Supercool

Supercool
  • 4.9 (26)
  • Business
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Supercool spotlights climate innovations that have moved beyond the lab and into the market. Hosted by climate-tech founder and author Josh Dorfman, Supercool features CEOs, founders, and operators building businesses that are decarbonizing energy, transportation, food, materials, and buildings. Each episode explores the strategies, execution, and business models behind companies that cut carbon, grow profits, and redefine modern life.

  1. 1h ago

    Reprised | Right on Schedule: Zum Gives America’s School Buses a 21st Century Upgrade

    Every day, 27 million kids ride 500,000 school buses—the largest transit system in America. And yet, this 80-year-old relic is stuck in the past: buses are late, routes are inefficient, and parents have no clue where the bus is or when it’s coming. Ritu Narayan, founder and CEO of Zum, decided to fix it. All of it. With real-time tracking, smarter routes, and electric buses, Zum has modernized student transportation for 4,000 schools, including the school districts of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Boston. In Oakland, Zum introduced the nation’s first fully electric school bus fleet, slashing emissions and cutting the number of buses needed nearly in half. Zum isn’t just about buses—it’s a tech, Human Resources, logistics, and infrastructure company rolled into one. The result? Parents can breathe, kids get to class on time, and school districts finally have a system that works. Ritu joins Supercool this week to discuss how Zum is making school buses smart, sustainable, and better for everyone. Show NotesGuest: Ritu Narayan, founder & CEOCompany: Zum For more low-carbon innovations now scaling—and the playbooks driving their market adoption—subscribe to the podcast plus our: * Weekly Newsletter * Climate Adoption Playbook * Supercool on Instagram  * Supercool on LinkedIn

  2. Sep 23

    Reprised | Clean Energy Meets Its Match: Crux Accelerates Deal Flow

    There are trillions of dollars of clean energy projects ready to be built—and trillions more in capital waiting to fund them. But the system connecting the two is too slow, fragmented, and expensive. That gap is what Alfred Johnson set out to close. A former Treasury official who helped steer markets through the 2008 financial crisis and later served under Janet Yellen, Johnson co-founded Crux to build the financial software layer the energy transition was missing. Crux connects developers, manufacturers, and investors across a marketplace for clean energy finance. In just two years, it’s closed over 120 transactions worth billions—turning a bureaucratic tangle of documents into a liquid market built for speed, trust, and scale. This conversation explores how liquidity, intelligence, and automation are accelerating capital into hard infrastructure—and how Crux is becoming the financial engine powering today’s clean energy industrial revolution. Show NotesGuest: Alfred Johnson, Co-Founder & CEO Company: Crux For more low-carbon innovations now scaling—and the playbooks driving their market adoption—subscribe to the podcast plus our: * Weekly Newsletter * Supercool on Instagram  * Supercool on LinkedIn

  3. Sep 16

    The Planet Needs Better Products, Not Better People

    People aren’t looking for a mission. They’re looking for products that improve their lives. In this Supercool episode, host Josh Dorfman takes us back to China 30 years ago, when a billion people rode bicycles but nobody wanted one. Everybody wanted a car. He realized China would have a billion of them—and wondered where all the oil would come from. Three decades later, China is still getting its cars. But the cars are changing. During the first half of 2026, almost half of all vehicles sold there were electric or plug-in hybrid. Two-thirds of its fully electric cars cost less than their gasoline-powered equivalents. Josh explores how the EV revolution is moving beyond cars, from electric school buses and 18-wheelers to boats and soon the skies. Climate tech entrepreneurs aren’t asking people to want less. They’re giving people more of what they want while using less of what the planet can’t afford.

  4. Sep 9

    Boats That Fly: 5x More Efficient Across Four Continents

    How do you make boating an extremely efficient form of transportation? You lift the boat out of the water. Vessev’s electric hydrofoils use underwater wings to raise almost the entire boat above the surface, dramatically reducing drag. The result is a new class of commercial passenger vessel that’s three to five times as efficient as a conventional boat, cheaper to operate, and feels like flying. The opportunity goes beyond electrifying today’s boats. Cities around the world are crowded with cars and trains while the waterways they were built around remain largely unused for transportation. Vessev sees a future where waterways become fast, efficient transportation corridors. CEO Eric Laakmann joins Josh to discuss the technologies making electric hydrofoils possible, why commercial boat operators care about lower costs and a better passenger experience, and what happens when a climate solution wins because the product is simply better. Show Notes: Guest: Eric Laakmann, CEO Company: Vessev For more low-carbon innovations now scaling—and the playbooks driving their market adoption—subscribe to the podcast plus our: * Weekly Newsletter * Climate Adoption Playbook * Supercool on Instagram  * Supercool on LinkedIn

  5. Sep 2

    They Called Him Nature Boy. Now 45 Climate Tech CEOs Call Him for Advice.

    Climate tech CEOs are running a long, consequential, high-stakes race. Where do they go when they hit unfamiliar terrain?Chris Wedding created Entrepreneurs for Impact so they could turn to each other. Through Entrepreneurs for Impact, he brings together 45 CEOs of investor-backed climate companies to candidly share what’s working, what’s broken, and what they’ve already learned the hard way. Chris brings an unusual combination of experience to the room: a PhD in environmental science, a background in private equity and finance, more than 15 years teaching climate tech, investing, energy finance, and strategy at Duke and UNC, and significant time practicing meditation in Thai and Zen monasteries. We talk about how CEOs navigate capital, focus, changing markets, customers, and the moments when they realize the thing that actually needs to change may be the way they’re leading. Guest: Chris Wedding For more low-carbon innovations now scaling—and the playbooks driving their market adoption—subscribe to the podcast plus our: * Weekly Newsletter * Climate Adoption Playbook * Supercool on Instagram  * Supercool on LinkedIn

  6. Aug 26

    Artifacts from the Future: Reimagining Sustainable Interiors with David Bergman

    We think of a building as something permanent. Its interior is anything but. A lease comes up. A new tenant moves in and renovates the space. The building may last for 100 years, but its interiors will be updated again and again. Old materials get ripped out and thrown away. New materials take their place. David Bergman has spent decades working to change how the industry approaches sustainable interior design. He teaches Sustainable Systems at Parsons and directs the world’s only degree program dedicated specifically to sustainable interior design at the New York School of Interior Design. Now he’s launching the Center for Circularity in Interior Design to continue moving the industry forward. David joins Supercool to talk about circularity, embodied carbon, designing for disassembly, and training the next generation of designers to build the future we actually want. Show Notes: Guest: David Bergman For more low-carbon innovations now scaling—and the playbooks driving their market adoption—subscribe to the podcast plus our: * Weekly Newsletter * Climate Adoption Playbook * Supercool on Instagram  * Supercool on LinkedIn

  7. Aug 19

    When It’s Time to Power: Critical Loop Gets Electricity Where It’s Needed

    In America today, it can be faster to build a factory than to get enough electricity to run it.Time to power has become a major bottleneck for factories, data centers, EV charging depots, and other infrastructure being built across the country. After more than a decade at SpaceX—including serving as launch chief engineer for Demo-2 and Director of Flight Safety—Bala Ramamurthy turned his attention to the electricity grid. His company, Critical Loop, combines batteries, software, controls, automation, and generation to help customers get power faster.It’s indicative of a trend we often see on Supercool: building the low-carbon future is as much about breakthrough business model innovation as new hardware or software. Critical Loop has already powered an 80,000-square-foot factory for nine months, operates a microgrid at San Diego Airport, and is helping customers unlock more power from the grid we already have—while enabling more renewable energy along the way. For more low-carbon innovations now scaling—and the playbooks driving their market adoption—subscribe to the podcast plus our: * Weekly Newsletter * Climate Adoption Playbook * Supercool on Instagram  * Supercool on LinkedIn

  8. Aug 12

    Reprised | Alloy Built Brooklyn’s First All-Electric Skyscraper — Wall Street Wants More

    By fusing architect and developer, Alloy Development is proving that the riskiest choice in real estate isn’t electrification or Passive House — it’s clinging to the past. CEO Jared Della Valle joins Supercool to share the company’s journey to developing Alloy Block in downtown Brooklyn—an effort to create the most sustainable block in the city. It’s anchored by 505 State Street, New York’s first all-electric skyscraper; two Passive House–certified public schools; and soon, One Third Avenue—the tallest Passive House tower in the world. Della Valle describes how Alloy built investor confidence project by project—staying nimble, controlling risk, and executing at a standard that pulled institutional capital toward climate performance. He explains why going all-electric lowered long-term risk, how policy and pricing dynamics shifted investor expectations, and why the most competitive real estate today is also the cleanest. Alloy is shifting how Wall Street perceives risk and return—redefining climate performance not as the exception, but the expectation. Show Notes Guest: Jared Della Valle, CEO Company: Alloy Development

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About

Supercool spotlights climate innovations that have moved beyond the lab and into the market. Hosted by climate-tech founder and author Josh Dorfman, Supercool features CEOs, founders, and operators building businesses that are decarbonizing energy, transportation, food, materials, and buildings. Each episode explores the strategies, execution, and business models behind companies that cut carbon, grow profits, and redefine modern life.

Information

  • Creator
    Supercool
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    115
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Supercool
  • Show Website
    Supercool

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