HAPPY PLANET

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This week’s podcast touches upon two themes that are close to my heart: my college town of New York City and oysters!

Our guest today is Murray Fisher. He is the man behind two fairly recent, but already iconic, NYC institutions. In 2002, Murray founded the New York Harbor School, a public high school revolving around New York City’s river. Then in 2010, he co-founded the Billion Oyster Project, a non-profit offshoot of the Harbor School, which aims to restore a billion oysters to the city’s harbor by 2035.

As a former oyster farmer, getting invited to bring my oysters to the Billion Oyster Project’s annual fundraiser was something of a rite of passage. And if bivalve-loving listeners have a chance to attend you should absolutely do so - literally tens of thousands of oysters are shucked and eaten in a matter of hours! It’s an epic party.

We also mention a book that I love in this podcast, tiled The Big Oyster by Mark Kurlansky. It tells the history of NYC through the oyster which at one time was one of the city’s economic and dietetic keystones. It’s definitely worth a read.

Murray Fisher
New York Harbor School
Billion Oyster Project

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 I'd like to thank our sponsors:

 Gulf of Maine Research Institute and Bold Ocean Ventures have partnered to create a mission-driven venture capital fund, supporting the growth of innovative, sustainable ocean-related businesses.

Startup Marin Skincare has rocketed thanks to products made with Maine-lobster-derived glycoprotein that work on eczema and dry skin. Former guest on our show and co-Founder Patrick Breeding is offering listeners a 20% discount on their skincare products. Type HAPPYPLANET into the coupon code field!

Spark No. 9, ensures that companies - and startups - have successful product launches by testing their products online. Remove the guesswork before you launch!

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This week we’re going to address the planet’s plastic problem. These petroleum-based materials only became mass produced after WW2 but as we heard from our very first guest Bill Curtsinger, as early as the 60s micro-plastics were already being identified as a concern in the remote waters of Antartica.

It was about that time that the 1967 movie, The Graduate came out in which a well-meaning Mr. McGuire famously offers career advice to the young, floundering Ben Braddock. “The future is in plastics,” he says. He was not wrong; the 70s and 80s brought a massive and unrelenting surge of consumer and convenience driven plastics that has only continued to grow. And today here we are with massive swaths of plastic waste forming veritable islands in the Pacific ocean.

And while recycling may make us feel better, only 5% to 6% of U.S. plastics are being recycled. According to a recent Greenpeace report, recycling is not economical, it has environmental and health implications, and most plastics are just fundamentally not recyclable. 

Our guest today, Thibaut Monfort-Micheo, hopes to help solve this problem. He is co-founder of FlexSea, a UK-based company aiming to use use sustainable seaweed to make alternative bio-based and biodegradable plastics.

Thibaut Monfort-Micheo
FlexSea

Support the show

Listen on Apple , Spotify, our website, or pretty much anywhere you listen to podcasts!

 I'd like to thank our sponsors:

 Gulf of Maine Research Institute and Bold Ocean Ventures have partnered to create a mission-driven venture capital fund, supporting the growth of innovative, sustainable ocean-related businesses.

Startup Marin Skincare has rocketed thanks to products made with Maine-lobster-derived glycoprotein that work on eczema and dry skin. Former guest on our show and co-Founder Patrick Breeding is offering listeners a 20% discount on their skincare products. Type HAPPYPLANET into the coupon code field!

Spark No. 9, ensures that companies - and startups - have successful product launches by testing their products online. Remove the guesswork before you launch!

 Promotional and program partners include ...

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I am really excited to introduce you all to Steven Fox, a founding Partner of Propeller VC, a new early stage venture fund that invests in and builds ocean-climate companies that use science and technology to address the climate crisis. Propeller is the brainchild of Hubspot Founder Brian Halligan and it was designed to be the venture partner for Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution otherwise known as WHOI, one of the foremost ocean research institutes in the world. 

While the blue economy is still a nascent segment, there are a handful of ocean focused funds popping up around Europe and the US. But with over 100M under management and a strategic partnership with WHOI, Propeller promises to be one of the major players in this industry.

Steven Fox
WHOI
Propeller VC

Support the show

Listen on Apple , Spotify, our website, or pretty much anywhere you listen to podcasts!

 I'd like to thank our sponsors:

 Gulf of Maine Research Institute and Bold Ocean Ventures have partnered to create a mission-driven venture capital fund, supporting the growth of innovative, sustainable ocean-related businesses.

Startup Marin Skincare has rocketed thanks to products made with Maine-lobster-derived glycoprotein that work on eczema and dry skin. Former guest on our show and co-Founder Patrick Breeding is offering listeners a 20% discount on their skincare products. Type HAPPYPLANET into the coupon code field!

Spark No. 9, ensures that companies - and startups - have successful product launches by testing their products online. Remove the guesswork before you launch!

 Promotional and program partners include ...

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There are a few things that separate winning startups from those that crash. Some of them are pretty obvious: Good leadership. A Good Market Fit. Sufficient Cash on hand to grow. But you also need a good story. And that’s not always easy for entrepreneurs to formulate, especially in an increasingly crowded field like climate or blue innovation where the big picture corporate missions are often overlapping. They all want to save the planet. Today we are going to speak with Alex Searle, a professional storyteller, about the craft of storytelling, why it matters and what are the elements of a good story.

For more about Alex and his services, check out his website: https://www.alex-searle.com


Alex is also the host of a podcast on this subject called The Humble Pie:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-humble-pie/id1551300372?l=fr

Support the show

Listen on Apple , Spotify, our website, or pretty much anywhere you listen to podcasts!

 I'd like to thank our sponsors:

 Gulf of Maine Research Institute and Bold Ocean Ventures have partnered to create a mission-driven venture capital fund, supporting the growth of innovative, sustainable ocean-related businesses.

Startup Marin Skincare has rocketed thanks to products made with Maine-lobster-derived glycoprotein that work on eczema and dry skin. Former guest on our show and co-Founder Patrick Breeding is offering listeners a 20% discount on their skincare products. Type HAPPYPLANET into the coupon code field!

Spark No. 9, ensures that companies - and startups - have successful product launches by testing their products online. Remove the guesswork before you launch!

 Promotional and program partners include ...

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This week we meet Edwina Tanner and Jill Storey of Whale X, an Australian company competing for Elon Musk’s X Prize, a multi-year competition resulting in the awarding of $100M to the best carbon removal project. 

Whale X’s solution? Fertilize the ocean with synthetic whale poop. Before you write that off as silly, know that they are currently in 60th place out of 1,000 applicants. And frankly, who better than Elon Musk to support a seemingly outrageous idea.

Some topics covered in this podcast:

• Diminishing whale population and implications for ocean health
• The mechanics of Carbon Sequestration and why the ocean is optimal 
• Backstory on research from Ocean Nourishment Corporation, Whale X’s mother organization
• The role of whales in the carbon cycle and marine ecosystem in general
• How Whale X would be rolled out
• What they need to get it off the ground
• Elon Musk's X Prize

Support the show

Listen on Apple , Spotify, our website, or pretty much anywhere you listen to podcasts!

 I'd like to thank our sponsors:

 Gulf of Maine Research Institute and Bold Ocean Ventures have partnered to create a mission-driven venture capital fund, supporting the growth of innovative, sustainable ocean-related businesses.

Startup Marin Skincare has rocketed thanks to products made with Maine-lobster-derived glycoprotein that work on eczema and dry skin. Former guest on our show and co-Founder Patrick Breeding is offering listeners a 20% discount on their skincare products. Type HAPPYPLANET into the coupon code field!

Spark No. 9, ensures that companies - and startups - have successful product launches by testing their products online. Remove the guesswork before you launch!

 Promotional and program partners include ...

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This week we are going to speak with Rob Cobbold, COO of Beach Collective, a company that is building a digital platform that merges some of the most abstract and immaterial aspects of the web, like Cryptos and NFTs with some of the most tangible and physical activities on the planet, like community building, ocean conservation, and trash pickup.

Beach Collective is disrupting what they see as a flawed financial system and using their own low-emissions crypto called Beach Token as a tool for change for the better of the planet and its people. People around the world are litereally going to be able to earn Beach Token when they take action - like picking up beach trash - to improve our planet’s health. 

Sound utopian? Well, to date, they’ve raised $150,000 in transaction fees with Beach Token and, with their partners, they have registered planet-healthy actions in 50 countries, removed 150,000+ kgs of trash from the oceans and they have restored 10 hectares of mangroves in 3 countries. So maybe this is something worth paying attention to. 

To hear my conversation with Rob, tune in on Apple, Spotify, or Google. And don’t forget to subscribe on your platformto get automatic updates. If you like what we’re doing, please do spread the word.

Many thanks to Maine Technology Institute, Maine Venture Fund and Spark No.9 for their sponsorship. 

Support the show

Listen on Apple , Spotify, our website, or pretty much anywhere you listen to podcasts!

 I'd like to thank our sponsors:

 Gulf of Maine Research Institute and Bold Ocean Ventures have partnered to create a mission-driven venture capital fund, supporting the growth of innovative, sustainable ocean-related businesses.

Startup Marin Skincare has rocketed thanks to products made with Maine-lobster-derived glycoprotein that work on eczema and dry skin. Former guest on our show and co-Founder Patrick Breeding is offering listeners a 20% discount on their skincare products. Type HAPPYPLANET into the coupon code field!

Spark No. 9, ensures that companies - and startups - have successful product launches by testing their products online. Remove the guesswork before you launch!

 Promotional and program partners include ...

Send us Fan Mail

This week’s guest, Christophe Maier, Founder and CEO of Lagosta. Christophe was raised in Switzerland, on lake Geneva, but once he discovered the Mediterranean he couldn’t get enough of salty waterbodies! 

Fast forward to adulthood and Christophe raises spiny lobsters, not for the European luxury food market as he originally expected, but for the pharma market which is turning out to be a very lucrative pivot. And he doesn’t even harm the lobsters. Instead, he up-cycles spiny lobster by-catch, grows them out in his onshore system and uses their “molts” or shedded shells to produce high-quality Chitosan.

Some of the subjects we will touch upon are:

• How Christophe came to Pivot
• How Climate change is affecting spiny lobsters and the Med in general
• How Christophe raises the spiny lobsters
• The particularities of the spiny lobster
• Traceability and spiny Lobster “fingerprints”
• The benefits of Chitosan 
• Christophe’s growth plans and fundraise
• Christophe’s advice to entrepreneurs

Christophe Maier
Lagosta

Support the show

Listen on Apple , Spotify, our website, or pretty much anywhere you listen to podcasts!

 I'd like to thank our sponsors:

 Gulf of Maine Research Institute and Bold Ocean Ventures have partnered to create a mission-driven venture capital fund, supporting the growth of innovative, sustainable ocean-related businesses.

Startup Marin Skincare has rocketed thanks to products made with Maine-lobster-derived glycoprotein that work on eczema and dry skin. Former guest on our show and co-Founder Patrick Breeding is offering listeners a 20% discount on their skincare products. Type HAPPYPLANET into the coupon code field!

Spark No. 9, ensures that companies - and startups - have successful product launches by testing their products online. Remove the guesswork before you launch!

 Promotional and program partners include ...

Send us Fan Mail

We’ve spoken to a lot of entrepreneurs from around the world in the past few months and there is one thing they all have in common - a corporation. The precise structures of corporations will vary from company to company and country to country but a relatively new corporate certification is working its way around the planet and creating a global standard for how businesses should behave. It’s the B Corp Certification and it’s gaining ground. 

Ben Anderson, a B Corp Leader, and former CEO and Co-Chair of Board of B Lab US & Canada joins the show today to explain how it works and why getting a B makes for good business.

A sneak preview:

• How corporate values have shifted over the years
• What is the B Corp
• The Shareholder v Stakeholder economy
• What are the qualifiers to become B Corp
• How to become B Corp
• What it costs
• How B Corp is helping companies prove ESG
• How it turns out B Corp is good for business performance
• B Corp’s influence on international corporate governance
• Why consumers may want to look for B Corp

Ben Anderson
B Corporation

Support the show

Listen on Apple , Spotify, our website, or pretty much anywhere you listen to podcasts!

 I'd like to thank our sponsors:

 Gulf of Maine Research Institute and Bold Ocean Ventures have partnered to create a mission-driven venture capital fund, supporting the growth of innovative, sustainable ocean-related businesses.

Startup Marin Skincare has rocketed thanks to products made with Maine-lobster-derived glycoprotein that work on eczema and dry skin. Former guest on our show and co-Founder Patrick Breeding is offering listeners a 20% discount on their skincare products. Type HAPPYPLANET into the coupon code field!

Spark No. 9, ensures that companies - and startups - have successful product launches by testing their products online. Remove the guesswork before you launch!

 Promotional and program partners include ...

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Watch out NEMO there’s a new clownfish in town and he’s a lot smarter than you are! Today we are talking to Liane Thompson, co-founder and CEO of Aquaai (Uh-qu-why)- which merges the words aqua and the term AI together. 

Liane has an incredible bio including stints in war reporting and television producing. And she knows a good thing when she sees it. She put Alan Bordain on TV. Today she has been named one of 50 Most Powerful Women in Technology and I can see why.  The unabbreviated list of accolades for Liane and her team is below

Liane and her life partner Simeon Pieterkosky have brought to market a robotic, intelligent clownfish that can monitor waterways and aquaculture facilities and provide actionable data. 

The inspiration came from Simeon’s young daughter who asked him one day to ‘save the seas.’ So, like any good parent, roboticist Simeon got to work building technology that can identify and track environmental changes underwater. 

Aquaai’s Nemo is put to use monitoring sustainable aquaculture systems, measuring and identifying sources of pollution, and is even working to monitor carbon capture. And Nemo is only getting smarter and more talented with time.

Aquaai
Liane Thomson
Simeon Pieterkosky


Accolades for Aquaai:
50 Most Powerful Women in Technology to Follow in 2023, NEOM selected 2022, World’s Top 50 Innovators Codex 2022, Top Tier Impact Awards 2022 (finalist), GreenBiz, Atlantic Council, Verizon Climate Resilience Prize 2022 (finalist), 20 Women Driving the Future of Climate Tech in 2021, OceanPitch Fest 2021 (finalist), 30 Women to Know in Robotics in 2020, Hardware Cup CleanTech 2021 (finalist), Awarded Innovation Norway grant 2020, TEKFISH (2020 trip winner) - Australian Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC), European Commission's Seal of Excellence for Impact, Quality and Efficiency 2020, CDL Graduate 2020, Winner Top Aquaculture Innovation Award Fish 2.0 Stanford Global Forum 2019, Innovative Woman in AI / Blockchain to Follow in 2019

Support the show

Listen on Apple , Spotify, our website, or pretty much anywhere you listen to podcasts!

 I'd like to thank our sponsors:

 Gulf of Maine Research Institute and Bold Ocean Ventures have partnered to create a mission-driven venture capital fund, supporting the growth of innovative, sustainable ocean-related businesses.

Startup Marin Skincare has rocketed thanks to products made with Maine-lobster-derived glycoprotein that work on eczema and dry skin. Former guest on our show and co-Founder Patrick Breeding is offering listeners a 20% discount on their skincare products. Type HAPPYPLANET into the coupon code field!

Spark No. 9, ensures that companies - and startups - have successful product launches by testing their products online. Remove the guesswork before you launch!

 Promotional and program partners include ...

Send us Fan Mail

This week’s guest, Tore Enger, Founder and CEO of the group TECO 2030, is pioneering the fuel cell stacks designed for green hydrogen in trucking and shipping, industries traditionally reliant on diesel fuel.

After speaking with Tore, my worldview on renewables started to broaden. I’d love to know what you think after you listen to the episode. Please feel free to email me with your thoughts. 

One note about this episode, I break down the basic mechanics of green hydrogen in the introduction - what it is, how it works. I’ve tried to keep the explanation short (it’s about one minute) but I wanted the episode to be accessible to all.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Mechanics of green hydrogen
• How green hydrogen is well adapted to the maritime industry
• TECO 2030’s role in the green hydrogen revolution - and who they are working with
• The future of trucking with respect to green hydrogen
• Who the big players of the renewable industry will be in the future
• Norway’s role in the impact economy
• Oslo’s green hydrogen passenger car program
• How some of the biggest players in the renewable space might surprise you
• Building a climate legacy

To hear my conversation with Tore, tune in on Apple, Spotify, or Google. And don’t forget to subscribe on your platformto get automatic updates. If you like what we’re doing, please do spread the word.

Many thanks to Maine Technology Institute, Maine Venture Fund and Spark No.9 for their sponsorship. 

I’d also like to thank our promotional partners. Investable Oceans is a US-based angel platform specializing in ocean-related startups. Oceanovation is a Dutch-South African hub for entrepreneurs and investors in blue tech innovation.

I’d love your thoughts on how the podcast is going and please, if you like the show, 

TECO2030
TORE ENGER

Support the show

Listen on Apple , Spotify, our website, or pretty much anywhere you listen to podcasts!

 I'd like to thank our sponsors:

 Gulf of Maine Research Institute and Bold Ocean Ventures have partnered to create a mission-driven venture capital fund, supporting the growth of innovative, sustainable ocean-related businesses.

Startup Marin Skincare has rocketed thanks to products made with Maine-lobster-derived glycoprotein that work on eczema and dry skin. Former guest on our show and co-Founder Patrick Breeding is offering listeners a 20% discount on their skincare products. Type HAPPYPLANET into the coupon code field!

Spark No. 9, ensures that companies - and startups - have successful product launches by testing their products online. Remove the guesswork before you launch!

 Promotional and program partners include ...