{"id":3632,"date":"2020-03-19T23:29:06","date_gmt":"2020-03-19T23:29:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leansixsigmaenvironment.org\/?p=3632"},"modified":"2020-03-19T20:55:54","modified_gmt":"2020-03-20T03:55:54","slug":"e060-sustainability-consulting-interview-with-vanina-howan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/leansixsigmaenvironment.org\/index.php\/e060-sustainability-consulting-interview-with-vanina-howan\/","title":{"rendered":"E060: Sustainability Consulting Interview with Vanina Howan"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_4494\"><!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-3632-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/earthconsultants\/earth-consultants-audio-podcast.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/LSS4G_60_Interview_Vanina_Ecopreneur_Feb2020.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/earthconsultants\/earth-consultants-audio-podcast.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/LSS4G_60_Interview_Vanina_Ecopreneur_Feb2020.mp3\">https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/earthconsultants\/earth-consultants-audio-podcast.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/LSS4G_60_Interview_Vanina_Ecopreneur_Feb2020.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/earthconsultants\/earth-consultants-audio-podcast.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/LSS4G_60_Interview_Vanina_Ecopreneur_Feb2020.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('http:\/\/leansixsigmaenvironment.org\/?powerpress_pinw=3632-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/earthconsultants\/earth-consultants-audio-podcast.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/LSS4G_60_Interview_Vanina_Ecopreneur_Feb2020.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"LSS4G_60_Interview_Vanina_Ecopreneur_Feb2020.mp3\">Download<\/a> | <a href=\"#\" class=\"powerpress_link_e\" title=\"Embed\" onclick=\"return powerpress_show_embed('3632-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Embed<\/a><\/p><p class=\"powerpress_embed_box\" id=\"powerpress_embed_3632-podcast\" style=\"display: none;\"><input id=\"powerpress_embed_3632-podcast_t\" type=\"text\" value=\"&lt;iframe width=&quot;320&quot; height=&quot;30&quot; src=&quot;http:\/\/leansixsigmaenvironment.org\/?powerpress_embed=3632-podcast&amp;amp;powerpress_player=mediaelement-audio&quot; title=&quot;Blubrry Podcast Player&quot; frameborder=&quot;0&quot; scrolling=&quot;no&quot;&gt;&lt;\/iframe&gt;\" onclick=\"javascript: this.select();\" onfocus=\"javascript: this.select();\" style=\"width: 70%;\" readOnly><\/p><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_subscribe_links\">Subscribe: <a href=\"http:\/\/leansixsigmaenvironment.org\/index.php\/feed\/podcast\/\" class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_rss\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Subscribe via RSS\" rel=\"nofollow\">RSS<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In this podcast, I was interviewed by Vanina Howan on her podcast called The Ecopreneur Show. She asked me about my background in sustainability, how I transitioned into consulting on my own, and how I got involved with Recycling Advocates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m really proud of how this interview turned out. We delve into a host of topics, including push vs. pull, Lean Startup methods, and my volunteer consulting work with sustainable businesses and nonprofits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We get more detailed into my personal life, so if that&#8217;s not interesting to you, then feel free to skip this episode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/leansixsigmaenvironment.org\/index.php\/e060-sustainability-consulting-interview-with-vanina-howan\/\">Read full show notes<\/a> | <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Subscribe or rate this podcast (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"\/itunes\/\" target=\"_blank\">Subscribe or rate this podcast<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Links<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"The Ecopreneur Show (Zero Waste Habit) (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-ecopreneur-show\/id1481607918\" target=\"_blank\">The Ecopreneur Show (Zero Waste Habit)<\/a><\/li><li><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Zero Waste PDX Facebook Group (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/zerowastepdx\" target=\"_blank\">Zero Waste PDX Facebook Group<\/a><\/li><li><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Recycling Advocates (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.recyclingadvocates.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Recycling Advocates<\/a><\/li><li><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Business Performance Improvement (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/biz-pi.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Business Performance Improvement<\/a><\/li><li><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Green Banana Paper (Kosrae) (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.biz-pi.com\/green-banana-paper\/\" target=\"_blank\">Green Banana Paper (Kosrae)<\/a><\/li><li><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"University of Iowa Sustainability Certificate\u2028 (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/sustainability.uiowa.edu\/academics-research\/certificate-sustainability\" target=\"_blank\">University of Iowa Sustainability Certificate<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/2UzTmD9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"The Lean Startup (opens in a new tab)\">The Lean Startup<\/a> book<\/li><li><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Clackamas County Leaders in Sustainability (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.clackamas.us\/recycling\/work\/getcertified.html\" target=\"_blank\">Clackamas County Leaders in Sustainability<\/a><\/li><li>City of Portland<ul><li><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Sustainability at Work (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.portlandoregon.gov\/sustainabilityatwork\/62111\" target=\"_blank\">Sustainability at Work<\/a><\/li><li><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Green Team Guide (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/beta.portland.gov\/sustainabilityatwork\/green-team-guide\" target=\"_blank\">Green Team Guide<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Promotion<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Are you interested in learning more about Lean and Six Sigma?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Or are you looking to expand your existing skills to apply them to environmental impacts at your work or local community?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Check out our <a href=\"http:\/\/business-performance-improvement.thinkific.com\/courses\/lean-six-sigma-and-the-environment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"FREE online course called &quot;Lean Six Sigma and the Environment&quot;  (opens in a new tab)\">FREE online course called &#8220;Lean Six Sigma and the Environment&#8221; <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;ll teach you about the lean forms of waste and WASTE walks (which stands for Water, Air Emissions, Solid Waste, Toxins and Energy)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;ll go over examples of reducing electricity and solid waste, teach you how to involve your facilities and ES&amp;H personnel. We&#8217;ll provide guidance on how to green your 5S and lean kaizen events, and many other tools specific to find environmental opportunities<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Learn more at <a href=\"http:\/\/leansixsigmaenvironment.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"LeanSixSigmaEnvironment.org (opens in a new tab)\">LeanSixSigmaEnvironment.org<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Transcript<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Vanina\n(V):&nbsp; You&#8217;re listening to The Ecopreneur Show,\na podcast that inspires entrepreneurs and creatives on how they can make a\npositive and meaningful impact in the world. I&#8217;m your host, Vanina. Every other\nweek, I hang out with entrepreneurs and business owners and leaders that are\ncreating real-life solutions for a more sustainable future. I feel, by having\nraw conversations with ecopreneurs, that it&#8217;ll keep on inspiring us to take\naction in our own lives. Thanks for tuning in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, Brion,\nthank you so much for being here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Brion\n(B):&nbsp; Sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; Can you tell me a little bit about what you\ndo?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; Yes. I&#8217;m a Lean Six Sigma consultant, which a\nlot of people have no idea what that means. And so it&#8217;s a process improvement\nmethodology that&#8217;s come up over the last couple of decades. So a lot of large\ncompanies and corporations use this to make their processes better, improve\ntheir quality, reduce the time it takes to do tasks, better align to what their\ncustomers actually want, and try to also engage their employees in making\nimprovements to their work so it&#8217;s less frustrating or difficult and they can\ndo the job easier, safer, and also more productive. What&#8217;s a little different\nis the perception is that people think that it&#8217;s about making people work\nfaster or harder, and if you actually set up the processes correctly, it\ndoesn&#8217;t have to be that way. You can make it simpler and easier and they can do\nmore work without more effort necessarily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then\nthere&#8217;s elements of that that are getting to the data and my background is in\nstatistics and that&#8217;s how I kind of got into data analysis. And then, out of\nschool, I started working at an aerospace company that was nearby. I grew up in\nIowa, so I got a job nearby and that kind of started into applying what I\nlearned in school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; And then can you tell us a little bit about Recycling\nAdvocates too?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; Sure. I moved to Portland in 2013 with my\nwife and I really wanted to get to the Pacific Northwest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; Any particular reason why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; The sustainability part, for sure. I met my\nwife in 2007. She had some background in the environmental world and I was just\ngetting into it. I think this was a year after <em>An Inconvenient Truth<\/em> came out. That exposed me to this problem of\nclimate change and what&#8217;s going on here. And so I was kind of digesting what\nthat meant and making some small changes here and there, but then I started\nmaking the connection between what I do at work and this environmental problem\nand then a light bulb went off that, wait, I think I can help with this. This\nis a problem with numbers and you just follow the data and that will help make\ndecisions around where I can best impact the environment, how I can help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so I\nspent a lot of time just studying and learning more about it because I didn&#8217;t\nfeel like I was very educated around that. I decided I should probably get some\nmore education, so I actually went back to school and got a certificate in\nsustainability from the school that I got my undergrad and graduate program\nthrough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; Because, previously, you were working as an\naerospace engineer, from what I understand?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; I was working, yeah, in the aerospace\nindustry doing process improvement work. I was helping the organization &#8211; I was\nteaching statistics, basically, or refreshing engineers on what they learned in\nschool by trying to apply it to here&#8217;s an actual problem we&#8217;re dealing with, here&#8217;s\nis how you can apply some of these concepts that maybe it&#8217;s new to them or maybe\nit&#8217;s something they took in class but they haven&#8217;t applied in their real job. I\nwas there to kind of support them, and train them, teach them those concepts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; And so you then you went back to school, and\nthen can you explain exactly what you went to school for and what certification\nyou worked on?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; Yeah. It was sustainability and that was a\ngeneral topic. It was a certificate program, so it wasn&#8217;t an undergrad or a minor\nor anything like that. I was one of the few people who were working full-time.\nIt was mostly students, so that was a good, interesting experience to kind of\nget reconnected with the current college students. This was back in 2011, 2012,\nsomewhere around there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I got\nmore educated and I felt more confident in what I was doing and I got more\nexcited about the possibilities because I kept talking to people &#8211; professors\nand other groups and connecting with people &#8211; and there was still a gap there.\nI found that the EPA had done some work with my background, Lean Six Sigma,\nwork and how to improve the environment and I thought all these resources that\nthey put out. So I just digested all of that information and saw that there\nwere companies that had already started to go down this path of connecting\ntheir environmental impacts and using these techniques to improve that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Anyway, so I\ngot excited about that possibility and I wanted to move somewhere where there\nwas a lot of good activity happening. Of course, Portland is on the list and\nthe company I was working for, Rockwell Collins, had a facility in Wilsonville,\nso that seemed pretty cool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; And what was that company, Rockwell Collins?\nWas that the aerospace company?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; The aerospace company, yeah. So I moved around,\nevery five years or so, to different locations, and that kind of broke up my 18\nyears and made it go a little faster. Which is a long time to be at a company,\nbut when I look at it, it was broken up every four to seven years with a different\nlocation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; How did you know when to make that sort of\ntransition? working 18 years in\nthis industry, and then watching <em>An\nInconvenient Truth,<\/em> and realized that you had sort of a similar calling but\ndifferent. So how did you make that leap?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; I think when I realized that there was a way\nto apply what I was doing in business and also help the businesses reduce their\nenvironmental impact, it was huge. Knowing that my background kind of lined up\nreally well with that, I got super excited about it. And then realizing that,\noutside of the EPA documents that they put out, there really was not much going\non and there weren&#8217;t many people like myself doing that work. So I said, okay, there&#8217;s\nsome positive things there that I can do and there&#8217;s not that many people doing\nit yet. That got me really excited about that possibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I did\nsome internal projects with the company and got some great successes there, but\nafter a while, I just kind of realized that I was ready to go faster. There was\na lot of knowledge that I wanted to share, of things I&#8217;d gathered and collected,\nand there&#8217;s a lot more companies out there that need that exposure or that\ntraining and I can&#8217;t do that working full-time. I started to kind of work my\nway towards my own consulting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; So can you explain that? so you started doing your own\nconsulting work, so did you reach out to other companies saying that, &#8220;I\nhave this certification. There&#8217;s ways that I can help you improve your company&#8221;? is that how you go about it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; I probably started doing some stuff online,\njust posting information, putting together training material, free stuff,\nwriting articles, stuff like that, to get the word out just to see if there was\nmomentum or interest in that topic and there was a little bit here and there. But\nI really felt like I had to go spend a little bit more significant time. So I\nactually &#8211; and we&#8217;re going to get to Recycling Advocates here; it&#8217;s a longer\nroute here &#8211; but I realized that I need to start spending time outside of work\nto do that. And I was doing that and I was spending most of my weekends and\nnights working on this, but it still wasn&#8217;t really enough to get enough\nmomentum there where I could go on my own. So I started coming cutting back\nhours at work, went to 30 hours for about six months, and then I found an\norganization I could partner with for some consulting work; they had some\nsteady work for me to do some training. That was enough to say I&#8217;m ready to\ntake that leap, so that helped a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then\nsince then, that gave me time to start building up my client list, people I\nwant to work with. But it&#8217;s taking longer because this is new stuff for the\ngroups I&#8217;m working with and trying to connect with. Large companies know about\nLean and Six Sigma methods, but most of the sustainable businesses and\nnonprofits, this is new. So I&#8217;m doing a lot of education and explaining what\nexactly do I do and how can I help them in some way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; Can you walk me through how does the\nconsultancy process work?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; Usually, it starts with an intro class or\ntraining, because I usually like to at least get them on a clear understanding\nof what these concepts are, and then maybe give them some thoughts around how\nwe can start working together. Usually, it&#8217;s an introduction to the Lean methods.\nThose are little less data-focused. There is a lot of data, but it&#8217;s not quite\nas intense as the Six Sigma side of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I usually\nstart with that and talk about workflow and employee engagement, and then just\ntalk about the types of problems they have, which is they&#8217;re not able to keep\nup with the orders that they have or requests from their customers because this\ncan be an office process, it can be electronic. It doesn&#8217;t matter what the business\nis doing, most everybody has an end customer or a recipient of their products\nor services that they offer and that product and service takes a certain amount\nof time to complete internally and sometimes it takes longer than they want it\nto take and it&#8217;s not as fast as the customers want it or there&#8217;s quality issues\nthat the customer doesn&#8217;t get what they want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So whatever\nthe problem is, if it&#8217;s too slow or not good enough quality or it costs too\nmuch or it&#8217;s too environmentally damaging, the process, whatever the issue is,\nthe methodology I teach is just about let&#8217;s work through that problem to some\nstructured way of solving it. So the training is just to kind of introduced them\nto some of the concepts and tools and how we will solve some of the most problems\nand teach people how to solve it themselves eventually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the\ntypical day for me is all over the place. It could be I&#8217;m teaching a class for\nfour or five days in a row, it could be at a conference room hotel for the\ngeneral public through the other consultancy, it could be me meeting with a client\nand working through a specific problem, it could just be meeting with the client\nto talk about strategy and plans, it could be me working on some data analysis\nand sending it to them. I&#8217;ll review other people&#8217;s projects and certify them to\nthe Lean or Six Sigma criteria, so it could be phone calls with somebody,\nwalking them through their next steps on their project improvement that they&#8217;re\ndoing. So it varies a lot each day, which is pretty nice. Sometimes, I have to\nremind them like, &#8220;Can you remind me where we left off?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; Because you&#8217;re wearing so many different hats\nall the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; Yeah. I&#8217;ve talked to 10 different people in\nthe last couple of days, I can&#8217;t remember what we talked about two weeks ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; So you need a refresher after working with so\nmany different companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; And then it comes back to me in another\ncouple of minutes. But that\u2019s nice that you get a lot of flexibility and unique\nthings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; Since we&#8217;re talking a little bit about the\ncompanies that you&#8217;ve worked with, there&#8217;s one particular question that I was\nlooking for, let&#8217;s see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; I can tie it back to the Recycling Advocates while\nyou&#8217;re working on that too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; Yeah, go ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; When I was working at the aerospace company, I\nwas running the Green Team and so I was trying to get a group of employees\ntogether to start talking through and saying what can we do to help with\nenvironmental projects in the company. And so I found some people who were\ninterested in that and set up a monthly meeting and we would just get together.\nThe city of Portland has the Sustainability at Work program and we were in\nClackamas County in Wilsonville, and so the local counties had a similar\nprogram so we took the checklist and started going through that checklist with\nsome help with the Clackamas County Solid Waste Advisor. That process really\nhelped us get a jumpstart and some momentum at that facility. We got through\nand got to their gold level certification with the business, but I made a lot of\ngreat connections there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Recycling\nAdvocates, at the time, Betty Patton was the president and she had set up a\nmeeting to talk about green teams and I&#8217;m like, &#8220;Cool. I want to network\nwith other green team people because I feel like I&#8217;m on an island by myself.&#8221;\nSo I met her and then, long story short, started coming to meetings, joined the\nboard shortly after that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; And then became president. So how does that\u2026?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; Yeah. And then Betty retired and she kind of\nasked if I could take over and I just had started the consulting, so I said, &#8220;You\nknow, actually, I&#8217;ve got a little flexibility with my work schedule now,\nalthough I am starting a new business. I don&#8217;t know how effective I&#8217;ll be, but\nI&#8217;ll give it a shot. I don&#8217;t know what I&#8217;m doing. If you&#8217;ll help me and help\nnavigate me through this, I&#8217;ll give it a try.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; And can you explain to people what Recycling\nAdvocates does exactly in Portland?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; They\u2019ve been around since 1989, over 30 years\nnow, set up by Jean Roy. She&#8217;s done amazing things throughout the community, setting\nup different nonprofit organizations. And so, initially, at the time, there\nreally was not a lot of recycling options and so it was an organization to give\na voice to local citizens to be able to advocate for better recycling options\nin the community. And so from there, there&#8217;s some history and connection back\nto the Master Recycler program. I think they were involved in helping develop\nsome of the curriculum for that program. But over the years, the system has\nchanged a lot, for the better, and gotten really good. I mean, there&#8217;s still\nopportunities and things that need to be improved, we all know that. So when I\ntook over, I was trying to figure out where do we go from here, so we tried a\ncouple of things. We did the Zero Waste Conference last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; Which was wildly successful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; Yeah, it was great, and hope to do another\none soon, that would be great. And just trying to figure out what is the\ncurrent needs in the community and where do we fit in, as an organization, to\nprovide a voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; Yeah, and you&#8217;re also pushing for the Bring\nYour Own Cup too. Can you talk about that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; That was when I joined, they were just\nstarting to talk about the next campaign. And so they talked about some things\naround to-go containers, but also Go Box had been in place as well, so how do\nwe work together with them? we\nkind of stepped back and we kept coming back to coffee cups a lot because Portlanders\nlove coffee. The confusion around the coffee cup was more and more evident as\npeople said, &#8220;This looks like paper. I&#8217;m going to throw it in my recycling\nbin.&#8221; So the contamination aspect of it was huge and then we started\ngetting some rough numbers and that&#8217;s where we came up with this 15 million\ncups a year in Portland get consumed and thrown away for a single-use item.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; When Jocelyn mentioned that in the Go Box\ninterview, I was stunned by that number.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; And that&#8217;s a rough number we came up with;\nit&#8217;s probably more than that. But we knew, at least that number, we can feel\npretty comfortable with, probably upwards of 100 million cups. So we all kind\nof nodded and said, &#8220;Yeah, this is something we can go deal with. It&#8217;s two\nlevels, it&#8217;s why are we doing that? there\nare options. You don&#8217;t have to use a disposable cup, and the contamination.&#8221;\nAnd so there&#8217;s a two-pronged approach is to educate the coffee customers and the\ncoffee shops, and then also the public about if you do have to have a cup,\nwhere does it go, and it goes in the trash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; Since we&#8217;re talking about with people and\nsince you&#8217;re in both fields, where do you feel like is the driver of change? do you feel like it&#8217;s with the\ngovernment or do you feel like it&#8217;s with the people?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; I have, over the years, changed and I think\nit&#8217;s the people. We all, every day, make choices and decisions that drive the\nbusinesses. Ultimately, they&#8217;re responding to us. So if we like convenience and\nsingle-use items, they&#8217;re going to produce that. And they might drive it\ninitially, but it&#8217;s up to us to decide not to choose those options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; What made you change? You said it&#8217;s different\nnow, so can you explain that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; I think, at first, I was thinking that the\ngovernment needs to step in and regulate these items or incentivize or make\nrules against it. And there is a place for that, but ultimately, as I even assessed\nmy own buying decisions and purchasing, I think it kind of stood out like is\nthis really where I want to be spending my own money? and if I&#8217;m not supporting the businesses that I like, I&#8217;m\nnot sending them the clear signal that they need. In our society, if we&#8217;re going\nbased on\u2026 The businesses are going to provide what the customers want and so if\nthey want convenience and single-use and the customers keep buying those things,\nyou&#8217;re telling the business that that&#8217;s what you like and they&#8217;re going to keep\ndoing what you like. So ultimately, why you&#8217;re seeing, I think, a change in how\nbusinesses are reacting in some of the new businesses coming up that are being\nsuccessful as they&#8217;re responding and people are supporting those businesses and,\nwithout that, they can&#8217;t make it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So ultimately,\nI think it comes back to the individuals. We vote for the people we want in our\noffices, the decisions at the government level, and we spend our money, every\nday, and every dollar is a vote for that business and so I really think it has\ncome back to we, as individuals, have to make that decision every day. And\nsometimes it&#8217;s hard because the best option is inconvenient to get to and it\ncosts more money sometimes, but it&#8217;s really you have to be really committed to\nsay, &#8220;This is really important to me and it&#8217;s worth it and I know this is\nhelping. In some way down the line, it&#8217;s going to make a difference. It&#8217;s going\nto make this business last a little bit longer and get enough time in there to\nget the exposure that it needs for it to take off.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; I&#8217;m also about the individual too. I think\nthat one of the biggest examples I always lead with this is the organic food\nmovement. I feel like that really started with the people. It was just people\njust asking for organic food and now it&#8217;s just the common norm. Now businesses\nare like, &#8220;Oh crud, we&#8217;ve got to start making organic produce if you want\nto survive,&#8221; and so now you see organic everywhere. First, it was just in\nyour little grocery stores and I remember just seeing it from time to time, and\nnow, it&#8217;s just like it&#8217;s the common norm, so I think that&#8217;s a great example of\nthat too. And I think it&#8217;s really cool, also talking about the plastic too, I\nthink people are becoming more aware that it&#8217;s also affecting our bodies too\nwith all the plastic that we are pouring hot coffee into our cups and packaged\nthings too and how it affects us in the long term, so I&#8217;m all about the\nindividual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I want to go\nback a little bit. There&#8217;s a specific question that I actually have for your consultancy.\nWhat are the common areas of improvement that you see in businesses that you\nconsult with?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; I would say that there are some, I call it,\neasy things that sometimes they just need to focus some attention on a problem\nand the solution isn&#8217;t that difficult or challenging. Like they kind of have\nsome ideas already, they just need to sit down and focus their attention on it.\nIt&#8217;s easy to get wrapped up in the day-to-day activities and it&#8217;s hard to step\nout and spend time fixing the process when you&#8217;re in it all the time and it&#8217;s a\nchallenge and you just want to get through the day. So one big challenge is\nactually carving out time for businesses to make improvements in their work. Once\nthey do that, the solutions are not difficult to do. It&#8217;s probably they have\nsome great ideas already, they just haven&#8217;t really spent the time to go step\naway and work on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s one\nthing I encourage is let&#8217;s carve out some time, each day or each week, for your\nteam to step back, look at what&#8217;s going on, and really rethink is this the best\nwe can do this? Are there ways I can simplify this or, in some cases, automate?\nBut that&#8217;s not always the best option. I would rather them make the process\nsimpler and easier and then, later, you can automate it. Sometimes, they just\nautomate a bad process that doesn&#8217;t really fix it. So that&#8217;s one piece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; I think that&#8217;s a really interesting example. I&#8217;ve\nnever heard of that &#8211; just carving out time to just reassess and look at the\nwhole picture then. Because I agree, I think sometimes we can just get so stuck\nin the day-to-day and think, &#8220;I need to do this. I need to be busy,&#8221;\nbut by taking steps back and reassessing with your team is really valuable in\nitself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; There&#8217;s a natural reaction to be afraid or\nfear problems and talking about problems. That&#8217;s one of the big elements on the\nLean methodology is that you have to be comfortable bringing up and talking\nabout problems. Otherwise, you&#8217;ll never be able to solve them if you can&#8217;t\nhonestly talk about it and without fear. That you cannot fear like I&#8217;m going to\nget in trouble or I&#8217;m going to get fired or get written up because I brought up\nthis issue. It&#8217;s we have to be very transparent and be able to say, &#8220;Lay all\nthe problems on the table so we can actually see which ones we have to deal\nwith.&#8221; If I only talk about half the problems and the other ones are\nburied and hidden, I&#8217;m not getting a full picture and I&#8217;m not working on the\nright stuff, potentially. So the first thing is trying to get people to just\nbring forward all the problems and lay them all out. That&#8217;s difficult for some\norganizations that are &#8211; we were talking off-line earlier about are people\ncomfortable talking about issues and problems. So that&#8217;s the first barrier\nthere, is to make it okay to bring up those problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then once\nyou have time to go work on those problems, you can start chipping away at\nthose but the problems never go away. Individual problems go away if you can\nfix them correctly, but problems, in general, are always going to be there. You\ntake the best running organization and you will go in there and, within an hour,\nyou will find hundreds of problems and things they need to fix. So once you get\ninto the mindset that problems are just things we have to deal with all the\ntime and they&#8217;re never going to go away completely, there will just be new\nproblems and challenges that come up, so let&#8217;s get used to the fact that we&#8217;re going\nto have problems all the time. It&#8217;s just picking the right ones to work on and\nthen actually spending time working on those problems and getting out of the\nday-to-day chaos and firefighting that we&#8217;re used to just to chip away at those\nproblems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; I think it&#8217;s so interesting that you talk\nabout being able to put your problems in the forefront and being able to accept\nthem because I think about the company Toms. They got a lot of flak because\nthey&#8217;re all about giving a shoe to a child in need. What happened was they got\na lot of flak because cobblers were losing their jobs in the villages that they\nwere in because people were like, &#8220;I don&#8217;t need to hire a cobbler. I can\nget a free shoe over here.&#8221; I think Toms did it the best way that they\ncould, which was understanding the problem, accepting the problem, and then\nbeing like what can we do as a company?\nand so they started building factories there and actually hiring the cobblers\nto work with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But I think\nthat this is just an interesting topic but because I feel like, especially in\nthe sustainability world, I feel like sometimes it&#8217;s like either you&#8217;re right\nor you&#8217;re wrong a lot of the time. It&#8217;s always like how do we find those\nmissing holes that people are like, &#8220;Yeah, your company is great, but\nyou&#8217;re not doing X, Y, and Z,&#8221; or, &#8220;Yes, you&#8217;re zero waste, but\nyou&#8217;re not vegan,&#8221; or trying to nitpick at all the little problems for\nthat. I think the same is with companies too, I think people are just afraid to\neven say if there&#8217;s something a little bit off about their company. Like, yes,\nthey want to be perceived as the best company possible, but I think that fear\nof showing problems is a real thing. I just think it&#8217;s really interesting that\nyou&#8217;re discussing that for a company, that that&#8217;s one of their biggest issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; I think that prevents people dealing with the\nreal issues that are going on. So once they can start laying those problems out,\nwhich is difficult and there&#8217;s cultures that have been built up that that&#8217;s a\nbad thing. If you have problems, then you&#8217;re not doing your job correctly and\nwe don&#8217;t trust you anymore. But it&#8217;s really about how you deal with the\nproblems has to be more important and how you bring your team along with you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It can&#8217;t be\nthat one person is fixing everything because you&#8217;ve just taken on all that\nweight on your shoulder as a manager or a supervisor of that area, if you are\nthe ones trying to fix everything. You have a whole team of people that can\nalso fix problems, you\u2019ve just got to trust them and give them the ability to\nlearn how to do it right. That&#8217;s what I try to teach is techniques to solve\nproblems, but it takes time to practice that and you have to be okay with\nsometimes our solutions don&#8217;t work and that&#8217;s a learning experience. We&#8217;re not\ngoing to be perfect at first, but we&#8217;re going to practice this and, eventually,\nover a couple of years, we&#8217;re going to get really good at this and then we&#8217;ll be\nable to solve any problem that comes our way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So once they\ndo start working on improvements, I would say half the time, it&#8217;s pretty\nstraightforward what they need to do. They already know, they just haven&#8217;t\nspent the time doing it. The other piece is there are some techniques and some\nanalysis that can help them solve problems that they haven&#8217;t been able to solve,\nmore challenging things. How they do their work, whether it&#8217;s a batch or\nsmaller batches or one at a time, makes a difference in how fast they can go\nand how much backlog you have in your process. So there are some technical\nthings that I teach that people don&#8217;t think about or are confused about until\nthey see it in action and then they&#8217;re blown away by they thought they were\ndoing it a really efficient way and I show them that there&#8217;s better ways to do\nthings, different tasks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; What are your thoughts on companies that do\nmade-to-order, meaning that when a customer decides to buy a T-shirt, they\nspecifically make that T-shirt for that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; That&#8217;s great. I think you tie it to we don&#8217;t\nhave to predict what the customer wants. We wait for the customer to tell you\nwhat they want. That&#8217;s called a pull system. A push system is let&#8217;s forecast\nand guess at how many shirts and pants and hats we need to make or how many\nvehicles we need to make or how many you name whatever the product is. Let&#8217;s\nguess and we&#8217;ll make a bunch of these and ship them all around and hope that\nthat meets the demands. The problem is you&#8217;re not going to get that right and so\nyou&#8217;re going to make too many of certain things and you&#8217;ll have to discount\nthem or you&#8217;re going to not make enough and you&#8217;re going to run out. And so it\ngets very difficult to try to predict those things, so it&#8217;s better to set up a\nprocess that is very responsive to the actual customers&#8217; demands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A pull\nsystem would be like let&#8217;s put out two shirts, two large shirts, on the\nshowroom floor and then, when somebody orders one large one, we send the signal\nback to the supplier that, &#8220;On your next delivery, please send us one more\nlarge.&#8221; And so you buy one and then you replenish one and that would be\ninstead of saying, &#8220;We&#8217;re going to ship you 300 and we hope that that\ncovers you,&#8221; you set things up in smaller orders and very responsive. If\nnobody orders a large shirt, it sits there but no other shipments come in\nbecause there&#8217;s no signal back to the supplier that anyone is buying it, and so\nit&#8217;s very responsive and flexible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So that, I\nthink, is ideal is you only make what the customer wants or provide that\nservice when they ask for it directly, not spending time hoping that they might\nneed it and find out I wasted all that time. I could&#8217;ve been doing something\nelse or making something else or not having to figure out how to get rid of all\nof these excess items that nobody wanted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; That are sitting there. I relate to that. As\nsomebody who&#8217;s worked in the fashion industry, I relate to that all too well\nwhere you have an idea, you think you know what you want to make for the\ncustomer and then, once it&#8217;s out there, and some people\u2026 Of course, sometimes\nyou get traction, but sometimes you don&#8217;t and then there&#8217;s just inventory\nsitting there too. That was the big one for me when I was\u2026 I used to be a\nfashion designer and I made it all in California, I sewed it all myself and I was\nas sustainable as I could, but if it didn&#8217;t sell, then it would just sit there.\nIt would sit in inventory and I thought what&#8217;s the point? if somebody&#8217;s not wearing this and it&#8217;s not going anywhere,\nwhat&#8217;s the purpose of it all? I didn&#8217;t know that those are two different\nmethods of, you said pull and\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; A pull and a push. A push is, &#8220;Here you\ngo. Take what we&#8217;re going to give you.&#8221; A pull is, &#8220;You tell me what\nyou need at the right time.&#8221; A pull is harder to do and that&#8217;s why it&#8217;s\neasier and sometimes we&#8217;re incentivized to do the push because, hey, you need\nto buy 100 of these to get the price discount you want. It sounds good and\nthat&#8217;s why people bulk buy &#8211; &#8220;Look, I can get this price per\u2026 I can buy\nthree dozen bananas and save 20%,&#8221; but if I end up having to discard or\ncompost 20% of those, did I actually save money? and then I had to store all of those bananas in one spot\nand now I need more space. And so it creates some short-term incentives to do\nthe push or the batch work and the long-term is actually go into smaller\namounts, but you may end up saving money in the long run when you do actually\ndo the numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; But you&#8217;re saying pull is more difficult for\nbusiness?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; Yeah. You have to have your processes dialed\nin really well to be that responsive and flexible to respond like your customer\ndemands change. So yeah, it&#8217;s a maturity thing to get to that point, but\nusually, it&#8217;s much more cost-effective in the long run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; Can we talk a little about that? I feel like\nI hear, from so many businesses that, let&#8217;s say, aren&#8217;t as sustainable, say, &#8220;I&#8217;d love to do that, but it&#8217;s more\nexpensive,&#8221; or, &#8220;We don&#8217;t have the budget for that.&#8221; Can you\ndebunk that a bit or just talk about that a bit?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; Yeah. I don&#8217;t know if I&#8217;ll be able to solve that.\nPart of it is that the way they&#8217;re looking at the numbers can be skewed. They&#8217;re\nlooking at purely financial numbers and our financial system doesn&#8217;t account\nfor environmental impact very well. I&#8217;d love to see that change someday because\nI think the businesses would actually fall in line perfectly if you had the\nincentives, financially, for any impact they have negatively to the planet,\nwhether it&#8217;s a carbon tax or something like that. The businesses are making a\nlot of financial decisions. They&#8217;re not always looking at the triple bottom\nline, however, and so are they really incorporating the environmental impact\nand the impact to their workers and the community in those decisions? kind of like Toms example you gave. Maybe,\nfinancially, that makes sense that they could lower the cost of the shoes in the\nmethod they chose, but did they calculate or impact the effect on the community\nand the cobblers and the local residents and what that would do. Maybe they\ntried and they underestimated the impact it would have. So first is most\ncompanies still operate in just looking at the profit and loss piece of it and\nnot incorporating a broader view and partly because it&#8217;s hard to get those\nnumbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s hard to\nbalance clear financial numbers with this vague environmental impact. Like how\nmuch does it cost to use 200,000 extra kilowatt-hours? you get charged for it, but you&#8217;re not paying for the\nenvironmental impacts that goes with that as well. If that was factored in,\nthey could make better financial decisions that way. So, one, I think that we&#8217;re\nalways going to be battling this when the externality costs are not being\nfactored into business decisions, so I&#8217;d like to see that improved. I don&#8217;t\nknow if that will happen anytime soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; I was going to say, do you see that being\nsomething that the government would incentivize or what?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; Yeah, I think it&#8217;s going to have to be that\nbecause the companies are not going to voluntarily. Some do, but the majority\nof the companies probably having the biggest impact are not going to voluntarily\nsay, &#8220;We&#8217;re going to add costs to our expenses to factor in these\nexternalities.&#8221; So I think it&#8217;s going to have to be pushed from the\ngovernment side to them to say this is how it&#8217;s going to be, so that we can\nproperly, if you&#8217;re responsible for this, you need to pay for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Polluter\npays model is really what we&#8217;re trying to say. It&#8217;s not you can do what you\nwant, but you&#8217;re going to pay for the full impact of your decisions. Not some\nof the impact and then someone then in society is going to cover the rest of\nthe bill, which is what&#8217;s happening today with the use of coal and who&#8217;s paying\nfor the asthma treatments for the kids who live near there? that is the piece that&#8217;s missing\ntoday in the business models and so some way to factor that into the decision\nthat says this is going to cost us more and now I can make a better trade-off\nbecause I am paying for those externalities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I can&#8217;t\nremember where we were going, but the financial problem is a challenge. Good\ncompanies are factoring that in as best as they can, but oftentimes, the\nfinancials are very clear, the other stuff is vague. The impact in healthcare\nto the community and the environmental damage it&#8217;s causing, those numbers are\nnot as clear and hard, and so the companies, I think, revert back to what does\nthe profit and loss say and they make decisions that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; I&#8217;m just digesting that a little bit. I think\nit&#8217;s just a question that I don&#8217;t think maybe we can answer during this episode.\nFor me, I think about, yes, a large company, it does affect the kids&#8217; health or\nsomething like that too, but some companies might just be like so what? for me, of course, that doesn&#8217;t\nrelate to me at all, but I think some companies can be like, yes, that&#8217;s bad,\nbut what can I do with my company do that and how does that benefit me as a\ncompany?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; Each company, though, is made up of\nindividuals and many of us have worked in big companies and we felt like what\ncan I do? but we can influence\nand we can ask those questions in there, but I think sometimes it feels like\nthe machine, especially like a company that is a for-profit, a publicly held\ncompany that has quarterly statements that they have to make, finance, they&#8217;re\nin there. The questions aren&#8217;t being asked about, okay, that&#8217;s great. Let&#8217;s\nlook at your financial statements. Now let&#8217;s talk about your social\nresponsibility. That&#8217;s not part of their quarterly calls and that&#8217;s not part of\nwhat they&#8217;re being held to and that doesn&#8217;t affect their stock price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But if those\nthings were being discussed and said, &#8220;Okay, we&#8217;re going to decide to\ninvest in you based on your triple bottom line approach, not just your\nfinancial impact,&#8221; that would change things. I&#8217;ve seen some good progress\nwith investor groups that said we&#8217;re not going to invest in committees who don&#8217;t\nhave a social responsibility report and are serious about that. Like BlackRock\nhas already said we are moving in a direction that we&#8217;re not just looking at\nprofit and loss because we know that&#8217;s not a good indicator for long-term\nhealth of a company. So when those things start changing, that will help some\nof the bigger companies say this is what the investor group wants us to do and\nnow it&#8217;s important to the company to consider those things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But today, it&#8217;s\nstill so much focused on the financials. We don&#8217;t measure the big impact; we\nlook at the gross domestic product, which is a measure of finances. It doesn&#8217;t\nincorporate the full picture. The example that just blew me blew me away, I\nthink it was in a Master Recycler class, that a woman who takes her child to\nthe library produces nothing for the GDP, but an oil spill in the Gulf of\nMexico produces millions of dollars in GDP growth for someone who had to pay to\nclean up the oil spill. That&#8217;s looked at as more positive than somebody who&#8217;s\nstaying at home, taking care of their child, and going to the library and using\nthe free resources there. We can&#8217;t be making decisions about the health of our\neconomy based on a number that is flawed and misrepresents, I think, what\npeople would value in our society. That&#8217;s a whole other topic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; Wow. I&#8217;m processing that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; I got into consulting because I wanted to\nwork with businesses where I didn&#8217;t have to\u2026 That wasn&#8217;t even on the table. They\nwould be interested in making choices that were for the community, for the\nenvironment, and for their workers, and also good for business too, and you can\ndo that, it&#8217;s possible. But I wanted to work with companies who already understood\nthat. I didn&#8217;t have to convince them that the financial method, there&#8217;s other\nways to look at it. I just wanted to go and work with the B-Corporations and\nnonprofits and these organizations that I know that already have that mindset\nand help them be successful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; I feel like so many of big companies now,\nthere&#8217;s like Loop with Procter &amp; Gamble, that&#8217;s a huge shift also. I feel\nlike, now, I&#8217;m seeing so many companies that are trying to say this is plastic-free.\nI think there is definitely a shift. As a consultant, have you seen more\ncompanies that are reaching out to you because it just seems like that&#8217;s the\nway customers are starting to be more like?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; I think, definitely, the business are growing\nand that is exciting because that means that&#8217;s more people I could go help and\nwork with. Some companies I reached out, I didn&#8217;t know what they do, so I&#8217;m\nlearning and, &#8220;I had no idea there was a whole business wrapped around\nthis. This is very interesting.&#8221; Even Renewal Workshop, I knew about them\nthrough, I think, the Master Recyclers class, but then having the opportunity\nto go work with businesses like that is really cool. But it&#8217;s still new for\nthem on the process improvement stuff because a lot of them don&#8217;t come out of\u2026\nThey came out from mission-driven purpose. The same with the nonprofits. They\ndidn&#8217;t set up the nonprofit with maybe a business background; they set it up\nfor a passion around the problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so\nwhereas, in a larger company, you have a lot of people with engineering degrees\nand they would have been exposed to some of these methods and techniques,\nperhaps in school, or they take an MBA program because that&#8217;s how you move up\nin the company, and so they&#8217;re exposed to it through the MBA programs that they\ngo through, but a lot of the organizations that I&#8217;m reaching out to, they come\nup through a different channel. Which is great, but they don&#8217;t necessarily have\nthe same business background as some of the larger companies that traditionally\nwould ask for this kind of help in process improvement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; I feel like I am way more familiar with\nmission-driven businesses. I didn&#8217;t know that those were two different things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:\u00a0 In general, I would say. There&#8217;s definitely people who worked in a big company with all that background and then just said I don&#8217;t want to do this and I want to do something different, but I would say there&#8217;s a lot that got into the business and it was just kind of by accident. I think Tofurkey was like that. They started off as I&#8217;m just making some tempeh. I didn&#8217;t know this was going to turn into a billion-dollar company. In fact, the story seems like they barely made it. Many times, they struggled and now they&#8217;re a huge company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; So is that mission-driven?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; Yeah, I think it was just filling a void and\ntrying to come up with something to make some money for a job. You stick with\nit long enough and, all of a sudden, you help change a movement around vegan\nfood and the company is worth billions of dollars. I don&#8217;t think that was the\ngoal going into it &#8211; I&#8217;m going to build this billion-dollar company. I think\nsome of it is it comes out of that passion for a problem or an issue, not so\nmuch of how do I build a business that I can sell or get an IPO around and then\nmake a lot of money, which maybe a lot of companies started that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; Sometimes, yeah. If I was listening and I was\njust starting a mission-driven business, what advice would you have for them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; I would say start with the simplest, smallest\nsolution you can provide to a customer and get it in front of them and get\nfeedback on that idea. Don&#8217;t invest in a huge amount of stuff or things or\nitems or infrastructure. Find your customers or find the people you want to\nwork with and just figure out what problems they have and then try to figure\nout if your solution can help them or not, or change and modify your solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Where I&#8217;m at,\ntoo, is I&#8217;m working with these organizations and saying this is what I offer,\nbut maybe that&#8217;s not what they need. Maybe they&#8217;re not ready for my help or\nmaybe I need to approach it differently or there&#8217;s parts of my consulting I\nneed to shift directions on, depending on where they&#8217;re at in their maturity or\nknowledge levels. So I think being very flexible starting off, but getting in\nfront of the people that you want to work with and help and not locking into a\nsolution of how you&#8217;re going to help them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There&#8217;s a\nmethodology called Lean Startup that is geared around that is how to provide a\nminimum viable product and test it out, a low-scale, low-risk, get feedback,\nand then adjust as you get that feedback from the people who actually might pay\nor want that product or service you&#8217;re offering. I think that would be one\nthing so you don&#8217;t go in saying, &#8220;Here, I&#8217;ve got this great idea and I&#8217;m\ngoing to throw all of this money,&#8221; or effort or time into it and find out\nlater there&#8217;s nobody that wants what I have to offer because I didn&#8217;t really\nunderstand my customers. So I would say look into that methodology if you&#8217;re\njust starting off because I think it will give you some really good ideas\naround testing your ideas first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; There&#8217;s a term, and excuse my cussing,\nthere&#8217;s \u201cship the shit,\u201d which is something that people talk about in the\nproduct design world, is that you&#8217;ve got to ship it as soon as possible. Even\nif it&#8217;s crap, just get it out there, get feedback from people. Because I think\nthat, a lot of the time, I&#8217;ve seen it actually happen a lot where somebody will\nbe very wrapped up in their idea or their business and they\u2019ll be like it needs\nthis and it needs to be perfect and it&#8217;s got to be X, Y, and Z and it&#8217;s got to\nbe this sort of look and they drive so much time and money and investment into\nit and nobody has even seen it. There&#8217;s nobody there that&#8217;s even going to give\nfeedback and you&#8217;re not going to even know that something that was so clear to\nyou may not even translate for your customer or there might not be a large\nenough audience that even wants that product. So I think that&#8217;s really good\nadvice for somebody who&#8217;s starting up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; I think like the food carts and the pop-up shops,\nI think that&#8217;s a perfect example of you have something to offer, don&#8217;t invest\nin a building and put up a storefront, hire employees, and then, in six months,\nyou&#8217;re completely out of all your life savings. There&#8217;s so much simpler ways\nthat you can go about that that will be less risky and get you to what you\nreally want, which is helping, usually, that customer or some mission. It may\nchange your solution, but you&#8217;re still going to achieve your mission or your\ngoal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Especially\nif you&#8217;re mission-driven, the solution may change but your vision won&#8217;t change\nbut it may be different than what you originally thought it would be. So if you\nstay focused on what the end result you&#8217;re trying to achieve is, then you can\nbe flexible with what your solution ends up looking like. Don&#8217;t get so wrapped\nup in that solution that you won&#8217;t give up that idea when you hear the feedback\nis telling you to go in a different direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; So you think pop-up shops and food trucks\nare\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; It&#8217;s a way to test out on a lower-cost scale.\nAnd maybe even before the food cart, there&#8217;s simpler ways to just have a free\ndinner and give out food and ask for feedback and modify and change it &#8211; &#8220;Would\nyou pay $5 for this? would you\npay $10 for this?&#8221; That feedback is hard to ask because you&#8217;re going to\nfind out, very quickly, if your solution is going to work and it&#8217;s scary for\npeople. They&#8217;re going to want to know, it&#8217;s too scary. If they don&#8217;t like it,\nwhat do I do? but if you say it\nmay change, but if you end up helping achieve that mission, isn&#8217;t that what you\ngot into this for? so have that flexibility;\ndon&#8217;t get tied down to that solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; Yeah, because then people can get so wrapped\nup with that one thing and once they get feedback and it&#8217;s completely shut down,\nit&#8217;s just like, &#8220;Oh my gosh, I&#8217;ve spent two years working on this and I\nfinally got feedback and now I realize, oh shoot, I should have adjusted this.&#8221;\nWhat you&#8217;re saying is have a lot of flexibility when you&#8217;re starting a business\nand be open to the critique and feedback that you&#8217;re receiving. I guess here&#8217;s\none question is, I think I find this too, is also who you&#8217;re getting feedback\nfrom. Because I feel like, sometimes, it&#8217;s important to listen to, especially\nas somebody who&#8217;s a consultant, listen to what everybody has to say, but is\nthere like a filter that you advise for that too? because sometimes you might not want to\u2026 That person might\nnot be the best person for advice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; Right. I would definitely look at the person and\nwhat their background is just to determine how much you should weigh their\ndecision and maybe where they&#8217;re coming from. Definitely not all advice should\nbe treated equally. And then sometimes you say, &#8220;I&#8217;m on to something. My\ngut says this is something I still want to go down. I&#8217;m hearing some pushback,\nbut I really believe in this,&#8221; and there&#8217;s a lot of successes that have\nhappened for people pushing through on an idea that no one really thought would\ntake off. You have to keep that in mind too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If your\nheart is there and you said, &#8220;All right, I&#8217;m going to give this a shot. I\nunderstand, I&#8217;m listening to the feedback, I&#8217;ve heard it, I&#8217;m taking it into account,\nbut I still believe in this,&#8221; trust your gut to some point too as long as\nyou&#8217;re open to hearing the other feedback. Don&#8217;t go in there blindly and say, &#8220;I\nwas ignoring that.&#8221; So it&#8217;s definitely take it into account and then take\nit into account based on who&#8217;s saying it for sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; Actually, I&#8217;m curious about I know you worked\nwith the company Green Banana Paper. Can you explain a little bit about that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; As part of my sustainability training, we had\nto do a paper or a presentation on one country that we pick. You can pick any\ncountry you want, but you have to describe the situation of the company right\nnow, what are their sustainability challenges that they have. I kept seeing, in\nthis drop-down menu, when you would select the state, it would show Federated\nStates of Micronesia. I always thought, &#8220;Is this a joke? did somebody put this in there and it\ngot stuck in one of the algorithms and then people have and copying and pasting\nthis US states drop-down menu and this got left in there or something?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One day, I\ndid a little research and it was like this is a whole island chain. It&#8217;s one\ncountry, but it&#8217;s thousands of islands spread out in the middle of the Pacific\nOcean that is actually a part of the US, kind of like a Puerto Rico. So they&#8217;re\nnot states, but they&#8217;re in an agreement or a compact with the US. After World\nWar II, they were a Japanese territory and we took over a lot of the islands. Then\nI said, &#8220;Maybe I&#8217;ll pick this one as my country,&#8221; and I started doing\na little research and it&#8217;s a very interesting place because they&#8217;ve kind of\nbeen left alone. I mean, the US supports them financially, and beautiful\nislands that are still very remote, very remote. So it just really intrigued me\nand I was like, &#8220;I&#8217;d like to go there someday and really see what&#8217;s going\non.&#8221; Because I like to travel, and I like traveling places that people\ndon&#8217;t go to. I don&#8217;t go to the large\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; You&#8217;re like my friend\u2019s partner\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; I moved to Dominica in the Caribbean and it&#8217;s\na very green, lush island, but not many people have been there. So stuff like\nthat, so I was like I want to go there someday. And so I was going through some\nKickstarter or something like that and I saw this wallet manufacturer that was\nmaking wallets out of Micronesia and I was like that&#8217;s cool, finally a business.\nBecause I looked at Kiva and I was always looking for interesting places to\ndonate and nothing ever came up in Micronesia, because I would look for that to\nsee if I could support because that was one of the things that I talked about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My\npresentation was they really need to build up their own economy because the\nfunding from the US is eventually going to go away and it&#8217;s always in turmoil\nwhether that&#8217;s going to last or not. It&#8217;s millions of dollars a year, hundreds\nof millions of dollars, and so I&#8217;m sure it&#8217;s always on the table for being cut\nat some point. So what they want to do is be self-sufficient and, to do that,\nthey need to build up their own economy, and so I was always looking for small\nbusinesses starting up that might want to help develop an economy for\nthemselves where they could get off of having to rely on the US and then say, &#8220;We\ncan do our own thing. We don&#8217;t have to do with the US wants us to do.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I saw\nthis initiative and I was like, &#8220;Cool. I&#8217;ll donate some money to this\nKickstarter to help this wallet manufacturer.&#8221; So I got on their\nnewsletter and I got a wallet &#8211; I&#8217;ll show you. This is a newer version.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; Oh wow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; This is a newer version of it, but it&#8217;s made\nout of banana fibers. They have a bunch of coconut and banana trees on the\nisland and when they die, they just kind of sit and rot and sometimes the farmers\nwill burn them just to clear the space so they can grow more trees, and so\nthere was just waste. They eventually will compost, but usually, they will burn\nthem to not wait around for that to happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So this guy,\nMatt Simpson, he was from the US, he went over and did some teaching work,\nvolunteer teaching work, fell in love with the island, and I think he got a job\nin Kosrae, which is one of the Micronesian islands, and he saw this business\nopportunity. He was doing all this research on what you can do with different\nfibers and things like that. They have a plethora of materials and they needed some\nbusiness. There was very few businesses on the island; they rely a lot on the\ngovernment. So he started figuring out how to operate and build this factory\nand he made this little facility that makes wallets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In his\nnewsletters that came out, he said, &#8220;We&#8217;re looking for volunteers to come\nand help us if you have skills or knowledge.&#8221; He was looking for, I think,\nsocial media and marketing and things like that and I threw out the idea that,\n&#8220;I can provide some training, if you&#8217;re interested in that. I need an\nexcuse to go to Micronesia. I&#8217;ve been wanting to go there and I&#8217;m a consultant\nnow, so I have flexibility to block off extended amounts of weeks. I would\nnever be able to do this before, but now I can block off a month or so if I\nwant to do this,&#8221; and he was like, &#8220;Sure. Actually, I&#8217;m learning this\non-the-fly. I could really use some professional help on how to run a business.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so we\nfigured out some dates and so I went out for five weeks. In part of his\nfacility, he built an apartment above the factory where he lives and the back\nis an apartment for people who are visiting and helping out. There&#8217;s like two\nhotels on the island. There&#8217;s not a lot of places to stay and it&#8217;s expensive to\ndo that if you&#8217;re there for five weeks. And so my job was to just look at their\noperations and give them some training on the Lean and Six Sigma methods, and\nthen work with him directly on coming up with more of a system on how he can better\nmanage, especially if he was going to be traveling and doing a lot of marketing\nstuff and remote work. It was amazing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; How long ago was that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; I left in end of May this year and then came\nback right after Fourth of July, so it was about five or six weeks total with travel,\nand it was really cool. People describe it as Hawaii 50 to 100 years ago in\nterms of the lack of development. There&#8217;s not high-rises, it&#8217;s pretty simple\nliving. Beautiful weather, beautiful scenery, just it was awesome. The people\nare wonderful and they&#8217;re excited about this business and trying to build\nsomething and they got some spending money and they like to see their product\nbeing sold all over the world and knowing that it comes from their island. They\nhave a lot of pride in that and he&#8217;s just trying to get this business going and\nturn it into a success. So I had really high expectations going in and it really\nmet all those expectations. It was a really amazing experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; It will be cool to see, after doing consulting\nwith them, to see how it kind of develops over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; And I&#8217;m hoping to send other people there to\ncontinue with that work. I&#8217;d like to go back and help again. I don&#8217;t know how\nquickly I can get back over there, but I made the connection, when I was there,\nwith someone who worked in Ohio who is in a healthcare organization. They have\na Lean and Six Sigma department, they have some people who might be interested\nin traveling over there to continue some of the work that I started. The cool\npart is he&#8217;s trying to make it fully sustainable. It&#8217;s a vegan product, he&#8217;s\ntrying to hit zero waste. Not only is this a cool experience, but you&#8217;re exactly\nthe type of businesses that I want to succeed and help and work with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so we\ndid some stuff on productivity of some of the sewing operations and looked at\nsome data and I was collecting data each shift and kind of recording to see who\nwas doing well and who was struggling with some of the different types of\nwallets, looking at some of the quality criteria and making sure that was clear\nand consistent, setting up kanban or pull systems so that they weren&#8217;t ordering\ntoo much of supplies. They have a challenge that it takes a couple of weeks for\nmaterial to get to them because it&#8217;s so remote. Like I said, most people have\nnever heard of Micronesia, let alone the island of Kosrae. It&#8217;s just a really\nunique place to go and visit. So that was a really awesome experience that I\nnever would&#8217;ve gotten to if I wasn&#8217;t doing consulting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; I was about to say, it&#8217;s so incredible that you&#8217;re\nconsulting job has such flexibility and you really can go from different places\nand meet really interesting businesses too. I think it&#8217;s really cool that you\ntransitioned into that. We&#8217;re wrapping up on our\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; Can I add one more thing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; Yes, please do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; I did that for free. I covered my travel and\nmy time there and I got paid in wallets, which was nice, for little bit of my help.\nBut I really had to take a step back when I started consulting. I really got\nwrapped up, initially, of how much money was I bringing in and I caught myself\nbeing so focused on am I making as much as I used to make. Then when I stepped\nback and said what is my goal here? it&#8217;s\nto stay busy enough that I can pay my bills and stuff like that, but these\nexperiences are really valuable. And so, initially, when people asked me how\nbusiness is going, I would say, &#8220;It&#8217;s going okay. I could be busier,&#8221;\nbut now, as I&#8217;m starting to think about it, it&#8217;s like it&#8217;s going awesome because\nI get to do what I want and I get to work on awesome projects and help great\npeople. And I don&#8217;t want to work all the time. I don&#8217;t want to work 50 hours or\n60 hours a week; if the needs are great. But my measure of my own success was\nstill jaded to the old system of how much money am I bringing in and what&#8217;s my\nsalary this year and I had to force myself to think through that that&#8217;s not\nreally what my goal is here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So that was\na mental shift that I had to make myself. Even though I was supposed to be helping\nbusinesses with triple bottom line, I was still thinking about it the old way\nof just how much client work do I have. So that&#8217;s really helped me step back\nand say this is going great because I get to have that flexibility and work\nwith the groups I work with, whether I&#8217;m super busy or not busy at all. It&#8217;s a\ndifferent way of measuring my own success of my consulting business, so that&#8217;s\nhelped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; Wow. I think a lot of listeners will relate\nto that, defining what your version of success is, too, because I think\neverybody&#8217;s is different. Some people, it&#8217;s profit, how much they make, and\nsome people, it&#8217;s the experiences that you have, which is kind of like isn&#8217;t it\nbetter to lead the life that you want to live than just going the day-to-day,\njust saying it pays, but what are you paying for?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; That experience was literally priceless. I\ncouldn&#8217;t put a number to it. It&#8217;ll be something that I&#8217;ll always remember and\nhope to go back at some point. So you can&#8217;t put that on a spreadsheet and\nmeasure that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; You can&#8217;t at all. Brion, one last comment. Thank\nyou for adding that. What is one piece of advice that you have for a starting ecopreneur?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B:&nbsp; I think, kind of along those same lines, I&#8217;ve\nkind of been reinforced with this following Gary Vaynerchuk, about just give away\nwhat you know and help people. It&#8217;s a longer strategy, but it just feels better.\nI don&#8217;t feel like I&#8217;m very good at marketing myself or selling what I offer,\nbut I&#8217;m happy to put in time and effort into things. Just early starting off, I\njust made stuff and put it out there and tried to do as much free stuff as\npossible, just to get out there and, eventually, things come back. It&#8217;s the\nconnections I made with some of the volunteer work that&#8217;s led to some client\nwork.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sometimes,\ntoo, the people I was volunteering with, they&#8217;ve said, &#8220;Hey, we&#8217;ve got\nsome money. We can actually pay you this time,&#8221; and that was a surprise and\nI didn&#8217;t expect that or think that would be a possibility. So I would say just\nhelp people with whatever skills you have and be useful and then we can work\nout the money and stuff later. And it may never come, but I think it&#8217;s just\neasier to just be present and be helpful and try to figure out how you can make\na difference. Some of that will be good for business and others will be free\nwork, but it will all pay off in the end I think, and it feels good and you\nmeet great people because they&#8217;re also there probably helping and volunteering\nand stuff. It goes back to this, what is the end result and what is success,\nand so I guess I would say just try to be helpful to people and the rest will\ntake care of itself in the long run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>V:&nbsp; Totally. I think one thing that I can&#8217;t\nremember which actor this was, but there&#8217;s a saying which is pay attention\nversus crave attention. Pay attention, as in help other people, be engaged with\nthe work that you like to do. Don&#8217;t crave trying to get in front of something\nor seeing how many followers you have or who&#8217;s listening. It&#8217;s just the more\nthat you create good quality content and the work that you love to do, just by\ndoing that will start growing to give to people. Brion, thank you so much for\nbeing on the podcast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hey, Ecopreneurs. Thanks for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode, come over and join me at <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-ecopreneur-show\/id1481607918\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Zero Waste Habit (opens in a new tab)\">Zero Waste Habit<\/a>. I&#8217;d love to hear your story and what positive impacts you&#8217;re making in the world. Anyways, I hope you&#8217;re having an awesome day and I hope to see you in the next episode. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this podcast, I was interviewed by Vanina Howan on her podcast called The Ecopreneur Show. She asked me about my background in sustainability, how I transitioned into consulting on my own, and how I got involved with Recycling Advocates. I&#8217;m really proud of how this interview turned out. We delve into a host of<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link\">\n\t\t\t\t <a href=\"http:\/\/leansixsigmaenvironment.org\/index.php\/e060-sustainability-consulting-interview-with-vanina-howan\/\" class=\"btn theme-btn\"><span>Continue Reading <\/span><i class=\"icofont-long-arrow-right\"><\/i><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3636,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,72,16,45,10],"tags":[273,520,97,518,357,521,134,224,327,74,99,122,135,227,440,522,519],"class_list":["post-3632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-carbon-footprint","category-employee-engagement","category-lean-six-sigma-tools","category-podcast","category-solid-waste","tag-business-performance-improvement","tag-clackamas-county","tag-coffee-cups","tag-ecopreneur-show","tag-green-banana-paper","tag-green-team","tag-lean","tag-lean-six-sigma","tag-lean-startup","tag-portland","tag-recycling-advocates","tag-rockwell-collins","tag-six-sigma","tag-sustainability","tag-university-of-iowa","tag-vanina-howan","tag-zero-waste-habit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/leansixsigmaenvironment.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/leansixsigmaenvironment.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/leansixsigmaenvironment.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leansixsigmaenvironment.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leansixsigmaenvironment.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3632"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/leansixsigmaenvironment.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3638,"href":"http:\/\/leansixsigmaenvironment.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3632\/revisions\/3638"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leansixsigmaenvironment.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/leansixsigmaenvironment.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leansixsigmaenvironment.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leansixsigmaenvironment.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}