SDG12 – Responsible Consumption and Production

These social entrepreneurs are achieving Sustainable Development Goal 12, Responsible Consumption and Production: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.

An Umbrella Made from Ocean-Bound Plastic, with Deirdre Horan, Dri

Deirdre Horan, Founder and CEO of Dri Dri produces durable, fashionable, and environmentally sustainable umbrellas from ocean-bound plastic. As a fifteen year-old, Deirdre Horan left her comfortable home in Acton, Massachusetts to join a youth group traveling to Gulfport, Mississippi. This was two years after Hurricane Katrina, and the community continued to struggle. “What really struck me was the level of devastation that was still there two years later,” Deirdre explains. “It takes much longer than the initial relief to pick lives back up. People will always need assistance if they’ve been impacted. I saw at a young age that something can always be done for somebody.” Deirdre continued to…

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How to Have Stuff without Breaking the Planet, with Sandra Goldmark

Sandra Goldmark, Author of Fixation: How to Have Stuff without Breaking the Planet What Sandra Goldmark learned from a seven year experiment fixing stuff. Sandra Goldmark is the Director of Sustainability and Climate Action at Barnard College. For seven years, she ran Fixup, a popup repair shop for household items of all kinds. It was staffed by theatre artists. “We use our backstage skills to fix people’s broken stuff,” Sandra explains. “and to create an alternative to use and discard.” Sandra has gathered her lessons learned and put them in a new book, Fixation: How to Have Stuff without Breaking the Planet. “We are reinventing repair as a viable part…

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The Urgency To Go Tree Free, with Zoë Levin, Bim Bam Boo

Zoë Levin, Bim Bam Boo Trees Should Capture Carbon, Not Crap We know the problems with carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions: Climate change, rising sea levels, flooding, droughts, wildfires, ocean acidification, climate refugees, political instability, and a lot more. We know that it’s important to reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and the oceans. We can do that by reducing the production of CO2. We can also do that by capturing CO2 in carbon sinks. In the US, forests store 14% of our annual CO2 emissions. Trees are a valuable, and powerful carbon sink. And yet, in the United States, 27,000 trees are flushed down the toilet every day…

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Parents: Reduce Your To-Do List and Your Carbon Footprint, with Lauren Gregor, Rent-a-Romper

Rent-a-Romper makes parents’ lives easier while reducing the negative effects of the fashion industry.  For just a moment, think about your clothes. At some point in time, you chose each item and brought it into your home. Your neighbor did the same thing. So did the house down the street, and the one several miles away. The same thing happened in a house on the other side of the world.   The global population is increasing. The middle class is growing. And so is our demand for fashion.   By 2030, the world population will increase from 7.8 billion today to 8.5 billion. You can watch the world population increase in real time here.  …

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Social Entrepreneur Live, Part 1, Precious Drew, Perk: The Natural Beauty Lab

Perk: The Natural Beauty Lab upcycles fair-trade, used coffee grounds from local coffee shops to create natural skincare products. Precious Drew’s reserved, yet bubbly personality naturally attracts people to her. Yet, she has a bit of a contrarian streak. “I’ve always challenged the norm and enjoyed debates arguing the less-popular opinion, whether I agreed with it or not,” Precious says. “I liked the challenge of being able to fully understand and argue for opinions I don’t exactly agree with.” Precious likes to defy expectations. “I grew up in a household with seven siblings: six older brothers and one younger sister. I never really followed what my brothers did. From a…

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Upcycling Food Waste into Tea with a Purpose, with Daniela Uribe, Lazy Bear Tea

Lazy Bear Tea is a socially and environmentally inspired beverage company brewing teas from cascara, the dried coffee fruit. I suspect that, like me, you drink coffee…lots of coffee. But, also like me, you’ve probably never held a coffee fruit in your hand. The coffee bean that we are familiar with is the seed of the coffee fruit. And, just like a plumb, peach, or cherry, coffee fruit has a skin and flesh that surrounds the seed. The coffee fruit is known as cascara, the Spanish word for husk. We know what happens with the coffee bean, but what about the husk? Cascara is commonly a wasted byproduct of coffee…

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Fair Trade Coffee from Smallholder Farmers, with Lee Wallace, Peace Coffee [ENCORE]

NOTE: This is an encore presentation of an episode that first aired on July 11, 2016. Advice from Lee Wallace is featured in the book, Crazy Good Advice: 10 Lessons Learned from 150 Leading Social Entrepreneurs. To hear the original, extended interview, go here: https://tonyloyd.com/096.   Smallholder farmers grow more than half of the coffee consumed worldwide. Imagine if you will, that you are working at a non-profit in Minnesota, focusing on public policy. The phone rings, and the person on the other end says “Hello. This is the Port of Los Angeles. We have 38,000 pounds of green coffee with your name on it. How would you like to…

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Merging Business and Philanthropy through Trackable Giving, with Bryan Pape, MiiR

MiiR is the first ever Product to Project company, using revenue from the sales of their quality drinkware, journals, and bags to fund trackable philanthropic projects. “I realized at that moment, sitting against this tree with my leg snapped in half, that nobody would have gotten up at my funeral and said, ‘…Bryan cared about his community. He cared about the people around him.’ It just wouldn’t have happened, and I wasn’t proud of that. I knew I wanted to live a life beyond just serving myself.” On April 14, 2006, Bryan Pape was filming ski footage for Steven’s Pass when took a bad turn. His right ski hit a…

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Advocacy Through Industry, with Raan and Shea Parton, Apolis Global

Apolis is a socially motivated lifestyle brand that empowers communities worldwide. Brothers Shea and Raan Parton grew up in the privileged surroundings of Southern California. To ground the brothers in reality, their parents traveled with Raan and Shea. Seeing how the rest of the world lived afforded the boys a perspective shift. This early experience of diverse cultures made them comfortable enough to eventually move from the passive role of tourist to participant: “The most rich way to experience places or cultures is to be working there and to be part of it.” By the time Shea was in high school and Raan in college, they shipped their first orders…

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Liza Moiseeva: Empowering Artisans Around the World with GlobeIn

GlobeIn’s Artisan Box fights poverty through job creation and fair wages. A hand-painted mug from Tunisia. A scarf from Thailand. Cocoa powder from Ghana. You might not travel to any of those places, but thanks to GlobeIn, you can receive these handcrafted items in your home while empowering entrepreneurs in developing countries around the world.  GlobeIn Co-Founder Liza Moiseeva is an integral part of the company’s operations. While her current role is in marketing, she’s worn many hats over the years to get the business off the ground. Moiseeva grew up in Moscow, where she says her access to information about nonprofits was limited. She did, however, read about Angelina…

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