About 7 years ago, Annalisa created a business plan, and from there co-founded DotGreen Community, Inc. which applied to the Internet’s governing body, ICANN (the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers). Under Annalisa’s leadership DGC successfully passed the ICANN evaluation process and strategized a way beyond a four-way competitive industry contention set for .green. The competition concluded with a partnership placing DGC as the steward of the environmental new .green Top Level Domain.
For over ten years, Annalisa has been working within the local and global community, managing large-scale projects and events. She co-founded and twice was elected Vice-Chair of SF Bay ISOC.org, the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Chapter of The Internet Society.
.green is currently starting an exciting new chapter, as the first .green domain names go live. Those who use a .green Top Level Domain address and the Internet users who frequent .green websites, will together be boosting awareness, education, and the green economy. In addition, an income stream created from a percentage of the sales of .green domain names will flow to The DotGreen Foundation which supports programs and projects aimed at sustainability around the world.
Annalisa, a mother of four, lives in Marin County with her husband and is a creative thinker and the visionary for the .green project.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Welcome back to Green is Good, and we’re so excited to have with us today Analisa Roger. She’s the founder and CEO of the DotGreen Community, Inc., which you can find at nic.green. Welcome to Green is Good, Analisa Roger.
ANALISA ROGER: Hi, John. Thank you. Great to be back.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Thanks for joining us today. Before we get talking about what you’re doing with the DotGreen Community and with nic.green, for our listeners out there, they can follow along, they can go to nic.green, I’d like you to share the Analisa story. What led up to this? Where did you get sustainability and environmentalism in your background, and where did you find inspiration leading up to the founding of the DotGreen Community?
ANALISA ROGER: I grew up in Mill Valley, California, which is coastal up in northern California, Bay Area. It’s a place where green is really the default setting. Everybody there is unique and everybody matters. I’m sure that did play a part of it. The Bay Area continues to be full of organic juice bars. Up north, we’ve got sustainable llama farms, the whole thing. Green is just normal where I come from.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: What became, then, your tipping point and epiphany to be the founder and the CEO of the DotGreen Community? When did that happen, and when did you found the DotGreen Community after your sort of epiphany and your aha moment?
ANALISA ROGER: My father was an internet pioneer. He was working out of the Virgin Islands, Caribbean region. He was doing computer development through UNIDO, United Nations Development. He called it the freenet. He brought in the first access of internet to the Caribbean and later Latin America came off of his node there. He was also part of something called ICANN, the governing body of the internet that was starting. It was just starting under the Clinton administration. Unfortunately, he passed away in 2002, but sort of as a tribute, I ended up attending an ICANN meeting because I wanted to meet some of the other pioneers and his colleagues who knew him professionally. It was amazingly inspirational. It was full of computer geeks and internet pioneers and people experienced in international governance, and it’s where our internet policies are drawn up and our internet is governed from ICANN. It’s an amazing multi-stakeholder model. To me, it felt very green. It’s very consensus-based. To me, learning more about the internet, the inner workings, the people, the altruistic vision of so many of the people behind the internet who work on it. My green background dovetails together, at least in my mind, and I came up with this idea of DotGreen. It’s something that the green movement could really use the internet to help forward it.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: When was that?
ANALISA ROGER: That was in 2007.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: We have so many listeners around the world, Analisa. Talk a little bit about, then, the evolution from the epiphany and the idea. You did a great job framing your father’s background, and now you have this great idea. How long did it take you to germinate it, nurture it, give it sunshine, give it attention, give it water, give it fertilizer, and get it born?
ANALISA ROGER: You’re absolutely right. You’re painting a great picture yourself, John. I would describe this as a labor of love. It started out with a heavy dose of naiveté on my part. I did approach this as wanting to do my part in the green movement, which so many of us around the world know that we either are a part of it or we want to be a part of it, but often we don’t know what to do. I was definitely searching for what could I do for the green movement. I had these components going on in my mind. I thought if we could have our own space, if the movement could have its own space on the internet, that would actually make it easier for other internet users, other people like me, to do their part because we could make spreading of awareness of green so easy if we really focused the internet in that way. That’s what the .green top level domain is actually designed to do, make it wasy to spread awareness of green.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: So you’re basically, the way I want to understand this, but I want you to tell me if this is right, you’re the GoDaddy for the .green world. So if I want to take John Shegerian to johnshegerian.green, I come to your website. If you want to take Analisa Roger and get your name with a .green, you go to your website.
ANALISA ROGER: John, what’s really exciting is actually GoDaddy is going to be one of our customers. That means you could actually go to GoDaddy and get your name, John, john.green, there.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: I love it. So you’re going to be able to go to GoDaddy and get a .green, but I could also come to nic.green and get it as well.
ANALISA ROGER: If you go to nic.green, what’s really exciting is you will see a list of all the registrars that have partnered with us to sell these .green names. We’ve already spoken with GoDaddy. They are going to be selling these names. We’ve spoken with lots of the other registrars that customers already have accounts with, and they can go to their regular registrar. If they’ve never bought a .green domain name or another domain name before, they will actually be able to choose and click on any of the accredited registrars that are listed there. It’s very easy to buy a .green domain name.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: For our listeners out there who just joined us, Analisa Roger is our guest. She’s the founder and CEO of the DotGreen Community, and what that means is you can go to nic.green or GoDaddy and you can get a name or a brand that you want to register, instead of with a .com, with a .green. It’s a very exciting show today because talk about green is good, Analisa Roger is making green everywhere. She’s making green ubiquitous to the world, and that’s very important for spreading our message, so we thank you for doing that. Talk a little bit about the business, though. Seven years in the making, which is great. It shows how committed you are and how much dedication you have to this very important venture. Did you put the money in yourself? Did you go get a whole investor pool of money? How did you raise the money? How did you legally structure and how did you put this whole thing together? It’s fascinating to me.
ANALISA ROGER: Yeah, it’s actually been quite a journey. I started originally thinking this was an altruistic vision and that it must be a non-profit. A friend of mine, Jennifer Nolan, myself, we decided to open up a public charity benefit organization. In California, those are called public benefit charity, and in the United State it actually has a 501(c)(3) status. I think in the rest of the world, it would be listed under NGO quality. It’s an organization that provides benefit for the public. It is not a private foundation. It was not owned by us. It was for the public, for the world’s citizens. The idea was the DotGreen Foundation would sell these .green domain names, and the money would be used for environmental progress. A big part of that is we wanted the environmental progress that received money from these domain name sales to actually happen in all regions of the world, so that it maintained its relevancy. Green and local is such an important component, and we wanted people to feel they could really do their part in the green world, buying a domain name that’s going to help their local area. We’re really excited about that. You asked about funding, John. Jennifer and I, we funded it ourselves for four years, and it was so long because this is an international project, just like going green is an international project that the whole world is undertaking on its own right now anyway. Part of the ICANN process and the DotGreen program, we had to travel around the world following ICANN, which meets three times in different regions of the world. While we did that, we met lots of interesting people that are excited and involved in an around not just the internet community, but the green community. That was wonderful, but it did take quite a bit of resources. We were able to last four years, and unfortunately, the new GT Elite program required that we continue this project even longer than four years. We actually had to set up an additional company, which is called the DotGreen Community, and that’s what we are now. We’ve also managed to maintain the DotGreen Foundation, and it’s healthy with its 501(3) status. It still exists. We did start a green business, and that way we were able to share the story, bring in green investors who were interested in making sure this project didn’t die on the vine, and they’ve been funding us and these world travels ever since.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: What’s normal nowadays? For all these different .coms, .nets, when you take the metrics of some of the newer .whatevers that have come out in the last three or four years, do you get to play off of those metrics and say, “OK, well, this one got this many people to sign up the first 12 months or 24 months. We think we’ll get this many?” Is that the kind of metrics as a business opportunity you look at, or it totally different? Is it very unknown?
ANALISA ROGER: Those are excellent questions. We’ve been tackling those questions as a green business ourselves and bringing on the green investor. There are some metrics. You’re right. There are lots of other new top-level domains coming online. Overall, there’s going to be close to 1,000 new top-level domains. I believe 200-300 have actually come online. We’re going to be noticing them more and more as the months go by. I know that some of the new top-level domains, especially the ones that may have had some pent up demand, and that’s an important component. The team behind the new GTLD has been doing around the world telling people about it, or at least telling a community that’s a relevant associated community about that top-level domain. Several of those have come out with maybe 50,000 registrations in the first month. It’s not the general story, and that’s true. Some of them are very small. Some of them are more like 1,000 or even less when they first launch. We have to look at each case, and we have to realize what is the story? Why would that be? There’s a lot of thought that the rising tide of awareness of new GTLDs will bring up all new GTLDs. With that being said, when we look at .green, I’ve spoken a little earlier about pent up demand or community or global recognition. .green has all of that.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Once it’s live and once it’s up and going, so now you and I are chatting, we’re doing our next show, you come on the show next June or July. What’s your expectations for the first year or two years? How many people are going to sign up for how many names? Do you have some numbers or some metrics on what should be happening?
ANALISA ROGER: Yes. We are extremely excited because this whole project is about people. It’s about the green movement, and we know the green movement has been growing rapidly and tremendously these last seven years that we’ve been running this project. There’s a huge amount of interest in green, and it’s not just people. It’s not just northern California, Bay Area people. It’s worldwide, and we’ve seen that as we’ve traveled. We’ve seen billboards in languages all over the world with a common thread of the word green. Green will be written amongst scripts or characters or foreign languages, so green belongs to the people. I definitely want to show that I recognize that green is already out there, it belongs to the people, it’s associated with sustainability. All we’re doing is giving green its own home on the internet, so it will be known as .green. The work that’s going on from the green movement, the green economy currently, will continue and will continue to grow. Now it has an additional place on the internet where it can grow. Our expectation and excitement is pretty big because we know that this is something that’s needed, this is something that’s out there. Green is necessary. People are passionate. Green business is real. Companies are saving tremendous amounts of money by going green. There’s lots of reasons to go green. Now we’ve got a dedicated place on the internet to do that. I think our first year is going to be pretty exciting.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: We’re down to the last minute-and-a-half or so. I want to leave it to you now, Analisa. As an eco-preneur, share a little bit of some pearls of wisdom with the next generation of eco-preneurs that are listening to this show around the world, whatever couple things you’ve learned during your journey of starting this business, and then we’ll have to say goodbye in a little while.
ANALISA ROGER: OK, absolutely. I want to say that this journey, this project of bringing a new top-level domain to the green movement, it took seven years, but we never gave up. We always believed. I knew in my heart that it’s good. Like you said, green is good, so it’s the right thing. It had to get out there, and I stuck with it, and I have team members and supporters that stuck with it. After seven years, after many ups and downs, after lots of difficult twists, we’ve come out. We’ve survived. We’ve succeeded. We’re bringing .green to the rest of the world, and now it’s up to the world. To the entrepreneur out there, I know it’s hard. I know sometimes it’s tempting to think it’s unbelievable, but believe in yourself. Stick with it. If you’re doing a green project, think of having a website at .green and know that what you’re doing is the right thing. Never give up. You will make it, and we need you. We need every single one of you out there to do your part. That’s what .green is there for, is to help support you in your next journey.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Analisa Roger, we need you. Thank you for being a green visionary and eco-preneur and making the world a better place. You are truly living proof that green is good.
Matt Furman has been with Best Buy about two-and-a-half years. He joined it most recently from Mars Chocolate, the manufacturer of beloved brands like Snickers and M&Ms. Before that, Matt worked at Google for several years, and he has also had the opportunity to work for other well-known brands, including CNN. Before that, he was in government, serving in both the Clinton and Giuliani administrations. He is also a former lawyer.
Scott Weislow started off in environmental consulting for several years before joining Best Buy. He took a hard turn into the construction industry and manufacturing, and then had a great opportunity to come to Best Buy and lead their environmental services team and the company’s Renew Blue strategy.
Best Buy’s environmental program has been important to the company since it unofficially began in 2001 and formally launched in 2009. In 2009, Best Buy publicly announced a very large stretch goal to help customers recycle their old electronics and appliances. The company pledged to recycle one billion pounds of those products by the end of 2014, and hit that goal six months early. At the time the show aired, Best Buy celebrated this important milestone.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Welcome to the Best Buy edition of Green is Good. We’re so honored to have with us today Matt Furman. He’s the Chief Communications and Public Affairs Officer at Best Buy. Welcome to Green is Good, Matt.
MATT FURMAN: Thanks for having me here.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Matt, today was a very special day here at Best Buy. It was all about sustainability and recycling. But before we get into that, can you just share with our listeners a little bit of the Matt Furman journey and story leading up to joining Best Buy?
MATT FURMAN: Sure. I’ve been with the company about two-and-a-half years. I joined it most recently from Mars Chocolate, which you’ll know is the manufacturer of beloved brands like Snickers and M&Ms. It was fun to work for the world’s largest chocolate company. My children and my family and I enjoyed that a lot. Before that, I had the good fortune of working at Google for several years. As you can imagine, I enjoyed that. The benefits there are well-known. I’ve had the opportunity to work for other well-known brands, including CNN. Before that, I was in government. I served in both the Clinton and Giuliani administrations. I am, much to my mother’s disappointment, a former lawyer, not a practicing lawyer.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: You came to Best Buy. You’re the Chief Communications and Public Affairs Officer. Today was about communicating, sustainability and more, specifically all the great things that are going on with regards to Best Buy and recycling, the pioneering and leadership role that Best Buy has taken in the recycling of electronics world. Can you share a little bit about why today was so important to Best Buy and where the program not only is today, but where it will be going in the future?
MATT FURMAN: Sure. We reached an extraordinary milestone, not just for us, but I think it’s fair to say for the planet. Four-and-a-half years ago, we said we would recycle one billion pounds of consumer electronics and appliances. One billion pounds was not even contemplated by anybody. To put this in context, our sense is that there’s no one else in the world who’s even capable of doing it, let alone willing to. We reached that milestone about six months earlier than we expected, and we decided that today would be the day we’d celebrate. Just as importantly as celebrating, today would be the day we would announce what we’re going to do next. Of course, we’ve reached one billion pounds. Now the goal is to go for 2 billion pounds, and to do that by 2020. We are as excited about that goal as we are about having achieved our previous goal.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: 2 billion pounds by 2020. Let’s step back for a second, though. A couple years ago, Best Buy announced their Renew Blue program. Can you explain to our listeners what Renew Blue means to Best Buy?
MATT FURMAN: Sure. In 2012, we had a new CEO join the company. At the time, the company was going through some well-publicized struggles. The CEO, Hubert Joly, decided that what he needed to do most importantly was explain to shareholders why they should have faith in the company. In the fall of 2012, he went to New York and gathered all the shareholders and analysts he could, and stood before them and said, “Here’s our plan to transform this company.” Our sales associates wear blue shirts, and so we named the plan after them, thus Renew Blue. Renew Blue had five pillars. Two of those pillars are relevant today. The first was fix the customer experience. It had, frankly, lagged. We were a well-known, well-loved brand, who, like many well-known, well-loved brands, had fallen on hard times, including our store and including our customer service. First and foremost, fix the customer service. The fifth pillar was maintain a leadership position with the planet, in terms of taking care of our world. I want to pause for a second and just remind your listeners, this is, at the time, a Fortune 50 company who was going through extraordinarily tough times. Our founder and largest shareholder wanted to buy the company and take it private. Our stock had gone down to the very low double digits from a high of $50 or $60 a share previously. We had a brand new CEO, who many doubted could turn the company around because he had no experience in retail. For him to lay out, stand on a stage in front of analysts and investors, and say, “Here are the five things I’m going to do,” and for one of those five to be about sustainability and taking a leadership role in maintaining and saving our planet was an extraordinary leadership gesture on the part of the company and on his part. Today, two-and-a-half years later, we’re able to say that we’ve transformed the company and we’ve stayed true to our promise about taking a leadership role with the planet.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Let’s talk a little bit about recycling specifically. Matt, walk us through what electronic recycling means at Best Buy. Give our listeners out there a little bit of the experience that they could have. A lot of our listeners still maybe haven’t heard about Best Buy’s electronic recycling program. Explain what it means for our listeners, and if they want to recycle their electronics, how they can do that at Best Buy.
MATT FURMAN: The foundational principle of our recycling program is satisfying a customer need. One of the two basic customer needs we’re satisfying. You have a big old TV from 1996 that weighs 300 lbs. that you don’t know what to do with. We’ll take care of it for you. If you buy a TV from us and have it delivered, we’ll haul away your TV for free. There are lots of appliances that fit in that category, large and small. We’ll come get your old refrigerator, for instance, or you can bring your old phone to our store. We’re satisfying the customer need of what do I do with this? I don’t want to just throw it in the trash. I have a sense that that’s the wrong thing to do. The second, perhaps just as pressing, concern is I’ve got lots of data on my equipment. I have phones, I have tablets, I have computers that have all kinds of data I can’t even remember is there. I sure as heck don’t want to throw that away and have some criminal take it and use it for untoward purposes. We promise, we assure you, that we will recycle your materials responsibly, including cleaning all the data off of it before it’s moved beyond our stores.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: You bring up a very timely and important issue, data destruction and getting rid of all the data from our devices. Obviously, in the news, it’s been big news recently all the companies that have suffered breaches, besides people that can suffer breaches. Talk a little bit about the reputational aspect of Best Buy’s program, how much care you’ve taken in choosing the vendors that you have today and why you’ve chosen those vendors, and how the program has gotten to be really the platinum standard in recycling amongst retailers in the entire world.
MATT FURMAN: Of course. Let’s first talk about data for one second. I think it’s fair to say that data is the e-waste of the future. What do you do with it? We have the Geek Squad, which is world-renowned for its technological prowess. We rely on the Geek Squad and others within the company to ensure that your data is responsibly recycled, if you will, or, in this case, destroyed. When it comes to the physical equipment, we vet and carefully scrutinize a handful of vendors who we know will behave responsibly. We’ve all seen the 60 Minutes pieces or the internet pieces about landfills in China where it’s just being dumped somewhere. That’s not what this is about. There are two reasons that’s not what this is about. The first is we actually pick our partners well, and then we audit them and maintain a high level of scrutiny. The second is people should understand that so much of what they’re recycling with us is actually being reused. It’s not being just taken to a landfill. We’re stripping it for parts. We have the world’s largest computer repair facility run by Geek Squad. We use many of the components we’re taking out of your old computer in someone else’s computer to fix it. We sell many of these parts to third parties, and many of the minerals that are coming out of it are highly valuable because they’re so rare. There are some things in there that we use and we use to great effect. The rest of it, of course, we’re destroying or disposing of responsibly, as you would expect us to.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Just to be clear, I can walk into any Best Buy in the United States and drop off my old cell phone, my old laptop, and even if I go and buy a beautiful new flat screen television that Geek Squad is going to deliver, they’ll take out from my house or my office. Wow.
MATT FURMAN: If we bring it to your house, we’ll take away the old at no cost. If you bring it to our store, we will take it from you. I’ve watched blue shirt sales associates wheel the cart out, help the person take it out of their trunk, and bring it into the store for them, no cost. It couldn’t be easier. People even stop the car running. They just take it out, drop it off, and leave. We think, again, we’re solving a real customer problem, we’re helping the planet, and we’re benefitting our business.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Today it was announced from the stage that we’re sitting here at Best Buy’s headquarters, and that you’ve created a whole new sustainability area to showcase everything you’re doing in sustainability. Talk a little bit, Matt, about that, the macro sustainability efforts beyond recycling that Best Buy is involved with because I know it goes way beyond recycling.
MATT FURMAN: Of course. You’ve got the recycling. Carbon is an obvious area for a company our size with our footprint, between our physical stores, there are 1,400, and our distribution network. Carbon is a real problem. We’ve committed to reducing our carbon footprint by 20%, and we’re well on track and hope to make an announcement on that soon. Beyond that, we obviously have lots of influence with vendors. One of the ways in which we exercise that influence is encouraging them to use recyclable material in their products, or, frankly, just use less material in packaging their products. Another area, of course, is lighting. We’re able to reduce our lighting costs substantially by using better sources of lighting. Finally, we’ve used sustainability in its broadest terms, as it applies to our own employees and to the health and fitness of Americans all around the country. We are perhaps, I think it’s fair to say, might be the largest seller of the health and fitness wearables that are now the craze. One of the things we’ve started to do is to have preliminary conversations with healthcare providers and insurers and other large companies about the ways in which those devices could be used by employees, with the cooperation of the company, to make the employee more fit and perhaps lower healthcare costs for the company. This is a great effort. It’s in its nascent stages, but there’s obviously great opportunity to think of sustainability broadly, not just the planet, but the people.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: So it’s fair to say then, Matt, that sustainability and recycling are truly part of the culture and the DNA of Best Buy, from beginning to end.
MATT FURMAN: You don’t get to a billion pounds with a few people working on it. It requires the concerted effort of virtually everybody in our stores and many, many people in our headquarters. You certainly don’t make a $2 billion promise, unless everyone is buying.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: With that, we’re going to leave it today. Matt, we thank you for being a guest today at Green is Good. We thank you for making the world a better place. Matt Furman, you are truly living proof that green is good.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: We are so honored to have with us today Scott Weislow. He is the Senior Director of Environmental Services at Best Buy. This is a special edition of Best Buy on their campuses. Welcome back to Green is Good, Scott.
SCOTT WEISLOW: Thanks, John. Thanks for having me on again.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: You’ve been a great friend, obviously, and you’ve been on Green is Good before. For our listeners out there that haven’t heard you before, Scott, I would like you to please share your story, your journey leading up to Best Buy and getting this important position of Senior Director of Environmental Services.
SCOTT WEISLOW: I’d love to. Thanks for asking. I’m a 25-year professional in the environmental space. I just dated myself, didn’t I? I started off in environmental consulting and did my tour of duty there for several years. I took a hard turn into the construction industry and manufacturing, and then had a great opportunity to come to Best Buy and lead their environmental services team, an opportunity in the world’s largest retail electronics and appliances recycling program. It was a very exciting opportunity, kind of hard to pass up.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Today was a very special day, of course, with the governor here and the CEO of Best Buy. You were asked to actually stand up, and you were given a lot of recognition today, rightfully so. Can you explain to our audience why today was so important with regards to Best Buy, not only what you guys created with regards to your great recycling program, your landmark recycling program, but why it’s so important in terms of the future of Best Buy and the future of recycling in the United States?
SCOTT WEISLOW: Absolutely. This program has been really important to Best Buy since we started it unofficially in 2001, and formally launched the program in 2009. Today, we were celebrating a really big milestone. In 2009, we publicly stated that we had a very large stretch goal, to help our customers and recycle their old electronics and appliances. We wanted to recycle one billion pounds of those products by the end of 2014, and we hit that goal six months early. We’re really excited about that. Today was an opportunity to celebrate hitting that goal, being there for our customers, being there to take care of one of the largest waste streams on the planet, and doing our share and being a very responsible, sustainable company that we know people can count on. This program is an incredible pillar of our Renew Blue strategy that we launched a couple years ago with our new CEO, Hubert Joly, and all the work we’re doing there for being a sustainable and responsible company.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: For our listeners out there that haven’t had the pleasure of coming into a Best Buy and recycling, can you explain how the whole program works and how easy it is to recycle at Best Buy?
SCOTT WEISLOW: Sure. It is very easy. In fact, our motto is Fast, Free, and Convenient. You can go into any Best Buy store, whether it’s our big box or our specialty stores, our mobile stores, in every single store in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, every minute we’re open, and you can recycle any of your electronics, TVs, VCR players, CDs, cases, cords, cables, anything you can imagine, almost everything we take at no cost to our customers every day of the week that we’re open. For the larger units, appliances and TVs that are just too big to haul into our stores, when you buy a new product and we deliver that to your home, we will haul away those old products as well for free.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Wow. It’s convenient if you go into a Best Buy, and even if you’re getting something delivered to your house, it’s just as convenient. It goes away via Geek Squad, and you don’t even have to worry about it.
SCOTT WEISLOW: That’s right. We want it to be as convenient as possible for our customers, so they don’t have to wonder where should we go with this material? What can we do with it? What are our options, and how do we get rid of it? When they’re ready to upgrade for their new products, we are there to take care of those old ones.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Scott, Best Buy has an amazing reputation, not only in terms of the quality of the electronics that you sell, but also the quality of the vendors that you have with regards to everything sustainable and also recycling. Can you share a little bit about the highest quality standards that you’ve put around recycling, and why that’s so important to Best Buy?
SCOTT WEISLOW: It’s really important to Best Buy, John, because we hold our partners to very, very high standards, not only our own internal environmental standards. We audit our partners and their partners and another layer down to ensure that we know where our product is going and that it’s being handled to the standards that Best Buy has written and set forth years ago. On top of that, just in the electronics industry, there are two industry certifications. One is called R2 and the other is called E-Stewards. We require all of our partners to have both, so we’re providing that added level of protection for our customers, so they feel confident that they know we’re handling their products responsibly.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Which brings up a very important point. When this program started years ago, Scott, everyone was talking only about the environment. But as you and I both know, the issue of data protection, not only for just all of us personally, but for the companies that people work at, the governments people use electronics at, data protection is very important. How does Best Buy ensure that when people drop off their old electronics, that the data is protected?
SCOTT WEISLOW: Data protection is, indeed, very important. As everybody has seen with some recent activities in the marketplace over the last year or so, it is of paramount importance that we ensure for our customers that their data is protected. We have a couple of options here. When customers come in to recycle, we always offer them the opportunity if they feel more comfortable wiping their data storage, their hard drives, by themselves, they certainly can. They can do it in our stores with our Geek Squad agents as well, and then the last step and probably the most important one that I rely on every day is our partners, because of those industry certifications I mentioned earlier, they have very stringent standards they must meet wiping data storage devices for us. They do it all day every day, and they ensure for us that issue is taken care of.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Today there was another big announcement made, not only the landmark number you hit today, a billion pounds recycled, but the future was talked about. Talk about the future of recycling and the new goals that you set for 2020.
SCOTT WEISLOW: Fantastic. You nailed it. We have a new goal that launched today. It is 2 billion pounds by 2020. We are going to take twice as much material in a substantially shorter time, so the challenges are there, no question about it. We have the best partners, we have great teamwork out in the field, and we have the best customers in the world that get what we’re doing, and they’re going to be there with us every step of the way. We launched that goal today, and even more important, we’re going to drive awareness out to our customers throughout the country, that they do, indeed, have an outlet for these products. For those that don’t know, we’re going to be there. For those that do know, we’re going to continue to be there, and that’s our goal.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Wait a second. Let me understand this, and I hope our listeners will understand this. This is not another billion pounds on top of the billion you’ve recycled. This is a fresh slate, a new 2 billion pounds you’re going to recycle.
SCOTT WEISLOW: That is correct. We are going to hit 2 billion additional pounds by the end of 2020.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Wow. For our listeners out there, also, Scott, talk a little bit about what else Best Buy does in terms of being able to recycle. One of the key portions of recycling is reuse. Best Buy takes back people’s products, so there’s a trade-in trade-up program that Best Buy has, isn’t there?
SCOTT WEISLOW: That’s right. We have a trade-in program that customers that have product that’s still working, still has value, they can bring that in. It gets evaluated in our stores by trained professionals, Geek Squad agents, and then we determine what the value of that product is and we gladly give it back to our customer in Best Buy gift cards. Those products get repaired and resold in the marketplace, giving them a second life. I’ll even go one step further. I’m very proud to tell you that our electronics recycling partners and our appliance recycling partners do the exact same thing. They get the product in, and they do their first step, which is always to repair, reuse, and resell that product to give it a second life before it gets shredded for commodity value, where it still gets a second life.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Got it. Another thing that was talked about today that I’d love you to share with our listeners is that you have a new sustainability display here at the headquarters. Can you explain a little bit about your new sustainability display and why that’s so important culturally and from a DNA perspective at Best Buy?
SCOTT WEISLOW: You touched on a great point. We do have a new display. It’s fantastic. I wish the listeners could see it. The idea behind it is that our sustainability program has four key pillars and the recycling program is absolutely at the core of one of them. How are we as a company, as the largest retailer of consumer electronics, doing our share to take care of the e-waste problem across the planet? Through our recycling program and our trade-in program and our open box inventory, we’re able to address that e-waste problem in a very big way. The new display is a way to tell our visitors to corporate campus, all of our employees, we are behind this from a corporate level, from the CEO down, who was our MC for the show today. It was fantastic. It’s a way to show, it’s a visual representation, of our company’s commitment, not only to this program, to our sustainability efforts overall, to our communities that we serve and our customers in those communities.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Beyond recycling, which, of course, is what we were celebrating today, Scott, here at Best Buy, talk a little bit about some of the other amazing sustainability things that Best Buy does every day and our listeners should really know about. You guys are really green through and through from a DNA and cultural standpoint.
SCOTT WEISLOW: We are. We are, indeed. Sustainability, again, is at the core of our Renew Blue turnaround strategy. Some of the other things that we’re working on, John, is we have a carbon emissions strategy, that we are going to reduce our carbon emissions by 20% by 2020. We are actually very close already to hitting that target, and we are going to be possibly adjusting that target here soon. We’re doing that. We are very active in communities around the globe, worker conditions for the companies that manufacture our house brand products. We work very closely with all of our vendor partners, from Samsung and Toshiba to others, very, very instrumental both on the human element, as well as sustainable products. We’re very, very cognizant and very active in Energy Star appliances and making our customers aware that we have a lot of Energy Star products in our stores for them when they’re looking to buy products that use less energy, so they can conserve energy, they can cut electrical and gas costs on their home bills. We’re very active in that as well.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Wow. Scott, we thank you for coming back on Green is Good today. We look forward to having you back on in the future to talk about all the things that are going on in sustainability and recycling at Best Buy. We also now know, thanks to you and your great colleagues, that the future of recycling is bright at Best Buy, as is the future of Best Buy being also bright as well. We thank you and everyone here at Best Buy for making the world a better place. Scott, you are truly living proof that green is good.
A member of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s Implementation Advisory Committee on the Global Warming Solutions Act and on the board of the New England Clean Energy Council, Geoff is a familiar face on Beacon Hill, in the clean energy community and in the greater community. He approaches his role as CEO with a sense of practical activism and an unwavering commitment to solving environmental problems. Geoff believes that businesses don’t have to make a choice between being socially responsible and making a profit.
When he started Next Step Living with three colleagues, Geoff knew he wanted to create something different – the whole-home approach to home energy efficiency. But he never imagined that six years and more than 90,000 households later, the company would be named No. 92 on the Inc. 500 list of fast-growing companies.
Geoff was a senior manager with the Bridgespan Group, a strategic consulting firm for public entities and nonprofits, where his clients included the Energy Foundation, the City of San Francisco, the Portland Public School District and the Packard Foundation. Earlier, he led teams at Bain & Company in the New York and San Francisco offices, advising clients in multiple industries including consumer products, telecom and online businesses.
A board member of PRIME, a nonprofit that encourages Program-Related Investments in the energy sector, Geoff began his career as a teacher at his alma mater, Roxbury Latin School in Boston. He also worked in the public housing sector with Community Builders in Boston and the Housing Authority of San Francisco.
Geoff graduated from Williams College with a B.A. in political economics; he went on to earn an M.P.A. from the John F. Kennedy School of Government and an M.B.A from the MIT Sloan School of Management.
He began with the company 8 years ago at Best Buy’s mobile phone division as the Chief Financial Officer, working to build the Carphone Warehouse Europe joint venture, a well as the Best Buy Connectivity group. Previously, Mr. Miller worked as an investment banker in the retail industry in Manhattan, NY. He is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University.
In 2013, Mr. Miller became leader of Best Buy’s Inventory Optimization department which focuses on forecasting the best product placement for return prevention and mark-downs for new electronic inventory as well as for returns and products collected for electronics recycling. The division hopes to increase consumer awareness about connecting real customer demand for reused electronics with the company’s growing inventory.
This month, Mr. Miller helped Best Buy announce the company has successfully reached the huge goal of collecting 1 billion pounds of electronics for recycling. The company has pledged to collect 2 billion pounds of electronics by the year 2020.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Welcome to another edition of Green is Good. We’re so honored to have with us today Robert Miller. He’s the SVP, the Senior Vice President in charge of Inventory Optimization. Welcome to Green is Good, Robert.
ROBERT MILLER: Thank you so much, John.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Hey, Robert, before we get talking about what we’re doing at the special edition of Green is Good today on Best Buy’s campus here in Minneapolis, I want to talk a little bit about the Robert Miller journey and Robert Miller story. Talk a little bit about leading up to joining Best Buy, what you did before, and how’d you come into Best Buy and what did you do leading up to your position now as SVP of Inventory Optimization?
ROBERT MILLER: Sure, my pleasure. I joined Best Buy about eight years ago. Before that, I lived in Manhattan. I was an investment banker in the retail industry doing mergers and acquisitions at a few different banks. Frankly, it came to the point where my wife and I were deciding whether or not we were going to raise our family in the city or not, and we decided as much as we love New York, that we wouldn’t mind being in more of a suburban atmosphere. I’d been covering retailers, Best Buy was actually one of our clients. I didn’t work on that account specifically, but I knew a bunch of people at Best Buy through that relationship. I got a call from Best Buy. They were looking at hiring someone to come in and run their internal investment and acquisition group, and I love the retail industry. I love Best Buy and perfect timing in terms of my wife and I wanting to leave the city. One of those fortunate phone calls, and it led to me joining in early 2007. I came in and joined to run this internal group. One of the first things that we started working on was, frankly, partnering with Carphone Warehouse, which is one of Europe’s largest retailers of mobile phones, a real expert in the business. Best Buy, at the time, cell phones weren’t nearly as clearly popular as they are today. Best Buy knew we had to get into it. It’s a very different business model. Best Buy had struggled before in trying to get into cell phones and just couldn’t figure it out. It’s complex in very different ways. So we were looking at partnership to help bring that expertise to Best Buy. We started spending a lot of time with Carphone, and ultimately ended up acquiring 50% of Carphone while forming a joint venture here in the U.S. to grow the cell phone business. We kind of had a partnership with Carphone that was both in Europe and here in the United States. By working on that partnership, I got very close to Best Buy’s mobile phone business, and a couple of the leaders there one day asked me if I wanted to join and be the Chief Financial Officer for Best Buy’s mobile phone business. It was a chance to leave the advisory side of the business and join more of an operational role within Best Buy. It was good for my career, and phones are fascinating. Then I joined Best Buy Mobile, running finance and business development for what, again, was effectively a joint venture with Carphone Warehouse. That business just did phenomenally well. It was a wonderful group of leaders, certainly the customers were adopting smart phones at a rapid case. Best Buy had some really nice different shaded components to our offering, and the business went great. The team was motivated and it was a very innovative culture within a giant corporation. Actually, it did so well, that as a company we started to look at how can that culture and that spirit of innovation and acting differently, how can we apply that much larger across Best Buy, not just in cell phones, but in other categories? So we looked at other related mobility categories, like laptops and tablets and MP3 players. We really, as a company, combined anything that was of a connectivity or a mobility nature into one division of the U.S., and the other division handled all the products for the home, your traditional stereo equipment and TV set. So we really had a home group and a connectivity group, and then I became the CFO of that connectivity group. We folded internally our phone business into a much larger business, which is about half of Best Buy’s U.S. business. I maintained that same type of finance and strategy role for all the connectivity work. About a year ago, we now had a lot of new leaders, Hubert Joly and Sharon McCollam, our new CEO and CFO respectively, and a lot of new leaders were naturally taking a look at what does it take to transform Best Buy and where do we have opportunities to go after, where do we have some duplicative functions, etc. The reality was as much as it did make some sense to have a very home-focused part of the company and a very connectivity-focused, it by definition was a bit duplicative. As we were looking at whether that was the optimal structure or not, while also looking at where are there parts of the business that, frankly, we haven’t focused enough attention on. Again, this was about a year ago. We started to look at all the merchandise or all the inventory Best Buy has that is not brand new, certainly all of our recycling product that comes to us by taking care of our customers, all the product that we get by way of trade-in, where we actually go out and buy from customers their older products, all of the returns that we handle when customers don’t want to keep the product they purchased, when things break. Because we’re such a large retailer, we have a lot of that product. While all of that product has value, and there are customers for all of it, we hadn’t really built our business to focus as much as we probably should have on what do you do with all that merchandise, who are the customers, and which channels should you sell it. The more we talked, the more we said we really need to bring together parts of the company that play roles in managing this type of inventory, and we need to think about it as a real business, not as a nice to have or not as a necessary evil, but something that we need to be, frankly, a lot louder about and prouder about and treat it as the proper business that it is. So we formed inventory optimization, which really is a collection of groups that focus on where should we put new merchandise to begin with, very detailed forecasting work because the more you put the product in the right place at the right time, the more you can prevent the return to begin with, the more you can prevent markdowns if you don’t put too much in one store when you should have put more in another store. The more you can stem the problem, if you will, upfront, that’s a lot of math and partnership with our vendors, etc. My team helps figure out as best we can how to optimize where all the product goes. When products do come back by way of returns or trade-in or recycling, by all means, let’s treat that as the proper business, and let’s make better decisions and let’s route that more effectively around the U.S. and let’s figure out what should be sold in stores versus on website versus in third party sites. Let’s optimize all of that because the reality is there’s a tremendous amount of value. We put together a lot of really smart people to think and act very differently in an aligned structure. Best Buy just hadn’t really thought of that before. I’d say in the first 10-11 months we’ve been together, there’s nothing but excitement around how impactful that’s going to be to the company, how impactful it’s going to be to our customers, etc. That’s the inventory optimization team that wasn’t even around a year ago, and now, as you’ve seen today, there’s nothing but excitement around all elements of that work because it matters to our customers and it matters to our business model.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: It sounds like, really, what you’re doing is you’re aggregating the data that you have available to you and then you’re helping the company make better decisions based on the predictive analytics with the numbers that are literally in front of you. So you’re really doing big data work right here.
ROBERT MILLER: Yeah, it’s a lot of data and it’s a lot of, frankly, a cultural change. Best Buy probably takes care of customers with all the latest technology, and we have amazing services and accessories. We sell a lot of brand new stuff that people want. That’s our bread and butter, but the reality is customers also like gently touched items. Maybe for yourself, a brand new laptop is perfect for you, but for your nine-year-old daughter, actually a three-year-old laptop is perfect. We want to make sure we’re taking care of customers, regardless of brand or price point or conditionality. We have a lot of really great stuff that we know customers want, but we just haven’t done a good enough job of showcasing that. We’re leveraging a lot of data, but it’s also just trying to connect the real customer demand that’s out there with the reality that we have the supply, we just never really told that story. We’ve never marketed and made it easy to find and easy to buy. That’s why you see a lot of changes in our stores, changes in our website. We’re trying to help customers understand how valuable this product is and we’re going to make it easy to find and easy to buy. That’s what we do on the new products, so why not apply the same merchandising principles and practices to the non-new product? That’s what we’re trying to do.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: For our listeners who just joined us, we’re honored to have with us today Robert Miller. He’s the Senior Vice President of Inventory Optimization here at Best Buy. This is a special Best Buy edition from Best Buy’s campus here in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Best Buy had a big announcement today, and actually, Robert, you did an amazing job. You were the Master of Ceremonies. Can you share with our listeners what the big announcement was today and why it was so important to Best Buy, not only looking backwards, but more importantly, looking forwards?
ROBERT MILLER: Five years ago or so as a company, we decided to formalize a lot of grassroots efforts across the country that were all tied to recycling. We knew how important recycling was. We wanted to play a role, but we hadn’t really formalized how to make all of that work. Five years ago, we decided to get very big and very serious about recycling. As part of that, we said we’re going to collect, on behalf of our customers, a billion pounds by the end of 2014 of consumer electronics and appliances. To be honest, at the time, we knew there was that much customer need. We didn’t know how we would operationalize that. We didn’t know how we’d go about doing it, but we knew it was important. So we set in motion a huge goal years ago, and over the last five years, we have really gotten behind this and gotten stores really focused on connecting with their local communities and their local customers and telling that recycling story and helping customers understand all the great things we can do for them. Not surprisingly, it has grown at high rates. In June, we actually hit the billion pounds. That was six months ahead of when we actually said we’d do it. Then we took a couple of months, frankly, internally, to get ready for a big party because the billion pounds is not just a staggering amount of product. John, as you said, one, it gives us a chance to pause and reflect on what we did and really recognize some incredible partners, John, you and your company being a critical partner. We work with a lot of external experts. We have a lot of passionate internal leaders. You don’t collect a billion pounds and do it in the most responsible way without a lot of very focused people and partnerships. We wanted to make sure today we really paused and gave proper recognition for the amazing work that so many people have done. Then we also wanted to, frankly, talk about and think about what an indicator of future success that first billion pounds was. The reality is customers don’t know how to transition out of a lot of the older products they have. They want newer items and new technology gets more amazing every day, but we know from talking to customers, they are confused about how to go about recycling. Isn’t it a hassle? Doesn’t it cost me a lot of money? A lot of things that are Best Buy are not true. We are here to serve in a very fast, free, and convenient manner because it’s important, as the largest electronics chain, to step up to the plate on that. We ourselves are a manufacturer. We have a large exclusive brand business, so we certainly have obligations that we want to meet because we’re a manufacturer. We know it’s the right thing for the planet, the community, the environment, but it’s also just good business sense. We want to win customers. We want to demonstrate the myriad of services that we offer them, and we know how different we are here, and we know how much customers care. The first billion is enormous and we celebrated it today with a lot of fanfare. We were honored to have our governor here, the governor of Minnesota, Mark Dayton, was here. Our CEO, Hubert Joly, was here. As you said, I had the chance to talk a little bit as well. It’s a celebration of an enormous feat, and really, it’s a celebration of where we’re headed.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Let’s step back. For our listeners out there that have not yet had the wonderful opportunity to come into a Best Buy to recycle, explain how the program works, how easy it is, how it makes the customer service, how it’s so seamless and can be part of the customer service offerings that you guys give.
ROBERT MILLER: Absolutely. If you walk into any store, right at the front, we have a variety of recycling kiosks. They’re little bins for smaller items, cell phones, cables, things like that. You literally can drop those right in the bin, and behind the scenes when those bins fill up, we manage that in the most responsible way and move those products to our partners like ERI, and we recycle those. For the larger items, TVs, printers, computers, things that don’t fit into a kiosk, if you just come in the store a little bit further, right at the front of our store, usually you walk in and turn right, right at the customer service counter, we will happily accept the recycled item right there. Really, what we do, is we then take possession of the item and we move that to the back of the store, and then bundle those items up and prepare to ship them from store to distribution center, so then we can start the process. From an in-store experience, small items are very simple and bigger items are very simple. Again, we’re here to take care of customers and we know it can be an inconvenience to transition out of an older good, and we try to make sure that that’s not an inconvenience at Best Buy. For the larger purchases, we have a lot of customers that buy big TVs from us, and we have a huge appliance business. A lot of times, customers want the brand new products delivered to their homes. When we’re coming to your home to deliver a new big TV or a new appliance, while we’re there, we also offer haul away services, where we will take your older appliance, your older TV, free of charge. And then again, same thing, from the truck we’ll take that to the distribution centers. We will palletize all that product and start to move it through the various networks. Whether you are coming into a store and shopping with us in the store, whether or not we’re ultimately coming to your home to deliver a brand new item, the point is we want to be there to help you when it comes to recycling.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Let’s just go back a little bit even more. Best Buy, Robert, was one of the pioneers in retailing to do electronics take back. Is it safe to say millions of people every year come into Best Buys across the United States to recycle their old electronics?
ROBERT MILLER: Absolutely. It’s millions of people. Today our CEO made reference to on average, over the last five years, we’ve taken more than 20 million individual units. In the more recent year, that 20 million is more like 35 million, just because we’re growing quickly. It’s a ton of individual items. It’s a ton of weight across the entire gamut of electronics and appliances, which, again, demonstrates the customer need that people aren’t sure where to take things. Obviously, we don’t want people just throwing things away, so we put our hand up in the air and say we’re here to help. I think we have. We’ve pioneered it, we are very big at it, and we intend to be a lot bigger.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: And you’ve set the standard, number one, and today was the landmark day. Another 2 billion pounds by 2020.
ROBERT MILLER: Another 2 billion pounds.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Talk a little bit about how recycling will be integrated into your growth strategy to continue Best Buy’s tremendous run that you’re on right now.
ROBERT MILLER: If you think about major appliances and TVs, you think about big, bulky items, and the inherent challenges with transitioning out of those, especially in the old tube TV model, where those items are heavy and difficult to move. Not enough people yet know that Best Buy is big in recycling. The awareness is actually relatively low that we are as big as we are. One, we’re going to change that through marketing, through public relations, through shows like this. We want the word to be out that we have this incredible program. It’s an always on, everyday proposition, what I’ve described, in terms of the capability we have and the offering doesn’t change by the day. It’s what we always do for our customers. We need to tell that story more succinctly and loudly. That’s one foundational thing. Then when it comes to more people understanding what we do, we want to connect better to the amazing new technology, but the thing that might be in the way or the item that’s sitting in the space where you’d like to put the new 4K TV is, in fact, an old 200 lb. tube TV. Why don’t we remove that burdensome TV for you, handle it in the most responsible way, and replace that with an amazing new TV and connect those transactions? Yes, we’re doing a lot of things that are completely right for our communities and the planet around us, but we’re also really helping you buy the item that you really want to buy, but you’re not quite sure how to connect those two. I think by telling our story and helping people understand what we do, while we also tell a story about all the amazing new technology we have and all the services we offer and all the things that make our value proposition so great, I think we will grow materially because of that need and because of just helping customers understand that we’re not just amazing at the new product, we’re amazing at the old product too.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Today you announced from the stage, Robert, a new sustainability showcase here at the headquarters. Can you talk a little bit about, at a macro level, how sustainability is really cultural and a DNA issue here at Best Buy, and what are the other things you’re doing besides recycling, which is, of course, amazing and you’ve become the platinum standard in recycling, what are the things you’re doing in sustainability and why showcase it here because it’s so important at Best Buy?
ROBERT MILLER: I think from a customer perspective, certainly, recycling is front and center in terms of something that people can get their heads around and, certainly, meeting the goal is why we made such a big deal today about recycling. In the larger sense, sustainability is foundational to Best Buy. We run 1,500 stores or so. Running those in a more energy-efficient way and reducing carbon footprint, all of that, is detailed work underway to continue to materially change how efficiently and effectively we run our locations. We are not only a manufacturer, as I touched on. We certainly work with all the largest manufacturers in the world, and that brings up opportunities around responsible supply chain and packaging solutions and how do we all make sure that in our desire to protect products as they’re being shipped, the fundamental packaging and boxing solutions are also all products that can be recycled once the customer opens up and takes out the item. Whether it’s packaging or supply chain or carbon footprint and a bunch of related pieces, that’s all, again, part and parcel to a true vision we have of playing a bigger role. Again, we know it helps all constituents involved. The beauty of sustainability and recycling is it really does help everybody. It helps our customers and our communities, it helps our vendor partners, it helps us as a business model, it helps our shareholders. Everybody wins when we get after this, so trying to tell that story and continuing to make real changes, I think is shy we’re so excited and why we devoted so much time today to talk about something that maybe in the past would not have gotten as much publicity. We really connected to who we are as a company and our focus on transforming.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: And you even have a name for it internally, called Renew Blue.
ROBERT MILLER: Yeah, a couple years ago, when Hubert, as our new CEO then, was really looking at the type of work we needed to do to really change the company. Obviously, we talk a lot about our blue shirts, our field facing employees, and the color blue is naturally all over our company. So we’ve talked about we’re going to renew blue. We’re going to renew our incredible company. We know we have, over the years, not taken care of customer as well as we wanted. Our cost structure got a little bit out of line, so we’re doing a lot of internal and external initiatives that all roll up into a big strategic endeavor that we label Renew Blue. As Hubert talked about today, this is part of that. A real pillar of renewing blue is being very cognizant about the role we play in the greater world, and within all of that sustainability work, this is a very powerful pillar of that work because, again, it matters so much to our customers and our communities that we proudly serve.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: That’s great. Robert, we thank you for your time today. We know how busy you were, and you did, again, such an amazing job making this big announcement today. We know the future of recycling at Best Buy is bright and Best Buy’s future is bright. We thank you for making the world a better place. Robert Miller, you are truly living proof that green is good.
As Assistant Administrator for OSWER, Mr. Stanislaus has focused on opening government, expanding transparency, and empowering local communities to participate in all of OSWER’s decisions through the Community Engagement Initiative. He has expanded the brownfields program to provide tools to local communities to revitalize economically distressed communities in America’s downtown including through the innovative Area Wide Brownfields Pilot program. He leads the Agency’s efforts to support community based actions to address environmental justice under Plan EJ 2014. He is leading the effort to transition from waste management to life-cycle based materials management through theSustainable Materials Management Initiative. He led EPA’s response efforts during BP Spill – serving weeks in Unified Area Command. He serves on the White House Council on Auto Communities and Workers and the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Welcome back to Green is Good, and we’re so honored to have with us today Mathy Stanislaus. He’s the Assistant Administrator for the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response at the Federal EPA, the EPA of the United States of America. Welcome to Green is Good, Mathy.
MATHY STANISLAUS: Thank you. I’m glad to be participating.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: We’re going to be talking today about all the important work you’re doing at the National Strategy for Electronics Stewardship and the Sustainable Materials Management Program that you’ve put together, but before we get talking about that, I want you to talk about Mathy Stanislaus. Share with our listeners your fascinating journey leading up to this important role that you have as Assistant Administrator at the EPA.
MATHY STANISLAUS: Sure. I’m hopeful that everyone feels it’s fascinating. I’ve spent most of my career in looking at the issues of solid waste reduction, one from the perspective of mismanagement of solid waste and the impacts to local communities from the high volume of solid waste, which is most acutely faced by low-income communities around the country. Also, my first degree was in chemical engineering, and I also have recognized that it’s a lost opportunity not engineering and recycling very productive materials that currently go in our landfills. I’m able to take those experiences, one the opportunity of recovering materials and to reconvert that for productive uses, but also lessening the community and environmental impact to provide both environmental benefit to society and economic benefit to society.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: You’re a lawyer, you’re a chemical engineer, so you’re able to take all of that formal education and then apply it to the critical topic, like you say, of solid waste management, or potentially mismanagement, and help get it back on track again. For all our listeners that want to follow along as we talk about these important topics with Mathy Stanislaus, please go to www.epa.gov. There’s tons of information there on all the great, important work that Mathy and all his colleagues at the EPA are doing on a regular basis to make not only the United States, but the world, a better, cleaner, and more enjoyable and healthier place to live. We thank you for that, Mathy. I want to today focus the conversation, because the EPA is such a large organization, on the National Strategy for Electronics Stewardship and Sustainable Materials Management. Can you talk about the impetus for its creation, the National Strategy for Electronics Stewardship?
MATHY STANISLAUS: Yeah, I will say the impetus of the National Strategy is part of the broader impetus on Sustainable Materials Management. It’s to really change the paradigm from purely end-of-life waste management to look at every part of the life cycle, look at how we can design to recover materials, recover materials post-use, and put it back into the economic strain. Clearly, electronics, being the huge volume that it is, are calls out for more concerted strategy among the federal government and the federal government working with the private sector. Just to give you some stats, which I found tremendously compelling, we estimate that 438 million electronics were sold in 2009, which is double from what was sold in 1997. In 2013, the average U.S. household has 28 distinct devices, according to Consumer Electronics Association’s annual survey. In 2011, we estimate that 3.4 million tons of selected consumer electronics were generated. Of this, 850,000 tons were collected for recycling, which is roughly a recycling rate of about 25%. We’ve now increased that to 29.2% for electronics. Still, we have more room to grow. Every million cell phones recycled, we can recover 35,000 lbs. of copper, 772 lbs. of silver, 75 lbs. of gold, 33 lbs. of palladium. What this means is we’re recovering really precious, really valuable materials, and we don’t have to impact the environment and the public health from extracting this from mining for these materials.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: The trend of urban mining, as you just pointed out with those wow statistics on how much metals can be pulled out of every million cell phones, the trend of urban mining is growing, and it’s something we should all encourage and foster.
MATHY STANISLAUS: That’s exactly right. There is obviously an environmental benefit for doing that, there is an economic benefit from doing that, and there’s also a local community benefit from doing that because this creates jobs locally in many places where those jobs are critically necessary.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Are the NSES’s goals focused just on government initiatives, or are there other stakeholders involved and there’s other goals also?
MATHY STANISLAUS: We have four goals under the National Strategy for Electronics Stewardship. One is to build incentives for design of greener electronics and enhancing the science, research, and technology development in the United States. Two, ensure that the federal government leads by example. Three, increase the safe and effective management and handling of used electronics in the United States, and four, reduce harm from U.S. exports of e-waste and improving safe handling of used electronics in developing countries. We also identify the EPA as a tremendous role, to some cases, of being a convener, in other cases to developing tools. One tool is referred to as EP, which is the electronics product environmental assessment tool, which is essentially developed to enable the green design of electronics, but also to enable consumers to identify those electronics equipment that best are able to build green in a real tangible way into their design. Folks can look at www.epeat.net to find out more about this very important tool.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: What are some of the wins and successes that the National Strategy has gotten already to date, and where do you want to take it in the future? Where can you improve the program and continue to drive more successes in the future?
MATHY STANISLAUS: Our recycling rate of electronics has jumped from about 25% to close to 30%. We’ve made some headway, but clearly more to go. The federal government is a tremendously large consumer, one of the largest consumers, of electronics. They are projected to spend $73 billion on IT or electronic goods and services in 2013. We not only want to lead by example, but lead by our pocketbook to drive better behaviors. One of the things we’ve done is to push safe recycling using third-party certified recycling programs. By our push for third-party recycling programs, we have seen the number of certified recyclers increase by over 560, which is a 360% increase from when we began measuring that in 2011. We have certified recyclers in 44 states and 15 countries, and we also continue to develop more rigor in the standards. This directly translates to the protection of public health because then we don’t have mismanagement in this country and elsewhere, as well as the economic value of benefitting. What is next is we continue to want to take the next step forward. Again, on the recycling standards and certification, we want to continue to improve that. Clearly, we want to continue to enhance and expand our partnership with industry because, clearly, industry is a major driver for implementing a life cycle-based approach, adding even more rigor to the design for recovery of materials, of tracking and recovering materials, and continuing to push the safe management of recycling. We continue to want to collaborate with a worldwide network of governments and non-governmental organizations and businesses. We continue to want to work with states and local governments who are really very much on the front lines of helping the U.S. government manage the infrastructure for the collection and oversight of electronic materials.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: For our listeners who just joined us, we’re honored to have with us today Mathy Stanislaus. He’s the Assistant Administrator of the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response at the U.S. EPA. You can learn more about all the great work he’s doing with his colleagues at www.epa.gov. Mathy, let’s get to one of the tougher issues that your organization faces and the United States faces right now, the issues of cathode ray tubes, CRTs, and glass recycling. What’s the current situation with regards to recycling CRTs in the United States?
MATHY STANISLAUS: Sure. Let me begin with why we have such a challenge. It’s simply because of the TVs that we’re currently watching. The TVs we currently watch, flat panel technology, so the demand for CRT technology has dropped dramatically because of the major shift to different kinds of screens. These CRTs or cathode ray tubes contain a significant amount of lead. Every CRT generally contains about 4 lbs. of lead. There’s some ability for reclaiming lead through what’s called lead smelting operations, which is to reclaim lead and reusing it in batteries. One limitation is that these lead smelting operations can only accept a limited quantity of CRT glass in their process. This has constricted what we call the end market, or the recycling market, of CRT, which raises concerns about how we can work with industry to figure out how we can best promote their recycling. Let me first begin with some of the potential risk of mismanagement. It begins with lead. Lead is a developmental disabling contaminant, particularly acute to children if it’s mismanaged. One of the challenges is that the collection and stockpiling of these CRTs, which if left unmanaged, would mean that the lead could leech into the ground. There’s a risk of fire. Generally, workers as well as residents adjacent, are at risk for the exposure of lead. It is illegal to collect it in this way and mismanage it in this way, so we want to make sure that it is not mismanaged and causing the public health risks. We also are engaging how we can best advance the recycling. We continue to work with the various participants. There are some innovative companies who are looking at the recycling markets. We’ve engaged some of them to find out what they have learned and see how it can be replicated elsewhere in this country, see how we can promote those best practices to enhance the recycling of it. We continue to be challenged by this. The economic drivers are not as great as some other recycling markets, but we do believe that we can grow the recycling of it while also making sure that while it’s collected, it is not collected and mismanaged with great risk for the public.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Another hot topic that has been in the news since 2009 was the 60 Minutes special on the shipping of our U.S. unwanted electronics into developing countries that really aren’t equipped to manage the appropriate recycling of them. They burn the plastics off of them, they do acid wash baths to get to the precious metals. Can you talk a little bit about the EPA efforts to ensure that either electronics are being responsibly recycled domestically or, if they do get shipped abroad, that they’re being recycled safely in other countries?
MATHY STANISLAUS: I would categorize the e-waste problem as both an export problem, but also a problem even in the developing world of electronics that are used in those countries and then trying to manage the reuse or recycling. We’re doing a number of things to address the safety of the recycling of these materials. I mentioned the CRT issue. We’re finalizing a rule to better track the exports of CRTs for reuse and recycling, so that both we and the importing country have full knowledge of the imports, so that there’s less sham operations and when it’s imported to another country, it gets properly managed and properly recycled. The EPA has supported and recognizes two e-waste certification standards, Responsible Recycling and E-Stewards Recycling. We are supporting both standards as a floor for safe recycling of e-waste materials that we want to continue to make sure is implemented in a safe and rigorous way. We continue to want to increase the floor to add more rigor to the recycling. The United States participates in what’s called the Basel Convention’s Expert Working Group on Environmentally Sound Management, which is doing that with developing guidance for countries for the environmentally sound management of waste, including some electronic waste. The U.S. government has also contributed to the development of the Partnership for Action on Computing Equipment, which is developing guidelines for the management of used electronics and recycling, repair, and refurbishment. The last thing I can mention, I just came from Mexico City, meeting with my partners in the Mexico equivalent of the EPA, to address in part this issue. There’s an organization called the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, which is composed of U.S., Mexico, and Canada. Through that, we’re building capacity for environmentally sound management of e-waste throughout North America. This includes the development of training modules for environmentally sound management of used electronics and e-waste.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Wow. You guys are doing so much. We’re down to the last minute or so. I’m going to give you the last word on what the future holds for all the great work you’re doing at the EPA with regards to electronics and appropriate management of the solid waste issue, of appropriate electronic recycling.
MATHY STANISLAUS: What the future holds is really bringing greater visibility to the economic and environmental benefit of recycling. Nationally, we have a recycling rate of about 35%. For example, I just participated in an event in the southeast, which really focused on the manufacturing benefits of materials recovery. I’ll throw out one number for you. With a 10% increase in the national recycling rate, we could recover 24 million tons, which translates to a value of $2.6 billion.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Wow. So we’ve got to recycle more, and that’s in the future.
MATHY STANISLAUS: Yes.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Perfect. Well, Mathy, we’re going to have you back on. Mathy Stanislaus, thank you so much. We’re going to continue to talk about all the great work the EPA is doing. Please go to www.epa.gov. Thank you, Mathy, for being an inspiring environmental leader and making the world a better place. You are truly living proof that green is good.
Joy Pierson is a nutritionist and co-owner of the Candle Cafe, Candle Cafe West, and Candle 79. Her passion for counseling and healing through great food led her to join Bart Potenza at The Healthy Candle in 1988 where they began creating foods and menus tailored to the nutritional needs of clients from Joy’s private practice and the Healthy Candle’s ever-growing customer base. Their partnership flourished and they have since created three restaurants, a growing catering and wholesale business, and three books, The Candle Cafe Cookbook, Candle 79 Cookbook and the new, Vegan Holiday Cooking from Candle Cafe.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Welcome back to Green is Good. I’m truly honored to have back on the show my friends and the founders of the Candle Café chain, Bart Potenza and Joy Pierson. Welcome back to Green is Good.
BART POTENZA: We are here for you, John. We love it.
JOY PIERSON: Thank you, John, for having us.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: It’s a joy to have you both on. You guys have not only made the Shegerian family so happy with all the yummy and delicious food that you serve in New York City, but you’ve made the city of New York not only happy and healthier, but so much better. The city is so much better for having your great restaurant chain in New York City. I know so many of your customers, and I see how happy they are and the healthy food that you constantly serve on a consistent basis, it’s just wonderful. I’m one of your biggest fans, but I want to continue to share the word of all the great work and the mission and the journey that you guys are on. That’s why we’re here today. But before we get talking about your new book that you just came out with, I want to share a little bit of your journeys and through your own eyes. Bart and Joy, can you share with our listeners who didn’t have the opportunity to hear the first time you were on the show, a little bit of how you came to being where you are today? What made you guys who you are today?
JOY PIERSON: Well, John, my story is somewhat similar to yours. I was a customer, and I was so moved by the quality of the food and how it tasted and how it made me feel. I was a practicing nutritionist. I had a private practice, and I was working for physicians all over the Upper East Side. I stumbled into Bart’s place for lunch, and he couldn’t get rid of me, John. He made me a sandwich. My life was never the same because I couldn’t believe my energy quadrupled, my skin, my hair, my mental clarity, everything improved. For me, it was like seeing a good movie and I just wanted to share it with everybody. It was just such an awesome experience for me, especially being a trained nutritionist. The rest of the story, I think, I’m going to let Bart take over because we met and I worked for him at the Healthy Candle, with was on 71st and Lexington, a 500 square foot takeout and delivery place. Then Bart and I found another location, and Bart played the lottery. Bart?
BART POTENZA: In 1993, I played a combination of our birthdays, and we won $153,000 in the New York State Lottery. That became the seed money, literally and figuratively, for starting Candle Café over 20 years ago, the joke being we could have had a year on the beach or an 80-hour work week, and we chose the 80-hour work week. Now we’re down to half that.
JOY PIERSON: We keep people happy and healthy.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: That’s wonderful. For our listeners out there that want to find Joy and Bart’s great restaurant and see all the yummy and delicious and healthy food that they get to serve every day to the residents of New York City, it’s candlecafe.com. Of course, there are other URLs too, candlecafefoods.com and candle79.com, but candlecafe.com you can find everything right there. Today you’ve got three wonderful restaurants in New York City. You also have a line of food that you’re serving at Whole Foods, but what I want to touch on first today is your new book. Share the title of your new book and what the theme of your new book is. Joy, you share that with our listeners?
JOY PIERSON: Yes. Our new book is called Vegan Holiday Cooking from Candle Café, and it’s a compilation of recipes that we’ve collected over the years for holidays. John, I don’t even know if you know this, but during the holiday time, and this is since the beginning, we get booked solid. We hate turning people away because we love to feed everybody this delicious plant-based food, so we created the book to bring families into the kitchen because I think cooking together is a wonderful thing for everybody, and then to the table together because, obviously, as we’ve grown, sharing meals at dinner tables has been sort of a lost art. We’d like to bring that art back because we find that sitting around the table and sharing delicious food is really extraordinary, especially because it’s holiday time. John, this book, although it’s holiday cooking, these recipes can be used any night of the week. It does have some really fun, different types of holidays, not just Christmas and Thanksgiving, but we have Superbowl Sunday and we have Cinco de Mayo and Easter brunch. So it’s got a lot of really fun, fun recipes in here that really do help us celebrate on many levels.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Was it challenging to create a holiday recipe book, as opposed to the day-to-day plant-based eating that we all enjoy right now? Was it more challenging to do holiday recipes plant-based wise?
JOY PIERSON: I think plant-based holiday was really important to me because, as you know, being in the restaurants and people coming in to do a lot of takeout, bringing our food home for the holidays, it’s been very challenging for the plant-based eater to go home for the holidays. There was a lot of joy in making this book so that people could really celebrate and not have to feel compromised. There are no compromises. These are guilt-free indulgences, and a lot of them have history in terms of they’re recipes that are traditional, but veganized.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Bart, you guys have created a family feeling at the Candle chain. When I walk in and our family walks in, we’re treated and welcomed like family. My brother flew in from California a couple of months back, and he couldn’t believe he was sitting at a table alone and the manager walked by and said to him, “Hey, Carney.” That’s my brother’s name, Carney Shegerian. He couldn’t believe that the manager, who doesn’t see him regularly because he comes in only when he’s in town, just called him out by name. He said, “I just felt so welcome there.” Talk a little bit about how this is part of your DNA and culture, how you include your family and kids in the kitchen, and how you made a book that extends your culture that you’ve already created in your restaurants.
BART POTENZA: DNA is the right word, John, because the more I look at Joy and myself, we’re doing it 27 years, it’s like the cliché goes, it comes naturally to us. I think a lot of other people need to learn that’s something we do intuitively, instinctively, and spiritually. I just read a document recently about how you bring that to any work environment. The point is there’s no other way to work in our way. The pressure of doing it is intense enough, and if we don’t make it a happy, loving environment to make it for our own sake as well as for our friends and clients and staff, then there’s no point to it and the way we feel about it. I think Joy would agree with that. It’s a day-to-day challenge, though. Joy always says what good is our last meal? We’re in our 30th year right now, and every day feels like day one. Maybe that’s what keeps our edge on. It keeps us excited about it, new menus, new organic farmers coming in, new commitments, new staff members, growth ideas. We have a frozen food line as well at Whole Foods. I don’t know if your listeners know that.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Share a little bit of what they can find at Whole Foods, Bart. Share a little bit about that.
BART POTENZA: Joy’s got that one.
JOY PIERSON: In Whole Foods, we have a ravioli in a red sauce, we have a ginger miso stir fry, a seitan piccata, and a macaroni and cheese. They’re in the frozen section. They’re frozen entrees, plant-based, organic. You can find them at Whole Foods across the country.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Some of the best macaroni and cheese in the entire planet. But before we leave the book, Vegan Holiday Cooking from Candle Café, where can our listeners buy it? If they’re listening right now and they want to enjoy the book and the recipes in it, where can they buy that book?
JOY PIERSON: You should be able to get it at any local bookstore, or you can get on amazon.com and get it. We do sell it at all three of the restaurants, if you want to come by.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Perfect. Again, if you want to learn more about Candle Café and all the great food that they serve, it’s candlecafe.com. Let’s now shift the topic a little bit to a topic that I know is very, very near and dear to both of your hearts, the amazing work you do with regards to bringing plant-based foods to our desperately in need school system. Can you share what you’re doing with the Coalition for Healthy School Foods?
JOY PIERSON: Yes. Bart and I both sit on the Board. I’m actually the Board Chair for the New York Coalition for Healthy School Food, and we’re bringing plant-based options into the schools. There’s an alternative, and, John, we have our first vegetarian school in Queens. It’s very exciting, and attendance, academic scores, everything is shifting for them for the better. It’s really quite a sample school, and it’s in Queens. It’s P.S. 244, and we’re in school offering kids a plant-based option, and then teaching them and their families. I’ve heard great stories when I go to schools and we do family dinner nights. I had a woman jump on the table and tell me that her weight went down, she’s no longer diabetic, her cholesterol went down, she’s no longer asthmatic, and she had all this positive just as a byproduct of us working in the schools because her son is in our program. It’s been revolutionary because at first when I first joined the Board over 10 years ago, they wouldn’t even let us in the cafeteria. Now we’re being embraced by the DOE, the Department of School Food, to develop recipes with them and to work as their partners in changing the way kids eat.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Two questions. If there’s listeners out there that want to learn more about how to bring healthy plant-based foods to their schools, whether they’re sitting in Madison, Wisconsin or in another borough in Brooklyn, New York, how can they engage with your great organization to learn how to bring plant-based foods into their schools?
JOY PIERSON: You can contact me directly at [email protected], and I will put you in touch with Amie Hamlin. She’s the director of the program and she runs all the programs in the schools, and we can get together and see how we can change the world, John.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: How about for our great listeners out there that want to support what you’re doing? Is there a way to donate or help support your Coalition for Healthy School Foods?
JOY PIERSON: Yes. Get on the website and you can hit Donate, and that would be awesome.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: Perfect. I know you guys have some of the hugest hearts of two individuals that I’ve ever met in my life. I know it goes way beyond the Coalition for Healthy School Foods. What other organizations is your Candle Café chain and yourselves involved with, with regards to all the great, important work that you do in the community?
BART POTENZA: This very week, tomorrow night, we’re doing the food at Cipriani’s for the Humane Society event. We do that every year. We consulted with what we’ll call traditional chefs and taught them how to present vegan food, which is SOP at a Humane Society event. Just to give it a context, people are paying $1,000 a plate just to attend the event, so there’s another piece of this. This thing can be taken upscale in more ways than one, as you can tell. We still have this thing of the old hippie image around health food and veganism and so on, but we have proven with all three restaurants that you can take this to a whole major level, including fine dining with fine eco wines and eco bars and craft beers, etc. One of the things you’ve picked up on, I think, John, by coming to us and knowing us, we’ve taken this to a whole another level that most people, I think, were not able to and were too terrified to try. We’re really proud that we’ve done this.
JOY PIERSON: I’m going to talk a little bit more about the Humane Society of the United States. It’s also, John, on our box of frozen food. Farm Sanctuary and the Humane Society of the United States are both recipients of money based on sales of that food. Bart is very involved with SVN, Social Venture Network, as am I, and also the Green Restaurant Association. Bart was the first person to bring composting into New York City, and he taught other restaurants out of the beauty of his heart for saving the planet for our kids and our grandkids. He set up composting at other restaurants for them and taught them how to do it. We were the first restaurant in New York to compost.
BART POTENZA: Guess what, John. They don’t compost bones. You can’t do bones.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: For our listeners out there that just joined us, we’re so excited and honored to have with us today Bart Potenza and Joy Pierson. They are the owners behind the great Candle Café chain in New York City, and you can also find them in the frozen foods section of Whole Foods coast to coast. Bart, you just touched on something a little while ago that’s fascinating. Thirty years you and Joy have been doing this. Can you share the evolution, if not the revolution, in the people? Of course, it had that crunchy, hippie meaning back then. How has it evolved? Because I come in your restaurants, you come into Candle 79 and go sit upstairs at lunch time. It’s not hippies upstairs; it’s the Upper East Side hoi polloi up there. It’s the high class ladies of the Upper East Side. Share a little bit about who some of your clients are and how that’s evolved over the 30 years.
BART POTENZA: I think the whole movement has been, as it is now, very media-friendly. Not a day goes by that the New York Times or in the press or media that some new story about why you’ve got to eat your veggies, whether it’s obesity in the country, the diabetes, etc. I’ve said it recently. It’s not about bragging, John. People want it, and the people who do come in are really the shakers and movers of the planet. The other part that’s influenced Joy and myself, we’ve had the pleasure of feeding Colin Campbell, Michio Kushi, Edelson, all the other great people. We’ve been open to the idea of embracing their ideas and their concepts and integrating them, of course, into our restaurants. It’s a user-friendly atmosphere, as you can hear. We’re also falling over each other to say, “What can we do? How can we do it better? Where can we go with it?” Joy is doing a book signing event today at the ABC corporate for us in New York, and that’s another realm of people that we connect with.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: I know how humble you both are, but I’m just a visitor and a happy guest at your restaurants, but I see other thought leaders in there all the time, legends like Gloria Steinem, Bill Clinton. I saw James Cameron filming some discussion on veganism and why it’s become important to him. These are some of the thought leaders. You guys rock.
JOY PIERSON: That was amazing, John. I said to him it decreases your carbon footprint by 25%, and he said more than that.
BART POTENZA: John, he brought 41 people back for dinner the next night.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: It’s just amazing. That’s what’s going on, and you guys are leading the revolution, which is so exciting. That’s why we’re just so honored to have you guys here today. We’re down to the last couple of minutes or so, and I really want to leave this to you. There is so much of the story to share with regards to the local and sustainable produce that you guys use and how you support local farmers and the catering that you guys do to the important organizations, like you said, about the National Humane Society. I’ll leave the last couple minutes both for you guys just to share some of your thoughts and visions, not only where we are today, but where you’re going to take this in the months and years to come.
JOY PIERSON: That’s a loaded question. Go ahead, Bart.
BART POTENZA: Oh well, honey, double hand off here, huh? We have a few cookbooks in development, and the frozen food line and the frozen food line has the potential of expanding quite a bit. We’re actually discussing bringing something onboard in January, which will be ravioli in bags, like a Boca version of the box, etc. I think a lot of what we do is chef-driven, and I think, John, this could be another show, but with all the things going on in the country with droughts and shortages and stuff, we might have those kinds of challenges on our hands as well. We have to really work with what we can get. This time of year we get all the local farmers, and in wintertime we’ve got to go out to a UR, and there is not a carrot to be had out there with the drought. What do you say?
JOHN SHEGERIAN: There’s not. They’re all gone. It’s just crazy.
JOY PIERSON: You, Bart, have developed some beautiful relationships with farmers over the years here. I’m so proud of our farmers because, obviously, John, it takes a village. We talked about the employees and our wonderful chefs and everybody because it’s all that energy throughout the room, from the dishwasher to the person who serves you to the person who prepares it, it all makes a huge difference. We’re hoping to continue what we do and to keep spreading that, so that it does give you such a good feeling, and it nourishes body, mind, and spirit. We hope that we continue to do that, we continue to show people how delicious this food can be because I think it’s got some preconceived notions about our type of cuisine that we’re debunking.
JOHN SHEGERIAN: For our listeners out there, to find the Candle Café’s food and the books and everything else that they’re selling, candlecafe.com. Vegan Holiday Cooking from Candle Café at great bookstores in your community or on amazon.com. Bart and Joy, thank you both for being inspiring visionaries and making the world a better place. You both are living proof that green is good.
As President of Madison Environmental Group, LLC, Leah engages clients to implement sustainability in their business practices, buildings and lifestyles. Her degree in mechanical engineering and certificate in environmental studies from the University of Wisconsin – Madison bridges the gap between technology, business and sustainability. Her profession credentials include LEED Accredited Professional in Building Design + Construction and Existing Buildings as well as a Living Building Challenge consultant. She dedicates her time to these ideals and community involvement as Vice President of International Facility Management Association-Madison (IFMA-Madison), co-chair for Wisconsin Green Building Alliance Green School Committee and foster parent for kittens from the Dane County Humane Society. She was previously a member of Willy Street Co-op’s Sustainability Committee and on the City of Madison Board of Public Works.
How did you first get involved in the green industry?
When beginning chocolates and researching and locating the best chocolate and supplier origins, learning about sustainability and fair-trade practices, looking at how my facility is run and not ever using harmful cleaners or appliances and making sure chocolates are made in the best possible way at every step of the way. I also recently created custom-made eco-friendly, fully sustainable packaging made for my luxury chocolate bar line. It is a never-ending quest. I see how much more I can keep contributing and doing better.
What interests you most about being green?
It is all about loving yourself, respecting other life and protecting Mother Earth. It is amazing all the resources we have that surround us, but we must cherish and protect all we use so we can give back and so it can be replenished in the most healthy, natural way without the use of harmful chemicals or substances that destroy our environment and cause diseases within animals and humans. It is knowing what we have been given here is a blessing for all of us and an honor; it is not something entitled to us to destroy for our own selfish purposes. So many people want to get their fix, to get what they think they deserve, they just take and live recklessly. That is not living green. It is about enjoying life in its purest form and getting back to the basics of living more simple for ourselves and for others. It helps protect Mother Earth while we use her resources, enjoy it and the smell of fresh air and beauty, and be cognizant of assisting to replenish and nurture to grow more resources in its place as a thank you.
What is your biggest “green” pet peeve?
When businesses clearly are jumping on the bandwagon and greenwashing just for the sake of their own profit as a marketing ploy to sell products but really don’t care. No business is perfect, but it is the actions and improvements we take accountability for ourselves and to be given to others that speak milestones and makes a true positive difference in lives and our planet. I see so many businesses market their products around a “purpose” that will fit well in with the trends to make it look like their products are healthier or less harmful, but read the ingredients and it speaks for itself. And, consumers then get confused and then outraged when they feel like they have been had.
Or, the organic labeling. There is so-called organic fillers and even organic, should I say, manure, but it does not mean this is good to feed your own body. Organic labeling laws even allow for some harmful chemicals to be allowed over our crops. This is just not right. People rely on food manufacturers and it is time for us to make a great change in what we make for people to eat. Trust is earned and not to be used.
I make most of my foods homemade in my kitchen and have an organic garden. My chocolates are an extension of myself and I only want to give my best. I started out with a true inspiration and purpose to help others and make this world a little better through my chocolates… not the other way around. But as long as we and our businesses continually strives to improve and really care about what is going in and out of their business to improve the quality of air, water and land, caring to eliminate poisonous pesticides from their farms, not sending cows to be killed off after a dairy farm got all the organic milk it wanted from them, being aware to reduce and eliminate toxins from the business in every possible way and to not use harmful chemical cleaners, try to avoid microwaves to eliminate nutrients from being killed from otherwise nutrient-rich foods, we can help maintain and improve our beautiful world and feed our bodies the best as this is our temple to cherish.
I feel and am so cognizant that what we all choose to do, how you choose to live, how you choose to care or not care, makes such a great impact for someone else as whatever we choose does impact others and not just ourselves. We are here together, whether people recognize this or not, to help each other and to better ourselves.
What green trend is most exciting to you or your industry?
I believe the Rainforest Alliance and getting certified is a great movement to help protect the integrity of our resources and environment and for fair-trade wages. Also, consumers caring what they are putting into their bodies more than ever, as I love to explain the quality of my chocolate I use and its origin along with the eco-friendly, fully sustainable packaging that you can give back as a gift letter/envelope to someone else or use for storing something else or for compost. I love to see people caring and wanting to know how they can help make a difference in their own personal choices in everyday living.
Allan Drury joined Con Edison in May 2009 as a Media Relations spokesman. Working in New York City, the media capital of the world, he speaks daily with reporters from local and national newspapers, television and radio stations, trade magazines and digital publications on behalf of a company that provides electric, gas and steam to 3.4 million customers. Con Edison has been cited for its environmental commitment by Newsweek magazine, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Energy and other organizations. Drury’s areas of coverage include distributed generation, energy infrastructure, energy efficiency, regulatory matters and safety.
Dr. Sabina Shaikh is an Economics Lecturer in the Program on Global Environment and Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago. She is the founder and Director of the Environment, Agriculture and Food (EAF) working group, in which she leads undergraduate and graduate students on research projects related to urban environment and food policy issues. Dr. Shaikh and her students recently contributed to the creation of a new national green certification for foodservice establishments, and are currently working with local partners on a sustainability plan for Chicago’s professional sports community.
Her research and teaching focuses on the economics of the environment and includes applications to urban sustainability in the City of Chicago related to climate change, water management and the valuation of natural assets, the connections between natural resources, environment and food systems and the economics of ecosystem change in the developing world.
Dr. Shaikh contributes services as a board and committee member for several organizations in Chicago including the Green Chicago Restaurant Coalition, Greenleaf Advisors and the Metropolitan Planning Council. She is also the co-principal investigator on a recently awarded National Science Foundation grant by the National Science Foundation to study the impacts of hydropower development and climate change on water sustainability and agricultural productivity in the Mekong River Region of Cambodia.
Dr. Shaikh has published in numerous scholarly journals, including American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Ecological Economics, Economic Inquiry, Environmental Practice and Land Economics. She has recently contributed book chapters to Natural Capital: Theory and Practice of Mapping Ecosystem Services and the Handbook of Metropolitan Sustainability.
At the University of Chicago, Dr. Shaikh teaches environmental economics, economics for public policy and environment, agriculture and food economics and policy. Dr. Shaikh holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of Wisconsin and a Ph.D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of California at Davis.
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