Today's guests are Bessie Schwarz, Co-Founder & CEO, and Beth Tellman, Co-Founder & Chief Science Officer, at Cloud to Street. Bessie and Beth met as Master's students at Yale University's School of Environmental Sciences and Forestry, where Cloud to Street started as their thesis research. The company is the world's leading remote flood mapping platform. Cloud to Street uses global satellites and remote sensing AI to monitor flood risk and detect worldwide floods in real-time. Its uniqu...
Aug 26, 2021•58 min
Today's guest is Dominic Falcão, Founding Director of Deep Science Ventures. Deep Science Ventures is a venture studio and a fund that pioneers a new model for synthesizing knowledge, talent, and capital into optimal outcome-centric scientific ventures. DSV focuses on building high-growth, high-impact companies in "tough" sectors from energy and agriculture to pharmaceuticals and computing. With a decade's knowledge and experience in company building, Dom serves as Founding Director of Deep Scie...
Aug 23, 2021•43 min
Today's guest is Amanda Li, Co-Founder & COO at Banyan Infrastructure. Banyan Infrastructure is unleashing capital to accelerate the development of next-generation infrastructure projects to provide essential services across the globe and transform the world's energy systems into sustainable forms of energy. The startup combines financial and technological innovation to accelerate the deployment of solar, wind, and other critical infrastructure around the globe. They use blockchain-based, in...
Aug 19, 2021•40 min
Today's guest is Lila Preston, Head of the Growth Equity Strategy for Generation Investment Management. Lila joined Generation in 2004 and serves as Head of the Growth Equity Strategy. Prior to joining Generation, Lila was a Director in Development & Finance at VolunteerMatch and a Fulbright Fellow in Chile, where she worked on forestry and conservation projects. Lila currently serves as a Board Director at Nature's Fynd as well as a Board Observer at Toast and CiBO Technologies. In addition...
Aug 16, 2021•56 min
Today's guest is Dan White, Co-Founder & CEO of Clean Crop Technologies. Clean Crop Technologies provides a solution for solid food supply chains, which currently choose between killing pathogens and maintaining the health of crops. Eliminating this trade-off, Clean Crop's product treats pathogens while leaving the food intact. Utilizing groundbreaking research, the startup reduces molds, toxins, and pests in commercial-scale services for the global grain and nut sectors. In June 2020, Clean...
Aug 12, 2021•38 min
Today's guest is Thomas Jonas, Co-Founder & CEO of Nature's Fynd. Nature’s Fynd is a Chicago-based food company creating versatile alternative proteins to nourish the world’s growing population while nurturing the planet. Born out of research conducted for NASA on microbes in Yellowstone National Park, the company’s breakthrough technology produces Fy™. Before Nature's Fynd, Thomas was President of Beauty & Personal Care and Home & Garden at MeadWestvaco, a...
Aug 09, 2021•54 min
Today's guest is Jeff McAulay, Co-founder & President of Energetic Insurance. Energetic Insurance is an InsurTech startup with a novel, data-driven approach to developing new insurance products for the renewable energy industry. Before co-founding Energetic Insurance, Jeff worked in distributed energy resources at TechBridge Program Manager and solar, storage, and distributed energy resources at EnerNOC. While at EnerNOC, Jeff discovered many small- and mid-sized businesses don't have an inv...
Aug 05, 2021•48 min
Today's guest is Pat Sapinsley, Managing Director of Cleantech Initiatives at the Urban Future Lab at NYU Tandon School of Engineering. Urban Future Lab is a non-profit center focused on cleantech innovation in New York that runs several programs focused on market-ready climate solutions. In 2014, Pat assumed the role of Managing Director of Cleantech Initiatives at Urban Future Lab, bringing over 15 years of expertise in the industry, connecting startups to funding sources, customers, and busin...
Aug 02, 2021•50 min
Today's guest is Jasmine Crowe, Founder & CEO of Goodr Co. Every year, 80 billion pounds of food is wasted in the US, just from consumer-facing businesses. Food waste is also a massive climate problem. When food is wasted, it ends up in landfills and starts emitting greenhouse gases. To tackle this problem, Jasmine founded Goodr, a sustainable food surplus management company leveraging technology to reduce food waste and feed the hungry. Prior to Goodr, Jasmine founded BlackCelebrityGiving.c...
Jul 29, 2021•42 min
Today's guest is Michael Terrell, Director of Energy at Google. Michael is the Director of Energy at Google, where he leads global strategy and 24/7 carbon-free energy initiatives for Google's data centers and global energy portfolio. In this role, he has advanced new approaches to Google's procurement of over 5GW of renewable power, pioneered groundbreaking renewable energy purchase programs, and delivered landmark projects such as converting coal plants to data centers. Before joining Google i...
Jul 26, 2021•46 min
Today's guest is Yishan Wong, Founder & CEO of Terraformation. Before founding Terraformation, Yishan served as CEO at Reddit and was an engineer at Pay Pal and Facebook. After exiting Reddit, Yishan learned that native forest restoration outperformed any other known method of carbon capture by nearly an order of magnitude. However, he also found three significant bottlenecks to large-scale forest restoration: land availability, freshwater, and seed. So, in 2017, Yishan founded Terraformatio...
Jul 22, 2021•57 min
Today's guest is Costa Samaras, Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. Costa Samaras began his career as a civil engineer working on several multibillion-dollar infrastructure megaprojects in New York, including rebuilding the subway line underneath the World Trade Center after September 11th. After pursuing his Masters in Public Policy at NYU and his Ph.D. in Public Policy and Civil & Environmental Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University,...
Jul 19, 2021•51 min
Today's guest is Chris Stern, Co-Founder & CEO of Carbicrete. Carbicrete is a Montreal-based carbon removal technology company that is developing innovative, low-cost building solutions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The company's patented technology, first developed at McGill University, enables cement-free, carbon-negative concrete production. The process uses an industrial by-product – the slag from steel factories – to replace cement as a binding ingredient in precast concrete pro...
Jul 15, 2021•37 min
Today's guest is Graeme Pitkethly, CFO of Unilever. Unilever is a multinational consumer goods company with 400 brands focusing on foods and refreshments, home care, and beauty and personal care. In 2010, Unilever announced its Sustainable Living Plan with climate-focused benchmarks and goals. Graeme joined Unilever in 2002 and has served as Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Unilever UK and Ireland business. Before taking the CFO role, he held several senior financial and comme...
Jul 12, 2021•1 hr 3 min
Today's guest is Zack Parisa, Co-Founder & CEO of NCX. NCX, previously known as SilviaTerra, is a forest carbon marketplace. Developed in collaboration with Microsoft, NCX created an AI-powered forest called Basemap to connect American landowners with net-zero companies. For landowners, NCX makes it possible for them to get paid not to cut. For buyers, NCX provides greater transparency for carbon credits that has measurable and immediate impact. Built on a decade of industry-leading expertis...
Jul 08, 2021•57 min
Today's guest is Mira Inbar, Partner at ArcTern Ventures. ArcTern Ventures is a Toronto-based climate-focused venture capital fund. They invest in early-stage climate startups across industries, energy, and agriculture mobility. Growing up in Southwest Florida, Mira watched as the natural habitat around her was replaced by parking lots, supermarkets, and housing developments. After graduating from Oberlin, Mira volunteered with indigenous communities replanting trees in the Urubamba River valley...
Jul 05, 2021•48 min
Today's guest is Scott Clavenna, Co-Founder of Greentech Media. Greentech Media was a leading source of integrated news, industry research, conferences, and executive councils in the clean energy economy. Wood Mackenzie, who acquired Greentech Media in 2016, announced it would close the publication earlier this year. In 2007, Scott founded Greentech Media and served as CEO for a decade. During that time, GTM was devoted to enabling the growth of cleantech worldwide with a mix of market research,...
Jun 28, 2021•55 min
Today's guest is Mary Powell, Clean Energy Leader & Former CEO of Green Mountain Power. Green Mountain Power is an energy transformation company providing power and innovative products and services to three-quarters of Vermont and the first utility in the world to become a B-Corp. Mary's career started at a fast-growing market fund. She stayed for eight years, during which time the $200 million fund grew into $3.5 billion. Her first Vermont job was as the human resources director for the sta...
Jun 21, 2021•1 hr 3 min
Today's guest is Donnel Baird, Founder & CEO of BlocPower. BlocPower is a Brooklyn-based climate technology startup that is making American cities greener, smarter, and healthier. BlocPower analyzes, finances, and constructs renewable energy and energy-efficient projects on a building by building, block by block basis. BlocPower focuses on buildings in low-income communities and underserved neighborhoods throughout New York City. Donnel has a passion for climate solutions that serve low-inco...
Jun 14, 2021•58 min
Today's guest is Jim Kapsis, Founder & CEO of The Ad Hoc Group. The Ad Hoc Group is a focused consultancy working to help startups succeed in complex regulated markets, such as energy, mobility, and smart cities. Jim founded The Ad Hoc Group to help startups and investors scale innovative businesses to solve our most pressing climate and sustainability challenges. Jim has been a Senior Advisor to Sidewalk Labs, Alphabet's urban venture, and spent six years building and leading the global reg...
Jun 07, 2021•48 min
Today's guest is Garry Cooper, Co-Founder & CEO of Rheaply. Rheaply is empowering companies of all stripes to reduce their CO2e footprints by curbing internal waste. It does this by creating a circular economy of reuse, both within a company and through a marketplace of asset exchange with other companies. While pursuing his Ph.D. in Neural Science at Northwestern, Garry was trying to find a cure for Parkinson's Disease. Working in a lab, he noticed valuable and expensive materials that not ...
May 31, 2021•1 hr 1 min
Today's guest is Arch Rao, Founder & CEO of Span. Span is reinventing the home electrical panel. The existing home electrical panel has seen very little innovation over the last 75 years. Span is a smart digital electrical panel that makes it easier to integrate renewable energy and distributed energy resources into your home. After a few years of pursuing a Ph.D., Arch decided to drop out and work on technologies that would have a non-linear impact on our efforts towards abating climate cha...
May 24, 2021•39 min
Today's guests are Shashank Samala, Co-Founder & CEO, and Noah McQueen, Co-Founder & Head of Research, at Heirloom. Growing up in Southeast India, Shashank saw firsthand how climate change was impacting people. Prior to Heirloom, Shashank was an Entrepreneur in Residence at Carbon 180 and the Co-Founder & VP of Product at Tempo Automation. Before Heirloom, Noah pursued a Ph.D. in chemical engineering and currently serves as a consultant for CarbonDirect. Heirloom is working towards a...
May 20, 2021•45 min
Today's guest is Jimmy Samartzis, CEO of LanzaJet. Lanzajet accelerates the global energy transition by using its leading technology to make safe, sustainable aviation fuels and diesel fuels from waste. Jimmy has spent most of his career focused on climate change and advancing the decarbonization of industries reliant on fossil fuels. As a senior executive with several consulting firms, including Booz Allen Hamilton, Oliver Wyman, and Slalom, Jimmy advised CEOs and senior executive teams on merg...
May 17, 2021•41 min
Today's guests are Merrill Feather & Kristen Winzent, Co-Founders and Collaborators at The Regenerates. The Regenerates is a brand and marketing consultancy focused 100% on building momentum for climate solutions. Kristen and Merrill met in the MCJ Slack community when they were looking for marketing-focused jobs in the climate space. Realizing they were both up for 3 of the same positions, they decided to start their own marketing consultancy. Kristen and Merrill have decades of experience ...
May 13, 2021•45 min
Today's guest is Bruce Friedrich, Founder & Executive Director of The Good Food Institute. The Good Food Institute is an international non-profit that promotes plant-based meat, dairy, and eggs as well as cultivated meat as alternatives to conventional animal products. GFI was founded to answer a fundamental question: how to feed almost 10 billion people by 2050 without burning the planet down. Inspired by Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappé, Bruce has focused his career on food s...
May 10, 2021•1 hr 2 min
Today's guest is Paul Gross, Co-Founder & CEO of Remora. Today, heavy-duty trucks move 70% of goods shipped in the United States and account for 7% of the US greenhouse gas pollution. Remora is developing a device that captures carbon emissions from semi-trucks. Its device will reduce emissions from these trucks by 80% without affecting payload, range, or trip time. Remora installs a container between the cab and the trailer of semis, which allows them to collect, store, and then monetize th...
May 06, 2021•42 min
Today's guest is Caroline Cochran, Co-Founder & COO of Oklo Inc. Oklo Inc. is working to build powerhouses, advanced fission power plants on a microgrid scale. The team focuses on small advanced reactor generators that are waste and carbon negative. Unlike traditional nuclear power, its technology doesn't require water to cool the system, has vastly different security and safety characteristics, and Oklo can use nuclear waste as fuel. Oklo is revolutionizing nuclear energy to create a clean ...
May 03, 2021•51 min
Today's guest is Eliza Nemser, Co-Founder of Climate Changemakers. Climate Changemakers is a nonpartisan community action network organizing to support climate candidates and ambitious climate policies. The team mobilizes political support by transforming climate-concerned individuals into a community of climate changemakers. Prior to founding Climate Changemakers, Eliza was a consultant for the NRDC Action Fund and spent over two decades working as a geologist, focusing on earthquake engineerin...
Apr 29, 2021•50 min
Today's guest is Irving Fain, Founder & CEO of Bowery Farming. Bowery Farming is a modern farming company building smart indoor farms located close to its cities. Its farms are powered by its proprietary farm operating system, BoweryOS, creating a simplified, agile food system focused on flavor, freshness, and safety. Irving has a diverse background across varying industries. He started his career in investment banking on Wall Street, where he focused on private equity and helping companies ...
Apr 26, 2021•1 hr 4 min
