Podcasts about national resource defense council

For centuries, we've been reading, watching and listening to science fiction. And all too often, it's pretty pessimistic about our future, especially when it touches on the topic of climate change. This is leading some to ask whether these doom and gloom stories are doing the climate fight more harm than good - causing us to feel so anxious and powerless that we don't take action. So for this week's climate question, Graihagh Jackson is asking: Is sci-fi holding us back? First broadcast on 5th April 2021. Graihagh Jackson is joined by: Amy Brady, editor-in-chief of the Chicago Review of Books, where she writes a monthly column called Burning Worlds. In it she explores how fiction addresses climate change. Cheryl Slean is a playwright, filmmaker and educator working with the National Resource Defense Council's Re-write the Future campaign to increase accurate climate stories in film and television. Ken Liu is a futurist and author of speculative fiction. He has won the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards. His debut novel, The Grace of Kings, is the first volume in a silkpunk epic fantasy series. Producer: Jordan Dunbar Editor: Emma Rippon Sound Engineer: Andy Garratt and Tom Brignell

Do you sign petitions for animals often? I used to sign things as they came across my view, but it was once or twice a year, and never something that I consciously did. I realized a few years ago that some non-profits round up lists of current petitions and make them extremely easy to sign. They have forms that look up our local government representatives, or simply add our signature to a list. This episode includes a list of my 6 favorite sites. SIMPLE IDEA: The simple idea for today is to schedule one day per month, pick one favorite website, and sign a few petitions on that day each month. My favorite number is 16. So I'm planning to sign in to one of these sites on the 16th each month to sign a couple of petitions. 6 PLACES TO SIGN PETITIONS FOR ANIMALS: The Nature Conservancy - https://support.nature.org/site/SPageNavigator/action_center/action_center.html National Resource Defense Council - https://www.nrdc.org/actions One Green Planet - https://www.onegreenplanet.org/tag/petitions/ World Wildlife Fund - https://support.worldwildlife.org/site/SPageServer?pagename=can_home Green Peace USA - https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/take-action/ Green Peace Global - https://www.greenpeace.org/global/ Lady Freethinker - https://ladyfreethinker.org/category/speakout-petitions/ SHOW NOTES: https://ForAnimalsForEarth.com/podcast/49

For centuries, we've been reading, watching and listening to science fiction. And all too often, it's pretty pessimistic about our future, especially when it touches on the topic of climate change. This is leading some to ask whether these doom and gloom stories are doing the climate fight more harm than good - causing us to feel so anxious and powerless that we don't take action. So for this week's climate question, we're asking: Is sci-fi holding us back? Graihagh Jackson is joined by: Amy Brady, editor-in-chief of the Chicago Review of Books, where she writes a monthly column called Burning Worlds. In it she explores how fiction addresses climate change. Cheryl Slean is a playwright, filmmaker and educator working with the National Resource Defense Council's Re-write the Future campaign to increase accurate climate stories in film and television. Ken Liu is a futurist and author of speculative fiction. He has won the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards. His debut novel, The Grace of Kings, is the first volume in a silkpunk epic fantasy series.

The Trump administration on Monday gave final approval to oil and gas drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The National Resource Defense Council tells Reset why it believes this will exacerbate the climate crisis, devastate the area's ecosystem and indigenous peoples’ lives.

Scott Massey is the Founder and CEO of Heliponix, an organization that provides consumers with the GroPod, an aeroponic appliance that can yield a full head of leafy greens on a daily basis, or sizable harvests of dwarf varieties of larger plants. Join Harry Duran, host of Vertical Farming Podcast, as he and Scott discuss the business model of GroPods, challenges Scott had to overcome as an entrepreneur and pivots Scott had to make in order to scale and sustain his business amidst a global pandemic. Special thanks to our Season 1 Sponsor IGS – https://intelligentgrowthsolutions.com/ Key Takeaways 00:01 – Scott expounds on his education and background, how he got involved in AgTech and hydroponics and the origin story of GroPod, his rotary-aeroponics appliance 15:41 – Scott speaks to the importance of understanding consumer habits and breaks down his business model 25:32 – Scott talks about the vital role that form, function, design and aesthetic play in vertical farming 31:51 – Scott dissects the impact the global pandemic has had on his business, his thoughts on scaling up and sustainability  38:27 – Challenges and obstacles Scott has had to overcome as an entrepreneur 46:08 – Scott talks about what excites him the most about the future of AgTech and a tough question he had to ask himself recently 50:18 – Scott speaks to what the future holds for GroPod  54:53 – Harry thanks Scott for joining the show and let’s listeners know where they can follow and connect with Scott and GroPod Tweetables: “As a young person, I realized that it’s a lot easier to build one small thing than to try and convince someone to give me funding for one big thing.”(08:22) “I firmly believe that no amount of capital will resolve fundamental flaws in business models. Those need to be and have to be addressed before you talk to those investors because it creates expectations of liquidity and profitability that if you’re anything but delivering on those deadlines, you have failed your fiduciary commitment to the investors who bought into that company.”(11:15) “I have a lot of respect for vertical farms, but I would also make the comment that grocers are the primary beneficiary in most vertical farming models.”(23:14) “I’m not gonna pretend that we made this decision to go directly to consumers in anticipation of any global pandemic happening. But I’m really glad we made the decision we did because I’m not interrupted. In fact, we’re having increased demand because more people want contactless food.”(31:51) “I think there was a statistic I read in the National Resource Defense Council doing a food waste analysis in the U.S. that twenty people touched your head of lettuce before you ate it. I hope none of those people had Covid along the way or were transmissible, but that’s a real and valid concern that a consumer is going to have.”(46:40) Links Mentioned: Scott’s LinkedIn GroPodOfficial Website GroPodOfficial Twitter GroPodOfficial Instagram GroPodOfficial YouTube Channel Intelligent Growth Solutions Website | Twitter | YouTube See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Justin Blanner of the band Paul Stretch ( https://paul-stretch.bandcamp.com/ ) joins the program to celebrate David Berman and his 2019 epic, 'Purple Mountains'. Blanner and host Case Lowe have known each other since their freshman year of high school so this episode was bound to happen at some point. Hear a track-by-track breakdown of the 'Purple Mountains' album as well as a tale about figuring out Chicago's public transportation system. MusiCares ( https://www.grammy.com/musicares ) provides a safety net of critical assistance for music people in times of need. Without music, so many stories cannot be told. Please consider donating. The National Resource Defense Council ( https://www.nrdc.org/ ) is fighting to make this world a healthier, safer, and more environmentally friendly place. You can donate with the link above. Follow host Case Lowe on Twitter ( https://twitter.com/_caselowe ) and Instagram ( https://www.instagram.com/_caselowe/ ).

TranscriptLisa Kiefer: [00:00:06] This is Method to the Madness, a bi-weekly public affairs show on K A L X Berkeley celebrating innovators. I'm your host, Lisa Kiefer. And today, I'm speaking with Ashley Grosh, the CEO of PIP's Rewards. Thank you for coming on the show, Ashley. What is PIPs?Ashley Grosh: [00:00:36] So PIPs Rewards is an app and it's a technology platform that is owned and operated by our company 3P Partners. We call ourselves an impact tech company. What we really do is we turn a verifiable engagement in beneficial behaviors, things happening daily, riding your bike, bus riding, taking a workout class. All these beneficial behaviors that you might be doing throughout the day, we verify that and we award you our digital currency when you do those things. So Pip's is our digital currency, which stands for Positive Impact Points.Lisa Kiefer: [00:01:09] That's interesting. It sounds complex how you would measure this. So walk me through the application as a user. An example.Ashley Grosh: [00:01:18] Yeah. So from a user perspective, it's actually very lightweight and easy. You just would download the app in the app store for iPhone or Android. You download Pip's rewards. Today we're targeted in higher education, so you would use your university email through a single sign on. We would capture who you are. You'd set up an account and then you'd really begin to start using the platform. It takes you through a quick tutorial of what you need to do. You'd want to have your Bluetooth enabled and it shows you ways in which you can now start going out into the community and around campus and earning the currency. So a day in the life of a Pip's user, you may wake up in the morning, you fill up your water bottle, which has our little QR code sticker on it, which you may have gone to pick up an environmental center on campus. So you carry that water bottle with you. But when you fill it up, you take your phone out, you take a picture of your QR code and then you've earned 10 points. You can only refill your water bottle three times per day. So if you try to do that again, you'll get an error message. And that's really more just the behavior, we want you just to be in the habit of carrying that water bottle.Lisa Kiefer: [00:02:19] You don't want people scamming this system.Ashley Grosh: [00:02:20] That's right. So we set barriers in place to make sure that doesn't happen. So then let's say you're going to a study group in the morning, so you hop on one of the bike shares programs that's here on campus and we are automatically already integrated with that bike sharing platform. So when you check out that bike, we know who you are. We know you're on that bike. And all the sudden immediately our currency goes into your digital wallet with inside the app. And now you've earned for refilling your water bottle. Now you've taken a bike to a meeting and now you've earned again. Let's say you're coming back up to campus for a class in the afternoon and you hop on the bus. Well, now we have either a beacon or an API integration installed with the transit company, and you don't even have to have your phone out for this. In some cases, we might use near-field communication. So we're using a lot of technologies, right, to integrate innovative technologies. If we think about the connected city, smart cities. Right. All these things to track and measure. So you come back up the bus to class and then again in your digital wallet, you see your currency being added for that behavior. :et's say in the afternoon then, there's a speaker coming onto campus that's talking about climate finance on an environmental or health related topic. So let's say you go to that event and that's one of the activities that we award for. We also capture that you've gone to that event and you've earned our currency than you maybe go refill your water bottle again. Then you go into housing and dining. You go have some lunch and let's say you brought your own silverware. So let's say you brought your own bamboo silverware and then let's say you're composting and you're doing all these things. We have different mechanisms to capture that as well within the dining hall. And if if the campus is interested in financial literacy, then students can take EDquity financial literacy modules and earn our currency. I'm giving you kind of a flavor, right, of you go about your day and you're earning all this currency.Lisa Kiefer: [00:04:08] And it's very transparent to the user, it sounds like.Ashley Grosh: [00:04:11] Yeah, it happens in real time. So you can see your digital dashboard in your wallet.Lisa Kiefer: [00:04:15] What is a a data point worth?Ashley Grosh: [00:04:17] So that's a great point. So one pip is worth one cent. And so then we we do this, you know, kind of carbon pricing on your actions. So when you're refilling a water bottle, you may only get 10 pips for that. But if you're riding the bus. Right, that's got a bigger implication in terms of your carbon savings. So maybe you'll get 50 pips, in that case, if you go to volunteer at a tree planning event in the community, maybe that's a thousand. So we work with the university to really put the value behind each of these actions.Lisa Kiefer: [00:04:48] And then is this accumulated reward money, can it pay for education and books and things to do with college?Ashley Grosh: [00:04:55] There you go. That whole secret sauce. So what happens is when you accumulate your your pips in your wallet, well, then the question becomes, what can you do with it? Right. And so there's really kind of three key things that you can do. We have an in app e-commerce platform. And so we screen for green, though, any company that we partner with in there has to be promoting sustainability or have a sustainable product. And so we have some food companies in there. So Whole Foods, Chipotle, Patagonia's an example. Roffey shoes, right? These are sustainable companies and brands. And so you can convert your pip's into either gift cards or discounts with those vendors. It's really cool. So you can, you know, use that in app e-commerce site to redeem your currency. You also could donate your currency. So we work with a number of nonprofits, both national and local. So if you're really interested in a cause, an environmental justice or the Nature Conservancy or something happening right here in your community, you can donate your pip's and we will cut a check to that organization from 3P on your behalf. And then the real secret sauce that we just rolled out last spring is the Pip's for Schools program. So this is where it now you can take the Pip's that you've earned and convert it to pay down tuition, books, school fees. We do that through the Office of Financial Aid and then we have a separate fund called the Pips Education Fund in which we provide a match. So let's say you have $100 that you've accumulated. You put that towards your books. We provide you a one to one match. Now you've gotten a $200 scholarship.Lisa Kiefer: [00:06:27] Who's matching it? Ashley Grosh: [00:06:32] So we have a separate fund and it's a 501 C 3 non-profit. We're raising for that fund separately.Lisa Kiefer: [00:06:34] And so people can donate to that fund. Ashley Grosh: [00:06:36] Absolutely. So, alumni or corporate partners, charitable institutions, community foundations, people that are really interested in supporting education, sustainability, student success and higher ed can make a contribution and donate to that fund. And then we use that fund to make the match. And our goal over time is to get to a two or three to one match. So all the sudden you go about your daily life, you're doing all these good things. You're earning the currency that has real value and you're putting that towards your education. When students are taking those earned pips and converting them to tuition dollars, the money's then flowing back to the university through the Office of Financial Aid. And then we are providing through our separate 501 C-3, the Pip's Education Fund, a match. And so really the university is recouping their initial investment of the subscription back through the Office of Financial Aid. So it's a really great ROI for the university. It's really a win win win.Lisa Kiefer: [00:07:33] The technology behind this is mind boggling to me. It seems like there's a lot of tech pieces, a lot of data points.Ashley Grosh: [00:07:40] It is. It is.Lisa Kiefer: [00:07:41] It's very I mean, it's transparent to the user. But can you talk to me about the technology that is in place and how that all works?Ashley Grosh: [00:07:49] Yeah. So some of it, you know, we install so there is an infrastructure component. So I mentioned on buses or on transit or if you're going to an event on campus, we may use little beacons or sensors. And these sensors can know that if you're in the building, it's Bluetooth enabled. And so we can pick up on that, that that student ID is there, we verify that you're there.Lisa Kiefer: [00:08:10] So do you have to turn that on, the behavior tracking system?Ashley Grosh: [00:08:12] You just turn on your Bluetooth and actually people may or may not know this, but these beacons and sensors are used in retail stores. So if I go into Target, for example, they want to know how long am I spending in each section? How long am I spending in the food, in the women's clothing? I'm a mom. So how long am I spending in the baby section? Right. So beacons and sensors have been used in the retail market too.Lisa Kiefer: [00:08:34] From your phones.Ashley Grosh: [00:08:35] From your phones through location based services. Right. If those are enabled on your phone to get data. And now that's a different use case. Right. So we're not using that. We're using it in more of a closed loop system.Lisa Kiefer: [00:08:46] There's a lot of talk about giving you back money for your data that you're giving to like, say, Facebook or Amazon. And there are some parallels as far as, you know, verification and the tracking.Ashley Grosh: [00:08:56] You're right on. I mean, this question comes up a lot, but we follow the privacy policy of the university so we don't do anything with that data other than analyze it, look at it and share it with the university. And then the university looks at, wow, look at the impact, look how many bike rides or look how many bus rides. And wow maybe we need another bus station over here because we're seeing so much action and so we only share the data with the university and we use it to measure retention, engagement, a bunch of things related to the platform. We would never sell that data anywhere outside of the campus.Lisa Kiefer: [00:09:34] If you're just tuning in, you're listening to Method to the Madness a bi weekly public affairs show on K.A.L.X. Berkeley celebrating innovators. Today, I'm speaking with Ashley Grosh, the COO of Pip's. Pip's uses a behavior tracking platform to reward positive behavior.Lisa Kiefer: [00:10:00] How do you know that a company or a service that I use as a student is sustainable?Ashley Grosh: [00:10:05] In the case of like Patagonia, for example, who we bring onto the platform,.Lisa Kiefer: [00:10:08] That one's pretty obvious.Ashley Grosh: [00:10:09] That one's pretty obvious, right. But, you know, Rothey's is a good example or Blue Planet that makes sustainable sunglasses. So we really do as a B Corp Right. So we're a certified B Corp. Okay.Lisa Kiefer: [00:10:21] And just so our audience knows, a benefit corporation is for profit, but you are required to consider the society and the environment in addition to profit. Correct?Ashley Grosh: [00:10:31] That's right. So it's that triple bottom line that we hear about where we want to see an environmental return, a social return and then a financial return. Right. So we're looking at the triple bottom line and we screen for other companies and partners to be a part of our ecosystem. You've also got to have those same values. Air BnB is a partner of ours. Again, that's a circular economy. The shared economy. I can convert my pip's to a gift card for AirBnb. You know, we provide gift cards to Wholefoods, which is technically Amazon's the parent company, but Wholefoods is still a wonderful partner of ours and we'd like to see Amazon learn more about our platform and figure out other ways to partner with us and then offer maybe even further discounts. Could we also work with Amazon on other features, you know, other sustainable products? That's a huge area of opportunity for us. So I think Amazon, you know, will continue to have those conversations through the door of working with Whole Foods. You know, we're selectively screened for green companies. And so Panera is one that we just added, Chipotle,right, that are thoughtful about their supply chain. We love to really promote local. So when we come onto a campus, we also will go around to all the local vendors. In Boulder, for example, our flagship university, CU Boulder, there is a store called Refill Revolution where you can fill up bulk laundry detergent, lotion, shampoo, conditioner, things like that. And so they're a partner of ours. They accept our currency as well as you earn. So there are certain sort of a dual partner. But we love to go locally and find partners like that in the community, local stores. And we haven't had anybody turn us away yet in wanting to be a part of the program.Lisa Kiefer: [00:12:10] Where are you happening? You say you're focusing on universities.Ashley Grosh: [00:12:14] CU Boulder, as I mentioned, was our early adopter. They are our flagship university, Univeristy of Colorado Boulder and very similar, a sister campus, I would say, to Berkeley. But so CU is really interested in this technology. When they learned about it really from two aspects from a retention standpoint and from a sustainability standpoint. So they want to be leaders in promoting sustainable actions on campus. They want to measure that. They want to put that into their climate action planning. They really want to better understand that the footprint they're having in the city and then retention, retention is probably the number one buzz word on campuses. Right. If you don't get students to stay engaged and to graduate the four, five plus years, you're leaving big money on the table. There's a lot of reasons why students come to campus and they don't continue. And partly it's the cost. Partly it's food insecurity and then it's mental stress and it's not finding friends. And so those are some of the top reasons that we've we've studied a lot of surveys around retention data. And so our thought is, if we can help with food insecurity. Right. We're helping to offset and subsidize the cost of healthy food by providing more access and more funding to food, healthy food choices, transportation costs. We can help to offset that. Financial aid. Right. If we're now starting to contribute in, you know, a couple thousand dollars per semester that a student could earn. Now, it doesn't seem so overwhelming, the burden of debt and then mental health. We also have mindfulness trainings. We also have financial literacy that we can do through the app and then we make it fun. You can gamify it..Lisa Kiefer: [00:13:44] So you get points for taking care of yourself.Ashley Grosh: [00:13:46] Yeah.Lisa Kiefer: [00:13:46] So how long have you been doing Boulder?Ashley Grosh: [00:13:48] We started a pilot there in the fall of 2017. That was our pilot year. And then we took the outcomes. We targeted just freshman that year and we took all the results back to the university and they really saw the opportunity to scale this. So they in 2018 signed a three year contract with us. And so we're now in that contract. We've we keep adding to it. We're constantly measuring, really working on the user adoption and then adding new actions, adding new partners, building the ecosystem.Lisa Kiefer: [00:14:17] So it's actually working there and it's successful.Ashley Grosh: [00:14:19] Yes, we've got about 5000 users on the platform. We initially set out to get about 10 percent of the student body and now we've exceeded that. Now we've added staff and faculty onto the platform. And what's cool about that is the staff or faculty can donate their pip's to individual student or to the Pip's Education Fund. It's really booming over there. And it's we now just launch refer a friend feature. So if you bring a friend onto the platform, you're rewarded. The origin of this is really around behavior, you know, neuroscience kind of the way that we act. Dopamine, the way that we're engaged, incented. And we know that rewards work. We know that gamification works. And so. We gamify, we do a lot of contests where you can count constantly be earning. And then we make it really fun with our prizes. We also have ski passes. That's what makes us different if you think about the value of these rewards. You know, you're getting food, you're getting Patagonia gear. You're getting tuition. Ski passes.Lisa Kiefer: [00:15:15] And it's not interfering with academic study.Ashley Grosh: [00:15:18] It's actually aiding in helping them with basic needs support.Lisa Kiefer: [00:15:22] What were some of the challenges that, what were your biggest challenges?Ashley Grosh: [00:15:25] There's a lot of different parts of campus that you want to engage. So you want to engage housing and dining, you know, Office of Financial Aid, the communications group, because you want to message this out in any way you can. So you really got to work and integrate with the communications teams on campus. Hey, how can we get included in newsletters? Where can we get some signage? So it really is a collaboration I think, when you're first setting it up, the messaging, how do we fit into the brand in the brand voice on campus? And so it takes, you know, a couple of of different groups to come together on campus.Lisa Kiefer: [00:15:58] Campuses are noisy with groups.Ashley Grosh: [00:16:00] That's right.Lisa Kiefer: [00:16:01] There's a lot going.Ashley Grosh: [00:16:02] That's that's exactly right. So there's clubs every which way. There's a lot of competing interest. That's why the refer a friend. Right. We know that things get sticky when other people talk about it. So if I'm a student and I have my phone out and I'm doing something. It seems like. What are you doing? Oh, well, I'm doing this cool app where I can earn currency and I can pay my tuition. tuition.Lisa Kiefer: [00:16:19] How did you get the word out initially?Ashley Grosh: [00:16:22] The strategy that we used at Boulder was to integrate it into welcome week. And so as students are coming to campus, even before they came to campus, we had a welcome letter that went to the parents and the students. Download this app before you come to campus. And then when you come to campus, we set up a scavenger hunt so that students could really learn, hey, here's the library, here's the dining hall, here's the rec center. And they used our app to go through this scavenger hunt. And then they got Pip's at every place they went. And so we got really clever about welcome week. All the students filed into the football stadium and we got a big P.A. message, hey, have you heard about the Pip's app? And we got thousands of downloads in a matter of a week. And so that, you know, integrating into welcome week, but otherwise you can do it into other events on campus. So there's lots of different ways. But the welcome week one is is really a trick of ours.Lisa Kiefer: [00:17:14] Where are your other applications happening?Ashley Grosh: [00:17:14] Yeah, we're pretty early in our journey. So CU was the early adopter. But now we like to take a systems approach. So we're looking at the University of Colorado system. So we've launched to their second largest campus, which is in Colorado Springs. And then we're looking to roll out at U.C. Denver. And so that would capture the entire system so we're at two of those system wide campuses now and then we've got proposals really throughout the country into large university systems. And so really looking at a systems approach in different parts of the country, but also within Colorado, we've got a handful of other universities coming on in 2020 to help us regionally gain some traction, gain some visibility, get some of the regional transit partners on board, getting a ubiquitous feel to the currency across higher ed in one state, and then we can go regionally and plug and play. But what's really great is we're getting all of these in-bounds now. So people, sustainability officers are talking about this. You know, Forbes did an article on us, hey, turn your actions into tuition money. There's a lot of talk right now around basic needs support, food insecurity. Just this week, I talked to somebody at University of Miami that said, hey, we're on the frontlines of climate change. Our students and our staff and community need to be doing everything we can. Can you please come here and help us? And so that's what's really starting to get exciting is is the inbound buzz that we're getting. So I think we'll continue to really lead in Colorado, but then you'll start to see us regionally as we head into 2020.Lisa Kiefer: [00:18:41] And California is on your map?Ashley Grosh: [00:18:43] California is... all things lead back to California in some ways, just from the leadership standpoint that California has taken, in so many measures. And so, you know, we really would love to be out in California. There's a lot we could do. And even in the UC system, you could imagine two of the two or three or handful, the universities competing. Right. Who could draw down the most carbon. So we have a carbon drawdown challenge. And so that becomes really fun, right? In the storytelling there. We can also integrate into athletics. So we could have a green game, you know, through the PAC Twelve and do some fun things there. But really getting a system on board is a significant goal. And where we're spending a lot of our focus right now, talking to the UC system, talking to the California state system, the community college system, too, if we think about some rural places, Bakersfield and others, you know, how can we promote alternative transportation, how can we promote some of these healthy behaviors in more rural communities?Lisa Kiefer: [00:19:37] You're giving currency back to people, social currency. But how are you as a company making money off of this?Ashley Grosh: [00:19:44] Great question. So I'm a trained banker and I spent my whole career working on businesses, scaling technologies, looking at business models, a program I actually in my former role worked with here on campus at Berkeley is the Clean Tech to Market program, the C-2M Program with Brian Steele and Beverly Alexander, I have to give them a shout out. But really looking at right, how do you take an innovative technology platform and scale it? And so we make revenue in a couple of different ways. So it's a subscription model. So first and foremost, the university pays us a subscription to have the Pip's Rewards platform deployed on campus that unlocks the pool of pips then that we divvy out. But then we also have action partners that pay to join our programs. So that could be ridesharing companies, companies like Zipcar, Car2Go, you know, Lyft and Uber really want to dominate the university place. We've got proposals into both of them. If I come to the university and I pick a ridesharing company, when I leave the university, I'm probably going to use that one. Bike sharing platforms pay to be on our platform. So that's another source of revenue. Within our catalog, our E commerce catalogue, our affiliate catalog, we also earn a small commission. If somebody uses their pip's to buy something, we may have a commission that comes back to us. And then sponsorship is another source of revenue. And this is when I really get excited about too. So I mentioned, Chipotle and some other partners that are on the platform. But thinking about large corporate brands. Right, that spend so much money on marketing, if they have a really strong CSR, corporate social responsibility mission, an initiative, you know, their brands are really working hard across communities to promote sustainability, promote maybe their products. So we really see sponsorship in underwriting as an opportunity. A beverage company, for example, could come in and underwrite the recycling behaviors on our platform. As we know in most California campuses that have divested from plastic. But that takes a little bit of behavior change to think about. What are the alternative sources? CU Boulder just rolled out some new aluminum type refillable cans for their stadiums or cups, I should say. But there's some behavior change that has to happen there so we can use our app to educate. But brands that really want to be associated with an app like ours, we're in front of young people, we're in front of their customers. Sponsorship is it is a big opportunity for us to go and work with large corporate and small corporate brands.Lisa Kiefer: [00:22:01] Tell me how this idea even got started.Ashley Grosh: [00:22:04] So Wendy Gordon is our co-founder. There's several co-founders. And so Wendy has a fascinating history. She's a serial entrepreneur and she's always tackled this riddle of how do we change the behavior? How do we get consumers, you know, to think about smarter products, to think about their footprint? She launched and co-founded Mothers and Others for a Livable Planet with Meryl Streep, which was the original green guide, and that ended up being acquired by National Geographic. And then Wendy was an environmentalist at the National Resource Defense Council, NRDC. And so she's got a really fascinating background all around, you know, sustainability, the sciences in consumer. And so, Wendy, you know, really thought how could we think about rewards points? So if we look at traditional credit card, frequent flyer miles, they sound really good on the surface, but the redemption rates of those are very low. And so, Wendy and one of her college classmates, David Sands, got together. They went to Princeton. And they've kind of been thinking about this riddle of how do we how do we get people to do things, right? It's through incentives and rewards. So they came up with this initial idea and then they were introduced to two developers. So technical folks, Evan and Ynev and Ynev actually has a neuroscience background. And he ran a dopamine lab. So he started bringing in the science and started to look at loss aversion and all these different, you know, scientific ways of the way that we interact in the way that we're, you know, incentivized and what works and what does it what keeps us coming back, what makes things sticky. That's why we bring in gamification. So you had the business side that, you know, Wendy and David were building and then you had the technical side and Evan and Ynev said, think about all the wearables, the wearable market, Fitbit, if you think about the connected economy, that there's so many things that we could plug into. If we build an open source platform with API, we can connect into all these tracking devices and start to verify the actions. We don't want to see greenwashing. We don't want to say, I pledge to do this or I pledge to do that. We really want to verify that you took an action. So the company got formed and then really started to think about where could this application where's the best use case? They tested it in a new enterprise locations, some real estate firms doing fitness competitions and things like that. But then really it was CU Boulder that said, you know, we think this is a higher ed solution. So spend a couple of years.Lisa Kiefer: [00:24:24] So they came to you? Ashley Grosh: [00:24:25] Yeah. Yeah. Sue Boulder came to Wendy and said, you know, we really think this is best served in the higher ed space. And so they completely pivoted and decided to focus all the actions, all the technical side on Boulder and in really targeting higher, higher institutions, higher ed.Lisa Kiefer: [00:24:44] What are some of your future plans?Ashley Grosh: [00:24:46] So longer term, I think there is absolutely an enterprise solution here. So that's an employee engagement platform. Again, retention is another key issue we know with employers. And so if you could. Offer meaningful rewards for employees. You know, Google we've talked to, they have a problem with transportation. They have too many people driving single occupancy vehicles or this is a case of a lot of employers, right. So how can you change the behavior and get them to carpool or get them to ride the bus system? And then how do you incentivize them to do that? So you could use our rewards platform to do that. And we have proposals into some other large corporates that, you know, see it as a benefit from a fun currency. But if they need to change behavior.Lisa Kiefer: [00:25:26] So are you reaching out to cities, city governments?Ashley Grosh: [00:25:29] We have proposals into municipalities as well. You know, a lot of the team members within municipalities, they want them to be riding buses, going to certain events. And so it's a similar program that you would do at higher ed, but you would change the actions based on what that individual employer municipality would want to do. And then you you can customize the rewards. One day, what if you just had the city of Berkeley and that included the campus and that included and that's actually the goal is to get it to be a ubiquitous currency. So I think to get there right, you've got to start traction and so you start traction among the universities. But then that can lead over into the cities and they adopt it. And then you're right, it just becomes, you know, a taxpayer benefit. So we also have a carbon footprint calculator. And so I can see.Lisa Kiefer: [00:26:13] Where's that?Ashley Grosh: [00:26:14] In the app.Lisa Kiefer: [00:26:15] In the app.Ashley Grosh: [00:26:15] And it's individualized. So I can see my individual footprint and then I can see my community's footprint. And I can see, you know what? We are making an impact. And so then it doesn't seem so daunting. Right. And I'm doing my part. The other thing is we're building environmental stewards in higher education. We have stories about this, case studies, students that have graduated from C.U. that were on our platform. They've moved to big cities. And their first inclination is to not get into a car or buy a car. They're used to doing public transportation. So Pip's has really led them to those behaviors. And so then they go on and carry them forward.Lisa Kiefer: [00:26:53] Do you have competition in this space?Ashley Grosh: [00:26:54] So that's a great question, right? You always want to know kind of who's in the rear view mirror or off to the side. And we haven't come across anybody that's doing exactly what we're doing in the way that we're doing it. And especially from the technology integration, the verification and the scholarship component and the matching. Right. That's really unique. There are a couple other pledge based systems, pledging that you rode the bus or pledging to do a Meatless Monday or something like that. And then they don't have a reward platform. So they might say you get a gold star or or.Lisa Kiefer: [00:27:27] You don't get any monetary.Ashley Grosh: [00:27:29] Right. You might get a badge. They call it. And then two students have five badges and they get eligible for a pizza party or, you know, something. So they don't have the high value rewards into the system, which we know are the drivers to get students to stay on this. And then they don't have all the other bells and whistles that, you know, carbon footprint calculators and all those things, verified actions and the currency. Right. The currency component with the scholarship piece. So that's really what we believe sets us apart. I really think we're on the cutting edge, because if you look at 5G, right. That's getting rolled out. Things are gonna be happening a lot faster, more devices. I'm seeing more wired, you know, clothing and wearable rings that that track your your health metrics and send them to your doctor in real time. So, you know, 5G is really going to enable us to do more of this. And so we're, you know, at the forefront of that. And we're really excited about being able to plug in to the new wearables and the new companies that are coming into the space.Lisa Kiefer: [00:28:30] Tell our listeners how to get your website and what they can expect to find there.Ashley Grosh: [00:28:34] Yeah. So if you go to www.pipsrewards.com and then you won't want to sign in because you're not a user... yet. There's some graphics you can start to see our story. You can get a list of all of our partners. As we mentioned some of them on the show today. The earn, redeem, the donate, the nonprofits that we also support that you can donate to, and then you can reach us that suppor@pipsrewards.com. If you want to learn more or bring this to your campus or if you have any other questions or ideas, we're always open to discussions.Lisa Kiefer: [00:29:09] Are you looking for volunteers or interns at any point?Ashley Grosh: [00:29:11] We are. So we we have two interns right now and we are growing like crazy. So for folks that are interested, reach out to us. You know, the reason this is so important to me, you know, I've worked in climate and sustainability almost my entire career, but I'm a mom and I also spend a lot of time on college campuses. And I think about these students and I think about my own kids and how successful I want them to be, and any boost that we can give them, any head start, if we can help them chip away at their debt sooner, if we can help them really have healthy behaviors and habits, we're going to better equip them when they head out into the into the big, real scary world. Your actions can make a difference and added up together, they can have a really big impact. You know, that's what we want to do. Lisa Kiefer: [00:30:01] Thank you, Ashley, for coming on Method to the Madness.Ashley Grosh: [00:30:04] Thank you.Lisa Kiefer: [00:30:06] You've been listening to Method to the Madness, a bi weekly public affairs show on K.A.L.X. Berkeley celebrating innovators. We'll be back again in two weeks. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this first full episode of Antipod we turn our attention to Black Geographies, the theme of our first season. Hosts Brian Williams and Akira Drake Rodriguez walk listeners through a series of clips from a panel on Clyde Woods’s posthomously published work Development Drowned and Reborn: The Blues and Bourbon Restorations of Post-Katrina New Orleans, edited by Jordan T. Camp and Laura Pulido (University of Georgia Press, 2017). Brian and Akira comment on the use of Woods’s “blues epistemology” framework to contextualize the ongoing making and re-making of Black geographies in New Orleans. Covering themes from dispossession to displacement to the fallacy of “natural” disasters, this episode challenges traditional notions of urban planning and privileges what Woods’s calls “the visions of the dispossessed.” Clips from this episode are from an “Author Meets Critics” panel at the Community Book Center in New Orleans’s Seventh Ward, a space of continuity for pre- and post-Katrina New Orleans residents. The participants in the discussion were: former Woods student and activist-poet Sunni Patterson; Khalil Shahid, Senior Policy Advocate at the National Resource Defense Council; Anna Brand, Asst. Prof at the University of California at Berkeley; Shana Griffin from Jane’s Place, New Orleans’ first community land trust; Sue Mobley, who, at the time of the panel, was the Public Programs Manager for the Albert and Tina Small Center for Collaborative Design at Tulane University; and Jordan T. Camp (editor) who at the time of the panel was at Barnard College, and is now the Director of Research at the People’s Forum in New York.

Barbara Finamore, who founded the National Resource Defense Council’s China program, discusses with China Focus editor-in-chief Charlie Vest about China’s clean energy sectors, domestic environmental activism and its push to develop renewable energy infrastructure abroad. Barbara Finamore founded NRDC’s China program, focusing on climate, clean energy, environmental protection, and urban solutions in China. She is the author of "Will China Save the Planet?" Charlie Vest is a Master’s Candidate in Chinese Political and Economic Affairs at the School of Global Policy & Strategy, and the Editor-in-Chief for the China Focus blog for 2018-2019. This episode was recorded at UC San Diego, and is a production of the 21st Century China Center Editor/Host: Samuel Tsoi, Charlie Vest Production Support: Mike Fausner Music: Dave Liang/Shanghai Restoration Project

Sixty percent of our clothing ends up in the trash within a year of it being made. Our landfills are filling up, and the countries we rely on to house our trash are refusing it. In this frank conversation, Harper’s BAZAAR’s Digital Features Director, Olivia Fleming, and the founder of New Standard Institute, Maxine Bedat, call in to Los Angeles to speak with Linda Greer, creator of the NRDC’s Clean By Design Program, to discuss the ugly truths behind our beautiful clothing. Why are there so many chemicals used to make our clothes? Are products made from recycled plastic bottles really good for the environment? How can we get the brands we love to do better? Please join the call to action at https://www.newstandardinstitute.org/sign-up Dare I Say is a podcast from HarpersBAZAAR.com that sits in on unfiltered conversations between the most influential women of our time—those daring to make the difference we deserve.

In this episode we discuss car tires and micro-pollution, the Aqualung Reveal mask and diving in Key Largo. According to the National Resource Defense Council as we drive we leave tiny flecks of tire behind. These little flecks are like microplastics that make it to our water ways. Unlike micro-beads this problem is much harder to address. Awareness is important and more studies need to be done. Here is a link to the article. https://www.nrdc.org/onearth/tires-emerging-threat-our-waterways-our-seafood-and-ourselves Fit and comfort are the most important features of a dive mask. We like the Aqualung Reveal mask for its fit and comfort. You can check out the features and see all the color combinations by following this link. http://www.aqualung.com/us/scuba-diving-gear/reveal If you are thinking about a quick getaway for some diving in the U.S., you should consider Key Largo.   https://fla-keys.com/key-largo/a-dive-wonderland/  

Join us for this special presentation about the intersection of environmentalism and affordable housing. Khalil Shahyd’s work focuses on the Energy Efficiency for All Project, which aims to increase utility-funded energy efficiency programs in the affordable multifamily housing sector. He coordinates with National Resource Defense Council’s affordable housing partners to advocate for efficiency investments in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan. As part of the LEED Neighborhood Development initiative, Shahyd also promotes the expansion of “green” communities in New Orleans.

With the United States leadership role in the fight against climate change now being called into question, China has found itself in the unique position of being a global leader of the cause. In this podcast, non-resident Carnegie-Tsinghua Scholar Wang Tao spoke with Yang Fuqiang, a senior advisor on climate and energy at the National Resource Defense Council, about China's ongoing energy transition.

TRANSCIPTSpeaker 1:Method to the madness is next. Speaker 2:You are listening to method to the madness, a biweekly public affairs show on k a l x Berkeley Celebrating Bay area innovators I have in the studio with me today, [00:00:30] Ben Simon, the CEO and cofounder of imperfect and Evan Hayslett, they're ugly produce enthusiast. You guys are solving a really important problem and that is food waste. Speaker 3:What is imperfect? Imperfect is America's first ugly produce brand. So ugly produce is all that food that doesn't meet the strict cosmetic standards of grocery beauty and supermarkets won't take it. So it ends up in the landfill and that's about 20% of all produce that's grown in the country on farms, which amounts [00:01:00] to about 6 billion pounds of produce annually. That just goes into trillions of dollars in just waste. So the National Resource Defense Council actually estimated that all sources of waste in the country amount to about $165 billion. Wow. Still enormous though, and it's just wasted resources going right down the drain. I want to know how you got to this story and I understand that there were three main founders, you and Ben Chesler were in school together. Speaker 4:Yeah. So I was at [inaudible], I was a student at University of Maryland and uh, Ben Chesser just [00:01:30] graduated from Brown University. So throughout the last four years together we work together on a co-founding this really cool nonprofit called food recovery network. What was that about? Yeah, so it was also in the food waste space and food recovery network is a, a student movement at 150 colleges across the country that basically start this movement together. Yeah. With us and a few other friends at different colleges around the country started it. We noticed there was a tremendous amount of food going to waste from our campus dining halls every night. [00:02:00] Basically the surplus food that the dining halls had prepared, uh, but not sold that night. So we basically developed partnerships with the dining services to go in there, collect that food and donate it to local homeless shelters and started at University of Maryland and Brown University. Speaker 4:And, uh, just really grew really quickly as, as word spread to other students at other colleges. Do you have any problems with that? Just taking food from one place to another? What were the legal challenges or were there any, you know, it's, it's [00:02:30] surprisingly easy and there's a lot of misconceptions around the legal challenges. So if you talk to the average restaurant owner or dining a dining hall manager or grocery store manager and ask them, can you donate their extra food? Typically you'll get an answer. That's, you know, no, unfortunately we have to throw this away because there are, you know, legal issues, we'd basically get sued. I have heard that too. Yeah. You know, and we meet all the people all the time. Um, it's a very common misconception. [00:03:00] And so there's actually a law that was passed in 1996 called the bill Emerson Good Samaritan food donation act. Speaker 4:And as a federal law protects people in all 50 states, any food donors who want to donate their surplus food to people in need in their community are protected under the law, every community in the United States. Absolutely. So you had this great idea, it was obviously a success. How did you measure whether or not it was a success? So we measured it in terms of, you know, how many, uh, pounds [00:03:30] of food we are donating and how many meals that amounted to a number one. That was first and foremost. And so we were donating just a ton of food right away. I mean, we're done any amount, 150 or even 200 pounds of food every single night from just one dining hall at University of Maryland. So very quickly, you know, in our very first semester did about 15,000 pounds of food and all of it went to people in need. Speaker 4:And so, you know, again, just word spread. And today actually food recovery network is right about to reach [00:04:00] a monumental milestone, which is about a million pounds of food donated. And our first full universities again are in this network today. 150 for university of California Berkeley. Yes it is. One of them is the entire UC system in this network. You know, I don't think the entire system is, so if people are interested in uh, applying to start a chapter on their campus, they can just go to food recovery network.org and apply. Okay. So that's still going strong. But you've taken it to this next level, what happened then? [00:04:30] Yeah, so a few years ago at, at food recovery network, uh, you know, we really started asking the question, okay, if we were students and we were just able to, you know, really reach this scale and if there was really this much food going to waste in college dining hall settings, where else was food going to waste? Speaker 4:And where were the big opportunities in America to take food that really otherwise would go to waste and develop a market for that and redirect that food towards going to people instead. And so we [00:05:00] started talking to different advisors and some of the leading authors and experts around food waste in America to try to get a better sense of the issue. And it turned out farms are actually the number one place in America where food is going to waste. And you know, as I think I'm in my, I mentioned, so it was about 20% of all produce in the country is going to waste according to the NRDC. And so, you know, the number one reason is, is these cosmetic issues. And so when we heard about that, and uh, actually last December [00:05:30] I came out here to California and did a tour throughout the central valley, uh, with Ron Clark who then became my cofounder for imperfect. Speaker 4:And Ron basically introduced me to all these growers and I, I witnessed all of these packing houses throughout central valley where they would literally be sorting a million pounds of an item in one day and 15% of that would just be a byproduct. That's what they call this by-product. It goes to the landfill. Why isn't it going to feed or other animals, farm animals. Some [00:06:00] of it is, uh, so the, the, uh, 20% statistic is supposed to speak to what is going to landfills, compost and animal feed. So basically not going toward human consumption. And so, you know, a lot of this product basically is just re rejected from the grocery store because of these cosmetic challenges. I think it's fine that the animals and the compost, that part works right. I mean that's part of our whole system. But what percentage of that actually goes [00:06:30] to the landfill of that 20% you know, I couldn't give you an exact percentage. Speaker 4:And, and that's one of the challenges within food waste is that we need more data and more research on that methane and these landfills does create, yeah, creates methane food waste is one of the biggest emitters of methane in the country. But to rewind for just a second, different people have different takes on this, but while compost is definitely better than the landfill, there's sort of a hierarchy that the EPA has put out. It's called the food recovery hierarchy, [00:07:00] which basically draws these sort of different tiers of where food waste can be redirected. So basically compost is better than landfill. Animal feed is better than compost, you know, and then human consumption is better than than animal feed of course. And you know, first and foremost, reducing food waste in the first place is the best thing we can do. So I want to talk a little bit about Ron Clark because he's very well known in this area of reducing waste and repositioning food. Speaker 4:He does this farm [00:07:30] to family program here in California. Yeah, Rob Tom played a big role in helping to develop that. And that's part of the food bank system, is it not? That's correct. So what does he do for you guys now? So Ron has transitioned out of the California Association of food banks of the last few years. He played a major role over the last 15 years with the food banks to develop farm to family. And so that's about 140 million pounds per year of this product, not going away. It's getting redirected towards the food banks. [00:08:00] And so throughout that time, Ron was feeling really awesome about being able to redirect some of this towards the food banks, but it was also scratching his head a little bit because you know, for every one pound he was able to redirect. There's about 20 more still going to waste just in the state of California. Speaker 4:Did he seek you out or did you find him? It was really serendipitous actually, and it was the connection happened right here on UC Berkeley's campus last October. There was a major food waste event. It was called the zero food waste forum. So we're literally just actually sitting at [00:08:30] a picnic table and I was talking to one of our advisors for food recovery network about how we were sort of starting to experiment with this idea of selling produce that otherwise would be wasted. And it was gaining traction in the DC area, which is where I'm from. And wondering, you know, how we can sort of tap into better supply sources. And our advisor, who's Tristram Stuart, he gave a Ted talk on food based stuff like that is they're like, oh, that's your challenge. You got to talk to Rod. And I was like, who's Rod? And he's like, he's the guy with the, uh, the orange, you know, San Francisco [00:09:00] giants sweatshirt. He's sitting twos, two seats down from me at this picnic table. Let me introduce you to Ben, and so that's really how it happened. That's great. Yeah, and so he became really entrenched in, he's still with you guys, right? And he's with us full time. Yeah. Speaker 5:Let's listen to a short segment. Tristram Stewart's Ted talk, but when we're talking about food being thrown away, we're not talking about rotten stuff. We're not talking about stuff that's beyond the pale. We're talking about good fresh [00:09:30] food that is being wasted on a colossal scale. The fact is we have an enormous buffer in rich countries between ourselves and hunger, and when we chop down for us as we are every day to grow more and more food, when we extract water from depleting water reserves, when we emit fossil fuel emissions in the quest to grow more and more food, and then we would throw away so much of it, we have to think about what we can start saving. When you start going up the supply chain, you find where the real food waste [00:10:00] is happening on a Gargantuan scale. Go one step up and you get to farmers who throw away sometimes a third or even more of their harvest because of cosmetic standards. Speaker 5:This farmer, for example, has invested 16,000 pounds in growing spinach, not one leaf of which he harvested because there was a little bit of grass growing in amongst it. Potatoes that are cosmetically imperfect or going for pigs, parsnips that are too small for supermarket specifications. Tomatoes in tenor reef, oranges in Florida, bananas in [00:10:30] Ecuador where overs did last year, all being discarded. This is one day's waste from one banana plantation in Ecuador, all being discarded, perfectly edible because of the wrong shape or size. If we do that to fruit and vegetables, you bet we can do it to animals, to liver, lungs, heads, tails, kidneys, testicles. All of these things which are traditional, delicious and nutritious parts of our gastronomy go to waste fish. 40 to 60% of European fish [00:11:00] are discarded at sea. They don't even get landed if we regard it as socially unacceptable to waste food on a colossal scale. If we make a noise about it, tell corporations about it. Tell governments we want CNN food waste. We do have the power to bring about that change for the sake of the planet we live on for the sake of our children, for the sake of all the other organisms that share our planet with us. We are terrestrial animal and we depend on our land for food at the moment we are trashing our land to grow food that they want it. Speaker 6:Okay. Speaker 4:[00:11:30] Can you talk a little bit about the byproducts of food waste? You know, we're using a lot of water. There's a lot of fertilizer that goes into this food and then it's wasted. And then lastly, um, the fuel that it takes to even do these crops Speaker 1:and then to throw them away, isn't that enough economic incentive to, to do this? Speaker 3:[00:12:00] Oh yeah, absolutely. Again, you know, some, I think has been mentioned, it's, it is really difficult. There's not enough data around this issue, but we do have some really hard facts about food waste contributing to 33 million tons of landfill waste and growing a lot about 11 trillion gallons of water waste. And when you think about California as the major producer of produce in the country and the drought that we're going through, and you hear about all these really important things you can do in your home domestically in your business to [00:12:30] conserve water. But one of the biggest things that's happening is there's all this food wasted on the farm that all that water isn't going to productive use. And again, as I said, I'm Dana Gunders from the NRDC producing this awesome report on food waste, about $165 billion in wasted resources. And then I think as we mentioned, methane emissions again, so food when it decomposes anaerobically in the landfill, produces about 18% of all methane emissions in the u s so it, yeah, it's this enormous, enormous environmental resource, economic impact. Speaker 2:[00:13:00] If you're just tuning in, you're listening to method to the madness. A biweekly public affairs show on k a l x Berkeley Celebrating Bay area innovators, 20% of produce grown in America is rejected from grocery stores because it is ugly. Imperfect allows consumers to get a chance to buy this produce at a discount. And farmers make extra revenue. Today [00:13:30] on the program I have Ben Simon, CEO and Co, founder of imperfect and Eben Hayslett, imperfect, ugly produce enthusiast. Speaker 1:How are you introducing this idea to the consumer market? Speaker 3:What we're doing in a, in a number of ways. So one big way is just through events. We're trying to get involved in as many kinds of food related waste environmental [00:14:00] events as possible. That way we meet the leaders in the community, we meet big movers and people who would be champions of this idea. Um, we know that most people find out about imperfect through friends. So it's really good to meet lots of people at people who are, is very excited about it. We're also trying to go directly to the consumer. We're just trying to get out there and talk to people. And you're also offering boxes to the consumer rate, like a CSA kind of thing. Right. So that's exactly what we do. That's the majority of our offering is um, these boxes that we deliver right to your home. So you can order weekly, biweekly, [00:14:30] and you get this box of we'll do it on the campus here. I understand. Yeah. We've got partnerships with about six of the student collapse on campus and that's been really fun. The students are loving it. You know, students have this really great vibe and energy and they're really excited about the environmental impact, but also obviously very excited about the affordability. Right. So how much cheaper is it than a regular, Speaker 3:it's significantly cheaper than your regular CSA. It's probably about 20% of like a farmer's market CSA. But compared to the grocery store, [00:15:00] I'd say it's about 30 to 50% off usually. So if there's students, you know, we talked to students all the time of saying, oh my goodness, I just came from Safeway and you're telling me that you're selling this same stuff for half the price. It's usually about a dollar. Speaker 4:And they just brought a box into our studio and I'll tell you it's, it's beautiful. The, the, the produce looks like something you put in the centerpiece and also you buy this stuff in the supermarket and then you wait for it to ripen. This stuff is ripe, it's beautiful, ugliest, beautiful, ugly as beautiful. And that's part of the message, [00:15:30] this empowerment message of kind of reclaiming imperfection. And that's why we call the company in perfect as, because we're all imperfect and you know, it's just so ridiculous that we have these standards of beauty in all areas of our life. And it's like wow, now even food, even in the grocery store, if everything looks so perfect, I tend to just keep walking. I'm not [inaudible] a little bit, it looks fake. Or the apples, they all look the same. They taste the same. It's boring, you know? Speaker 4:[00:16:00] And when they work so hard to, you know, produce different technologies and stuff like that to keep all of the produce basically looking the same and they're, they're really growing produce to look a certain way. Often it's tasteless. And we hear that a lot from our customers. A lot of the customers that have come to imperfect have come to us because they're really tired of that aspect of the food system. Now I understand you have a deal, I don't know if it's complete yet with Rayley's the supermarket chain. [00:16:30] Yeah, absolutely. So, so Evan, we'll talk exciting. Yeah, we're really excited about that. And so that's, you know, working with 10 of their stores in the Sacramento area. Uh, it's been going on since July. Uh, and so it's really kind of the first major grocery store chain in America selling ugly produce. And so know they do it in France. Speaker 4:They do do it. They do it in France. Yeah. With Inter Marshay. Um, there's, there's several chains in France, I believe. There's a couple in Canada, a couple in Australia, South Africa, Germany, the UK. So [00:17:00] really all over the world. Ugly has been named kind of like one of the top five trends in the food system. Um, so we're really, you sort of noticed what's going on across the world and are trying to bring this trend to America. Okay. So you've got it in Railey's, you deliver boxes, you tried to get the word out by taking part in speaking events. What other challenges have you come up against? Just got four months old. Yeah, we just said on into a warehouse in Emeryville. One of the challenges that we often [00:17:30] get is kind of a need to educate people around it and people wonder, okay, why imperfect? Speaker 4:You know, why is it and perfect, why does it, why does it shape that way? And actually we get the question often. Like for example, we're selling persimmons. I'm not sure if that was in the box, but did it look really wonky and crazy? I liked it. Yeah. So, but, but obviously not the same shape that you'd see in a grocery store. Right. So, you know, we have persimmons that look like kind of like a stool on a second and that not that [00:18:00] one of them had a nose. Yeah. It has like those or it has like three big legs kind of coming off of it. Um, and so basically, you know, people see that sometimes and they wonder, Oh, is it look that way? Because it's like GMO crazy or like, you know, it's mutated and stuff like that. Um, and often it's, it's actually exactly the opposite. Are you going out to schools and educating young people? Like elementary schools and, Speaker 3:yeah. Yeah. We're, we're, we are definitely trying to connect with elementary schools, connect with kind of parent teacher organizations. [00:18:30] There's a lot of farmers markets at elementary schools throughout the week in this area. And so we've connected with some of the leaders of this farmer's markets, especially another amazing food organization in general called Food Corp. They have volunteers all over the country in elementary schools educating around food. And so we're connecting with them and I would think they would connect to the ugly. Exactly. Yeah. Static Speaker 4:business majors in college or something completely different. So I was a, a government and politics major actually. I kind of bounced around, ended up with that for me [00:19:00] in college. I kind of went into it knowing that I wanted to do something to change the world because there are so many huge challenges right now to society. And so it's kind of what I ended up with. What was your [inaudible] Speaker 3:major? Um, I double majored in Econ and environmental studies. So not business, but it's relevant and it's, it was a, it was a very fun and exciting major. Yeah, but you're both from the east coast. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And you're living here now. Speaker 4:Happy to be out here. Oh, you love it out here. And wanting to live here for a long time. You did an Indiegogo [00:19:30] campaign for this warehouse. That's right. How long did it take you to raise the funds? I think we, I think there was a 30 day campaign. That's short. It was short. Yeah, it was definitely exciting. You know, in the end we surpassed our goal and raised 38,000 from donations from friends and family. So yeah, it was great. So what are your plans for the future? Do you feel like you need to roll out more warehouses or are you just going to sit with this and we're, we're good with this way house for now it's, it's [00:20:00] 5,000 square feet. So it's room to grow. It's an Emeryville right in the heart of the warehouse district 63rd and Hollis, feel free to pay us a visit. Speaker 4:Anybody. Right? Kind of near cliff bar and Pixar and all those folks now it feels great. There's, there's plenty of room to grow where one of our next things we're doing, we're installing like a walk-in fridge. So, you know, it's gonna give us a lot of room to grow in terms of, you know, how much produce we can distribute each week. Um, since we're significantly had a schedule [00:20:30] in terms of how many customers we thought we'd have, cause there are a lot of CSS in this area. I mean, yeah, a lot of delivery, our years organic produce ever. We're working on that. So our sustainable farms and we're working on developing an organic line. We've heard that from a ton of people. Obviously walking around Berkeley. Yeah. Um, get the question a lot. So we've been developing an organic waitlist. I got a 102 hundred people or something on that. Speaker 4:And so we're, we're hoping to roll that out and early 2016 [00:21:00] and right now we, you know, there's always a couple items in the bunks that are organic depending on who we're switching from at the time. But yeah, it'll be good to get that all organic. Organic is the only issue. I mean, local sustainable farms who maybe haven't met all of the criteria yet. It's good stuff. Still. I understand you distribute to some areas of the Oakland food desert, the so-called food desert. How do you do that? Are you working with Rama Matti at People's community grocery? We've touched base with Rama. [00:21:30] My Co founder, Ben Chester sat out with him a few months ago and I think we're still still sort of figuring out the best way to partner together. Yeah. We're, we're looking for any type of partnership, especially to reach more folks in food desert neighborhoods within different parts of Oakland. Speaker 4:You know, that's a big part of our mission. And so we actually provide a reduced cost box each week. Our normal boxes already pretty reduced at, at just $12 a week for 12 pounds of produce. Uh, but we an [00:22:00] even further reduced costs for just $8 a week. And what is your criteria for that? Even more reduced. So we use the same government criteria for snap benefits when people register@imperfectproduce.com for for our produce, they can just sort of select that and put their information in. How do you see your impact? Let's go out five years time. Where do you see your organization? Where do you want to see it? Absolutely. Yeah. So, so imperfect has a huge vision for what we [00:22:30] can do to reduce food waste. So, you know, one of the biggest issues that makes up food waste is the fact that we are currently wasting about 6 billion pounds of fresh produce every single year because it doesn't meet grocery stores, cosmetic standards. Speaker 4:So you know, we are trying to build a sustainable and scalable business model around reducing this food waste and getting as much as possible of this 6 billion pounds of perfectly good product to market. So, you know, we're doing that through retail, [00:23:00] through our produce delivery subscription here in the bay. And so we want to expand both of those. So we're continually growing each week by about 50 or a hundred customers in terms of our produce delivery subscription here in Berkeley and Oakland. And so we want to continue to scale that up. We're trying to be at about a 2,500 or 3000 customers in a, in the bay by next summer. Um, and in terms of retail, we're, we're working on some really major partnerships. Actually. We've got a few really interesting things coming up. We're working on three [00:23:30] pound grab and go bags for mandarins that are not quite cute enough to be, let's just say QT brand or any other brand, um, hinder ends. And so they're a little bit too big. They've got some scarring on them, uh, but they taste, so we're basically working with a few major retailers on, on getting that and, and, and now it'd be great because with that we'd actually be able to get the parties out to consumers in a variety of different states. I'm doing hopefully several truckloads of the produce [00:24:00] every single month. It sounds like you're really growing. Speaker 3:Did you have a defining moment in your life that set you on this path? Speaker 4:I had one experience personally when I was, um, in high school, uh, my dad actually ended up taking in this guy for a couple of years who, uh, really otherwise would've been homeless. Um, this is in the DC area and it was just some guy that he met playing tennis, uh, at a public court, you know, had played, played with him maybe three times. And uh, the [00:24:30] guy had kind of been bouncing around on different couches and sort of asked the question in my dad, you know, hey Vic, is there any way I could stay with you? I'm in this situation. It was supposed to be for a week or two, ended up being two years. And uh, you know, the guy really ended up sort of being part of our family. And so I think, you know, from, from that perspective that kind of allowed me to gain insights in terms of like some of the struggles that he was going through. He had a job, he worked 40 hours a week. It was a night shift at a grocery [00:25:00] store, stocking shelves, but making minimum wage as a man who's about 50 years old. Um, and having, not having healthcare, having high costs, you know, just different things, different challenges of, um, America's working poor. How about you? Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't even know if there's really one defining moment. I think, you know, if I look back, food has really always been kind of the centerpiece of my life. And I think I took that for granted. I was lucky enough to have parents who made dinner every night and we would sit down and it [00:25:30] was kind of that, that old style traditional sit down as a family and have a dinner. Um, and that's kind of a privilege these days. And I, when I, when I realized that I think later in high school and into college, and I began to realize kind of all the injustice and it's just so hard to find access to fresh produce, fresh, affordable produce for most, for a lot of people in this country. And so I was moved by Ben's work with food recovery network. Um, there's so many awesome nonprofits doing work in this space, really, really inspirational [00:26:00] authors and activists around the country. Speaker 3:And I, for me, it's really, it's really about food being the centerpiece of community and health and vitality and wellbeing. And to be able to be a part of a movement that makes that more accessible to everyone is amazing. Cause it breaks my heart that that's not the case. Yeah. How would our listeners get ahold of you if they're interested in knowing more about your company, maybe working for your company? Oh yes. So you can go to www.imperfectproduce.com. [00:26:30] You can find all the information there. We're actually about to roll out a new and improved and awesome, exciting website so you can look forward to that. And you can also feel free to reach out. I'm Evan. This has been heavier on the right. Yeah. They can reach you through. Yeah. Yes. So you can, um, and you can, when you go online and you sign up, you can get your first box free. Actually, if you use the coupon code cal ex, that's k a l. X. So for your first recurring box you can get, get it free, become a part of the imperfect family. Speaker 2:I told both Ben and Evan [00:27:00] that they can drop by their food here anytime of day 24 seven because it will go instantly. Believe me, you guys are both pretty young, but you seem pretty wise for your age. What would you tell other entrepreneurs or hopeful entrepreneurs, something maybe you learned in this process and some wisdom to pass along to other entrepreneurs who are thinking about an idea maybe, you know, trying to solve a problem like you have. Speaker 4:So you know, [00:27:30] one thing, this is just straight forward, but you know, I, I think it can be easy to sort of over intellectualize, making a difference. And, and often it's, you just kinda need to go out and get started. And I, I think that I personally didn't get it right the first time or the second time. I think, you know, I had sort of experimented with a lot of different projects. Some of them were more successful than others before eventually stumbling upon a few projects that were successful. So [00:28:00] I think it's important to, you know, just there's so many problems in the world, so many social issues. And you know, I talked to a lot of young people today and they feel it. They know that there's all these issues out there. So I think there can be a gap though sometimes between seeing the issues and getting started. And I just really encourage everybody to take that leap. Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean I would just add that I think youth have a lot of power. I think more power than they, than they realize. And we have a lot of great ideas [00:28:30] were an incredibly across the country. I'm just percentages, incredibly kind of forward thinking, progressive body of people who want to see the world become a better place. And I think that you can get a lot of amazing advice and wisdom from mentors and your professors and your teachers and your parents, but you always have to take it with a grain of salt. The kind of limitations that they may tell you in terms of what's possible, because everyone's going to give you advice that works for them and that's great. But you take what you can from that. And then remember, just like Ben [00:29:00] said, get out there. You can start having a difference. Speaker 3:Bannon, the bands as we call them, venture has an event. Simon, they started food recovery network when they were in college. This is now the largest student run food waste movement in the country. It's student led, student volunteers get in touch with their administration, they build the movement, they donate all the food. These are students doing this. And it's an enormous movement. And so I would just say, get inspired, get in touch with other students, realize the power that you have read up, get educated on an issue and then go out there and do something. Cause [00:29:30] you can't. Speaker 2:I want to thank you both for being on the program. Evan Hayzlett and Ben Simon. I hope you can come back again some time and um, bring more food and time. Thank so much. Speaker 6:Yeah, you've been listening to method to the madness. We'll be back in two weeks. You can find all [00:30:00] the podcasts on iTunes university. [inaudible]. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Of the 80,000 known man-made chemicals in our food, air, water, cars, homes and everything else, only a handful are regulated for human safety. This is not OK. Join us as we welcome survivor/journalist Emily Cousins (National Resource Defense Council) Linsday Dahl (Deputy Director, Safer Chemicals Healthy Families) and Nancy Buermeyer (Senior Policy Strategist, Breast Cancer Fund), for a "healthy" debate about the challenges faced in updating this law. Also, Andy Koontz in the survivor spotlight.

Of the 80,000 known man-made chemicals in our food, air, water, cars, homes and everything else, only a handful are regulated for human safety. This is not OK. Join us as we welcome survivor/journalist Emily Cousins (National Resource Defense Council) Linsday Dahl (Deputy Director, Safer Chemicals Healthy Families) and Nancy Buermeyer (Senior Policy Strategist, Breast Cancer Fund), for a "healthy" debate about the challenges faced in updating this law. Also, Andy Koontz in the survivor spotlight. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The process of drilling for natural gas, commonly known as hydraulic fracturing or fracking, continues to be a polarizing issue in communities across the country. Fracking has the potential to provide a domestic source of energy that pollutes less than coal and petroleum when burned. The practice would also provide jobs and income to thousands in many economically depressed areas. This program provides a panel for discussion over the debate between environmental concerns and job availabilities. Sponsored by Zicklin School of Business, the program starts with an introduction by Michael Blah from Sustainability Practice Network, a partner to this program. It is moderated by Christine Farias, Professor, Baruch Business School of the Department Economics and Finance. The panelists include Thomas J. Shepstone, Campaign Director, Energy In Depth-Northeast Marcellus Initiative; Bridget Lee, Associate Attorney in Earth Justice; Eric Goldstein, National Resource Defense Council; and Walter Hang, Toxics Targeting

The process of drilling for natural gas, commonly known as hydraulic fracturing or fracking, continues to be a polarizing issue in communities across the country. Fracking has the potential to provide a domestic source of energy that pollutes less than coal and petroleum when burned. The practice would also provide jobs and income to thousands in many economically depressed areas. This program provides a panel for discussion over the debate between environmental concerns and job availabilities. Sponsored by Zicklin School of Business, the program starts with an introduction by Michael Blah from Sustainability Practice Network, a partner to this program. It is moderated by Christine Farias, Professor, Baruch Business School of the Department Economics and Finance. The panelists include Thomas J. Shepstone, Campaign Director, Energy In Depth-Northeast Marcellus Initiative; Bridget Lee, Associate Attorney in Earth Justice; Eric Goldstein, National Resource Defense Council; and Walter Hang, Toxics Targeting

The process of drilling for natural gas, commonly known as hydraulic fracturing or fracking, continues to be a polarizing issue in communities across the country. Fracking has the potential to provide a domestic source of energy that pollutes less than coal and petroleum when burned. The practice would also provide jobs and income to thousands in many economically depressed areas. This program provides a panel for discussion over the debate between environmental concerns and job availabilities. Sponsored by Zicklin School of Business, the program starts with an introduction by Michael Blah from Sustainability Practice Network, a partner to this program. It is moderated by Christine Farias, Professor, Baruch Business School of the Department Economics and Finance. The panelists include Thomas J. Shepstone, Campaign Director, Energy In Depth-Northeast Marcellus Initiative; Bridget Lee, Associate Attorney in Earth Justice; Eric Goldstein, National Resource Defense Council; and Walter Hang, Toxics Targeting

Today we talk with David B. Goldstein, author of the book  Invisible Energy, energy program co-director at the National Resource Defense Council, award-winning physicist, and all around nice guy.  His insight into the mortgage crisis, homeowner propaganda, and analyzing the housing market as a system are fascinating.

National Parks Traveler Editor Kurt Repanshek Participates In Conference Call With NRDC