Any Job Can Be A Climate Job

Louisa Henry
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Join our movement to make every job work for our planet. New ideas to help you take action at work, strengthen your career, and help the environment.

  1. Accidental Climate Win: 70,000 Gallons of Jet Fuel Saved Daily

    MAR 3

    Accidental Climate Win: 70,000 Gallons of Jet Fuel Saved Daily

    The U.S. Air Force was planning multi-million dollar combat missions on a whiteboard covered in magnets. It took three people, twelve hours every night. A product manager showed up, built a tool in 90 days, and accidentally created one of the biggest climate wins in the Department of Defense. 🌎 This episode is part of Any Job Can Be a Climate Job — a podcast about bringing climate impact into work that isn't labeled "climate." When Eric Schmidt visited the Air Operations Center in Qatar, he found three people spending twelve hours every night planning mid-air refueling missions on a magnetic whiteboard. 70% of those missions were replanned the next morning anyway, and the fix was always the same: put another tanker in the air. Getting a single tanker to altitude costs $200,000. And every gallon of jet fuel releases 20 pounds of CO2. Jason Fraser was at Pivotal Labs when the Air Force came with this problem. His team built a mission planning tool in 90 days. Twelve-hour cycles dropped to two hours; replanning to ten to fifteen minutes. Within 90 days of delivery, at least one tanker was staying grounded every day — and the emissions went with it. Jason never pitched climate. He pitched speed, efficiency, and cost — what the Air Force cared about. Climate came along for the ride. Find the overlap between what your organization needs and what the planet needs, and lead with the former.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ In this episode, we cover: The magnetic whiteboard running billion-dollar missions — and why it kept failingWhy 70% of missions got replanned daily, and why the fix was always "another tanker"How Jigsaw got built in 90 days instead of yearsWhy leading with efficiency (not climate) was the right callEvery gallon = 20 pounds of CO2: the down pillows metaphor that makes it realThe granddaughter frame: "is the carbon cost worth the increase in temperature for my granddaughter?"━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Who this episode is for: Product managers, engineers, and ops professionals who want their work to connect to climate — without a title changeAnyone inside large institutions wondering whether change is possible from where they sitAnyone curious about how one of the world's most bureaucratic institutions learned to ship software in 90 days━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ About Jason FraserJason Fraser is an impact strategy consultant, formerly Director of Product Management and Design at Pivotal Labs' public sector division. He's worked with the U.S. Federal Government and the White House Presidential Personnel Office, and serves as a program mentor for the Earthshot Prize. Co-author of Farther, Faster, and Far Less Drama. Find him at missionratio.com. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Resources mentioned Farther, Faster, and Far Less DramaJason's websiteJigsaw case studyNATO + the tanker planning appAFRL — Air Force seeks to accelerate efficiency━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━✨ Work with mehttps://www.kidoki.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙 CreditsProduced and hosted by Louisa Henry | Edited by Alex Leff | Music by Run Riot Run | Logo by Cassidy Frost━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ The views expressed are Jason Fraser's own and reflect his personal experience; nothing here should be taken as official government policy or professional advice.

    59 min
  2. You Don’t Have to Care About Climate to Make an Impact — Lizzy Kolar (Scope Zero)

    FEB 17

    You Don’t Have to Care About Climate to Make an Impact — Lizzy Kolar (Scope Zero)

    Your utility bill is a behavior-change problem (and a benefits opportunity). Lizzy Kolar explains the Carbon Savings Account and why employees actually use it. This episode is part of Any Job Can Be a Climate Job - a podcast exploring how people bring climate impact into everyday work, even in roles that aren't labeled 'climate.' ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Lizzy Kolar grew up in West Virginia, worked as an engineer, and became co-founder + CEO of Scope Zero. She shares how her experiences shaped a focus on everyday consumer behavior - because small changes, repeated at scale, add up to real impact. We go deep on Scope Zero's Carbon Savings Account (CSA): a financial wellness benefit that reimburses employees for home technology and transportation upgrades (LEDs, power strips, low-flow fixtures, ENERGY STAR appliances, and more). Lizzy explains why this works even for people who aren't climate-motivated. When the incentives make sense, people opt in, learn how they're consuming, and shift their behavior at home and at work. If you're an employee, you'll leave with a concrete next step to bring to HR. If you're a leader, you'll hear why "Scope 3, Category 7" (employee commute + work-from-home emissions) matters - and how a benefit can measure, report, and reduce it. In this episode: Why Lizzy shifted from "clean energy" to everyday behavior changeThe Carbon Savings Account and how it's like a wellness benefitWhy companies offer this: talent retention + automated Scope 3 reporting"Low-hanging fruit" upgrades (LEDs, power strips, low-flow fixtures)What "vampire loads" are and why unplugging mattersHow employees can pitch CSA internallyWho this is for: HR/Benefits leaders evaluating practical benefitsSustainability leaders tracking Scope 3 reductionsEmployees wanting to pitch new benefitsAnyone reducing household costs through efficiency━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ About Lizzy Kolar:Co-founder and CEO of Scope Zero. She holds a master's in sustainable design engineering from Stanford and a bachelor's in mechanical engineering from WVU. Former engineer at Ameresco designing energy and water efficiency upgrades for military base housing. She's leading Scope Zero's mission to reduce utility bills by $300B per year and co-created the podcast "It All Adds Up." ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Resources: Scope Zero - Lizzy's companyDOE standby power guideRewiring America calculatorThe Conundrum (book)"It All Adds Up" podcastLizzy on LinkedInDisclaimer: This episode is for informational purposes only. Views are the guest's own, not professional advice. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 Other platforms: YouTubeApple PodcastsSubstack ✨ Work with me 🎙 Credits:Produced & Hosted by Louisa HenryEdited by Alex LeffMusic by Run Riot RunLogo by Cassidy Frost

    50 min
  3. How Lab Design Shapes Energy Use for Decades

    FEB 2

    How Lab Design Shapes Energy Use for Decades

    If you work in a lab, one small habit can save a surprising amount of energy: Shut the sash. Architect Jacob Werner explains why airflow, safety, and infrastructure choices are some of the biggest (hidden) climate levers. This episode is part of Any Job Can Be a Climate Job — a podcast exploring how people bring climate impact into everyday work, even in roles that aren’t labeled “climate.” 👉 Subscribe and leave a comment — I’d love to hear what resonates. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Research labs are where some of the most important work in the world happens: curing disease, developing renewable energy, and building the future of science. They’re also some of the most energy- and resource-intensive buildings we have. Not because people are careless, but because labs are designed to optimize for safety, airflow, and precision. In this episode, I talk with Jacob Werner, an architect at Ellenzweig who designs science labs for colleges and universities, about why labs function more like machines than offices — and why that makes design such a powerful climate lever. Jacob explains how decisions about airflow, temperature control, filtration, and safety systems quietly shape energy use for decades — and how good design can make the sustainable choice the easiest choice, without relying on constant heroics from the people inside the building. Listen for: Why labs use so much energy (and what “stable experimental conditions” requires)What designers can “bake in” so sustainable behavior is easier (fume hood sashes, recycling access, efficient HVAC)How sustainability sticks best when it’s treated as good design, not an add-onPractical lab actions that matter: Shut the Sash, lights, and equipment power-down normsWhy climate action often starts far upstream, in systems most of us never seeAbout Jacob Jacob Werner is an architect with Ellenzweig in Boston. Ellenzweig designs science labs primarily for colleges and universities. Jacob also co-chairs the AIA 2030 Commitment, a program supporting architects in tracking and reporting progress toward lower-carbon buildings. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ American Institute of Architects (AIA) 2030 CommitmentInternational Institute for Sustainable Laboratories (I2SL) Resource HubI2SL – Smart Labs Toolkit (practical guidance)⁠Ellenzweig – Jacob / team page⁠Sustainability at Harvard LabsJacob on LinkedIn━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 00:00 — Cold open: reduce → electrify → renewables 00:00:32 — Intro: why lab design matters 00:01:53 — Who Jacob is + what he designs (Ellenzweig, AIA 2030) 00:02:35 — What is AIA / AIA 2030? 00:03:00 — How Jacob got into architecture and lab design 00:06:25 — How you start designing a lab (vision + flexibility) 00:07:54 — Why labs are so energy- and resource-intensive 00:10:29 — What designers can build in vs what occupants control 00:11:19 — Six Sigma + workflow convenience (waste + behavior design) 00:11:37 — Persuading clients: make sustainability “part of the package” 00:13:33 — Biggest lesson: climate action isn’t all-or-nothing 00:15:00 — Project story: designing for ocean/climate research (URI) 00:17:29 — Renovation + reuse + embodied carbon 00:19:09 — Low-hanging fruit for lab occupants (Shut the Sash, lights, equipment) 00:20:54 — Where to learn more (AIA + I2SL resources) 00:21:28 — What green labs may look like in 10–20 years 00:25:20 — Closing thoughts: everyone can contribute 00:26:23 — Reflection: the biggest wins come from changing systems Disclaimer: This episode is for informational purposes only. Views are the guest’s own, and nothing here should be taken as professional advice. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 Listen to the podcast YouTube Apple Podcasts Substack (behind-the-scenes + updates) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✨ Work with me ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙 Any Job Can Be a Climate Job is produced and hosted by Louisa Henry Edited by ⁠Alex Leff⁠Original music by ⁠Run Riot Run Logo design by Cassidy Frost

    27 min
  4. Turning Green Labs From Idea Into Practice

    JAN 20

    Turning Green Labs From Idea Into Practice

    What does it really take to make sustainability stick? Pam Greenley shares how she brought the Green Labs concept back to MIT, and adapted it to a culture driven by metrics, incentives, and competition. By designing contests around resource savings and innovation, she helped turn an idea into everyday practice without forcing behavior change. This episode is for anyone working inside complex, high-performance organizations who wants to make sustainability normal, practical, and durable. 🎙 Any Job Can Be a Climate Job is produced and hosted by ⁠Louisa Henry⁠. Edited by ⁠Alex Leff⁠. Original music by ⁠Run Riot Run⁠. Logo design by ⁠Cassidy Frost⁠. Newsletter: https://anyjobcanbeaclimatejob.substack.com/ Coaching: https://www.kidoki.com/

    31 min
  5. Process Improvement as a Climate Tool

    JAN 6

    Process Improvement as a Climate Tool

    Teddy Salgado, a Senior Manager of Continuous Improvement at Boston Children's Hospital, loved the idea of using his education to help combat climate change. He had the opportunity to help a brewery in Thailand cut waste with the help of the process improvement methodology, Six Sigma. Disappointed in the lack of manufacturing opportunities to take the same climate action in Boston, he joined Boston Children’s Hospital to help with process improvement. Soon after, he saw an opportunity to connect those efficiencies with the company’s sustainability strategy. Teddy became a Six Sigma coach, helping employees across the company spot opportunities, and implement change. In this interview, Teddy talks through case studies, and gives us tools to help spot waste and take action in our own workplaces. You’ll leave with tips, ideas, and proof that the triple bottom line can (and does) exist: People, Planet, Profit. About Teddy: Teddy Salgado is a Senior Manager of Continuous Improvement at Boston Children's Hospital. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and his Master of Business Administration from the Duke University Fuqua School of Business. In addition to healthcare, Teddy has professional experience in education and sustainability. His current focus is partnering with the operating rooms on improvement initiatives, and he serves on the leadership committee for the hospital's sustainability focused employee affinity group. In his personal time, Teddy enjoys playing ultimate frisbee, biking, and hiking with his wife and retired racing greyhound. Mentions: Lean Six Sigma“8 wastes” DOWNTIME framework - Defects, Overproduction, Waiting, Non-utilized talent, Transportation, Inventory, Motion, Extra process5S Methodology - Sort, Set in order, Shine, Standardize, SustainVisual management - using pictures instead of textTriple Bottom Line - People, Planet, ProfitBoston Children’s Hospital - Sustainability Credits:🎙 Any Job Can Be a Climate Job is produced and hosted by Louisa Henry. Edited by Alex Leff. Original music by Run Riot Run. Logo design by Cassidy Frost. Subscribe for more episodes on how real people are driving climate impact through their everyday work. Found wherever you get your podcasts. anyjobcanbeaclimatejob.com

    28 min
  6. The Hidden Climate Hotspot in Surgery: Anesthesia Gases

    12/24/2025

    The Hidden Climate Hotspot in Surgery: Anesthesia Gases

    For many inhaled anesthetic gases, very little is metabolized. So a lot of what’s delivered ends up getting exhausted/vented out (for staff safety), and not processed. They go up and out into the atmosphere. In the third episode of the Greener Hospitals, Healthier Futures series, I sat down with Dr. Prabhakar Devavaram, Director of Environmental Sustainability in the Division of Peri-operative Anesthesia and a pediatric anesthesiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital. He’s also the site principal investigator for Project SPRUCE, a multicenter trial to reduce anesthetic greenhouse gas emissions.  Prabhakar’s cared about this topic for some time, and shares not only how Boston Children’s Hospital is going about reducing their anesthetic climate impact, but also dives into what these gases are, the various types, and how they’re used.  Did you know that nitrous oxide (laughing gas) can linger in the atmosphere for ~114 years! And very little is metabolized at all. Nitrous oxide is especially relevant in pediatrics, where it’s often used to help kids feel comfortable during mask induction, before adding other agents.  Prabhakar teaches us how anesthesiologists can reduce their climate impact by using non-inhaled alternatives when possible, low-flow options, checking for leaks, and how to make smarter decisions in patient care. He also shares a surprising systems fix: a big chunk of nitrous emissions can happen before it ever reaches the patient. It’s lost through central piping and leaks. Switching to point-of-use cylinders (and tightening the system) can dramatically reduce waste. In this episode you’ll learn:  Understand the main anesthetic gases and their climate impact Learn practical levers (alternatives, low-flow, leak reduction) See how hospitals operationalize change (systems & workflow) Discover how data and feedback loops shift clinician behavior Mentions:  Project SPRUCE  Joint Commission “Reducing the Environmental Impact of Anesthetic Gases” + Seattle Children’s Project SPRUCE reference  ASA Environmental Sustainability: “Environmental Impact of Inhaled Anesthetics” (clear, clinician-friendly guidance)  Association of Anaesthetists “Guide to green anaesthesia” Practice Greenhealth anesthetic gas how-to toolkit (PDF)  Health Sector Climate Pledge (waste anesthetic gases explicitly called out)  Ether Dome background (Mass General Museum page)  Credits:🎙 Any Job Can Be a Climate Job is produced and hosted by Louisa Henry. Edited by Alex Leff. Original music by Run Riot Run. Logo design by Cassidy Frost. Image attribution: vecteezy.com.Subscribe for more episodes on how real people are driving climate impact through their everyday work. Found here, Substack, or wherever you get your podcasts.

    25 min
  7. Greener Hospitals: The Hidden Footprint of Surgery

    12/05/2025

    Greener Hospitals: The Hidden Footprint of Surgery

    Hospital operating rooms are an impressive dance of teamwork and timing. At Boston Children's Hospital, when the operating team wraps up, the cleaning team enters, each with specific assignments to clean and prep the room for the next surgery. On top of that, the team is always on the lookout for ways to reduce the environmental impact. We start today's episode with a conversation with Kristine Rodman, mother of a patient at Boston Children's Hospital. It was incredibly emotional to sit down and hear her story. It was a stark reminder of the stakes behind each operational decision. Julian Inferrera is the Operating Room Flow Manager at Boston Children’s Hospital, where he integrates sustainability into one of the most resource-intensive areas of healthcare. By focusing on waste streams, partnering with colleagues, and using data to reshape daily workflows, he works to demonstrate that sustainability initiatives can be integrated into clinical practice. In this episode, you'll learn: The invisible systems, decisions, and people behind each surgeryWhy ORs are one of the most resource-intensive spaces in the hospitalAn inside look into the operating roomWhat OR waste streams look like, and his team's ideas to reduce themHow Julian and his team take inspiration from NASCAR pit crewsWhy bottom's-up movements can be more effective than top-down mandatesWhy noticing, asking questions, and starting small matters 🎧 Listen now and start spotting climate wins in your own workplace. Credits:🎙 Any Job Can Be a Climate Job is produced and hosted by Louisa Henry. Edited by Alex Leff. Original music by Run Riot Run. Logo design by Cassidy Frost. Image attribution: vecteezy.com. Mentions: Surgery waste art exhibit 👉 Subscribe for more episodes on how real people are driving climate impact through their everyday work. Found here, Substack, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

    47 min
  8. The Freezer That Sparked a Climate Movement at Boston’s Children’s Hospital

    10/14/2025

    The Freezer That Sparked a Climate Movement at Boston’s Children’s Hospital

    Hospital labs aren’t where most people look for climate solutions. But Chuck Blanchette did — and found more than anyone expected. As Manager of Research Facilities at Boston Children’s Hospital, Chuck oversees 200+ labs and more than 800 freezers. When he joined the Freezer Challenge, it sparked a transformation: turning routine lab maintenance into a nationally recognized climate program that’s slashed energy use, reduced plastic waste, and changed how researchers work. In this episode, you’ll hear: How Chuck helped Boston Children’s become a model for sustainable labs What most people get wrong about climate work in hospitals How storytelling and competition sparked behavior change across 50+ labs Why fume hoods, defrost kits, and cheese farms all matter more than you think 🎧 Listen now and start spotting climate wins in your own workplace — no matter your job title. Guest Bio: Chuck Blanchette is the Manager of Research Facilities at Boston Children’s Hospital. He leads their award-winning Green Labs Program, co-chairs the E.A.R.T.H. sustainability group, and was honored as the Phil Wirdzek Emerging Leader in Healthcare. Under his leadership, BCH has become a national leader in lab energy reduction, reuse systems, and sustainable research operations. He’s also a dad of two — and everything he builds is grounded in a deep commitment to leaving behind a livable planet for the next generation. 📬 Connect with Chuck → LinkedIn Photos + Substack Story:Check out freezer photos, defrost kits, and behind-the-scenes images from this episode on Substack. Referenced Organizations & Resources: My Green Lab - A nonprofit promoting sustainability in science, and the origin of tools like the Freezer Challenge and SWOOP stickers. International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories (I2SL) - A nonprofit organization dedicated to sustainable lab design, operation, and use. Chuck is actively involved with I2SL and was recognized by them as an emerging leader. The Freezer Challenge - Hosted by My Green Lab and I2SL. An international competition that encourages labs to optimize cold storage for energy efficiency. AstraZeneca SWOOP Case Study - “Creating a culture of sustainability across labs” Credits: 🎙 Any Job Can Be a Climate Job is produced and hosted by Louisa Henry. Original music by Run Riot Run. Logo design by Cassidy Frost.  Subscribe for more episodes on how real people are driving climate impact through their everyday work.

    38 min
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Join our movement to make every job work for our planet. New ideas to help you take action at work, strengthen your career, and help the environment.

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