Interview with Liz Helm

Transcript

[Sheldon Young]
Welcome to No Footprints, a podcast brought to you by Alfa Laval I’m Sheldon Young.

[Jason Moreau]
And I’m Jason Moreau.

[Sheldon Young]
And we are here to talk about impact and to share the efforts and people behind making sustainability real. My friend, we are back. It’s we haven’t recorded in a while. It feels like it’s been a minute, right?

[Jason Moreau]
It has been a minute. You’ve been busy. I’ve been busy.

[Sheldon Young]
Yeah.

[Jason Moreau]
Yeah.

[Sheldon Young]
I think we, we had a big surge of like interviews that we did and those have those in the bank. And then we, I think we recorded April’s episodes earlier than normal. And so it’s been a few weeks since we’re, we’ve been together.

So I feel like we got to get our vibe back, man.

[Jason Moreau]
Got to, yeah. Got to see if the machine is still, still running, still humming.

[Sheldon Young]
Well oiled.

[Jason Moreau]
Correct.

[Sheldon Young]
That’s right.

[Jason Moreau]
Or are we, are we like the poor tin man from Wizard of Oz? Just kind of stiff and rusty, you know?

[Sheldon Young]
Yeah. You know what is oiled? My, my, my appetite for, I went to the cheese, the cheese, uh, expo.

This is an event I do. Yeah. It’s one year.

It’s, it’s, it’s all today. It’s Cheese Expo and Cheese Con. They’re both in Wisconsin, but they’re big events for, for, for us.

You know, we do a lot in the dairy world and, uh, sustainability is, is, is I spent a lot of time in engaging in it. And, oh my God. It is the, it is.

I’ve been able to, I go to a lot of shows in my time, right? It’s one of my favorites because it’s, it’s all cheese and it is all the cheese.

[Jason Moreau]
I saw the pictures. It was like a cornucopia of cheddar.

[Sheldon Young]
It is so wonderful.

[Jason Moreau]
Yeah.

[Sheldon Young]
And, um, you know, I do love, again, I do love, uh, working in with that industry because they, it’s fun because you do meet a lot of people that are really, really trying to drive sustainability and, and lower impact. And, uh, it’s a great place to kind of see all the technology that’s coming out that is helping make that real. And so it’s a very inspiring event for me, at least as a, as a person, the professional that works in the industry, but, oh my God, the cheese, that’s such good, so good cheeses, Jason, just so many, so many, so many.

Yes. Yes.

[Jason Moreau]
I regret that I have, but one stomach to sample all of the cheeses with. Yes.

[Sheldon Young]
I was like a separate cheese compartment.

[Jason Moreau]
It feels like it just, oh, you’re just, you come locked and loaded. You’re pro.

[Sheldon Young]
I do, man.

[Jason Moreau]
I do.

[Sheldon Young]
It’s like starve yourself for a week and just come and eat cheese all you can. But anyways, it’s, it’s a great event and it’s a great place to see sustainability being real. Um, another interesting thing I read recently was an, uh, an article from Bain and company around, uh, it was around sustainability and CEOs basically saying that, you remember, I think we talked to a previous episode about kind of the, the trough, the dip down in, in sustainability efforts and stuff and how important it was, or we’re seeing the hockey stick kind of kick back again a little bit.

Um, and it’s interesting, it’s the, um, what we’re experiencing a little bit is you’re not hearing as much about it, but they’re doing more. It’s kind of that do say gap and you’re seeing like, um, like statements from CEOs like they, you know, if, if they think that you could actually, you know, achieve 25% of their mission targets in an ROI positive way, right. It’s, it’s excellent.

That’s just showing it’s good for business for them. Right. Uh, they’re also seeing though the sustainable technology is getting better as well, which means like a battery, uh, 10 years ago for the same amount of kilowatts is about half the price as it was.

You know, technology adoption, you know, things just get cheaper. Like everyone would use to say, Oh, solar is just so expensive. It’s never going to take off.

Well, that’s until the technology curve catches up and that’s where they’re seeing some of that as well. One big note I took away from it, this article was that, um, a lot of B2B companies, half of them say that they, uh, assign more business to sustainable suppliers.

[Jason Moreau]
Hmm.

[Sheldon Young]
So that was interesting to me, right? So we’re seeing actions happen that are, guess I’m going to use the word rewarding companies that are taking sustainable action and are able to prove it to their customers. They’re getting rewarded more because they are, you know, half of these B2B suppliers are taking it into account.

And so that to me was a really interesting article again, by Bain and company, uh, called embracing the do say gap was the name of the article, but it was pretty interesting.

[Jason Moreau]
Oh, that is really interesting that, um, yeah, I think what we were talking about, I think it was, uh, something I’d come across about like the perception, uh, like the markets perception of what a company is doing or not doing from a sustainability standpoint. And if there’s a gap there, sometimes it’s to the positive and sometimes it’s to the negative, right. And how do you, how do you manage that almost from a marketing communication standpoint, but it’s, um, it’s interesting to hear it sort of, uh, framed from, uh, like from that different lens, I would say, um, in a similar vein, maybe, um, uh, my story was, uh, it’s connected weirdly, maybe to both of your stories.

Um, so dairy and the, you know, what is the market perception of sustainability and where this all comes together is in, uh, the tasty awards, which is put on by one of our, uh, previous guests, Caroline Cotto, um, and her organization Nectar. And so, uh, the tasty awards happened, I think when we’re recording this, maybe a little over a month ago.

[Sheldon Young]
And I remember we were trying to go and make it work. We just couldn’t make it work.

[Jason Moreau]
We couldn’t make it work, but, uh, they, they released their award winners and it was really interesting sort of looking at the data. And so to qualify as a winning product, at least 50% of all of the tasters, uh, for those dairy alternatives had to like the plant-based product as much or more than the animal counterpart. Right.

So they have to, they have to get over that 50% threshold. And what was really interesting is sort of like, um, so if you want to, if you’re, if you’re wanting to find a plant-based dairy, I, you know, definitely go to the tasty awards, uh, the nectar.org website and see who the winners are because those winners are going to have taste parity. Right.

Which is sort of the, like that’s Nectar’s whole thing is like, that’s how you’re going to, that’s how you’re going to drive consumer preferences. Like, does it taste as good or better?

[Sheldon Young]
Um, no one’s going to buy something that doesn’t take, unless you’re a diehard, you know, you aren’t going to buy some, it doesn’t taste good. They just aren’t.

[Jason Moreau]
I mean, it was interesting though, because in the dairy category, I mean, you have milk, cheese, ice cream, like the sour cream, it’s pretty amazing. Um, taste parity has pretty much been achieved with some of the, um, what we’ll call them like plant-based milk alternatives, but some categories are still catching up. Um, so there’s still a gap there, but there’s definitely some really good alternatives out there.

Um, but in terms of perceptions, there was a data point that was interesting and it’s dairy-free lags on taste and price perceptions, but is already favored on health as a key purchase driver for half of consumers. Right. So that’s interesting.

That’s, that’s not like it, like it’s, it’s what do people think in the mind, right? Like, it’s not, I’ve just tasted these two things and I’m telling you what I think based on an objective thing, it’s more like, what are my perceptions right now? So I thought that was really interesting where it’s like the perception of the market is like they lag on taste and price.

And the, obviously the tasty awards are kind of showing like how that gap is shrinking and which products have already sort of overcome that gap like physically with their product. But then from a marketing standpoint, they still need to convince consumers that it tastes as good. It’s the same price, right?

So like they’ve, they’ve won on the product in terms of like, okay, we’ve achieved parody, but there’s still a marketing issue that they need to sort of educate the market on. So, uh, no, lots of really interesting data to explore there and, uh, lots of good food to try too, right?

[Sheldon Young]
Like I’m sure. Yeah.

[Jason Moreau]
Yep. There’s an ice cream category. I know we’re both fans of that.

[Sheldon Young]
So yeah, I was a little remiss cause there’s another dairy thing. It’s called the IDFA does an ice cream conference type thing. And I went to, I got to speak at that last year, which was very fun and I was very honored to do that.

But it’s like, oh man, I do miss, I had the cheese, but I missed the ice cream too. Uh, it was, uh, I can’t have it all though. I guess, you know, it’s right.

Right. But, but listen, just to put a bow on this topic before we move on to our guest, I really am just loving hearing, you know, you’ve got all these alternatives that are happening. I think that’s, you know, that’s perfectly good.

I think it’s great. If the market needs it, I think people want it. Um, but you also seeing the dairy industry thrive as well.

And I’m glad I’m so happy to see that. And I’m seeing, uh, I’m loving that there, that they’re also driving and making sustainability impact real. Right.

Cause I see, I mean, I, you know, you know, you walk into a facility, you, you find, you talk to the people that are owning that work. Uh, I got to meet with a lot of great folks at the, at the, at the show. And, you know, they’re actually really focused in, in their, in their heart, isn’t it?

And they’re driving and they’re spending money on it and it’s real and you’re seeing it. And so the whole ecosystem, dairy, non-dairy, all that stuff is working together and I, I really hope it’s driving us towards a better, more efficient, you know, less impactful food production ecosystem. And that, that’s what I love to see.

And, and, uh, I love hearing both, both sides of that coin.

[Jason Moreau]
Yeah. And like, I, I think how we touch on a lot on the show, it’s, it’s not, it’s not an either, or it’s, it’s everybody, everybody has a role to play in terms of advancing us towards a more sustainable future. So yeah, I totally agree.

[Sheldon Young]
Yeah. So speaking about putting a bow on it, that reminds me of package packages, which is a great segue to our guests today. I guess today is sustainable leader at a local success story here in Richmond, where we, where you both live, uh, her company exists for the purpose to basically reduce styrofoam in the world.

It’s a pretty noble, bold goal. And, uh, she’s doing some great work and I can’t wait to hear about it. So let’s go unpack this conversation.

Jason.

[Jason Moreau]
I like what we did there. Let’s listen.

[Sheldon Young]
Yeah. Today we welcome Liz Helms, a sustainability manager at temper pack where she’s leading the charge to revolutionize packaging through circular design and ESG innovation. With an MBA in sustainable innovation and a deep rooted passion for environmental stewardship, Liz helps companies transition away from styrofoam and single use plastics, replacing them with high performing compostable alternatives from a fantastic blog called the impact alphabet to building internal networks that foster inclusion and impact Liz is redefining what it means to embed sustainability into business strategy in the packaging industry. Let’s dive into her journey and the future of sustainable packaging.

[Liz Helm]
Welcome Liz. Thank you. What a lovely intro.

Thank you so much. Very welcome.

[Sheldon Young]
I pride myself on the little stories we tell.

[Liz Helm]
It is nice to hear who you are reflected back to you. Sometimes you can get kind of stuck in day to day. What am I doing?

Check my emails, do do my stuff. And it’s, it’s nice to hear the why. You know, told back to you sometimes.

[Sheldon Young]
That’s nice to hear that. Yeah. I think it’s a great, it’s a great point.

I think sometimes we just say, Oh, I’m just as crazy person doing these things and no one’s paying attention. Well, some of us are, and I hope that reflect that. So let’s just kick off right away.

Tell us just a little bit about yourself, your journey and what brought you to temper back.

[Liz Helm]
Sure. Yeah. I’m born and raised here in Virginia right now.

I’m at our headquarters in Richmond, but I grew up in the Shenandoah Valley in Winchester. I’m playing outside, digging in dirt, collecting rocks, hiking, climbing trees, things like that. And really fell in love with being outside and became an environmentalist as a, as a young child.

It’s really all I was focused on throughout school. And so really had my, my vision focused on environmental policy at the time. Really thought that was how I was going to change the world and make things better and stop bad people from doing bad things to the, the environment.

Really had my eyes set on that. And I went to the University of Virginia. It was a double major in environmental science and English, really thinking that was the path that I had to take.

That was the only way was to force, force change by making the rules. And very quickly learned after meeting people from different perspectives that there are other ways to influence change. You know, transparently, I graduated in 2016 as an undergraduate and the administration flipped where there were not open, a lot of open roles looking for a young, feisty person to come in and change and write a lot of environmental policy, my colleagues in DC working for the EPA, you know, friends of mine that I’d made said, Hey, do something else, go do something else.

We’ll let you know when things settle down, but you’re not going to be the Erin Brockovich of 2016. I go do something else and then come back. So I, I found a job in Wyoming on a, on a dude ranch just following hospitality and experience.

Wanted to hike, wanted to stay connected to nature and make some money and ended up starting a farm to table program where I was building a greenhouse, growing produce, and what happened was a very catalytic moment where that solidification of realizing, okay, change comes in all different directions, not just from policy, from, from public, from the people, from what you see on the internet, from, um, you know, private funding or from businesses, all of that matters to, it’s not just following the rules. Um, there are lots of rules that we follow that are not written in legislation. So building that program, that greenhouse farm to table program for that resort.

Although that was a very specific project that opened the door for me to connect with the local community, to sell our extra produce into town, that those restaurants that had no access to fresh produce, it was a tiny, tiny town in Saratoga, Wyoming with 2000 people, very heavily reliant on tourism, um, in the summer to support their economy. So all of a sudden I had an abundance of produce. Let’s say I had a bunch of fresh lettuce and I could go into town and I could meet people and ask them, what do you need?

What do you care about? Do you care if we’re organic or not? Or do you care that it’s fresh?

And I don’t learn what, what people care about. Um, there are environmentalists in everyone. And so it was really fun to, to get to know that they’re in that community.

But it really stuck with me that, okay, private businesses have a huge, huge, huge impact on where they are and who they employ and who they serve. And that drove me to my MBA program in Vermont. So moving, you know, moving again across to another mountain state in Vermont, where I went to, um, the university of Vermont for their sustainable innovation MBA program, really to try to mesh those two learnings of, okay, I still want to be in the environmental stewardship space using business as a tool, if policy isn’t going to get me there, I’m going to see what business can do.

And that that’s what ultimately led me to temper pack was finding a business that had that mission written in that was in a state that I loved and was happy to come home to, but that really was hungry to make a difference without forcing it upon anyone, but in really inviting other businesses in the community and to look what can be done when you, you leverage other ways of influence rather than forcing an anti-pollution policy, which, you know, I’m, I’m now learning that is one lever, but it’s not the only one. Um, so that was a roundabout way to, to answer your question, but it, it is a journey. It, it can be very emotional too, when you’re on the climate side or you’re, you first learn about something that feels very intrusive, especially as a young kid, when you love hiking and playing in the Shenandoah river, and you learn all the pollution that’s happening to your state and to your country and, um, to your, your backyard can feel very personal and very emotional.

And the panic of what, what is my responsibility to fix this can feel very daunting. So it’s very, it was important to me growing up that I kept that theme throughout school and even asking my economist majors, how are, how are economists thinking about environmental risks or climate risks or anything at all? Um, and one of the, one of my favorite things about working in sustainability is understanding the different dynamics of influence that, that come from all of the people that you’re interacting with.

I’ll start talking for a second. Cause I was about to start rambling.

[Sheldon Young]
I mean, honestly, this sells itself. I’m, I’m, I’m sold. He would speak all you want.

[Jason Moreau]
Um, so that amazing journey, um, the passion through line comes through. So you’ve been at Temper Pack for about three years. Um, could you talk about a little bit about your role there specifically?

Um, and how you’re sort of, I guess, taking that passion and transmuting that into, you know, sort of your day-to-day role at Temper Pack.

[Liz Helm]
Yeah, absolutely. A temper pack is special and then sustainability existed at the company before they had a sustainability manager. So my role is a sustainability manager where I track our emissions, I track our waste, I hold people responsible to recycling in the office.

I am helping our sales team communicate the sustainable value prop of our products. I’m finding the data to back up those claims and helping our marketing tell that story. I’m really cross-functional to make sure that what we are claiming and where we are going in our direction is backed by data and by science.

Um, in addition to bringing the company up to a level which we are operating in a sustainable fashion. So our impact is measured by not just what we make, which is an alternative to styrofoam, but by how we make it. And that’s really the two pillars that we, it’s easy to remember what we make and how we make it.

Uh, but the company was focused on that well before I joined. And so it was really a pleasure to join a culture that understood why they existed, but tell you exactly what we were doing. We are displacing styrofoam in the supply chain.

The growth of e-commerce shipments has not slowed down. It really spiked in 2020 when folks were ordering groceries, meal kits, pet food, medicines to their doorstep. And that impact means that the package, the amount of packaging needed to support all those shipments exploded as well.

So anything that you are getting on your doorstep that needs to stay cold, needs to stay protected, needs to arrive in exactly the condition that you expected in order to use it, that requires additional resources to get it there. And that’s where Temper Pack serves. We have a portfolio of products that can perform just as well as styrofoam without toxic chemicals, without using fossil fuels, without being polymer based, without having to go to a landfill, without that squeaky noise that sucks when you open a package and it’s like kind of itches the inside of your brain.

Without the little beads everywhere, without the fear that your baby or your dog is going to chew on it and have a bunch of plastic stuck inside them. There are so many, so many benefits to what we’re doing and what other packaging companies focused on this are doing. But joining a team that knows exactly who they are and what they’re trying to do was a big reason of why I joined.

And it helps to keep that momentum. Again, back to our why, on days where it feels really hard or we’re running into some obstacles or we’re looking at changes that are happening in the market, how do we address them? We’re doing something new.

We’re not trying to be another packaging company that has a sustainable offering. We are a sustainable packaging and technology company. And so that coming back to that why is essential to keeping your spirits up, your momentum up.

In Richmond, we just went through a month and a half of snow and ice and 20 degree weather. Even on days like that, what are we doing? What are we doing?

We are displacing a very harmful product. That’s what we’re doing.

[Sheldon Young]
I mean, you definitely hear the passion in your voice, which I think I’m sure carries particular. I love the way you put it. We’re a sustainable company doing packaging.

[Liz Helm]
Right.

[Sheldon Young]
And so when it’s at your ethos and it’s part of who you are every day when you wake up, it certainly changes the outlook and the way you approach it. Right. For sure.

Now, I’ve been to Pack Expo, which is a massive, massive show that is mostly packaging. We’re there because there’s Appleville goes because there’s processing equipment also there. But it’s like one part of a much bigger world of packaging.

And I’ve walked through and I see all kinds of stuff. I mean, it’s everywhere and a lot of people will put, you know, we’ll have a sustainability thing up there and all that. Can you tell me a little bit about the story you have for your customers that, I guess, why did they look at Temper Pack and say, yeah, I want that.

I want to go that route.

[Liz Helm]
I’m smiling at that question because it’s something that our our founders hammered into the culture is that being sustainable is not enough. Just because you’re sustainable doesn’t mean that you have earned anyone’s attention or business, right? You cannot produce a paper straw that is paper.

It’s not plastic, but it sucks to use, for example, if it doesn’t offer anything else, just just being less bad. Why should anyone spend their time and their money converting their processes to your product? So we earn every opportunity.

And I use the term earn because it is a it is a conversation and transition really from how a company has been doing things for the last 15, 20 years to to something new. It is a transition. But we earn that right to exist as a business because we are offering something that is sustainable and something else, whether that’s it saves you money and the number of shipments that you need to get your packaging because our panels lay flat instead of shipping a molded foam cooler that is shipping a whole bunch of air.

Or it is a luxury experience opening the box with our products to your end customer rather again, rather than that squeaky noise, that messiness of opening a box with styrofoam if you wanted to elevate the experience of interacting with your product. Packaging is the first impression that you make to any of your consumers. So making that experience elevated is is feedback that we hear and something that we really pay attention to when we’re designing products is the experience, the elevation of the experience.

So those are the other the other things really that we focus on, we’re not just sustainable, it’s we’re sustainable and a little bit more elevated. And maybe we increase efficiency and how you’re packaging your pack out because you haven’t looked at it for years because you don’t need to because you’re using. The status quo material, you’ve been using styrofoam and it’s fine and it’s there and it’s accessible.

And so the making that change, we look at the entire process of how you’re fulfilling, how you’re packing out, what are you using and really try to make that transition as easy as possible and as exciting as possible. So it goes all the way to helping that business celebrate that change to their end consumers and making sure that it’s understood what what the change is and what that means. But it is it is understanding that it is beyond just a sustainable product.

It has to be something else. And you know, otherwise you’re just competing with anybody else.

[Sheldon Young]
It’s interesting. So this this, Jason, this dives in your world a little bit, the world of marketing, right? Pop in here.

I think this is a great place for you to jump into the question.

[Jason Moreau]
Yeah. So, yeah, picking up on that thread specific, I guess, challenges or opportunities when you’re when you’re listening to those customers and trying to be responsive to them. Right.

So similar all the way back to the story you were telling in Wyoming where you were going and like, well, do you want lettuce? Do you want that? Right.

Like you’re asking the market what they want. You know, where do you see some of the wins or trends or like where they’re still like these sticking points, like when you’re approaching them with that sort of like holistic viewpoint?

[Liz Helm]
Yeah. Certifications are the first thing that come to mind. Certifications are something that we internally could declare are important and we could hold ourselves to a certain standard.

But the ones that are important to our customers, the ones that are important to the public, the ones that are important to waste haulers, whoever is going to interact with our packaging. Those are the ones that that we need to to pay attention to. For example.

USDA Certified Biobased is a certification scheme set by obviously the USDA, but the USDA Certified Biobased was a certification scheme that we were not aware of until a customer brought it to our attention and said, this is important to us. We want this. And, you know, we reviewed the certification, said, yeah, this we support this movement.

Also, let’s certify our products. Let’s now make this standard across all of our products. So it’s now actually something that we look at when we are innovating something.

Does it meet that certification scheme? Does it fit? Are we continuing to support the value of that certification and our products, but also amplify the message of that entire program?

That that’s the clearest example that comes to mind where a customer really came to us and said, this is really important to us. And we listened and it’s now integrated into our program.

[Jason Moreau]
That’s pretty phenomenal. I mean, not to get too deep into the weeds, but is the certification around like how the material is is handled as a waste stream? Is it like what what is it that the certification is, I guess, designed to affect in terms of its abilities to do so?

[Liz Helm]
Yeah, it’s labeling the product. And this is all types of product typically used in. Consumer packaged goods, cleaning materials, I see a lot on surface cleaners, it’s looking at the.

Amount of raw materials that are petroleum derived, the USDA has set limitations on the amount of material that is petroleum derived. Under which you would meet those. Limitations and then earn that stamp and the the degree of petroleum derived like the level, the threshold varies per product category, I believe, but that is the goal is to certify products and to incentivize the purchase and the demand for materials that are not derived from fossil fuels.

[Jason Moreau]
That’s great.

[Sheldon Young]
Interesting, so I mean. I mean, what I’m hearing, I guess the world of packaging is huge, and so it sounds like you guys hone in on the people, you know, care and will fit this, they have a value proposition, you have a value proposition that will meet a subset of the packaging industry, right? So what I guess what challenges and opportunities as being a sustainable first company.

Play for you in the market, I mean, it’s obviously there’s advantages, but there’s going to be headwinds as well. So and how do you look at those and how do you balance that?

[Liz Helm]
There’s always the challenge, you know, I’m thinking back to business school, what it was, you know, the benefit of being the early mover, early mover, you want to be the early mover. In a highly competitive industry, you do, but you’re also. Again, you’re trying to get people to change, you’re not introducing a new feature to a software that solves a problem that they didn’t know they had, for example, you’re introducing a product that’s causing their operations to change and the way that their people are trained to do their jobs to change.

And that is just as hard as. I mean, frankly, that’s much harder than just saying, here’s a product that’s better. Right, you’re changing their entire fulfillment process.

So some of the headwinds we see are, you know, for e-commerce, for example, does that customer need a distribution partnership or are they purchasing direct from us? If they’ve already got a distribution relationship, that is now a new relationship that we must build. We must earn the trust and build a relationship with the distributor, not just the end, you know, consumer.

[Sheldon Young]
Where there’s like a 3PL kind of thing, a third party logistics person. Yeah, absolutely. Makes sense.

[Liz Helm]
So we’re building those relationships and, you know, the first thing that came to mind when you asked that question was fear. There is so much fear around change, but specifically fear around something that you look at and you just assume that it won’t work because you haven’t seen the data, you know, we’re repeating that it would work. When you’re a first mover in a space that can be highly regulated, such as shipping medical products, vials of vaccines or inoculants, reagents, things like that, that are highly precious and regulated.

The fear of change is something where the risk of losing that product is so high is a pretty big obstacle that we’ve had to overcome through proving that our products perform. So back to that note, you can’t just win on sustainability, you have to win on sustainability that serves all of these other features of the product and of the business. Performance is probably the single feature that we lead with with sustainability is performance.

So we have to prove that our products perform, if not better than EPS, just as good as EPS or whatever solution that they were using in order to gain that trust in a sector that is shipping very expensive or highly sensitive materials. With other brands that are shipping things like food or beverage or pet food, it’s a different conversation, but you’re still, you, you must prove that your product performs and data and sustainability or performance and sustainability have to live in the same realm. You can’t say we’re sustainable, but we only perform 30% to what you were previously shipping.

[Sheldon Young]
For sure. So the industry has a lot of opportunity. Let’s put it mildly.

How do they keep moving the needle? Like where are the, I guess the places you guys are continuing to push and where should the industry continue to push?

[Liz Helm]
The transition from plastic to paper, probably the loudest theme of transition that we’re seeing across the industry. I don’t think that is going to slow down. In fact, I know it won’t slow down, especially with the rise of policies that are either reducing the use of virgin plastic or abandoning it altogether.

There’s just an immense demand for products and materials other than plastics. So that’s definitely something that I think the industry is moving towards, but has headwinds. There are always arguments that saying sometimes paper is heavier, sometimes it doesn’t work, sometimes it needs an additional treatment in order for it to perform the way the plastics do.

It’s not a perfect substitution every time. And so that’s certainly a pattern that we’re seeing. I would also say that light weighting or optimizing a package so that you are using only exactly what you need and the person interacting with your product knows exactly what to do with it and how to open it.

And it is an experience.

[Sheldon Young]
Yeah.

[Liz Helm]
And if you’ve ever opened a pair of scissors or a razor and you have the plastic nightmares on the top and bottom and they’re vacuum sealed and it’s so hard to open, that should be a relic of the past. There’s no reason to package your products.

[Sheldon Young]
I want to open my scissors. What do you need to open it? Scissors.

[Liz Helm]
And again, I would love to see damage rates of scissors that require that level of packaging. There are some brands that are doing this really well and now that you notice it, the thing about packaging is once you start noticing it, you will notice everything. Every product that you touch, you’ll know someone was paid to design it that way.

Why? Was it for cost? Was it for the experience?

Was it for design? Was it for regulation? There is a reason why it’s shaped that way and why it’s stocked that way and why it’s designed to open that way.

So when I look at it at something like that, where it’s a pair of scissors that’s vacuum sealed between two very thick layers of plastic and then sealed on the edges where you can’t open it by hand. It was likely designed that way 15 years ago. It hasn’t changed and because they’ve got the price locked in, they’re kind of locked in to that design.

Those are the designs that I would expect to rapidly change. And there are some brands that are doing this really well that you’ll start to see now that you know to look for it. Some razor brands and CPG brands that are paying attention and doing this really well.

But once you see a really bad packaging design, it’s really hard to unsee it and to associate that with the brand. So as packaging is rising to the surface of a lot of consumer complaints or consumer attention, that could be associated with your brand reputation. If you’re shipping something really inefficiently, packaging really inefficiently, it looks kind of sloppy, it gets there and you’re like, do you even care?

Do you even care about your product? Do you even care about me as the person who’s your customer, who’s buying your product? I would expect that connection to become stronger.

The connection between your packaging and your brand reputation to become even stronger.

[Sheldon Young]
Yeah, it’s so funny. An example immediately popped into my brain. There is a brand, I’m not going to give the brand a cereal.

There’s a brand of cereal that has a bag, right? They all have bags, but you go in and it just won’t open. Like you have to like mangle the bag and it creates this weird tear and you try to pour the cereal, it’s pouring into the box.

You’re like, it’s a brutal experience. I’m like, it’s so simple. There’s so many other cereals you just pop right open.

Simple. This one, every time it’s been that way for years, drives me crazy. It’s in my brain.

Soon as someone else has a similar product that has a better package, I’m buying it.

[Liz Helm]
Exactly. And as these products that are, again, back to that, you can’t just be sustainable. You can’t just be this.

There are so many levers that you have to pull in order to be competitive in 2026 and beyond, if you essentially have the same product and you’re using packaging to differentiate yourself, which many beauty brands, many CPG brands do, that is an awesome way for you to gain credibility and trust and get your brands associated with, I bought this product. I loved opening it. I love reading the package.

I love the way it’s designed and colored. It was easy to dispose of. And that makes me excited to use what you actually paid for, which was the product inside design.

[Sheldon Young]
Sustainability into it. And you know, that as a consumer, that’s, that’s, that’s awesome. That’s an extra bonus.

Exactly.

[Jason Moreau]
This is maybe an example of something I read on your blog, which I, it really resonated with me and it was the, it was the post on KPIs and the specific line was the trap of using a KPI is that we tend to measure what’s convenient instead of what’s consequential. And I think that’s really true in a lot of areas. Um, so the example that we were just talking about where, what, what is the experience, the frustration level of the person actually interacting with your packaging design, it’s really hard to measure, or it would take a lot of effort to go and do a survey and figure it out.

So most companies don’t, right. And so they’re just kind of missing out on this like big blinking red light that, Hey, you’re, you’re really frustrating your customers. I was wondering if, if you could talk a little bit about like what KPIs you see, either from a sustainability standpoint or just like from a customer standpoint, where it’s like, these are consequential, but your most companies aren’t really focusing on these yet because they’re hard to measure.

[Liz Helm]
Almost every, almost everything in ESG is hard to measure unless it’s tied to your balance sheet is what I found. So it’s the data may live somewhere and you’re just not used to pulling it. I wouldn’t be surprised if some companies say that tracking energy use is the most impossible metric to chat, to track simply because they just aren’t pulling that data from their invoices.

I don’t have a system in place to do that. Uh, so I think that every metric, every ESG metric is likely on that list of, we don’t want to track it unless it’s something that hits your, your balance sheet or your, that your finance team is paying attention to. And that’s where I try to connect everything to what the, you know, I get a lot of data from the finance team, but that’s, that’s the connection to start with when you’re first looking at metrics.

Waste management cost and energy costs are the two that you would likely find opportunities to, to reduce that cost. And that would reduce the amount that you’re consuming or the amount that you’re out, the amount of waste that you’re outputting. Those are the two metrics that I see.

If you were starting from scratch, like that’s where, that’s where I would start. On the consumer side, I think it’s really fun to watch brands interact with QR, to use QR codes and watch their customers interact with their product. I’m constantly impressed by the amount of consumers that see a QR code, scan it, and actually interact with the page that comes up.

It’s a tool that we found to be really successful on our ClimaCell panels where folks want to learn more and do, and fill out, maybe fill out a form at the end. And tell us about their package that they opened. And that’s a data point that we can collect and that we can pass on to our, our customer who shipped them that box, or that we can take internally to our team and say, Hey, someone in Ohio had this idea.

What do you think about it? Um, it’s so it’s, it’s much, much harder to capture that customer voice, but putting a tool in place is the first step. And you’d be shocked to find that participation rates are much higher than I would anticipate.

I would never think to scan a QR code and talk about the packaging of a product. I just, I just, it would never cross my mind to do that. And now I see QR codes on my city recycling bin and I see QR codes on flyers out and at coffee shops.

And those are all asking for you to input your opinion. So I’m much more willing to, as a, as a normal person walking around the street, I’m much more willing to interact with QR codes and give input knowing on the other side of that, there’s a brand and there’s a company and there’s a person looking for input and really, really wanting to, to connect with their people. So I don’t know if I asked, if I really answered your question, but that’s, that’s the easy thing to track.

To start with the energy and waste, anything that you can connect to revenue or cost savings. And the much harder, squishier metrics, if you will, would be those things like satisfaction, speed of opening the packaging, just general delight. Like we would love to figure out a way to measure delight of opening a package with temper pack packaging.

How do I measure that? I don’t know, but like that would be a really cool metric for us to play with.

[Sheldon Young]
I think it’s number of unboxing videos you have on YouTube. I’m actually, you know, it’s like, I think of a very particular product that, um, you know, comes in a super elegant packaging and you’re like, it’s experienced, like, Oh wow, this is, this is fancy. Yeah.

Well, thing comes off, you pop it off again. I won’t talk about the amount of waste that’s in that package, but I think, um, you know, I think balancing those two, how do you create the sustainable choice that is also elegant and. Oh, that was easy and nice, you know, and I got my product out and it’s all nice and safe.

Uh, absolutely. I think it’s, uh, you got maybe a number of complaints you get. Maybe it’s opposite.

Look at the other way. What are the complaints you get about the packaging? Uh, I know that certain products that I’ve worked with before, it’s like we measure complaints and that was a great metric to say, okay, as complaints come down, um, your satisfaction, I think by default goes because people don’t talk as much about satisfaction as they do about complaints.

Right. It’s a, it’s almost, you have to look at the backend and then hope the front end goes with it.

[Liz Helm]
So you know, what’s interesting about complaints is when you, when you open the door to people to give you feedback, sometimes their feedback is relevant to you, sometimes their feedback is not relevant to you, but it does tell you what they care about, there’ll be folks that will write into us saying that they they’re frustrated, they don’t have access to recycling, they can’t recycle our products, they can’t recycle anything, there’s a, they’re so frustrated, I can’t recycle anything because my apartment building doesn’t have recycling, that isn’t a problem that Liz at Temper Pack can immediately solve by re-engineering our product.

But that’s a real problem that they’re having. So it, there’s so much, there are other things to learn from feedback that tell you about who you’re talking to. That also tells me that I’m talking to someone who really wants to recycle and is frustrated and has probably tried to get it in their building and is looking for another ally to build because they care about this.

And so it’s, it’s yeah. Once you open the door to that feedback, you learn a lot more than just the couple of questions that you’re asking. Did you like the packaging?

Did it arrive cold? Did it, was it easy to dispose of the kind of typical stuff that we track? But what else do people care about?

Our other product, green cell foam, that is very common in the same spaces is water soluble and home and industrial compostable. So we hear a lot of, this is awesome. I don’t have access to composting.

Like, what do I do? Where do I even, I want to compost this. I’m going to collect it.

What do I do with it? So it, it kind of opens the discussion. And of course I’m, it all comes to my inbox.

So I’m the person that’s responding to everyone and get to do some research into, you know, if you can tell me your zip code, I can find a resource for you. Or here’s a great resource to go find where you can take your compost and drop it off, or you can set up your own, you know, at home system, but hearing what people want to complain about, whether it’s about your packaging or not, or whether it’s about their husband forgot to bring in the package, so everything, you know, spoiled on their doorstep because they went to vacation and forgot to bring it in. It doesn’t matter. Like it tells you something about your customer that is more valuable than not having any feedback at all.

[Jason Moreau]
Absolutely. That’s amazing. Um, I, I, I kind of dove right into one specific blog post.

I just zooming out. Like, do you want to tell a little bit more about the blog and like some of the subjects you write about and, and maybe just the, uh, the reason behind starting it and, you know, sort of that, that, what that outlet gives you, uh, in terms of discussing sustainability and what happens when you get to the end of the alphabet, that’s it. Yeah.

You go to the Greek alphabet. You got to zoom in.

[Liz Helm]
I was thinking about that this morning. I was like, do I just start over and keep looping through? Or do I start on numbers or what?

Yeah. What do I do when I get to Z? I, I also haven’t posted yet in 2026.

I’m stuck on L about halfway through the alphabet. It will likely be LCA.

[Sheldon Young]
Yeah.

[Liz Helm]
I started the blog because I had many folks just asking throughout the day questions about what we’re doing, what we’re up to, and spent a lot of time translating what things meant. And the worst thing that you can do is use language that that person can’t understand when they’re really hungry for that information. And so making that information accessible and, and just easy to read without going to a textbook, without going to AI, that will kind of give you some information, but maybe it’s true.

Maybe it’s not, maybe it’s you need more information than what Chat GPT is giving you. But so I was really just looking for something that my friends would read. And that would also give me a push to keep thinking about what that is, what, what needs to be talked about.

Yep. There’s some letters in the alphabet that I’ve written that, you know, KPIs was one. And I think I wrote this in the blog.

The title itself contradicted another blog post that I’d read about how acronyms suck and acronyms are used all over the place. And then over here, I’m talking about KPIs and was like, you know, this is ironic. Like I just said not to use an acronym, but here I am, but it’s, it’s been, you know, personally, just, just fun for me to write these things and release them.

There’s no stakes or no strings attached, but it, it’s again, going back to, I’m surprised by how many people would interact with the QR code on their piece of packaging and give us feedback. I was shocked to know how many people in my network and just out there when I meet them at conferences who want to talk about sustainability things, whether they work for a mission-driven company or not, they’re curious. And going back to my personal crisis of, I see a problem.

I know that I’m part of it. What do I do about it? The first part is educating and reading and understanding more of the problem.

So maybe someone reads it and they just, they just care about learning a couple acronyms, or they just want to read the compost blog and they just want to learn how to compost. That’s great. If someone who is 22 and trying to get into the corporate sustainability space wants to read the whole alphabet, that’s awesome.

Um, I it’s really just to figure out what, you know, what I have time and I have the tools to do it. So why not, um, write it down and, and share what I know and likely in 10 years they’ll be outdated and I’ll start over.

[Sheldon Young]
It’s kind of like we did the podcast. I mean, the same reason it’s like, how do you make sustainability real? Well, let’s, let’s let other people tell that story.

Why don’t we, we don’t, why would you have to figure it out? Right. And, um, I mean, I think if nothing else, you’re, I love the way you just kind of, kind of goes in the last question here.

One of the last questions we have, um, you know, someone starting out, how do you, what would you want to recommend to them? Right. So I think, um, uh, one is read Liz’s blog.

Two is you, you, you already mentioned it. Start, uh, start. If you’re looking at metrics, start with energy and, uh, things that can drive funds, what else would for him for a recommendation where you give someone interested in the field, that’s kind of just kicking off.

[Liz Helm]
I met someone at a conference a couple of years ago. This was at sustainable brands conference. And she said we were just having lunch and a coffee and talking about life.

We were barely talking about work. We were just chatting, but I mentioned, you know, I, I feel lucky that I work at a company that’s very focused and sustainability is branded everywhere. It’s very clear what we do.

And I have some folks asking, do I leave this company that isn’t focused on sustainability and jump ship to another one, or do I stay in my role and, and try to make it more sustainable? And I, I kind of painted that scenario for her and she said in her specific scenario, she had done the latter. So she had stayed in a company that did not have an explicit mission written out and sought out to make it more sustainable and found other coworkers that also felt the same way, that also cared about waste, that also cared about energy, that also cared about making sure that the impact of their company was not at the detriment of themselves and their children.

And eventually she got to the point where she was running a campaign at the company where it was, I am Julia. I’m an accountant and I work in sustainability. I am so-and-so I work in finance and I work in sustainability and it didn’t matter what your role was, whether you were on the green team or not, you worked in sustainability because you cared about it.

And that was it. And as soon as you took away the department level focus of sustainability, it became something that people would want to engage in and, and eventually their goal is to embed it into actual role descriptions and to make it real at that company. So you could actually pay people to, to, you know, be on sustainability projects.

But the culture shift was something that was, was pretty huge to her to, to accomplish it saying, okay, it doesn’t matter where you, where you work in the company because you care, that means that you work in sustainability. So it’s, to be honest, it’s much harder, I think, to do that route, to stay with the company and, and try to turn the ship. Um, but it’s not, um, uncommon.

And for those folks starting out, I would say to identify your strengths. What, what are you really, really good at? You do not have to be a corporate sustainability person to work in sustainability.

That learning is that’s very, very clear. You can be in supply chain. You can be in finance.

You can be an IT and support the sustainable initiatives of your company. But finding a company that is open to having those discussions is probably more important than do they have a sustainability team or not?

[Sheldon Young]
Very good. Wow. Great advice.

Great advice. All right. So we’ve reached the end of our question list.

How can people learn more about one temper pack to your blog and you and anything else you want to talk about that you’d like to share?

[Liz Helm]
Yeah, I, I love LinkedIn now that I, now that I post my blog posts, LinkedIn, I’m, I’m very active on there regularly. I love to connect with people and follow them and learn what they’re. Learn what they’re working on.

You know, I write a blog post about whatever is on the mind alphabetically, but, um, I’m always open to, you know, my colleagues have given me great topics to write about and they said, oh, you know, for, for X, can you write about this? For Y, can you write about that? So I’d love to hear, you know, feedback and comments on the blog posts themselves, or to share with me anything that, that folks are working on that we can collaborate with.

We’re headquartered here in Richmond, Virginia, but we’ve also got sites in Michigan and Nevada. So we’re, we, you know, serve the nation. Um, though our website is the best place to read up on what we’re doing.

Um, we are also pretty active on LinkedIn posts, our conference presence, our, any traveling we’re doing, and then any product and special products we’re working on. We’re pretty good about keeping up with our LinkedIn. Yeah, I, I’m not very, I’m not very active on social media, so I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t plug any of those, but LinkedIn is a good one for all of us to kind of zoom in on LinkedIn and the Temper Pack website is, are two places to kind of learn more and, um, I’d say in our, in.

Looking through it kind of to answer another question of your, like, what advice would I give to young sustainability people? Cause I’m realizing too, you know, Temper Pack and what I do are very niche. There are, there’s an abundance of organizations and networking groups to connect with.

So sustainable brands is one that I mentioned.

[Sheldon Young]
Okay.

[Liz Helm]
We’re very active in the sustainable packaging coalition as well, specific to our industry, but those groups are really where you meet people, you hear what they’re talking about. You can get inside a debate that you didn’t think you had an opinion on, and then you start learning and you say, no, actually I, I think about this and I understand why this person’s on this side. So, um, you know, those, those organizations, those groups are pretty impactful in the space and can help guide what to work on next.

[Sheldon Young]
Great. Good stuff. Liz, this has been a treasure trove of information.

And I think, uh, I certainly learned a lot and, uh, it’s great to hear about the alternatives in the packaging industry that are, you know, sustainability first, because again, it’s when we all, everyone deals with it almost every day. Right. There’s some kind of packaging we’re dealing with or it’s coming on our doorsteps or we’re picking up at the store or whatever we’re doing.

It’s part of it. Right. And the impact it can have by just thinking about packaging and making good choices or asking people to make good choices is huge.

It’s, and we all can impact it. So thanks for sharing your story in Temper Packs. And, uh, I just want to say thank you for coming on.

[Liz Helm]
Thank you for giving me a platform and an hour to, yeah, I think it’s dialogue, but it’s, it’s so fascinating. You know, I never thought I’d be talking about packaging in my free time too. I’ll be at the grocery store and be like, why did someone do this?

You know, um, or I’ll look, find something awesome and be like, this was really geniusly designed. Um, but you’re right. It packaging is everywhere.

It’s part of every physical thing. And so it is one of the most impactful industries to join when you’re looking to make a sustainable impact. So thank you for having me to talk a little bit more about it.

[Sheldon Young]
And we’re back. And like I say, we never really left. It’s like, we never left.

That’s right. Yeah. Um, uh, Liz, so I really love, uh, the passion of someone that’s been on a journey, like, you know, since the being a child, right.

Just the outdoors that, you know, I love to hear it. I will give a big confession. My sustainability journey started much later in life.

Um, you know, as an, as an individual, uh, you know, I guess I just didn’t have the awareness of it when I was younger. Uh, not that I didn’t appreciate it and didn’t try to do good things, but truly it, you know, it was in the last decade or so, maybe a little more that I’ve started to really focus my brain on it a little bit more and, and the impact that we make. And love hearing someone that has been that way since the get go and has really carried her career all the way through.

Uh, the journey of, Hey, I want to drive policy and make people do this too. I think I want to influence within and actually get the stuff done. And so that was an interesting shift in, in, in journey from to hear about, at least, you know, she’s one of the first people I’ve heard that kind of had that particular path.

[Jason Moreau]
I think so. And I, I, that, that maybe comes about because she sort of had that, we’ll call it like calling, uh, that, that resonance with, you know, I want to protect nature, I want to be an environmentalist, I want to do what I can, like, it really seemed like from how she described it, that this was, this was really from a young age, like you say, like, I, I need, I need to do what I can to protect the environment. And so you have this sort of beautiful, uh, passion and ideology of youth. And you’re like, I just need to get out there and convince people and tell them this is how it needs to be.

And that is a very sort of like youthful ambition. And then it, you know, I think like many things hits like the cold hard reality of, well, but this is how the world works. And I love that she didn’t lose the passion and just figured out like, Oh, if I pivot this way, I can still achieve my ends, but it’s, it’s going to be a softer influence.

It’s going to be, it’s just going to be different, right? It’s, it’s maybe not as, um, it’s not as forceful, right? Like you’re, you’re inviting people in to join you versus telling them, this is what they need to do.

And, and I think human behavior being what it is, you’re probably going to have more success with that second way of approaching people, but I, that, I mean, I, I loved that story and I loved that she was able to make that pivot.

[Sheldon Young]
Yeah, absolutely. And, uh, you know, and then kind of just hearing her whole entire journey, uh, finding a place that has the mission that kind of aligns with her passion, right? You can just, you talking to Lizzie, it’s very clear.

She’s absolutely passionate about what she does. Um, and it’s interesting to hear about temper packets. Like what I really enjoy, you know, it’s like, it’s very, no bones about what they’re trying to do.

It’s like, look, we want to deliver awesome packaging. That isn’t Styrofoam basically. You know, that’s compostable that it’s good for the environment, but.

That important part wasn’t forgotten. I mean, the mission is, is really super strong and you could hear it in Liz’s voice and the way that they present themselves. Um, but they don’t forget that first and foremost, we have to be a great packaging company.

Great. Well, you know, it’s, it’s easy to see. I’ve seen a lot of companies do this where they put the absolute, you know, go all in, I’m trying to make the, the absolute most sustainable thing they can, which again, fantastic.

But if it doesn’t meet the quality or the need case use case for the customer, then it’s not going to, it’s all for not, I think she used the example of a paper straw. Right.

[Jason Moreau]
I think we’ve all experienced feeling like you’re making a trade off between like being a good steward of the planet and just wanting to like use a straw. Yeah.

[Sheldon Young]
I started to hate turtles a little bit. No, not really. That’s a joke.

But you know what I mean? It’s just like, exactly. Are you turtles to make me use this awful product?

I mean, no offense. I’m sure there’s some wonderful paper straws out there, but many of them we know aren’t great and the experience of using one is not good. And so she nailed it on the head with that.

You’re a hundred percent. Right.

[Jason Moreau]
Yeah. Both her and the company realizing that like less bad is not a winning strategy. Right.

You can’t, you, you can’t win on sustainability alone. You have to compete on what consumers, what your, what your customers care about. And if you can’t then yeah, that’s not going to work.

[Sheldon Young]
Yeah. It’s like, don’t forget your why, but build a business that you can differentiate on your mission, but build something that people want and it’s sustainable. It’s, it’s the, it’s the whole improv.

Yes. And right. Yes.

It’s sustainable and it’s awesome and you should buy it. And it’s, I love your answer. Cause I asked her, I’ve walked her in that pack expo and it’s overwhelming.

It’s like, it is a huge, huge, huge event. That’s it. It goes between Vegas and Chicago every year.

Um, and it’s massive. It fills these multiple buildings and you know, there’s the process section, which we were in. It’s not, not a, it’s maybe a 10th to 20% of the whole thing.

And the rest is all packaging solutions. And those packaging solutions are just everywhere. Like it’s so easy to get lost, but they don’t like they, they find, they know their, their fit.

They know their, their goal. They know what they are and they tell that story. And it’s, it’s really great to kind of watch a company that does that.

Um, and talk and talk to someone that’s passionate about sustainability at that company. Yeah.

[Jason Moreau]
And it’s, it’s, it’s interesting too, because you, you realize how, how big an packaging makes along all of these different sort of axis, right? So it’s, it’s not just the, you know, physical, I need to get this thing from point a to point B. Um, but there, there is this design element, right?

Like when we interviewed, uh, Scott, um, the professor of design at SCAD, like really looking at package packaging communicates value about the product inside the experience that you have with the packaging, good or bad is now sort of like setting the table for, am I already happy or am I frustrated with this product experience? And so it very much gets into this realm of marketing and communication, but there’s clearly this physical, like just functional aspect of it that needs to, especially if you’re shipping cold things, if you’re shipping right. Like, and what is the weight?

What is the, what is the sustainability, uh, capacity here? Like there’s so many factors with packaging. It’s fascinating to me because for most people, it’s just, it’s the wrapper that you’re just trying to get through as quickly as possible to get to the thing that you want.

Right. And yet it has all of these layers of impact that if you’re not in the industry, you don’t really think about, but when you start your experience. Yes, absolutely.

[Sheldon Young]
A bad packaging job, one that, you know, doesn’t keep your product at the right temperature or, or fails you or whatever is brutal. And it’s like nobody, and again, it’s people that buy packaging and put their product in, you know, their product experience gets, gets impacted by it. So it’s so important.

Uh, but it’s so impactful from a sustainability point of view. Exactly. It has to have consideration and, you know, being on that kind of cusp of, you know, providing something that doesn’t have the impact, uh, that, uh, you know, a petrochemical type product would, but also delivering on the, on the brand promise that the customer is trying to give is, is, is a tough line to walk and, you know, they, they’re seen to be doing it.

So yeah. Yeah. I also, the other interesting topic that she touched upon was anything, maybe I don’t care if you brought it up or she brought with the KPIs.

Um, I thought that was a really interesting conversation because it’s such a struggle, even, you know, even if not sustainable, particularly with sustainability, finding ones that truly resonate and tell the story appropriately is so difficult. Um, you know, even in my little world where I was just able to, you know, how do I show my impact, you know, and things like that, it’s like, you know, it’s sometimes hard and it’s like, you know, you wish you could just say, okay, A to B that’s how that works. Oh, well, it’s not really to be, it’s kind of A to B to C to sometimes D you know, connecting those dots can be challenging.

I liked her pragmatic approach about it. I think tying it to finance related metrics. Honestly, that’s how you get sustainability done.

And then you can also track other things. I think that are important. If you can get the, both the yes.

And again, like, yeah, I’m going to drive this, this finance tied metric, and I’m going to drive these other metrics. I think if you’re able to find that balance of impacting those two, you, you found great wins. Uh, and, uh, I really appreciated her conversation on that.

[Jason Moreau]
Yep. Shout out to all of our friends in finance there. I mean, honestly, when you’re looking for data and you’re looking for meaningful data, um, in terms of practical, pragmatic advice, that is an amazing place to start, like go make friends with the finance people.

And I mean, I’ve, I’ve found that multiple places where I’ve worked there, they’re actually really happy to like provide that data, like they, they truly are super helpful and I just, I think that’s a great place to start, but I also loved her, um, suggestion. So that’s more of maybe the quantitative data. And then how do you measure this stuff?

That’s maybe a little bit harder to measure. Um, and the suggestion of the QR code was really interesting and sort of this, like wouldn’t have thought people would take the time to actually scan that QR code and provide feedback, but they’re getting it and, you know, that is. Real voice of the customer.

Um, but I thought it was also that sort of really interesting insight that like, they’re not always going to tell you the thing you expected. They’re going to tell you what they care about, and maybe that’s a thing you can help with or not. She gave the example of nothing to do with the packaging, but somebody contacting and saying, how do I compost in my area?

Well, how do I, like, I can’t, like, I don’t even know how to, I don’t think my area has it. Right. And it’s, it’s really amazing to then go and take that insight and go, I don’t know, as a company, do we want to start promoting or helping localities build that, do we want, like it just, as a marketer, my brain starts to spin and go like, you know, we make packaging, but we also are trying to help people be more sustainable.

[Sheldon Young]
Right.

[Jason Moreau]
Well, that’s still part of our mandate. Right. Um, that kind of goes to the ethos that, um, they said, which is like, it’s not just what they make, it’s how they make it right.

Like Temper Pack is very much, uh, like not just the packaging, but how we produce that as a company, you could extend that one, one more and go. And how we, how we recycle it. Right.

Like, you know, where it’s, so it’s just, um, I love feedback mechanisms and I love when you ask people questions, it’s like, sometimes you get what you think you’re going to get. And then other times it’s like, Oh, that’s a curve ball, but it’s a, it’s a, it’s an interesting curve ball.

[Sheldon Young]
Yeah, for sure. All right. Well, let’s wrap this one up, Jason.

I think I wanted to make one last mention. I love Liz’s advice on young professionals. I think that was really good advice diving into that and, and, uh, you know, finding kind of like a, well, do you want to surround yourself with that, that, that, that system that supports your journey?

Right. I also want to slip in that Temper Pack is now a certified B Corp, which is a very, very big deal and, uh, essentially means that they are now legally kind of required per their charter to consider the impact of the things that they do and the decisions that they make. So it really is a big deal that that’s happened.

And so definitely check that out. I’m sure there’s some, some great news or articles on their website or something around that. But, uh, Liz had let us know that right before we went to recording.

So that was very, very cool.

[Jason Moreau]
Right.

[Sheldon Young]
And then finally, I wanted to mention her blog. Liz is a blog and follow her on LinkedIn. Um, you know, Liz help and it’s called the impact alphabet.

It’s kind of cool. She’s working through the alphabet with all the sustainability camp words. Last one I looked at was she was up to N for net zero.

Uh, I can’t wait to see what like Q is going to be, you know? Yeah.

[Jason Moreau]
Well, I feel like X I feel. Yeah. And I feel like you, you helped her cause she was, well, she said when we interviewed her, like, ah, I’m kind of stuck on L and you’re like, maybe LCA.

And it’s like, oh yeah, that’s a good one. And then I think the log jam broke cause she’s like released a few and quick succession, so she’s chugging along and yeah, it’s great content. It’s fun stuff.

Good stuff.

[Sheldon Young]
All right. Well, Jason, uh, people want to follow this podcast. You know, they should do that.

I think you’d like subscribe, share it with your friends, networks, babies, anywhere you can find. Um, the stuff really matters to the success of our show. We have a little website now it’s called nofootprintspodcast.com.

Make sure you go there. And, uh, I think you have links to all the episodes at this point. Um, if you have ideas for a topic or guests, don’t be shy to send us an email.

Nofootprints.podcast@alfalaval.com a L F a L a V a L.com. And you want to learn more about a Temper Pack. You can go to temperpack.com.

That’s it. It’s all I got. That’s it.

Let’s call it a day. Thank you for listening and bye-bye.

[Jason Moreau]
Bye everyone.

[Sheldon Young]
Our guests come from many industries and companies as we’re talking about how the world makes sustainability real. Our company Alfa Laval is a global supplier of process solutions. So it’s very possible that the organizations our guests are with may use Alfa Laval or even our competitors’ products.

This does not mean that we, the hosts or Alfa Laval are endorsing any of the companies guests or the specific ideas that we discuss.