From the carrots you're munching on to the chocolate in your grande extra-whip double-mocha latte (no judgment), agricultural water use underpins most everything we eat on a daily basis. In fact, agriculture on average accounts for 70% of all freshwater withdrawals globally - enough to cover the entire United States in 2 feet of water each year. Join us as we unpack this critical issue with the help of Ashwin Madgavkar, founder of Ceres Imaging, an innovative spectral imaging company and 2020 Za...
Jan 06, 2023•1 hr 5 min
We're excited to partner with the Zayed Sustainability Prize to bring you a special pair of episodes focusing on this transformative global award that recognizes organizations and high schools driving impactful sustainability solutions across five distinct categories: Health, Food, Energy, Water and Global High Schools. Our first episode in this partnership spotlights David Sandalow, one of the Prize's selection committee members within the energy category. David is the Inaugural Fellow at the C...
Dec 16, 2022•23 min
Tis the season for our annual Holiday Hodge-Podge episode! Join Scott and Jay as they share their favorite 2022 Sustainability Defined moments, interesting sustainability articles, work and personal updates, and sustainable gift ideas - PLUS our Instagram holiday gift giveaway and an opportunity for your donation to a certain charity to be matched by Jay and Scott. ------ Sustainability Defined is the podcast that defines sustainability, one concept (and bad joke) at a time. Hosted by Jay Siegel...
Dec 02, 2022•1 hr 2 min
We hope this episode is a breath of fresh air on a critical topic. In 2019, 99% of the world's population lived in places where the World Health Organization air quality guideline levels were not met. Air pollution is widespread and can have tremendous negative impacts on public health and the environment. Listen in as we talk with TWO incredible guests from Moms Clean Air Force: Molly Rauch (Public Health Policy Director) and Almeta Cooper (National Manager, Health Equity). We deep dive with ea...
Oct 07, 2022•1 hr 23 min
We know, another acronym to remember, but it’s an important one. PFAS (Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances) are a group of chemicals that have made certain useful products possible (e.g., rain jackets and non-stick pans) but what are their environmental and physiological impacts? In this episode, we dive into the science behind PFAS and its potentially significant harm to the environment and public health. And it’s our favorite for the expert interview–an entrepreneur! We chat with Lauren Groppe...
Sep 02, 2022•1 hr 12 min
We often get asked, “What are simple things I can do to act on climate change?” and after hearing this episode we think you’ll agree that one simple thing you can do is use cold water when doing laundry. Are you a Definer who uses hot water when doing laundry? Well, if you use cold water instead, you can reduce your energy use from doing your laundry by 90 percent! The sponsor of this bonus episode, Tide, is leading a behavior change movement to get consumers to switch to energy-saving cold wate...
Apr 29, 2022•38 min
The bells are ringing and love is in the air! To commemorate Jay getting married in June, we've put together an episode that focuses on what practices can be taken to make weddings more sustainable. Listen in to learn more about the environmental impact of weddings, the leaders in the sustainable wedding space, and how Jay is implementing sustainability into his wedding. In this episode, we speak with Gina Lett-Shrewsberry, the owner of Inspirations by Gina, a full-service floral and event desig...
Apr 08, 2022•1 hr 7 min
Have your eyes ever wandered to the bottom of your to-go container and found the words "made of X% recycled content"? Ever wondered what is meant by “recycled content” and how it plays a role in our global recycling systems? Of course you have, you're a Definer! In this info-packed episode, we've partnered with Glad, a leading household waste solutions company that's investing heavily into increasing the recycled content in its products. Tune in to learn more about what recycled content is, how ...
Mar 04, 2022•1 hr 5 min
How are businesses and sustainability professionals managing their energy consumption? During this bonus episode, we dive into a recent report compiled by Atrius (part of Acuity Brands) that provides valuable insights into how sustainability professionals across industries are scrutinizing their energy consumption and incorporating tools to better manage their energy use. Join us as we learn how automating data management and other manual processes can increase the efficiency of energy teams loo...
Feb 18, 2022•36 min
If you've wanted to know how you can use your savings and investments to advance sustainability, this is the episode for you! We highlight the basics of sustainable investing and banking and provide the tools and facts to allow Definers to determine their own individual actions and opinions. Plus, Jay and Scott talk about what they've done right (and not so right) with their own money, as well as how they are investing the podcast's money with sustainability in mind, which includes investing in ...
Feb 04, 2022•1 hr 38 min
Happy new year and happy new developments of clean, renewable energy! Can offshore wind energy play a role in our global decarbonization efforts? Listen in as our hosts, Jay and Scott, take a deeper dive into current offshore wind energy market updates, global trends, and new project developments since our original episode in 2018. Prepare to have your mind, blown. ----------------------------- Sustainability Defined is the podcast that seeks to define sustainability, one concept (and bad joke) ...
Jan 07, 2022•58 min
Where did the year go? Join our hosts, Scott and Jay, as they review their favorite 2021 Sustainability Defined moments, interesting sustainability articles, personal updates, and sustainable gift ideas. Tis the season for our annual holiday hodge-podge episode. 2021 was no ordinary year with lots of changes for sustainable action and Sustainability Defined - you won't want to miss this episode! ----------------------------- Sustainability Defined is the podcast that seeks to define sustainabili...
Dec 03, 2021•1 hr 13 min
We cover a lot of heavy-hitting topics here on Sustainability Defined, but today's topic of sea level rise might just be one of the heaviest. Sea level rise (SLR) refers to the increase in the level of the world’s oceans due to the effects of climate change. The ecological and socioeconomic impacts of this rise are staggering. Join us as we unpack how sea level rise works, why our current rate of rise blows most everything else in history out of the water, and how SLR will reshape economies and ...
Nov 05, 2021•1 hr 11 min
What do Washington DC, Denver's Union Station, and Scott's recent vacation to Italy all share in common? Aside from being sweet places to visit, they all provide fantastic examples of Transit Oriented Development, the focus on this month's episode. Transit Oriented Development ("TOD") refers to the creation of compact, walkable, pedestrian-oriented, mixed-use communities centered around high-quality train systems. It represents a stark departure from the car-dominated development patterns that h...
Oct 01, 2021•1 hr 4 min
Coming at you this month with a fresh update to one of the most critical topics we've covered on the show - water infrastructure. Press play and remind yourself how important water infrastructure is to our daily lives! ------ Sustainability Defined is the podcast that defines sustainability, one concept (and bad joke) at a time. Hosted by Jay Siegel and Scott Breen. Each episode focuses on a single topic that helps push sustainability forward. We explain each topic with the help of an experience...
Sep 03, 2021•1 hr 6 min
Are we at Sustainability Defined psychic? Well, no… but we do know what you’re wondering - what is carbon pricing and can it be a viable solution to mitigate our global GHG emissions? Fear not Definers, we’ve got you covered. In today’s episode, we dive into how different carbon pricing systems, like emissions trading systems (ETS) and carbon taxes, function in global economies. A price on carbon can help address the fact that climate impacts are often endured by people who are neither the produ...
Aug 06, 2021•1 hr 7 min
It’s not just Jay and Scott behind Sustainability Defined. We have volunteers and paid staff that help us with research, social media, etc. Today for an atypical episode we want to highlight a couple staff members, one who has played a critical role for years and is leaving the podcast for an exciting opportunity in market garden farming, and another who is just joining the team after being a devoted listener and studying and working in sustainability. The outgoing staff member is Matt Arends. I...
Jul 02, 2021•35 min
Many Definers may enjoy laying in a lush, green lawn staring up at a blue sky while listening to the latest Sustainability Defined episode. We love that, but it's also important to think about how we got those landscapes and how we can maintain them more sustainably. This episode considers the footprint of all kinds of man-made and maintained landscapes, particularly the around 50 million acres of lawn in the United States. You'll hear about the many impacts of landscaping our environment, inclu...
Jun 04, 2021•1 hr 6 min
Feelings of helplessness toward the ecological crisis, persistent worry about the future of the climate, intense guilt about your own carbon footprint... sound familiar? These are all symptoms of eco-anxiety, the focus of our 59th episode and something we at Sustainability Defined can relate to directly. Join us as we unpack what exactly eco-anxiety is, why it's so important, and what we can do about it. We're lucky to chat with Dr. Lise Van Susteren in this episode, a licensed psychiatrist and ...
May 07, 2021•1 hr 3 min
Biotechnology may sound like a futuristic word, but utilizing living organisms and their derivatives to produce products and processes goes back a long time and continues to provide important products today. In this episode, we'll explore why biotech is important and its current applications that advance sustainability. We'll also dive into biotech's potential complications. Our interview is with the CEO and Chief Engagement and Sustainability Officer of a biotech leader, Amyris. John Melo and B...
Apr 02, 2021•58 min
Definers, we had to delay our brand spankin new episode to April so this month we're replaying one of our most popular episodes, episode #16 on sustainable beer. But, before we replay that episode, we have an updated interview with one of our favorite people, Katie Wallace of New Belgium Brewing. We ask her for updates on what she talked about in the original episode, the latest sustainability news (Fat Tire is now certified carbon neutral!), and general Katie updates (she has made the wise choi...
Mar 05, 2021•54 min
Alas, it’s time for us to stop storing this episode and release it to our Definers. This episode focuses on energy storage systems, which – as you might’ve guessed – store energy until it is needed at a later time. This of course includes lithium-ion batteries that power everything from your car to your TV remote, but as we’ll discuss, there are other exciting storage systems on the market. In this episode we talk about the various energy storage systems, explain why storage is important, dissec...
Feb 05, 2021•1 hr 10 min
Happy 2021, Definers! This month we have an update to one of our most popular episodes ever. We interviewed Paul Hawken of Project Drawdown back in June 2018. For those unfamiliar, Project Drawdown is a non-profit focused on helping the world reach “Drawdown,” which is the future point in time when the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop climbing and start to steadily decline. The need to reach Drawdown is as important as ever, so we thought it would be a good episode to revisit to...
Jan 01, 2021•1 hr 5 min
Congratulations, definers! You’ve made it through 2020! We think it’s time for a toast… a toast of whiskey, to be precise. Join us as we round out this unparalleled year by exploring sustainability within the spirits category. We begin this episode by unpacking the environmental, economic and social impacts of spirit production. We then distill how and why top spirits brands are diving into sustainability head-first. We’re joined by Sophie Kelly, Senior Vice President of Whiskeys at Diageo North...
Dec 04, 2020•1 hr 4 min
It's that time of year again, listeners/definers! The Sustainability Defined Holiday Hodge-Podge episode—a yearly tradition many consider to be as emblematic of the holidays as snow(wo)men and Mariah Carey. Join us as we review 2020's major podcast milestones, share updates from our personal lives, discuss our favorite sustainability stories of the year, and - of course - share our favorite sustainable gifts for this holiday season. Happy holidays and thanks for joining us through this year's wi...
Nov 06, 2020•56 min
Like so many others, Sustainability Defined is learning more about structural and historic racism and what we can do to advance racial justice. This is the first of what we intend to be a number of episodes that focuses on particular aspects of the intersection of race and sustainability. We‘ve created a page on our website with a running list of valuable resources on racism and environmental justice (sustainabilitydefined.com/racism) for those eager for more info. Going forward, we plan to cons...
Oct 02, 2020•1 hr 24 min
We run a family-friendly podcast here at Sustainability Defined, but in this episode, we’re going to talk about sex. Plant sex, to be precise. Pollinators play a critical role in moving pollen from male to female parts of the flower so the plant can reproduce. Without pollinators to help plants reproduce, we wouldn’t have all sorts of food and products that we enjoy daily, our ecosystems would be severely harmed, and we wouldn’t have all those pretty flowers to look at. The world of pollinators ...
Sep 04, 2020•1 hr
Should it be taboo to talk about a $6 billion industry that is responsible for greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to driving three million cars for a year? Of course not! But unfortunately, the artificial sensitivities around the topic of this month's episode - feminine hygiene products - have hindered widespread discussion of the significant environmental and social issues associated with these products. Join us as we investigate the many sustainability issues they affect, from environmental f...
Aug 07, 2020•58 min
This is our very first “atypical” episode. It’s gonna sound a little different than what we usually share, and we probably won’t do these too often, but hey, variety is the spice of life. So, first on this episode, we read a statement on racial justice. We’ve done a lot of reading and thinking over the past several weeks and wanted to acknowledge the fact that we have failed in a number of ways when it comes to racial justice. Our self-awareness and anti-racism have fallen short, and we’re comin...
Jul 03, 2020•42 min
In this episode, we focus on how we can beautify our cities while delivering environmental benefits through a process called urban greening. Urban greening refers to public landscaping and urban forestry projects that create mutually beneficial relationships between city dwellers and their environments. We discuss urban greening’s impacts on human health, what listeners can do to promote urban greening, what successful green infrastructure projects look like, and which cities boast the most gree...
Jun 05, 2020•1 hr 1 min
