Work Green, Earn Green WorkingNation, Hosted by Jay Tipton

Across the world, the collective carbon emissions of sports is equal to that of a mid-size country, which makes Indianapolis – a city contending for the title of sports capital of the world – an ideal testing ground for environmentally-friendly protocols that could be scaled nationally and possibly even internationally.







 To get a sense of just how massively influential sports are not just as an industry but as a platform, Jay speaks with Roger McClendon, executive director of the Green Sports Alliance. Roger informs Jay that the Alliance’s sustainability work on this past year’s College Football Playoff Championship saw a staggering 80% diversion rate of methane-emitting waste from landfill, while shedding light on a need for new green jobs and infrastructure capable of reusing the materials that go into live events. Susan Baughman, president of the 2022 CFP Indianapolis Host Committee, tells Jay that pulling off the most sustainable championship in the event’s history was a team effort that can serve as an inspiration for other cities to recreate and improve upon.







Speaking of improvements, Jay hears about how Indianapolis has been scaling its efforts year-over-year by speaking with Jessica Davis, director of the IUPUI Office of Sustainability, which serves as the boots-on-the-ground when it comes to data collection and research. Jessica explains how the 2021 March Madness tournament established a precedent for sustainable sporting events, and how each successive event is only going to raise the bar and extend the scope of emissions that the city intends to offset. Next, Jay pops over to Lucas Oil Stadium to hear from Yogi Stephens of Sodexo Live! about how vendors are deploying best practices while keeping tens of thousands of hungry fans fed. 







Finally, Jay concludes his nation-wide tour at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where he gets some sage advice from Penske Entertainment’s first ever sustainability program leader, Logan Waddle, about how he successfully turned his passions for sports and the environment into a newly minted green job.







CREDITS:







Featuring: Jay Tipton, Roger McClendon, Susan Baughman, Jessica Davis, Yogi Stephens, Logan Waddle, Paula DiPernaProducer: Mike ZunicExecutive Producers: Melissa Panzer, Joan Lynch, Art BilgerWriters: Jay Tipton, Mike ZunicTalent Producer: Emily LallouzEdited and Sound Mixer: Lynz FlorenAssistant Editor: Mengfang YangMusic by: Avocado JunkieMade possible by: the Walton Family Foundation

For Jay’s first foray into the corn belt, he makes a visit to Living History Farms, where Elizabeth Sedrel explains that back in the early 1800s, European settlers established an agricultural-based economy in Iowa due to its rich, fertile soil. As the population grew and technology advanced, production optimized and Iowa became the nation’s leading producer of corn. However, all those years of tilling soil has resulted in nutrient depletion and major greenhouse gas emissions – but that’s not to say these changes are irreversible. John Gilbert of Gibralter Farms explains that there are six steps farmers can employ in order to regenerate the organic matter that Iowa’s soils have lost, which, if these practices reach scale, can suck a whole lot of C02 out of the atmosphere.







To delve in deeper, Jay first speaks to Rick Cruse, an agronomy professor at Iowa State University, who informs him that viability of agricultural production within the state depends on soil health, but new practices have been difficult to deploy because farmers aren’t seeing the cost benefit. So Jay chats with Tim Youngquist, a farmer liaison with the STRIPS Program, to see how precision data is helping farmers see how devoting a fraction of farmland to native prairie grasslands can boost their bottom line. Next, Jay hears from Adam Ledvina about how technology is revolutionizing the art of grazing livestock, which he has turned into a prescription service that helps farmers expedite the process of clearing leftover crops and converting them into fertilizer by way of GPS-trackable goats.







But as with any green effort, there is the issue of getting to scale. Fortunately, Robert Bonnie informs us that the USDA has put forth a billion dollar proposal for farmers and landowners to come to them with carbon-reducing projects. With this financial incentive, there is not only the potential for these methods to scale but also the opportunity for Iowa to further monetize their efforts in carbon markets, which will need to grow fifteen times their current size by 2030 in order for corporations to reach their net zero targets, according to climate finance expert Sean Penrith.







CREDITS:







Featuring: Jay Tipton, Elizabeth Sedrel, John Gilbert, Rick Cruse, Tim Youngquist, Adam Ledvina, Robert Bonnie, Sean Penrith, Paula DiPernaProduced by: Mike ZunicExecutive Produced by: Melissa Panzer, Joan Lynch, Art BilgerWritten by: Jay Tipton, Mike ZunicTalent Producer: Emily LallouzAssociate Producer: Diana AydinEdited and Sound Mixed by: Lynz FlorenAssistant Editor: Mengfang YangMusic by: Avocado JunkieMade possible by: the Walton Family Foundation

In terms of rankings, Mississippi is not only the poorest state in the nation but also the most heavily polluted. As home to major players in the crude oil and petrochemical industries, leadership has been reluctant to pass environmental initiatives. However, all is not lost because Mississippi’s geological and geographic assets have caught the attention of a few alternative fuel companies that could spring the state forward to become a national leader in the green economy.







To get a sense of direction, Jay first speaks with Sara DiNatale, a Mississippi Today reporter who covers business, economy, and labor within the state. Sara explains that the state’s workforce is more preoccupied with finding higher paying jobs than worrying about environmental concerns, but one industry has gained traction: wood pellet manufacturing. Jay then chats with Jonathan Green, executive director of the STEPS coalition, who opines that the environmental damage the state has incurred has rendered it a blank slate with the potential for radical redevelopment.







One company seizing opportunity in Mississippi is Enviva, a biofuel company that manufactures wood pellets to be used as a replacement for coal. Kim Lloyd, Enviva’s director of human resources, describes how Enviva is offering significantly higher wages while also reducing the company’s environmental impact through sustainable forestry. To get a better sense of how a biofuel plant may affect the local economy, Jay phones George County Community Development & Communications Director Ken Flanagan, who sheds light on how pellet manufacturing is providing a new market for the state’s long-suffering forestry and timber industries.







Looking ahead, Jay interviews Claire Behar, CCO of Hy Stor Energy, about how Mississippi’s coastline has all the right ingredients for green hydrogen to finally go from pipedream to pipeline. In fact, the company’s partners at the University of Southern Mississippi, including geophysicist Dr. Jason McKenna, are already betting on Hy Stor’s success by developing certification programs for this new energy source, which they believe has the capacity to decarbonize maritime transport.























CREDITS:







Featuring: Jay Tipton, Paula DiPerna, Sara DiNatale, Jonathan Green, Kim Lloyd, Ken Flanagan, Claire Behar, Jason McKennaProduced by: Alicia Clark, Mike ZunicExecutive Produced by: Melissa Panzer, Joan Lynch, Art BilgerWritten by: Jay Tipton, Mike ZunicTalent Producer: Emily LallouzEdited and Sound Mixed by: Lynz FlorenAssistant Editor: Mengfang YangMusic by: Avocado JunkieMade possible by: the Walton Family Foundation

Friday, April 22nd, 2022, marks the 52nd anniversary of the beginning of the modern environmental movement, more commonly known as Earth Day. However, unlike most holidays, birthdays, and other annual celebrations, the meaning surrounding this global event has evolved over the past five decades as the understanding of our environmental impact has grown.



To dive a bit deeper into the semantics, Jay hosts a dialogue with environmental consultant and special advisor to the CDP Paula DiPerna about how the intentions behind Earth Day have shifted throughout her storied career, and how they could still stand to become more impactful. Beyond Earth Day itself, Paula and Jay discuss other words and phrases commonly associated with – and used in conjunction with – the green economy, whose meanings have been watered down or misappropriated over the years. Terms like “sustainability,” “carbon pollution,” and “net zero” are all ripe for picking as their ubiquity has stripped them of any tangible outcomes or environmental benefit.



Jay and Paula conclude with suggestions for how we can use language to our advantage in driving home how significant our planet is, especially in today’s day and age when the domestic and global economies are so indelibly linked to the availability of natural resources. Because at the end of the day, more clearly-defined environmental protections begets a more robust economy, and with a more robust economy comes many millions of life-sustaining jobs.



CREDITS:

Featuring: Jay Tipton, Paula DiPerna

Produced by: Alicia Clark

Executive Produced by: Melissa Panzer, Joan Lynch, Art Bilger

Written by: Jay Tipton, Alicia Clark, Mike Zunic

Talent Producer: Emily Lallouz

Edited and Sound Mixed by: Lynz Floren

Assistant Editor: Mengfang Yang

Music by: Avocado Junkie

Made possible by: the Walton Family Foundation

With the signing of the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act into law, Illinois has become the first coal-producing state – and the first midwestern state – to commit to a carbon-free future, and the bill was proposed in part by the state’s labor unions.







To get a sense of the scale of the goals CEJA lays out, Jay speaks with environmental expert Paula DiPerna, who ran the Joyce Foundation out of Chicago and founded the Chicago Climate Exchange. Paula explains that what sets Illinois apart from other states is that their union leaders have stopped trying to hang on to legacy jobs and have instead embraced the burgeoning green economy. Jay digs in a little deeper by chatting with Pat Devaney, the secretary treasurer for the AFL-CIO, who explains how the unions saw the shortcomings of previous legislation and decided to put together a proposal of their own that guaranteed prevailing wage and labor standards on renewable energy projects.







Next, Jay hears from Naomi Davis, founder of Blacks In Green, to hear how workforce development programs are providing not only pipelines to green jobs, but also pathways to business ownership for black and brown residents who have historically been shut out of the clean energy movement. And while on the subject of workforce development, Jay pops into Heartland Community college to hear from administrators, teachers, and students about how auto workers are preparing to meet CEJA’s most ambitious targets: getting one million electric vehicles on the road by 2030.







And as the state works to electrify both its consumer and public transit, renewable energy developers will be erecting large-scale wind and solar projects. Jay rounds out his trip through Through the Prairie State by talking to Jon Carson, founder of Trajectory Energy Partners, about how well-suited Illinois’ rural farmlands are to provide the groundwork needed to meet the state’s growing energy demands.







CREDITS:Featuring: Jay Tipton, Paula DiPerna, Pat Devaney, Naomi Davis, Keith Cornille, Mike Deavers, Kyle Klein, Jon CarsonProduced by: Alicia ClarkExecutive Produced by: Melissa Panzer, Joan Lynch, Art BilgerWritten by: Jay Tipton, Alicia Clark, Mike ZunicAssociate Producer: Eve BilgerTalent Producer: Emily LallouzEdited and Sound Mixed by: Lynz FlorenAssistant Editor: Mengfang YangMusic by: Avocado JunkieMade possible by: the Walton Family Foundation

As home to several major food corporations, nearly every food in the grocery aisle ties back to Arkansas in some way, shape, or form. One common denominator: rice. As both a staple food and a key ingredient in a multitude of processed foods, the state’s cash crop is grown not on major industrial farming operations, but on 2,300 individually-owned family farms that have been passed down from generation to generation. However, as clean as a bowl of rice may sound, it packs a dirty little secret: methane emissions.







In order to assess just how green rice farming truly is, Jay speaks with fourth-generation rice farmer Jennifer James, who discusses the farming technologies helping her to conserve water and soil in hopes of preserving the land for her son. To get a better sense as to whether Jennifer’s green efforts are representative of the industry as a whole, Jay chats with Riceland’s VP of Sales, Mark Holt, about how the farmer-owned co-op works to process, sell, and distribute the farmers’ yields, all while disseminating environmentally-friendly practices that trickle down from food manufacturers. One of rice’s biggest purchasers happens to be Anheuser-Busch, so Jay calls upon Agronomy Manager Bill Jones to explain how a brewery is helping green initiatives get to scale via model farms and strategic sourcing programs.







Looking forward, Jay learns from Dr. Alton B. Johnson, director of the Rice and Research Extension Center at the University of Arkansas, about the methods going into developing new strains of rice that will require less water and, in turn, emit less methane. He’s also shocked to hear about the innovative ways in which Riceland is putting its rice waste to use in hopes of offsetting some of the crop’s less desirable greenhouse effects. Finally, Jay speaks to Jennifer’s son Dylan about how college is helping Arkansas’ future farmers be on the cutting edge of rice innovation.







CREDITS:Featuring: Jay Tipton, Jennifer James, Paula DiPerna, Mark Holt, Bill Jones, Dr. Alton B. Johnson, Dylan JamesProduced by: Alicia ClarkExecutive Produced by: Melissa Panzer, Joan Lynch, Art BilgerWritten by: Jay Tipton, Alicia Clark, Mike ZunicAssociate Producer: Eve BilgerTalent Producer: Emily LallouzEdited and Sound Mixed by: Lynz FlorenAssistant Editor: Mengfang YangMusic by: Avocado JunkieMade possible by: the Walton Family Foundation