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JOHN SHEGERIAN: Welcome to another edition of Green is Good, and we’re so excited to have with us today Debbie Miller. She’s the owner of Anna’s Potions and Lotions. Welcome to Green is Good, Debbie. DEBBIE MILLER: Hi. I’m glad to be here. JOHN SHEGERIAN: We’re happy to have you, and before we get talking about your great brand, Anna’s Potions and Lotions, Debbie, talk a little bit about the Debbie Miller story, your journey leading up to founding this wonderful company and how you even got here. DEBBIE MILLER: Well, I’ve done a lot of things in my short life. Many of them have led up to Anna’s. I’ve been a lifelong environmentalist and herbal gardener and organic gardener. I’ve even done performing, writing, playwriting, monologues. Currently, one of my little day jobs is teaching English to immigrants, but all of these things have led up to my business and I use all of those skills in Anna’s. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That is wonderful and for our listeners out there that want to follow along, please go to www.annaspotionsandlotions.com. I’m on the site now. It’s a beautiful website. Talk a little bit about the idea. How did you have the idea and when did you have the idea for making Anna’s Potions and Lotions? DEBBIE MILLER: Okay, it probably started before I moved to New York. I lived in Tennessee for a few years. I’m not from there, but I lived in East Tennessee, and I was a gardener and I belonged to an herbal society where people grew herbs, and I learned a lot, and one of the members had made a rose cream that was wonderful. She distilled the oil from rose bushes in her backyard and I bought some of it and I wanted to buy more and she moved away so this kind of stayed in my mind, and this was probably in the mid-90s, and after I moved to New York in 1997, I kept that in mind and I got the idea probably 10 years ago for Anna’s and I wanted to replicate that rose cream. JOHN SHEGERIAN: And then when did you actually start the company? DEBBIE MILLER: The business officially launched on a small scale in 2006 and I’ve done everything myself. I’ve self-financed. I started the business out of my apartment and I do everything. JOHN SHEGERIAN: You’re the CEO and you also are the creator of Anna’s and so what kind of products? I’m on the site now. Again, for our listeners, it’s www.annaspotionsandlotions.com. What kind of products do you manufacture? DEBBIE MILLER: I make what can be called I guess skincare and beauty products. I make organic moisturizing creams, lip balms, and perfume potions. JOHN SHEGERIAN: As an entrepreneur, did you have to go find a source of small-batch producers that would make it to your specifications and your quality? DEBBIE MILLER: I haven’t done that, no, I make everything myself. It’s handcrafted in small batches. JOHN SHEGERIAN: No kidding! It’s all handcrafted, so talk about what makes your products so special. Instead of going to a big store and buying products that are made en masse, since these are really handcrafted products, what makes them special? DEBBIE MILLER: What makes them special, one thing is my signature product, which is Anna’s Sweet Rose Cream, which is that rose cream I was talking about that I’ve replicated and I use all organic ingredients, including Bulgarian rose oil, which is a little bit expensive but it’s the best rose oil in the world and everybody, I think, knows the benefits of rose oil and rosehip seed oil for the skin is one of the best things you could use so in addition to that, my products are almost 100% organic. I can’t say completely organic but they’re as organic as they can be. Most of my ingredients are sourced organically. My products are also vegan and I don’t even use beeswax so they’re vegan and cruelty free and the handcrafter nature, small batches. I don’t use chemical preservatives or any artificial colorings. JOHN SHEGERIAN: When did you launch your website? If you started the business in 2006, when did the website follow? DEBBIE MILLER: The website was probably three years later. I started out with a general website and then I made it into an ecommerce website and started an Etsy store a couple years after that and that’s where that is. JOHN SHEGERIAN: And how did you get the word out? It’s so interesting. For three years, you did it without a website. How did you get the word out? And then once you’ve had the website, how has that increased your scale of sales? How does that work? DEBBIE MILLER: The search engine optimization is a factor. We always work on that. I’ve expanded into other social media, like I have a Pinterest site. I have a blog. I send out an e-newsletter. I’m on Twitter. I’m on LinkedIn so that’s one component. I also reach out to local stores in the community. I’ve started to do that and expanding my media presence is on my plan right now. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That’s so interesting but before you even had the website, when you first started the company in ‘06, how did you get the word out? Where did you first make your first sales? DEBBIE MILLER: It started out, you know, word of mouth, some friends and family, and it’s just really, I believe that a business like mine that starts out small with handcrafted products is really word of mouth. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Talk a little bit about the product. You’ve talked about the rose oil and other nice things you put in your products. What don’t you put in your products? What do you make sure you don’t put in so it doesn’t affect people’s health and wellness? DEBBIE MILLER: Okay. No artificial dyes, no detergents, no sodium lauryl sulfate, no sorbates, which are artificial preservatives. I don’t have any animal byproducts, petroleum byproducts, phthalates, what else? That’s about it. None of that stuff, just natural essential oils, different vegetable butters and vegetable waxes. JOHN SHEGERIAN: And you’re able to keep up with the demand even out of your house? You’re still handcrafting everything pretty much out of your home still? DEBBIE MILLER: Yes, but I’m going to be exhibiting in the Green Festival this weekend and I anticipate that that exposure is going to take my business to the next level. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Is this the first time you’ve ever had exposure at the Green Festival? DEBBIE MILLER: Yes, this is the first Green Festival that I’ve exhibited at. I’ve attended; I think this is the third one in New York City. I attended before but I’ve never exhibited, and the whole experience has been really great. JOHN SHEGERIAN: What made you decided that this is the right place for your products right now? DEBBIE MILLER: One thing is that one of the sponsors of the Green Festival is Green America, which is an organization that many years ago was called Coop America, and I’ve actually been a member for probably 20 years, so I’m very familiar with that organization and I respect them totally. They’re involved in fair trade as well as environmental issues, human rights so everything is just a really good fit for me. Everybody I’ve talked to from that organization and met with has been kind of aligned with my values. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Got it. I understand and for our listeners who just joined us, we’re very honored to have today the owner of Anna’s Potions and Lotions. It’s Debbie Miller and you can look her up at www.annaspotionsandlotions.com and you can buy her products online. It’s an ecommerce site and you can also check out all the great things. I’m on it right now and it is just a beautiful site. I want to go over just some of the things here. If you and I just met today for the first time on an elevator or something like that and you told me what you did, convince me on an elevator pitch why organic lip balm opposed to something that’s not organic. When we’re putting this stuff on our bodies, whether it’s lip balm or moisturizing cream or perfume potion, why important that it’s organic as opposed to other commercially available things? DEBBIE MILLER: Okay so great. One reason is my slogan for my business is Anna’s Potions and Lotions, ‘honest products from nature.’ That’s a trademark slogan. When you get my products, you know that I’m telling the truth about the ingredients, and if I say I use this ingredient, I do, and you know that my ingredients are going to be pure and are sourced from places that have pure products. The other thing is that my products are great because I have a certification through Green America. I’ve reached their gold seal status, which is kind of a rigorous process and it goes all the way back to sourcing raw materials, using materials that are good for people and that are healthy so we know that my products are going to be healthy and that’s a benefit there, knowing that I’m honestly disclosing everything. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Got it and handcraft is great. Listen, people enjoy handcrafted products in so many different segments, whether it’s wines now or beers, and to have handcrafted lip balms and creams and even candles, I think it’s wonderful. I think it’s just a wonderful idea so talk a little bit about your business headquarters. We were talking a little bit about it off the air but if you want to share, where are your business headquarters right now? DEBBIE MILLER: My business headquarters is in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn. I produce things here in my apartment. My plan is to expand as my business grows. I want to keep a hand in the handmade quality. Right now, I craft everything myself but I realize that in the future, I might expand but I don’t really plan on leaving Brooklyn though. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That’s wonderful. Since you have a website, are orders coming in from all places around the world? Are you finding both around the United States and around the world, people are warming up to organic skin care products and other healthcare products that you produce? DEBBIE MILLER: Yes, definitely and in fact, from my website as well as my Etsy store, I’ve had orders from all over the world. I had a woman in Australia last year who wanted some of my creams to put in her bridesmaids’ gift bags. That’s the great thing about the internet. JOHN SHEGERIAN: How did she originally learn of your products or try it out? DEBBIE MILLER: She went on the internet and the keyword was handcrafted organic skin care. JOHN SHEGERIAN: And how about locally? Do you sell any of your products in to local stores in the New York metropolitan area? DEBBIE MILLER: That’s something that I’m working on. I did a little consignment early on in the business but I prefer to get my products in the stores on wholesale basis. That’s something that I’m working on. I do like to work with individuals. I think that’s more personal but I think now, especially in Brooklyn, there are a lot of stores that carry handcrafted green products and I would love to be involved. JOHN SHEGERIAN: How about the bigger stores? Do you foresee one day your products being carried by bigger chains like the Whole Foods of the world and other chains like that? DEBBIE MILLER: That’s a great question. In fact, Whole Foods opened up recently in Gowanus area of Brooklyn and a few years ago, I started to look into getting my product into Whole Foods and I had to kind of put that on hold for a while but now I’m starting to rethink that. In fact, last week I got the name of the person at the one in Park Slope that handles the Whole Body stuff so I intend to pursue that. I think Whole Foods would be another one of those cases where their values would be completely aligned with mine. I would love to get into Whole Foods. JOHN SHEGERIAN: When you were growing up, did you ever think that eventually you’d become an entrepreneur? Was this a dream of yours or is this just sort of a natural evolution in your life, becoming an entrepreneur? DEBBIE MILLER: Yeah, that’s a good question. No, I never would have thought of this. Nobody in my family has ever been an entrepreneur or in business. I started with a background. I’m also a journalist, a freelance writer. I’m a playwright. I’ve done acting, now teaching and I’ve had this lifelong interest in environmentalism so it’s kind of like just in the past few years, everything has kind of coalesced together and I see this as a natural evolution. Now I’m becoming an entrepreneur but I’m not going to lose my green values. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Are you enjoying the ability to leverage the internet? Do you think that can help take your great brand, Anna’s Potions and Lotions to the next level? Do you feel that you’re making progress online and that there’s a lot more progress you can make? DEBBIE MILLER: Yeah there is and that’s a good question and one way that I see that happening is to use my writing ability. I do have a blog and I intend to start blogging more often and doing some more marketing so I definitely see that. I really think that the internet is here and it’s not just people in their 20s and 30s who are using it. I read somewhere that one of the largest groups of people who are now buying online are people over 50 so I’m perfectly poised to be involved in that. JOHN SHEGERIAN: And since you’re so green and you’ve been green before it was ever cool to be green, Debbie, talk a little bit about your commitment to minimal packaging and putting minimal packaging on your great products. DEBBIE MILLER: My soy wax candles, for example, are either in glass containers or metal travel tins. I don’t put them into another box even though I could and the box that each one goes in could be made of recycled paper and recyclables. I just don’t believe in adding more stuff to the waste stream so you’re not going to see a very elaborate fancy display in a store if my products are in a store. I just really want to keep to that minimalist thing because to me, the packaging is not as important as what’s inside. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Right, and I agree with you. What’s your number one seller out of all of your wonderful products? What sells the most? DEBBIE MILLER: I would say what sells the most, one thing that’s really popular is my lavender shea butter moisturizer. That probably is the number one seller, although the sweet rose cream is right behind. JOHN SHEGERIAN: So that’s the number one and number two, the sweet rose cream and the shea butter? DEBBIE MILLER: Lavender shea butter, yeah. Everybody seems to love lavender. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That’s interesting. We’re down to the last two minutes or so. Do you have any pearls of wisdom? Because this show airs both nationally and internationally and there’s lots of young entrepreneurs out there that want to become the next Debbie Miller. In the last minute and a half or so, do you have any pearls of wisdom you can share for our budding entrepreneurs out there that want to become the next Debbie Miller? DEBBIE MILLER: Well yes, and you know it’s nothing that glamorous. It’s just keep at it. One thing that I have is a really great sense of perseverance. I never give up. I just keep on keeping on and doing what I love and I truly believe that doing what you love, eventually things are going to work out for you. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That’s true. As they say, winners never quit and quitters never win so we love that and again, for our listeners out there, please support Debbie Miller and her great brand. We need to support ecopreneurs out there both small and large and that’s what this show is about, supporting companies and people that make a difference and Debbie’s one of those great people, Anna’s Potions and Lotions, www.annaspotionsandlotions.com. Thank you, Debbie, for making honest products from nature at Anna’s Potions. You are truly living proof that green is good.

JOHN SHEGERIAN: Welcome back to Green is Good and we’re so excited to have with us today Melody Badgett. She’s the Managing Director of onepercentfortheplanet.org. Welcome to Green is Good, Melody. MELODY BADGETT: Thank you, John. It is a pleasure and an honor to be here. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Aw, well, before we get talking about your wonderful organization and the great work that you do there, talk a little bit about Melody Badgett. Share with our listeners your journey leading up to this great position. MELODY BADGETT: One Percent for the Planet sits right at the intersection of business and the environment and I say that because I think for me personally, my heart’s always been in the environment and nature and my career path prior to One Percent has always been in business, in the world of consulting and large companies and global reach, all of which was fantastic experience, but at the end of the day, it wasn’t where my heart was and that became really evident to me when I went to Patagonia, the tip of South America about a decade ago. My parents said, ‘You’re going to the end of the world by yourself where you don’t speak the language. What?’ I was on a rafting trip down the Futaleufú with a with a wonderful company called Earth River Expeditions that really focused on highlighting the value of indigenous populations to drive economic growth, rather than damming rivers so very experiential, had local politicians aboard, short story long, spent nearly two weeks in the most incredibly beautiful pristine wilderness rafting, camping, and seeing really no other humans but those on the trip and I got back and I could no longer sit at my desk, quite honestly. It just felt like the problem was too urgent and opportunity too great and the time was now so I joined One Percent in 2007. There were three of us at the time and today our staff is 12 and our reach is 48 countries and I have never looked back. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Unbelievable. That’s a wonderful story and for our listeners out there that want to follow along as we share the story of One Percent, I’m on it right now. It’s a beautiful website, www.onepercentfortheplanet.org. Melody, let’s just step back one little step. How did One Percent even get started? Who started it? How did it get started? MELODY BADGETT: Yes, that’s another very fun story to share. It began on a fishing trip 10 years ago, founder of Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard, his best buddy, Craig Matthews, who owns Blue Ribbon Flies in Montana, we’re fishing the Madison and they said, ‘You know what? Every time our companies do something good for the environment, it’s good for our business,’ and companies really have a role to play here. More of them should so the model was conceived. It’s a very simple model of giving 1% of sales every year to causes you care about and it began with Patagonia, stayed there until ’05 and became an independent entity at that time because they saw the momentum and they said this is bigger than one company. It really needs to live on its own. It needs to have a chance to be a global entity and today it’s reaching to 48 countries. JOHN SHEGERIAN: I’m on your website and like most of our listeners out there, I want to learn how this works. Explain how the basic One Percent for the Planet model works. MELODY BADGETT: Right, the model is simple and I think beautiful in that. If a company is interested to be a part, they simply contact us, let us know their interest, and go through a really easy sign-up to become a member. It’s a ten minute application. It’s a very nominal member dues and then they basically, with that membership, commit to giving 1% of top-line sales every year so that’s a big number, 1% of sales and it’s quite different than profits because it’s year in or year out. It’s whether you’re making money or not. It’s part of your philosophy and what you stand for. Another very unique part of the model is that giving happens directly between the company and the nonprofits. They write the check to the causes they care about. We advise and help per request and then every year, once a year, we certify all of our networks so they send to us receipts saying, ‘We did the giving. It’s at 1% of sales,’ and they tell us their stories of the results of their partnerships with these nonprofits and we certainly engage and help facilitate those when and wherever possible. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That’s awesome. Are there different ways that companies can get involved besides that basic model or is that it? MELODY BADGETT: Yes, yes, another really great question. The basic model is that membership model, where a company joins but we also realize the environmental problem and the crisis, it’s a big one and that means we need a network that’s big and inclusive and available for companies of all sizes to participate so not only can you join as a company but you can join as a brand or you can join as a product line and these options make it very accessible for companies of real-size, billion-dollar companies who have brand in the multimillions or product lines in the several-million-dollar range can be a part because of these iterations and they’re really important to the reach and the resources of the network. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That is great. Okay so some shameless plugs here. Talk a little bit about some of the bigger accomplishments of One Percent for the Planet. MELODY BADGETT: We just reached our ten year mark so entering our second decade and second stage of growth. One thing that feels really amazing about those first ten years is the fact that the network of now just over 1,100 companies throughout that decade has given 100,000,000 to causes and that’s a pretty cool milestone to achieve. Yvon, our founder, will tell you in one breath, ‘Yes, that is amazing. We never thought we’d get here,’ and then in another breath, ‘That is just the tip of the iceberg,’ and he’s absolutely right but it feels good to make a start because less than 2% of all giving goes to the environment and less than 4% comes from companies and that’s the case today so that’s an enormous need. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That is and that’s a wonderful neon sign for, like you said, the journey, a great marker for where you’ve been and a great beginning for where you’re going to go and so let’s go back and talk a little bit about philosophy of the organization though. So you’re talking about businesses giving 1%. As you say, Melody, that’s a sizable number for whatever your business is and then the intersection with environmental nonprofits. In many settings, that seems a little bit like strange bedfellows. Talk about why that could be also magical and why it could be great and why it works for how you’ve married up these organizations. MELODY BADGETT: Strange bedfellows that should know each other better, right? And I think it can be a really beautiful marriage, honestly, because you have one entity, the company, that has vast resources, that has a lot of power and influence and then you have another entity, the nonprofit, that’s on the ground doing amazing work at the grassroots level really making change happen and if you could marry those two, if you can get influence and resources funneled toward that very positive change that’s happening, the opportunity is vast so I think that’s what we see here and the power of strategic philanthropy for companies. It has to be a good business decision because some companies are capitalist and put that first, especially if they’re publicly traded. They have a bottom line to uphold and it needs to be a good business decision for them and if you do philanthropy well, if you’re strategic about it, if you create a portfolio that aligns in the countries or communities in which you operate with the issues that tie to your product and your supply chain, it can be a very rich and meaningful story and it can add depth and dimension to your brand. It can create something with which your customer wishes to align and be a part and we’ve seen historically the impetus of values oriented customers to really support companies who care about something more. JOHN SHEGERIAN: So let’s give some shout-outs here. I want you to share some of your more proud examples of partnerships that happen in your network today so we can hopefully inspire our listeners who are teetering on wanting to get involved and wanting to do something like this. Explain some of what you’ve seen really work out there. MELODY BADGETT: Great question and I’ll say in our second phase of growth, in our next 10 years, we are thinking a whole lot about impact and so much more than just writing a check but how do we really enable that change? Because as a network and the more we grow, the more we should be able to do together what we cannot do alone so on the one hand, some very good examples to share and on the other, I think we’re very excited for where it will go and how it will build. These partnerships, they can happen at a bunch of different levels. They might be one on one with a company and a nonprofit or they might be pulling many constituents of the network around an issue they care about so I’ll share an example of both of those. The first, there’s a company called Caudalie. They are a beautiful company, French based with a presence in I think about 25 countries and a significant growing presence in the U.S. and they make natural skin care products and when they joined One Percent two years ago, they said, ‘ Everything we stand for is about the environment and sustainability and we’re ready to give back and we haven’t done that yet and we want to be really strategic about it so help us,’ and in one year, they contributed over a million in brand giving to the environment and we, along with them, helped to build a portfolio that was very thoughtful about balancing. They gave a lot to reforestation because they used paper products in packaging and they gave a lot to protection around palm oil production to save elephants and tigers because of the palm ingredient in their product but they wanted to be really mindful, create projects with impact, track results, and tell a story that would inspire other companies to be a part and they have a beautiful presence on their website that does just that and have really been a role model for other companies and beautifully so, as well that company is growing because consumers really see a lot of value and love to align with companies who stand for things like that. A bigger example, more broadly, network wide is in the water space. We have engaged with several companies and nonprofits around something called Change the Course and it’s focused on the Colorado River and putting water, millions of gallons of water, back in the Colorado so that it can actually reach the sea again. It’s galvanized. Bonneville Environmental is the lead nonprofit on it and it’s galvanized lots of companies like Silk and Coca-Cola and National Geographic is a big player and participant in media. It is one of the social media players that plays a part and what they’ve done is bring these companies together and One Percent has been instrumental in helping recruit the companies and get others in our network to be a part of this as well and all are coming together around a social media platform to really build awareness on the Colorado and enable individuals all over the country to take action via pledges and really smart clever social media outreach. They might email an individual and say, ‘Did you know your closet is flooding?’ and you open that and it tells you, ‘It takes 740 gallons of water to make every T-shirt in your closet and then lead you very thoughtfully through here are the things you can do in your life to reduce your water footprint so very actionable and Bonneville is also doing key water projects all over the country that actually put water back into the Colorado so when you make a pledge as an individual, you tie directly to the result and the aim of more clean water and a full flowing river and it’s getting a lot of traction because of the magnitude of the players involved, the reach they have, and their ability to really clearly share and tell the story in a very actionable way. JOHN SHEGERIAN: I love it. And so for our listeners out there that just joined us, we’ve got Melody Badgett on right now. She’s the Managing Director for One Percent for the Planet. It’s www.onepercentfortheplanet.org. Talk a little bit about this, Melody. There’s lots of environmental groups out there. They seem to be sprouting up from everywhere. How do you get involved with a certain amount of groups and qualify them and what’s your unique approach to marrying up those groups with the businesses that are donating? MELODY BADGETT: Very good questions all. The screen for the organizations to be approved in the One Percent network is a really simple one and that’s intentional because our desire is to be inclusive and to get funds to as many organizations who are doing good work as possible. The primary lens for us there is an organization whose work is at least half-focused in sustainability and the environment and that’s important too because we know that doesn’t happen in isolation so there might be social or economic elements but those things together, when they’re working in collaboration, tend to really make change so that’s our primary lens. I think the unique part of the network where it really comes to bear of gauging effective nonprofits and who of all that are out there are really moving the needle, the network votes with its dollars, if you will, so the giving that happens from those 1,100 companies every year goes to those nonprofits who are effective through those who are sound financially and doing unique things in the marketplace because that’s where the companies want to align and support and that’s evidence so I think it’s a really unique way that the network can communicate. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Melody, we’ve got four minutes left and you have such an amazing organization where I could stay on with you for about two hours today and just keep chatting because I’m just fascinated by all this great work you’re doing and how you’re marrying up deserving nonprofits with really mission based businesses that have really visionary leaders. Talk a little bit about, for our listeners out there, how they can get involved, how individuals can get involved with your wonderful organization. MELODY BADGETT: Yes. Individuals are hugely important. In fact, at the end of the day, all change really starts with the individual. They’re the consumer of the company. They’re the supporter of the nonprofit. Look at Laurie David. She was one woman and because of her voice, Al Gore decided to make Inconvenient Truth and because of that, the whole country has much better awareness of the environmental crisis than they ever did before so really powerful and we’ve engaged with the consumer over the years in the vein of creating and sharing in music albums, something very accessible. The artist gave us rare and exclusive music and by sharing that with individuals, they could hear it and share it online with their friends, and download it in a very green way. It was all digital on Amazon and iTunes and we said there’s something there. That’s really powerful. We need to equip and enable that individual. Today at this moment, consumers can give back to the organization. That’s easy, right there online. they can support values oriented companies that are really caring about and demonstrating through their giving the planet, Patagonia and Clif Bar and New Belgium Brewing and Mountain Equipment Coop., these are all members who have wonderful customer followings that are really closely tied to that and then going forward, we this year are really excited about stepping up our ability to engage with individuals in a really meaningful and lasting way. I’d say be on the lookout going forward. We’re going on a big chunk of Jack Johnson’s U.S. tour with him. He was our fiftieth member and just living example of a beautiful person that cares about the planet in everything they do and we are blessed and fortunate to have him as a part of the network but just to show up alongside them. They’re incredibly passionate, he and his wife, Kim Johnson, about plastic-free living and about getting healthy foods to kids in schools and educating them about the environment so we are lining up with them at their concerts in person to talk to fans individually and via social media to engage those fans in really accessible ways that they care about these things too and we’re, on our partnership agenda, and that impact equation, thinking a lot about how do we do that. How do we make this environmental equation really easy for individuals to participate in and enable them to make change too? So more to come. Hopefully we have our sights on an individual program at One Percent so an individual can really be a regular and ongoing part and we’re excited to see how that unfolds. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That is really awesome, and we’re down to the last minute or so, so any one or two companies or three or four companies you want to give a shout-out to for our listeners to support that are great supporters of One Percent for the Planet? MELODY BADGETT: Yes. Many of those we’ve talked about are really great ones to align with. Horney Toad is another that’s a new member of the network we’re really excited about, Ahnu Footwear. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Well perfect, Melody. I’m going to have you back and we’re going to continue to talk about the next ten years of One Percent for the Planet. For our listeners out there, www.onepercentfortheplanet.org. Get involved and help make the world a better place. Thank you, Melody, for making the planet a better place for all of us. You are truly living proof that green is good. MELODY BADGETT: Oh thank you, John.

JOHN SHEGERIAN: Welcome to another edition of Green is Good and today we’ve got Michael Simpson with us. He’s the Chair of Environmental Studies at Antioch University, New England. Welcome to Green is Good, Michael. MICHAEL SIMPSON: Thank you very much. It’s a pleasure to be here. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Hey, before we get started on talking about all the great stuff you’re doing at Antioch University in New England, can you please talk, Michael, a little bit about your own journey leading up to becoming the Chair of Environmental Studies there? What was your background like? What was your youth like? What led you to this path in life? MICHAEL SIMPSON: Well, you know, not give my age away but I grew up in the ’50s and ’60s in southern Ohio and had a lot of opportunity to get out. We basically lived in sort of an agricultural area but I spent a lot of time outside, going down actually into Kentucky and to the Cumberland Gap area anytime I could to go fishing and hiking and that sort of interest followed me. I always wanted to be a biologist and when I went to college, I actually was on track to be a doctor. I was pre-med but I took an environmental course in the ’70s and once I took that course, I decided my patient was going to be much larger than a person and from that, I started working in the field. I eventually ended up being trained as a wetlands ecologist as a graduate student and did a lot of field work outside, which is where I love to be, but I also ended up getting jobs working for the public sector for state government and also for non government agencies and eventually, I was a partner in two environmental consulting firms and so what I realized from that is that the science basically is important but it’s not the whole picture for decision making and informing policy. As a result, I started teaching, first as an adjunct and associate professor, then finally as a full professor, and at the same time, tried to maintain my practice so taking my ideas that I was talking about in the class that I was also doing in the field. When I talked in the class, it was talking from the trenches as opposed to talking from the ivory tower and then basically, you know, everyone has to pay their dues and end up in administration at some point so now I’m the Chair of the Environmental Studies Department but I’m still keeping a very active applied research agenda. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Michael, is that a nice way of saying no good deed goes unpunished in life? We’re going to be talking about some very fascinating and timely topics today because you are an expert in climate change and you describe yourself as a climate adaptation scientist. What does that mean though in relation to all this talk of global warming and climate change? Explain what climate adaptation scientist means before we get into the greater and bigger discussion of climate change. MICHAEL SIMPSON: Sure. Well, let me start by saying we’ve seen a significant increase in the frequency in intensity or the strength of weather events just over the past 30 years, when compared to the rest of the twentieth century, with storm events such as Irene and Sandy on the East Coast, the extended droughts in the south and west with the associated longer and more intense forest fire seasons, large flooding events in the upper Mississippi and its tributaries. All these things are happening and, thus, as an adaptation scientist, we invest what are the vulnerabilities to this changing climate. We’ve recorded the changing climate and we want to find out what the vulnerability is. That spans the range of what is vulnerable to the built environment or infrastructure that we’ve built and what are the impacts to the natural systems, upon which our society is dependent so that’s what we mean by an adaptation scientist. Mitigation scientists are people who are looking at what are ways in which we can reduce the loading of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which basically heats up the atmosphere, which basically creates more evaporation and puts more water into the atmosphere, thus changing the climate significantly so we talk about mitigation scientists and adaptation scientists. They actually try to come up with solutions that deal with both when they’re looking for solutions. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Got it. The issue of global warming and climate change, you just referenced some of the largest issues in recent years. Let’s start by framing the whole discussion. This is really happening. This is really based in science. I want to say just this week I read that one of the biggest icebergs in the world has just broken away from Antarctica or something of that nature and is now floating off into the ocean untethered. Is this apocalyptic or do we still have a chance to reverse what’s going on and what we’ve already set in motion that’s been man-created? MICHAEL SIMPSON: It’s hard to deny that what we have seen in the most recent past is not significantly different from previous recent history and it’s hard to deny that we’ve been breaking a number of different weather records for extreme events across the nation. If your question is will the trend continue, based on the majority of the scientists who study aspects of climate change into the future, the answer is yes, very likely. I say within 95% confidence that the future trend is going to continue and there will always be those scientists who will have a countering argument and that’s part of the scientific debate, especially with scientists that are focused on the specifics of a certain region but it is quite certain that the weight of the overall scientific community believes that climate is changing at an increasing rate compared to what’s been seen historically so basically, we just need to take that into account as we plan and adapt to these changes. JOHN SHEGERIAN: For our listeners that just joined us, we’re really excited and honored to have Michael Simpson with us today. He’s the Chair of Environmental Studies at Antioch University New England and for those who want to learn more about Michael and the great work he’s doing at Antioch University New England, please go to www.antiochne.edu. Michael, talk a little bit about something that I’ve never heard before, the explanation. What’s the difference between weather and climate? MICHAEL SIMPSON: Oh, that’s a great question. Weather is what we experience on a day to day basis or season to season basis. In New Hampshire, where my campus at Antioch University is based, we have a saying: If you don’t like the weather, wait a day. This just points to the fact that the weather is variable and the variability has an expected range based on people’s experience. We expect what the highs are going to be and how long they’re going to be and what the lows are going to be but climate is looking at the weather and its variability over a long period of time to discern trends and the weather and the range, what we want to know is the extremes changing. Are they going to become more common over time as opposed to being considered outliers or extremes? And so that’s what we do and we statistically look at data historically to determine is there a change in the trend. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Right, right, and you mentioned earlier about the Mississippi and the flooding and Sandy and Irene and Katrina and as you say, there are, of course, always going to be naysayers and scientists who say it’s not changing but I hear that less and less compared to ten years ago, when Al Gore was just really getting all the visibility with regards to Inconvenient Truth and everything like that. The naysayers seem to be quieting down so for this discussion, Michael, let’s assume that you’re 220% right that climate is changing, and the real question now, lots of young people around the world listen to this show. We get hundred of emails from all different parts of the world. What are we to do about it? How do we become part of the solution instead of fretting on the sidelines and worrying that this change is actually occurring, and let’s all finally agree that it is, and how to we become part of the greater change? MICHAEL SIMPSON: Well actually, we already are changing. We are already doing things about it. The previously discussed weather events I talked about and associated impacts to communities throughout this country actually has mobilized better planning and response preparation for similar scale events in the future and this is true from the federal FIMA level and the State National Guard level down to county and municipal coordination. What still needs to be expanded upon at the state and local level is a comprehensive review of what is vulnerable in the communities to these impacts and who is the most vulnerable because often, we forget that the most vulnerable may be closest to the impact and so we need to understand what are the vulnerabilities and where are they going to occur. These what we call vulnerability analyses then become the basis of the knowledge of what we call community and business development planning so that’s the next step is basically being able to assess our vulnerabilities based on the scales of things that we’re seeing already and then really incorporate that into our planning. JOHN SHEGERIAN: This show will be broadcast across Clear Channel across America on the iHeart network, Michael, and then it gets uploaded to the Apple iTunes network and we see thousands of downloads in London, in Shanghai, in Mumbai, in Brazil so for our listeners who are sitting in Ohio and back in your hometown and our listeners who are sitting in Shanghai and in Dubai, talk a little bit about behavioral changes, both domestically and internationally. What are we to do and is it similar actions to be taken or is it dissimilar based upon geographic, political, and climates that are existing where the people are sitting who are listening to this show right now? MICHAEL SIMPSON: I think there’s two parts to that answer. One, in order for citizens and businesses and communities to respond or adapt, as we say, and build resilience into an uncertain future, I don’t think we need to frame it as climate change. I think, rather, we should target those vulnerabilities that those local communities have already seen that have been made apparent by the increased frequency of extreme events that are occurring in their locales. Thus, back in Ohio, in my neck of the woods, how does agricultural and related business community adapt to higher and more frequent flooding? Similarly, what steps we can take now for the farmers who have and may continue experiencing longer periods of low or no precipitation, droughts and so they’re experiencing this. Then if this is going to continue and possibly increase in scale, then how do we get them to respond to those specific things as opposed to thinking about climate change globally. We want them to think about what are the vulnerabilities locally and so this applies to any place. Secondly, basically you can think about and you do need to think about how do you plan from the top down, federal level, state level, et cetera. Implementation and action is always from the bottom up and so to come up with solutions, you need to build participation and capacity from the stakeholders who are going to be impacted by the changes and need to actually implement solutions to mitigate or ameliorate those impacts and so you need to have a process that grows up from the community level, from the ground up, and allows them to come up with the solutions, because there is really no one solution for everybody in response to what’s happening. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Got it. When I was reading about you and all the great work you’re doing, one of the things I did read in preparation today was that you’re putting on a national conference for climate change preparedness. Why are you targeting municipal officials as your key audience members for this conference? MICHAEL SIMPSON: Well, you know, I’ve been going over the last ten years to conferences on climate change and climate adaptation and it’s scientists talking to scientists or scientists talking to policy makers or policy makers talking to policy makers and I said, ‘That’s enough. We’ve talked. We need to talk to the people that have to respond,’ so this conference is a three day conference in Manchester, New Hampshire in May. It’s to target those people that need those tools and those resources and the examples and the skills to assess vulnerability, to incorporate ideas into both their planning as well as their capital budgets and they don’t have to do it all at once because we have a normal planning horizon but they need to be cognizant of what they do on a year to year basis and so we are bringing that together and so our catchment areas are from Canada all the way down to the Chesapeake for this conference and we’re taking the lead here but there’s actually on the heels will be a conference in the Great Lakes following and then one in St. Louis area and then one out on the west coast so even though we’re taking the lead here, I think we’re setting an example on how it can be done and other areas of the country are doing it because their areas of vulnerability are different than what we experience in the northeast. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That makes so much sense. Instead of scientists talking to scientists, scientists talking to the people that have to really get prepared and are right on the ground. That makes a ton of sense. Wow and also, I read recently the White House announced in their Climate Data Initiative that our school, Antioch University New England, was listed as one of the 14 private sector partners in this initiative. Share with our listeners, and shameless plugs are fine. That’s why we do this show. We’re here to highlight all the good that great people and great organizations are doing here in the United States and around the world. Share what that’s all about. MICHAEL SIMPSON: As part of my scientific research, what a lot of what I’ve been doing, because I always do it within an area for communities, has always been to bring data down to the point that I can communicate it effectively to the policy makers and decision makers at the state and local level. I do that one off based on the grants I get to do this but that is really what they need. They need to know what is the scale of the change that you’re talking about so that we can effectively plan it. They need to create strategies and this is both states and communities that need to create strategies to be more resilient and the decision makers need the data or information to understand what is changing and the impacts so the Climate Data Initiative, and the White House understands this, has made it a priority to make the wealth of climate information, and there’s a tremendous amount of climate information held by the federal government, particularly kept by NOAA, NASA, The US Geological Survey, even the Department of Defense. They want to make this data more accessible and user friendly so it can inform decisions at the state and local level and with this announcement of this Climate Data Initiative, President Obama wants to earmarked $1 billion in the next fiscal year’s budget to building the resilience of the American citizenry to climate change and, as part of this, Antioch University New England is one of the 14 initial partners, which include such partners as Google, the World Bank, EZRI, which is the lead company for creating software spatial analysis and mapping tools, and MIT and thus, the White House announced the Data Initiative and then our center, which is a Center for Climate Preparedness and Community Resilience, we basically are the ones that have to translate and our trend in this new center is to translate information down to the local level so they can make decisions and so the three day May conference that we previously talked about targeting and training local officials and decision makers to better prepare for changing climate is the first initiative under this new center. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. We’re down to the last minute, Michael, and so for our listeners in the United States and around the world that want to learn more about what you do and want to become the next Michael Simpson to help effectuate change with regards to the science that you’ve outlined today. Give us a couple parting thoughts on how to do that. MICHAEL SIMPSON: I’d say one of the things is come to conferences like this. As I said, they’re going to be popping up over the next two years around the country that really is a how to as opposed to talking heads. It’s a how to respond conference and we’re the lead one. Secondly, I think our center is going to have a national reach. Antioch University has five campuses, three on the east coast, one in Ohio, and then one in New England, where I’m based and we’re basically going to be providing the kind of expertise service to the communities around the country and that’s actually part of our mission at Antioch is to provide service to the external world and finally, we actually have a master’s program here in Sustainable Development and Climate Change that we are now training people to be the professionals that are going to go out and do this work into the next decades. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Perfect. Well, thank you again, Thank you, Michael, for being an inspiring science and sustainability superstar. You are truly living proof that green is good.

JOHN SHEGERIAN: Welcome back to Green is Good and today we’re so honored for the first time ever to have Procter and Gamble on. We’ve got Len Sauers. He’s the Vice President for Global Sustainability at the iconic and legendary brand, Procter and Gamble. Welcome to Green is Good, Len Sauers. LEN SAUERS: Thank you, John. I appreciate it. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Well we appreciate you and we appreciate Procter and Gamble and before we go into all the great work you’re doing at Procter and Gamble, Len, can you share please first with our listeners around the world the Len Sauers story? Talk about how you even got here. What led up to this position at Procter and Gamble? LEN SAUERS: Thank you, John. I appreciate the opportunity to talk about P&Gs sustainability program. I’m actually quite honored to be the head of sustainability of a company like P&G that sees sustainability as a responsibility and as an opportunity. I’ve been with P&G nearly 30 years now. I have a PhD in toxicology and started with the company back in the late 80s in our product safety organization doing risk assessments for our new ingredients and new products to make sure they weren’t going to cause adverse effects to people or the environment. I developed a great love for that kind of work and over the years, have had the opportunity to advance the science of sustainability through jobs that I’ve had and then the opportunity to work externally developing partnerships with NGOs and governments to advance sustainability so when the job of Vice President of Sustainability opened up, I was a natural fit for it because of the background that I had. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Gotcha, and that’s wonderful and for our listeners out there that want to follow along visually and also see some of the great work that Len is doing at Procter and Gamble, you could go to www.pg.com/sustainability. I’m on the site right now and first of all, it’s gorgeous. It’s so well done and laid out and colorful and inviting. I got to tell you it’s a beautiful website and I want to talk to you about the things I’m seeing on it but before we get there, we just passed this week the wonderful yearly event of Earth Day. What did P&G do to celebrate Earth Day this year? LEN SAUERS: Earth Day, it’s a great day for Procter and Gamble. We try to have Earth Day Celebrations across all of our sites around the world, trying to engage our well over 100,000 employees in this event. We see it largely as a celebration in some ways, the celebration of all the great work that’s being done by P&G employees around the world, the great work being done by our R&D employees as they develop products that enable consumers to lower their environmental footprint, the great work by our people in operations as they drive eco-efficiency in our plants and reduce the footprints of our plants and then the great work that our employees do every day as they lower their footprints within the office space and we take this celebration a step further because it is a unique time where we can educate our employees at the same time, since we have contact with them and we can educate them to understand that the decisions they make every day that they do their jobs that they drive sustainability into the company and can really create a better tomorrow for all of us. JOHN SHEGERIAN: I love that, a better tomorrow for all of us. That sounds great. On a macro corporate level at P&G, what are the goals for P&G sustainability on a corporate level? LEN SAUERS: We try to integrate sustainability into the rhythm of the company’s business because we see it both as a corporate responsibility. We want to grow responsibly. We see that as the right thing to do but we also see it as an opportunity to build the company’s business by driving down costs through eco-efficiency and creating new products that can drive top line share so for us, we’ve set a long term vision for the company in environmental sustainability. We want to ultimately be the company that uses 100% renewable materials or recyclate in all of our products and packaging and have those materials go to plants that are run on 100% renewable energy, have those plants create products that enable consumers to lower their footprint, and then on the backend, have zero consumer and manufacturing waste going to landfills. JOHN SHEGERIAN: I love it. That is so awesome. Talk about the journey. Len, you and I know that sustainability is a journey. What does the journey look like leading up to your 2020 goals? How are you going to achieve all the things you just laid out? LEN SAUERS: Well, if you think about this vision that I laid out for you there, it really comes around three key areas; the idea of conserving resources, the idea of driving renewable resources, and then the idea of finding value in waste so we’ve set a series of 2020 goals that are kind of focused in those areas. One goal, for example, is to replace 20% of all petroleum-based raw materials with renewables so we have basic research programs going on throughout the company with those new renewable technologies. We set a goal of 30% renewable energy by 2020 so we have our individuals working in our product supply organization, finding opportunities to develop solar power, wind power, geothermal power at our manufacturing facilities around the world. We’ve set a goal of 20% reduction in packaging and we have very senior packaging engineers evaluating all of P&Gs packaging today, looking for opportunities to make eco efficiency changes in them and make less packaging, more environmentally friendly packaging. We have 12 of these 2020 goals with programs around each one of them, taking the expertise of senior P&G people and dedicating them towards working towards improvements there. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Wow, and I’m on your site here, and again, for our listeners that want to follow along, it’s www.pg.com/sustainability. On the site, I’m reading the words zero waste and our listeners hear that all the time. What does zero waste mean at Procter and Gamble? LEN SAUERS: This is a program that we have within our manufacturing right now of driving to zero waste out of those sites. Any manufacturing site will generate waste. I mean, it’s just an inevitability and it’s something that happens across our 140 operations around the world. As we started looking at this a couple of years ago, we found that about 1% of the raw materials that were entering a P&G plant were leaving as waste and it was usually product that was off specifications that we couldn’t sell, scraps, maybe ingredients we didn’t use anymore, and this stuff was all going to landfill. Now I use the term 1%. You may not think that’s a lot but for a company the size of Procter and Gamble, it’s a really a lot of materials and it was a true waste and that’s why it’s called waste. It was a loss of value to the company, to our shareholders and it was also a negative on the environment so we set up a program within the company to find value in this waste that we were sending to landfills. We put together a group of a couple of dozen individuals, bright creative individuals that went to each of our manufacturing sites and worked with the people at those sites to understand the waste that was going to the landfill and see if they could find a stream of value for that waste so it could be diverted and repurposed and there’s just been wonderful opportunities created out of that so for example, as you know, P&G makes disposable diapers and we had scraps from the processing there that was going to the landfill. Those scraps now, instead of going to landfill, are being used to make trash cans, parking lot dividers, and hangers. We have a tissue/towel business, which has some paper scraps associated with it. Instead of going to landfill, they’re now being turned into newspapers and legal pads. We had waste from our beauty care plants that is now being reformulated into leather care products and I can give you hundreds of examples of waste at P&G that had been going to landfills that is now being repurposed and diverted into something of value. We’re very proud of the fact that right now, 60 of our plants are zero waste to landfill and although there’s environmental benefit to all of that, I will add one point about the business value of this. This program, over the past five years, has brought $1 billion of value to Procter and Gamble because not only are we selling the waste that used to go to landfills, but we’re not paying the landfill costs so $1 billion in value just by handling our waste better. JOHN SHEGERIAN: So really, Len, let’s go back then to the top of the show and recap this. The truth of the matter is that you’re making sustainability part of the DNA and culture of Procter and Gamble, therein everybody there feels good that they’re making a better tomorrow for themselves, their family, their communities, and the world but also there’s a massive economic benefit that your leadership team can turn around and then share with the analysts, the street, and its investors around the world. LEN SAUERS: You are 100% correct and when you look at it that way, that’s when you’re most successful. We look at sustainability as an opportunity to do good things for the consumer, good things for our business, and good things for the environment and when you’re able to do all three of those things, that is really the sweet spot that ensures success. JOHN SHEGERIAN: It’s so fascinating and for our listeners out there that just joined us, we’re so honored to have for the first time ever, Len Sauers, Vice President of Sustainability of the iconic and legendary brand, Procter and Gamble, very important brand. When they do things, people listen around the world and they’re making the world a better place and so let’s talk about this. Five and a half years ago, when I started Green is Good, people would come on the show and they would have to make the argument that going green is not only the right thing to do but it’s not more expensive. The whole discussion has moved now, as you’ve laid out. It’s not even not more expensive. It’s actually a profitable endeavor. As you say, it’s the sweet spot of sustainability. LEN SAUERS: Exactly and for a company like Procter and Gamble, 4.8 billion people use our products every day so think of the opportunity in something like that, where if you can develop products that enable those consumers to drive down their environmental footprint, you’re making great strides and a great contribution to sustainability but if in the process of enabling those consumers to drive down their footprint, you can enable them to reduce their water use, reduce their energy use, reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, reduce solid waste, you are also providing a value for those consumers so if I think of a product like Tide Coldwater, for example, which we came out with several years ago, that enables consumers to use cold water for laundry instead of hot and still get excellent cleaning performance, you’re causing that consumer now not to have to heat that water in their home. That provides a great value and cost saving to them as individuals so here’s an example of where, for 4.8 billion people, we can reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by having them use cold water. We increase sales by creating a product that they want and then the consumer saves on this by having a reduction in their utility bill. JOHN SHEGERIAN: It’s such a win-win-win on every level and that’s so cool about what you do and what Procter and Gamble does is you do lay it out numerically. Four-point-eight billion people a day use your great products and so when you make a decision and when you educate or engage your consumers, you really get to move the needle in all the environmental sectors around the world in making the world a better place but talk about consumer engagement, Len. How do you, in this world of short term memory and social media, and we’ve evolved from Facebook and Twitter now to Snapchat, how do you engage your consumers with regards to your great products? How do you constantly stay in front of them and keep them educated to the importance of what you’re laying out for us today? LEN SAUERS: Very good question and actually, it is a difficult one to answer at times. P&G has an expertise in consumer understanding and we went through a series of studies to understand consumer attitudes around sustainability and what we found is that there’s a small niche of consumers, say about 15 to 20%, and these are people that are really, really into the environmental movement and to the sustainability movement, such that they are willing to accept some sort of tradeoff, either a higher cost or a decrease in performance, in purchasing products that claim to be green. We find that there is a huge middle stream , main stream consumer, about 70%, they’re really aware. They really want to do the right thing but they are not willing to accept a tradeoff. They will not accept an increase in price or a decrease in performance to use a product that claims to be sustainable and then there’s another group off to the side, again, about another 15% that are just value conscious consumers and really aren’t engaged in this debate so we decided as a company that we were going to focus on that mainstream consumer, that 70%. We thought that’s where we could make the biggest impact but in order to do that and meet the needs of that consumer, you have to enable them to be sustainable but not ask them to accept a tradeoff in cost or performance so when I talked about Tide Coldwater a few moments ago, we actually had to go through extensive R&D efforts to boost the performance of our laundry detergents in cold water because the heat of water does provide some cleaning benefit so we had to give the consumer a product that met their needs on performance and also, it didn’t cost more so it met their needs on value so when we engage these consumers like this, we’re giving them what they say they want when it comes to sustainability and fortunately, with 9,000 R&D people, we have the ability to develop these products that meet all their needs. JOHN SHEGERIAN: I love it. That makes so much sense. How you just broke it down makes so much sense. Talking about your great consumers that love your products, I being one of them, my family being one of them, we love talking about solutions on this show, on Green is Good. What are a few things people can do to lessen their environmental footprint when it comes to engaging in consumer goods, Procter and Gamble’s consumer goods? LEN SAUERS: When I think of environmental footprint, as you just said it, as sustainability person, I think of energy, greenhouse gas emissions, solid waste, and water. Those are those major environmental metrics that kind of drive everyone’s footprint and as we look at our products and how we can develop those, we focus on opportunities to reduce in those areas so you think of Tide Coldwater, really one of our first executions in this area. It helps you save energy. When you save energy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions so the one thing I would tell all of your viewers right now: start washing your clothes in cold water using P&G’s products, Tide Coldwater, Tide Pods. That is the one single thing I think anyone can do that’s simple and really adds a meaningful benefit. We’ve also put out products that reduce water use, for example, our Cascade Platinum, very high performing product for the dishwasher, allows you to skip the pre-rinse, allows you to operate the dishwasher on the eco-cycle, tremendous reduction in water when you do those kinds of habits, thousands of gallons a year that a consumer can save. Our Pantene dry shampoo just came out not too long ago, keeps hair fresh, healthy without having to wash it, saves water there, and I would just add, finally, any product that’s been compacted in some way. Compacted products really provide great sustainable benefits across their entire life cycle. We came out with Mr. Clean liquid muscle, which is a 2.5X concentrated product. That product, in and of itself, because it’s concentrated, has great sustainability benefits, so seek out those compacted products. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Got it and Len, we’re down to the last two minutes or so. I read about P&G’s Children’s Safe Drinking Water Program. Can you explain some of the latest milestones you guys have just achieved and talk about water and safe drinking water? Because that’s also become one of the major topics around environmental studies in the world now besides climate change. Having drinkable water is critical. Please talk about P&G’s recent victories with regard to Children’s Safe Drinking Water Program. LEN SAUERS: Children’s Safe Drinking Water Program, I think, is one of the ones that we are most proud of. There are many, many people around the world that don’t have access to clean drinking water, children, individuals that live in the developing regions. When there’s disaster like floods and natural disasters, clean water becomes scarce and if you think about it, in many ways, drinking water should be seen as a right for all so we have developed the technology that this program is based on that enables you, through a very simple packet, which we call the P&G Purifier of Water, it can be put into the most nonpotable of water and make it drinkable in 30 minutes and we have been working with partners around the world to get these packets, these P&G Purifier of Water in the hands of people that need it around the world, that don’t have access to clean drinking water and we just hit a milestone with this program, which we started in 2004, has just delivered its seven billionth liter of safe drinking water. Seven billion liters now we have delivered around the world. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Congratulations. LEN SAUERS: And as part of the P&G’s Clinton Global Initiative Commitment, which we made a couple of years ago, we have committed to save one life an hour with this program, providing this safe drinking water to children in need around the world . JOHN SHEGERIAN: That is just wonderful and Len, I just want to say thank you so much for coming on today and I want you to come back. You’re doing so many great things at Procter and Gamble and our listeners need to hear more about these great things because this is really just another great example of an iconic and amazing brand like Procter and Gamble. When you guys make decisions, the world truly changes. Len Sauers, thank you and Procter and Gamble for making every day better for people and the planet. You are truly living proof that green is good.

JOHN SHEGERIAN: Welcome back to Green is Good and we’re so honored to have with us today Ezra Garrett. He’s the Vice President of Community Relations and the Chief Sustainability Officer for PG&E. Welcome to Green is Good, Ezra. EZRA GARRETT: John, thank you for having us. JOHN SHEGERIAN: You know, Ezra, before we get into talking about your great brand, PG&E, and all the wonderful things you’re doing there in sustainability, please share your story and your journey leading up to there. EZRA GARRETT: Well, first and foremost, thank you for the opportunity to visit with you and your listeners here today. It’s a real privilege to have the job that I have at a company like PG&E. Part of my role is to oversee our company’s community involvement program and charitable giving and employee volunteerism and the other big part of my job is to help lead the sustainability function and that involves a lot of the reporting that our company does around our sustainability efforts and it involves working with all of our lines of business at PG&E to help them to understand what other companies are doing to operate their business in a sustainable way and to support their good work of delivering safe, reliable, and affordable energy but doing that in a way that really adds value to the communities that we serve. The way I landed here, I spent really the last 15 years or so working primarily in the public affairs space and about seven years ago, a lot of that work involved supporting the work that our company was doing addressing environmental issues here in our service area so in the mid-2000s, I was involved in a project to help install PG&E owned solar panels at AT&T ballpark. It was part of our effort to demonstrate to our customers that this technology that was very new at the time, solar power, was actually something that was accessible to all and you could integrate a facility like that into an iconic ballpark and do it in a way that didn’t disrupt the architecture there and that really ignited in me a passion for helping customers to understand the opportunities related to renewable energy and energy efficiency, which is a big part of our work here at PG&E. Fast forward to a couple years ago. Our company made the decision to really try to better integrate the work that we do supporting our local communities through our CSR efforts here, to integrate that with our company’s corporate sustainability program and that’s when I was given the opportunity to take on this role and that’s why I’m here talking to you today. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Well, you’re a humble guy so is it safe to say that you’re the first sustainability officer in PG&E’s history? EZRA GARRETT: I’m not. I’m lucky to be the second one and fill the first guy’s shoes. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That’s wonderful. The real truth of the matter is that if we were having this conversation 15 years ago, maybe 11, 12 years ago, this is something new to large and big and important brands like yours that really do get to move the needle when it comes to making decisions but historically as corporate America goes, there hasn’t been the roles of chief sustainability officers and now there are and you get to be the second one at such an important brand so that is totally fascinating to us and to our listeners. EZRA GARRETT: Yeah, you’re right. It really is something that is still kind of emerging from the corporate and organizational standpoint. I’m kind of part of what’s been referred to as the second generation of chief sustainability officers but the lifespan for any sort of position in corporate America is three, five years so when you’re talking about being part a brand new second generation, you’re really talking about a function that has really only been around five, six years so there’s still only kind of a relative handful of us and I think that the role that I occupy as the Chief Sustainability Officer, I think it says more about the company that I work for and the companies that my CSO colleagues work for. I think it really indicates a commitment by these companies to make sure that they’re doing everything they can to operate their business in a sustainable way. JOHN SHEGERIAN: For our listeners out there that want to follow along on your iPad or your laptop or whatever you’ve got in front of you right now as we enjoy this great chat with Ezra Garrett today, please go to www.pgecorp.com/sustainability. I’m on the site now. It’s gorgeous and it’s chock full of information. It’s really, like you say, Ezra, somewhat of a new position in Corporate America and at PG&E. Let’s talk about definition. What is the definition of corporate sustainability officer at PG&E today and how do you define sustainability at PG&E in your role? EZRA GARRETT: That’s a great question, John. It’s one that we, in this role, get quite often and then truth is the definition is really evolving and expanding. I think that five years ago, sustainability, for most folks, meant a focus on environmental issues relating to the way a company operates its business. The way we define it now really spans the entirety of our efforts to provide safe, reliable, and affordability to our customers. Really, it’s about providing our basic service but doing that in a way that adds value to the communities that we serve and creates economic opportunities for our customers in those local communities and also insures that we’re engaging our employees in identifying ways for us to deliver our services but to do it in a way that not only provides economic opportunity but also minimizes our impact on the environment. One example that I think makes it clear is the way that we purchase our utility vehicles. In your neighborhood, you probably see those local utilities bucket trucks. Those are those big trucks with buckets that go up and down to the overhead electric lines. We looked at what we could do in terms of how we procure those vehicles to provide economic opportunities for our customers. Those are a big investment. Those are expensive but we need them and we found a manufacturer, a company called All Tech, that was designing a bucket truck that could run, certain parts of it, on battery power so actually operating the lift. Usually those vehicles need to idle. They make a lot of noise. It’s a lot of emissions. You burn fuel so the challenge for them was it’s expensive for them to get this manufacturing up and running without a large commitment from a company like ours to buy a bunch of them so we cut a deal with All Tech and basically, what they committed to do if we bought a big number of these vehicles was to set up a big manufacturing plant right here in our service area, in Northern California. This created 100 new manufacturing jobs for our customers here and it allowed them to scale up their operations so that they could get this technology up and running, bring their costs down over time, and sell to other companies. Those other companies are looking at how we’re using the trucks and not only are we reducing emissions because of these battery powered trucks and minimizing our impact on the environment, we’re also saving a significant amount of fuel costs as well and it’s a real safety opportunity because when these vehicles are idling to operate those buckets, it’s very difficult for folks that are up in those buckets to communicate with the folks that are on the ground so it’s really sort of a triple win for our company and a great example for how we approach sustainability here at PG&E. JOHN SHEGERIAN: It’s a beautiful looking truck. I’m looking at it. It’s a big blue truck with ‘Clean Fuel Fleet’ on the side here, right? EZRA GARRETT: Yep, that’s the one. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That’s beautiful and I’m looking at it online. You know, you have so many great initiatives on the website that I want to ask you about but before we get there, because we are both citizens of the great state of California, one of the top issues that has not only made California news for the past couple of years but also national news is the drought issue and talk a little bit about PG&E’s interrelationship with the drought and what role PG&E is playing because when you talk about sustainability, of course, one of the greatest issues of our time is climate change. The other is the limited resources that we have that are continuing to be limited and water is one of those. How does PG&E and water and the drought interrelate? EZRA GARRETT: Thanks for asking that question. We’re an energy company and most folks don’t really think of us as having a significant role to play addressing the state’s water issues. We’re not the water company but fundamentally, as you said it, this is a really difficult time from a water standpoint in California. We’ve just experienced the driest year in state history and everyone has to have a role to play in address this so as a company , we’ve made the commitment to reduce over five years, the water that we use at our buildings and facilities by 20 percent. In terms of how we operate our business and work with our customer’s, we looked at the energy efficiency program that our company runs and we’ve been able to estimate that the savings associated with those energy efficient programs -These are programs that we incentivize our customers to do by giving them a rebate- are saving more than 1.3 billion gallons of water per year. That’s billion with a B and that’s roughly equivalent to the annual water use of nearly 8,000 households in California. Each year, we also host, annually, a water conservation showcase here in our headquarter facility in San Francisco. We have a facility here called the Pacific Energy Center that really allows us to demonstrate for our customers and different contractors and businesses different energy savings features that they can put into their homes, facilities, buildings, appliances, lighting, and we do a special showcase that focuses on energy efficiency opportunities associated with water reducing technologies so we just hosted that earlier this week and it was the biggest attendance that we’ve ever had for that event and I think it really underscores the focus that everyone is putting on the water issue and also highlights a role that we as a company can play but, as you said, it’s really a responsibility for all of us to address the water issues here. JOHN SHEGERIAN: For our listeners that just tuned in recently, we’ve got Ezra Garrett on with us. He’s the Vice President of Community Relations and the Chief Sustainability Officer of PG&E and if you want to follow along with us during our interview, it’s www.pgecorp.com/sustainability. At the top of my last question, I mentioned climate change. PG&E, climate change. Talk a little bit about that interrelationship and everything that your great company is doing to roll back the massive tide that is already underway with regards to global warming and climate change and how that progress is going right now under your leadership. EZRA GARRETT: I talked a little bit about some of the things that we’re doing as a company from a corporate sustainability perspective but I think really one of the hallmarks of the work that our company is doing to really address emissions is really the work that we do with our customers to encourage them to basically use less of the product that we deliver. It’s really our energy efficiency program and the 30 years track record that we have in encouraging them to use less. Over that span of time, California’s energy uses remain flat per capita, whereas in the rest of the country, energy uses per capita has gone up by roughly 50 percent, which is pretty significant. Over that span, we’ve helped our customers save billions of dollars in energy costs and we’ve also been able to avoid the need to build about 30 power plants and, again, that’s simply by encouraging our customers to use less. We serve one in 20 Americans and virtually all of those customers are Californians so it’s really a credit to our customers here and our outreach teams, our work with them to identify what are the things that our customers are interested in doing to help them reduce their usage. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That’s a great point. That’s an incredible statistic. Energy usage has gone up 50 percent across America. We know Californians continue to grow their population but PG&E and their efforts with the great citizens of California have kept that energy usage flat. Great statistic. Since we’re a solution based show, can you just give a plug right now on who your potential clients in California should be contacting if they want to learn more about how to save energy with your unique programs in California? How do they do that if they don’t feel like they’re doing enough in their household now? Who do they reach out to when they stop listening to this show? EZRA GARRETT: They can do two things. They can go to www.pge.com. We have all of the information there on that site for our customers who want to reach out to us and learn more about what they can do in their homes or in their businesses to reduce their energy usage. You can also call 1(800) 743-5000 if you want to speak to a person live to learn about things that our company offers, both in terms of low cost or in terms of rebate that we offer to customers who do take action to install an appliance that uses less energy. By the way, I’ll mention that a lot of these appliances that use less energy also use a lot less water so please do reach out to us because we’re here to help. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That’s awesome. I see online here that you have a lot of reports and a lot of great information in the sustainability section. Can you talk about some of your most recent findings? Give the highlights of the recent findings of your newly commissioned Economic Impact Report? EZRA GARRETT: We’re really excited about this report because it helps us to measure the extent to which we’re conducting our business in a way that adds economic value and supports the economic engine for the state of California and so what we did was we looked at the total economic impact of the investments that we’re doing, of the infrastructure work that we’re doing, of the energy efficiency rebates that we’re sending out to our customers and we were really actually surprised by the total numbers that were found in that study and so what we saw was last year, through this work , we supported over 71,000 jobs here in our state and contributed over 22 billion dollars of economic activity in our service area last year. That was really encouraging but for us it’s just the first step in understanding what our work is and now our goal is to see if we can’t keep moving the needle and enhancing the numbers going forward. JOHN SHEGERIAN: You know what I love about your company? Because I’m, of course, a client of yours so I’m very biased but it’s not just about doing one or two things green or the most overt things. You try to do even the little things so even online, it says, you have even have made the billing process go green in terms of you have e-billing so we save the trees, we make it easier on the clients in California. You’ve really made that even seamless and really into the new technology that we’re going into in terms of the e-billing and how your clients can pay for their PG&E fees every month. EZRA GARRETT: Thank you for mentioning that. It’s something that we really try and challenge ourselves to do, to find other innovative ways to minimize our impact on the environment but in a lot of ways, it’s really just us fulfilling the expectations that our customers have for us. Our customers want these products and services. We’ve done some cool things but we can always do better so that’s really our commitment to our customers. In a lot of ways, we’re just trying to keep up with them. JOHN SHEGERIAN: We have about four minutes or so. Ezra, any other specific sustainability issues that PG&E is tackling in a way that you’re really proud of that you want to share with our customers? EZRA GARRETT: I appreciate that question. One of the things we do that’s kind of behind the scenes because it doesn’t involve encouraging our customers to take their own actions to use less energy but one of the things that we’re working very hard is to increase the amount of energy, the percentage of energy, that we provide to our customers that is greenhouse gas emission free. We have been working hard at this for years and years, decades, and one of the things we’re really proud of is that more than half of the electricity that we send to our customers comes from greenhouse gas free sources and for a company of our size that delivers this much energy to as many customers as we do, it really is the cleanest energy profile in the nation and we’d just like to share that with our customers so that they understand when they flip the switch, they’re getting some of the cleanest energy in the country. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Ezra, because you touch so many facets of sustainability and are able to see some of the most cutting edge technologies that are on the horizon or that already exist, do you have some pearls of wisdom in terms of advice to share with our listeners out there that run their own companies or are already executives at other companies that they could implement to be more sustainable to become part of the solution instead of being part of the problem? EZRA GARRETT: I would say that the one piece of advice that I have is I think equally relevant if you are the owner of your business or a senior executive at a business or if you’re an employee at a business that’s looking to get involved in sustainability and that advice is really that the sustainability efforts, the most impactful sustainability initiatives at any given company are those that are led by everyday employees in departments that are actually outside of the sustainability functions. If you look at our sustainability report, most of the content and the examples of what we’re doing to be sustainable are involving just core business operations. They’re examples of, like I said, procuring our bucket trucks in a way that minimizes our impact on the environment and creates economic opportunities for others. Who would think that a person in the fleet department would play a pivotal role to play in sustainability? But I still go around every day using that as a key example for how our company is making itself more sustainable so if you’re an executive looking at how you run a program, what I would say is engage the people in your company. Engage the entire workforce across all your lines of business in that work and if you’re someone who’s not in the sustainability function but you’re looking for a way to get involved, I would say to look at the processes that you do and the services that you’re providing and little by little, start thinking about ways that you can make those more sustainable because as you’re removing steps from processes and removing material from the transactions that you do, you’re also saving money so that’s an economic driver as well and I think that’s a very powerful motivator if you’re an employee that has to convince your boss to do something a different way from a sustainability standpoint. If you look a little harder, you can usually find an economic argument to make that change as well. JOHN SHEGERIAN: The bottom line is that there is a bottom line to sustainability. The old fallacy that sustainability is more expensive to implement and to do is really out the window now. Sustainability can actually save money and has a great bottom line to it. EZRA GARRETT: Absolutely. I couldn’t have said it any better, John. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Listen, Ezra, we’re so honored that you came on today. We always want you to feel free to come back and share all the great things that PG&E is doing for sustainability. For our listeners out there, to learn more about PG&E and their sustainability program, you can go to www.pgecorp.com/sustainability. Ezra Garrett, thank you for being a sustainability superstar. You are truly living proof that green is good

JOHN SHEGERIAN: Welcome back to Green is Good and we’re so honored to have with us today Adam Sobel. He’s the Founder and the Chef of Cinnamon Snail and you can check him out at cinnamonsnail.com. Welcome to Green is Good, Adam Sobel. ADAM SOBEL: Yeah, thanks a lot for having me. Really excited to be here with you. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Hey Adam, I’m so excited to have you on because, as my listeners know, I’m 100% vegan. I’m a huge fan of yours. I eat your food whenever I’m in town and whenever I can and your food just rocks. It isn’t just good. It’s the truth. Adam, before we get to talking about your amazing food truck and your brand that you’ve created, and the following that you’ve created, can you please share the Adam Sobel story? You’re so young. You’ve accomplished so much already. How did you even get here? What’s the journey and your back story leading up to this? ADAM SOBEL: I had a family really super young and when I met my wife, I was still in high school and she was vegan and I wasn’t and more and more, I found myself really agreeing with her reasons for eating that way and beyond that, she was really eating a horrible diet. She was one of these French fries and canned soup kind of vegans and I was really determined. I learned how to cook so that she could eat great food and I found myself spending my time in Barnes and Nobles trying to copy down recipes that I tried to make vegan and doing a lot of experimentation and so to take it a step further, I started working in restaurants and kind of worked in lots of different restaurants, everything from doing prep work to management and line cooking and chef and stuff so then eventually I had been working at this restaurant in New Jersey that kind of closed abruptly after it changed hands and we were closing on a house that very week and because I had been paid off the books, I wasn’t going to be seeing any unemployment or anything and I knew I had to do something really fast to have income and I started doing some private cheffing and me and my wife did a stand at the Red Bank, New Jersey farmers market, which was where we were living, and that kind of became so popular that eventually, we were able to scrape together what we needed to fulfill my lifelong dream of having my own vegan food truck and we really wanted to do it, at that point for about eight years. There’s always a lot of hoops that you have to jump through and there’s a lot of expense in starting it and it was finally the time that I was ready to take that on and it went from there. JOHN SHEGERIAN: And what year did you start the food truck? ADAM SOBEL: The truck launched on Valentine’s Day 2010, so just over four years ago. JOHN SHEGERIAN: So your story on becoming one of the top vegan chefs in the United States is really a love story? ADAM SOBEL: Totally. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Unbelievable! ADAM SOBEL: It still remains that way. I’m still trying to learn to cook better just so I can make better food for my family and also for the world. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That is so amazing. That’s a great story. Let’s talk about 2010 to now so you started the food truck so now you have four years of history. Talk a little bit about running and before we even get into that, I’ve just got to do a little bit of shameless plugs for you, Adam, because this is the God’s honest truth. It’s just not my opinion that you run one of the greatest food trucks in America and that your food is the yummiest in the planet. On Yelp, you’re the number one place to eat in New York City. On Yelp, you’re the number four place in the United States. Adam, this is just incredible, what you’ve done and that’s just one ratings agency. You’ve done amazing things here in four short years. ADAM SOBEL: Yeah, it’s really come a long way and it’s certainly not like I had a lot of help that’s it’s blossomed into what it is. It also started out super super humbly, mostly just myself on the truck for the first three quarters of a year because it was pretty slow in the beginning and it took a lot of work. I would get up at maybe two in the morning and bake all our pastries and then drive the truck up to Hoboken and cook on the truck all day and come back and clean the truck myself and it was like that for a long time and by the end of the first year, we had a whole army of employees and now it’s like a whole army of people. We have this huge kitchen that we can prepare everything and it’s fantastic. It makes everything a lot easier. JOHN SHEGERIAN: You deserve it and the army is on my side of the street so when I wait in line, I feel like I’m in an army mess camp because the lines are down the block waiting to eat your food and, by the way, the lines are so worth it. I don’t care, I just bring my iPad or my cell phone and I’ll do a little work while I’m waiting on line because your food is that worth while. ADAM SOBEL: What I hear is the demeanor online is pretty happy. People are not really pissed to be waiting in a line that long and that’s such a blessing. I know so many of our customers aren’t yet vegans and we get talking with one another about what’s their favorite thing to have and that’s kind of part of the purpose, bringing this food out into the community and getting it to people who aren’t yet vegans to check it out and they can fill in the blanks as to why we eat vegan food. It’s great. JOHN SHEGERIAN: So you started on the truck so this is four years ago so now you have a lot of history and you just shared some of the real humble beginnings, which is so nice for other entrepreneurs who are our listeners to listen to because the bottom line is any beginning as an entrepreneurs, for the great ones, it’s always so humbling. It’s so humbling in so many ways and it continues to be humbling because there’s always peril, there’s always mistakes, there’s always hurdles, and the journey is a humbling one but talk a little bit about food trucks because it’s so fascinating when I’m waiting on line and I finally make it to the grand window and you get to look in a little bit. You see little glimmers of what’s going on and sort of the magic behind the scenes. What are some of the misconceptions about running a successful food trucks? ADAM SOBEL: Right so it’s actually a business that a lot of people don’t understand. There’s actually this idea that food trucks are a super low overhead business and we can just park anywhere and things are really really easy for us and it’s absolutely every nightmare a restaurant has to deal with plus every nightmare a trucking company has to deal with. It’s complicated but certainly there is a lot of overhead in it. It may be a lower startup than a restaurant but we still have a huge expensive kitchen we have to rent to do all of our prep work in, which is about 7,000 dollars a month. We have to obtain a permit for the truck, which isn’t available through the city and you have to pay basically through a black market. You rent it for upwards of 20,000 dollars every two years and then when everything’s said and done and you’ve got your truck up and running, in New York City, there’s really technically nowhere that we’re allowed to vend from. Neighborhoods that didn’t like food trucks going there got together and resurrected this kind of turn-of-the-century law that read something like, ‘no pedaling of merchandise from a metered location,’ and they went up to the New York Superior Court and had the New York definition of the word merchandise changed to include food so now, wherever we’re parked, it’s kind of a gamble as to whether or not police will come that day and make us move and we really have no recourse about it. Unfortunately, as of a few years ago, all food trucks in New York City are kind of technically breaking the law by operating whatsoever so it’s real tough. We have all this high overhead and a very perishable product. We make fresh donuts every day and all these things that we’re not going to sell the next day if they don’t sell and we’re kicked out of our spot by the police or what have you or our engine breaks down on the way into Midtown or all these fun things that restaurants don’t have to worry about. We have a lot of product that can go to waste and so it’s super tough. It’s a lot tougher than people realize. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Just as a social statement, I love the New York City Police Department. I recognize how hard their job is and I think they do an amazing job protecting us and serving us in the greater New York City area but here’s just my little social statement for the day. Catch the bad guys. Leave the good guys, like Adam Sobel, who are feeding our tummies, alone. ADAM SOBEL: It’s not the police’s fault. It’s really part of New York’s kind of convoluted system of laws that are kind of selectively enforced when they need to be and it’s really kind of frustrating trying to figure out as we go along how that works. JOHN SHEGERIAN: I gotcha. For our listeners who just joined us, Adam Sobel, who’s on with us today, he’s the founder, the chef, he’s the prince of vegan food in the United States. It’s www.cinnamonsnail.com. Adam, why a truck, not a restaurant, now that you’re four years into it? Think about that. ADAM SOBEL: Yeah, we could make our lives so much easier and have so many fewer headaches by opening a restaurant and people beg us to all the time and maybe one day we will also have a brick and mortar location but really the whole point for me is to bringing vegan food into the street, where it’s right in front of somebody’s office and they see this huge line and they can see all of our exciting pastries. People who might not go into a vegan restaurant because of this stigma that they have about it are willing to check it out and really, it really brings vegan food to people who would never otherwise check it out and so that’s why I think it’s so important to keep on with it. It’s really kind of a form of activism. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That’s a great point. How can a vegan or a non vegan resist a food truck that has a line that’s down the block? Your mind and your heart and your stomach are telling you you’ve got to try and it and I’ve made so many vegan and non vegan friends on your lines and once they bite into the food, it’s so much fun to see the look on their face and their eyes and their smile and that’s the great thing. You’re converting those that would never have had the opportunity to be converted so it’s really good. ADAM SOBEL: It’s super gratifying work to do and I’ve worked in so many vegan restaurants and serving primarily vegan and vegetarian people is nice and I love serving vegan people, of course, but I love doing something that could potentially change the way our civilization treats animals. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Talk a little bit about the truck. Is there another truck in the offing? That’s the rumor that I’ve read on your social media. Is that going to happen in the near future? ADAM SOBEL: That’s been kind of in the works for a little while and the new truck was 95 percent done before the winter hit and then it’s really been too cold for them to finish up the last five percent of it and they’re finishing it now and probably by the early summer, it will be ready to go. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That will be so exciting to have two trucks on the streets at all times. Wow, good for you. Good for all of us, actually. We’ll have double the chances of catching a Cinnamon Snail meal, all your fans and your soon-to-be fans. Since this is a love story, Adam, and in many ways the start of this business and the continuing of this business with your wife, what is her favorite food that you cook right now? ADAM SOBEL: Wow. My wife and my older daughter, Ittels, who’s now 12, they’re both really into the Korean Barbecue Seitan I make. We make our own kimchi forest, that’s made with heirloom radishes and cabbage and lots of Korean ground chili and it’s kind of one of our signature dishes on the truck and they love that. JOHN SHEGERIAN: What’s your favorite? ADAM SOBEL: I also really love that one. We do a Thai Barbecue Tempeh but we do it on a really nice gluten free bread that’s available and I try to not each so much gluten myself and it’s excellent. The marinade for it has Thai basil and lemongrass and ginger and chilies and there’s these smoked chili roasted peanuts on it and kind of like a sriracha mayo and arugula and pickled Thai basil and onions on it and it’s a nice medley of spicy Thai-inspired flavors. JOHN SHEGERIAN: You mentioned earlier about bringing the food to people who would not necessarily go into a vegan or a vegetarian restaurant. Talk a little bit about your personal spiritual mission and purposes behind Cinnamon Snail, more than just the food. ADAM SOBEL: I think in the condition this world is in right now, it’s really the responsibility of our generation to start influencing the mainstream culture to be kinder to one another and be kinder to animals and the planet so that’s super essential. Beyond what we do in trying to get people who are not vegetarian or vegan to eat this way more, we’re also a huge corporate sponsor of the Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen, New York, which takes animals from abusive factory/farm-type situations and gives them a really pleasant place to live out the rest of their life in peace and does a lot of education and legal work surrounding animal rights. Last year, we donated 18,000 dollars to them, which was awesome. What we do is we have a tip jar on our truck that just goes to the Farm Sanctuary and that money was kind of all handed over primarily from our customers, which was amazing and it’s really beautiful to see people care that way so we do stuff like that. We do as much outreachey stuff as we can feasibly do. An example was, when Hurricane Sandy hit, we took our truck to Queens and to Staten Island to some pretty bad areas where they had had really bad damage there and people didn’t have power and it was freezing and we gave out free meals for weeks and stuff, again, showing off the kindness of our customer base. So many people donated to allow us to keep doing that. We only thought we were going to be able to do it a couple of times and then so many of our customers stepped up and kind of put together a PayPal account for us and thousands of dollars were donated so that we could continue doing it for weeks and it was so nice. Aside from fulfilling the immediate need people needed for warm food, those were neighborhoods that really felt forgotten about at that time. They weren’t really getting FIMA there or a lot of aid and it meant so much to them that people hadn’t forgotten about them and it was super sweet. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That is really nice. Farm Sanctuary, for our listeners out there, Adam’s so correct and it’s nice to hear your mission and spiritual purpose behind Cinnamon Snail. The Farm Sanctuary is a great organization. For our listeners that are so inclined, they’re a great organization to support. They do great work and if you can, please support them if it fits into your budget and in your heart. Adam, is there any food cookbook in the making one day? ADAM SOBEL: Yeah, so I’ve been working on a book for a while and I’m actually just now in kind of the final editing stage and we’re starting on photography for it next week. Kay Lewis is doing the photography. She does stuff for VegNews and lots of other veg books and it’s going to be a really exciting book. It’s going to be published by Carson Potter and it has a ton of recipes for things that are on the truck and all kinds of interesting creative things that we really can’t execute on the truck because of space and whatnot and it’s got a whopping wonderful donut chapter in it that teaches you how to make vegan donuts and lots of kind of fun, behind-the-scenesy stories of all of the silliness and craziness we’ve dealt with in the last four years. JOHN SHEGERIAN: You know, I’m just going to have to share one of my most embarrassing secrets. One day, I said, ‘I’m not going to eat any food at all except I’m going to go to the Cinnamon Snail truck, buy every one of your donuts, and throughout the day, have noshes on each type of donut as the day went on,’ and that’s how I spent my whole day, working and having slices of each of your different types of amazing donuts and sweets all day and I’ll tell you what; each one was better than the next. Your regular food is just yummier than heck but your delicious sweet treats that you make on your truck are also. Talk a little bit about that. ADAM SOBEL: I think they kind of serve as the gateway drug for a lot of people to be influenced because for weeks, we’ll have people who just come and get a donut and coffee in the morning and then after weeks, they start getting curious about the other food and I’ve been told by certain people that they became totally vegan that way, just first checking and stopping for dessert. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That’s okay. Whatever way you can get them is good, right? I said at the top of the show, Yelp number one place to eat in New York City, number four in the America, Mobile Cuisine favorite vegetarian food truck by BuzzFeed, New York Post, Vendy Awards, Huffington Post, just amazing awards here and there. I just don’t want to focus on New York for a second. You also just won an award in New Jersey. ADAM SOBEL: Yeah, that’s right because we also serve New Jersey and we just moved our kitchen kind of base to Brooklyn and we’ll still continue serving New Jersey this year but yeah, we got voted the number one food truck in New Jersey and it’s been great. It’s so exciting to see the general public who eats at food trucks are so, a lot of them are really into street meat itself and to get to accolades like that against other food trucks that aren’t even vegetarian is a really big deal and really brings a lot of attention to vegetarianism and veganism. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Well, Adam, you bring a lot of attention to vegetarianism and veganism. We’re going to have you back again. For our listeners out there, www.cinnamonsnail.com and also support the Farm Sanctuary. Adam Sobel, thank you for serving some of the best food ever in the United States, New York, and New Jersey. You are the prince chef of vegan food and truly living proof that green is good.

JOHN SHEGERIAN: Welcome back to another edition of Green is Good. We’re so honored to have with us today Scott Miller. He’s the CEO of PaperChef. Welcome to Green is Good, Scott Miller. SCOTT MILLER: Thank you, John. I appreciate being here. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Hey Scott, before we get into talking about your great brand, can you please share your story, your journey leading up to PaperChef, you know, how you even got here? SCOTT MILLER: Absolutely. Paper has been in my family since about 1914 so I would be sort of fourth generation and after university, I agreed with my father to do a brief stint in the family company and that sort of, through a few twists and turns, ended up at a company called Specialty Paper Group, which we did an acquisition of in 2008 from the owner. Specialty Paper Group had one product at the time called Chef Select, which was a roll of parchment paper and today, that brand is now called PaperChef and that’s been sort of the last four or five years of my life. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Wow. And for our listeners out there that want to follow along on their iPad or other mobile device or their desktop while the listen to the show, please go to www.paperchef.com. I’m on your beautiful website right now. Talk a little bit about what PaperChef really means and what does it do and how does it compare to other parchment paper companies on the market? SCOTT MILLER: Fantastic. PaperChef was created to advance the art of cooking with parchment but it’s really about a very old tradition in cooking with paper that goes back to French culinary habits over 200 years old and it was really created to advance the knowledge and tradition of that in North American context. As you might know, people have been cooking with aluminum foil here in the United States for years and years and years and we feel that paper is a healthier, more sustainable option and we really created this brand to really kind of advance that and create a diversity of products people could use in terms of cooking with paper. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Let’s talk a little bit about that. What is the recyclability of your products? SCOTT MILLER: One of the things you’ll notice on our parchment rolls is there’s no metal cutting edge on our products. One of the reasons we’ve done that is to a: increase the safety of the actual roll so there’s no chance that children can cut their finger on it but removing that cutting edge has made our product 100 percent recyclable because the entire product; the actual paper, the cord side, and the box is actually a 100 percent organic paper, fiber based material so there’s no separation of materials needed. It’s just one of the additional features of not having that metal cutting edge. JOHN SHEGERIAN: In terms of recyclability, I’m on your website, like I said, and for our listeners it’s www.paperchef.com. Your paper can be recycled seven times or so, compared to, of course, plastic, which is basically very very poorly recyclable. Is that not correct? SCOTT MILLER: Yeah, well the product is recyclable but we recommend that you actually dispose of the product with your food waste. One of the great features of it is that it’s completely biodegradable and compostable so for instance, if you’re running a compost, you can actually dispose the PaperChef products right in your food compost stream so you can put it in communities that separate organic waste. It’s a great additive to that pile of sort of disposal. JOHN SHEGERIAN: So it’s biodegradable, compostable, and all those kind of things. And what, again, is it made of? Just because I never cook with that kind of paper. Can you explain to our listeners what again is it really made out of? SCOTT MILLER: Yes. Absolutely. It’s made out of cellulose fiber so it’s made from pulp, which is tree. All of our papers are FSC certified so they come from, it’s an organization called the Forestry Stewardship Council and that originated out of a partnership with Greenpeace so it’s kind of back to the 1970s about how we managed the forest sustainably in terms of how we plant trees but also in terms of how we manage wildlife and diversity and also the actual biological culture of the forest in terms of what’s planted where and how. All of our paper comes from FSC certified forestry and pulp resources and then it goes through a process of papermaking, which is basically where they lay the pulp out on a long drying process. The paper will start about 90 percent water content and through a long process of drying, basically the water is removed from the pulp and the paper’s what’s left. That’s a simplification but that’s generally the process and then we then take that paper and turn it into rolls, bags, sheets, baking cups, and a variety of products. JOHN SHEGERIAN: You’re FSC certified but you’re also a Rainforest Alliance certified product. SCOTT MILLER: That’s correct, yes. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Yeah so talk a little bit about your mission, Scott, to help customers live healthier and more sustainably. SCOTT MILLER: Absolutely. I think the twentieth century produced a lot of unhealthy lifestyle habits across North American society and people today, we feel, are looking for healthier and more connected ways to experience food. They’re also looking for more ways to feel connected to their environment and practice more sustainable lifestyles. We really see parchment paper and PaperChef as sort of a vehicle to energize consumers more in discovering food and we find that when people discover food, they discover more in their community and they discover more of their environment around them and it’s part of a culinary journey so the real mission of PaperChef is to through sort of line of products that make it very easy for the customer to have great culinary results, we aim to sort of equip the consumer to have these results and this experience through our products and that’s really kind of the jest of what PaperChef was created to do. JOHN SHEGERIAN: For our listeners out there, from a business perspective, how many competitors do you have in this space? SCOTT MILLER: Absolutely. Reynolds would probably be our biggest competitor. All of our competitors basically typically make aluminum foil, plastic wrap, and a variety of other products. We’re the only one that’s sort of fully focused on parchment paper so we have parchment paper rolls in a variety of sizes, parchment paper sheets, parchment paper cooking bags, and parchment paper baking cups. We have the first line of parchment paper so we’ve actually tried to take parchment paper and customize it for the application. If someone’s doing muffins or cupcakes or trying to cook empa fiat, we’ve actually gotten emails from consumers saying, ‘We’re trying to fold your paper to make a pouch,’ and we said, ‘Well hey, what if we make a parchment paper bag so people can just throw their salmon and their vegetables in their and their seasoning and the work’s done for them?’ JOHN SHEGERIAN: Wow. We like solutions here on Green is Good. For our listeners out there, where can they buy your great product? Where can they buy across America and across the world your great product, PaperChef? SCOTT MILLER: Absolutely. PaperChef is sold at a variety of quality supermarkets so there’s a good chance that you’ll find our products in your local supermarket. Also, at specialty stores such as Whole Foods, you will find them in a wide variety. They’ll be in two sections of the store – this is important- it will either be in the food wrap area where you buy your aluminum foil and your wax paper and stuff. Our rolls will be there and then in the baking category, where you find ingredients for muffins and cupcakes and stuff, you’ll find our baking cups as well. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Got it, and for our listeners out there who are just joining us right now, we’re so honored to have with us today, Scott Miller. He’s the CEO of PaperChef and you can look at his great products on his wonderful website, which I’m on right now. It’s www.paperchef.com. Scott, I am on your website and I’m right now, on your recipes sections and I’m actually getting really hungry because I see these amazing recipes for bran and fig muffins and apple cinnamon with red currant and blue birds maple crumb cake. Now wait a second. Who at your company is doing these recipes and how is that working with your brand, interrelating the recipes, which sound amazing, with your brand and getting consumers socialized and excited about your wonderful products. SCOTT MILLER: Actually, that’s a great question. From the very beginning, we’ve been learning about our products from the culinary community. Chefs have been using parchment paper for years and years and years and they’ve come up with the first range of applications and recipes. We’ve actually been able to engage the local community, both the local community in Toronto and across the United States and also to a limited extent, in Europe as well, where we’ve created one on one relationships with chefs. We supply product and we actually schedule a time to sit down with them, cook, eat, talk, discuss recipes, discuss applications, and then what we’ve been able to do is select recipes that each sort of chef has brought forward and then actually give it a full treatment of shooting the food, developing the recipe so where our content typically comes from is from our network of chefs, which is great. We’re learning stuff all the time about our products, about what certain chefs are doing. The other day, somebody showed me scallops wrapped in parchment paper and they were using a hair elastic to close the top. They then put it in a saucepan with white wine and simmer it and it was just incredible but we’re learning stuff every day about it and it’s such a vibrant community of chefs across the world that the possibilities are really endless. JOHN SHEGERIAN: So if the chef’s listening to you right now somewhere in the world and they want to email you one of their favorite recipes using your paper, this could end up on your website? SCOTT MILLER: Absolutely. More than that, we have a team of people that, we love to talk and eat and think about these things as well so it might even end up in a visit. JOHN SHEGERIAN: I want to tell our listeners that I’m reading right now coconut snowball cupcakes. I love the description. This is not your ordinary cupcake. It is a cupcake made for the coconut addict, which would, by the way, be me. This is amazing. These recipes are just fun to read. They’re yummy for your eyes and I’m sure they’re yummy for your tummy as well. We’ve got about four minutes left. Talk a little bit about new products. CEOs not only have to focus on the day to day of running their business but they also have the vision to the vista of what’s out there. What are some of the newest products you’re dreaming up, coming up with in the future? SCOTT MILLER: Absolutely. Recently, we just launched our new portfolio of baking cups so we took our parchment paper and turned it into a baking cup because people were having this challenge of they’d put these muffins in, they’d get them out of the oven and they’d rip off the paper and half the muffin comes with the paper so we wanted to bring the non stick qualities of parchment paper over into a muffin and then the next step we realized, we started spending a lot of time with people cooking muffins and cupcakes. We realized something was happening. It was really becoming an event. People were spending a lot of time decorating. They were investing a lot of time in different flavors, in decoration. It became an event. It became something that was actually a social setting so we wanted to build a baking cup that actually would do justice or would at least give somebody an artisanal platform to sort of build on top of because they had these ugly little cups and these beautiful cupcakes and so we created our Tulip and Lotus product line, which is sort of artisanal cups to allow sort of a baking cup which they can sort of build their creations on top of that and it gives it that artisanal sort of gourmet feel. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Wow, that sounds great. Anything on the future? Besides the baking cups, what are you dreaming up in terms of the future and are they any out-of-the-box ways to use PaperChef that we haven’t discussed today or are not obvious to our listeners out there? SCOTT MILLER: Absolutely. One of the things I would say is the shocking thing is one of the things consumers come back with is parchment paper is waterproof so traditionally people would think of lining a baking sheet and then placing the food on top. One of the things you can do is actually take the paper, put it right over the top, and the you can actually line a casserole dish or a lasagna dish, anything that you’re doing that requires sort of a deeper dish thing, and line the paper in the container or the bakeware and you put it right in the oven so you build your lasagna on top and when you’re done, you just pull the paper out and then what happens is you have no mess or cleanup at all and you haven’t used any oil sprays or any kind of fat product to basically have that non release. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That is amazing and again, for our listeners out there, Scott’s recipe is full of, not only the great recipes that I was enjoying earlier and sharing with our listeners, but also, you have a whole library of videos on how to use your paper and different uses of it and everything else. Your website is so well done. I just have to give you another tip of the hat. We’re down to the last minute or so, Scott. Final thoughts, shameless plugs, this is for you and anything you want to talk about in this last minute. SCOTT MILLER: Well, thanks John. I just wanted to really appreciate the support we get, both from the foodie communities and from our consumer base, and cooking with parchment is really sort of a transformational sense of confidence in the kitchen and I just wanted to reinforce that we are committed to continuing to develop parchment paper products so if people have ideas or things they’d like to see, we are all ears. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Well, that’s wonderful, and for our listeners out there, cook with parchment. It is more sustainable and for our listeners out there that want to learn more about PaperChef, go to www.paperchef.com. As Scott said earlier, Whole Foods and other great stores around the world. Thank you, Scott, for being an inspiring and visionary sustainability entrepreneur. You are truly living proof that green is good.

JOHN SHEGERIAN: Welcome back to Green is Good. We’re so excited to have Eric Bensley on with us. He’s the Senior Product Marketing Director for Citrix. Welcome to Green is Good, Eric. ERIC BENSLEY: Thanks, John. It’s good to be here. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Hey Eric, before we get talking about Citrix and all the great things you do at your great company, your great employer, share a little bit about the Eric Bensley story. Our listeners like to always learn about our guests and what they’ve done before they’ve gotten involved with what they’re doing. What was your journey leading up to joining Citrix? ERIC BENSLEY: Well John, I’m a Southern California kid so I went to school down at UC Santa Barbara and studied sort of math and economics and got really into technology there. It’s not a well-known sort of fact but Santa Barbara and UC Santa Barbara is a hub for a lot of technology development. Actually, the division that I worked for within Citrix was a startup out of UCSB and the whole idea was about sort of connecting people over the internet in a time where that wasn’t necessarily a reality and so I got into Citrix early on, about eight years ago, really working on GoToMeeting, which is one of our staple products, and I know what we’re going to talk about today is sort of this conversation around mobile working and a mobile workforce and my story is really kind of in line with that because over the eight years that I’ve worked in Santa Barbara and Washington DC and I’m now in San Francisco, I’ve worked in a variety of different roles so I’ve kind of lived the new way of working, so to speak, and it’s been great and I think the common theme is the work has been fulfilling, the company has been great, and the location didn’t matter and so I think that’s kind of the new way the workforce is going. It’s very interesting. I know a lot of companies haven’t necessarily adopted that but when we think about what’s better for employees, what’s better for companies, and also what’s better for the planet overall, the location really shouldn’t matter. JOHN SHEGERIAN: And, you’re right about that. First of all, let me say at the top our company that employees me, Electronic Recyclers International, we use Citrix and we’re very happy with your product and it has made our company what it could be because we have approximately 900 employees across America in many, many different cities working, because they have to, in different areas and their work is still the greatest work and they make our company what it is. Our company is built on people but it’s because of your technology and the platform that you’ve created that allows everyone to work seamlessly and the geography does not matter and so you’re so right but let’s just talk about sustainability with regards to Citrix and this. Obviously in your lifetime and in my lifetime, Eric, climate change has become a reality and so this has become one of the worst weather winters ever logged in American history. How does that impact even the way we work, besides people’s freedom of choice of where they want to work, just even weather changes making our work patterns change and how does that interrelate with what you’re doing at Citrix? ERIC BENSLEY: Yeah absolutely. First off, as a California person, I have to tee something up to get some street cred with your audience so obviously, we’ve been talking about snowpocalypse on the east coast and I was actually there for the first one when I was in Washington DC and although DC doesn’t get the same snow as a lot of the east coast, during that (and that was about two or three years ago) the entire city was shut down. I actually remember going to The Mall and seeing people cross-country skiing by the monuments. That was the highlight of that time when I was living out there. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That’s awesome. That is street cred, by the way. That is massive street cred. ERIC BENSLEY: According to different estimates, I’m looking at one from the Department of Homeland Security, over the last 30 years, weather disruptions have cost the economy over a trillion dollars and that’s probably a conservative estimate in terms of what happens but these are short disruptions, talking about a few days at times, where people can’t get to work and I think the issue has been that companies have thought of disruption and workforce disruption as a reactive measure, so putting plans in place when these things happen, and the problem is that it takes a lot of work and investment from employees to really get to a place where they can be productive from anywhere and so it’s more of a proactive strategy versus a reactive strategy to get employees in the right place where when something like this happens, it’s as easy as calling your boss and saying, ‘Hey, I can’t get into the office today. The roads are unsafe. I’m going to work from home,’ and then they’re on and that’s the type of place that we need to get to as an economy so that people can just work where it works for them and if these things happen, it’s really not a big deal. The companies that do this well, when a disruption happens, it’s as simple as saying, ‘Okay, stay home today,’ and that’s the only execution that needs to be done on the part of the company, on the part of IT. I think as small business individuals look at this, it’s a little easier. They’ve been doing this for a while. It’s the larger companies and the government, in some cases, that really is impacted by these types of severe weather situations. JOHN SHEGERIAN: First of all, I’m on your website right now and for our listeners that want to follow along as we have this chat with Eric Bensley today, go www.citrix.com. It’s a beautiful website. There’s tons of information there and it’s important that you check it out for yourself as we talk here today. Talk a little bit about this new word that I’m seeing, Eric, more and more. It wasn’t around 20 years ago. I never even saw it until the last couple years. Work shifting; what does that mean for you? What does that mean for Citrix? ERIC BENSLEY: Absolutely. Work shifting is a word that we made up I want to say about four or five years ago and the reason that we started talking about work shifting was because we weren’t satisfied with the way that the industry was talking about telecommuting because it was a very specific behavior and telecommuting still is the idea of working from home, which is a huge part of work shifting but it doesn’t capture everything so work shifting is based on this concept that work is a thing you do, not a place you go and once you orient your mindset around that, you become a work shifter and what that really means is you’re not always working in one dedicated place so if you work from coffee shops, if you work from home, if you work on a plane, if you work from a hotel, if you work from your mom’s house, if you work from a friend’s house, those types of things are work shifting behavior and the concept is really shifting the way that you think about work from a place you go to a thing that you do and it seems really simple but somehow, we became obsessed with work as a place and you see it in a lot of the modern management techniques where people are scared to leave the office before five and that’s crazy, right? If someone needs to pick up their kid at three and wants to work from seven to eight, what’s wrong with that? It’s better for them and it’s better for the company. They’re going to be more satisfied. If you’re making people sit in chairs for eight hours, it’s not good for their health, it’s not good for their psyche, and it’s not good for the company. JOHN SHEGERIAN: You’re so on the money, Eric. It’s not about the place. It’s about the work that’s being done. The place is the noise. The signal is the work so I’m with you on that. Recently, in the last couple of months or so, we saw Marissa Meyer get rid of telecommuting at Yahoo. Was that just really an anomaly in terms of where the economy is going with regards to work shifting and the focus on the importance of not form over function, but function over form and is that what Citrix allows us, function over form? ERIC BENSLEY: You know, I have a hard time sort of commenting completely on that entire strategy at Yahoo. I think sometimes in tough times at companies, they use sort of blunt instruments to make changes and I think this was more a way of making a big change and unfortunately, it became a big philosophical conversation around remote work. I’m not sure that that’s completely what she meant by that change. She really was trying to centralize, make some big changes at the organization about the distribution and people kind of running on their own. I’m not saying it wasn’t the right thing at the moment. I’m not sure that she meant to make as big a statement as the media made about that but I think overall, this is the way that the workforce is going. As I was saying before, when you think about work being a thing you do, the conversation switches from a certain number of hours to specific outcomes that employees need to achieve and that’s really good management at the end of the day. Just because somebody is working from home shouldn’t mean that you have to build good outcomes for that employee and really define their work but it begs that question if you haven’t dealt with that already but it’s sort of Management 101. If your employees don’t know what they’re working on, they’re going to work on whatever is hitting their inbox and that’s not the way you’d like to set it up but to answer your question about is this where it’s going, yeah I think it is and it’s a combination of a few things. The environmental impact is huge so we actually work with a company called Telework Research Network and they did a study that revealed that just half time telecommuting, so working from home half the time, could reduce carbon emissions by 51 million metric tons a year, sort of the equivalent of taking all of New York’s commuters off the road so that impact is real and it’s becoming more real but as we know, people tend to make decisions based on short term more selfish benefits so I think it’s a nice side benefit at the moment. The real thing that’s driving people is really this work-life balance idea and people demanding that and companies starting to realize the actual economic gains that they can get from supporting something like that. JOHN SHEGERIAN: For our listeners that just joined, we’re on with Eric Bensley. He’s the Senior Product Marketing Manager for Citrix. It’s citrix.com. What tools does Citrix provide for this new economy, for this new trend of work shifting and this growing trend and what tools do you provide and what services do you offer now? ERIC BENSELEY: Yeah, absolutely. We have a variety of solutions and it sort of depends on the work that you’re doing. I would say the most common solutions that we offer that people are taking advantage of for work shifting or remote working or mobile working are things like GoToMeeting and GoToMeeting is an online meeting or web conferencing tool that allows you to get online, share your screen, share a presentation with an audience while you talk to them over the phone or internet audio and use video conferencing so it’s sort of an immersive online meeting experience. GoToMeeting has been out for quite a while now and been very successful. We also offer a tool called ShareFile, which allows you to just easily share files securely with anyone around the world. We also have a product called GoToMyPC, which allows you to remotely access in to a machine while you’re at a different location so for instance, if you have a dedicated office but you’re on the road and you’re on your iPhone, you can actually remote into your computer, grab a file, check your email, check some system that’s only available on that computer. Another tool that we have is called Podio, which is actually a work platform so what this enables you to do is sort of set up what we call work spaces with groups and manage tasks, manage contracts, and just create efficiency for groups when you’re in this distributed kind of situation so that you can make sure that everything you’re working on is actually being accomplished and you have full visibility into all the projects you’re working on so those are just a few examples and I would say to your listeners obviously, all of these are available for free trial. If you do have some interest, you can check them out with no obligation for 30 days online, all the products I just spoke about. JOHN SHEGERIAN: What beats that? You get a free trial. You use it. If it makes your life better and more productive, why not use these great products then and get with the Citrix program? Like I said, our company uses it with massive success and that’s one of the reasons we’ve been able to grow how we’ve grown. We’re down to the last few minutes or so here, Eric. What other green initiatives does Citrix help support? Obviously, when people are work shifting or telecommuting, as you point out, there’s lots of carbon footprint savings. What else is Citrix supporting with regards to sustainability and green? ERIC BENSLEY: Yeah, absolutely. Locally with our offices, we partner with earth day initiatives to try to get the word out around telecommuting and the impact that it can have. I think overall, the biggest thing we do to support green is just putting research out. Some of the stats that I was talking about today come directly from research that we have commissioned. We’re really trying to push this idea that remote work and work shifting is kind of the future of work in our economy here and through that, the carbon footprint savings are just enormous and I think that’s the biggest thing we can do as a company is to create awareness for the inefficiencies and the environmental impact of the things that we’re doing to drive, to fly, to do all of these things to get work done when it’s really inefficient and it’s just not the best use of our resources so I think we’ll sort of continue to push these different initiatives and support our local Earth Day and green initiatives in those markets to try to help people understand the benefits or the impact that they can have just by work shifting a few days a week. JOHN SHEGERIAN: We’re down to the last minute or so. You’ve been there now eight years, Eric, over at Citrix. What’s the future for Citrix? Give us a little visibility on the next couple of years ahead. ERIC BENSLEY: Absolutely. When we look kind of into the future, the thing that’s changed a little bit about technology and the space is that it’s moving incredibly fast now, which is fantastic for consumers. It’s fantastic for someone like me who works in the space. It keeps things very interesting but it sort of means that you have to move your thinking to principles as opposed to precisely what you’re going to build and what you’re going to say a year from now so I’ll give you the principles that I’m sort of thinking of right now. One is designing everything for mobile so as we look into the future, we see more and more demand for things to work mobile in a way that they might not even work on a desktop so we’re starting to think about how do we build things specifically for the mobile use case before we even think about putting them on a computer so you’ll see more and more of that because the demand and the capabilities on mobile devices is exploding and so as we look forward, we’re designing everything for mobile. Another thing that we’re thinking about is just faster innovation and the idea of putting things out into the market and getting feedback immediately so faster innovation is key for us and getting user feedback. JOHN SHEGERIAN: So mobile and faster innovation and thank you again for coming on the show today, Eric Bensley. If you want to learn more about Citrix, it’s www.citrix.com. Eric, thank you for your visionary thoughts today and leadership on work shifting. You are truly living proof that green is good.

JOHN SHEGERIAN: Welcome back to Green is Good. We’re so honored to have Ari Hoffman on with us today. He’s the COO of GOBIE h2o. Welcome to Green is Good, Ari. ARI HOFFMAN: Thank you so much for having me on the show. I’m extremely excited to be here today. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Ari, this is your first go-around on Green is Good. It won’t be your last and so before we get talking about your great product, I want you to share the Ari Hoffman story leading up to GOBIE h2o and how you got even involved and what was your journey leading up to it. ARI HOFFMAN: Yeah, absolutely. I guess basically for me, I grew up in an extremely active family. I was raised outdoors. We were always traveling around to go camping and backpacking, surfing, skiing, we were fishing all the time and growing up that actively involved in the outdoors, I was able to see first hand the impact that we humans have on our surrounding environment and it was there. It was in front of me. You can’t go surfing without seeing trash floating by you in the water. You just can’t do it and I’ve watched that get worse as I got older and so that’s why I went into the field of sustainable architecture and I wanted to change the way that we lived and I knew that construction accounted for a lot of the waste in the environment but I quickly learned how long it took to get anything changed in the building world. It really was like a slow moving snail out there and so that’s when I found a home at GOBIE. GOBIE let me put the power back under the person where sometimes we feel like what can one person do? I can’t do anything. I can’t change anything but when you say one filter is the equivalent to over a thousand water bottles, people get it. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Let’s get into that. For our listeners, I’m on your website now and on my iPad. For our listeners out there on their mobile devices or tablets or laptops or desktops and want to follow along while Ari shares his story about GOBIE with us, please go to www.gobieh2o.com. Share with us what is GOBIE. Explain the platform and the premise and the product to us please. ARI HOFFMAN: Yeah so on one side, we have the brand and on the other side, we have the products. As a brand, our mission is to act as a role model for responsibility and conservation so what we’ve done is we’ve created conservation products that provide an economical and ecological and a healthy alternative to disposable water bottle consumption while simultaneously, we try to promote the efforts of other organizations that share in an aim to change the future for the better. From the product side, what we’ve done is we’ve created a portable reusable filtered water bottle. It’s produced, it’s manufactured, it’s assembled all here in the US and the bottle is BPA free. It’s dishwasher safe. It even supports the first 100% compostable filter out there. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Wow so if I fill up that bottle with water and I leave it in the back of my car and the sun’s shining in and it gets a little warm, there’s nothing that’s going to leach into the water from the bottle. Your bottle is free of all that nonsense. ARI HOFFMAN: Absolutely. It’s not just free of it. There are actually people who can claim that we’re BPA-free. That’s at the state it’s sitting in now. If you put that in the car and it heats up, now all of a sudden they’re not BPA free anymore. They weren’t wrong when they labeled their bottle BPA free but what they’re not telling people is that’s only at this state. That’s not if you stick it in the dishwasher and it deteriorates. That’s not if you get a hard acting chemical on the product so the materials that we use on the bottle, one, the plastic is not only extremely durable so it’s going to last you a long time, but the real properties of this product is that at 160 degrees in your car in Arizona, there is no degradation of the material. It’s going to last. Even the thermoplastic elastomer, which is the squeezable part of the bottle, that’s made from a medical grade BPE. That’s the same exact material they use in heart transplants so that there is no leaching of anything into the water. You can be assured of that. JOHN SHEGERIAN: I’m on your site. I love your site. There’s so many great colors you can buy the bottle in but I’m on the site that’s showing all the different features. Can you run over the features? What makes you the differentiators from other bottles? ARI HOFFMAN: Yeah, so for one, we’re not a major corporation that’s trying to just make some money and put another product on the shelf. If you look at everything else out there, you can’t tell one bottle from the next. It’s a bottle so we spent three years in R&D making sure we produced the most user friendly, functional, and incredibly eye-catching bottle. I hate to use this example but it’s the perfect one. The iPhone didn’t blow the market away because they did more than their competitors did. In fact, a lot of other phones do more. They did it because they were extremely easy to use and they were cooler looking so we tried to hide that functionality you were talking about underneath the form, where the bottle doesn’t take any thinking to try to use it. It’s a really natural experience but really, from the technical standpoint, what separates us from the rest is our patents and we spent a lot of time and a lot of money making sure that we were able to get these patents and we have design patents, which protect the form of the bottle, but the real key distinction ultimately lies in the utility patent, which we have and that patent protects our Flex Flow Technology and that’s where we combine the durability of a hard shell bottle with the accessibility of a squeezable bottle so that allows you to squeeze the water through the filter instead of having to suck the water through a straw system. Every other water bottle out there that has a hard durable shell, 100% of them have a straw that goes from the top to the bottom that suck the water through. Straws in themselves are a safe haven for bacteria, especially when you put a filter at the end of it with that moisture. You can’t drink them lying down. They have to be in the vertical position. You can’t have one on your nightstand and lay in bed or on the couch or at the beach. You have to sit up to drink from it where the straw sticks out. You can’t share it. You can’t give it to your kid or give it to your dog on a walk. You literally have to suck it into your mouth and spit it out but most importantly, it limits the strength of the filter you can put on the end of that straw. Put two dents in the filter at the ends, now we call it the frozen chocolate milk effect. You can’t get any water through it. You’re sitting there sucking trying to get something out so we’ve got a lot of feedback from people who have bought the other bottles out there and they end up being too much of a hassle to use so when we designed this bottle, we made it so that it won’t end up in the cupboard with the rest of your quote, end quote, “good ideas” and like I mentioned a little bit earlier, we have the world’s first fully compostable filter. Every other filtered water bottle out there has a filter that when you’re done with it, it becomes trash and their notion is at least you’re saving a couple hundred water bottles from entering the environment. To us, that’s a Band-Aid. It’s not a solution. It was extremely important to us to look at the entire life cycle of the product, more from a cradle to cradle approach than a cradle to grave approach, meaning we wanted to make sure that we looked at what happens to the product after its use runs out. JOHN SHEGERIAN: What is it made out of, the filter, that it’s compostable? ARI HOFFMAN: Yeah so it’s made out of a bioplastic called Cereplas, kind of like those forks and spoons, and so what happens is it breaks down over time plus the filter itself is compostable so the plastic cage is a bioplastic. Now, that costs a lot more money to make. You look at the average price of a filter for a water bottle out there, for some of our competitors it’s pennies. Literally pennies. Ours costs over a couple bucks to make and hundreds of times the price of these other companies but it was important to us. You know with our bottle you take it out, you put it in your compost, and then you can fertilize your garden with it. There is no waste associated with the use of our bottle. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Now that you’ve said all the differentiating factors, this is the better bottle. This is the bottle that’s been built for now and in the future in terms of any of the other bottles that are on the market so now that we know it’s the better bottle, what does the name mean? I’m fascinated by the name, G-O-B-I-E, GOBIE h2o. What does that even mean? ARI HOFFMAN: Yeah, yeah, we get that question a lot and it’s actually a really fun story how it happened. We read a lot of books on branding and we knew we didn’t want to choose a descriptor as a name, like Clean Water or Filter X, because it’s very easy for people to get confused when you do that. Is it Filter X? Is it X Filter? So we started out with a list of names and we started testing them. We broke them down and we got down to about 50 or so names and we were testing them with friends and family and random people off the street and what we would do is a bunch of different tests. We would say, ‘Look at this list,’ and we’d pull the list away and say, ‘Which ones do you remember?’ or we’d say, ‘Tell us which ones pop out at you,’ or we’d give them a list and say, ‘Come back to us in a week and tell us which ones you still remember,’ and over time, people just started say, ‘Hey, what ever happened to that GOBIE thing?’ and the name kind of chose itself and I think it’s because the name does so many things. One, it references the Gobi Desert, which has no water. It references the Goby fish but it also provides a unique way to activate thought. It acts like a verb. Go be wild. Go be fit. Go be active. Go be whatever you want to be because now you have water with you. We could not have a better name. It is perfect for our brand. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That is a perfect name. For our listeners that just joined us, we’re on with Ari Hoffman. He’s the COO of GOBIE h2o and it’s gobieh2o.com. I understand the name now. I know why your product is better. You’ve built the better mousetrap or really, the better bottle so really now, first of all, is this made in America, this bottle? ARI HOFFMAN: It is. It’s made in America. In fact, we make it right here in San Diego. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Oh wow, so this is all about buy America and buy better. I love it and the website again for our listeners out there, www.gobieh2o.com. Where can I find this? I have never seen this personally. It’s not that I’m a big shopper. Is it on the website or is it on the website and other places you can buy this? ARI HOFFMAN: It’s on the website and we sell a majority of our bottles on the site. Now we have about twenty different retailers out there. They’re all mom and pop boutique one-off stores or maybe a couple stores but we’ve really been limited to selling online because of our background. We’re not a major corporation so because we’re a small startup, we don’t have the money to do these huge runs so we have to do short runs. Every time we manufacture, we make the minimum, which means we have to buy our materials in minimum. I mean, it doesn’t get more expensive to make the bottle. For people to understand that, it’s kind of like if you were to think about buying paper for your printer. If you go out and you buy a ream of 20 pieces, it costs X. If you buy 500 pieces, it’s going to cost half of X and if you buy a million pieces, well you know it’s going to cost next to nothing. Because it’s been so expensive for us to produce the bottle, we’ve been forced to sell online where we can keep the margin. JOHN SHEGERIAN: I got it. It makes sense. What year did you start the business? ARI HOFFMAN: We filed the LLC in September of 2011. We didn’t launch the product until April of 2012 and really didn’t hard launch the product until April 2013. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Okay so it’s April 2013. We’re now about a year into it. How’s it going? You’re a young entrepreneur, ecopreneur, and you’ve got the better bottle. You’ve got a beautiful bottle. By the way, again I’m on the website and you can choose all these amazing colors from black to pink to purple to green to red to blue. I also love what you’ve done here. For our listeners in the United States and around the world that are already into sustainability or have a company that has a sustainability mission, you can co-brand with GOBIE, right? And you can get your logo on these beautiful bottles. ARI HOFFMAN: Yeah, absolutely. We do it all the time and what’s happened to us so far, 2013 was an incredible year for us. With no money spent in advertising or marketing, only doing things like this, we made it on the Shark Tank, which was 57,000 applicants for 120 spots, won the FedEx small business grant contest where they flew a film crew out to film this little mini business documentary on us, and then we followed it up with a couple of local awards where we won the San Diego Cool Company by the Venture Group and then we finished 2013 off with winning San Diego’s Lean, Mean, and Green Startup of 2013 by the San Diego Entrepreneurs Day and so it was a huge year in the sense of winning awards and the exposure that we could generate for free from these awards. It helped share our story and it just was incredible and 2014 is starting off the exact same way. We’re in the Dream Big America competition right now. JOHN SHEGERIAN: You’re on Green is Good. Come on now. You’re on Green is Good. Come on! ARI HOFFMAN: There’s a reason why I was so excited to be on this show. I know your show. JOHN SHEGERIAN: There’s no stopping us now. ARI HOFFMAN: When I got contacted to be on this show, the first thing I did is I called home and I showed my wife the email. I was like, ‘Babe, babe, you’ve got to look at this!’ JOHN SHEGERIAN: Hey, so how has the reception been? I love what you’ve done. Do people appreciate it? I appreciate it. I haven’t even drank out of the bottle yet but I’m going to soon. Are your customers loving what you’ve done and loving what you’ve created and patented and made the better bottle and taken the time to not only make it sustainable, but make it so it’s also really, you can use it with a clear mind and not worry about being poisoned or creating more environmental burden, both on your body and for the environment at large? How has been your reception by your fans and your tribe? ARI HOFFMAN: Well, the reception has been unbelievably motivating. As a startup, you’re going to go through hard times and there’s going to be time when you doubt yourself. You don’t think you can do anything. You’re sinking. Your head’s below the water and the customers have really been the force that’s pushed us through that and I think that’s because our message is extremely simple. We’re honest. You couldn’t be more passionate than we are. I know there’s a lot of passionate people out there but we bleed for this and we’re really in a place where we’re trying to make the right decisions and we truly care about what the future is that we’re creating and I think people sense that. They want to get behind that and believe in something and sometimes, like I said before, you feel like one person can’t do it but GOBIE gives you that power back and so when the person feels like they can make a difference, I truly believe that’s what’s pushed us this far and it’s really helped us gain the support of everybody that we come in contact with. When someone hears the story of GOBIE, they walk away an ambassador for our product. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That is awesome. We’re down to the last four minutes or so, Ari. I want you to share what is One Billion Thirsty and what’s next for GOBIE? ARI HOFFMAN: Alright, the One Billion Thirsty is a nonprofit that we’ve linked up with and what they do is they focus all of their efforts on Sierra Leone, West Africa. They build wells to bring clean water to them and what they’ve done there, there’s a lot of other nonprofits out there that say, ‘We’re going to clean the water for the whole world. We’re going to solve the world’s water problem,’ and they build a well here or over there and I think for a lot of people, that’s not a tangible concept so what One Billion Thirsty does is they go, ‘We are going to direct and focus all of our efforts on Sierra Leone’. It’s one of the poorest countries in the world. Over 70% of the population lives below the poverty line coupled with one of the lowest life expectancies in the entire world and their clean water has been devastated by decades of war, where the soldiers destroyed the water so that the population would become dependent on them for water so they say, ‘We’re going to start our aim here. If we solve the problem here, then and only then are we going to move to the next country,’ and that perfectly aligns with GOBIE and trying to battle the notion of what can one person do so we both provide these tangible solutions that people can wrap their minds around and we’ve come together to dramatically improve the lives of not just this generation, but the next generations to come and so from that, our next steps are we’re launching this upgraded biofilter so the filter you have in the bottle now is a daily use filter so you’re putting chlorine and dirt and taste and odor. It makes your tap water taste good but because of that Flex Flow Technology I was talking about where you can squeeze the water through, it can go from a daily use filter to squeezing in an upgraded biofilter that was literally designed for NASA so the astronauts in space could filter their waste. This means you can use it camping and backpacking and traveling in third world countries or you can just keep one in your garage in case of an emergency. The bottle is going to be able to go from a daily use filter to a life saver by simply switching that filter out and since we don’t have the money to build the tooling for this filter, we’ve launched a crowd-funding campaign to finance the operation. This campaign is doing a lot more than raising money for the tooling. We’re also using a large portion of those profits to build wells in Sierra Leone, West Africa with One Billion Thirsty so now we’ve even gotten the support of the ambassador of Sierra Leone, who’s publicly endorsed us and is on our crowd-funding video. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That’s awesome. That is so great. When does the crowd-funding campaign kick off? ARI HOFFMAN: The crowd funding is already in full effect so when people go to our site, they’ll be able to see it. Why I’m here and what I think you guys can do to help us is despite the fact that a crowd-funding campaign’s primary function is to raise money, it takes money to make money, right? We’re trying to share our solution to the problem that the entire world is facing and more than the money, what we need is the support. We need every person we can get to share our story, to share our campaign, and to direct people to our site and that’s why we’re here. We need your listeners to get behind us and really commit to sharing our story so that this message travels as far and as wide as it possibly can. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That’s awesome, and that’s what we’re going to do and for our listeners out there to learn more about Ari and his great work at GOBIE h2o, go to www.gobieh2o.com. It’s a beautiful website. There’s videos there. There’s the crowd-funding campaign and you can order his bottles. Use his bottles, co-brand with them, and spread the word. Everybody has a social media page now. Get the word out on GOBIE and Ari, we’re going to have you back so you can continue the story and tell us all the success that you’re having in this journey with GOBIE h2o. Thank you for your sustainability leadership with GOBIE h2o. You are truly living proof that green is good.

JOHN SHEGERIAN: Welcome to another edition of Green is Good. We’re so excited to have with us today Jennifer Wright. She’s the President of GreenBox NY. Jennifer, welcome to Green is Good. JENNIFER WRIGHT: Thank you so much JOHN SHEGERIAN: You know, this is the second time GreenBox has been on Green is Good but this is the first time you’re making an appearance so we’re so honored to have you on today and before we get talking about GreenBox New York and all the great things you’re doing, I want you to first share the Jennifer Wright story, the Jennifer Wright journey leading up to the founding of GreenBox. Share your story with our listeners today please. JENNIFER WRIGHT: Oh sure. Well, I actually was in finance for about ten years and in 2007 when the markets started to turn, I started to look for other opportunities out there and went back to MBA school and I actually decided to pursue opportunities there so at the time, I was friends with Will Walsh and he had just patented a wonderful product called the GreenBox Pizza Box and we decided to enter that into business competitions and various other events at my school, Columbia and we did very well. There was tremendous interest in the product and we ended up getting initial seed funding through a venture capital arm of Columbia University. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Wow so what year was GreenBox and your Eco Incorporated founded? JENNIFER WRIGHT: We founded it I guess in 2008 is when we sort of started to informally start the company and in 2009 when I finished schools and I had two business partners, we all basically finished our respective jobs and I finished school and we decided to take a run at it and raise some capital. We did that in 2009 and in 2010 we officially started the company so we’ve been up and running for the last four years approximately. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Let’s tell the listeners. I’m on your website right now and for our listeners that want to follow along on their iPad or mobile device or their laptops or desktops, it’s www.greenboxny.com. I’m on your website. It’s beautiful. Share with our listeners what you’re doing at GreenBox and the Eco line of products. JENNIFER WRIGHT: Sure, our flagship product is the GreenBox Pizza Box that I mentioned. It is a multifunctional box that’s made from 100% recycled material. The multifunctional aspect comes from two different areas; the first is that the top of the box breaks off and tears into plates, and the bottom of the box turns into a storage container that you can fit in your fridge so there’s a lot of convenience out of that but there’s also a lot of environmental savings. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That’s great and so that’s your main product and you launched that and how’s it going in terms of pizzerias here in New York and across the nation, how is your GreenBox going? JENNIFER WRIGHT: It’s been great. I guess when we spoke to you about four years ago or so, we just tilled up at one plant in the country. We now manufacture out of eight different plants. We also manufacture for the Central American market down in El Salvador and Costa Rica and we just signed an agreement with a company in Australia to start manufacturing there for the Australian market so we’ve really grown and in addition to our flagship GreenBox Pizza Box, we’ve added additional products. We now have a Slice Box and similar products that pizzerias would use, like slice boxes and sleeves for wraps and hoagie boxes and everything else so we’ve managed to expand our product line along the way along with growing the actual flagship product, which is really exciting. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Right. Obviously, there’s the obvious stuff, it’s a recyclable box, but what are the other ways that your GreenBox line helps the environment? JENNIFER WRIGHT: Just looking at the actual GreenBox Pizza Box, the very fact that we can tear off the top of the box and turn it into plates, all around the country, pizzerias are handing out plates along with their pizza boxes because pizza is an on-the-go type of food so people are not always going home and taking plates out of their cupboards to use so we’re minimizing the usage of additional paper plates, often which are plastic or Styrofoam or even additional paper. In addition to that, the storage container. A lot of people, when they have leftovers, will use aluminum foil or plastic wrap for leftover slices and being able to reuse the box again enables us to save on those auxiliary items so it’s great and it’s interesting. We’ve had a lot of calls from public works departments and pizzerias that are near beaches and parks because there’s a problem with pizza boxes in that they never fit in the outdoor trash cans and they end up on the street so the very fact that the box is perforated and can be broken down does help with additional pollution problems. JOHN SHEGERIAN: When you were starting this I remember when Will, who unfortunately, for our listeners out there, was just the most delightful guest, has passed since, but I remember Will telling me all about you, Jennifer, and I remember when you were just trying to get the word out. Talk a little bit about some of the early success that you had in socializing this product to the mainstream world and getting the word out. What happened and how’d you do that? JENNIFER WRIGHT: Sure. I guess it was 2009. I didn’t really understand what Twitter was all about. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Who did? JENNIFER WRIGHT: I did in the sense that I was learning as I went and I didn’t even quite understand but I thought, ‘well if I tweet out to a celebrity, like Ashton Kutcher, who was such a big Twitter champion at the time, what happens? So I just sent a link, kind of naively, to him to a demo video of our GreenBox Pizza Box and he just wrote back the word, ‘smart’ and shared our link I guess with his Twitter followers and I didn’t quite understand what that meant. I didn’t know if it was a big deal or not because it happened so quickly but a day later, we had 100,000 hits on our video and then before we knew it, we had half-a-million and now we have 2 million hits on our demo video and so that created a lot of initial interest in the product but I think the interest really came from the fact that it’s such a brilliant simple idea that he came up with and people get it right away and understand all of the problems around a bulky cumbersome pizza box so that’s why they keep sharing it over and over in blogs or Facebook and everything else. JOHN SHEGERIAN: You’re humble about the Ashton Kutcher tweet because social media for that kind of social good, and he really does get it and he does do a lot of investing in the space and the fact that he then tweeted about something that was so substantive and so real and as you say, brilliant, new take, a better mousetrap, that’s a powerful combination then if it’s celebrity social media and a real world take on an old world product, that was a recipe for massive success, huh? JENNIFER WRIGHT: Yeah and even to this day, four years later, we still have interest in the product. Two weeks ago, Rachel Ray demonstrated it on her TV show and it was on another show called The Two on ABC, where the host demonstrated it so it just speaks to the fact that it’s something that people want to see out there in the market. JOHN SHEGERIAN: For our listeners out there who just joined us, we’re on with Jennifer Wright. She’s the President of GreenBox New York. You can check them out at www.greenboxny.com. Jennifer, so here you are now, five six years later into this whole – besides Columbia, then the launch of it in 2010- you’ve got eight manufacturing facilities. You’re in South America. You’re going to Australia. How are you distributing GreenBox? Is GreenBox being distributed on a caller-by-caller basis? Do you have the big distribution companies selling it for you? And have any of the big chains stepped up yet and raised their hand and said, ‘We’re ready to make a move and do something really big and be first,’ and have joined on the GreenBox revolution yet? JENNIFER WRIGHT: To answer the first part of your question, we distribute through distributors so we’re not the ones that are actually distributing the product to the pizzerias. We’re distributing in large quantities to a distributor that can get it out more efficiently maybe two to three times a week so that makes things much easier for us. We’re working with a lot of the big national distributors. Our first and most widespread partner is Performance Food Group. It’s Roma Foods’ Performance Food Group. They have a very big Italian food service arm and they’ve been amazingly supportive of the product. Actually we’re going out to a pizza expo, if you can believe that there’s a pizza expo, in Vegas at the end of the month with the product. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Sounds like fun. JENNIFER WRIGHT: It is. We eat a lot of pizza while we’re there. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Vegas Pizza Expo, that sounds like a good time actually. JENNIFER WRIGHT: It’s a good combination. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Exactly. JENNIFER WRIGHT: So we distribute through a number of different regional distributors. It really depends on who we’re selling to and it’s really driven by our customers. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Will you actually have a booth at the expo? JENNIFER WRIGHT: We will be at the Performance Food Group Roma Foods booth actually. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Gotcha. Do you go on sales calls yourself? Do you go and knock on the door of the CEO of Domino’s or Papa John’s or any of that stuff yourself? JENNIFER WRIGHT: Yes, we do. We try and get out and meet people face-to-face as much as possible but a lot of it is really from our office from an efficiency point of view. To answer your question about the big four pizza chains, there’s been interest but really the best way to characterize it is it’s hard to break through to the top levels of management and we haven’t been able to get their attention yet but having said that, we have many big chains, 100 plus store chains, 40 store chains, 80 store chains, that are already using the box so I think we’re starting sort of at the grassroots level with independents to large chains and maybe at some point, one of the big chains will get it and realize what an amazing product it is for their customers. JOHN SHEGERIAN: What pizzeria was the first to adopt it in Manhattan, in New York City, in your hometown here? JENNIFER WRIGHT: It was a restaurant called Pizza by Certe and they still use the product. It’s great pizza there. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Where are they located? I want to give them a shout-out. We always want to get the first adopters who took the first step forward some Green is Good love. Where are they located? JENNIFER WRIGHT: You know, what’s interesting about them is that they were seriously our first adopters in the sense that we actually had to hand deliver the boxes to them. We had to go out to the warehouse and hand deliver boxes to them every week. JOHN SHEGERIAN: I love these people so where are they located? JENNIFER WRIGHT: They’re at 132 East 56th Street and they’re excellent. They’re really great. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That’s 56 and what cross? JENNIFER WRIGHT: They’re between Park Avenue and Lexington. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Park and Lex, 56th Street Pizzeria. Go there and tell them thank you for carrying the GreenBox first. I would love that. Come one. JENNIFER WRIGHT: The box is perfect for them too because they have a lot of businesses that they work with and people buying pizza and bringing it back to their desk when they’re working late and they can fold up their leftover pizza and bring it home with them and it works out perfectly. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That’s great. So this is perfect so now, the company started and you had some of the investment people from Columbia. Who are the partners now? Is it still them? Did you raise more money? Is it just self-funded from here? How is it going in terms of that and where are you going in the years ahead? What’s the dream here now, Jennifer, from here on? Because you sound like you’re rock and roll with Australia coming on, South America, eight manufacturing across the country and you’re going to the pizza expo at the end of the month and you’re going to go land tons more business. What’s next now? What’s the months and years ahead here? JENNIFER WRIGHT: We just want to get the GreenBox brand out there. We have a lot of customers, like Whole Foods, that are very supportive of the brand. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Do they use it in Whole Foods? JENNIFER WRIGHT: Yeah, we’re in half of the Whole Foods regions around the country and that’s growing every day. JOHN SHEGERIAN: More to come. JENNIFER WRIGHT: They actually awarded us with a responsible packaging award a year and a half ago. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That’s awesome. That is great. JENNIFER WRIGHT: They’re very supportive of the product and we want people to look at the GreenBox brand and see something that’s not quote end quote, “greenwash” but is an environmentally friendly product that truly does help the environment so to the extent that we can expand our pizza box business, that’s great and we also want to expand the brand to other products like slice boxes and any other food packaging item that is maybe outdated and outmoded and could be more environmentally friendly so that’s our goal and we’re getting there and to answer your earlier question, we raised that initial capital through a small group of investors at Columbia University and I’m happy to say that we haven’t had to raise any additional capital. We’ve managed to be profitable since year one. JOHN SHEGERIAN: That’s a great green story. Not only are you making the world a better place, but you’re also green in terms of profitability and that’s a unique combination in this world, especially since you started the business right in the middle of the crisis, ‘08 ‘09 ‘10 and then to be profitable, good for you, Jennifer. That shows great management, great skills on your behalf. JENNIFER WRIGHT: Oh thank you. I think it speaks to the product too. They really just loved it from day one so that made it a lot easier. JOHN SHEGERIAN: How many people are at the company now? How many people do you have working in your group of management team? JENNIFER WRIGHT: There’s now six of us actually. We started with just a few of us and so we’ve grown and then, of course, we work with all of the different plants around the country. JOHN SHEGERIAN: So approximately, you don’t have to give an exact number, how many boxes did GreenBox make last year and get involved with pizza? Was it a million? Was it a half-a-million? Was it 5 million? How many do you think got out there last year? JENNIFER WRIGHT: I knew you were going to ask this question and I should have checked but it’s in the millions and we’re estimating probably 10 million next year. Every box we sell is made from 100% recycled material so that’s a good thing. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Great. We’ve got two minutes left here and we have a lot of young entrepreneurs. When Will came on the show, we were a small show in California and stuff of that nature. Now it’s a national show and an international show because not only does Clear Channel broadcast it on their iHeart Radio Network, but after it broadcasts there, it gets broadcast on iTunes so we have listeners we interrelate with in Shanghai and Mumbai and South America and England and all around the world. Give me some pearls of wisdom from Jennifer Wright, a business leader in this world today and not only a business leader, a sustainability leader. JENNIFER WRIGHT: I guess there’s two things that come to mind. The first thing is there’s going to be a lot of naysayers from the beginning and you’ve just got to choose something that you believe in and stick with it and try to ignore the naysayers because if you believe in it and that’s what’s going to make other people believe in it and tenacity. It’s not always easy starting your own business. There’s a lot of work and you’ve just got to stick with it and sometimes we wondered early on whether we would get to this stage but we just kept working and stuck with it. JOHN SHEGERIAN: Love it. That is great advice and for our listeners out there that want to buy the GreenBox or use it, all the chains out there should be using it and I know, Jennifer, you’re going to get into the big chains eventually, go to greenboxny.com. Jennifer Wright, thank you for being an inspiring sustainability entrepreneur. You are truly living proof that green is good. JENNIFER WRIGHT: Thank you so much.