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Consuming Smarter to Protect the Rainforest with Rainforest Relief’s Tim Keating

 
John Shegerian: Welcome to another edition of Green Is Good. This is the Green Festival edition of Green Is Good, and we are here in Washington D.C., and we’ve got Tim Keating. He’s the Executive Director of Rainforest Relief. Welcome to Green Is Good, Tim. Tim Keating: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me on. John Shegerian: Tim, before we get talking about your great organization – the Rainforest Relief organization – talk a little bit about Tim Keating. How did you even get to this point as the Executive Director? Was this something that you were raised with – everything green – or is this something you learned along the way and you got really excited about the environment and about sustainability during your journey? Tim Keating: I would have to say it was definitely a journey. John Shegerian: A journey. Tim Keating: Yeah. In fact, when I first started going out into the woods, not necessarily just to play but I would say as a budding naturalist, my parents didn’t really know what to make of it and neither did my friends. I picked up field guides eventually and went out there starting to identify everything. At the time this was pretty unusual, so I was seen as a bit of an oddball. But ultimately I think in terms of the journey starting Rainforest Relief, I was actually much older and went through a number of alternatives. I had actually gone to college for Environmental Science, eventually, because I really couldn’t think of anything else when people kept asking, “What do you want to do when you get old?” I couldn’t think of anything else I would want to do except something involved with environmental work. John Shegerian: Wow. Tim Keating: But then interestingly having done a number of things as hobbies and whatnot when I came out of college, I got a new lens for my camera and I started getting involved in photography so heavily that I decided I wanted to do that. It led me to a bunch of other things away from environmental work that I was doing for probably about eight years. And what ended up happening was by the time I was growing tired of those things, really what was going on for me was this kind of Earth – I think – dragging me back into environmental work, and I went back out looking specifically to get involved. When I was very young – like 14, 15 – I think I might have signed my first Greenpeace petition to save the whales. John Shegerian: Really. Tim Keating: And my parents – I remember – were giving me little whale trinkets and whatnot, because I was into the whales for a number of years. So for me, the Greenpeace whaling campaign was kind of the iconic got people out there on Zodiacs getting in between the whales and the whalers was something I never forget, and not only was it possibly the most effective campaign in history, but it kind of called to me. Literally, when I was looking for work in something to do environmentally, it was in the back of my head, “How can I get out there on the Zodiacs with Greenpeace and save some whales?” John Shegerian: Right. Tim Keating: But, of course, that opportunity didn’t necessarily present itself to me until much later, believe it or not. So I was looking for something along those lines and saw a flyer up at the local community college, where I was going back to use their computers in the computer lab and I saw this flyer and it said, “Do you want to save rainforest? Call this number,” so I called this guy and we ended up starting Rainforest Relief. John Shegerian: And how many years ago was that? Tim Keating: That was in 1989 that I called him. John Shegerian: Wow. Tim Keating: We incorporated in 1990. John Shegerian: So for our listeners and our viewers out there, we have got Tim Keating. He is the Executive Director of Rainforest Relief. You can find him and his great organization at www.RainforestRelief.org. Tim, what is Rainforest Relief, and what do you specifically do, and what is your mission? Tim Keating: Sure. Mainly, what we’ve done is try to educate people about the linkages that they have when they buy products in terms of the destruction of rainforests and what those alternatives might be. So our main focus has been the use of tropical hardwoods. All of our research has said that logging for export wood is the primary factor leading to deforestation in the tropics. So when you look at very small quantities of tropical wood here in the U.S. or in Japan or in Europe, the impact on the woods has been enormous just for literally very, very small quantities like a few board feet of very, very high-quality, high-grade material here can mean that they’ve logged a whole tree to get it and those trees very often are only found one or two individuals per acre. John Shegerian: Wow. Tim Keating: So when you look at a 20-foot-long beam of ipé that has no defects – no knots or defects the entire length of the board – that may be the only board like that that has come from an entire ipé tree. Literally. So, therefore, when you are ordering 40,000 board feet like New York City used to do or now other towns and whatnot for their boardwalks, you’re talking about vast areas of rainforest being logged, and this is – they call it “selective logging,” but we call it “high grading.” Most of it is done illegally, and then once those loggers have bulldozed roads into the forest, then it provides access for all sorts of other extractive industries like agriculture, mining and whatnot. So it’s the logging very often, though,, that we see is the avant garde of deforestation that leads to the rest of the forest being completely destroyed. John Shegerian: I have been in the rainforest in Brazil. How many rainforests are there around the world? Tim Keating: I think something like 50 percent of Brazil is rainforest, right? John Shegerian: Wow. Tim Keating: So Brazil has actually the largest area of rainforest of any country in the world – tropical rainforest. But it’s not the only Amazon country in South America. John Shegerian: Right. Tim Keating: Peru, as you are probably aware. John Shegerian: Right. Tim Keating: Ecuador. Columbia. There are a number of countries – Suriname and others – that parts of the Amazon are within their borders. But then if you go across the ocean, you’ve got a very large area of rainforest in West Africa – down below 50 percent now of what it used to be, the former extent. Then Southeast Asia, vast areas of rainforest there with Indonesia having the largest amount of rainforest within their borders. Many, many islands, of course, but Borneo and Sumatra – and the island of Borneo being divided between Indonesia and Malaysia so you have Malaysian Borneo and Indonesian Borneo, but Borneo is almost all rainforest. Then we see small pockets. Hawaii has some rainforest and Central America has quite a lot as well. But what we’ve seen in general is we’re looking at more than 50 percent deforestation at this time, and if you look at the estimate of how long these rainforests may last, it’s probably only another 30 years. So at the current rate of deforestation…. John Shegerian: Wow. Tim Keating: All accessible rainforest will be done in our lifetime. So this is beyond tragic. This is actually cataclysmic. It’s the only word that I can come up with because it means that we’re losing species at a rate that’s unprecedented since life began on Earth. Even faster than when an asteroid slammed into the planet 65 million years ago. John Shegerian: Wow. Tim Keating: We are losing species faster today than after that asteroid slammed into the planet. John Shegerian: OK. So you have been doing this 25 years. We’ve got water shortages, climate change. Tim Keating: That’s right. John Shegerian: The rainforest is being eroded. Tim Keating: Right. John Shegerian: Exponentially. What do we attack? Tim Keating: Yeah, it’s daunting, right? John Shegerian: It’s daunting. It’s a little bit overwhelming and daunting at the same time. Tim Keating: And I went through all that, and I have to say, I still have my moments. I can be walking onto the metro – like today…. John Shegerian: Yeah. Tim Keating: Go by two buildings sided with ipé from the Brazilian Amazon. John Shegerian: Yeah. Tim Keating: And get to the train station where there are benches inside underneath the canopy that are made of rainforest wood. There is no reason for that really. John Shegerian: Wow. Tim Keating: So I get very frustrated when just walking around I see benches and whatnot made of tropical hardwoods. So I think, though, the only possibility of us turning this around is very quickly this kind of thing – what we see going on here today – each of us individually and us as a society has to go through a sea change. And it happened for me. It took a lot of years, but eventually I guess some of us refer to it as, I got “radicalized.” I’ve been arrested for protest over a dozen times, but I’m not saying everyone needs to do that, but certainly one thing we absolutely do need to do – and I’ll be talking about this tomorrow – is look at what we buy because that is in this current society, in the modern United States, we probably have more vote with our dollars in terms of what the world decides to do than we do currently when we go to the voting booth. John Shegerian: That’s really true. Tim Keating: So every time we plunk down a dollar – as we know from Economics 101 – we’re sending a message that says, “I want this, go make more,” and every time we refuse to plunk down a dollar, we’re sending another message that says, “You know what, I don’t want that.” John Shegerian: Voting with your pocketbooks. Tim Keating: “Don’t bother making any more of it.” So we have this incredible power – supply and demand – and for people who believe that we have no power this is – in modern America – probably the greatest power we have, other than actually getting involved as citizens and going out there and protesting. John Shegerian: Right. Tim Keating: Or talking to other people and talking to our Congress people and whatnot. But every day we’re buying stuff – and this has become the “causer à célèbre,” right? And so what I’m saying to folks is look at the products we buy, and at least for our top 10, top 15 products to avoid. Some of these shifts are very easy, some are not so easy. How do we avoid steel? How do we avoid aluminum? That’s not necessarily very easy. Avoiding tropical hardwoods – I can say – is probably fairly easy. You have to know how to do that though. Call us up. Send us an email. I’ll spend however long I need to on the phone with you to get you to do that. Chocolate and coffee and bananas have got to be organic, got to be shade-grown. Those are some very simple – the simple three. How do we avoid palm oil? We’ve got to look at the ingredients on packages. Not that hard to do, but it’s in a lot of things. So some of our favorite foods that we buy at the supermarket might actually have palm oil in there. John Shegerian: Is your office here in D.C.? Tim Keating: We don’t have an office in D.C. John Shegerian: Where are you based? Tim Keating: We’re based in New York. We have an office in Portland, Oregon, as well and another one in Los Angeles. John Shegerian: Great. So New York, Portland and L.A. Tim Keating: Yeah. John Shegerian: We’re here at the Green Festival. This is the Green Festival edition of Green Is Good. Tim Keating: Right. John Shegerian: Tomorrow you’re speaking. Tim Keating: Yes. John Shegerian: The topic tomorrow? The title of your presentation? Tim Keating: Actually, I call it “Consuming Earth to Death and How We Can Stop.” John Shegerian: Wow. Tim Keating: But I talk mostly about rainforest because to me that is the epitome of the fluorescence – if you will – of life on Earth. John Shegerian: Right. Tim Keating: Biology of life. John Shegerian: For our listeners and our viewers out there that want to make a difference, that love what you’re saying, believe everything and know you’ve been doing it 25 years so you’re an expert at this, how do they get involved? How do they donate? How do they help support your mission? Tim Keating: We have a “donate” button on our website. We also have a Fundly page up. You can find us on there if you want to help. It’s a crowd-funding site. John Shegerian: Right. Tim Keating: And [email protected] is the simplest way, and I will personally answer that email if you’ve got a question about which woods to avoid or getting involved with the organization. John Shegerian: Perfect, Tim. We wish you luck tomorrow in your engagement here at the Green Festival. Tim Keating: Thank you. John Shegerian: It is very important that you continue to get the word out. If you want to help Tim and his great organization push the mission forward, it’s www.RainforestRelief.org. Tim Keating, thank you for making the world a better place. You are a truly living proof that green is good.

Eating Green & Feeling Great with By Any Greens Necessary’s Tracye McQuirter

 
John Shegerian: Welcome to another edition of Green Is Good. This is the D.C. edition at the Green Festival and we are so honored and lucky to have with us today Trayce McQuirter. Trayce, welcome to Green Is Good. Trayce McQuirter: Thank you so much. John Shegerian: You are a woman of my own heart. You have been a vegan for many, many years. I want you to share your story. You have a website called www.byanygreensnecessary.com. Trayce McQuirter: Right. www.byanygreensnecessary.com is my website, my business, my book. John Shegerian: We are going to talk about all these things. Trayce McQuirter: Great. John Shegerian: Talk about you, though. Trayce McQuirter: OK. John Shegerian: Where did you grow up to start with? Trayce McQuirter: I’m from D.C. Born and raised in D.C. John Shegerian: And were your parents into green or something? How did you get into being so conscious about everything? Trayce McQuirter: Well, my mother was pretty health conscious. Growing up we did not have dessert every day, it was once a week. We didn’t have a cookie jar. We had whole wheat bread and Total cereal, skim milk, that kind of thing. So she was health conscious. We were still eating meat and dairy. John Shegerian: OK. Trayce McQuirter: So I went to Sidwell Friends School from third through 12th grades here in D.C., and my seventh grade teachers wanted to have a vegetarian camping trip and I thought this was a horrible idea so I wrote a petition to protest it. I got overruled and we had a horrible vegetarian camping trip. So that was my introduction. Fast forward seven years, I’m a sophomore at Amherst College in Massachusetts and our black student union brought Dick Gregory to campus to talk about the state of Black America. John Shegerian: Wow. Trayce McQuirter: And instead he talked to us about the plate of Black America and how unhealthfully most folks eat. John Shegerian: What a great guy. Trayce McQuirter: And he is fabulous. And this was 1986, and what really got me about his lecture was that he traced a path of a hamburger from a cow on a factory farm through the slaughterhouse process to the fast food restaurant to a clogged artery to a heart attack. And I never heard anything like that before in my life, and that was the spark. That was the spark that led me to do my own research and then to eventually become a vegetarian and then a vegan. John Shegerian: That’s awesome. Trayce McQuirter: Yeah. John Shegerian: So that was the spark – Dick Gregory. Trayce McQuirter: Dick Gregory did it. John Shegerian: I love that guy. And so you have been a vegan now for almost 30 years. Trayce McQuirter: Thirty years, yeah. John Shegerian: Talk a little bit about your practice. Www.byanygreensnecessary.com. When did you launch that website? Trayce McQuirter: I launched that website in 2008, but I have been teaching people how to go vegan for 25 years. John Shegerian: Here in D.C.? Trayce McQuirter: Here in D.C. Actually, all across the nation and other parts of the world as well. Different continents. So I went on to get a graduate degree in public health nutrition from New York University, but before that my sister and I started one of the first vegan websites in the 1990s, and it was the very first one by and for African-Americans. So we were doing this for a long, long time and I had a whole other career and decided that I actually wanted to change careers. John Shegerian: Which was what? What were you doing? Trayce McQuirter: I was a museum director. John Shegerian: Wow. Trayce McQuirter: And my sister is a historian – and still is – and we were teaching vegan classes. I did a series on whole foods, and all around the city, churches, health fairs, just food demos and talked about what we were doing and why we ate this way. So I eventually changed careers. John Shegerian: And your sister teaches with you? Trayce McQuirter: No, no. My sister is still vegan, and she’s raising her daughter vegan and my mother has been vegan; we all went vegan 30 years ago, but they are not doing this as a profession. John Shegerian: And is mom healthy? Trayce McQuirter: Oh, my mom is fabulous. She should be here tomorrow. John Shegerian: Oh, OK. Trayce McQuirter: My mom is 78 and still has her hourglass figure, works out six days a week and has no health issues whatsoever. John Shegerian: And have all her cognitive abilities? Trayce McQuirter: Oh absolutely. And she looks 20 years younger. John Shegerian: So she is a walking example. Trayce McQuirter: She is a walking example. John Shegerian: Of veganism. Trayce McQuirter: Absolutely. John Shegerian: Wow, that’s awesome. Trayce McQuirter: Yes. John Shegerian: So OK. So you have been teaching. First, let’s talk about this book. Trayce McQuirter: OK. John Shegerian: The book is “By Any Greens Necessary.” When did you write this book? Trayce McQuirter: I wrote this book in 2009, and it came out in 2010 and it went on to become the No. 1 recommended vegan book on the Huffington Post. It has done really well. Basically, this is a how-to guide. It’s like a bible. It’s a beginner’s guide to how and why to go vegan, so everything is in there. In the subtitle I targeted black women because this is the first book to do that. And while we are fabulous, we also happen to have the worst health statistics in the country, and so as a black woman, as a nutritionist, as a vegan myself, I really wanted to reach black women and be an example and expert telling them – telling us – how and why to eat this way. John Shegerian: That is just great. So this book is one of the top-selling books in this space. Trayce McQuirter: Yes. John Shegerian: And it goes along with your website www.byanygreensnecesaary.com, which is the same name as the book. Trayce McQuirter: Absolutely. John Shegerian: And the website is on a regular basis putting out information. Explain some of the things if our listeners and our viewers want to have a tool to help them live a healthier life. Explain the kind of information you’re putting out on your website. Trayce McQuirter: Well, I have a weekly blog, a free weekly newsletter and I give expert tips and advice and recipes, everything about veganism. And it goes beyond how and why to do it in terms of food. I also talk about everything vegan, so I talk about clothing and I talk about climate change. I talk about animal activism, animal rights. That kind of thing. So it’s really everything about veganism. My entire life is vega,n so this is what I share. John Shegerian: Obviously, Trayce, when you started this, when you heard Dick Gregory’s wonderful presentation. Trayce McQuirter: Yeah, it was fabulous. John Shegerian: I mean, what a great testimony to him. Trayce McQuirter: Yes. John Shegerian: You were early. You were early in this whole thing. Trayce McQuirter: I was early, but I have to tell you that – I definitely was early. This was 1986, right? John Shegerian: Amazing. Right. Trayce McQuirter: But when I was deciding to transition, I took my junior year away. I went to Kenya one semester and then I went to Howard the second semester, and it was there that I discovered that there was this whole group of African-American vegetarians and vegans that had opened the very first all-vegan restaurants in the nation’s capital, in the city. And they had done this in the 1980s, and so many of them had become influenced by Dick Gregory from the 1970s. Dick Gregory actually became a vegan/vegetarian because of his non-violence practice based on the Civil Rights Movement. So there were people who had been doing it long before me. There is a large stream of African-Americans in particular that have been vegan forever. It’s just not the majority and we don’t hear about it often but as I became vegan and did the history with my sister we discovered this and we knew nothing about it. So I consider myself standing on shoulders of vegan giants who have been doing this work. John Shegerian: True. You’re right. But now mainstreaming. Trayce McQuirter: Yeah. John Shegerian: I believe people like Dre. Trayce McQuirter: Yeah. John Shegerian: Or Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Bill Clinton. Trayce McQuirter: Yeah. John Shegerian: They’re making veganism now much more. Trayce McQuirter: Much more mainstream and popular. John Shegerian: Hipper. Trayce McQuirter: Yeah. I think we’re reaching a tipping point honestly. John Shegerian: You do? Trayce McQuirter: I really do because the sheer numbers of people eating plant-based foods on a regular basis – whether they’re all the way vegan or omnivore – still they are still eating more plant-based foods. So I think, in the next 10 years, we’re going to really see the shift happen where most people are going to be doing this regularly. John Shegerian: They have to. Trayce McQuirter: Yeah. John Shegerian: I mean, the science is the science. Look at your mom, 78 years old. Trayce McQuirter: Yeah. John Shegerian: You said hourglass figure. Trayce McQuirter: Yes. And no health issues. John Shegerian: In New York – where I’m from – juicing is a big deal now too. Trayce McQuirter: Yeah. John Shegerian: And I remember about a year ago being in a juice store in Manhattan and in walks Cicely Tyson. Trayce McQuirter: Yes. Yes. John Shegerian: I mean, I literally. Trayce McQuirter: Vegan for a long time. John Shegerian: Vegan for a long time. Trayce McQuirter: Yes. John Shegerian: And her eyes and my eyes caught each other, and I mean, there in front of me was one of the greatest living legends. Trayce McQuirter: Absolutely. John Shegerian: In Hollywood. But I mean, living up the real – and I have since seen her in vegan restaurants in Manhattan, as I have seen Gloria Steinem and so many other great leaders that are really just trailblazing the way like you are. Trayce McQuirter: Thank you. John Shegerian: On this very important movement. Trayce McQuirter: It is very important. And when I was in grad school in New York, I ran into Cicely Tyson and Gloria Steinem and so many other folks. And it’s wonderful. It really gives you this surge to see folks who are that well known embracing the lifestyle for so long. But yeah, it’s really crucial. At this point I don’t tiptoe around the issue anymore. John Shegerian: Right. Trayce McQuirter: We don’t have time. There is no reason for people to be unhealthy and to be dying from their diet. It’s ridiculous. It’s not necessary. John Shegerian: It’s not. Trayce McQuirter: It’s just lack of information and resources. John Shegerian: It must have made you so excited when Michelle Obama came to the White House and made the Get Moving Campaign her thing, her campaign. Trayce McQuirter: Yes. Yeah. I have been there twice. I have met her. She has my book. She is just… John Shegerian: She is into it. Trayce McQuirter: She is into it. She is just into healthy eating, period. John Shegerian: Right. Trayce McQuirter: And she is such a role model not only for the food but also just the fitness using herself. We have never seen anyone like her, and I don’t know that we will. She has totally changed the paradigm. John Shegerian: Just recently my son had mentioned to me – and he is a vegan. Trayce McQuirter: Great. John Shegerian: Yeah. We were just talking about later shows we have been watching and he said, “Hey, have you seen that new show on Netflix?” I think, Grace and Frankie or Frankie and Grace. Jane Fonda is on it. Trayce McQuirter: Yes. John Shegerian: And there you have another. Trayce McQuirter: She looks fabulous, doesn’t she? John Shegerian: Oh my god. I turned it on, and I am like, “This woman hasn’t aged.” Trayce McQuirter: At all. John Shegerian: And she was – again, just like Michelle Obama – one of the trailblazers in fitness. Trayce McQuirter: Yeah. John Shegerian: And here she is in her 70s, and she’s still got it going on. Trayce McQuirter: Exactly. And what more proof do you need? John Shegerian: That’s it. Trayce McQuirter: Really. It’s true. I hope to be that. I hope to look that that then. John Shegerian: Oh, I bet you will. You have it. I mean, obviously. Look at you now you look like you’re 25. So first of all, for our listeners and our viewers who have just joined us, we’ve got Trayce McQuirter on with us. She is the author, speaker and public health nutritionist and also the author of “By Any Greens Necessary” and the founder of www.byanygreensnecessary.com, the website. Trayce, let’s break down veganism for our listeners that want to get involved, because taking the first step is maybe the hardest step in the whole journey frankly. Talk a little bit about some of the fallacies that are out there that really are just urban legends that don’t exist in terms of. Trayce McQuirter: Protein. John Shegerian: Protein. Who has died of lack of protein in America in modern times? Trayce McQuirter: Right. It’s nonexistent. Protein deficiency is just nonexistent in our culture. I mean virtually nonexistent. So that is a meat industry propagated myth. John Shegerian: Right. Trayce McQuirter: But we have research now to show. I mean, there have been studies of omnivores, vegetarians, pescatarians, flexitarians, vegans, vegetarians, how much protein they get and everyone gets more than is recommended, and vegans in particular get 70 percent more protein than the RDA suggests. John Shegerian: Well, let’s give a real life example. Where do you get your protein in your daily diet? Just so our viewers and listeners can hear that. Trayce McQuirter: Sure. So in the morning I have a green smoothie after I workout and I usually put in some kind of nuts – a half a cup – or some ground hemp seeds or flax seeds. That right there just from the nuts or seeds is going to give me 15 grams of protein. John Shegerian: Wow. Trayce McQuirter: That’s the morning. Then I may have something for lunch, like, there will be a kale salad, I may have a vegan burrito. For dinner, I may have a stir-fry, and that is going to have some kind of beans or maybe some grilled tempeh or some – what else do I have? Sometimes I have pizza. Chocolate mousse I make and I sprinkle nuts on top of that. So I eat really great and wonderfully, and I don’t worry about protein. I know that I’m getting more than I need. John Shegerian: Got you. You mentioned chocolate mousse. Trayce McQuirter: Yeah. John Shegerian: Being a vegan doesn’t mean giving up the fun in your diet. Trayce McQuirter: No. No, no, no. Not at all. And the thing that people need to understand is that we don’t have t leave our tastebuds behind. We should know by now that healthy food can taste delicious. And we are already eating plant-based foods all the time as omnivores. We eat fruit, we eat vegetables, we eat grains, the spices that we season the chicken and fish and other meat with, those are plants, those are herbs and oils and flour. That’s vegan. And I always tell people, “If you can make a dead bird taste good, you can make wholesome delicious plant-based foods taste great.” John Shegerian: That’s funny. We mentioned juicing a little while ago. Juicing or blending, what’s better for our viewers and listeners? Trayce McQuirter: They both have their place. For everyday, I would say blending because you need the fiber and it helps the glucose and the fruit sugar from the smoothie enter your bloodstream more slowly. So that is everyday regular maintenance, sustenance. Juicing is good for variety in your diet but also if you’re trying to detox or you are trying to do a cleanse or have some rapid weight loss, but it’s not something that you should rely on. Blending is what you want every day. John Shegerian: Let’s talk a little bit about eating well but also on a budget. Trayce McQuirter: On a budget. Absolutely. John Shegerian: Can you explain how this doesn’t have to be an expensive journey? Trayce McQuirter: No, it doesn’t. It can be an expensive journey, but it doesn’t have to be. Think about staple ingredients. You want to cook for yourself more than eating out – that is going to save you money – and when you cook for yourself, you are going to have staples. You are going to have fruit and vegetables, grains, beans, nuts. Those kinds of things are ingredients, and you want to get those from the bulk bin. You don’t want to get them packaged. When you get them from the bulk bin they may be like a dollar a pound, and that is going to be your protein source. Whereas if you get meat or fish or chicken that can be up to three dollars or more a pound, so you’re getting ample protein, better protein and it’s a third of the cost. So you want to buy from the bulk bin from any store that you go to. Start there. And in terms of vegetables, you want to eat organic as much as possible if it’s available, if you can afford it. If you are wondering about – for example – an avocado that is organic be $2 or $2.50 and a non-organic one can be $0.99. Avocados are not sprayed, so you can get the non-organic one. And to find out the list of what you can buy non-organic go to www.ewg.org, which stands for “Environmental Working Group.” John Shegerian: Wow. Www.ewg.org. Trayce McQuirter: Www.ewg.org, and they will give you a list of, I think it’s 48 fruits and vegetables that you can get that are non-organic but are technically organic. John Shegerian: Are a lot of these resources found on your website? Trayce McQuirter: They are on my website as well, absolutely. John Shegerian: That’s great. Talk a little bit about the issue of eating healthy, being a vegan or moving towards a healthier lifestyle and social justice. Talk a little bit about your take on that. Trayce McQuirter: OK. Really quickly what I like to tell people is that “nobody wants to be unhealthy,” right? Nobody wants to raise their kids, unhealthfully. John Shegerian: That’s right. Trayce McQuirter: We all want to eat healthy food if we have access to it, if we know about it. So we want to be healthy, we want our kids to be healthy, and yet, we are among the unhealthiest people on the planet. Why the disconnect? The reason is that we are systematically misled, misinformed about what is healthiest to eat. Forget about food deserts, that’s a whole separate issue. You may have the information and you may want to eat healthier, but there are no resources in your community – that’s what we mean by “food deserts.” But even to get to that point where you know about healthy food and you know what’s healthiest, we are just not taught. Most doctors get three hours or less of nutrition in their four years of medical school – and it’s not plant-based nutrition. I have a Master’s Degree in Nutrition. I went to a program that was not plant-based. I had to form my own studies within my department, and the reason is that the USDA does not accredit plant-based nutrition master degree programs. So this is the food industry, the USDA, the pharmaceutical industry and the medical industry all determining that profit is going to trump being healthy. So this is what we are dealing with. This is social justice issue. It’s not just that “oh, we’re addicted to McDonald’s” or that kind of thing. We are systematically led to eat unhealthy junk food. The advertisements that we see on TV – 70 percent of those are for junk food. Junk food or processed foods. What do Americans eat the most of? What they see advertised. That’s by design. Food advertising is the biggest industry in the country. So there is a lot that we’re up against in trying to eat healthy, but we are being successful. There are people, there are colleagues of mine all across the country who are fighting this and who are doing a good job letting people know that they have a choice. John Shegerian: And look at the rise of healthier brands like Chipotle. Trayce McQuirter: Absolutely. John Shegerian: Versus the fall of McDonald’s and other brands that just didn’t want to come along for the ride and didn’t want to modernize. Trayce McQuirter: Exactly. The food industry is going to have to change. It’s just like the cigarette industry, the tobacco industry. They fought it tooth and nail but eventually they lost and the same is going to happen with the unhealthy food industry. John Shegerian: We’ve had on our show our good friend, Ethan Brown, the founder of “Beyond Meat.” Are you excited about all the new products that are coming out that are able to give us good healthy plant-based eating options? Trayce McQuirter: Yeah. A lot of people are against what they call “faux meat” or “vegan versions” of things. John Shegerian: Yeah. Trayce McQuirter: I see these as bridge foods. I really do. When I became vegan 30 years ago, I ate these kinds of foods a lot because I wanted the same taste and texture. John Shegerian: Sure. Trayce McQuirter: And so yes, these bridge foods are going to help people get over the hump. It’s not necessarily a place to stay all of the time. John Shegerian: Right. Trayce McQuirter: But yes, it’s great. And it also helps to save animals’ lives and save the planet. John Shegerian: Right. Right. What about tofu? There has been a lot of information recently about soy products and its interaction – hormonally speaking – with our bodies. Good or bad or explain your thoughts on tofu. Trayce McQuirter: The research is consistent over the past three decades about soy. Soy is helpful. It is not harmful. If you have breast cancer, it can help extend your life. It can help prevent breast cancer. But we are talking about tofu, tempeh, miso, edamame – the baby soy beans. John Shegerian: OK. Trayce McQuirter: We are not talking about vegan pepperoni or vegan ice cream or vegan cheese, these kinds of highly processed high-fat, high-sodium, high-sugar foods. John Shegerian: Got you. Trayce McQuirter: We’re also not talking about the amount of tofu that would replace a piece of steak. We are talking about maybe a deck of cards – that size. John Shegerian: Moderation. Trayce McQuirter: Or if you don’t want to eat tofu or soy, you don’t have to. It comes from one bean. There are hundreds of beans we can eat so you don’t have to have soy. John Shegerian: Got you. Are you working on a follow-up book to this? Trayce McQuirter: I am right now, and it will be out by the fall of next year. John Shegerian: And what are the topics that you are tackling this time? Trayce McQuirter: This time it’s going to be more personal about my journey and my experiences looking at the change in veganism and activism for the last 30 years. Then it’s also going to be a how-and-why-to based on what has changed since I published the book five years ago. Also, there are going to be 100 recipes and they’re all going to be based on natural sweeteners and whole grains. John Shegerian: And people hire you to come talk to their companies or help them with their health and nutrition? Trayce McQuirter: All of that. I speak all over at festivals, at conferences, at offices, churches, health fairs. I do food demos. I teach cooking classes. John Shegerian: And what are you doing here today at the Green Festival? Trayce McQuirter: Tomorrow I am going to be speaking on the main stage about the three biggest myths about going vegan. John Shegerian: Which are? Give the three biggest myths. Trayce McQuirter: The three biggest myths are vegans don’t get enough protein, that it’s not going to taste good and that it’s too expensive – the things we just talked about. John Shegerian: You hit all three of them. Well, that’s wonderful. Trayce, we wish you continued success. Trayce McQuirter: Thank you. John Shegerian: For our listeners and our viewers out there, please buy Trayce’s top-rated book “By Any Greens Necessary,” or go to her website www.byanygreensnecessary.com and sign up and get involved and take the first step to being healthier. Trayce McQuirter, you are making the world a better place and are truly living proof that green is good.

Cleaning with a Conscience with Karmalades’ Cynthia Brevil

 
John Shegerian: Welcome to Green Is Good. This is the Green Festival edition of Green Is Good. We are here in beautiful downtown Washington, D.C., and we’ve got Cynthia Brevil with us. She is the Head Mixtress and CEO of Karmalades. Welcome to Green Is Good. Cynthia Brevil: Thank you for having me. John Shegerian: Well, thank you for bringing all your products and yourself over here. So before we get talking about your brand Karmalades. Cynthia Brevil: Yes. John Shegerian: Let’s talk a little bit about Cynthia Brevil. Talk a little bit about your journey leading up to becoming and founding Karmalades and becoming an entrepreneur. Cynthia Brevil: I feel like I was born into this. My mother is a hippie so she raised us with a natural frame of mind. My father is an entrepreneur. John Shegerian: Wow. Cynthia Brevil: He’s owned buildings in New York. He is like a serial entrepreneur. John Shegerian: And you grew up in New York City? Cynthia Brevil: In Long Island. John Shegerian: Where in Long Island. Cynthia Brevil: Baldwin. John Shegerian: Baldwin. I’m a fellow Long Islander so I sort of get it. So your dad is a serial entrepreneur. Mom is a hippie. So you becoming a social entrepreneur, a mission-based entrepreneur – perfect fit. Cynthia Brevil: I feel like, yeah. John Shegerian: That’s in your DNA. Cynthia Brevil: Absolutely. That’s what he says. John Shegerian: Right? So when did you start Karmalades? Cynthia Brevil: As a business in 2008. John Shegerian: In 2008. And so Karmalades is a household cleaners and with a conscience. Cynthia Brevil: Yes. John Shegerian: And for our listeners and our viewers out there, you can find Cynthia’s company – Karmalades – at www.karmalades.com. Talk a little bit about how you came up with the name, because we were talking about it off the air, but I want you to share with our viewers and our listeners. Cynthia Brevil: OK. Well, I’m really into karma. What you put into the world comes back. John Shegerian: OK. Cynthia Brevil: So you should really be conscious about what you do, what you say. The first product I created was Scrubbing Soufflé, and I wanted it packaged all cute like a scrubbing soufflé – I’m sorry, like a marmalades jar. John Shegerian: Right. Cynthia Brevil: So you take karma and marmalades and put it together – Karmalades. John Shegerian: Beautiful. So karma and marma – that is so wonderful. Coconut macaroon. Can I smell this? Cynthia Brevil: Please do. Yes. It’s my favorite scent. John Shegerian: Oh my gosh. I want to put this all on my hands and my face. Cynthia Brevil: I know. But you can use it on your tubs, sinks, countertops. John Shegerian: Really? Cynthia Brevil: Cook tops. Stainless steel. John Shegerian: And it leaves the room smelling like coconut macaroon. Oh my gosh. It’s amazing. So you started. Which was your first product? Cynthia Brevil: The Scrubbing Soufflé was the first product I made. John Shegerian: And then how did you branch out? How did you decide to branch out? Cynthia Brevil: Customers. So for about two years, I sold Scrubbing Soufflé exclusively and my customers were like, “Listen, I’m too lazy to scrub, can you make a spray?” I’m like, “Fine. I’ll make a spray.” So I went home and just started mixing things around and came up with a spray that did everything – glass, mirrors and countertops – because I feel like we have so many bottles, so much waste. Why can’t one bottle do everything? John Shegerian: Right. And then you launched this product. How did you come up with the ingredients to make sure that it was safe but also something that the consumer would like and that didn’t exist out there? Cynthia Brevil: Well, I did a lot of research – online, books – and when I created my company, I wanted the customer to be able to really connect with the ingredients. So, as you’ll see, I use ingredients that you can understand, like vinegar, castile soap, baking soda, so that let’s say you’re allergic to alcohol. You can pick it up and say “Hey, alcohol is not good for me.” So many products on the market right now, even though they are natural, they’ve got ingredients we don’t even understand like sodium lauryl sulfate or cocomida – I can’t even pronounce – and you don’t know if you’re allergic to that or not. John Shegerian: So you started. And then you did the R&D yourself? Delicious. Cynthia Brevil: Yes, I did. And friends and family. John Shegerian: In your house? Cynthia Brevil: Yes. John Shegerian: In your house. Cynthia Brevil: And I’m still making them from my house. John Shegerian: You’re still making these in your house. Cynthia Brevil: Yes. John Shegerian: So you launched a product. Where can people buy these, and how have you helped distribution over the years? Cynthia Brevil: OK. Well, they can buy them at all the local Ace Hardware stores in D.C. They can buy them at Trove, Tacoma Park, which is a lovely well-curated home goods shop. Maple Avenue Market – it’s a small organic grocery store in Vienna. All the stores are listed on my site. John Shegerian: And you’re making it here. And where do you live now? Cynthia Brevil: Maryland. So right outside of the District. John Shegerian: So a New Yorker moved down here to D.C. area. I see what’s going on. Cynthia Brevil: Well, here and Miami. So I have to say Miami. John Shegerian: OK. Cynthia Brevil: New Yorkers all go to Miami. John Shegerian: Got you. Cynthia Brevil: And then we come back here. John Shegerian: So you’re making it in your home. Cynthia Brevil: Yes. John Shegerian: And then you’re distributing them locally. Cynthia Brevil: Yes. John Shegerian: Also, people can find these products online on Karmalades? Cynthia Brevil: Www.Karmalades.com. John Shegerian: Www.Karmalades.com. Cynthia Brevil: Yes. Absolutely. John Shegerian: OK, so ingredients. How important is sourcing your ingredients? Besides coming up with the product, how do you source your ingredients? Cynthia Brevil: Well, I use essential oils from a Green America-approved business. So that’s number one. I take a look at who I’m buying from. I try and buy as local as possible. For instance, the bottles come from Richmond. John Shegerian: And first of all let’s talk about this. I’m doing this because these aren’t plastic. These are glass. Why glass other than plastic? Cynthia Brevil: Because of karma. I mean, let’s say you decide to be crazy enough to throw away glass. It goes back to the earth. John Shegerian: Right. Cynthia Brevil: You put plastic in the trash and it leeches all kind of chemicals into. John Shegerian: Disaster. Cynthia Brevil: I don’t want to be a part of that. John Shegerian: Right. And what is a “Scrubbing Soufflé?” It sounds good. Cynthia Brevil: It’s fun. It’s my natural fun spin on like a soft scrub type cleaning agent. John Shegerian: Right. Cynthia Brevil: So you can use it on tubs, sinks, countertops, ovens, cook tops, stainless steel. John Shegerian: And it cleans it with you, just use a sponge? Cynthia Brevil: Just wet your sponge. Just like you would use soft scrub. You throw it down on the surface you want to clean, wet your sponge and scrub. John Shegerian: Have you shown your products? We’re here at the Green Festival in D.C. Green Is Good goes with the Green Festivals all across America. New York. D.C. L.A. San Francisco. Oregon. Wherever there is a Green Festival. Is this the first Green Festival that you’ve promoted your products at? Cynthia Brevil: No, this is probably about the sixth in D.C. John Shegerian: Wow. Cynthia Brevil: And I’ve done New York since they started it. John Shegerian: Wow. Cynthia Brevil: Yeah. John Shegerian: And what is the response like, and why is this so important to your brand? Cynthia Brevil: Wow. So many reasons. But I started at the Green Festival. I actually got the idea to start my business volunteering at the Green Festival in 2007. John Shegerian: So you’re a volunteer. Cynthia Brevil: I was. John Shegerian: Turned ecopreneur. Cynthia Brevil: Hello. John Shegerian: I see what’s going on here. Cynthia Brevil: Yeah. John Shegerian: You’ve got the Green Festival in your DNA just like your mom and dad. Cynthia Brevil: I do. It’s like a part of the family so that’s why I keep coming back. John Shegerian: Wow. That’s great. That’s a great story. Cynthia Brevil: Yeah. John Shegerian: OK, so coming to the Green Festival and promoting it there is just a natural for you. Cynthia Brevil: Right. Absolutely. John Shegerian: So now they come on your website, they buy your products or they type in their zip code and find out where they can buy it locally. Cynthia Brevil: Right. John Shegerian: What’s your vision, Cynthia, to grow your brand? Cynthia Brevil: Oh wow. Well, I hope to have this all over the country – whether it be Whole Foods or whatever local natural food market – so that people can have access to this all over without having to pay shipping. John Shegerian: Jeffrey Hollender is a friend of our show. Jeffrey was the founder of Seventh Generation. Cynthia Brevil: Oh wow. Awesome. John Shegerian: And he is just a wonderful brilliant man who came on the show a couple times, and then, now has started another brand with his daughter actually in a totally unrelated field from cleaning products. But when Jeffrey came on years ago, we talked about how many of the cleaning products that are out there, Cynthia, that are grandfathered in and have never been tested and have all sorts of bad chemical and things of that such. Cleaning products that are iconic to our…. Cynthia Brevil: Yeah. We don’t have to name names. John Shegerian: We’re not going to name names. But that makes opportunities for sustainable and healthy cleaning products. Is that what you continue to see, and is that where you continue to see growth opportunities where they still are a bunch of so-called “dirty cleaning products” and you can continue to create sustainable and healthy cleaning products? Cynthia Brevil: I think so. I think people are becoming more and more aware of the ingredients that they’re using – putting in their body, putting on their skin – and they’re looking at the labels now. I mean, I get so many questions like “How is this different?” or “What does this mean?” and I think one of the cool parts about this company is that you can readily identify every ingredient and you can make the choice for yourself fully aware of what you’re purchasing. John Shegerian: Do you feel that the biggest years are ahead of you in terms of Karmalades because the millennials and even the boomers now are really worried about the environmental burden we’ve put on ourselves and that they don’t want to do that anymore? They don’t want to burden their health and their society with the poisons that exist in other products? Is this now just taking off? Cynthia Brevil: Oh absolutely. Every year gets better and better. More publicity, more retail accounts. John Shegerian: Where is the majority of your sales? Retail or online right now? Cynthia Brevil: Retail. John Shegerian: Retail. Cynthia Brevil: Retail. John Shegerian: You’re a young person. How do you leverage the growth of social media to grow your brand? Cynthia Brevil: Wow. I’m trying. John Shegerian: Like we all are. Cynthia Brevil: I’m not a millennial. They have got it down pat. I’m a Gen X-er, so we’re kind of still…. John Shegerian: That’s OK. That’s funny. Cynthia Brevil: Yeah, so I’m trying with that. But I see that the millennials – I mean, everything is spread through social media. If somebody says something on Instagram, it’s like 1,000 followers come. John Shegerian: Yeah. As you continue to do R&D, what new products are you the most excited about? Cynthia Brevil: I want to do an automatic dishwasher powder. John Shegerian: Oh. Cynthia Brevil: Right? So people have been asking for it. John Shegerian: That would be great. Cynthia Brevil: Yeah. John Shegerian: That would be great. Cynthia Brevil: But I’m working on it. I’m almost there. John Shegerian: And you’re doing the R&D in your home. Cynthia Brevil: Yes. John Shegerian: Wow. Do a lot of your clients – is that how you get inspired? Your client base asks you for? Cynthia Brevil: Yes. John Shegerian: Got you. Cynthia Brevil: Oh yeah. I mean, the seed – I had Scrubbing Soufflé, but the only reason I went on to all purpose cleaning spray was because of the clients. That’s a moisturizer. That’s the Baby Butter. John Shegerian: Oh man. This all smells so amazing. I mean, my god. Cynthia Brevil: Essential oils. John Shegerian: Yeah. Cynthia Brevil: All natural. John Shegerian: Unbelievable stuff. Baby Butter. This is the Baby Butter. Anyway. Any final words or thoughts before we say goodbye for today, Cynthia? Cynthia Brevil: Well, I’m just happy to be a part of this movement. I’m glad to see people getting back to our roots. We all were natural at some point in life and then somehow we got caught up into the cloud of – well, you know. But I’m just happy to be a part of this new movement. John Shegerian: And mom and dad, how proud they are of you. Cynthia Brevil: They are. John Shegerian: Over the moon. Cynthia Brevil: And I’m thankful for them. John Shegerian: Oh, that’s how it works in life, right? Cynthia Brevil: Yeah. I’m thankful for them. John Shegerian: Oh, it works both ways, and that’s so nice to have you here with us today. You’re always invited back on the show. She is the Head Mixtress and CEO and founder of Karmalades. You can find Karmalades at www.karmalades.com. Cynthia Brevil, you’re making the world a better place. Cynthia Brevil: Thank you. John Shegerian: And are truly living proof that Green Is Good. Thank you so much. Cynthia Brevil: Thank you. I appreciate you guys. John Shegerian: Thank you.

Making Schools Sustainable with DC Public Schools’ Sally Parker

John Shegerian: Welcome to another edition of Green Is Good. This is the Green Festival Washington D.C. edition of Green Is Good and we are so honored to have with us today Sally Parker. She is the Head of Energy and Sustainability for the D.C. public school system. Welcome to Green Is Good. Sally Parker: Thank you. John Shegerian: Sally, before we get talking about what’s going on in the green sector and sustainability at the D.C. public school system, can you share a little bit about your background? How did you come to have this important liaison job in sustainability at D.C. public schools? Sally Parker: I think I took a roundabout way to get here. I picked up a lot of experience along the way. I started in the Marine Corps actually, and I got to see the world and see a lot of different places and how people lived and just what differences you can see. After that, I came back and went to school to be a landscape architect, and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to improve how we treat our land through our construction projects. So that’s what led me to go to a Master’s program at Virginia Tech in Leadership and Sustainability, because I really wanted to get the tools to figure out how do we bring it all together and be able to have conversations with the right people and determine the right solutions for the problems that we’re seeing. So that’s the path that I took, and I joined D.C. public schools in January and since then I’ve been trying to apply those skills. John Shegerian: January of this year? Sally Parker: Oh yes. John Shegerian: Did someone have your position before or is this a brand new position? Sally Parker: Oh yes. John Shegerian: Did someone have your position before or is this a brand new position? Sally Parker: It is a brand new position. John Shegerian: Wow. Sally Parker: So in a way it’s great because I get to determine what my day-to-day is. And in other ways it’s wildly overwhelming. I am the only person. I once got a piece of advice – “be wary of any job in which you would be the only sustainability officer” – and I ignored that advice. John Shegerian: Of course. Sally Parker: So I’m trying to determine what it will be, and I’ve already written job descriptions for my future staff so I just need to get funding for them and it will be great. John Shegerian: So getting funding for them. So how does that work as a public servant? Sally Parker: Sure. Well, it’s tricky because you really have to show, especially at a time where in D.C. public schools the focus is on teaching and learning…. John Shegerian: Right. Sally Parker: So if you are doing a job that’s the background in the central office, you really have to show that there is value in that. John Shegerian: Got you. Sally Parker: And so that’s why I’m trying to target some of the biggest initiatives where I can show I can have the most impact, and through that, I will show value for the position and expanding it. John Shegerian: How much of the first six months now is learning, and how much is envisioning? So learning where the voids are and where the opportunities are and envisioning where you can make the greatest impact. How do you balance that? Sally Parker: It’s been about 60/40 with learning and envisioning, and it started off where I just met one person and they said, “Oh, you should speak to this person,” and I just followed this trail of crumbs of people to learn from and I had a lot of informational interviews. I actually brainstormed before I started the job and thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could solve food deserts by using schools as hubs?” and it turns out that happens on a small scale. So it has really been a matter of what can we do and then finding out the reality and revising it a little bit. So it’s been a back and forth of both envisioning and of the gathering information and finding out what I can. John Shegerian: OK, so no one had your position before you got this position, but does this position exist across the United States? Are there other Sally Parkers or people like you in New York or Chicago or L.A. that you are able to lean on for advice and information? Sally Parker: Absolutely. I have met and hung out with the similar officers in all the other cities. New York City and Chicago. What’s funny, though, is a lot of us are one person by themselves, so that network is becoming valuable. For example, Dr. Sharon Jay spent two years in New York City, and she has been really a great champion in getting all of us together to share our resources. However, I’m the first person in this position. It’s still kind of a fuzzy industry, however, there are other people in other agencies doing things on behalf of schools, and that’s where I’ve already seen successes that I’m going to try to build on. It’s not like it was a wasteland of nothing happening. John Shegerian: Sally, do you cover everything from the air quality that the young kids breathe to the food that they eat in the hot lunch program and everything in between? Or how broad is your call to action and duty? Sally Parker: I don’t manage all those things, but I definitely keep touch with all of them. John Shegerian: OK. Sally Parker: We have people that are tasked with doing those things, and so it’s really kind of keeping touch with them and maybe find out who I can put them in touch with, and help people partner and help people grow what they are trying to do. John Shegerian: Got you. So you could have influence on all those issues. Sally Parker: Influence is my only weapon. John Shegerian: But it can be very powerful. Sally Parker: Yes. And that’s exactly what it is. John Shegerian: That’s awesome. Talk a little bit about now you’re on the public side, but on the private side there are lots of people that viewers and are listeners that want to become a chief sustainability officer one day or they are now the chief sustainability officer at a company and the first one. What is it like to be a trailblazer, to be the first one, and what advice would you give to our listeners out there that are just starting on their journey in sustainability? Sally Parker: I would go back to the point of influence. People don’t understand what sustainability is. If you work for a logging company it means something very different than if you work at an office. So really trying to figure out what it means to your company and how you could provide value is really where it is, and you have to understand that if you want people to help you do your job, you have to get behind what their mission is and you have to expand your umbrella until you are both working towards the same goal, even though they didn’t know that was going to happen before they met you. John Shegerian: Right. So now that you’ve had six months underneath your belt – which is still a very short period, I understand that – what are some of the areas that you think you’re going to be able to make the greatest impact, and what are you really excited about the next six months and hopefully the next six years? Sally Parker: Well, when I started the job ,I thought there was no way I would be here longer than two years, and now if I can make a dent in five, I will be thrilled. But I think that energy is the biggest thing. John Shegerian: Really? Sally Parker: Yes. D.C is invested in just really amazing LEED Platinum schools. Dunbar High School is – I think – the highest-rated LEED building in the world right now. But we’ve still got old buildings. There are 111 schools and the Department of General Services is sort of our landlord and they manage it for us, and the teachers and the students are in the schools consuming the energy, and there is a disconnect in what we could be doing to conserve our energy and to make the most out of those buildings we’ve invested in, so that is where the communication and influences can play a huge part. Then, we will also have the opportunity to engage those students and let their schools be a learning opportunity and put the cherry on top so they can understand what’s being done on their behalf and how we can equip them with an understanding of sustainability as they grow into adulthood and become decision-makers. And energy is – I think – going to be the greatest way to do that. John Shegerian: Are there any green curriculum programs that exist today in the D.C. school system so the kids can say, “I want to learn about climate change” or – as you say – “energy” or “green food” or “green landscaping” or any of these things? Sally Parker: It’s interesting. This is something I’ve been trying to dig into myself. There is something called the “Environmental Literacy Framework” that has been created by the Healthy Schools Act – or has been driven by the Healthy Schools Act – so we’re trying to get that into the curriculums and there is a pilot program in four public schools and four charter schools to figure out how we can incorporate those “no child left inside”-type lessons into the curriculum. Now there is also the Next Gen Science Standards, which is approved to be folded into the curriculum in 2014, and so there is actually quite a bit of science-based push to really get that into the curriculum. It’s a process. We have 3,500 teachers, so it’s a rolling effort to get those latest topics of interest in the curriculum. John Shegerian: We’ve got Sally Parker with us. She is the Head of Energy and Sustainability as a liaison for the D.C. Public Schools. To learn more about what is going on at D.C. public schools, go to www.dcps.dc.gov. I asked you earlier, Sally, about other people doing what you do across the United States. How about across the world? Do you have people doing what you do in Paris or in London and are you able to lean on them for information that could benefit the great young people in the D.C. public schools system? Sally Parker: I personally have not yet made contact internationally, but there is a great organization that started in a grassroots way called “The Green Schools Alliance,” and it was really to help schools communicate with each other and share their successes and failures in what they try to do in schools. It’s grown into a nationwide thing. They’ve been stunned and they’re so happy about it and they have started getting international schools joining in the conversation. John Shegerian: Really? Sally Parker: Yes. And so any schools can join the Green Schools Alliance, any school district can join the Green Schools Alliance, and so that is something that I’m trying to push in as a support system for DCPS. John Shegerian: So it’s five years from now. Whose program do you want to model after? Who right now in America has had the most experience and has driven the most change in what public school system in the United States? Sally Parker: I think that it would have to be New York City. John Shegerian: New York. Sally Parker: Of course, it’s always New York City. But Dr. Sharon Jay did a great job. John Shegerian: Really? OK. Sally Parker: They have 1,800 schools and 1,300 buildings. John Shegerian: Wow. Sally Parker: And so it really puts into perspective what you can accomplish when you can try to push your purchasing power and push your impact on the students. John Shegerian: DCPS. Who do they partner with for sustainability right now? Do you have some great partners that you want to talk about while we’re visiting today? Sally Parker: Well, the Department of General Services – those are the landlords of the buildings. John Shegerian: Yeah. Sally Parker: And they run the recycling program. They have got a contract to put 10 megawatts of solar panels on top of government buildings. John Shegerian: Wow. Sally Parker: And 60 percent of that are schools. Across the board, DGS is trying to get a lot of stuff done. There is also the District Department of the Environment, who are very interested in promoting sustainability. They’ve been tasked with that. Then, there are a lot of nonprofits. There are D.C. Greens, and there are a lot of nonprofits that are focused on school gardens and school nutrition and really getting on board with that. So the list is an extremely long list. And it has helped me. I would not be able to do a single thing without any of the partners that I’ve met so far. John Shegerian: Talk a little bit about the first six months in terms of your colleagues and the welcome mat. Warm embrace? Quiet skepticism? What’s going on in the real world right now when people like you come in and are seen as potentially disruptors? Sally Parker: Well, my sustainability peers in other agencies – open arms. “Thank god you’re here.” There is a lot of that going on. John Shegerian: That’s great. Sally Parker: And then within the DCPS agency, I sit in the central office, so it’s all office support for the schools. Everyone has been polite and wonderful, and everyone I’ve met I’ve been really overcome by how professional and driven and innovative people are in their particular roles. But as far as when I say “sustainability,” what that means to them, that’s where I have a job to do to help them understand what it means to every office – to the office of teaching and learning and to the office of operations – and that’s where my challenge is going to be is helping people understand what my job means to support their job. John Shegerian: Wow. Got you. How about from the students’ perspective? Do they even know about this new role, and they know about the greening of their schools yet or making their schools more sustainable, or that hasn’t happened yet? Sally Parker: I think that that’s where we have a huge opportunity for improvement is to take all these things happening in the background that students don’t know about and really use it as a learning tool for them. I don’t think that that connection is there yet, the engagement. The biggest thing they see is recycling. It is in every school, and by the end of 2016, a compost collection will be in every school as well for all the food waste as we try to get them to like kale in some way. So there are a lot of problems around that so trying to work those systems together. But recycling is something that they get to do every day. They get to be involved. John Shegerian: Very tangible. Sally Parker: Yes. John Shegerian: What kind of recycling are they doing right now? Sally Parker: They do comingled, they do paper and cardboard and then they have – I think – there was a pilot program of eight schools, and I think now there is organics compost collection in maybe 40 schools. So they’ll get to the rest of the schools within the next year. John Shegerian: So composting is coming quickly. Sally Parker: Yes. And some schools have school gardens that they have their own onsite composting for the purposes of the garden. John Shegerian: Wow. Sally Parker: This is a bigger organics collection where it will actually be collected and hauled away. We’re trying to find where to put it. We might use it in the digester for energy production or it might go into fertilizer. John Shegerian: How about in your own personal life? Talk a little bit about the greening of your own life. How does that work? Sally Parker: I eat a lot less meat than I used to. John Shegerian: Really? Sally Parker: Yes. That is – I think – the biggest single thing that consumers can do in their own lives is to eat less meat and eat more vegetables. Instead of feeding those animals vegetables to feed us, I think you can just cut out that drive. I don’t cut everything out I just eat less of it. John Shegerian: Right. Sally Parker: And it’s hard, and I would say that consumers can put their money where their mouth is. And it’s not just on environmental things; it’s on social issues too. Support benefit corporations. Spend your money on products and services that you feel support your ideals and goals. John Shegerian: Got you. That makes sense. That’s really good. Final thoughts on the future ahead for the D.C. public schools system before we have to say goodbye? Sally Parker: I think it’s really exciting. They’ve had a major overhaul – the school district – over the last I’d say 10 years and I’m getting to come in and ride the sails on that. So it’s pretty great. John Shegerian: And I think also make a lot of change so that’s really great. Well, thank you, Sally Parker. To learn more about what Sally and her colleagues are doing at the D.C. public schools system please go to www.dcps.dc.gov. Sally Parker, making the world a better place at the D.C. public schools system. You are truly living proof that Green Is Good.

The Greenest Grass with Pearl’s Premium Jackson Madnick

John Shegerian: Welcome to Green Is Good. This is the Green Festival edition of Green Is Good. We are here in beautiful downtown Washington, D.C., and we’re so excited. We’ve got Jackson Madnick with us. He is the CEO of Pearl’s Premium. Welcome to Green Is Good. Jackson Madnick: Thank you so much. John Shegerian: Oh sure, Jackson. And this is the first time ever – you’ve brought one of your guests with you. You brought your dog, Zoe. Jackson Madnick: Right. Zoe is our spokesdog, and one of our biggest fans and why we created this grass seed. John Shegerian: Well, I love it. Well, we’re going to talk about Zoe in a little bit. Let’s first start with Pearl’s Premium. What is Pearl’s Premium, and when did you start Pearl’s Premium, Jackson? Jackson Madnick: Well, I’m on my third career. I used to be a cameraman and reporter for CBS News and then I produced major environmental shows all over the country – in stadiums, parks and on rivers – that had to do with the environment, energy, hope, vision, harmony, world peace. And my biggest event is I designed the grand finale for the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio. John Shegerian: Wow. Jackson Madnick: That was televised worldwide to a half a billion people. John Shegerian: Wow. And then when did you come up with the idea for Pearl’s Premium, and when did you start that? Jackson Madnick: After doing 17 years of producing major events all over the country, I thought I’d take a little time off to figure out what I was going to do when I grew up. I renovated a little fixer-upper house in Wayland, Massachusetts, to be 90-percent heated, cooled and powered by the sun and the Earth. While I was renovating my house, someone came by and talked me into joining the local surface water quality committee that takes care of all the lakes and ponds in a community. And I took a weekend crash course in lake and pond management, and I found out that the No. 1 enemy of lakes, ponds, rivers and the ocean is lawn care fertilizer. When people put chemical fertilizer in their lawns if the irrigation goes on or it rains that day it washes off the lawn on to the hard surface, down the street into the storm drain, and it doesn’t disappear. It ends up in the local lake, pond, river or the ocean. So when people are fertilizing their lawns, actually 80 percent of it fertilizes the lakes and ponds just to grow the invasive weeds out of control. Then we tested our drinking water in our community and we found that there were low levels of lawn care fertilizer, lawn care pesticides and the herbicides that we were using to get rid of the invasive weeds in the pond caused by the lawn care fertilizer. So I did some research and I found out there was no such thing as a low-maintenance grass in the world. So I wanted to create a low-maintenance grass that didn’t need chemicals, needed less water, that was more sustainable and healthier. So I did a little research and found out who were the four smartest PhDs on the planet in turf science and then I engaged them to create a lawn grass. I thought it would take a year or two, but it actually took eight years. Almost a million dollars of research. John Shegerian: Wow. When did it launch? When did you launch this? Jackson Madnick: Well, we had something in the fall of 2009, and we’ve been selling it for four years now and this is our fifth year, and we’re in about 300,000 lawns all across the country. John Shegerian: Wow. How many stores are selling your product? Jackson Madnick: I’m not sure. About 300 stores right now. John Shegerian: Three hundred stores. And for our listeners and our viewers out there, to find Jackson’s great product, they can go to www.PearlsPremium.com. Is there a zip code locator in that where they could find the stores locally in their area? Or not yet? Jackson Madnick: Yes. There is. John Shegerian: There is. That’s great. Jackson Madnick: And right now it’s available at all the Whole Foods supermarkets in New England. John Shegerian: That’s great. Jackson Madnick: And 135 Costco stores across the country that may be sold out within two weeks. John Shegerian: Wow. Jackson Madnick: So if you want this, you have to go to a local Costco and see if they still have it. John Shegerian: And can they buy it on your website as well? Jackson Madnick: They can buy it all year long on our website. John Shegerian: On the website. So tell our listeners and our viewers why your grass is better than any other grass they could put in for their lawn. Jackson Madnick: Well, it has a number of interesting properties. First of all, it’s based on seeds that were here before the American Indians. It’s native grass and it has a couple seeds that are adaptive – been here in the United States for over 100 years and adapted to our climate – but it’s these particular seeds growing in very exact proportions to interact to create two phenomena. One is it grows 12- to 14-inch deep roots. Most grasses are only two or three inch roots. Then, also, the other interactive phenomena of our grasses and our proportions is it slows down the rate of the grass so you only have to mow it once every four to six weeks instead of every week. And if you don’t mow it, it leans over to become a “no-mow” lawn only three inches high. John Shegerian: And how about water? Less water than normal grass? Jackson Madnick: Because of the slow growth and the 12 to 14 inch roots it needs one quarter of the water of any other grass on the planet, and it looks better during a drought with no water. John Shegerian: So, basically, if a person doesn’t want to go “zeroscape.” Jackson Madnick: Yeah. John Shegerian: This is the type of grass they should be into their lawn instead of just the traditional grass, right? Jackson Madnick: Absolutely. People call it the “non-grass grass.” They call it the “Holy Grail of grass.” They call it “miracle grass.” John Shegerian: Can you show what it looks like to our viewers out there? Jackson Madnick: This is what our grass looks like in Hotlanta two years ago when they had the hottest drought in history – more days of over 100 degrees. This is a green lawn. The police used to go by and knock on their green front door here and want to write them a $200 dollar ticket because they had the only green lawn in the neighborhood during a water ban. They thought they were sneaking and watering in the middle of the night. John Shegerian: Right. Wow. Jackson Madnick: Besides it growing very dark and green, it out-competes weeds. This picture here shows on the right our grass and on the left chock full of weeds. Our grass out-competes weeds, out-competes other grass. John Shegerian: Have any sports venues started adopting the use of your grass yet? Jackson Madnick: Not yet. You can use it in 95 percent of the grass in the country. It’s only places that they have cleats on their shoes, it beats it up. John Shegerian: OK. Jackson Madnick: It’s a very soft grass. John Shegerian: I got you. Jackson Madnick: So it can’t take cleats. It can’t take sports fields, but it’s good for everything else. John Shegerian: Wow. That’s amazing. So this is really the most sustainable or the greenest grass someone could put into their lawn. Jackson Madnick: Yeah. It’s the greenest grass in the world. And it’s the only grass that gets LEED credits if you know what LEED is. John Shegerian: Yeah. Jackson Madnick: This is a LEED house in New England. John Shegerian: Beautiful. Jackson Madnick: And it’s on Cape Cod where they have very sandy soil. They’ve never had grass before because the water drains right through but because this needs one quarter the water of other grass it can grow in any condition and in sandy soil. John Shegerian: Are you selling this just in the United States Right now, or is this in Canada and around the world as well? Jackson Madnick: We’re in about 300,000 lawns all over North America. John Shegerian: Wow. Jackson Madnick: Canada and about a dozen foreign countries. John Shegerian: Tell us about Zoe a little bit. How did Zoe become your spokesdog? Jackson Madnick: I’ve always had rescue dogs, where we visit military and children’s hospitals to cheer up patients. I got Zoe – Zoe rescued me, I rescued Zoe – and we visit military and children’s hospitals as I mentioned, and she just became our dog. Part of the reason I developed the grass was to protect pond, protect children from the risks of chemical fertilizer but also to protect dogs. It turns out that dogs are at four times the risk of cancer if you use chemicals on the lawn. John Shegerian: Well, let’s slow this down, Jackson, because this is an important point that I hadn’t thought of. You’re saying that if we have listeners and viewers out there that own pets this is the type of grass they should be using because traditional grass has opportunity to poison their pets. Jackson Madnick: Absolutely. John Shegerian: Wow. Jackson Madnick: It turns out that lawn care chemical fertilizer stings the pads of their feet. John Shegerian: Aww. Jackson Madnick: So they go inside, they’re sitting in the corner and they’re licking this stuff off their feet to get rid of the stinging sensation and they’re ingesting chemical fertilizer. John Shegerian: Whoa. Jackson Madnick: And according to Dr. Roman in New England – who is a pet veterinarian authority – she says that “Dogs who experience chemical fertilizer are at four to seven times the risk of cancer.” John Shegerian: Whoa. That’s never even discussed in the media. Jackson Madnick: Yeah. John Shegerian: Wow. Jackson Madnick: And Dr. Alex Lewis – the Head of Toxicology for the Harvard School of Public Health – says that “Up to 40 percent of all the cancers and many of the sicknesses are caused by toxins in our environment,” and the No. 1 toxin in our environment is lawn care fertilizer. It actually has been linked to learning and behavioral disorders for children, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s Disease, sexual dysfunction, cancer and leukemia. So if you can eliminate lawn care fertilizer, you can avoid the risk. John Shegerian: Which is what your product does. Jackson Madnick: Yes. You never ever need chemical fertilizer for that grass. John Shegerian: So this is called the ultra low-maintenance. Jackson Madnick: Lawn seed. John Shegerian: Lawn seed. Jackson Madnick: It also sequesters carbon. Because of the 12-inch deep roots and the density of the grass, it absorbs two tons of carbon per acre per year. John Shegerian: Wow. Jackson Madnick: So that’s four times the amount of carbon compared to other grass so it actually can help put a dent in global warming and climate change. John Shegerian: Jackson, this is the type of grass that everyone should be using. It’s obvious then. Thank you for coming on our show. Thank you for bringing Zoe on. It’s Jackson Madnick. He is the CEO and founder of Pearl’s Premium. To find where you can buy Pearl’s Premium or buy it online, please go to www.PearlsPremium.com. Thank you, Jackson – thank you, Zoe – for making the world a better place. You are truly living proof that Green Is Good. Jackson Madnick: Very good. Thank you.

Creating Good.Clean.Hope with SoapBox Soaps’ Jason Rosen

 

John Shegerian: Welcome to another edition of Green Is Good. This is the Green Festival edition of Green Is Good in beautiful Washington D.C., and we are so excited to have with us today, Jason Rosen. He is the graphic designer for SoapBox Soaps. Welcome to Green Is Good, Jason.

Jason Rosen: Welcome. It’s good to be here.

John Shegerian: You are a native D.C. person.

Jason Rosen: Yes, I am.

John Shegerian: So we are so glad to be in your hometown today with Green Is Good. And we are here at the Green Festival and we have got your beautiful products right here in front of us and your T-shirt, which I was admiring before we started taping. “Good. Clean. Hope.” I mean, come on. And you designed that T-shirt?

Jason Rosen: Yes, sir.

John Shegerian: Wow. Alright. Well, let’s talk about SoapBox Soaps. When did SoapBox Soaps approximately start?

Jason Rosen: SoapBox Soaps started around 2010. Dave Simnick – one of the cofounders – was mixing it up in his college dorm room and decided that he was going to take it a step further. With a lot of pushing, a lot of effort he got us into our first Whole Foods.

John Shegerian: Wow.

Jason Rosen: Single store.

John Shegerian: One store.

Jason Rosen: One store. From one store turned into a region. From one region it turned into multiple regions.

John Shegerian: And so – OK – and where was he going to school?

Jason Rosen: Dave was here in D.C. at American University.

John Shegerian: So that’s how you met him?

Jason Rosen: No. I met him outside of that.

John Shegerian: Really?

Jason Rosen: Yeah. A couple years after that they posted an ad looking for a local designer.

John Shegerian: And they were local then because they had come out of the school.

Jason Rosen: Correct.

John Shegerian: And they stayed local.

Jason Rosen: Correct. Stayed local.

John Shegerian: And that was it. And they hired you.

Jason Rosen: Yep.

John Shegerian: And that was it. Then, so they started selling one store, then they got bigger and bigger and bigger.

Jason Rosen: Yep.

John Shegerian: You came in and you started developing a look around it.

Jason Rosen: Different look. Different feel. Different logo. Different bright colored popping packaging.

John Shegerian: What did you design before that that caught Dave’s attention? And had you designed soaps or consumer products, or was this your first crack at that?

Jason Rosen: This is my first crack. Before that, I was in the music industry, designing posters and stuff like that. And I had just recently come out of school for design.

John Shegerian: Really?

Jason Rosen: Yeah.

John Shegerian: So Jerry Seinfeld sometimes says, “It’s better to have dumb ambition than extraordinary experience in one sector.”

Jason Rosen: Yeah. I mean, I have gained so much experience just from working with SoapBox and working with the company that it’s….

John Shegerian: But obviously, your first consumer product, you’ve done pretty good.

Jason Rosen: Pretty good.

John Shegerian: Pretty good. So talk a little bit about the growth. Five years. One store to – where are you today in growth in the grocery?

Jason Rosen: Today, we’re in multiple Whole Foods regions. I think 10 Whole Foods regions. We have a line of hair care in Targets. We’re in Giant Foods. We’re in Krogers. We’re in Yes Organic Markets.

John Shegerian: And online. You can buy the products online.

Jason Rosen: You can buy us online. www.Target.com. You can buy us at www.SoapBoxSoaps.com.

John Shegerian: Www.SoapBoxSoaps.com.

Jason Rosen: Yes, sir. Www.SoapBoxSoaps.com.

John Shegerian: And so how many products do you have, and what do we have here in front of us?

Jason Rosen: So we have four product lines total. We have a hair care line. We have a bar soap line. We have a body wash line, a hand soap line and actually a lotion line that you can buy at CVSs.

John Shegerian: I love this. “Soap = hope.”

Jason Rosen: “Soap = hope.”

John Shegerian: Who came up with that?

Jason Rosen: That is a Dave and Dan. The two cofounders came up with that slogan.

John Shegerian: And then you made that design. “Good. Clean. Hope.”

Jason Rosen: “Good. Clean. Hope.”

John Shegerian: So wait a second. This scares me a little bit. So now I’m going to go buy soap at Whole Foods or wherever.

Jason Rosen: Right.

John Shegerian: And I heard all the great things from you today, and I want to put this on my body. Black soap?

Jason Rosen: Black soap.

John Shegerian: Explain this.

Jason Rosen: So black soap is a West African tradition. It has got activated charcoal in it. And activated charcoal, the properties of that, help exfoliate, they help detoxify, they help deodorize.

John Shegerian: There it is. Black soap.

Jason Rosen: And it smells great too.

John Shegerian: It does.

Jason Rosen: So it’s all around good for your skin. It’s basically – I like to say – a HEPA filter for your skin. So it will suck the toxins right how.

John Shegerian: Really? And you said, what’s in this one here?

Jason Rosen: So it’s all-natural soap. Very easy to make. You could do it at home – really – if you wanted to. It’s olive oil, corn oil, shea butter, sea salt, oatmeal, coconut oil for the lather.

John Shegerian: That smells good. I’m taking this home with me. That’s awesome. So talk a little bit about all the different lines that you have here at SoapBox Soaps.

Jason Rosen: So each product line has a different aid mission to it. So our bar soaps, it’s a “buy one, give one.” So you buy a bar, we donate a bar.

John Shegerian: Wow.

Jason Rosen: With our liquid hand soap, buy a bottle, we donate a month of clean drinking water.

John Shegerian: To where? Where is the donation? If I buy this soap today, where is it?

Jason Rosen: Bar soaps are 65 percent domestic, so here in the United States, we work with various NGOs – overseas as well.

John Shegerian: Wow.

Jason Rosen: India. Asia. All around Asia. Africa. South America. South and Central America.

John Shegerian: Got it. And when I buy shampoo or other things what happens?

Jason Rosen: Body wash is a year of vitamins.

John Shegerian: A year of vitamins.

Jason Rosen: Yup.

John Shegerian: To a foreign country or local?

Jason Rosen: Foreign country.

John Shegerian: Foreign country.

Jason Rosen: Those are donated specifically in Northern India and Central America.

John Shegerian: So you’re sort of doing … what Toms did for shoes, you’re doing in soap.

Jason Rosen: With soap. Yep. Exactly.

John Shegerian: First company to do it in soap?

Jason Rosen: First company to do it in soap, I believe.

John Shegerian: That’s awesome. Talk a little bit about what’s going on; why you’re here today at the Green Festival.

Jason Rosen: So we’re here at Green Fest to sell our soaps and to get the mission out to people and let people know that with due personal care you can actually make a difference while buying natural.

John Shegerian: Got it. And how is this different than other soaps that are in Whole Foods or other great natural food stores?

Jason Rosen: There are a lot of natural soap brands out there but what sets us apart truly is the social mission.

John Shegerian: OK. Because no one else has that kind of social mission in soaps?

Jason Rosen: Yeah. We are the guys.

John Shegerian: How did the guys come together? Obviously, you guys have created a brotherhood now. You’ve been with them for years. How did this whole thing get founded?

Jason Rosen: Dave and his – I guess – childhood friend, I’d say. Dave is from the Midwest. He is from the Chicago area.

John Shegerian: Yeah.

Jason Rosen: His childhood friend started this company, started this idea. Eventually, Dave’s childhood friend stepped down and Dan – Dave’s classmate from American University – stepped in and they took it from there.

John Shegerian: Wow.

Jason Rosen: Yep.

John Shegerian: And how big can this go? I mean, is this being sold now across America? Can this be sold across the world? What’s the vision and the dreams?

Jason Rosen: We are national so we are coast to coast. We are looking to sell in Canada. We are looking to sell in the U.K. So we are taking steps to get that out there.

John Shegerian: Right.

Jason Rosen: We want to make it a global mission.

John Shegerian: Yeah. We’ve got Jason Rosen here. He is the graphic designer – beautiful graphics, beautiful t-shirt – for SoapBox Soaps. You can find their great soaps at www.SoapBoxSoaps.com. Jason, is more of the sales coming from online, or more is it coming from Whole Foods and the other great retailers?

Jason Rosen: I’d say it’s mostly the retailers.

John Shegerian: Retailers.

Jason Rosen: Yeah.

John Shegerian: And so you’re in every Whole Foods now in the country? Or most?

Jason Rosen: We’re in 10 out of the 12 regions.

John Shegerian: Ten out of – that’s a lot.

Jason Rosen: Yeah.

John Shegerian: Talk a little bit about working for a social mission company. How has this affected your life, your practice? And is this all that you’re doing, or do you also graphic design now for other companies as well?

Jason Rosen: Currently, I’m just exclusively with SoapBox.

John Shegerian: Got you.

Jason Rosen: But working for a social mission company is great. Working with like-minded people, open-minded people, people that want to make a difference, want to make a change. It’s really fun. I love going to work every day. It’s a family.

John Shegerian: This is great. First of all, “soap = hope” is amazing.

Jason Rosen: Thank you.

John Shegerian: It’s a great tagline. But I love this, so I’m going to read this to our viewers and our listeners. “All SoapBox Soaps are cruelty-free, vegan, gluten-free, made in America, 100-percent recyclable packaging, palm oil-free, paraben-free, petrochemical- free, phthalate-free, sulfate-free, made with 100 percent pure hope.” How can you beat that?

Jason Rosen: You cannot.

John Shegerian: What are the new products? What’s in the works? What is the latest and greatest news?

Jason Rosen: So the latest thing happening for us is our launch in Target. We launched in Target a few months ago, and we’ve been doing really well. That’s our hair care line – shampoo and conditioner. We launched in select CVSs around the nation. We have a lotion line there. And you can find all these on our website. If you go to our website, we have a retail locator. Www.SoapBoxSoaps.com.

John Shegerian: Type in your zip code and you can find it.

Jason Rosen: Exactly.

John Shegerian: Or you could just order anything online.

Jason Rosen: Or you can order it online and it will ship right to your door.

John Shegerian: So talk a little bit about that. By breaking into Target and to CVS, does that give you guys real excitement and hope for the future of the company, and that now you’re becoming really mainstream?

Jason Rosen: Absolutely.

John Shegerian: Wow.

Jason Rosen: It’s nice to be able to break away from the natural industry and go into a larger market like Target and CVS.

John Shegerian: Yeah.

Jason Rosen: It means there are a lot of conscious consumers out there that actually are looking at the products they’re buying, looking at the ingredients, looking at the social mission behind it.

John Shegerian: Talk a little bit about a pitch meeting. We have so many entrepreneur and potential ecopreneurs that want to be the next Jason Rosen, that want to be the next Dave. What is it like going into CVS or Target with the boys and just really going for it?

Jason Rosen: Dave Simnick – one of the co-founders – is extremely charismatic and he truly, truly, truly has all of his heart behind this product.

John Shegerian: Yeah.

Jason Rosen: And they way he gets us in these places, it’s great. He definitely can talk to them and kind of….

John Shegerian: What’s the secret sauce? What’s the secret sauce, Jason? You’re an insider.

Jason Rosen: His passion. Truly, his passion behind it. It’s truly his passion behind the social mission behind this product. He truly believes in it.

John Shegerian: Does he show up in a suit and tie, or does he show up in one of those T-shirts?

Jason Rosen: Occasionally, the T-shit but yeah, I mean….

John Shegerian: That’s great. That’s great. That is just awesome.

Jason Rosen: Yeah. We’re all young adults. The average age at the office is 25.

John Shegerian: Wow. How many employees do you guys have?

Jason Rosen: Currently, I’d say 12 or 13.

John Shegerian: And right here in D.C.?

Jason Rosen: We are located in Alexandria, Virginia. Right outside of Washington, D.C.

John Shegerian: And what kind of office? Is it an office building, or is it an untraditional office space?

Jason Rosen: I would say it’s a little untraditional. We have an open office space.

John Shegerian: That’s great.

Jason Rosen: So no cubicles. Two floor office. From time to time, we have music playing. We have a lot of fun in the office.

John Shegerian: That’s awesome. So great. So since it’s a mission-based company, share with our viewers and our listeners a little bit of one of the great stories. Give a great story of when you were donating, how it changed some people’s lives and affected all of you guys.

Jason Rosen: Absolutely. So we do a lot of work at Thrive D.C., which is a local homeless shelter.

John Shegerian: OK.

Jason Rosen: And we make multiple visits so you get to know the people that are at the shelter.

John Shegerian: Right.

Jason Rosen: And going there from time to time you bond with people. But yeah, that’s kind of one of the stories is going to see….

John Shegerian: Getting to know what’s going on.

Jason Rosen: Yeah. You talk to these people month after month and kind of see what’s going on in their lives and you get to see you’re making a difference. A lot of food stamps don’t cover food stamps. WIC does not cover personal care – toothpaste, shampoo, any of that – so giving them this soap helps them greatly because they can’t afford that.

John Shegerian: Jason, now that you’re out of college and you’re a professional does working at a company like SoapBox Soaps – even though it’s important to make money to pay for your own overhead and groceries and for your own is it fun working for a mission-based company. because it’s not all about you anymore, right?

Jason Rosen: Absolutely.

John Shegerian: Your generation is about the “we” instead of just “me.”

Jason Rosen: Millennials seem to be more about the “we.” They’re very conscious. It’s good. You feel good. At the end of the day you go home, you feel good.

John Shegerian: You wake up your feel good.

Jason Rosen: You wake up your feel good.

John Shegerian: Doing good.

Jason Rosen: Yeah. Personally making a difference. Actually, being hands-on and making a difference makes you feel good.

John Shegerian: Wow. Jason Rosen, we’re so thankful you came on today. For our listeners and our viewers out there, please go support SoapBox Soaps. Www.SoapBoxSoaps.com. You can type in your zip code. You can find out where a store is – a CVS or Target or a Whole Foods near you – or you could just order the stuff right online yourself. We’re at the Green Festival today in Washington D.C. We’re with SoapBox Soaps. This is Green Is Good. Jason Rosen. “Good. Clean. Hope.” That says it all. You guys are making the world a better place and are truly living proof that Green Is Good.

Making a Superfood Super Accessible with i heart keenwah’s Sarah Chalos

 

John Shegerian: Welcome to another edition of Green Is Good. This is the Washington, D.C. Green Festival edition of Green Is Good, and we are so excited to have with us today, Sarah Chalos. She is the CEO and co-founder of i heart keenwah. Welcome to Green Is Good.

Sarah Chalos: Thank you very much.

John Shegerian: OK. So it’s really “i heart keenwah.” I want our listeners to be able to look it up. It’s www.iheartkeenwah.com. “I Love Quinoa” but it’s spelled www.iheartkeenwah.com. Sarah, before we get talking about your great company, which I am a big fan of – being a vegan – I would like you to share a little bit with our viewers and our listeners out there your story. Talk a little bit about your background. Was this a dream of yours? Was this something that came up along the way? Just share a little bit of your journey first.

Sarah Chalos: Sure. I’ve always been interested in entrepreneurship. I think there is something that’s just very exciting about starting your own company and just running the day-to-day yourself, so that was sort of a dream of mine. And I’ve worked at a few small companies, but after college I worked in sort of bigger companies and it just wasn’t very satisfying. So I went to business school and I met my partner there, and this was actually a class project that we worked on and just wrote our business plan and had some fun with it and thought maybe, “Hey, maybe this idea has some legs,” so we just started making some stuff in our kitchen and selling it at farmers’ markets, and that’s how we got started.

John Shegerian: Which business school were you going to?

Sarah Chalos: University of Chicago.

John Shegerian: And your partner was with you in Chicago.

Sarah Chalos: Yeah.

John Shegerian: Why quinoa, though? I mean, how did you even come up with that in your business class?

Sarah Chalos: This was like five years ago when people were like, “what’s quinoa?”

John Shegerian: Yeah.

Sarah Chalos: So he had just come back – actually – from a trip to Bolivia. Obviously, they make a lot of things with quinoa in Bolivia.

John Shegerian: Right.

Sarah Chalos: And he is very familiar with is because his wife is vegetarian, so she had been eating it for a long time, so he thought, “There are no ready-to-eat versions of quinoa in the United States so maybe there is something here, maybe there is an idea here,” and that’s how it got started. I mean, it’s just such an amazing seed.

John Shegerian: Had you come from an entrepreneurial background, or was this something new to your family?

Sarah Chalos: Not really, no. My dad is a professor, which I guess is sort of entrepreneurial because you’re on your own doing your own research.

John Shegerian: Right.

Sarah Chalos: So there is sort of that independence there, and I think I’ve always had that sort of independent streak from my family.

John Shegerian: Right.

Sarah Chalos: But not entrepreneurship per se.

John Shegerian: Interesting. And had your family been into sustainability or was anyone vegetarian or vegan?

Sarah Chalos: Not really. I think what really kind of got me thinking about it was Michael Pollan’s book “In Defense of Food.”

John Shegerian: Sure.

Sarah Chalos: I read that and that really changed the whole way I thought about what I eat.

John Shegerian: Really?

Sarah Chalos: Just a very simple message about, “Hey, let’s look at the ingredients and let’s eat real food.” That makes a lot of sense. It’s very intuitive. It’s very simple. And that changed the way I think about food.

John Shegerian: So you launched the business in what year?

Sarah Chalos: We founded in 2009, but we didn’t have product in a bag until three years later.

John Shegerian: OK, so three years.

Sarah Chalos: 2012.

John Shegerian: We’re sitting here in the middle of 2015. Here is your product line right here.

Sarah Chalos: Yeah.

John Shegerian: So explain a little bit about quinoa. This is a different type of spelling.

Sarah Chalos: Yup.

John Shegerian: It’s not a traditional. Quinoa is typically spelled q-u-i-n-o-a.

Sarah Chalos: Right.

John Shegerian: So why a different spelling? Let’s just start with that.

Sarah Chalos: Sure. So the whole idea and the whole concept is to take something that is so good for you and make it accessible for folks. So everything from the name to the way that it’s being eaten is just trying to make it easy for people because quinoa really is a super food, so let’s make it easy for them to say, easy for them to eat straight out of the bag, make it taste great, make it accessible.

John Shegerian: I got you. Talk a little bit about, we hear a lot about super foods. What is a super food, and why is quinoa a super food?

Sarah Chalos: Right. I think it’s used in a lot of terms.

John Shegerian: Yeah.

Sarah Chalos: Quinoa is a “super food” because it has all the amino acids that your body doesn’t produce itself. So it has the same quality of protein that you would find in meat or dairy, but it’s in a seed so that’s why it’s very special for vegetarians. To get that same quality of protein they’d have to eat rice and beans together or seek out other sources of protein to combine, but quinoa has it all just in the seed itself.

John Shegerian: Got it.

Sarah Chalos: That’s why it’s special.

John Shegerian: So how much protein does quinoa have as opposed to other types of grains or other things?

Sarah Chalos: It has a little bit more protein.

John Shegerian: OK.

Sarah Chalos: But it’s less about the number and more about the quality of protein. So because it has all the amino acids that your body doesn’t it’s the whole package rather than the quantity. I mean if you really are going for a high protein you’re going to eat something that’s more processed protein. So like isolates and stuff have more quantity.

John Shegerian: Right.

Sarah Chalos: This is a little bit more about the quality.

John Shegerian: Got you. And more accessible because of the quality. So then you start this company. You chose quinoa. Tell me why the products that we see here – how did you come up with these products to make it fun and accessible for potential consumers out there?

Sarah Chalos: Right. We started with this one – the quinoa cluster.

John Shegerian: Ah.

Sarah Chalos: So what we wanted to do here was just make it something that you kind of grab straight out of the bag and so we wanted these little squares and to do that we had to figure out how to make the quinoa – I mean quinoas are little seeds.

John Shegerian: Yeah.

Sarah Chalos: We had to figure out how to make it stick together.

John Shegerian: Yeah.

Sarah Chalos: So we just played with different sort of binders. We did it in our kitchen and then after that we worked with a food formulator a little bit in Chicago to kind of formulize the recipe, but a lot of it was just messing around the kitchen with different ingredients. “Does agave syrup hold the quinoa together?” We ended up with a brown rice syrup mostly holding it together and some raw sugar.

John Shegerian: Yeah.

Sarah Chalos: So that’s kind of how it started.

John Shegerian: So wait a second. Let’s talk about the ingredients. You just mentioned the ingredients here. So in this is just everything is quinoa, brown rice syrup. I mean this looks like everything that is good for you. I don’t see anything that is bad for you on this.

Sarah Chalos: That’s the point. I want people to read the ingredient list. I want them to feel good about what they are eating. I want it to be things that you recognize, fairly unprocessed, things that you can feel good about putting in your body.

John Shegerian: And this is gluten free?

Sarah Chalos: It’s gluten free, and everything in the clusters is organic except for the nuts.

John Shegerian: And it’s vegan?

Sarah Chalos: And it’s vegan.

John Shegerian: Wow. So I could try this?

Sarah Chalos: Yeah.

John Shegerian: We’re going to try this right here on the camera here.

Sarah Chalos: All right.

John Shegerian: We’re going to do the taste test right here. We’re opening the bag – if I can do that intelligently. And this is three-years-old?

Sarah Chalos: Yeah.

John Shegerian: I mean, this is the product.

Sarah Chalos: Right.

John Shegerian: OK.

Sarah Chalos: I mean it has kind of evolved over time, but basically you would eat it at any time that you eat a bar.

John Shegerian: Oh my gosh.

Sarah Chalos: But it’s better because it comes in little squares, so you don’t have to commit to eating a whole bar. You might not want 250 calories. Maybe you just want a few squares to sit in your car.

John Shegerian: Yeah.

Sarah Chalos: Instead of being attracted into going through a drive-thru. Or at your desk at work instead of going to the vending machine.

John Shegerian: Oh my gosh, that’s delicious.

Sarah Chalos: Thank you.

John Shegerian: Chocolate sea-salt. How many flavors of this kind of thing do you have?

Sarah Chalos: We have five flavors of that and we have four flavors of the puffs.

John Shegerian: What kind of flavors? Explain the flavors to me.

Sarah Chalos: So chocolate sea-salt. Cranberry cashew, which I have also back here.

John Shegerian: Oh yeah. Let’s bring the cranberry cashew out. Wow.

Sarah Chalos: And almond. And peanut butter cacao. That one is really nice. It has the same sort of chocolate drizzle on this.

John Shegerian: Yeah.

Sarah Chalos: And it has raw cacao nibs so it has a really neat flavor. It’s kind of like a healthy version of a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.

John Shegerian: What’s the No. 1 seller?

Sarah Chalos: Chocolate sea-salt.

John Shegerian: Oh that is so good. So that was delicious. Talk a little bit about the quinoa puffs.

Sarah Chalos: Those aren’t vegan.

John Shegerian: OK.

Sarah Chalos: So have another one of those if you want to try those.

John Shegerian: Yeah, let’s try these.

Sarah Chalos: So the puffs. In the clusters, we use quinoa seeds, puffs and flakes, and in the puffs, we use quinoa flour and we bake it. Basically, we’re trying to make a healthy version of a Cheeto. It has got a great crunch to it. It’s got five grams of protein per serving.

John Shegerian: Wow.

Sarah Chalos: Again, very simple short list of ingredients.

John Shegerian: Very delicious, let’s just say that.

Sarah Chalos: Thank you.

John Shegerian: Wow.

Sarah Chalos: I mean, that you would eat next to your sandwich. Anytime you would want to pick up a bag of chips, that is a great alternative.

John Shegerian: Oh my gosh, this is great. OK, so the ingredients on all of your products are very important to you.

Sarah Chalos: Right.

John Shegerian: Explain to our listeners and our viewers overall why ingredients are so important nowadays more than ever before probably.

Sarah Chalos: Yeah, I mean, if you look at a lot of the food that’s in the store, a lot of it is just full of chemicals. It’s these things that have been made in a laboratory, and it just – to me – feels like our food is our fuel. It’s the thing that keeps us going every day. It’s very tied to our health, our longevity. So I think it intuitively feels much better – to me – to be eating real food and things that weren’t made in a laboratory because who knows what the effects of those things are.

John Shegerian: Who is carrying this right now? Where can our viewers and our listeners find these amazing and great products?

Sarah Chalos: Thanks.

John Shegerian: Yeah.

Sarah Chalos: So the clusters are in about 3,500 stores across the U.S. So Safeway started a great section near the produce with dried fruit and nuts and a lot of healthy snacks.

John Shegerian: Right.

Sarah Chalos: We’re in H.E.B. We’re in Wegman’s. We’re in ShopRite. We’re in four regions of Whole Foods. So we have got pretty good distribution.

John Shegerian: Talk a little bit about going from two co-students coming up with this great business idea at business school to getting in 3,500 locations. How many employees do you have now, where are your offices and how did you do this?

Sarah Chalos: We don’t sleep very much anymore.

John Shegerian: I can imagine.

Sarah Chalos: I’m sure you know how that feels.

John Shegerian: Yep.

Sarah Chalos: So it started out just walking store-to-store when we had our first product in a bag. First, we went to Whole Foods when we had product in a Tupperware. We just showed up at headquarters and we were like, “Hey, we have this great product and we think it’s going to be great for your store,” and they were like – they gave us a little pat on the head. They were actually really nice.

John Shegerian: Right.

Sarah Chalos: It was exciting that they were so nice to us because we didn’t know.

John Shegerian: I’m sure they’ve seen this before, right?

Sarah Chalos: Right. “Here comes another crazy food brand.”

John Shegerian: Right.

Sarah Chalos: But once we had the product in a bag we just walked store-to-store in Chicago – because I live in Chicago and then my partner lives in New York – just selling and saying, “Hey, will you try our quinoa snacks out?” I think people really liked the product a lot. Just by looking at it it looks very appetizing so people were willing to give it a shot. And I think people also want to support the food entrepreneurs and any entrepreneur. I think people – especially in the United States – just love the story of the entrepreneur and it’s very exciting to them. So people along the way have been really nice in giving us a shot.

John Shegerian: So what was the first chain that carried this product?

Sarah Chalos: The first chain.

John Shegerian: What was your first big break?

Sarah Chalos: Wegman’s.

John Shegerian: Wegman’s.

Sarah Chalos: Yeah.

John Shegerian: Wow.

Sarah Chalos: Yeah, that was exciting. They brought in spinner racks, and they still carry it and they carry the puffs now too.

John Shegerian: So what has been your growth rate? What percentage of growth year over year?

Sarah Chalos: The last few years we have been doubling every year.

John Shegerian: Doubling every year.

Sarah Chalos: Yeah.

John Shegerian: Wow. Alright. So a typical day. Your offices are in Chicago?

Sarah Chalos: Yeah. That’s our headquarters.

John Shegerian: How many employees?

Sarah Chalos: It’s just been Ravi and myself until three weeks ago. We just hired our first employee. It was very exciting.

John Shegerian: Unbelievable. You’ve done this with two employees. You and your cofounder.

Sarah Chalos: Yeah.

John Shegerian: Incredible. And you’ve just hired your third.

Sarah Chalos: Yeah.

John Shegerian: I love your overhead.

Sarah Chalos: Right? Exactly. Very low overhead.

John Shegerian: This is great.

Sarah Chalos: We’re scrappy. I sleep on a lot of couches.

John Shegerian: Oh my gosh. This looks great. So give me a typical day.

Sarah Chalos: Yeah. That’s what I love about it is every day is so different.

John Shegerian: Yeah.

Sarah Chalos: I mean I’m thinking about strategy – what stores should we target to really grow, and where are we going to resonate with folks? I’m thinking about marketing events – where should we do demos, and how do we connect with our consumer? I’m thinking about a lot of operations. We have manufacturers that help us make the product – do they have the raw materials? So there are a lot of operations things to think about. Finance. Can’t forget about accounting. It’s very important. It’s very painful but it’s very important.

John Shegerian: And by the way, we have so many listeners and viewers around the world that want to be the next Sarah. How did you finance this when you launched it?

Sarah Chalos: We just bootstrapped. At the beginning – by the smallest amount – we were buying almonds in 25 pound cases. We found a packaging company that would run all of our flavors at the same time so we didn’t have to have such high minimums. So we kind of just found ways to do everything on a really, really small scale. And we’ve tried it out a lot to make sure it was a great idea. We tried it out in farmers’ markets – “which flavors work” – and we tried everything on a small scale so we could do it by ourselves. And really the first bag was profitable. We never sold it as a loss because we needed that money to keep funding the business.

John Shegerian: Do you sell this online as well?

Sarah Chalos: Yeah. We sell it on our website, on Amazon.

John Shegerian: And the website is www.iheartkeenwah.com. What would you do differently if today was 2012 again and you were starting over?

Sarah Chalos: We were very excited to get going. We wanted to start selling.

John Shegerian: Like all entrepreneurs are.

Sarah Chalos: Right. I think I probably would have spent a little bit more time on the R&D. I really love the product now, but it has gone through a lot of iterations, a lot of changes. So I think really investing the time upfront to make sure that you’re putting your best foot forward because every time somebody puts it in their mouth that’s what they remember. You don’t get another chance.

John Shegerian: That’s right.

Sarah Chalos: Now I feel really good about it. It’s a little better than it was three years ago.

John Shegerian: Right.

Sarah Chalos: So I would have probably spent a little more time on the R&D formulation.

John Shegerian: How do you market it once it’s in a store, Sarah? How do you get people to try it and buy it? And are you leveraging social media? Or what are you leveraging?

Sarah Chalos: Yeah, I mean a lot of it about getting in people’s mouths because it tastes great, so we do a lot of park demonstrations and we do events like the Green Fest where I can meet thousands of people and get them to try it and tell them the story. So a lot of it is just really about sampling and tasting.

John Shegerian: That’s interesting. And have the stores been very helpful? They’ve been supportive as well, the stores that sell your product?

Sarah Chalos: Yeah. Like I said, people want to give us a shot. They know we’re small, so they’ll give you a bit of a break sometimes on the requirements to get into a store.

John Shegerian: You know, Sarah, you’re obviously highly educated and you know there are two different things out there. There are the headlines and the trend lines. The trend lines – I believe – sound like they’re in your favor. More people are reading ingredients. More people are eating healthier. Vegetarianism and veganism is becoming more mainstream than it was 10 years ago, 20 years ago.

Sarah Chalos: Yeah.

John Shegerian: Gluten free.

Sarah Chalos: Right.

John Shegerian: How do you now evolve your product and your product line and your brand to take advantage of the trend lines that are out there?

Sarah Chalos: I think there is a lot of runway with our current products, and I think there is a lot of runway with quinoa as a seed. It’s so versatile and that’s really the core of what we are is quinoa and I think we envision that it could be something that is in everybody’s pantry just like rice. Just something that you cook with all the time and something that is even healthier than a lot of things you eat on a day-to-day basis. And so I think we have a long way to go before we reach that potential where quinoa is just sort of a household item. And we want to be the quinoa brand.

John Shegerian: Are there sales happening for you right now in Canada?

Sarah Chalos: Yeah, we have two distributors in Canada.

John Shegerian: You do?

Sarah Chalos: Yeah.

John Shegerian: How about other than Canada? Is this a product that can go international to Asia and to Europe?

Sarah Chalos: Yeah. And particularly the puffs because they have a year shelf life. These are a nine-month shelf life, so it’s a little bit tough with export.

John Shegerian: Right.

Sarah Chalos: But the puffs are already going to the Middle East, and we have some interest from some South American countries. Hong Kong – we just placed our first order. So we are doing some export as well.

John Shegerian: No kidding. Who are your biggest clients? Is it men? Women? Younger? Older? Little kids? Who is eating your “i heart keenwah” products more than anybody else?

Sarah Chalos: I think when people taste it, it resonates with a lot of people, but the people that are most likely to pick it up are women who are health aspirational. They’ve heard quinoa, they know that it’s good for them, but they might not know how to cook it. And they want to eat something that’s better for them, they want to make good choices but they might not necessarily know exactly what to choose. So those are the people that it resonates the most with.

John Shegerian: We are here at the Green Festival today in Washington. Why are you taking your band to the Green Festival to showcase it here today? Why was this an important place for you to showcase “i heart keenwah?”

Sarah Chalos: Because these are people that care about the way they live their life. They care. These are the kind of people that do read ingredients and they care about the sustainability of quinoa which is something that we care about as well. They care about the ingredients that they’re choosing so this is really where I think people will kind of fall in love with our product.

John Shegerian: Have you done Green Festival before? Is this your first one?

Sarah Chalos: This is our first one.

John Shegerian: First one.

Sarah Chalos: Yeah.

John Shegerian: Well, I wish you luck today.

Sarah Chalos: Thank you so much.

John Shegerian: This can be a great day. I’m sure you are going to be very well received and, Sarah, I really appreciate you coming on the show. This is delicious. “I heart keenwah” is a delicious product. I just tried it here right on camera, and it is really yummy. For our listeners out there that want to learn more about Sarah’s great company, it’s www.iheartkeenwah.com. Sarah Chalos, you are making the world a better place and are truly living proof that Green Is Good.

Empowering Consumers to Swipe for a Cleaner Planet with Sustain:Green’s Arthur Newman

 
John Shegerian: Welcome to another edition of Green Is Good. This is the Green Festival edition in Washington, D.C., and we are here today with Arthur Newman. He is the CEO and founder of Sustain:Green. Welcome to Green Is Good, Arthur. Arthur Newman: Thank you. John Shegerian: It’s great to always have a fellow New Yorker on the show. We are here in D.C. at the Green Festival, and before we get talking about your new company – Sustain:Green – I want you to share the Arthur Newman story. How did you even get to this point where you were so excited and had an epiphany and a vision to start Sustain:Green? Arthur Newman: Well, I started out as a Wall Street analyst. So I worked on Wall Street for quite a few years. I have an MBA in Finance. I wanted to work in biotech and healthcare and those areas, but just as things evolved, I ended up becoming an Internet analyst, and I was very well known on Wall Street as an Internet analyst. I also spend quite a few years working as an investment banker. John Shegerian: Ah. Arthur Newman: And I did very well for myself, but as time progressed, I was looking for things that interested me more. John Shegerian: Right. Arthur Newman: That really were meaningful to me. Along the way I took a bit of a personal journey, because my daughter developed some severe allergies to some chemical additives – severe enough that people were starting to diagnose her preliminarily as maybe she had ADHD and they wanted to medicate her. John Shegerian: Wow. Arthur Newman: And my wife and I said, “Maybe not,” and we were very committed to organic food in the early days. And you know sometimes parents slip a little bit, and we said, “We’re going to straighten all this nonsense out with her diet,” and now she is very successful at a top-rated college and doing great. John Shegerian: Wow. Arthur Newman: The diet made the difference, and it’s just something that people don’t appreciate – that there actually are people with real sensitivity to some of these food additives that we have. It really made me want to focus the remainder of my career on things that I felt really could make a difference, that I wanted to be a change agent not just for raising money for Internet companies but for doing good for people. John Shegerian: Right. Right. Arthur Newman: So I was at a position where I felt I could do that, so I started focusing my activity more on green tech companies. John Shegerian: OK. Arthur Newman: And started looking at different ways of generating alternative energy and along the way became very interested in carbon offsets. John Shegerian: OK. Arthur Newman: Which is an area that not that many people are familiar with. John Shegerian: Right. Arthur Newman: But it’s a really important avenue for promoting clean energy and clean development. John Shegerian: When you say “carbon offsets,” something like what Richard Sandor started with the Chicago Climate Exchange and things of that such? Arthur Newman: Exactly. Exactly. And at the time I started getting into it, people were actually starting to abandon the market. John Shegerian: Ah. Arthur Newman: California had been talking about putting in place cap-and-trade and it wasn’t happening or it was happening too slowly. So the big banks and the big finance people were all leaving and I thought from my experience, “Oh, this is a good time to be entering.” John Shegerian: Right. Arthur Newman: So I started to investigate, and I formed a company with somebody else and we started to join the different registries. So I became a member of the Carbon Trade Exchange; I became a member of the American Carbon Registry; and we started helping some companies offset their carbon footprint. John Shegerian: Got it. Arthur Newman: So along the way I had an epiphany – because I was working with individuals like you and me, and I mean, all these companies are made up of people and they were motivated to have their organization be carbon neutral, and they wanted to be carbon neutral as well. John Shegerian: OK. Arthur Newman: But the question was: “How can they do that?” John Shegerian: Right. Arthur Newman: They could go out and buy carbon offsets but it’s really cumbersome. They’re not well designed for individuals to purchase it. And we can all do actions. There are a lot of things we can do individually to reduce our carbon footprint, make an impact. John Shegerian: Right. Arthur Newman: But at some point there is only so much an individual can do in the same way there may only be so much a corporation can do. You may still need to own a car. You have kids. It’s very hard to take your kids to soccer practice on your bicycle, right? John Shegerian: Right. Arthur Newman: So you have to be realistic about it. So I said, “Well, what if we could make it easier for our people to reduce their carbon footprint, to educate people along the way about other things they could do, other actions they could take in their lifestyle? What if we could just make it really easy that you didn’t have to change what you normally did each day but just incorporate it into your daily routine?” John Shegerian: Right. Arthur Newman: And then I said, in my wish list, “Let’s make it free also.” John Shegerian: Wow. Arthur Newman: So I said, “That is my wish list; is it possible?” John Shegerian: Right. Arthur Newman: So, “OK. Let me think about it for a while,” and in the end, what we developed was a credit card – because “Let’s go where there is some profit,” right? John Shegerian: Of course. Arthur Newman: We all know there is profit in the credit card industry. John Shegerian: Right. Arthur Newman: So the first trick is to find a bank that is willing to work with us, that is willing to allow some of that money to be used for – let’s say – for good, right? John Shegerian: Right. Arthur Newman: And it means more than just lip service, it’s not just window dressing for what they’re doing but really has a commitment for that. John Shegerian: Right. Arthur Newman: So we found a partner – Commerce Bank – a large Midwestern bank, very highly rated. Management has been rated in the top 10 – I believe – for the last seven years by Forbes Magazine. So it is a really great organization, and we have really strong support from them for this mission. John Shegerian: OK. Arthur Newman: Then, as we developed the product, I started working with the America Carbon Registry. That was one of the organizations that I knew. It’s a not-for-profit, and importantly, not only is it a not-for-profit, but it really believes in market-based solutions to climate change. So it’s not all about just donating money to a problem but let’s change the behavior. Let’s change. Let’s make the market work for us. John Shegerian: Got it. Arthur Newman: So adapting a credit card for this purpose was, again, something that was right in line with what they supported and their way of thinking. John Shegerian: Wow. OK. Arthur Newman: So as we put all the pieces together. What happens now with our credit card is when you use it – every time you use it – we reduce your carbon footprint. The way we do that is we purchase and we retire carbon offsets on the American Carbon Registry. John Shegerian: Well, before we get there for our listeners out there, we’ve got Arthur Newman with us. He is the CEO and founder of Sustain:Green. You can learn more about Arthur’s great company at www.sustaingreen.com. You have your idea, Arthur. Arthur Newman: Yes. John Shegerian: And when do you start developing a business model around it like, “I’m going to launch this business, and I’m either going to raise money or I’m going to do this out of my own pocket or I’m going to bring partners on” – when was this now going on? Arthur Newman: I would say it was about a year-and-a-half ago. John Shegerian: OK. Arthur Newman: Maybe even a little longer than that when I first had the idea. John Shegerian: Right. Arthur Newman: When I put together my wish list. John Shegerian: Right. Arthur Newman: Then it was probably six months of thinking about my wish list going, “Is this really even feasible?” John Shegerian: OK. Arthur Newman: And then once we got to the point of going “I think it can work this way,” then I’d say that was about a year-and-a-half ago when we started getting serious about talking to people and trying to put our partners together. John Shegerian: And so do you raise money for this? Or you did this on your own? Arthur Newman: So crazy enough this is self-funded. Myself and my partners. John Shegerian: Wow. Arthur Newman: We put our own money into it. John Shegerian: And how many partners? Arthur Newman: There are three partners in total – myself and two others. John Shegerian: Right. Arthur Newman: And we have financed it because it is something that we believe in. John Shegerian: Wow. Arthur Newman: One of my other partners is also a successful Wall Street guy. We’re not all bad and some of us really believe in causes and want to make a difference and are willing to try to develop solutions. And instead of asking someone else to put money into this, we said, “We’re going to do it ourselves.” John Shegerian: Wow. Arthur Newman: “This is our, dream our motivation, we’ll finance it. If it works, that’s great and if it doesn’t, there is nobody to come and blame us.” John Shegerian: So now you put the business model together and you launch it when? Arthur Newman: We launched it early this year. John Shegerian: Early this year it launched. So again for our listeners and our viewers, it’s www.sustaingreen.com. Talk a little bit about the Green MasterCard. What do people get if they go to your website today and sign up for it – and that’s the best place to do it right now? Arthur Newman: Yes. Yes it is. Unless you’re here at the festival and you can sign up in our booth. John Shegerian: Right. If you’re here today. But if you’re listening or watching online. Arthur Newman: Come to our website. John Shegerian: Right. To sign up. Arthur Newman: And you can sign up. So you get a MasterCard network card. John Shegerian: Looks like this? Arthur Newman: Looks like more or less like this. I would show you mine, except I don’t think I want to broadcast my numbers. John Shegerian: Right. Arthur Newman: But yes, that’s what it looks like. John Shegerian: It’s a great-looking card. Arthur Newman: The card is actually biodegradable. John Shegerian: Wow. Arthur Newman: So to my knowledge, it’s the only card available in the United States that is biodegradable. John Shegerian: Come on. Arthur Newman: That’s a really important point that just doesn’t – I think – get appreciated. There are roughly half a billion – 500 million – credit cards roughly get thrown out each year. They end up in dumps. They’re plastic. They sit there. John Shegerian: So your card is biodegradable. Arthur Newman: It’s biodegradable. John Shegerian: Brilliant. Arthur Newman: You cut it up. You stick it in some dirt. It’s the bacteria in the dirt that causes it to break down, so it’s kind of compostable in a sense. John Shegerian: Dumb question. If you already knew where this technology was, what about all the other banks? Why aren’t they making it? Arthur Newman: Yes. Isn’t that the right question to ask, right? John Shegerian: Yeah. I mean, come on. Arthur Newman: Why? It costs more money to produce this card. John Shegerian: Great answer. I got you. Arthur Newman: And it’s a great answer and it’s a terrible answer. John Shegerian: Right. Shame on us. Arthur Newman: So the only way – and Commerce Bank believes otherwise – but I think most banks believe that consumers just don’t care enough. John Shegerian: Right. Arthur Newman: There isn’t enough demand for them to spend the extra dollar, dimes, whatever it ends up being. John Shegerian: Wow. Arthur Newman: And I think this is one of the cases where consumers need to – if 500 million credit cards in the dump each year bothers you, this is an example for consumers to stand up and say, “We need credit cards like this.” John Shegerian: Well, I’m so glad you’re telling our audience right now, because I’m sure – like myself – I didn’t even know that those were just going into dumps and, of course, were non-biodegradable and that actually the technology existed for biodegradable cards, so I am so glad that you brought that to our attention. So now talk about the card. I sign up, I get the card. Arthur Newman: Yup. John Shegerian: How does this work? What goes on? Arthur Newman: So you sign up on our website, and hopefully, as part of the signup process, you will use some of the calculators and tools we have for calculating your carbon footprint. John Shegerian: OK. Arthur Newman: And it’s information and it’s educational because you are not just getting a number, but you are hopefully understanding how your number comes there, what you do that increases or can decrease the impact that you have. John Shegerian: Right. Arthur Newman: And we save that number for you and you have a personal carbon homepage. Now every time you use this credit card, we reduce your carbon footprint. When you first get the card and make your first charge on it, you get a 5,000-pound offset bonus. Put into perspective that 5,000 pounds is roughly equivalent to taking a car off the road for six months. John Shegerian: That’s huge. Arthur Newman: Right. So just by getting the card. Just with your first charge. You go out, you buy something. John Shegerian: You have offset half a year of your driving. Arthur Newman: Half a year of driving for one of your cars. John Shegerian: That’s awesome. Arthur Newman: So it’s an enormous impact. The card has no annual fee, so it’s not costing you anything to get the card then every time you use it you get two pounds of carbons eliminated for every dollar that you spend and then we have certain bonus tiers for people who use it more. John Shegerian: Now, Arthur, is this like a charge card where I charge and then I pay at the end? Arthur Newman: Yup. It is a credit card. It works. It is a credit card. John Shegerian: Straight up. Arthur Newman: It’s not even fair to say it “works like a credit card.” It is a credit card. John Shegerian: Straight up credit card. Arthur Newman: It can replace any credit card that you have in-wallet. Again – backed by Commerce Bank, a major bank, MasterCard network. It has all the same protections you are used to from a MasterCard branded card this one has. John Shegerian: I mean, this is amazing. Arthur Newman: You can use this with Apple Pay, you get your online bank statement and then on top of all that, though, every month you come and you can look at your carbon page and you can see how much you reduced your carbon footprint, what kind of benefit that you’ve had. John Shegerian: And everywhere where MasterCard is accepted this is accepted around the world? Arthur Newman: Absolutely. John Shegerian: That’s huge. So then talk a little bit about the other benefits that come, what other great conservation and benefits that come. Arthur Newman: So to do that I need to talk about some of our other partners. So the headline is all the money that we spend offsetting your carbon is then donated – all the money we spend offsetting your carbon – is donated to the Mata No Peito coalition, which funds rainforest preservation projects in Brazil. So how do we do that? In developing this card, we worked with the American Carbon Registry, which is a not-for-profit registry. We buy all of our carbon offsets through them. We work with Winrock International, which is a huge global not-for-profit – Rockefeller Family Foundation not-for-profit – and we actually write our checks to them. They manage the money. So it’s not that we’re holding on to the money for [inaudible]. We write our checks to Winrock, they manage it and the money goes to Mata No Peito. Now what does Mata No Peito do? It is – the best way to describe it – a Kickstarter for rainforest preservation. So they develop scientifically validated, market-based plans to help preserve the rainforest. And that means that the plans could be different for different regions, different villages, because they look at what are the reasons that the rainforest is being cut down. What are the economic pressures being faced by the population there? What can we do to eliminate those pressures? Or in a different village, where it’s already been cut down, what can we do to replant? We fund it. They develop some of the programs. Any one of our cardholders is welcome to submit their own ideas – they have to be scientifically validated by the ACR and Winrock – and then the ideas will actually be voted on. So our cardholders can actually vote on which of these projects they want us to support. So they’re our own projects and our cardholders have a say in what they’re doing. Then, functioning like a Kickstarter, we provide the initial financing for these projects to get off the ground, but because they’re being operated under the auspices of the American Carbon Registry, those projects themselves will generate carbon offsets, which can then be sold as an ongoing source of income for the projects, so the projects become self-sustaining. John Shegerian: Wow. Arthur Newman: So it’s not just that we pick one project and it’s our pet project that we each year have to keep going. John Shegerian: Right. Arthur Newman: We can have multiple impacts across the board and each of these live beyond and independent of our cards. John Shegerian: I love it. So how do we get people to sign up for your card, and what other tools do your users get in terms of becoming greener and becoming more conscious of what they’re doing in terms of their daily lifestyle? Arthur Newman: OK. So two separate questions. John Shegerian: Yeah. Arthur Newman: How do we get people to sign up for the credit card? John Shegerian: Yes. Number one. Arthur Newman: Number one, tell your friends. John Shegerian: Tell your friends. Arthur Newman: Tell your friends. We’re a B-corp. First of all, I wanted to say that. But we are pending B-corp. John Shegerian: Why did you do that rather than? Arthur Newman: Because it was important for us to just establish legally, on paper for everybody to see that for us our social mission is as important to us as profits. Honestly, to me, it’s more important than profits, but we wanted to just establish and make clear to everybody. And what that means is I don’t have a huge marketing budget, and I sure don’t have a marketing budget that compares to the money center banks, so I can’t put our credit card on every bus, I can’t run it on TV shows, so the reason I bring this up is this has to be a grassroots effort. John Shegerian: OK. Arthur Newman: So we need people who are watching this, people who see us, if you’re a blogger, to write about us. John Shegerian: OK. Arthur Newman: Put us on your Facebook page. John Shegerian: OK. Arthur Newman: Tell your friends about it. If this is a cause you believe in, get the card, tell your friends. We also have a reward for telling your friends, because you know what? We’re happy to offset more carbon. You do something for us, we’ll retire more carbon on your behalf. John Shegerian: Right. Arthur Newman: That’s the goal is to eliminate as much of the CO2 as we can. John Shegerian: Right on. Arthur Newman: Through our process. So we really need the support of the community. The people who say this is a great idea and care about it there is a simple action that you can take. Apply for the card. John Shegerian: And let’s just pause at that. I have a MasterCard in my wallet right now. Why would I not just cancel that MasterCard and then get this? Arthur Newman: Laziness? Inertia? John Shegerian: Apathy or something. Arthur Newman: Apathy. Right. John Shegerian: So the idea is let’s switch over. No reason. Arthur Newman: There is no good reason not to switch over. If you are using a credit card already, use this one instead. John Shegerian: Wow. Arthur Newman: Accept some rewards that really make a difference. Look at the bank that’s behind your credit card and say, “Do their values align with my values?” John Shegerian: Right. Arthur Newman: “Do I support what they support?” If the answer is “I’m not so sure” or “no,” maybe look at who you’re banking with and try a different credit card. John Shegerian: Right. Arthur Newman: You’re not going to be giving up anything. John Shegerian: Anything. Arthur Newman: And you’re going to be gaining a great deal. John Shegerian: What else do we get as a user? Obviously, there are already so many great reasons to sign up. I read about your card before I even met you, Arthur. Talk a little bit with our audience about tracking tools and other great benefits that you’ve designed into this process. Arthur Newman: So for us, this is a lifestyle. John Shegerian: Right. Arthur Newman: This is a commitment, and this card is one tool in a commitment to fight climate change, to make a statement, to make a visible statement that people can see when you use this card. John Shegerian: That’s great. Arthur Newman: They’ll go, “That’s an interesting card.” John Shegerian: This is great. Arthur Newman: I get compliments. I get comments when I use this card. John Shegerian: I love it. Arthur Newman: So we want it to be incorporated into everything that you do so with that, yes, we provide tracking tools so you can monitor the impact that you’re having and the benefit that you’re creating. John Shegerian: Right. Arthur Newman: And you can get that right on our website. You log in, you see it. We also have a community, so you are joining a community of people who are like-minded, who have similar beliefs. You can interact with them on our social sites. And we believe that we have created a site of scientifically valid information. So if somebody is saying, “Oh, I don’t believe in climate change, this doesn’t make any sense,” and you want a rebuttal, you can come to our site and we will have the facts laid out – I think – in a way that is really compelling. Beyond that, if that’s not what you need but you’re looking for other suggestions of things that you could do to make a difference, we have that on our site, and in fact, we will shortly be launching another site, which will have multiple actions that you can take that we’ve quantified, such as when you go to get your cup of coffee in the morning. So one thing is when you get your morning cup of coffee, we’ve quantified on our site you can see how much coal equivalent you will have eliminated. John Shegerian: Wow. Arthur Newman: How much gasoline equivalent you will have offset by putting your coffee on our card. But beyond that what else could you do? So what we’re adding is information about “Well, what if you took a cup” – like the cups we have at our booth, a reusable cup – what the impact is of that. So you can actually learn about it. You can sign up to take that challenge, and then it will actually quantify how much CO2 equivalent you have eliminated by taking that challenge for a week, and it will total up what you’ve done. You can do multiple actions. So now you can see the impact from your card, the impact from other actions that you’re taking that aren’t related to spending and you can challenge other people. You can form groups. You can have a group challenge versus another group challenge. The best tool is education about it. John Shegerian: I love it. That’s right. I love it. Well, this is wonderful and I just think all of our viewers and listeners if you use a credit card, do what I’m going to do – sign up for Sustain:Green’s Green MasterCard. This is wonderful, Arthur. We just want to help you spread the word as much as possible. We’re so glad you came on the show. We’re so glad your daughter was the change-maker in your family and that she’s doing so well right now. What a great story. Arthur Newman, he is the CEO and founder of Sustain:Green. Thank you for making the world a better place, Arthur Newman. Arthur Newman: Thank you. Thank you for spreading the word. John Shegerian: And you are truly living proof that Green Is Good.

Localizing Water Resource Management with MWH Global’s Bill Swanson

 
John Shegerian: Welcome to another edition of Green Is Good. This is the Wharton IGEL GE innovation water technology edition of Green Is Good here in beautiful downtown San Francisco. We are so honored to have with us today Bill Swanson. He is the Water Resources Practice Leader at MWH Global. You can find them at www.MWHGlobal.com. Welcome to Green Is Good, Bill. Bill Swanson: Thank you, John. Good to be here. John Shegerian: Thank you. And I get a little head start on our audience, because I got to moderate this wonderful panel, which you were on today and hear some of your great thoughts. Before we get talking about your thoughts with regards to water, water reuse, water recycling and other important water technology issues, can you share a little bit the Bill Swanson story? Give a little bit of background on how you even got here to our listeners and our viewers. Bill Swanson: Happy to. So I have been in consulting engineering all of my career – over 30 years – with a primary emphasis on water resources planning and management. What excited me about the field from the very beginning was the intersection of public policy, economics and engineering technology. My background is engineering but I’m fascinated mostly by the social policy and the economics of water solutions. John Shegerian: Wow. Bill Swanson: So it’s truly the public decision-making model that drives our choices. The engineers can solve any problem given to them but the public has to accept it in a way that’s environmentally sustainable, publically acceptable and affordable. So our challenge in water resources is really finding those sweet spots – if you will – and rarely is it individual projects. It tends to be complimentary solutions that fit together as part of a package. John Shegerian: Got you. And so talk a little bit about your practice at MWH Global. What do you exactly do there, and what is the mission of MWH Global? Bill Swanson: Well, our mission is to build a better world. It’s our tagline. We are exclusively focused on the water sector in doing that. Anything related to water we are involved in, from its sourcing, capture, treatment, distribution, collection of wastewater – if we want to call it “wastewater” – the development and improvement of – I’m not going to call them “wastewater treatment plants” – let’s call them “resource recovery factories,” because that’s really what they are. We can capture nutrients, water and energy in what we traditionally call “wastewater plants.” We are involved in hydropower development and improvements. We are involved in flood planning and land use planning related to that. We are involved in the mining sector. Anything that touches water MWH is involved in. John Shegerian: Around the world? Bill Swanson: Globally, yeah. John Shegerian: How long has it been in business? Bill Swanson: Two-hundred years. John Shegerian: And is it busier than ever before right now? Bill Swanson: We’re seeing a shift in the marketplace. In our business, the market tends to fluctuate to some degree between the investments in municipal and government water systems and private sector in manufacturing, mining, hydropower development. We’re seeing some shifts – a resurgence if you will – particularly in the U.S. in the municipal marketplace where the economic downturn of 2008 really set many ideas into a standstill, and as the recovery has progressed, we’ve been seeing an uptick. It’s really now about to explode. John Shegerian: Got you. We’re sitting here in California today at this great conference of thought leaders – you being one of them. Why did you come to this conference today, Bill, why now, and why California? Why is this such an important convergence of thought leaders to be talking and messaging around the issues of sustainability, water, technology and innovation? Bill Swanson: I think the biggest driver is the fact that we’re in a four-year – maybe it’s a seven-year – drought that we’re in right now, and it has heightened everyone’s interest in what can we do now and what decisions should we make now to prevent us finding ourselves in the same situation in the future. Whether it’s California, anywhere else in the arid Western U.S., parts of the Southeast or frankly in many other parts of the world the era of low-cost high quality local water supplies is over. We’ve developed our water resources to the point now where the next increment of water will come from more sophisticated technologies and more collaborative solutions. So why now is because this drought provides an impetus for these conversations. John Shegerian: Got you. Bill Swanson: What interests MWH about this is everything I just said a moment ago. Our mission really is to help our clients find not just projects that work but solutions that work. John Shegerian: We are near the hub of innovation – Silicon Valley – and is this where some of the greatest technology is coming out of or are you borrowing from technologies around the world and helping implement and get those technologies put through systems around the world? And where is the best water technology today stemming from? Bill Swanson: I’m not sure I have a good answer on where the best water technology is coming from today. John Shegerian: OK. Bill Swanson: I agree with you. Silicon Valley is an incredible incubator – if you will – for high technology. But it is not the only place in the world where there is high technology related to water. Water treatment tends to be a locally driven solution still. Water is a local resource. One of the comments today was that water scarcity is a global problem, but it manifests itself in local situations. I’ve heard people talk about water as a commodity. I don’t subscribe to that. There is no global water marketplace, because water is too localized in its origin, and it’s too heavy to move great distances. So what we really are trying to find is the marriage between local limitations – and they are all different everywhere you go – and the globally available technologies that can be brought to bear. I don’t know if I have a good answer where the best technologies are, but there are great water treatment technology developments going on around the world. We see some of the most innovative applications in underdeveloped nations, where necessity is driving solutions that maybe aren’t as socially acceptable today in more developed nations. John Shegerian: Let’s talk about something that is actually close to us here in San Francisco – in San Diego you’re doing some work and in the central valley. Share the tale of two areas in California with some of the great work that you’re doing in San Diego and also some of the fascinating constructive collaborations that you’re working on in the San Joaquin Valley. Bill Swanson: OK. San Diego, right now, we are in the process of what we call the “pure water program.” San Diego has two competing challenges at the same time. One is, for a large city in the U.S., they’re fairly unique in not having full secondary treatment of their wastewater, and so primary treated sewage is being discharged into the Pacific Ocean. That’s a violation of the Clean Water Act, and it’s very costly to modify the plants to accommodate that improved technology. At the same time, San Diego is at the end of pipelines for imported water. Most of the water supply – 80, 85 percent of it – is imported from either the Bay Delta or from the Colorado River Basin and it is moved through metropolitan water district systems. Well, by the time it gets to San Diego, it’s gone through a lot of pumps and pipes and reservoirs and treatment, and the cost of water is relatively high. So San Diegans face an interesting challenge. They have a potential cost for additional treatment of the wastewater and they have a potential great cost for the next increment of water supply. What the pure water program does is it combines these two needs into a singular solution where some of the water that would be discharged into the ocean from the treatment plants will instead be treated using very high quality and high technology treatment methods and reintroduced into the water supply system saving the treatment plant improvement costs and providing a water supply to the city at the same time. John Shegerian: When you create solutions like this and fascinating collaborative solutions like this, how long is the process going to take to get them on board with this and get the solution implemented so it really solves the problem? Bill Swanson: Well, the drought – again – is the motivator. John Shegerian: Yeah. Bill Swanson: In a period of abundant water supply, these types of solutions are very difficult to move forward. But when we’re faced with the crisis of limited water supply, and we don’t know how long this drought is going to last, it motivates activity. So the plan for the pure water program is that by 2035, we would have 83 MGD – million gallons per day – in place with the first increment – about 30 of that – by 2023 or maybe even as early as 2021. So we are talking six to eight years of seeing a project go from the concept we are talking about today through piloting, permitting, design and construction. John Shegerian: What percentage of the problems does that solve in the San Diego area? Bill Swanson: I think around 25 percent or so. John Shegerian: By 2023? Bill Swanson: 2035. John Shegerian: 2035, which is great. Bill Swanson: It’s a great amount, yeah. John Shegerian: Talk a little bit about you have great experience and years of work in the San Joaquin Valley, which of course is challenged because of the agriculture stress and everything else. Share a little bit about your experiences there and how you’re creating solutions there as well. Bill Swanson: So San Joaquin Valley has gone through what I’d call a series of seismic shifts when it comes to water. Think back 40 years ago. There was more water supply available that even during relatively dry periods the farmers would receive a pretty high allocation of water. John Shegerian: Right. Bill Swanson: But over time, our social priorities have changed and we’ve recognized that the large water projects that we have have cause cumulative ecological damages and we’re trying to reconcile that largely through the allocation of water from those projects back to the environment so that has reduced the available water supply. So that’s reduced how much water the farmers can get, but many of them still have to pay for the projects. So just like conservation tends to increase urban water rates the reduction of supply increases agricultural water rates in the same way. So what the farmers have been forced to do then is say, “Well, let’s find ways to make the use of our water more economically appealing,” so they’ve shifted from some of the lower value annual crops to higher value permanent crops, but that has put a hard demand on water that year-in year-out there is a need for water for agriculture. John Shegerian: Got you. Bill Swanson: Let me add to this. Last year, the State of California legislature enacted first in time legislation to regulate the groundwater in the state of California, and it mandates that groundwater basins develop and implement plans that will result in groundwater sustainability. One of the solutions that the farmers have turned to in the past 20 or 30 years because of water shortages is increased groundwater withdrawals. That’s led to groundwater overdraft and in some areas land sinking. So we have these forces all combining to force the irrigators to think differently, and they are truly beginning to. They always have worked relatively collaboratively, and we’re seeing an acceleration of that where areas that would sometimes be in conflict with one another are now beginning to work more collaboratively for common solutions and moving water across the San Joaquin Valley east to west. We’re seeing opportunities for using water that would otherwise have been considered too impaired for use. For example, produced water from oil field wells. When you pump oil out of the ground it comes with water, and when that oil and water can be separated, then there is a quantity of water that is available for something. Historically, the oil companies just disposed of it as waste. It is now being looked at as a resource. John Shegerian: So given where we are right now with regards to what you know and the global opportunities plus also the local opportunities technology makes you hopeful for the solutions of our water crisis here in California? Bill Swanson: Absolutely, it does. Yeah. Technology and collaboration. John Shegerian: And collaboration. Bill Swanson: As I see it the availability of technology today provides solutions that may have not existed several decades ago. John Shegerian: OK. Bill Swanson: The advanced treatment capabilities that we have today that are deployable allow us to tap water resources that in the past would be considered untouchable or classified as waste. So now we have the opportunity to convert what previously was a waste product into a true resource. John Shegerian: Does the crisis create then – as you say – the social and political will to help then deploy these technologies? Bill Swanson: It does, yeah. And the reality that there is a limited amount of water available to us. The growth in the future will not be supported by a proportional increase in water supply because there simply isn’t additional water supply available to meet the future demands. The emphasis must shift to how we can be more efficient in using the water we have and greater conservation – if that’s the right term – of what we would previously consider to be a waste. John Shegerian: Well, I’m going to leave you, Bill, for the final few words and thoughts on water technology and today’s conference for our listeners and our viewers out there, and we have to sign off today, but I want you to share some of your final thoughts with our viewers. Bill Swanson: OK. Well, one of the thoughts I would pass along is that where we are today in water resources is a new normal. We’re seeing the effects of climate change. We’re seeing the effects of extreme events that are perhaps more extreme than we’ve seen in the past. The infrastructure we have today wasn’t designed with these events in mind, so what that means is as we’ve started thinking about packaging solutions in the future we need to shift away from thinking about a replication of the past as an indication of the future and instead do our planning around the construct of risk. So we started thinking about what are the risks that the climate will change in a variety of ways? What are the risks that the demand for water might be different than we think? Either climate driven or population or industrial driven. What are the risks that regulatory requirements – whether they be water quality or ecosystem – could impose further restraints on how we use water? And what are the risks of catastrophic failure of our infrastructure? As we make choices in the future about the combination of sources and supplies of water in our portfolio, it’s this risk analysis that needs to be thought through to arrive at not just the best economic solution but the best resilient and durable solution. John Shegerian: That’s perfect. And thank you, Bill, for your time today, and thank you to our listeners and our viewers out there. This was John Shegerian at the Wharton IGEL GE water innovation technology conference here in beautiful downtown San Francisco. I’m joined today by Bill Swanson from MWH Global. To learn more about Bill’s great work with his colleagues, please go to www.MWHGlobal.com. Bill, thanks for your great work. Thanks for making the world a better place. You are truly living proof that Green Is Good. Bill Swanson: I appreciate that. Thank you, John. John Shegerian: Thank you for being with us here today at the special IGEL Wharton GE water technology innovation edition of Green Is Good in downtown San Francisco. Until our next edition. I’m John Shegerian. We’ll see you soon.

A Data-Centric Approach to Water Resource Management with WaterSmart Software’s Robin Gilthrope

 
John Shegerian: Welcome to another edition of Green Is Good. This is the Wharton IGEL GE water innovation technology edition of Green Is Good here in beautiful downtown San Francisco. and we are so honored to have with us today Robin Gilthorpe. He is the CEO of WaterSmart Software, and you can find his great company at www.WaterSmart.com. Welcome to Green Is Good, Robin. Robin Gilthrope: Thank you. It’s great to be here. John Shegerian: Thank you. I had the pleasure and the opportunity of moderating a panel that you were on earlier today so I get a little bit of a head start on our audience, but I want to catch our audience up and I want you to share with our audience first, Robin, before we get talking about WaterSmart and before we get talking about this conference, I want you to share the Robin Gilthorpe story on how you even evolved to this point in your life – where you are the CEO of this very important innovative water technology company. Robin Gilthrope: Yeah, so my background. As you can hear, I’m not here from the Bay Area. I grew up in England. I’m a recovering economist. So that is to say, I studied both quantitative and behavioral economics and then I took that experience and really got serious about the business of data analytics and I applied that to lots of different industries from financial services to national security to retail and so on. But one thing kept kind of drawing me back, and perhaps it was an experience as an undergrad student working in the labs at Anglian Water where we were testing water quality. One of the things that people often don’t know about the U.K. is that actually there is less water per capita in the U.K. than there is in Morocco. John Shegerian: Oh my gosh. Robin Gilthrope: So it’s surprising, right? So as we sit here in California – and I’ve been living here for several years now – it’s very easy to think of our current water problems as a drought problem, but really it’s a growth and a population problem. John Shegerian: Explain what you mean by that. Robin Gilthrope: Well, by that, what I really mean is that it’s a supply and a demand issue. John Shegerian: Ah. OK. OK. Got you. When was your company born, and where was your epiphany to go from being an economist to someone who was going to step off the cliff – because that is what being a real entrepreneur is – and go take a germ of an idea, a vision that you have and raise money and go take a shot? Robin Gilthrope: Sure. So I mean for the foundation of the company, I am incredibly grateful to my partner, Peter Yolles. Peter had spent 20 years as a water guy. He started out in nonprofits, he worked for GE, he worked on the policy side and so on. So Peter is kind of the water guy and I was the data guy. John Shegerian: So was Peter back with you in England or here in the States? Robin Gilthrope: He is here in the States. John Shegerian: And how did you meet Peter along the way in the journey? Robin Gilthrope: It was through – he had a big investment community – Sandhill Road. John Shegerian: Got it. Robin Gilthrope: And that whole thing. John Shegerian: Got it. So you guys met and over coffee, dinner, over what did you decide that this was maybe a perfect match of water and data? Robin Gilthrope: So Peter actually got this started, and he did some very good initial work and did the incredibly hard thing or getting that first couple of customers. But what rapidly became obvious was that this was a much bigger market. I’ve spent my career looking at these analytics businesses and going not so much the zero to one but the one to 100 kind of experience. So what we saw was this opportunity really to go and target the 4 billion people in the world who are connected to city water. John Shegerian: Wow. So when was the company actually officially born, and where was it born, and how did you find the first dollars when you took an idea, went out to raise some money? How are you building it from one to 100 now? Robin Gilthrope: So the idea was born on Peter’s kitchen table in late 2009. John Shegerian: OK. Robin Gilthrope: There was a bunch of sort of bootstrapping and doing it in the evenings and all the rest of it for about a couple of years. John Shegerian: Right. Robin Gilthrope: And the journey was pretty interesting. By the years we got one utility, then five, then 12, last year 36, today we’re in the high 40s, hopefully hitting 50 utilities. John Shegerian: Does the success of you landing utilities beget success? As each success story ratchets up with the previous customers that you land every year when you try to track your growth kegger what is you growth trajectory right now for the next two or three years? Robin Gilthrope: So particularly in cloud-type business, there is kind of a playbook for this. If you talk to a bunch of the venture guys who have seen us 1,000 times, they’ll tell you what you need to do is “T2 D3.” So triple twice, double three times. That is kind of your path to a 100-million run rate. So interestingly last year we tripled the business. Actually the year before we tripled the business. This year we’ll probably more or less triple the business. Then the year after and the year after we’ll certainly be in that doubling rate. So we feel like we’re on the flight path that we need to be. John Shegerian: The playbook. Robin Gilthrope: Yeah. Absolutely. John Shegerian: Good. So share a little bit about what your company does though, the uniqueness of what you’re doing with water, data and the transparency you’re able to give on the demand side that didn’t exist before. Robin Gilthrope: At a very simple level…. John Shegerian: Yeah. Robin Gilthrope: What we do is we help utilities and consumers to save water, save money and avoid energy use. So we’re doing this with data, and we are really focused not on the physical world but on the digital world. John Shegerian: OK. Robin Gilthrope: And we’re focused not on the supply side but on the demand side. John Shegerian: Right. Robin Gilthrope: So what we do is we take data from the utilities that they need anyway to be able to give you a bill. John Shegerian: Right. Robin Gilthrope: We mix their data with our data. So we have data like “what does your house look like, how big is it, how big is your lot, what is the climate and weather, how many people are in the house, when was the house first built” and so on. So we have a whole series of parameters. We mix all that stuff together. We’re looking at this constantly, and we’re looking for patterns. We run through about a half a billion data points each and every hour, and we’re looking for anomalies. So what we can do is we can give information to the utility about who is using how much water when, where, why and how. That is very useful for them at a macro level all the way down to you as an individual. We then also forge a channel for the utility to talk to you. Typically, utilities don’t talk to their consumers so we change that dynamic and they can give you very precise personal information saying “you, John, use exactly this many gallons per day and this is where it’s going” and that in itself is actually helpful. Then we can actually give you a fair comparison and say, “Hey, if you’re using 100 gallons a day, is that a lot or a little? Let’s compare you with somebody whose house looks just like yours. They’ve also got four people in the house; they’re also living in a 2,700 square foot home on an 11,000 square foot lot and in this particular climate.” Because even in the Bay Area you look at somewhere like Berkley and somewhere like Orinda. The linear distance is very small but it’s a different climate. So if you live in Orinda comparing you with someone in Berkley isn’t fair. So we give people a fair comparison. Then we say, “Since you scored at the bottom of the class” – or wherever it may be – “here are three or five things you can do that are specifically tailored to your experience.” Every single consumer gets a different communication, and because we are doing this with digital techniques, we can do one-by-one communications at mass communications economics. John Shegerian: So wait a second now, Robin, I want to make this as simple as possible. Is this basically what you are doing with software and with technology and data in the water sector? You’re making everything measureable and therefore manageable? Robin Gilthrope: Yes. That’s a great way of putting it. And actually we’re using a lot of the techniques that conceptually people are familiar with from their everyday experiences on the Internet, right? John Shegerian: Right. Robin Gilthrope: I mean, the same way that Google can analyze what you’re doing and serve you with an ad that’s based on your exact profile. John Shegerian: Right. Robin Gilthrope: We do the same for water. John Shegerian: That’s brilliant. When you came up with this was anybody already doing it? Robin Gilthrope: So, at the time, people were starting to do this already in the energy sector. John Shegerian: Right. Robin Gilthrope: Nobody was doing it, and frankly, even it’s only now that people are starting to do it in the water sector. John Shegerian: In the water sector, for me to get my reading or to have that information in the community I live in in California, do I have to get that through my municipality or do I sign up through www.WaterSmart.com to get it directly from your company, which is then the big data holder of all this information? Robin Gilthrope: So the way that we work – currently, we work with and through the municipalities. So we view those utilities as our partners. John Shegerian: Got you. Robin Gilthrope: And our primary goal – frankly – is to make them look good and to help them rum better. So even if you are using our product, it will actually have not a “WaterSmart” brand on it. It will have your utility’s brand on it. John Shegerian: Do you sometimes co-brand or is it always private label? Robin Gilthrope: It’s always private label. If you look at the bottom of the page, you can probably find a little copyright and WaterSmart way at the bottom of the page, but we don’t need to be taking the limelight. John Shegerian: No kidding. That’s fascinating. And for our viewers and our listeners out there that want to learn more about Robin’s amazing company – and he is the CEO, Robin Gilthorpe of WaterSmart Software – please go to www.WaterSmart.com. The future. Before we get to talking about today’s conference talk a little bit about the future of WaterSmart. How big can this grow? Because we are talking about something if you’re comparing home versus home in a community and community versus community, now we start talking about city versus city, state versus state, country versus country, this sounds like a universally unlimited opportunity for your software and for your data analytics. Robin Gilthrope: I think that’s a great point. Firstly, it’s a huge market. There are 4 billion people in the world who are connected to city water. John Shegerian: Wow. Robin Gilthrope: And every one of them is a potential user of this technology. Then, I think the second thing that’s very important is as we get bigger we develop a whole series of network effects. The more data we have the more precise we can be so the information actually gets better and more valuable. The second point is that we’re also able to provide benchmarking. So utilities are interested in terms of how they grade. John Shegerian: Right. Robin Gilthrope: “Am I improving more than the neighboring utility? How do I score in the U.S.? How do I score in the world?” So, ultimately, we see an opportunity not just to let consumers see themselves against their fair comparators but to see utilities against their fair comparators, and it’s also – particularly in a crisis like we’re facing here in California right now – incredibly valuable as you can imagine for, say, the State of California rather than doing what they do today, waiting a month to get the two-month old data. Just yesterday or the day before we had all the data for April. This is a real-time world. John Shegerian: Real time. It’s brilliant. So the opportunity is truly unlimited. Your company is located here in the Bay Area? Robin Gilthrope: We’re right here in San Francisco, so it was a nice walk over here to Wharton. John Shegerian: Which is basically ground zero for innovation and technology. So here you are changing the world and making the world a better place right here out at Silicon Valley and San Francisco. So we are here at Wharton today. Why Wharton? GE? Why technology? And California right now? Obviously your solution is nothing short of brilliant, but why is it important for you to come and message not only what you’re doing but help frame up the issue and talk about how technology and innovation can help work our way through these issues? Robin Gilthrope: The reason to be here today was very much that we’re not just building a business. We’re trying to build a market, and we’re trying to encourage other people to participate. There are a couple of unique things about this situation. No. 1, when we sell to individual utilities, we learn from each of those experiences. And utilities don’t actually compete with each other. They are geographical monopolies. John Shegerian: Right. Robin Gilthrope: So unlike a lot of other markets – if I were working in financial services or retail – if I did something that was really cool for one company, they would definitely not want me to share that with another company. Actually, one nice thing about this industry is people want to share those best practices, and there is no conflict in doing that. The other thing is there is this ecosystem factor that – simply put – there needs to be more capital applied to solving these kinds of problems, and at the moment there just hasn’t been enough investment in this sector to really move the long-term picture, and I want to encourage people to be more aggressive about using big data on the demand side, on the supply side and using it in tandem with all the physical science that we have been hearing about today. John Shegerian: How big is your company in terms of employees right now? Robin Gilthrope: We are still relatively small. We’re a couple dozen employees. John Shegerian: Wow. Robin Gilthrope: But already serving millions of homes in almost 50 communities coast-to-coast. John Shegerian: And venture-backed. Robin Gilthrope: Absolutely. Yeah. Venture-backed by – among other people – Steve Westly who was the first marketing executive at eBay and famous early investor in Tesla. He is very committed to great returns but great outcomes for the community and for the planet. Also, other great names – DFJ, Physic Ventures and a series of large family offices, who are very much committed to our mission. John Shegerian: Robin, I want to give you the final thoughts and words. We have a whole generation of young people that want to be the next Robin Gilthrope, and that’s a great thing, and they listen to this show. This show is broadcast around the world. They now also get to watch it on YouTube when we go to these kinds of conferences and meet thought leaders and business leaders like you. Some food for thought as we wrap up for today. Where are we in this journey in terms of technology, water and the crises that exist and overcoming these crises with great an innovative and destructive brands like yours, and what advice can you give to the young people behind you that don’t want to just go and work at a law firm or an engineering firm, they want to be an ecopreneur like you that changes the world for the better? Robin Gilthrope: So the first thing I’d say is that unfortunately we’re going to see more of these crises. By 2023, we’re likely to see 40 of 50 states with a water crisis at some level. And that’s not my data that’s from the GAO from the U.S. Government. John Shegerian: OK. Robin Gilthrope: So this is not going away. The solutions – I think – will have to come from that innovation center and from venture-backed firms, and I really want to make sure that people are encouraged to do that. I think the other thing that’s worth pointing out is that when I look at our team, which comprises of behavioral scientists, economists, data scientists, designers and so on, everybody is there not just to make a paycheck but to make a difference. The opportunity that is presented by working in the digital world means that there is a whole series of areas whether it be water or other parts of our life where we can have a really material impact on the physical world even though we’re working with digital methods. And I encourage people to do that, and we are of course hiring. John Shegerian: You got that from Robin Gilthrope. He is hiring here at WaterSmart. And to learn more about Robin’s great company, please go to www.WaterSmart.com. Robin, I just want to thank you from everyone here at the conference and myself at Green Is Good for coming here today and making the world a better place. You are truly living proof that Green Is Good. Thank you so, so much. Robin Gilthrope: Fantastic. John Shegerian: Thank you very much.