Mindful Businesses

Every year, 15 Million trees are cut down to produce paper, build homes, and make furniture. From this, millions of tons of wood waste are generated annually. A portion of this waste is recovered and sold to downstream markets to make particle board or wood pellets for energy. The remaining sawdust is either burned - contributing to air pollution - or sent to landfill. Though biodegradable, sawdust can be harmful to the environment in large quantities when landfilled. As it decomposes, sawdust releases high concentrations of lignin and fatty acids, which can contaminate water supplies, potentially poisoning wildlife and micro-organisms. We speak with Andrew Jeffery, Co-founder of Forust, by Desktop Metal,  uses the power of high-speed, high-resolution 3D printing to give a new life to a discarded resource - creating strong, beautiful and carbon-friendly wood products from wood waste. For each tree saved, we reduce the CO2 footprint by a metric ton over the tree’s life. Learn more in our next episode.

Mentions:

Virginia San Fratello

Ronald Rael

https://www.forust.com/

https://www.mindfulbusinessespodcast.com/

We talked with Sagent's CEO Gordon Smith about how Sagent works to reduce the environmental impact by lowering emissions, pollution, and energy investment. They do it a) by repairing and refurbishing networks they extend the useful equipment life with telecom repair services b) by maintaining an industry-leading network test, repair, and maintenance facility. They have expert technicians who perform network repair services, system-level testing and component-level repairs and extend the life of telecom equipment. They repair more than 850,000 devices annually, across 100,000 SKUs, from over 100 manufacturers - all with a 96% yield rate and standard repair cycle time of two weeks.

They deliver equipment repair services that give insight into your network to help reduce avoidable repairs. For each repair, they capture and report on the root cause of each failure and can pinpoint the means to avoid it in the future. Their software developed specifically for network operators tracks failure data at both macro and micro levels. It monitors data failure trends by geography, site location, technician responsibility, OEM platform and specific part numbers to deliver actionable data to help prevent future incidents. Rather than recycle network assets, Sagent Insights can develop a systematic program to reuse network assets and delay additions to the e-waste stream, by recycling and disposing of components only after they have achieved maximum service life. Learn more in this episode of Mindful Businesses.

https://sagent.net/

https://www.mindfulbusinessespodcast.com/

Countries must meet their sustainability goals and head towards net-zero. These goals cannot be achieved in silos but need cooperation, trust, and partnerships. We bring two such sustainable start-ups which are from adjacent industries with one firm goal – to reduce the carbon emissions and air pollutants from the air. Today we speak with Angad Daryani – CEO and founder of Praan – Clean Air For all, and Tejas Sidnal – founder of Carbon Craft Design – Upcycled Carbon Tiles.

Praan captures the carbon with the world’s most advanced, low-cost, filterless, and artificially intelligent outdoor air purification system. Angad who, ranked amongst the top 3 in his class, dropped out of high school in 9th grade - though he stopped formal education, he continued learning and innovating. His passion for sustainability gave rise to the patented innovation that creates hyperlocal clean air zones within open areas on corporate campuses, schools, universities, hotels, hospitals, residential complexes, malls, industrial areas, and more!

Praan captures the CO2 and carbon particulates that they hand over to Carbon Craft Designs who then creates tiles. Each tile prevents 15 minutes of car pollution - 5 kgs of carbon - dioxide equivalents. Carbon Craft Design strives to be at the intersection of Craft, Design, and Technology with the sole aim of building scalable solutions. Tejas, a practicing architect, talks about the fact that the world builds twelve New Yorks every year. Its impact and his role as an architect and being part of the problem made him uneasy. He decided to do something about it and reduce the impact of new construction projects by developing carbon-neutral building materials. A chance meeting at a conference in 2016 and mutual respect brought Angad Daryani and Tejas Sidnal to collaborate to bring their solutions to market. Listen to this energetic duos' passion and story in this episode.

https://www.carboncraftdesign.com/

https://www.praan.io/

https://www.mindfulbusinessespodcast.com/

This episode has two parts - in part one, we talk with Amy Peterson, the co-founder of Rebel Nell about her inspiration and motivation to start Rebel Nell. While living next to a homeless shelter in Detroit, MI, she got to learn up-close the women who lived there and their challenges. One day out on a jog she finds a piece of graffiti that she envisioned could be repurposed into meaningful wearable art. A fusion of these two ideas gave birth to Rebel Nell. Amy with her co-founder Diana Roginson started Rebel Nell in 2013 with the mission to provide employment, equitable opportunity, and wraparound support for women with barriers to employment. They seek to embolden women, to embrace their infinite strength, and to define their own future.

They partner with local organizations to seek out women who have struggled to find and retain employment. Their goal is to help the women move from a life of dependence to one of self-reliance, overcoming barriers to employment through the fruits of their own labor. Rebel Nell’s product line starts with repurposing graffiti, after it has fallen off the walls.

These are women who when hired have no background in jewelry become creative designers who make incredibly intricate and unique piece each one more beautiful than the next. In the part two we chat with one such woman - Ethel Rucker, Production Lead at Rebel Nell.

In addition to on-the-job training and guidance on how to make jewelry, Rebel Nell also provides them with life management, financial training and business education to make sure they have the confidence and knowledge that will enable them to leave homelessness/dependence behind permanently and move forward as strong independent women. Listen to this powerful story in this episode.

https://www.rebelnell.com/

To hire Ethel Rucker for your next photoshoot contact her via her website https://harteclectic.com/

https://www.mindfulbusinessespodcast.com/

Each year, industries such as Waste-to-Energy, Cement and Biomass for power generation, send millions of tonnes of thermal residues to landfill. At the same time, these thermal processes produce significant amounts of carbon dioxide that are released into the atmosphere. We talk with Maarten Van Roon, Chief Commercial Officer of Carbon8 Systems. Carbon8 solutions is the result of hard work and persistence of researchers - Dr Paula Carey and Prof. Colin Hills. Carbon8 Systems is the inventor and owner of a chemical process that treats industrial residues, including hazardous waste, using CO2 captured directly from flue gas to transform them into valuable low-carbon products. Through its innovation in engineering, it has developed an on-site containerized solution that operates at industrial sites. Each CO₂ntainer can treat up to 12,000 tonnes of input residue material annually. The innovation views CO₂ and landfill destined residues as resource – ingredients, to engineer valuable, low-carbon products. Listen to learn more.

https://c8s.co.uk/

https://www.mindfulbusinessespodcast.com/

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We talk with Eric Schaffner, CEO and Founder of ZeLoop. A revolutionary and eco-friendly platform that makes consumers a crucial part of the plastic circular economy, allowing them to contribute to the reduction of plastic waste and be rewarded for it. This innovative and responsible app aims to reward the pro-environmental behaviors of consumers with the prime focus being on plastic bottle collection.
The ultimate goal that ZeLoop works towards is to become the main driver for consumers’ motivation to
act differently that will one-day make the Earth plastic litter-free.
All you have to do is:
– Gather used plastic bottles
– Drop them at collection centers for recycling
– Upload a picture of deposited bottles on the app
– Win tokens to get exciting rewards!
You can use these tokens, for instance to get a discount while purchasing one of our guests - Thaely's sneakers. Learn more on this episode.

https://www.mindfulbusinessespodcast.com/

https://zeloop.net/

📷 Ian McMillen Photography

We talk with Dr. David Stone, inventor of Ferrock - Carbon Negative Building Material. David as a doctoral candidate, at the Arizona State University, researched on how to prevent iron from rusting. It is especially challenging where iron exposed to humidity and oxygen in our atmosphere returns to its natural state - rust. During experimenting with silica as a rust-inhibitor, he saw the silica and rust reacting and bubbling. When cooled this compound became a very hard substance and David realized it could be a used as a substitute for cement. David disclosed his invention and has received a patent. What had caused this chemical reaction? What had caused this chemical reaction? Learn more on this episode.

N.B. Ferrock is at the moment seeking investors. David can be reached at [email protected] 

What if there was a new kind of data center that could directly warm homes and heat hot water, instead of a gas boiler?

One that could use the energy used in cloud computing, not once but twice, and also take away the need for the additional energy used for cooling? That is exactly Thermify's innovation does. Using energy, twice. We talk with Garry Felgate Chair & Energy Lead at Thermify. The technology was invented by Adam Pulley in 2009 and Thermify is bringing to the UK market at the price comparable to heating a home with 2019 oil prices. From helping the environment to keeping senior citizens warm to offering relief for low-income families struggling to pay for their heat, to companies looking for environmentally friendly alternatives for their data centers, everyone benefits from joining this green revolution.

Thermify is committed to reducing the pressure on our environment, and on the pockets of our most vulnerable in society. Learn more about this win-win innovation in this episode.

https://thermify.cloud/

https://www.mindfulbusinessespodcast.com/podcast-1

We talk with Ashay Bhave, founder of Thaely, who as a middle-schooler dreamt of becoming a sneaker designer. His journey begins at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, where disenchanted within the first year, he returned back to Dubai to pursue a degree in business at Amity University. As a designer Ashay wanted to solve problems - the problem of plastic grocery bag waste - we consume 3 trillion of them annually. After some near fires in his kitchen, he developed a product Thaely Tex. Thaely is made with 100% recycled raw materials. Each sneaker uses ThaelyTex that’s made using 10 upcycled waste plastic bags. ThaelyTex is made in collaboration with TrioTap Technologies in Gurugram, India. The waste plastic bags are collected from housing complexes, offices, and stores in and around Gurugram, India. The lining is made with rPET (Recycled Polyethylene Terephthalate is a fabric made from recycling waste PET Plastic Bottles) using 12 Recycled waste plastic bottles. With their partnership with The Shoe Laundry, the sneakers are either refurbished or recycled. Each pair is also packaged in a reusable rPET. Every component of the shoe and its process is looked into great detail to achieve Thaely's sustainability goals. Come along and learn more in this episode.

https://thaely.com/

https://www.mindfulbusinessespodcast.com/

Black Earth Compost was founded in January 2011, in Gloucester, MA. Originally a one man, one truck, Cape Ann company, it has steadily grown to become the leading full-service compost company in New England. With over 25 trucks, they are dedicated to collecting food scraps from residents, schools, supermarkets, colleges, and more, all across eastern MA and RI. They are also the only vertically integrated company that composts the material too, returning it to customers and selling it in garden centers across Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire. They are your one-stop-shop for all your organic waste collection or garden soil needs.

In this episode, we talk with Conor Miller, Partner, CEO of Black Earth Composting as he shares his journey and how the business had to pivot during the pandemic to moving from commercial pick-ups to residential pick-ups and compost delivery.  Learn more in this episode.

https://blackearthcompost.com/

https://www.mindfulbusinessespodcast.com/