Journey To Regeneration

Chris Marquis
  • 5.0 (2)
  • Business
  • Biweekly

Journey to Regeneration explores how forward-looking companies create long-term advantage by repairing the ecological and social systems they rely on. Hosted by Cambridge professor Christopher Marquis, the show features CEOs, sustainability strategists, climate innovators, and scholars who turn big ideas into actionable moves—unpacking what “net positive” really looks like, the policies accelerating the shift, and the practical hurdles leaders face on the ground. It’s a show for decision-makers who want to create resilient growth without greenwashing.

  1. 6d ago

    Rethinking Food Supply Chains: Heather K. Terry on GoodSAM's Regenerative Business Model

    In this episode of Journey to Regeneration, Christopher Marquis speaks with Heather K. Terry, CEO of GoodSAM, a food company seeking to transform global supply chains through direct trade, regenerative agriculture, and more equitable partnerships with farmers. Drawing on her unconventional journey from Broadway actor to food entrepreneur, Terry explains how visiting farming communities in Colombia reshaped her understanding of the food industry and inspired a business model that places farmers at the center of decision-making. The conversation examines how GoodSAM works directly with cooperatives and associations to reduce intermediary costs, improve farmer compensation, and build supply chain resilience. Terry also challenges conventional approaches to sustainability certification, questioning whether standards developed in wealthy consumer markets adequately reflect local farming traditions and community needs. Beyond sourcing, the discussion explores the difficult economics of regenerative business, including the tension between fair farmer compensation and affordable food, the pressures of grocery retail, and the often conflicting expectations of founders and investors. Terry reflects on the additional barriers women entrepreneurs face in raising capital and why investor alignment matters for companies pursuing long-term social and environmental goals. Ultimately, the conversation presents regeneration not as a fixed set of practices or certifications, but as a broader transformation of economic relationships that requires cultural sensitivity, patient capital, and a willingness to rethink how businesses create and distribute value. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

  2. Oct 22

    Rethinking the Workplace: Ted and Rooney Castle on Building a People-Centered Business at Rhino Foods

    In this episode of Journey to Regeneration, Christopher Marquis speaks with Ted Castle, founder of Rhino Foods, and Rooney Castle, the company's CEO, about how businesses can strengthen their performance by investing in the people who make their success possible. Based in Vermont and known for its longstanding partnership with Ben & Jerry's on the company’s iconic cookie dough ice cream, Rhino Foods has developed innovative workplace practices that address some of the structural challenges facing employees and employers alike. Ted and Rooney explain how the company's Income Advance program helps workers manage financial emergencies, establish credit, and build savings through a partnership with local credit unions, and how its Employee Exchange program turns seasonal fluctuations in demand into opportunities for job security, skills development, and employee retention. They also explore the role of open-book management in creating shared accountability, the importance of providing meaningful support for refugees and other New Americans, and the challenges of maintaining a people-centered culture through a generational leadership transition. Throughout the conversation, they reflect on the relationship between employee well-being and business resilience, the advantages and responsibilities of private ownership, and why effective leadership begins with understanding employees' lived experiences. Rhino Foods' experience demonstrates how businesses can move beyond treating social responsibility as a separate initiative and instead make trust, inclusion, and shared prosperity integral to how they operate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

  3. Oct 14

    Making the Invisible Count: Natalie Nicholles from Capitals Coalition on Valuing Nature and People

    In this episode of Journey to Regeneration, Christopher Marquis speaks with Natalie Nicholles of the Capitals Coalition about a fundamental blind spot in how businesses measure performance: the value of nature, people, and communities that conventional financial accounts largely overlook. While companies increasingly collect environmental and social data, much of that information remains disconnected from the investment, risk, and strategic decisions that shape business outcomes. Nicholles explains how impact valuation can bridge this gap by translating changes in natural, human, and social capital into information that decision-makers can use. Drawing on examples from Tasmanian forestry company Forico and Brazilian cosmetics company Natura, she shows how accounting for previously invisible value can reveal new economic opportunities, expose environmental and social trade-offs, and guide changes to business models. The conversation also examines the distinction between value and price, why valuation need not mean commodifying nature or human rights, and how emerging standards could make impact valuation a credible part of mainstream finance. Ultimately, Nicholles argues that building a regenerative economy requires more than measuring harm or improving disclosure. It requires changing what businesses recognize as valuable and ensuring that the systems supporting long-term prosperity are considered in the decisions that shape their future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

  4. Oct 8

    Shell It Where It Grows: Johnny Cashew and the Hidden Logic of Global Trade

    In this episode of Journey to Regeneration, Christopher Marquis speaks with Roel van de Weijer, co-founder of Johnny Cashew, about what it takes to redesign a global commodity supply chain so that more value remains where a product is grown. African cashews have traditionally travelled thousands of kilometres to Asia for processing before reaching European consumers, a system that separates farmers from markets, shifts processing jobs away from producing regions, and makes traceability difficult. Johnny Cashew has tried to build an alternative by processing cashews in Tanzania, working directly with farmer cooperatives, and creating long-term relationships across the chain. Van de Weijer explains why a seemingly straightforward idea—“shell it where it grows”—requires new approaches to logistics, working-capital finance, farmer commitments, processing capacity, pricing, and retail partnerships. The conversation also examines the tension between traceability and flexibility: deeper commitments to particular farmers and regions can improve accountability and local value creation while introducing risks that conventional commodity markets avoid by switching easily between suppliers. Van de Weijer discusses efforts to establish a living-income reference price, the importance of Lidl as an early market “firestarter,” and Johnny Cashew’s two-track strategy of using private-label production to achieve scale while using its own brand to expose the structural problems hidden inside a seemingly ordinary snack. The episode shows how creating regenerative businesses often requires changing the architecture of trade itself—who bears risk, where value is added, and whether producers remain visible within the systems built around them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

  5. Oct 1

    Building for Impact: John Salzinger on Haven, Energy Access, and Mission Control

    In this episode of Journey to Regeneration, Christopher Marquis speaks with John Salzinger, entrepreneur and inventor behind portable solar lighting company Haven, about building a commercially viable solar business around the challenge of energy poverty. Salzinger explains a distinctive model in which the same product sold to mainstream retail customers is made available to NGOs at lower margins rather than replaced with a cheaper impact-market version. He discusses Haven's decision to work with NGOs and nonprofits before entering retail, using demanding humanitarian settings as both a route to impact and a proving ground for product durability. The conversation also examines one of the central tensions in social enterprise: how financing and ownership can determine whether an impact mission survives as a company grows or changes hands. Salzinger reflects on lessons from the sale of his prior solar start-up MPOWERD and explains why Haven has remained self-funded alongside a small-business loan, allowing its owners to retain control over pricing, product quality, and mission. Also explored are the unavoidable trade-offs of physical products—from manufacturing impacts and battery materials to durability, e-waste, and affordability—and why pursuing a long useful life can matter more than claiming perfection.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

  6. Sep 24

    Fireclay Tile: Can American Craft Manufacturing Scale Sustainably?

    In this episode of Journey to Regeneration, Christopher Marquis speaks with Eric Edelson, CEO of Fireclay Tile, about what it takes to scale an American manufacturing business without abandoning craftsmanship, employee participation, or environmental responsibility. Edelson traces Fireclay's evolution from a struggling 19-person artisan tile company to a vertically integrated manufacturer with roughly 450 employees, explaining why the company has built its model around made-to-order production, domestic manufacturing, customized design, and employee ownership. The conversation explores a pragmatic approach to environmental improvement: rather than relying on a single sustainability intervention, Fireclay has focused on continual gains in areas such as kiln efficiency, natural-gas use, freight, packaging, production scheduling, and waste avoidance. Edelson also discusses how the B Corp framework has functioned as a tool for organizational self-assessment rather than an endpoint, and why sharing ownership can change how employees participate in value creation. The discussion then turns to Fireclay's acquisitions strategy, the shortage of skilled tradespeople, and the need to preserve and develop craft expertise through training. Taken together, the episode asks what regenerative business looks like when sustainability is embedded not only in materials, but in ownership structures, operational decisions, workforce development, and the durability of what a company produces. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

  7. Sep 17

    When Growth Becomes Climate Strategy: Caroline Reid on Oatly and Food-System Change

    In this episode of Journey to Regeneration, Christopher Marquis speaks with Caroline Reid, Senior Director of Sustainability at Oatly, about what it takes for a company to move from reducing its own environmental footprint to challenging the system in which it operates. Drawing on more than fifteen years of sustainability work at IKEA and an engineering background, Reid contrasts the efficiencies available within an established business model with Oatly's effort to shift consumption away from higher-impact dairy products. She explains why Oatly views conversion rather than additional consumption as central to its climate impact, and how the company uses consumer surveys, sales volumes, and life-cycle assessments to calculate avoided emissions while keeping those claims separate from its own corporate footprint. The discussion examines Oatly's early adoption of product-level climate labeling, the Climate Solutions Framework, and the tensions that arise when conventional emissions targets are applied to growing companies whose products are designed to displace more carbon-intensive incumbents. Reid also describes Oatly's approach to regenerative agriculture, including working through mills as leverage points across crop rotations and collaborating with other food buyers to support farmers. The result is a wider discussion about how companies can identify the places where they genuinely have influence—across consumer culture, supply chains, finance, and industry standards—and use business growth not simply to sell more, but to accelerate a transition toward a lower-impact food system. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

  8. Sep 10

    Helen Crowley on Moving Business From Less Harm to Nature Positive

    In this episode of Journey to Regeneration, Christopher Marquis speaks with Dr. Helen Crowley, Co-Founder and CEO of Nature Matters, a conservation biologist whose career has taken her from field-based biodiversity work with the Wildlife Conservation Society to corporate sustainability leadership at Kering and, more recently, nature-focused advisory and education. Crowley explains why addressing biodiversity loss requires companies to look beyond operational footprints and understand how decisions about materials, sourcing, and supply chains shape ecosystems far from corporate headquarters. Drawing on her work on Kering’s pioneering Environmental Profit and Loss account, she discusses how natural-capital measurement can become a tool for prioritization and change rather than simply another disclosure exercise. The conversation examines cashmere sourcing in Mongolia as a case study, where evidence of land degradation led not to abandoning the material but to work on regenerative grazing, herder livelihoods, animal husbandry, and wildlife protection. Crowley also reflects on the responsibilities and opportunities of luxury companies, the relationship between nature-positive strategies and long-term resilience, and the limits of sustainability approaches built primarily around reducing negative impacts. Through her work at Nature Matters, she argues for bringing ecological complexity, scientific understanding, and compelling storytelling back into business decision-making. The result is a broader argument for regeneration: companies need to understand where they depend on and affect nature, then move from minimizing damage toward actively improving the systems on which both business and society depend. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

Journey to Regeneration explores how forward-looking companies create long-term advantage by repairing the ecological and social systems they rely on. Hosted by Cambridge professor Christopher Marquis, the show features CEOs, sustainability strategists, climate innovators, and scholars who turn big ideas into actionable moves—unpacking what “net positive” really looks like, the policies accelerating the shift, and the practical hurdles leaders face on the ground. It’s a show for decision-makers who want to create resilient growth without greenwashing.

Information

  • Creator
    Chris Marquis
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    59
  • Copyright
    © Chris Marquis

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