Latest / Responsibly Different™ / The Power of Collective Climate Action with Tradewater's Jenny Morgan

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The Power of Collective Climate Action with Tradewater's Jenny Morgan · Responsibly Different™

• 0:04
  Jenny Morgan: Climate risk is everyone's risk.
• 0:06
  Jenny Morgan: It's business risks, it's humanity's risk, it's livelihood risk.
• 0:10
  Jenny Morgan: It's not.
• 0:12
  Jenny Morgan: It's going to make everyone's lives more challenging.
• 0:19
  Benn Marine: Welcome to Impact Chats, a responsibly different podcast sharing conversations with industry leaders, leveraging business as a force for good.
• 0:28
  Benn Marine: Team.
• 0:42
  Benn Marine: Welcome to another episode of Impact Chats.
• 0:45
  Benn Marine: I'm really excited for this one.
• 0:47
  Benn Marine: On today's show, our guest is Jenny Morgan, an environmental justice advocate and a market development manager at Tradewater.
• 0:55
  Benn Marine: Tradewater is a certified B Corp offering climate solutions with permanency, and you'll learn more about what that is in just a moment.
• 1:03
  Benn Marine: Today, tradewater has collected, controlled and destroyed halo carbons and methane equivalent to more than 6 million metric tons of CO2.
• 1:14
  Benn Marine: In our conversation, we unpack the work that Tradewater is doing, how it works and serves a planet, and how we all need to be celebrating winds, large and small, that support our home planet.
• 1:26
  Benn Marine: Jenny, super excited to have you on the show To jump in.
• 1:32
  Benn Marine: I'd love to hear a little bit about Tradewater and what brought you to Tradewater.
• 1:37
  Jenny Morgan: Sure.
• 1:37
  Jenny Morgan: So Tradewater is a company that is targeting non-CO2 greenhouse gases specifically, and so these greenhouse gases have a really high potency.
• 1:48
  Jenny Morgan: They have a global warming potential in the thousands the various chemicals and substances that we're looking to prevent from entering the atmosphere so they warm the planet quite quickly and by eliminating them permanently or permanently stopping them from leaking, we can have a huge impact on climate change.
• 2:10
  Jenny Morgan: For me personally, I worked at a large tech organization and I was looking for climate solutions that had that immediate gratification that I wanted to see.
• 2:22
  Jenny Morgan: I had gone through a bit of a professional and personal experience where there were wild fires, covid, I had two little kids under three and it was a lot, two big dogs I mean, the list can go on living life, but under the circumstances that we weren't experiencing beforehand, and I felt like it was a time for me to really start doing something and I wanted to go beyond what I had been doing when having multiple receptacles in my kitchen and trying to sort things appropriately.
• 2:58
  Jenny Morgan: I wanted to take it a step further.
• 3:00
  Jenny Morgan: I heard about Tradewater on a podcast.
• 3:02
  Jenny Morgan: I really liked that.
• 3:03
  Jenny Morgan: It's clean, you find gas, you destroy it permanently, it's gone forever and the impact is completed and I really liked how clean and immediate that solution was and I was really looking for something like that to kind of give me some hope at the time.
• 3:20
  Jenny Morgan: And we worked together as partners for a few years and then I jumped at the chance to join the team full time.
• 3:27
  Jenny Morgan: So now I've been here for a little over a year.
• 3:29
  Benn Marine: That's amazing, and so I'm so curious to better understand, and for our listeners to better understand, the permanency piece of this.
• 3:36
  Benn Marine: So when you say, like destroy those gases, so we're talking about gases that are trapped somewhere.
• 3:45
  Jenny Morgan: Yeah, so there's three types of substances that we target specifically.
• 3:50
  Jenny Morgan: One are halo carbons, and that's split into two groups refrigerants and halons.
• 3:56
  Jenny Morgan: So refrigerants are coolant they would be any type of appliance that needs to manage its temperature and then a halon is a fire suppressant.
• 4:07
  Jenny Morgan: Now, a halon is typically used in situations where water is not a good solution to prevent or stop a fire.
• 4:15
  Jenny Morgan: So a data center, a museum, anywhere where they wouldn't want to spray a bunch of water somewhere, they would be using this type of fire suppressant because it's not water-based.
• 4:25
  Jenny Morgan: But both of these substances, in a few decades ago, were created at massive scale and they were deemed incredibly harmful for the planet, not only just due to the planet, but also because they're ozone depleting, and so they were banned from production, but there's no mandate to actually destroy them.
• 4:45
  Jenny Morgan: So when that phase-out period happened, there was a huge push in making as many of these substances as possible, because they wouldn't be allowed to in the future, and then, with this huge surge of supply, they were banned.
• 5:01
  Jenny Morgan: And then now they're just out there in the world existing today, billions upon billions of tons of them sitting in metal canisters being used in existing appliances.
• 5:12
  Jenny Morgan: And when they're done, being used, you don't have to destroy them, and so we want to come in there and actually make sure that there's an end-of-life solution provided, so that they are permanently destroyed, that they aren't used again or just thrown into a landfill somewhere and then leaked and so what does the destruction look like?
• 5:33
  Benn Marine: I imagine you can't burn them right, Because that would really sit into the atmosphere.
• 5:36
  Benn Marine: How does that work?
• 5:38
  Jenny Morgan: Yes, so there's two types of ways that you can destroy refrigerants and halons.
• 5:43
  Jenny Morgan: You can either use heat or chemical.
• 5:45
  Jenny Morgan: We use heat, so basically we have a rotary kiln.
• 5:48
  Jenny Morgan: It's a really large kiln where all the gas is consolidated into this one structure.
• 5:54
  Jenny Morgan: It's heated to about 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit and what that does is it causes the molecules to then break down.
• 6:01
  Jenny Morgan: For us to participate in the carbon market, 99.99% of these gases have to be permanently destroyed, and then that 0.01% is actually transformed into either CO2 or water, which is released into the out of the smokestack, and that's 0.01%.
• 6:20
  Jenny Morgan: So there is a little bit of water and carbon that's created in the process of destroying it, but it's so minimal, especially because of not only the percentage but also the global warming potential.
• 6:32
  Jenny Morgan: These gases are so nasty that having a little bit of carbon leak out in the heating process is definitely a small drip in the bucket.
• 6:39
  Jenny Morgan: Compared to some of these, cfcs are 10,200, have a global warming potential of 10,000 more than carbon, so they're really highly impactful.
• 6:51
  Benn Marine: So I'm just thinking to really put into layman's terms that impact of that 10,000X right Like, yeah, I don't know, Is there a good kind of?
• 7:01
  Jenny Morgan: Yeah, so I can give you.
• 7:02
  Jenny Morgan: So the other gas that we prevent is methane.
• 7:05
  Jenny Morgan: So methane is 84 times more potent than carbon.
• 7:09
  Jenny Morgan: So carbon has a global warming potential of one.
• 7:11
  Jenny Morgan: Methane is 84.
• 7:13
  Jenny Morgan: Halons are about 7,000.
• 7:16
  Jenny Morgan: And then the refrigerants we destroy are a little over 10,000.
• 7:20
  Jenny Morgan: So there's a spectrum of some gases that we're either talking about today or some of us have heard of.
• 7:25
  Jenny Morgan: If you think of one ton of a refrigerant, that's equal to 1.4 homes in the US being powered for an entire year.
• 7:34
  Jenny Morgan: So it's huge.
• 7:37
  Jenny Morgan: And that's just one ton, and that's the equivalency of these types of gases, and so that's really what trade water is building our business on.
• 7:46
  Jenny Morgan: We're trying to take the big swings against climate change, and we can do so by targeting these gases specifically.
• 7:54
  Benn Marine: That's amazing and so that's also part of the.
• 7:57
  Benn Marine: You kind of mentioned this the carbon offsetting market.
• 8:02
  Benn Marine: Now I feel like we're in this moment in time where people talk about carbon offsetting and it's super unregulated and it's hard to know what's legit and what's not, and what's actually helping and what could be a little shady.
• 8:16
  Benn Marine: I'm curious if you have any thoughts or advice for folks on navigating that landscape.
• 8:20
  Jenny Morgan: Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts on it.
• 8:23
  Jenny Morgan: So there's ways that you can consider a climate benefit.
• 8:27
  Jenny Morgan: You can talk about it as a carbon offset or a carbon credit.
• 8:30
  Jenny Morgan: I personally have been using carbon credit a bit more, because an offset is assuming intent of the use of it they're looking to offset their emission Whereas a credit it's just, it doesn't have any of that intention built behind it or assumption built behind it.
• 8:49
  Jenny Morgan: It's literally a token that represents a climate benefit.
• 8:53
  Jenny Morgan: Use as as you will.
• 8:55
  Jenny Morgan: But I like that just because it has a bit more.
• 8:59
  Jenny Morgan: It has less of a emotional tie to it, because there's a misconception that offsets encourage the abuse of climate benefits and that's actually a misconception.
• 9:15
  Jenny Morgan: There was a really great study done by Silvara where they took 100 companies and they looked over, looked at them for about nine years.
• 9:26
  Jenny Morgan: 50% of them purchased offsets and 50% didn't, and the ones that did purchase offsets decarbonized their entire organization two times the rate faster than the ones that didn't, and so you can kind of see it as a tool to influence further change.
• 9:45
  Jenny Morgan: It's allowing you to get those wins in while you're still trying to figure out how you are going to lower your footprint at such a massive rate that you've publicly committed to, and so they can really be used as a tool, not only for businesses, but, from my way of looking at it, they represent a climate solution, and so without the carbon market, trade, waters work wouldn't exist.
• 10:09
  Jenny Morgan: That's basically how it comes down to.
• 10:13
  Jenny Morgan: We're funded through that market, otherwise it would be handcuffed to a donation cycle or grants, and for us to scale this work as fast as we need to, we are reliant on the carbon market, and I can kind of go in.
• 10:27
  Jenny Morgan: I love metaphors, so I can kind of go into some metaphors of what the carbon market is and what an offset is, but yeah, and you let me know when I do too many, because I will do that.
• 10:37
  Benn Marine: I mean, I love a good metaphor.
• 10:38
  Benn Marine: Yeah, I feel like it illustrates things well.
• 10:42
  Jenny Morgan: Yeah, so I talked about how carbon credit is like a token, so it's basically like a gift card that represents a value of some sort.
• 10:51
  Jenny Morgan: So you can have a $100 gift card at McDonald's, you can have a $100 gift card at a Michelin star restaurant.
• 10:58
  Jenny Morgan: They're going to give you different outcomes, but $100 is $100.
• 11:04
  Jenny Morgan: And so that's kind of how the tokens of climate benefits look, and then those companies or individuals that hold said tokens or these gift cards can then show that they've got you know, that they've got stake in this type of solution.
• 11:20
  Jenny Morgan: You mentioned that there's a bit of scrutiny behind it.
• 11:24
  Jenny Morgan: I think, just because one, there's that misconception that it is being abused.
• 11:28
  Jenny Morgan: I personally don't think that that is the majority at all and like that Silvera study proved that it's not.
• 11:37
  Jenny Morgan: But yes, there have been some bad actors that are greenwashing or, you know somewhat, you know, enhancing the actual benefit that they're providing to the planet and communities.
• 11:47
  Jenny Morgan: But overall, that isn't the behavior that's being committed by the average industry, the average business, the average individual.
• 11:56
  Benn Marine: That makes no sense and it actually brings up a question for me.
• 11:59
  Benn Marine: I remember the last time we spoke you had mentioned a really great example I thought of how canceled culture can kind of play into this a bit right.
• 12:09
  Benn Marine: And we've seen this with some of the brands we work with like having been fearful in sharing their impact journeys and their impact stories because of the fear of backlash.
• 12:19
  Benn Marine: And to your point, it sounds like I mean these folks, even if they're still on their learning journey, they're making the right steps in there and that impact is of great value.
• 12:30
  Jenny Morgan: I'm curious your thoughts on that kind of canceled culture within offsetting yeah, so we all have heard of greenwashing, which is a company that's stating things about their product or service and talking about it in a way that's you know, not true, or is you know, encouraging customers to think a different way.
• 12:54
  Jenny Morgan: They're putting a green leaf on something that actually doesn't represent renewal in agriculture at all.
• 12:59
  Jenny Morgan: They've just slapped it on from a marketing standpoint.
• 13:03
  Jenny Morgan: But there's also green hushing, which is this fear of scrutiny.
• 13:07
  Jenny Morgan: So there's organizations that are silently committing to climate projects and solutions, but doing it silently because they're fearful of being scrutinized.
• 13:18
  Jenny Morgan: So they want to do good work, but they're keeping it quiet because they're afraid of any sort of public backlash there's.
• 13:27
  Jenny Morgan: With that type of behavior.
• 13:30
  Jenny Morgan: We are living in a place of fear, and I know that we don't have a lot of time, so everyone's feeling a bit overwhelmed with this problem.
• 13:39
  Jenny Morgan: It's global, it's massive, it's confusing, but when we operate in fear, we cannot innovate, we can't learn from our failures and we don't feel compelled to share our successes and celebrate one another, whether for failing boldly or succeeding, and without that, we will continue to divide, separate.
• 14:04
  Jenny Morgan: You know, I've seen this kind of Super Bowl mentality within climate too, whereas people are like attached to their solution like they are to their sports team, and I think we should look at it as a sport.
• 14:16
  Jenny Morgan: It's everybody's doing.
• 14:18
  Jenny Morgan: If everyone's doing really good work and they're working really hard, then that's something that we should feel excited about.
• 14:24
  Jenny Morgan: Yes, we might have a bit more of a pull towards a certain solution just based on our own life experiences, but overall, all solutions should be celebrated.
• 14:35
  Jenny Morgan: I'm in non-CO2 gas, but that doesn't mean that I love biodiversity, I love going in hikes and protected forests, and so it can be both.
• 14:44
  Jenny Morgan: We don't have to divide on what solution we are and then stay in that camp, like we do sometimes with sports.
• 14:51
  Benn Marine: That makes a lot of sense.
• 14:52
  Benn Marine: I'm curious do you have any advice or caution for folks that maybe are quick to judge if a company is to be more public in their journey?
• 15:03
  Jenny Morgan: Yeah, a prime example of one is Windex.
• 15:06
  Jenny Morgan: Windex had a label that said I know what they fixed it to, but they had said something about how they were taking ocean plastic out of the ocean and using this recycled bottle to make recycled plastic, and they were scrutinized because of that claim.
• 15:25
  Jenny Morgan: In reality, they were actually getting plastic from landfills that were ocean bound, but they weren't actually in the ocean.
• 15:34
  Jenny Morgan: So should we be mad at Windex for taking plastic out of a landfill, which will end up ultimately going into the ocean and using the plastic and making new bottles, or should we be celebrating that?
• 15:51
  Jenny Morgan: And I'm in the camp of celebration Now?
• 15:54
  Jenny Morgan: Do we want to encourage more clarity?
• 15:57
  Jenny Morgan: Do we want to continue pushing for progress?
• 16:00
  Jenny Morgan: Of course, and hold people accountable, but when you point fingers like that, it makes Windex would say well, why even do it?
• 16:11
  Jenny Morgan: We wouldn't have even had this publicity before and we don't have to do that.
• 16:16
  Jenny Morgan: People would have bought our product no matter what.
• 16:19
  Jenny Morgan: We didn't have to do this, so why should we?
• 16:21
  Jenny Morgan: So it's really dangerous when we get emotional and angry as our first response or speak before we have a tea or something and calm down for a minute and take a minute to learn more.
• 16:37
  Jenny Morgan: That's another thing.
• 16:38
  Jenny Morgan: We all don't have time to do this investigative research into every company to find out, and so these headlines are basically how we're learning and they're poised to anger or incite strong emotions, and we have to be really careful about how we are engaging in that fourth estate with media or any sort of content you're consuming.
• 17:03
  Benn Marine: That makes no sense.
• 17:04
  Benn Marine: It's really maybe challenging all of ourselves to assume best intent and to maybe provide feedback to these organizations that, if we have questions, maybe providing some of that context to them.
• 17:16
  Jenny Morgan: Yeah, I mean you should definitely ask questions and do your research and again, I know that's a lot to ask, but we're kind of in that space where we do need to be selective and use our dollars.
• 17:27
  Jenny Morgan: That's a huge way of influencing change.
• 17:32
  Jenny Morgan: We can see a lot of organizations making significant changes.
• 17:35
  Jenny Morgan: You know Nature Valley has a multi-layer wrapper for their peanut and chocolate bars and they've just now made it one substance which can make it recyclable.
• 17:48
  Jenny Morgan: When there's two substances it makes it really challenging to recycle, and so now it's one wrapper type, one material.
• 17:56
  Jenny Morgan: But you have to go into your grocery store to turn it in, unless you have a Ridwell or some sort of TerraCycle or a service that you pay for.
• 18:03
  Jenny Morgan: Otherwise they'll provide it for free at your grocery store.
• 18:07
  Jenny Morgan: Huge uproar about how this is putting all of the stress onto the buyer, and I personally just know it took them years to develop that type of wrapper that can keep your candy bar in the way that you or your fitness bar, whatever we want to call it.
• 18:24
  Jenny Morgan: It's still deliciously chocolatey.
• 18:26
  Jenny Morgan: But however you want to keep it safe from transport, we have to have materials right now to keep it from just being a melted blob when it gets to your house, and so we should be encouraging that.
• 18:40
  Jenny Morgan: Keep going.
• 18:40
  Jenny Morgan: We're excited Be able to, when you go grocery shopping, have a little tissue box, recollect your wrappers and bring them in.
• 18:47
  Jenny Morgan: So that type of behavior is really influencing change and we should keep celebrating that so that it keeps happening, especially at the rapid scale that we can see it today.
• 18:59
  Benn Marine: Absolutely.
• 18:59
  Benn Marine: I love that.
• 19:00
  Benn Marine: I'm curious circling back to trade water a little bit and destruction of those gases.
• 19:04
  Benn Marine: I'm so curious how do you identify and locate where those gases are before they're released into the atmosphere?
• 19:12
  Jenny Morgan: Yeah, so we have the ozone depleting substances and then we also have methane.
• 19:16
  Jenny Morgan: So we have basically found it through relationship building and trust.
• 19:23
  Jenny Morgan: So a lot of it is word of mouth.
• 19:26
  Jenny Morgan: So, for the ozone depleting substances, we get emails from individuals, organizations, countries, governments that have a stockpile of these gas HVAC companies.
• 19:38
  Jenny Morgan: We'll let us know hey, we have a stockpile of these gases.
• 19:42
  Jenny Morgan: We have zero way of destroying them and we've heard that you can.
• 19:46
  Jenny Morgan: Can you help us?
• 19:47
  Jenny Morgan: And then we will connect with them.
• 19:50
  Jenny Morgan: If you are a homeowner that's discovered a can of freon in your garage, you can email us and we work with FedEx.
• 20:01
  Jenny Morgan: You can literally FedEx it to our warehouse and we'll destroy it for you.
• 20:05
  Jenny Morgan: So we've really opened up our business to everyone and made it very accessible.
• 20:11
  Jenny Morgan: I would love it if we could have some sort of I mean, there are heat maps out there that can show different types of emissions within specific regions, but it's not like a metal detector where we can go out and try to find it that way.
• 20:24
  Jenny Morgan: I would love that.
• 20:25
  Jenny Morgan: That would be amazing.
• 20:26
  Jenny Morgan: But we've established ourselves as a really trustworthy and respectable ally for those that are looking to do the right thing, and so we're operating in 13 different countries.
• 20:38
  Jenny Morgan: Now we're on track to destroy 22 million tons by 2027, or prevent them if it's our methane work, and so we're really scaling this quite quickly, which is exciting for the oil wells.
• 20:54
  Jenny Morgan: So we plug orphaned oil and gas wells that are leaking methane.
• 20:58
  Jenny Morgan: So that's what that project is, and we're basically partnering with states on landowners that have been completely abandoned by anyone and everyone.
• 21:08
  Jenny Morgan: There's no solvent entity that can help them plug these wells, and the states don't have funding to plug all of them, and so we will be working with states to help identify where these wells are.
• 21:21
  Jenny Morgan: We establish great relationships with the landowners and then plug them for them.
• 21:25
  Jenny Morgan: So how does?
• 21:25
  Benn Marine: that happen.
• 21:26
  Benn Marine: The plugging of wells, I mean, do these landowners, are they like, hey, there might be oil here?
• 21:30
  Benn Marine: I'm going to drill in my backyard and, oops, that didn't work out Like I'm just so curious, how does that?
• 21:34
  Benn Marine: I'm sure that's how it works, yeah.
• 21:39
  Jenny Morgan: So, basically, a typical hypothetical scenario is that an oil and gas company has identified oil along a basin and they have reached out to landowners along said basin, and so they then contact the landowner.
• 21:56
  Jenny Morgan: The landowner leases out their property to this oil and gas company.
• 22:00
  Jenny Morgan: They drill, the oil and gas company is determined that the gas is too dirty, and what that means is there's hydrogen sulfide typically in it.
• 22:09
  Jenny Morgan: It's very costly to separate that from gas and oil, and so they'll then abandon that well, and they can either sell it off, or there's various ways that they can no longer be responsible.
• 22:24
  Jenny Morgan: They might sell it off to a very small oil and gas company that then goes bankrupt, and then the landowners then left with this whole.
• 22:33
  Jenny Morgan: Methane is really nasty.
• 22:35
  Jenny Morgan: It can get in the water soil.
• 22:37
  Jenny Morgan: It causes respiratory illness in the communities where they're leaking.
• 22:42
  Jenny Morgan: You can't utilize that land.
• 22:44
  Jenny Morgan: So there's a lot of other reasons, in addition to the harm to the planet, why we should be plugging these.
• 22:51
  Jenny Morgan: There is some federal and state funding allocated to plug them, but there's so many of them it would be hundreds of billions of dollars and that budget has not been signed yet.
• 23:03
  Jenny Morgan: So right now we are making sure that we're filling in the gap of those that won't receive help from anyone else.
• 23:10
  Benn Marine: And what does that plugging look like?
• 23:11
  Benn Marine: Are you pouring concrete or is it a complicated process?
• 23:16
  Jenny Morgan: Yeah, it's basically cement and a cast iron top, and then the land is then restored to its rightful state so they can actually utilize the land after.
• 23:25
  Benn Marine: So then it's totally contained, completely safe for farming or whatever.
• 23:29
  Benn Marine: However they want to use it.
• 23:30
  Jenny Morgan: Yeah, that's why it's really complex to do it, which is why a lot of oil and gas companies have walked away, because some of these wells are in really bad shape.
• 23:38
  Jenny Morgan: Not only do they have that hydrogen sulfide in them, but some of them are cracking.
• 23:43
  Jenny Morgan: So it's really important that it's done properly, so that it not only stops leaking from the top, but it doesn't ever leak from the sides or into the water or soil.
• 23:53
  Jenny Morgan: So it's typically going below water level and then you're making sure that it's fully sealed on all sides.
• 24:00
  Benn Marine: That's amazing.
• 24:01
  Benn Marine: That is really, really cool.
• 24:02
  Benn Marine: I'm curious what have you seen and I feel like maybe we touched on this a little bit, but I'd be curious, what have you seen hold people back from investing in carbon offsets?
• 24:13
  Jenny Morgan: People, I would say as an individual, it seems somewhat out of your scope.
• 24:21
  Jenny Morgan: I would say this applies to organizations too.
• 24:26
  Jenny Morgan: You kind of think inward first.
• 24:28
  Jenny Morgan: What can I do here, which is very positive?
• 24:30
  Jenny Morgan: You should definitely be taking steps into I call it decarbonizing, but lowering your footprint internally.
• 24:39
  Jenny Morgan: That's a great place to start.
• 24:41
  Jenny Morgan: So you might buy a terra cycle or redwell or find ways to grow produce in your backyard.
• 24:49
  Jenny Morgan: You might have fun things that you want to try to lower your footprints.
• 24:52
  Jenny Morgan: Switch out light bulbs, stuff like that, go solar.
• 24:56
  Jenny Morgan: Depending on everyone's budgets, it all looks different and then offsets kind of seem as if another step.
• 25:04
  Jenny Morgan: And for individuals it's really important because if we're funding this type of work, we're contributing to the success of the planet and the success of the communities within it, and this market can do things that you'll never be able to do.
• 25:21
  Jenny Morgan: The layman can't just go and plug an oil well that's leaking thousands of tons of methane a year, but we can fund that work.
• 25:30
  Jenny Morgan: So you can look at it as a way of contributing to climate goals, because climate risk is everyone's risk.
• 25:38
  Jenny Morgan: It's business risks, it's humanity's risk, it's livelihood risk, it's not.
• 25:44
  Jenny Morgan: It's going to make everyone's lives more challenging and by working together to solve it, we can really have a huge impact.
• 25:52
  Jenny Morgan: And then, with organizations, they're just trying to figure out where their funds should go.
• 25:57
  Jenny Morgan: And again, I just think you expedite your abilities to succeed by funding these types of projects that have high impact and then also working on ways to lower your footprint in the way that you can.
• 26:09
  Jenny Morgan: Today, aviation we all know that there's biofuel out there, but it doesn't.
• 26:15
  Jenny Morgan: It can't be used in the way that we need it to be today.
• 26:18
  Jenny Morgan: So while we're waiting for that, innovation to start, offsets is a great opportunity for airlines to contribute to climate positivity and then also innovate to improve their industry overall.
• 26:31
  Benn Marine: That makes a lot of sense.
• 26:31
  Benn Marine: I'm curious thinking about maybe a business owner that's listening and has never bought carbon offsets and they're like cool, sold.
• 26:40
  Benn Marine: I'm in, I definitely want to measure and offset my carbon footprint, but they're kind of overwhelmed with where to start.
• 26:49
  Benn Marine: How do you recommend people get started and kind of take those first few steps into the carbon offsetting world?
• 26:54
  Jenny Morgan: Yeah.
• 26:55
  Jenny Morgan: So at Tradewater we have some calculators for individuals and businesses.
• 27:00
  Jenny Morgan: So I'm assuming this is a small business, since they're able to go ahead and move forward with calculating it themselves.
• 27:06
  Jenny Morgan: They don't have a sustainability team or something, and so before they may hire a consultant or something, they just kind of want to understand what their footprint is.
• 27:14
  Jenny Morgan: So if you go to Tradewater's website, tradewaterus, you can see an offset now button.
• 27:20
  Jenny Morgan: If you click that, there's four calculators there a business calculator, household, travel and events and it's free and you can just simply put some numbers in.
• 27:31
  Jenny Morgan: Most of them you can get off the top of your head, but then some you might need to look at your expenditures for the year and then it'll calculate an estimated emissions for whatever you're entering, and then, if you'd like to offset it, you can then move forward by working with us.
• 27:46
  Jenny Morgan: If you also want to learn more just about solutions out there today, I highly recommend Project Drawdown.
• 27:52
  Jenny Morgan: They have a book, but they also have their website that outlines the top solutions available today.
• 27:58
  Jenny Morgan: There's no delay.
• 27:59
  Jenny Morgan: It's something that you could join in on right now.
• 28:03
  Jenny Morgan: They have partners that you can see that are doing the work that has the biggest amount of impact.
• 28:09
  Jenny Morgan: Tradewater was just referred to as the emergency brake solution by Project Drawdown, so what we can do to actually pull that brake for climate change.
• 28:17
  Jenny Morgan: But there's so many others that are represented there that have amazing benefits.
• 28:22
  Jenny Morgan: Giving Green is also a website that highlights really high quality carbon credits and climate projects, so that would be another resource.
• 28:32
  Jenny Morgan: So I would start at those three sites that would kind of give you an understanding of where the problems are and where my dollar would be most effective.
• 28:42
  Benn Marine: That's amazing.
• 28:42
  Benn Marine: Thank you for that.
• 28:43
  Benn Marine: I'll make sure all those land in the show notes are for folks too, so they can easily click through them.
• 28:48
  Benn Marine: I'm curious thinking about carbon offsetting and environmental protection and environmental and climate justice.
• 28:56
  Benn Marine: I'm curious your thoughts, and I was actually really excited to see this.
• 29:01
  Benn Marine: I know in our kind of pre-production workflow of the podcast we have like what are you most excited to talk about?
• 29:07
  Benn Marine: And you had mentioned being really excited about how to stay vigilant and focused on collective climate action, and so I'd be curious to hear from your perspective what that looks like and how people can participate.
• 29:20
  Jenny Morgan: I am constantly inspired by those that are doing the very best that they can and learning on how they can continue to improve their own practices and then support others.
• 29:35
  Jenny Morgan: There's so many organizations that are just doing such incredible work and it's really inspiring.
• 29:42
  Jenny Morgan: If you speak to anyone, however you get to the conversation, there might be some differences in opinion, but when you come down to it, everyone collectively is looking to live their best life in the environment that they are in and that their family members and friends and loved ones and favorite animal, all of those things and so I really value seeing that diversity represented and just being able to have a mutual understanding that we're all somewhat in it together.
• 30:14
  Jenny Morgan: There's a lot of connectivity.
• 30:15
  Jenny Morgan: It makes the world feel really small and that we do have a lot of power.
• 30:22
  Jenny Morgan: Climate change isn't.
• 30:23
  Jenny Morgan: It's massive and complicated, but I would say it's most complicated because it requires that kind of collective pursuit and action.
• 30:34
  Jenny Morgan: And that's where it makes it complicated.
• 30:36
  Jenny Morgan: But we're not out there scratching our heads wondering how to work our way out of it.
• 30:43
  Jenny Morgan: We all know it's just.
• 30:44
  Jenny Morgan: What are we willing to do and how quickly are we willing to do it?
• 30:48
  Jenny Morgan: How much resources do we plan on allocating towards it, but it's not a head scratcher.
• 30:54
  Jenny Morgan: No one's like man.
• 30:55
  Jenny Morgan: I wonder how we're gonna get out of this.
• 30:57
  Jenny Morgan: It's not, it's we know, and so I love seeing that understanding and more and more people coming together and organizations coming together to do that work.
• 31:09
  Jenny Morgan: I think it's really inspiring and that's what keeps me going every day.
• 31:13
  Jenny Morgan: I mean, there's people cheering us on that need us and want to join in and are dependent on us.
• 31:20
  Benn Marine: Absolutely.
• 31:21
  Benn Marine: I'm curious do you have any favorite projects or favorite moments that have really touched you and inspired you?
• 31:28
  Jenny Morgan: Yeah, me personally.
• 31:30
  Jenny Morgan: I like to see doors opened.
• 31:32
  Jenny Morgan: And so, for Tradewater, I loved our project in Ghana.
• 31:37
  Jenny Morgan: That was our first international project where we destroyed refrigerants.
• 31:42
  Jenny Morgan: There we partnered with a local refrigerator company.
• 31:46
  Jenny Morgan: They were recycling old refrigerators and we were decommissioning, helping decommission those refrigerators, take the refrigerant that's in the back of the unit and then destroying them, and that was actually the first project of its kind to ever be done in Africa entirely, and so that was really inspiring.
• 32:05
  Jenny Morgan: And then now we're completely international and so that was a breaking down the door and expanding.
• 32:12
  Jenny Morgan: Also, our first collection of wells that we plugged.
• 32:18
  Jenny Morgan: That was a new project type for us.
• 32:20
  Jenny Morgan: It required our expert and the team.
• 32:24
  Jenny Morgan: Kasey is just incredible, really intelligent and just a great relationship builder, and so she formulated such strong bonds with the landowners that basically no one was helping, and then we've come in to really partner alongside them, and so that was really inspiring to see that be completed too.
• 32:42
  Jenny Morgan: I mean there's so many cool things though.
• 32:44
  Jenny Morgan: There's a company that makes frisbees out of old plastic for disc golf and stuff Like they.
• 32:52
  Jenny Morgan: Just you know, I mean there's just so many cool things like that happening.
• 32:56
  Jenny Morgan: My husband's working with a company that is using mushrooms to help trees grow faster and withstand more climate catastrophes, and so I mean people are doing really cool stuff.
• 33:10
  Jenny Morgan: So I think breaking down doors is what I like to hear.
• 33:13
  Jenny Morgan: I mean, I'm literally getting some chills right now.
• 33:15
  Jenny Morgan: I love that.
• 33:16
  Benn Marine: I love that too.
• 33:17
  Benn Marine: Oh my gosh, that's amazing.
• 33:18
  Benn Marine: And I think I recently found that disc golf company.
• 33:20
  Benn Marine: I can't remember the name off top of my head, but such cool stuff, such super, super cool stuff.
• 33:25
  Benn Marine: Speaking of kind of opportunities to take action, I did notice on your LinkedIn you posted about the EPA removing federal protections for most of the country's wetlands.
• 33:40
  Jenny Morgan: Chris, if you want to speak a little bit to that and its significance, yeah, I think this is what illustrates how we cannot hang our hat on nonprofits or business or the government.
• 33:54
  Jenny Morgan: We can't hang our hat on just one.
• 33:56
  Jenny Morgan: So in this scenario, we can't hang our hat on the government saving us.
• 34:01
  Jenny Morgan: I think we're all really hopeful that someone's gonna just sweep in and just make it all go away, and it's disappointing when we can't plant our way out of this situation or we can't be saved by a political official.
• 34:17
  Jenny Morgan: So it can be tough when that happens, but there are so many really cool grassroots initiatives going on with that specific example.
• 34:27
  Jenny Morgan: So basically, what the Supreme Court has said is that it's a state mandated problem how they protect their wetlands, and the reason that was stated is because wetlands, the only ones that would be protected, are the ones that are attached to large bodies of water, and that's like a very small percentage of wetlands.
• 34:50
  Jenny Morgan: Lots of wetlands are on their own, but they provide drinking water, agriculture, they prevent flooding, they prevent additional catastrophes from happening, they support wildlife, so they are very important to not only the environment but also just our personal wellbeing.
• 35:12
  Jenny Morgan: If you're only in it for yourself, it also is a wall against issues and supporting your food sourcing and everything and your drinking water, and so by not protecting these wetlands anymore and leaving it up to the states, you are losing your ability to keep ourselves safe and that was a failure, in my personal opinion, for people and communities.
• 35:44
  Jenny Morgan: It's we're not doing justice to the basic human right of food and water and livelihood, I mean, and the leaving up to the state example that is being pushed around in a lot of different threats against rights, it's just really dangerous.
• 36:03
  Jenny Morgan: You know, now it's we're one world, I guess, is what I'm trying to say.
• 36:09
  Jenny Morgan: And so if you know Washington protects, but then California doesn't I'm just loosely stating states then it doesn't matter.
• 36:20
  Jenny Morgan: These are all intersected bodies of water that all influence each other more than we even know.
• 36:26
  Jenny Morgan: I mean, we don't even know all of the intricacies of nature.
• 36:29
  Jenny Morgan: A book just came out about how trees talk to each other and stuff.
• 36:32
  Jenny Morgan: I mean there's a lot going on that we are not privy to and we should respect that.
• 36:39
  Benn Marine: Yeah, absolutely, and I think to even further emphasize the point of pushing it back to the states, it also can divide up resources that can be used in support of these important protections too, right?
• 36:51
  Benn Marine: Because now, instead of everybody across the country pooling together to make these advancements, it's divides it up.
• 37:03
  Jenny Morgan: Yeah, yeah, and I'd also argue that I don't think a and again, I want to make sure that I'm very open and supportive of all beliefs, but I would be very surprised if red states, as an example, don't want to protect their drinking water.
• 37:24
  Jenny Morgan: I, if that was just a simple question asked, I would assume that a high majority would want safe drinking water, and that is something that is.
• 37:36
  Jenny Morgan: We should continue to use our voice in all the ways possible.
• 37:40
  Jenny Morgan: Right now, that might not be through our Supreme Court, but that can be through the communities we fund, the work we do, the knowledge that we have.
• 37:49
  Jenny Morgan: We do still have power.
• 37:51
  Jenny Morgan: Sometimes it varies, but we always have power in some form or fashion.
• 37:56
  Benn Marine: Absolutely, Absolutely, and I think that's important to emphasize.
• 38:00
  Benn Marine: That, like not to lose hope that there are still pathways to create change.
• 38:05
  Benn Marine: For sure, I'm curious what are trade waters, future goals and aspirations in the field of greenhouse gas reduction and carbon offsetting?
• 38:13
  Jenny Morgan: I'm really excited about just different ways to scale this work.
• 38:16
  Jenny Morgan: We're international, we have regions of the globe reaching out to us all the time.
• 38:22
  Jenny Morgan: We have kind of a waiting list for lack of a better word of areas where we've targeted these types of gases being leaked and we can prevent them from doing so.
• 38:33
  Jenny Morgan: Also, with the oil wells and everything, there's a million plus orphaned oil wells in the US alone, so expansion and scale is really important, and so that's definitely top of mind.
• 38:47
  Jenny Morgan: I'd also say innovative ways to attach to brands.
• 38:52
  Jenny Morgan: I think that we're really respectful of how businesses are still trying to figure out.
• 39:00
  Jenny Morgan: They know that this climate risk is posing problems to their business, have already have or could and so they're trying to kind of figure out where they are in this ecosystem.
• 39:14
  Jenny Morgan: And so we've done some really cool things, one being we have this pennies for the planet option for companies that have lots of transactions on their site.
• 39:26
  Jenny Morgan: So if they tack on a penny, for example, over time it's going to have a huge environmental benefit, but no one's really putting the dollars forward to cover the cost.
• 39:37
  Jenny Morgan: So that's been really fun.
• 39:39
  Jenny Morgan: Just a lot of different ways to really make it personal for companies and individuals to want to get involved.
• 39:46
  Jenny Morgan: So that's where we're at is.
• 39:48
  Jenny Morgan: There's a lot of these types of gases out there, so we've got our hands full, but it's been really fun to find ways that make it make sense for whomever is asking.
• 39:57
  Benn Marine: That's really cool.
• 39:58
  Benn Marine: I'm curious are there any innovative technologies or strategies that you're all exploring to kind of further enhance that mission and goal?
• 40:08
  Jenny Morgan: We have some cool gadgets those are.
• 40:10
  Jenny Morgan: There's definitely a lot of things that are out there that you can measure wells that are leaking quite quickly.
• 40:17
  Jenny Morgan: I actually just learned that you can pour a little bit of soap on a well and a refrigerant container or an ozone depleting substance container and if it starts to bubble a little bit, that's how you could cheat to see that it's leaking, because it's bubbling a little bit.
• 40:33
  Jenny Morgan: But that's not how we're not pouring soap over everything to find out if it's leaking, but it's a good quick test to find out if you've got a problem.
• 40:43
  Jenny Morgan: And then we've got tools that help us gain more information.
• 40:48
  Jenny Morgan: But I mean, who knows?
• 40:49
  Jenny Morgan: Limited resources is definitely an issue we have about.
• 40:54
  Jenny Morgan: We have under 10 destruction facilities under within the entire globe and that can pose a lot of issues because it's difficult to transport ozone depleting substances across country lines, and so having more places to destroy these gases would be really effective and encourage more to get involved and then just continue to find efficiencies would be definitely the goal.
• 41:23
  Jenny Morgan: But right now we're just looking to keep our heads above water with how much work we've got.
• 41:29
  Benn Marine: That makes a lot of sense For folks that are inspired by your work.
• 41:35
  Benn Marine: What are some practical steps that they can take to support similar initiatives or make a positive impact on climate change?
• 41:42
  Jenny Morgan: Yeah, I would definitely look at project drawdown.
• 41:45
  Jenny Morgan: If you're just interested in climate solutions, the book outlines the top 100 solutions in actual impact and in that order, and then the website has that content as well.
• 42:00
  Jenny Morgan: But I would definitely say that if anyone's looking for high impact solutions that have been proven as a way to solve climate change, I would definitely look there.
• 42:10
  Jenny Morgan: We have a ton of blogs and articles that are out there, a lot of stories that we've done with other publications to like BBC and National Geographic.
• 42:21
  Jenny Morgan: So there's a lot of cool content on our site.
• 42:24
  Jenny Morgan: But if anyone's just climate curious project drawdown, I would definitely say it's the first stop and then the sustainable development goals.
• 42:33
  Jenny Morgan: That's also really fun to look at.
• 42:36
  Jenny Morgan: They highlight the 17 different ways that the UN is looking to achieve climate and community equity overall, and you can kind of see all of the different initiatives and who's representing them, who's pushing them forward.
• 42:53
  Jenny Morgan: You can also feel inspired by how much progress they've made too.
• 42:57
  Jenny Morgan: So I would say those are really good resources if you're just starting out, absolutely.
• 43:02
  Benn Marine: We literally just did a mini series all about the SDGs.
• 43:04
  Benn Marine: We did an episode about each goal.
• 43:06
  Benn Marine: Yeah, it was super fun, I mean, and that work.
• 43:09
  Benn Marine: It was so inspiring just to see here's the goal and here's a progress that's been made Like I don't know.
• 43:15
  Benn Marine: It's so exciting to see people really coming together around impactful goals that are literally changing the planet and people's lives.
• 43:25
  Benn Marine: It's cool stuff for sure.
• 43:28
  Benn Marine: Also, you guys are certified B Corp, so I'm so curious.
• 43:33
  Benn Marine: I'd love to hear about why that's something that you all pursued in the first place and why it's so important to you all.
• 43:40
  Jenny Morgan: Yeah, so I joined right when we were appending B Corp.
• 43:44
  Jenny Morgan: I actually had a B Corp consulting company as well before I joined, and so I was very familiar with the community.
• 43:51
  Jenny Morgan: And then I love trade water because we had partnered together for years.
• 43:55
  Jenny Morgan: And then when I joined I had found out that we were appending B Corp and I just wasn't privy to that information beforehand and so that was just.
• 44:03
  Jenny Morgan: I felt like I had.
• 44:05
  Jenny Morgan: I remember just like floating around my house for a week just because I had struck gold in the employment that I, luckily, am attached to now.
• 44:16
  Jenny Morgan: But we live and breathe our values.
• 44:18
  Jenny Morgan: I mean, technically we could have kind of stopped and said, well, we were saving the planet, we were doing enough.
• 44:26
  Jenny Morgan: And I love that we as a small organization are continuing to just prove that profitability and purpose are they can be the same, they can live among each other and support each other.
• 44:42
  Jenny Morgan: And so I mean that's just been so inspiring.
• 44:45
  Jenny Morgan: And, yeah, it's just been so great to be a part of the community on this side of the relationship by being a member of this community, and the scale and impact that the global community has had just over the last 10 years has been just so inspiring.
• 45:06
  Jenny Morgan: So I love that we're still learning.
• 45:09
  Jenny Morgan: I mean, again, we could throw our hands up and say we've done it, we're good, we don't have to improve, and you can see companies that are the most admirable businesses, and then you see that they're looking at how they're going to improve next year and it's just really cool.
• 45:30
  Jenny Morgan: I mean, that's what life's all about.
• 45:32
  Jenny Morgan: You have a great day.
• 45:33
  Jenny Morgan: You should celebrate that.
• 45:34
  Jenny Morgan: And then what are you going to do tomorrow?
• 45:36
  Jenny Morgan: Because not in a way of pressuring, it's exciting, it's limitless, and so that really is something that we live and breathe as a value, and others in the community too.
• 45:49
  Jenny Morgan: But if you go to a champion's retreat or anything for B Corp, I mean it's like therapy, it's the most incredible experience.
• 45:57
  Jenny Morgan: The businesses and people are living, breathing the values.
• 46:03
  Benn Marine: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 46:04
  Benn Marine: I'm so curious.
• 46:04
  Benn Marine: So, where you were a B Corp consultant before your work here, how did you find your way into the B Corp community and what has it meant to you?
• 46:15
  Jenny Morgan: I wanted.
• 46:16
  Jenny Morgan: So me personally in my career path, I decide I want to do something I apply to that job.
• 46:24
  Jenny Morgan: I don't get it because I don't have any experience in it.
• 46:27
  Jenny Morgan: I continue to learn that lesson and then I just throw my hands up and I say, whatever, I'm just going to do it.
• 46:31
  Jenny Morgan: And that's basically how I've gotten every single role.
• 46:36
  Jenny Morgan: I wanted to work at a tech company, and so then I started volunteering for diversity and tech nonprofit and then I met a bunch of people and got hired.
• 46:44
  Jenny Morgan: And then I wanted to work in environmental services.
• 46:47
  Jenny Morgan: So then I just started bringing environmental services onto my company where I worked, and then I then was able to jump ship and get closer to the work.
• 46:58
  Jenny Morgan: And same with the B Corp community.
• 47:00
  Jenny Morgan: I knew about it, but I really wanted to find out how we can improve industry, because there's just so much opportunity there and it touches everyone.
• 47:11
  Jenny Morgan: Everyone is connected to business as a customer, as an employee, as a stakeholder, shareholder, however you want to slice it and so I really feel and have seen that it is a tool that can influence change, and so I got the B Corp handbook and took some online courses and did the help people walk through their impact assessment and it's been really fun.
• 47:40
  Benn Marine: Amazing, amazing.
• 47:41
  Benn Marine: I love that.
• 47:41
  Benn Marine: Any final thoughts or parting wisdom you want to share with folks, yeah.
• 47:46
  Jenny Morgan: So I had a quote that I've really liked, and it's applicable to business, but it's also applicable to really anyone.
• 47:53
  Jenny Morgan: But it is profit, for business is like oxygen for a person If you don't have enough of it, you're out of the game.
• 48:01
  Jenny Morgan: But if your life is about breathing, you're really missing something.
• 48:05
  Jenny Morgan: And that quote has really resonated with me personally, because it's not black and white of how we divide up our time and if we're only focusing on one goal, we're going to miss so many others.
• 48:24
  Jenny Morgan: That will slow us down and it makes it harder because you're going to be tracking a few different metrics now, but the holistic representation of your success is so much wider, and I think that that is something that keeps me going.
• 48:51
  Jenny Morgan: I mean, if you're just focused on the one thing, even if personal wise, if I'm only focused on getting my to-do list done, yeah, I've had a great day of to-do lists, but I didn't experience life at all, and so I see that apply to really anything, and so I would encourage those that have been kind of had a tunnel vision about whatever that may be grow it.
• 49:16
  Jenny Morgan: I say include climate impact and personnel impact and community impact into that, and you'll see your world just expand beyond your belief.
• 49:54
  Benn Marine: We're also cooking up some exciting new content for you all in the coming weeks.
• 49:58
  Benn Marine: Stay tuned for a whole new show coming to this responsibly different podcast channel.
• 50:03
  Benn Marine: Dear Go Collective's president, david Gogell, is going to be hosting this new show called Emerging Hope, where he will be having conversations with businesses in the tech space and emerging markets that are leveraging business to solve some of society's biggest challenges.
• 50:19
  Benn Marine: Subscribe to Responsibly Different to be the first to know when it drops.
• 50:23
  Benn Marine: Thank you for all the ways you are showing up in your life.
• 50:27
  Benn Marine: You are rippling out in more ways than you will ever know.
• 50:30
  Benn Marine: We appreciate you.
• 50:32
  Benn Marine: Be well and until next time, be responsibly different.
• 50:36
  Benn Marine: This content is made possible by Dear Go Collective, a media consultancy on a mission to turn consumers into activists, one purchase at a time.
• 50:48
  Benn Marine: To learn more about Dear Go Collective, visit the link in your show notes.
• 50:53
  Benn Marine: This episode was produced by Brittany Angelo and yours truly, ben Marine.
• 50:57
  Benn Marine: Music was licensed from B Corp certified Marmoset Music.
• 51:02
  Benn Marine: To access more resources, visit responsiblydifferentcom.