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JOHN SHEGERIAN: Welcome back to another edition of Green is Good, and this is the Hollywood edition of Green is Good with my co-host, Debbie Levin, the President of the Environmental Media Association. We’re so honored to have with us today the beautiful Frances Fisher. Thank you for coming on Green is Good today, Frances. FRANCES FISHER: My pleasure. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Thank you. Debbie, you and Frances are friends for a very, very long time, so I would want you to take the honor and really introduce Frances the way she’s supposed to be. DEBBIE LEVIN: Everybody knows Frances Fisher as being literally one of the most talented actresses ever. I mean, seriously, like, ever. Movies, theater, TV. I have the privilege of knowing Frances as one of my besties. We actually met in Sundance, and I know exactly when we met. We met in January of 2003 because I have a sweatshirt, so I know the year, and we met when we did a conference and Frances came. It was one of those moments where, oh my God, I love you. You joined the Board immediately, and we have been incredible girlfriends ever since. But beyond being one of the best actresses in the business, Frances is one of the most dedicated activists I know in the environmental world and in the theater world and your passion is just amazing. She is the most genuine and authentic human being I’ve ever met. That’s just my little intro for you. Live up to that, babe. JOHN SHEGERIAN: I know when you met Debbie, but when did you join EMA and became part of that? FRANCES FISHER: I think it was right away. Debbie completely revamped it. When did Norman start it? DEBBIE LEVIN: ’89. FRANCES FISHER: ’89. Then this little powerhouse shows up and completely reorganizes the whole thing and gets so many fantastic people to be on the Board. Our EMA event is amazing. Every year it grows bigger and bigger and bigger, and more and more people come and we have an amazing Board. We have an amazing Young Hollywood Board. DEBBIE LEVIN: Which your daughter sits on, Francesca. FRANCES FISHER: Which my daughter is on now, yes. She was little before, and now she’s old enough. And then the regular Board and then the Executive Board. DEBBIE LEVIN: And the Corporate Board, which John sits on. FRANCES FISHER: Yes. JOHN SHEGERIAN: You’re such a very prolific actress and so busy in what you do for your profession. How do you have time to be an environmental activist? FRANCES FISHER: Well, it’s just your lifestyle, right? In the beginning, it’s turn the lights off when you leave the room. I have so many canvas bags. I give them away. I use them for everything. It’s not just to go to the grocery store. I have a little emergency bag in my backseat with all kinds of stuff. I use them for everything. JOHN SHEGERIAN: How did you evolve, though, in terms of your personal lifestyle? From 2003 here to 2015, Frances, what are you doing in your personal journey to be green? You’re not just talking the talk, but you’re walking the walk. We know that, but I want our listeners to hear. FRANCES FISHER: I’ve had a Prius since they were invented. I love it. I’ve seen other people with other types of cars that are hybrids, but I just love my Prius. I just really love it. What do I do? Recycling. I have glass containers that I put things in. I don’t have those plastic containers. It’s little things like that. What else? DEBBIE LEVIN: You’re really, really supportive of our PSA programs too, so that’s a huge thing, in terms of using your talent to really spread the message and voice our issues. You’ve worked a lot with John Quigley, who has also come here today. FRANCES FISHER: There’s so many issues going on on the planet. It’s overwhelming to think what do I want to get involved in? What I do is, depending on the time I have between jobs, that’s when my activism really kicks in. My lifestyle is pretty consistent. If we don’t have a planet to live on and air to breathe, all these other things, they’re moot. We need to take care of Mother Earth and Father Sky. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Obviously, you’ve walked a heck of a walk because Francesca now has also become an environmental activist and joined EMA, the Young Hollywood Board. In terms of the big issues that we face today, we’ve talked today about water scarcity, we’ve talked today about climate change, what’s really on your mind? Before you leave this planet, before we all leave this planet, what do you hope gets solved and what are you focusing on? FRANCES FISHER: Water. If we don’t have clean water, we won’t survive. The fracking thing, John, quickly, it’s terrifying to see what’s happening to our planet. So many people who don’t really realize it. I post things on my Facebook and I get messages from people around the country. “I didn’t realize that Keystone XL was so bad, because I’ve been told it’s going to give people jobs.” It’s like, balance that. Ed Begley, bless his heart. Are you going to get those organic things that are flown in from Chile, those blueberries? Think of the pollution for the traveling of the airplanes. You have to offset everything. It takes work. Even food labeling. I’ve taught my daughter to read labels because you can’t just believe the advertising of something. You have to look at the labels on the back of the container and see what the ingredients really are. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Frances, since meeting Debbie in 2003 and becoming part of EMA, how have you seen the evolution of Hollywood in terms of all the sets that you get to work on and all the producers you get to work with? Is Hollywood from the inside getting more green in terms of doing more things on their sets and in production? FRANCES FISHER: Sometimes. I’m very frustrated with a certain company because we had a craft service person who was bringing in all organic food. She had a guy, this was not in this state, it was in another state, she had a guy who was basically homeless, and she hired him to sort through all the garbage because everybody was just throwing all the trash in the same bin, which is what we’ve all done all our lives until the last decade or so, when we’ve really understood. They’re starting to make garbage cans that have the recycle bins and that kind of consciousness. This was fabulous. She gave a homeless man a job. He was the one who separated out the paper and the plastic and the garbage and everything, and took all the stuff that didn’t have meat and eggs in it and dairy, and separated it out to make compost. This guy was amazing. The next year, the studio said it cost too much money. I said, “If you feed people good food, their energy level will be better, they will produce more, they will have energy to work instead of eating the same tired food in the line.” It’s that. I’m sounding very frustrated because I am. And on the other hand, I worked on a show here in town where the craft services had brown rice and vegetables just waiting there. The actors are conscious. I think actors are probably a little more conscious of what they eat because they have to look a certain way on camera, so they kind of lead it all the time. The crew needs healthy, hearty food. I have to tell you about FRANCES FISHER: There’s a place called Serenbe. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Where is this? FRANCES FISHER: In Georgia. I went there to do a TV series, Resurrection, a couple years in a row now. Instead of living in a hermetically sealed apartment in Atlanta or in a house in the middle of this bustling city, I said I want to live in the country. I want a front porch. It’s the South. I want to live like that. My realtor said, “You’ve got to check out Serenbe.” Serenbe.com. I opened that page and I looked, and it says, “The best part about living here is the life here.” It’s 1,000 acres with an organic farm, organic restaurants, people who live in houses in community, face-to-face with all the front porches and kids running up and down the sidewalks because nobody’s driving fast in their cars. They drive around in golf carts mostly. So what is my point? Solar powered, geothermal. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Who are the people behind this? FRANCES FISHER: Marie and Steve Nygren were both restaurateurs in Atlanta, and they decided they wanted to raise their daughters on the weekends in this farm that they bought many years ago. As the land came for sale around their property, Steve would buy it because he didn’t want it to be developed. A lot of developers are unconscious. JOHN SHEGERIAN: So it kept growing. FRANCES FISHER: It kept growing, and then finally, what am I going to do with this? What he’s done is dedicated 30 percent of the property to buildings and the rest is green. Everywhere you look, there’s trees and flowers. Nobody has lawns. Everybody has herbs growing. I could run across the street and get an herb. DEBBIE LEVIN: These are the kind of communities that we should be having all over, but we don’t because it seems people don’t want to build it because there’s better ways to make money. JOHN SHEGERIAN: When you were doing your show, can you go there and eat? How did you get to know them? FRANCES FISHER: I lived there. DEBBIE LEVIN: She lived there, and I was so mad because the year that she lived there, I was doing a wedding and I was building a house, and I didn’t have time to visit. It was so upsetting. FRANCES FISHER: Hopefully, we’ll be picked up next year. DEBBIE LEVIN: I know, and then I’ll come. FRANCES FISHER: They have the agricultural pod. It’s like a neighborhood where the farm is. There’s another one that’s the arts district because they have a theater there. It’s all outdoor theater, environmental theater. They have an artist in residence program, painters, photographers, and they’re building the new neighborhood called Mado, which is going to have all kinds of holistic alternative medicines, probably cryo, a real doctor, old folks’ home, a teen center to help teens. They have a school on the property. DEBBIE LEVIN: This is the way people should be living, and it’s so difficult because we haven’t been able to figure out how to do that for ourselves. FRANCES FISHER: I think, also, when people make money, they think that they have to buy a McMansion and put a big wall around it to protect all their material possessions, and they are lonely and isolated. People in Bel Air don’t know their neighbors, and this here, nobody locks their doors. Steve and Marie thought everybody wants community. We can be on our social media, and that’s all very good and effective, but there’s nothing like walking into a theater and sharing a real experience, to see actors on a stage, especially if it’s good, to share that with an audience, walk in as strangers and come out because you’ve laughed and cried together, and look that person in the eye and go, “That was good, right?” Human connection. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Frances, was the whole production company staying there, or just you? FRANCES FISHER: Just me. JOHN SHEGERIAN: How did you learn about it, and how did you even find out about this place? FRANCES FISHER: A realtor. I had talked to 10 realtors looking for places to live. I kept saying I want a house with a porch. They were trying to sell me on going to live at the Twelve, which is like this high rise, hermetically sealed windows where it’s all air conditioned. It’s awful. They said, “When you come in at midnight from working, you can just order from any restaurant around. They’ll send it right up.” I don’t care about restaurant food. I’m a vegan. I want to eat real food. This one realtor heard me, and she said, “I don’t handle any property there, but I’ll tell you about Serenbe. That’s where you want to be.” JOHN SHEGERIAN: How many homes are there for purchase or for rent? FRANCES FISHER: They’re building all the time. They had 140 homes, now they’ve probably got about 250. They’re not going to overbuild, but all the houses are together so everybody has community, but you could go out the back porch and you’ve got the woods. JOHN SHEGERIAN: You mentioned a little while ago that you’re a vegan. Is being a vegan in still a McDonald’s and Taco Bell world, is it hard, or is it getting easier, or do you find it no problem at all? FRANCES FISHER: It’s definitely easier, especially in Los Angeles now with the Crossroads and places that are popping up all the time, and Gracias Madre is one of our favorite restaurants. DEBBIE LEVIN: How is it for you health-wise? FRANCES FISHER: When I eat vegan, I can eat as much as I want. I did Kathy Freston’s 21-day vegan cleanse, and what it was was giving up five things. You give up coffee, alcohol, sugar, gluten, and animal products of any kind. 21 days later, the weight just slipped off me. Obviously, I’m not doing that stringent a diet right now, but my face just started glowing and I was more rested because eating healthy, organic, non-GMO food gives me the energy I need and I don’t have to eat a lot. I was eating raw for a while. You eat raw food only, the enzymes aren’t cooked out because they’re fresh and they’re clean. You get the energy right then. You don’t have to eat as much to fill your stomach up or to get the energy you need. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Do you enjoy, also, this whole revolution with juices? Are you enjoying fresh juices as well? FRANCES FISHER: Yeah, I do juices. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Do you really? FRANCES FISHER: And water. Lots of water. DEBBIE LEVIN: You did also mention the organic blueberries and the challenge between local and organic. That’s a huge point for people, I think, because I think people do need to understand that you have to look beyond the obvious. You can’t say I have to only buy organic when there’s a local farm that has not been certified yet, but is not using pesticides, and they’re growing their fruits and vegetables and herbs. You can go to a farmers’ market and get it and it’s right there and there’s no transportation involved. That’s the environmental choice. FRANCES FISHER: Because I’ve been doing it so long, it’s just part of me now. People starting it, it seems a little overwhelming. You just start simply. If there’s a 9 on the little sticker on the fruit or vegetable, that means it’s OK. If it starts with a 9, that means it’s organic. If it starts with a 4, it’s conventionally grown. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Explain why. I’ve never heard of that before. FRANCES FISHER: That’s just the way they label it. It’s like four or five numbers, I think, but the 9 is the important one. 9 is good; 4 is bad. DEBBIE LEVIN: Also know where it’s coming from. If it’s going thousands and thousands of miles, what is that doing for fuel? You have to think about that. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Because of what you’re doing and your own walk, are a lot of your friends following and becoming vegan as well, and also living more sustainable lifestyles? FRANCES FISHER: I don’t know if anybody has turned vegan. DEBBIE LEVIN: I have not. FRANCES FISHER: But if you are not going to be vegan, just make sure that the animal flesh that you do eat has not been fed with GMO corn and things like that. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Beyond meat, if you were to share with our listeners and viewers what to cut out of their diet that can make a good dent and make them feel better, if they’re going to keep meat in their diet but buy organic meat. FRANCES FISHER: Yeah, it’s a little more expensive, but the benefit of that, you feel better. I fell off the wagon. I did, in the South, in Georgia. You look at that, and Marie goes, “Just taste this.” But it was not factory farmed. The taste and the energy I got from that food as opposed to what I used to do before I was conscious, you don’t get energized by food, especially now. Back in the day, when our parents were growing up, when there was no such thing as GMOs, the Earth was actually vibrant. Now everything is so overprocessed. There’s no energy in the soil anymore. JOHN SHEGERIAN: For our listeners or viewers, what should they cut out? Milk, dairy? Should it be dairy, sugar, gluten? You give us your take on this stuff. FRANCES FISHER: Sugar is really, really dangerous and pointless. If you have to have sugar, you can do fruit sugars. Agave, yes, or maple syrup. At least it’s not white. I’d say get rid of anything white. Human beings aren’t supposed to be drinking milk. Mother’s milk, yes, when you’re feeding your child, but we’re not supposed to be drinking milk of other animals. White bread, anything processed, obviously not good. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Did you feel better after you cut gluten out? FRANCES FISHER: Yes. I rarely eat gluten. If there’s a little piece of French bread, of course, I’m going to indulge, but for the most part, like what’s in my home, it’s all clean stuff. I know that I’ve got something that I can eat that is healthy and nourishing. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Francesca is the same way? FRANCES FISHER: Yeah, she’s doing really, really well. Every once in a while I’ll see on her Instagram, it’s like Big Mac. It’s like, no, no. She’s a kid, and it’s not all the time. She’s learning. I’ve taught her how to cook simple meals. I make this mac and cheese that you would swear that it was made with real cheese, but it’s made with diet cheese, and the macaroni is gluten-free. You just put it in the thing with a little almond milk. DEBBIE LEVIN: It’s so easy to do that because even though I’m not a vegan, I don’t eat a lot of meat, and when I eat it’s always organic. I’m scared to eat anything else anyway, but I have quinoa pasta and whole wheat. There’s so many choices right now, and it’s actually not hard anymore. It’s all available, and it’s kind of available everywhere. You just have to look and you have to try it and you have to realize that these things are such great options and it’s fun. FRANCES FISHER: Yeah, and it used to be that only Whole Foods had it. DEBBIE LEVIN: Right, but it’s not like that anymore. FRANCES FISHER: Whole Foods has a lot of conventionally grown things, too. You have to look in the right place at Whole Foods. But places like Albertson’s and the grocery stores, Piggly Wiggly, they’ll have a little organic section. DEBBIE LEVIN: Now it’s everywhere. JOHN SHEGERIAN: We had Ethan Brown on a little while ago from Beyond Meat. He’s in 7,000 stores selling his Beyond Meat products. DEBBIE LEVIN: Target and Costco and everywhere, they all have this now. It’s really amazing. FRANCES FISHER: The thing that I learned, this is important, because if you don’t want to do gluten, I don’t have Celiac’s but I feel better when I don’t eat gluten, I just can feel it, to eat a lot of these vegetarian or vegan things that are made, there’s a lot of gluten in them. You have to read the labels. You always have to read the labels. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That’s a great point. FRANCES FISHER: Fresh is better anyway. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Beyond sustainability, Frances, before we sign off today, share what you’re up to professionally. What’s going on in your life and what’s your next project and what are you excited about? FRANCES FISHER: What is my next project? Right now, I’m fighting for actors to keep our Equity union from closing down the 99-seat theaters in Los Angeles. DEBBIE LEVIN: And fighting very publicly and very loudly, which is amazing. FRANCES FISHER: I love 99s, 99-seat theater, which is an incubator for new works and a place for actors to apply their craft and keep themselves fresh. The 99-seat plan was never made to give actors money. It’s a place to work when you’re not doing other things. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Is there a website that people can go to if they want to donate? FRANCES FISHER: Yeah, ilove99.org. It’s not just us. Why we do it is we want to give it to an audience, and we need an audience. That’s what I was saying before about community. The theater is one place where people can come together and have a community. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Frances Fisher, thank you for joining us today at Green is Good. Ilove99.org. For Debbie Levin and John Shegerian, we’re Green is Good. Frances Fisher, you are truly living proof that green is good. Thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you. FRANCES FISHER: Thank you.

JOHN SHEGERIAN: Welcome to another edition of Green is Good. This is the Hollywood edition of Green is Good with my friend and co-host, Debbie Levin. Debbie is the President of the Environmental Media Association. It’s such an honor to have with us today for the first time on Green is Good Susan Feniger. Welcome to Green is Good. SUSAN FENIGER: Thank you. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Such an honor to have you with us today. We’re at the SLS Hotel, by the way. SLS stands for SLS Loves Sustainability. DEBBIE LEVIN: I just wanted to jump in because I wanted to introduce Susan, because Susan and I have known each other for 15 years. You were my first chef for the EMA Awards the first time that we did it in 2000. Amazing. SUSAN FENIGER: Yeah, and it was way small back then, right? DEBBIE LEVIN: It was way small, and you were like my celebrity crush and I thought if I could possibly get Susan and Mary Sue to cook for the first time that I did the EMA Awards, I would have made it. We’re going on 16 this year, which is incredible. You guys are just the most wonderful, amazing, philanthropic, most incredible people, and the best chefs, by the way, and the greenest. SUSAN FENIGER: Is there more to this show now? DEBBIE LEVIN: No, we’re done. But I do want to say, the other thing is my very special program, the EMA school garden program, you guys are our only chefs that were associated with this, and you help us every year. SUSAN FENIGER: That’s just inspiring for us when we go to the garden. It’s inspirational, and it makes you feel like, oh my God, any little bit we can do to be involved. DEBBIE LEVIN: It’s so beautiful. We actually do a luncheon once a year where Susan and Mary Sue, we gather the veggies and herbs from all the schools, and they cook lunch for all the kids and the celebrities and the parents and the teachers. It’s the luncheon that you cry because it’s just so beautiful every year. SUSAN FENIGER: It’s so sweet. You see this incredible garden. It makes me realize what a horrible gardener I am. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That’s the three of us. For our listeners and viewers out there, to find Susan’s great work, you got to go to www.bordergrill.com. Let’s be honest now. It’s been a hell of a journey. SUSAN FENIGER: It’s been a long time, for sure. JOHN SHEGERIAN: And you were really a celebrity chef with Mary Sue before there was even the Top Chef craze and all that other stuff was going on and Emeril Lagasse. You were two hot tamales. SUSAN FENIGER: Yeah, we were there when Food Network first started. We taped 470 shows or something. When Food Network first started, we were on six times a day, seven days a week, so we walked through the streets of New York and the firemen would be like, “Hey, there’s the two hot tamales!” We were big celebrities. JOHN SHEGERIAN: I remember the humble beginnings of going to your restaurant as a special night out for my wife and I and our children. You’re much beyond Santa Monica. Share with our listeners and viewers a little bit of the journey of starting humbly here in southern California and where you are now. SUSAN FENIGER: I still feel like I do the same thing. I end up at the dish station, I end up bussing tables, but beyond that. We opened our very first restaurant in 1981 called City Café. We had literally a hot plate and two Hibachis in the parking lot out back, and one double door refrigerator. We literally had to call wolf so he would call his produce company to say, “You have to deliver them three cucumbers a day if that’s what they need.” DEBBIE LEVIN: That’s where I found you. I used to go to City. SUSAN FENIGER: And then we opened our larger restaurant, City, and put a tandoori oven in ourselves. Then we opened Border Grill in Santa Monica in 1990, which is still there. JOHN SHEGERIAN: And that was it, that was the beginning of the whole revolution. SUSAN FENIGER: It was. We did Good Food. We started a show, Good Food, on KCRW and did Food Network when it first started, Two Hot Tamales, and opened Border Grill downtown, Border Grill Las Vegas at Mandalay Bay, Mud Hen Tavern up in Hollywood, now another Border Grill at the Forum Shops, Border Grill trucks, Border Grill at the airport. JOHN SHEGERIAN: How do you do it and maintain the unbelievable tasty, yummy food that you make that’s also sustainable and also high-quality and get more than just one restaurant? How do you do that now? SUSAN FENIGER: You work long days. I think both Mary Sue and I are very hands-on. We always have been very hands-on. I think we have a great team of people that work with us. I’ve always been political, even when I was a little kid, so I think there’s important issues to us and we use that platform. We have like 500 employees now; it’s totally crazy, compared to our very first restaurant that was literally nine tables. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Do you both feel that you’re as creative, if not more creative, than ever right now in this period in your life? SUSAN FENIGER: It’s interesting what happens. I think what happens is as you grow and your business becomes more about running the business, I try to really make a point of staying hands-on and involved and going to the farmers’ markets and being in there, in the kitchen with our team. But I think the creative process changes, and you start to expand what you do and you get more involved with the things that are interesting to you and you try to keep your chefs motivated and inspired by those things. For example, when we do the EMA Awards, when we go to the garden, we try to get our chefs and our managers excited about what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. I think part of our role is to have our team be inspired too, so as they grow older, they decide to give back. I grew up in a Midwest Jewish family, and literally, from the time I was a kid, it was about giving back. My family was always about how do you give back? I grew up with that in mind, for sure. DEBBIE LEVIN: In terms of the sustainability and looking for more organic and local, did that evolve, do you think? Or was that something you guys woke up one day and you were like, oh my God, we have to do this? SUSAN FENIGER: No, I think it definitely evolved, for sure. There’s many people who do it better than we do, there’s no question about it. We take baby steps and feel like each step you can take is good and important. DEBBIE LEVIN: You guys have been doing this for a long time. SUSAN FENIGER: We have. I think our very first real diving into it as a business was back in the mid-eighties. We were driving down to Chino Farms, and decided that was way too long of a drive to be spending two hours to drive down there, and we ended up developing a relationship with the Veteran hospital. They had a garden in Brentwood, 15 acres, and they were growing all organic produce and it was a horticulture therapy program that they were doing. We started working with them and they started growing things for us, like mizuna. I brought back mustard seeds from India, and they sprouted mustard seeds. The vets would pick it, they would wash it, bring it to us, and then ask us how much we wanted to pay for it. It was one of those great relationships. I think that got us thinking more and more about how cool it was. Here we were getting things that were being picked five minutes from our restaurant and being brought over to our restaurant. That got us involved initially. Then, we started working with Santa Monica Farmers’ Market very early on, and I think there we developed relationships with farmers and saw the importance of it and how it could motivate our team. Then, I think, in the early 90s, I was one of the founding members with Chefs Collaborative. There were maybe 10 of us, and they wanted to use chefs as the spokespeople. How do you, as spokespeople, as chefs, relate to your customers and to the public about eating healthier, about buying locally, about trying to protect our environment? This was back in the early nineties. We’ve been working with Debbie for 15 years. We’ve been partners with Monterey Bay Aquarium for the last 13 years and their seafood watch program to save the ocean. I’ve been working with One Night One Drop, which is the Cirque fundraiser they do to try to create clean water around the world as much as possible. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Susan, you and Mary Sue are true celebrities, not only in the chef sense, but celebrities. You have a big platform. You have, like you said, 500 employees, lots of properties around the United States, so you have a big voice. How does food, politics, and sustainability converge for you to make the world a better place and be an activist in the issues that are important to you and Mary Sue? SUSAN FENIGER: The great thing that we have is that everybody wants to eat. People love to eat. They see it as entertainment. Obviously, if you just look at the pure pleasure part of it, chefs have gotten this great platform for being a voice. It just depends on how you, as a chef, use that voice. I think both Mary Sue and I, and also my partner at Mud Hen Tavern, Kajsa Alger, we feel that it’s important that we speak out about the things that are important to us, and therefore, I think important to the people that work for us. I think, really, they feel great, then, about who they’re working for and what we stand for. I think what happens is that you get certain things, like at the EMA event. For example, it’s a great place where people can go, they can have a fantastic time, they eat fabulous food, and yet, there’s a message there about why this is important. I think when you combine food and entertainment, but there’s a strong message, it’s a great way to be able to get people educated almost without forcing them to sit in a lecture. It becomes part of the evening, and I think it is a great way, at fundraisers like that, where people become excited about the event, and then they get moved by the important message. JOHN SHEGERIAN: You’ve proved that you can do well, but also do good along the way. SUSAN FENIGER: Absolutely. There are certainly challenges. I think one of the challenges in running a business is, of course, we always look at top line and bottom line, and there’s no question. For example, all of the meat that we serve is all antibiotic-free, hormone-free. All of the fish that we serve is all sustainable. Our rice and beans are organic. We recycle our oil to fuel some of our truck elements. We recycle our oil and use it as soap in the restaurant. Lots of those things are great for us as something we believe in, but there are certainly costs involved. You do have to make a choice, for sure. Something may cost more, which it does, but what will happen is the more and more people that get behind this, the more competition there will be and the more things will come into line. Trans fat oil will become less expensive. GMO-free oil will become not twice as expensive, but maybe a third. And then it will just keep dropping. All of us make decisions in our life about what’s the right thing to do. JOHN SHEGERIAN: What’s the next step? You and Mary Sue don’t have any intentions on retirement, it doesn’t seem like. SUSAN FENIGER: No, not at the moment. JOHN SHEGERIAN: So where do you take how you are working with sustainability, of course, with food, and with politics, and take it to the next level now, to activate change? SUSAN FENIGER: I think we both try to be out there and speak about the things that we believe in. Let me give you a perfect example, the water issue. We now in our restaurants, we do the triple distillation, either through nature or through whatever. We stopped at one point selling bottled water. For our team, that’s a huge negative in some ways because now their bonus is based on sales and blah blah blah and all that. You really have to be the spokesperson to get them emotionally attached to why are we doing that. Of course, we have another struggle here in LA because of the water shortage. How do you address it? We try to get as many staff as we can to come and work events so they can hear the message and they can understand why is it important. People sometimes say you don’t want to be too political in your restaurants. We, of course, believe the opposite. We feel like you have to be political, and that’s what we would do, because otherwise who wants to do that? JOHN SHEGERIAN: People love you because of what you stand for, like you said earlier. DEBBIE LEVIN: And how much do you talk about how you guys both live personally with your homes, with solar? You both live very, very green in your own homes. How much is that known in terms of the public and how much do you talk about that? SUSAN FENIGER: It’s interesting. It probably doesn’t come up as much as it could. It’s true. It probably doesn’t come up as much as it could. Our whole house is solar. That is an investment that one has to make, but we, of course, feel like it’s the smartest thing to do. We have one full electric car and one hybrid car. We should probably ride our bicycles more, but we don’t. I have a garden. Mary Sue has a garden. At our house, we probably eat almost 95 percent of a vegetarian diet. I love meat, and I grew up in Ohio, but I think there’s all the consequences, obviously the health issues about what you eat. We eat all organic at home. We go to the farmers’ market all the time. Mary Sue is very similar. DEBBIE LEVIN: Don’t you think that that is really is a great thing to support what you’re doing in the restaurants for you employees, in terms of saying these are the reasons and we’re doing this at home, and this is to role model what we’re trying to do in terms of our message. SUSAN FENIGER: Yes, for sure. There’s no question. What you have to do is always be understanding about for some people and what’s involved that makes it challenging to do that. We try to always encourage, whether it’s with our public, when we’re teaching classes, when we’re on the radio, whatever it is. Do a little bit. Take that one step. Do Meatless Monday or try to think about an 80/20 diet. We have that on our menu at all the restaurants, where it’s 80 percent plant-based, 20 percent not. We try to encourage people and try to bring in different grains that they may never have eaten and tried. At Mud Hen, so many people get all the vegetarian dishes, and they’re not vegetarians. They’re not vegan, necessarily, but as long as you can create food that’s interesting and exciting, I think you send the message indirectly, and then you have to reinforce it with talking about it. JOHN SHEGERIAN: We’re almost at the end today, Susan. If Debbie and I could go to dinner tonight with you and Mary Sue, and geography didn’t matter, money didn’t matter, and it couldn’t be one of your restaurants, who’s doing food in a way that’s really exciting that you want to show us and that you’re excited to eat yourself tonight? Anywhere else in the U.S. SUSAN FENIGER: How are you going to put that out there? What am I going to say? JOHN SHEGERIAN: Where should we go, just for fun? SUSAN FENIGER: Let’s go to India. DEBBIE LEVIN: That’s a good idea. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Let’s go. SUSAN FENIGER: And eat on the street. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Really, street food, India, that’s really great. SUSAN FENIGER: I do love that. Of course, it’s the flavor profiles that I love. I can’t say one person. I’d be killed to say that. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Border Grill, bordergrill.com. Susan, last plugs. What do you want to plug before we sign off today? You’ve spent 25 minutes with us today sharing your journey in both food and sustainability. Any message you want to share with our listeners and our viewers today? SUSAN FENIGER: I think it’s really important for the public to support the restaurants and the community that are doing things that they believe in. I love it when we do an event where people see Border Grills there, Mud Hens there, and then those people, in turn, end up at one of our restaurants. That’s great. But really, I think it’s about young chefs that are coming, and we have a great voice. I think the more we can do to educate the culinary schools and have those young kids think about their messaging going forward so that we save our oceans, we save our environment, that our health system gets better because we’re taking care of our body through what we eat, those are messages that are important to get out there. JOHN SHEGERIAN: You’re a legend and an icon, and it’s a true honor to have you on our show today, honest to God. Debbie Levin and I say thank you so much for joining us. To learn more about Susan and Mary Sue’s great restaurant and all the great work they’re doing in sustainability and beyond and food, please go to www.bordergrill.com. We’re at the SLS Hotel today, who were so kind to host us. SLS stands for SLS Loves Sustainability. Susan Feniger, you are truly living proof that green is good. SUSAN FENIGER: Thank you so much. Thanks, Deb. DEBBIE LEVIN: So fun. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Thank you for joining Debbie Levin and I for the Green is Good Goes Hollywood with Debbie Levin today. Thank you for joining us and we’ll see you in our next episode.

JOHN SHEGERIAN: Welcome to another edition of Green is Good, and this is the Hollywood Goes Green is Good edition with my friend and partner, Debbie Levin, who is the President of EMA. Ten years you and I are working together, and we’re in Los Angeles at the beautiful SLS Hotel today. We’re doing a whole edition with Debbie Levin today as the co-host of Green is Good, which is really an honor and really going to be fun today. Our first guest, back for a second turn, is Leslie Durso today, the vegan chef. She’s based here in LA, so we asked her to come in and thank you for joining us at Green is Good today. LESLIE DURSO: Thank you for having me here. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Leslie, for our listeners and our viewers who haven’t had a chance to see you before, why don’t you talk a little bit about yourself first? Talk a little bit about the Leslie Durso journey and how you became a vegan chef and what inspired you to become a cook. LESLIE DURSO: That’s a long story. It’s radio, so I’ll pare it down. I’ve been obsessed with food ever since I was a little kid. I stopped eating meat at 8 years old in a huge Italian meat-eating family, which was quite the drama to start my life. It was always something that I was very, very conscious of. I always loved eating healthy. It was a big part of my life. As I got older, I went into the modeling industry, and I found that I was a vegetarian. I ate really healthy food, so I was able to stay the size that I needed to be. Actually, a lot of people were struggling with it. Then, I moved into the acting world, and same thing. I kept cooking and food kept being a huge part of my life. It was co-hosting an environmental science show with Bill Nye the Science Guy, called Stuff Happens. I used to be Leslie the Lab Girl. That’s what got me into the science of food. Bill was very encouraging to have me explore my passions of food, like he explored his passions of science. When that show got canceled, I said that’s it. I’m becoming a chef and food is going to be my jam for the rest of my life. DEBBIE LEVIN: I have a question about your family. You have this big Italian family, big meat-eating Italian family. Has anyone sort of come over to the-? LESLIE DURSO: Yeah, I haven’t pressured anybody. It’s just about making really good food, and they’re always my taste testers. If I make a recipe, it has to go through my family to know that it’s a really good recipe for the masses. I have an uncle who’s now vegan, who’s actually a surgeon too, which is interesting that he decided to be vegan. DEBBIE LEVIN: That says a lot. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Was he inspired by you? LESLIE DURSO: He was, and I’ve got a couple cousins now that are vegetarians. It’s really interesting. They’ll all call and be like, “OK, I’m going to try this.” I’m like, OK, here. Here’s all the information I give people and here’s my website and here’s some encouraging words. JOHN SHEGERIAN: How many years ago did this journey start? When did you start cooking actually? LESLIE DURSO: Being an Italian, food is obviously a major part of our lives. Every single day, we sat down at the dinner table at 6 pm for dinner. You could not miss it or be late. I got in the kitchen really early with my mom and my grandmother and my great-grandmother, and we grew a lot of our own food. We were out in the garden a lot, and we made everything from scratch. That’s the foundation of my food philosophy, is eating real food and cutting out the processed foods in your life. That all started with my family because that’s the way that we ate. I remember being like five or six years old, standing on a chair, rolling out pasta and pizza doughs with my great-grandmother, some of the best memories I have. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Is almost everything you learned as a child and everything you ate, can you veganize it now? LESLIE DURSO: Yes, I love veganizing. That’s such a huge part of what I do now, is travel around the world, finding all of these food cultures and veganizing the food and bringing back flavors and cooking techniques to the U.S. and figuring out how I can tweak it a little bit to make it accessible to people in my world. DEBBIE LEVIN: Do you feel that there’s a real opening for that great vegan chef in terms of identifying yourself? I think that there’s a lot of vegan restaurants in town and there’s a lot of vegans, but I don’t know that there’s that “Oh my God, this is the vegan chef that does the most amazing food, I don’t care what it is, it’s just yummy and fantastic.” LESLIE DURSO: I would love it if that was me, but there are. There are some really, really great vegan chefs out there. I think what sets me slightly apart is that I really don’t cater to the vegan world. I love the vegan world and I’m in the vegan world, but I was the first vegan chef to do a food and wine festival, and I’m really trying to take the vegan message and my style of eating into the mainstream world. It’s been really well received so far because I don’t preach at people. Food is a personal choice. I don’t believe in telling people what to do; I believe in educating people in where their food is coming from. DEBBIE LEVIN: Do you want restaurants? Do you want to be a celebrity chef on TV? LESLIE DURSO: I have no desire to have a restaurant. DEBBIE LEVIN: You don’t? LESLIE DURSO: No. DEBBIE LEVIN: Why? Isn’t that like the chef dream? LESLIE DURSO: They are fantastic, but I love consulting for restaurants, which I do very often. I will come in and design vegan menus for regular restaurants, and I’ll even consult on vegan restaurants. But to have my own, I think it would be cool, but I love educating. I like being out there with the people. I love doing all the festivals and the tours and the classes and the speaking engagements. I’m an educator for Whole Foods, so I’m always giving classes everywhere. That’s my passion. That’s what I really love. I could sit inside a restaurant and charge people outrageous amounts of money for really crazy, beautiful food, or I could be out there teaching them how to do it for themselves. JOHN SHEGERIAN: For our listeners who just joined us, we’ve got Leslie Durso with us. You can find Leslie at lesliedurso.com. LESLIE DURSO: Yes, I was very original when I came up with my website. JOHN SHEGERIAN: What’s your business model? If you don’t want to be the next Wolfgang Puck of vegan restaurants, what’s the real business model and what’s your goal in terms of the journey here? LESLIE DURSO: It’s education. It’s a lot of education, but then on top of that, I do have another TV show in development, in the works at the moment. I’m thrilled about it. It’s super, super cool. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Cool, so TV and education. LESLIE DURSO: Yeah, TV is my background. Before I was doing the Bill Nye show, I was on a soap opera for many years. I’ve always been an entertainer and loved entertaining. I just feel like that’s my natural hat. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Were you the evil person on the soap opera, or the nice person on the soap opera? DEBBIE LEVIN: Or the chef? LESLIE DURSO: I was both. What’s funny, I played a waitress in a restaurant. The soap revolved around a restaurant, and I was the waitress. It was so funny because I’d been a chef in a restaurant before, but I’d never had to be a waitress. Carrying all of those trays is crazy. I don’t know how they do it. They’d be like, “Here, here’s five classes of wine on a tray. Go carry them across the room.” I’d be like, “Oh, I’m going to drop these.” JOHN SHEGERIAN: Besides education, though, people can hire you to cater for them here in the Los Angeles region, right? LESLIE DURSO: Yes, absolutely. I still do some catering. I do a lot more consulting. I’m doing the Humane Society event that’s coming up May 16 at the Beverly Wilshire. There’s more information on their website. DEBBIE LEVIN: And that’s really big. Like, a lot of people. It’s a big event. LESLIE DURSO: Yeah, it’s huge. It’s a huge gala. We’ll have about 600 people there. JOHN SHEGERIAN: And you’re the head chef for the whole thing. LESLIE DURSO: I designed the menu for the entire thing and did all of the recipes and the hotel will execute it. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That’s awesome. LESLIE DURSO: Yeah, I love doing stuff like that. JOHN SHEGERIAN: And if people want you to just do a private dinner at their home, you can do the same thing. LESLIE DURSO: Yep, you can do that. I do private lessons, I do group classes. DEBBIE LEVIN: Were you trained? LESLIE DURSO: I was trained by my grandma. DEBBIE LEVIN: So you didn’t go to culinary school. LESLIE DURSO: I didn’t because when I decided to become a chef, I was already a vegan. At the time, there were no vegan culinary schools. There was one in England, but it was a three-year program, and I was like, I don’t have three years to take time out. So I just started learning, and that’s where the international traveling really started too, where every country I would go to, I would meet up with chefs there, non-vegan chefs, regular meat chefs, and I would see what they’re doing. I would see what they’re using, I would see the techniques that they were doing, and I’d just get in there and I’d figure it out. I’d figure out how I could apply that to vegetables and get creative and veganize stuff. I love it. JOHN SHEGERIAN: There are so many myths around being a vegan. Is it hard for our listeners out there to switch their lifestyle a little bit and veganize a lot of what they’re already doing in terms of their daily diets? LESLIE DURSO: No, it’s actually very easy, especially in this day and age. It’s really easy. When I stopped eating meat at eight years old, there were no vegan restaurants. There were no vegetarian restaurants. Nobody really even knew what that really meant. It was just a bunch of hippies with dreadlocks wearing tie dye and Birkenstocks. We’re really lucky in this day and age. There are so many amazing companies out there making vegan products, and so many naturally vegan products. What I’m going to drive home again is it’s eating real food. It’s not eating all these processed packaged foods. That’s easy for anyone to do. Whether you want to go full-blown vegan, you want to go vegetarian, or you just want to eat three less meat meals a week, it’s really about connecting with where your food is coming from and finding the balance for yourself. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Let’s talk a little bit about some of the worst myths. People say, “I don’t want to be a vegan because there’s not enough protein.” LESLIE DURSO: Oh, gosh. Protein. I love that question. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Can you demystify that? LESLIE DURSO: Yeah, absolutely. First, we don’t need nearly as much protein as the government has been telling us in the food pyramid. DEBBIE LEVIN: They keep changing that food pyramid. LESLIE DURSO: They keep changing that food pyramid. The other thing is there’s protein in so many vegetables. There’s protein in most vegetables, but there’s a huge amount in quinoa and lentils and dark leafy greens and beans and nuts. There’s a lot of ways that you can get your protein that I would never consider an issue with giving up meat. A lot of people make the mistake of going vegan and eating lots of seitan and lots of Tofurky and fake meats and fake cheeses. There’s a lot of candy bars that happen to be vegan. There’s a lot of cookies and snacks that just happen to be vegan. If you have a diet based on that stuff, you’re not going to feel good. You’re not going to be in your optimal health. It’s really about eating the real foods and staying away from any of those packaged foods. JOHN SHEGERIAN: If Debbie and I went to lunch today in town, where would be a place where we could go and have a really amazing vegan meal? LESLIE DURSO: In the vegan world, I love Sun Café on Ventura. DEBBIE LEVIN: Sun Café is good. LESLIE DURSO: It’s fantastic, my friend Ron’s restaurant. I love that place. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Where is it? LESLIE DURSO: It’s right in Studio City on Ventura. It’s really lovely. They do good cooked vegan and raw vegan stuff there. I really like Gracias Madre. I really like Crossroads, what Tal Ronnen is doing. DEBBIE LEVIN: Those are two of my favorites. We actually had a board meeting last night at Gracias Madre. It was just amazing, and Crossroads is one my favorites for dinner. LESLIE DURSO: They do an amazing brunch. Have you been to their brunch? DEBBIE LEVIN: Do they? No. LESLIE DURSO: Oh, you’ve got to go for Sunday brunch. DEBBIE LEVIN: And you know what? I’m not a vegan, and I go to these places because this is a great thing to do for people who are not vegan. It’s great to just do this a couple times a week. LESLIE DURSO: Because it’s just good food. DEBBIE LEVIN: It’s great to just feel healthy. It’s a matter of again, what you’re saying, eat as much local, healthy, natural, real food as possible. You just feel better. It’s kind of hard to be a vegan. If you’re making that choice, there’s ways to do it if you’re not in that mindset where you could eat vegetarian more and not strictly vegan. You can make these choices of doing a couple of days a week. One day week, that was Meatless Monday is about. LESLIE DURSO: Absolutely, and we can talk about that. I’m a big advocate of Meatless Monday, but I will mention two others that are worth noting that are non-vegan restaurants that have a lot of vegan options that are very vegan friendly. That would be Mud Hen Tavern, which is Susan Feniger and Sasha’s restaurant, which is excellent food and Scarpetta for all those Italians out there that think you can’t get real Italian food. It’s delicious. They will bring you a separate vegan menu if you ask for it. DEBBIE LEVIN: Yeah, and Border Grill also as well, Susan’s other restaurant with Mary Sue. They do an incredible amount of vegan options there, so it’s great. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Speaking of favorite restaurants, what’s your favorite spring recipe, now that spring has sprung and it’s going to be 90 degrees here today? LESLIE DURSO: I have to go to New York this weekend, and it’s going to be like 25. How is it spring? I love spring. All the vegetables come out, but I’m prepping for a trip to Thailand, so I’ve been doing a lot of Thai food recently and combining that with spring. I just did a Thai salad this past week with papaya and carrots and a peanut coconut dressing. DEBBIE LEVIN: Can you put that on the website? LESLIE DURSO: It’s already on the website, lesliedurso.com or I will give you the recipe and you guys can put it up. DEBBIE LEVIN: We’ll put it on our website at the EMA website because we love that. I’m a secret chef, so I would love to try it. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Debbie, give a shout-out for your website. DEBBIE LEVIN: It’s ema-online.org. We are always putting vegan and vegetarian recipes on our website. LESLIE DURSO: I’ve got over 1,000 on my website. You’re welcome to them. DEBBIE LEVIN: We should totally get it together because we also have our celebrities tweet them out. LESLIE DURSO: Perfect. I love it. JOHN SHEGERIAN: I have to ask before we wrap today, I see these beautiful stuffed animals in front of us. Talk a little bit about your passion for stuffed animals. How did this happen? LESLIE DURSO: This is kind of a random story. Like I said, I used to be a model, and part of that was I used to be a fit model for this factory in Texas. I became good friends with the owner, and he’s also very big into the environment and saving the environment and bringing jobs back to the U.S. We heard this story about what happens to clothing when you donate it because everybody thinks you donate your clothes to Salvation Army, Goodwill, any of these charities, it’s going to end up in store somewhere. The truth of that is only about 2 percent of the clothing donated ends up in a store. A lot of it is sold overseas to third world countries, which is really demolishing their local economy, like in Africa, it’s actually a big problem. Then the rest of it, they just throw in a landfill, which is 12 million pounds of fabric a year end up in landfills. That’s just in the U.S. alone. It’s a lot. We were able to intercept some of that fabric, and we’ve saved over 2,000 pounds of fabric already, and we created these guys. These are little shirties because they’re made out of shirts. Each one is 100 percent different because they’re all made out of different fabrics. We get the fabric, we triple wash it and sanitize it in our commercial machines, and we do these whales. DEBBIE LEVIN: What are they stuffed with? LESLIE DURSO: They’re stuffed with recycled polyfill. The only new things that we’re buying for this project is the threading, which is usually left over from projects, so we’re not technically buying new, and the organic soy ink for the eyes is t-shirt dye, which we had to buy. Originally, I wanted to use the buttons from all the shirts as the eyes, and then I found out that that’s a choking hazard for kids, so we had to take those off and paint the eyes on. We have a denim one here as well, and the denim line is made from scraps of denim from their denim factory. They make high-end denim. When you cut out a pattern, there’s all sorts of pieces left. Instead of throwing those away, we’re salvaging them and making these animals. JOHN SHEGERIAN: And where can our listeners and viewers buy these? LESLIE DURSO: You can buy them online right now at lesliedurso.com/shop. You’ll soon be able to find them in stores near you. We just launched a week ago, and they’re already doing amazing. We’ve already got them in the hands of celebrities that have bought them on their own and are already tweeting about them, which is super nice. I love this project. I’m really hoping that we can make a dent in that 12 million lbs. of fabric going to the landfill every year. It’s a great cause. A portion of every whale that’s sold is going to beach cleanups in southern California, which you all know if you spend time on the beach, they can be nasty. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Debbie and I are going to ask you a favor. We’re going to ask you when you have the big announcement about hopefully your new TV show, you’re going to come back on with Debbie and I, you’re going to make the announcement, and you’re going to bring some of your favorite recipes so we can literally eat on set next time. DEBBIE LEVIN: Yes, definitely. We’ll cook together. LESLIE DURSO: I would love that. I would love to do that. JOHN SHEGERIAN: For our listeners and viewers to find you, please tell them where to go. LESLIE DURSO: At lesliedurso.com. You can see where all my appearances and classes are going to be the next few months. I always load it up with events in advance. I’ll be at Green Festivals, I’ll be at the Seed in York, I’ll be at Whole Foods near you, I’ll be all over the place. Catch me if you can.

JOHN SHEGERIAN: Welcome to another edition of Green is Good. This is the Hollywood edition of Green is Good, and of course I’ve got my co-host, Debbie Levin, with me here today. She’s the President of the Environmental Media Association and we’ve got beautiful actress and actor next to us, Amy Smart and her husband Carter Oosterhouse. Welcome to Green is Good. CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: Thank you having us. Good to be here. DEBBIE LEVIN: I want to introduce my special people here. This is like having my children here with me. Actually, it is having my children here. Amy and I have been family for 15 years. I met Amy literally like seconds after I took over EMA and grabbed her. She joined the EMA board right away, and has been the most amazing environmentalist and, honestly, just a role model for the entertainment industry ever since, an advocate and an activist and just one of the most incredible voices for the environmental community. Carter I knew before Amy knew Carter, and maybe had a little something to do with this amazing thing. CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: Take as much credit as you’d like. DEBBIE LEVIN: I will take all the credit. Carter Oosterhouse, who you know is the greenest. You were People’s hottest guy ever, sexiest man alive. CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: That was a slow year in the entertainment world. DEBBIE LEVIN: No, but you are actually are People’s sexiest man alive in our family. CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: I’ll take that. DEBBIE LEVIN: My other two sons will not be happy about that. Seriously, you are an incredible voice for the environment yourself. We met before you met Amy. You walked into my office. CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: I walked into your office because I wanted to be a part of what you guys were doing because it is truly amazing what EMA does on a regular daily basis. I think the power of EMA is so huge, and I just said I want to be a part of that. I want to get there. I want to do what these guys are doing in and around Hollywood, which is essentially getting out to the masses, which is a great thing. DEBBIE LEVIN: Carter, just very, very briefly, obviously does all of his television appearances and his television shows and is a producer. You founded an organization, Carter’s Kids. You build playgrounds all over the country, which is amazing. I want to talk about your amazing winery that is sustainable and incredible and I haven’t gone there yet, but it’s just been open a couple of months, and it’s in Michigan. John, why don’t you ask a couple of questions? Because I kind of know everything. JOHN SHEGERIAN: We just had Ed on earlier today. Ed’s been doing this for 45 years. He and Rachelle are truly the standard bearers of the environmental activist movement in Hollywood. But you’re the new generation, in terms of power couples, power green couples. How does that look and feel to you now in terms of getting the mantle and moving with it? Where are we in terms of water scarcity and in terms of climate change and messaging to make the world a better place from a Hollywood perspective? AMY SMART: That’s a huge question. Where to start? First of all, one, it’s really hard to follow in Ed’s footsteps because he’s incredible and he really walks his talk. He bikes around LA, which is amazing, which is also quite the challenge. DEBBIE LEVIN: And dangerous. AMY SMART: And not the safest, but he can do it, and he can do it. I just think from our perspective, I just think it’s important to stay relevant on what issues are the most pressing at the moment. When we talk about lifestyle, there’s so many different little things you can do to green your lifestyle, make it more sustainable, the way you live. Then when certain issues come up and become stronger, like fracking, like GMOs, the banning of plastic bags, there’s so many parts to the equation of how we can keep making our lifestyle more in harmony with the planet. DEBBIE LEVIN: And I think another thing is that to talk about what Amy, in particular, the impact that Amy has made is that when we were talking about trying to message and reach the current generation, I think it was seven years ago, we were trying to figure out how to speak more to the younger Hollywood, and we came up with a program for EMA together. This was something that came out of Amy’s passion, and we came up with the EMA Young Hollywood Board, to bring in more of the young talent. We created a program called the EMA School Garden program, where we plant gardens in lower income schools, and we give every school their own celebrity mentor. JOHN SHEGERIAN: I met Amy, but I just joined EMA on your corporate board 10 years ago, and Amy’s been there 15 years, which is amazing. Talk a little bit about that. That’s a 15-year journey that you’ve done with Debbie at EMA. That Young Hollywood board has grown tremendously. Talk a little bit about growing it. How has that been? How does it look today compared to when you both started it? AMY SMART: It’s definitely grown, and it’s so awesome to see. I think a lot of people in the entertainment industry, when they start to become successful, they start to feel this responsibility of giving back and doing something that matters. It’s so wonderful having entertainment, but we also live in the real world where we all have to live somewhat harmoniously, and we all live on one planet. We can’t live anywhere else. These young celebrities want to feel like they have purpose and they have something intelligent to say and something to root for and something to be passionate about. It’s nice to gather this entertainment group that a lot of them naturally feel inclined to want to do something environmental. Some have become parents, and they realize, oh my gosh, this planet needs to survive for my kids to grow healthy on this planet. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Amy, how does it work for you and Carter? Do you have to pick up the phone and call some young up-and-coming stars and say, “Hey, you’re going to be joining us?” Or are they calling you saying, “Hey, I saw what you did. How do I do what you’re doing?” How does that work on the outbound versus the inbound? AMY SMART: I haven’t really cold-called celebrities. Every time we have this award show, I feel like we have this new influx of celebrities that are naturally interested in the environment, in greening their set or in finding new ways of helping out, because our voice is so public, that it magnifies that much greater to a larger audience. To have a real message behind it matters. A lot of people want that, and a lot of people in the industry want to have purpose, is my feeling about it. DEBBIE LEVIN: And it’s very authentic. CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: It is very authentic, too. Also, with the younger generation, there are so many issues out there today. The younger generation has more of a conscious awareness of that there are these issues. Where you put somebody like an Ed Begley, Jr., he’s a little bit of an oddity in a good way because you don’t see people that are in his age bracket that are doing what he’s doing. Now, it’s more traditional to see the younger generation having all this awareness of all these things through social media and being able to get online and seeing all these little bits of info of how they can change and what they can do. It now is maybe a little bit easier to grab people’s attention, and say, “Hey, will you help out with this? With EMA, that’s sort of the beauty because you’re able to amplify it through so many voices. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Beyond EMA, though, talk a little bit about your brilliant and amazing Carter’s Kids. Explain how the genesis of coming up with that concept and why you do that. CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: What we do with Carter’s Kids, we build one playground a month all across the US. It’s really cool. We started in 2007, and as a builder, I just wanted to give back and work with kids and I thought maybe playgrounds would be the easiest thing, purely to curb childhood obesity. That was the original idea, and to work with kids too, and it was fairly simple and not super complex. What we do is we build a playground in random cities. In a couple weeks we’re headed to Washington, D.C. We’re building one there. A couple of weeks after that, we’re headed to Chicago. We’re building on there. What we do is we go in two days, two-and-a-half, we build a playground, we’re done, and we’re out, and that playground lasts for 20 years. Millions of kids, at least thousands, go through that playground over the years and over the time. But what we’re seeing is not only the individual children, we’re having the effect on those kids, but also the community development because now, say, we live over on 6th Street and you guys live over on 8th Street. We’ve never met, but our kids gravitate towards this playground. Now we meet, and now we say, “Hey, Debbie, nice to meet you. I live over here. Maybe we should talk about that fence over on 8th Street” or something like that. You realize that the communal aspect of this epicenter of a playground, it just works on so many levels. It’s great and again, it’s not super expensive and lasts for 25 years. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That’s something for the kids. That’s something for the community. Now let’s talk about something for the adults, the winery and sustainability and how did you come up with that? How is sustainability going to play a major role with what wines you’re creating? DEBBIE LEVIN: And why did you name it that? CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: I’ll let Amy tell us. You can start off with the name. AMY SMART: OK, you named it. You came up with the name. It’s a primate. DEBBIE LEVIN: Say it the correct way. AMY SMART: Bonobo. DEBBIE LEVIN: OK, because John didn’t say it. He butchered the name, so I wanted to get it out there right. AMY SMART: You want to call it a monkey, hello, but it’s really not a monkey; it’s a primate. They’re an endangered species in the Congo, and they’re highly evolved creatures. Any time there’s anything territorial with them and they want to kill each other, they have sex instead. DEBBIE LEVIN: What better name for a winery? JOHN SHEGERIAN: It’s like a Dr. Ruth episode. CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: Your face is hilarious. AMY SMART: They’re very sexual creatures. They really solve their problems with love and not war. CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: They’re the closest to human beings. DEBBIE LEVIN: Except that part. CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: They’re the closest in body makeup and their DNA makeup. The cool thing about them is that they don’t fight for their territory issues. They literally make love not war, and this is what they preach. They don’t go attack each other, and they live harmoniously, which is pretty amazing. I thought, OK, nobody really knows what a bonobo is, so let’s call it Bonobo because we want people to come together and relax and have that evolved experience. AMY SMART: And have a playful time. JOHN SHEGERIAN: You’re going to share that story. CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: Yeah, and share that story, which is great. We love when people show up at the door, we want people to stay and relax and hang out at the winery. JOHN SHEGERIAN: When does that launch? CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: My brother and I started this seven years ago, and we planted five years ago. We just opened four months ago. We have a big 6,000 square foot tasting room, where we invite people to come in and hang out. We have Mario Batali, who does all of the food in the tasting room. It’s pretty exciting. JOHN SHEGERIAN: No way. Where is it located? CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: It’s in Traverse City, Michigan, which is one of the fastest growing wine regions in the country right now. DEBBIE LEVIN: Oddly enough. Who’d think? JOHN SHEGERIAN: Who knew? From California, we’re talking about a winery in Traverse City, Michigan. That’s amazing. CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: With, of course, climate change and the things that are changing, the temperature, obviously, we know that we’re getting a little bit warmer, so in the northern states we have a little bit of a warmer climate up there to do this with. JOHN SHEGERIAN: So you’re already producing wine. Shameless plug. How do our listeners buy your wine? CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: Go to bonobowinery.com. Go online and call us up, whatever. Call me. I deal with stuff every single day of shipping. DEBBIE LEVIN: He’s got it in the trunk. CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: Yeah, basically. Please, it’s mainly the chardonnay and the Rieslings that do really, really well. They’re award-winning. But then we have pinot blanc, pinot gris, pinot noir, and cab franc too. JOHN SHEGERIAN: So you’re selling B2C online and B2B to restaurants across America? CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: Not restaurants yet. We’re producing about 8,000 cases right now. We hope to get up to 10,000. Once we surpass that, then we’ll start to get into distribution. JOHN SHEGERIAN: In terms of certification stuff, it’s a sustainable winery? CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: Yeah, it’s as sustainable as it can be right now. We’re looking to more of the biodynamic practices. DEBBIE LEVIN: Can you explain that a touch, what that is? CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: Yeah, I’ll let Amy. AMY SMART: I went to this biodynamic conference on vineyards. The whole philosophy behind biodynamics was started by Rudolf Steiner in 1924. It’s a very eco, holistic, spiritual way of dealing with a farm, dealing with the land. It’s the next step of organic. It’s even deeper and even more connected because you’re dealing with the stars. You’re dealing with bringing some more livestock on the farm to play a role in raising these plants. You deal with bringing herbs and different preparations back in the soil with the compost. It creates so much fertility on a farm, and it’s so eco and it really radiates within a 10-mile radius from the farm. The air quality gets better, it brings the predators, it brings all these amazing creatures back into harmony. I’m really looking forward to bringing these biodynamic practices to our farm. CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: That’s one step, but obviously the building is a large building, but we made it in the most eco fashion that we could. As a builder, I think it’s extremely important to be conscious. Builders, designers out there, you have to be conscious. It is. It really is. We used as many non-VOCs that we could use for adhesives, for structure-wise, just to make sure that we were as right in our mind when we were building it, and not to escape from that, as well as the fields. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Is that becoming a wine country, so people can go to that city in Michigan and go wine tasting in one day? CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: There’s about 40 wineries in the area. Who would’ve known? It’s a big tourist town. I think they get probably about 3 million people annually that run around there. We get a good range of people that come in and out, which is really fun. You’ve been there. DEBBIE LEVIN: I’ve been there. They got married there. CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: We got married back on the farm. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Right on this farm is where the winery is where you got married. AMY SMART: It’s close by. CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: Amy wouldn’t let me put it right there. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That’s awesome. What’s the next step? Both of you are doing so many things. Let’s be honest. You’re both beautiful, you both have very successful careers. You don’t have to be doing this much. You’re doing more than your fair share. When you guys are alone and you’re thinking, “We’ve got the winery, we’re messaging, we’re doing EMA,” what’s next for you guys in terms of environment activism? What’s on your mind? Where are you taking this? CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: I love working on numerous projects. I have a zillion projects in the air right now. Somebody the other day, who’s a professor out of Northwestern, he said what he teaches his students, it’s a really weird thing to say, but it’s called conscious capitalism. He said to make money is not a bad thing, but to make it in the smart, ideal way so you’re taking care of all of your employees, you’re taking care of the land that you’re on, the building that you’re in, the air quality that you’re breathing, your neighbors next door, your community. If you really take that in a stride, I think that’s very important for people today who are entrepreneurs, who are going out there and working, to really structure what you do on a daily basis. It’s OK to want to make money in life. That’s alright, as long as you are giving back, taking care of, I think that’s a really smart thing. I think that is something that’s important to us in our new various business ventures or whatever. DEBBIE LEVIN: I also think, honestly, knowing you guys so well, you’re so happy and it fulfills you so much when you are doing what you love to do, which is environmental activism in however that looks. This is who you are. This is your life. I think the next steps that happen are what you’re compelled to do, not to answer for you, but I am. I love what you’re saying because I so agree with that. I think when you do good things, good things happen. CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: Without a doubt. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Before we go today, Debbie, when she first came on Green is Good five or six years ago, she talked about the launching of the organic garden program. Can you share with our listeners and viewers a little bit what you’ve done with that and how that really works and why that makes such a big impact, a similar impact like Carter’s Kids does, your organic gardening program? AMY SMART: Oh my gosh. I think gardens is one of the best gifts you can give a child because, first of all, it’s what nourishes us. A lot of kids, especially if you grow up in inner cities and you’re not introduced to nature, think food just comes from the market. They don’t realize it’s from the ground, that it’s been nurtured and planted and the sun plays a role and the nutrients in the soil. When kids can get back in the dirt, or you can call it earthing, and you just put your feet on the ground, in the soil, on the grass, whatever, for like a half hour a day, and it lets your magnetic field back into alignment. You get kids in the garden, and from the beginning, and it gets kids back to the basics of what matters, and then they can actually grow something from the ground and eat it and enjoy it and maybe take it to a farmer’s market. JOHN SHEGERIAN: When you’re going and doing this, do they know you’re Amy Smart, or are you just Amy with EMA, with Debbie, showing up and doing the garden? AMY SMART: It depends on how old the kids are. DEBBIE LEVIN: We have schools from K all the way to 12th grade. We love the fact that we’ve got high schools too, because so many of these programs ignore the high schools and they think it’s so great for the little kids. How great are our high schools? Oh my gosh. When you touch these kids, these are kids that people write off because they think they’re done, and they get so passionate about it and you have totally changed their life. They’re going out and they’re not only talking to their parents, but they’re able to go and sell at the farmer’s market because they’re old enough. They have a new direction. They’re 16 years old. AMY SMART: And a new skillset. They can take that for the rest of their lives, grow gardens in their backyard or in a box on their deck. DEBBIE LEVIN: And maybe a new career. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Both of you are touching America’s youth in such a special from the ground up way. I’ve never had a show, ever, in seven years, where people are like both of you. I’ve got to just say, both of you are just amazing people. You don’t have to take that kind of time, but you do. It’s just changing the world and making the world a better place, and both of you are doing it in very unique ways. I want you to share, professionally, what’s going on for both of you? What projects are you working on that are interesting next? AMY SMART: I’m trying to dive back into the TV world. I did Justify last season and I’ve done Shameless, and I really love these incredible TV shows. That’s where I’m aiming right now. CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: I think right now the winery has been taking up a lot of the time in the last year. I have a production company. We produce a couple shows that I’m not on, and we have three new shows right now that we’re looking into, so we’ll see. Me getting back on the air, I mean hosting, yes, so that’s kind of fun too. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Next time you come on, what I’ll ask you to do is let’s bring some of the wine on. CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: Definitely. I’m sorry I didn’t bring any today. I feel so bad. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Don’t be sorry. Next time we’re going to bring it and we’ll do a little tasting. CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: That would be great. Perfect. I love that. JOHN SHEGERIAN: We’ll do a little toasting and make it really fun. Again, I just want to say thank you to both of you for all you do to make the world a better place. Thank you, Debbie, for being my co-host today on the Hollywood edition of Green is Good. I just want to tell our viewers out there this is a very special edition, first time we’ve ever had a power green couple on together. I just want to say Amy and Carter, you are truly living proof that green is good. Thank you so much. AMY SMART: Thank you. CARTER OOSTERHOUSE: Thanks for having us.

JOHN SHEGERIAN: Welcome back to another edition of Green is Good Goes Hollywood. We’re here today with my good friend and co-host, Debbie Levin. She’s the President of the Environmental Media Association. Our next guest is Kevin Whilden. He’s the Executive Director of Sustainable Surf. Welcome to Green is Good, Kevin. KEVIN WHILDEN: Thank you, John. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Thank you so much, Kevin. This is a topic that’s not only so important right here in southern California and beyond, around the world, to our listeners, but it’s a topic we’ve never covered on this show in seven years, so we’re so thankful for you coming today and sharing this great advocacy about what you’re doing and all the great work that’s going on right now with regards to Sustainable Surf. KEVIN WHILDEN: Thank you. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Before we get talking about Sustainable Surf, and for our listeners out there, to follow along and look online and see what Kevin’s up to, you can go to sustainablesurf.org. Talk a little bit about the Kevin Whilden journey and story leading up to Sustainable Surf. How did you even get here? How did you have this epiphany and how did this all start, this whole journey? KEVIN WHILDEN: Sure, some geologists. I studied climate change in Antarctica back in the 90s, and that was my passion, to help find solutions for that. I’ve done pretty much everything you can think of in that sport – carbon offset development, energy efficiency, renewable energy and solar, even did clean tech, carbon capture technology. I was in San Francisco during the clean tech boom around 2007, doing that company, and it actually started to die, because there was going to be no policy around climate change. So all the VC funding for carbon capture dried up, and I learned how to surf and wrote about that in Cut a Wave. I realized surfing’s got power. JOHN SHEGERIAN: You learned to surf as an adult. KEVIN WHILDEN: I did. JOHN SHEGERIAN: And you got into it. When did you form Sustainable Surf? KEVIN WHILDEN: That was in 2011. DEBBIE LEVIN: Why did you learn how to surf out of nowhere as an adult? Why didn’t you learn how to surf when you were a teenager like everybody else? KEVIN WHILDEN: I was in San Francisco driving by the beach. It was a sunny day, which is rare in the summer in San Francisco, and there were 200 surfers in the water. I pulled over, rented a wetsuit and a board, and jumped in the water. JOHN SHEGERIAN: First time. No one teaching you, you just did it on your own. KEVIN WHILDEN: Yeah, I taught myself. It’s hard to learn. I grew up near the beach. DEBBIE LEVIN: You grew up near the beach, and you didn’t surf. You waited until you were an adult in a really cloudy place, and you learned how to surf. KEVIN WHILDEN: That’s my wasted youth. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That’s 2011. You fell in love with surfing. Talk a little bit about forming Sustainable Surf. How did you put together geology, now your new love of surfing, and wanting to change the world and make the world a better place? KEVIN WHILDEN: My partner, Michael Stewart, a good buddy of mine, he taught me how to surf. He and I started the company together. We realized that surfing is a sport where people think surfers are environmentalists. They must be. They work in the ocean. The reality is they’re no different than anyone else. They drive cars, they use energy, they don’t think about their waste, they don’t recycle. But there is an ethos in surfing to be a sustainable sport. The ancient Hawaiians were the original sustainable surf culture. They had an amazing side. They did permaculture, they did watershed management, they did aviculture, all these amazing lessons from ancient Hawaii that permeate surf culture, but have been forgotten temporarily by our Western surfing society. We realized, my partner Mike and I, that we could start a nonprofit that could actually transform this culture of surfing to be the strongest example of sustainability in culture. That’s what we did. It had to be a nonprofit, because we could work with every company that way. We’re not competing with anybody. We could actually help guide every company and every surfer and pro surfer and other NGOs and all that. We could work with them all to break those barriers. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That’s so interesting that you came up with this because, Debbie, you and I know surfers. I don’t think you and I surf. DEBBIE LEVIN: No. JOHN SHEGERIAN: But I know my friends that are surfers, they all complain to me about the same thing. They get these ear infections, all the ways we’ve harmed our wonderful and beautiful oceans and environment, they suffer for it. But you had this epiphany with your partner to come up with a solution here. So, share with Debbie and I and our listeners because we’re new to this. This is all new to Debbie and myself and our listeners. What is Sustainable Surf, and what is your greater mission? KEVIN WHILDEN: Sure. Our mission is to be the catalyst that transforms surf culture into a powerful force to protect the ocean playground. You’ve mentioned that water pollution is a major issue. Any time we use water, flush the toilet or do laundry, whatever, that goes into our surf breaks, into the ocean. DEBBIE LEVIN: What’s the action that you want people to take from that mission? KEVIN WHILDEN: Sure. There are many different steps. One is you can choose a surfboard that’s more sustainable. We have the first ever labeling program for sustainable surfboards, just like organic food, but for surfboards. We have a recycling program for Styrofoam packaging, like when you buy a TV or a computer, that can be recycled into a new surfboard again. That’s the same foam that’s inside a surfboard. We have a program for surfers to live a more ocean-friendly life, and that’s taking all the steps that you’ve probably talked about thousands of times on this show, but putting them in the context of the surfing lifestyle and the larger ethos of a sustainable surf culture. JOHN SHEGERIAN: So you’re hitting every portion of purchasing a surfboard, recycling a surfboard, how it’s made, and also now certification. DEBBIE LEVIN: How did you get your certification? Who did you work with to create the standard? KEVIN WHILDEN: My partner has worked in sustainable product development and certification for a long time, and we were able to basically design our own program based on the best practices of the entire industry. That’s what we do. We take the best practices in all sustainable culture and business, and tune them up for surf culture, so it’s effective and powerful in surfing. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Are you guys both based here in Southern California, or where are you guys based? KEVIN WHILDEN: I’m based in SoCal, where most of the surf industry is, and my partner is in San Francisco, where the sustainable culture is very strong. JOHN SHEGERIAN: You mentioned at the top of the show the original Hawaiian surfers, who were really, truly sustainable in terms of their practices. Did you bring them into this whole new venture of yours and your mission and messaging? KEVIN WHILDEN: Yes, we’re in the process of getting more involved as far as ancient Hawaii. I was just over there a couple of months ago for the Wanderlust Yoga Festival and was meeting with some of the elders and some of the Westerners who are now teaching that stuff and figuring out how to make it. We got a recipe for a canoe plant smoothie. The canoe plants are the 24 plants that the Hawaiians brought from Asia into the Polynesian islands. They’re the most valuable plants. They provide food, medicine, water, resources of all kinds, like banana and coconut and taro. A lot of those are superfoods. There’s a recipe that we have for superfood canoe plant smoothie. DEBBIE LEVIN: What do you find is the most consistent in the surf culture for surfers, other than, obviously, surfing? What do you find that unifies that culture? KEVIN WHILDEN: It is surfing. It’s love of the ocean. When you hear about issues that threaten it like plastics or climate change, surfing is on the front lines of all those issues. Coral reefs are going to be extinct in 30 years. That’s an awesome thing to think about. DEBBIE LEVIN: Do you think surfers are really aware of all these issues, or do a lot of them just kind of go in and surf and leave? KEVIN WHILDEN: There’s a pretty strong awareness, but there’s the same barrier to action that everybody else has. The actions don’t seem easy to do. Nobody looks at climate change and says, “That’s going to be fun to solve.” DEBBIE LEVIN: How are you reaching your surfers? KEVIN WHILDEN: We reach them through our website, through our partners, we work with a lot of the brands, they make videos for us, we work with pro surfers to help them do it. But to get back to your question on how we reach them, and this is really key, solutions to these problems, like plastics and climate change and all that, don’t seem fun. They seem hard. The one thing surfing can do, and this is a joke I like to make, it can make anything look cool and fun by putting a surfer next to anything. Just look at advertisements on TV and the radio and magazines. You’ll see surfing next to cars and insurance and computers, because it’s a lifestyle everybody wants, especially in the middle of winter in Iowa. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Surfboards, historically, were toxic and now you’re making eco surfboards? KEVIN WHILDEN: Sure. We don’t make; what we do is certify. We work with partners who are innovating ways to make a more sustainable board. A plant-based resin is one of the products that’s in our standards, and it’s made from the waste of biodiesel production. It has half the carbon footprint of a normal resin and no toxics. JOHN SHEGERIAN: What percentage of surfboards now are being made with your new standard? KEVIN WHILDEN: It’s a very low percentage because we just launched it a year ago, but it’s growing exponentially. DEBBIE LEVIN: Are any of the large companies doing this? KEVIN WHILDEN: Yes, one of the large companies, Firewire Surfboards, made a 100 percent switch to making plant-based resin boards. All the other major companies are now offering it. You have pro surfers winning contests with these boards. JOHN SHEGERIAN: So they perform just as well as the old style. KEVIN WHILDEN: They sure do. They win contests. DEBBIE LEVIN: Are they talking about this on their social media? KEVIN WHILDEN: Yes, the surfers are, the surf media is. We won an Agent of Change award from Surfer Magazine this year for being the nonprofit that’s making the most change in surfing, and that’s a big part of it. Like everybody is saying, why wouldn’t I do it? It just makes sense, and that’s what sustainability is at its core. Why wouldn’t I do this? It makes sense. It saves money, better lifestyle. JOHN SHEGERIAN: And certified boards are called eco boards? KEVIN WHILDEN: Yes. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Gotcha. People that want to learn more about eco boards can go to sustainablesurf.org, and they also can find out where to buy eco boards. KEVIN WHILDEN: Yeah, we have a list of all the manufacturers that offer eco boards. They also can go to their shaper and ask them to do it too. It’s one of the neat things about surfboards: It’s the last custom-made sport equipment left on Earth, really. Think about it. There aren’t a lot of custom golf club makers that make golf clubs for average people; you have to be rich, you know? But surfboards, there are artists that work in their garage. Their whole career is just shaping surfboards with foam. It’s actually a really interesting sport in that way. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Kevin, Debbie and I got to meet you because of our good friend, Allen Hershkowitz and the Green Sports Alliance. Talk a little bit about what your plans are with the Green Sports Alliance. KEVIN WHILDEN: Sure. We have another program called Deep Blue Surfing Events. It’s essentially a sustainable package for surfing contests. It’s the same thing the Green Sports Alliance does, but tuned for surf contests. We work with the brands to help the choose how to use locally grown biodiesel to power their event, how to do food composting and waste diversion. At Pipeline, which is in the Hawaii, the biggest contest of the year, all the food that’s produced at the event, the compost goes across the street to the farm that produces the food for the event, so it’s like a closed loop. The Green Sports Alliance, we’re excited to work with them to help bring surfing into the mix. Professional surfers, some of them have a really great story to tell on sustainability, and also show how surfing can do the same thing everybody else is doing and use our little star power of surfing being cool to show how all this actually is cool. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Have any of your professional surfers, celebrity surfers, are they now becoming ambassadors and evangelists for Sustainable Surf? KEVIN WHILDEN: Yeah, they sure are. Greg Long is the world’s best big wave surfer. He’s the most decorated big wave contest rider. He rides like 60 foot high waves. He’s one of our ambassadors. He’s actually speaking at the next Green Sports Alliance conference in Chicago. He’s got a great story. He almost died when he was held down for four minutes in giant surf off the coast of California. When he came back up, it’s a miracle he lived, but he realized he had to do more for conservation and giving back to the planet. Now he’s working with us to talk about that. In fact, there’s an article that just came out in The Guardian this week telling that whole story. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Four minutes underwater. Holy Toledo. KEVIN WHILDEN: That’s after getting the wind knocked out of you. It’s actually a powerful story. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Kevin, we’re going to have you back on to continue the story. For our listeners out there, what are your final thoughts you want to leave our viewers, and as Debbie asked at the top, action points for our viewers with regards to sustainable surfing and sustainablesurf.org? KEVIN WHILDEN: I’d say, if you’re a surfer, definitely check out how to get an eco-board, and ask your shaper to make you an eco-board. You can learn all about that on our website. If you’re not a surfer, realize that there’s a great history behind how to live a sustainable lifestyle, and surfing is a great example of it. All the steps that you would do to reduce your footprint on carbon emissions or water use all help protect the ocean. Living an ocean-friendly life is what we ask people to do. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That’s great. For our listeners out there, again, to learn more about Kevin’s great work, go to sustainablesurf.org. You can also learn about his great work and also where to buy and how to buy and eco board and who’s certifying their boards and now and who’s not. Buy and eco board and do something good for the ocean today. For Debbie Levin, my co-host, I’m John Shegerian. Kevin Whilden, you are truly living proof that green is good. KEVIN WHILDEN: Thank you.