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Last week, Corinna Bellizzi invited a few activists, friends, and prior guests on Care More Be Better to participate in a livestream event that was simulcast on LinkedIn and YouTube. In this session they each discuss what the term Regeneration means to them and how they aim to make a difference. They then dive into the new Nexus section of Paul Hawken's website, Regeneration.org. They discuss the site, its utility, and raise a few questions as they investigate the tools available to us all.

YouTube Livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5puFzYuvIg&t=821s

LinkedIn Livestream: https://www.linkedin.com/video/event/urn:li:ugcPost:6848325006729072640/

About Our Guests: Anca Novacovici, The Eco Coach Anca Novacovici is a client-focused leader with 15+ years of sustainability experience supporting organizations to reduce their carbon footprint and GHG emissions. Track record of enabling clients to successfully plan, implement and communicate environmental sustainability practices, resulting in customer growth, enhanced brand recognition, and reduced costs. Proven expert, consultant, coach, and mentor. Articulate communicator skilled in delivering insightful and actionable advice and strengthening relationships with clients, stakeholders and leadership. Tia Walden (Morell), Certified Holistic Nutritionist, Author & Podcaster

Tia Walden is a holistic nutritionist and an integrative nutrition health coach devoted to empowering others in their discovery of what food choices work for their individual makeup. She teaches her clients to take responsibility for bridging the gap between where they currently are and where they want to be. She is passionate about sharing tangible steps that improve both health and the overall quality of life. She is also a fellow podcaster who co-hosts Obsessed With Humans On The Verge of Change.

Julie Lokun, JD, Career Coach, Publisher, Keynote Speaker and Podcaster

Julie Lokun is an inspirational leader and team-builder who offers services as a career and relationship coach. She has received national recognition as a keynote speaker, publishes best-selling books, and she's even a lawyer. She is also a fellow podcaster who co-hosts Obsessed With Humans On The Verge of Change.

Nicole Davis, Excellent Human, Van-Life Minimalist

Nicole is a natural products industry veteran who has collaborated with our host, Corinna Bellizzi, off and on over the past few years. She is a serial minimalist and positivity maven who condensed her life into an RV in part to lessen her footprint but also to live more simply.

Time Stamps:

00:00 Introduction

02:29 What Does Regeneration Means To You?

10:09 Trash to Treasure, Kelsey Rumburg https://www.caremorebebetter.com/trash-to-treasure-exploring-what-it-takes/

11:00 What is Nexus? Climate Activism Tool Description

11:56 Diving Into https://www.regeneration.org

12:30 Wasting Nothing

13:05 Bad Actors Discussion

16:00 Key Players

18:15 Questions of Due Dilligence / How Are Suggestions For Companies and Not-For-Profits To Support Vetted? What Was The Timeframe Assessed? Criteria Used?

19:45 Learn More About Each Category Of Activism

22:25 Regeneration = A Continuation of Drawdown

23:15 Recommendations from Anca Novacovici

25:00 Action Items

28:15 "The Real Real" Suggestion from Julie Lokun for used clothes shopping: https://www.therealreal.com

33:45 Build Your Regeneration Climate Action List

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Transcript

Corinna Bellizzi

Hello, everyone. I'm Corinna Bellizzi, host of care more, be better a podcast for social impact and sustainability. Today, we are going to be covering regeneration.org and the new nexus feature to really catapult us into activism and save our home planet. So I'm joining. A few incredible people today that will help me go over this site and offer their perspective.

I'm an add them, to the stream now, including Tia, who I interviewed on one of my recent podcasts, Julie Lokun, these two together actually have their own show called obsessed with humans on the verge of change. And Anca Novacovici who I interviewed recently on the podcast as well. She is known as the eco coach.

And then I'm going to add one more person to the mix as we get ready to go live. So thank you for joining me. Welcome Tia. If you want to kick us off, I'd love to hear just a little bit about you and what regeneration means.

Tia Walden

Thank you Corinna. My name is Tia. Like Corinna said, I am a holistic nutritionist and integrative nutrition, health coach.

And to me, I really didn't think too much of sustainability of the planet or what might part really played in it until I started cooking more and getting more involved with whole foods and really seeing the food waste and diving into how much are we really wasting? As a world, as a nation and realizing what big of a problem it actually is.

So now I am trying to do my part to reduce my personal food waste, but also keep in mind and help send out the ripple effect in helping the people in my circle, my family, my friends really understand what they can do as well. So I'm really looking forward to learning more about the regeneration site and what I can do to continue on my path.

Corinna Bellizzi

Well, thank you, Tia. And I have to keep reminding myself your new last name is Walden. I think I said Tia Morell, just a moment to go. Uh, Julie, Loken also a cohost of obsessed with humans on the verge of change. What would you have to say about the word regeneration and what it means to you

Julie Lokun

Technical difficulties, but I am very agile as are the activists here, the activists that do want to change the world and every little thing we do counts, and I have been schooled by Corina. She teaches me every day on how to be a better human and leave a legacy and lessen my carbon footprint, but really for regeneration, for me as a mom, it means.

Getting your house in order, I have four sons. And what I realize is the waste that we produce is astronomical. So starting with those little things, even hand me downs, or, you know, Reusing food, leftovers, those kinds of things, but teaching our children, these little tips and tricks and stuff that I know Corrina is going to go over.

It all begins with us. Get your house in order to make those little changes, little changes, make the hugest impact. So thank you, Corrina.

You

mute you're on mute.

Corinna Bellizzi

See, I'm not used to where that button is. Thank you so much. Um, you know, transferring skills from zoom to stream your artists only a little bit of a learning curve. Um, thank you so much. Joel's uh, that was lovely. And ONCA who is also joining us. I interviewed on an earlier podcast really, as we dug, dug into her work with the eco coach on guy, I'd love to hear from you what you think the word regeneration means and how it can help.

Anca Novacovici

Oh, well, very much aligned with what the kind of work that I'm doing. So I have been supporting organizations with environmental sustainability for over 15 years and really recently to kind of get us to 20, 30, and beyond. And what. Uh, and faster because per the, the IPC report, we really have only a limited amount of time.

Um, I've started thinking, how can we go and get there faster? And regeneration is. Part of that answer. Sustainability. When you think about sustainability, it's looking at the triple bottom line of peanut people, planet and profit regeneration is taking that beyond. It is looking for example, at circular economy.

It is, and I don't know if you've ever heard of the living building challenge, but living, building challenge looks at treating buildings as living entities and that. Is another example of going beyond sustainability and, um, looking at regenerative buildings. And for me, it is, um, not only kind of, uh, thinking about when you think about sustainability, you think about the just status quo.

So when you're thinking, okay, doing less harm on the environment, or maybe doing no harm on the environment, this takes it further to supporting the environment, giving back to the environment. And it's not just about the environment. It's about people. It's about physically when we're looking at our planet.

And when you think about regeneration, a lot of times you may have heard of the term around agriculture and soil. And there are companies that are taking action that are doing this. I know Patagonia is co-sponsoring a certification around and I don't remember the name of it, but regeneration, um, Food, so that when you're looking at the soil, you're also looking at fair wages, fair treatment of individuals.

Um, you're you are taking everything into account. So it's, it's like ESG, environmental, social, and governance, but it's taking it even more. Uh, beyond that top term and beyond sustainability. So for me, regeneration with organizations means not just going, you know, offsetting your carbon emissions, but figuring out how you can support the planet and figuring out how you can support individuals in a positive way so that they can then support them.

Not only support themselves, but also support the planet and I'll leave it at that.

Corinna Bellizzi

Well, that's perfect. And I think a great note upon which to kick off our conversation about this amazing work. So if any of you have been following my podcast, you've heard me now interview Paul Hawkin about this work with regard to regeneration ending the climate crisis in one generation.

I have to say, when I first heard the title, I was like, wow. Skeptical about how much we can accomplish in a single generation, given where we are presently, it's super easy to start to feel like it's just all too much. What can I do? How can I make a difference? How are we going to get there? And, um, I have a great example who was a fifth person joining us today and the.

Nicole, I'm going to add to the stream now. Um, she's someone I've collaborated with in business and who's also supporting my podcasts now. So, Nicole, I know you have lived a fairly simple lifestyle over the past little bit, so I'd love for you to talk just a moment about what regeneration means to you and how you're making an impact.

Nicole Davis

Yeah. Hi. Thanks. I am a big fan of care, more, be better. And the do gooder lifestyle. Um, for myself, regeneration is sort of synonymous with transformation. So in my life I have taken many. Um, sustainability-wise, I'm driven the same car now for almost 20 years and have bypassed the lure of the shiny new stuff.

I've also gotten rid of all my stuff. I like to say the stuff that owned me, I, uh, gave it away. Up-cycled it. However I could to really get down to everything that would fit. One RV that I live in and I try and live a zero waste, um, lifestyle. I know Karena had a guest on and I I've been searching my notes for her name.

I can't remember, but she had a book called, um, trash to treasure and that's still a guest she had on that's really close to my heart. I try and upset. Um, almost everything I have. So for me, regeneration is a real transit transformation, um, for the things in my life. And, um, the people around. Well, thank you so much, Nicole.

Corinna Bellizzi

And that was Kelsey Rumberger. She wrote trash to treasure. Yeah. She's one of my favorites in this space too, and sometimes can be found trolling on clubhouse. So we will, um, from time to time host our own rooms and really talk. You know, making more sustainable options. That book trash to treasure was less about, uh, going out and doing garage sale finds and more about trying to get businesses, to think about how they can turn their waste streams into something different, which I think is something we all need to address.

And something Anca also works with her clients to do so really great topic of the moment. So I'm going to go ahead now and begin the share of my screen. I made a promise to myself as this was getting ready to stream. I did not dive into nexus. Let me talk for a moment about what I understand nexus to be, and then we will discover what it is.

So my understanding from Paul and from reading the book is that nexus is a section of the website that essentially smushes all together, the variety of things that you can do to support any number areas of climate health, regeneration, activism, around social impact and change that we all want to address.

It's supposedly, and I really don't know because I haven't liked, also has, key contacts and people, you can reach out to the sort of actions that you can take, additional educational resources and things like movies, media that you can interact with to become more informed on a variety of different.

That's my understanding, having not looked at it yet, so let's discover it together. And I would love to hear from all of you what your thoughts are, and we can explore the site together. And so get that screen share going here we are regeneration.org. So here's the thing. And when you're welcome to it, you have to accept the cookies.

Let me grab that. All right. Good to go. And as you dig in, there is a section called nexus. Nexus detail, what needs to be done and how to do it on all levels of agency. From an individual to a city, from a classroom to accompany entries, include resources, initiatives, people, influencers, and organizations that teach, engage and transform.

So where do we want to go? First gal?

Anca Novacovici

Uh, let's say wasting nothing since that

seems to be a wasting nothing.

Corinna Bellizzi

All right. Let's see what this has here. So, um, call to action. Eliminate 80% of food waste to feed more people using fewer resources on less land. Okay. So as you see on the left, there is action items, individuals, groups, companies, governance.

Bad actors, key players and learn. So I want to earn it. I want to learn about the bad actors. I just going to say that let's see who they are

top of the list, Walmart. Hmm. Okay. Massive consumerism, I think is at the heart of this one, right? Um, we're actually given the email of Doug mcmillon@walmart.com. So we can go ahead and send him an email directly. The same with regard to Costco, uh, seven 90 holdings, Kroger, little et cetera. Let's see.

Tia Walden

Aldi, I'm surprised

Anca Novacovici

I am too.

Julie Lokun

I was just thinking of all the,

yeah. I w

Corinna Bellizzi

I am not entirely surprised to see whole foods on the list,

Julie Lokun

Really, that's shocking to me. So I feel like they're affiliated with Amazon, the boxes that they pack package, you know, a, um, let's just say I'm using this as an example, a mascara and you order a mascara on Amazon and the packaging is massive.

Corinna Bellizzi

Yeah. And they are supposedly working to correct some of that, but. I find it interesting. They give you John Mackey's

Anca Novacovici

email. I was going to say they should maybe be looking at Bezos

Corinna Bellizzi

and all these. So let's just, the question came up about Aldi. So let's look at why. Oh, it's just our website. So links us directly to their website and from whole foods, I imagine it would do the same thing. Um, so. Uh, let's see what it says here about the bad actors, "food retailers globally have an essential role to play in eliminating food waste.

Some of the largest retailers that have a large influence on the supply chain are"- so it's not necessarily accusing them of being bad actors. Um, so that's, that's interesting. It's a little bit of a different lead in. With regard to whole foods, you know, they are very mindful of waste. Typically they have very high standards for the ingredients that are allowed on their shelves.

Um, however, they are affiliated with Amazon. And now if you go to any whole food store, um, you'll see people with blue aprons packing, Shipments and preparing them to go out, uh, basically using their shelves as inventory for the Amazon marketplace, with whole foods. So interesting approaches to doing market and business in this omni-channel world.

So that is interesting. Okay. So it's, it's, they're called bad actors out the gates maybe isn't correct in certain ways, but I like to direct people, always try to get your produce at local stores, um, or go to farmer's markets because then you're sure it's coming from a local area as opposed to mass transit shipped in from Chile, you know, to California.

Absolutely. Pardon? Okay. So then if we go into key players in this section, "here are some organizations working across the world to challenge food waste. You can support them by donating, volunteering, or amplifying their research and messaging"- misfits market, doing groceries of fruit. That looks bad to you.

Basically food that doesn't look market ready. Right. Right. Um, culinary misfits does, uh, much of the same thing. Anything else jumping out?

Tia Walden

I'm pretty happy to see misfit markets just because I use it. And so I'm glad that it was part of the key player, not on the bad actor list. Yeah.

Nicole Davis

Well, I was, I was just going to say, I wanted to circle back around the whole foods misfits. Kind of does connect to my thought about whole foods. Whole foods was always in these nicer areas I lived in and for me, it's funny when it said bad actors, um, misfits does lead nicely into that, you know, because the produce isn't so beautiful and whole foods on the outside always look nice, but it would kill me because I'd be going to leave.

And then they would offer me in these giant plastic. I used to keep my food cold, you know, all these bougie perks that the whole foods, you know, looked so nice. So I too am happy to see misfits because just because it looks nice. Right. And it is shiny or we're in a nice area. Doesn't mean it's the best fit.

And so for me, whole foods always was sort of. I loved that, you know, bad actor part, because like I said, bagging, everything up in ice kind of undid me bringing all my own, you know, bags and I didn't really want the ice. And so the key players, misfits for me is a big, big one too, because, you know, just because it looks nice doesn't

mean it's.

Anca Novacovici

Yeah. And I know that there are other, uh, services that are companies that offer that service. So I think it's imperfect food, imperfect fruit. I don't remember the name of it. There there's some others. So I wonder what the criteria was for selecting these specific ones, as opposed to any other ones and the kind of what's the due diligence in terms of, you know, it says you can support them by donating.

Okay. Have they looked at the percentage of donations that actually go to the cause as opposed to operating expense or, you know, that sort of thing. Isn't really clear. And I wonder if somewhere on the website that specifies this, because it would be, I guess it looks like it's a, it's a handpicked selection and my question would be.

What puts some people in this and not others or some companies, not people they're not coming in. They're not people.

Corinna Bellizzi

Right. I had the same question. Like, how were they selected? I had the same question when I saw bad actors. Like not surprised to see Walmart on the list, but, um, you know, what were the, what were the criteria?

I think that's a good

question to ask. That's great.

Anca Novacovici

And what was the timeframe like? When did. Actually look at that for that versus the last year. Is it the last five years and the criteria? Absolutely.

Corinna Bellizzi (2)

Yeah. And I just looked at the bottom of the page. They have this section inviting you to share your knowledge.

So if you had a good actor, you wanted to nominate, essentially, you can do that, but again, we don't know what criteria they're using. Right.

So.

Nicole Davis

the learn part. I couldn't see what was under there.

Corinna Bellizzi

So this is, uh, another section where they're helping you learn more so global food losses and food waste.

It's a 2011 study by FAO food waste can be solved by people all over the world. Taking action for a policy guy. Refer to refence roadmap to 2030. So you would click there and be introduced to the reef fed site.

So they give you some solutions to solving food waste. And since roughly 30 to 35% of food is wasted, I mean, that's, that's a huge number. And, um, there are, uh, different charities that are focused on trying to solve that. And some of the businesses too, like what we saw on the prior page with, uh, the misfit foods and things along those lines,

Anca Novacovici

I'd love to have. So it's just a suggestion. It'd be great if they actually had apps on there too, because I think there are some great apps that could be included in terms of food waste and, and, uh, and a lot of these other topics, frankly. So,

Corinna Bellizzi

right. I would agree with. So perhaps we can send that recommendation directly to Paul can be done there.

Now I'm really curious

Anca Novacovici

He's done a lot, right? So

Corinna Bellizzi

you need to do more though.

Anca Novacovici

A quick question. Is this a continuation of drawdown?

Corinna Bellizzi

In a way.

Anca Novacovici

Okay.

Corinna Bellizzi

So he looks at, um, this is something we covered in our interview. He looks at draw down as like the first book in the way and a trilogy with regeneration being the followup to that.

And then, um, he says that there's a book in that, that he's already planning to be part three, which is about falling in love with the planet with earth, with all. And so I'm not sure what that will be called. He says he has a working title for it, and the work will continue. I also learned by connecting with, um, well, we, we actually learned this together on, uh, connecting to Catherine earlier this week.

She shared that, um, there was a similar resource on another site that Paul had in the past. That really worked to compile the different resources that were available to affect change.

Anca Novacovici

Yeah, I think I've seen that too.

Corinna Bellizzi

I just know he's no longer affiliated with drawdown directly, so they are another, not-for-profit running independently at this point.

So I'm curious about action items. You know, when we get into this, I mean, these are the sorts of things that get my juices flowing. Like what can I do to make a difference about the area I'm most passionate about? And if I was to champion one, would it be food waste for me? Maybe not at the very tops.

Anca Novacovici

I just saw they have food sharing apps on there. So yeah,

Corinna Bellizzi

no, the food keeper app, um, I was listening to a podcast recently where they talked about how much waste is often thrown away from a farmer's market and how many people will choose to donate their time to help clean up at the end and then take the surplus food or what might have been wasted and, you know, Redis burse it in their communities.

And so I think all of those things are important. Some of it is really kind of just a local movement, but that there is an app for that is really interesting. So Anca have you used food?

Anca Novacovici

I have not. I have not. Okay. And the other thing, the other thought that, uh, that, that came to mind with all of this is there is there's such a, I think a need for companies in this space.

It'd be great to also have. Another section for maybe startups to support or so if you're an impact investor, you go there. Or if you want to mentor someone, you go there and, uh, you can find a company that resonates with you. That's a startup, I'm just throwing these ideas out as they're coming out. So

Corinna Bellizzi

that's great.

Yeah, maybe we need to create that app. Do something like that. And another layer onto this whole, whole kit and caboodle. Okay. So you have individuals supporting companies that make products from upcycled food waste, carry takeaway containers when eating out, use food, sharing apps, such as Oleo and food rescue U.S..

Start a home or community compost. I have a compost. It's not that hard. I will say that my husband does most of the maintenance of it though. I created this system and he takes care of most of it at this point. So it's nice to have an accountability partner in the house, helping me manage that, um, volunteering with local re resources and donating to local food bank.

Right. Great. So that was individuals. Groups: farmers, supermarkets and grocers investors, and then companies: restaurants, measuring food waste, giving them tools to do so pretty into. All right.

Anca Novacovici

There's nothing with, well, I guess there's nothing with composting,

right? So that's an entire separate section of a wasting.

Julie Lokun

I think what's jarred me the most is the clothing industry. I absolutely prior to two years ago, did not realize what the pair of jeans I was wearing was doing to this earth.

Corinna Bellizzi

So let's see here all nexus clothing, industry banking and finance food, apartheid, Palm oil, political industry. So this is the challenges that they are highlighting. Solutions, here we go. So this is a pretty big list and composting is listed as one of the solutions, but I don't know that it has its own section.

And then they have this explore section where you can create your own punch list. So, the things that you will do to be essentially your activism pathway. Let's see, I want to dig in for a second though, to this clothing industry piece and to see what resources they provide in this section since Juul spread it up.

So yeah. Beautiful. Love the fashion. Don't love the results. Um, so the biggest challenges

Julie Lokun

it's ghastly, the amount of water that you to.

Corinna Bellizzi

So even just for a new pair of jeans, right? How many gallons was it? Jules

Julie Lokun

well, I think it's something amongst, you know, it could be 1.7. Three liters. And that's why I like the real real, it's all upcycled clothing and they'd let you know everything you buy, how much water you save for each item.

And then they have nice stuff too!. If anyone's interested in or has an event to go to.

Corinna Bellizzi

Great. So what I'm seeing here are some, uh, call-outs and videos that you can watch to educate yourself on what is happening and the fast fashion industry. I know from reading the book, a lot of the focus is going to be on the types of fibers we use and the chemicals that we use to treat them and how that impacts the environment negatively.

In addition to, um, slave labor conditions and really a whole lot of other things that we need to be concerned with, including water waste. But the reality is we don't really have a sustainable clothing system. And getting to a regenerative sort of clothing system is going to be a giant task. So each of us has a part to play.

I am actually wearing, this is my pineapple shirt. I bought it at Goodwill recently for $8. Um,

So

Anca Novacovici

it's one of my clients I worked with

Corinna Bellizzi

them for, yeah. Not always the most fun shopping environment to be in, but, um, I do make a password now and then to quickly see if there's anything that jumps out to me, because guess what if I don't then where's it going to go?

And if other people. Me, don't take that step to look at, used clothing to then what is it? What happens to us life? It gets worn three or four times and ends up in landfill. That's a problem.

Anca Novacovici

And I think with Goodwill. Well, you find a lot of there will be fines because of the way that they're organized.

They're not organized that way and across all Goodwills. But some of them can be tough to get through,

Corinna Bellizzi

but mine is pretty shabby. Yeah, I know it does vary. They used to be located across town and it was much better organized. They relocated and suddenly it's a complete mess. So what are you gonna do?

All right. So, uh, let's look here. So join the slow fashion movement by less and wear more. I mean, this is the real simple, fundamental. When it comes to fashion is you buy fewer items. You spend on quality, try to go for natural fibers. Um, and you. wear it until it's no longer useful for you. And then in many cases, people are even upcycling them.

So turning something that was an old piece of clothing into, uh, you know, liner for a purse or something along those lines, there's all sorts of uses that you can find for fabrics when they are no longer presentable or usable as clothing. So these are all things that we can keep in mind do less laundry, less often.

Uh, so washing clothing less. I know that this is something Patagonia has tried to contend with because so many of their clothing are made of, polyesters and microfibers. Um, so the reality is every time you wash it, Polar fleece. Some of it ends up in our waterways, right? So they've produced specialized bags that you're supposed to launder these items within to prevent the microplastics from entering waterways. But the first step would be, you know, buy natural instead, get wool as your performance, fabric and cottons and other things that are in the more natural space bamboo is another fiber to consider, but apparently they're having used so much chemicals and treating it to get it to a point where it's wearable that, it's just not the best solution yet.

So even though it ends up on people's punch lists as sustainable clothing doesn't necessarily mean it's good for the environment. So we have to ask ourselves a lot of questions, educate ourselves a bit. And, um, this, uh, it looks like, at least provides some good resources for getting started. So I won't dig too much into the content of this now because we see the basic framework is what of what is offered.

Um, are you guys curious to see what those punch lists look like?

Anca Novacovici

Yeah.

Tia Walden

Yes.

Corinna Bellizzi

I want to know what's going on there. Okay. So we'll go back to that main screen. So below next is. We have this, uh, punch list. And he's given a couple of examples here. One of these, I believe Elman's is published in the back of the book, spend at least three hours a week in local green spaces, reduce meat intake, read at least two books focused on environmental justice each year.

Interesting list. All right. And so you can make your own, what does this look like? Make a.

Anca Novacovici

I love that you're able to do it for a family too. Yeah. I might be. Engaging my husband and maybe my kids to

realize my full name there. Isn't it. All right. So, um,

Julie Lokun

this is really fabulous Corrina. I mean, I feel that you have a spectrum of activism here on this panel, like, and for the less seasoned like myself, I think this is such a helpful tool.

Corinna Bellizzi

Yeah. I just think this is super interesting too, because you know, It's so daunting to even start when you're like, oh, I want to do something different about fashion. And then you start doing the research. It's like, it can get overwhelming there's, a movie I watched all about fast fashion. I'm forgetting the title of now that was just really depressing, hard to watch some of these things.

Or recently I watched the movie Seaspiracy about our oceans and the sorts of things we're doing there. I already knew plenty because I come from the world of omega-threes and fish oil now working more in the algae space, but still, and it's just maybe really depressing. It's hard. So I think having everything in a spot where it gives you some actionable tools at your fingertips without making it feel so huge is going to be really good for people.

Anca Novacovici

So I thought they would give you a list and you can pick the list, I guess.

Corinna Bellizzi

So in this case, you're just building your own. Yeah. Yeah. Which is a little less helpful. I thought it was going to be like, oh, well, here's some things you can do in your community.

Anca Novacovici

Oh, but here, there we go. All right.

Corinna Bellizzi

So we can see other people's punch lists and we can gamify it.

So this is something that, um, we've talked about a bit ONCA myself and some others like gamifying your sustainability challenges. So if you see somebody else's and you could maybe try and use it as inspiration and create your own.

Yeah, this is something I've also seen Paul and others recommend purchasing at least two to three times your carbon offsets when you're traveling by air. Because yeah, it's, it's like that. Tear it down a tree, plant, a tree that simple little sapling isn't going to replace the work of that majestic Oak.

Um,

Anca Novacovici

for 15 to 20 years. Even come, right? Yeah,

Corinna Bellizzi

exactly. So take a tree, plant a tree. Isn't exactly where it's at. Um, but yeah, some, some other items here, so you can make your own punch list. I like that they're displaying some others. I wonder if you have to give permission for them to share it. So I will play around with this Tia, this isn't yours.

Is it.

Tia Walden

No, but I'm definitely going to go make one. I think this is cool.

Corinna Bellizzi

Buy paper products from companies that only source sustainably and ethically have electric off-hour once a day. That is a good idea. Of course, mine has been mandated by PGNE shutting off the power every time it's windy. So I'm only joking a little bit.

Nicole Davis

A little, I love the idea of a community list and what you were saying. Sort of like a forced mandate. I live in a really, really small community. The town I live in has less than 30,000 people. And prior to the big box stores coming in. Out of necessity, they banded together. Right? I think Corinna knows of my bagel lady.

She has a cottage license, but instead of everybody running to the Walmart, that's come to town. Right. We all give her our orders in advance. It's really fun. And then we pick them up from her, like on a street corner, but we support a local merchant. We've obviously eliminated, hopefully some of the big trucks coming to our Walmart.

I mean, we appreciate the Walmart for, for what it is in our town, but even the clothing here, we have, uh, a store called the naked borough. And we all give our clothes there, right? We're supporting another merchant and you can go in there and, and buy gently used, or even highly used clothing to up cycle.

But the idea of a community list appealed to me, um, for my little town, because we could possibly list local vendors, right. That we could support. And as a community, you know, we don't, we don't have a lot here. We have a it's funny. The M list. They're the bad actors. We had a Kroger, we have a Walmart and we have a home Depot, but as a community, we really try and support some of our local vendors for, um, reasons.

Most of us are aware of. So I loved that.

Corinna Bellizzi

Mm, I agree. I think that's very helpful. I was just looking through the footer to see what other tools they have. And so, um, I think looking at the carbon calculator can be helpful in building your plan. Um, he does go over the book news and events and contact places.

So this is very interesting overall now, um, there's one more section I wanted to peek into. Um, and nexus, because so much of what we've heard about, regeneration specifically is around agriculture, um, and degraded land restoration or degraded farmland restoration. And so I'm curious to see what is in that section or just in the regenerative agriculture section.

Okay, so you see under learn, there's watch, read and listen. So under watch, I have watched the film kissed the ground. I'm not seeing it listed here, which I thought was really interesting. Um, and then there are also certain podcasts here to listen to that are focused around that, and then books that they recommend reading.

So I think that's really, really interesting. I'm also curious who they'll call out as a bad actors in this space. Okay. Not surprising,

Anca Novacovici

not surprising at all. I think the first one just kind of addresses. I don't know what percentage,

Corinna Bellizzi

uh, yeah. All of them. So let's, let's be clear. Monsanto is now known as Bayer.

And so it's just a rebranded, but miss, because Bayer bought them. So I, some people will pronounce that. Bayer, I honestly don't know which is correct. And I don't really care. Um, but we're talking about glyphosate, Roundup and all of those great pollutants that have entered our water systems and basically damaged

everybody's heart

Anca Novacovici

and so much more that they've done with the seeds and the farmers.

Corinna Bellizzi

Yeah. I mean, why does the non GMO project exists? Let's be real here. Um, okay. So you've got some bad actors here to be aware of, uh, key players that are in this space. The carbon underground is mentioned. I'm actually going to be interviewing Tom Newmark, um, in a live stream. And about a week on this he's, I'm one of the co-founders of the carbon underground.

So I'll encourage people to tune in for that. And then I just want to go ahead and move out of share mode again here. You guys can all browse regeneration.org on your time. I, have a couple of things to highlight and then I just love to open it for comments, from everyone here. So, Just to share with all y'all, uh, you can visit, CareMore be better.com and if you join my newsletter, I created just a PDF that's about five pages long that will help you organize and unleash your inner activist. And it's just a simple five-step kind of process to follow, to identify the things that you might want to become activists. It could be related to the environment could be related to anything else. And so just for joining the email list, you'll get that as your welcome email, a link to download it, PDF format and, simple tool to basically review.

So I encourage you to do that now. I love to just open it for comments.

What are you guys thinking about regeneration and yeah, the website.

Tia Walden

I think that the website's great. I love that it gives a starting point for people that feels less overwhelming than thinking of, oh my gosh, what impact can I make today?

And you can pick just one spot to impact their clothing or food waste. And starting there is so helpful because I know when I first even got introduced into sustainable living and making an impact in the environment, I instantly just got really overwhelmed by all. The all the resources out there, but also all of the fake resources that I wasn't sure if you know, these apps are still legitimate or not, or if they've been bought out by bigger companies.

And that's something that I would like to see more on that website that we kind of mentioned is what is still good. And I also kind of want to know, like how far back their research goes, just to know how accurate and up-to-date.

Corinna Bellizzi

Yeah, I think my Anca, you and I will agree with that front, right? Like these guys.

Anca Novacovici

Absolutely. Yeah. And I, I would add to that. I agree with Tia. I think it'd be great to have more info. It's really helpful. Not just for people who are starting out, but I think for, I mean, I've been doing this for over 15 years and so it's helpful to have additional resources. 'cause. I remember when I started out, even for organizations that I can point them to because when I started out 15 years ago, I put everyday, like I did all the research for everything.

And now you can actually go to places that have aggregated this research and makes it so much easier. And so for just a, as a reference, and also just, even for me, for educating, I think there some, you know, you're always learning, it's always changing. And that's kind of changed as a constant. And so my I'm assuming that they're going to be consistently updating this.

And so it's, it's a great resource, I think, from beginner to, to kind of people who have been in it for a longer period of time. So it's, uh, it's exciting. And I'm, I want to thank Paul Hawken for his, uh, thought leadership, because I think this is something, this is definitely something that needs to, to move and quickly.

And so he. He's doing it. Yeah. Easier for other people to do it.

Corinna Bellizzi

And for those of you that don't want to sit there and tease through the website page by page or read, I mean, it's, it's textbook size, right? Like I've got my legal pad in here. And, um, the reality is it's a lot of reading, but very informative and interesting.

So like, what I started to do about three weeks ago is summarize each section. So if you want to listen to my podcast, you can choose to listen to the section on oceans and then forests. And this week I'm doing wilding, which is all about restoring land to its wild state. Right. And so I'm literally going section by section and summarizing the key points, offering some commentary on it and doing each of those episodes in 20 minutes or less.

So they're bite sized. You can listen to it when you're commuting around or whatever. So that's what I'm doing to help. You know, distill all this jazz. Um, and then also the, uh, I'll just share really quickly that cover of this little tool I put together, which is just unleash your inner activist. So, when you sign up for my newsletter, this comes as an automatic download, email, and really just goes through five simple steps to go ahead and.

Build your activistic path. And then there's a little worksheet at the end to help ask you a few questions, organize your thoughts, and then create an execution checklist. I also have one page, not overwhelming of resources at the end, for some things that you could look at specific, mostly to climate activism since that's what I'm stuck on as my topic right now.

Um, but to Paul Hawken's point, If you read the regeneration, or if you listen to any of the number of podcasts that he's been doing, he looks at the topic of regeneration as really just putting life at the center of all the decisions you make. And so if that was something that we could all commit to doing, to putting life at the center, then it would affect many of the decisions we make about the things that we buy, the people we spend time with and the sorts of things that we choose to champion.

It might also affect, you know, what car you drive and how often, and if you go and get that, if you drive at all. Yeah. And so, in some of the future sections I'm going to be going into, there's actually a huge section on zero waste cities. And I don't live in a city. So, you know, getting everywhere without a car would be a little bit challenging.

But you know, transit systems can improve. And we can advocate for that. Um, this is something else that we could choose to champion.

Julie Lokun

So I love it. I love this Corinnaand everybody needs a little Paul Corinnaand their life, and let's not dismiss Corinna Bellizzi because she is doing great things. This is so mission-based that she inspired.

Inspires me. And to be quite honest, this has been a wake up call for me, just having this friendship with Corinna and everything that she is doing inspires me. And I love the unleash, your inner activist because. That's a good place to start for people that want to do good. They want to care more and be better, but they don't even know where to start.

Corinna Bellizzi

So you gave me the title. So I should, I should credit you for that. Yeah.

Julie Lokun

You inspired me with the tie with everything you do. So.

Corinna Bellizzi

Yeah, so appreciate it. Well, this has been fun. This is my first, uh, stream yard event. It didn't go live on Facebook, so I'll have to figure that out, but I couldn't, I don't know.

It's just a thing. So, um, it says, got deleted from Facebook. I'm like really? One more, one more tool to consider using and building from. So, thank you guys for joining me so much. This has been awesome. Um, and I just look forward to the next time. So hope you all join us another time or thank you. Yeah.

So I'm going to go ahead and like be really swaggy here and put up my final banner. So you can figure out where to find us because here's this banner that, Hey, you know, if you want to find us on Twitter or whatever you can. And thank everybody for joining us. Tia, Julie, Nicole Anca. This has been my pleasure and I appreciate you all so much.

Anca Novacovici

This was fun. Thank you.