15: Patagonia’s Rick Ridgeway: On A Mission to Save Our Home Planet
Patagonia is an outdoor apparel company based in Ventura, California with a mission to save our home planet. It was founded in 1976 by Yvon Chouinard and was the first B-Corporation in the state. Rick was Vice President of Environmental Initiatives and Special Media Projects for Patagonia for 15 years during which he founded the Sustainable Apparel Coalition. In addition to his accomplishments at Patagonia, Rick is recognized as one of the world’s foremost mountaineers. Along with Yvon and another friend, they were the first Americans to summit K2. He has done other significant climbs and explorations on all continents. In this conversation, Rick discusses why and how Patagonia is fulfilling their mission to save our home planet. He also talks about how Patagonia walks the walk when it comes to sustainability and how it measures its financial performance with the overall health of the planet.
13: AppHarvest’s Jonathan Webb: Growing The Future
AppHarvest is a high-tech controlled-environment agriculture company based in Morehead, Kentucky. AppHarvest is a B-Corp and is on a mission is to combine conventional agriculture techniques with today’s technology that will yield more crops with a fraction of the resources. Jonathan Webb is the Founder & CEO of AppHarvest. When he decided to build AppHarvest, he brought it to his hometown of Eastern Kentucky. In this episode, Jonathan shares why he decided to bring this project to his home state. He also shares why we need to act now on creating sustainable agriculture, and why this is the future of food.
24: Danone North America’s Deanna Bratter Talks Sustainability At The World’s Largest B Corp
Deanna Bratter heads up sustainability at the world’s largest public benefit corporation: Danone North America. It’s a $6 billion food and beverage company with a massive portfolio of well-known brands. It was so refreshing to get Deanna’s perspective on finding the intersections between purpose and profit when advocating for change within a behemoth organization like Danone. We also spoke about how the B Corp model has helped Danone define things like “living wage” and set benchmarks for progress, and how COVID spurred optimism amongst sustainability practitioners.
2: A Conversation with TOMS on Transforming Lives, Scaling Impact and Redefining Business
In this episode, I had a great conversation with Amy Smith, Chief Strategy and Impact Officer at TOMS. We talked about how TOMS is evolving how it turns business into a force for good and she gives great insights into the strategies and tactics they use t