The IMPERATIVE Podcast

In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Mike Williams, a professional engineer who has spent his career specializing in sustainable design, green standards compliance, carbon reduction, and developing energy efficiency strategies. Mike has been a key contributor to some of Canadaʼs greenest buildings, including the CANMET Materials and Testing Laboratory in Hamilton, and the Elementary Teachersʼ Federation Headquarters in Toronto, both of which earned LEED Platinum certification and set new standards for sustainability in their communities.

I’ve known Mike Williams for many years, and recently I have had the pleasure of collaborating with Mike on developing a Low-Carbon Roadmap for assisting our higher education clients to set and meet low carbon emission goals for their campuses. In addition to being one of the most highly regarded sustainability engineers in Canada, Mike is a lot of fun to work with! He is an innovative thinker and is great at bridging the divide between the big concept and the nitty gritty of implementation.

I hope you enjoy our conversation!

You can find show notes at: http://bit.ly/Mike_Williams_Pod

Please Support this Podcast: The Twenty First Century Imperative podcast is ad-free and relies entirely on user support. If you find it valuable please consider supporting us by becoming a patron at our TFCI Patreon Page.

Since starting the podcast, we’ve received many comments from listeners suggesting that we do an episode that provides a more complete introduction to the Twenty First Century Imperative podcast, provides some context about the purpose of this series, and gives some background about myself, your host, Craig Applegath. And so, in this episode, we flip the script, so to speak. Rather than me sitting down with another expert in the field, I sat down with my assistant producer Erin Masters, so she could interview me. We discuss how my dual interests in ecology and design have shaped my career as a pioneer in the planning and design of zero carbon buildings and campuses, urban resilience, and symbiotic regeneration cities. You will hear a bit about my personal history, what motivated to start to the project, and my take on some of the key questions I pose to my guests every month. I hope you enjoy our conversation!

You can find show notes at: http://bit.ly/Pod_Intro

Please Support this Podcast: The Twenty First Century Imperative podcast is ad-free and relies entirely on user support. If you find it valuable please consider supporting us by becoming a patron at our TFCI Patreon Page.

In this episode, I have the pleasure of talking with Klaus Hoppe, one of the world's authorities on low carbon and smart city planning. From 2001 to 2014, he led Freiburg's energy department, coordinating their energy policies and strategies. Even though Klaus will tell you it was a team effort, Freiburg's international status as one of the greenest, most sustainable cities in the world owes a great deal to Klaus's vision and commitment to creating sustainable and smart cities.

In our interview, I talked with Klaus about his experience confronting climate change in both his past role, leading Freiburg's energy department, coordinating its energy policies and strategies, and his current role as a sustainable, smart cities consultant, helping municipalities, city networks, and national governments develop smart cities and sustainable development strategies, and what advice he would have for someone setting out to make a difference in meeting the challenges of the TWENTY FIRST CENTURY IMPERATIVE.

I hope you enjoy our conversation!

You can find show notes at: http://bit.ly/Klaus_Hoppe

Please Support this Podcast: The Twenty First Century Imperative podcast is ad-free and relies entirely on user support. If you find it valuable please consider supporting us by becoming a patron at our TFCI Patreon Page.

In this episode, I have the pleasure of talking with Klaus Hoppe, one of the world's authorities on low carbon and smart city planning. In 2001 until 2014, he led Freiburg's energy department, coordinating his energy policies and strategies. Even though Klaus will tell you it was a team effort, Freiburg's international status as one of the greenest, most sustainable cities in the world owes a great deal to Klaus's vision and commitment to creating sustainable and smart cities. In our interview, I talked with Klaus about his experience confronting climate change in both his past role, leading Freiburg's energy department, coordinating its energy policies and strategies, and his current role as a sustainable, smart cities consultant, helping municipalities, city networks, and national governments develop smart cities and sustainable development strategies, and what advice he would have for someone setting out to make a difference in meeting the challenges of the TWENTY FIRST CENTURY IMPERATIVE. I hope you enjoy our conversation!

In this episode, I had the pleasure of interviewing Stan Choptiany, a former high school teacher, university professor, and mayor of St. Andrews, New Brunswick. In our interview, I spoke with Stan about his experience confronting climate change in both his role as the mayor of the ocean-front town of St. Andrews, and his role as a biologist and environmental activist on the front lines of environmental harm reduction, regeneration, and climate adaptation, and what advice he would have for someone setting out to make a difference in meeting the challenges of the TWENTY FIRST CENTURY IMPERATIVE. I hope you enjoy our conversation.

You can find show notes at: http://bit.ly/Stan_Choptiany

Please Support this Podcast: The Twenty First Century Imperative podcast is ad-free and relies entirely on user support. If you find it valuable please consider supporting us by becoming a patron at our TFCI Patreon Page.

In this episode, I have the pleasure of interviewing Ryan Meyers, one of the world’s leaders in quantifying natural capital, former Chief Technology Officer at Impact Infrastructure, and now a Director at MAP Consulting where he specializes in web development and sustainability economics.

In this podcast episode, we talk about why the monetization of natural capital is so important in finding a pathway towards minimizing the risks of climate change, and how we can all be contributing to the effort. 

I hope you enjoy our conversation!

You can find show notes at: http://bit.ly/Ryan_Meyers

Please Support this Podcast: The Twenty First Century Imperative podcast is ad-free and relies entirely on user support. If you find it valuable please consider supporting us by becoming a patron at our TFCI Patreon Page.

In this, our first episode, I have the pleasure of interviewing Jeff Schnurr, the Chairman of Community Forests International (also know as CFI), and more recently, the CEO of Jaza Energy.

In today’s interview, we are going to talk to Jeff about how he started a sustainable forest NGO; and how he sees his role as someone on the front lines of environmental harm reduction, regeneration, and climate adaptation; and what advice he would have for someone setting out to make a difference.

I hope you enjoy our conversation!

You can find show notes at: http://bit.ly/Jeff_Schnurr

Please Support this Podcast: The Twenty First Century Imperative podcast is ad-free and relies entirely on user support. If you find it valuable please consider supporting us by becoming a patron at our TFCI Patreon Page.