071 Put Your Money Where Your Life Is

A Sustainability Now interview with Nina Simons, author, speaker, teacher and co-founder of Bioneers

Join us for a thoughtful and visionary conversation with Nina Simons, co-founder of Bioneers and author of the top Nautilus award winning book, Nature, Culture, and the Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership. Nina invites us into what she calls “full spectrum leadership;” leadership that reclaims our human wholeness, that values the wisdom of our hearts, our bodies, our intuition, dreamtime and our ancestors.

She calls for regenerating leadership in service to Mother Life in a way that values being as much as doing and is committed to learning how to live in right relationship with nature while reclaiming our fullest human capacities. Throughout her career, spanning the nonprofit, social entrepreneurship, corporate, and philanthropic sectors, Nina has worked with nearly a thousand women leaders across disciplines, race, class, age and orientation to create conditions for mutual learning, trust and leadership development.

Additionally, along with her husband and partner Kenny Ausubel, Nina is a recipient of the revered Goi Peace Award for “pioneering work to promote nature-inspired innovations for restoring the Earth and our human community.”

Nina's book: Nature, Culture and the Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership
Preview on Bioneers | Buy on Bookshop.org
Bioneers website

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We currently stand at a pivotal juncture where the loss of numerous species from our local ecosystems poses a serious threat. This jeopardizes the ecosystem services that are essential for our well-being, including oxygen production, water purification, flood control, pollination, pest regulation, and carbon storage. However, this isn't a moment of condemning human actions, but an opportunity to embrace an enjoyable path to positive change through stewardship.

Doug Tallamy's message emphasizes a solution-focused approach: small individual efforts can collectively make a significant impact. By working together, we can create new ecological networks that support the growth and resilience of plant and animal populations, allowing them to thrive despite normal population fluctuations.

At the heart of this initiative is the concept of the Homegrown National Park®, a term coined by Doug. It serves as a rallying point, recognizing that even our grand national parks, remarkable as they are, are too isolated and limited in scale to preserve species effectively. The idea behind the Homegrown National Park is a grassroots call to action, encouraging us to restore habitats in our residential and working areas, and to a lesser extent in agricultural and grazing lands, effectively extending the concept of national parks to our own yards and communities.

To visually represent this collective effort, they have created "THE MAP," an interactive community-based tool that tracks each person's contribution to native plantings by State, County, and Zip Code. This map not only gauges progress toward the ambitious goal of planting 20 million acres of native species in the U.S. but also provides individuals with a tangible way to see their role in a larger ecological restoration effort, thereby creating new ecological networks and revitalizing biodiversity.

#HomegrownNationalPark #getonthemap #RewildYourYard #NativePlanting #BackyardHabitats #EcoStewardship #BiodiversityBoost #HabitatRestoration #CommunityConservation #EcoNetworks #DougTallamy #ConservationEfforts #BiodiversityMatters #StewardshipForChange #EcosystemResilience #HomegrownNationalPark #SustainableLiving #DougTallamysVision #CommunityConservation #TheMapForChange #RestoringBiodiversity #CollectiveAction #SpeciesPreservation #SmallStepsBigImpact

Deniz Tekerek is co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer of Archireef, a Nature-tech startup that restores coral reefs with proprietary 3D-printed clay Reef Tiles.

Often called the rainforests of the sea, coral reef structures help slow down and shrink waves as they hurtle towards shore, which helps protect coastlines from hurricanes, cyclones and tsunamis. Corals protect shorelines in 81 countries around the world, sheltering the 200 million people living along those coasts. Found in warm, shallow water, coral reefs cover less than 1% of the ocean floor but host more than 25% of marine life.

Graham Stewart, founder of Fibre52, is creating a revolution in the fabric industry. Over the past 2 years, Graham has developed and patented an environmentally kind and cost-conscious process to bleach and dye cotton that results in a stronger fiber. Without chemical degradation, it produces cooler, naturally dry, soft, wrinkle and stain-resistant clothing that is recyclable, biodegradable, and a natural replacement for plastic.

With his 50+ years in the industry, Graham is an extraordinary source of information, influence and insight. He gives us a deeper glimpse into the world of fiber, fabric and fashion, a world we all rely on yet very few of us know. It is because of his global connections and reputation, and the power of his innovations, that major brands are jumping on the Fibre52 bandwagon in their transition to sustainable practices.

Resources related to this episode at https://www.sustainabilitynow.global/2023/09/02/074-fibre52-a-revolution-in-the-fabric-industry/

Meet Joe Luttwak, a man on a mission to revolutionize #sustainability. With years of experience in the #CarbonFiber sector, including renowned companies like Ferrari, he embarked on a journey to create an eco-friendly alternative. Joe’s brainchild, Lingrove, emerged as a game-changer, introducing a groundbreaking proprietary formulation. This innovative formula transforms waste and rapidly renewable plants into high-performance goods.

One of Lingrove’s standout creations is the remarkable Blackbird Guitar. Blending the strength of carbon fiber with the rich resonance of aged wood, this masterpiece stands out for being tree-free and free from harmful additives. The ingenious combination of flax fibers and plant-based resins holds the key to its success.

The brilliance of this product swiftly caught the attention of designers seeking natural fiber composites. Acknowledging that the construction industry contributes 40% of greenhouse gases, Lingrove evolved to develop ekoa eco-veneers. These cutting-edge materials empower architects and product designers to seamlessly incorporate sustainable elements into their projects.

Ekoa serves as a versatile alternative to wood, vinyl, metals, and plastics, finding its application in interior design. Whether adorning walls, ceilings, cabinetry, millwork, or vehicle dashboards, this low-carbon, clean-air solution boasts a remarkable strength-to-weight ratio, surpassing even that of steel.

Explore the world of Lingrove and Joe Luttwak, where innovation and sustainability converge, revolutionizing industries and shaping a #GreenerFuture.

With a long and distinguished career in microbiology, Mike Cox is an inventor as well as the Founder and CEO of Anaerobe Systems, a microbiology manufacturing and research company. While developing a process to produce hydrogen from biomass, a happy “accident” led Mike to the invention of a miracle “plant food” and fertilizer.

What’s beautiful about Mike’s solution is that the feedstock for his fertilizer is food waste, or as he’s brilliantly rechristened it: food grade fuel. With food waste being one of the greatest contributors to CO2 emissions, how elegant to use that waste to feed plants and restore the soil. Not to mention that hydrogen is essentially a “free” byproduct of the process. All this and a lucrative business model to boot!

While researching the rapid shift in cancer incidents from northern states to the Mississippi Delta, triple board-certified physician, Dr. Zach Bush connected the widespread use of Glyphosate (trade name: Round-up) in America’s farmlands with soil and human health everywhere from the farms to the Gulf of Mexico. This chemical destroys the microbiome in the soil as well as our digestive systems. Dr. Zach realized that it is necessary to restore soil health to allow our farmlands to produce nutrient-dense foods that will then restore human health.
 
David explains how Farmer’s Footprint was born out of an effort to educate farmers about regenerative agriculture practices through the story of how the Breitkreutz family is transitioning their Minnesota farm from from conventional farming to regenerative agriculture. Storytelling became the root of making connections and helping farmers start making steps toward regenerative farming.
 
Their ethos is one of progress over perfection. They seek to meet farmers where they are, never allowing divergence in dogma to devalue the food producer’s profound contribution to society. They are engineering the tools, business models, policies, and incentives to scale regenerative practices globally.

Values-based investing, supporting local economies, supporting social change. What if you could literally invest your money where your life and your values are?

Longtime activist and visionary, Michael H. Shuman, has made a career of applying his economics and law training to enable that very thing. Seeing local economies as a vehicle for global change, Michael schools us in strategies to fund local initiatives. In fact, this conversation is a crash course in local investment, crowdfunding, values-based investing, and investment vehicles including Solo 401K's and Self-directed IRAs.

Don't be fooled, all this financial talk is anything but dry. Michael provides us the keys to the kingdom. He shows us ways we can redirect our wealth to things that matter and create impact as well as return on investment.

Resources and more at https://www.sustainabilitynow.global/2023/05/30/put-your-money-where-your-life-is-with-michael-h-shuman/

A positive contrarian and thought provocateur in both business and the regenerative movement, Carol Sanford brings about change by disrupting certainty; and this interview is no exception.

By digging deep to unearth and upend underlying assumptions, Carol has changed the essence of work in corporations such as Google, DuPont, Intel, P&G, and Seventh Generation, making the impossible possible and generating unprecedented results. She speaks of a stellar example with a Colgate plant in South Africa where generations of racial division and prejudice were dismantled by effectively challenging the very concept of race.

Contending with a terminal diagnosis of ALS, Carol also shakes up our concept of and relationship with death, displaying tremendous grace and unvarnished candor.

Resources and more are available at https://www.sustainabilitynow.global/2023/02/04/070-disrupting-certainty-with-carol-sanford/

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