Etelle Higonnet is the Founder and Director of Coffee Watch. She was born and raised in France, earned her undergraduate degree and law degree from Yale, worked around the world on human rights issues, before pivoting her focus to environmental issues with Greenpeace, the Rainforest Action Network, and others. She is currently based on Copenhagen, Denmark. 

In this episode Etelle makes it painfully clear that while drinking coffee is a morning ritual for many of us, its production comes with profound social and environmental impacts that must be addressed. Coffee Watch is a non-profit. Its missions is to promote and secure coffee that is grown ethically, sustainably, in dignity for the people who grow it.

Some statistics: 180 - 200 million Americans drink an average of three cups per day. There are 800 billion cups consumed each year around the globe. Finland leads the world for the most coffee per person! Americans are more likely to drink coffee than exercise on any given day.  We are all addicted... "We love our coffee, ice cream, tiramisu!"  It is so great and delicious; it makes the world go round. But it comes with huge hidden costs: poverty, child labor, and slave labor... plus deforestation.
 
"If you are drinking coffee, you are definitely drinking poverty," states Etelle. Only a very few coffee companies pay a living income for the world's 125 million coffee growers. Many are paid $2 - 3 a day, well below the World Bank poverty level. "Another dirty, bitter gift is child labor,"... not after-school-appropriate labor, but backbreaking labor, most often with exposure to toxic pesticides. In Brazil, the world's number one coffee producer, cartels control production, and there, "modern slavery" is not uncommon. 

Furthermore, Etelle explains that, "you are drinking deforestation." Coffee production is one of the seven largest causes of deforestation: cattle, palm oil, pulp and paper, soy, coca, rubber, and coffee. Cattle - for beef, dog food, and leather - is the largest deforester... and in cases where there is any attention to deforestation, the biggest causes are in the public eye. Coffee production is 1% of the problem and thus gets overlooked despite the scale of its impact: Vietnam has lost forests the size of Luxembourg to coffee; Brazil has lost acreage equivalent to Honduras to deforestation for coffee production. "Your latte every morning could be responsible for cascading impacts, like regional climate change, droughts, and reduced diversity." Etelle makes her point poignantly: "How about an oat milk latte with a side of dead jaguar or dead orangutan? People have no idea that they are drinking mass extinction." 

As such, she founded Coffee Watch in 2024. It's dangerous work: Coffee is grown in narco-states, places with civil wars, in countries with repressive dictatorships. Her investigative teams are taking big risks to uncover the state of the industry. Coffee Watch is about taking action, raising consumer awareness through undercover investigations. There are teams working in China, Brazil, Columbia, Uganda, Kenya, and the Chiapas region of Mexico, known for its cartels. Coffee Watch also uses satellite mapping. It produces reports, is in the media, and is active on social media. Coffee Watch also sues the coffee industry for human trafficking and slavery. It has sued Nestle, Starbucks, McDonald's, Dunkin Donuts, and others. Companies should not be allowed to get away with this kind of coffee in their supply chains.

Etelle believes that consumers would be willing to pay more for coffee that is responsibly grown. And it would cost just a couple cents more per cup to do so. With a cappuccino costing over $3, and specialty coffees at $7... a few cents would assuage a lot of guilt. And if the price goes up, the demand will not. That's been proven. Despite tariffs, everyone still buys their coffee. But fundamentally, people just do not know the truths of coffee production in Brazil, Indonesia, Vietnam, Columbia, Uganda, and Kenya and other countries. Industry is responsible for the lion's share of the abuse, enabled by the producer governments that have abdicated their duty to care for their citizens.

The podcast ends up with a discussion of solutions. Are certification programs effective? Etelle makes clear that they are only partially effective. Most are not delivering real sustainability. Organic is great in that it eliminates pesticides, but does nothing to stem deforestation, to assure women's rights, and eliminate child labor. Most consumers assume that organic and fair trade coffees are ethical and sustainable, but for the most part, they are not. No certifications require producers to pay living-income wages to coffee farmers.

So what should our listens do? Etelle encourages listeners to dedicate an hour to figuring out good ethical coffee that are available locally, and that reflect your values. Find it, a good ethical and sustainable coffee. Then buy it. Then spread the word to our spheres of influence... your university, office, mosque, or church, and become an ambassador. Demand better coffee, more sustainable coffee. Follow Coffee Watch to make it easy: https://coffeewatch.org/

Stuart Jenkins is the founder and chief executive officer of Blumaka, a company that manufactures insoles and shoes for high performance athletes. As a marathon competitor, Stuart was frustrated not to be able to access high performance running shoes, so he designed and now manufacturers and sells his own line. Blumaka also sells its insole technology to Fleks shoes, one of Oprah's top product picks.

The podcast begins with Stuart's story. A farm boy from Nebraska, he won major marathons, finished in the Boston Marathon seven times, and was an Olympic trial runner. All told, he has run nearly 90,000 miles in his life so far, equivalent to circling the globe more than three times. He had first-hand experience with worn out insoles that lost their cushion. The insoles that come with top brand shoes, he states, fail in 30 miles or less. Blumaka guarantees its insoles for 1,000 miles.

Ted and Stuart discuss the benefits of running.. lots of time to think and reflect. Running competitively, Stuart reflects, is all about effort. If you work hard, you can be at the front of the pack. The old joke is that the hardest part of running is pulling on your shorts! Running stimulates creativity and thought; you can process information better when not distracted. Stuart stated that he can get more work done on a 30-minute run that being in the office for 4 - 5 hours.

As a young runner, he was given shoes by local race sponsors for winning his division. But they did not satisfy him so he took out his mom's butcher's knife and cut away at foam for more flex and better cushion. He punched holes in shoes if they were too hot. At age 17, and after modifying lots of shoes he thought, "I can make them better."

The conversation shifts to foam. Blumaka uses leftover foam from manufacturing—soles that would otherwise be buried or burned. Foam is plastic, Stuart explains, the worst kind of plastic. Imagine plastic blown with gas. Once the air is blown into the foam, like a scrambled egg, it cannot be separated and recycled. Stuart buys waste foam from shoe manufacturing and found a way to reconfigure it, granulating it to maintain its cushioning properties.

Blumaka's high performance products are popular. There are now 20 NFL teams buying from Blumaka, plus over 1,000 professional athletes. The non-slip insoles help runners run faster as their feet are not sliding inside shoes. They help golfers hit balls farther. Stuart is clear that his products are being bought not because they are sustainable... but for performance. His company's mantra is to sell a product that is sustainable, but it also has to look as good or better, last as long or longer, and cost the same or less. 

Blumaka built, owns, and operates a factory in Southern China where it is manufacturing without the cocktail of chemicals used by the major brands and their suppliers... and using a fraction of the water. Now Blumaka produces a line of products, from insoles and running shoes to pickleball shoes, golf shoes, and through its sister brand -- Fleks-- Blumaka sells sandals, flip-flops, and slides. EcoMotion readers are welcome to use the code "ECOL20" at the Blumaka or Fleks website for a 20% discount to buy "the most sustainable souls on the planet."

Bryan Hannegan is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Holy Cross Energy (HCE), an electric cooperative in the mountains of Colorado. He appeared on the podcast in 2021 talking about how to create the utility of the future. Now he reports on results and the remarkable accomplishment  that HCE operated with 100% renewable power in the month of March 2026.

The conversation begins by digging into the 100% clean energy accomplishment, that Bryan describes as an intermediate step toward the goal for delivering clean energy every hour of every day by 2030. That's HCE's goal and it is an ambitious goal. What happened in March is that HCE was able to procure an equal amount of renewable energy to meet the amount demanded by HCE's 60,000 delivery points. The supply included projects under contracts as well as power from wholesale partners. Fully 60% of that power was time matched... generated in the hour that it was consumed. 

Bryan described HCE's accomplishment in March like hiking a mountain and reaching a flat spot on the trail up to the summit... there's still a steep vertical face up to the summit. A number of factors made the March milestone possible: HCE is a winter-peaking utility, serving two of Colorado's premier ski resorts and their surrounding communities. Spring is a time of rest... when demand hits an ebb of about 100 MW versus HCE's 300 MW winter peak. March was very sunny and strong winds were constant. Fully 60% of the power delivered was from projects directly contracted by HCE... they serve HCE directly, the transmission in HCE's name. "Those are about as clean a shot as one can get," noted Bryan. The other 40% are bundled market purchases in which HCE buys energy and their renewable energy certificates.

The conversation shifts to utility resource planning and to the concept of stacking renewable resources, and the need to do so given the inherent variability of renewables like wind and solar. Diversity is key, noted Bryan. HCE is pleased to get power from different locations... in the mountains and in the eastern plains of Colorado. This resource diversity enables HCE to have something going at all times. 

Bryan explains that HCE is "orchestrator of all these different supplies"... while orchestrating all 60,000 meters, influencing members on how and when they use power.  And one of his key goals is encouraging customers to use more power when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. There are many hours when HCE has excess solar and wind. HCE's goals are to store excess renewable power and to sync consumer demand with renewable resources.

Ted brings up the notion that Bryan presented in 2021, that utilities such as HCE will coordinate networked microgrids. Bryan this time took it a step further, suggesting that every home and building will likely be a microgrid of its own some day due to risks of wildfire, cybersecurity, and aging infrastructure. Everyone will need a Plan B, to be intentional about resilience due to climate variability and risks to normal utility grid operations. Bryan and his team are working to create regional resources, so that if need be, HCE can operate in pieces rather than as a whole.

HCE now has 30 MW customer-owned solar the vast majority of which is residential, thanks in part to Colorado's full retail price net energy metering. To this favorable policy, HCE has added incentives for batteries, and now about half of all new solar is paired with batteries, storage devices that HCE can draw upon making capacity payments to member-owner instead of making capacity payments for resource adequacy in the power markets. HCE is currently paying about $10/kW month for consumers to be partners in this pursuit.

HCE offers a number of innovative programs: The PuRE program allows customers that want 100% clean power now. They pay a very small premium for that; their investments accelerate the the pace for all HCE customers. The Peak Time Payback.... for all customers... pay several multiples of what they pay HCE, to not use electricity. HCE just rolled out Time of Use rates for homeowners, sending a signal about the real system costs of using electricity in our homes and businesses all at once.

Creating the utility of the future...  Ted asks what's next? Bryan and his team are focused on trimming power delivery costs, optimizing the power system, leaning in on operating a more flexible and resilient electricity grid. HCE needs to continue to get ready for the next challenges... dealing with cybersecurity, aging equipment. HCE needs to be nimble and flexible while staying true to its core mission of providing reliable and affordable power. Bryan envisions a world where every home, building, and vehicle is producing as well as consuming electricity. HCE will manage that every hour and every day.

Claire Smith, based in Geneva, Switzerland, is the CEO of Beyond Investing and Chief Innovative Officer for Beyond Impact. These two ventures work in concert, one providing impact investing, the other advancing startups for plant-based and cruelty-free businesses. 

Claire describes her journey... how she melded two major aspects of her life: her vegan path with her 30-year career in conventional finance. Bringing them together brought coherence and consistency to her personal and professional life and how she invested her money.  The ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) that she and her colleagues created can be traded through the day with prices moving like stocks. The fund has ~$180 million in traded assets.

After years of being a vegetarian, her experience as a mother amplified her empathy for animals, particularly females taken from their offspring. Cows are deprived of their calves so humans can drink their milk. She wanted to stop harming animals -- the worst of which is killing them for their meat. She realized how embedded these patterns are in society while, without question, the health benefits of eating more fruits and veggies are universally known. Beyond our personal health, at a global scale, the production of animal products is major source of greenhouse gases.

Only 1-2% of the world's population is vegan, with early roots in ancient India where some strict vegetarians do not eat some root vegetables such as potatoes because of the disturbance of soil and harm to insects that live there. Bees are also discussed and Claire expresses her sentiment that when we harvest honey, we are taking away their winter sustenance. "Let the bees eat their honey!"

Ted asks Claire about her diet and its diversity: She says she eats with an "Asian slant," things like tofu and vegetables. She eats whole foods versus "junk food vegan." She loves dark chocolate, but notes that there are vegan milk chocolate products as well as vegan ice cream. Her company is an investor in a vegan cheese producer in France that uses cashews mixed into a paste, then fermented with yeast to create cheese. The cheese is made of only four ingredients, without emulsifiers and other synthetic products.

Animal products are used in four broad categories, for nutrition, ingredients, pharmaceuticals, and materials... all part of same supply chain. In each case, Claire notes, replacement products are needed. Leather, for example constitutes up to 10% of animals' carcass value. In addition to killing animals to make leather, its production has nasty environmental consequences. To stop skin from decomposing, harsh chemicals are used for tanning and dyeing  products. These are extremely harmful to workers and then go into our environment. Automobile manufacturers are keen on supporting alternatives to leather as upholstered seats and interiors are responsible for significant greenhouse gas emissions.

Pharmaceuticals have a history of being derived from animals. Drugs such as insulin were originally derived from pigs' pancreases. The change from animal-based insulin production to microbes is a powerful example, the result is a superior version of the product without slaughter of pigs. Animals have been extensively used for preclinical trials and testing. Claire explains that her investment company is supporting businesses whose products are not based on "animal models" for drugs. Clever technologies provide alternative forms of cell replication that are able to provide far more accurate tests than those using animals.

Claire discusses the economics of her businesses. The fund is doing well, with strong returns. "Performance this year is gratifying." The ETF allows vegans and environmentalists and well as people concerned about social investing (no investments in oil, tobacco, or weapons), allow investors the ability to sleep at night, not worrying about what their money is profiting. Her ETF, in aggregate over seven years, is ahead of the conventional markets... from its inception in 2019 to the present, almost 3% ahead of the S&P 500.

Her final points speak to investments in things that are unsustainable, like oil production. The value of oil companies today is partially based on their proven reserves... reserves that they will not be able to use given their combustions' environmental consequences. These business will be subject to increasing lawsuits, they will have to spend more and more on lobbying to be able to pollute. She states that "they are broken business models" in the long term, with stranded assets... underscoring the value of socially responsible investments that will truly benefit our global society.

Gareth Evans is the founder and CEO of Veckta, an energy consulting firm that advises businesses on how to take control of their energy costs. Far from taking passive positions, and given rising energy costs, he encourages businesses to explore their options using tools such as onsite energy production, energy efficiency, and energy storage. Veckta develops custom solutions and then employs its platform of ~4,000 vendors to fulfill strategies based on a particular company's needs... be it cost savings, energy resilience, cutting emissions, brand recognition, or prioritizing between locations.

What Gareth has realized since founding Veckta in 2019, is that companies need a playbook. While companies are naturally expert in their own lines of business, since energy costs represent up to 40% of operating costs, rather than letting energy costs spiral upward... companies need to be made aware of their opportunities to not only stem costs, but to create new revenue centers. To spread the word, Gareth has recently written the playbook, a book called "Powering Profits." It was released on May 19, 2026 and is available on Amazon.

Gareth's career in energy  began in oil and gas. In 2009, and right after the Gulf War, he was dispatched to Iraq to determine the steps required to rebuild the war-ravaged oil and gas infrastructure in Iraq as a precursor for major oil companies restarting operations there. He was stationed at a U.S. Army base in Basra, and describes mortar attacks, his detail of body guards and more. In that very dangerous capacity, he was made painfully aware of the complex and costly infrastructure needed to extract oil and gas, and beyond that, he took stock at how these precious resources were exported to foreign countries, often for inefficient uses. 

In Iraq, Gareth also witnessed the gross disparity between the major international, fossil fuel conglomerates, and the people in Iraq who were lacking access to energy... often with very limited electricity, and often without air conditioning in the desert heat of summer there. His experiences shaped his perspectives, that energy is the lifeblood of economies around the world. Too many of us take it for granted.

For 15 years Gareth worked for Worley/Parsons, nine years of which he worked for its consulting division -- Advisian -- helping to establish energy infrastructure in countries around the world. His frustration with writing plans and giving presentations, often followed by inaction, led him to form Veckta. Through his own company, he was and continues to be determined to see plans through to action... realizing actual projects to manage energy and its costs most wisely in dynamic markets.

This is the gist of Powering Profits: challenging the status quo, adapting purposefully, and empowering co-creation as taking action, Gareth notes, is a team sport. The book makes clear the options that businesses have to control their costs and footprints. It also highlights the cost of inaction, and while fear of failure is understandable and a more powerful emotion than the possibility of victory, how companies can reward action. It's a book for business leaders, a playbook that he hopes will result in hugely positive returns for those companies that take its messages and strategies to heart... and to action.

Allen Hershkowitz PhD is an environmental scientist who joined Ted for an update conversation. Allen has worked at the confluence of climate and sports for 25 years. He first recorded on Flanigan's Eco-Logic in March of 2022 highlighting his early influences and early career... including 28 years at the Natural Resources Defense Council. There he met the actor Robert Redford who encouraged him to create an alliance of sports leagues and teams to promote efficiency, sustainability, and climate protection. That gave rise to the Green Sports Alliance which Allen ran for years. 

The update starts off with the big picture: It is certainly encouraging, Allen acknowledges, that today nearly every major sports league and each venue has a sustainability plan. But Allen points squarely to the current rollback in federal support for greening. This has retarded progress and has made his work more difficult. And while top athletes earn huge salaries, sporting venues are business ventures. They are tight on cash and scrutinize all expenditures carefully. Allen discussed his current work for the New York Yankees and Pittsburgh Pirates, overseeing engineering audits of their stadiums, detailing their technical potentials at different returns on investment. Allen noted that many of his colleagues at venues wish that there were federal requirements for efficiency and greenhouse gas reductions... turning CFOs' view from "would be nice" to " must do it."

Allen mentions the Trump administration pulling the United States out of the Paris Accord, gutting the EPA and other agencies, and how these actions have deflated some of his American work, while Europe and Australia have maintained strict greening laws. In the early days of the Green Sports Alliance one of Allen's great triumphs was getting Bud Selig, head of the Major League Baseball, to say that climate change is real. A recent success was getting the Yankees management to host the United Nations at its stadium and to pledge its ongoing support for the Paris Accords despite Washington.

Next week, Allen is off to the French Open tennis tournament in Paris to see the tournament and to participate in meetings. He recants the story of how he was introduced bo Billie Jean King years ago, and how she had wanted to green the United States Tennis Association (USTA). Allen dreamed of all the tennis grand slams... French Open, Australian Open, Wimbleton... to adhere to the sustainability standards of the USTA. Now they do!

Ted and Allen discuss the upcoming Olympics in in Los Angeles... LA 28. Allen states that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) sets the gold standard for green events. The two biggest impacts of an Olympic games is building venues and transporting fans to the events. In LA, there will be no new construction. Instead, the games spread around to existing venues. Electric buses and shuttles are planned for Olympians. The IOC is also investing in the legacy of the LA Olympics, funding LA non-profits focused on resilience and working with the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI) to take lessons learned in greening the Olympics to future events and applications.

Jon Edlin, his wife, and two small children survived an EF-3 tornado that swept through their suburb of Nashville, Tennessee on a dark night in March 2020. Jon had grown up in Kansas, was used to hearing tornado reports, thought little of them, but quickly ushered his family into their "safe space" when meteorologists' alerts of a tornado on the ground in his neighborhood came through his cell line. All told, the tornado that night left a 63-mile swath of destruction... killing 25 people.

His house was wiped out, his cars crushed. Windows popped out, there was smashed glass everywhere, ceilings ripped away... all in the matter of seconds. Huddled over his daughter, and hanging on for dear life, Jon thought is was all over. But as fast as it came, soon it was silent, eerie quiet. It took two hours for a nearby cousin to get there, picking his way through the destruction and rubble and downed power lines to rescue Jon and his family. But they were spared... and the event changed his life.

Why had he been spared? What did others do wrong to be killed? And... what should others do to prepare for future tornadoes? This last question set Jon on a mission: To educate residents about how to prepare and to equip them with emergency kits. Within months of the tornado, Jon formed Edlin Tornado Solution. He wrote a guide that is available on Amazon, developed a backpack with essentials, and began to lecture on preparedness. He has become an important messenger of the realities of tornadic activity in Tornado Alley and in Dixie Alley where his home had been.

Jon describes that horrific night, from early TV reports of tornadoes in the area, to taking heed and sheltering, to the actual tornado and how it sounded like five jet engines roaring directly over him, and its aftermath. Jon dispels myths... like "it could never happen to me." He makes clear that tornadoes are not predictable and now spread across a wide number of mid-western states... not just Kansas. 

Jon and Ted discuss that the United States is considered "the global epicenter of tornadoes," as dry air from the Southwest mixes with warm air east of the Rockies, loaded with Gulf moisture. Over 1,000 tornadoes are recorded each year, from EF-1 with 65 mph winds, to EF-5 with wind speeds over 200 mph. While the number may not be changing or increasing due to climate change, they are now occurring in more locations, further north earlier in the year, and in outbreaks of many tornadoes in the day-long or two-day periods.

So what is in the kits? Forget food; forget shovels states Jon. His kits are sturdy backpacks that have lights, first aid, extra gauze, and whistles. They have dedicated pockets for car keys, cell phones, laptops, and other essentials critical to rebuilding after the storm. They come shipped with a hook to encourage their buyers to a) identify the safe spots in their homes, and b) to hang their kits so they are at the ready. While basements are best, and essential for EF-5 events, Jon and his family survived huddled in the central hallway of their home... away from windows and exterior doors through which they could be sucked out. A brick wall landed squarely on their bed... their kids' rooms' ceilings were completely gone, their cars crushed. But they were safe.

The conversation ends with a discussion of emergency preparedness... from tornadic activity in the mid-west to wildfire and earthquakes to the west. While human nature reinforces myths and results in inaction, Jon is clear that we all need to be prepared... that we need to be smart to survive and to protect our families. He cautions listeners not to be become desensitized, to override that part of your brain, and instead to really think about it, to visualize it happening to you, to take preparedness seriously.

Laura Deehan has been the State Director for Environment California since 2021 and part of the public interest network since 2021. Ted asks her right up front: What is the state of California's environment? Laura starts with her love of California, the beauty of the state, its wonderful coastline, mountains, deserts, and great valleys. Having grown up in Scotland, she marvels at the weather and our wonderfully diverse environment. 

But she makes clear that there are serious issues to address: We still have some of the worst air quality in country. We are still battling water pollution issues. We are facing big impacts of climate change...  heat waves, droughts, flooding, wildfires, and more havoc. That said, she notes that California is a leader in solving problems. The public is engaged and aware. There is lot of support for solutions... things like investing in clean energy and electric vehicles. She underscores her strong conviction that California is a leading state, at the vanguard of tackling big environmental problems.

The conversation then focuses on Environment California's advocacy of coastal protection. She's just led a delegation in Sacramento celebrating the 21st Ocean Day, where surfers, divers, community activists and others, "brought the ocean" to the State's capitol! The delegation of lobbyists was also celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Coastal Act of 1976. She noted that, "it stopped crazy development ideas along the coast"... from numerous nuclear plants, lots more oil and gas drilling, and rampant development shoreline hotels. Thanks to the Act, and the will of the people, instead we have public access of our beaches and no private ownership of beaches and our precious coastline.

Also part of the agenda for Ocean Day's lobbying was standing up against new Trump administration proposals for expanding offshore oil drilling, albeit wildly unpopular in California. State legislative actions are strategically being developed to restrict bringing any new drilling's oil onshore. 

On a positive note, her coalition is supporting expansion of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). Just like parks, MPAs have basic rules: Enjoy but don't take. MPAs were established by the Marine Life Protection Act of 1999 and there are now 124 MPAs off the California coast. They were created as an interconnected network to preserve and restore marine ecosystems. Laura stresses that there is so much more to be done given the threats facing ocean life. There has been a loss of 90% of large fish globally to due overfishing and the impacts of marine heat waves. In the last decade, California has lost almost 90% of its kelp forest habitat... with cascading impacts. Laura points out that kelp forests absorb 20 times more carbon dioxide than terrestrial forests.

The conversation then digs into offshore wind. Environment California has been pushing for 100% renewable power in the State. Laura explains that when sun sets, utilities have typically fired up gas plants to meet consumer demand as solar power drops off. But that's exactly when the winds pick up, especially 25 miles offshore. California has an enviable offshore wind resource. Offshore wind alone could meet all of the State's energy needs. Environment California is part of coalition called Offshore Wind Now which passed AB 525, a bill that helped set goals for offshore wind deployment... 25 GW by 2045. The Coalition supports lease sales and investments in port upgrades to bring this power ashore. 

Ted asks who is opposing offshore wind and Laura makes clear that oil interests are working to discourage offshore wind. The fossil fuel interests are actively undermining support in communities, bolstered by President Trump's dislike of wind. In fact, just last week, Laura laments that Golden State Wind took the buyout option that Trump offered to abandon its offshore wind lease. Taxpayer money is being used to reverse progress. In fact, the wind developers who take the buyouts have promised to spend same amount of money in fossil development. But Laura remains optimistic: Fully 80% of Californians want offshore wind. There is lots of enthusiasm for this clean energy resource.

At the end of discussion, and in response to Ted's question on how Environment California prioritizes its advocacy and community organizing, Laura focuses on the things that we all agree on: She finds it interesting that even in such a polarized moment, we all want clean air, we want water that is safe to drink, and we want livable communities for our children. So Environment California is particularly focused on areas that have widespread support, as well as areas where it can activate Californians to effectively take a stand and to engage the will of the people who choose to make the Golden State their home.

This episode is about repurposing retired offshore oil rigs into reefs, maintaining highly enriched ecosystems for fisheries and marine life. Instead of removing offshore oil rigs when their oil is exhausted, this episode focuses on how they are being repurposed for multiple benefits. Blue Latitude co-founders, Amber Sparks and Emily Hazelwood, join Ted in describing their 10+ year endeavor doing just this... how their company was formed and what it does to take the concept of rigs to reefs and to turn it into a win-win reality.

In graduate school at the Scripps Institution for Oceanography in La Jolla, California, Amber and Emily were scuba diving off oil rigs in the Santa Barbara Channel and witnessed remarkable sights... abundant sea life clinging on to the oil rigs supporting scaffolds. The operating rigs were creating vibrant marine ecosystems, starting with invertebrates like barnacles and sea anemones... then scallops and more, providing nurseries for schools of fish. The rigs' subsea infrastructure preserves and produces marine life, provides refuge, and has even proven to support biodiversity and reverse extinction, notably of sea stars in California. After presenting their thesis research at a conference, they were approached by an oil company that was keen on exploring the rigs to reefs option for defunct undersea infrastructures. 

While oil companies are responsible for removing their rigs, and returning their leased sites to their pre-existing conditions, Amber and Emily explain that their research on the undersea life revealed an alternative approach... something they now describe as "reefing." This is taking advantage of massive subsea infrastructures, scaffoldings of beams and cross-bars, that provide habitat for marine life. At the end of the rigs' oil extraction, why not maintain these new-found ecological zones below an 80-foot draft for safe passage of ships, and remove the "topsides?" Supporting this approach is exactly what Blue Latitudes does, starting in California where there are 27 offshore oil rigs, their work is now spreading around the world. 

Blue Latitudes studies fisheries in high-tech ways, for instance it used underwater remote operating vehicles (ROVs) that plunge to depths way beyond the reach of scuba to measure sea life and to take samples, as well as hydroacoustics to measure marine life. They raise awareness and advocate for rigs to reefs. So far, they have worked in coastal waters off the United States, Africa, South America, and Malaysia. They provide decommissioning studies, paying attention to eliminating spills prior to capping and sealing wells. The common theme of their work is applying scientific research to develop custom solutions to address complex problems at the nexus of industry and our oceans.

Emily notes that there are ~1,400 rigs in the U.S. coastal waters, and some 5,000 - 7,000 rigs worldwide, all of which will reach the end of their useful lives. This is Blue Latitudes' "market." The company -- and its foundation -- has lots of work to do as these rigs -- which can be steel structures in as much as 800 feet of water -- can be repurposed for mutual benefit: The oil companies save money -- even after providing cash to local rigs to reef programs -- and the marine environment is enriched providing great benefit to local fishing industries.

The conversation ends with Blue Latitudes' most recent project, a broad study of alternative uses for offshore oil rigs.. specifically their "topsides." They are exploring green hydrogen production, harvesting critical minerals from seawater, aquaculture, and establishing a network of monitoring stations for ocean data. As the world shifts from hydrocarbon extraction... finding clever solutions, like rigs to reefs, is a "silver lining" to industry and fundamental to the the Blue Latitude mission and contribution.

Rei Vardi is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Eon, a car rental company that is "building a mobility platform."  Rei explains the genesis of his business and what can now be seen as an exciting, disruptive business model: He was a college student in Boston. When his father planned to turn in the family Tesla, Rei was determined to keep it and pledged to make the payments. To do so, he rented the car to family and friends, and recalls some really bad arrangements, including a bank robbery. But his experiences sparked a novel concept... enabling EV car owners a new means of income. Since most cars sit idle 95% of the time, why not rent them out?

The discussion then focuses on how he de-risked the concept. Instead of an owner -- "an amateur in the car rental space" -- taking on the challenges of rentals to strangers, why not have a platform to manage a network and to remove the risk and hassle for car owners? For renters, why not create a new car rental model that makes renting easy, really easy? Forget rental locations and lines and consumer frustration. 

Eon boasts that its network now is the easiest way to rent a car. The company only rents privately-owned electric vehicles, primarily Teslas, Rivians, and Lucids. There are no keys involved at all. More and more, its business partners -- the car owners -- are developing fleets of EVs for program participation that they post on the company's website. Then renters get instructions on how to access the vehicles and use their phones to unlock and turn on the cars. Renters can even pre-warm or pre-cool the cars. They get explicit instructions on where and how to charge the vehicles too.

Owners put their cars on the platform and specify the terms they want... like car pick-up and drop-off location, the daily price, etc.  Eon screens renters to assure a positive experience for the owners, and similarly stipulates a set of terms for owners... like vehicle cleanliness. Now, after eight years developing and scaling the model, Rei and his colleagues have over 3,000 cars in their network, with business activity in 50 cities across the nation. And the business model is popular, Rei notes that 45% of his renters are return renters. Check it out at Eonrides.com.