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In this episode of The Informed Citizen, host Philip Lindholm is joined by Port of Tacoma Commissioner Deanna Keller for a wide-ranging conversation on the complex responsibilities of leading one of the most critical trade hubs in the U.S. A Marine Corps veteran, former school principal, and business executive, Keller brings a deeply informed and refreshingly pragmatic voice to issues that impact both global commerce and local communities.From climate resilience and legacy pollution to trade policy, job creation, and infrastructure, this episode pulls back the curtain on what it really takes to keep a port—and its people—moving.Episode Highlights:• What Does a Port Commissioner Actually Do?Deanna Keller explains how she helps guide policy on public lands, international shipping, real estate development, and infrastructure—while coordinating with engineers, business leaders, and environmental advocates.• Environmental Leadership on the Tide FlatsKeller outlines the port's ongoing work to reduce emissions, transition to shore power, clean up contaminated land, and partner with tribal nations and environmental agencies.• Tariffs, Trade, and Global CompetitivenessLearn how tariffs affect prices for consumers and why Keller believes smart trade agreements—not punitive tariffs—are the best path forward.• Local Jobs and Long-Delayed ProjectsKeller discusses transportation bottlenecks, the ethics of delayed infrastructure projects like SR-167, and how regional planning can keep jobs in Pierce County.• Community-Centered LeadershipWith over 40,000 survey responses guiding the port's five-year strategic plan, Keller emphasizes listening, transparency, and building partnerships that span government, business, and neighborhoods.• Experience That MattersFrom her first days "drinking from the fire hose" to trade missions in Asia and Canada, Keller shares how real-world experience—and a passion for service—shape her work today.Listed and subscribe to the podcast:• • Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-informed-citizen• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-informed-citizen/id1738680188Connect with us:• The Informed Citizen Website: https://theinformedcitizen.com/• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drphiliplindholm/• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drphiliplindholm • YouTube Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdscEVf-gjkiNh9YK-0yYiTZN7usLZ4CR Credits:• Produced in partnership with Terry Wise & Associates• Music: Sound and Vision, “This Party Bussin”• Editing & Post-Production: Tony Wise at Wise VideographyThis podcast is for informational purposes only and not professional advice.
Listen Live by phone over ZenoRadio: (641) 741-2308 (585) 652-0611 Call Caryn's personal archive number to hear the most recent five episodes of It's All About Food: 1-701-719-0885 Zoe Weil, The Solutionary Way Zoe Weil is the co-founder and president of the Institute for Humane Education (IHE). She is the author of seven other books, including Amazon #1 best seller in the Philosophy and Social Aspects of Education, The World Becomes What We Teach: Educating a Generation of Solutionaries; Nautilus Silver Medal winner, Most Good, Least Harm; and Above All, Be Kind: Raising a Humane Child in Challenging Times. She has also written books for young people, including Moonbeam Gold Medal winner, Claude and Medea: The Hellburn Dogs, about 12-year-old activists inspired by their teacher to become solutionaries. Her blog, Becoming a Solutionary, can be found at PsychologyToday.com. In 2010, Zoe gave her first TEDx talk, “The World Becomes What You Teach,” which became among the 50 top-rated TEDx talks within a year. Since then she has given five other TEDx talks: “Solutionaries,” “Educating for Freedom,” “How to Be a Solutionary,” “Extending Our Circle of Compassion,” and “How Will You Answer This Question?” Zoe is a recipient of the NCSS Spirit of America award that honors people who follow their conscience and act against current thinking in order to stand up for equity, freedom, and the American spirit of justice. She was named one of Maine Magazine's 50 independent leaders transforming their communities and the state and was honored with the Women in Environmental Leadership award at Unity College. Her portrait was painted by Robert Shetterly for the Americans Who Tell The Truth portrait series. Zoe received a master's in Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School; a master's and bachelor's in English Literature from the University of Pennsylvania; and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Valparaiso University. Zoe is certified in psychosynthesis counseling, a form of psychotherapy which relies upon the intrinsic power of each person's imagination to promote growth, creativity, health, and transformation.
In this episode, we honor Lisa Murkowski, U.S. Senator from Alaska and Vice Chair of the Standing Committee of Parliamentarians of the Arctic Region, as she receives the 2024 Arctic Circle Prize for her leadership in Arctic affairs in the United States and globally. As one of the foremost experts on Arctic policy in the U.S. Congress, she plays a key role in shaping national policies and fostering international cooperation to maintain the Arctic as a peaceful and sustainable region.The Arctic Circle Prize recognizes individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to securing a sustainable and prosperous future for the Arctic. Join us as we discuss Senator Murkowski's impact and ongoing efforts in this critical region.The 2024 Arctic Circle Prize was awarded during the 2024 Arctic Circle Assembly.Arctic Circle is the largest network of international dialogue and cooperation on the future of the Arctic. It is an open democratic platform with participation from governments, organizations, corporations, universities, think tanks, environmental associations, Indigenous communities, concerned citizens, and others interested in the development of the Arctic and its consequences for the future of the globe. It is a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization. Learn more about Arctic Circle at www.ArcticCircle.org or contact us at secretariat@arcticcircle.orgTWITTER:@_Arctic_CircleFACEBOOK:The Arctic CircleINSTAGRAM:arctic_circle_org
Saad Amer, environmental justice expert and Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree joins us to discuss the intersection of climate action and political engagement. He shares insights on grassroots organizing, corporate accountability, and the role of policy in advancing sustainability. He also explains how individual and collective action can drive meaningful environmental progress, even in politically divisive and challenging times. If you want to help us reach our goal of planting 30k trees AND get a free tree planted in your name, visit www.aclimatechange.com/trees to learn how.
After 8 years of interviewing people in the regeneration sector, It's become clear to me that knowledge is not as valuable as experience. Gathering facts, concepts and theories is great up to a point, but until you put those ideas into practice, it's impossible to know if those ideas clash with your reality, or require adaptation to what's really going on on the ground. For this reason I was excited to see that Don Hall, who has worked with the transition towns movement in various capacities for 16 years now, has come out with a new book titled, The Regeneration Handbook: Transform Yourself to Transform the World. Don also holds a Master's in Environmental Leadership from Naropa University, a certification in Permaculture Design from the Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute and is currently the Training Coordinator for Transition Network. You can find accounts of much of his work and learnings at his website and blog at evolutionary change.org In this episode a lot of what we explore revolves around the International Transition Network, how it started, and how it's grown to a movement since the early 2000s. We go into Don's practical experience building the transition movement in both Colorado and Florida, some of the shared priorities of those communities that formed the basis of initiatives and unity that was formed, and how others can participate in creating these kinds of programs in their own communities. We also get into related topics like how transition is as much an internal process as an external community one, and the skills that Don believes we need to relearn in order to live in close knit communities the way that almost everyone used to in recent history.
The Amazon rainforest, with its vast influence on global weather, its rivers supplying a quarter of the world's freshwater, and its role as home to 10% of known lifeforms, is crucial to the planet. This week on New Thinking for a New World, Colombian marine biologist Fernando Trujillo, a 2024 Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize winner and National Geographic Explorer of the Year, discusses his efforts to protect the Amazon's freshwater basin amid record drought, historically low river levels, and rising water temperatures. Can the Amazon's decline be stopped? Tune in to hear his insights. This episode was originally published on December 11, 2024.
Astrophysicist, sustainability advocate, and author Dr. Joshua Spodek joins us to discusses breaking free from processed food addiction, building community-driven environmental solutions, and embracing the Spodek Method - a unique approach focusing on intrinsic motivation for sustainable action. Josh shares insights from his latest book, Sustainability Simplified, which captures Josh's life journey and reveals how our culture became so polluting, and shows practical and liberating solutions for individuals, nations, and the world. You can pre-order his new book here: https://a.co/d/5HpYyXp If you want to help us reach our goal of planting 30k trees AND get a free tree planted in your name, visit www.aclimatechange.com/trees to learn how.
Allison Jordan joined Wine Institute and the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance (CSWA) in 2003, shortly after the publication of the California Code of Sustainable Winegrowing. Since 2007, she has served as the Executive Director of the Alliance and Vice President, Environmental Affairs for Wine Institute. Previously, she was a Senior Associate at SureHarvest and Vice President and Executive Director of Resource Renewal Institute. Jordan holds a master of Public Policy from the Goldman School at UC Berkeley and a Psychology bachelor's degree from Allegheny College, a Certificate in Wine Business Management from Sonoma State University and WSET Level 2 from the Wine & Spirit Education Trust. Allison Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss: Keys to successful adoption of California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance's certification program Interest from buyers in third party verification CSWA's Green Medal Award program How wineries are engaging with suppliers to pursue certification Advice and recommendations for sustainability professionals Allison's Final Five Questions Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their career? To take time to think creatively about partnerships. One of the ways that we've made big advances is by just getting really creative and reaching out to people that we know are working in the space, whether it's in winegrowing or something tangential that maybe could be really beneficial to our industry. We've been able to make incredible progress, get experts involved, get new resources that can really help match our industry support for our efforts. Really thinking about how we can support each other in this very complex, comprehensive area of sustainability. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? That there's so much awareness now about climate change, that it's bringing new energy, new ideas, technology. I don't think technology is the full solution, but there's certainly exciting things happening that will help us leapfrog and make progress. There's a lot of positive energy in finding solutions. Interestingly, my daughter is currently a junior in a program at our local high school called the Marin School of Environmental Leadership and their curriculum is all around climate and environmental solutions. Seeing her class and some of the products they had to come up with as juniors, sustainable products that they're currently marketing, it's just incredibly inspiring because you can see that it's just the way that the next generation thinks. I'm inspired by that. What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? I'd have to recommend a book that I use. I'm teaching a sustainable enterprise course for the Sonoma State Executive Wine MBA program right now. I have them read Andrew Savits, the Triple Bottom Line. It's just a really great basic understanding of what sustainability means for business and how it's evolved over time and the trajectory that we're on that basically shows that this is an imperative, not a nice to have. I just think it does a great job of introducing all of the key concepts for those who may be newer to the sustainability world. Even for those who've been in it for a long time, it's a good reminder of the basic framework and concepts that are really key. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? The first thing that pops into my mind is people. I go to so many experts, Josh, you're one of them, on issues that I know they have more expertise than I have. The other resource that I turn to time and time again, which is kind of funny because I've been involved in helping to develop a lot of the resources in it, but it's still a really great repository of information. That's our resources library on sustainablewinegrowing.org. I can always stand to be refreshed on certain topics and it's a great way to point people to resources that they might need as well. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work being done at the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance? The website that is the most core to what we do as an organization is sustainablewinegrowing.org. That's where you'll find the resources library about the organization, ways to get involved, etc.
Happy Monday, Fabulous Listener! I'm excited you are joining us for another fun episode of Inside the Minds of Authors. This evening we are chatting with the fabulous Ms. Caroline Ailanthus on her new book, Bifurcation Events. Caroline Ailanthus is a novelist, blogger, and free-lance writer and editor. Most of her work revolves around science somehow, even her fiction. She is the author of three novels, To Give a Rose, Ecological Memory, and Bifurcation Events, as well as various blogs, short stories, and essays. Caroline grew up in Delaware and attended various small, odd schools, mostly in New England. She has a BA in Environmental Leadership and an MS in Conservation Biology. She now lives in Maryland with her husband and assorted dogs and cats. When she's not writing, she can usually be found either walking her beagles or making a complete mess of the kitchen. To learn more about her blogs or books, check out her site at https://newsfromcaroline.wordpress.com/. While you are there, don't forget to sign up for the newsletter. Thank you for joining us this evening. Always a pleasure bringing you new books from incredible authors. If you are enjoying the podcast and would like to stay in touch, subscribe. You don't want to miss a single episode. Happy Listening, DC
Litzy and Emanuel sit down with Jesse Holtsnider, Lahja Wise and Chelsea Tossing from The Cottonwood Institute, to learn about their Award Winning CAP program. Jesse and Lahja share how CAP fosters a "third space" in which they feel a sense of belonging and empowers them to make a change on the issues that they find most important.Find more about the Cottonwood Institute at www.cottonwoodinstitute.orgGeneration Collaboration is produced in partnership with Colorado Young Leaders and Youth on Record.Follow us on the socials at @COyoungleaders and @youthonrecord.This episode was engineered by Xavier Gauthier and David LadonProduced by Ryan Conarro, David Ladon and Lauren Steavpack Recorded at Youth on RecordTheme song "New Day" was produced by Qi.
In this Convo of Flanigan's Eco-Logic, Ted speaks with Beth Pratt, the Regional Executive Director of the California Regional Center of the National Wildlife Federation. She is a lifelong advocate for wildlife, and has worked in environmental leadership roles for over twenty-five years. She has also spearheaded the #SaveLACougars campaign to collaborate, fund, and build the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, the largest crossing in North America—and potentially the world—to help save a population of mountain lions from extinction. The initiative has raised a half a billion dollars in private funding to advance wildlife crossings across California and the country.She and Ted discuss her background, growing up North of Boston, obtaining a BS/BA from the University of Massachusetts, an MBA from Regis University, earning the LEED AP credential, and training with Vice President Al Gore as part of his Climate Reality Leadership Corps. Before joining the Federation in 2011, she worked on sustainability, green building, and climate change programs for Xanterra Parks & Resorts in Yellowstone as its Director of Sustainability. Under her leadership, Yellowstone's environmental programs received environmental achievement awards from the National Park Service three years in a row. Prior to her role in Yellowstone, she served as the Vice President/CFO for the non-profit Yosemite Association (now Yosemite Conservancy) in Yosemite National Park.Although most of her career has been spent in national parks, she shares that her main conservation priority is now focused on urban wildlife conservation and creating coexistence strategies within urban spaces. She believes that the future of conservation is about the integral link between wildlife and people – and cities are vital to forging those links.Di Angelo Publications just released her new book, I Heart Wildlife: A Guided Activity Journal for Connecting with the Wild World in August, and Heyday Books published When Mountain Lions Are Neighbors in 2016. She has given a TEDx talk about coexisting with wildlife called, “How a Lonely Cougar in Los Angeles Inspired the World,” and is featured in the new documentary, “The Cat that Changed America.” Her book, Yosemite Wildlife, with photographer Robb Hirsch, will be released by the Yosemite Conservancy in 2025.
In this episode of SacTown Talks, Jarrett hosts Andy Walz, President of Chevron of the Americas, for an in-depth conversation about the energy sector, Chevron's role, and the future of fuel. Andy shares his 35-year journey with Chevron, which took him and his family around the globe, from San Diego to Singapore. He discusses the division of Chevron into upstream and downstream operations, Chevron's longstanding history in California, and the challenges and transformations the energy industry faces due to environmental policies, highlighting California's pioneering role. Andy talks about the complexities of producing and pricing fuel in California, including the impact of taxes, regulations, and the state's isolation from national pipeline networks. They also delve into renewable fuels, the transition towards greener energy, and the potential of natural gas and hydrogen as future energy sources. Additionally, the conversation covers Chevron's efforts in producing renewable gasoline blends and the broader challenges of meeting global energy needs while reducing carbon emissions. Andy emphasizes the importance of collaboration between policymakers and the energy sector to ensure energy remains affordable, reliable, and increasingly cleaner.This Episode was record on 5/9/2400:00 Welcome to SacTown Talks: A Dive into California Politics00:20 Meet Andy Walls: Chevron's Journey and Global Experiences01:47 Exploring Chevron's Operations and Innovations in the Americas02:30 California's Environmental Leadership and Chevron's Role04:39 The Evolution of Fuel: From Ethanol Blends to Renewable Diesel06:57 Navigating California's Green Transition and Fuel Affordability09:41 Legislative Impacts and the Economics of Fuel in California12:24 The Complexities of Fuel Pricing and California's Unique Challenges15:39 Refinery Dynamics and the Future of Fuel in California20:54 The Challenges of Electric Vehicle Adoption21:47 Evolving Demand for Electric Cars Amidst COVID-1923:17 The Role of Natural Gas in a Clean Energy Future25:15 Exploring Hydrogen's Potential in Reducing Carbon Emissions26:40 The Importance of Diverse Energy Solutions29:53 Innovations and Alternatives in Fuel Technology31:16 The Efficiency and Future of Oil and Gas33:06 Global Energy Needs and Environmental Responsibility35:17 Navigating Energy Policies Across Different Jurisdictions38:17 Collaboration for a Sustainable Energy Future
Due to elephants and other wild animals leaving the park on their ancient migratory routes, there is a high degree of human-wildlife conflict with the local people- which often results in human fear, injury, and even death, as well as loss of crops– which brings on the spearing and killing of wildlife. The geographic focus of the project is the rural community of Kajire near Voi, Kenya, adjacent to Tsavo East National Park, the largest wildlife park in Africa. You are invited to support their mission in educating the people in the region in the ways of wildlife as well as those of human development, and therefore, can take their places in their communities as skilled leaders. https://elephantmatriarch.org/http://www.yourlotandparcel.org
Mike Phillips is the Director of the Turner Endangered Species Fund (“TESF”), an organization that he co-founded in 1997 with Ted Turner. Mike is also a former Montana state senator representing District 31, which encompasses parts of his hometown of Bozeman and the surrounding area. In his work as an ecologist, Mike has spent much of his career studying and implementing the reintroduction of wolves throughout the United States. And in both science and politics, he's never shied away from taking vocal leadership roles involving a wide range of important issues in southwest Montana and beyond.
In this episode of Flanigan's Eco-Logic, Ted speaks with Dan Brotman, Mayor of Glendale, CA. Dan has had a career in international finance, is an educator, and an activist. He was first sworn in as a Glendale City Council Member in April 2020 and was named Mayor in April 2023. Dan aims to apply his finance experience and environmental passion to create a vibrant and prosperous community for all Glendale residents.Ted and Dan discuss his background, growing up in Philadelphia, traveling far and wide to places like Syria and Jordan after graduating high school, which sparked his interest in international development. He then attended Brown University and studied overseas in Taiwan to study Chinese.After earning a Masters in Economics at Johns Hopkins University, Dan spent over 20 years in the field as an economist at the Federal Reserve and in various finance roles at Cisco Systems. He lived in Asia for 18 of those years, starting off in Hong Kong, then Singapore, and then in Shanghai. In 2015, Dan moved to Glendale to share his passion for economics as a professor at Glendale College. Alongside his academic endeavors, Dan co-founded the Glendale Environmental Coalition to push for a greater focus on sustainability. He and Ted discuss the Grayson Power Plant debate, and how the utility went from the initial proposal of 260 MW to less than 60 MW with engines that can only be operated 15 percent of the time, a huge accomplishment under his leadership!
Sigma Lithium Corp's CEO, Ana Cabral-Gardner, shared exciting news in a recent interview with Thomas Warner from Proactive . The company reported a 35% net profit margin in its first operational quarter, showcasing financial resilience in the lithium industry. Despite an 80% decrease in lithium prices, Sigma Lithium achieved a remarkable 37% earnings profit margin, emphasizing their low-cost operations and commitment to profitability. Cabral-Gardner highlighted their unique product, "triple zero" lithium, with an all-in cost of $530 per ton, generating substantial free cash flow. The product's high purity and environmental sustainability, featuring zero carbon, zero tailings, and zero hazardous chemicals, position Sigma Lithium as a preferred supplier for the European battery market. With a production capacity of 270,000 tonnes and additional low-grade byproducts, the company stands as a major player in the lithium concentrate sector. Cabral-Gardner expressed pride in Sigma Lithium's triple success – low-cost production, environmental leadership, and profitability, making it a resilient force in the industry. #proactiveinvestors #tsxv #sgml #nasdaq #sgml #SigmaLithium #LithiumIndustry #ProfitableQuarter #TripleZeroLithium #FinancialResilience #LowCostProduction #EnvironmentalSustainability #BatteryTechnology #CleanEnergy #RenewableResources #MiningIndustry #EconomicSuccess #GlobalSupplyChain #GreenTech #EnergyTransition #EarningsReport #LithiumMarket #FutureOfEnergy #SustainableMining #TechInvestment #EuropeanBatteryMarket #CEOInterview #ResourceManagement #CarbonNeutral #InnovationInMining #invest #investing #investment #investor #stockmarket #stocks #stock #stockmarketnews
Blue Marble: Youth Environmental Leadership Training. Rev. Char Bear shares insights about manifesting good magic for the planet through sustainable living and eco-activism that makes a difference. This month Bear highlights two international programs for youth environmental leadership: Roots and Shoots and also Faith for Earth Empathy Leadership Programme (FEEL). Learn what these are, what they do well, and what you can do to help empower upcoming generations.
Are you interested in attending one of the field's largest gatherings of K-12 education innovators? The Aurora Institute Symposium 2023 promises community, lessons about education innovation from the field, and the latest research and policy to support education transformation. Find out more here. On this episode of the Getting Smart Podcast, Tom Vander Ark is joined by Cyane Dandridge, founder of Strategic Energy Initiatives (SEI), an environmental nonprofit that builds leaders to drive sustainability solutions. One of those solutions is a high school model, School for Environmental Leadership (SEL). The flagship is MarinSEL, a “school within a school” located within Terra Linda High School in the San Rafael City Schools district and we're excited to be also joined Karen Madden, a teacher leader from MarinSEL. Links: 2021 Impact Report SEI School for Environmental Leadership (SEL) High School Sustainability Curriculum Page Cyane Dandridge Karen Madden
Water: How looking closer at the basics can deliver wider results and benefits – FDF talk with Water Plus, the UK's largest water retailerFrom organisations working towards water-related targets in the food and drink sector, to reducing risks to operations and increasing efficiency – gaining more data around water use in a year is essential.Ben Edmonds, who is one of the Senior Leaders at Water Plus, the largest water retailer in the UK, providing water and wastewater services to more than 710,000 customer supply points in England and Scotland, speaks to the FDF Water Policy Lead on the key things to keep in mind at your business. Technical water experts at Water Plus have helped organisations of different sizes find the opportunities to cut water waste, running costs and risks to operations. Installing hundreds of data loggers, on single and at multiple locations, are helping sites gain greater tracking on water each day, through an online area provided through Water Plus - and identify savings. Where less water needs to be moved at sites, or heated, then there are energy savings and a reduction in carbon emissions too.In this podcast, you'll hear how knowing what's used where in a year at sites - and accessing it all easily online - is helping deliver wider benefits.To join a multi-award winning water partner today, or to request more information around data loggers Water Plus can provide, email hello@water-plus.co.uk .•Ben Edmonds is Head of Strategy, Performance and Insight, leading work on customer engagement approaches at Water Plus, which is sponsoring the Environmental Leadership category at the Food And Drink Federation Awards 2023.
Juliet is joined by friends and fellow researchers Jesse Rodenbiker and Tyler Harlan to discuss their recent experiences at the COP15 of the Conference on Biological Diversity, China's growing environmental leadership, and China's domestic environmental policies and their impact on BRI initiatives and overseas engagements. Jesse starts off the conversation with some background on China's approach to environmental governance - based on his articles "Making Ecology Developmental: China's Environmental Sciences and Green Modernization in Global Context," "Green silk roads, partner state development, and environmental governance," and his upcoming book "Ecological States: Politics of Science and Nature in Urbanizing China." Jesse Rodenbiker is an Associate Research Scholar at Princeton University with the Center on Contemporary China and an Assistant Teaching Professor of Geography at Rutgers University. He is also currently a fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies, and a China Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He is a human-environment geographer and interdisciplinary social scientist focusing on environmental governance, urbanization, and social inequality in China and globally.Tyler Harlan is an Assistant Professor of Urban and Environmental Studies at Loyola Marymount University. His research focuses on the political economy and uneven socio-environmental impacts of China's green development transformation and the implications of this transformation for other industrializing countries. Juliet Lu is an Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver in the Department of Forest Resources Management and the School of Public Policy & Global Affairs. Recommendations:Jesse:Maoism: A Global History by Julia LovellRosewood by Annah Lake Zhu Tyler:Certifying China by Yixian SunChina and the global politics of nature-based solutions in Environmental Science & Policy (2022) by Jeffrey Qi (former BRI Pod episode!) and Peter DauvergneChina's rising influence on climate governance: Forging a path for the global South in Global Environmental Change (2022) by Jeffrey Qi and Peter DauvergneJuliet:Check out the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) (where Jeffrey Qi incidentally works ;) for interesting analysis on the Convention on Biological Diversity and China.
Educator, author, Tedx speaker and co-founder and president of the Institute for Humane Education (IHE), Zoe Weil, joins us to share her thoughts about making the world what we teach. IHE is where she created the first graduate programs (M.Ed., M.A., Ed.D., Graduate Certificate) in comprehensive Humane Education linking human rights, environmental preservation, and animal protection, offered online through an affiliation with Antioch University. Zoe is a frequent keynote speaker at education and other conferences and has given six TEDx talks including her acclaimed TEDx, The World Becomes What You Teach. She is the author of seven books including #1 Amazon best seller in the Philosophy and Social Aspects of Education, The World Becomes What We Teach: Educating a Generation of Solutionaries; Nautilus silver medal winner Most Good, Least Harm, Moonbeam gold medal winner Claude and Medea, and Above All, Be Kind: Raising a Humane Child in Challenging Times. Zoe was named one of Maine Magazine's 50 independent leaders transforming their communities and the state and is the recipient of the Unity College Women in Environmental Leadership award. Tune in on Wednesday, November 2 @ 6pm EST!
More than ever, organizations are recognizing sustainable practices as a business imperative. On this episode of Sustainably Speaking, hear about the Sustainability Leadership Award winners who are making groundbreaking innovations in circularity, education and sustainable investment. Monica Ellis, the CEO and founder of the Global Environmental Technology Foundation, and Rob Westervelt, editor-in-chief of Chemical Week, served as two of the judges for ACC's Sustainability Leadership Awards. They join Mia Quinn to tell us about a few of the award winners and trends, including the creation of a first-of-its-kind graduate program at a major national university. Monica Ellis, CEO and Founder, Global Environmental Technology FoundationMonica Ellis is Chief Executive Officer and a founding member of the Global Environment & Technology Foundation (GETF). A sustainable development leader, Monica has worked throughout the world on a range of natural resource and economic development issues, focusing particularly on clean water, climate, technology, health and economic empowerment issues. She specializes in developing high impact partnerships with leading companies, government agencies, civil societies and philanthropists that result in resilient communities. Her passion centers on working with vulnerable communities assisting their efforts to gain clean water, sanitation and ultimately, economic opportunity.As an advocate of innovation, she has also helped launch several successful companies and platforms in the environmental technology, information technology and communications sectors. She is a member/advisor to several boards, including GETF, Water For People, the Johns Hopkins University Global Water Advisory Board, US Water Partnership, the Graham Sustainability Institute at the University of Michigan, the Global Water Institute at the Ohio State University and Ketos. She is a graduate of the University of Missouri and a proud recipient of American University's William K. Reilly Award for Environmental Leadership.Monica also serves as CEO of Global Water Challenge (GWC), an action-oriented coalition of corporations, NGOs and other organizations committed to achieving universal access to clean water and sanitation. Under her leadership, GETF and GWC have mobilized over $350 million for clean water access and community development efforts that today benefits over 8 million people in Africa, Central and Latin America and India.Rob Westervelt, Editor-inChief, Chemical WeekRob Westervelt is editor-in-chief of Chemical Week, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights. Rob has covered the global chemical industry for more than 25 years. He was named editor of Chemical Week in December 2006. His team is responsible for coverage and analysis of news and trends affecting the global chemical industry. Before being named editor-in-chief, he was senior editor, responsible for news and markets coverage of the Americas. Mia Quinn, Senior Director, Public Affairs at American Chemistry CouncilMia Quinn leads efforts to communicate the plastics industry's major sustainability initiatives. She works to bring together experts to share insights in key areas of sustainability, including public policy, product design, recycling and infrastructure.She is passionate about collaboration, clear communications and engaging audiences to learn more about and advocate for innovation and modern solutions for our communities and our country.Mia has a degree in political science from Washington University in St. Louis. She grew up in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado and is a lifelong Denver Broncos fan. She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and two sons.
Mindy Lubber is the CEO and President of the sustainability nonprofit organization Ceres. She leads an all-women executive leadership team and more than 160 employees working to mobilize the most influential investors and companies to solve the world's greatest sustainability challenges. She has been at the helm since 2003, and under her leadership, the organization and its powerful networks and global collaborations have grown significantly in size and influence. Prior to Ceres, Lubber served as a Regional Administrator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under former President Bill Clinton. She also founded Green Century Capital Management and served as the director of the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group (MASSPIRG). She has received numerous awards and recognitions for her leadership. In 2020, Lubber was awarded the United Nations 'Champions of the Earth' Entrepreneurial Vision award. In the same year, Lubber made Barron's Magazine's list of the 100 most influential women in U.S. finance, and then again in 2021. She has also received the Climate Visionary Award from the Earth Day Network, William K. Reilly Award for Environmental Leadership from American University, and the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship from the Skoll Foundation. She has been recognized by the United Nations and the Foundation for Social Change as one of the World's Top Leaders of Change. In 2019, 2020, and 2021, Ceres was named a top 100 women-led businesses in Massachusetts by the Globe Magazine and Commonwealth Institute.
In this episode, Jessi Burg shares her passion for helping small trades and service businesses identify what they want in order to establish a strategy to achieve their goals. She offers self-guided online business courses that provide the tools and resources needed to manage your growing business.Jessi is the founder of Outgrow Your Garage. She received her Bachelor's Degree from St Lawrence University, and her Master's in Environmental Leadership from Naropa University. She built Outgrow Your Garage around her passion for accessible, affordable learning and inclusivity in the business world. Before Outgrow Your Garage she ran a landscaping company for 5 years, and as a result she believes that the trades and services are often left behind in policy, business development, and education. Founding Outgrow Your Garage is helping further her advocacy work for those areas using her personal experiences and steadfast passion for small business supportTo learn more, visit www.outgrowyourgarage.comOffer:Use promo code Blissed50 to receive 50% off her online courses.In this episode we cover:00:03:40 The Big Picture00:05:43 A Starting Point00:08:49 The Right Questions00:10:37 Resources00:12:20 SBDC00:14:16 Choosing The Right Support00:18:09 You Get To Decide00:20:46 Planning For The Future00:22:33 Your 4%00:26:06 Virtual Co-WorkingThanks so much for tuning in again this week. I appreciate you
If you're looking for leaders, look to the Environmental Leadership Program. Halifax Regional Council votes for climate change tax, plus more climate change updates in Canada, and how Canada's helping its citizens adapt to climate change.
“A solutionary is somebody who can identity unjust, unsustainable and inhumane systems and then devise solutions that do the most good and least harm for everyone– for all people for animals and for the environment.”The concepts we discuss in this episode are the framework for our podcast. Zoe defines “solutionary” and explains how this methodology can change the world in big - impactful - sustainable ways. She talks about humane education, her method of advocacy, and how education is one system that affects all the others. We also dig into meaty questions about vegan misanthropy, balance, how we sometimes, in our passion to do good, cause harm, different modes of advocacy, and why we should care about injustices toward human animals and the environment. Zoe WeilZoe Weil is the co-founder and president of the Institute for Humane Education (IHE), where she created the first graduate programs (M.Ed., M.A., Ed.D., Graduate Certificate) in comprehensive Humane Education linking human rights, environmental preservation, and animal protection, offered online through an affiliation with Antioch University. IHE also offers a Solutionary Micro-credential Program for teachers, a free Solutionary Guidebook for educators, How To Be A Solutionary guidebook for students and changemakers, Solutionary Workshops, and award-winning teacher resources to help educators and changemakers bring solutionary practices to students and communities so that together we can effectively solve local and global challenges. Zoe is a frequent keynote speaker at education and other conferences and has given six TEDx talks including her acclaimed TEDx, “The World Becomes What You Teach.” She is the author of seven books including The World Becomes What We Teach: Educating a Generation of Solutionaries; Nautilus silver medal winner Most Good, Least Harm, Moonbeam gold medal winner Claude and Medea, and Above All, Be Kind: Raising a Humane Child in Challenging Times. Zoe was named one of Maine Magazine's 50 independent leaders transforming their communities and the state and is the recipient of the Unity College Women in Environmental Leadership award. She was also a subject of the Americans Who Tell the Truth portrait series and received the Distinguished Alumnae Achievement Award from the Nightingale-Bamford School. She holds master's degrees from Harvard Divinity School and the University of Pennsylvania and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Valparaiso University.Full Show Notes and resources from episodeWake-Up Experience
Our podcast host Professor Ben Voyer speaks with one of the most influential CEOs in the cleantech industry right now: Lubomila Jordanova. Lubomila discusses the many challenges and breakthroughs she had on her path to founding Plan A and how she practices the subtle art of leading by example, especially when it comes to mental health.
Sulfide-ore copper mining on lands adjacent to rivers and lakes that flow into the Boundary Waters is indeed an ongoing threat to this cherished wilderness. However, it is not the only threat that impact the Boundary Waters. Climate change and a warming planet are also threats the lakes, rivers, forests, animals and people who cherish the Boundary Waters. In this episode, we hear from Grand Marais youth climate activist Olya Wright and her efforts to protect the Boundary Waters. We also hear from: --Jessica Hellmann, the director of the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment and the Ecolab Chair in Environmental Leadership. --Ana Maria Kleymeyer, a climate lawyer from Washington D.C. who has ties to the Boundary Waters region.
That ALL Might Be Edified: Discussions on Servant Leadership
Marine Science Technician Master Chief Petty Officer, Trevor Hughes joins as the guest on this week's episode to help us understand why allowing ourselves to be vulnerable is a necessary step that prepares us for future growth. He also helps us understand how important it is to create a space of trust that allows people to be comfortable, emphasizes the importance of receiving and giving positive endorsements, and discusses leading self, leading others, leading change, & leading service as it relates to the cycle of leadership. Master Chief Hughes is currently the Assistant Branch Chief for the Facilities, Containers, and Explosive Handling Division at U.S. Coast Guard Sector Puget Sound in Seattle, Washington, is the Chief of the Mess for the Greater Seattle Area Chief's Mess, and coordinates military outloads managing explosive handling details supporting Army 833rd Transportation Brigade and Navy Indian Island Weapons Depot. Master Chief Hughes is a native of South Portland, Maine where he spent most of his youth sailing the waters and exploring the islands of Casco Bay. He began his military service in 2002 after working as a contractor for the Atlantic Strike Team during the World Trade Center Recovery operation following the event of 9/11. During his 19 years of service, he has served in the Coast Guard's incident command structure during response operations for Deepwater Horizon, Hurricane Sandy and was the Coast Guard's Safety Officer during the response to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. On occasion, he has also traveled overseas to provide incident management training to our partners within the international maritime community. Master Chief Hughes previous tours include CGC Healy, Sector San Francisco, MSST San Francisco, Sector Boston, MSU Cleveland, and TRACEN Yorktown. He is a proud graduate of the Coast Guard Chief Petty Officers Academy class 206 and the Coast Guard Senior Enlisted Leadership Course class 02-17 where he earned the Donald Horsley Selfless Leadership Award. He holds a Master's degree from the Duke University in Environmental Management with a focus on Environmental Leadership. He lives in Bainbridge Island, WA with his wife Annika and three children. Resources: Jennifer Brown - How To Be An Inclusive Leader https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45356172-how-to-be-an-inclusive-leader Henry Rollins - 200 lbs https://youtu.be/iSsCR8wjWYk The Story of You - Ian Morgan https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57637421-the-story-of-you Typology with Ian Morgan Cron (S05-010) Amy Porterfield on the Gifts of Self-Awareness https://www.podbean.com/ei/dir-bq5m9-10663528
The Green Elephant in the Room: Solutions To Restoring the Health of People and the Living Planett
Peaceful nonviolent protest by a small group of dedicated global citizens may be our greatest hope of slowing down the runaway train of climate and ecological change. Research proves that with the right leadership and methods, it almost always succeeds. Not only that, but it has been utilized for environmental issues in the past and was spectacularly successful. What are we waiting for? In this series of podcast episodes, we are exploring how to accomplish this increasingly urgent goal and how to overcome the obstacles that will challenge us. In the second episode in this series we answer two questions:1. Which group of people is most responsible for much of our pollution and global warming emissions? (It may surprise you)2. Who will lead us from climate hell to our clean climate future? (It may surprise you also) _______________________________________________________________________________________Now is the time for action. Now is the time to restore the health of the Earth's lands, oceans, and atmosphere.In the link below, we have listed hundreds of eco-oriented activities that you can get involved with today.Go to "A Call to Act" and discover:Eco-organizations you can join — to join the fight.Climate-action meet-up groups – all over the world and in your community.The best ways to contact and sway your elected representatives.The most effective “Get out the Vote” organizations you can work/volunteer for. The best eco-organizations to donate to.The top green investment organizations.Best universities for sustainability degrees.Green careers you can be proud of. Greening your workplace and more. Eco-action activities for kids. How to get the most out of the sharing economy. Social justice organizationsCitizen science opportunities - help scientists collect and track data.Get the most out of the sharing economy. Best sustainable and ethical phone apps.Climate anxiety resources. And much, much more…
The Youth Environmental Leadership Kids (aka the YEL! Kids) Martina, Daniela, Soren, and Alucard raise awareness around environmental issues and take action. Let's learn how we can come together to help bring about change.
Jade Begay is the NDN collective's Climate Justice Campaign Director. She is Diné and Tesuque Pueblo, has a Master of Arts degree in Environmental Leadership and is part of President Biden's White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council. Here are some resources that Jade Begay mentions in this episode: NDN Collective https://ndncollective.org/ Chasing Ice, Documentary https://chasingice.com/ Sal Y Cielo, Documentary https://www.taylorfreesolorees.com/project/sal-y-cielo The New Zealand river that became a legal person, BBC March 2020 https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20200319-the-new-zealand-river-that-became-a-legal-person Will Northwest Seaweed Farming Finally Take Off? https://www.nativeconservancy.org/2020/12/16/will-northwest-seaweed-farming-finally-take-off/ Solvable is produced by Jocelyn Frank, research by David Zha, booking by Lisa Dunn, our managing producer is Sachar Mathias and our Executive Producer is Mia Lobel. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
Katie Laybourn is the President of the San Diego Chapter of the Association of Environmental Professionals (AEP). She is a biologist, aquatic resources specialist, and drone pilot at Harris & Associates. Katie shares her journey to becoming an environmental professional, including her educational path, career path, getting involved with AEP as a university student, internships and how her involvement with AEP led to her first professional environmental job.
Assemblymember Ash Kalra discusses housing solutions, clean energy, and criminal justice reform with Matt Matern. Kalra supports phased homelessness solutions, clean energy incentives, and rethinking public safety. He highlights AB 3030, aiming to protect 30% of California's land and water by 2030.
Let’s talk about the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees. Did you know that across North America, pollinators are in a steep decline. It may seem like an unlikely union, but utilities are ideally suited to restore these environments. Here with us to discuss Hydro Ottawa’s latest partner project to create one of the largest pollinator meadows of its kind in Eastern Ontario is Tracey Etwell from Canadian Wildlife Federation & Meaghan McDonald from Rideau Valley Conservation Authority. Related Content & Links: Tracey Etwell LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/traceyetwell/ Meaghan McDonald Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meaghan-mcdonald-83b08083/ Canadian Wildlife Federation Twitter: https://twitter.com/cwf_fcf Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/canadian-wildlife-federation/ Website: https://cwf-fcf.org/ Rideau Valley Conservation Authority Twitter: https://twitter.com/RideauValleyCA Website: https://www.rvca.ca/ --- Transcript: Dan Seguin 00:02 Hey, everyone, welcome back to another episode of the ThinkEnergy podcast. On today's show, we're going to talk about the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees - literally. Did you know that across North America, the populations of monarch butterflies, bees and other pollinators are in a steep decline due to herbicides, pesticides, climate change, and a reduction in natural pollinator habitats. Pollinators are responsible for a third of the world's food supply, so they are extremely vital to our existence. In Canada, there are more than 1000 species of pollinating animals that are responsible for billions of dollars worth of Canadian farm produce, flowers, and ecosystems that rely on pollination. In short, without pollinators, food supply would suffer drastically. It may seem like an unlikely union, but utilities like Hydro Ottawa are ideally suited to restore these environments, thanks to a number of utility corridors and properties in their service territories, not to mention the kilometers of power lines, and right of ways along roadsides. Moreover, vegetation along utility corridors are compatible with these types of vegetation necessary to support pollinators. In 2019, Hydro Ottawa began civil construction of its largest ever municipal transformer station in the south end of Ottawa situated on 24 acres of land. Since the new transformer station requires only five acres of property, Hydro Ottawa partnered with the City of Ottawa, Rideau Valley Conservation Authority, and the Canadian Wildlife Federation to create one of the largest pollinator meadows of its kind in Eastern Ontario, adjacent to this future station. The agreement means that 15 acres will be dedicated to a pollinator meadow, which is scheduled for seeding in the spring of 2021 A four acre tree reforestation area was reforested in 2020, with 2750 trees, thanks to the Rideau River Conservation Authority. So here is today's big question. What goes into a successful pollinator meadow? And how can we as an industry, and as ordinary citizens help the movement by building more pollinator meadows? Maybe in our own backyards? I have two guests joining me today for this podcast. My first guest is Tracy Etwell, a restoration ecologist with the Canadian Wildlife Federation. Tracy supports the right of way program, which helps restore pollinator metals for monarch butterflies and other pollinators in Eastern Ontario. My second guest is Meaghan McDonald, Lake planning and shoreline stewardship coordinator for the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority. There are 36 conservation authorities in Ontario responsible for furthering the restoration, development and management of watershed and their natural resources across the province. Thank you both for joining me today. So, Tracy, let's start with the Canadian Wildlife Federation. What are pollinators? What important role do pollinators play? And what does pollinator habitat look like? Tracy Etwell 04:37 Great question, Dan. So as a group, there are many species that are pollinators. And if people aren't aware, there's things like native bees, flies, moths, butterflies, beetles and even our hummingbirds are pollinators. But when we talk about our pollinator habitat in our project, we're really focusing on the insects such as our native bees, flies and butterflies. And pollinator habitat varies depending on each species, but all insect pollinators benefit from open meadows full of wildflowers and grasses. And these native flowers provide the pollen and the nectar and the vegetation in general for the species to hide nest and overwinter. And also some of these flowers are very specific hosts for butterflies and moths, where they require that specific plant for their lifecycle. Dan Seguin 05:21 Now, this question is for both, do habitats vary depending on where they're located in the province and country? If so, what's unique about Eastern Ontario? Wondering, Meaghan, if you can expand on this? And then what about you, Tracy? Meaghan McDonald 05:37 Yeah, sure. So obviously, our country is massive. So there's a big variety of habitats that mountains, prairies, plains, forests, wetlands, all sorts of things. I think what's kind of unique about Eastern Ontario, maybe in comparison to our southern counterpart there is that we do have still quite a lot of natural areas available to us. The development pressures out here are building just as they are in the southern region. But I think in Eastern Ontario, there's a really good opportunity to sort of preserve what we already have and protect the resources that we already have as that development occurs. So I think that's kind of a unique feature out here. Tracy Etwell 06:18 So our focus on Eastern Ontario is based on two things. One is that the threatened monarch butterfly range in Canada is heavily focused in Ontario and Quebec. So obviously, we're overlapping that region. And secondly, our funder, which is the Ontario Trillium Foundation has sponsored our work in the Eastern Ontario region. There are also tons and tons of rights of way here which we define as roadways, transmission lines, and pipelines. And as Meaghan said, we do have habitat across Canada. And the management of this vegetation along rights of way is compatible with Meadow habitat, which benefits these pollinators. And we're hoping that rights of way meadow projects will catch on across Canada. And we're busy creating a national network of right of way managers to encourage meadow habitat restoration across the country. Dan Seguin 07:03 Okay, Tracy, I know that there are many factors that are contributing to the decline in pollinators and their habitats. Based on your experience, what are those reasons? And is there one in particular, that's been identified as the most destructive force? Tracy Etwell 07:21 Yeah, so you're correct. There are many forces that contribute to this. The biggest one is thought to be the loss of habitat, which is consistent with a lot of species. When land is developed, the habitat is lost. Also, these insects need large corridors of habitat to travel around. So when these pieces get disconnected, it's harder for these pollinators to find that habitat. Also, in Eastern Ontario, the invasive plant species wild parsnip, which means some people may be aware of is another threat. It's spread rapidly throughout the area and is out-competing or native wildflowers. It's hard to control in many places they spray and frequent mowing are the ways to control it. Then, so when it's then controlled, then those native species that would have been there are now removed. So we're hoping once wild parsnip can be under control, better meadow habitat restoration can support these populations. Dan Seguin 08:16 Back to you. Meaghan, can you tell us about the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority and what types of stewardship projects you're involved with? Meaghan McDonald 08:26 Or so in partnership with our foundation branch, the Rideau Valley Conservation Foundation, we offer a number of stewardship programs that are really aimed at largely private landowners, but also municipalities and public land owners as well. Our main one would really be our forestation and tree planting program. We plant about 200,000 trees just in the Rideau watershed alone, every year. We also have a shoreline naturalization program, which helps a lot of shoreline land owners create sort of a natural buffer along their waterways. We have a lot of lakes and rivers in our watershed that we're fortunate to have. So we like to help landowners protect what they have on their property. We also have a rural clean water grant program, which is aimed at helping farmers do clean water projects on their property. And then in addition to that, we also do some stream monitoring, wetland restoration, invasive species removal and garbage cleanups, especially in the city of Ottawa with our city's free launch program Dan Seguin 09:33 With respect to pollinator meadows. Meaghan, what can you tell us about your organization's role? Do you bring your regional expertise about Eastern Ontario's environment and its native plants? Meaghan McDonald 09:46 Yeah, so we don't have a huge focus on pollinators and our organization we've historically been a lot more focused on water quality protection projects, which is why it's so important for us to have partners like the Canadian Wildlife Federation to partner with on on projects like this. So we don't have a major role in the pollinator project realm. Where we do bring our regional expertise is more for tree planting, shoreline naturalization, so your trees and your shrubs and items like that through our stewardship programs. We also partner with our nursery suppliers, the Ferguson tree nursery, which is located down in Kemptville. And they've been working lately with us and a few other groups in the Ottawa Valley on expanding their product line away from just trees so that they also can be a source of native pollinator species as well in Eastern Ontario. Right now, it's really aimed at potted plants for landowners if they want to, you know, create a little habitat pollinator habitat in their own property. But they are looking at expanding that so that they can be a local source for native seed as well. It's very important that we kind of keep that local seed source in the area because when you're bringing in plants from different regions are sometimes not quite as adapted to our current climate conditions as, say, Southern Ontario or other parts of the country. So we're really the Canadian Wildlife Federation is kind of the expert on this project that we're working with and we're very happy to have their their expertise onboard. Dan Seguin 11:34 You both are playing integral parts in the 15 acre pollinator meadows that hydro ottawa was building in the south end of the city. I understand it's one of the largest in Eastern Ontario. Tracy, why are utilities a key player in Canadian Wildlife Federation's pollinator recovery efforts. Tracy Etwell 11:58 So CWF is very excited to be partnering with hydro, Ottawa and RVCA on this initiative, which is one of the largest projects as you mentioned. Utilities are a key player in our pollinator restoration efforts, and they maintain over 660,000 kilometers of transmission lines 1000s of generation stations across Canada, which has huge potential for pollinator habitat restoration, also their linear design are relatively easy for pollinators to find. Since utilities need to control the weedy species over the long term along these facilities. It provides a great place for the wildflowers and grasses to grow. And it provides a great opportunity for you utilities to demonstrate Environmental Leadership and provide the habitat. That's a win win for the utilities and the pollinators. Dan Seguin 12:43 And now for you, Meaghan, what kind of follow up work does Rideau Valley Conservation Authority do for a project like Hydro's 15 acre pollinator Meadow? Meaghan McDonald 12:56 Yeah, so for this project, we're actually already going to be on site for a related tree planting project. So it's kind of why we are involved in the in the pollinator side, because it does take a little bit of work to establish native pollinator seed, many of the native seeds, for example, they might take one, two, maybe more years to germinate, and really a few years before they really establish and take over. So it's really important that we manage that area for invasive species so that they don't take over. Or that an opportunistic species like Tracy mentioned, poisoned parsnip, for example, or Manitoban Maple seedlings that they don't move in. So this will be done really through annual to semi annual mowing of the site. So we waited till the end till the right time to sort of do a mow so that we can remove some of the unwanted species, allowing the native ones to really come up. And we'll probably also do a little bit of Spot Removal of the undesirable plants as they come up as well. And we'll do some monitoring as well plots throughout the meadow that I'll let us sort of measure how well the native plants are really coming along and at what rates which will be great because it's will be a great learning experience for us. Since we don't personally have a lot of experience. It'll just kind of be a great way to see what works and what doesn't and what goes into a project like this so that hopefully we can be involved with more in the future. Dan Seguin 14:28 The Rideau Valley Conservation Authority has also planted 2750 trees on four acres at this site. Meaghan, is the reforestation connected to the meadow, or is it a separate but complementary initiative? Meaghan McDonald 14:47 Yeah, I think it's kind of bolted is on the same site. The trees were planted last spring, and they kind of form a little bit of a barrier around the outside area of the pollinator garden. department started the pollinator meadow. So it's, it does create a nice barrier between the meadow and the adjacent highway and adjacent farm field. So it's going to create a nice of a windbreak. It'll also help with some of the salt spray that's coming off the highway. And these trees were really planted as part as a compensation for the station that's being built there. And we found that having the combination of the trees as the compensation and also the opportunity for the pollinator habitat was just such a great opportunity at this particular site. Just because we don't really want to get trees planted too close to the station, especially with the tornado that came through a few years ago. So it's nice to have those trees at a distance but also have that nice low growing, easy to maintain pollinator Meadow in the areas directly surrounding it. So it's a it's a nice combination there. Dan Seguin 16:01 Now understanding that without pollinators Canada's food supply is threatened. Tracy, how is the Canadian Wildlife Federation building resources and support for these projects. Tracy Etwell 16:14 So the Canadian Wildlife Federation is committed to supporting pollinators for both our diverse biodiversity and our food supply. As you mentioned, many of the nutritious plants we eat such as fruits and vegetables rely on insect pollination, and 90% of the world's flowering plants rely on insect pollination. So it's critical that as a global society, we support these insect pollinators. Now our project is focused on a variety of support such as technical expertise in building these meadows, increasing the native seed supply in Ontario, and providing case studies of the costs and benefits of restoring Meadow habitat. We work with interested managers to develop their respective projects. And we've also only recently formed the Canadian branch of rights of way within the US rights of way habitat working group to enhance our network so that we have more access to resources, case studies and best practices. Dan Seguin 16:28 I'm really looking forward to your thoughts on this next question, Tracy - road right of ways are a major push for Canadian Wildlife Federation's pollinator initiative. Why build them there? Tracy Etwell 17:19 Yeah, so like transmission lines, road rights of way or another area of great potential for Habitat. If you think about the over 1 million kilometers of roads across Canada, that's a lot of space for pollinator habitat. There's also a lot of interest in reducing the mowing and the herbicide use that goes into maintaining roads. And by using native plants that can allow for that reduction in those two aspects. And it may even save municipalities maintenance costs by reducing these efforts. And also, it's a great opportunity to share the initiative with the public that are driving by and can see these beautiful displays. Dan Seguin 17:56 Now for my last question - for both of you. How can landowners improve pollinator habitats on their properties? And what could citizens do to support this work? Or our pollinator friends in general? Meaghan, let's start with you and the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority. Meaghan McDonald 18:17 So we always promote the use of native plants on properties for a number of reasons, they obviously have benefits to pollinators. But they also are often more low maintenance and typical ornamental plants. So we would encourage folks that that are gardening or are looking for something to plant on their property, then maybe consider some of our native plant species just because they do have that added benefit to the pollinators. And we're also of course, promote the use of native plants along natural areas like shorelines. In addition to sort of the, the, the wildflowers and the meadow species that we're using in this project, there's lots of native trees and shrubs as well that they can consider that are beneficial to pollinators. I was just gonna say and then supporting your local native nurseries, there's a few in the Ottawa Valley that people can consider. And sometimes it just takes a little bit more searching and then digging to find those native native plants for your garden, but they're out there. And if we all support our local native nurseries, then they'll be able to continue supplying those plants for us. Dan Seguin 19:40 And now Tracy, what about from a Canadian Wildlife Federation perspective? Tracy Etwell 19:45 Right, so we also support backyard gardens planting native plants. That's a great start. We offer many webinars and guides online to help people get into this mode of planting and some other things that people can do that they might not have considered it is leaving leaves on your lawn and garden in the fall. Many of these pollinators actually over winter. And they'll use that that habitat to protect themselves from the winter conditions. Lastly, if you can resist mowing those dandelions until more spring flowers bloom, that's one of the first floor resources that are available for pollinators. And the spring is actually one of the hardest seasons for them to get going, because there's very little for them to feed on and they're very hungry, obviously. So something else you can also do is overseed. With clover in your garden and clover is a great resource for pollinators. In terms of bigger things, you can contact your local councils and ask them to become a bee city, which is a specific designation, which means they support pollinators and you have projects that support that. And also contact your municipality and ask them if they can support Meadow habitat restoration projects in their area. Dan Seguin 20:57 Okay, Tracy, and Meaghan, are you ready to close this off with some rapid fire questions? We'll start with Tracy and then we'll follow up with Meaghan. Meaghan McDonald 21:06 Sure. Dan Seguin 21:09 What is your favorite pollinator? Tracy Etwell 21:13 My favorite pollinator is the Gypsy cuckoo Bumblebee, which is an endangered Bumblebee with a great name. Meaghan McDonald 21:22 I was just gonna say our native bees, there's many species and they're all they're all important. So I don't have quite a specific answer, but native bees. Dan Seguin 21:31 Now, what is your favorite flower? Tracy Etwell 21:35 My favorite is the brown eyed Susan, which is a native plant, of course, a powerhouse for pollinators and very easy to grow. Meaghan McDonald 21:44 I like wild bergamot. It's again, easy to grow. And it's got a really cool kind of purple flower on it. Dan Seguin 21:52 Moving on, what is one thing you can't live without? Tracy Etwell 21:57 Chocolate! Always chocolate! Meaghan McDonald 22:01 And I would say coffee. Dan Seguin 22:05 What habit or hobby have you picked up during shelter in place? Tracy Etwell 22:11 For me, it's been sourdough baking - making my own. Meaghan McDonald 22:17 I've been starting a lot of craft projects and not finishing them. And we also got to canoe last year and new cross country skis this winter. Dan Seguin 22:26 Okay, if you could have one superpower, what would it be? Tracy Etwell 22:31 For me it would be to fly to travel and see the world. Meaghan McDonald 22:36 Also to fly. Dan Seguin 22:37 That this is an interesting one. If you could turn back time and talk to your 18 year old self, would you be telling her? Tracy Etwell 22:46 I would tell her to enjoy life more and not to be so serious. Meaghan McDonald 22:52 I would say same and also travel and spend time with friends and family as much as you can, while you can. Dan Seguin 22:59 Okay, what excites you most about these pollinator projects? Tracy Etwell 23:05 I get excited to see the new life emerge. So when new plants start to bloom when the insects start to come in and use that habitat that just fills me with joy. Meaghan McDonald 23:16 And I'm excited about kind of learning something new because these projects are new for us and being able to bring some of that knowledge to our landowners and then also to some of our conservation areas as well. Dan Seguin 23:28 And lastly, what do you currently find most interesting in your sector? Tracy Etwell 23:35 For me, I would say it's the application of new technologies that are coming online that help us support the conservation projects, answering specific questions that we need help with. Meaghan McDonald 23:45 And I really like working with landowners and sort of seeing them connect the dots on how what they do on their property really impacts nature and it's always fun to see. Dan Seguin 23:56 Well, Tracy, Meaghan, we've reached the end of another episode of The ThinkEnergy podcast. I truly hope you had a lot of fun. And thank you so much for joining me today. Cheers. Tracy Etwell 24:11 It's been great. Thank you, Dan. Meaghan McDonald 24:12 Yeah, thank you. It has been. Dan Seguin 24:17 Thank you for joining us today. I truly hope you enjoyed this episode of The ThinkEnergy podcast. For past episodes, ake sure you visit our website hydroottawa.com/podcast. Lastly, if you found value in this podcast, be sure to subscribe. Anyway, this podcast is a wrap. Cheers, everyone.
The first episode of the Our New World podcast is here! I'm feeling the nerves around releasing the first episode, but ultimately I'm very excited to get these conversations out there. Thank you for tuning in. Your input is key for this project, so please get in touch at max@mahbonline.org with your ideas and feedback! What role do women have to play in environmentalism? What makes a good leader? Why is collaboration so important for our planet? These are some of the topics I talk about with Patricia Zurita, CEO of Birdlife International; the world's largest nature conservation partnership, in our first episode of Our New World. Patricia was the first woman from a developing country to head an international conservation organization, she embodies the core values of curiosity, action and collaboration. Tune in for advice, opinions, and an inspiring leader telling us about her journey. What a way to kick-start our first series on Women in the World. Let's get into it!
An environmental practitioner and attorney with more than 30 years of experience in private- and public-sector planning, Bill has prepared hundreds of environmental documents for a diverse range of projects throughout California. Bill currently serves as State President of the 1,800 member Association of Environmental Professionals (AEP). As a member (and former chair) of AEP’s Legislative Review Committee, Bill works directly with AEP’s lobbyist and the State Legislature on proposed legislation related to CEQA. The committee provides analysis, prepares comment letters, and conducts direct lobbying on legislative bills relating to CEQA. He recently served on the working group for AB 2323 for Assembly Members Friedman and Chiu. Bill also teaches an annual “CEQA Hot Topics” class at the Capitol for legislators and staffers. Bill is a frequent guest lecturer on CEQA and associated case law for University of California’s Irvine and Riverside campuses, Cal Poly Pomona, and AEP. He has also has extensive experience providing third-party review of environmental documents for legal and technical adequacy.
Seraph White brings nearly two decades of non-profit experience to the role of Interim Executive Director for Outdoors Empowered Network, and has expertise in fundraising, marketing, and operations. She is passionate about increasing access to nature and the outdoors and is looking forward to finding creative, systemic, and strategic ways to fulfill OEN's mission. Seraph has an MA in Environmental Leadership from Naropa University and a BA in Environmental Studies from UCSC. Seraph grew up camping and is passionate about access to the outdoors. She regularly packs her family into a hybrid Toyota Prius C to travel the American West, including over thirty National Parks. She is an alumnae of NOLS semester in Alaska and a long-time student of nature connection and deep ecology. When not camping, Seraph lives in her hometown of San Francisco. -- Seraph White Interim Executive Director Outdoors Empowered Network Website: www.outdoorsempowered.org As always, the purpose of the interviews is to highlight the great work of the individuals who are making a huge impact in the world of early childhood environmental education. Diona Reese Williams Edited Production: Angel Productions DRW Guest: Seraph White Facebook Page: @dionareesewilliams Instagram DRW Personal Brand: @drw_dionareesewilliams Instagram Out Back Learning LLC: @outbacklearning2019 Facebook Page: @outbacklearning2019 Podcast: https://anchor.fm/diona-williams --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/diona-williams/support
Seraph White brings nearly two decades of non-profit experience to the role of Interim Executive Director for Outdoors Empowered Network, and has expertise in fundraising, marketing, and operations. She is passionate about increasing access to nature and the outdoors and is looking forward to finding creative, systemic, and strategic ways to fulfill OEN's mission. Seraph has an MA in Environmental Leadership from Naropa University and a BA in Environmental Studies from UCSC. Seraph grew up camping and is passionate about access to the outdoors. She regularly packs her family into a hybrid Toyota Prius C to travel the American West, including over thirty National Parks. She is an alumnae of NOLS semester in Alaska and a long-time student of nature connection and deep ecology. When not camping, Seraph lives in her hometown of San Francisco. -- Seraph White Interim Executive Director Outdoors Empowered Network Website: www.outdoorsempowered.org As always, the purpose of the interviews is to highlight the great work of the individuals who are making a huge impact in the world of early childhood environmental education. Diona Reese Williams Edited Production: Angel Productions DRW Guest: Seraph White Facebook Page: @dionareesewilliams Instagram DRW Personal Brand: @drw_dionareesewilliams Instagram Out Back Learning LLC: @outbacklearning2019 Facebook Page: @outbacklearning2019 Podcast: https://anchor.fm/diona-williams --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/diona-williams/support
A chance to listen again to one of our most inspiring podcasts of 2020. Captured during Visioneering at Paramount Studios, Peter H. Diamandis is joined by Harrison Ford and Wes Bush from Conservation International. In a thrilling discussion, they discuss the urgency to change the economics, behaviors and political will in order to save the planet. It requires the support of everyone, and will rely on technological innovation and new economic incentives to move in the right direction, quickly. Recently named by Fortune as one of the “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders,” Peter H. Diamandis is the founder and executive chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, which leads the world in designing and operating large-scale incentive competitions. He is also the executive founder of Singularity University, a graduate-level Silicon Valley institution that counsels the world's leaders on exponentially growing technologies. As an entrepreneur, Diamandis has started over 20 companies in the areas of longevity, space, venture capital and education. He is cofounder of BOLD Capital Partners, a venture fund with $250M investing in exponential technologies, and co-founder and Vice Chairman of Celularity, Inc., a cellular therapeutics company. Diamandis is a New York Times Bestselling author of two books: Abundance – The Future Is Better Than You Think and BOLD – How to go Big, Create Wealth & Impact the World. His newest book in this series of exponential technologies—The Future is Faster Than You Think—was released on January 28, 2020. He earned degrees in molecular genetics and aerospace engineering from the MIT and holds an M.D. from Harvard Medical School. Diamandis’ favorite saying is “the best way to predict the future is to create it yourself.”Harrison Ford has become one of the most popular and acclaimed actors of our time. His works include 35 feature films, ten of which have exceeded $100 million each at the box office. Through his starring roles in such cinematic blockbusters as the Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies, The Fugitive, Air Force One, Patriot Games and K-19 he has come to embody the quintessential hero for moviegoers around the world. Strongly committed to environmental concerns, Harrison Ford has served on the board of Conservation International for more than 10 years, actively participating in its design and growth. During this time CI has emerged as a leading force in global conservation. He presently serves as vice chair of the board and is on CI's Executive Committee.He has played an instrumental role in the establishment at CI of the Center for Applied Biodiversity Science, the first early warning system for global conservation efforts. Additionally, he played a key role in the design and development of CI's Center for Environmental Leadership in Business, a coalition of conservation and business interests searching for ways to reduce the impact of development on the earth's biodiversity. Mr. Ford serves as a board member of Conservation International's Global Conservation Fund, which has secured the protection of over 40,000,000 acres on 3 continents in the past 18 months. Mr. Ford lives in Jackson, Wyoming, where he donated 389 acres of his property for a conservation easement to the Jackson Hole Land Trust.Prior to becoming CEO of Northrop Grumman, Wes Bush held numerous leadership roles at Northrop Grumman including President and Chief Operating Officer; Corporate Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and President of the Space Technology division. He joined the company as a systems engineer at TRW in 1987 and was the President and CEO of TRW’s Aeronautical Systems business when Northrop Grumman acquired the TRW in 2002. He earlier worked at Aerospace Corporation and Comsat Labs. Bush received both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also a graduate of the Executive Management Program at UCLA. He serves on the board of directors of Conservation International and the U.S. Naval Academy Foundation, and he chairs the boards of the Aerospace Industries Association and the Business-Higher Education Forum.Links: https://www.conservation.org/https://xprize.org/blog See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Joshua Spodek Ph.D. MBA is a three-time TEDx speaker, #1 bestselling author of Initiative and Leadership Step by Step, host of the award-winning Leadership and the Environment podcast, and professor and coach of entrepreneurship and leadership at NYU and Columbia Business School.He speaks on leadership, entrepreneurship, and environmental leadership at institutions such as Boston Consulting Group, Google, IBM, PwC, S&P, Children’s Aid Society, The New York Academy of Science, NY Public Library, Harvard, Princeton, West Point, MIT, Stanford, Rice, USC, Berkeley, INSEAD, the NY Academy of Science, and more.He holds a Ph.D. in astrophysics and an MBA from Columbia, where he studied under a Nobel Laureate, having emerged from childhood including years in some of Philadelphia’s most crime-ridden neighborhoods. He helped build an X-ray observational satellite with the European Space Agency and NASA.He left academia to found a venture to market his invention—a technology to show motion pictures to moving subways—installing displays on four continents. He holds six patents. He also founded two education ventures.He has been called “best and brightest” (Esquire’s Genius issue), “astrophysicist turned new media whiz” (NBC), and “rocket scientist” (Forbes).His clients include start-up founders, executives of publicly traded companies, and employees of McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Deloitte, JP Morgan Chase, Google, IBM, Exxon, and the US Navy and Army, as well as graduates of Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and others. He has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, Forbes, Esquire, Entrepreneur, Nikkei Shimbun, the South China Morning Post, ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR, Fox, and CNN.He credits his stellar reviews to his experiential, active, project-based technique with minimal lecture or reading or writing papers.As an artist, he has installed public works in Bryant Park (NYC), Union Square (NYC), and Amsterdam’s Dam Square. He has had solo shows in New York and group shows nationwide, including Art Basel Miami Beach. He studied Meisner Technique at the William Esper Studio. He has taught art at Parsons and NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program. He devoted years to learning and practicing the social and emotional skills of attraction and dating, becoming the #1 coach in the #1 market for the #1 guru. Since those years were in his late 30s and early 40s, he tended to coach people in long-term relationships or just exiting them.He ran six marathons (3:51 best), rowed one, competed at the world and national level of Ultimate (#5 at nationals, and #11 at worlds), including the first ultimate tournament in North Korea. He swam across the Hudson River twice, did over 155,000 burpees, wrote over 3,700 blog posts, took over 500 cold showers, and jumped out of two airplanes.He hasn’t flown (by choice) since March 2016, has picked up at least one piece of street trash per day since April 2017, and takes over a year to produce a load of garbage.He has lived in Paris, Ahmedabad (India), and Shanghai. He lives in New York and blogs daily at joshuaspodek.com.
Do you have a passion for the environment? Do you have some mission that you want to pursue but it feels overwhelming to achieve yourself? Do you want to empower your impact by building great teams? Our special guest Joan Gregerson has been an eco-activist for her entire career, a community organizer and a leader in the environmental transformation movement. Joan is the author of the recently published book Climate Action Challenge and the Founder of the Green Team Academy, which has a mission to partner with 1,000 eco-initiatives over 90 days. Most important, Joan is a proven expert in building partnerships and teams after learning for herself that doing it herself didn't serve her or her mission. Today, Joan helps people who want to get together, make a difference and feel better. Joan is a self-proclaimed Eco-Nut with a heart for the environment and a calling to make a difference. Joan will be sharing practical ideas on the importance of building your team, as well as her eco-wisdom on the importance of taking action now to preserve our environment. The Impact Leadership Podcast is brought to you by Cardivera, the leadership development eco-system that helps your grow your people, grow your business and grow your life. Show Notes In this episode you'll learn… The urgency to take collaborative action to address the environmental issues in the world The importance of making it clear what you want (and asking for what you want) when you're pursuing a mission The power of leading where you are no matter what your age The “sweet spot” for being effective for the planet Beware of limiting your activism to “clicktivism” (i.e. click here to support a cause) The key to change is to form a team The high impact strategy of assembling your list of 100 “partners” Working on a project with a team provides critical support through the challenges That small action alone is not always the best approach to change The connection between addictive behaviors and personal / business habits that are harming the environment (and the similar challenges when you seek to change those habits and behaviors) The ways that a negative message often promotes inaction – if you want people to act, you have to make it a positive message (“You can't scare people into taking care of the planet”) The impact concept of “2% for life” (3 hours a week) … give 3 hours a week to environmental initiatives “There's no waste … only a lack of creativity” All the benefits of forming and working as a team, including emotional support, which helps create sustainable change Leadership and growth lessons from nature (nature's return on investment is much greater than are typical sought after business returns) Teams create ripples of impact The important role of enlisting mentors and other support for your initiatives The critical role of community organizing to effect change (not projects) Resources: Joan Gregerson Green Team Academy Participate in the Climate Action Channel Work of Dolores Huerta The Impact Leadership Podcast Cardivera
NEW SEASONWelcome to Future Positive from XPRIZE. This season we aim to bring you the most future-forward topics, covering everything from AI to avatars, to climate change, and more. We will share conversations from game-changing leaders, tech entrepreneurs and heavyweights from the creative industry - revealing their inspirations, and how and why they will change the world.Captured during Visioneering at Paramount Studios, Peter H. Diamandis is joined by Harrison Ford and Wes Bush from Conservation International. In a thrilling discussion, they discuss the urgency to change the economics, behaviors and political will in order to save the planet. It requires the support of everyone, and will rely on technological innovation and new economic incentives to move in the right direction, quickly. Recently named by Fortune as one of the “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders,” Peter H. Diamandis is the founder and executive chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, which leads the world in designing and operating large-scale incentive competitions. He is also the executive founder of Singularity University, a graduate-level Silicon Valley institution that counsels the world's leaders on exponentially growing technologies. As an entrepreneur, Diamandis has started over 20 companies in the areas of longevity, space, venture capital and education. He is cofounder of BOLD Capital Partners, a venture fund with $250M investing in exponential technologies, and co-founder and Vice Chairman of Celularity, Inc., a cellular therapeutics company. Diamandis is a New York Times Bestselling author of two books: Abundance – The Future Is Better Than You Think and BOLD – How to go Big, Create Wealth & Impact the World. His newest book in this series of exponential technologies—The Future is Faster Than You Think—was released on January 28, 2020. He earned degrees in molecular genetics and aerospace engineering from the MIT and holds an M.D. from Harvard Medical School. Diamandis’ favorite saying is “the best way to predict the future is to create it yourself.”Harrison Ford has become one of the most popular and acclaimed actors of our time. His works include 35 feature films, ten of which have exceeded $100 million each at the box office. Through his starring roles in such cinematic blockbusters as the Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies, The Fugitive, Air Force One, Patriot Games and K-19 he has come to embody the quintessential hero for moviegoers around the world. Strongly committed to environmental concerns, Harrison Ford has served on the board of Conservation International for more than 10 years, actively participating in its design and growth. During this time CI has emerged as a leading force in global conservation. He presently serves as vice chair of the board and is on CI's Executive Committee.He has played an instrumental role in the establishment at CI of the Center for Applied Biodiversity Science, the first early warning system for global conservation efforts. Additionally, he played a key role in the design and development of CI's Center for Environmental Leadership in Business, a coalition of conservation and business interests searching for ways to reduce the impact of development on the earth's biodiversity. Mr. Ford serves as a board member of Conservation International's Global Conservation Fund, which has secured the protection of over 40,000,000 acres on 3 continents in the past 18 months. Mr. Ford lives in Jackson, Wyoming, where he donated 389 acres of his property for a conservation easement to the Jackson Hole Land Trust.Prior to becoming CEO of Northrop Grumman, Wes Bush held numerous leadership roles at Northrop Grumman including President and Chief Operating Officer; Corporate Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and President of the Space Technology division. He joined the company as a systems engineer at TRW in 1987 and was the President and CEO of TRW’s Aeronautical Systems business when Northrop Grumman acquired the TRW in 2002. He earlier worked at Aerospace Corporation and Comsat Labs. Bush received both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also a graduate of the Executive Management Program at UCLA. He serves on the board of directors of Conservation International and the U.S. Naval Academy Foundation, and he chairs the boards of the Aerospace Industries Association and the Business-Higher Education Forum.Links: https://www.conservation.org/https://xprize.org/blog See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
In this episode, we sit down with Hank Cauley, Senior VP for the Center for Environmental Leadership in Business at Conservation International. We chat about the movement of sustainability and the importance of using technology to advance your business.
Most surfers will tell you that their pastime is far more than a sport. It's a way of life. A way of being.Surfing's intimate relationship with the ocean and environment is clear. So it's no surprise that its premier competition, the World Surf League, is winning plaudits for its impactful and innovative sustainability initiatives.Through its nonprofit arm, WSL Pure (which has its own podcast), the World Surf League has committed to carbon neutrality, eliminating all single-use plastics from its events, and partnering with communities to conserve the coastal areas in which its athletes compete.Behind this drive is the organisation's SVP of ocean responsibility, Reece Pacheco, whom we first came into contact with in December 2018, when he represented the World Surf League at COP24 during the launch of the UNFCCC's Sports for Climate Action Framework.During this episode, Pacheco talks about his long and winding journey, from being an environmental filmmaker, lacrosse player and tech entrepreneur on America's North Atlantic coast, to heading up the sustainability operations for the World Surf League in California.He goes into depth about the World Surf League's environmental commitment, and discusses how the organisation has engaged brands like Corona and Ikea, as well as star athletes, to amplify its sustainability projects.“What's the story that we want to tell as a business, what do we want to be a part of? We want to be a part of change, we stand for a positive story,” Pacheco says. “Our mission as an organisation is to make the world a better place through the transformational power of surfing, and a big part of that is making sure we do our part for the environment.”
Episode 3! The stories we’ve collected today can be categorized as Rewilding, delisting, and biodiversity, Climate momentum, circular economy, Zoos in conservation, Environmental Leadership... Links to all news articles can be found at Pelecanus.org. All Pelecanus podcasts can be found on Pelecanus.org, iTunes, Soundcloud, and Spotify, with more availability coming…
BirdNote host Ashley Ahearn recently sat down with Dr. J. Drew Lanham at the University of Washington College of the Environment Symposium on Nature and Health. The conversation wove through Dr. Lanham’s poetry, readings from his memoir, and his thoughts about faith, climate change, the loss of birds, and the ways we can work together to confront systemic racism. “What I’ve learned from all the years of looking for birds in far-flung places and expecting the worst from people is that my assumptions, more times than not, are unfounded," says Dr. Lanham. "These nature-seeking souls are mostly kindred spirits, out to find not just birds, but solace. A catalogue of friends, most of them white, have inspired, guided and sometimes even nurtured my passion for birds and nature. As we gaze together, everything that’s different about us disappears into the plumage we see beyond our binoculars. There is power in the shared pursuit of feathered things.” Dr. Lanham is a BirdNote board member and the recipient of Audubon's 2018 Dan W. Lufkin Prize for Environmental Leadership. He is also an Alumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology, Master Teacher and Certified Wildlife Biologist at Clemson University. Learn more about Dr. Lanham and his passion for conservation: Interview: Why I'm a Birder Video: Rules for the Black Birdwatcher Q&A: The Story Behind Rules for the Black Birdwatcher Video: Behind the Binoculars Dr. Lanham's book, The Home Place
Ira Pastor, ideaXme exponential health ambassador and founder of Bioquark, interviews Dr. Renard Siew, Climate Change Advisor with the Centre for Governance and Political Studies in Kuala Lumpur. Today we are going to be talking about Sustainability and Climate Change; two topics that have really come to the public forefront in recent months, and which directly impact all of our respective health and longevity. Dr. Renard Siew Our guest today is Dr. Renard Siew. Dr. Siew has PhDs in both Civil and Environmental Engineering (Cambridge University) and Management, Technology and Economics (ETH Zürich PhD). Dr. Renard Siew is a Climate Change Advisor with the Centre for Governance and Political Studies in Kuala Lumpur which is an interdisciplinary research center, bridging the fields of economics, political science, sociology, business and law, which focuses on the problems and challenges raised by the current political development and economic transformation. He is also part of the World Economic Forum Expert Network Group focusing on Sustainable Development in Asia, and as environmental advisor to Sime Darby Holdings, is involved in implementing the environmental agenda for this multinational conglomerate based in Kuala Lumpur with operations across key growth industry sectors including Plantation, Property, Industrial, Motors, Energy and Utilities as well as Healthcare. Prior to this, he was a postdoctoral fellow with the Centre for Energy and Environmental Markets (CEEM). He continues to serve as a Stakeholder Council Member for the Global Infrastructure Basel Foundation, as a Global Advisory Board Member of Economists Without Borders and is the Curator of Global Shapers Kuala Lumpur, a not-for-profit organization focusing on creating sustainable impacts in Malaysia. He actively participates and contributes in various stakeholder platforms including the ‘Water for Growth’ initiative and the Integrated Urban Water Management task force seeking to develop a National Level Water Transformation Roadmap for Malaysia. He is a Climate Reality Leader trained by Al-Gore, former Vice President of the USA, in Pittsburgh. He was the recipient of the Yayasan Sime Darby Scholarship, Cambridge Bursary Scholarship, ARG Hermes Scholarship, Brookfield Multiplex Engineering Management Prize and the Australian Conferences Management Education for Engineers Award. For his work in sustainability, he was also named as one of Malaysia's Top 10 Most Inspiring Green Warriors, 100 Visionary Young Leaders Leading Us Towards a Better World by Real Leaders Magazine, received a Forbes Fellowship, was a 2017 Augustman A-Lister and bestowed with the Ten Outstanding Young Malaysians (TOYM) Award for Environmental Leadership. He is also named as a Young Leader of the World Cities Summit a select group of change-makers from diverse sectors working on shaping the global urban agenda and a 2018 Asia 21 Young Leaders. His work has been featured across a number of mainstream media such as The Star, New Straits Time, The Edge, Focus Malaysia, Malaysia Tatler, Malaysia SME, Korean Times, Kuwait Times among others. On this episode we will hear from Dr. Siew: About his background, how he became interested in engineering, economics, and how he finds himself in 2019 at the epicenter of the global climate change movement. His goals for “future-proofing” our planet and keeping global temperatures within the 1.5 degrees Celsius critical change mark. His experiences working for a large natural resources company as sustainability advisor. His ideas for promoting entrepreneurship to address climate change and sustainability. His views towards how society must adapt and create better environments for the aging population within the "built environment" system. For all the relevant links corresponding to this interview please visit www.radioideaxme.com. ideaXme is a global podcast, creator series and mentor programme. Mission: Move the human story forward!™ ideaXme Ltd.
In this episode we speak with Eva Garen, Director of ELTI, Environmental Leadership and Training Initiative. ELTI focuses on capacity development in human-dominated mosaic landscapes, primarily in Latin America and Indonesia, teaching the people who manage landscapes to restore and rebuild biodiversity. Much of ELTI's work is in tropical regions that were once forested, and one of the reasons ELTI's programs are so important is that only 9.8% of tropical forest is protected. In Latin America, ELTI primarily works with farmers and cattle ranchers, while in Indonesia they primarily work with coal companies charged with environmental restoration of their mining sites. ELTI provides field-based training that are experiential. In one case study with cattle ranchers in Panama, the field-based training on how to create a silvopastoral system was eagerly received because in the dry season, in the tropics, cattle with only access to grass will die from starvation. With the combination of diverse trees fruiting at different times providing nuts with proteins, a silvopastoral system provides the necessary food to keep them alive. Eva underscores the complexity of power dynamics and need to work with the local organizations and individuals in order to understand the local economic, cultural and political practices. ELTI also has online coursework that has reached over 1000 individuals around the world. Eva Garen, Ph.D. is the Director and Principle Investigator of ELTI, Environmental Leadership and Training Initiative. Based at Yale University, she has spent almost twenty-five years working on the social aspects of conservation and development in the tropics. Previously Eva worked as a technical advisor on the social aspects of REDD+ with Conservation International's Science and Knowledge Division. Eva also worked with USAID's Forestry and Biodiversity Teams in Washington D.C. as a Science and Technology Policy Fellow with the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The post Episode 76: Interview with Eva Garen, Director of Environmental Leadership Training Initiative appeared first on The Sustainability Agenda.
Not everyone gets his or her dream job. Michael Werner did, on sustainable product design at Google and Apple. Since our conversation he's become Google's lead on circular economy. Whatever your thoughts on these companies, he is in a position to help lead them in areas of great importance.How did he get those positions? By working up the ladder? On the contrary, by leading from the start, before people were following.A major goal of this podcast is to show that if you want to lead, especially on the environment, a successful path is to start leading now with what you can. Waiting for a position to open doesn't work as well. Acting creates opportunities and Michael is an example.I'm glad to hear people within big companies with major inertia are working on sustainability, but they have challenges ahead. It's also rare to find people who get what I described as reusing and recycling, or efficiency in general, is tactical. Reduction is strategic, as I spoke on in episode 183: Reusing and recycling are tactical. Reducing is strategic.Most companies prefer recycling and efficiency because they drive growth, which makes people feel better, but is the opposite of reduction. I haven't looked into Google's practices.Note, this was an early episode. I didn't ask Michael first about what the environment meant to him, so I didn't connect his challenge to something personal. I got lucky that he had something in mind at first. But I think leadership works far more effectively when the leader makes the person feel comfortable sharing their values, which makes it feel more meaningful. It wouldn't have worked with someone less enthusiastic and didn't lead him to find his project as meaningful.Still, I think he's doing it for himself. We'll hear in his second episode. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Dr. Emily Young is the executive director of The Nonprofit Institute. She has spent more than 20 years in various positions in philanthropy, as well as higher education. Prior to the University of San Diego, she served as vice president of community impact at The San Diego Foundation, where she was first hired to build its Environment Program in 2000. During her time at The San Diego Foundation, Dr. Young worked with numerous funders and community leaders to catalyze and facilitate regional and statewide collaboratives, developing and implementing grant-making programs around climate change, conservation and youth access to the outdoors, and clean air/water efforts in tribal and other disadvantaged communities. She also managed regional initiatives on arts and culture, civic engagement, education and youth development, and neighborhood revitalization, especially for underrepresented communities. Dr. Young received the 2011 Funder’s Network for Smart Growth Nicholas P. Bollman Award for leaders who inspire through values and action, while the Climate Initiative she led received both the 2012 HUD Secretary’s Award for Public-Private Partnerships and the City of San Diego’s Climate Protection Champion Award. Prior to The San Diego Foundation, Emily was an assistant professor at the University of Arizona, where she taught courses on environment and society, geography, and Latin America. Dr. Young graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a double BA in Ibero-American Studies and Spanish, and a MS in geography. She received a PhD in geography from the University of Texas at Austin.
In Episode 60, we dive into a conversation with Shea Alevy, Bryan McGrath and Vigor Lam about the intersections between environmentalism, leadership, and social justice. Shea currently serves as an Assistant Director for Residential Life at Arizona State University and as the Chair for NASPA’s Sustainability Knowledge Community (KC). Bryan has over 20 years of experience in multiple student affairs roles and currently works at North Bennet Street School, a trade school in Boston, helping students prepare for and obtain employment. Vigor has experience in several areas in student affairs and currently works as a Project Engineer for Kitchell CEM, a construction management firm on the City College of San Francisco facilities master plan, and he serves as the Chair elect for NASPA’s Sustainability KC. At the beginning of this episode you’ll get to learn our guests interests in sustainability in higher education, the goals of the Sustainability KC, and where they are receiving their insights into leadership right now outside of the traditional methods. We then dive into dialogue on defining sustainability, behavioral changes in students, environmental factors in student learning and more! 00:00 - 03:20: Introduction 03:20 - 06:15: Interest in Sustainability in Higher Education 06:15 - 09:00: Sustainability KC Goals 09:00 - 14:00: Non-Traditional Leadership Resources 14:00 - 17:20: Define Sustainability 17:20 - 19:30: Connection to Leadership and Social Justice 19:30 - 21:50: Facilitate Student Behavioral Change 21:50 - 23:50: Environmental Contributions to Student Learning 23:50 - 28:40: Influencing Others as a Leader 28:40 - 31:40: Take a Lead in the Sustainable Movement 31:40 - 34:45: How to Stay Engaged and Encouraged 31:45 - 38:30: Advice for Getting Engaged in Sustainability Leadership 38:30 - 39:45: Getting Involved in the Sustainability KC 39:45 - 44:30: Next Question About Leadership 44:30 - 45:54: Outro
Kirby and Bill discuss Geiger's award for Environmental Leadership, internal policies for discounting work, Walmart's uniform changes, Taylor Swift's merch mishap, the Promo Person of the Week, Fill in the Blank, & more!
With the country's first Environmental Studies program and the birthplace of Earth Day, leadership is no stranger here in Santa Barbara. But that doesn't stop UCSB faculty and students from pursuing innovation in the field. Robert Stark talks to UCSB Professor Simone Pulver about her new environmental leadership incubator class.
I love watching Dr. Michael Gregor's videos on nutrition.A common theme of his videos is how medical school barely teach doctors nutrition and exercise despite how important they are for health. He shows how industrial food companies promote profit over healthy diets and expensive, risky medicine over avoiding foods and sedentary lifestyles that cause the problems they purport to solve. He provide his videos for free to make available what saved his grandmother's life: healthy food.I see diseases from eating junk and living inactively like headaches from hitting your head against a wall. You can take medicine to decrease the pain, but stopping hitting your head against the wall will work better, cost less, and result in no side effects.Likewise, you can take medicine to fix the problems from a standard American diet, but you might as well switch to vegetables, fruit, legumes, and other foods that don't sicken you. They taste better and cost less when you learn how to shop for them.Actually, changing to fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, etc in my experience worked better because besides the health and cost benefits, it's delicious, which not hitting your head against a wall doesn't match.He's posted hundreds of videos worth reposting, but I'm choosing today's because it's relevant to environmental leadership.He published the transcript, which I'm going to read from and comment on to show its relevance to environmental leadership. I believe what he calls the best kept secret in medicine can guide us to the most valuable lesson for environmental stewardship and clean air, land, and water.I recommend watching the video if you haven't already.https://youtu.be/0W_OBRmAz2YDr. Gregor starts:Even though the most widely accepted, well-established chronic disease practice guidelines uniformly call for lifestyle change as the first line of therapy, physicians often do not follow these guidelines. Yet lifestyle interventions are often more effective in reducing heart disease, hypertension, heart failure, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and deaths from all causes than almost any other medical intervention.I add:The same follows for environmental leadership. Everyone knows that lifestyle change to pollute less is the most effective way to protect the environment, but few environmental leaders do. On the contrary, they tell others to but they don't themselves.Case in point: when I thought about, say, coal miners in Kentucky, when I thought about them losing their jobs, which would undermine their longstanding communities, I would say that while challenging, the coal miners have to accept that times are changing, that their field pollutes, and they have to change. However it affects their job, their family, and their community, they have to change.But then when I asked myself about, say, reducing flying, I would think, “sorry, I can't change, my job requires it.” or my family requires it. Same with eating less polluting foods, reducing plastic, etc.That is, when I thought about others changing, those others have to accept the change personally for the good of the species. When I thought about myself changing, the exceptions I didn't accept from others, I thought the world had to accept from me.In other words, I was very slippery on applying difficult standards on others to myself. I don't know you, but if you've flown or used unnecessary plastic recently, you're probably equally slippery. You probably hide it from yourself, as I did, which we call denial. Denial is easier than changing your lifestyle, but it also twisted me up inside, since part of me knew I was lying to myself, which was all the more twisted for someone pursuing and teaching leadership.I look for reasons to justify not changing, not looking beyond the here and now. Yesterday I may have thought, “I'm going to avoid packaged food for a week,” but today my friends just opened a bag of chips. What's one chip or two? Besides, they opened it, not me. That's how I felt for a long time before just committing to the practice, overcoming the hurdle, and learning to avoid nearly all packaged food. Now it's easier, cheaper, more convenient, more social, and better in every way I care about, as I've mentioned here many times, though I don't hold to zero packaging, as evidenced by my having to empty my garbage after 16 months. A lot of that garbage was food packaging.Anyway, back to denial. I found an easy way to handle denial is to find someone I looked up to who did what I felt was wrong. For example, even if I knew flying polluted more than scientists said was acceptable, I saw those scientists flying all over the world themselves. While a small part of me asked, “should they do that, aren't they violating their own recommendations?” a greater part said, “If they can fly, so can I,” and I could quiet the feelings of being twisted up inside acting against my values.I was still acting against my values, so the feeling twisted remained.Now back to Dr. Greger. His video shows evidence that doctors who advised lifestyle change while showing they didn't change themselves, for example clearly showing they smoked while advising patients not to smoke, were less effective than those who showed they exercised.See the connection? Scientists or would-be leaders who suggest change that they don't do don't effectively lead. I'm glad Al Gore got us as far as he did, but just like surgeon generals who smoke and promote cigarettes won't lead people to stop smoking, I believe the next step in people living by their environmental values will come from leaders who also live by them.I'll read the rest of Dr. Greger's script. Try to translate mentally from tobacco to pollution, from smoking to flying, eating meat, using unnecessary plastic, and so on, from exercise to wasting less and enjoying living with less waste.If I want to lead, a lot of people consider integrity important in people they consider following. If I say one thing, do another, and tell others to do a third, people aren't going to follow me. Integrity by definition isn't something I can have in one part of my life but not others. I'm only fooling myself if I think I can act with integrity in general when I feel twisted inside from acting against my values.The good news to all this is the discovery of how much better I found my life when I acted by my values. Beyond the twisted feeling being replaced by enthusiasm, community, self-awareness, and so on, I find more happiness, fun, and so on.Quoting Dr. Greger, in what applies to environmental leadership:“Some useful lessons come from the war on tobacco,” Dr. Neal Barnard wrote in the American Medical Association’s Journal of Ethics. When he stopped smoking in the 80s, the lung cancer death rate was peaking in the U.S., but has since dropped, with dropping smoking rates. No longer were doctors telling patients to give their throat a vacation by smoking a fresh cigarette. Doctors realized they were more effective at counseling patients to quit smoking if they no longer had tobacco stains on their own fingers. In other words, doctors went from being bystanders—or even enablers—to leading the fight against smoking. And today, he says, plant-based diets are the nutritional equivalent of quitting smoking.If we were to gather the world’s top unbiased nutrition scientists and experts, there would be very little debate about the essential properties of good nutrition. Unfortunately, most doctors are nutritionally illiterate. And worse, they don’t know how to use the most powerful medicine available to them: food.Physician advice matters. When doctors told patients to improve their diets, which was defined as cutting down on meat, dairy, and fried foods, patients were more likely to make dietary changes when their doctors advised them to. And it may work even better if doctors practice what they preach. Researchers at Emory randomized patients to watch one of two videos. In one video, a physician briefly explained her personal health, dietary, and exercise practices, and had a bike helmet and an apple visible on her desk. And in the other, she did not discuss her personal practices, and the apple and bike helmet were missing. For example, in both videos the doctor advised the patients to cut down on meat, to not usually have meat for breakfast, and have no meat for lunch or dinner at least half the time, as a simple place to start improving their diets. But in the disclosure video, the physician related that she had successfully cut down on meat herself, and perhaps not surprisingly, patients rated that physician to be more believable and motivating. So physicians who walk the walk—literally—and have healthier eating habits may not only tend to counsel more about diet and exercise, but also appear more credible and motivating when they do so.It may make them better doctors. A randomized controlled interventional trial to clean up doctors’ diets, called Promoting Health by Self Experience, found that healthcare providers’ personal lifestyles were directly correlated with their clinical performance. Healthcare providers’ own improved well-being and lifestyle cascaded to the patients and clinics, suggesting an additional strategy to achieve successful health promotion.Are you ready for the best-kept secret in medicine? The best-kept secret in medicine is that, given the right conditions, the body heals itself. Treating cardiovascular disease, for example, with appropriate dietary changes is good medicine, reducing mortality without any adverse effects. Yes, we should keep doing research, but educating physicians and patients alike about the existing knowledge about the power of nutrition as medicine may be the best investment we can make.”I hope anyone considering leading, whether in the area of the environment or anywhere, gets the hint, that you'll enjoy life more and lead more effectively if you act in accordance with your values. If you value clean air, clean land, and clean water, you'll enjoy polluting less.Here's Dr. Greger's video again:https://youtu.be/0W_OBRmAz2Y See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Grow your impact in 2019 with these six environmental leadership traits. The six traits environmental leaders need to invest in this year are: Be magnetic Build trust Intuition Communication Expertise Delegate For more show notes go to www.projectsforwildlife.com Click the work with me tab if you are ready to start your leadership game plan for 2019 www.alimosphere.com/workwithme
I have a conversation with Jason Anderson, Senior Director of Marketing and Communications at Capital Impact Partners in Washington, DC. This is the first podcast ever recorded in a Wholefoods Supermarket, and I know it's the first podcast recorded in the Wholefoods Supermarket in Pentagon City, Virginia. The reason we're here today is there's a tap takeover by breweries from Richmond, Virginia, and I'm joined by Jason Anderson, somebody I've known for a long time who is a really fantastic communicator. Jason, welcome to the show. Thank you, Mark. So your current position? I am the Senior Director of Communications and Marketing at Capital Impact Partners. Fantastic. Now you've had a really fascinating career. We'll talk about your education, and then you worked for CNN. So tell me about how you got into communications and what drove you towards a communications career to begin with? Yeah. So I grew up in Southern California, and went to Claremont McKenna College where I actually majored in Government and Literature. I actually had an opportunity to attend USC for a broadcasting degree but decided that I wanted to really get the fundamentals of a hardcore political background. Because really my goal at that time was to get into political journalism. And that ultimately fulfilled itself by joining CNN for about 10 years where I literally started as what they called a video journalist, a VJ, at that time. Making roughly $15,000 a year. Killing it. Killing it. And there we did everything from running the camera to running the teleprompter with paper scripts. Which is something in this day of digital age if you think about it. And even robotic cameras, which we didn't have back then. But there I saw a number of fascinating things, really cut my teeth on what journalism was. Learned how to edit videotape, learned how to produce a segment and did a whole number of things with them, but ultimately decided after a number of events, ultimately concluding with the Monica Lewinsky episode in Washington DC, that I decided it was time for me to move on and pursue some of my more personal goals along with journalism. Which was at that point thinking about the environment. That's wonderful. And so after a decade or so at CNN where you focused on political and other reporting, you moved over to the non-profit world. Tell me about that transition. Yeah. So I saw an opportunity at an organization called Conservation International, which does international, non-profit environmental work in communities all across the world, and the opportunity was to take my journalism skills and apply them to public relations. How do we take the things that we do as an environmental non-profit and translate them into actually what news is, and serious news not just marketing, and talk to reporters about covering that news? So I did that actually for a division of Conservation International which was called the Center for Environmental Leadership in Business, and it was really thinking about, how do we work with corporations to reduce their environmental footprint, to contribute to the things that we were doing at Conservation International and translate that all into good. You know ultimately, the public relations part in a sense was marketing, in a sense was how do we drive fundraising, how do we drive other corporations to do good things? How do we put pressure on the organizations that we're working with to do more good things? But ultimately, it was a really fascinating experience. And then after Conservation International, you stayed in the non-profit world? I did. At that point after 10 years of working at the global sphere and working with Fortune 500 companies like McDonald's, like Starbucks, like Walmart to change their footprint and actually do some interesting marketing things with them. I really wanted to focus more in on local communities. And I found a small organization doing really fascinating things called Rare. And they would actually run marketing campaigns in local communities and these are hyper-local communities. Places you've never heard about or can't even find on the map in Indonesia, in Africa, throughout Asia. And what they would do is, they had the ability to take over the radio, take over the newspaper, create mascots around essential message because you have that hyper-local opportunity to not talk about a product, but to talk about environmental conservation. And perhaps it's water, perhaps it's a species, perhaps it's pollution. And you get folks really thinking about ways they can change their practices locally and using mass-media to do that. It was fascinating to watch how that would happen. Now again my job wasn't to do that work. We had specialists with a whole theory of change and the use of psychology, but my job was to get people interested in what we were doing. So again ... Were they trying to change behavior? Behaviour change, exactly. That was at the core of it, which you can do in a place like that. Much harder where we are in Pentagon City to get people to recycle the cups that they were drinking from these fine, Virginia breweries. But you can do it in these awful places and getting donors interested in thinking about that was part of my job. So give me an example of one of the projects that you worked on. Sure, so we worked in a village in The Philippines where they essentially had no fish, which is a problem when fish is what you rely on to eat. So we had to really go in ... Was this because of over-fishing? It's over-fishing. So ... So you really needed to change that behavior or you'll never fix the problem. We needed to change the behavior of over-fishing. So we created a mascot called Malloy. And Malloy was sort of central to this media campaign. He appeared in billboards. He appeared in local restaurants. He appeared in the newspaper. He appeared in local parades that you might see down our main streets. And eventually people got the message. I need to think about the fact that I can't go out every day, 24-hour days, and fish. I need to think about okay, how do I fish responsibly with everyone else who needs to feed their families and also maybe some of the companies who are coming in and using us to buy fish to sell to distributors? And eventually, the metrics showed an uptick in that particular region in terms of number of fish available but of course fish take a couple of years to spawn and reproduce and create a viable colony. But we are starting to show that halfways to guess that was happening. Then you move [inaudible] to Capital Impact Partners. Different mission, but also in a nonprofit world. Tell me about their missions. Capital Impact was sort of my way to come back home. This is after the great depression, after the big financial crises that we all faced. And I thought to my self, certainly, there's a great [inaudible] outside of our boundaries, but then, in the United States, we have a lot of communities that are suffering, and how can we help them recoup from what has happened to them. And so I joined what's called Capital Impact Partners, it's what's called the community development financial institution, which is a long-winded way of saying, "Where are the good guy bankers?" We are a bank with the mission behind us. So we make loans to other nonprofits essentially, hospitals, healthy hood ventures, education, or people and organizations that are really trying to change the paradigm in their communities. But because they're operating in low-income areas, big banks won't finance them. So you can't build that house center, you can't build that grocery store that'll sell healthy food, you can't build the apartment that'll have affordable housing. Big just won't support it. We will, that's our mission. That's the risk we take, and in fact, we don't measure our end of the year success by our profit, we measure it by how many desks are being built for students, how many more affordable housing units have been built. That's really tangible good in the community. Yeah. What drew me to it is, they were interested as more than just a lender because they [saw all of it?], just bringing money into a community wasn't going to do it. So we had to be [inaudible] so we had to bring research, we had to bring a team that would develop programs that addressed this systemic issues being faced and think about how to do it differently, how can we do it this way and instead of the old way. A classic example that we use is around the nursing homes system. You put people into institutional nursing homes, nothing changes, people grow old, they get sick, they eventually pass away. What we've decided was, there's got to be a better way. So how do you go in, and develop a different type of nursing home that's as a community where you'll have your own room, where you go to a kitchen that feels like your home, where you communicate with the outside world? It's called the greenhouse model. We were able to deploy it in multiple states across the country, and it's become a real success. But it really shows that money is one thing, creating systemic change is a whole different paradigm, and that's what really drove me to the organization. So how do you tell that story in a way that's going to [inaudible] and engaging to people who either might be in a position to support it or might be a potential customer or beneficiary? Right. No. It's something I struggle with each and every day because we don't just working agent, we work across seven sectors. And how do I tell that one story to people in seven sectors, whether they want to borrow money from us, or change a program, and then how do I elevate that story to ... [inaudible] to interruption. Is it possible to tell a story that reaches different audiences and is equally compelling across different sectors, and people who have maybe different motivations, and [inaudible] paying attention, or do you have to tailor the story based on your audience? So I approach it from literally story telling. What is good storytelling? And that begins with someone who really has to overcome a barrier and how do they overcome that barrier, which is, if you think about any Hollywood movie, and I just took my kids last week to see Black Panther. Yeah. Me too. Yay. Good movie [laughter]. How do they overcome that barrier of the mineral that they are trying to mine and save the world? Are we saving the world? Maybe. So one of the things I did was when I came into the organization about three years ago was to create a story section to the website. It doesn't market our learning activities, it doesn't market any of the other kind of programmatic activities we do, what it does do is tell the stories of the people it was serving. So in the greenhouse model, we literally sending a photographer, journalist. He spent a couple of weeks with these residences, and he told their stories to a series of photo captions. And it's sort of that heart versus brain effects. How do I [inaudible] in your heartstrings to really get you understand this is what you're doing at this kind of visceral level. And we know. I mean, we know from theory that we also know from the experience that you can make a really, really good logical argument that makes perfect sense to the brain, but if doesn't have that emotional impact, it doesn't matter, people might not even pay attention to it. So if you don't make that emotional connection, you need to be able to follow it up with a logic. But sales are made through emotions. Donations are made through emotions. People care about emotions. They want to follow it up with logic to prove to themselves there's nothing else that their emotions were sound if that makes sense. So [inaudible] make an example of that. We could talk about the greenhouse model as here are 10, 12 group homes with individual rooms, it serves maybe 30 to 50 percent of the residence around Medicare. That's great. I mean, honestly, that's a fact that's excellent. Again, there was a guy named Ervin who we talked to. His wife, basically, she didn't have the capabilities of living in the same room because she could become violent. So what he would do is he would go while she was sleeping and literally cuddle up with her at night, and sleep with her, and then wake up in the morning, get up, and go back to his own bed. And she wouldn't know but now we have this opportunity to show this individual who is still able to be with his wife in their old age at a time when they went to the traditional nursing home. She actually might be institutionalized, but this was not the case. [inaudible] able to let them empower them to keep their relationship alive for months or years harder than they're normally would have. And I was so proud as a person in marketing to tell a story that value that relationship. That's wonderful. Which I don't often get to do. Okay. So, all right, you just got my heart strains, right? Yeah [laughter]. All right. So now I'm ready to make a donation which is sort of [inaudible], right? I mean, you want to make that emotional connection, and want to get somebody walk into your want to understand it and feel it, maybe feel it first. Then understand it, then get involved, and support it. So, thinking about when you were going to school, when you were starting your career, what do you know now that you wish you had known then? I think it is the personal aspects of what I do. Drilling down into emotion and storytelling. I went to a school that valued-- I went to Claremont McKenna College, which was mostly an economics school. I was sort of an outlier as someone who wanted to do nonprofit work. And so there it was research, it was analytics, it was data. Which was great, because it got me thinking about those things, because I never really thought about those things. But somewhere I knew deep inside me that there was still emotion and story that drives us. Maybe that was I was drawn to USC, because of their film elements and all of their production elements. Toss up whether I should've gone there or not, but ultimately I think that now is what makes me a successful marketer, is driving story versus data. Because I could easily talk about, we're a lending institution at our heart. Before I came, we talked about, oh we financed this building. Oh, it's 26,000 square feet. It's in this area that has a 200% under the certain net worth for individuals. Government data, and I can't remember. I can't think of it, because it doesn't drive me. I wanted to [inaudible] that building. And that's your proof right there. Right. Who goes to school there? Who now has a home there? Who's getting health care in that building? That's what I care about. And one person's personal story can negate reams and reams and reams of paper of statistics and facts. Absolutely, yeah. And I do think that you need to back it up, with the ultimate, we have the great story of Irwin, but I could tell you any number of stories. There's a woman who was once homeless. She went to a health care center that we helped finance in San Francisco. [inaudible] San Fransisco, does that mean health care? Well, there are huge amounts of homeless people in San Francisco who have no access to equitable health care. Now it's part of the mission of this-- now she got off drugs, she got off alcohol, and she has now literally a board member of this hospital because they want a certain amount of their patients to be on the board. That's not data, that's a story, that's a person's life who has changed. But the data ulitmately, we still need to talk about. This hospital went from an alleyway to a building that serves 20,000 patients, who are uninsured possibly, and so they now have healthcare. That saves X amount of health care dollars. Yeah, so you need that data to back up the story. So for somebody who's an aspiring storyteller, regardless of the medium that they're interested in, what are the things that they need to know, what are the skills that they need to develop? You need to be emotionally involved in your projects. One, the word I always give to people when they think about communications and all of the things and the tactics and all of that is what is your authenticity? You can have your strategy, you can have your tactics down, you can have everything to a T, but if you're not authentic, it's not going to resonate with people. And ultimately, that's going to you may get a-- the phrase is, "Fool me once it's on you. Fool me twice it's on me." Authenticity is the same way. You may fool a donor or funder or an investor a couple of times but ultimately they're going to get it. So make sure you have an authentic story to tell. And then don't be afraid to tell it from the rooftops. Just yell it, scream it, promote it, put it on video, put it on social media. Don't be afraid to be hyperbolic. If it's authentic, it's real. Right. I think that's really wise council. What tools do you use that you absolutely can't do without? Well, I'm old school, so I use a lot of pen and paper. We've been experimenting with a tool called Trello which is a kind of electronic tool for project management. I think you do need an editorial calendar of sorts because it allows you to be proactive versus reactive, especially for someone like me where I have multiple sectors to promote. And all those sectors need to ramp up into corporate objectives around social and racial justice. I need to think ahead about, "All right. We've got this day coming up. We've got this conference coming up. We've got this project coming up." How does that react with everything else that we're doing? So that the messaging can be funneled up to, kind of ultimately, what we're trying to talk about. What advice would you give for somebody, who is either starting school or starting their careers right now, who's interested in following a path similar to yours? So I may be antithetical to most people. I did not get a background in marketing. I did not get a background in communications or any of this stuff. I'm not saying that's not valuable. I got an education in what I loved and what I believed in. At that point it was government and literature. Now if you think about it, I know work in finance so-- and with a stop over, a 15 year stop over, in the environment. So I was just say be passionate. Explore. Which also comes with a lot of self learning reading everybody else's e-newsletters, websites, understanding what they do. And there was some self learning about what does the consumer journey look like. What is the donor persona look like? All of those things so that I could apply kind of what I had hints of in my brain and make them very [tactical?]. That's wonderful, so these last two questions are sort of fun ones. What's the dumbest thing you've ever seen somebody do in communications and marketing? All right. So off the top of my head I can't think of the dumbest thing I've seen. But I will say that it's funny watching an organization I left, and I will not name them, reuse a tactic that we used. And used to sort of minimal effect. It felt like an organazation that was out of ideas and was just trying to think about, "All right, we'll just reuse that in a different way," Without really undersanding what can be we actually achieve with this. It was a social media campaign about investing in a certain project and who knows in terms of the actual tangible value of it? And I'll pick another which is another organization that I work with, do a multi-million dollar campaign. Hollywood superstars, literally Hollywood superstars - I can't name them because they would give me away - using cutting edge multimedia techniques, putting this out on every communication channel possible, but ultimately almost no [inaudible]. I've heard my superstar say this. I'm interested, because I've heard it in three or four different ways. Now what do I do? Well, what I do was give 10 bucks. Yeah, we're not going to have anybody. But I take your point that you need to craft your strategy and your tactics based on the existing situation, which means whoever is working in communications marketing needs to be acutely attuned to strategy and organization. They need to understand the situation, and they need to bring something fresh and creative. It's not sufficient to continue to rehash what might have been a great idea before, but's already played out. Yeah. And I'll also add to that. The idea that you're going to run into a CEO who thinks that they can create a movement-- and God bless you, if you can create a movement, do it. And don't not try. Definitely try it. But go in with what is what the market research of what the general public says. And I'll take the environment for example. So I did that for 15 years. And creating a movement for the environment was always top of mind of CEO for marketing. You can affect any environmental space, 5% of the population, with what we call the dark greens. And they will give a ton of money. You cannot affect the 95% of the population to give their $10, which will equate to billions if they did it. And if you said, "Oh, hogwash," think about yourself. I'm an environmentalist, and I do all the right things. I compost, I recycle, I drive a Prius ... Yeah. Me too. We might actually be parked next to each other [laughter]. But are all of these people going to give their 10 bucks? It's been proven time and time again that that's not going to happen. And that's for children's charities, it's for multiple charities. I would say the one example would be the Bucket Challenge. I have the Ice Water Bucket Challenge ... Ice Bucket Challenge. Okay. Let's talk about that for a minute. I know we're doing my last questions, but let's talk about that for a minute. I heard the woman who was on-- I can't remember the organization, which there in itself, right, should tell you something-- talk about the Ice Bucket Challenge, made millions for that in a short amount of time. We don't talk about them anymore. It was actually not self-constructed. It was an anomaly of a guy-- I think it was multiple sclerosis? Yeah. I think so. Or ALS, maybe. ALS -- who did it. No affiliation to the organization. He sent that video to three or four people, and it literally went viral. The organization literally had no idea how to harness that or what to do with it. They just rode the wave. And year one, they made X number of dollars. Year two, they tried to recreate it, were unable. Of course, because the underlying dynamic was not theirs, and it's since morphed into the cinnamon challenge and the Dadbod challenge and something else that somebody's going to come up with. But there was an authenticity in the original Ice Bucket Challenge that people loved. Which made it powerful. Which made it powerful. And you can't create that. Sometimes you just have to ride it. Well, right. And you can't program or [inaudible] morality. If you're lucky enough to do something that goes viral, awesome. But don't count on it. That should not be your main strategy, because it's so unpredictable and so unlikely. Try. Try. But try with caveats to your CEO or your chief marketing offer or whomever that you're not getting a ding for that if it doesn't happen. Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. So the last question I asked you was, without outing anybody individually [laughter]-- no. The dumbest movie you've ever seen in communications-- what got around? What's something that's remarkable, that's memorable, that you think is particularly powerful and well-done in the way of marketing, communications, public relations? I had a boss who stressed ad nauseum about the power of visuals. And to me back then, I was like, why are we agonizing over one photo over another? And I think the best example I think to give of that is if you watch the movie about Steve Job, where he talks about the 57 shark that he used in his powerpoint. Now I mean that's sort of an example, but what it shows is - and it goes back to storytelling - people are very visual. Iconography goes way back to when we lived in caves. That tells you something. So something about visuals and thinking about your powerpoint presentation with 100 lines of text per slide. No. Stop it. Steve Jobs did presentations. It might not have any text. Changed my life. And now we're gold. Yeah. In fact, have you ever read Presentation Zen that Garr Reynolds does? Phenomenal book. Read that. Yeah. Read it. Yeah. A piece of advice that I give to people who work for me is, you're going to get a lot of information about a particular project. And they're going to want data, they're going to want analysis, and they're going to want all this stuff in their communications. But what do we all do? I call it the finger-up analogy. You flip your Facebook, and you just finger up through your phone. You're swiping up, or you're scrolling up and down, or you're swiping left and right. Maybe you're swiping right, if that's how your thing is. But you're swiping. You're swiping. And you're reading quick and fast. What catches your eye? If you're reading at all. You're looking. Right. You're looking at visuals, and you're getting maybe 50 characters of text. You got to boil down your message to that to really communicate well. Yeah. I think you're absolutely right. So Jason, thank you so much for being on this episode of Better PR Now. Yeah. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. And that wraps up another episode of Better PR Now. Really want to hear from you. Let me know what you think about the podcast overall or about this particular conversation. Like to know what you think about recording on location. I know there was a lot of noise. But let me know. Was it too distracting? Was it okay? I want to hear from you. And also if you have any questions about public relations, marketing, or corporate communications, let me know, and I'd love to address those in a future episode. Also I want to remind you about a special offer that we have from the official transcription partner from the podcast, TranscribeMe. You can get up to 25% off their transcription services. Just go to https://TranscribeMe.com/BetterPRNow. That's it for this episode. Look forward to visiting with you again on the next episode of Better PR Now.
For brands and companies with commodity supply chains, ensuring sustainable sourcing is no longer just a corporate responsibility issue – it's one of long term security of supply. But with diverse and globalised supply chains, and the myriad certifications and guidelines schemes, what are some practical steps companies can take to help ensure what they source is produced sustainably? What are the key tools and initiatives that can help, and how can companies access them? On this webinar, taking the coffee sector as a case study, four experts focus on how companies are collaborating together with partners, and using technology, to work towards Sustainable Coffee Challenge commitments. They discuss how partners can best work together to develop more sustainable supply chains and explore how to build brand equity through transparency and impact metrics. Panel: Bambi Semroc, senior strategic advisor, Center for Environmental Leadership in Business, Conservation International Daniele Giovannucci, co-founder, Committee on Sustainability Assessment (COSA) James Barsimantov, COO, SupplyShift David Piza Cossio, director of corporate social responsibility and sustainable sourcing, S&D Coffee & Tea Introduced and moderated by Ian Welsh, publishing director, Innovation Forum Webinar sponsored by SupplyShift
Author and scholar, Candace Kant is with me to discuss our topic of Pagan Academia in general and Cherry Hill Seminary more specifically. We'll delve into the controversy of pagan clergy - why it's controversial, if we need it, etc. Candace will also tell us about the unique offerings of Cherry Hill Seminary - old and new, such as Military Chaplaincy, Ministering to Military Families, Environmental Leadership, etc.
Environmental Leadership & Innovations Toward Zero Waste EXED Forum-Local Leaders Lunch Session: Environmental Leadership and Innovations Toward Zero Waste. Featuring: Susan Robinson, Public Affairs Director for Waste Management Amity Lumper, Director of Cascadia Consulting Group’s Recycling and Materials Management practice
Frances Beinecke joins Melissa Legge of Yale Law School and Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies for a conversation about the past, present, and future of the environmental movement. Frances has been involved in environmentalism for 40 years, all of that with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). This past year she retired from … Continue reading 40 Years of Environmental Leadership: An Interview with Frances Beinecke →
Catriona MacGregor has been a voice for animals and wild places all of her life. With over thirty years of experience in education and environmental leadership she is an authority on environmental trends in the U.S. and internationally. Her conservation program led to the comeback of an endangered species, and she has advised scientists, government officials, NGO leaders, and the public on environmental topics. Catriona is the Author of "Partnering with Nature: the Wild Path to Reconnecting to the Earth," which is a Gold Medal Winner from the Nautilus Book Awards, recognizing world-changing books, and she is a contributor to Healing the Heart of the World: Harnessing the Power of Intention to Change Your Life and the Planet, along with others. Widely regarded as an expert on environmental trends, Catriona's work has been featured in Time magazine, Sports Illustrated, NPR, and on the Today Show. Visit www.naturequestguru.org and www.awengrove.org. Get the Off the Grid Into the Heart CD by Sister Jenna. Like America Meditating, Download our free Pause for Peace App for Apple or Android
“Life is not something we go through or that happens to us; it's something we create by our decisions," says OSU Professor Kathleen Dean Moore in her latest book, Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril. In this podcast -- by skype from her home in Corvallis, Oregon -- Professor Moore talks with BCB host Barry Peters about her upcoming presentationat Grace Church on Saturday, May 2nd on: “Red Sky in Morning: Ethics and Climate Change.” The themes of her talk come from her book, which gathers testimonies from a hundred of the world's moral leaders calling us to honor our obligations to future generations. Moore is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Oregon State University, where she teaches environmental ethics, philosophy of nature and other courses in OSU's new MA program in Environmental Leadership. The talk will be sponsored by a large number of community organizations. Patrons include: Interfaith Council; Malone Environmental Consulting; North Kitsap UU Church; Port Gamble S'Klallam Foundation; Stillwaters Environmental Center; and Sustainable Bainbridge (the parent of BCB). Sponsors of the talk include: CommonHouse; Earth Ministry; Grace Episcopal Church; Sound Spirit - Suquamish UCC Church; and Unity of North Kitsap. The event is open to the public, with a $5 suggested donation at the door. Credits: BCB host: Barry Peters; BCB audio editor: Chris Walker; BCB social media publisher: Diane Walker.
From energy management and environmental initiatives to saving on operating costs, Canadian manufacturers benefit with NRCan and an ISO-50001 certification.
The Environmental Leadership & Training Initiative (ELTI) is a joint program of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&ES) and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), whose mission is to enhance environmental management and leadership capacity in the Neotropics and tropical Asia by offering capacity-building and networking opportunities to individuals whose decisions and actions influence the management of forests in working landscapes. A key mission of the Environmental Leadership & Training Initiative (ELTI) is to help environmental leaders and practitioners learn about and engage in reforestation of degraded tropical lands. Unlike the industrial scale use of exotic tree species for reforestation, restoration of tree species native to a given region can promote greater biodiversity and ecosystem services. Individuals engaging in and researching native species reforestation are highly spread out around the world and work in many different capacities. The objective of the Tropical Native Species Reforestation Information Clearinghouse (TRIC) is to combine the information gleaned from different sectors throughout Latin America and tropical Asia into a single searchable database. These entries provide information about literature and projects for use by environmental practitioners, scientists, and leaders worldwide.