Supercool

Supercool
  • 5.0 (25)
  • BUSINESS
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

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. 10H AGO

    How AI-Powered Robots Rescued Recycling: AMP’s Dirty MRFs and Garbage Waterfalls

    Americans think they recycle. Mostly, we don’t. More than half of all recyclable materials never reach a recycling bin. They go straight into the garbage, where the waste industry has historically had little economic incentive — and limited technology — to recover them. Matanya Horowitz founded AMP to build AI-powered robots that sort cans, bottles, and other valuable materials in recycling facilities, eventually deploying hundreds of robots across the country. Now AMP is building AI-powered mixed waste facilities — the modern version of what the industry calls dirty MRFs — that sort valuable materials directly out of the garbage stream. Trash moves down a conveyor belt, drops into what Matanya calls a “garbage waterfall,” and air jets fire in milliseconds to knock milk jugs, aluminum cans, and other materials onto separate conveyors. In this episode, Matanya explains why traditional recycling economics are broken, why the waste industry gave up on dirty MRFs decades ago, and how AMP’s full-scale facility in southeastern Virginia points to a different future: a recycling system that doesn’t require a recycling bin. Show NotesGuest: Matanya Horowitz, Founder & CTO Company: AMP  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

    42 min

  2. MAY 13

    How to Burp a Cow: Hoofprint Biome Makes More Milk, Less Methane

    Cow burps are one of climate’s strangest and most stubborn problems. Methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas, and cattle are responsible for about 30 percent of global methane emissions. For years, the basic answer has been: eat less beef and drink less milk. Kathryn Polkoff, PhD, co-founder and CEO of Hoofprint Biome, thinks there is a better way. Hoofprint uses natural enzymes to reshape the cow’s rumen microbiome, cutting methane production while boosting dairy milk yield and beef cattle weight gain. No harsh chemical feed additives. Just a solution that helps farmers produce more with less methane. In Supercool’s first live recording, Josh talks with Kathryn at Raleigh-Durham Startup Week’s inaugural Climate Tech Day about cow burps, commercializing agricultural climate tech, and why Hoofprint could not exist without AI. It is a climate story about biology, business, and turning wasted energy into value. Show Notes Guest: Kathryn Polkoff, PhD, co-founder and CEO Company: Hoofprint Biome 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

    46 min

  3. MAY 6

    The Master Builder Returns: Augmenta Designs Waste Out of Construction

    Construction has a hidden waste problem, and it starts long before anything reaches the job site. For centuries, the master builder was the person who translated architectural vision into buildable reality. Today, modern construction is too complex for any one person to play that role. A commercial building can contain hundreds of thousands of components across electrical, mechanical, plumbing, structural, and fire protection systems. No one can see it all. That turns construction into a zero-sum game. Trades compete for the same walls, ceilings, shafts, and risers. Some win. Some lose. And when those conflicts get discovered during construction instead of design, the result is rework, delays, wasted material, and systems that cost more than they should to build and operate. In this episode, Josh talks with Frio Iorio, co-founder and CEO of Augmenta, about using AI to bring constructability to the start of design: turning architectural models, engineering requirements, and project constraints into 3D designs that show what can actually be built before construction begins. The result: less material waste, fewer expensive mistakes, and buildings designed to use less energy for decades. Show Notes Guest: Francesco Iorio Company: Augmenta Documentary (referenced): Manufactured Landscapes 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

    45 min

  4. APR 29

    The Largest Private Recycling Company in America Just Showed Up

    Ron Gonen built the largest privately held recycling and composting company in America largely in secret. For five years, his team acquired family-owned recycling operations across the country. When Circular Services finally surfaced two years ago — 35 facilities, municipal contracts in New York, Charlotte, Austin, San Antonio, and Phoenix — the industry's reaction was: wait, they did what? That's one piece of what Closed Loop Partners does. The company Gonen founded after serving as Mayor Bloomberg's Recycling Czar is built around a single thesis: the circular economy needs infrastructure. To build it, Closed Loop operates across three businesses: an asset management business with funds across venture, private equity, and credit; an advisory arm that works with corporations to redesign their supply chains; and Circular Services, the physical infrastructure that processes material and feeds it back in. His argument isn't environmental. It's economic. The global supply chains built over the last 60 years made sense under conditions that no longer exist. The businesses that figure out how to use what the economy throws away as their primary input aren't just the future. They're already winning. Show NotesGuest: Ron Gonen, Founder & CEO Company: Closed Loop Partners 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

    44 min

  5. APR 22

    The Missing Renewable: Wave Power Comes Ashore

    Sign up for Johnson Controls' Free Webinar: Optimizing Lifecycle Value Webinar -- The ocean is an unforgiving place to put a machine. That’s why wave energy has remained one of the most promising — and most elusive — sources of renewable power. In this episode, Josh talks with Catharina Belfrage Sahlstrand, Chief Commercial Officer of CorPower Ocean, about how the company is turning wave energy into a viable power source. They discuss CorPower’s spherical buoys, designed around a principle borrowed from the human heart, and the commercial challenge of getting utilities, developers, and large offtakers comfortable with a new source of clean energy. Catharina explains why surviving 60-foot waves off the coast of Portugal became a critical proof point, why CorPower is now building its first commercial wave farms in Portugal and Scotland, and how wave power — as a complement to wind and solar — can make the broader renewable mix more affordable. Show Notes Guest: Catharina Belfrage Sahlstrand, Chief Commercial Officer Company: CorPower Ocean 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

    40 min

  6. APR 15

    The House That Rice Built: Modern Mill’s Breakthrough Building Material

    Sign up for Johnson Controls' Free Webinar: Optimizing Lifecycle Value Webinar -- It’s one thing to invent a better, more sustainable building material. It’s another to get builders, dealers, and contractors to adopt it. Modern Mill has done both. In this episode, Josh talks with Chandler Delinks, the company’s Sales Director and employee number one, about how Modern Mill set up shop in Mississippi to upcycle rice hulls into Acre, a high-performance material now used for trim, siding, cladding, cabinetry, and more. Chandler shares how the company brought a lower-carbon alternative into one of the most change-resistant industries in the economy: earning credibility with contractors, building out distribution region by region, and helping a material made from waste earn its place on jobsites.  Show Notes Guest: Chandler Delinks, Sales Director Company: Modern Mill 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

    46 min

  7. APR 8

    AI Mapping & 3D-Printed Reefs: Coastal Climate Adaptation Gets Its Tech Stack

    Sign up for Risk and Resilience — Designing for a Changing World, a Johnson Controls fireside chat at 1pm EST today featuring Ralph DiNola, founder of Building Insights Group and former CEO of New Buildings Institute, in conversation with Rob Tanner, Marketing Director at Johnson Controls.  -- For decades, the answer to shoreline erosion has been the same: build something big, hard, and heavy. Natrx is rewriting that playbook using AI, machine learning, and 3D-printed reef structures engineered to work with natural systems, not against them. In this episode, Josh talks with Tad Schwendler, COO of Natrx, about how the company maps erosion across entire coastlines at one-meter resolution — analysis that would otherwise take years — and turns that intelligence into reef structures that protect shorelines and help coastal ecosystems come back to life. With more than 80 projects across Louisiana, North Carolina, the Chesapeake Bay, and Hawaii, Natrx is doing more than protecting shorelines. It is helping defend coastal wetlands that store large amounts of carbon — and that, when lost, release nearly 2 gigatons of CO₂ a year. This is a conversation about technology, execution, and what it takes to build a company around one of climate’s hardest challenges: moving fast enough, with the right tools and the right stakeholders, to protect coastlines before they change for good. Show Notes Guest: Tad Schwendler, COO Company: Natrx 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

    43 min

  8. APR 1

    Don’t Talk About Climate: How to Scale a Climate Company

    Every climate company that scales knows the secret: they don’t sell climate. In this solo episode of Supercool, host Josh Dorfman shares one of the clearest lessons from nearly two years of conversations with founders, CEOs, operators, and investors across the low-carbon economy: the companies that break through do not lead with technical specs or climate mission. Their messaging is built around concrete customer benefits. Josh shows what that looks like in practice, with examples from companies scaling in mobility, home electrification, the built environment, and renewable energy. Time and again, the same pattern emerges. The climate companies that win never ask customers to sacrifice. They offer something immediate and better: lower costs, better performance, more control, and peace of mind. Carbon reductions are built in. Reserve your spot here for Johnson Controls' free fireside chat: Risk and Resilience — Designing for a Changing World 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

    11 min
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Trailer

5
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25 Ratings

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
    96
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Supercool
  • Show Website
    Supercool

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