Food waste is a $25 billion problem for American supermarkets, but Josh Domingues has an app for that. Josh is the founder and executive chairman of Flashfood, a simple but elegant application that directly connects consumers with local grocery stores to buy food nearing expiration at a huge discount. This approach is a win-win-win for all parties: grocers get paid for food they would throw out, customers get a massive discount, and less food waste ends up in pollutive landfills. Josh spent his ...
May 02, 2024•53 min•Season 3Ep. 16
Two founders of 1953 Tequila, Lindsey Davis Stover and Shivam Mallick Shah, join Conor for a special in-person conversation to share how their ultra-premium, additive-free tequila is prioritizing sustainability, elevating women in the spirits industry, and also offering an awesome drinking experience. Lindsey, Shivam, and the rest of the 1953 founding team met through Congressional campaigns for Virginia’s 10th district, and the idea for a women-led, luxury tequila company followed soon after. T...
Apr 18, 2024•52 min•Season 3Ep. 15
Manik Suri is implementing smart technology into cooling, ushering in the era of Cold Chain 2.0. Before founding GlacierGrid in 2020, Manik finished top of his class at Harvard, went to Cambridge for a masters in international relations, returned to Harvard for a law degree, co-founded the Governance Lab, with stops at storied institutions like DE Shaw and the White House Economic Council along the way. Cooling technology has lagged behind other industries in the clean energy transition, but Gla...
Apr 11, 2024•52 min•Season 3Ep. 14
Stanford rocket scientist and fintech entrepreneur Karthik Balakrishnan is integrating high-tech infrastructure modeling with video game interface design to create a software platform that allows businesses to virtually test their plans for maximum sustainability and bottom-line impact. In 2018, Karthik co-founded software startup ACTUAL based on a unique premise: what if you could plug your business idea into a science-backed simulation that operates like a computer game? The software platform ...
Apr 04, 2024•56 min•Season 3Ep. 13
This week, we’re proud to share a special episode of the CLIMB by VSC podcast with Jay Kapoor, featuring his interview with Sunil Nagaraj. CLIMB is a weekly podcast where Jay and VSC Ventures co-founder Vijay Chattha speak with leading investors, founders, and industry experts about lessons and perspectives on company-building in the world of climate tech and climate adaptation. From CLIMB by VSC: We're honored to host Sunil Nagaraj , a visionary investor in the intersection of deep tech and cli...
Mar 28, 2024•57 min•Season 3Ep. 12
Frank Heidinger believes that lots of small improvements over time can create a huge impact, and he’s using that concept to electrify the recreational boating industry, responsible for 1% of global carbon emissions. Frank is the founder and CEO of HALEVAI, a cutting-edge company making high-performance, fully electric recreational boats that will reduce the industry’s environmental footprint, shorten supply chains, and bring more manufacturing jobs to the U.S. A hospitality industry veteran and ...
Mar 21, 2024•48 min•Season 3Ep. 11
Jay Kapoor believes there is massive opportunity in climate automation and that identifying hidden economies is key to building a more sustainable future. Jay is co-founder and general partner at VSC Ventures, a storytelling-focused VC firm investing in early stage climate tech and automation startups. In part two of our conversation with Jay, we dive into the nitty gritty: Jay shares how hidden economies inform his investing thesis, why automation is key to our climate tech transition, how earl...
Mar 14, 2024•54 min•Season 3Ep. 10
Jay Kapoor is combining venture capital and storytelling to help visionary founders achieve maximum impact. Jay noticed that while it was easier than ever to start a business, that made it harder than ever for individual companies to get noticed. How could founders get the world to see their unique vision for a better future? The answer was simple, but not easy – tell a compelling story. So, he and co-founder Vijay Chattha created VSC Ventures, a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage ...
Mar 07, 2024•57 min•Season 3Ep. 9
The data gap in women’s healthcare is a big problem. Four out of every five women in America with female-specific medical conditions will go undiagnosed and 70% of medical residency training programs exclude fertility from their core curriculums. Tech wizard and veteran entrepreneur Juan Carlos (JC) Riveiro, and business and marketing expert Liya Sharif co-founded Cercle in 2021 to address this very gap. The tech startup uses AI machine learning to generate smarter, more equitable women’s health...
Feb 29, 2024•44 min•Season 3Ep. 8
Caron Proschan, founder and CEO of Simply, believes that simple ideas can change the world, and she’s out to prove it with… chewing gum. One fateful day Caron reached for a piece of gum and realized it was made of plastic. When she looked for natural options, there were none. So she took her Harvard Business degree and launched Simply, a food startup focused on healthy natural gum and snacks. From cooking up gum in her kitchen and selling it to her local Whole Foods, to challenging billion-dolla...
Feb 22, 2024•39 min•Season 3Ep. 7
50% of the global food supply relies on nitrogen fertilizer, which emits tons of greenhouse gasses. But startup Nitricity is making electrified climate-smart fertilizer by literally capturing lightning in reactors. Co-founder and CEO Nicolas Pinkowski joins the podcast to share the startup’s remarkable origin story from a make-shift lab in a Stanford backyard, to a full-fledged company revolutionizing agriculture and the future of our food supply. Hear how Nico went from engineer to entrepreneur...
Feb 15, 2024•48 min•Season 3Ep. 6
Allison Wolff co-founded Vibrant Planet with one goal in mind: to positively disrupt land management. An ESG trailblazer, Allison has decades of experience crafting positive impact strategies for huge disruptors like eBay, Google, and Facebook. Now, as CEO of Vibrant Planet, she’s combining that expertise with the power of machine learning to revolutionize land stewardship. Hear how Allison and her team at Vibrant Planet are restoring ecosystems with a balance of beneficial fire, sustainable sof...
Feb 08, 2024•55 min•Season 3Ep. 5
Lyten first created 3D Graphene by accident in 2015, but, thanks to its world-changing potential, it now has them poised to revolutionize the material science industry. Keith Norman, Lyten’s Chief Sustainability Officer, joins the podcast to share his journey across both sides of the energy industry and explain why graphene’s properties are so groundbreaking for EVs, battery technology, and even high-grade sensors. Episode Highlights 00:00 - 00:57 Keith Norman on solving clean energy challenges ...
Feb 01, 2024•52 min•Season 3Ep. 4
Artificial intelligence is booming, and Max Evans is ready for it. “Discovering machine learning was my very first moment of witnessing magic.” That discovery led him to co-found ClimateAi straight out of his dorm room at Stanford with his roommate, Himanshu Gupta, in 2017. Today, the startup operates in 50 countries, using AI-enhanced forecasting to climate-proof global supply chains. Listen as Max shares his path from student to startup founder, unleashing the powerful potential of AI-based cl...
Jan 25, 2024•44 min•Season 3Ep. 3
Grant Quasha is betting big on green cement. "People don't realize how big the cement and concrete businesses are. [...] It's the number one commodity in the world other than water." The chairman and CEO of Eco Material Technologies views the $350+ billion cement industry as a giant potential market for sustainable construction. After years of investment banking in commodities and materials, Grant moved from investing in other businesses to building his own, with major impact. Listen as Grant Qu...
Jan 18, 2024•51 min•Season 3Ep. 2
Peter Godart could have been a jazz musician, but instead pursued his other passion: engineering. After garnering a few degrees at MIT and working on space tech at NASA, Peter set his sights on yet another passion: saving the climate. In 2022, he launched Found Energy, a startup decarbonizing transport with aluminum. As Peter says, “When you work for NASA and one of your daily tasks is, you know, let's figure out how to catch a one meter sphere orbiting Mars at Mach 2… These problems that we hav...
Jan 11, 2024•46 min•Season 3Ep. 1
2023 has brought us 35 new guests and more than 2,000 minutes of conversations– join Conor Gaughan as he shares his insights, takeaways, and analysis on a few of our favorite moments from the year. Whether it’s breaking down sustainable business blueprints, finding motivation during difficult times, or imagining an entirely new industry, this episode has you covered! Featuring 01:20 - 04:10 Catherine Roggero-Lovisi: CEO, Modern Meadow 04:11 - 07:30 Rick Fox: Co-founder and CEO, Partanna 07:31 - ...
Dec 21, 2023•50 min•Season 2Ep. 37
This week’s guest is long-time chef Erik Oberholtzer, co-founder of Tender Greens, a revolutionary “fast casual” food brand. Now, as managing partner at Cohere, he helps other founders scale food brands making a positive impact. But before finding success as a chef, entrepreneur, and author, Erik was at Temple University working towards an undergrad psychology degree. In need of money, he took a concierge job at the Four Seasons Hotel in Philadelphia. The position required someone well-informed ...
Dec 14, 2023•45 min•Season 2Ep. 36
Today’s guest is Nick Whitman, co-founder and COO of Divert Inc. In 2007, Nick and co-founder Ryan Begin launched Divert with a simple, bold mission in mind: eliminate food waste. Since then, the firm has processed over 2.3 billion pounds of food waste, donated more than 10 million meals to the food insecure, and continues to develop new, innovative technologies. Nick has spent 16 years successfully scaling Divert to new heights, creating a first-of-its-kind food waste converter, designing and b...
Dec 07, 2023•43 min•Season 2Ep. 35
This week’s guest is Ron Hovsepian, president, CEO, and board member of Indigo Ag. Founded in 2013, the company uses nature-based and digital technology to optimize agricultural supply chains, increase farmer profits, and reduce environmental emissions. Ron spent his first 16 years after college at IBM, where he worked his way up the corporate ladder. He later served as president and CEO of Novell Inc. and Intralinks Inc. He also joined the Board of Directors for ANSYS in 2012, which he still se...
Nov 30, 2023•54 min•Season 2Ep. 34
This week’s guest is Dr. Seonghoon Woo, the chairman, co-founder, and CEO of Amogy, a tech startup using ammonia as a clean energy fuel source. Woo, an MIT doctoral graduate with an expertise in materials science, worked as a staff researcher at the Korean Institute of Science and Technology and at IBM, but he was always an entrepreneur at heart. During his studies, he witnessed the promising potential of ammonia as an energy source, and in 2020 , he launched Amogy Inc. with three MIT peers. To ...
Nov 16, 2023•39 min•Season 2Ep. 33
Dr. D’Wayne Edwards, Founder and President of the Pensole Lewis College of Business & Design, joins this week’s Consensus in Conversation. Edwards is a legendary footwear designer. He rose to prominence in early sneakerhead culture as the head designer for Nike’s Jordan brand, where he designed over 500 styles for Michael Jordan, Tupac, the Notorious B.I.G., Dr. Dre, multiple Olympians, and countless other sports stars. In 2010, Edwards began a path mentoring and educating other aspiring des...
Nov 09, 2023•52 min•Season 2Ep. 32
Today’s episode features Rick Fox, co-founder and current CEO of Partanna Global, an innovative company developing carbon-negative concrete. Rick, a three-time NBA champion with the Los Angeles Lakers, actor, and entrepreneur, launched Partanna in 2021 with co-founder and renowned L.A. architect Sam Marshall. Their idea was simple, if not audacious: make the traditional concrete-making process, a major source of global carbon emissions, “green.” And that initial idea has yielded promising result...
Nov 02, 2023•42 min•Season 2Ep. 31
Matt Rogers, co-founder and CEO of Mill Industries, joins today’s episode. Mill’s mission is to reduce food waste and its related carbon emissions by offering customers the chicest waste bin ever made. This brilliantly designed, high tech product decomposes and dehydrates food scraps before turning them into animal feed. Mill then picks up those food scraps and distributes the feed to local farms and others. It’s a unique and innovative product, but that’s nothing new for Matt Rogers. He started...
Oct 26, 2023•50 min•Season 2Ep. 30
Ben Bressler, founder and president of Natural Habitat Adventures (NHA), joins the podcast. Ben had the epiphany for what would become NHA as a teacher during a ski trip. Soonafter, he launched the responsible nature travel company in 1985 with a core idea: create life-enhancing travel experiences by taking people to some of the world’s most remote places– while also getting as close as possible to the wildlife. Fueled by a passion for travel, nature, and the outdoors, Ben and Natural Habitat Ad...
Oct 19, 2023•50 min•Season 2Ep. 29
Jeff Siewicki, founder of Vital Mission Farms and RegenerativeSuccess.com, joins this week’s podcast. Jeff started his career as a pharmacist, but his passion for regenerative farming led him to leave his corporate job and found Vital Mission Farm in 2017. His main goal? Use innovative, climate-friendly regenerative agriculture techniques to grow healthy food for others. After finding success and scaling the farm, Jeff decided to share all the lessons he had learned with others and launched Rege...
Oct 12, 2023•42 min•Season 2Ep. 28
Today, Oct. 6th, is the 8th annual Green Sports Day, so it only felt right to rerun our episode with Roger McClendon, executive director of the Green Sports Alliance (GSA). After all, Roger and the GSA are an instrumental part in promoting Green Sports Day – where the global sports community works together to encourage sustainable action, raise environmental awareness, and celebrate the positive impact sports can have – across the globe. Learn more about #GreenSportsDay, at greensportsalliance.o...
Oct 06, 2023•34 min•Season 2Ep. 27
Today’s episode features Michael Chanin, founder and CEO of Cherry Street Energy, a Georgia company powering cities, businesses, and more with renewable energy. Like me, Michael spent his early career in finance. He was an analyst and associate at Goldman Sachs, prior to stints at a few other financial institutions. When Georgia passed an industry-altering law around solar power in 2015, he saw a massive opportunity and launched Cherry Street Energy. In the following years, Cherry Street has eme...
Sep 28, 2023•45 min•Season 2Ep. 26
Today’s episode features Jamila Norman, owner and founder of Patchwork City Farms, star of the urban farming show Homegrown, and, most importantly, a farmer at heart. Jamila, also called Farmer J, started Patchwork City Farms (PCF) in 2010 after recognizing a need for more locally available, accessible produce and food in the Atlanta area. Jamila has led PCF with one approach in mind: grow sustainable produce in the city, for the city, and educate others while doing it. Her passion for urban far...
Sep 21, 2023•43 min•Season 2Ep. 25
Today’s guests are TELO Trucks founders Forrest North and Jason Marks. The founders offer expert insights into the current (and future) EV landscape and share how TELO’s compact electric trucks maximize efficiency with a revolutionary design. Jason, TELO’s CEO, is a former collegiate pole vaulter who spent his early career at National Instruments developing systems tests for U.S. automakers as Chief Business Development Manager. Forrest, the company’s CTO, worked on the early Tesla team before f...
Sep 14, 2023•38 min•Season 2Ep. 24
