Dr Bryan Staley Of Environmental Research & Education Foundation: 5 Things We Must Do To Inspire The Next Generation About Sustainability And The Environment

An Interview With Martita Mestey

Learn from the Source: Tour a recycling facility, compost facility, and a landfill. Research the effort and resources it takes to get food from farm to table. If we all truly understood this, we may think more before wasting food.

As a part of my series about what we must do to inspire the next generation about sustainability and the environment, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Bryan Staley.

Dr. Bryan Staley currently serves as President and CEO of the Environmental Research and Education Foundation (EREF), one of the largest sources of industry data, research funding, and scholarships related to solid waste management. He joined the EREF in 2008, where he started as Vice President of Environmental Programs, and has 28 years of experience in the environmental engineering field. Prior to EREF, Dr. Staley held key positions in consulting firms where he managed projects ranging from wastewater treatment system design to retail/commercial land development and environmental management of large-scale livestock operations.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about how you grew up?

I grew up on a small dairy farm in Maryland, and later in my teens we moved to North Carolina where we had a crop farm. As an only child on a small farm, I had to jump in and help my parents at a young age to make ends meet since we could not afford to hire farm hands. I drove a tractor raking hay at the age of 9 and was responsible for feeding the dairy cows and cleaning the barn at the end of the day. My mother was in the National Park Service and worked at different sites, including the Appalachian Trail office and the Carl Sandburg Home. As a result of these experiences, I spent a lot of time outdoors. After high school, I entered NC State University’s Biological & Agriculture Engineering program and spent multiple summers at an agriculture research experiment station in the mountains of North Carolina as well as for a landscape company.

Was there an “aha moment” or a specific trigger that made you decide you wanted to become a scientist or environmental leader? Can you share that story with us?

Farming is not so much an occupation as a way of life, and a farmer depends on nature for their very livelihood. For instance, most people chat about the weather as a form of small talk, but the weather can make or break a farmer. These aspects made me realize, even as a child, how intertwined and dependent our existence is on the environment. So, in this way I’d say I learned early on that one has to be a steward of the environment. It sustained us as a family growing up, and as I matured, I understood it also sustains us as a global community.

Additionally, I’ve always had an innate curiosity to understand how things work and wanted to fix things that were broken. On a farm, there are always things to do and to fix, and my dad was more than happy to show me the lawnmower that needed a new carburetor, pipes that needed soldering, or fences that needed to be repaired. Becoming an environmental engineer and scientist was a perfect way to connect the environment with solving problems.

Is there a lesson you can take out of your own story that can exemplify what can inspire a young person to become an environmental leader?

Never stop learning. Never stop being curious. These two traits, in my opinion, make someone great at something when others are simply good at it. By continuing to learn and being curious, you can’t help but grow. The more you know, the more experienced you get, and that allows you to express more competence in the field. In the environmental field, being inspirational will only get us so far, and people who inspire without sufficient knowledge have hampered progress toward better environmental solutions. It’s the inspiration coupled with the competency that helps solve the real-world problems we face in addressing climate change and other environmental issues. As a society, we can’t afford to get the science wrong, so environmental leaders need to be vigilant to ensure the best decisions are made. And the best decisions are the most informed decisions. I don’t see how informed decisions can be made unless someone has a desire to learn all they can in their field, which requires both passion and intellectual curiosity.

Can you tell our readers about the initiatives that you or your company are taking to address climate change or sustainability? Can you give an example for each?

The Environmental Research & Education Foundation’s (EREF) vision is to light the way to a more circular economy, and this is done by supporting and conducting research along with educational efforts. We’ve committed more than $20 million in research aimed at tackling sustainability issues, such as measuring greenhouse gas emissions, improving recycling, better composting and converting waste to resources.

We have over 30 active projects currently and have funded well over 100 projects in our history. We recently completed a project measuring landfill methane emissions using over 15 different technologies, including using satellites, aircraft, drones, and ground-based sensors. Ultimately, if we can accurately detect the source and amount of the emissions, we can more effectively eliminate them. Other projects include enhancing recycling in multi-family urban settings, which has always been a challenge, and evaluating which waste disposal options are most sustainable.

Can you share 3 lifestyle tweaks that the general public can do to be more sustainable or help address the climate change challenge?

1. Try to only buy the amount of food that you’ll eat. One of the largest components of the waste stream is food waste, which can lead to significant emissions, even if it’s composted, compared to not consuming it in the first place. Some of the biggest culprits are food items with shorter shelf lives, like fruits, vegetables, and dairy.
2. Do what you can to reduce your packaging and single-use container waste footprint (e.g. buy reusable coffee/beverage cups).
3. Don’t ‘wishcycle’. Do a little research and get familiar with what can and can’t go into the recycling bin. If it’s not recyclable and it’s placed in a recycling bin because we think it could be recycled, or want it to be recycled, this is called ‘wishcycling.’ It’s actually worse for the environment than if the item simply went into the landfill bin in the first place because the non-recyclable materials are transported to a recycling facility and then to a landfill, which doubles the emissions footprint.

The youth-led climate strikes of September 2019 showed an impressive degree of activism and initiative by young people on behalf of climate change. This was great, and there is still plenty that needs to be done. In your opinion, what are 5 things parents should do to inspire the next generation to become engaged in sustainability and the environmental movement?

1. Engage with the community: Join local efforts to clean and maintain your community. Get to know your own environment, like local wildlife and parks.
2. Encourage Curiosity and Critical Thinking Skills: Teach them about how our critical infrastructure works (e.g. garbage, water, sewer power, stormwater). This is poorly understood by many, and understanding these things provides unique insight into the impact we have on the environment. Discuss the environmental impact of everyday items (like plastic bags) and alternatives to them.
3. Lead by Example: Practice recycling and composting at home, and be informed so you can do it correctly. Make energy-efficient choices when you can: in transportation, where you make purchases, and how much you buy. Follow EREF online for sustainability tips!
4. Learn from the Source: Tour a recycling facility, compost facility, and a landfill. Research the effort and resources it takes to get food from farm to table. If we all truly understood this, we may think more before wasting food.
5. Stay Up to Date: Sign up for newsletters from reputable environmental organizations or news outlets. Choose sources that offer a mix of local, national, and global environmental news.

How would you articulate how a business can become more profitable by being more sustainable and more environmentally conscious? Can you share a story or example?

From an internal standpoint, businesses that use ‘just in time’ purchasing and data-driven approaches to manage inventories and manufacturing processes can substantially reduce the frequency of spoilage (e.g. food) and damaged inventory, both of which also take time to manage. It also increases personnel and disposal costs, which chips away at profitability. In many cases, a key element of becoming more sustainable is to establish data-driven systems that allow for better tracking and monitoring, which ultimately establish more efficiencies across multiple facets of the business.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

I’m sure most have heard the phrase “it takes a village.” In that respect, it certainly took a village for me! I can’t point to a particular person, but my life has been dotted with mentors and influencers that, when I look back, gave something to me that helped shape me: my parents, my scoutmaster (who was a wilderness survival instructor) who instilled confidence in my own abilities, a professor I worked for during the summers as a teen who reinforced my interest in research, and my academic advisors in graduate school who helped me polish my communications and critical thinking skills.

In addition to these learned skills, another key factor is that others were willing to take a chance on me. When I started at EREF, I had a number of years of work experience, but the Board of Directors took a chance on someone who had never led an organization. In many respects, on paper I would have been one of the last on the list. Despite that, I was given a chance to grow the organization. Many have said what opened that door was the passion they saw in what I do along with a humble attitude and a desire to do things right.

You are a person of great influence and doing some great things for the world! If you could inspire a movement that would bring the greatest amount of good to the greatest amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I believe the only thing standing in the way of our society achieving the greatest good is the understanding that, in reality, most people want the same things regardless of where we sit on this planet: purpose and happiness. What tends to stand in the way is differences in how we perceive the world, which creates conflict and intolerance. The environmental problems we face are systemic and global. We can’t solve them individually or even as individual countries. The movement I would inspire would be to shift perspectives toward what makes us similar versus what makes us different and seek to find the common ground to solve the challenges that affect us all.

Do you have a favorite life lesson quote? Can you tell us how that was relevant to you in your own life?

Henry Ford said, “Whether you believe you can or you can’t… you are right.” This quote really resonates with me because it exemplifies how critically important your mindset is to succeeding at most everything in life. With this frame of mind, a failure or struggle can be viewed as an opportunity to refine and improve. When this mindset is coupled with persistence, it’s a very powerful combination and creates a situation where very little stands in the way of success. I truly believe the successes I’ve achieved are the result of a positive, problem-solving-oriented mindset coupled with tenacious persistence to look for different ways to make something work if the first way(s) failed — which they often did!

What is the best way for people to continue to follow your work online?

Folks can visit our website, www.erefdn.org, to learn more about our work as an organization, volunteer, donate, and find resources on sustainability and our educational pathways. Everyone’s invited to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn, all those links are on our website.

This was so inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!