zillow about three years ago. Since then, I’ve been starting companies as quickly as I can come up with ideas. We’re going to, of course, talk about the one that I’m working on with Sophia, Recon Food, which we’ll tell you about in a moment. But the other companies I’ve been starting include dot.LA which is a new site that covers LA Tech and Queue which is a streaming discovery service to help you figure out what to watch and many other companies.

John: Are you an investor? Or do you consider yourself a co-founder and helped create the company as well?

Spencer: Both. I’m an investor in about a hundred startups through 75 & Sunny Ventures which is my LA-based venture capital firm. 75 & Sunny Labs starts companies typically with me as co-founder, usually, as chairperson. I’m an entrepreneur at heart. But I also find scaling leverage by investing in other people’s great ideas.

John: Oh, that’s awesome. Sophia, talk a little bit about yourself. How old are you, Sofia? What are you up to right now?

Sophia: I’m seventeen years old. Obviously, entrepreneurship has always been a huge part of my life. I’ve heard about it since I was quite young when my dad was running Zillow and then now with all of his new ventures. It’s been a huge part of my life, really forever. I am incredibly involved in entrepreneurship. First, with my school, actually, I’m one of the leaders of our school’s entrepreneurship organization. We run an incubator program. We host speaker events. We run workshops for students. We have a summer program. I was deeply involved in my school. However, my latest venture and probably my most entrepreneurship e-venture that I’m working on right now is Recon Food which is a social media app for food that I co-founded with my dad. Recon Food was intended to be an escape for social media. It’s the place where social media can be everything it was intended to be where you share fun ideas with friends and share things you’re proud of and achievements without all the stress and negativity and toxicity that comes with social media.

John: Sophia, when you were growing up, obviously, dad is a serial success story. That’s to put it lightly. When did the light bulb go off for you that you said, “You know, dad’s really smart. I love what he does. But I can do this, too.” You got the bug to be the next generation Rascoff in entrepreneurship.

Sophia: I think it’s something that’s always been there. I can’t pinpoint a specific light bulb moment. But ever since I was young, we’ve done tech news at the dinner table or breakfast table where we read news stories and talk about things going on in the business world. I’d say my first venture was probably a perfume company I started with my cousin.

John: Wow.

Sophia: [chuckles]. Just wait. We had the genius idea to start a perfume company by mashing up flower petals and mixing them with water. We bought cute little vials online. We had my dad help us start a website. We went to GoDaddy, bought the domain, created a website for ourselves. I think we sold maybe one vial to someone not in our family. The problem with our perfume business was we hadn’t done a very good product testing before selling. We haven’t thought of the fact that flower petals will rot after a few days in a small vial. Yes. It’s important to test your product.

Spencer: Willing to learn.

John: Sofia, [inaudible], how old were you when you did this? How old were you when you did this?

Sophia: Probably seven, I think.

Spencer: Yes.

John: There you go. That’s when you caught the bug. You were already in it in. By the way, no mistakes. Those were just lessons you learned along the way.

Spencer: Exactly. But that was definitely fun. Since that, I think it’s something that’s come natural to me where it’s something that I’m interested in. It wasn’t a, “Maybe I’ll decide to do this.” It was something that was so present across lemonade stands and bake sales and also big or small ventures that I started that really caught me.

John: I’ve got your website open here. For our listeners and viewers who want to find Sophia and Spencer’s website, you can go to www.getrecon.app, getrecon.app. Explain when you and your dad had this aha moment to start this business. Whose idea was it to do it together?

Sophia: Well, originally, the idea I would say came from him. But then I definitely transformed it into what it is today. His initial idea was to create a social travel discovery app. He’s worked with TripAdvisor a lot in the past. After all of that, it was very clear and evident that TripAdvisor is the old version of exactly what needs to exist today. But it doesn’t have the social layer. It hasn’t been innovated and brought into the modern world of social media and the new social culture. The initial idea was to create a more social version to help people find restaurants and travel recommendations and hotels. However, during COVID, it was evident that food was something that was becoming very important to our family. We were cooking together every meal every night of the week, baking desserts, probably three or four times a week. It was also something that we noticed spreading online, right? You would find a cool recipe online, make it, share with your friends, share the recipe, post it on social media, whatever it might be. Food was something that was really bringing everyone together during the pandemic. As we started thinking about working on this idea, we were thinking about restaurant discovery of wanting to help people find restaurants. But it felt timelier and more topical to create this platform that was meant to be a home for food as opposed to hotels or whatever else it might be. As the idea kept going, I definitely shifted it more towards the food idea but also the better social media part. Social media is something that’s a huge part of my life, obviously, as a young person in this day and age. But I definitely recognize that it has its problems. I definitely wanted to try to address those with Recon Food.

John: Spencer, talk a little bit about you doing this a lot professionally. But starting a business with your family member – your daughter, your oldest child – is a whole different dynamic. Explain how that worked for you and how it’s working so far.

Spencer: Sure. I have an investment thesis around the verticalization of social media, around the unbundling of social media into vertical categories. I’ve invested in a number of other startups that are vertical social media companies in different categories like fitness and news and pets and other categories. I believe that food is a big enough category that people are passionate enough about that it deserves and will have its own vertical social network just for food. I looked at the idea for Recon Food which helps you reconnect with friends and family over a shared love of food. I looked at it like I would any other startup idea. It passed my test. I think the market size is big enough. There’s enough of a hole in the market for something like this. I think the time is right given how interested everyone is in food and given the challenges and problems that we have with social media. In terms of working with Sophia, it’s been very inspiring to be able to do this with somebody like her. I always look for diversity on founding teams, because diverse viewpoints help build better products. Obviously, Sophia and I are not diverse from each other in a lot of ways, because we live under the same roof. But we’re very diverse in terms of our age difference. Sophia brings a completely different perspective to the category of social media than I bring. She lives in TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, all day every day. She understands what they’re good for and also what their weaknesses are. We’re able to build the product of Recon Food to address the challenges and also opportunities that social media has. As an expert, as a teenager in social media, she’s able to contribute immensely to the business strategy and product strategy of Recon.

John: Are there anybody else involved except the two of you right now?

Spencer: There are. We’ve got ten employees. It’s an entirely remote company. We’ve got software engineers. We’ve got frontend designers. We got PR communication, social media.

Sofia is the CEO. She manages the team. She does code reviews. She does the frontend development. She’s a humble software engineer. She probably won’t boast about her tech cred. But she’s got plenty.

Yes. It’s a team of about ten that works on Recon.

John: Sophia, what’s it like? Obviously, you and dad share the same house, the same last name. How is it? What were your thoughts going into this as partnering with your dad? Where are you now? Is it as you thought it would be? Or is it vastly different? What are some of the challenges you didn’t expect working with, of course, one of your closest family members?

Sophia: I’d say I was really excited to get to work with him. I’ve been involved to some degree in his ventures in the past whether it be just hearing about them at the dinner table and giving my opinions, too. I remember when Zillow was launching their first TV ads, we got to watch them and give an opinion on which one we liked. I helped a little bit in that I [inaudible] with social media in the very early stages. I’ve sort of gotten a taste of what it was like to get to be part of one of these companies. I think the most unique part of the experience for me was with all that, I got to start that at a younger age. I didn’t face the same barriers in trying to find an official role that you might find when you’re looking for something really interesting, however, you’re a student or not a college student, I should say. Going into this, I was very excited. I think it’s definitely lived up to those expectations. Obviously, it’s been challenging. We’ve faced roadblocks and had to work really hard in order to address them and continue keeping the app and the company functioning especially during the up-and-down times of the current news cycle and everything that’s going on in the world. However, it’s been an incredible learning experience for me. I guess to address your question of unexpected difficulties or anything like that, I’d say the biggest roadblock for us has just been my own school schedule just because of the fact that I do go to school. All of our meetings and everything takes place before school or while I’m at school during my lunch break or when I get home at night and have to start homework. That’s probably been the biggest roadblock. But I would say, in that case, living under the same roof has probably helped us more, because we’re able to discuss things in the car ride. Or we’ve gotten a lot of work done at times where other companies wouldn’t function.

John: True. But you’re being very humble in terms of what you’re dealing with as a young person in this inundated, information-laden world. You’re seventeen. Boys and girls like to be together. You have a social schedule. You’re also at one of the best high schools in all of LA. You’re also trying to get into a great college. You’ve got a lot of the pressures. How do you juggle it all? When you go to bed at night right now, what’s your greatest greatest problem that keeps you up at night with regards to the business that you think that you’ve got to overcome?

Sophia: I think I’ve been able to manage everything and keep working on it just because I’m so passionate about it. Obviously, it’s an incredibly important issue. I love the fact that I feel like we’ve grown more to address not only the “I think we should have a social media app where you can post pictures of food.” That was definitely the initial idea. But is shifted so much. The thing that we really hit on with a lot of people has been addressing this issue of social media and it being stale and toxic and stressful and not a good place. I think that’s what really keeps me going on. It is knowing that this is an important issue that we’ve heard resonates with a lot of people and being able to feel that I’m, at least, trying to impact that greater issue in any way I can. The biggest challenge we faced with Recon Food has probably been trying to expand the product to new users. We’ve actually faced unfortunate roadblocks about why people are enjoying it. Because one thing we’ve actually heard from a few users has been they don’t want to share the product with friends, because the validation they receive on the app feels so much better coming from random strangers that they don’t know. We’ve created such a strong community on the app that people are making friends there and feeling supported. They feel like if they have more friends that they do know on the app, it would almost be like they were obligated to say, “That looks great,” or give them feedback or kudos. I’d say we’ve run into a few issues regarding user growth especially spreading by word of mouth. But we’re doing some things to try to address those.

John: This is for both of you, Spencer and Sophia. The entrepreneurial journey has an arc. Where are you in the journey now? If this was a baseball game, are you in the top of the first? Or are you in the bottom of the second or at the top of the fourth? Where are you in the journey as opposed to where your vision was when you started it together? And where do you want to be by now? Where do you want to go in the future?

Spencer: The product is pretty well built out, maybe the sixth inning in terms of the product vision and product strategy. It uses computer vision and connects to your camera roll to pull out every photo you’ve ever taken of food on your camera. It plots it on a map. It’s an incredibly fun way to walk down memory lane and remember great meals that you’ve had. It lets you follow different people and get inspiration. It lets you post recipes. It has video. We’re getting ready to launch Android right now. We’re only on iPhones. The product is basically there. But as Sophia says, every startup has the challenge of user growth and of finding product-market fit and then building some sort of virality or word of mouth especially products that don’t have ad budgets. We haven’t done paid advertising or paid media for Recon Food. Although the product is very robust, we’re still looking for these breakout ways to grow audience, grow usage, and drive additional growth and virality which is difficult for a consumer app in a very crowded marketplace

John: Sophia, what do you think? Where are you?

Sophia: I was going to say a bit earlier in regard to overall. However, I do agree that the product is definitely almost there. We built out a lot of our dream feature where at the very beginning, we were talking and saying, “That’d be so cool.” We’ve gotten to a lot of those places. We’ve added collections where you can save highlights on your feed. One of my big features that I was waiting for and that we have is the map being able to see all of the restaurants that you’ve ever been to and everyone else’s. So we built out a lot of the things that we were really excited about. Product is definitely almost there. But I was going to say probably second inning on where we want to be with user growth. We found the target audience. It’s hard to explain. But it’s the people who enjoy food but aren’t professional chefs but don’t post their food on social media either because social media makes them stressed out or they think it’s weird to post food on social media– not weird, but it sometimes feels awkward to. We found the people that it resonates with. It’s just about trying to spread the name and spread the idea out so that we hit more of those people.

Spencer: It’s very validating though when you have a new product, and you get user feedback that encourages entrepreneurs in what is a difficult journey. The other day, for example, we heard from a user that said, “When I use Instagram for five minutes, I feel crappy. I feel bad about myself. It stresses me out. I’m reminded of all these issues in the world because of all the negativity and challenges and news media that has infiltrated traditional social media. Then I also have all these people who I follow that I’m sort of friends with, but they’re living their best lives. I feel inferior.” We know this inherently. Everyone who uses social media knows this. Research that has leaked out of Facebook and Instagram has shown that even they know this. This user went on to say, “But when I use Recon Food, I feel great. I feel happy. I’m looking at pretty pictures of food. I don’t feel the stress that I feel on regular social media. I feel inspired to post my mediocre cooking. Because you know what? It’s the best that I can do. I don’t feel like I don’t have to be perfect. Do I have to live a perfect life on Instagram?” That’s validating. Then we see the validation in other categories like Strava for running where you post your run on Strava or AllTrails for hiking or these other vertical social networks like in sports and in health and wellness or Peloton or Fitbit where there are vertical communities in these other categories. All the signs point to the [crosstalk]–

John: Your work.

Spencer: — yes, that there should be a very large vertical social network for food. We’re off to a great start. The company’s less than one year old. We have a very dedicated user base and a very solid feature set. Now, it’s time to grow.

John: Well, everything that you both just said about who you want your target audience to be is somebody like me then. Literally, everything you just said is exactly why I don’t use any of those other social media platforms. But I love food. I love trying new restaurants and stuff. I love the idea. Is this also for someone who travels and goes to a city? I just came back. Last week, I was in London, in Ireland. I had colleagues with me. I wanted to host them and show them a nice time. But again, I want more than just the concierge’s recommendation, because that’s just one person. I’d love others to assist. Is this for someone like me who does that kind of stuff as well?

Sophia: Absolutely. That’s why I love the map feature. You can scroll to that city. You can see on this map where every location is. You can see essentially the reviews of everyone who’s posted from there. Another great thing about Recon Food is that we have pictures. There’re pictures of lots of menus, lots of dishes. You can actually get fish recommendations as well which I personally love. The other thing that we decided to do when creating the app to try to make it a less potentially toxic space was instead of rating by stars or by decimal points – a star system – everything is really rated by smiley faces. When you click on a restaurant, you can see that it has twelve smiley faces. You can see every one of those posts and what that person had or what they posted or if they posted a picture of the restaurant’s interior or landscaping. It’s great for restaurant discovery as well. What you said about you feeling like you really related to and agreed with what I was talking about, what we were talking about, that’s something that I’ve experienced with so many people not talking about it. When I speak on social media at large, not just in the context of Recon Food, when I say, “Social media make people feel bad about themselves sometimes,” the response I often get is, “That’s not just me.” I’ve had this conversation maybe two days ago with someone when I was talking about how social media is so stressing and so toxic and not a fun, happy place. The person literally responds to me by saying, “I felt that way. I thought that that was just my perception of it.” It’s such a universal feeling that everyone feels a little bit upset about social media all the time. When you open it, it’s not fun and happy. It’s stressful. At least, at the very best, in my opinion, it’s neutral. I’ll be clicking through people’s stories just trying to get to the end of it. That’s not what it was intended to be. That’s not what it should be. That’s something that we really wanted to try to address.

John: Honestly. I agree with both of you. I think my life has improved since I stayed off of it. But to your dad’s point about the trend that he’s been tracking and having success investing in in the verticalization of social media, I totally agree with that, because just look at the verticalization of just, for instance, television and media.

Spencer: [inaudible]

John: It’s the same thing. When we were kids growing up, there were only four of five channels: ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS and a local. Now, a television show could be produced and put on any channel even one that we’ve never heard of. We’re going to go there and find it up as its destination for the product. Same thing as your dad said with Strava and Fitbit and all the other great other verticals. I think you’re just killing it in a vertical that needs to be handled on its own and like you said, isolate it from all that other noise and drama and angst that comes with social media. Making it a happy spot I think is just wonderful. Food is such a wonderful happy topic when handled the right way. I think you, guys, are onto something big. Sophia, I have to tell you this. My children who are behind me here have worked with my wife and me for years in various capacities in our businesses. They are now both on their own doing their thing as lawyers. But you have a mom in your house. You have two siblings. How have they reacted to you and dad having this as a you-and-dad thing? How’s that going?

Sophia: Well, it definitely–

Spencer: Very insightful questions, John. You’re clearly a parent.

Sophia: I think that’s really been a bit of a whole family thing. [inaudible] at the start, when we were talking about the idea initially, I mean, from everything, from the logo and the name all the way to what the product should actually be like, we definitely brought it to the dinner table and all discussed.

John: That’s awesome.

Sophia: I think actually my brother had a thing with my dad first before we started Recon Food which maybe, I guess, this was me– it wasn’t. But maybe this is me reacting to that. They have a very successful podcast together where they discussed business questions that my brother asks or discuss topics called “Dad, I have a question” which I’ll plug here for him.

John: Oh, I love it.

Sophia: Very popular [crosstalk]–

John: How old is your brother? What’s his name? Let’s give him a plug.

Sophia: He is thirteen years old. His name is Luke. In their podcast, he asked my dad a business question or a question about a business topic. My dad answers. Luke summarizes it for kids. It’s great for the family, great for kids, great for parents, too.

John: I love it. That’s awesome. I love it.

Sophia: It’s definitely something that the whole family has been involved in Recon Food and also just the fact that we have other things. The plan for that summer before COVID struck was to start a family business, I believe to do a drop shipping business or something like that.

Spencer: That’s true. I actually forgot that. We were going to build any type of business on Shopify, an e-commerce business, direct-to-consumer e-commerce business, because I thought that would be a great way to teach everybody – all five of us – to learn about web development, about digital advertising, about social media, about e-commerce, logistics. Let’s sell anything on the web through the Shopify website. But then COVID happened. We started cooking a lot more. We’re stuck in the house for about a year. Instead, we built Recon Food. But I’m glad that we did.

John: That’s incredible. Sophia, you know what? I have a large listener base in the United States and around the world that are young people that want to be you, that want to be your dad, that want to be entrepreneurs, and also make an impact and make a difference. What advice from what you’ve learned growing up in your father’s entrepreneurial household and also from starting Recon Food would you share with some of our teenage listeners out there about being an entrepreneur?

Sophia: I think the most important thing that I’ve learned from when I was young with my dad and also from starting Recon Food and everything I do with my school activities and all that is just to be passionate about whatever you’re working on. He talks about it, my dad, in terms of founder-product fit or founder-market fit where there’s no great idea or great founder. There’s only a great founder for a great idea. It has to be something that you wake up every day wanting to solve and fix and address whatever you’re working on. I definitely feel that with Recon Food. It’s something that I’m so passionate about. That’s why I’ve kept going and kept pushing and kept working on this, because I truly believe in the mission. I know that it’s larger than the app that we’ve created. It’s this incredibly important topic that we need to address as a society. I feel like I’m doing my part in that. As far as how it’s pertinent and relevant to my life, social media is so deeply ingrained in our society and culture. We all know it’s a problem. But the solution to me isn’t just to get off of social media. It’s to remodel it and restructure it to be the powerful tool that it can be. It’s a great space to share what you’re proud of with friends, connect with family from across the country, and reconnect with old friends and family, too. It’s such a powerful tool that can be used for such good. I like the idea that we are creating a space where you get the benefits of social media without the downside. When I open my phone every morning, I open social media, and I’m immediately reminded of exactly what I’m trying to do and what I’m trying to fix.

John: That’s awesome. That is really incredible. Spencer, for you, obviously, with the success that you have in your wake and ongoing success in the other ventures you’ve now started or invested in, what lesson do you want the next generation of entrepreneurs to hear that you wish you had heard when you were twenty or eighteen or seventeen or twenty-five?

Spencer: Startups are hard. Most of them fail. That’s the hard news that founders should hear and [inaudible].

Sophia’s absolutely right that given that, you have to be incredibly passionate about the problem that you’re solving. You have to have some connectivity to it, some personal connection to it, or else, you won’t have the commitment necessary to succeed and to power through. It’s also important for founders to understand that failure is okay and that you learn from failure. I think people tend to overstate risk. I hear from people a lot of the time, “I don’t want to go to startup. I have this idea, but I can’t pursue it. Because what if it fails?” Most people have some sort of a safety net that they can fall back on. They can likely, especially in a good economy, still go get that job back. They can fall back on their education or their degree. I think it’s important for people to be realistic and not overstate what risk they’re taking when they do startups, when they pursue something entrepreneurial.

John: Sophia, outside of dad and your family members, who would be your greatest role model in business that inspires you every day?

Sophia: Okay. This is a question that I’ve thought about, because I thought about it and didn’t come up with an answer.

John: That’s fair.

Sophia: I was looking at it through the context of– I was thinking like, “Who do I want to be when I grow up?” I was trying to find a female entrepreneur founder who was the CEO of one of the top, whatever, maybe twenty companies in the world. I couldn’t find one in my brief research. However, with my school project, I’ve been able to work with some really amazing people who were involved in my school or attended my school. They’ve definitely been very inspiring to me. I’ve worked a lot with Karen Ortman who’s a venture capitalist at a firm here in Los Angeles. I’ve worked a lot with Natasha Case who is a founder of Coolhaus Ice Cream which is a very trendy ice cream brand. Through working with them, I’ve seen their passion for everything that they worked on. When they came back to speak at the school about their entrepreneurial ventures and everything they’re working on, it’s clear that they are so passionate about what they do. That’s really inspiring to me.

John: That’s great. For listeners and viewers who just joined us, we’ve got Spencer and Sophia Rascoff with us that. They’re the founders of Recon Food. You can find their great app and download it right now on Apple products, soon to be on Android at www.genrecon.app, getrecon.app. Sophia and Spencer, what’s next for Recon Food?

Sophia: Over the summer, we’re going to be doing a lot of work to try to expand our user base and grow to even more people who feel connected with the app and feel like it fills a need for them. We’re looking at doing some social media work to try to expand on there, obviously, pertinent to the subject as well and whatever other marketing tactics and ideas we come up with as well as trying to strengthen our user base that’s currently on the app through more community challenges. We’ve done a few of those in the past where we challenge the community to cook something with potatoes or make chocolate chip cookies for National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day. Things like that really bring the community together, because you see everyone with their own take on whatever the challenge or topic is. There’s a little prize. It really strengthens community. We want to do some more of that.

Spencer: We’ll be expanding to Android as well. Right now, you can find Recon Food in the iOS app store on your iPhone but soon on Android.

John: What’s the dog’s name? That’s what we want to know.

Sophia: We have two dogs. One’s named Phyto. One is Ginger.

John: I fell [?] at Ginger. That’s awesome [?]. What kind of dogs?

Sophia: They’re both Havanese.

John: Got it. Got it. Spencer, go back to what you were sharing earlier with a hundred investments, and you’re still co-founder of a bunch of them, and you’ve had so many huge successes with Zillow and Hotwire and dot.LA now. How do you split your day in terms of working with Sophia on this very important and great venture but also managing your capital investments in those other ventures as well?

Spencer: It’s hard. It’s complicated. I’d say very busy. The unifying theme of what I’m doing at this stage of my career in my late forties is I’m teaching – I’m teaching; I’m mentoring; I’m coaching – whether it is co-founders with whom I’m starting companies, whether it is companies that I’m investing in or companies whose Boards I sit on or students that I teach in my classes. I teach two classes at Harvard on startups. I’ve got two podcasts. All of these things are forms of teaching, no longer on the fields. Startups and entrepreneurship is a full-time job. It requires you to suit up every day and get on the field. It’s very hard. The bruises and beatings that you get on that field every single day, they take a lot out of you. I’m now very content to be in the coaching box up top rather than on the field. The way I balance it all is I work with great people. Behind every successful person, there’s a team. That’s truer in entrepreneurship and startups than anywhere else. For each of these endeavors, whether it be investing or any of these startups that I have co-founded, I have great partners and teammates including Sophia on Recon Food.

John: You said something earlier that it doesn’t get played well in the media, if at all. You should have diversity. Diversity has been framed by the media as we all know with either just sexual diversity in terms of male/female and maybe race. That’s about it. But the diversity you said doesn’t get any coverage in terms of generational diversity. One of the things that I love about what I try to do is I have partners that are in their eighties. My partners in my last investment were guys that were nineteen and now, twenty-five. But it’s fascinating to have almost literally every decade covered in terms of friends, relationships, and other things, because you can learn so much. It’s that kind of diversity that you can’t buy. You can learn so much from almost every decade of the life of people who have experience. My mentor and business partner who’s in his eighties, his experiences are amazing. He’s helped me so much. But so are the young guys who are – like you said about Sofia – in the middle of TikTok and all these other newfangled technologies. Is that something you also try to strive in terms of your diversity about your investments and also the people that you’re betting on?

Spencer: Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I’ve seen it firsthand at Zillow. There were a lot of product decisions that were made better by having people stretching across generations. People have different perspectives. They have different life experiences. They are more native to different platforms based on when they grew up and what their experiences have been. There’s no question that diversity of all types – diversity of thought, opinion, race, gender, age, socioeconomic status – drives better business outcomes. I actually think that those that care about diversity, equity, inclusion – Sophia and I are very much in that category – I feel that they sometimes overly focus on the moral arguments in favor of diversity rather than also highlighting the business case for diversity. There’s a very strong business case. There’s plenty of research in academia to support that there are better business results coming from diverse teams, leadership teams, and business and product teams than non-diverse groups of people.

John: Sophia, I’m going to give you the last word here. How could our audience get involved with the Recon app? What do you recommend for them to do and how to get involved in your community?

Sophia: If you’re interested in getting involved in Recon Food and becoming part of our food community, you can go to the iOS App Store and search Recon Food. Hopefully soon, you can find us on Android as well. We’ll let you know if you want to follow along on our journey. But you can’t download the app yet. You can follow us on Instagram, @reconfood. Or you can follow me on Instagram, @sophiarascoff or my dad, @spencerrascoff. We’ll be sure to keep everyone posted with our new developments and our latest features.

John: Sophia, I know this. I’m going to be able to brag to my wife and children that I interviewed you at some point. Because when we see you on Bloomberg or MSNBC or CNBC getting interviewed, I’m going to say, “She was on the Impact podcast at one point.” I know you’re going to be a big success like your pops. I really thank you both for your time today.

Spencer and Sophia Rascoff, thank you for being on the Impact podcast. Continue your success. I hope to have you both back on one day as your Get Recon App continues to grow.

Sophia: Thank you so much.

Spencer: Thank you.

John: This edition of the Impact podcast is brought to you by Engage. Engage is a digital booking platform revolutionizing 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, livestreams and much more. For more information on Engage or to book talent today, visit letsengage.com

John Shegerian: 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.

John Shegerian: 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.

John: 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, welcome to today’s edition of Green Is Good. Mike, it’s so great to see you here on another show.

Mike Brady: You know, I look forward to it every week because I think the biggest part about this, John, is I look forward to learning something new and being able to amaze my friends. They say, “Where’d you learn that?” “Just picked it up on this little radio show called Green Is Good.”

John: I’m with you on that. I was driving over here and I was thinking we have a unique day today. What was the first television set? Do you remember the first television set in your house growing up?

Mike: Yeah, I hate to tell you this but it goes way back to the days when the screens were about yay big and and all rotary dials. Of course, it was black and white but I knew it. It was in a cabinet. It was like a lovely piece of furniture.

John: It was a piece of furniture.

Mike: Yeah, with doors on the front and you open it up and here’s this little tiny maybe 9 inch screen that everybody sits around and goes, wow, amazing.

John: What was the brand? Do you remember?

Mike: I want to say that it was an RCA.

John: Okay, got it.

Mike: I want to say.

John: In my house, in the living room, my parents had a DuMont.

Mike: DuMont. Okay.

John: And then my first television that I got in my bedroom, which was big time back then, [crosstalk] was a Panasonic.

Mike: Wow. Panasonic.

John: The reason I bring that up is as I was driving over here, I’m thinking about brands and televisions. Our first brand that we’ve ever had in the electronic manufacturing division is on today. We have Panasonic joining us.

Mike: Outstanding, boy. You talk about a huge global company.

John: It just has so much to do with our lives because you and I grew up in the television generation era.

Mike: Absolutely. Now I will tell you that the very first television I bought, myself, was a [crosstalk] Panasonic.

John: Was it?

Mike: Yeah.

John: And so much of what we’ve seen, just of recent times. When we were growing up, our grandparents and our parents held on to their television for how many years?

Mike: Oh, forever.

John: Forever. And now, our kids’ generation and our grandkids’ generation, we have these flat screens that have come out. And right behind that, Mike, we’ve seen already, and it’s not priced yet for everyone to purchase, but the 3D televisions are already coming out.

Mike: Yeah, that’s going to be an amazing technology. And like you said, it’s not for everybody right now, but by the time it gets to a price point, which most consumers can [crosstalk] afford, it is going to be absolutely amazing.

John: All of us. Television revolution. I understand that that same technology is going to be transferable to our cell phones, our laptops. So literally, as the next couple of years are in front of us, 3D is going to be the new platform. But that brings us back to Panasonic in that they’re one of the great leaders of this television revolution, and they’ve also taken the lead on being one of the leaders in the Green Revolution.

Mike: Okay. I knew there was going to be a Green tie-in somewhere.

John: So we’re going to have Dave Thompson, who is a friend of mine, but he’s also been heading up the corporate environmental department since the mid 90s. He’s going to come on today and explain to us the importance of Environment and Sustainability to their core mission.

Mike: I think this is going to be a great show. I can’t wait to get Dave on the phone. So let’s do it.

John: Let’s go. Today, we’re so honored to have Dave Thompson on the phone with us from Panasonic. Dave has been a friend of mine for years since I got into the recycling industry. He’s been with Panasonic for twenty-four years. Since 1995, he’s headed up their corporate environmental department. And he’s in charge of everything green and everything, environmental compliance, all the environmental marketing strategies, and all that other kind of stuff. Not only does David do that, but he also serves as the president of the Electronic Manufacturers Recycling Management company, which is also known in the industry as MRM. Dave’s skills and his reputation in the industry are second to none. Dave, it’s really an honor for Mike and I to have you on Green Is Good today. And thank you for taking the time to join us.

Dave Thompson: John, thank you for that very gracious introduction. I look forward to talking to you and your guests throughout the course of the show.

John: Well, David, you and I have spoken at events before and you do such a tremendous job of representing Panasonic and representing the electronic manufacturers in all different types of settings, because not only does Panasonic talk the talk, but truly, Panasonic really does walk the green walk. And so I’m going to start with why don’t you bring us up to speed? I just reviewed some of Panasonic’s information online and some of their environmental performance over the years. Bring us up to speed on what Panasonic is doing right now to protect our global environment. Bring our listeners up to speed.

Dave: Sure. Thanks, John, for the opportunity. Panasonic has long been committed to a social responsibility platform from our very foundation in the 1930s, when we announced a credo, saying that our goal, our duty, our responsibility as manufacturers is to contribute to the betterment of world society through our products. Building on that very long tradition, in the early 1990s, we came out with probably one of the first environmental declarations made by electronic manufacturers. In that declaration, pledging to use the Earth’s resources responsibly and to be a good environmental steward. In 2001, we developed a Green Plan 2010. It had a very extensive set of programs and goals for our company that included almost anything and everything that we touch or do. Goals for our products, in terms of energy efficiency, goals for our products in terms of material content, recyclability, designed for the environment, life cycle assessment, goals for our factories, in terms of waste reduction, recycling, air emissions, water discharge, improvements, waste, minimization, for example, energy efficiency, and then training programs for our people. Then finally, in 2007, in order to maybe revitalize this 2010 program, we launched into what we call an Eco Ideas Initiative. And what this is, is building on our corporate slogan of Panasonic ideas for life, we came up with Eco Ideas, and we’re trying to make sure that our customers, all of our stakeholders, our customers, the environmental community, our employees, our government regulators, our business partners, such as yourself, that we focus on eco ideas for our products or our manufacturing facilities, and for our people through a program called Eco Ideas for everybody everywhere.

John: So Mike and I talk about this all the time on our show, the three basic rules of sustainability: People, planet and profits. So you’re basically saying your approach to making your products has sustainability written all over it. It’s in the DNA of Panasonic to protect its people and also preserve the environment while you also run a profitable company. Is that what I’m hearing here? Mike and I are understanding?

Dave: I think it’s a very fair summary, John, in that, if you go back and look at Panasonic, the founder of the company, a gentleman named Kōnosuke Matsushita, literally was almost regarded as the Thomas Edison of Japan. He thought that before you can build products, you have to build people. And he set out to do that through his own particular type of management philosophy that really did focus on developing our personnel from a skill set point of view, as well as a vision point of view. We all need a vision of what we want to be as a company in order to operate in the type of business climate that we do today.

John: It’s obvious that you guys are a huge leader in everything green, and that they made you, back in ’95, the head of corporate environmental, compliance, and marketing. So environment was a huge deal before it ever became cool to be green, which was just in recent years as you and I know, and also probably imposed to be green. You guys were way ahead. Panasonic was way ahead on this issue. And thinking about it years ago.

Dave: I think we were. We looked at this issue, the growing concern around the world for environmental issues, the need to address those issues, and look to see if there wasn’t going to be some sort of opportunity for us through the greening of our company and our products to address the concerns and needs that people have had and are starting to express much more strongly in today’s climate.

John: So when you talk about the Eco Ideas approach, explain what that means for how you take care of your employees and how they then also enjoy making products that are greener every year for us to consume, enjoy, and make our business and personal lives more interesting and more connected.

Dave: Sure. This initiative, Echo Ideas, for our products, our manufacturing, and for everybody everywhere, really comes down to a focus on products, where we want to make our very best efforts to design truly energy efficient, world leading products. We want to eliminate hazardous materials that have been so traditionally associated with electronic products. We want to make sure these products are easier to recycle at the end of their useful life. With respect to manufacturing, we consume resources that society literally owns, we consume those and we use them to make products that people hopefully will value and seek to purchase at a fair and reasonable profit. These factories generate emissions. One emission of great concern today is Co2 emissions. So we want to make sure that we’re focused on eliminating or reducing as much as we possibly can of these types of emissions from our factories. We have a clean factory program to guide our factories in that direction. And then with respect to our employees, one of the things that we did last year that I thought was really novel and interesting was that we had a worldwide Eco Relay. What we did was require every Panasonic facility around the world to undertake, with its employees, some sort of volunteer initiative in the fall of 2008. We timed it in such a way that it literally was like one Panasonic group in, say, North America, for example, or Europe, or South America, or East Asia, or the Middle East, or Southeast Asia. Kind of handing a baton to the next group. We went around the world in one circle. And during the course of those two weeks, we engaged in about 342 environmental volunteer events in 39 different countries. It was truly an effort that the employees embraced and I think learned from and are really looking forward to repeating again this year.

John: Well, David, I mean, Panasonic’s commitment to responsible environmental stewardship obviously is second to none. And with 290,000 employees around the world, that baton passing type of initiative and that greening of all of your employees and tying them to that program sounds amazing.

Listen, we’re going to now take a commercial break. And on the other side, we’re going to come back and talk about all the great things Panasonic is doing for your recycling initiatives across the country and around the world. And we’re going to talk about some of the new products that you’re coming out with soon for our listeners to buy.

Speaker: 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. We’re so thankful you’re listening today, and we’re so thankful to David Thompson for being our guest and talking about TVs and Panasonic, the great brand that he works for.

David, when we left for the break, we were going to come back and talk on the other side about some of the things that Panasonic is doing here in the United States and around the world. We were just talking about your commitment to your employees and how you bring them into the process of being green, so they could even feel more excited to make green products. Tell us about this new Eco House that you mentioned earlier and what does that really mean? And what does that mean for the consumers and the listeners out there?

Dave: Well, John, thank you. It means two things. I think, one, it’s an opportunity to showcase Panasonic products and technologies that we’re in the process of developing for a better environmental and sustainable lifestyle. And secondly, it’s an attempt to envision what a zero Co2 emission home life would look like. So if you look over time, for example, if you take 1990, which is a very important year in greenhouse gas emission discussions, baseline, and set that at 100. By the year 2009, we had reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 53% in this house through a combination of product, energy efficiency improvements, and then about another 10% through, I guess, insulation and building type of improvements. So those two developments have really netted us about 53% energy efficiency improvement, 43% from the products and then 10% from the installation.

John: Wow.

Dave: We think that over the next few years, maybe 3, 4 years, we can get another 7% reduction through improvements to products, and 5% through additional building design types of activities, LED lighting, for example. So that would get us down to 35%. This improvement is based on a host of Panasonic products and energy efficient designs. But also that 35% still remains. This is what I’m really excited about. It is futuristic, but it is exciting to me. To get that last 35%, Panasonic is now in the process of introducing into the Japanese market, a home fuel cell. So this particular product would allow the homeowner to take natural gas from the city and create their own electricity in their own home in a much more efficient fashion that we’re currently doing through our distributed power generation systems.

John: That’s amazing.

Dave: If you look at distributed power generation, we lose a lot of that energy through the feeding sauce when we burn coal or oil, for example, and then when we transmit the power to individual homes. By the time that unit of energy that was burned to produce a unit of electricity gets to the home, you’re talking about maybe 35-40% is actually being realized as real electricity in the home.

John: So that’s not very efficient at all, David.

Dave: No. A lot of it is lost. A fuel cell concept brings that energy efficiency up to about 65 to 70%. So it’s an enormous improvement in the way we use energy.

Mike: It’s amazing too because the big talk right now in the automotive industry is about fuel cell technology. So I think people basically kind of get the concept of fuel cells, but to take it a step further to meet the energy needs of a typical household, that’s a great leap.

Dave: It is a truly unique product offering that we’re in the process of developing and testing right now.

John: Are you going to be the first to do this?

Dave: We’re a leader in the field. We’re not the only company but we are a leader in the field.

John: What you just said is fascinating for our listeners. And actually Mike and I are sitting here and our eyes are wide open. Is this how Panasonic usually does it? You test a new product in Japan first and then you bring it over here? Is that typical of what happens?

Dave: That’s typical of most companies, corporations. If you look at companies that are located around the world, they tend to have grown up in a certain area, whether it’s Europe or the [crosstalk] United States or Japan or China.

John: Right.

Dave: They tend to grow up. And in that process, nourish, develop in-house technical resources.

John: Right.

Dave: So I would say it’s a pretty fair statement that most companies really develop their newest technologies in their home market.

John: Yes, absolutely.

Dave: As they succeed, they figure out ways to enter the world market.

John: That’s fascinating. That’s wonderful. So the Eco House is something you’ve developed with your team, and you’re real excited about.

Dave: Yes, we are. And that’s not the whole story because it will have a solar cell component. A fuel cell doesn’t quite get us that last 35%. So this house will include a solar power generation component as well as a new lithium ion battery storage facility, so that any excess electricity that is generated can be stored and used at night.

John: When will that paradigm be set up, that our listeners will be able to look at online and see?

Dave: They can see information on this online right now.

John: Okay. Give our listeners where they could see it because that’s very important. Our listeners like to go and do that, look online at what our guests are talking about.

Dave: I’m going to struggle with that for just a second.

John: No worries. But all the green initiatives we’re talking about are going to be seen. Our listeners can go see at www.panasonic.net/eco/environment.

Dave: John, we can do a little bit better.

John: Okay.

Mike: Okay.

Dave: Sorry for the delay.

Mike: No worries.

John: No worries.

Dave: But it’s panasonic.co.jp/ecohouse. So panasonic.co.jp/ecohouse.

John: That’s amazing. And I’m sure our listeners are going to love to see that basically you’re saying they’re going to be looking into the future when they go look at what you’re doing with…

Dave: I believe they are.

John: That’s great. Good for you, David. So tell us now, in the United States, our listeners are so excited about hearing about recycling, because we all hear that we’re not supposed to throw out our cell phone or throw out our washer and dryer, that everything can be recycled now. Tell us about the status of television recycling and what Panasonic has done in that regard, and also the other large organization that you head up, the MRM organization. What are you doing with regards to electronic and television recycling in the United States?

Dave: Well, Panasonic has been a leader in that particular area, as have you, John. We have looked at the design of our products, tried to make them easier to recycle. If you look at our plasma TV lineup, think back in time a little bit and think about what you deal with every day at your recycling facility. A 36 inch CRT television contained about 3.5 kilograms of lead in the glass. Seven and a half pounds.

John: That’s right.

Dave: The first generation plasma television that we made contained about 70 grams of lead in the glass. So we went from 3500 grams, 3.5 kilograms to about 70. In 2007, we became the first TV maker to introduce a lead free plasma display panel and have gone literally from 3.5 kilograms of lead in the glass to about virtually zero. These new Panasonic Plasma TVs have about 2 grams of LED mainly in the electronics and solders.

John: Wow.

Dave: So I think that that’s going to make these products much much easier to recycle in the future when they start coming into your facility.

John: Got it. And then how can the listeners across the United States avail themselves of what recycling programs you’ve worked so hard to set up?

Dave: Recently, Panasonic along with Sharp and Toshiba established a joint venture company called MRM. And you were very kind to introduce that earlier. It was established as a platform for manufacturers to collaborate in developing and offering, hopefully, ever increasingly convenient recycling programs to consumers in the United States. We started out in Minnesota. We’re now working in Oregon and really across the country, with several different manufacturers. We are now offering about 310 drop-off sites across the country that are supported by several manufacturers. People who have an opportunity can go to mrmrecycling.com.

John: Great.

Dave: Click on the map of the United States that you’ll find there and then hopefully find a recycling location that’s convenient to them near their home. But we’re looking forward to continuing to work with the recycling community and expand this program to offer what will be a comprehensive and convenient recycling program for U.S. citizens, where citizens can be assured that these products will be collected and recycled safely.

John: That is just so commendable. Really, our hats are off to you because this is so important. The more that we recycle in this country and the more that we bring the public and the residents of this country into being part of the solution that you’ve worked so hard to set up, I think it makes everyone feel great about living in this country and preserving the environment and being part of the solution, instead of just being blamed for doing the wrong thing. I think consumers are excited to actually have a call to action. And what you’re doing with MRM is definitely giving them the opportunity to be part of the solution. So David, hats off to you and Panasonic, and to the other great brands that have joined in with what you’re doing. Let’s talk about consumer demand. You’ve been with Panasonic for twenty-four years and you’ve been running the environmental division since ’95. What have you seen in the shifts in consumer demand based upon now the high visibility of the environment and the Green Revolution? What does that mean for Panasonic and how you make new products? And also energy efficiency because energy is such a critical issue. How does that consumer demand drive what you’re doing?

Dave: It means light weighting products. It means making them more recyclable, less hazardous, as we’ve talked about.

John: Right.

Dave: And finally, it means making products that are more energy efficient. We’ve talked a little bit about plasma televisions. I’d like to continue in that vein.

John: Sure.

Dave: TVs currently consume about 4 to 5% of a home’s electricity usage.

John: Wow.

Dave: And as we move to larger and larger televisions, we recognize that those power consumption needs are going to increase over time. You’re going to get much much more of a picture for this power consumption. But with larger and larger sets coming into the homes, our consumption will likely increase over time. We have been very focused on how we can redesign these products so that they’re more energy efficient. And I’m pleased to tell you and everyone that’s listening that our 2009 lineup of plasma television models are about 30 to 50% more energy efficient than products that were used just a couple of years ago.

John: Wow.

Dave: For example, a 42 inch plasma TV, Panasonic plasma, now consumes just about 173 watts on average. And if you were to watch this TV for five hours per day and you think about your average cost of electricity nationwide, which is about 11.7 cents per kilowatt hour, consumers watching a 42 inch plasma TV for five hours per day, would spend about 10 cents on a daily basis to meet the energy needs for that particular television viewing experience. And when you think about it…

John: 10 cents. That sounds like a good bargain to me.

Mike: No kidding.

Dave: Sounds like a bargain for a display that is high definition, handles motion, fast motion, fantastically and gives you more and more colors than you’ve probably ever imagined seeing. It’s a beautiful picture in this industry, and Panasonic has been able to bring it to consumers across the United States.

John: Well, I know because I’ve listened to you many times before in public settings, and when it comes to energy, Panasonic is definitely a leader in the industry. Haven’t won the ENERGY STAR Award 7 years in a row or something like that?

Dave: Yes, we have been recognized by EPA for 7 consecutive years. And I think we were the only consumer electronics product manufacturer to be so honored. It was a great pleasure to work with them in that particular capacity.

John: And David, we have about a minute left for our listeners. I want you to wrap up with anything you want to share with them, with regards to the greening of the United States and the world, with regards to Panasonic. Go ahead. I want you to share any last pearls of wisdom to our listeners before we’ve got to wrap up here.

Dave: Thank you, John. I hope this conversation has demonstrated the commitment that we have to environmental stewardship, and has given your listeners information on many, many activities that we’ve undertaken to both improve energy efficiency, to eliminate, reduce hazardous materials that are contained in these products, to design them so that they will be easier to recycle in the future, and to then show people how they can be recycled to play a positive role in actually getting them recycled. We are trying to envision a new lifestyle where our home lives will be rich and abundant, as well as energy efficient. I guess, in closing, I would just say that manufacturers are stepping up to address environmental concerns that people have made known over time. And we would hope that that would be recognized by our environmental and regulatory community as we move forward into the future.

John: Well, David, you are such a wonderful and gracious guest. Mike and I are so thankful for your time today. We know how busy you are. And you’ve again proven that not only does Panasonic talk the green talk, but Panasonic walks the green walk. It’s part of Panasonic’s DNA.

David Thompson, thanks for being our guest today and you are living proof that 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 the marketingmasters.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 in 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, I promise you is a super special edition of the Impact podcast. We’ve got with us from Utah today, Christina Qi. Welcome to Impact, Christina.

Christina Qi: Thank you for having me, John. Super excited to be here.

John: Oh, Christina, I’ve already told you I’m a huge fan, but we’re gonna turn my whole audience into huge fans of Christina Qi today, and we’re gonna be talking about your life and your journey. First, I love to hear where you were born and how you came to American things [inaudible].

Christina: Yeah, so I was actually born in China. I don’t have an accent anymore actually because my parents immigrated to Utah when I was three. So it kind of went full circle because I lived in Boston for quite a while actually and then came back to Utah for the pandemic, and now I’m really close to my parents. I have absolutely loved it here. Do I speak Chinese anymore? Kind of is always my answer because I never really learned it in school, unfortunately, but I do speak it a little bit. I’m a little bit conversational. So that’s my current level. Yeah.

John: Which part of China were you born in?

Christina: I was born in Beijing. Yeah. I still have a lot of family there. All my cousins and my grandparents and– Yeah, I hope to see them again. It’s been a while.

John: When you were a little girl, did mom and dad speak to you primarily in Chinese or was English your first language?

Christina: Chinese, yeah, was my first language. I cannot believe that I spoke Chinese. Babies learns so fast, you know? You never know, and then five years later, I was just speaking only English apparently.

John: That’s also nice. So then, you grew up in Utah, how was your growing-up experience? Were you always interested in entrepreneurship and finance? Or was that something that evolved after high school?

Christina: Absolutely not. I was not interested in entrepreneurship. I didn’t even know what it was. We never really learned it in school either. I mean, I just went to the public school system in Utah. I hate to say that word. It’s like everyone calls it a ghetto school, but I mean, it’s just unranked, kind of not really on the map anywhere, that kind of school and really enjoyed it. I love the experience there. I love the creativity and freedom and stuff but didn’t know what entrepreneurship was. I didn’t even know what it was in college either. So it just was not in my lifestyle. I did not have any influence, whatsoever. I didn’t have any friends who were entrepreneurs. I didn’t have any connections or parents friends or anything like that. So yeah, I just was a typical immigrant, I guess. I don’t know.

John: I mean, also as a young lady growing up in Utah, you fell in love with the art of anime?

Christina: Yeah, of course. I hope that’s not too weird these days. I think back in the day was kind of odd because it was like anime was kind of a weird thing. For those who aren’t familiar, just Japanese animations like those cartoons you see on TV. I love cartoons too, by the way. So still to this day, it’s never changed. It’s always just kind of been a part of me. And I’ve really enjoyed that escape from sometimes reality is kind of boring, and then you go watch these cartoons. It’s really fun. And you learn a lot of life lessons.

John: True.

Christina: Yeah, I love it. Still to this day, I still go to anime conventions. A lot of my friends I meet through these events and have similarities in common. So yeah, absolutely love it.

John: Now, let’s understand this. So now, you’re graduating high school in Utah and when you were graduating high school, what was your top three choices of colleges to go to? What was on your radar then?

Christina: Yeah. To be honest, I wanted to go to the school my parents went to which was Utah State University, which is up north in Logan, Utah, like Northern, Northern Utah. It’s a great school. I absolutely love it. But then, one of my friends told me because I was such a nerd in high school — to give you a sense, I like anime so much. I made Naruto costume which is a famous anime, and basically, I wore it the day when I went to go take the SAT. My thesis on this or what do you call like the mentality on wearing weird costumes to take tests like even if the day goes bad and I bombed the test and it goes horribly, at least I did one thing right today, which is I dressed up and did something kind of funny. I look nice that day, right? That’s my mentality. — My friend was like, “Why don’t you go apply to MIT? That’s where all the nerds are and stuff, right?”

And I had a funny experience as well because for homecoming, I would do the same thing. I like to dress up weirdly. So for homecoming for our high school like in Utah, it’s big on prom and homecoming and dances. So we had the nominations for homecoming queen and I was nominated by science club only because I was the only girl in the club. So there’s no one else to nominate. We have a parade that happens during homecoming and during the parade they’re supposed to wear a dress and everything. So I wore like a lab coat and I had a beaker and lab goggles on, and of course, people were like, “Oh, my gosh. This is really weird.” Right? And so, I just feel a little bit out of place sometimes during moments like that when there were a lot of moms in the audience. You know, the typical stage moms and they were definitely not happy with how I looked.

I remember getting an email on my phone actually that same day. I check my phone I remember. And this is like the old phones where the emails– I don’t know. It’s really old but I remember seeing it, and it said like, “Why don’t you apply to MIT?” And then there was a photo at the bottom with a girl with a beaker in a lab coat. I was like, “Oh, my gosh, that’s me.” That was actually what made me decide to apply was seeing that inspiration. There are people at the school who look like me. And so I applied, I got in. I don’t know if I deserve it. I will never know. Half the time, I think no. Half the time, I think yes. I’m just grateful that happened. I got very lucky. And then the rest was history after that. I mean, I struggle at MIT though too so I’m happy to tell you about my struggles there if you’d like, but–

John: Wait a second. Let’s just say this, that’s a culture shock. First of all, let me just talk about a culture shock. I grew up in New York City so it’s one thing to move from China to New York City or L.A. But to move from China to Utah, that’s a culture shock. And I don’t know of a bigger culture shock from Utah to then Boston, the Cambridge area. I mean, that’s another culturally pretty different, let’s just say that, right?

Christina: Yeah. I had the biggest culture shock when I first came to Boston, not just academically speaking as everyone was smart, but also culturally in terms of like boba or bubble tea. I don’t even know what that was. My white friend introduced it to me and he’s like, you’re not Asian if you don’t know this. Even stuff like Korean food I have for the first time in Boston. Indian food, Ethiopian food, just different cuisines that in Utah I’m sure now they exist. Now, they’re very popular. But back in the day, we grew up on like sandwiches in subway, that kind of stuff. And then, the Chinese food, of course, that my mom would cook for me. So that was about it.

John: Christina, do you have siblings?

Christina: I have a younger brother who’s 12 years younger than me. He’s a freshman at the University of Utah. So I see him on the weekends.

John: Got it. I understand. Okay. You are really in many ways raised almost like an only child.

Christina: Yeah. I was the only child for pretty much like– My first year of college was Alex’s first year of elementary school. So yeah, I was an only child in that sense.

John: So now you’re at MIT, did understand yet what you really wanted to do when you got there, or that was just a journey itself at MIT?

Christina: In college, I’m sure you guys all have experienced like you have friends who are they just know from day one when they’re born what they want to do. I have friends who are like that. When they’re five years old they’re like, “I want to be an astronaut.” And now, they’re an astronaut or I want to be a doctor, you know? For me, I was one of those students who had no idea. I absolutely was clueless about what I wanted to do. Everything sounded scary, to be honest. Every job I’m like, “Oh,” I don’t wanna be dissecting bodies. I don’t wanna be doing this. I didn’t wanna do any of this kind of work. Nothing was that exciting to me personally. And so, I definitely struggled a lot in terms of finding what major was right for me at the time.

John: As a young girl growing up, what did Mom and Dad do that informed you just so the audience understands, what was your background in terms of Mom and Dad?

Christina: Yeah, so my parents are surprisingly very supportive of me. I’m really lucky to have– Asian parents were super nice and just supportive of me, and leaping and understand what I do. They don’t understand even my career path at all. They had no idea because they don’t know anything about finance. My dad is a civil engineer and my mom works for Utah State like the state government. They both have stable careers, but I guess one cultural difference will just be like their definition of stability. Their definition of an ideal job is they wanna work somewhere for 40 years, right? And then retire. They like that stability aspect. Whereas, for a lot of millennials, we switch jobs year after year. The average millennial has 17 jobs before retirement. I was growing up in a different era altogether, where we were switching jobs and of course, that worries every older parent who’s not used to that kind of culture, you know?

John: It’s really true. So now your case, you’re at MIT. Everything sounds a little scary. You didn’t go in with any predisposed notions of what you wanted to become, how did that evolve into going into Finance and actually understanding both finance is one thing, but becoming an entrepreneur at the same time is another. How did you start going down those concurrent paths, and what informed you who were your mentors on those paths?

Christina: Yeah, for sure. I fell into Finance out of a string of failures in my personal and professional life. Not even gonna lie about that. I struggled and I wanted to major in Biology when I first came in and struggled in Biology Classic Odyssey. The professor came to me and was like, “You probably shouldn’t declare Major,” and I was like, “Oh, you’re right.” And so then, I started taking because MIT, everyone at the time was taking computer science classes to become a– Software engineer the most lucrative job right now. So I took computer science courses and I struggled as well to be honest. I remember after the first exam I was like this is just also not for me. I’m just not smart enough or just couldn’t do it. I ended up falling into declaring because it was the end of the year by then I was like, “Oh, crap. I don’t have anything I want to do.” Everyone’s like, “Well, just declare the easiest major at MIT,” which is called Management Science, which is the business major. That’s the only kind of business major at the school that’s financing and everything combined. And so, I declared in Management. Then fast forward, I got very lucky but I didn’t know what it was. As a kid, what’s management, and what does that–

John: Exactly. You didn’t know [inaudible] at that age.

Christina: What does that gonna mean, right? How am I supposed to know? I’m like literally 18 years old declaring a major in management. It’s just kind of funny but then I got lucky in terms of internships, right? Every company needs a finance person. Every company needs a marketing person and operations person. I got super lucky in that sense that surprisingly, a lot of jobs that require people with a finance-related degree and management was pretty close to that. So, I interned on Wall Street for a bunch of summers, and in Utah too.

John: Really?

Christina: My little internships in every summer. And so that’s how I got really my foot in the door in the financial industry. It’s just finding internships. By the way for people, there’s some people who are like, “How do I get a job in finance? How do I apply to Goldman Sachs New York?” Right? I was the same way. I was rejected by a lot of New York firms. I applied in investment banking or sales and trading. They’re just gonna reject me, then I realized the key is you apply to Utah, which is lucky for me I was raised here. So it’s like my home, anyway, but apply to some other location that’s not New York and apply to operations or middle office or back office. You get your foot in the door, it’s a lot easier to get into sales and trading the next year or after graduation. So that’s how I did it.

John: Well, not only did you just give a great little pearl of wisdom and secret of how to get a job but most people don’t even realize that Goldman Sachs’ Salt Lake City office is one of their biggest offices in the whole country if not their biggest office.

Christina: It is. Yeah. It is huge now. They have multiple buildings. They’re like twice as big as when I did my internship already. The other thing I should mention is that the internship was the best internship experience I’ve ever had compared to some of the larger city internships. A lot of it was because the interns were a lot more friendly. We’re all in Utah. I don’t know. Everyone mostly is in the new city except for me. I’m like in my hometown. We went skiing that summer because some of the mountains are still [inaudible]. We went horseback riding. We did a lot of things that you don’t really get in a New York City internship. And the hours were better, people would tell us, “Oh, take a day off. It’s okay. We’ll still pay you,” and everything. Whereas, that kind of stuff doesn’t happen in New York. You got to work. You got to work your butt off.

John: Right, and it’s great it was in your hometown. What a better situation than that? That’s awesome. So now, you start these evolutions happening and when is that light bulb go off that I’m pretty good at this and this could be me. When was that? How old were you and where were you in the MIT journey when that light bulb went off?

Christina: It was in my final internship. And it wasn’t a light bulb, it was another failure. I’m sorry to mention so many failures in my life, but this is just true and it’s just what happened. I actually really wanted to get the return offer for the internship. We had to do a final project for this internship and basically, we do come up with a stock trading strategy, and I was like, “Well, since I have a technical background, I’ll come up with a more quantitative strategy.” And for those of you who are familiar. Basically, in trading, there’s discretionary which is non-quantitative and then there’s quantitative stuff. Discretionary is you look at fundamentals like different ratios, P ratios, or shape ratios, a book to market ratios, and then you determine how successful the companies to be and then you trade based off of kind of fundamental information. For quantitative strategy, actually what we do is we look at historical data, right? So we look at data on patterns and we look at patterns in that data. When Google stock goes up, Microsoft stock also go up eventually, right? And chances are they might. So just looking at a little correlation between different stocks over time and looking at that data. I came up with a strategy very basic, very fundamental like that about correlations or cointegrations between different stocks in the market and presented it as my final project. Everyone work really hard on their projects. And I was devastated because one was when I was presenting it, my boss’s boss slapped my face. People were kind of mocking me because they really didn’t like it. I worked on a discretionary trading team. So I worked on a team that did fundamental stuff. They didn’t understand or maybe they just didn’t appreciate quantitative strategies at the time. So, they really hated what I did. I feel horrible. I remember apparently, I cried. According to my friends, I left there and was crying. I was traumatized the rest of the day but then because I didn’t get a return offer, and I really, really wanted it.

So I was devastated. I returned back on campus and it was my senior year now. I felt very depressed a little bit. I didn’t wake up. I just had trouble figuring out like, “Okay, do I really wanna apply to jobs again on Wall Street and do this again?” And then, one of my friends was like, “Why don’t you just use that strategy you did? Why don’t you trade it on your own? And if it doesn’t work, then you’ll know they were right. And if it does work then, either way, you’ll have closure on the situation.” And I was like, “Yeah, you’re right.” Because I felt maybe Iike I sent a lack of closure for that internship. And so, I started trading. I just got an account on back then is interactive brokers I guess was the [inaudible]. Nowadays, now that you guys get Robin Hood, there’s a lot of other tools out there you can use, but we had interactive brokers. And so, I just got an account on there and slowly started to figure out how to trade it. At first, it’s just a thousand dollars to start because that was the amount I had saved up from the internship. And then, first, it didn’t work, and then after some tweaking and stuff, it actually started working. I was just shocked and by the end of the school year, I had made around $40,000 or so, literally a thousand to $40,000.

John: In two semesters, you did–

Christina: Two semesters, yeah. And that was enough for me to pay off my student loans. Because I was in $40,000 in debt, by the way at that time. Coincidentally, I ended up graduating. Pretty much right after graduation, I was able to pay off my loans relatively quickly because of that. That was when I realized and it’s not just that, “Oh, I can make a lot of money.” It was more like I can do this on my own. I don’t need to necessarily work in that kind of environment, but maybe just try this out and see what happens. And so, that’s how I got into entrepreneurship. It wasn’t like I had a cool idea to solve the planet to save the planet or cure disease or something. It’s literally like I had nothing to do with my skill set.

John: Wow, okay. For our listeners and our viewers who’ve just joined us, we’re so excited to have with us today, Christina Qi. You could find her at christinaqi.com, or she’s also the CEO of Databento, which we’re gonna get into a couple of minutes. You can find her at databento.com. D-A-T-A-B-E-N-T-O.com. Christina, wait a second now. You went from a thousand to $40,000, but you really didn’t even have any mentors or any coach. You figured this whole algorithm out on your own and created it but there was no footsteps in the sand prior to you doing this that you can look to or that informed you, is that correct?

Christina: Yeah, there were some books that I did read. There were some guides but I didn’t have any human mentors or teachers or advisors. There were some professors that were helpful. In my senior spring that was when I started getting into it and I was like, “Why don’t I just take some MBA level courses?” At MIT, it’s a lottery system. I literally lottery all 1,000 of my points into one of the particular classes was actually a retirement finance/asset management class. And it was taught by a Nobel Prize winner, Robert Merton, who if you’ve ever in finance for those of you who ever took a class and you learn about black scholes or black-scholes Merton, that’s the Merton behind. He was one of the professor’s, for example, who I learned a lot from just about life lessons. He started long-term capital management, and historically, if you have just want to Google that, it’s such a fascinating history because they were one of the biggest hedge fund failures of all the time. I think it was at Warren Buffett or someone that had to buy them out at the end. His stories and his real-life lessons were super helpful. There are definitely a few professors here and there that were super, super supportive of my journey from the very beginning even though, yes, I was a nobody student. Yeah, I got a C in his class. No, I gonna lie. No, I was not like the all-star student whatsoever. You just kept in touch with them– Oh, that’s one thing I would always say, keep in touch with your professors.

I know, for me, I felt like I was a kid. So I was like, keep in touch with the adults in your life. Now, I’m like the old adult 12 years later. I’m like the old person. But yeah, don’t be afraid to keep in touch with them, and tell them what you’re up to. I know for them it’s draining. For me, even when I get emails every day with students asking me for career advice and stuff like that. But then, I realized I needed that too back in the day, right? I was that person that needed it.I just learned so many lessons from those experiences. By the way, if you ever ask people for advice, always figure out a way you can help them first. That’s how I get a response back. Let’s say, my old professors, I need their help on something. I’ll be like, by the way, I can forward– I know you have an internship posting. I’ll forward it to all of my networks here. So just figure out ways that you can help them and I think that’s one way that helped me throughout my entire career area.

John: Now, you went from a thousand to forty. You paid off your student loans which must’ve been a very happy day. What was then the plan from there, now that you knew you could do it and you had figured out this algorithm? What was the next step in terms of life after college?

Christina: Yeah. We were just starting, I guess it’s called the hedge fund because that’s what a hedge fund does is that we manage other people’s money. People always ask why did you not manage your own money? And I’m like, “We didn’t have any money to manage.” My parents don’t have the money. Nobody has the money. Then, I luckily found some co-founders as well as people who wanted to work with me. And by the way, that’s the first validation for any startup, the best validation you can get at the early stage is when another human being drops everything and wants to work with you on this idea and not make any money for a while and take that huge risk in life. I was really grateful, especially one of my co-founders who joined, he had offers from Apple and VMware, all these really cool companies and he ended up turning down all the offers and just joining us, and literally, we all made nothing for a very long time until we ended up having to launch the fund and then going through there. It was definitely a big roller coaster of a journey. I can talk about fundraising. Now, I can talk about hiring. We made so many mistakes. A funny story was when we wrote a bunch of– I don’t know if anyone’s heard of Principles by Ray Dalio.

John: Absolutely. A lot of people say that’s the ultimate investment tool because allegedly, Ray Dalio is one of the legends of Wall Street in the investment world. So go ahead.

Christina: He runs Bridgewaters, is or was the biggest hedge fund I believe right now in the world, so it’s impressive. But anyway, so we wrote down our own list. We’re like, “Oh, his principle sound– Let’s write our own list of principles based on–” And we’re millennials, right? So we were almost of things that we wanted and so just give you some funny examples. One was we wanted a flat managerial structure. We wanted the office culture to be almost more like Google when you walk in as well like having lots of perks and free food. Just making the office environment more, I guess, lots of benefits and perks and stuff like that. And then, in flat managerial structure, we did that just because I was hiring people back then who were three times my age, and so it was really important for us to in order to hire them, we wanted to make sure everyone had the same title. So just kind of things like that. Or another example is hiring service providers with the biggest names because we didn’t have a reputation. So let’s hire people like lawyers or accountants that are household names, right? So they can help with our reputation. And it turns out almost all of those principles that we wrote down turned out wrong in the end. That’s what my book is about. I don’t know if you want to check out my website. I don’t know if I’m gonna publish it, to be honest. I wrote about it just because it was therapeutic for me to be like, “Wow, all these things turn out wrong.” I need to write about this so that other people don’t have to go through that and experience it.

John: I think it’s extraordinarily valuable and I hope you do publish it. I want to get to the book of the second though, but how informative was Ray Dalio’s book? Where his principles informative and helpful? Or where they counterintuitive to what you needed as a millennial?

Christina: Yeah, I think they were definitely counterintuitive, and that’s the other thing. His book is really good for his company and for his kind of culture, right? And for his time when he started the company. I think it definitely worked out really well, but for a lot of us like millennials, one thing I noticed is a lot of people tend to– There’s a little bit of brain drain from New York to Silicon Valley these days, right? Especially from just Wall Street, in general, people don’t wanna work on Wall Street anymore. It’s a revolving door. I remember when I intern at Goldman Sachs, the average tenure there was 18 months before they left and usually went to a tech firm next. The reason why that happens is a lot of it’s because tech is not because it’s just where it’s at, but also culture-wise, I think tech does a lot of things that are a little bit different from kind of Ray Dalio’s culture over here right in finance. Like his concept of baseball cards. I understand why it works for Bridgewater, but there’s a reason why a lot of other companies like startups would not really wanna adopt that kind of culture. There’s a reason why people leave kind of cultures like that and want to go to a place where they’re not being judged by factors like that. So that’s one thing. I just want to mention and then the other thing is there’s a lot of racial and other, I guess factors behind the scenes that stereotype you into certain– They want to characterize you or whatever, and I just don’t think that would have worked well for a company at the time. So that was why we’re really like, “These kinds of work weird. Let’s come up with our own that are better,” and it turns out ours were not better in the end, guys. So the lesson learned there is we did not know any better and yeah, we went through a lot.

John: The lesson learned there though when you point out that was really brilliant in that, everything is contextual. What works from Ray Dalio in his generation and his firm, doesn’t work for the next co-founder down the road always. It’s not the road map that everyone should just follow and you could be successful if you follow that road map.

Christina: And we did have a little bit of the radical transparency that he mentioned. For example, we used to share everyone’s salaries, bonuses, and stuff like that. And guess what happened, people left because of that, it caused trauma and politics in the team. We had someone– But this is also a factor of an effect of being flat, by the way. One of the flat structures, everyone’s called partner. We hired an office manager. Their job was literally, to be honest, cleaning the office, scheduling meetings, and putting everything together in the office pretty nice all the time. I remember, they brought me into the room and they’re like, “I want a partner’s salary,” Also, they basically saw the list of everyone’s salaries and was like, “I want this person’s salary,” which is like a senior software engineer with 40 years of experience or something. I was like, “Oh, no.” And then that was when I realized this is not the right kind of–There are certain information that deserves to be private. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s mainly because I feel like people feel entitled to the highest person salary, and it’s discouraging to see like someone earning that much more, but the problem is the market is different, right? Like a senior software engineer is highly in demand today. Whereas an office manager, I can literally hire my brother today as an office manager to work for me free. You know what I mean? There’s certain jobs that are a lot more highly in demand than others and it’s just how the market is. Yeah.

John: Are these lessons in your book?

Christina: Oh, yeah. I talked about that– Yeah.

John: Your book has to be published because these are the lessons– You see, most people want to only talk about their success and make you all these great decisions, but as you know, Christina and I will know at 59 years old that life is a series of mistakes and how you learn from those mistakes and how you evolve and iterate from those mistakes is how you really get forward.

Christina: Absolutely.

John: So the group that you’re creating and the name of this company, your first company was– What was that first name of your company?

Christina: It’s called Domeyard. We named it after the MIT Dome and Harvard Yard. That was all we really had. All of our founders were Asian, and my last name, literally, no one can pronounce or spell. And so, we didn’t want to name it after ourselves. Also, we wanted it to hopefully be a little bit more inclusive until like, “Oh, MIT Dome and Harvard Yard,” But then now everyone thinks we all come from MIT which is not true, by the way. The team was very diverse from all over the place.

John: Is this a group of your friends that decided to opt into this?

Christina: We weren’t friends initially. We became friends over time.

John: How did you meet them then? How did you meet your co-founders if they weren’t all MIT students?

Christina: Yeah. One was trading competitions in other community, stuff like that. The other thing is at one of these trading competitions, one thing I realized is that we had nothing in common, different Majors, different schools, and stuff, and we had totally different friend groups and different personalities. But one thing we had in common was we both want, all three of us actually, we wanted to go out on our own in the financial industry. We want to be in finance but not necessarily work for a large financial firm at the time. That’s why I think we just set out to do this together. And then, thankfully, it turn out well because we had diverse enough backgrounds in that diversity in terms of having different majors and different friend groups, and everything. Did end up helping us a lot in terms of just having different viewpoints and also just growing the company with very different types of networks. Yeah.

John: [inaudible] bring that up because that’s one of the things now with the whole leaning in on ESG, which also is a diversity issue. People think diversity has to do with just race and ethnicity or even gender, but truth be known, diversity has much deeper than that as you point out in terms of interest groups, friendship groups, and networks. Also, let me just throw another one out to you. Generations. You point that out with Ray. I’ve purposefully, I have partners and business partners in my various businesses that are in their 80s all the way down to 21 years old. I’ll tell you what, every generation there’s so much information that can come from all different groups. So just surround yourself with people who look just like yourself I think it was for anybody as I think is a gross error as a founder in any business.

Christina: Absolutely. For my current company, Databento, we hire I think five different generations by now. I keep forgetting, you know what is called Gen Z is now entering the workforce which is kind of scary to me. Yeah, so it’s happening. There’s another–

John: [crosstalk] now, Gen Z? Is Gen Z what it’s called?

Christina: Yeah. I think it’s 1997 and beyond or something. It just blows my mind that they’re coming into the workforce now. Yeah.

John: Let’s go back to Domeyard before we get to Databento because I really wanna go into your new venture. Domeyard, what was the mission when you guys set out? What was the absolute mission and purpose?

Christina: Yeah. So for us, to be honest, we just wanna find our place in the financial industry and find some strategies that worked and can hopefully beat the markets enough that we can take home enough salary and survive for a while. And there was no kind of bigger goal of saving the world or anything like that. I think actually that’s one of the reasons why I ended up leaving in the end was because that was one of the main reasons. But anyway, that was our initial goal. It was definitely really fun. One was, yeah, we weren’t making. We did high-frequency trading by the way. This is a super controversial industry. I still remember the pre-flash boys days before Michael Lewis’ flash boys came out, and then the post flash boys days. Everything completely changed by the way. In terms of just the people’s perception of what we were, who we were as moral human beings. Before flash boys came out, I was going to conferences. People are curious and asking questions about quantitative trading. I remember the week, then flash boys came out, and then the next week, I went to another conference and I was on stage with a panel of people and I remember someone raised their hand I think they worked at Bank of America or something. And they were like, I hate you. I hate everything, you’re doing. You’re ruining the financial industry. I’m like, dude, you work for Bank of America. We have the exact same boss, right? Because my investors are your investors. Literally, my job is I make these investors richer over time and a lot of them are billionaires and you do the exact same thing. We are a wealth management division.

It was really funny out that their perception– Even for Wall Street, they absolutely hated us. Even within Wall Street, not to mention outside of Wall Street, everyone absolutely didn’t like what we were doing. And I had to live with that but also had to learn how to, I guess, debunk. There’s a reason why HFTs, high-frequency trading has a bad reputation. So there’s some bad things about it, but there’s also some good things about it too. Just kind of making sure that we debunk a lot of the stereotypes about the industry. That’s what I spent a lot of, to be honest. Sometimes, just doing that kind of stuff. That’s why I started doing a lot more, I guess what I do like to speaking at conferences and things like that. I was trying to learn how to answer those questions better and learn about what people are concerned about and kind of going from there. If people want to go into finance, absolutely good for you. There’s nothing wrong with going into finance or consulting or anything like that. For me, my reasoning was I was in debt. I needed some way of paying it off and it worked. It’s a competitive job market. I didn’t get a return offer from other company. I struggled to get a full-time job.

In this kind of environment, yeah, if you can get whatever job you can get, good for you and go for it, right? And then, of course, once you’re in a position, like for me, it was once a decade later. I realized wait for a second, what am I doing here? I’ve achieved everything I wanted to do. And not to mention, there are a couple of other reasons. So yes, returns went down. That was one big factor. There’s no scalability in this industry, which also really sucked because we weren’t able to really grow as fast as I was hoping. There’s some reasons like that but also I was like, what am I doing? Do I want to spend the rest of my life in high-frequency trading and always like fielding all those questions and dealing with that? And I was like, to be honest, I don’t like it. I wanna make a difference in the world. So, yeah.

John: I wanna talk about that. Domeyard, when did you know in that journey with your other partners that you were onto something and this was gonna work? You had a business. It was gonna be successful enough to meet the goals that you guys set out and the mission you set out to do.

Christina: Yeah. To be honest, really slow. I wish we would be one of those startups were on day one, you launch and everyone just hops runs over to you and you realize, “Wow, this is it. I’ve struck gold,” right? And that’s it in my career. I know I have something good. To be honest, that’s not what happened. We struggled immensely. It took us three years to get to launch. We were first-time founders. I was very naive. I didn’t know what I was really doing at that time. I had to learn a lot of lessons the hard way like I mentioned in terms of all those principles going wrong in the end. Some of those principles led to lawsuits in the end or led to just really nasty situations like audits and just situations out. We just took up a lot of my time and it was very mentally draining.

We went through all those things, but I will say there were some tables turned moments. One that was kind of funny was during my internship I mention I didn’t get a return offer and the team and the boss’s boss, whatever, they all hated me. And it was about five, six years later maybe, we were just trading like normal, we had already launched and we get a phone call, and it was from the company I interned at, and they said, “Hey, we want to invest.” And I literally looked like I seem like that’s the name of the guy who laughed at my presentation. He was hoping him and [inaudible] a part of– What is it called? For the name of the team, but it’s like a team that allocates to hedge funds, basically. They’re hoping to invest in our fund and I was like, “Hmm, I guess the tables really did–” He didn’t know it was me, by the way, of course.

John: He didn’t know it was you.

Christina: He didn’t know I was his intern, no. But that was one of my tables turned moments where I realized we had made it.

John: Without giving names, did you take the money?

Christina: Oh, we didn’t.

John: Okay.

Christina: Yeah. I don’t know. Probably not good.

John: You’re over by then. So now, after those three years of the struggle and you lookin’ to make it. Now, with [inaudible] that it took off, and then it went to the move.

Christina: Yeah. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s always been kind of slow here and there but that was definitely one of the moments when I realized we belong here and it’s my turn now to reject the person who rejected me many years ago. Not that it’s a karma or anything like that, it’s just more of like, “Hey, this is weird. I never would have thought I would be the one saying no to my old boss’ boss.” It was just like such a weird situation that was happening.

John: How big did Domeyard get? And when did you realize I’ve made it, all the success, full founder, and I’m financially doing as well if not better than I ever thought I’d be doing? When did that sort of sink in?

Christina: I mean, we hired I think the most we had about 20 something people, and we were like we’re a critical mass, and then we were trading over 7 billion in a day dollars. Not Zimbabwe dollars, but US dollars. I think for me those moments of wow, we were trading literally so much and really moving and really making an impact I think out there. That, for me, was really great. But also, I think personally, what really made me happy was helping my parents retire. I’m not a billionaire. I wasn’t making that much money, but it was still enough to make a living, right? And to be well off enough that I don’t have to– I can pay off my debts, pay off my loans, help my parents pay off their loans, help my brother go to college. It’s just small things here and there, especially for me coming from a kind environment. I also grew up on food stamps and welfare. So coming from that environment and making it here today, I don’t need to become a billionaire to feel like a success, right? I made it and I was able to help my family in times of need, and I think that’s what really mattered for me. Just being able to help the people I love and go from there. So, yeah.

John: What year did you decide to tell your partners it’s time for you to move on and make a bigger impact than that this wasn’t the end all be all, it was a great run, how did that work?

Christina: Yeah, it actually started from a problem at my work. We were wasting a lot of money on data, millions of dollars on data-related stuff. We had dozens of different types of data vendors and exchanges. We go to different data sources, basically because data is like our lifeblood in finance, right? If you get bad data and you’re trading on bad data, then you’re gonna lose a lot of money. We were spending so much time and money just like cleaning up data, getting all this bad quality, paying all this money, and then we were using less than 5% of the data we actually purchased. I was really mad about this and complaining data sold by headcounts. It’s a very old-school industry. Every time we hired someone new, chances are they’d be like, “Christina, I need x, y, z data.” Sorry, can you talk hold these vendors and you’re not to figure out who had that data? And so finally, what was that happen? I would talk to some of our investors in the fund and some friends in the industry. And one of those friends was from Goldman Sachs, actually, where I previously interned but I would talk to them and be like, “How did you do your data? And how do you get your data?” The Goldman Sachs person is a manager there and they were like, “Oh, well, all of our analysts share one Bloomberg terminal. They have a little password on a sticky note and that’s our high-tech solution to the problem.” And I was like, “Oh, that’s illegal.” But they were like, “Yeah, well, the turnover at that level is you’ve seen this as 18 months. It’s 12 months, right? It’s super fast. What’s the point of buying all this data for them when they’re just gonna leave anyway?” And so then, I talked to the analysts, many of whom were my classmates in college. And I’m like, “How do you feel about this?” And they were like, “Oh, well, I’m leaving because I don’t have any data.” And that was just funny chicken and egg problem.

After a few months, they came to us and they were like, “Can you create a data solution for us, for the people at the bottom of these companies who don’t have a big budget, who need to get to work and just want to get work done, right?” And I was like, “That’s a good point.” I would have benefited as a small company. I really would have benefited from this as well. That was when I realized we should probably work on this and find a solution once and for all to this huge data problem out there. There’s been some startups that have tried here and there that have been unsuccessful for various reasons. We were like, “You know what? Let’s just go for it. We have the background. We’ve been working with data for many years now, so we know what to, we know how and what good quality data is, and we know how to slice and price it into smaller pieces so you only pay for what you actually use. And so, let’s just do that and give them an easy data platform self-service.” You don’t have to talk to a sales person, streamline everything so you just get the data in like five minutes on your own. And so, that’s what we did. We made a data platform for everyone else in the industry for startups, for financial analysts, and all kinds of other people. So it’s been a really fun journey.

John: And that’s how Databento was created. And who’s your co-founders with that company? Is it just you or you have other co-founders?

Christina: One of my co-founders from Domeyard join me as well. So yeah, we’ve been working on this together for some time now. [inaudible] 2019 sometimes, I don’t know if that’s a long time, but right before the pandemic was kind of when we decided to–

John: How’s this journey going. Now do a little compare and contrast this journey as a co-founder compared to the Domeyard co-founding journey.

Christina: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. I think the second time around, it is a lot easier, to be honest. And the number one reason is because you already have a startup playbook, right? Hopefully, by now. A playbook meaning you know which lawyer to go, you know which accountant to go to, you know how to hire, how to fire, you know how to compensate people properly, what titles to give people properly, right? And we learned that the hard way from the previous startup of not giving everyone the same title. There’s a difference between fairness and equality. Back then, we were all about equality, but that’s not the right way to go. You got to be fair, guys. And so, this time around, we’re a lot more fair to people. So, hiring-wise, we’ve learned a lot of big lessons on making sure we hire the right people and we’re not the right fit for everyone.

We make sure to tell people that during the interview process, and be very clear on that. I think it’s just lessons like that, how to fundraise as well. How to not waste your time with endless pitch meetings and stuff like that, and how to really drive a close and really close both in terms of deals, sales and stuff, but also on the fundraising side too. Lots of cool lessons learned, I guess. It is still hard, I will say. I still feel stress and pressure in a different way, but now that I’m in my 30s now, so it’s been on my 20s working on one startup and now in my 30s, working on this next startup. And so, I will say this time around as well, I have a lot more work-life balance in my life. I no longer will sacrifice, let’s say my weekends or my evenings, unless, of course, that still happens. I still sacrifice things, but not as bad as was in terms of in my 20s, I would sacrifice my health a lot of times for the sake of my company. But now, I’m aging and I can see my gray hairs, and I’m like, “It’s just not worth it anymore.” I’m just gonna live my life and spend my weekends with my family and people I love as much as I can. And then of course, as I’m needed, I still will be there but if I don’t need to be there, then I’m checked out. I’m done. So that was one thing I realize is heading boundaries is so important.

John: Boundaries is important. Boundaries is a key word that most people don’t even understand. For our listeners and viewers, we’ve got Christina Qi with us today. She’s just amazing. You could go to Christina Qi. How it spelled is christinaqi.com, and her company now that she’s the CEO of and the co-founders, Databento, databento.com. So you’re three years into it, of course, you were co-founding it during a pandemic, where are you now in the journey? Are you where you wanted it to be? Is it going better than you want it to go? What are the struggles that you’re finding? And where are you in the journey of Databento?

Christina: Yeah, so the pandemic was both a curse and a blessing in so many different ways. It’s been a blessing in that we realized, I think a lot of companies realize remote work is a possibility. Why do we need to have necessarily have a big office and pay all those rent when we can work from home and be just as productive and have a work-life balance? And also, we can hire people now from around the world because they can be based anywhere. I think that was one of the biggest things we learned from the pandemic that was really great for us. We’re right about to do a public launch actually so we’re still kind of in private data mode right now. Technically, if you do want data for some reason, you can sign up on our website, and then what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna be [inaudible] and people from the waitlist over time. And so, we’re still kind of in that process right now. But overall, I’ve been very, very happy this time around in terms of one is just talking to users and seeing people really need this product that this is such a– You know data’s expensive, and people are wasting a lot of money on it, and both big and small companies come to us, and they’re like, hey, we need this product. Not just because of pricing, by the way, but also because the quality is better or because we help them scale faster. Scale up and down without having to sign a new license or anything. So we make it a lot easier for teams to scale and grow with us.

John: And who’s your target clients for Databento?

Christina: To be honest, it’s anyone that starting a new data project. It can be large companies. I’d say right now about half of our signups are larger established companies like Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Google, Amazon, and then the other half are startups whose names you’ve never heard of before that are just starting up and that’s how it should be. We want more of those startups because we really help them in terms of we decrease the [inaudible] this year for them. So that way, in a month if they don’t use any data, they don’t have to pay us anything. It makes it so much easier for startups to get the data they need, to test the data if it doesn’t work, okay, they can cancel and they don’t pay anything. That makes it just so that buried entry, we just lowered it down to zero for a lot of those startups as well. So, yeah.

John: You really democratize data, is that where you–

Christina: Absolutely, yeah. It’s like a vending machine. Yeah, we call it a vending machine for data or data as a service. Just trying our best to make it affordable, but also the best quality that you’ve ever seen. It’s a shocker to a lot of startups like, wait, this is good quality and say, yeah, because we get it directly from the source which is the exchange that it’s being traded on. We clean it up ourselves. We do a lot of work and then make sure that it’s delivered to them in the best quality.

John: Given your massive success at Domeyard, how hard was it to raise capital to launch Databento?

Christina: It’s still was a struggle for sure. There’s a difference between the New York investors we had. Domeyard, we get a lot of Wall Street kind of investors and family offices and stuff. And then, over here at Databento, suddenly I’m talking to Silicon Valley investors for the first time. Many of whom I have never heard of or just whose names they would never heard of me. And so, that definitely was a little bit harder but the good news is we have such good investors. We got very lucky on day one with some really great seed investors who have just kind of helped us grow, have been supportive of us since then, and very patient with us as well as we go through the usual hurdles that startups go through. The delays and that kind of stuff as well, hiring issues, all those types of problems. And they’ve just been super supportive and just really on our side with all those different problems we’ve gone through. So, yeah.

John: We’ll go back to MIT. I’m not part of the circles but let’s talk about the alumni fraternity at Harvard, is it similar at MIT?

Christina: Oh, man. There’s a little bit of that sense of camaraderie a little bit in terms of wow, you went through this hell and I’m going through too. We all went through this. There’s a little bit of that. So sometimes when I see an alum, I remember like it was a Thanksgiving dinner in Spain one year, and I saw someone wearing the ring, we all have these rings that when you go to MIT, and I was like, “Hey,” and then we immediately just got along and this person used a lot older than me, probably like 40 years older than me. But we both just got along, and we’re like, “Oh, we went to the same–” If we had the same experience. There’s a little bit of that I definitely feel like. There’s that but at the same time, a lot of times you’re just kind of on your own, to be honest. MIT has a really good entrepreneurial ecosystem, of course, but it’s kind of you put into it as much as you get out just like with any school. And a lot of schools have really good programs too. I would just say as a founder, definitely take advantage of the programs that your university offers for alumni, which they do. And then, just kind of go from there. For now, I still use some of the resources that MIT has.

One of the examples is called venture mentoring service. They have just mentors and stuff like that that help me even to this day. But yeah, definitely love just staying in touch as much as I can.

John: Domeyard was headquarter’s at Boston, where’s Databento headquartered at?

Christina: Yeah. We’re like ten floors down from Domeyard in Boston. It’s actually ten floors down as WeWork. Domeyard had his own dedicated office, and then for Databento, my new company, we moved into a WeWork. It’s completely empty. I don’t think anyone really goes there on a daily basis. Some people might like to launch there, but everyone’s pretty much remote at this point.

John: So just in Boston as well?

Christina: Yeah. We have few folks in Boston, but everyone’s around the world. So we have in Australia, in Switzerland, and in China. So just kind of all over the place.

John: Yeah. You really had pick of whoever you wanted to hire, wherever they were, it didn’t matter anymore.

Christina: Yeah, absolutely.

John: So now, what’s next for you? I mean, what lessons– First of all, talk about the book. Why did you write a book? You have so many great lessons. You have such a clear voice and such clarity on the lessons you’ve learned. Talk about writing the book and why you’re on the fence of publishing it?

Christina: Yeah. During the pandemic, I definitely went through everyone kind of goes through their own period of self-reflection. It could be depression. It could be other things that you just kind of go through and it definitely was not feeling very motivated or happy, and I didn’t know where I wanted to live, what I wanted to do, all those different questions about life. And my friend was like, “Hey, I’m taking this book writing class, why don’t you check it out?” And I was like, “Okay, I will.” By the way, for anyone curious, it’s called the Creator Institute. And that’s literally if you Google it, you’ll find their website. So I signed up and it was a really great program and it forced me to sit down and write, by the way. And I think that was the most valuable thing is just the motivation to write a chapter a week. So I just wrote about these things. At first, starts out just with chapter by chapter, and in every chapter I wrote about a lesson that I thought was good and then turned out bad in the end. Slowly, it turned into a book and a manuscript. That was it.

And at this point, I think my biggest hesitation of publishing by the way is not just because I’m afraid of getting sued by the people I mentioned in the book. Even if I change names and locations, it’s pretty obvious sometimes the people I’m mentioning because we dealt with some pretty famous investors, lots of them were billionaires in the space, and they have the power and the money to destroy myself and my career. And I don’t really want that. I wanna live quietly by myself, working with friends in Utah, you know? That’s what I want to do. My editor was like, “You should probably make it fiction,” and I was like, “Oh, gosh,” that’s like rewriting an entire book. Now, that’s kind of where I’m stuck right now, getting the motivation to rewrite a nonfiction book into more of a fictional book, but we’ll see.

John: Wonderful. Let’s be honest, 31 today is much different than when I was 31, Christina. It’s really almost like 21, frankly speaking, and that’s only a compliment. So, you have a long life ahead of you and a long journey. What’s next for you? Databento, I have no doubt, you’re gonna make into a massive success. Well, what’s on your mind in terms of giving back and making an impact? Where do you see your strong expertise and qualities? Where do you want to spend your time making an impact and making the world a better place?

Christina: Yeah. In my previous company, I would actually spend quite a lot of time like one day a week, actually volunteering and giving back in various charities and organizations. One big one that I helped a lot with is called Invest In Girls, and they teach financial literacy concepts to high school girls around the country, basically. And the big reason why is because I was one of those girls where I didn’t know what finance was and girls are discouraged, you know? Usually, girls would rather talk about death than money. That’s what Sally Krawczyk says that women rather talk about death and other kind of scary concepts than money. So I just realize this is something that means a lot to me. I have been trying to encourage more women to not be afraid of not that they don’t have to enter finance but just more have control over your finances, right? Use it to empower you and not to discourage you, and just stuff like that, not being afraid to negotiate or ask for a raise, or just basic concepts, or know how to pay your taxes and what it means, stuff like that. We just feel like those concepts are so important in life that everyone should have in place. That’s one of the charities.

There’s a bunch of other ones too. There’s some helping immigrants or some helping– These are causes that I can see this was me back in the day. I really needed this. Why not just give back because I know what it’s like to be in that position. So it’s been really fun. I’ve really enjoyed contributing, not just donating money, pouring money into a solution, that’s just half the equation. The other half is really putting your time into it, investing your knowledge and your time. When I go into the high school classroom, and I will teach the students about basic finance because that will really mean a lot. And I think that’s what makes a difference is them seeing a real person who looks like them or who talks like them and be like, “Whoa, this is interesting.” And hopefully, they’ll wanna learn more. So, yeah.

John: You then now leveraging technology with these young girls given the Zoom and Teams and everything, is that able to be done that or is that all done in person with Invest in Girls?

Christina: Yeah. So, pre-pandemic, it would be almost all in person, I believe, and then now because the pandemic, there’s a lot more virtual events which has been nice because there’s a lot of students from schools in different regions, and some of the underserved communities are able to join without having to spend their time in a classroom necessarily. That’s been really nice to just have been able to reach more students around and around the globe, to be honest. That’s been really, really fun. I’m grateful for the pandemic for allowing that to happen because without it, we would still be kind of a lot more regional, a lot of in-person stuff. I like having a greater reach, yeah.

John: What would mom and dad say about all your success? Because obviously, you’ve done such a great job with you. How does someone stayed this humble who’s on the cover of Forbes Magazine and many other magazines? You’re a very unique human being. So what has mom and dad say when they talk about you?

Christina: I think the biggest thing they’ll always say is they care more that I’m a good person than how much money I make or anything like that. I’m grateful, by the way. I’m grateful that I’ve made enough money to learn that money doesn’t bring happiness, which is a kind of ironic, right? That’s everyone’s goals like make enough money so that you can learn that money doesn’t bring you happiness. At the same time, my parents, for them, as long as their kids turn out decent human beings who respect other people, or good to the world, and make a positive impact, I think that’s the number one thing that they care about. That’s just a number one lesson they’ve instilled in me, so I’ll continue to hopefully improve upon that, and be a good person in life and that’s what matters the most.

John: Besides your parents, which is so wonderful, who are your heroes now? Who do you look up to in terms of when you think about where you wanna be when you’re 40, when you’re 60, when you’re 75? Who are you looking to and who inspires you every day to get up and get to it?

Christina: Oh, man. To be honest, a lot of my friends. I have so many different friends who are in different walks of life, and I just am so grateful to get to have friends who have different career paths as well. One of my close friends works at Costco. He’s literally a truck driver at Costco. I have another friend who is an Uber driver and another friend who’s a full-time parent, and I think it’s just having friends who are so inspiring in their different ways. I think that’s what inspires me the most. I’m not a social climber. I don’t want to be one of those people that just gets to know billionaires and only friends with billionaires. I really don’t wanna be like that kind of person. I do have some friends who are, but again, I think my closest friends are the ones where we go to anime conventions together, dress up in crazy costumes, and continue to enjoy our lives like that, right? I think that means a lot to me. That’s how I’d rather spend my time. And so, yeah, these friends inspired me the most. They’re the ones who are making an honest living and are happy in their current situation. I think that’s very awesome because I wish that one day, maybe one day I’ll do that. Maybe one day, I’ll just quit and just chill at home. I don’t know. I really like chocolate. Maybe, I’ll start a chocolate company. Or just like volunteer. I don’t know. We’ll see. Maybe just attend these anime events and just continue enjoying life. For me, that’s what means a lot.

John: We have a lot of viewers and listeners around the world and a lot of them are really young and they want to go watch you and they wanna learn and they wanna also become an entrepreneur because especially now, so much of the world information as you pointed out as democratized and being an entrepreneur is sort of cool. A lot of people have made it very cool including you. What’s your advice to Alex’s generation and the next generation coming up that wanna follow and to be a founder, and to make not only being entrepreneurs but make the world a better place in the process?

Christina: Yeah. Well, the first thing I would actually say is you do not need to be a founder or CEO, or an entrepreneur, or any c-suite big fancy title in order to make a difference in the world, you can be literally– I have friends who are, again, like unemployed or they’re full-time parents or they’re Uber drivers and they’re already doing a lot for society, for the world. We have a lot of fun together and enjoy our lives. Even though we have different paths and career-wise, we still get along extremely well. I think that’s incredible. I love that. Just one thing I did want to mention, but if you do choose to become an entrepreneur, if you do one day say, “Hey, maybe I wanna start a company one of these days,” right? Because that is they say the American dream, right? It is the American dream and it is true that America is a wonderful place and anywhere, by the way, around the world, but especially in America. I’m biased for saying this, but I feel like because as a woman of color, right? I would not in another country, it would have been a lot harder for me to be able to start a company in certain places. So I’m grateful in America that I didn’t face as many of those hurdles as women do in a lot of other countries. And so, anyways, just mentioning that. But if you do want to start a company, my biggest advice would be to normalize rejection because rejection is a daily part of my life and in everyone’s entrepreneur’s life. I continue to be rejected every single day to this day. If you’re not being rejected, you’re not doing enough. You’re not putting yourself out there as an entrepreneur.

John: Great advice.

Christina: Rejected by everyone. Job candidates don’t wanna work for you. Why would I want to work for a random data company, right? Or investors, why would I want to invest in this random data company? You get rejected by a lot of opportunity you apply for. Maybe you’re pitching to a media or marketing people or whoever. Yeah, they’re all gonna reject you, like this is not marketable. Lawyers reject us. They’re like, “Oh, we don’t wanna work with data company.” It happens all the time and it’s a normal thing, and you have to be able to put it in a pile of mountain of rejections for me by now, it’s a huge mountain and just move on and just continue going from there. That’s how you move on. Just go on with life and continue getting those rejections and after a hundred no’s, you get one yes. And that one yes makes a difference in your life and changes the trajectory of your career, and that’s what happened to me. That was just one thing I just mentioned. I remember in college, when I received my first– In internship, I applied to my freshman year and they rejected me. That hurt so bad. I remember I tried so hard to apply an internship and they didn’t want me. I got rejected and I just felt so bad. But now I’m like, “Oh,” I’m like literally million rejections later. Now, it gets a little better every time. It still stings sometimes. It still hurts because you put a lot of effort into a pitch competition., and then you lost, of course, it’s still gonna hurt because you’re human, right? But you learn to move on a lot faster. You have coping mechanisms and ways to realize, “Oh, this isn’t too bad. It’s not really gonna affect my life. Let’s just move on.” So that is my biggest lesson I’ve learned. I used to be very sensitive, I guess. Now, I’m like, “Oh,” no is like an everyday thing, and yes is like the anomaly and that’s okay.

John: Normalizing no is a great way to be. You’re so right and you’re not trying hard enough like you said, unless you get no’s all the time. I love it. You are brilliant and I’m a huge fan. I’m sure now so many of my viewers and listeners’ a huge fan. She’s Christina Qi. You can find her at christinaqi.com. Or at a new company, databento.com. Christina Qi, thank you so much for being with us today. You are just truly amazing. I know you’re gonna change the world and make it a better place more than you already have. You’ve got a long life in front of you and so many other things to do. Thank you for joining us today on the Impact podcast, and you’re always welcome back here.

Christina: Thank you, John. It’s such an honor to be here.

John: This edition of the Impact podcast is brought to you by Engage. Engage is a digital booking platform revolutionizing 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, livestreams, and much more. For more information on Engage or to book Talent today, visit letsengage.com.

John Shegerian: Welcome to another edition of Green Is Good. This is the Green Sports Alliance Edition of Green Is Good in beautiful downtown Chicago, and we’re so honored to have with us today, Becky Dale and John Marler. Becky is the Manager of Environmental Sustainability Programs at AEG Worldwide and John is the Senior Director of Energy and Environment at AEG Worldwide. Welcome to Green Is Good.

Becky Dale: Thanks.

John Marler: Thanks for having us.

John Shegerian: Well, this is an exciting day. Today, we’re going to be talking about – of course – AEG Worldwide, but also what you are doing here at the GSA annual event. But before we do that, John and Becky – Becky, can you share a little bit about your background, and then I want to hear a little bit about John’s before we get into AEG actually.

Becky Dale: Sure. So my academic background is focused in public policy analysis, specifically focused on environmental policy. I started my career at Southern California Edison – the local electric utility in southern California – working on mostly regulatory issues related to climate change and renewable energy in California. From there, I worked in consulting for a few years and then reunited with my old colleague – John – working at AEG.

John Shegerian: Got you. And John, what does your journey look like?

John Marler: I’ve always been interested in environmental issues and planet Earth. I was a geology major in college. I got my Master’s in Hydrogeology, so that led me to environmental consulting, which led to law school and practicing as a litigator for a few years. Then in 2009 I switched over to the energy side working at Southern California Edison – which is where I met Becky – and then saw the position open at AEG for a sustainability director and went for it.

John Shegerian: For our listeners and viewers out there that want to learn more about AEG they can go to www.AEGWorldwide.com.

John Marler: That’s right.

John Shegerian: So let’s talk a little bit about AEG’s sustainability program AEG 1Earth. Can you both share a little bit about that?

John Marler: Sure.

Becky Dale: Sure. So the program was launched back in 2007 in response to a pretty simple question from our CEO, which was, “What do we need to do to go green?” So, John and I have full-time jobs answering that question, which is a little bit more complicated than that.

John Shegerian: Yeah. And for our listeners out there, explain what AEG does for a living. What do you guys do?

John Marler: OK. We are the leading sports entertainment presenter in the world. We own and operate sports entertainment venues worldwide, from Stockholm to Sydney, Australia. Then, we also have sports teams that we own shares in – anything from Swedish soccer teams to the L.A. Kings hockey team, the L.A. Galaxy MLS team.

John Shegerian: Wow.

John Marler: Then, also, an AEG Live division where we produce musical events, festivals like Coachella and Stagecoach here in California.

John Shegerian: Wow. So then how does AEG’s business goals intersect with sustainability, and how does that make a great business case in terms of, obviously, the old days, where people used to push back and say, “Being greener costs more money”? Now, there is actually an ROI. Can you explain how you intersect that at AEG?

Becky Dale: We do a lot of different things, but most of them happen in large buildings that we run and so we can make a pretty compelling case around energy efficiency, increasingly renewable energy onsite, diverting waste to recycling instead of landfill as tipping fees go up, so a lot of it really comes down to operational excellence for us, and that’s something that our operators agree with because they want to be great at their jobs. Then, our finance people like it as well, because, ultimately, we’re saving on utility bills.

John Shegerian: Wow. And then interrelate that back with AEG’s mission to AEG 1Earth. What does “1Earth” actually mean at AEG?

John Marler: So it’s all about driving business value through sustainability. Becky mentioned operational excellence. In our view having a very low if non-existent environmental footprint is part of being a good operator. And as you mentioned, now that some of these technologies and practices have started to prove themselves financially, it makes it easier to make a business case for it. But one of the things that we also haven’t touched on is kind of the value. We do this because we think it’s the right thing to do. We are very sensitive to our standing and our responsibility in the communities we operate.

John Shegerian: Right.

John Marler: And reducing your environmental footprint, reducing your demand on those resources is just part of being a good community partner.

John Shegerian: Got you. And how do you message all the great work you’re doing to your community base and to your clients that come to your venues?

Becky Dale: It’s an interesting question. So at the corporate level we do have the AEG 1Earth program and we put out an annual sustainability report for our stakeholders – our next one is actually coming out this July – and so that really summarizes what is our annual performance. We report against 2020 goals that we have in the areas of greenhouse gas emissions, water reduction, waste diversion, responsible purchasing and education and communication for our fans. So for anyone who is really interested, the sustainability report is a great resource.

John Shegerian: OK.

Becky Dale: That said, not everyone is going to read the report, so we also try to reach people through social media, in the venues – really, any way we can to get little tidbits of the message out.

John Shegerian: So, when I walk through – for instance – Staples Arena, what would I see there? Is there messaging literally in terms of posters or things more quietly done? What is the messaging in an arena actually?

John Marler: So inside the arena, it’s going to be relatively subtle.

John Shegerian: OK.

John Marler: We want to have well-marked receptacles for waste and recycling.

John Shegerian: Got you.

John Marler: You’ll see some stickers in the restrooms to show that we use environmentally preferable products.

John Shegerian: Right.

John Marler: Paper products and soaps and things like that. The other place you’ll see it is on the venue website.

John Shegerian: Got you.

John Marler: Where we have – Staples Center, for instance, is ISO 14001-certified.

John Shegerian: Wow.

John Marler: So its environmental management system has met that international spec. All that information is on their website, including links to our program and some of their sustainability accomplishments. But the challenging thing with sustainability is a lot of what we do is not going to be readily apparent.

John Shegerian: Right.

John Marler: Energy efficiency. We have 346 kilowatts of solar panels on the roof of the Staples Center.

John Shegerian: Wow.

John Marler: But unless you get the blimp shot, you’re not going to know that’s there.

John Shegerian: That’s right.

John Marler: And so another thing that we do in addition to social media websites and the sustainability report are annual activations. So for Earth Day, Earth Hour and America Recycles Day, we have events worldwide and countrywide to celebrate those and kind of raise awareness in a little bit more tangible way for the fans.

John Shegerian: That’s interesting. So you mentioned energy management. That is obviously big to what you do because you manage so many venues and so many events. What do you do for energy management? How does that look since you’re a worldwide global brand? How does that go?

John Marler: It’s a three-step process and we’re pretty regimented about it. The first thing is to kind of look at the building culture, which what we found is our operators already have great energy efficiency culture. In other words – in our industry, it’s called a “dark day.” When we don’t have an event, the lights, the HVAC, any nonessential electrical equipment is going to be powered down.

John Shegerian: Right.

John Marler: It saves money and it reduces our environmental footprint. Obviously, when we’ve got things going on, our consumption goes up, but through trial and error, they’ve understood how to minimize the usage of energy. So where we can we engage with them on the cultural and behavioral aspects – making sure lights are turned off, that temperature set points are set at appropriate levels or just turned off altogether. The next step is really looking at the infrastructure in the building and finding out are there retrofits that we can make that are going to save energy and save money. So, right now, the big deal is LED lights. The technology has really proven itself, and a lot of the times the payback on those is going to be under three, sometimes under two years, so you’re kind of silly not to do that. Then, when the venue has kind of gotten to the point where their behavior is good, they’ve kind of retrofitted all that they can do from an energy efficiency point of view, we start looking at onsite generation – solar panels, fuel cells, in some cases, wind turbines. We’re also looking into energy storage, which seems to have a lot of promise for the way we run our buildings.

John Shegerian: That’s so interesting. And then data is so important. What you can measure you can manage. How does that go? How do you asses data, gather data – Becky – and manage that data and then, eventually, use it to make your business case?

Becky Dale: Sure. So data collection is a huge part of our day-to-day job. We have an analyst who is basically full-time staff to collect data from our venues worldwide. We work with our partner, Schneider Electric, to use their resource advisor platform through which we can on the web gather data globally. So we have a utility bill management service for a lot of our venues that automatically uploads all of their utility data. We collect waste data that is manually entered by all of our venues. So we are collecting a lot of data – up to 80 individual data points per month per venue – so given that we’re doing that for 70 plus sites, we’re working with a lot of data and we look at that in the aggregate to see how we’re doing as a company, but also we leverage that when we’re looking at specific projects at the venues.

John Shegerian: Got you. If you’ve just joined us, we’ve got Becky Dale and John Marler from AEG, and you can find them at www.AEGWorldwide.com. We’re talking about AEG Worldwide and all the stuff they’re doing with regards to sustainability and making their business case, and we’re here at the Green Sports Alliance, and if you want to find the Green Sports Alliance, you can go to www.GreenSportsAlliance.org. So share a little bit about what you’re doing here today before we talk more about AEG, which we’re going to get into some more questions. We’re here at the GSA annual event. Both of you are speakers. Can you each explain what you’re speaking about here at the GSA?

Becky Dale: Sure. So I’m speaking on two panels. The first this afternoon about how do we engage fans in sustainability, and I’ll be talking a bit about some of how the sports teams that we own; how they’re engaging their fans through a variety of means around recycling, transportation, cleaning up their local communities, a number of different issues. Then, tomorrow, I’ll be speaking about some of our water recycling efforts at a few facilities.

John Shegerian: Great. And John?

John Marler: So, this morning, I was in a session about sustainable development and how sports entertainment venues can kind of be the catalyst for urban revitalization and furtherance of sustainability practices.

John Shegerian: Right.

John Marler: So I was really drawing from our company’s experience with the L.A. Live entertainment district and the Staples Center. Then, we also have projects in London at the O2 complex on the Greenwich Peninsula, in Berlin with the Mercedes-Benz arena and the new entertainment district ruling there, and then also in Las Vegas – we’re partnered with MGM to build a new Las Vegas arena, and then MGM is also going to be putting a new entertainment district adjacent to that site as well.

John Shegerian: Wow. So these are all projects that have really kind of helped us introduce the concept not only of sustainable construction but of how these types of projects can have synergistic impacts on the communities where they’re placed.

John Shegerian: That’s so interesting. If I were to ask both of you to name some – first of all how many people work for – I mean, you’re managing worldwide, all these events, all these venues across the globe. How big is your division?

Becky Dale: Well, the company overall between full- and part-time employees, it’s about 30,000 people worldwide.

John Shegerian: But in sustainability and what you’re doing?

John Marler: So our team of three is located in the corporate office, but our CEO has signed off on our environmental policy, which binds all of our employees to our environmental programs. Then, we also rely very heavily on our operators, our finance and accounting teams, our temporary workers to sort of understand what we’re trying to do and then to make things happen. Oftentimes, actually, a lot of our operators are very passionate about environmental sustainability themselves and a lot of our role is really just collecting the good stories and the outstanding work that they’re doing at the venues and sharing it to the public and to other venues so they can learn from those examples.

John Shegerian: Speak of a couple of our favorite stories.

Becky Dale: Probably one of my favorite ones that I’m going to speak about on my panel tomorrow is Citizens Business Bank Arena – a smaller arena located out in Ontario, California, outside of Los Angeles. Through the pure ingenuity of their engineers, they had been using reclaimed water for irrigation for several years, which is a pretty, not an uncommon practice in southern California.

John Shegerian: Yeah.

Becky Dale: But they decided to take it a step further. So they first moved to supplying their cooling towers with reclaimed water, working with the city who owns the building, obviously AEG, the local health department, a number of different people involved in getting that process enacted. Then, from there, the next year, they started using recycled water for hockey ice and became the first hockey arena in the country to do that.

John Shegerian: That’s awesome.

Becky Dale: So I love to see it when people come up with these truly groundbreaking ideas. And John and I had nothing to do with it, so what makes AEG a sustainable company is not us sitting in the corporate office – although, I like to think we help – but it’s these engineers on the ground who are coming up with great ideas.

John Shegerian: But explain something like that. Now, you hear a great diamond of an idea. Are you then able to take that and socialize it across your other venues?

Becky Dale: Absolutely.

John Shegerian: Oh, that’s cool. That’s really cool.

John Marler: It’s relatively larger-scale projects like that, but I also think there are a lot of really fun, smaller-scale projects that may not have so much of an impact on the footprint but kind of really attach themselves in the consciousness. My favorite examples are we have a venue in Australia that posted a food map on their website, which basically shows where all the food and produce that is served in the convention center is located in the region. The convention center attendees love it. The public loves it, because it’s really supporting local agriculture and it really kind of gets at the heart of what we’re trying to do. Another fun example is the Hawaii Convention Center. Most big properties like that are going to have gasoline, diesel or electric golf carts for the service employees. Well, there they have three-wheeled bicycles, so the electricians, the plumbers, the maintenance staff have their own three-wheeled bicycle. They don’t have to use electricity or fossil fuels to get around. It’s quiet. It’s good for their health. Then, they are also allowed to personalize it so they put stickers and decorations and stuff on it, so when you go in the back of house area you see these three-wheeled bicycles. And it’s stuff like that that I think just really shows the only limit to being successful is your creativity and ingenuity and sort of dreaming up these projects.

John Shegerian: That is true. Talk a little bit about the future. Sustainability is a journey. What is next for AEG Worldwide, sustainability and the continued growth and success of your business model?

John Marler: There are a couple of things. From kind of a corporate programmatic level, Becky and I are going to be shifting with the team to recalibrate our company’s environmental sustainability goals. So, right now, we track our progress and our sustainability report to our 2020 environmental goals, which we set in 2010, when we had – I think – 20 some odd facilities.

John Shegerian: Wow.

John Marler: But we now have over 76, and the number of those properties and the diversity of the properties is changing, so we have really realized that we need to recalibrate our goals to better capture how individual businesses operate and also to help drive us to strong performance over the long haul. I think, kind of getting into the operational aspects, it’s going to be on the energy side – and I’ll let Becky speak to the sustainability side – it’s going to be things like LED lamps. Those are really exciting. They’re going to save a lot of energy. We’ve already seen at the venues that have done LED retrofits that they have documented savings. I’m very excited that solar seems to be an emerging option as the cost of solar goes down and utility prices go up. Then, we’re also very excited about energy storage technologies, as I said earlier. The way these buildings use energy is very unique in that we’re kind of dark for a lot of the year, but when we have events we use a lot of electricity, which is actually a really expensive way to use electricity.

John Shegerian: Right.

John Marler: And if you can have a way of buying cheap energy during the week and then discharging the batteries during the event to save on your peak demand, you can enhance your environmental performance and you can save money. So we’re really looking at all these three things on the energy side. And, Becky, I don’t know.

Becky Dale: I mean, there are so many things we can talk about, but I’ll pick one, which is waste. Obviously, sports venues generate a significant amount of waste, and we continue to see breakthroughs in venues going close to zero waste through use of new compostable packaging and partnering with our haulers and, potentially, outside sponsors to kind of bring all those components together. So that is something we’re looking at very closely. And, increasingly, for years, we’ve been applying the business case to energy efficiency, because it’s pretty obvious. With waste, that’s something that we’re coming on to more and more, so we’re tracking our waste costs, we’re monitoring the fact that landfill tipping fees are going up, and we’re trying to start to make the business case more that recycling and composting is not just the right thing to do; it’s also the smart thing to do for your business.

John Shegerian: Speak a little bit about GSA and AEG. How long has that partnership been in place?

John Marler: So if memory serves, I think we joined in 2011 as a founding partner.

John Shegerian: Wow.

John Marler: And right now I think we’re up to 51 members between our sports teams and our sports venues worldwide.

John Shegerian: Wow.

John Marler: And it’s been a really good partnership. We’re speaking, but we also come here to learn. We get to see what other venues worldwide are doing in these areas that we care about, and I always come away with a lot of good tips, a lot of good exchanges with vendors and our peers.

John Shegerian: Sure.

John Marler: So it’s a great event. I’m really happy to be here.

John Shegerian: When you said you were going to create new benchmarks to transcend the 2020 benchmarks you have, what year are you choosing? Is it 2025 now?

John Marler: I think we’re going to stick with 2020.

John Shegerian: OK. Got you. Just a recalibration.

John Marler: It’s still five years away, and the thinking right now is if we start January 1, 2016, to December 31, 2020, that is five years.

John Shegerian: That’s great.

John Marler: It’s a good round number. It’s a good tangible that we can focus on and drive performance, and I really feel personally – at least on the energy side – that the technology and the economics are going to really help us make some pretty marked improvements in those areas. Water is a challenge because the price of water is artificially low, which makes it hard to do capital projects. Then, waste and recycling, I think, is just an ongoing challenge for us and lot of these other venues. I hope that as a society, as an economy we’ll be able to make some progress in that area, but it’s going to be tough.

John Shegerian: It’s tough because commodity prices are low, so it makes it a little bit more difficult.

John Marler: Right. Which was not the case just a few years ago.

John Shegerian: Right. You’re right. Exactly true.

Becky Dale: Yeah. And we also operate across such a wide geography that what works in L.A. or Humbert may not work in Kansas City.

John Shegerian: That’s very true.

Becky Dale: So we are very attuned to the local environment. But as much as I would like to have a regulatory encyclopedia in my head, I don’t, so we kind of have to go from place to place and take the best practices that we developed as a company but always personalize those to the local environment.

John Shegerian: Got you. Well, thank you both for joining us today. And for our listeners and viewers out there, to learn more about all the great work that Becky Dale and John Marler are doing at AEG Worldwide, please go to www.AEGWorldwide.com. This has been the Green Sports Alliance edition of Green Is Good. To learn more about the Green Sports Alliance, go to www.GreenSportsAlliance.org. John Marler and Becky Dale, you’re both making the world a better place and are both truly living proof that Green Is Good. Thank you both so very much.

Becky Dale: Thank you.

John Marler: You’re welcome. Thank you.

John Shegerian: Thank you.

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’s 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 today because we have with us today, Shamilka Samarasinha, she’s the global head of Corporate Social Responsibility at EPAM. You could find EPAM in epam.com. Welcome, Shamilka to the Impact podcast.

Shamilka Samarasinha: Thank you very much. Thank you for inviting me. It’s a pleasure to be here.

John: It’s a pleasure to have you, and you’re doing so many great things at EPAM. But before we get talking about EPAM and everything you’re doing there in both ESG and corporate responsibility, can we talk a little bit about Shamilka and your journey? Where did you grow up? How did you even get here? How did that journey go getting to where you are at EPAM today?

Shamilka: It’s quite a long journey.

John: It’s okay.

Shamilka: But I will try to give you a quick condensed version. Quick, fast condensed version.

John: Okay.

Shamilka: I’m a Sri Lankan. I grew up in Sri Lanka. I left my shoes when I was 18 years. I came to the U.S. to go to undergraduate school, at Liberal Arts College, Upstate, New York, Hobart and William Smith Colleges. I spent 4 years here, and then after that, I went home back to Sri Lanka spent a year there working. Then I went to the UK, and did my masters at Leeds University.

John: Wow!

Shamilka: Then I went back home after that, and I worked. I started my journey actually, in an apparel company. I used to be in marketing. I still look after the Marks & Spencer account for this apparel company. Then a few years into that job, I met my current partner. Then he was with the UN, and then within a year, we left Sri Lanka and moved to Bangkok where I just then worked with Tesco’s International. I was helping source like products for the buying teams in the UK out of Thailand and Vietnam. So, I was like the sourcing manager, country sourcing manager. Then we live there for 4-5 years, and then we move to Sri Lanka because the tsunami happened.

So, then I went back to Sri Lanka, and then I joined my company that I had joined before, the apparel company. I became a consultant, but it was after the tsunami. That is really where my social impact work started because after the tsunami, I went to the founder of that company and I said, it’s called Brandix Apparel I said, “I think you need to really think about social responsibility, corporate social responsibility. Let me set this up for you.” Then I basically set up their entire corporate social responsibility program.

John: Wow! Where was that from? Were informed from your childhood, or were you informed from your master’s degree? Where did you get interested in corporate response, social responsibility issues?

Shamilka: So, I think it was really in my college days here because I did economics, and then I designed a second major by myself. It was called development studies. So, I did a lot of development economics, and I just kind of centered all the courses I added into designing that around politics and socio-economic issues, women’s empowerment, all that. I put it all together and basically, designed the second major for myself, which was approved. Yeah.

John: Wow! So now, when did you join me EPAM Systems?

Shamilka: So, I joined EPAM in 2015, yeah, 2015. I was like getting my years exact.

John: Right.

Shamilka: Yep, I joined in February 2015 because I was living in Belarus then.

John: Wow!

Shamilka: Yes.

John: Wow!.

Shamilka: So, because my husband’s in the UN, we were moving around quite a bit. So, we were posted to Belarus, and then I just so happened to be called because I think someone at EPAM was told that I had a social responsibility background. So, then I was basically, I had an interview set up and I met several people. Six months later, I was hired to set up the social responsibility at EPAM.

John: So, you became the global head of corporate social responsibility at EPAM, had they had someone before that, or this was starting from absolute scratch?

Shamilka: It was starting from absolute scratch.

John: Wow! Okay. So, talk about that. Like, when you came in there, did they welcome you with open arms, or was this going to have to be an evolution where they were going to have to learn that this is going to be part of their future and their culture?

Shamilka: I think they were curious at that point. But I mean it was still like as a company, they did a lot of amazing things. When I joined, it wasn’t like they were was nothing going on.

John: Right.

Shamilka: But they didn’t even know that they were doing these incredible stuff.

John: Got it.

Shamilka: So, once I joined, definitely, there was very, very clear social responsibility programs in place, but they didn’t realize it was CSR.

John: Got it. So, for our listeners, tell them a little bit about what is EPAM’s business anyway so, that way our listeners understand what EPM does?

Shamilka: So, EPAM is a software engineering consulting company, global. We are located in 40, I think 47 plus countries.

John: Okay.

Shamilka: We have about 60,000 plus people.

John: Wow!

Shamilka: Yeah. So, it’s a huge number of people, and they are spread right across the globe. We have this incredible knowledge that sits with us that support many, many verticals. You name it, we are in it. are in it. We work with the brightest of minds, but also sharing the brightest of minds with the Tier 1 companies of the world.

John: Wow! So, it looks like your timing couldn’t be more perfect because back in 2000, 2005, 2008, no one really was talking about sustainability, ESG circular economy. But now, that seems to be one of the greatest trends generational shifts ever in the history of the planet in terms of people now have recognized that the scientists were right, climate change is happening. But also, this whole issue of ESG takes us way beyond CSR, where now, we really are interested in governance, social, not only just the environment. Can you share a little bit about the evolution of CSR to ESG, and what does ESG mean today in 2022?

Shamilka: Yeah. So, let me just go back here. So, social responsibility was more like we just kind of we were pretty focused on particular initiative. Say, it was just we would identify, I mean, if I take my own journey, we kind of identify three pillars. That was the education, environment and community. We said, whatever social impact initiatives we get into, that we would fit it within those pillars. Like, they had to be identified across those three pillars because the needs are endless, right? In every situation, every country, there’s so many needs. But for our own narrative and for our own understanding on how we can support an impact and impact for good, we had to kind of create those pillars so that people who are in our community, our E partners kind of also felt like they could resonate with what we were trying to do. Because education definitely because the knowledge-based we own environment because we kind of utilize a lot of energy as an industry. That’s where I impact this. Of course, communities, all the communities we’re weighing, we wanted to kind of be part of that, and support.

But I guess, in the last couple of years, this shift has changed because this area now sits under the S, as a total. So, that’s where the difference is, and environment has taken a whole new meaning, because obviously, it’s all about the metrics in all these three areas, E and the S, and the G, but on the E stuff, it’s very clear what the environment goals are. What the commitments are? What we should be working towards is very clear. It’s very defined. So, that’s where the shift was because a couple of years ago when we said we were doing environment, it was more like awareness. Engaging our community to implant trees, clean rivers. Of course, we were doing the basics like helping to reduce like say, we would switch the light bulbs in our offices. We had recycling in all our officers in place. But it was a little different to where we are today because the E component is definitely defined through the scopes as identifying which scopes we are impact like, where our emissions lie?

So, the scope, one scope to scope three, and understanding it. Then of course there is like how do we work towards achieving the science-based targets? Like signing on it, achieving it with the next 10 years. So, that has been our journey in that E space. E space is very developed I feel for any way our sector because that’s where a lot of people have been in. But the metrics is not as advanced like the E space because [crosstalk]

John: Explain what you mean. Explain what you mean there?

Shamilka: Because I think emissions today, even though we started this really looking at our E space, environment space about 20 months ago…

John: Right.

Shamilka: …we today, have a platform, and we know in real time what emissions are for scope one, scope two, scope three. So, the metrics, the actual data is there.

John: Makes sense. Got it.

Shamilka: But in terms of the social impact, there is no clear guidance on how you measure. So, the measurement is still vague. So, yes, we know what our impacts are. We know how many touch points are, how many lives we are impacting. But what we consider data for ourselves or saying it, may be different to how someone in another sector or another industry sees in the social space. There is no clear definition on the metrics for the social, I think, the social impact.

John: So, it’s part of the fun and the mountain for you to climb but also the enjoyment in the creative side is for you to create data points and algorithms that matter to you and your anti-EPAM for the social or, who do you and what do you look to, to inform you to lead in this sector?

Shamilka: So, I think for us, we definitely have kind of focused on the E space because that is the easiest one.

John: Okay.

Shamilka: But the E space is also, we have like for instance, if you take education, we know how many countries we’re in. We know our programs. How many children we are impacting? How many girls we are impacting like in terms of our coding program? So, given a number, we would know, okay, 40% of E kids program, we have girls in that program. So, we are following that, but I think what we use with the data we own is still we don’t have a place to really share it other than our website and maybe in situations like this.

John: Right.

Shamilka: But there is no… even in all the rating agency, or any reporting we do, whether it is EcoVadis, CDP, it’s much more focused on the environment governance. May be also supply chain, but nothing really in the social space. Like they’re are not really giving the data.

John: Got it. Talk about governance. Talk about how from 2015 to 2022 in the 7 years you’ve been there, talk about that evolution. Where did you find it, and where are you now on that journey of governance?

Shamilka: So, the governance for me, I’ve seen is like we have a very established code of conduct that is accessible and it’s a part of our adaptation process. So, in that, it pretty much covers everything. That was not there when I joined into, and that doesn’t sit with me. It sits with, obviously, our governance team, and they manage that. Also, just the general like anti-corruption, human rights policies, all these fall under diverse and inclusion policy, supply chain policy. So, all that sits under the governance space, but it’s managed by some people. But every day we are again, evolving there, but I think that EPAM, given that we’re a public company, they are very much established in that space. Like I feel there’s the least amount to do in the governance space…

John: Really?

Shamilka: …out of all the three. Yeah.

John: Really? That’s so interesting. So, really your sweet spot and what you enjoy the most at this point and what’s the most relevant to EPAM is the E’s part of it. The environmental part of it.

Shamilka: I think that’s the journey we are heading because others were more established. That’s where we really started because when I think being a software engineering company, unlike a manufacturing company, the focus on me was, and of course, the demands and the expectations were less from the E space because we were not polluters of water, or we are not utilizing water to manufacture clothing. Like in apparel, there’s a lot of usage of water, replenishment of water. So, for this industry, I think the reason why everyone started late is because that focus was never put on us. Like, that expectation was never there.

John: Right.

Shamilka: So, it is a very interesting space to be in, and also, I think it’s a very doable space. We can make those changes, and we can achieve what’s being asked of us for the next 10 years. I think with a lot of focus and support and all that, we can get there with the science-based targets.

John: Shamilka, so, you now have, what did you say, 60,000 employees around?

Shamilka: Yeah. It’s about, I think we have about 58,000 right now, plus.

John: 58,000 and how many countries do you covered? Because then, I’m going to ask a question about that.

Shamilka: It’s about 40 plus countries.

John: Okay. So now, you yourself are a fascinating human being. You’re a global citizen. You were born in Sri, Lanka, educated in America, have lived all over, Bangkok and Belarus. Now, in Fiji. So, you’re very comfortable in your own skin, and you’re obviously, you and your partner are global citizens. Talk about the challenges but also the opportunities of bringing a vibrant and relevant ESG program to a company that’s a worldwide company in 40 countries with 60,000 or 58,000 employees, how do you integrate your goals? Because every culture in every country is so different and the people in these countries are also so different. So, how do you get buy-in, and also success as a corporation and as a leader with so many different diverse people, and diverse cultures and countries that you’re working with?

Shamilka: That’s why I said, the pillars are so fundamental.

John: Okay.

Shamilka: Because I think for any company, first of all, you have to understand, like, I think identify what your asset base is, because you are in a space that for instance, if you are, like, for us, we identified our asset as our knowledge-base, right? Then also, kind of trying to take that and then use that to impact for good. I think it’s the first step. It is kind of overwhelming when you think of numbers, but I think it’s better not to think of it in that form, or I don’t know.

John: Right.

Shamilka: I would rather just focus on just looking at it in terms of like okay, we have this assets because at the end of the day we have to give back. It’s not just about writing a check.

John: Right.

Shamilka: Stakeholder engagement is absolutely a key for any successful responsibility program. Your employee engagement is one of those stakeholder engagement, that’s the key. So, to get everybody engaged, I think they have to identify with the programs you launch to get their support and buy-in. I’ll just give you a little example, our E-Kids program.

John: Okay.

Shamilka: We launched it in 2015 when we joined because we had a very, very established university program that was running at EPAM. It was across 4 countries and we were partnering about 30 universities across the 4 countries. But in each of these universities, we had labs and we were working with more than 50 university students. But this, was started way before I joined, and what was happening was, we were upskilling these young people. We were upskilling the professors in these universities. Then 50% of those people were actually being employed by us. So, it was a very sustainable program. But then the balance 50 also, the rest of the industry could — I mean they joined the program with not having any… like there was nothing saying that they had to join EPAM. But the they joined the program because they wanted to upskill themselves. So, invariably, they got hired. They got jobs, and the balance 50 had access to go to any other industry.

When I joined this, we felt that because we had already this education program going, we didn’t have a kids’ program to complement it. So, that’s where we started. We launched the Children’s Program because we thought, “Okay, coding is becoming very popular, and how many schools and children have these programs?” There were very few schools, so we launched. But what we did was, we got our people to volunteer to teach the children to code. So, we started off with 20 students, 12 volunteers in Belarus Minsk at that time. Today this program, it’s spread to 27 countries. We’ve got thousands of children, and we have so many courses in our learning platform. But I think once people start feeling and we always started it in a country with our own people. Then we extend it to the external community.

So, when people start feeling that they’re sharing something and there’s value and there’s kind of they can see what the impact is, they invariably enjoy being part of it. So, most of our CSR team is volunteer-based across countries. We have thousands of volunteers who come on board to share their knowledge or anything. But I think starting from something that you really resonate with, helps to get the engagement. I mean, and I think invariably now global companies, the cultural stuff, everybody is embracing it. Everybody’s respectful. I mean every day we sit in calls and meetings with the most diverse of groups. I always say, we talk about diversity. I mean, we don’t have to go very far. We are looking at each other and we are diverse enough.

John: Right. Right. Prior to the COVID, did you travel a lot to go meet different groups of people within you own organization? Was travel part of your regular course of business?

Shamilka: Yes, it was, and I would visit the U.S. Visit my partners like Scratch Foundation, UN Global compact.

John: Wow!

Shamilka: I would visit the U.S.. I would go to the UK then every year we would have this big software engineering conference, so, I would visit that. We had thousands of engineers and teams coming from all over. So, that’s a chance to meet also clients and partners. Yeah, so we would travel. I mean, I travel.

John: Where are the headquarters for EPAM?

Shamilka: It’s in Newtown, Pennsylvania.

John: Oh, okay. Got it. It’s in Newtown. So, it is a U.S. based company. I got you.

Shamilka: It’s a public company, a US-based public company.

John: Right. Since it’s a public company, does it also fall under your heading since you’re the global head of corporate social responsibility? Do you then have to put together every year a CSR report to be published for both analysts and Wall Street, and your constituents and also for your employees? Is that part of what you do as well?

Shamilka: Well, at the moment, we don’t have an external report. We put everything on our website.

John: Got it.

Shamilka: But we are working on right now, putting together to formalize that, and hopefully have one launch at the end of next year because it is quite a process. It’s like a GRI reporting.

John: Right. Then that would become an annual event for you once you get it going.

Shamilka: Yes.

John: Wow!

Shamilka: So, we are putting that together as well right now.

John: In your 7 years running this, being in this leadership position at EPAM, Shamilka, what have you seen? Do you agree with that the world now is finally more excited about ESG behavior, corporate social responsibility and circular economy than ever before? Is that evolution moving in the right direction from what you see? What’s your thoughts on that?

Shamilka: I think, absolutely. It’s definitely moving in the right direction. I mean, I feel that there’s never been so much more conversation than today in this space. Before, like, you had to be really heard.

John: Right.

Shamilka: The space, I mean it was like projects and feel good projects and all of that. But right now, it’s like becoming more and more part of a company’s DNA.

John: Right.

Shamilka: The value system, the proposition, everything, I think is very much a part of the ecosystem of any company.

John: A lot of other chief sustainability officers or other people that sit in your role of global heads of corporate social responsibility tell me, when I say, “Okay, when are you going to be satisfied?” Everyone always tells me the same answer. I want to hear your answer. They tell me that it’s a journey and that you’re never done. Is that the same way that you feel as well?

Shamilka: Yeah. I think because as I said earlier, the needs are endless. So, sometimes you’re working towards, and even when you look at the environmental journey, I mean, we are looking at 10 years where we may reach something. But then who knows because that’s what we are predicting now. But if the world doesn’t change, those challenges are going to be one greater. So, at the moment we are working towards 1.5, but who knows? I mean, it is quite scary to think, is the 1.5 going to be sufficient in 10, the years that they are saying?

John: Right.

Shamilka: So, yeah, I think, you’ll never feel 100% satisfied, but I think it’s not doom and gloom. You also look at where you have been 7 years ago to where you are today. Then you try and kind of work towards what’s [crosstalk]

John: Right. How much you’ve accomplished? How big is your department now? You were the first employee and you were the first global head of corporate responsibility, social responsibility, and you were creating this from scratch. How many employees do you have underneath you to drive all of this change and to account for all the great work that you’re doing at EPAM?

Shamilka: So, right now I’ve got 7 full-time..

John: Wow!

Shamilka: …people. But in every location that I mentioned, I said 27, we have our EPAMers who’ve come forward and said, “I want to live in this country.” So, they work with us. So, that’s why I said what’s the beauty of EPAM is that, people just stepped up and they want to lead it. It’s not like, “Oh, I don’t want to do this.” They just balance it into their daily life…

John: Right.

Shamilka: … and make sure that, that is their commitment. They make sure that they have the buying of their resource managers, they get the support. They add that as part of their scope of work.

John: So, they really want to be an ambassador for you, and they want to be the champion within the company helping you with driving the change in corporate social responsibility.

Shamilka: Absolutely.

John: That’s great. What gets you excited? Obviously, you’re working on publishing your first report at the end of next year. From your own, personally to you, what gets you the most excited? What programs are you working on yourself at EPAM that’s the most exciting to you that you’re creating and working on for the next few years ahead?

Shamilka: So, I would say for me, when we started the education programs, it was very much like everybody had to build their own content and teaching content. So, a couple of years ago, we started this where we started building our own content. So, today on our learn platform, we have got about 18 courses in there, and all that, and we’ve translated into different, all the languages that obviously, the different countries that want it. So, for instance, we teach scratch. It’s a coding program for kids. So, we’ve got these beginners, the intermediate course on our learn platform. So, any educator from anywhere in the world can have access to it. We’ve got it translated into different languages like say, in Spanish. We’ve got it in Hungarian, Bulgarian, to just mention a few, but that’s exciting.

Then also, just seen ideas being made into a reality. We’ve just launched a program called Pathway to Tech. It’s for young people between the ages of about 15 to 17. So, it’s a mentor program that we’ve designed for young people who want to pursue their STEM career, but they kind of don’t really know what it entails to work for a company like EPAM. So, we have designed this really very, very fascinating mentor program that lasts for four weeks. Then, we’ll assignment mentors to them. Then that’s pretty much that’s to me the exciting part to see. Now, we’ve just launched it and we are running the pilot within. We’ve got kids on board. We have mentors on board. So, it’s been very exciting.

John: That’s wonderful. At 58,000 employees sounds so big. Now, do most people at the company now know that you exist, know that your department exists, and know that you’re now accounting for environmental, social and governance? Does the company culture now, is it inclusive to make sure they all understand what you’re doing and why you’re doing it?

Shamilka: I think, yes. I think I wouldn’t have said that maybe 4 years ago. But I think definitely now, they’re definitely out there. They take great pride in being part of the program. They take great pride in, and I think COVID also definitely, really, short like a lot of how we engage and we supported because our team was very much a part of supporting the frontline health workers across the countries globally. So, we were just out there working with our communities, working with partners, identifying partners. So, there was a lot for every country. We supported. We just really supported the needs of our people and their communities. So, I think through that also, they realized the importance of social responsibility, and also the work we are doing at this point.

John: I got 20 years ago, when I started getting involved with environmental businesses, there was no such thing as a chief sustainability officer, or global head of corporate social responsibility. Is there now a fraternity of leaders like you that get together or share best practices? How does that work? Because now, this is a common title where 15 or 20 years ago, it was an uncommon title. It was an anomaly. How is it now, and how much do you share best practices and best innovations together?

Shamilka: Well, I think there’s definitely a fraternity. I mean, obviously, I talked to our clients or partners. I tend to connect with the person who’s doing my job in that environment. Also, there’s a lot of great courses. I mean, I just did a course with Harvard. It was a sustainable business strategy course for leadership. Yeah, and there I met others who were interested in the same topic. We had our own cohort and it was really great having good discussions. Also, reinforcing my own knowledge of the space, so it was really great. Also yesterday, I went to the Thomson Reuters Sustainability event held in New York. There were many, many people from there as well. From our clients and even competitors, partners who had the representation of sustainability officers there. So, it was nice to exchange ideas, listen to what’s being said, what’s happening, and what the expectations are in the space.

John: Got it. Any last words that you have for – there’s a lot of young people that watch our show all around the world and they see a wonderful woman like you, and they say, “I want to be like her. I want to one day, get educated and go be the head or chief sustainability officer, the global head of corporate social responsibility, and make the world a better and greener and nicer place than I found it.” Any words of wisdom for the next generation of young people that want to now come in and be like you?

Shamilka: Oh, thank you. I think it’s just following your — in anything right? You just follow your passion. You follow your dreams. I think at the end of the day, it’s just not to overthink, but you start small in everything you do, you start small. Then you build on the knowledge, and learning. I mean, I’m still learning. I still take courses. I’m just happy; it excites me. So, I think for any young person, your learning never stops, right? You may think, “This is it, and now, I have to go and do this.” But it’s just how you evolve. You get into the space. I started off, I went to 4 years of college in the US. Then I started; my first job was only $150-200 a month, and my dad was like, “What are you doing?” You know? But sometimes you have to do all that to get to where you are right? So, I think …

John: That’s true. Well, I love what you’re doing, and I’m so glad you’re doing it at EPAM, and making the world a better place. For our listeners that want to find Shamilka or her colleagues, you could go to www.epam, E-P-A-M. Shamilka, I just wish you continued success in your journey. I’m so excited that you came on the show today and shared part of that with our listeners. We are looking to always be re-inspired and continue their journey and sustainability in ESG. Please, always feel free to come back and join us to continue to share your wonderful journey of success at EPAM, in making the world a better place. Thank you for being here today.

Shamilka: Thank you for having me. 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.

John Shegerian: Welcome back to Green Is Good. This is the GoGreen edition of Green Is Good here in downtown Seattle. We are so honored to have with us today Jacqueline Drumheller. She is the Sustainability Manager for Alaska Airlines. Welcome to Green Is Good, Jacqueline.

Jacqueline Drumheller: Thank you so much, John. This is a great conference. I’m having a lot of fun already.

John: Well, we are so happy you came with us. After 1,000 guests, you are our first airline to come on Green Is Good.

Jacqueline: That is awesome. I am so happy about that.

John: We’re so happy. We’re so honored. And before we get talking about your great airline that you work with, can you share a little bit about your background? How did you get interested in sustainability and eventually join Alaska Airlines and have now this great title and important role of Sustainability Manager?

Jacqueline: Well, that is sort of a long sordid tale, but I pretty much didn’t know what I wanted to do when I was in college. I think I’m the only person who took seven-and-a-half years to get a Bachelor’s Degree because I changed my major from Art to Business to Biology. I was going to be a veterinarian of all things, but, alas, I didn’t have the parental support or the grades or the money to go to vet school. So I got my degree and I sat down with the L.A. Times back when they printed “help wanted” ads on paper and put them in the news and started going down the list going “Oh, let’s see, biologist. Oh, shoot nobody is hiring biologists this week. Let’s keep going down. Alphabetical order. Oh look, E, environmental. That sounds cool. I’ll be saving whales and stuff. Awesome.” So I went in and interviewed with this guy, and we just talked about our favorite restaurants for two hours. I went home and there was a message on my machine saying, “You’re hired – show up for work Monday morning.” I had no idea what they did. I got there. They were a hazardous waste disposal contract handling all the military hazardous waste in Southern California.

John: Wow.

Jacqueline: So I slugged away for the next three years and eventually moved up. I actually met my husband at a hazardous waste disposal facility. It’s better than a bar.

John: Yes. Better than a bar. Not many people can say that probably.

Jacqueline: The people that I hang out with, quite a few of them can say it, which is kind of funny.

John: That’s funny. So you met your husband there.

Jacqueline: Yes.

John: And how long did you work in that industry?

Jacqueline: About three years.

John: OK.

Jacqueline: And I moved up here to be closer to him because this is where I met him.

John: So you moved to Seattle.

Jacqueline: Yes. It was like 20 years ago.

John: Wow.

Jacqueline: And I worked in consulting and engineering for a while. Typical stuff. Removing tanks and conducting soil investigations and things like that. And I saw the opening for a job at Alaska Airlines and I thought, “Cool, flight benefits,” right? And my whole family is in Southern California. “This is where I want to work. I want to work for this airline.” And I went in there and it was an environmental compliance job and I was tank-girl. We had an environmental regulatory deadline way back in 1998 that every single underground storage tank had to be upgraded or removed by December 22, so for the next two years I went around the state of Alaska removing underground storage tanks.

John: Wow.

Jacqueline: And, eventually, over the last 17 years – I have been employed there since I was 12 – over the last 17 years I started seeing the value of creating a sustainability program there. I was really frustrated. It was just a compliance job at the time, handling environmental rules and regulations, but there were enough like-minded people there that we started sort of getting together and forming a voluntary green team.

John: Wow.

Jacqueline: And we kicked off some projects. We got the CEO’s approval. I think I knocked him down in the hallway and stood on his chest and pointed at him and yelled at him for a while and I didn’t get fired, and he actually got a twinkle in his eye at some point – and it wasn’t for lack of oxygen – and said, “That sounds very interesting.” And I used that line. I said, “Bill, Air is very interested in this project.” “Oh yeah. OK.”

John: Got everybody motivated after that.

Jacqueline: Got everybody motivated. So one of our first projects was our in-flight recycling on the aircraft.

John: And how many years ago was that?

Jacqueline: That was about 2008.

John: OK.

Jacqueline: So it’s taken a while to get to the point where it was and my job slowly transitioned from being 100 percent environmental compliance to 100 percent sustainability. Every year 10 percent more sustainability and less compliance.

John: But that is part of what sustainability is anyway isn’t it, Jacqueline? It’s a journey anyway.

Jacqueline: Oh definitely.

John: So you have to start somewhere. Talk a little bit about 2008. You said recycling on the flights?

Jacqueline: On the flights. I think at that time we were the 13th largest carrier and now we are the sixth largest carrier.

John: Wow.

Jacqueline: And we have jumped over nobody. I think we are the sixth right now depending on who has merged or who has gone out of business.

John: Still, it’s nice to be number six instead of 13. That’s great.

Jacqueline: Yeah. But it’s so frustrating to see how all this waste on the aircraft doesn’t have any opportunity for recycling.

John: Right. Great thinking.

Jacqueline: In our homes, we recycle our bottles and our cans and our paper. Our passengers live in Seattle. In the Pacific Northwest. They are doing it at home. Our employees are all based in Seattle and Portland and around the Pacific Northwest for the most part, and they are recycling. Why can’t we do it on the planes? There were a lot of good reasons we couldn’t, but gosh darn, it we were going to try and find a solution for that. And sort of a ragtag group of green team people started learning more about it and trying some things and it eventually evolved to where it is today. It is now a service standard as far as what is expected of the flight attendants. We have a goal around reducing our landfill waste by 70 percent over the next five years.

John: Wow.

Jacqueline: And we are getting about a little over 80 percent of all the bottles, paper, cups, cans, all the recyclables comingled at every single place where we have a flight kitchen. So any place we are taking waste off the plane, it is going to a recycling collection area.

John: So talk a little bit about this is a very instructive because sometimes we have guests that come on that say they took over a green program or sustainable. You created this at Alaska Airlines from scratch. How do you besides saying “Bill said this is very interesting?”

Jacqueline: That’s a great line. Yeah.

John: How did you bring the team together and how big is the team today?

Jacqueline: It’s hard to say. I mean it wasn’t just me.

John: Yeah.

Jacqueline: It was our core team, and there are still some of the original members there, who are just as passionate. Like our catering manager, who is just as passionate about recycling and making improvements. So I think just having those people, being able to collude with them and get together with them and all be focused on the same thing even though it’s not our day job has its own energy.

John: Right. Wow.

Jacqueline: And we were fortunate to have people on our team who never call it quits and have a lot of determination and are willing to take some risks. So much of this stuff was just like you do it.

John: In 2008, for sure.

Jacqueline: Beg forgiveness later, right?

John: That’s right. Right.

Jacqueline: Yeah. I mean whatever underhanded tactic that we could get to push the envelope and move the ball forward is what we had to take. It had to be quick, down, dirty and easy. So that’s why a lot of the “Oh, Bill Air is interested in this project” kind of stuff came on like “Oh really?” I think at some point – it’s embarrassing – we even changed the company’s value statement without asking permission. Just added the words “the environment” in there kind of thinking, “Oh well, I guess somebody important must have wanted it done that way.”

John: That’s awesome. So for our audience members that just joined us, we’ve got Jacqueline Drumheller. She is the Sustainability Manager for Alaska Airlines. To learn more about Alaska Airlines, go to www.AlaskaAir.com. It’s also the airlines of Electronic Recyclers International when we fly from Fresno to Seattle, Washington. It’s a great airline. Jacqueline, talk a little bit now about the journey. 2008 to today. How did you evolve this, and were you doing this from the ground up or did you have other airlines or other paradigms that you were borrowing from?

Jacqueline: It was essentially from the ground up. Some things like our fuel conservation strategies.

John: OK.

Jacqueline: That’s always been part of us. We looked at it as a money saving strategy.

John: OK.

Jacqueline: Because fuel is one of our highest costs traditionally. So we have a lot of incentive to not use fuel. We don’t want to use fuel. We try and limit. Anything we can do to not use fuel is a good thing for us.

John: So let’s pause right there. So being green, being sustainable could be very good for the bottom line such as in fuel conservation.

Jacqueline: Definitely. Definitely. And then the other thing is like the in-flight recycling and some of our energy conservation and our electric vehicle fleet initiatives. As far as the journey is concerned we started off with the green team. We had those first seven projects or so and we were just relying on getting visibility, getting things done quickly and getting some attention around them. We knew that our sister carrier, Horizon Air, had been recycling for a long time. I think they started recycling in the late 1980s as part of some campaign to save aluminum can money for a sick flight attendant, like a cancer patient or something.

John: Got it. Right.

Jacqueline: And we always knew they did a great job and it sort of “Well, wait a minute – how can we talk about this great job if we don’t measure what we’re doing?” So we thought “Yeah, let’s.” We had some college intern help us out and show us how to weigh and measure our garbage that was coming off of our flights and they were like “Holy cow, Horizon is recycling two-thirds of all of their garbage.” I mean we always knew they did a great job but this is – we have numbers now – this is a kickass – sorry can I say that? Kickass job.

John: Yeah, of course. Absolutely. This is great.

Jacqueline: So this is amazing. And I was telling a friend about it and she said, “You should apply for some sort of an award,” and I’m like, “OK.” So I filled out some paperwork and sent it in. That year we won – 2010, I believe – Washington State Recycling Association Recycler of the Year for a Big Business.

John: Wow.

Jacqueline: And it was such a feel-good event, and it really gave that kind of buzz to everybody. They needed that incentive. That pat on the back.

John: Yeah.

Jacqueline: That external recognition.

John: “We did it. We did it.”

Jacqueline: And having some numbers to prove something. Right. So we were so proud of the award. We were displaying it everywhere and sharing it with everybody and tooting our horn internally about it and then the President of Alaska – the other carrier that I work for – is kind of like, “Oh, Horizon got an award for recycling? How come we don’t have an award for recycling?” “Well Brad it’s because we are behind our sister carrier. How do I say this? I think we should be recycling 100 percent.” They’re like “Oh, that’s a stretch goal, OK.” So it’s those little things where you keep getting recognition, you keep communicating about it, you get people excited about it, you start integrating it into the culture, the way we think of ourselves, you know?

John: Yup.

Jacqueline: And it’s not an easy thing to do. It has taken a long time to get to where we are now and we’ve had a lot of hiccups along the way. But with certain programs like what I was saying about our in-flight recycling program.

John: Sure.

Jacqueline: We had so much pushback issues and things that came up, but we got to the point where now everybody is like, “OK, this is part of what Alaska Airlines does. This is what our customers expect of us. This is what differentiates us. I’m not going to fight anymore – we’re doing it” kind of thing. John: That’s awesome.

Jacqueline: Yeah. So it takes a while and it’s hard to describe that pathway there, but I think the persistence and the patience really pays off in those examples.

John: We’re going to come back to Alaska in a little while, but we are here today at the GoGreen Conference. Why is it important for you to be here today? What are you doing here today and how are you highlighting Alaska Air’s great sustainability program right now at this conference?

Jacqueline: Well, my boss, Joe Sprig, the Senior Vice President of External Relations and Corporate Communications, was a keynote speaker just a few minutes ago.

John: OK.

Jacqueline: And we are sponsoring the event which means we have a raffle later on – oh, I have my raffle ticket.

 John: OK.

Jacqueline: They gave me a raffle ticket. I hope I win. For a pair of tickets which is really cool, because today we just announced that we are going to be flying to Costa Rica. We just made the announcement.

John: That’s awesome.

Jacqueline: And I’m really psyched about that.

John: Costa Rica directly from where?

Jacqueline: L.A.

John: L.A.?

Jacqueline: L.A. to Costa Rica. Yup.

John: Wonderful. You heard it here first today on Green Is Good. Alaska Air to Costa Rica.

Jacqueline: That’s right.

John: www.AlaskaAir.com. Go there and book your tickets now.

Jacqueline: Right. I can’t wait. Yeah, so we are trying to communicate more, and it’s one of those things we never really tooted our horn that much in the past and we’re kind of getting up to that point where we do need to toot our horn. People do need to be engaged. Our passengers need to know that not all airlines are the same, that we share their values.

John: That’s right.

Jacqueline: That they can help us too by packing light and not putting their napkin in their cup and things like that.

John: I want to go back to that because we are a solutions-based program. We want to give solutions to our audience. Talk a little bit about turning over – and that’s why we want people like you and brands like you to come on this show and share that with our audience. We have done that for seven years. What are you most proud of in this journey of sustainability at Alaska Air? What one or two programs can you point to to say, “Wow. We got that done and that looked like the biggest mountain, highest mountain to climb?”

Jacqueline: One of them I have already talked about and that is our in-flight recycling program.

John: Yeah.

Jacqueline: And I am proud of that because it was a grassroots effort in impassioned employees.

John: Right.

Jacqueline: And we had the ability and flexibility and the culture in the company to do that without nobody putting us down.

John: Yeah.

Jacqueline: “OK, do you want to invite recycle? Give it a go,” you know?

John: Right.

Jacqueline: But then the other thing I’m really proud of is everything we have done in fuel conservation with our aircraft.

John: That’s great.

Jacqueline: You don’t always realize this. When you are booking a flight on Expedia or whatever, and you find the cheapest airline that pops up, despite the fact that it’s two hours in Cleveland or something like that.

John: Right.

Jacqueline: I know people make purchasing decisions for a lot of products and services based on a social or environmental reputation of the organization.

John: That’s right.

Jacqueline: But maybe they don’t take environmental considerations with airiness, because they think they’re all the same. They don’t realize that they are different. So there is a study that comes out every year by the International Council on Clean Transportation. They are a nonprofit organization. They rank airlines according to fuel efficiency, and I am really proud to say we have come out number one for four years in a row.

John: Wow.

Jacqueline: We tied for third place this last year, though, but we are going to pull out alone next year. I know we are. But it’s because of all the improvements that we’ve made, and you look at the list and you see that there is a huge range of fuel efficiency on all these airlines and the bottom of the list – I won’t say their name – every single passenger mile they fly uses 33 percent more fuel than one of our passenger miles. Why? Because they have a different approach. I mean, every airline has pretty razor thin margins and has a hard time staying afloat. That’s why we are the sixth largest carrier instead of the 13th largest carrier.

John: Right.

Jacqueline: But some airlines invest in a less expensive fleet. So they will buy used MD80s or something like that for pennies on the dollar instead of investing in brand new fuel efficient aircrafts instead.

John: Ah.

Jacqueline: So their capital costs are way down but their operating costs are way up. For us, it has always been about what is the most fuel-efficient airplane we can have? How do we fly it more efficiently? We developed some technology in the 1990s as a way of flying in and out of the great state of Alaska called “required navigation performance.” It allows us to shave miles off every route because we can use satellite based navigation to get there and not have to fly sort of convoluted routes around mountains or take off in a different direction because there is a navigation shadow sometimes.

John: Right.

Jacqueline: Something like that. We are actually starting to use it as of last summer to fly more strategic approaches into Sea-Tac Airport here called the “greener skies program.” So instead of doing this kind of – the worst part of any flight is when?

John: The landing.

Jacqueline: Well, and then the time you are stuck in the airplane waiting to get off the bloody plane.

John: Oh. Oh. Yeah. And you can’t even get to the gate.

 Jacqueline: So I’m sitting in the plane and I am looking out the window and I am like, “Oh, there is Seattle. There is my home. Wait a minute. We’ve got to fly to Canada first and turn around and then land,” right? I mean, it’s not really Canada, but it seems that way.

John: Right. I understand.

Jacqueline: Right. That is the worst moment when you fly by your house because you just want to get off the plane.

John: That’s right.

Jacqueline: And so what we do instead with the navigation is we can fly a more direct route.

John: Got it.

Jacqueline: We don’t have to fly to Bellingham and turn back. We can wide into the airport instead of just doing this power-up, power-down thing, and by doing that, it probably saves us 60 gallons of fuel every time we approach the airport for every single flight.

John: Wow.

Jacqueline: And if all the carriers that had this navigation technology used it it’s probably about 2.1 million gallons of fuel a year just saved on these approaches coming in to Sea-Tac.

John: So not only have you invested in the navigation technology, which makes you more fuel efficient, you have also on the Cap-X invested in better equipment, so you are more fuel efficient. So you are number one now in fuel efficiency?

Jacqueline: Yes, we are.

John: Number one. Alaska Air. If you want to be the greenest and fly the greenest, number one, Alaska Air. Talk a little bit about sustainability. Is there any outside organization yet that compared airlines on other sustainable behavior besides fuel efficiency or we haven’t gotten to that point in the sustainability evolution revolution yet?

Jacqueline: There are a lot of different organizations that rank airlines on their greenness and they all use different.

John: Metrics.

Jacqueline: Yeah. And it’s subjective. This one by the ICCT – I like them, because they have some science behind it.

John: Got it. We want to leave our listeners with a couple other tips from you.

Jacqueline: OK.

John: How can they be more green on any airline that they’re flying? How can their behavior be better to make to the flight and the whole process of travelling by air greener?

Jacqueline: That is an excellent question. So I think – and I try and be mindful of this when I’m getting ready to go on a flight – if you pack light, for example, I think we calculated that if every single one of our passengers packed just two pounds less in their suitcase, maybe that extra set of boots or something like that.

John: Wow.

Jacqueline: We’d save something like – I’m not sure I’ve got the right number but – it’s about around 10 million gallons of fuel a year.

John: Whoa.

Jacqueline: And thinking about using a reusable water bottle and filling it up at the airport. Post-security of course.

John: Right.

Jacqueline: So you don’t have to get the water bottles or cups on the plane. And then I always make people take the pledge when they say they fly Alaska, I make them say – go ahead, you’re going to pledge.

John: OK.

Jacqueline: I promise.

John: I promise.

Jacqueline: Never to shove the pretzel package or the napkin into my Coke can.

John: I promise never to shove the pretzel package or napkin into this glass.

Jacqueline: Right. That way, the flight attendant can put it in the recycle container.

John: Wow.

Jacqueline: Keep them separate so we can get that can or that cup or that bottle off to a recycling facility instead of just taking it to a landfill.

John: So going back to keeping the streams to be recycled clean and therefore more recyclable.

Jacqueline: Right.

John: That’s a great pledge. That’s a great pledge. For our students out there, we have tons of entrepreneurs in the United States and around the world that are audience at Green Is Good. How do they become the next Jacqueline Drumheller?

Jacqueline: Oh boy.

John: In terms of their education, in terms of how to maybe – give them a little bit of some of your pearls of wisdom on the journey now.

Jacqueline: I don’t know that I’d want them to be the next Jacqueline Drumheller.

John: Oh come on, you’re being humble.

Jacqueline: I want them to be better than that.

John: Oh.

Jacqueline: I’m really excited. I get a lot of college students asking me that all the time.

John: Yeah.

Jacqueline: It’s really exciting to see.

John: Yeah it is.

Jacqueline: The younger generation and how articulate and impassioned and professional they are. I don’t remember being all that professional and savvy when I was that age. I think about me and how I fit in this position well, and I don’t know that it’s necessarily that I have a lot of technical skills. I don’t think that was it. I certainly can’t name any technical skills that I have. But I think Bob Landru, the former Director of CSR at McDonald’s, said that it’s the three P’s: It’s the persistence, passion and patience. And I think that’s really true.

John: So interesting.

Jacqueline: It’s having sort of broad skills. Good communication skills. Broad skills and a systems-thinking approach where you can pull in a whole bunch of information from a lot of places and plan strategically and methodically and make the case. So yeah. The three P’s. And I think too a lot of people want my job. Do you want my job? I think you want a job where you can start something perhaps. Those entrepreneurs out there, create it yourself.

John: You started this. Good for you.

Jacqueline: Yeah. You don’t want to step into my job. You want to go out there and find who isn’t doing it yet and get it going over there.

John: That’s great advice. Any final thoughts for our audience before we sign off today?

Jacqueline: No. Thank you for having me.

John: Oh, we are so honored to have you. For our listeners out there, Alaska Airlines is the number one fuel efficient airline out there, so you can go to their site and book your tickets now at www.AlaskaAir.com and from L.A. now flying to Costa Rica. Jacqueline Drumheller, you are an inspiring leader and a sustainability superstar and truly living proof that Green Is Good.

John Shegerian: Welcome to another edition of Green is Good. This is the Hollywood Goes Green is Good edition with my good friend and partner and co-host, Debbie Levin, the President of the Environmental Media Association. We’re so honored to have with us today the Mr. Environmentalist from Hollywood, Mr. Ed Begley, Jr., the famous actor and activist and environmentalist. Welcome to Green is Good, Ed.

Ed Begley, Jr.: Thank you so much for having me on.

John: It’s an honor to have you on. Let me tell you something. We’re so honored to have you, after seven years, to have you on. We’ve been dying for you to come on all these years, so thanks to Debbie for making it all happen with Hollywood, you’re on here today.

Ed: We’re a good tag team, she and I.

John: You guys are amazing.

Debbie Levin: We have a whole routine. We do this really well. We even do schools.

Ed: We’ve done schools, weddings, bar mitzvahs.

Debbie: Ed is a long, longtime board member of the Environmental Media Association, and obviously, dear, dear, friends. The truth is that Ed is, I would say, the beautiful face of Hollywood environmentalists. He is what we all strive to be. Like I always say, if there’s a scale of 1-10 of how you are an environmentalist in our industry, Ed is the 12 and we’re all on the road, but in the most gracious way. John, you have all these questions.

John: It is so amazing how you’re of part of Debbie’s and my generation. We’re all the same generation.

Ed: You guys are much younger than me. You’re being very kind.

John: You’ve been a Hollywood icon for years, but now I told my son last night, who’s 22, that you’re coming on the show, and he relates to you in Pineapple Express, Whatever Works, Arrested Development. You’re relevant across generations in Hollywood.

Ed: I had no idea. This is the great. I’m calling my agent to ask for more money.

John: Ed, I met you, literally, and I was so honored to meet you, 10 years ago when Debbie invited me to one of the first EMA events I’ve ever gone to. You had ridden your bike there, and I’m like, this is crazy. This is amazing. Hollywood really is into the environment. But as I learned quickly, you’re really ground zero for Hollywood’s environmental activism. Where has this evolved since you got involved 35 or so years ago with activism and environment and Hollywood? Debbie and you have paired up to morph it to young Hollywood. How has this whole movement morphed and evolved over these 35 years?

Ed: It’s really gotten very good in that we’ve engaged, thanks to Debbie, a lot of young people. When I started, I was quite young. I was 20 years old the first Earth Day in 1970. We talk about all the challenges and we need to keep talking about them, climate change and the plastics in the ocean, the groundwater contamination and loss of the aquifers, all important to talk about our challenges, but we also have to remember the good news. What’s happened since 1970? What’s happened in LA? The air is much cleaner than it was, John. We all did that with catalytic converters on cars, combined cycle gas turbines, spray paint booths. All those things, big and small, made the air cleaner. We hoped to clean up the air, and guess what? It did. And guess what? Businesspeople like to breathe clean air too. They want their kids and their grandkids to breathe clean air. It’s been good for the economy, good for the environment, cleaning up LA air. They need that kind of technology in Beijing and Hong Kong and Shanghai and these places and Bangkok, you name it. They need that good technology. We could export it to them. There’s a lot of good news out there, but engaging the young people is so important. I do my little area, which is personal action, and I do that fine, but occasionally I cross over to the very important John Quigley, which is a real activism, getting out there. He’s sitting in trees and doing things that I’ve never dared to do. I went and visited him for like half an hour up there in the tree. It’s like, get me out of here. God bless him. He was sleeping up there and staying up there for months on end. That’s real activism. I don’t mean to diminish what I do; it’s all part of it. But he’s right, there’s three legs to the stool. We need the activism, we need to get our elected leaders involved, and our corporate responsibility. You need steadying on all three to make that happen. Each influences the other.

Debbie: And we message.

Ed: We do. Debbie messages very well with EMA. They’re great at getting a good message to engage people and to do the right thing. In Hollywood, a lot of people write. Many years ago, they took us to task. Hey, you talk about us cleaning up the environment and us conserving, what about you guys with your big Hollywood limos and all your stuff and the waste on the set? We set about changing that, and now nearly every movie set and TV show is very, very green, thanks to EMA.

John: Where was your epiphany? 45 years ago when you got into it and it’s 1970, did you grow up that way, or did something happen in college or something happen in Hollywood that made you say, “Hey, enough of the old way. We’ve got to change our ways. I’ve got to be the beginning of change myself.”

Ed: Proving that it’s a non-partisan issue, today is my dad’s birthday. He died many years ago. He died in 1970, but he died within a few days of the first Earth Day. I did all this stuff to honor him as much as anything. He was a conservative, the like to conserve. Imagine that. He did that. We turned off the lights, we turned off the water, we saved string, we saved tin foil. He got me in Boy Scouts to see nature up close and personal. I decided it was worth preserving. He was the son of Irish immigrants. He lived through the Great Depression. The model of Teddy Roosevelt, he was that kind of conservative, and we need that now. I got involved, really, because of him. I really did. He had set the stage because one thing he said to me, because I was complaining about the smog in the fifties and sixties, and finally the late sixties, before he passed away, he said, “Eddie, I know what you’re against. You’re against the smog. So am I. But what are you for? What is your plan? What are you going to do to make a difference?” So I bought an electric car, started riding my bike more, I took public transportation. Rather than what are you against, interesting, important, but what are you for? What are you going to do to change that? What are you going to make less drilling in Ecuador? What can you do to accomplish that? We all have a role in that with our consumption.

Debbie: And Ed is that person who is not only talking about this, but you will see Ed not only on his bike around town, but on the bus, on the metro, on the subway.

Ed: Debbie, thank you for bringing it up. Here’s my senior pass, and it’s good to save the environment. I’m all for that, but what does it cost? Off-peak is 35 cents. At the peak rush hour, they’re going to hit me bad, it’s 75 cents. You can’t park downtown for 75 cents or in Hollywood, so this is about saving money too.

Debbie: This is also his other favorite thing, about how being an environmentalist is because he’s cheap. That’s your other favorite line.

Ed: Yes, Rachelle busted me years ago. You don’t care about the birds so much. You’re just a cheapo guy.

Debbie: I have quoted you so many times in the last 15 years, I can’t even tell you.

John: You not only take your bike to EMA events, but you actually took your bike to the last Oscars.

Ed: I did. I rode my bike to the last Oscars.

Debbie: In the rain, everybody.

Ed: I was a little bold, going in the rain. It was drizzling when I got there, but I left my cell phone where I was changing my clothes. I rode over the Cahuenga Pass, not in a tux, of course, in shorts or what have you. I went to Hollywood and Vine to BiteSize Studios, where we’ve done stuff together, and I went there, and I changed. Great, it’s only a mild drizzle and I’m almost there. I’ll meet my friends, the Lumleys. Wait a minute. Where’s my phone? I had to go back, and by then, it was a downpour and I was like a wet dog.

Debbie: The best thing is that on his wife’s Facebook, it’s like, “I’m getting in the car. My crazy husband is on his bike in the rain.”

Ed: That’s right. She carpooled in a Tesla with someone who was going anyway, Bill Taylor from the effects department. He’s a governor in the effects branch, and so there was no extra carbon her riding with him, and she met me there. She looked just fine. I was like a wet dog, but I dried off quickly.

Debbie: You know, that’s the benefit to being a boy. That’s the good part.

John: We used to follow all that’s going on in your house when you had your own television show. What now is going on? I understand you’re building a new house that’s all LEED certified or something? What’s going on in your home now, with regards to all the green things that you and Rachelle are doing?

Ed: We’re building a LEED platinum home right now in Studio City. That’s the rating system from the U.S. Green Building Council. They have a rating system of LEED silver, gold, and platinum. We’re going for the highest level. I figure if I don’t do platinum, who the hell is? There’s a lot of platinum office buildings and what have you, but residential platinum is more uncommon.

John: Is this from the ground up, or a restore?

Ed: That wasn’t supposed to be, John. This is what they call mission creep. We started off with a simple mission. We’re going to invade here and they’ll greet us with flowers. Not so. We’re going to do a remodel on this house, and we realized there’s a beautiful oak tree to the south. We knew it all along, but when we really saw with a proper instrumentation the way it was going to be shaded near the winter solstice, we had to go up to a second story. Wanting to go up to a second story, we realized the old house couldn’t support it. We were going to have four walls we were going to save, we were going to save three, two, one, we’re going to save the chimney, we couldn’t save any of it. Because there was so much water damage and termite damage, foundation damage, we had to go to a vacant lot. We figured that will be fine, but it’s taken a long time because we didn’t want to put the old house in a landfill, John. We wanted to recycle it, so we had a company come, Habitat for Humanity came and took the easy pickings, the stove and the microwave and the doors and the windows, took all that, and then this company, IRS, not the tax people, a different IRS, Industrial Recycling Services, came and took the house apart and took all the wood apart and all the bricks and everything, and they sent it down to Mexico and they built a church out of it.

John: No way.

Ed: Yeah. Why waste all that?

John: That’s amazing. Our listeners out there can recycle their house if they want.

Ed: Yeah, rather than just have the bulldozers come and knock it all down in a big pile and put it in big dumpsters, we put it on trucks and what have you. The thing that made it economically feasible, we sent the wood down to Mexico with all the nails in it. They had the time and the inclination to volunteer for the church and take all the nails out and knock all the mortar off the bricks. Here, it would cost you a lot of money to do that.

John: Listen. No matter what denomination you are, that’s got to be good luck for your new house to build a church out of your old house.

Debbie: Yes, seriously good karma.

Ed: But it took a year to do that. We had to find the right people to do it, so that was a delay. We’ve taken a while to do this.

John: So where are you now in the journey?

Ed: We’re very near the end. I can see the finish line up ahead, John. I’m nearing the tape. I’m going to bust through soon.

Debbie: I literally keep e-mailing Ed, are you there yet? Are you getting close?

Ed: We’ve got drywall up, we’ve got insulation in, the electrical, the plumbing has all been done. We’re waiting for the flooring. Another delay, but worth it, we’re going to have an old barn out of recycled oak wood. We’re having that milled right now from an old barn, and that’s going to be used for our flooring.

John: What is your and Rachelle’s goal?

Ed: June. I’m saying June.

Debbie: He’s been saying June for a while, so I’m going to go with June.

Ed: June of 2013, June of 2014, now it’s June of 2015.

Debbie: This is so not even a joke.

John: So let’s talk a little bit about Begley’s Best. I want you to be able to share with our listeners what you’re doing with Begley’s Best now.

Ed: I had a wonderful company for years called Begley’s Best, and sadly, with the 2008 slowdown, the recession, depression, whatever you want to call it, that company could not survive. A lot of stores hunkered down and just stuck with the bigger selling ones, and we were not one of them. I folded that company up. We folded up our tent, declaring success because we had given a lot of money to charity through that company and had wonderful green products. But another company came along and said, “Ed, I love Begley’s Best. I want to do what you did, and we’ll vet all the products. You’ll help us vet them, make sure they’re green or greener than yours. We’ll get EPA Design for the Environment certification, which you didn’t have, Ed, and other certification. We’re going to have a whole lot more products.”

John: And what’s that brand?

Ed: It’s called Begley’s Earth Responsible Products.

John: And how do our listeners and viewers find out about Begley’s Earth Responsible Products?

Ed: You can go to begleysbest.com. I still kept that website. You can go there. They have it at Gelson’s.

Debbie: They have it everywhere.

Ed: They have it a few other places. It’s going to be in a lot of places very soon, but Begley’s Best has it.

John: And they can buy it online too.

Ed: Yes, you can.

John: So begleysbest.com, you can buy all of your new products right online.

Debbie: And they’re very pretty.

Ed: It’s better than what I had. I was doing it out of my garage. I was filling up bottles like this.

John: It’s hard to compete against the major brands when you’re just doing it like that.

Ed: Yeah, I was shipping myself. It was a lot of work, and I finally ran out of time to do it.

John: Your career right now is – what, you’re 40?

Ed: I’m 65.

John: 65, is hotter than ever. My son is 22, and he asked me to ask you what’s next for you? When he sees you in Whatever Works and Pineapple Express and Arrested Development, you’re the hot guy in Hollywood at 65.

Ed: You’re very kind.

John: What’s next and what are you working on that you’re excited about?

Ed: Right now, yesterday, and again Friday, I’ll be working on a show with the wonderful Patrick Stewart and the equally wonderful Jackie Weaver from Silver Linings Playbook, the wonderful actress, and other fine actors and actresses. Richard Lewis is in it, and we’re doing this show called Blunt Talk. It’s a Seth MacFarlane show. Tell your son that Seth MacFarlane has a new show and I’m in it and it’s called Blunt Talk. I think it will air something like June.

Debbie: And that’s on what?

Ed: That will be on Starz.

Debbie: OK, great. And then the TBS show.

Ed: The TBS show, that’s coming out April 7th, and that is called Your Family or Mine with Richard Dreyfuss and JoBeth Williams.

John: Richard Dreyfuss.

Ed: The wonderful Richard Dreyfuss. I’ve known him since we were teenagers.

John: Unbelievable. Talk about the legends of Hollywood teaming up and doing art together. This is great.

Ed: Yeah, there’s great stuff happening in TV. You see Kevin Spacey and the wonderful movie stars doing TV shows now. Breaking Bad is one of the best shows you’re going to see in your life.

John: Talk a little bit about that. The whole Breaking Bad, Kevin Spacey and Breaking Bad phenomenon, where Netflix and AMC and all these amazing – The networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC, are still wonderful those brands, but now there’s so much more product that’s needed to fill these pipelines. Is that what’s giving great and amazing artists like you and Richard Dreyfuss and Kevin Spacey all these new opportunities that didn’t exist 20 years ago?

Ed: I think so, because you have two things. Again, I think network TV is just fine too. There’s some good stuff. I worked in it for years myself and probably will again, but what you get with these cable venues, Starz or HBO or AMC, you don’t have the same kind of censorship, number one, and number two, they pretty much leave you alone. I worked for Amazon too, and they hire good people and say, “Hey, you’re Vince Gilligan. We’re AMC. We’d love to have your kind of style of stuff, Vince Gilligan. Do this show. It sounds good, Breaking Bad,” and they don’t interfere much. They kind of let them do their show.

John: Didn’t Amazon just hire Woody Allen or something?

Debbie: I think so. I heard something like that.

Ed: And look at what they have with the Jeffrey Tambor show.

Debbie: Right, that’s amazing. It’s just such a beautiful show.

Ed: It’s a beautiful show, a really great show. They’re doing great stuff in the cable world and the internet world. There’s not really even a cable provider. I still have AT&T U-verse. To my kids and to my 15-year-old, I’m like a dinosaur. They just use Netflix to watch stuff. They’re watching stuff on Amazon Prime and Netflix. They’re not using the cable hookup. They’re going straight through wireless.

Debbie: What’s so great is that there’s so much desire for content, and that everybody wants it. I don’t know if it’s great, but people are just watching so much. They’re watching TV, and they’re watching at home, and they’re watching when they want. No one knows what anything is on; no one cares. They’re just watching good stuff.

Ed: Yeah, it’s a search for, let’s see – Jeffrey Tambor.

John: Ed Begley.

Debbie: Exactly. And you can just watch, and so I think that’s attracting amazing talent. That’s where people are going, and I think for feature films, it’s just a little bit of a different audience. You’re kind of getting more families, kids, big special effects kinds of things. In TV, you get to see more character-driven.

John: Did you ever think 20 years ago that, at 65, you were going to be busier than ever in your career?

Ed: No, I thought just a year ago, when I had a long period of not working, I was bitching to her, I thought it’s over. Honey, Debbie, it’s over. I’ll be flattening aluminum cans, not to protect the environment, I’m flattening aluminum cans to get the money. I’m out in the park.

Debbie: I have to say that we have this conversation every couple of years, and then I’m like, please, you’re going to start working tons.

Ed: She said that every time, but this time was the longest. I’d never had a nine-month period. I had a nine-month period with one day work for scale, and I never had a dry period that dry ever. I had never had more than three months with one day’s work.

John: You thought maybe this is it.

Ed: I thought it was it. They finally figured me out. They know I’m a fraud. I knew it all along.

Debbie: I had confidence, and look.

Ed: She’s correct. Let the record show.

Debbie: I did. Quietly, I got him all these jobs, so don’t tell anybody.

Ed: She did.

John: Your career is busy. You’ve got these two amazing series coming out. What is on the horizon for the environment? Everyone says this, but we live in interesting times, really, with climate change, with water scarcity, and with the revolution coming, with SolarCity and Tesla and all these cool brands coming, how do you feel today? Hopeful, hopeless? What’s going in your mind, because you’ve had such a richness of history involved as an activist and really doing real stuff? What do you feel, where we are right now?

Ed: There’s so much you could be involved in, and they’re all important. You could certainly devote your life to climate change, and that would be time and money well spent, whatever you would do in that area. You could devote yourself to dealing with the gyres of plastic out in the ocean, and I’m involved with both those issues. But I’m also focusing a lot these days on water, specifically here in Southern California, throughout the West, and many parts of the world, there’s extreme drought. We’re having this cycle of drought, and whatever happens, even if we’re in luck and we have a few wet years again, and I hope we do, we have to begin to save our rainwater, number one. We have to begin to use our greywater, number two. Number three, we have to get our agricultural friends, people in the world of agriculture, to use different practices and better practices for growing crops. And maybe we have to investigate if it’s really the best idea to grow some of these very thirsty crops in California, a place where all the water is coming from outside. Again, talk about a stool, like I said before, the metaphor of the stool with three legs. You’ve got three legs on the stool of Southern California getting water – Colorado River, the Owens Valley, and you have the San Joaquin delta, three legs. If one of them even just gets knocked off an inch or two, it’s going to be wobbly and we’re going to fall. If something happens to one of those, and that’s coming, we have to be prepared. We could meet, according to Andy Lucas, who knows water issues very well, and many other experts in hydrology, we could meet half of our demand in LA from rainwater, if we collect our rainwater and stop letting it go down these concrete channels out to the ocean. We can capture it in two ways. One, with rain tanks like I have buried under my property of my new home, a 10,000-gallon rainwater tank, or you can have it permeated into the soil, another good way, and then clean up some of these wells and what have you. We have a lot of trichloroethylene and bad things in well water, in groundwater, clean that up in the San Fernando Valley, clean it up in the San Gabriel Valley, and use that water more by letting it percolate down. That’s what we need to do.

John: Ed, we’re going to have you back on again to talk about your new series, next time you have a new series coming out, to talk more about the environment. Debbie and I are going to have you back on to continue this discussion. For our listeners out there, look up Ed Begley, Jr. and all the great work he’s done historically, and his two new series coming out, or buy his responsible environmental products on begleysbest.com. For Debbie Levin, I’m John Shegerian. You’re on Green is Good and, Ed Begley, Jr., you are truly living proof that green is good.

Ed: Thank you, John.