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691. If Not Me, Then Who? Turning Environmental Guilt into Global Impact · Daily Influence

• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Daily Influence, your daily dose of positive influence.
• 0:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm Brian Smith founder of IA Business Advisors and co-author of the Iain team series.
• 0:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Each day we share stories and insights to help you find B and Bill your influence in a positive and responsible way.
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm Ranclinow, partner at IA Business Advisors, and co-host of Daily Influence.
• 0:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Be sure to follow, subscribe, and share Daily Influence with someone who could use a little extra positivity today.
• 0:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And make us part of your Daily routine, whether it's during your commute, on a walk, or an quiet momentous for you, because you're influenced matters.
• 0:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Daily Influence, I'm Greg Cleano.
• 0:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Today, I'm excited to welcome Michael Bernstein, founder and CEO of Bernastic.
• 0:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Michael is transforming two massive global waste strains, textile and plastic, into a high performance sustainable polymer that's stronger, lighter, and greener than traditional plastic.
• 1:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Through innovation, accountability, and responsible leadership, Michael is proving that doing what's right for the planet can also create real business value.
• 1:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: His work is a powerful example of how individual influence can drive systemic change.
• 1:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Michael, welcome to Daily Influence.
• 1:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Craig.
• 1:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Nice to be here.
• 1:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Michael, can you share a bit about your background of what led you to where you are today with Bernassin?
• 1:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, thank you.
• 1:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've been in me textile and apparel business for about 40 years, travel all over the world, seeing a lot of good and also a lot of bad.
• 1:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: The apparel industry has challenges that I've seen more and more
• 1:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: and those challenges disturb me and they really revolve around facilities and countries that really do try their best to not harm the environment, but they don't always succeed.
• 2:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: And me being an operator of a couple billion dollar companies and different organizations,
• 2:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I had this epiphany while I was touring a craft beer facility.
• 2:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I saw that this facility was talking about everything they do is green.
• 2:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: And this other nugget was running through my head as we're touring and sifting beer along the way.
• 2:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's a loft and I'm overlooking the packaging area of the beer facility and I see that they're putting the beer on wooden virgin palettes or virgin with palettes and that really bothered me.
• 3:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: because the whole theme of the tour in the story kind of got lost on me.
• 3:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think any, but I'd be saying anything.
• 3:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think anybody else really noticed, but that was really the initiation of the aha moment for me to pre-pronastic.
• 3:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Your journey clearly reflects a moment where purpose meets possibility.
• 3:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: In the I and team series, we talk about the power of individual responsibility before collective success.
• 3:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Was there moment when you personally realize if I don't act on this problem, who will?
• 3:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely, you know.
• 3:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: I had, first, I am going to answer the sideways kind of thing, I started another company when I left one of these other billion dollar companies and started making hospital textiles.
• 4:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Everything you see that's textile and a hospital, I made, and one of the things that helped
• 4:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the problem was these snaps could not go through an MRI machine, but they also couldn't be used to industrial laundering because of the pressure.
• 4:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was the first person to invent a non-metallic snap that could withstand that pressure and go through an MRI, ended up selling 30 million patient downs, sold that business moved on.
• 4:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: But from that I realized that I had this ability to now
• 4:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: step into two worlds.
• 4:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: One world being a parallel in textile and the other world being polymers.
• 4:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: And once I started to learn more about polymers and I have a chemistry background, I was able to say, you know what?
• 5:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: In that aha moment, I want to leave this world a better place for my children.
• 5:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: That sense of ownership often shows up most clearly when lives are touched directly.
• 5:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Can you tell our audience a little bit more about Bernastick?
• 5:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: What it is, what you do?
• 5:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 5:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Bernastick is a product that is a new plastic.
• 5:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: The form in which it is created is a pellet that is created through an extrusion process of blending all of these products and special sauces together.
• 5:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: But the beauty of it is, it's backward engineered.
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: So this pellet,
• 5:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: can be then injection molded into anything plastic you see in our world.
• 6:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: You sit in your car, you see plastic, you know, plastic furniture, plastic palettes, plastic hangers.
• 6:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Plastic hangers are an interesting avenue that we are certainly targeting
• 6:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: All of us know, certainly I should say most of us know, stores like H.M. or Zara that make fast fashion.
• 6:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: And there's a place for them and they fill a niche, but they're also admittedly so for them, creating a problem where it's disposable clothing.
• 6:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the challenge is, how do they do things in a better way?
• 6:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I really believe that they're trying to do that.
• 6:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: But when we go to market, not if they begin to use Bernastik in the hangers that are in their store, now they have offset their carbon footprint and truly be done, have begun.
• 7:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Then to,
• 7:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: take waste and reuse it in a positive way.
• 7:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and Bernastik addresses both textile and plastic waste to enormous global challenges.
• 7:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: How do you think about responsible influence when introducing a solution that affects global supply chains?
• 7:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think in global terms on that one, and I appreciate it.
• 7:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: In the United States, we made some steps forward and some steps backwards.
• 7:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: We withdrew from the Paris Accords, which is something that our country and leadership chose.
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  [SPEAKER_02]: The EU and Europe have chosen another path and they've chosen to go far more,
• 7:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: into the problem and try and solve it and they pass a significant number of laws that relate to companies calculating their carbon footprint and then.
• 8:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: demanding that they reduce their carbon footprint over the next five years to a point at which I believe they're carbon neutral.
• 8:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's a very, very tough requirement for these companies.
• 8:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Many European companies have reached out to me in Bernastik because they have taken away a lot of their low hanging fruit, but as you dig deeper, it's much harder to
• 8:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: find the more serious items to reduce that carbon footprint.
• 8:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that becomes the challenge that Europe understands and certain companies in the United States certainly understand and are taking it on themselves and actually even promoting within the C-suite achieve sustainability officer.
• 9:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you see that more and more within large companies like Levi's Procter and Gamble, many others.
• 9:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's great to hear.
• 9:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Can you tell us about a moment of experience where you felt you made a positive impact on someone's life or a community or even an industry?
• 9:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sure, I've been told a number of times that
• 9:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: I have the ability to help and influence people, and I don't even realize it.
• 9:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it sometimes comes back, and I'm told a story afterwards, and, you know, getting a little older, I'm going to turn 60 soon, and sometimes I don't even remember the interaction.
• 9:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: And, but they did.
• 9:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: And one of the things that you just made me think about is, I've hired a number of people in my life in my organizations.
• 9:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: And one of the things that I always try to instill in my staff and everybody that I worked with was, I don't want you to be so focused on someone's experience and a resonate.
• 10:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: I want somebody that you see that's motivated and willing to learn because we can teach experience, okay.
• 10:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: But they need to have the motivation, the intelligence, the ability to learn, and then we can grow that individual and grow our company towards a place that makes us better.
• 10:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that is so true.
• 10:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And as a leader, as we often face resistance when challenging the status quo, what lessons have you learned about influencing change, especially when you're disrupting traditional systems or asking industries to rethink how they've always operated?
• 11:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, well, a couple of times I've been fired.
• 11:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm not always a nice player in the sandbox when it comes to challenging leadership.
• 11:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: because I am somebody that speaks quite frankly and I don't want to waste time and oftentimes one of the things that I have heard in big corporations is well, you gotta understand where we're like a cruise ship.
• 11:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we steer really slowly.
• 11:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we can't adopt to change that quickly.
• 11:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I said, why not?
• 11:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's about, we're not a speedboat.
• 11:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: I said, we can be, you know, why not?
• 11:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Just let's change.
• 11:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let's do it differently, okay?
• 12:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I think leadership and corporations
• 12:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that the one thing that we need as leaders is to lean into that problem and know that we might fail, you know, the old adage with if you're baseball fan, you get into the Hall of Fame bat in 300 that means you only hit one at a three, okay, it's okay to make mistakes.
• 12:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: we learn from those mistakes so we can improve.
• 12:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: With innovation evolving so rapidly technology now plays a bigger role than ever, are you using AI in your work today and if you are how are you leveraging it to support innovation efficiency or responsible growth?
• 12:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: AI is not a tool
• 13:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: We are transforming sleeping industries, okay?
• 13:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: AI is sexy, I get it, you know?
• 13:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's what everything everybody is talking about, but I will tell you that
• 13:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: I run and Bernastagruns at a speed back to the speed boat issue that most entities and companies can't.
• 13:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's what makes us different because we can continue to evolve at a tremendous velocity.
• 13:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that is what helps us.
• 13:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: So the concept of AI and saving time and velocity again.
• 13:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, and that kind of leadership often inspires others and who are listening and wondering if they could do the same, what message or words and encouragement, would you like to share with our listeners who aspire to make a positive difference in the world, especially those who see a problem and aren't sure where to start you need to, you need to put it out there, you every one of us, I think, has this.
• 14:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: wish and desire to do something and create something.
• 14:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: And again, I think that beer often holds us back.
• 14:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, well, I have this job and I don't want to lose my job and my comfort level.
• 14:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I would say,
• 14:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely, but can you begin something else on the side that is your passion that you can begin to create in your off time pursue it because in the end you're just left with your regret and that is one thing that I know I can't live with.
• 15:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: and I'll never let it catch up.
• 15:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's great advice, Michael.
• 15:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for joining us.
• 15:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: If our listeners want to get in touch with you, what is the best way to do so?
• 15:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: My website is Bernastik.com, B-E-R-N-A-S-T-I-C. From there, there's contact information that you can reach out to get to us and learn more about who we are and what we're doing.
• 15:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Great.
• 15:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
• 15:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: We'll make sure to put that in the show notes and Michael, thank you for sharing not just what you're building, but why you're building it your work as a powerful reminder that responsible influence starts with one person choosing to act and that innovation when guided by intention can create lasting impact for people businesses in the planet.
• 15:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: I truly appreciate you being here.
• 15:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
• 15:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for tuning in to Daily Influence.
• 15:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I hope today's conversation brought you inside an inspiration.
• 15:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: If it's spoke to you, share it with someone who could use a little positivity today.
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Remember, small actions create big impact.
• 16:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Keep showing up, leading, and growing one data time.
• 16:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Until next time, stay inspired and keep having a positive, responsible influence.
• 16:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Bye bye.