The Zero Waste Countdown Podcast

Filmmaker Julia Barnes joins the ZWC for another episode to talk about her new upcoming film, Bright Green Lies. 

Her last film, Sea of Life, took Julia around the world to point out the mass extinctions currently happening in our oceans. In her new film, Julia exposes the myths that solar and wind will save us from climate change.

Justine Burt is the author of The Great Pivot: Creating Meaningful Work to Build a Sustainable Future and leads an environmental sustainability firm called Appraccel in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is a climate optimist who focuses on implementing energy efficiency, alternative transportation, and waste prevention projects to reduce an organization’s environmental impact. 

The Great Pivot describes 30 sustainability projects in five areas – advanced energy communities, low-carbon mobility, the circular economy, food waste reduction, and nature restoration – that will create millions of meaningful jobs.

Sustainable Brands is the first worldwide community of innovation and sustainability brands and organizations. ZWC attended SB19 Detroit and this is the eighth and final episode of the series. 

Music Credits: Open Those Bright Eyes Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

This episode features Suzanne Lindsay Walker, Director of Sustainability North America at Brambles CHEP, a company that provides over 590 million pallets, crates and containers. The company specializes in the sharing and reuse of those containers, while taking part in a few other sustainable initiatives too.

Zero Waste World is an innovative approach that brings all different kinds of companies together to eliminate physical waste, eradicate empty transport miles and cut out process inefficiencies.

The Zero Waste World initiative is a working collaboration of multi-company coalitions and open innovation events to create smarter and more sustainable supply chains. There's a dual challenge of businesses needing to meet growing consumer demand faster, easier and cheaper, while simultaneously shrinking the environmental impact of their operations.

Sustainable Brands is the first worldwide community of innovation and sustainability brands and organizations. ZWC attended SB19 Detroit and this is the seventh episode of the series. 

Music Credits: Open Those Bright Eyes Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

From the World Wildlife Fund, Sheila Bonini, Senior Vice President of Private Sector Engagement, Erin Simon Director of Sustainability R&D, and Linda Walker Director of Responsible Forestry and Trade sat down with Laura at the Sustainable Brands conference 2019 in Detroit to talk about their plastics initiative. 

ReSource: Plastic is a newly launched WWF activation hub to help companies realize their plastic waste commitments and turn those commitments into meaningful and measurable action. According to the WWF, as few as 100 companies can prevent 10 million metric tons of plastic waste! 

The WWF’s vision: No plastic in nature by 2030 – but that doesn’t mean completely getting rid of plastic.

At the same time, Linda Walker is focusing on trade offs – ensuring we aren’t creating new problems when solving for one (i.e. solving for plastics with unintentional consequences for forests). 

Sustainable Brands is the first worldwide community of innovation and sustainability brands and organizations. ZWC attended SB19 Detroit and this is the sixth episode of the series. 

Music Credits: Open Those Bright Eyes Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) serves consumers around the world with brands including Always®, Ambi Pur®, Ariel®, Bounty®, Charmin®, Crest®, Dawn®, Downy®, Fairy®, Febreze®, Gain®, Gillette®, Head & Shoulders®, Lenor®, Olay®, Oral-B®, Pampers®, Pantene®, SK-II®, Tide®, Vicks®, and Whisper®. The P&G community includes operations in approximately 70 countries worldwide.

Virginie Helias, P&G's first Chief Sustainability Officer, joins the ZWC to talk about their forward-looking framework and innovative strategies to inspire responsible consumption for the five billion consumers served by P&G each day.

P&G's products available with Loop

Sustainable Brands is the first worldwide community of innovation and sustainability brands and organizations. ZWC attended SB19 Detroit and this is the fifth episode of the series. 

Music Credits: Open Those Bright Eyes Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Damien Perriman, Vice President, Specialty Products for Genomatica – a leader in bioengineering and naturally sourced ingredients – sat down with Laura at the Sustainable Brands ‘19 Detroit conference to talk about how fermenting sugars can replace fossil fuels in the plastics and skincare industries. New technologies are under development targeting textiles and fibers.

Genomatica is leading the transition to more sustainable products for consumers with its safe and sustainable fermentation-based process technology – which is being used today to produce biobased ingredients for compostable plastic bags, coffee capsules, food packaging and a range of more natural cosmetic and personal care products.

The ZWC travelled (sustainably!) to Detroit for the 2019 Sustainable Brands conference and Laura had the opportunity to sit down with Dimitar Vlahov, the Director of Knowledge & Insights for Sustainable Brands. 

Sustainable Brands is the premier global community of brand innovators who are shaping the future of commerce worldwide. Since 2006, their goal has been to inspire, engage, and equip business leaders and practitioners who see social and environmental challenges as an essential driver of brand innovation, value creation, and positive impact.

Dimitar and Laura discuss the highlights of Sustainable Brands Detroit 2019, the regrowth around Detroit, and sustainable legislation in Dimitar's home state of California. 

Music Credits: Open Those Bright Eyes Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Ellen Jackowski, Global Head of Sustainability Strategy & Innovation for HP Inc,  joins the Zero Waste Countdown at the Sustainable Brands Conference 2019 in Detroit to speak about her work in Haiti and HP's recycling program. 

Find out how HP is solving our ocean plastic crisis and creating jobs in the recycling industry through ink cartridge recycling that's saving millions of plastic bottles from entering the oceans every year, and keeping HP ink cartridges out of landfills. 

This episode is the first of the Zero Waste Countdown Sustainable Brands 2019 Detroit series. 

Music Credits: Open Those Bright Eyes Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Sangwon Suh is a professor in industrial ecology at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at the University of California in Santa Barbara. He has a PhD in Environmental Science & Engineering from Leiden University in the Netherlands, and spent 20 hears contributing to the “theoretical foundations and practical applications of life cycle assessment and industrial ecology“.

In 2019 Suh co-wrote an article called “strategies to reduce the global carbon footprint of plastics” in  Nature, which pointed out that greenhouse gas emissions from plastic could reach 15% of our total carbon budget by 2050 if we keep increasing plastic production.