EnvironMental with Dandelion

EnvironMental with Dandelion

By Dandelion BrandingSociety & Culture
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EnvironMental with Dandelion episodes

  • EnvironMental Podcast – Sourcing – Honor Thy Label (New Dr. Bronner's Book!)

    This week on EnvironMental, we're talking about what we learned from reading the first hand accounts of building Fair Trade value supply chains around the world!


    In Honor Thy Label: Dr. Bronner's Unconventional Journey to a Clean, Green, and Ethical Supply Chain, Gero Leson lays out exactly how (and why) Dr. Bronner's builds their supply chain so that they can have the best sources available for their products!

    We honestly could NOT have imagined a better book to help us understand this topic this month, and it just so happened, it was released March 8th (we had already recorded our first podcast of the month on this topic when it launched!)

    Dr. Bronner's has been a serendipitous part of our lives for the past several years, and we don't find it hard to believe that this supply chain journey was so steeped in serendipity that they named their global value chain Serendiworld!

    This was an incredible view into how a big company can make a difference for farmers and along whole supply chains around the world using constructive capitalism as their engine.

    Our initial concern was that, while Honor Thy Label is INSPIRING AF,  it might not be as manageable for a very small business.  But then we realized that Dr. Bronner's isn't just building their own supply chains. They're making it possible for small sustainable brands to build ethical supply chains too. AND THAT IS INCREDIBLE!

    MAIN TAKEAWAYS:
    1 - Do what you can to cut out middle men and go direct to the source, especially if there is a language/culture barrier.
    2 - Support your farmers with what they really need, treat them like team members, and try to be empathetic with what they are expereincing (Trish also said this last week!)
    3 - Make sure that the farmers and the team knows that cutting corners won't be tolerated.
    4 - Try to work with regenerative and dynamic agriforestry techniques wherever possible.
    5 - Be patient. It takes time, energy, and money to build these supply chains from the ground up, but it is possible and VERY rewarding in the end!
    6 - Start with internal team and doing good with the team and your ethical brand FIRST. Then go outward!

    BEST RESOURCE
    This book is FULL of sources, but in an effort to help this stand out we agree that the best resource for sustainable brands in Honor Thy Label is Fair For Life - www.fairforlife.org

    This company certifies entire supply chains - farms, products, processors, brands, and ingredients! They have a list of their certified resources and how to connect with them so you can source fair products and ingredients. They are willing to help you through the process, and they have continuous surveillance to hold their registered operators accountable!

    55 min
  • EnvironMental Podcast - Sourcing - Changemaker Chat with Trish Flaster

    This week on EnvironMental, we talk to Trish Flaster - a sourcing aficionado with decades of work under her belt dedicated to ethical ingredient sourcing.

    She shares her story about being a pioneer in service of understanding different cultures of native people and reciprocating the gift of their plant knowledge in a way that helps them to preserve and sustain their culture.

    She gave really great advice about working with suppliers around the world - especially if you're working through translators:

    •  - Ask questions in several different ways that will give you the right information.
    •  - Create a conversation around fair reciprocity, "what do they need" over "this is what we offer."
    •  - Remove the people in the middle as often as possible - talk directly to the supplier.
    •  - Treat your suppliers like a member of your team.
    •  - Set realistic expectations - visit if you can, or send a video phone to see how things are REALLY operating. Know that you may have to set up infrastructure if you need certain things.

      • Here's where you can find Trish:  https://www.botanicalliaisons.com/ 

      She also gave us a TON of resources to share with you to help you get started with ethical sourcing.

      Here's that list (whoa):

      http://www.econbot.org// - The Society for Economic Botany (SEB) is about people exploring the uses of, and our relationship with plants, cultures and our environment. They publish a quarterly publication (Economic Botany) and hold talks and conferences throughout the year. 


      https://omniactives.com/ - Omniactives helps small businesses bring safe products to market. They develop ingredients and offer plant extracts that are "tested for quality right from the raw material sourcing stage to the finished product stage."


      http://www.ssciglobal.org/ - The Supplement Safety & Compliance Initiative is a nonprofit led by brands and retailers to ensure that the supplements they promote are safe, authentic, and compliant to global standards.


      https://www.herbalgram.org/ - The American Botanical Council is a nonprofit that offers education around herbal medicines, helps small sustainable herbal businesses network, and has programs dedicated to safe and sustainable herbal supply chains (https://sustainableherbsprogram.org/)


      https://www.tagone.com/ - Tag One is a supply chain traceability app that allows small businesses to see every part of their own supply chain and share that information with their customers.


      https://supplyside365.com/ - Supply side 365  is "an intelligent, industry hub for health & nutrition professionals to discover, connect, meet, learn and source." You can join this community for free until August of 2021.


      https://www.nutraingredients.com/ - Nutraingredients is a William Reed company that is dedicated to sharing resources in the nutrition industry.

      1 hr 2 min
    • Sourcing; What We Know

      This week we're introducing the new topic for the month: Sourcing.


      What we know is that small, sustainable businesses have to navigate through a sourcing nightmare in order to find products and ingredients that are suitable for their own standards and the standards of their customers.

      Quality is hard to come by.
      It's more expensive for the business owner and that cost has to be passed along to their customers.
      While the sustainable brand audience will pay more for the quality, regulations from country to country are different, and from some places, they're easy to fudge.

      This month, we're going to talk about what questions to ask as a business owner, and what to ask as a consumer.

      We're going to learn about global certifications to trust around the world. Right now we know about Demeter and the FSC, but there HAS to be more, right?

      49 min
    • Deforestation: Overview

      This week we're wrapping up our discussion around deforestation.

      Throughout this month, we answered our biggest questions from part one and we learned the right way to ask questions about this topic.

      This topic feels like something that we could spend years learning about and join in the fight against the destruction of the world's forests - because there isn't a clear solution to this problem.

      As a brand, you should work within the system to fight deforestation directly - whether that's solving the problem with your business model directly, or DEMANDING ethical sourcing from your suppliers.

      And as a consumer, look at your bathroom shelves and check out your fridge. Make sure that the brands you're supporting and the companies that you pay money to AREN'T contributing to deforestation. 

      It takes more research, and it's ANOTHER lifestyle change, but changing the world starts with changing our own behavior.

      Here are the links to the articles that we mentioned in this podcast:

      http://www.earth-policy.org/indicators/C56

      http://www.fao.org/state-of-forests/en/

      https://treefoundation.org/education/forest-facts/

      https://fsc.org/en


      #sustainability #deforestation #palmoil #ethicalsourcing

      55 min
    • Deforestation 4 - Changemaker Chat with Catalina Von Hildebrand

      In this episode of EnvironMental, we're continuing our conversation around deforestation with a SECOND changemaker chat this month!


      We're jumping in with Catalina Von Hildebrand to talk about an industry that is partly responsible for deforestation - the cocoa industry.

      Do you know where your chocolate is coming from? (Hint: no, you probably don't. Not specifically at least.) 

      The true source of chocolate is something well hidden by the industry because the big key players utilize some very shady and down right horrific business practices they wouldn't want the public to know about.


      Catalina and the small NGO that she works with, Alisos, are on a mission to create a zero deforestation cocoa product.

      They're focusing on agri-forestry in Columbia and starting an international knowledge exchange between the largest cocoa producing countries in the world. They are working towards leveling the playing field for farmers, producers, manufacturers, and business owners so they can all talk about how to improve the quality and sustainability of cocoa.

      You can check out the project here: https://alisos.net/en/

      And as usual, if you like this conversation, subscribe to our channel for weekly deep dives into sustainability.

      #environmental #cambiumcarbon #deforestation #newpodcast

      52 min
    • Deforestation 3 - Changemaker Chat with Ben Christensen

      In this episode of EnvironMental, we're diving into one needed solution for deforestation with the CEO of Cambium Carbon, Ben Christensen.

      Cambium Carbon is dedicated to urban reforestation! (So cool!)

      We learned that more trees fall in cities around the US than in the forests and that most of those trees go to the landfill - what the actual fuh?!?!

      Cambium Carbon has taken on the problem - and even though they've currently been incorporated for under a year (!) the team has started helping cities all around the USA start building infrastructure for creating a local circular economy for city trees.

      They work with cities to create the infrastructure to move and reuse fallen urban trees,  they volunteer to help plant new trees in urban green spaces, and they connect with LOCAL BRANDS to turn that fallen tree into beautiful, valuable products. WOW!

      Check out Cambium Carbon at cambiumcarbon.com and reach out to them if you'd like to join their brand market.

      41 min
    • Deforestation Part 2: Save the Planet by Almir Narayamoga Surui

      This week we continue our conversation around #deforestation by listening to Save the Planet by Almir Narayamoga Surui.


      Almir is chief of the Surui native tribe in the State of Rondonia in Brazil. In this book, he shares his life and his tribe's story of the conservation of their land.

      Would we recommend this book? Yes. It is a wonderful, touching, and enlightening look through the eyes of a native tribal leader, but it's not an "easy" read. But it's an important one.

      So much of this book is about the effects of environmental racism, and although Almir doesn't frame it this way, it's frustrating and tragic to see how colonialism continues to play a massive part in the industrializing world.

      This book won't provide you with solutions to the problem of deforestation. The issue is too big, and so much of it is political, and even more is based around corruption, greed, and capitalism. This problem isn't something we're just going to be able to "solve" overnight or by any one single act.

      To paraphrase an important lesson from this book: the real struggle is about changing mindsets and lifestyles. Not just laying down new laws or enforcing the old ones. We have to learn to respect nature and respect the wisdom of indigenous cultures.

      That being said, here are some solutions that Almir Narayamoga Surui suggests:
      - eat less meat.
      - question your consumption habits.
      - choose products that come from sustainable places.
      - support NGOs that are working on reducing deforestation.
      - spend time make people more aware of the issue.
      - remember that nature has already solved all of the problems that we face, it's up to us to figure out how to utilize that knowledge.

      In the podcast, we also talked about this article:
      https://www.aiche.org/chenected/2016/10/sustainability-challenges-paper-industry

      And this global partnership focused on REDD+ projects:
      https://www.forestcarbonpartnership.org/what-redd

      #environmentalpodcast #podcast #sustainability #environmental #savetheplanet #bookreview

      ———
      We do these every month. Subscribe to our channel for our monthly 4 part series of investigating different aspects of sustainability.

      1 hr 11 min
    • Deforestation Part 1

      In today's episode of EnvironMental we share what we already know about the topic of Deforestation and what questions we want to answer this month. We have so many questions about this large topic and we're really looking forward to researching it and understanding more about the complexities.


      These are some of our main questions:
      - What is the biggest contributor to deforestation?
      - What areas of our planet have been more affected by deforestation?
      - How much of the world should be a forest to be considered sustainable?
      - When did deforestation start being a problem?
      - Is there a real sustainable option?

      In coming episodes, we hope to answer those questions and more to uncover how we can shift our impact. 


      50 min
    • It's the overview week for this month's podcast topic: Sustainable Packaging! In this week's episode we talk about what we've learned over the past month. Starting at 49:30 you will find our 10 sugge

      It's the overview week for this month's podcast topic: Sustainable Packaging!


      In this week's episode, we talk about what we've learned over the past month.
      Starting at 49:30 you will find our 10 suggestions for helping you choose your brand's packaging.

      This month:
      - We talked about sustainable packaging as an issue and what questions we have around it
      - Read and gave our book review: "The Future of Packaging," by Tom Szaky, founder of Terracycle
      - Changemaker Chat with Greg Barber of Eco Friendly Printer

      Here are some things we learned:
      - how to choose sustainable packaging for your brand?
      (talk to your local MRFs to find out what's in demand to be recycled, start with a list of what you want before researching the supplier, and then demand sustainability in your supply chain)

      - what solutions are actually helpful and what should you avoid in your packaging right now?
      (bioplastic and decomposable plastics aren't real solutions right now, find infrastructures that will be able to help your customers)

      #environmentalpodcast #sustainablepackaging #sustainability

      1 hr
    • Changemaker Chat with Greg from Eco Friendly Printer

      This week we were joined by Greg Barber of Eco Friendly Printer and he taught us all about post consumer waste, bleaches, dyes, and inks used for printing and what options brands have if they're looking to source more sustainable paper and packaging materials.

      Greg has over 30 years of experience in the sustainable printing industry and his passion for it is contagious!

      If you're looking for better paper and printing options for your brand, get in touch with Greg! Check out their site: ecofriendlyprinter.com

      Also special shoutouts to the incredible organization Greg started: http://www.neilswheelsny.com/

      Also honorary mentions to the paper mills working to make sustainable paper more attainable:

      Mohawk

      Neenah

      Monadnock

      Rolland - The creators of 100% post consumer waste paper!

      1 hr 5 min

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