Levers of Exchange

What we discussed: Systems pervade our everyday life and often go unnoticed. Yet making the world more sustainable requires system change. I asked each of our guests to describe when they first noticed the systems that they work within and to describe their formative moments that set them onto their careers.

Why it matters: These formative moments become part of how each guest approaches problem solving in their unique way. They frame the thinking and the context of how each approaches the climate crisis.

What it means for you: Each one of us has a formative moment. I ask that you, dear listener, reflect on yours. When did you notice the system? More importantly, when did you decide to do something about it? I hope that the six stories in Season 3 will offer inspiration to help us implement our own climate and sustainability strategies.

Guests this season:

• Stuart Hillen, EnergyAustralia, Melbourne, Australia https://www.linkedin.com/in/stuart-hillen/
• Jeremy McDaniels, Institute of International Finance, Washington DC USA https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-mcdaniels/
• James Mitchell, Rocky Mountain Institute, London, UK https://www.linkedin.com/in/james20/
• Natalia Pshenichnaya, formerly GSM Association, Berlin, Germany https://www.linkedin.com/in/natalia-pshenichnaya-7107781a/
• Shruthi Vijayakumar, Education New Zealand, Auckland, New Zealand https://www.linkedin.com/in/shruthivijayakumar/
• Joaquin Viquez, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, San Jose, Costa Rica https://www.linkedin.com/in/joaquinviquez/

About Levers of Exchange:

Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com)

Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)

Website: https://www.leversofexchange.com/

Season 3 is funded by a generous grant from the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, at the Saïd Business School, Oxford University.

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I always feel fortunate to get the lineup of guests that we do for this podcast. They carry with them many years of experience and wisdom. One of the areas of continued relevance is advice they give to early professionals. We asked each guest what common challenges they've observed in early career professionals and what mentorship advice they usually give.

Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com)

Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)

Website: http://www.leversforchangepodcast.com/

Let us start with Jay Bruns, the Senior Climate Policy Advisor to the WA State Insurance Commissioner. His answer was a succinct of the Career Advice Episode from Season 1 - to search for sustainability impact within your existing job rather than applying for a job title that includes Sustainability.

Suzanne Singer, Chief Engineer of Native Renewables, see that students as young as Junior High and High School are already getting interested in clean energy jobs. To those people, there's nothing more important than getting good grades because, unfortunately, it’s the metric most of the world relies on.

When people enter the work force, they face a multitude of challenges, from simply landing a job, to not settling for less than what matters to them, as Ben Kott, CEO of LightsourceBP Labs observed.

It's great if you already have that vision, but what if you don't? Or, what if your vision isn't right sized to your capabilities? Prachi Vakharia, Managing Director of Womanium noted that she often runs into people who underestimates their abilities and encourages people to dream bigger.

Stacy Flynn, CEO and co-founder of Evernu agrees. And not just dream bigger, but for a lot of female leaders, to not lose confidence in their abilities and the pursuit of their dreams.

But no matter one's passion, their ability to perform must match their visions of big dreams. The upshot? Work hard and know why you're doing it. Jud Virden, Associate Laboratory Director of Pacific Northwest National Labs explains

So, there you have it. Whether you're in high school or junior high, just trying to land your first job, or trying to shift careers, it is a combination of dreaming big, of knowing the "so what" question that you're working on and working hard to deliver on achieving it. But above all else, it's the grit to continue. After all, each of our guests have spent many decades on their career journeys and they would not be where they are without perseverance.

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We are inundated with information and news these days. And since Climate Action is a globally interconnected systems problem, there's a lot of information one needs to know and interact with. That can leave people feeling overwhelmed that they need to master knowledge and skills just to make an impact. So, I asked each of our guests where they receive new information from and how they stay current in an increasingly complex field.

Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com)

Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)

Website: http://www.leversforchangepodcast.com/

Jud Virden, Associate Laboratory Director at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, manages over 1000 engineers, and he relies on talking to people.

Both Jay Bruns, Climate Policy Advisor to the WA State Insurance Commissioner and Suzanne Singer, Chief Engineer of Native Renewables, see talking to industry people as a critical source of information. Both of them gets their information from many respected sources.

Just getting information from multiple sources isn't enough. As Ben Kott, CEO of LightsourceBP Labs reminds us, we have to make sense of our information and suggests that one way to do that is through discussions with peers.

Stacy Flynn, the consummate systems thinker, gave us her trick in synthesizing new information. It's by scanning table of contents of many books at the same time, and drawing connections between them, even before reading the books themselves.

Lastly, Prachi Vakharia, Managing Partner at Womanium, gave a very succinct framework of how to sort through the information and stay current:

So, there you have it - qualified information, synthesized ideas, hearing it from people who are doing the work. Break them out into current events, industrial news, and general knowledge. And lastly, talk to people. Share ideas. Listen. I hope you are able to adopt some of these best practices of staying current and well informed.

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Frequent listeners to this Podcast know that I like delving into the cleantech and climate story of many different sector, looking for similarities of problems and solutions. I was curious how many other people looked beyond their traditional silos for inspiration. So, to the podcast guests of Season 2, I asked them, what unexpected collaborations have they found themselves in. Answers came in two general categories, those who were surprised, and those who were diligent.

Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com)

Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)

Website: http://www.leversforchangepodcast.com/

Prachi, Managing Director of Womanium, sets the stage of being open to spontaneity, to welcome surprising collaborations to happen.              

This surprise can manifest itself in many circumstances, as Suzanne Singer relayed in an anecdote. Not only is she the Chief Engineer of Native Renewables, but she also manages the Social Media account.  

Sometimes the surprising collaboration isn't with someone unexpected, it's an unexpected reaction of someone within the industry. Stacy Flynn, CEO of Evernu, reflects on some of her efforts working from within the textile sector.

Even if one doesn't find themselves in surprising collaborations, they still make an effort to cast a wide net. Jay Bruns, the Senior Climate Policy Advisor to the WA State Insurance Commissioner shares how he learns new information with like-minded individuals

And no matter how long one works in the climate industry, there is always room for surprise, new opportunities, and new intersections to explore. Jud Virden, of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, shares his excitement to be working on the intersection of the energy and energy and marine technology sector.

So, there you have it - surprising results can come through both expected and unexpected collaborations. Intersections of industry and infrastructure is where future innovations will occur. Put yourself in situations where the opportunity for new ideas to emerge. Train yourself to notice them when they do and take advantage of their spontaneity. Then delight in the deep exploration of the new opportunities that present themselves.

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The United Nations Sustainability Development Goals has been a great rallying point for global action. But did you know they are set to expire in 2030? The next decade will prove decisive on achieving our climate targets. I asked each of our guests this season what brought them optimism about climate impact. It is easy to become cynical about action to mitigate or avert climate crises. So for our guests, what do they see that brings them hope?

Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com)
Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)

Website: www.leversforchangepodcast.com

Several pointed to the urgency of the problem, and the opportunities it creates. Ben Kott, CEO  of LightsourceBP Lab reflected that there are now climate 'carrots' of opportunities, not just the stick of punishment.

Prachi Vakharia, who worked a number of transportation companies saw the same evolution in corporate America.

For Jud Virden, who has been on the cutting edge of technology innovation, with his career at Pacific Northwest National Labs, he has seen steady progress, albeit behind-the-scenes. He's optimistic that the cause is becoming more mainstream.

At the global level, Jay Bruns, Senior Climate Policy Advisor to the WA State Insurance Commissioner, reflected on the greater visibility climate is getting from regulators across the US and globally. But the actions need to happen faster.

Closer to home, Suzanne Singer, of Native Renewables, saw a rising interest in junior high and high school.

It's this next generation that gives Stacy Flynn, CEO of Evernu, her optimism. It's not just about the leaders of today, it's also about cultivating the leaders for the second half of the 21st century.

So there you have it - lots of reasons to be optimistic about our progress. As Jud pointed out, there's lots to do and as Jay is concerned about, will the change happen fast enough. However, the growing number of people who are working on it, talking about it, and embedding it into their work and lives, is one cause to be optimistic about the future of climate action.

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Stacy Flynn, Founder and CEO of Evernu, is our guest. It is a textiles innovation company looking to take recycled fiber from discarded clothes and give it a new life. Over the course of our conversation, I asked,

1)      How do clothes get from the farm to the retail stores?

2)      How do you innovate in conservative industries, such as textile manufacturing?

3)      Where one starts in building new systems solutions.

Now let us listen to how a career that started in fashion and fabrics is now working on recycling and repurposing.

Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com)
Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)

Website: www.leversforchangepodcst.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ben Kott, the CEO of LightsourceBP Labs, a subsidiary of BP that manufactures and sells home energy management solutions joins us.  It is people like Ben who BP relies on to meet its climate goals. We caught up in October 2020 and discussed

1)      What it was like inside BP when CEO Bernard Looney made his announcement.

2)      The value proposition of big data in the clean energy future.

3)      How to flex frameworks and pivot when necessary.

Listen to how Ben is being an entrepreneur within a major corporation.

Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com)
Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)

Website: www.leversforchangepodcast.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today’s guest is Suzanne Singer, founder and Chief Engineer of Native Renewables, an organization that brings renewable solar energy to the 15,000 tribal homes that are off the grid. We talked about

1)      How does one translate technical language about Solar Panels into Navajo?

2)      What are the cultural values embedded in Native Renewables?

3)      And what it was like transitioning from being a researcher at a national lab to being an entrepreneur.

Listen to this episode to hear how the lessons learned from being off-grid can educate us in our path to net-zero.

Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com)
Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)

Website: www.leversforchangepodcast.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today’s guest is Jay Bruns, the Senior Climate Policy Advisor to WA State’s Insurance Commissioner. Over the course of this interview, we will discuss

1)      How are global climate risks affecting insurance risks?

2)      What is the role for the insurance sector in long-term climate change?

3)      How does the insurance sector deal with up-and-coming technology innovations?

Now let us see how a multi trillion-dollar industry responds to global climate change.

Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com)
Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)

Website: www.leversforchangepodcast.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today’s guest is Prachi Vakharia, an entrepreneur and mentor to many companies in the transportation and mobility sector. Over the course of this interview, you will hear her stories regarding 

1)     How that last mile is getting disrupted by technology.

2)     How innovation differs, from the MIT Media Labs to AES, a major utility.

3)     And How to close the gap between educating women to nurturing female leaders.

Listen to this episode to see how one applies different models of innovation to different organizations for different scales.

Interview by Jimmy Jia (www.jimmyjia.com)
Music by Sean Hart (www.seanhart.com)

Website: www.leversforchangepodcast.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.