NY Climate Week 2025 Reflections

Transcript

Sheldon Young
Welcome to Footprints, a podcast brought to you by Alfa Laval. I am Sheldon Young.

Jason Moreau
And I’m Jason Moreau.

Sheldon Young
And we’re here to talk about impact and to share the efforts of people behind making sustainability real. We’re doing it. We’re doing it.

Every two weeks we do this, Jason, or every, sorry, twice a month that we do this. That’s kind of our cadence.

Jason Moreau
Correct.

For now.

Sheldon Young
For now.

Jason Moreau
That’s what works.

Sheldon Young
For now. Who knows? We could be doing a daily podcast.

Jason Moreau
Fully reserve the right to change it up in the future.

Sheldon Young
At any point in time.

Jason Moreau
At any point in time.

Sheldon Young
Yes. Yeah. It all depends on these wonderful sponsors that we have and the thousands and thousands of listeners that we pull in the next few weeks.

Jason Moreau
Yeah. The legions.

Sheldon Young
Legions of fans. The legions. I like that.

Legions. The legions of sustainability. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Goody, goody. All right.

Let’s give the fans what they came for. What you got for a story to start? Kick us off.

Jason Moreau
So my story, I thought this one was really interesting. I came across it on, I believe, Fast Company. And it was just a story about redesigning, reimagining cities.

Okay. So you know me pretty well, and you know that I like to sort of come at things from a larger system level, usually, in terms of problem solving. And I thought this was a great article because it was just, for the last 100 years, cities haven’t really been designed around people.

They’ve been designed around cars. And when you think about sustainability, again, going back to the UN goals, where it’s not just about climate, it’s about people thriving, I think, if I could summarize a lot of the other goals. And so I just thought it was really interesting.

I won’t go through the five different things that they talked about, but… What’s one or two of them? Yeah.

The fifth one was interesting, and I think that this sort of is just a good general. How do you measure success, right?

Sheldon Young
And so… Okay.

Jason Moreau
For decades, traffic engineers, city planners thought of success and good planning in terms of how fast and efficiently can traffic move around a city, right? But what if your measure of success was more people-centric, right? Is it safe to walk your kid to school?

Can a teenager get to a job without a car? Are parks and clinics accessible without driving? Right, right.

Right? So all of a sudden, changing how you define and measure success, instantly everything shifts in terms of how you are going to problem-solve, how you are going to imagine and design to achieve that goal that you’ve set in front of yourself. And so I just thought it was…

I mean, it was interesting in and of itself, but that message resonated with me in a larger context. And also that it’s not a, as the article points out, these are not utopian types of ideals, right? Paris is removing 70,000 parking spaces to make room for bikes and trees.

Barcelona is expanding a network of super blocks that prioritize pedestrians and through traffic and all of these cities that have adopted some of these design principles, the city is flourishing, right? And it’s flourishing based on that new measure of success. And so I just, I really enjoyed reading the article and yeah, no, just thought it had larger implications beyond just thinking about cities, right?

It’s more about problem-solving and designing for the future that you want.

Sheldon Young
I really like that. I think, you know, it’s all about what, it’s your definition of success, I think you hit it over the head. I think, you know, what if the definition of success was, okay, we get people where they want to go efficiently and with the least amount of time and the least amount of resources, what if that were the metric, right?

You know, does time, again, I’ve said this before, time is the sustainability resource you cannot replenish, period, right? And so what if the goal was to get everyone there very efficiently with the least amount of traffic jam, the least amount of hesitation and all that, that could be an interesting metric. And it’s funny, it’s like even little Richmond here where we are, you know, they’ve added bike lanes, they’ve added bike lanes to some of the main streets in what we call it the fan area, which is a city area.

And you know, you see people use them and it’s like, yeah, does it take away some room on the road? Sure. But it gives a safe place for bikes to go to transport themselves around the city.

Jason Moreau
Well, yeah. And they’ve just, I heard this news this week, Richmond is redoing their zoning for the first time since the 70s. Now, not as maybe like, we’ll call it as intense as like Paris and Barcelona, but very much with an eye towards, I think, more human centric types of activities.

So yeah, that’s, I think it’s cool to your point to even see a smaller city like Richmond looking at some of this. Yeah, for sure.

Sheldon Young
All right. My story today, burritos.

Jason Moreau
Sheldon, you had me at burritos.

Sheldon Young
I had you at burritos. Okay, so I was listening to another podcast I listen to frequently. It’s, it’s, it’s more of an entertainment podcast about life in America.

And they were talking about, okay, so first of all, this is not an ad for this company. No affiliations that they eat this sometimes, uh, you know, and again, you, you could go not an endorsement or anything. It’s just a, just data.

Chipotle is the company. And, and, uh, you know, um, I learned a lot about them from a sustainability point of view. Actually, you go to their website stuff and they do a lot, which is, and you can think, okay.

What’s, what’s a burrito company going to do with sustainability? Well, I wrote down some stats because I was impressed. 61% renewable electricity in their restaurants, 15% reduction in their scope, one into emissions.

Almost 50 million pounds of waste diverted from landfill. 47 million pounds of local produce used. Responsible meat, no hormones.

Again, this is the, from their words, not my responsibility, no hormones, humanely treated animals, and zero tolerance of anyone in their supply chain violates that. Non-GMO ingredients. First fast food like chain to have a vegetarian option with sofritas.

I remember that when I first came out, I’m like, what’s a sofrita? I was like, oh, it’s vegetarian. Interesting.

84% of guest-facing packaging designed to be circular in nature. Uh, they were launching a lot of stuff around, around regenerative agriculture, which we’ve had an episode around early on. Uh, they’re even piloting, uh, plant-based organic fertilizers for their, for the people.

So again, it’s, I love reading things like that around major companies that have a lot of potential impact, right? Cause I don’t know how many burritos they sell every year, but it’s a lot and they have choices to make, you know, not all of this stuff comes at free. So they’re making an investment in this.

I’m sure it’s something that their consumers care about. I know I do care about what I try to grab. And I do think about, okay, what’s a, maybe a better choice.

If not a perfect choice, you know, we don’t look perfection, the enemy of good. Right. And you know, when I read something like this, I’m like, oh, okay.

That’s a pretty fun thing to read. And I feel okay about going and getting myself a product from there. So it’s about that culture of continuous improvement and how do they continually move the needle towards a more sustainable food chain?

And I think, okay, we have to figure it out. I mean, not to get on the, on the, on the food and sustainability soapbox, but I will for a second. This population isn’t getting smaller anytime soon.

It’s taxing our resources as a planet. It becomes harder and harder with the shifts that are happening to, to provide food at that scale, right? How do we do it in a more sustainable, less impactful way?

It’s going to be super, super important. And I really enjoy reading about how it’s really happening. And then going, you know, in this episode, we’re talking about climate week.

We’re going to climate week next week. And we’re going to kind of see and see the new innovations and people that are working towards a more sustainable food chain. So exciting stuff.

That’s my story for the week around burritos. Who doesn’t want to listen to burritos, right?

Jason Moreau
Right. Yeah, no, it was, I liked your story. Thank you.

Sheldon Young
Thank you. Okay. All right.

So let’s kick into this. Let’s get to our real topic today. So we’re going to be doing, I think we mentioned in our last episode, we’re going to be doing some climate week episodes for a number of reasons.

One, it’s cool. It’s kind of neat. We’re going to go engage in this thing.

I think there’s a lot of interesting conversations, innovations that are released, discussions that are had. We hope to learn a lot and ourselves, we hope to having great conversations. It’s also like, you may be thinking about going to climate week of yourself, and we want to share our experience.

Cause I’ll be honest. We first kicked this thing off when we said, Hey, we’re going to go to climate week as a U S contingent here for Alpha Laval. I was like, I had no idea where to start.

Yeah. So this particular episode we’re recording in two parts. This is the Friday before we go to climate week, Jason and I are boarding a train Sunday morning and we’re heading to New York city and climate week will begin.

So we wanted to give you kind of a, I don’t know. We want to have a little pre climate week talk. And then the second part of this episode is going to be.

Okay. What are our immediate reflections right after climate week? And so we will record when we get back.

And so that’s what you’re getting today.

Jason Moreau
So you hear all the energy in our voice now, and then you’ll hear very exhaustion, but hopefully happy people, the enthusiastic exhaustion.

Sheldon Young
That’s what I’ll that’s a, we’re, we are making a presumption though. Jason, we could come back completely energized and refreshed.

Jason Moreau
I don’t know what my future self is going to be thinking or feeling correct.

Sheldon Young
Yeah. Okay. So, um, I guess, uh, let’s kick off with kind of what are you looking forward to the most?

Jason Moreau
I think, um, so we’ve mentioned this, uh, you haven’t been a climate week before. I haven’t been a climate week before. So I’m, I’m very much, um, looking forward to, I think the variety of different, um, activities, uh, sessions that we have planned to attend.

Um, it seems like a very eclectic is the wrong word. It’s, uh, just the variety, right? Like imagine the biggest buffet and right.

Like you and I, I think we’re mostly concentrating on food and water. Surprise, surprise. Um, but if you are more interested in energy, if you were more, and even, even in the food space, right?

Like if you are more interested in, uh, sustainable agriculture and how to better support farmers and farming practices, their sessions there, if you’re more on the, uh, food supply chain, right. And how does a large food and beverage company like Pepsi think about sustainability? Well, you could attend a session on that.

If you want to see, if you want to see new types of, uh, food, uh, startups and sustain, you know, outside of, you know, what I call like the traditional, uh, you know, food that, um, you know, we’re all familiar with that’s going to be there. So I just, the sheer breadth of like topics, speakers, sessions, um, is I think what I’m most excited about engaging with, because I, I don’t think there’s any possibility of going to all of that, listening to all of that and engaging where you don’t come away with new thoughts, new ideas, uh, just like just things where it wouldn’t even have been in my consciousness before. And then coming back from climate week, it’s like, wow, that was really impactful.

Like just really thinking through things. So I, I think that’s what I’m most excited about is just the sheer variety and, and not knowing where, where that new, cool idea is going to come from.

Sheldon Young
Yeah, those are some great takeaways. I think, um, for me, I’m probably most excited about being together with so many people that are aligned to like, I want to say that similar kind of outcome.

Jason Moreau
Yeah.

Sheldon Young
Uh, you know, everyone there is, I guess, hopeful, I guess is the word I’ll use that we can, we can move the needle. We can, we can make progress towards a more sustainable future that will address like the UN sustainability development goals and will help us, uh, you know, have a sustainable longterm viable planet. Uh, and I think, you know, just being with people that are all thinking about that, I can’t wait to see what bringing it together will generate for new ideas will generate for dialogue generate for, I guess, a support network.

Cause sometimes, I mean, look, I’m not going to lie. Sometimes it can be a little lonely. I mean, I guess we’re surrounded, we’re lucky here at our company.

We’re surrounded by a lot of people that get it and are supportive of it. But, you know, not always when you go out into the world, is it a top topic for people? You know, it’s kind of like, oh yes.

And, uh, uh, you know, I love it when I find people with that are, that are passionate about making it a priority. And I find those people, when I talk to the people, the lucky folks we get to meet in our work, but it’s great when pretty much you’re surrounded by it. And I just cannot wait to see that kind of energy and dialogue and hear from the folks that are pioneers and, um, innovators and entrepreneurs, even in that space.

And I think it’s going to be super cool, uh, to, to have that for like a week. And, um, yeah, I think that’s, that to me is what I’m most looking forward to. And I can just spend a week with you.

What else would I, what more else could I want there?

Jason Moreau
Wow. That’s really nice. I guess me and a slice of pizza.

Sheldon Young
And a slice of pizza. You without the pizza is a little less appealing. I’ve already, uh, I’ll tell the world, uh, I already have my, my list of pizzas places that I wrote my list to go to.

And one is very, very close to our hotel. So that’s the first stop when we get there. I’m looking forward to it.

It’s the rules, Jason, that’s the rules. Um, yeah. Okay.

So I think that’s a good place to start now. I want to jump backwards in time a little bit though, to the process of climate week preparation, because I’ll be very honest. I had no idea where to start.

Um, I think, uh, we were very lucky that, you know, we had a couple of guests on and I had a couple of people in the industry, uh, that had been and gave us some fantastic guidance, uh, just around things to look at. I mean, there is a, a New York climate week website kind of place. That is one place that has a lot of information.

It is mostly though around events that have paid to be, have put themselves on there. So it’s got a lot of great events. That’s a good place to start though.

You get a lot of things there. Um, but it’s not even touching. And I think we haven’t even, you know, gotten the depths of the iceberg ourselves yet.

So hopefully we’ll have a report when we’re back, but it certainly was a good place to start. It doesn’t start to really populate though, until you get closer to the events. Like in the last few weeks, it started to really populate itself out and became available.

So key things are obviously get yourself a place to stay and all that fun stuff. If you’re going to go get to that way in advance and most of it happens, a lot of it happens in that midtown, uh, Manhattan area is kind of where a lot of things are happening.

Jason Moreau
Yeah. Yeah. Seems like it.

And yeah, if you’re a person who likes to have everything prepared in advance, uh, knowing your exact itinerary and schedule, you just need to be I’ve readjust your expectations. Be okay with, uh, you know, a little bit of, uh, a little bit of gray, a little bit of ambiguity because yeah, things didn’t really start to lock into place here until the last few weeks, quite honestly. So, so yeah, you, you almost need to, uh, double book yourself, your schedule in terms of the events or activities that you want to attend.

Um, and then, you know, as, as that starts filling in it, it, yeah, it becomes clear, but yeah, that it’s not, it does not seem to be an event that you can, uh, completely plan out down to every minute, uh, very far in advance. And, but honestly, I think that’s a good thing. I think part of, you know, participating in and being part of the energy that you describe and being with a tribe of like-minded people is allowing room to, to bump in, uh, to somebody unexpectedly or to be able to learn about an event last minute that really resonates with you and to be able to go and, and have that flexibility.

So I honestly, I see that as almost kind of a feature versus a flaw of, of how they’ve designed. You’re right.

Sheldon Young
I think you’re right. Yeah. And I think it’s, uh, again, the other aspects you have to realize about some of the climate things, there are like hubs of things, like one of them that I think it’s, it’s free to attend.

It’s called the nest. That is a, a big one. It’s kind of over in Hudson yards area.

I think we’re at the Javits center, the Javits center.

Jason Moreau
That’s the Javits center.

Sheldon Young
Yep. The Javits center. Yeah.

Excuse me. And that’s one, I think if you want something where you know you can get into, uh, that’s one of them. And so, you know, get yourself a three day pass to that.

And, and, you know, you’ve been going there for a day. It’s something, you know, you can get into because some of the other places, um, it is kind of like a, Hey, you apply for a ticket and you will maybe get a ticket. It depends on, on lots of things.

It’s like, they try to fill it with a variety of people, but you could have several hundred people going for a hundred spots, um, for, for certain events. Right. So there’s a place called we’re very food centric in terms of Jason.

I do as a place called region house that we are going to be spending a good amount of time with. There’s a place called food tank. That’s actually kind of Southern part of, of Manhattan, uh, down near Soho.

And that’s a food tank. They’ve got a lot of art related, uh, is that the right way to put it? I mean, it’s art and broadcast related stuff.

Um, but some very cool stuff that they do. Um, my gosh, there’s, there’s so many sustainability live and there’s many, many things as you start to dive into climate week, you’ll, you’ll understand it. I think the key is find out, don’t forget, transportation is going to be really crazy.

Right. So, uh, you know, I, we’ll be doing a lot of sub weighing, uh, getting, getting place to place, but you know, if you’re going to expect to get a car or a taxi, it’s also the UN, uh, general assembly week this year. And so that gets pretty nutty.

So just think about those things when you plot out your little thing and you’ll have a, you’ll have a great climate week.

Jason Moreau
Yeah. And I would say you, you mentioned it, but, um, reaching out to people who have attended and can kind of give you some suggestions, steer you in the right way. Like you were mentioning, like some of our past guests were, um, very generous and then helping us, uh, you know, navigate, uh, make some introductions.

But honestly, if you came in cold, I think exactly to your point earlier, Sheldon, about just being with like-minded people. Um, you know, I’ve, I’ve reached out to a handful of people cold on LinkedIn and, and almost everybody’s like, that sounds great. Would love, would love to meet up.

Right. Like, and so I think it’s, you know, don’t be afraid to put yourself out there. Don’t be afraid to say, Hey, you know, what you’re doing looks really interesting.

You know, if there’s, if there’s time on both of our schedules, can we, you know, find time to meet in real life and just chat about what you’re doing? Um, yeah, I think that’s always an option too, that I think some people might not naturally think about if they’re a little bit more introverted, but when you are going and you want to meet like-minded people by and large, I mean, I don’t like to paint, you know, with a large brush, but I would say most people in the sustainability community are very generous with their time, with their knowledge, with almost anything.

Like they’re very welcoming. They want to see more people in the tent going on a sustainability journey. So I think most people are extremely open and approachable.

Sheldon Young
Yeah, that’s a, that’s a great, great comment, Jason. I think, uh, uh, everyone has been so kind, uh, you know, and even if they’re busy and can’t always meet up, uh, it’s like, Hey, they’ll give you advice. They’ll tell you where you should go.

Um, uh, and then you just, you know, I think it’s just having a semblance of a plan and backup plan is, is, and you’ll, and you’ll have a great week. I think there’s a lot of stuff. Also, there’s a lot of little one-off things that are happening all over the place and you may stumble across something and say, Oh, that’s interesting.

And I think the most important thing I’m, I think I forgot to mention is make time for conversations. Yes. So you’re going to meet people there and you’re going to want to grab a coffee.

If you’ve got yourself booked to the hilt, you’re not going to have those times. I am looking forward as well to having wonderful conversations with people I haven’t met yet and hopefully turn into a, uh, you know, uh, new friendships and, and, and new people to, to go on this journey with. And so, uh, give yourself a little time for that.

And this episode’s coming out after we’ve gone, but if you’re going to think about going next year, feel free to reach out to Jason and I will give you our experience and happy to connect with you there next year. If we go, I’m assuming we’re going to go again, but we’ll see how it all goes. Right.

Good stuff. All right. Jason has a couple more quick ones and then we’ll, uh, we’ll close this episode out.

Um, what would be a great set of outcomes for the week for you? Yeah. What does, what does success look like for you, Jason?

Jason Moreau
Oh yeah. Back to my, yeah. How do you measure success?

So, uh, I’ll piggyback off of, uh, what we both said at the top, right? Like for me, uh, one or two ideas or ways of thinking about things or, um, new initiatives that I wasn’t aware of before that are just, you know, spark my curiosity. Um, you know, just, just sort of, you know, feed that part of me.

Um, that would be success, but I really, you know, just meeting handful of people who you feel like you had a good connection with, you can follow up with continue to do, you know, interesting projects together, collaborate down the road, or just even stay in touch as like, Hey, we’re both on the sustainability journey.

Sheldon Young
Right.

Jason Moreau
You know more about this. I know more about this, right? Like if we need to collaborate or if we need to help or whatever it is.

So like, I think, I think success would be, yeah, measured along those two axes for me.

Sheldon Young
I think that those are great ones. And mine are, mine are similar. I think it’s, you know, having a broader view of what’s happening to move the sustainability needle, uh, and then being able to connect with the people that are doing it.

Uh, you know, that’s pretty big setting. I also, uh, you know, when we’re up there, we’re doing, trying to do some podcast stuff as well. I want to have a couple of great interviews.

I want to just talk to, I want to hear some fun answers. I’m going to be doing people on the street kind of stuff. I want to hear some fun answers around what people are enjoying at climate week.

Uh, that to me would be a lot of fun, uh, for us here on the, on the, from a show level. Uh, yeah. And I think of course, at the very end of it all, I need to have at least three fantastic slices of pizza.

Oh, don’t you forget about my pizza, Jason?

Jason Moreau
No, I, I like that. It’s your pizza. That that’s, that’s, that’s about it.

That sounds about right.

Sheldon Young
Yeah.

Jason Moreau
Well, I wish all of those things for you.

Sheldon Young
I really do. I like to make dreams come true. I’m okay.

All right. So during the, during the, uh, uh, the week, um, again, follow us Jason, Jason and I are both on LinkedIn. I’m, I’m Sheldon young.

I’m powerful about your Jason Morrow without alpha about follow us, connect with us on LinkedIn. Now, of course this episode was coming out after, but you’ll be able to go back and see what we posted. So you can, you can get a little bit of a real time kind of a venture from us.

Uh, well, I said, and this time it won’t be real time. It’ll be in the past, but you will see the things that were real and fun for us. Cause we’ll be posting about them and using the, using the platform for that as well.

Jason Moreau
See if you hit your three slice metric of success.

Sheldon Young
That’s a minimum metric, Jason. Sorry. Three is the utter failure.

You know, this got it. Got it. Okay.

Jason Moreau
Okay.

Sheldon Young
All right. All right. Well, let’s, let’s wrap this up.

Jason. I’m excited. Well, I say wrap up.

We’re wrapping up this part because we’re coming back. We’re going to give a, uh, the other part of this episode. And so, uh, the, the post breakdown.

And so we’ll be talking about that. So it’s gonna be a little longer episode. Cause it’s already 26 minutes.

We’ll have to see, maybe we’ll release it in two pieces. Ooh, let me think about that. So this may possibly be the end of this particular episode quickly followed by a second episode of the second half.

So we’ll see when we record it, I’ll make that game time decision. So it’s a surprise until it isn’t. All right.

We’ll see you all soon. Bye-bye. And just like that, Jason, the magic of modern technology.

We’re back. Right.

Jason Moreau
Time has passed for us, but not for the audience for you, right? It’s like a baking show. When they put something in the oven and then they take out the other one that’s already baked, right?

Like they just, they just keep going. That’s the edit.

Sheldon Young
This is the magic of the edit. So we’ve been to climate week. We’ve also been to other things too.

You and I have been a whirlwind tour, um, of a couple of solid weeks together on the road. Yeah. And, uh, we are now back from our adventures, uh, climate week.

Okay. I went back and listened to our little naive selves back in me before we went. I know.

So much has happened. Um, we were so cute then before we knew we were so cute, then such, such naive little buggers, a squeezer, squeeze my little cheeks. Um, so the, for the first thing I want to say about it, like I said, is it going to be energizing or exhausting or whatever?

Yes. Yes. It’s both, it’s both totally one of the most energizing weeks of my life.

Um, in terms of excitement and being in a, in a place where I belong, I feel, Oh yeah, I’m with my people. Right. But it was exhausting.

There’s no question. Cause it was so much to take in and so much to do. Um, all good.

It’s just, you know, you’re running, you’re going, you’re going, if you want to really, you know, get the most out of it, which I guess, you know, maybe it’s a little weird way to say it, but it’s like, you gotta keep rolling and keep getting in front of stuff. So what were your quick, your immediate takeaway?

Jason Moreau
Um, immediate takeaway, you know, despite what you might read or watch in the media, sustainability is alive and well here in the US and, uh, as you say, powered by a tribe of very passionate, uh, very smart and very dedicated individuals. Um, and, and that was very, very energizing. Um, and, and also welcoming.

I, I was, everybody wanted to talk, connect, network, figure out what we were doing, see how we could work together. So, um, yeah, it, it, it was very, um, inspiring personally, professionally. So yeah, that was, that was my big takeaway.

And then for us in the, in the food and water space specifically, just a lot of really good, interesting work happening. Yeah. I think layperson you hear climate week, and I think most people would naturally go to energy, you know, carbon capture, right?

Like, cause that’s, that’s been the headline story for decades. Yeah. Um, but there’s a lot of, all that fun stuff.

Exactly. But there’s been a lot of really, really good work happening, uh, in the, in the food space and in the, um, water space.

Sheldon Young
Yeah. I, I couldn’t agree more. Uh, one of the things you had mentioned in our pre session, our first session was the breadth and variety.

That was something you were looking forward to. Did it deliver?

Jason Moreau
Absolutely. Yeah. I think the, uh, you know, I, I attended, uh, talks and events on everything from reducing food waste to, you know, so like our, our current food supply chain, right?

Like how do we make that more effective, more efficient to how do we grow, uh, and produce more food sustainably to, uh, um, you know, what are like new foods and new what we’ll call them ingredients, um, you know, that can replace maybe not quite as sustainable current, um, like alternatives to, to sort of current, um, ingredients. And so, yeah, I mean, the, the variety was really, really amazing and you go down any one of those rabbit holes and spend more time, but to your, to your earlier point, then you’re kind of onto the next thing. So you’re like, your brain is constantly worrying.

Um, and there’s a lot of follow-up that needs to happen.

Sheldon Young
Still, I sell a list of business cards and things. We were gone a week after that too. And so it’s like, we’re now been back for a few days, but still unbearing a little bit.

Uh, yeah, it’s, uh, I’ll start, I’m going to back up and go to logistics because we talked about that, you know, we were concerned and let’s say concerned. We, we realized the, the thing we were taking on with climate week is not easy. To look at me, if you haven’t gone before, uh, it could be a lot to take in and try to try to organize around and where do you start?

Uh, I want to go through some of my, uh, uh, logistical lessons, I guess. And I want you to chime in on these as well. Okay.

For me, I kind of laid them out. Number one, find your anchor points. That was number one for me.

Yep. Um, I knew the things where I was going to, you know, like, yeah, this is a place I really want to be right here. A lot of great stuff in my world is happening there.

For me, that was like region house. Like it’s a, if you don’t know about region house and you’re in the, in the food world, check it out. If you’re going to climate week, uh, it was, that was my anchor point.

I’ll talk more about it in a second. Also, um, there was the other, we’ll call it the more trade show aspect of, of, uh, climate week was the nest, right? That’s another climate or it’s called the Javits center, big place in New York conference center.

Yep. And then I didn’t get to go to the food tank, but I know food tank for you as a place that you’d spent some time as well. Um, and for us that was there, but there’s others, there’s, uh, you know, sustainability live and there’s all kinds of things.

Find your anchor points and give yourself a hub to, to kind of a home base to start from. That was my lesson. Number one, any comments on that one?

Jason Moreau
No, I would agree. I would say also anchor point in terms of if you’re able to write, like choose your lodging where it’s approximately close to your anchor point, right? Like you’ll make your life easier.

Sheldon Young
Yeah. And, and, and, uh, we were not close to my anchor point, but, uh, not really, but it was, it wasn’t bad. Cause the subway subway stops.

Jason Moreau
Yeah.

Sheldon Young
And that’s the thing. It’s like, it looked far in the map. The subway is your friend.

Um, you know, we did not stay super close to like say region house for me. Cause again, the reality of hotel pricing during that week was pretty crazy. We would have to find something lodging wise.

It was like, okay, that’s a little more what we really want to spend. And so, um, you know, so it’s, it’s the subway makes it easy. I’ll just put it that way.

You know, you know, so don’t, don’t fret about, about at the public transportation, New York city makes things accessible, but you just realize you have to use it. Uh, the subway is your friend. That was another point I had.

It’s like use, we used it a ton, uh, to really good effect. Um, I threw one in there. Um, and we mentioned this a little bit plan, but don’t over plan.

Yeah. Cause you’re going to find stuff you want. And we did, I mean, I, there were many times like, you know, I was able to have extended, longer conversations, meet some new people.

I never thought I was going to meet just by having extra time to be able to, uh, not have to be somewhere and I’m being on the run. So great to have some key things you want to be a part of don’t necessarily fill every minute because you’re going to want minutes to spare.

Jason Moreau
Yeah. And I think that perhaps happens naturally too, because the nature of climate week is you apply to a bunch of stuff and you don’t know until, you know, fairly late in the going, whether, you know, that’s a, that’s an event that you, you know, you’ve got to accept it into, they have room for you. Uh, so I, I think naturally your calendar tends to have some gaps.

So yeah, don’t feel bad about that. There’s, there’s plenty of opportunity to have meaningful conversations in those spaces.

Sheldon Young
Absolutely. And, uh, I’m going to say this one with, with peace and love, Jason, find your extrovert. If you can, um, you know, in, in, in yourself, like, I mean, I know, listen, not everyone has the extrovert, you know, uh, natural, uh, ability, but whatever you have, try to find it.

Cause you’re going to want to talk to people. And everyone is so nice. I did not meet anyone.

Literally no one at climate week that was like mean or, or not nice or unwilling to, to say hi. Right. Um, try to find that with you.

Cause it’s enriches the experience so much. Um, just saying hi to people, sitting next to them on a couch turned into some really, really great conversations. Uh, for sure.

Um, I wrote down business cards, you know, build that network. I mean, whether it’s a digital business card, which I used a lot to have a digital business card, um, uh, you know, or the traditional kinds of people don’t have the digital capability, uh, make sure you, you, you trade those connections. And, and, uh, I like to write down how I met the person a little something about them.

Cause too many times I’ve come home with a business card. I’m like, who is this person? I had a great conversation with them, but I don’t remember them that well.

Cause you’ll meet so many people. It is right. It is insane.

Yeah. Those were my, I’m gonna call it logistic takeaways. Anything else you had?

Jason Moreau
Uh, don’t be afraid to check a bag.

Sheldon Young
We train though, just to be fair. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jason Moreau
We took the train. Uh, but you know, some people would, you know, be flying in and, um, no, I mean, we, we brought, uh, a lot of gear. We did, uh, a decent amount.

Um, we had some, uh, extra stuff for, uh, an event, um, that we co-sponsored. And so, yeah, uh, just, you know, you’ll, you’ll be lugging a decent amount of stuff, but you know, in the end I think it’s worth it. So yeah.

Uh, balance, balance needs and, and, uh, portability, I guess.

Sheldon Young
Yeah. I guess you bring a, bring a decent little backpack with you. You can carry some stuff with you with that’s another, maybe a piece of simple advice, but.

Jason Moreau
Comfy shoes. I wore my hiking shoes most days. Uh, I traded fashion for comfort and, uh, I’m very grateful that I did.

You were wise. Yeah.

Sheldon Young
I mean, you can’t emphasize that. Bring, even if you have to swap them out, you want to swap them out, bring comfortable shoes. Cause it is a, it can be a lot of walking.

But if you’re going to go event to event, um, the subway is great, but sometimes walking is more effective, uh, and just be ready to do that. Um, and that was it. I guess also the one that’s a little tiny point is, you know, it’s a great city.

Take a little bit of time to take it in and enjoy it. Um, you know, spoiler alert, I met my pizza quota. Um, so that was very important.

Jason Moreau
You did. Do you want to, do you want to name what you crowned as the best pizza place?

Sheldon Young
I’m going to say that for the last thing I mentioned. Oh yes. Yeah.

I want to keep, I was called Jason. That’s how we do podcasting around here.

Jason Moreau
You do it.

Sheldon Young
That’s, that’s the biz. Yeah. It’s the biz.

Again, full disclosure did not get to as many as I was really hoping to like, and I know New Yorkers are going to, you know, I did not get actually over to Brooklyn and I know that is a cardinal sin of, of pizza to not go to Brooklyn. And so I, I’m giving you the, I’m gonna call it the Manhattan version of, of the, of the pizza review. Next time I go back to New York, I will definitely go to Brooklyn.

Okay. So it’s, it’s a, it’s a, it’s an asterisk pizza review. All right.

Jason Moreau
So yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sheldon Young
It thinks it got you excited, Jason. What got you most excited during the week? A few things that kind of stood out to you.

Jason Moreau
I would say, so there was a, um, and maybe this is just the tech nerd in me, but there was a, uh, um, when I was at the nest, uh, attended a launch of, um, an organization called project drawdown released, uh, a platform that they call explore. And essentially what they did is they, they did all the research, like all, all of the, you know, tech papers, all of those things, they, they kind of pull all that information out and then they’ve synthesized it in different ways in this platform that no cost open source, right? Like anybody can use it.

And it’s basically, if you are going to decide, like say your organization, like we really want to improve our sustainability. We don’t know where to start, um, go there. And this explorer tool will actually help tell you, Hey, in your geography, the biggest impact that you can have on sustainability, like globally, like obviously you want to for your organization, but like in a meaningful way, like how can we contribute?

Like if you know that, that next layer out, um, this tool will help you define that for you and sort of give you those metrics that, you know, explain it maybe in a way that’s, um, if you need to convince people, right. Like internally, uh, to, to sort of approve a project. So I was just really amazed by that.

Um, they’re already working on a version two, which looks even more, uh, interesting in terms of how you can pull data. Um, so yeah, for, for me that, that really sort of, I was like, wow. And, and again, that’s one of the things where it’s like, I’ve only started looking at it.

I have to get back into it and really like dive deeper. Uh, but that was one of the things that stood out for sure. I didn’t, I didn’t, for whatever reason, I didn’t, I didn’t expect a, uh, a tech launch at climate week.

So that, that was unexpected.

Sheldon Young
Very interesting. Yeah. Uh, yeah, so many things I’m going to almost rapid fire.

Some of these, uh, obviously the energy, the optimism, I mean, that was pleasantly surprised. That’s a private pleasantly pleased that that was still there. It’s still there.

And, uh, in, in force, right. Uh, the maturity of sustainability. I think the whole concept of it and what it means and how it’s evolved and what’s, you know, all the components of it has evolved so much over the last, you know, 10 plus years.

It’s very interesting to see it, uh, being so, uh, complex in a good way, right. And complex it’s, there are nuances to it. It’s not just as big amorphous blob of save everything.

It is a series of pieces that come together for an overarching goal of sustainability. And, you know, if you look like you look at the sustainable UN sustainability development goals and like, it’s almost those buckets have really taken on lives of their own now and have their own nuances and important. Uh, champions and efforts, right.

So really seeing it in, in person, all the people in activities that were happening was, was very eyeopening. Great for me, just the variety. I met someone that has a compost app and a company around it.

I met someone that, uh, you know, seeing all those advances in the food space, right. And, you know, a person that, uh, has a sustainable beef process that they’re now franchising out to people, right. Just amazing things that you just kind of come across.

Um, water, I think water needs more attention. Uh, just a couple bullet points from, uh, one of the sessions I attended, you know, by 2030 demand outstrips supply by about 40%. It’s not far away, right.

Uh, that’s not far away. Uh, now again, those, those, you can argue statistics, but the, the point of the matter is we’re using a lot more water than we can provide. There’s actually whole prizes out there.

The X prize around desalination, $140 million prize to basically come up with ideas to make that real. So it’s not efficient to do it now. How do we make it efficient?

Um, you know, water, wastewater, the power of social media, Mr. Beast, you know, I don’t know if you’re familiar with him or not. He’s a very popular TikToker, uh, social media person did a water initiative called team water. They raised like 40 million bucks to provide water for people that don’t have, I mean, just the power of using modern things.

Uh, and I’m, I’m calling it, you know, the new age stuff, you know, like an old man here shaking my fist, but, um, you know, just seeing that happen is, is inspiring and interesting. Uh, then you get kind of in the raw and the real, there was a region house. There were some farmers and stuff talking about, Hey, you know, we want to be sustainable.

The challenges is the squeeze, you know, they’re getting, they’re the one that get the squeeze. And so hearing that, understanding this, the plights and the challenges was very eye opening. Okay.

Look, we need to do better. We, for, for them, for us, for everyone, how do we get there and still let them make a living? Frankly, right.

Yep. Um, you know, some specific reflections for me, my hub, I mentioned early was region house. What a great setting.

I mean, kudos and high fives to them for, you know, we, we did, we did a little bit of a partnership with them on some stuff, but just the amount of content that you could have there. If you have access to it now, again, a lot of people are trying to get access to it. So sometimes you don’t get into the things you want, but it was great for the ones I got into just there.

I’m gonna call it lounge there. I’ll call it a area where you can basically hang out. If you’re not in a session, I had so many great conversations in there.

It was fantastic. And they had great snacks and I’m just going to say it. And then, you know, obviously the nest, uh, I really enjoyed that.

I know you actually get to attend some stuff that I didn’t have time to actually make it to a talk. Did you tend to talk there?

Jason Moreau
Uh, a few. Yeah.

Sheldon Young
Oh yeah. You did. Yeah.

Really, really good quality. Yeah. Really great content there.

And then, um, I guess the, to get us to kind of wrap up Jason for, you know, so we can be cognizant of our, of our length of our show here. Success. It sounds to me like it was a great success for you.

I know it was a fantastic success for me. I highly recommend someone that wants to do it, uh, to, uh, think about it and plan it for, for themselves for next year. Uh, I will make myself available as a, as a resource for someone that wants to ask about what I learned in person and get more details.

You can reach me on LinkedIn. It’s Sheldon young, alpha, Val, pretty easy to find me. Uh, you have questions that you want us to address you in the podcast.

You can do it at no footprints. Podcast at alpha valve.com. Um, send us questions, ideas, thoughts, any final thoughts from you, Jason on, on climate week.

Jason Moreau
And, uh, I guess in a word, just, just hopeful, you know, I, I think it was, uh, yeah, just to reiterate it, uh, personally, professionally, very inspiring. And so it, uh, it was, it was worth the, uh, the grind of, uh, back-to-back travel that we did. Um, and no, uh, I’m just looking forward to sort of taking that energy and sort of carrying it forward into next year and yeah, look forward to, to next year’s event.

Sheldon Young
Yeah. Me too. Very much so.

And, uh, you know, we did get some, uh, great, I mean, we’ll dive into some stuff. I probably lined up a dozen or so people for interviews for, for us, for, for the podcast, for the future here. So I’m excited about the different topics we’re going to hit.

Uh, we recorded at least one full interview while we were there. Um, and then, uh, I also did some, we’ll call it person on the street interviews that, uh, we’ll try to work into the, into the, into the fray in the next, uh, few episodes. So with that, thank you everyone for, for joining us again, like subscribe, share, tell everyone about new, no footprints podcast.

Uh, you can reach us if you have any questions or ideas for great topics or guests at no footprints dot podcast at alpha LaValle.com. And with that, my friend, I wish you the best. Same.

Let’s keep making sustainability real. Oh, there it is. There it is.

That’s, that’s the line. Jason, I almost forgot. I pulled, I pulled Jason back into the recording.

I almost forgot to give my pizza review. It’s the most important part of the whole podcast. Everyone’s been tuning in waiting so patiently.

Yeah. All right. So during the, the actually had pizza at three different well-known places, uh, and all of them were very, very good.

Uh, John’s on Bleeker Street, Mama’s Too up near Columbia and then L’Industrie. By far the leader, the winner was L’Industrie. It was, I would say the best like pizza of that style that I’ve ever had.

Jason Moreau
Yeah, it was amazing. Um, I wish I lived closer, but it’s probably good that I don’t.

Sheldon Young
I would probably be eating six times a week. A lot. It was, it was very good.

So if you go to New York, all three of those very good L’Industrie, uh, is in Greenwich village, um, just North of Soho where we were staying, uh, fantastic slice of pizza. And then, um, if you’re up closer to Columbia, I will say Mama’s Too, was, uh, not a huge difference away, but, uh, out of the three, those two stood out the most for me. John’s on Bleeker Street was a good slice.

Good pizza. The other two are better.

Jason Moreau
Yep. I think we used the rubric of, would you go out of your way to get this slice of pizza? And yeah, if I was in a 30 minute radius of lit industry, I’d be like, I have time.

I’m going to go get a slice. Yeah. It was amazing.

Sheldon Young
But I say, yeah, absolutely. Right. All three were very, I mean, again, I would eat all three in a heartbeat.

Any day of the week, but the land industry was definitely a, I may, I may go back to New York city just to have that.

Jason Moreau
Well, next year that’s on the list. And then we get to see how the, uh, how Brooklyn yeah.

Sheldon Young
I hear that’s the place to go to, to, to really duke it out. Um, so it’s, it’s on the list. All right, y’all, um, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Bye. 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 company’s guests or the specific ideas that we discuss.