Climate Week Interviews

Transcript

[Sheldon Young]
Welcome to the No Footprints podcast. I’m Sheldon Young.

[Jason Moreau]
And I’m Jason Moreau.

[Sheldon Young]
And we’re here to talk about impact and to share the efforts and people behind making sustainability real.

We’re back again, Jason, for another fun packed adventure episode.

[Jason Moreau]
Yeah, it feels like, uh, it feels like we haven’t done this in a while.

[Sheldon Young]
So we’re excited to record today. It’s been a minute. Yeah, it’s been a minute.

So, uh, this is a little bit of a different episode. So as, uh, you heard the last show, we went to climate week and we reported on that and talked about that a little bit during climate week, I walked around and got a few interviews from people just kind of random, like walking around in the nest and a little bit on the street and just get a few interviews from folks that are at climate week. And this is the episode where we’re going to kind of release some of those and, uh, talk about, uh, what people were doing.

Nothing, you know, not, not hard hitting questions. Just, you know, tell me about yourself. Tell me why you’re here.

Tell me what you want. And so we’re going to go with that. Jason, you excited about this?

[Jason Moreau]
I am. I’m very excited.

[Sheldon Young]
Yeah. And after you sort of had to build that suspense up for folks to see if you’re excited, the payoff was totally, it was totally, totally blew our minds. I mean, uh, yeah, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll pause between each interview and talk about a little bit and see what it makes us think about from our, our climate week journey.

And I got a little surprise at the end for everyone too. I’m going to save the surprise. I’m not going to tell you what, you know what it is, but they don’t know.

So I want you to act surprised. Okay. All right.

All right.

[Jason Moreau]
So I might be surprised cause I’m in my brain. I’m like, what is it?

[Sheldon Young]
He’s going to talk about, so I might actually be surprised. This is the, this is the, this is where I like you so much. It’s so easily entertained.

[Jason Moreau]
That is correct.

[Sheldon Young]
All right. So let’s, uh, let’s kick off with a couple of what’s going on in your world around, uh, sustainability. What story you got for me?

[Jason Moreau]
Um, the story that I really liked was a news item that McDonald’s plans to invest 200 million in regenerative practices on U S cattle ranches. Um, so basically aiming to conserve water, boost soil health, uh, reduce the use of synthetic chemicals. Um, so that news in and of itself is really cool.

Obviously you have a big player like McDonald’s and, um, a lot of their supply chain partners signing onto this and contributing to it. Um, but I thought this quote was really cool. Um, and it kind of goes to what you always talk about.

So it was from the executive director of the national fish and wildlife foundation when talking about regenerative practices, ultimately improve productivity of grasslands and increase ranchers profitability.

[Sheldon Young]
There you go. There’s, there’s the, the Sheldon trio, the productivity, the profitability, right? Like, so it’s the, it’s the, it’s the three-legged stool.

I think I should have trademarked that Jason.

[Jason Moreau]
I should have, you should have, uh, trains left the station on that one though, but no, I, that, so I, I think that more and more sort of people are realizing that sustainability doesn’t happen in isolation nor should it. And right. Like you kind of consider all those aspects to it.

And usually if you sort of tell the story with all of those components, it, it makes it a much more compelling story and you’ll probably get more people sort of buying in. So I just, I liked that story because I, I felt like, um, Yeah, it, it’s good to see bigger companies taking those types of initiatives.

[Sheldon Young]
Yeah, for sure. And it definitely ties back to what we talked about at climate week that I had, so like region housework, they had a couple of the, the farmers on, and I remember a cattle rancher, particularly talking about their, their, uh, we’ll call it journey with sustainability and the importance of, Hey, it’s tight as it is, you know, being asked to do these things just kind of on a hope isn’t enough, right? We have to protect the integrity of the, um, of the farmer because honestly, without them, there is no food. And so it’s all, all incorporated and a circular little, little, uh, wheel that we have to make sure it gets taken care of the whole way around.

Yep. Okay. My story, Jason.

Okay. So this episode should come out right after Halloween. Okay.

And, uh, if, if my, if my little brains work in the first Tuesday of November, and so we just had Halloween. So we probably have pumpkins lying around. I know I do.

I’ve got two up front. Do you carve your pumpkins or you just have pumpkins or do you have pumpkins? Or do you even do the pumpkin thing?

[Jason Moreau]
What is the Halloween version of Scrooge?

[Sheldon Young]
That is unfortunate.

[Jason Moreau]
So full disclosure was way into it when our kids were young and I would carve the pumpkins, do the whole deal, uh, as they’ve gotten older and sort of moved out of the house. So as my Halloween intensity, shall we say, so I do not have as many pumpkins as I once did. Do you have any currently?

[Sheldon Young]
No, no. I might have to just get you a pumpkin.

[Jason Moreau]
This is just to say you have one. You see, I’m I’ll tell, I could say like I’m reducing waste by not buying in the first place. You want fair point?

Fair point.

[Sheldon Young]
That actually goes right to my story. Oh, nice. So it does, it does.

So responsibly getting rid of pumpkins. And so there’s a lot of people, honestly, they’ll just throw them in the trash or they’ll throw them in like a dumpster or something like that. That it’s actually not the thing to do.

You do not want them to go to landfills. Why? Big reason is because in a landfill, they, um, they decompose without oxygen.

And so when that happens, it actually produces methane, which is a much worse greenhouse gas than CO2. Yeah. In terms of its intensity in, in, in the potency to the, to as a greenhouse gas.

It is many times more potent as a greenhouse gas and CO2 is pound for pound, whatever you want to call it. So you either want to compost it. That’s what a lot of people do.

If you have a garden, if you have an opportunity to garden, a lot, a lot of gardeners will have a compost pile where they’ll throw stuff in the organics and they have to kind of decompose with, you know, kind of other organics, which, which basically creates, uh, uh, you know, some, some CO2, but it also creates a very, very rich and useful, uh, soil that can be utilized, uh, in, in gardens. And so composting is a great way to do it. There’s also a lot of local places will have a, uh, place.

You can take pumpkins that are, that are compost companies that will take them and put them in their composting ability. Um, yeah. And the other option is I know one of my neighbors around here collects them and they take them to a pig farm and the pigs actually eat them.

Yeah. Yeah. So having to complete the food cycle.

So there’s, there’s some options there. Uh, I know like here in Richmond, for example, we have kind of the, uh, Richmond composting initiative. Uh, they’ll do a, uh, it was one place that does a pumpkin smash party.

You can bring your pumpkin and smash it, you know, and you’ll get a little rage out while having your pumpkin then picked up and taking a compost. So that’s pretty cool. Lots, lots of ways to do it.

And, uh, but do not throw it into the trash or in a dumpster or anything like that. We don’t not want them going to landfill. So that’s my big story.

Little public service announcement for, for Halloween. That’s where I’m going to go with it. There it is.

All right. Now, all right. We’re doing something for the first time.

We’re kind of playing these clips live. I’ve got them kind of teed up in my little program here and I, I’m hoping that they all work appropriately and that the audience can hear them. Otherwise I can, I’ll have to drop them in later.

We’ll hear them. That’s the most important thing. So we’re going to grab a few of these interviews and they’re kind of random and the people I met, I didn’t really pick and choose.

I stopped by a couple of booths or exhibits or whatever. And I, and I talked to people there. Um, by also just kind of grab folks at, Hey, would you mind if I interviewed you and just got a little take a climate weekend in your journey here?

And a lot of, most people said, yes. Very few people said no, unless they were going somewhere. So again, that’s kind of feeding into people at climate week are super nice.

And so, all right, let’s just start. Let’s grab one. Just, I’m going to grab this first one.

Okay. Uh, this is a clip from someone that talked about something you’d mentioned before. So we’re going to, going to give it a listen and see, see how you react to it.

Okay, here we go. What’s inspired you so far from what you’ve seen?

[Nick Terchak]
I think, um, project drawdown was really, their announcement was really cool. It’s a nonprofit that has this super cool visualization of climate solutions for everything, more or less. And like solid science.

I remember I proud owner of their book, big fan of them.

[Sheldon Young]
Excellent. Thank you so much. And then, um, what would you love to see come out of this week for you or in general?

[Nick Terchak]
In general, more optimism, more optimism. That’s, uh, this is, um, unstoppable despite all the policy headwinds.

[Sheldon Young]
Fantastic. And if you’d like to, you can give your name and company. If you want, you don’t have to.

[Nick Terchak]
Yes. I’m Nick Terchak of value stack.

[Sheldon Young]
Thank you so much. All right. So there’s Nick.

Uh, I bumped into Nick at the nest, uh, and just had that little chat. He mentioned something that you were there and seen. Um, what are your thoughts Jason?

[Jason Moreau]
Yeah, I would agree the, uh, project drawdown explorer platform. Um, I honestly think, I don’t know, I’ll pitch you that we could probably do a future episode on a lot of the content that’s in there, because I think there’s, I think just thinks there’s some surprising takeaways from it. Um, but the bottom line is I think, again, marketing, uh, communication, right?

Like there’s all of this amazing science. Um, and data locked away in technical papers, scientific papers that typically the people, a lay person, or even people on the front lines who are deeply immersed in it, but maybe not in the latest science don’t have the time to get. And so this to me was really that bridge of like, how do you extract the information?

Number one, how do you present it? And a really compelling format number two, but then how do you make it actionable? And the, the platform did all of that continues to do all of that.

Um, and it’s free to access. So like there’s, yeah, to me, it was, it was one of the really exciting things that I learned about, um, at climate week.

[Sheldon Young]
Nice. Yeah. I, I, it’s, uh, I like the idea of that, of doing an episode on it.

Maybe we even get someone from the project on here. That’d be fun. Oh, that’d be great.

Yeah. Let’s go right on that. So we do folks, we do the hard work.

So you don’t have to, that’s what happens here. Um, yeah, I, I like his comment around, uh, um, you know, optimism. Uh, I, again, I walked away very optimistic about, uh, the work that’s happening, uh, and I’m going to say the, and I’ve talked about this before, the maturity of, of, of sustainability.

Right. And it’s, it’s a real, it’s a real business thing for those that we’ve known all along, but for those that think sustainability isn’t, isn’t like, you know, it’s all fluffy unicorn stuff. It’s not, it is a real business function.

It is a critical business function. And, uh, it was evident to me, very clear to me that a lot of smart people are working on it. And, and the optimism I had walking out was super high and, uh, uh, I was, it made me really happy to be there that week.

[Jason Moreau]
Oh, for sure. Yeah. I don’t think you can discount what it feels like to recognize and, and participate in a community.

Right. And in climate week, if nothing else is, is allowing that community to, to interact real time in real life around these really cool, important topics. So yeah, for sure.

Yeah. It’s very, um, inspiring. Yeah.

[Sheldon Young]
All right. So let’s jump to the next one. I’ll apologize.

I’m recording this in the field with a little hand recorder thing. And so I was getting used to it and trying to figure out the nuances of it. And, uh, you know, I’ve learned a few tricks since then.

I’m like, okay. Cause you’ll sometimes hear it pop or something like that. I’m like, okay, a little too close to the mouth.

I should know this. I, I, I work with podcasts all the time, but, uh, you know, I did a lot of, as much editing as I could, I’ll just say that, but okay. All right, here we go.

Um, this next one, I really like this person in terms of, uh, their job was kind of cool listening to what their job is. Okay.

[Karen Ruth]
Okay. My name is Karen Ruth and I work for Pandora with LabGone Diamonds.

[Sheldon Young]
Fantastic. Okay. So, uh, what brings you to Climate Week?

[Karen Ruth]
Um, I’m here to listen to a few interesting, um, speakers. So yeah.

[Sheldon Young]
And what action would you like to see come out of Climate Week?

[Karen Ruth]
Um, I hope just a continued commitment. Um, and yeah, I really hope, I think this is super important, uh, for everyone. Also given today’s climate and, and yeah, political environment, it’s very important to stay committed.

[Sheldon Young]
Yeah. So the importance of staying committed that, that, that for sure was something that stood out to me. Um, speakers, she mentioned speakers.

I’m not gonna, you know, I’m gonna ask you to play favorites. Everyone was great. There was, I didn’t see anyone that was bad.

Did you have a favorite session that stood out for you that, uh, you’d recommend to someone to go, to go listen to?

[Jason Moreau]
Oh, um, yeah, that’s hard. I would say, uh, cause I I’ll, I’ll recommend it cause I, I do know that they’re available on their YouTube channel, but the, the food tank content was excellent. Gotcha.

Yeah.

[Sheldon Young]
Um, yeah, I’m excited to watch some of that. I didn’t get a chance to go down a food tank. And so I’m looking forward to that as well.

What did I see there? I saw all of the sustainability lives stuff is also available, I believe. So that, that’s kind of cool.

I’m going to go back and listen to some of that. Um, do you think there’s one that stood out to me as a favorite? Uh, put myself on the spot a little bit.

I really enjoyed hearing the farmers talk about their experience. To me, that was kind of the most raw and real thing. And I actually made me a little emotional at some point, uh, you know, just because hearing, hearing kind of how hard it is sometimes and hearing the, the true dedication these people have to their craft and to their animals and all that stuff, it really will, if you want to understand, you know, the, the heart of, of, of what this country is in terms of like the way it feeds itself and all that.

Go listen to a farmer speak and, and tell their story. I highly recommend that.

[Jason Moreau]
So, well, yeah. And, and you don’t have to listen long to understand why they care about sustainability. I mean, not just as stewards of the land, but if you put that much care and attention and time into growing crop or raising animals, you don’t want any of that product to go to waste.

And so, you know, it, not just their piece of it from a sustainability standpoint, but then the, like the, the supply chain of getting into the supermarket and making sure none of that gets thrown away and hungry people get fed, I mean, that’s kind of why they get up every day. So, yeah.

[Sheldon Young]
And absolutely. And you, and to that point, it’s like, look, particularly if they’re farming, like say animals and things like that, look, they raised these animals, right? They cared for them.

They, you know, yes, they know at the end of the day, they, they’re, they are consumed by people, but. They don’t want it wasted. I mean, they, they treat the animals with incredible respect for, you know, many of the times that I see these people that are doing regenerative farming that are truly caring for things.

They take great care of their animals and you know, just to, to know that it’s being used for good and not wasted. I’m sure it’s incredibly important to them. Yeah.

Yeah. So it really, it really was, that was the best part for me. Okay.

Next up, we have a student actually. And so, uh, again, for me, what I was listening for this one was like, uh, you’ll see what other questions they ask. I’ll just let you listen to it.

Then we’ll, then we’ll talk about it. Okay. There we go.

[Student]
Uh, I’m Aness uh, I’m a student. I’m doing a master’s in sustainability management at Columbia.

[Sheldon Young]
Fantastic. I’ll be at Columbia on Thursday. Uh, so what brings you to climate week?

[Student]
Uh, well, I studied sustainability and I want to learn more. Yeah. Uh, and I want to network, meet people in different industries and just learn more in general beyond my course.

So yeah.

[Sheldon Young]
Fantastic. And then where, where is your focus in sustainability? Be a, do you know yet?

[Student]
Um, I have several that I’m interested in. I think corporate strategy and corporate reporting is interesting. Um, also very interested in biodiversity.

Um, I think supply chains are very interesting as well as lots of areas of interest. Yeah, I think.

[Sheldon Young]
Fantastic. And then, uh, what, um, have you seen that you’ve inspired you so far?

[Student]
I went to, uh, Columbia organized one about fashion yesterday, which was really interesting because it was people from all industries, policy, but also brands themselves, luxury brands. And it was a lot of really cool speakers. So yeah.

[Sheldon Young]
Excellent. And then, um, what actions would you like to see come out of climate week?

[Student]
It’d be great if corporations could step up. So, and hopefully I think there’s so much innovation during climate week. And so many cool startups that have such innovative and not necessarily more costly ways of doing things.

So it’d be great if those were implemented and got funding and yeah.

[Sheldon Young]
Excellent. All right. So there’s the, the hope of tomorrow.

Uh, when we loved her answers. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, definitely optimistic and hopeful, which I love to hear. Right. I mean, we, we need that if we expect to, to continue the momentum and, uh, hearing someone that, uh, is, is kind of, you know, now learning and training themselves to do this, it was, it was, was fun for me.

[Jason Moreau]
Well, and I can imagine too, where it’s like, you know, people who aren’t as maybe plugged in or connected as, as you, or even me at this point after doing so many episodes of the podcast and hanging out with you, but like, you know, I can imagine she’s at a family gathering and she’s saying she’s going to get her masters and sustainability and some of her family members going like, what do you do with that?

Right. Right. Right.

She had like half a dozen different areas that she’s thinking about, especially like, like, and that wasn’t even the complete list. Right. So like, it is such a big open space and so many different aspects of it to explore.

Um, I, that to me, what was, was really cool. Um, cause we talk about it umbrella wise, but like, there’s just so many little places and big places you can go with it.

[Sheldon Young]
Yeah. I mean, very much agree with you. If for, for me, uh, I had a comment, I’m running somewhere here.

It was, it’s around sustainability is so many little segments now, uh, important segments, like it’s become, you know, the umbrella word, right. Sustainability, but then it’s, it’s all the thing is region agriculture. It’s, you know, supply chain.

It’s all these different things. Yeah.

[Jason Moreau]
She literally said corporate reporting and then biodiversity. Right. You know what I mean?

It’s like, and those are the like same under the same umbrella. Like it’s pretty wild.

[Sheldon Young]
Yeah. And I had a conversation, uh, yesterday with, with, with someone from that was, I was a climate week with, and we talked a little bit about this and, and her, her opinion also, it’s like, look, it’s almost like if you’re, if your job is just, if you say my job is sustainability, you almost work yourself. Your goal is to work yourself out of a job in some regards.

Right. Yeah. But it’s only because sustainability becomes part of the business vernacular and part of the business function that it is so ingrained.

Hopefully if we do our job, what we do will just be the natural way of doing things. Like you wouldn’t put a project in unless you’ve evaluated the impact of that project from a, a water and energy, whatever it is, unless you’ve understood the impacts of it up and downstream. Our goal is that that becomes the norm, not the exception and not something you have to have a function for.

So at the end of the day, hopefully people that are studying and learning sustainability, it’s like, or building themselves to be look, excellent business leaders or whatever, you know, business, wherever, wherever field is, I’m saying business, it could be education. It could be, um, lots of different areas. But at the end of the day, if we do it right, that’s, that’s the norm, not the exception, and, uh, you don’t have to have these, uh, initiatives to make these things actually function.

So yeah, it was really inspiring to talk to, to talk to her for sure. Okay. Next Jason.

Uh, let’s see. Oh, this was an exhibit. I stopped by this was a, I just, I thought the exhibit was really interesting.

And I thought people would like to hear about it in case they wanted to engage. Uh, and I don’t know where it’s, where it’s going to be travels around, which is kind of cool. And then they even think about that, like we’re trying to, they try to lower the impact of that.

So let’s see what we got.

[Sheldon Young]
Um, yeah. So tell me a little bit about just this exhibit we’re looking at and what it’s, what its goal is.

[Dear Tomorrow]
So this is for an org, a not-for-profit organization called Dear Tomorrow. And it’s all about writing a letter to someone you love in the year 20, 2050. Um, and we find this as a good way to get people to engage with the emotions that arise with when thinking of climate change and what they wish for the future.

So this exhibit is designed to travel. It packs down really small and compact. And over the last few years, we’ve kind of held these events, um, in different locations and collected this archive of letters from all over, uh, from Europe, UK, um, and also here in the States.

And we’ve also got a website where people have been adding their letters in a digital archive as well. So what you see here is a curation of those letters collected from people with, um, you know, all kinds of different backgrounds and it’s, it’s amazing to see, um, people write and absolutely add to it.

[Sheldon Young]
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, do you have a concept of how many letters you guys have so far?

[Dear Tomorrow]
Oh, a lot. It took a lot to curate it down to this. Um, I wasn’t part of that process, but, um, Sandra and, um, Nellie and Jill have been, um, amazing in providing all the letters from the archive.

[Sheldon Young]
And so what happens to the letters long-term?

[Dear Tomorrow]
So we’ve just collecting them, uh, and we’ve kind of hoping that one day we can, you know, create a larger exhibition for them or, yeah, we’ve got these stamps now so we can, um, you know, locate where they were Russian and the date. And so maybe that will just, the archive will just keep going.

[Sheldon Young]
Sounds great. Thank you so much.

[Dear Tomorrow]
Yeah.

[Sheldon Young]
So I read a number of the letters and you know, again, it’s the whole concept of hope and the whole concept of a hopeful tomorrow and a future, and you know, what, what, when you write something down, you sit down and write something down to someone you love, it really comes to the surface. The things that you’re, you’re really going to care about. I mean, honestly, if I were a marketer, if for sustainability, I’d want to read those letters and, uh, and I think it would help inform how to tell better stories.

[Jason Moreau]
Yeah, I really, um, I didn’t get a chance to see this booth. So I’m really glad you spoke, um, to her and interviewed her. Cause I, aside from just being a really cool, creative project, totally agree with you that like, yeah, uh, the assignment itself does a few things.

Yeah. It, it really sort of like makes you connect with what you care about and what you hope from a future standpoint. Um, but, uh, the other thing it reminded me of was there was this, um, and I’ll connect it to something completely unrelated, but there was, here we go.

Here we go. You’re on the Jason trade. So they, there was this, um, this like little experiment.

And so when people are saving, uh, for retirement, they don’t really save a lot because we’re not really evolved to think that far in the future. And so it’s like, well, it’s like, you’re saving for a different person. Right.

And so you don’t, you just kind of, you don’t prioritize it. And then the experiment was they essentially had them look in a mirror, but it was like an electronic mirror that like aged them, you know, like did an Instagram filter and like showed them as an old person. And all of a sudden the people who saw that surprise, surprise, like, you know, they increased their savings for retirement by like some pretty substantial amount over the control group.

Right. Because all of a sudden it was real. It connected them to that moment in the future when they are that person.

And so I think this project does something similar. It, it forces you to imagine yourself in 2050 and then connecting to that, to that, whoever that person was, you were writing the letter to right. So, um, now brilliant, brilliant project as far as I’m concerned.

Very cool.

[Sheldon Young]
Yeah. I mean, for me, when I hear it, it’s like, okay, if I thought about someone I love 50 years from now, it’s like, it’s probably like my nieces or something like that, it’s a young person. Yeah, it is.

It’s a young person. It’s like, wow. It makes me say, okay, what would I want to tell them that I did exactly make a better, no, seriously.

It’s like, yeah, if I, if I leave you with a destitute planet, uh, you know, what could I have done differently versus what am I going to promise you? I’m going to do to create a better world. Right.

Well, I think to me that kind of is how that one kind of plays on the mind a little bit.

[Jason Moreau]
Well, exactly. Because you’re in that mindset, then you’re that much more likely to try and do those things that you committed to writing about in the letter. It’s the equivalent of, um, sometimes different goal-setting exercises.

People have you imagine what will people say about you at, you know, when they’re eulogizing you, like at your funeral, right? So like, what are the important things you need to focus on between now and then? The inevitable for all of us where it’s like, this is how I want to make my impact.

Right. And so it’s just a, it’s a great framing device and it’s a, it’s a really. Um, yeah, I want to go read some of those letters.

[Sheldon Young]
They sound like, well, you can, you can go online and read them online archive and, uh, uh, recommend people go, go write one, go, go and go see the exhibit. And I think, uh, and she said, I asked a question where it’s going up. I hope it ends up in a museum as something that was in the past, right?

Like, you know, based on our, the last thing I just talked about, it’s like, hopefully it works itself out of a need. Right. But, uh, you know, we’ll, we’ll see how that goes for us.

All right. Moving on next. We’re going to go to.

Oh, this is interesting. This is a company that was there and I chatted with them real quick. Let’s see.

Let’s see if we can learn about them. Let’s clicky click.

[Sheldon Young]
Okay. So tell me about what I’m looking at here.

[RTS]
So we are RTS. We are a technology sustainability waste management company. Uh, we actually partner here, Javits.

So, you know, so we’re here to support them and nest. Uh, we provide all of the data and sustainability support around their waste management needs. Um, and you know, really work with clients all over North America and globally to through data, understand how they could reduce waste, divert waste, um, and get services that are more efficient.

[Sheldon Young]
So there we go. Technology at work, technology at work.

[Jason Moreau]
And it’s, it’s one of those things where like, I’m sure they have more than this, but I went to their website just to sort of check it out and see what it is. And it’s, you know, like imagine your kind of standard like dumpster. And it’s, it’s basically a sensor that mounts inside of it and does a few things.

One, it tracks how full the dumpster is. So say in a given week, the dumpster isn’t completely full. You don’t have to waste driving a truck out, driving a truck to go pick up a half empty dumpster.

Right. So like it’s more efficient usage of resources that way for the company, probably a cost savings for the company that they work with, right. Cause not as many pickups, but then the other thing the sensor did was it it actually identifies, so say it’s just strictly for cardboard and paper.

If other components are in there, it alerts the company. And so they can like try and grab the, you know, the waste that isn’t recyclable out of there before RTS comes and picks it up. Right.

So like, you know, making sure that the way streams are efficient when RTS like, so it was just kind of crazy. Cause it’s like, it I’ll yeah. It’s a simple thing.

I know it’s not simple from a technology standpoint to do it, but like, it’s a simple idea where it’s like, yeah, you multiply that by how many dumpsters and how many cities, cause he said they were global and it’s like, yeah, they’re probably, you know, not having a truck there, you know, picking up a half empty dumpster when it doesn’t need to. It’s like, yeah, they’re saving how much in gas and carbon emissions. It’s wild.

[Sheldon Young]
Yeah. It is very, very cool. Yeah. Neat stuff.

I mean, the way technology can be applied in such a, I’ll call it personal way, you know, in kind of a macro level to yield a macro result is really interesting to me. So yeah. Well, that brings us to our last one of the interviews and this kind of ties in.

So what this is, I bumped into this person on the street and he had this little Wally looking robot thing, what it looked like, it really looked like Wally, if you’ve seen the movie. Um, and I said, well, what is this thing? Tell me about it.

And, and I cut this one pretty short cause the description got kind of long and it was interesting to me, but you know, we got, we got time limits here. And so we’re going to play it and just, uh, get a sense of what it is that I want your reaction to that. Here we go.

[Woody]
Hi there. Uh, I’m Woody. I’m working with Atlanta climate and this is, uh, OB.

Basically what this is, is this is a carbon capture device. It has a three tier filtration system and it takes the air indoor and it’s able to filter out any dust pollen or wildfire particles, but it’s also able to capture the CO2 from the, uh, environment.

[Sheldon Young]
Yeah. So it is a little bit of both. So it’s a, it’s a, I want to call it a super air filter, but also with a carbon capture mechanism in it.

Right. Which I thought was really interesting then. And then, but then I’m thinking, okay, how is this, who’s, who’s going to bite on that?

You know, the thing was probably the size of a, I don’t know, a midsize trash can, maybe a couple of feet tall. And you know, but I was like, yeah, big round, holding my hands up here. It’s maybe not quite too basketball, maybe a basketball in the half.

In diameter.

[Jason Moreau]
Okay. You buy in, you in maybe I basically, um, so he said they were, um, a startup. Yep.

And so I think what’s interesting is, you know, there’s a whole marketplace for carbon credits. And you know, that’s usually forests and trees and things like that. But if you borrow a model from like crypto, right.

Um, or even the SETI project, right. Right. Where, where people like the SETI project, NASA gave you a bit of code and your computer and it’s idle time process signals to help them write like essentially crowdsource computing power, you can do the same thing here, but with carbon credits.

Right. So like if you buy into this robot, maybe you get a little like dividend every month or something like that. Right.

Like you could Matt, I like the idea. It’s really like, so I don’t know, just like maybe, because I mean, I think there’s, there’s the benefit of like, well, why do I buy this versus a regular like air purifier? And if it’s essentially like, well, because this thing also captures CO2 and you know, you get a little dividend check because it’s like, Oh, okay.

So it’s air, air purifier plus this benefit. Sure. Why not?

Right. Like, so I don’t know, maybe he’s onto something. Interesting.

[Sheldon Young]
Yeah. So I, yeah, I thought, I thought it was, I thought it was a really interesting little thing that again, I didn’t do it justice. I did cut it short a little bit.

He talks more about it and it was came about cause, uh, I believe the wildfires out West was something that really kind of triggered it. Cause the air quality was so, so bad. And this brings it to kind of that high quality air inside your home.

It’s an in the home kind of thing. So yeah, I got, it was super interesting, uh, to, to look into. I, I, I’m honestly thinking about maybe something that my, my mom who has really bad allergies would, would benefit from something like that.

So, um, yeah, I thought it was kind of neat. So Atalanta, I think it was called, it’s like Atlanta, but with an extra a in there. And so go, go check it out, go check out there.

Uh, they were looking for, uh, I think they had, they built like a hundred units or something so far, but they were looking for investors. And so there’s still kind of early Kickstarter stage, but. Uh, might be worth looking into.

I mean, I like the concept for sure. Um, yeah. And don’t just get cute, right?

If you said this thing looks like Wally, I mean, that’s the best description I could give, it looked like a little, I thought it was a little robot when I walked up to it, I’m like, I’m like, is this going to like, uh, do chores or something? I didn’t know what it was.

[Jason Moreau]
I think half the reason people like bought into Roombas initially was because it was, it was cute. It was like this, like, it was just this cute little thing that went around the house. Like, so if it has that factor to it, then people would at least give it a look, right?

Like you did. You’re like, that’s kind of cool.

[Sheldon Young]
What is that? Absolutely. Yeah.

They had them on the street and this guy was nice enough to talk to me. So good stuff. All right.

So that brings us to the end of our, on the street interviews. Um, what did you think? Any, any comments?

What can I do better next time? What questions would you have asked that I didn’t ask? And to be fair, I also didn’t list them all, but.

What would you want to have it done?

[Jason Moreau]
No, no, no, no. I thought those were all really good. Um, I mean, I think you covered the basics.

I mean, I, I think it’s, I think it’s just a really interesting time and I think you actually got, you got way more diversity of like people than I would have thought again, initially sort of going back to our like first conversations. Like, what do you think climate week’s going to be versus what it was type of thing? Like I, I continually, when I think about it and impressed and still sort of.

In a nice way amazed that like, there’s so many different people working on so many different things. And I think if anything, your, your interviews captured that really well. Cool.

Thanks buddy. Appreciate that.

[Sheldon Young]
All right. Now I’m gonna give my surprise. So one question I asked most of the people, um, if they were from New York or, or I’d say at least had some familiarity with New York, I kind of asked them.

Tell us like a favorite restaurant or what you would recommend someone eat here. Uh, you know, I got to stick to the theme. You know, I, I went there for pizza.

I had one, I was a one track mind, but I want, I want to be fair and, and, and expose the diversity of New York’s restaurant. So here’s what I got from a few of the folks. Here we go.

I kind of rapid fired them right after one after the other. One restaurant recommendation you would give anyone that came.

[RTS]
Ooh, uh, that’s also tough. Um, I live right by Ras Plantas, which is a vegan, um, Ethiopian restaurant. Um, Ethiopian food is amazing.

When you make it all vegan, it’s even better. I’d go there.

[Foodie 1]
Uh, pizza for sure. I’m relatively new to New York. I’m based in Seattle, but I’m looking forward to getting some good slices.

[Foodie 2]
Oh my gosh. There are some amazing restaurants in this city. I would say Pomodoro Rosso is one of my favorite Italian places in the city.

Ginzu Sushi has the best sushi in the city.

[Student]
So let me, oh, that’s quite a hard one. I feel like I’ve been to a lot of cool restaurants. I mean, in terms of Italian food, I don’t think I’ve ever had a bad Italian here, but I went to, and I know you need to book a few months in advance, but my friend booked it for me.

It’s called Missy in Williamsburg. So that was really nice.

[Karen Ruth]
Sailor in Brooklyn, Fort Greene, Brooklyn, Sailor.

[Sheldon Young]
And what kind of food is that?

[Karen Ruth]
Oh, it’s like good food, American food, a mix kind of French American, I guess, but it’s really good.

[Sheldon Young]
Fantastic. Thank you so much. There we go.

Jason, the unofficial climate week, uh, restaurant recommendation list. So you can put it on the books for next year.

[Jason Moreau]
Oh, for sure. And we probably could have done a whole episode just walking around asking people that question.

[Sheldon Young]
And it would have filled the time.

[Jason Moreau]
It’s an amazing food city breaking news. You already knew breaking news.

[Sheldon Young]
Did that tie in place? So the Toro Toro Rosso, not Toro Rosso. It was something like that.

The, um, I want to go back and listen to it, but the place that she mentioned she was enthusiastic about, but okay.

[Jason Moreau]
Yeah, that’s going on a list for sure. And I know it’s not your jam, but yeah, I would also check out the sushi one she recommended too. Cause I am a fan.

Yep. That’s just me. That’s good.

[Sheldon Young]
All right. So that, that, that makes it, that ends this episode for us, Jason. Uh, you know, thank you again for, for joining us on this episode of No Footprints.

As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts, ideas, uh, any topics you have, or even a great guest that’s making sustainability real, reach out to us. You can reach us at nofootprints.podcast@alfalaval.com.

That’s it. My friend, let’s move on and we’ll see you next time.

[Jason Moreau]
Next time.

[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.