Episode 79: 2023 Holiday Hodge-Podge
Happy December Definers! It is time again for our annual Holiday Hodge Podge episode. Tune in to hear the Sustainability Defined Team’s favorite podcast moments from the year and interesting sustainability articles, meet our Research & Operations Director, Taylor, and hear Scott and Jay’s professional/personal updates, and sustainable gift ideas - PLUS our holiday gift giveaway!
Have a happy holiday season!
Outline
Podcast Year in Review
Personal Updates and Extended Interview with SD Team Member Taylor Price
Favorite Articles
Sustainable Gift Ideas
Thanks to folks
Podcast Year in Review
Scott
Biodiversity
The importance of this topic hit home for me when we noted that climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe believes climate change presents a near-term threat to the future of human civilization, while the biodiversity crisis presents a longer term threat to the viability of the human species.
In other words, in a shorter term, climate change is a huge threat to order in the world and governments being able to function, while biodiversity in the longer term threatens our continued existence as a species. Heavy stuff.
Crazy and alarming stats in here
Half of the world’s GDP is dependent on natural resources. This means that about $44 trillion of economic value across the globe relies on nature and its interconnectedness.
The most recent World Wildlife Fund Living Planet Report, published in the fall of 2022, shockingly noted that on average there has been a 69% drop in monitored global vertebrate wildlife populations since 1970.
The most steep drop has been in Latin America and the Caribbean, which the same study says has had its abundance of wildlife fall 94% since 1970. That’s absurd.
Invasive Species
One, I thought Leigh was a fun interview and really knew her stuff. We put her on the spot with example of an invasive species that had its name change and why murder hornets wouldn’t make a good pet and she had informed answers for those and more.
Notable stats in here
According to a United Nations 2023 report, invasive species have been a “major factor” to 60% of all recorded animal and plant extinctions.
Also, that same report found that invasive species cost more than $423 billion a year. In fact, the costs of invasive species have quadrupled each decade since 1970.
Jay
Rare Earths
Loved learning more about the inputs that make so much of what we rely on daily possible.
Fav fact: Many scientists note that decarbonization and electrification cannot happen without these elements. Consider that an offshore wind plant requires 9 times more mineral resources than a gas-fired plant.
And of course loved the irony that Despite the name “rare earths,” these elements are not actually super rare. In fact, one of the elements, cerium, is the 25th most abundant element of the 78 most common elements within the Earth’s crust. And a few of these elements are actually more common than gold!
It is important to note here that 2022 research showed that while these minerals may be somewhat abundant across the world, China produces 70% of these minerals and controls the majority of the supply chain.
Another crazy stat: In recent years, China has come to control 91% of refining activity, 87% of oxide separation and 94% of magnet production.
Taylor
Human Rights in Supply Chains
Such an important topic, that I am glad that we were able to cover this year! It may have been one of the longest episodes in Sustainability Defined history at an hour and 45 minutes, but there was such a wealth of information and great interviews with two awesome guests who both work so closely with the topic.
In that episode, we broke down the landscape of global supply chains and the interconnectedness with human rights across the globe. Specifically around common human rights abuses like unsafe working conditions, forced labor, low wages, and child labor. It was a lot to digest, but such a needed topic on the social aspects of sustainability that are often missed!
Super interesting statistics from that one as well like:
Forced labor within supply chains is also often found within the raw materials sourcing (like agriculture and manufacturing), domestic labor, and construction industries. In fact, about 13% of all adult forced labor occurs within the agriculture sector. (from workers being forced to harvest fruits and vegetables all day in the hot sun with no breaks and little to no pay, to the migrant fishers who may be trapped on boats for weeks at a time.)
Really makes you think a lot about where the food you eat comes from in particular! - I’ve made a lot of changes to what I buy to favor more local food production because of this.
Personal Updates and Extended Taylor Interview
Scott
I got engaged! Proposed in late July amid the sunflower fields at McKee Beshers Wildlife Management Area in Maryland. I am beyond excited to marry my best friend and someone who lights up my life. Getting all the vendors and such in place now and recently sent the save the date. The caterer tasting was actually one of the best meals of my life so pretty stoked we found them. Wedding will be in August in Annapolis, Maryland. So as with Jay’s wedding, likely an extended break around then so heads up there Definers.
Can Manufacturers Institute updates
Most of my time has been spent on pushing for recycling refunds (i.e., beverage container deposit return systems) as that is the best, quickest way to significantly increase aluminum beverage can recycling rates. It’s been fun engaging on bill language, talking with various kinds of stakeholders on all sides of the issue, thinking through how we can most effectively communicate about recycling refunds to break through the noise, etc. Our focus in 2024 will be on Illinois and Minnesota. If you’re in those states, support the bill when it’s introduced! Washington State will likely also have such a bill, and we’re involved there too.
I also had fun attending Mardi Gras for work (I know, rough life) where we started an aluminum beverage can recycling effort there with a bunch of local partners. So many cans are consumed there over the many days of Mardi Gras since you can drink in the street, but there’s essentially no public space recycling. We set up collection points along the parade route and had volunteers engaging directly with paradegoers including with our backpacks that have holes in them for people to put their cans directly into for recycling. We also doubled the used beverage can payout at the local metal recycling facility to encourage people that generally collect cans for cash to step up their efforts. In total, over two weekends of collection at daytime parades and the doubling at the metal recycling facility, we collected more than 150,000 aluminum beverage cans. Plus, to promote the effort, I was interviewed on a morning news show segment, which was a new experience. Looking forward to doing it bigger and better in 2024!
One more initiative we’ve started is the Million Cans Recycling Challenge with Scrap University Kids. We’ve got nine schools engaged across eight states. The challenge is for these schools to collectively collect over one million cans during the 2023-2024 school year. The schools raise money from selling these cans to a local metal recycling facility, and we have more than $15,000 in potential cash prizes for them to incentivize collection. We also purchased the book The Girl Who Recycled One Million Cans for each second or third grader in the schools. This to educate the students on the importance of recycling and get them engaged on the effort. It’s going super well! For example, one school in Alabama on its own came up with this Aluminum for Aluminum effort where it’s asking the community to bring in its aluminum beverage cans so it can have the money to replace its old, unusable wooden bleachers with new aluminum ones.
So much else going on with presentations, research, and other initiatives but want to hear what you all are up to!
Jay
Personal
Lucky enough to take two epic trips this year.
Italy and Matera caves
Prehistoric caves we could walk through
Peru and Machu Picchu
Stones fit so perfectly you can’t even slide a piece of paper through them
Celebrated our first anniversary
Professional
Challenging environment for new deals
Interest rates, increasing return hurdles, and waiting for land sellers and contractors to adjust to the new market
Construction management
5 projects nearing completion with lease-ups beginning early next year
Cool to see demand for EVs so high for prospective tenants
Brightworks
Working to develop a set of sustainable design guidelines for company-wide projects, from new ground-up developments to building renovations.
Goal to give project teams a guide across items like energy use (building envelope, electrification/limiting new gas-fired equipment), water use (low flow fixtures, irrigation strategies), and wellness (ventilation, acoustics).
Taylor
Professional updates:
Kicked off the year by starting to work with the Sustainability Defined Team
Continued some great work at Aptar. I think one big highlight from that would be we have really increased engagement with our suppliers this year on sustainability. Notably I wrote & released at “supplier sustainability playbook” for our supplier so they know the expectations the company has for our suppliers around sustainability & what we’re looking to drive forward there.
I’ve also been diving deeply into reporting trends & changes. Especially those coming out of Europe, so we can be prepared for those!
Been really getting involved in my local NC community:
Personally, I took a few great trips this year as well - continued to rack up those flight miles. Probably should do some offsetting.
“The happiest place on earth” Disney World, Houston & Las Vegas were some memorable personal trips!
Navajo Nation → Long trek to get there from Albaqurqe to Window Rock, where the main government of the Nation sits. It occupies portions of northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southeastern Utah. At roughly 27,413 sq mi the Navajo Nation is the largest land area held by a Native American tribe in the U.S., exceeding ten U.S. states. You really don’t realize the vastness of that area until you’re there!
Hiked Canyon de Chelly with local native guides which had some of the most amazing views! the park and Navajo Nation work together to manage the land's resources.
Favorite Articles
Scott
The email newsletter The Hustle had a nice entry on air conditioners. AC accounts for ~4% of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions across energy use, refrigerant leakage, manufacturing, and transportation. There were about two billion air conditioners in use globally in 2020, and the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates there will be nearly 6 billion in use by 2050. The article discusses start-ups with new AC units that are much more efficient, as well as steps we can take to reduce the impact of our AC units like use ceiling fans and make sure your blinds or shades are closed during the hottest parts of the day.
The New York Times had a May 2023 article titled “Climate Shocks are Making Parts of America Uninsurable. It Just Got Worse.” Exhibit A was the news that State Farm would stop selling coverage to all California homeowners, not just in wildfire zones but the whole state. Insurance rates are going up in eastern Kentucky, Louisiana, Florida, California, and other places facing damage from high winds, flooding, and hurricanes. Florida and Louisiana tried to solve the problem several years ago by setting up a state-mandated insurance company that would provide coverage where homeowners couldn’t find private insurance. More people are going to these state-mandated companies after private insurers go out of business or significantly raise rates. But some properties not even the state-mandated insurance company will insure. Definitely something to watch as it changes where people lives and insurance becomes a greater strain on people’s budgets.
Earthjustice published a blog post in May 2023 titled “We Sued the EPA to Restrict Water Pollution from Slaughterhouses. And We Won.” More than 9 billion animals (over 17,000 per minute) are killed in slaughterhouses in the U.S. each year. These slaughterhouses have byproducts like fat, bone, blood, and feathers that are sent to animal rendering facilities to be turned into other products (e.g., tallow, animal meal). Both slaughterhouses and rendering facilities require near-constant flows of water and the discharge of this large amount of water with pollutants like nitrogen and phosphorous can harm water quality. Federal regulations restricting this pollution are out-of-date or non-existent, but that will change thanks due an agreement out of litigation brought by Earthjustice. The new regulations will be proposed by December 2023 and finalized by August 2025. Of the more than 7,000 slaughterhouses and rendering facilities in the U.S., many are in low income communities, communities of color, and under-resourced or overburdened communities, raising environmental justice concerns.
Jay
The Power Broker, which is basically the opposite of an article. In fact it is a pulitzer winning biography of approximately 1,336 pages. I actually listened to this one as an audiobook. How long do you think the audiotrack was? 66 hours - and that was on 1.5 speed!
Fascinating story about Robert Moses’ outsized impact on urban planning and the way cities are built, in many ways, per his doing, oriented around the car.
Our approach towards urban development is still recovering from the path he paved (no pun intended). For example, the city of Austin just recently voted to eliminate minimum parking requirements across all property types for new development.
City of Denver’s commissioned study by Gensler to determine the best office building candidates in the city that could potentially get converted to residential space.
Good segway into the trendiest topic in real estate
Ironically enough it picked my building
Taylor
These first two from me are from one of my favorite environmental journalists, Rachel Ramirez. She is the co-founder of the Asian American Journalists Association’s Pacific Islander Task Force and also a member of the Uproot Project, which we’ve talked about on the show before. She’s great, definitely check out her work and the work of others in the uproot project - network of and for environmental journalists of color.
The first one is titled “Why the climate crisis may be coming for your margarita next” - originally published on national margarita day back in February and a more recent article titled “The climate crisis is coming for your hoppy beer”
Scientists from around the world have made it clear that climate change-fueled water shortages will continue to put enormous pressure on food production. Wine and spirits, unfortunately, are not spared from that forecast. A 2019 study found that the climate crisis, coupled with overgrazing from cattle ranching and other human activities, may disrupt the distribution and cultivation of agave, the main ingredient of tequila and sadly our margaritas!
For all the beer lovers out there. Hops in major beer-producing European countries like Germany, Czech Republic and Slovenia are ripening earlier and producing less since 1994, scientists found.
“Youth climate group puts social justice spin on Dungeons & Dragons”
This one was actually a video clip from CBS Weekend News that was pretty cool! A lot of people may geek out about D&D, and while I;m no one of them I know it’s pretty popular! A California climate organization for young people is putting its own twist on the popular board game Dungeons & Dragons. The Oakland-based group is creating a collection of 10 original role-playing adventures in which players tackle social and environmental issues rather than fictional monsters. The Mycelium Youth Network, is working with the young people (upper elementary through high school) to play through a game that allows them to address climate issues through a fantasy lens. Named the “Gaming for Justice Initiative”, The hope is that this can help spur real life solutions, but also serve as an outlet for the climate anxiety that youth experience! They can create their own paths and the world they want to live in within the game and be heroes within their own story bringing hope & joy.
Although the Kickstarter campaign for this game ended in September, there are other ways to support the students on their website.
Sustainable Gift Ideas
These are consciously created theme socks for adults and kids, adult sweatshirts and candles for a better world. Choose from a multitude of varied and equally worthy causes to support. You’re sure to find one—or more—that resonate with you. A few examples of the $1,121, 917 already donated to its nonprofit partners are: protecting our national parks, providing books for kids, and protecting trees. Conscious Steps is committed to fair trade working conditions and sustainability in its manufacturing sourcing and processes. A great gift for the kids and adults on your list is a boxed set of 3 socks that are themed to protect animals, oceans, and support space exploration, just to name a few.
Sets for kids are $29.95 and individual kids’ socks start at $9.95. Adult box sets are $39.95 and individual pairs start at $12.95.
The Original Makeup Eraser - $19.00
I can attest to these! While I’m sure those of us out there who wear makeup know that make up wipes can be super convenient, they’re just something that you use only once & then throw away, these could be an easy swap for the make up lover in your life.Every makeup eraser replaces about 3600 disposable makeup wipes. The polyester cloth acts as a suction for makeup and dirt when activated when water. Use nightly to cleanse the face and remove makeup, then wash in the washing machine and repeat. It comes in tons of fun colors and acts as a sustainable and affordable alternative to wipes and other makeup removers.
Amazon (Also available at Ulta, Sephora, Walmart) - $19.00
Rechargeable Headlamp - BioLite HeadLamp330
For the runners or hikers on your list, BioLite's headlamp is a treat. Designed for comfort, the moisture-wicking headband is thin but adjustable so it won't slip.Best of all: No clunky batteries are required. It's rechargeable with a micro USB and can last up to 40 hours on one charge.
$44.00 (Other styles begin at $34.95), REI
Wine Bottle Glasses & Other Recycled Drinkware from Wine Punts
This company makes glass ware, canister sets, vases, and candles from recycled wine glasses. These products give a new life to bottles that may end up in landfill if they are not recycled and are locally sourced near the Wine Punts workshop in Colorado Springs, Colorado. These make for a great statement piece in your kitchen and help reduce glass from being wasted.
While these can be purchased, if you’re feeling ambitious these can actually be made with a few tools! Could be a cool project to repurpose some of the glass in your home.
Prices Range from $14 - $40 depending on what you’re looking for
So after you finish your wine maybe you’ll start cooking! It’s really pretty! This is for the friend who collects all those egg shells and veggie scraps in a random bag that doesn’t look so cute in the kitchen. This pretty, ceramic compost keeper stores all that leftover food, and has a filter that prevents odor (this lasts up to about six months before you need to change it out).
$44.00, Amazon
Holiday Instagram Giveaway for Definers:
To enter, it’s pretty simple. Between when this episode is published on December 2nd and midnight pacific time on December 31, anyone can enter the giveaway by:
1) being a follower of us on Instagram (handle @sustainabilitydefined)
2) liking our holiday hodge podge post on Instagram that will be posted on December 2nd, and
3) tagging 3 friends who you think would like the podcast in the comments of that post.
So, this whole thing will be taking place on Instagram.
Then in January, we’ll be picking randomly from those that entered to win these products. There will be multiple winners since we’ll be telling each company the one person that won their giveaway and give them their mailing address. We’ll be DM’ing the winners for that mailing info. So get on Instagram and engage with our post by December 31, 2023!
Slim card Holder in Black from Oliver Company London: https://olivercompanylondon.com/products/slim-cardholder?variant=31916282675286
Oliver Co is an independent studio and responsible maker with the single aim of creating beautiful everyday items that cause as little environmental impact as possible.
They are offering a wallet in the form of a slim card holder made of apple leather! Apple Leather is an OEKO-TEX certified premium bio-based fabric made using apple waste from the fruit juice and compote industry.
The apple by-product comes from Bolzano in Italy, one of the world's largest apple-producing regions. Due to the shear scale, it is faced with a significant amount of waste. The leather up-cycles this unused apple to create a material with considerably reduced environmental impact.
Next is a baselayer from Paka Apparel, a company Founded in Peru, with the mission to create natural, all-purpose clothing for people who love the outdoors.
All of Paka’s alpaca fiber is sourced from free-roaming herds in Peru, 90% of products are manufactured in the country, and over 100 local women weavers are employed under an NGO to craft handwoven Inca ID’s that appear on all of Paka’s gear.
Why you'll love this
Softest long sleeve you’ll ever own
Moisture-wicking and odor resistant
Flexible and naturally thermoregulating
Last year, Paka launched Traceable Alpaca. Each garment made with Traceable Alpaca features a tag with a QR code, where you're able to see the exact coordinates where the wool from the garment was made from.
Paka supports local farmers to shear, hand sort and spin the alpaca wool into Paka sweaters – 1% of total sales support regenerative agriculture and alpaca families.
Pura diapers
Husband and wife founders based in the UK discovered that 90% of wipes contain plastic, and the majority of diapers wind up in landfill so they came up with a plan to introduce sustainable alternatives.
Pura launched this year at Walmart and Amazon to democratize earth-friendly products at a time when approximately 1/3 of US families to 47% of US families can’t afford diapers.
Anti-allergy, organic ingredients and sustainable, biodegradable materials.
First off, in terms of functionality, CLCKR has partnered with G-Form to offer a new standard in protective cases that enhances user experience and safeguards mobile devices like never before.
With the materials it uses, every CLCKR phone case produced is made with GRS Certified 100% recycled and recyclable material.
Now on the plastic-neutral piece, they’ve done that via a partnership with repurpose global. Plastic neutrality means for every pound of plastic CLCKR uses to make its products, it supports the removal of the same amount of plastic that would otherwise end up in the environment. More specifically, CLCKR has chosen to support Project Hara Kal in India, which brings a holistic waste management system to over 940 villages in Kerala.
Thanks
Taylor Price
Keaton Butler
Adrienne Breen
Square Peg Round Hole / Potions
Our listeners!