Change makers, Innovators, Leaders…Cool Hominids: A Recap of Season 1
The thesis behind the Cool Hominids Podcast was a simple one — getting inside the minds of the people working at the cutting edge of climate innovation. It led our host Peet Denny on a journey of interesting conversations, ideas shared and forward-facing discussions about hope and innovation.
Over the past eight podcast episodes, we’ve been treated to a fascinating series of conversations with founders doing amazing things in the fight against the climate emergency. Our guests are inspirational to us for many reasons, but especially this — they have taken the time to explore our history, the ways we interact with our world and are looking forwards, taking huge steps to help steer humanity towards a better future.
To us, they are all Cool Hominids.
Join us as we recap all of the episodes and some of the stand out moments of the season.
#1 Transforming Agriculture with Antony Yousefian of Bx
We kicked off the Cool Hominids Podcast with an insightful conversation with Antony Yousefian, founder of Bx, a company enabling growers to regenerate and repair the planet with Carbon negative food.
Peet and Antony explored the intersection between technology and agriculture, vertical farming and greenhouses and the food crisis facing us globally and how to deal with it. Key takeaways from the episode were:
- Borrowing from our future: Current agriculture processes mean that we’re essentially borrowing from our future — the agriculture industry is responsible for at least 20% of global emissions and is contributing to the killing of global ecosystems.
- Agriculture from a dual perspective: it is not just the emissions above ground that we should be looking at, but also the biodiversity in soil below the ground, which can be so important in sequestering carbon.
- Can nature repair itself?: If we allowed nature to repair itself would it do so? Antony explores the idea that by exploring soil in a certain way, it can and will repair itself, but we work against it.
- The opportunity of AgTech: this space represents an exciting opportunity, with agriculture being one of the last sectors that is still not digitised.
- Optimising for the right thing: Antony discusses the idea that humans have been increasingly optimising to produce cheaper and cheaper food in order to meet global demands, but explores how we should instead be optimising for improving and repairing the environment.
#2 The Future of Concrete with Liz Gilligan of Material Evolution
We enter into the second episode with a notable stat from host, Peet Denny — ‘In the time it takes you to read this sentence, the global building industry will have poured more than 19,000 bathtubs of concrete. And after water, it’s the most widely used substance on the planet, but it’s got a massive footprint’.
Our guest for this episode, Liz Gilligan from Material Evolution, is fighting to reduce this footprint and fully decarbonise the concrete industry. Material Evolution is an exciting company looking at how sustainable concrete can be created using geopolymer technology. We explored the concrete industry in more detail here, and how it can sometimes be overlooked in the fight against climate change.
There were many takeaways from this episode, but here are a few:
- The problem in concrete: the problem in the concrete industry is the cement. Cement is the glue that holds the aggregate and sand in concrete together, and that, Liz shares, is what is ‘costing us our planet’.
- Cement production is carbon intensive: The process for cement production is heavily carbon intensive, with one tonne of cement producing around 420 to 600 kilos of CO2.
- The changing face of concrete: concrete is an important component in our building ecosystem, and it is often under-utilised — but in its current production form is harmful. Liz is on a mission to change how we use it and the things we make from concrete.
- Human Skills vs Industry Impact: Liz and Peet discuss the intersection between human skills and the impact of the industry on the environment— how can we ensure that as we make changes to processes for the betterment of the environment, that we protect and enhance human skills and jobs? This is an important question that runs through many spaces in the fight against Climate change.
- Decarbonising Concrete: Material Evolution is also looking at tackling the other side of construction materials — waste — and how we can ensure that materials aren’t sent to landfills, but is instead used in a way that allows for industry to be fully decarbonised.
#3 Scaling Planetary Regeneration with Troy Carter of EarthShot Labs
Troy Carter, founder of Earthshot Labs is our guest in Episode 3. Earthshot Labs is building an open-source ecological simulator to better understand how nature works, with the goal of being able to measure nature and therefore being better placed to incentivise policy, investment and landowner decision making to affect the fight against the climate crisis.
Troy provided an insight into some of the areas that maybe don’t get as much mainstream attention (think electric cars and decarbonising energy in the built environment), but are equally important in and have contributed significantly to the climate emergency we find ourselves facing.
Some of the highlights from this episode were:
- The Climate Crisis: Troy shares his thoughts that there is a misunderstanding of the things that are causing our climate crisis and not enough attention paid to areas like the ecological changes in forests, ocean health and soil health.
- Let the land live: similarly to Antony in Episode 1, Troy considers what would happen if we just left the land to do its thing rather than continually degrading it.
- Expanding visions: considering land in terms of the ecosystems it houses — for example, deserts may look like vast areas of dry land, but actually are home to rich ecosystems.
- The roots of change: Where and how does change begin? Troy explores the ways that we can encourage ‘trickle down’ change into systemic and individual action based on the values that we hold as humans.
- Food Security: exploring the link between food security and global conversation — how can we ensure that we meet the needs of the planet whilst also meeting the very real need of global populations.
- The accessibility of land restoration: We have a real opportunity for large-scale land restoration — the financial mechanisms and technology are more and more easily accessible which means we can tackle restoration in an innovative way.
#4 Designing Alt Foods with Johnny Drain of WNWN Food Labs
Episode 4 of the Podcast featured Johnny Drain, discussing the future of food ecosystems and Johnny’s work on alternative chocolate with WNWN Food Labs. This episode encouraged us to think more deeply about our food systems — where our food comes from, the connections we hold to food and whether or not we can create alternative products that improve our choices.
With a background in computational material science, but a passion and skill set for cooking and experience in restaurants, Johnny decided not to go down the academic route, but instead look at how we as a society can tackle problems such as the way we produce and consume food.
We explored these ideas in more detail, but this episode along with Episode 7, really gave us food for thought (excuse the pun!) about the alt food space. Some of the insights that led to the most discussion were:
- Industry emissions: Agriculture and forestry activities are responsible for 24% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.
- Where does our Cacao come from? Two countries (Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire) are currently supplying around 80% of cacao globally.
- Our Relationship with food: Questioning why we make food the way we do and why do we spend so much time coming up with new food, alternatives and recipes.
- What makes a good Alt-Food? Looking at chocolate alternatives and the alt foods space as a whole, how does our previous attachment to how food should taste, smell and look affect our willingness to try new things? Is it realistic for us to look at alternatives as ultimately the better choice in terms of quality?
- The wider impact of food demand: what is the environmental impact of continuing to hold the same relationship with and demand for food — from Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions to soil depletion, and deforestation, we cannot continue to hold onto our agricultural and food processes.
- The human impact of the current Cacao industry: how can we balance the environmental impact and issues around labour rights and compensation, with the need to ensure that work is done with affected communities to find the best route forward?
- The role of government: to what extent are certain food industries being ‘propped up’ by government subsidies and policies?
#5 Making Steel Sustainable with Osas Omoigiade of Deep Meta
In Episode 5, we delved into the world of steel where Osas Omoigiade from Deep Meta shared how humans and machines are working together to reduce the environmental impact of the steel industry. The episode offered some really interesting insights into an industry that has been fuelling our demand for steel products for decades, which we explored more here.
Like many of the other Cool Hominids podcast episodes, this episode left us thinking more deeply about how seemingly small changes in the ways we use and interact with products can make a significant difference as we move towards the Net Zero goal.
- What is the steel industry doing to the environment? The steel industry is currently a major contributor to climate change and global warming, partly due to the emissions of greenhouse gases during the production process, but also because of the sheer amount of waste involved in steel production (25% if you’re curious!).
- Tackling the problem at source: Osas discusses how he and Deep Meta are tackling the problems of current production processes — by picking up problems using data existing in steel factories already, they are helping steel factories to reduce wastage and increase efficiencies to reduce emissions.
- Small changes make big impacts: By using existing data and sensors, Deep Meta has increased the accessibility and likelihood that steel plants will feel confident in using their software — similarly to our earlier point on the Alt Food space, it’s interesting to consider how we can make more gradual shifts towards fighting climate change, by tweaking our current systems.
- The human reliance on steel: Can we get to a place where humans do not have such levels of demand for steel?
#6 Getting to Carbon Negative with David Erasmus of Our Carbon
Episode 6 featured a great conversation with David Erasmus from Our Carbon, a carbon coaching business working with the UK’s SMEs to help them understand their carbon emissions and find a way to carbon negative.
Having recently travelled to COP26 by boat at the time of the podcast, David shared reflective stories about community, innovation and hope for the future. Painting the vision of a Net Zero future, Peet and David discussed some of the big themes and questions we need to consider if we are to reach our carbon emissions goals:
- Our cumulative carbon budget: the amount of remaining carbon we can expel into the atmosphere is rapidly declining as we emit more CO2, directly affecting global warming levels. To reach the Paris Agreement targets of 2ºC or even 1.5ºC, we need to rapidly reduce the current emissions levels
- Where does social change start? Is it at the individual or community level? Where do social movements like XR come into the discussion? David shared his thoughts on the importance of social movements and how change starting at community level often can and does lead to changes at the institutional level.
- Corporate pushes to get to Net Zero: are the demands of the market leading to increased corporate thought about carbon emissions? David reminded us that social movements, and consumers being passionate and interested in where the goods that we use come from and how they are made, can lead to changes at the boardroom level
- Our voices are stronger together: one of the key themes of this episode was the importance of community and connections between people to share ideas and experiences.
- The importance of the lived experience: David shared his thoughts on spending more time in island nations, at the forefront of the effects of climate change; he reminded us of the importance of making yourself available to important things that affect and change us.
#7 Producing Prime Plant Meat with Luka Sinček of Juicy Marbles
Having explored alternatives to cacao in Episode 4, this episode of the podcast enabled us to dig deeper still into the alternative foods space, this time looking at alternative meats. The alt foods space represents a significant opportunity for us as a society to make day to day changes that can have a long lasting impact on the planet we inhabit.
Luka Sinček is the Cofounder of Juicy Marbles, a company that is tackling the crisis of security in the food system and developing viable alternatives for plant based prime cuts from plants. The conversation with Luka was interesting as it reframed the idea of what an alternative food should be. We explored this in more detail in this article, but key takeaways from the episode were:
- Perceptions of Alt-Meat: taking the idea of an alternative food product one step further — Juicy Marbles is looking at their products not just as alternatives to meat, but as an opportunity to improve on perceptions of taste, quality and texture.
- Talking is not enough: at society and government level there are lots of discussions taking place around the climate crisis, but Luka and Juicy Marbles want to be a part of tackling the crisis.
- The food security crisis: the global population continues to grow and current technology and processes are not a reliable method to secure food for everyone.
- Alternatives not removals: Providing alternatives does not necessarily mean that we completely remove a food type — it will be difficult to remove meat entirely from our global diet, particularly in places where relationships with food are different and alternatives are not readily accessible.
- Changing the way we use land: with beef production being the major source of emissions from the agriculture industry, Luka considers how alternatives and different land usage can reduce the impact of the beef industry and change the ways in which cattle is raised.
#8 Renewable Ocean Energy with Dan Grech of Global OTEC
The final episode of the podcast featured Dan Grech, CEO and Founder of Global OTEC, discussing the history of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) and the exciting work that Global OTEC is doing.
Some of the key insights from this episode were:
- The history of OTEC: the history of this space is long and interesting, with Dan and Global OTEC following in the footsteps of Jacques Arsène D’Arsonval and his student Georges Claude, who first proposed using the temperature differences between surface and deep seawater to generate electricity.
- OTEC as a baseload power: Unlike other renewables energies, OTEC is a baseload power, which means that it is on all of the time, and doesn’t need to rely on the sun (solar energy) or wind (wind energy).
- Moving away from coal: the movement away from coal is a necessary and positive step due the high emissions and increases in global temperatures from burning fossil fuels.
- OTEC for island nations: OTEC represents an exciting opportunity for island nations, who currently rely on expensive diesel to fuel their islands. OTEC has the potential to provide a significantly more affordable option than other renewable sources like solar which may not always be available due to land usage for tourism.
What Next?
At the end of Season 1, we’re feeling hopeful and excited. Reflection is key, and through deeply considering how we got to this point, we can explore ways to change for the better. When we think about climate change, or see emissions levels and rising global temperatures, it can be easy to feel despondent. The series of conversations from Season 1 have reminded us that there are so many innovative, exciting people working on game changing solutions to the climate emergency.
The conversations have raised important questions, led to sharing of stories and a reflection upon the ways we engage with our planet that are crucial if we are to reach the Net Zero target. To all of the amazing Cool Hominids we’ve heard from on Season 1, thank you for being a part of this journey!
We’re currently working on Season 2 of the podcast, and can’t wait to share some of those amazing conversations.
