Imagine if you could wave your phone across a hoodie and instantly get information about where the cotton was sourced, how much the workers were paid, what the carbon impact of your purchase would be, specific to that individual product and delivered straight to your palm.  That's the world EON is building, and it's going to be here sooner than you think.  Natasha Franck, CEO and founder of EON Group, is pioneering technology that uses Near Field Communication to deliver information...

Imagine a substance which is as durable, malleable, and practical as plastic, except it's produced through extracting methane from the atmosphere, making it carbon negative, and is fully biodegradable by microorganisms, the same "as a leaf or a twig." No need to imagine it, just hop into a Target and you'll find Aircarbon cutlery on the shelves.  It's been a nearly two decade journey for CEO Mark Herrema, starting in a converted garage and landing, for the moment, behind the counter of Shake...

92 million tonnes of clothes end up in the garbage every year. That's more than one full dumpster truck every second. The fashion industry has long been built on a model of planned obsolescence: each season new styles pushed out the now arcane pieces from last year. Except, with the rise of fast fashion, seasons are compressed into weeks, at times days. As these companies push out new product, generally low quality, designed to be destroyed, we need to get rid of the old. Hence, 92 million...

Nate Storey, the Chief Science Officer of Plenty, has a vision for the next evolution of agriculture, and it has nothing to do with a farm. At least not the kind humans have cultivated, so far.  Plenty is a unicorn a few times over, having raised over half a billion dollars to recreate our conception of how our food is produced. They have created a means of farming indoors, using hydroponics and carefully crafted lighting, to maximize the crop yield while minimizing the resources needed to...

Within our lifetimes, actually within this decade according to our guest today, your grocery store will have three options for a burger: traditional (a la once living cow), plant based, and cultivated meat.  If you're new to cultivated meat yet, you're not alone. But soon, you will, and Leonardo DiCaprio is going to make sure of that.  Our Guest today is Dr. Neta Lavon, the VP of Research and Development (VP of R&D, great ring to it) for Aleph Farms, one of the largest and fastest...

Over one hundred million tons of fabric is produced for the textile industry ever year. The scale of that production is hard to comprehend, but for comparison, the Empire States Building weighs about 365,000 tons, so we make about 274 empire states buildings worth of textiles each and every year.  Circ is here to answer the question: what are we going to do with all the clothes made from that mountain of textiles once we're finished with them? The traditional alternatives have been to trash...

As e-commerce has swallowed consumerism, we take for granted the speed and ubiquity of shopping online. Get anything ever in a day at most, feels like magic. But, all of those products have a story to tell in the journey they made from factory, to warehouse, to shipping depot, to transport, and finally the last miles to your door. Along that journey, the lowly, but none the less crucial, Yard Dog plays a pivotal role. And boy, is he dirty.  The Yard Dog or Terminal Tractor is a short-haul...

This week Karin Dillie, VP of Partnerships for Recurate, joins us to talk about how they're building the technology for independent brands to resell their products on their own platforms. Love Frye boots? Now you can shop their site and decide whether you want a crisp new pair or one that's been pre-loved, for a fraction of the cost, all on the same trusted Frye website.  The resale market has exploded from independent thrift shops to billion dollar public companies in the past decade,...

What if superior clothing retained re-sale value enough to justify a reach purchase, knowing you'd be able to recoup a hefty sum when you were ready to move on? We think that way about cars, why not suits? Why not indeed. Vanessa, CEO and founder of Another Tomorrow joins us to discuss how we can shift our thinking about clothes from a disposable commodity to a durable asset class.  Another Tomorrow is built on the premise that the best products are crafted with care, intention and...

Imagine if you could actually see sustainability in manufacturing manifested, immediately and obviously. That's exactly what the team at Circular Economy Manufacturing have done with their creation and launch of the world's first Micro-Factory. The concept is simple: show people what it looks like to build closed loops into manufacturing using a living demonstration. The visionary behind the project is Barent Roth, a professor, engineer, designer, and sustainability advocate since well...

This week we return to the world of furniture with Kristin Smith, COO, President, and even an early investor, of Fernish. The EPA estimates that  12.2 million tons of furniture ends up in a landfill every year, a product of our disposable relationship with the furniture we buy and eventually, throw away. Furnish is one of a new crop of companies seeking to break that model through offering rental options that allow their customers to return the furniture when they're done, breaking the cycle...

Paul Shapiro spent is career working to improve the wellbeing of animals through legislation, activism, awareness campaigns, and civic engagement during his 13 year tenure with the Human Society. The desire to affect positive change led him to write a book on the topic of improving our relationship with the way we cultivate, treat, and consume animals. After publishing his book he was left with a choice: talk about the problem, or get his hands dirty fixing it. In this episode we talk with...

Zach Lawless is one of the few people I've met who's gets just as worked up about all the ways recycling isn't all it's made out to be as Jess Miles does. And that's saying something.  Zach founded the GoodGoods to step in where recycling falls short, creating a closed loop process of reusing products instead of the energy intensive, largely wasteful, and often downright duplicitous promise of recycling. They work with local wine shops to collect empty bottles from customers, wash them, then...

Madeline Fraser came up with the idea for Gemist when she tried to design herself a custom ring. The ordeal proved successful but a headache. How is it that the custom jewelry process is so antiquated? The serial entrepreneur had an idea: let the consumer be in charge. After all, one size does not fit all when it comes to jewelry design. And so she brought the industry into the modern age with a unique home try-on experience (akin to Warby Parker eyeglasses). Not only that, the company's...

After six years working at Amazon, Sydney Badger had bigger dreams than maximizing efficiency. But, she also had a black-belt in maximizing efficiency. Public Habit is the marriage of expert supply chain optimization and, that most human of things, soul.  Public Habit is a made-to-order clothing company specializing in high end wool and cashmere products. Fashion, as we know it, is built on a model of planned obsolescence: items either go out of style or break down, forcing the customer to...

The answer, at its most maximalist expression, a significant reduction in the 30% of greenhouse gasses released through the production of heavy industry. The people making that hypothesis a reality? Meet Sean and G, founders of Solugen. The chemical industry is a multi-billion dollar dynamo that most consumers rarely, if ever, confront in their day to day lives. We don't spend much time digging into how our treatment plants work, what goes into the manufacturing of plastic, or any of the...

Yes, that's a photography pun. I'm a dad, the jokes come with the gig.  KT Merry is an internationally recognized high-end destination photographer who moonlights as a conservationist, traveling the world capturing images of endangered and at risk animals to generate revenue for the organizations seeking to keep those animals this side of extinct. Render Loyalty is her side-hustle and soul-salve, using the talents she's acquired professionally to explore and develop the passion she has for...

Extracting metals from the earth is, by nature, not a sustainable practice. We have a finite amount of resources, after all. However, that doesn't mean that all methods of mining are created equal. Anna Bario, one half of the Bario Neal team, joins us this week to discuss how her company created a whole new vocabulary to define sustainability in the jewelry industry. From working with Artisanal Small-Scale Minors (ASM), developing a standardized code of conduct with her suppliers, using...

A net positive product is a new concept: a thing which by virtue of it having been made, has improved the outlook for earth and the humans who live on her. Simple in conception, but wildly difficult in execution. Humanscale, a company which makes office furniture, dedicated itself to becoming more than a company which makes office furniture a long time ago. Today, they have lapped the industry a dozen times over, with an unprecedented 26 products certified as Net Positive. Jane Abernethy, the...

Agriculture and farming can play a tremendous role in reducing America's carbon footprint and farmers can lead the way in offsetting greenhouse gas emissions. One way of doing this is through Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) — a method designed from the ground up with sustainability in mind. CEA growers include greenhouses, vertical farms, and other indoor farms that combine traditional farming know-how with engineering, plant science, and technology to optimize the life of the plant....

Microsoft says it's going carbon negative. You just bought an offset for a flight you're taking (congrats, welcome back). Credit cards have carbon-neutral lifestyle plans in the works. All sounds great, but what does it really mean? And will these offsets actually reduce the amount of carbon they promise?  This week we speak with Margaret Kim, CEO of GoldStandard.org. Goldstardard is one of the organizations that certifies the carbon offset you just bought is actually going to go to work...

Generally when Mark Cuban makes you an offer, it's a good idea to take the deal and run. Lindsey McCormick had a different idea. Lindsey is the CEO and co-founder of Bite, the tablet toothpaste company which charged into the oral hygiene scene in 2018 and hasn't looked back since. Only a few months into what was then a project, Bite struck internet gold, going viral with a youtube video that collected over 2 million views with in a few hours of launching. Within weeks Bite had orders worth...

What if we knew everything about everything we bought? Nuts to bolts, cradle to grave, all of it. Would we make better choices? Would we treat our stuff better? Jakob and August, founders of ASKET, are betting the farm on YES.  ASKET was founded on the principles that we should buy better stuff, less often, treat it with care, and wear it until, well, as long as possible. This is  the antithetical business model to some of the world's most successful fashion companies that rely on our need...

Third-generation sustainability superstar Alex Shadrow is our guest. She's an entrepreneur who says it's in her DNA to solve the fashion waste crisis! Better known by her moniker "Sustainabae" — a name she certainly lives up to — Alex tells us the story of her eco-warrior family, how she became a member of Al Gore's Climate Reality Leadership Corps, her passion for fashion and why being the COO of resale website List Perfectly is a dream come true. Also, she's an Instagram star with some 65K...

If we intend to meet our climate goals, we need to decarbonize the transportation sector. That means moving away from fossil fuels to clean energy. But cars are just a tool. Whether a car is filled with gasoline or powered by electricity, without easy access to fuel, a car loses its usefulness. The electric vehicle market has definitely left it’s awkward teen year and is in the midst of its glow-up. (Bye-bye hybrid Prius, hello Tesla, Volvo, and Porsche). The problem is while states like...