Many years ago, when I first started talking about sustainability, I complained about the word. I said, to anyone who would listen, that we shouldn’t be trying to “sustain” anything anymore. We were beyond maintaining the status quo and should instead be focusing on regenerating, repairing and revitalizing. Sustainability is the ability to maintain or support a process continuously over time. In an environmental and societal context, the standard definition established by the United Nations Brundtland Commission is “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” We’re doing great!! (insert eye roll emoji here)

Now that I’m older and wiser (mostly older though), I am learning to live with this nomenclature. Defenders of the word said it was too late to try to change the name. People generally knew what you were talking about when you mentioned sustainability. Critics said that sustainability actually means different things to different people. Our inability to clearly define it was getting in the way of the effort to address it. I understand both sides, but we have to acknowledge that this crisis has evolved over time. When our industry first started talking about it, we fixated on recycled content. Everything was post consumer this and pre consumer that. Fortunately, it’s much more than that now. Its meaning is derived from your involvement in planet health. If you’re focused on the removal of ocean bound plastic, then sustainability is ocean pollution. If your company is focused on materiality, then sustainability is the removal of toxic ingredients.

Here’s what has happened to sustainability, as a word. It’s just gotten more complicated because the spectrum has grown-and that’s a really good thing. It’s a good thing because as our industry started thinking about sustainability-aka planet health, we realized that we impact that issue in a lot of different ways. I get excited about this because it means there are actually a lot of different avenues that can bring you to a greater planet health. So, organizations can now create strategies around sustainability that play to their strengths. They can land on sustainability initiatives that have the greatest impact, or maybe offer the most affordable solutions for today. Having these options means sustainability is more accessible now then it’s ever been.

Has your company focused on local supply chains? Perfect. You can build out your sustainability narrative focusing on this piece, and it allows you to enter the conversation with a solid starting point. Has your company been active in the local community? Then begin with social equity and build on that.

We still have manufacturers that have delayed stepping into sustainability. It’s an overwhelming topic when you look at it all at once. But when you pull it apart and understand all the different pieces that fall into the spectrum, you can really find your starting point. It’s no longer a raging river that’s going to sweep you away the moment you decide to step into it. Today, there are so many different impacts that organizations can weigh when considering what their role in this conversation will be.

You know what other word has outgrown itself? Circularity. It used to be something we talked about when we evaluated how recyclable your product was. What can we do to keep it out of the landfill? That’s the ultimate point to circularity, but today that word applies to so much more than product that can be recycled. Today we look at how easily your product can be repaired in the field. We ask how easy it is to take apart for recycling. Can you use everyday tools? Are there materials that hold a value in the recycling world? Is it made from wood? Is it made from garbage? Can it be re-purposed, re-furbished, re-used, upcycled, re-manufactured or revitalized? That’s a lot of “re’s”. My favorite is resilient, and that’s what you need to be these days.

I curated an exhibit last year called “Rewritten”. My focus was on circularity and I was amazed at how many different avenues there were to enter that conversation. I truly believe that defines a movement. The tent gets bigger. The word means more. So, let’s embrace the problem of outgrowing our nomenclature. Let’s remember that it’s a good thing. I think we call that being more inclusive.

This is not an AI generated article. I’m sure there are enough human errors contained herein to convince you. In case you don’t know, when I’m not podcasting or writing, I’m consulting. I consult primarily for manufacturers in the commercial furnishings industry. I work with companies who want to better understand their impact on planet, find ways to be better and then distill that work into a narrative they can share with the industry. It’s immensly satisfying and challenging. If asked, I break our industry down into the following categories:

1-You're a company who hasn’t yet invested in any work to address climate impact on our planet. You don’t feel that you’re losing any business, being absent from this conversation and you feel you can continue to fly under this radar and quietly make revenue.

2- You’re a relatively small manufacturer who wants to be involved in climate work so you’re doing the work to better understand your impact and develop a strategy that lets you go after some of the low hanging fruit that helps you lower your impact. You take this work and bake it into your brand narrative so the industry can see you’re putting the work in. You may not yet be investing in labels and certifications, so it may be a little bit more challenging for you to get the word out. Most companies don’t do enough to educate their sales teams to make this into a sales asset.

3- You’ve got this figured out. Your finger is on the pulse of things, you’re doing the work to rigorously measure your impact and make the kind of organizational changes necessary to lower your footprint and be a part of any green building certification out there. You’re collecting the labels and certifications necessary, developing and following a sound strategy for climate and have begun to measure for success and share those results. You are riding the wave and probably being recognized by the design industry as a true ally in this work.

And before you ask, nobody knows what percent of the industry is in which bucket. Go check with Claude.

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You may have heard this, but sustainability can be a lot. A lot. Sustainability isn’t the right word anymore and that’s not helping. Because it’s a lot, many companies are really postponing the work. It’s like stepping into a mighty river, knowing you’re going to get swept downstream…into rocks, submerged trees and some of those really treacherous waterfalls we see in the movies. No bueno. And so you postpone this and your sales team tells you they aren’t working with anyone asking for any of this. In reality, they aren’t a part of the conversations so they don’t really know what they’re missing. But here’s the thing…it doesn’t have to be a lot. I’m about to share a hack with you, but I need a really dramatic opening. The best I can do is a new paragraph, so stay with me.

Still here? Good. Here’s the thing, and I may have given it away in the title…Sustainability is a lot of things. It’s climate, it’s ecosystem, it’s circularity, it’s social equity and it’s human health. And then each of those categories has a bunch of sub-cateogories. You see what I mean? But, if we just start out by not looking past, not looking over, not over looking or disregarding our community, that’s the secret sauce. If we just start with our own community, it’s amazing how thorough and holistic your work can be. Our communities really need us right now. Fenceline communities who are fighting data centers, chemical companies and the fossil fuel industry need us. The community where we operate needs us. The community that is our industry needs us. So, this is an amazingly critical first step. Here’s what can happen if we take “Sustainability” and break it down to “Community”:

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Community Engagement

Your factory is operating within a community. What are you doing to support your local community? Are you involved in food drives? Toy drives? Are you giving your employees the opportunities to volunteer? Where can you help your local community to thrive? This work will provide you with a voice in social equity impact.

Local Supply Chain

Are you working to manage your supply chain and challenge yourself to find local suppliers? This effort supports local communities by building their businesses and employing their members. Working thru a localized supply chain also lowers your carbon impact by not shipping parts and pieces from far away. Less miles-less gas-less carbon emissions. Good stuff that impacts climate health.

Material Health

Are you working to make sure you don’t put your employees or those of your suppliers at risk by manufacturing using any known toxins? Are you materially conscientious? By working to reduce the toxins in your product, you are removing risk at multiple exposure points. This means that people won’t be exposed when the toxin is harvested, processed, shipped to a factory, handled in the manufacture of your product, handled in the installation of your product and handled in the disposal of your product. That’s a lot of exposure points that can affect a lot of people and communities. This can have a huge impact on human health and the health of our ecosystems.

Circularity

And what about your community of customers? What are you doing to help them take better care of your product? Service it or repair it in the field? Giving them alternatives to throwing it away. Are you designing product that will last? Maybe even become a family heirloom one day? Good product design can do this.

You see what we’re doing here? Just by focusing on our communities, you can impact human health, ecosystem health, social health and equity, climate health and yes, even that little devil we call circularity. So, let’s not overthink this. Sustainability might be a big word, but community isn’t. So, let’s not look past our own communities when we’re trying to do a little bit better. Really, you only need to look out the window and down Main Street to find your starting point…and your finish line.

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50 Years ago he asked a simple question

Fifty years ago, a businessman sat in a parking lot and watched workers casually dump office furniture into a dumpster. Most of us would have gone about our day. He didn’t.

In the 1970s, nobody wondered why perfectly good things were being thrown away — landfills felt infinite and dumpster diving wasn’t a thing yet. His curiosity was unusual. So was what he did next. He walked over and asked the workers why.

The answer: the building was installing all new furniture. Same kind. Same manufacturer. Same model. Just newer fabric panels and worksurfaces. The offices were getting a facelift — all bright and shiny new. Why was it all being thrown away?

No small moment can go unnoticed

It would have been easier to keep walking. Imagine if he had. Davies Office would be a very different company today — and Bill Davies probably wouldn’t have gone on to build the largest office furniture remanufacturer in the country.

You don’t need the numbers to know we still have this problem. We dump a lot of furniture. It represents a lot of carbon and a lot of toxic leaching. We haven’t solved it, and maybe that’s because we still aren’t asking the right question at the right time.

If Bill represents the question we don’t ask on the job site — why is this being thrown away? — then Ren DeCherney represents the question we don’t ask about the tools we built to fix the problem.

Certifications are important but they aren’t the end point

Ren DeCherney is with the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute, the organization behind one of the most rigorous product certifications in our industry. I’ve talked a lot about certifications. I think they’re important. I think they’re helpful. But I don’t think they’re the end of the story.

When I spoke with Ren, we asked whether certifications had become the Easy Button. Should we even be looking for an easy button? Like Bill’s question, hers makes you shift a little — find a better perch.

She’s right. Even though Ren speaks from inside the certification world, the label shouldn’t be the end game. It should help us with our specifications, not do the work for us. We still owe it to ourselves and our industry to do the diligence.

There are companies doing great work who don’t carry a label yet. That doesn’t mean they’re destroying the planet. Sustainability is a journey, and every company is somewhere different on it. If we filter our searches only by green labels, we miss a lot. Let’s reward the partners who have taken on the work — not just the ones who have reached the mountaintop.

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Easy Buttons and short cuts

Both Ren and Bill point us toward the harder path, and that’s exactly why they’re worth listening to. Bill built a business on second-life furniture when it would have been easier and cheaper to throw the old stuff out. Ren is pushing the certification ecosystem to keep evolving rather than calcify.

Certifications are valuable tools, but they aren’t Easy Buttons. They don’t replace the work of understanding our industry and our manufacturing partners. As Ren points out, we didn’t become designers so we could push buttons. We became designers to be problem solvers, listeners, and collaborative partners — people focused on making spaces healthier and more beautiful. We don’t need a label for that.

The people making change in this industry are the people who stopped looking for the shortcut.

We can ask good questions

Cradle to Cradle, LEVEL, and Declare are among my favorite certifications. But what can we do to look more closely at a company that doesn’t carry one of those labels yet? A few good questions to ask:

1. Are you working on material transparency? Are you screening for Red List ingredients?

2. Are you measuring your Scope emissions? Have you implemented any factory processes to lower them?

3. Have you looked at circularity? Can your furnishings be repaired in the field? Do you assist with end-of-life options?

4. Tell me about your supply chain. Have you started building one that mirrors your own ethics and environmental commitments?

If any of this has you thinking about easy buttons and dumpsters, you can listen to both episodes anywhere you get your podcasts — they’re also on YouTube.

Listen to Ren's podcast here

Listen to Bill's podcast here

I love these conversations because they remind me of something simple but easy to forget: the status quo is comfortable. Convenient. Bill could have kept walking. Ren could have let the certification work carry on without question. Neither did. They asked.

Comfort and convenience are probably what got us here. The Easy Button is is a dangerous end game. I’d love to see us all do better. I’d love to do better.

Let’s start by asking.

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I was compelled to share these thoughts after recording my most recent episode of Once Upon a Planet with Doug Shapiro. A very dear friend and industry thought leader. Doug has mastered the art of storytelling and has shown us the value of a well thought-out, unrushed, conversation.

Listen to the episode here

We’re talking about pets today. I was always surrounded by animals growing up. We considered them all “pets”, even if the animal itself never considered that title. I was 8 years old when I lived in West Virginia. I attended an elementary school where we had 2 grades per classroom and you got spanked by Mr. Trent, the PhysEd teacher. Of course, it was the PhysEd teacher who wielded the heavy hand of the paddle. Anyway, the first pet we’re talking about today is my pony. His name, of course, was Smokey. He was a spirited pony, as far as ponies go. I was able to saddle him myself, no small feat for an 8 year old. He was always most cooperative when I approached him with the idea of going for a ride, but he had one, very important caveat. We had to ride with his best bestie, Ginger. Ginger was my sister’s pony. She was a pretty red pony and Smokey only had eyes for her. He would ride happily anywhere Ginger went. Riding Smokey was a dream until I took him out without Ginger. And then, on our own, Smokey would demonstrate his disapproval from the onset and would not stop until he was back in the barn with his beloved Ginger.

I have one vivid memory of a ride with Smokey. I had taken him out without Ginger and was determined, at the age of 8, to show Smokey that we would ride when I decided we rode. Simple as that. But not really. Smokey was a pain in the ass right up to the end. The end being the moment I thought it would be really cool to ride Smokey thru the shallow creek, reminiscent of many a western posse pursuing a horse stealing thief thru the back country. Sounds cool, right? Well, first off, Smokey had no intention of running thru a shallow creek. He hadn’t seen the same westerns I had and truly didn’t appreciate the value of that scene. In fact, Smokey turned around at that creek, deciding he had had enough and began a long walk back to the barn, with me protesting in the spirit of the Marlboro Man, firmly ensconced on his back. But Smokey did not just walk back to the barn. He apparently wanted to dislodge this Marlboro Man before doing so, and he knew precisely how to do it. He calmly walked back under the bridge, making sure he walked under it further up the bank, where there was less clearance, so he could nonchalantly brush me off his back. Simple. I remember sitting there in the saddle in complete disbelief, that he would do this as I tugged on the reins and yelled. It was a slow process, as Smokey was careful to do this very carefully and deliberately. As the edge of the bridge came to meet me, I eventually had to let go of the reins to grab onto the edge of this bridge and watched as my rawhide fringed cowboy boots slowly dragged along his back until they slipped off and I was hanging freely from the edge of the bridge. I yelled. I cried. I pleaded with Smokey to think this through. But Smokey, thinking only of Ginger, merely continued his casual walk back to the barn.

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Clearly his rider was now out of sight and out of mind. I eventually had to let go of the bridge, drop a few feet, and gather my Marlboro self. I ran home in tears of shame and indignity, and informed my Aunt Mary Lee that we would be selling Smokey. Promptly. To the first bidder. I didn’t care if it was a dog food factory. But that was Smokey. Were my expectations set appropriately? Probably not. He was not the Marlboro horse and I was no Marlboro Man. Lesson learned. We did not sell Smokey.

I also had a goat. With one horn. He was not my first choice. Again, this is a story of expectations. My sister had a horse. He was an American Quarter horse, and his name was Pepe. She belonged to a 4H club and she showed Pepe. She dressed up like a fancy rider going on a fox hunt, we braided Pepe’s mane and tail and it was a big production. One day I told my mom I’d like to have a horse, belong to a 4H club and show this horse, all dressed up like a fox hunter.

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So, after listening carefully to this wish, my mother came home one day with a baby goat. She said you can join a 4H club for goats and show this goat. She made is sound amazing, almost. I fed this little baby goat powedered milk from a one gallon Gallo Wine bottle. My stepfather was an alcoholic and we had many of these bottles. Anyway…long story short, I named this goat Buckwheat. He could eat anything. He was really amazing. But I went to this 4H club one time and told my mother we’d never go back. I was not going to be “showing” Buckwheat at the county fair. How do you even “show” a goat, right? One day my mother said “I’ve got a guy coming over today to take care of Buckwheat’s horns. Apparantly that was what you did. You got rid of the horns. So, they put some acid on the little horn nubs and it’s supposed to burn off the horns and keep them from growing. I’m sure this chemical is still in use today. It’s probably folded into some teflon pans. Anyway…it only worked on one horn.

So, Buckwheat grew up with one horn because my mother refused to put him through it all a second time. Buckwheat was good with that horn. He would stand at a tree and sharpen it like a chef sharpens their knife before they carve into the roast beast. And we had one rule for people that came to visit. Do not, under any circumstances, touch the horn. Once you touched Buckwheat’s horn, it was game time. It was you against a one horned goat who would not ever give up the game. People would grab his horn and push him away and turn to us, laughing about it, while behind their back, Buckwheat would be standing on his hind legs about to deliver a massive, career ending head butt to this horribly unaware person. And as Buckwheat caught on to the “don’t grab the horn” rule, he figured it out. If he put his head down and slowly walked towards you, at some point, you were going to have to grab the horn. Needless to say, Buckwheat was undefeated. At the end of the day, Buckwheat was an amazing pet and companion who never really knew he was a goat. Again, if I had the correct expectations, I never would have been upset about getting a goat. It all worked out. Another valuable life lesson. When life hands you a goat, don’t worry about the horn.

Our pet menagerie went on and on. We had a burro named Tassy, a goose, a chicken, a rooster, couple of ducks and so many more. Lastly, we had a raccoon named Lucy. If you want to learn more about her, you’ll have to listen to the podcast. Tune in. You’ll love it!

The secret to life is happiness, and the secret to happiness is expectations. Set yours correctly and you’ll never be disapointed, or unhappy. Thanks for reading!

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I was watching my two grandsons (age 2 and 3) play this past weekend. They like to wrestle and when you are the de-facto referee and baby sitter, you need to look closely to understand the difference between a hug and a headlock. Sometimes it starts out as a hug, and winds up in a headlock, so you can’t take your eyes off what’s happening. If you’re wrestling your 3 year old brother, that hug can evolve pretty quickly, and before you know it, you’re stuck in a headlock. From affection to asphyxiation.

Watching those two twist and tumble, I realized I do the same thing in my own life — I just don’t always notice when the hug becomes the headlock. The phone call I was excited to take. The project I said yes to. The opportunity that wrapped its arms around me and felt, at first, like an invitation. You can’t always tell, in the moment, whether what’s around you is going to lift you up or pin you down. The arms feel the same.

That uncertainty has a name. Two names, actually. Self-doubt, which whispers that you might not belong here. And imposter syndrome, which insists you definitely don’t. They show up exactly when life is asking something of you that you haven’t done before — when somebody picks up the phone, finds your name in their contacts, and calls you because they think you might be the person who can help. The invitation comes wrapped in arms. Hug or headlock? You don’t get to know yet. You only find out by leaning in.

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And here’s the inconvenient part: the only way to find out is to take the first bite. Say yes before you feel ready. Answer the call when you don’t have the answer. At some point, everyone who did something great started out by starting out — not knowing where they were going, just taking the first step. The self-doubt comes along for the ride. So does the imposter syndrome. Consider them part of the wrestling.

I recently interviewed Dianne Murata for episode 4 of Once Upon a Planet. We did talk about answering the call, breathing into a brown paper bag under your desk and realizing that not having all the answers is certainly not a reason not to start.

Dianne is an interior designer. She specifies a lot of furniture. Furniture is her world, so imagine her shock when she realized how much of it — 12 million tons a year — was ending up in a landfill. Dianne shared with me that she began getting calls from clients about helping them deal with all their used and unwanted furniture. Dianne calls these above ground landfills. Dianne was not an expert in decommissioning furniture, inventorying it or finding new ways to use it in spaces. So, she could have easily deflected those calls and referred her clients to a business that deals with decommissioning used furniture. Instead, she realized this was a big problem and she was actually a big part of it. So, Dianne rolled up her sleeves and took this on.

You know what smart people do when they take on something they don’t know much about? They tell everyone they don’t know what they’re doing and surround themselves with people who do. Is it a hug or a headlock? You won’t know until you lean in.

The alternative is to assume someone else has it. That the experts are on it. That you’re not the right person to make the call. We have to stop doing that. Most of the things that need fixing are sitting there because everyone in the room decided it was somebody else’s problem.

And as for those two wrestlers we talked about at the beginning of all this. After the hug-turned-headlock, after the tears, after the time-out chair, they get back up and do it again. They don’t quit because they got pinned. They don’t quit because they don’t know how to wrestle. They wrestle. And somewhere in the middle of it, they figure out if it was a hug or a headlock.

That’s the part most of us lose along the way — the willingness to get tangled up in something before we know how it ends. So when a call comes in that you weren’t expecting, and the arms wrap around you, and you can’t tell yet whether they’re going to lift you up or pin you down: lean in. That’s the only way to find out. And if you need to breathe into a brown paper bag, under your desk, that’s okay too.

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Key Takeaways

We’ve been hearing a quiet but growing feedback about the market: things are feeling stale and boring. Conference sessions feel stuck. The language hasn’t changed in a decade. Audiences are shrinking instead of growing. And too many people who genuinely care about the planet are walking away from events feeling like we’re just talking to the same people about the same things. So how did we get here, and how do we get out of it? In their latest session of their webinar series How to Be in Sustainability When the Vibes Are Off, Ren DeCherney and Holly Holton dug into it. Joined by industry strategist and podcast host Jon Strassner, the trio diagnosed what’s gone wrong and mapped a path back to a movement people actually want to join.

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The Diagnosis: We’re Giving People Two Terrible Choices

The conversation opened with a deceptively simple game: find the fake conference session title:

1. Investing in carbon: from measurement to impact

2. How we build a low carbon future at scale

3. Healthy indoor air = healthy kids: material health impacts in schools

4. What’s what in voluntary reporting in 2026

Ren asked Holly and Jon to identify the fake. Turns out they were all fake and they were completely indistinguishable from real ones. If we can’t tell our own session titles apart from parody, we definitely have a problem.

Strassner, who spent years distilling sustainability narratives at HumanScale before launching his own consulting practice and podcasts, traced the problem to a binary that the movement has built for itself. As he explained, citing architect and sustainability advocate Eric Corey Freed: the field tends to offer audiences only two options. The first is dystopia: a grim 50-year outlook of deserts and disaster. The second is austerity: a demand that people sacrifice convenience, comfort, and aspiration in service of the planet.

“Neither of those choices is good. And neither of those choices should be presented” explained Jon.

Holly, whose coaching practice is built on the intersection of mindset and mission, immediately connected this to how humans actually process information.

“We think we’re moved by logic and rationality and data and we’re not,” she said. “We’re emotional creatures focused on survival and safety. It’s emotions first.”

So now we have a movement that has been speaking to the left brain for decades when the right brain is what leads people to make the changes we are promoting.

The Savannah Principle: Why Climate Threats Don’t Register

One of the session’s most clarifying moments came when Strassner introduced what he calls the Savannah Principle. It’s the idea that human brains are still wired for the ancient environment in which they evolved.

“If I look up and there’s a lion running toward me, I get it. That’s a threat,” he explained. “But if you tell me that if I don’t recycle this Coke bottle, in 50 years it’s going to be 17 degrees hotter in July I’m not going to react to that. I’m not going to see that as a threat.”

Climate change, in other words, is a lion that doesn’t look like a lion. It’s abstract, distant, and diffuse which means it bypasses the cognitive systems that motivate behavior change. Pair that with the bystander effect (the more experts we put on a podium, the more everyone else assumes those experts will fix the problem), and you have a movement that is systematically undermining its own momentum.

The antidote, all three agreed, isn’t more data. It’s better stories. Strassner’s working maxim for 2026:

“Data informs. Storytelling transforms.” Jon, Holly and Ren encouraged practitioners to get personal because if an audience has no emotional connection to a message, they won’t retain it. “People aren’t going to remember what you tell them. They’re not going to remember what you show them. They’ll only remember how you made them feel” said Jon.

Gatekeeping, jargon, and our problem with purity tests

Ren, Holly and Jon all noted that they have been told, at different points in their careers, that they weren’t qualified to do sustainability work, but kept going.

Rather than dismiss those experiences, they used them to name something important: sustainability has developed a language culture that functions less as communication and more as gatekeeping.

“Language in sustainability has become both gatekeeping and a purity test,” Ren observed. “You have to know the lingo to get in the tent and then once you’re in the tent, you have to keep proving you belong. It ends up keeping us all stuck.”

Strassner pointed to acronym-dropping and data-citing as symptoms of the same ego-driven impulse.

“A lot of times when we want people to know how smart we are, that’s when we use all the stupid acronyms and start dropping the data. Like 1.5 degrees, don’t let the earth warm past 1.5 degrees. How many people have even heard that? And how many people know what the hell it means?”

He told Ren and Holly he keeps telling folks:

“Your ego is not your amigo.” Putting ego in the back seat is what creates space to read the room, adapt the message, and actually connect with people who aren’t already converted.

Embracing the nuance

Jon shared a piece of advice that he got from the early podcasting days. His guest Russell Goldberg of Stick Bulb told him

“Don’t wait until you know you’re right before you use your voice.” Jon noted it was so powerful that that he has carried with him ever since.

For a field that tends to prize credential and precision, it feels radical to embrace not being perfect but Strassner argues it’s essential.

“None of us are perfect human beings,” he said. “Embrace the hypocritical. Don’t let perfect stand in the way of good.”

Holly connected this directly to nervous system science. Admitting uncertainty feels genuinely threatening because our brains are wired for certainty and safety. Acknowledging that this discomfort is physiological and not moral makes it easier to move through it.

“Get comfortable being uncomfortable,” she encouraged. “That’s where the growth is.”

Ren offered a practical reframe for anyone frozen by the scale of the problem: pick one thing you’re really interested in and go hard at it. When she led her own firm PVC-free, it was because she was passionate about material health, it was high impact, and she could do it from her position in the firm.

She noted you can just “find the lever you’ve got and yank it. Just yank the hell out of it.”

Holly added the neurological logic:

“Action fights overwhelm. We also don’t process things that seem too big. If you just do one thing, it doesn’t matter how small, you break the paralysis.”

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Where do we go from here: what better messaging looks like

So how do you actually reach people who aren’t already in the room?

Strassner’s answer: meet people where their hot buttons already are. He shared a conversation with industry colleague about furniture decommissioning, arguably one of the least glamorous topics in the built environment space. The breakthrough came when they stopped leading with “landfill diversion” and started asking: what does the client actually care about? Is it budget? Brand perception? Employee wellness?

“Nobody wants a used desk,” Strassner said. “If you get the used desk, that’s a message from upper management.” But reframe it the way fashion reframed secondhand clothing as vintage, as intentional, as values-aligned and suddenly you have a different conversation.

Ren uses the same approach in her work with designers. She trains sales reps to find the sustainability story that genuinely resonates with them personally, then let that passion lead. The reps and brands who resonate are the ones who aren’t performing enthusiasm, they’ve found their own version of the thing they actually care about.

Holly articulated the underlying skill: radical empathy. “Check that non-amigo ego at the door and ask: what does this person care about? Can I see the world through the lens they see the world through?”

She and Ren pointed out that this is also something AI cannot replicate. The human ability to intuit what matters to another person and translate it into meaningful design or recommendation, that’s the irreplaceable value practitioners bring.

what to let go of and what to double down on

To close, Holly asked Strassner the two questions she asks every guest.

What does the industry need to let go of in 2026? Ego says Jon.

“Embrace your inner ability to suck,” he said. “Little kids don’t give a damn if they’re bad at something, it doesn’t stop them. When we grow up, we become terrified to try anything we might not be great at. That’s the ego talking.”

What does the industry need to double down on? Curiosity.

“There are people out there who could become experts if they’re curious. Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back. You get that satisfaction because you figure it out.” Holly added that curiosity also lowers conflict, builds connection, and creates the psychological safety that makes hard conversations possible.

Here’s how Jon uses music to keep up with the work:

His favoritte pump-up jam: Jack and Diane

His current go-to song to spark creativity: Pink Pony Club

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In my second episode of Once Upon a Planet, I talked with Eric Corey Freed. Eric is an architect with a sense of humor. I say that because Eric understands that the climate movement has a language problem. No, I like to swear as much as the next truck driver (why do they get to have the reputation, by the way?), but that’s not what I mean. The climate movement has used the wrong language. We have scared people with data, and we’ve bored them with science. And….we’ve threatened them with things they don’t understand, that probably won’t happen in their lifetime. So, remember this…Data informs, storytelling transforms. You heard it here first.

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If we want this movement to take off, we need storytelling. We need people to find an emotional connection to the movement. We can’t try to convince them that a 1.5 degree increase in the Earth’s temperature is going to be fatal. In this episode, Eric says that we’ve only given people two choices: austerity or dystopia. Where do I sign up? We are going to have to inspire and deliver hope. People will come back for that. Last I checked, the line for dystopia was pretty short.

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If you want to learn more about re-framing the way we talk about climate change, listen to my episode with Eric Corey Freed. I guarantee you’ll get a laugh or three, and I hope you come away with some different ways to talk about our planet!

Hey —

If you’ve been here a while, you know the story. If you’re new, here’s the short version:

I grew up in West Virginia, an hour from Parkersburg — the town where DuPont spent decades poisoning the water supply, denied it, and paid a fine that Wall Street celebrated as a bargain.

That’s why I started Why Am I So Hot? Because the climate crisis isn’t a policy debate. It’s a story about who bears the cost of decisions they never got to make. And I believe those stories deserve to be told out loud, by people like you and me.

I’ve got a small run of podcast hats available on the website. If you want to rep the show, grab one while they last.

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More importantly — if you haven’t listened in a while, now’s a good time to come back. And if you know someone who should be in this conversation, send them this note.

Thanks for being here. It means more than you know.

— Jon

Click here for your hat

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I just thought I’d start another article as we fight a war over fossil fuels we don’t really need. But, I promise not to get political…or judgy…or offensive…damn. That sounds like a lot. I may break some promises today. Speaking of breaks, we all need a break from the news, so here’s one for you.

The podcasting has begun! And I must say, it’s refreshing to be talking again! To be sitting down with friends and digging in on what we’re doing and what we might be able to do. I wanted to share something I’ve already discovered in just a few short conversations. Sit down. This will be a pretty big paradigm shift for all of you…or it could be the first broken promise of today’s article.

The first episode of the season was recorded with my good friend, Brian Graham. Brian has been an industrial designer for 30 years with a studio in San Francisco. It’s worth noting, that Brian is not an environmentalist, nor does he play one. His perspective on our planet’s health has been born from the same influences we have all been exposed to. It’s refreshing. Those of us that spend a disproportionate amount of time in climate things tend to get mired in a lot of distracting detail. Is Carbon Removal Technology a tool for fossil fuels? Is chemical recycling a ruse? Why do we think plastic identifiers on a container mean it’s recyclable? You get my point. We get caught up in all of this, and it’s good. Someone has to question the status quo, the authority, the mainstream. It’s okay, especially if it’s your passion. But when we get a chance to hear from someone who understands it’s a big thing and we can’t solve it all at once, we get a nice healthy dose of reality. And as I love to say…let’s not let perfect stand in the way of good. Brian says the same thing here, only in his own way-

It’s so easy to see things perfectly. Create the perfect rendition, and then go crazy when your reality doesn’t match up to it. I hadn’t given this much thought, but AI can really paint a rosy picture, and we have to remember that it’s a mediated reality. That’s my new thing now, mediated experiences. What happens when we don’t apply technology to an experience? Dinner reservations, drinks at a bar? Sketching out an idea? It’s weird today. I digress, thankfully.

Anyway…the first episode is scheduled to drop March 27th and I urge you all to follow and listen wherever you get your podcasts! I’m excited for these conversations and I thank you in advance for your unadulterated support!

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As I write this I am in the process of launching my new podcast, Once Upon a Planet. If you didn’t know, I podcasted as the co-creator of Break Some Dishes for six seasons. After recently deciding to retire that body of work, I went through a period of time where I thought maybe I had run out of things to talk about. In six seasons I certainly had the opportunity to speak with some really amazing people. Authors, scientists, activists and outlaws. It truly opened my eyes to the work being done, the work needing to be done and the work that really needs to be done. My perspective evolved from the superficial conversations around climate to the more sophisticated and nuanced issues born from a planet in distress. I may have started out talking about ocean plastic, but I finished up talking about the gender gap and the inequality that impacts women and children in growing numbers every time we have an extreme climate event. And, I get that it’s not always easy to talk about these things.

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It’s not intuitive to talk about a planet’s vulnerability either. Growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, we never thought of Planet Earth as vulnerable in any way. The planet was this indestructable rock we were living on that was always going to be okay, regardless of what a tiny species like humans could do to it. So, this concept of having to help the planet is a new one. I’ve gone to conferences before where there were no sessions provided on sustainability. I’ve spoken at conferences before where we’ve been tucked into a corner to present to a few mildly interested attendees. I’ve also attended conferences where the sessions are massively technical and certainly not inviting to those who may be interested, but not experts.

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To solve a crisis that affects all of us, everywhere, all the time, we all need to be able to take a kick at the can. So, I decided to create a podcast that allows us to do just that. My goal is to assemble a season where non-experts join me to talk about their planet. What’s working, what isn’t and what can be done. I really don’t want experts to talk to us about a technology we won’t understand, a sacrafice we’re terrified to make or a situation we likely won’t find ourselves in. I really want to show listeners that everyday people can look at the problems, take them apart and talk about solutions. Think about what I’m trying to say…What if we only took the advice or listened to the ideas of trained experts? What if only “experts” were allowed to problem solve? What if we never crowdsourced any problems?? Don’t ask me about fixing your lawnmower…I’m really not an expert. (but I am now, thanks to YouTube) At the end of the day, are we just lacking curiosity? yikes…

Foldit gamers (2011) — Online gamers with no biochemistry background solved the structure of an AIDS-related protein enzyme in 10 days — a problem that had stumped scientists for 15 years. The game turned protein folding into a puzzle.

Galaxy Zoo (2007) — Volunteers with no astronomy training classified over a million galaxies and discovered an entirely new class of object (Hanny's Voorwerp) that professional astronomers had missed.

Jack Andraka (2012) — A 15-year-old high schooler developed a pancreatic cancer test that was 168x faster, 26,000x cheaper, and 400x more sensitive than existing methods — after being inspired by a Google search following a family friend's death.

These are just three examples, but I believe I’ve made my point. Not surprisingly, I have already had some people decline my invitation to join me on an episode…each time because they tell me they are not an expert on climate! Are we that afraid to be wrong, to fail, to miss the mark of perfection? I would encourage everyone to try something new on the regular. Do something that you really suck at. Get used to sucking at it. Get comfortable not being good. Not being an expert. All great things start by starting. I’m not wrong. And if you need specifics from our own small industry, they’re there;

Rose Tourje started ANEW 20 years ago after watching furniture being thrown out the side of a building while on her lunch break. Rose had never started any kind of furniture donation organization in her life. Imagine if she decided she wasn’t an expert and assumed a more qualified person would deal with that.

Brandi Susewitz had certainly never run a company like ReSeat before. Imagine if she waited for someone else to invent the idea of digital passports, making furniture easier to re-use and upcycle?

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. I appreciate your curiosity. And please, subscribe if you can and follow the podcast as we head down the path of better storytelling less lecturing! And if you’re up for a little conversation, let me know. Maybe we can solve a problem together!

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I’ve come to another conclusion. I know, please sit down so you can take this in. Actually, I’m sure you’re already sitting down, in front of your screen or eating lunch with your phone. Disregard my intriguing introduction to today’s substack.

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Here’s my thought, and it revolves around my favorite (is it really?) subject, planet health. I haven’t written in a while, but the last time I did I wrote that we were boring ourselves to death. I remain steadfast in that opinion, but today would like to add something to it. A cherry on my sundae, if you will.

In addition to being boring, we have also come to warn the population about climate change in entirely the wrong manner. Think about what all these exciting climate scientists have been saying… “Don’t let the planet warm another 1.5 degrees. Let me show you this chart of "Planetary Boundaries”. Let’s look at the last 50 years of global temperature changes. We’ve already reached these Tipping Points. We need to reduce our carbon. We need to measure our embodied carbon. Let’s talk about carbon reduction technologies.” When I last wrote to all of you, I told you about the complicated session titles at Greenbuild. Do you see where I’m going here? The obvious answer is that we’ve made it all horribly complicated. Right. But here’s what I think is really important. There’s this thing called The Savanna Principle. Have you heard of this? The Savanna Principle is a provocativa idea in evolutionary psychology suggesting that humans are wired to respond to threats that resemble those faced on the African savanna—immediate, visible and personal. That’s how we come to engage our fight or flight mechanism. If we don’t see it galloping towards us, it’s not a threat to our survival. Climate change is a 21st‑century threat delivered to a Paleolithic brain. The Savanna Principle explains why charts don’t change behavior—but stories do. And this makes a lot of sense. We call it priorities. If you’re telling me I have created a threat that will impact me in 50 years, it seems pretty unreasonable to expect me to react to that now. Unfortunately that’s what we have propositioned to most of our population. And it seems reasonable. So, the problem is 50 years away…I’m going to shelf the threat and slip into denial by saying someone will resolve it by then. End of problem. Thank you and now I’ll go back to binge watching The Pitt. But you know what? That has a name too. You are so lucky that you’re reading my substack today. There is a phenomenon called the Bystander Effect which is driven largely by a mechanism known as the diffusion of responsibility. So convenient! You see, when more people are present, each individual feels less personally obligated to act, assuming someone else will step in. Each person feels their personal responsibility is diluted because “someone else will do it.” and the more people present, the stronger the diffusion.

You see, Climate change is the purest expression of the bystander effect: a planetary emergency unfolding in plain sight while billions wait for someone else to move first. The danger is diffuse, the timeline slippery, the responsibility smeared across nations and industries until it feels like it belongs to no one at all. Our instincts are tuned for lions and lightning, not invisible gases and incremental heat, so we hesitate—glancing sideways, scanning for a cue, hoping leadership will materialize. In that collective pause, the crisis gathers speed. And in the meantime, we are all too busy to be inconvenienced. No lion? No problem. There is an amazing 2026 Cornell study that actually looked at how we communicate about climate.

Read the Cornell study here

And we see this all the time. All. The. Time. Some examples… I live near a very small ski resort. Not really a resort, but more like a small-town mountain. Anyway…they are masters at making snow, as so many small-town mountains are that aren’t up in the Rocky’s. Every year they have to make more and more snow. Don’t ask me why. Anyway…if there’s snow in my backyard, they know I’m more apt to be thinking about skiing, but if there’s no snow, I just assume there’s no snow at my ski mountain 20 minutes away. So they really benefit from even the lightest of snowfalls. All they need is cold nights to make lots of snow, but they need some snow in the air to bring people out. Make sense? Here’s another example.

I’m home alone and have been given one task; switch the laundry. I’ve been laying around comfortably all morning catching up on college basketball. All is good. All I know is my task master is currently out. I have a hard time motivating until I check my Find Friends app to see that she’s five minutes away. Then, and only then, am I off the couch hurriedly throwing socks and underwear into the dryer. You see? The Savanna Principle at work! Now that I can see the hungry lioness, it’s time for flight.

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So, what am I saying here? Find the levers in the conversation. And news flash, it’s not Planetary Boundaries or 1.5 degrees. If we are activists, we need to read the room, know our audience and speak their language. Perhaps it makes more sense to stress the lowering cost of clean energy compared to fossil fuel, instead of saving the planet or innocent ecosystems most affected. Don’t go into all the details behind offshore wind…just tell folks it’s cheaper. Perhaps it makes more sense to use entertainment and storytelling to engage your audience. The sad simple truth is this; it always comes down to money. If your idea costs more, you’ll struggle to find alignment. If it inconveniences people, it will be a slow movement for you. But if you find the button, the lever, then you’ve got something. And…that’s what leaders do. They find the tender spot and they push there.

So, the next time you have the opportunity to speak about our planet’s health, think about your audience. Maybe you shouldn’t spend all your time researching. Maybe you should sit down with friends and write out some good jokes first. Just sayin…

While at Greenbuild, I’m looking forward to sitting in on as many sessions as I can handle. I’m a climate nerd and love to get into the weeds. Greenbuild sessions are not for the faint of heart. Here are some titles; Albedo’s Impact on Urban Climate: Insights from MIT’s Concrete Sustainability Hub and Real-World Applications, An Exploration of GIS in Architecture, Urban Design, and Planning, Unveiling the Hidden Carbon Impact of MEP Systems, Advancing Lower-Carbon Concrete in High-Design Construction: A Case Study of Norton Rose Fulbright Tower (formerly 1550 on the Green). Wow. Your Greenbuild ticket buys you the entire seat, but like next Sunday’s monster truck rally, you’ll only use the edge.

You see, Greenbuild is a conference for the choir. The sustainability movement will get together at Greenbuild to hear technical updates and re-energize itself. The same people will be there (the champions of the Green Movement). Greenbuild will not expand the movement. It won’t outreach to the heathens out there who are intimidated by the science of climate change or don’t yet feel the impetus to change. Again, there’s huge value to Greenbuild. We need to keep the core healthy, and we need to hear about new technologies and applications. But for too long we have acted like events such as Greenbuild will expand the movement, inspire those from outside the industry and amplify the voice of planet health. Not so. Our movement has stalled, not just because we currently have an administration choosing not to believe in climate change, but because we have relied on scientists, engineers and researchers to scream from the pulpit. And they aren’t the best bible thumping screamers. In fact, sometimes they can be pretty boring. If I started this substack article out with a title like Reimagining Data Centers: Harnessing Waste Heat for Repurposed Mixed-use Projects, you would have been asleep before you finished reading the title. Again, I’m not knocking the topic, or the conference that would host it, I’m only saying we need to understand the purpose of that session. That session is meant to educate the elite minds of sustainability and scare the shit out of the rest of us. It is what it is.

My point, and I’ve made it before, is that we need to break out of this silo and understand that this movement needs to do two things; educate and inspire the choir and create an undeniable outreach to the skeptics and naysayers. We’ve failed to do the latter…or is it the former? I always mix those up. We talk to ourselves an awful lot in this industry. I’d like to see us do less of that. The climate movement needs to start getting its shit together, be more interesting and cooler and show folks that it’s not depressing and dystopian to address climate change. We need to entertain. You see, the data and science in climate change is the medicine we must take, but nobody has bothered to pair it with a spoonful of sugar (thank you Julie Andrews). Entertainment, laughter and fun is the sugar that needs to go with climate change. Hey, we’ve given the scientists and engineers 23 years, and we really haven’t moved the needle much. The building industry is still responsible for almost 40% of the global greenhouse gas emissions and has been for the past 20 years. Again, not all experts are leaders, and not all leaders are experts. expertise isn’t always a prerequisite for impact—sometimes, it’s the outsider’s clarity, moral compass, and storytelling that spark revolutions.

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Wangari Maathai was an environmental activist, trained as a biologist, not a forestry expert or climate expert. Yet she founded the Green Belt Movement in Kenya, which planted over 51 million trees and empowered women through grassroots environmentalism.

And there’s Paul Farmer, a physician not a public policy expert or economist, yet he co-founded Partners in Health. Partners in Health transformed healthcare delivery in Haiti, Rwanda and other underdeveloped countries.

My point here is that these people who were not leaders had one thing in common. They had passion. They had a voice and message that people wanted to follow. They had energy. Energy! We just can’t move our industry with another panel discussion. We have to show that it won’t take a feat of engineering or design innovation, but rather the intent and drive to change mindsets and create systemic change.

If we want sustainable initiatives to survive in our industry, they must optimize your organization. They must be a good revenue model. They must be repeatable. These are important things! Unfortunately, companies are not people and don’t do the right thing just because it’s the right thing to do. That’s the cynic in me, but if we can operate with that as our benchmark, we can reduce our margin of error. So, let’s stop boring folks, please.

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Have we all, by now, read this edition of the Monday Morning Quarterback? Don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of Humanscale. They are one of the most innovative and sustainably focused manufacturers in our industry. They have managed to combine brilliant design with material transparency and sustainability to create an industry leading narrative when it comes to planet health. We need companies like Humanscale to push the envelope and move this industry to be more focused on our planet impact.

But this article... Am I the only one who read it and wondered why it was attacking our industry so vociferously? I don’t know who wrote it, it appears to be quite anonymous. Our industry is contributing massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and has been for the past 30 years. As we struggle to lessen our impact, we don’t need shaming and gate keeping. Until now, the sustainability side of our industry has been amazingly collaborative. If you look at organizations like mindful MATERIALS, Anew, Meble, HPD Collaborative, the EPA, Ecomedes and so many more, it’s never been about weaponizing sustainability to shame other companies or build narratives. We all know this is a journey. We are all at different points of the journey and there is more than one way to climb the mountain. Let’s all also understand, you don’t climb the mountain merely for the view. The process makes you better. When done properly, the work you put into sustainability optimizes your organization. Remember when people criticized LEED because it caused project teams to chase points, sometimes making bad decisions in the end? Are we chasing labels now? As I read that article, I wasn’t sure it’s what our industry needs right now. Sustainability is more than just a label, and a single “report card” can not be used to judge our work. I have had communications with some of the companies listed here, and none of them had an opportunity to share their work on sustainability. That’s unfortunate.

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I understand, a green label can show us that a company has used a standard to measure themselves against, and they are openly showing us how they compare. And I understand that a third-party verification shows that the data has been reviewed by an independent party. And maybe that’s the tip of the mountain, but if all we look for are green labels, we are going to overlook a lot of good companies that are doing a lot of good things that deserve to be noticed. Because a company does not currently have a verified Declare Label, it doesn’t mean we need to shame them as if they were not trying. It certainly doesn’t mean that they are green washing.

Teknion has multiple showrooms that are LEED and WELL Certified. That information is pretty easy to find. They have also reported to CDP for the past 12 years. If you take a moment and read their Sustainability Report, you’ll find that they are measuring their Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions and sharing the work they’re doing to reduce those emissions. Unless they’re lying, they’ve diverted 96% of their waste from their Quebec manufacturing facilities. Even if this is not as good as the work Humanscale is doing, I don’t think it serves a purpose to call them out publicly, saying “Teknion talks a good game…”

While HAT Collective may not have Verified their Declare Labels yet, they currently have three Declare Labels. That’s work in the right direction. That deserves something more than they received in that article. HAT Collective has clean air certifications and has publicly stated their support for the Common Materials Framework and showed examples of their work in each impact area. This is a company that is clearly in the ring. So why are we calling them out?

9 to 5 Seating just announced a collaboration with Momentum Textiles and Wallcovering, using a textile on their chairs that features PVC free construction, solvent free production and Greenguard Gold certification. They also have a 14-page social responsibility report containing information regarding their solar production and greenhouse gas emissions. Are we letting perfection stand in the way of good?

Let’s celebrate the work these companies are doing and encourage them to continue the journey. Let’s not get into the habit of berating our colleagues in the industry. We see enough of that every day when we turn on the news.

What’s important is that a company has a strategy to do better, sets goals and imperatives, measures their performance against these goals and shares their progress with the rest of us. That’s called transparency, and that’s a good thing. Sustainability is a holistic effort to solve a systemic problem. If, as we evaluate products and companies, we only fixate on a particular green label, we could overlook a lot of good hard work. We need to take the time to look at a company and understand what they’re doing. Do we really think Haworth isn’t working hard on sustainability? Do we really think Teknion hasn’t done anything? They have, they just haven’t been as focused on labeling it. They deserve a good look.

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Our industry needs hard work. We need to work hard to understand our impact and how to make our work accessible. That means we need to work a little bit harder to understand a manufacturer’s work in sustainability. There is no easy button. There is not one label that does all the work for you. This article is sending the wrong message right now.

While I don’t want us to focus on the money, it’s always a part of the conversation. It’s irresponsible to create an expectation that bankrupts the industry. Just for perspective (and my numbers might vary), if you decide to jump into this race and go after an EcoVadis Rating, a B Corp Certification and 5 Declare Labels, you might expect to spend between $30,000 and $75,000. Maybe more, as it depends on your consulting fees, inhouse work and time required. If it were the first time you ever pursued a label, the cost could be much greater. You could spend $50,000 on an EPD. It’s really difficult to put an exact number on these labels. Strategy is critical. You need to develop a strategy to build a sustainability program that is right for your organization. These labels can be prohibitively expensive. The article said “the most meaningful differentiators are Declare and HPD labels”. It seems to mean having a lot of verified Declare Labels and a lot of verified HPD labels… Let’s encourage companies to understand their Bill of Materials and their supply chains. Let’s encourage companies to measure their Scope 1 and 2 Emissions. Let’s celebrate waste diversion and the process of goal setting and impact reporting, but let’s not try to ostracize members of our industry. We don’t need to do that right now.

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It immediately evokes the idea of rewriting the narrative—about our future, our industry, and the sustainability story we (and brand partners) want to tell. It’s a word that carries a sense of optimism, curiosity, and change. I think it opens the door to some rich, layered messaging that’s both emotionally resonant and strategically sound. From a storytelling standpoint, “Rewritten” invites people in. It nudges them to ask: what’s being rewritten here? What stories are being shared?

It was a good first step in bringing the conversation of circularity front and center. But like everything, it’s a journey and we’re only just getting started.

It was stressful. This idea popped into my head one day. I thought, why not give NeoCon a little poke and create an exhibit focused on the many different aspects of circularity? My friends at The Mart were unbelievably supportive, offered me some space and we were off to the races. I reached out to Jenn Chen, who showed her unbelievable design talent and knowledge of circularity by curating the many narratives within the space in a way that made sense and took the visitor on a meaningful, inspiring tour. We completed this work in about two months, and unexpectedly, we created a wonderful community within that space of makers and industry thought leaders who were committed to figuring out the mystery of circularity. I found the spirit within the space inspiring. Jenn and I are hoping to do much more with this newly discovered spirit of Rewritten. Stay tuned.

Why was circularity taking up so much of my head space? As a consultant, I’ve had the opportunity to do some work with furniture refurbishers. It’s not a very sexy market. We don’t even have a sexy name for what they do. They decommission furniture from their clients, usually customers that are moving and don’t want to take their furniture with them. Sure doesn’t sound sexy. These businesses come in, asses the condition of the furniture and negotiate a package to remove it for the client. When these businesses are left out of the equation, this furniture often just gets thrown away. As you can imagine, people think it’s easier and cheaper to let it all go. In reality, working with a refurbisher, they can turn around and sell your furniture as is, as Used, they can clean it up a little bit and sell it as Refreshed, they can completely face lift it with new textiles and new finishes and worksurfaces and call it Refurbished, or they can completely customize it for you and sell it as Remanufactured. I am completely in love with this sub-culture within our industry. It’s sorta like what punk rock did to rock’n’roll…. They’ve got it going on, playing in basement bars somewhere in The Village…

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I’m sure you’ve all seen the data surrounding furniture in landfills. Each year we put around 12 million tons of furniture into landfills. If you doubt that number, just walk around New York City and keep track of the discarded furniture you see on the sidewalks. Refurbishing or remanufacturing furniture is only one way to keep furniture from out of the garbage.

The fashion industry, arguably the worst industry for our planet’s health has almost figured it out. At least they have been able to make used feel cool. There’s nothing cooler than bragging about your vintage jacket. But the labels didn’t make vintage cool, the cool consumers did. The influencers did. The ones who didn’t care and knew what they liked. The question is…who will do this for our industry? Will we have some cool manufacturers like Fyrn and 3Form get the movement started, or will it take some industry influencers (cool designers) like Jenn Chen to get things started? I think it will take a group effort. So let’s get it together.

Green Standards is starting to provide some great advice and a bit of a helping hand. They have a great Workplace Circularity Guide here. I think they are certainly making an impact, as is Anew and Reseat. Let’s get behind these folks as well as the cool manufactures. Let’s reward their hard work with some business. Let’s make the business model work.

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I don’t want this article to be a How to guide to circularity. There’s a lot of that out there. I do want it to be a call for action. We all need to work together to figure this out. We are an industry that makes things. Lots of things, in different colors and finishes and updates. And we celebrate this work every year. Let’s start celebrating our work to make sure this “stuff” gets used for a very very long time. Call me if you need help with this.

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The interior design industry is 85% female, (according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics) but when it comes to leadership, only 40% of those roles are occupied by females. I’ve been in this industry for 30 years. Not only was I unaware of this statistic, but I just assumed there was gender equality in this industry. When we look at architecture, we find that women make up only 25% of that field, an even larger gender gap. And so why did this surprise me?

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When I thought about gender equality, I looked at it superficially. I scanned the room and found as many women as men. I thought about my own direct actions and determined that I was treating women as equals, as colleagues, respecting boundaries and differences. But that’s the surface, and that’s not how we measure things. I was not thinking about what we sacrificed to be in that room. I was not thinking about what we had to do to be there. The journeys through life are markedly different. The struggles are different and it’s not true to say women have the same opportunities that I have been given. Sadly, I have to recognize that I have missed this conversation. That is until Verda Alexander and I began season 6 of Break Some Dishes, a podcast that has traditionally found stories of climate change, to inspire and inform interior design. This season, under Verda’s leadership, we are exploring stories of women in design. And that work has opened my eyes to a gender bias and the huge gap in data surrounding how we treat women. It’s been eye opening for me, a father of three daughters. It doesn’t matter how I raised them. It doesn’t matter what I told them about reaching as high as they want to reach. And it doesn’t matter that I told them they can do anything they want. Because what I can’t prepare them for is a world that is designed for men. The white male is the design default. Sadly, we don’t design for women, the other 50% of our population, and that today is hard for me to believe…until I take a moment and look at it.

Verda and I read a book together, and that really put things into perspective for me. The book is Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men. This book illustrates how completely we ignore the needs of half our population. We fail to accomodate their differences in everything from safety gear to public spaces. We don’t design cities for women. The most notable reminder of this is a restroom line at any major event. If the venue was designed with women in mind, they wouldn’t have to wait 30 minutes to use the toilet. But, did you know that women are more at risk when they have to walk any distance to use a toilet; that they are more at risk of sexual assault during this visit? According to the UN, 1 in 3 women lack access to safe toilets and girls and women collectively spend 97 billion hours a year finding a safe place to relieve themselves. Gender bias isn’t just an oversight; it is culturally ingrained in our societies. Urban planning fails to account for women. Public spaces should be safe for everyone. Public transportation should be safe for everyone. Although women occupy 47% of the workforce, 55% of the users of public transportation are women. Yet public transportation is based on male travel habits. Women travel during non-peak hours because they dominate retail, healthcare and education-not typical 9-to-5 jobs. Stations are not as occupied then, and women are more likely to be assaulted during these non-peak times. According to the New York Times, women are the predominant victims of NY subway crimes. As a man, I’m not sure I could imagine commuting daily in a system I felt at risk using. I’ve felt “nervous” a few times and didn’t like it. Can you imagine getting on a train in a poorly lit station and being afraid…every night? Women take on the roles as care givers and elder care givers. We just assume they will take these roles. They are culturally bound. So, as a result, they are three times more likely to take the kids to school and 80% more likely to “trip chain”. Trip chaining is a commute with many stops along the way, to drop off kids, check on aging parents and complete errands. But our bus fares and routes do not accomodate this. 61% of women are care givers and travel with a stroller, but have you tried to take a stroller on a subway recently, tried to get one through a turnstile?? Have you come across a car seat in an Uber recently? Women, when commuting at night will often take a car service rather than use the train or bus. This is called a “Pink Tax” since they will now pay more to feel safe.

We don’t design for women either. When we look at construction equipment, it’s always designed for men and women run a higher risk of injury because of it. Police equipment is designed for men as well. Military equipment? Same. In fact, because of the way a ruck sack is designed, women in the military must deal with pelvic injuries because of the way the weight is distributed. I recently was walking with my wife, and we walked by two security guards who were wearing body cams. The man walked by easily enough, with the camera securely strapped around his chest. The woman, however, was readjusting her camera as she walked by. Clearly uncomfortable, trying to using a harness designed for a man’s chest, not hers. Do we send a message to women in “male dominated professions” that they just need to “figure it out”?

Gender stereotypes put women at risk. Look at the way we design automobiles. Women are 73% more likely to be seriously injured in frontal car crashes of similar severity compared to men, and 17% more likely to die. One major reason is that crash test dummies are still largely modeled after the “average” 1970s male—5'9", 171 pounds. The female dummies used are often just scaled-down versions of male ones, lacking accurate anatomical differences like bone density, muscle distribution, and organ placement. Imagine being at a car dealership and being asked if you’d like a male or female driver’s seat? Car seats contain an assortment of adjustments for our back comfort and leg space, but no safety adjustments to account for the gender of the user. Remember…women are 50% of the population.

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Are we designing phones for female hands? What about pants pockets? Construction helmets? The list goes on and on when we look at design for women. Women face challenges in almost every aspect of society and I’m amazed at how little we discuss fixing this. Can we make cars safer? Can we improve public transportation to support families? When women begin to dominate a profession, like sustainability, do we begin to assign it less importance? And when a woman reaches a position of power, do we support her or try to tear her down? These are all questions we all need to be asking.

Focusing on women in our sixth season of podcasting has absolutely opened my eyes to the bias that exists in almost every aspect of our culture. I’m happy to be able to talk more about it, to bring more eyes on this problem, and I’m eternally optimistic that we will continue to shorten the lines to the bathroom.

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I get certifications. I really do. If I get my taxes done, do I want to use a Certified Public Accountant, or a Certifiable Public Accountant? I understand that the adherence to a standard and having an independent third party verify that work is good stuff. It helps our design industry make informed decisions. Our industry is small, and I know designers like to work with companies and people that they trust. It’s an important circle of trust that defines reputations and builds business. That’s one reason why our manufacturers still continue to invest in sales forces that can interact and engage directly with the design community. But here’s the thing…

When I was a young, naive teenager I had to take the SAT and the ACT for college admissions. I knew nothing about these tests. I couldn’t afford a tutor or a “consultant” to guide me through these standardized tests. Today we realize that these standardized tests don’t really tell a college or university what kind of student citizen you’ll be. They are a tool the schools can use to filter through their applicants and share a public “factor” that explains admissions. It’s an ongoing debate, but we’ve seen a trend in colleges shifting towards test optional or even test blind admissions policies. There is an effort to make college admissions more equitable. If you aren’t aware, there is an argument to be made that standardized testing can penalize students from impoverished or disadvantaged communities who can’t afford tutoring and test prep. In theory, a student can invest heavily, if they have the means, to test well on these exams and gain an advantage in the admissions process. These students may not be as well rounded or prepared, but they have stacked the chips in their favor.

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I mention this because we may be doing the same thing in our industry. While I can appreciate the value in third party certified labels, it may be providing an advantage to large manufacturers with large budgets. A Life Cycle Assessment, for example, can take 9 to 12 months and cost a company $25,000 to $40,000. That process is so cost prohibitive, I’m not sure it helps our industry move this needle. Design firms throw EPD requests around like they are a dime a dozen. They aren’t, and we need to acknowledge that impact. TherAs a consultant, I have helped my clients obtain Declare Labels and Health Product Declarations. Both of these labels can help a manufacturer practice transparency in showing the industry what, exactly, is in their product. A Declare Label can be third party certified and can highlight any Red List ingredients. A Health Product Declaration is not a certification at all, but rather a standard that a manufacturer can follow to reveal what goes into their products. I believe it’s the process of this work that makes a company better. A good sustainability program progresses and then optimizes an organization. While a certification may be waiting at the finish line, it’s the process that is valuable. People learn along the way, the work gets easier, and the organization finds its way. I am a fan of the process, if it is managed in a way that embeds new behavior and improved processes. After all, why do people climb mountains? Is it just to reach the top and see the view?

I worry that when the focus is on the label, we begin collecting trophies on the shelf and those trophies become the narrative, not the changes in process and culture that achieved those trophies. There is still too much greenwashing in our industry, believe it or not. We need more authentic attention to our brands. Manufacturers are still claiming to be Carbon Neutral, or even Carbon Negative. I’m sorry, but if you are making things, you are taking resources and making stuff. The only way you eliminate your footprint or even go negative is through offsets…green accounting that only looks good on paper. Let’s not do that. Companies are telling us that they are using a good plastic. Let’s remember that plastic is a petroleum-based material. It doesn’t matter what you plan on doing with it at the end of its life cycle, if you are using virgin plastic in your product, you are a customer of the fossil fuel industry, the single largest cause of our carbon crisis globally. I’m not pointing fingers here, just pointing out facts.

So, in our search for the perfect marketing pitch, let’s not get too glossy eyed over all the pretty trophies. Let’s instead take the time to share our cultural and process driven improvements that lessen our impact on the planet. Remember that your organization needs to change, and that change needs to take hold. And… let’s then take the time to understand this impact for our clients to ensure we’re putting the right product into the space. If you can use that label, and apply yourself to a great standard, and that process helps you evolve, it’s working for you! Sometimes it’s not just about the label, but what it took to get there. Go climb your mountain.

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Our industry is slowly breaking away from what could be the largest sustainability conference in the country, and I couldn’t be happier. If you take a look at Greenbuild, you’ll see what I mean. Look at the list of exhibitors; Cool Roof Rating Council, Dynamic Air Quality Systems, Epic Metals, Fellows Brands, Hydro Extrusion North America and I could go on and on. Greenbuild has become a showcase for architectural and engineering products. You won’t find any furniture companies there, and you shouldn’t. Go ahead and review the sessions and you’ll find topics like Revolutionizing Pavement Maintenance: Performance Engineered for Today’s Demands or Decarbonizing the Concrete Supply Chain: Findings from New England Initiative. There’s also What Actual Tracking Shows About Jobsite Emissions. You get my point… these topics don’t appear to focus on commercial interiors. And that’s fine!!

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I have often thought that the interior design industry is the only one that has ever decided to split between commercial practice and residential practice. As if the two couldn’t possibly hang out together. It’s a shame, but I’m glad we are not doing that with the climate movement. You see, if the commercial furnishings industry decided that Greenbuild was a place for the interiors industry to showcase their attention to climate, we would all be forced to attend both Greenbuild and NeoCon, or one or the other. Worse yet, you would have to go to Greenbuild to see the latest climate work from Humanscale and then head to NeoCon to see what else they have. Honestly, our manufacturers could not, and would not, endure the financial burdent of a NeoCon launch and a Greenbuild launch. It doesn’t make good math. Climate should not be a separate track for commercial furnishings, it should be baked in. NeoCon gives our industry the opportunity to talk about climate in the same sentence as commercial interiors, or interior design. If we are talking about commercial interiors, climate must be a topic that is weaving its way thru the entire conversation. This is the only way that we will be successful in creating a sustainable industry, one that holds planet health as high as profits. We are not there yet, but The Mart and NeoCon have done well to create a CEU program during NeoCon that contains a plethora of sustainability topics. But…the next phase is a track of design seminars that all have sustainability woven into the content. We should not be able to discuss design and product development without discussing the importance of the climate impact of that product or project. There should never be a “Sustainability Award”; if sustainability is not addressed in the project, it should not be considered for an award.

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Our industry talks to itself better than any other Industry out there. We often preach to the choir. How many conferences have you attended where you’ve had to walk 5,000 steps down a deserted hallway to get to the “The Importance of Material Transparency” seminar at an industry trade show? And when you get there, it’s likely to be a room full of people who are tremendous advocates for material transparency. They probably all know each other. My point is that Material Transparency should be a part of any seminar that talks about interiors. Designers that only like pretty things should hear about Material Transparency when they sit down to listen to a seminar titled “Pretty Things We Put in Buildings”. We’ll get there, I’m sure!

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There is an indigenous concept known as the Seven Generations Principle. It is a philosophy deeply rooted in Indigenous cultures, particularly among the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy. The principle encourages individuals and communities to consider the impact of their decisions on seven generations into the future. This long-term view emphasizes sustainability, stewardship, and responsibility towards the environment and future generations.

The Seven Generations Principle

In 1976 we created the Toxic Substances Control Act. The federal government wrote this with help from the chemical industry itself. The federal government, because of the influence of lobbyists and lack of term limits, set up a process by which the chemical industry could regulate itself. The first thing they did was decide that the 60,000 chemicals currently in production would have to get grandfathered in. We just had to assume they were okay. That made the work a lot easier…

The Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976

Today we are currently using about 84,000 chemicals around the globe. We don’t really know what these will do to our planet or future generations. But, for some reason, we really need them. Scientists have created a term called your Body Burden. This is the level of toxicity they have decided your body can absorb before you get sick. I personally feel that my body burden is zero. I don’t want to absorb any toxins, but since we can’t regulate the chemical industry, I don’t get this choice. Neither do you…or your children.

In 2005, the Enviornmental Working Group, along with Commonweal, published a report called the Body Burden: The Pollution in Newborns, that examined the presence of industrial chemicals, pollutants, and pesticides in the umbilical cord blood of newborns. The study found an average of 200 industrial chemicals and pollutants in the umbilical cord blood from 10 babies born in U.S. hospitals. A total of 287 chemicals were detected in the group. The chemicals included pesticides, consumer product ingredients, and wastes from burning coal, gasoline, and garbage. Notably, the study detected eight perfluorochemicals used in fast food packaging, clothes, and textiles, including the Teflon chemical PFOA.

Body Burden: The Pollution in Newborns

So, even armed with the knowledge that we are being born pre-polluted, we still can’t regulate the manufacture and release of harmful toxins? It’s a tragedy of our generation. Something we have left for someone else, and that is our unfortunate legacy. I’m afraid we have placed profit over the health of future generations. We have fooled ourselves into thinking we resolve the health issues that result. We’ll find a cure for cancer. We’ll cure all the auto-immune diseases that are cropping up. Guess what? We aren’t.

We can’t engineer or design our way out of this, but you can make a difference. You can identify the toxins in the product you make. You can strategize ways to eliminate those toxins. You can insist that your suppliers not work with those toxins, and, as a designer, you can decide you don’t want to specify those products that contain toxins. We are close. We likely can’t rely on our government to do the right thing, but by embracing material transparency, we can make the right decisions. I would tell you, as a designer, this is the most important decision you make. I don’t care about the color or the texture, or how it looks in a magazine. Will it find a way into a mother’s womb? If we can’t say no, let’s not make it.

I was putting my Christmas lights away this year, and was reminded of some of the sustainability work I’ve seen on web sites lately. Sustainability work is overwhelming…if you don’t have a strategy. And…it’s not something that should be left to your marketing team…or the Head of Factory Health and Safety.

I read a web site that stated a company had measured their organization’s footprint, knew their Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, and were focused on reducing those to minimize their corporate footprint. While that’s a great intention, an organization needs to measure, most importantly, their Scope 3 emissions, which typically represent 85% to 90% of their total emissions. You really can’t possibly come close to understanding your organization’s total footprint without this data. Unfortunately, measuring Scope 3 emissions is much more intensive than your Scope 1 and 2 emissions, but it’s too large to ignore.

Another company shared that they had achieved a “self-verified LEVEL Silver” certification. Unfortunately, there is no “self-verified” Level certification. They must be certified by an independent third-party certifier. Perhaps it’s unintentional, but companies should know better, and ignorance is not an excuse. Consumers have been naive for far too long, assuming that companies do know better. As I have said historically, companies are not people, so don’t expect them to behave like people. I am fortunate to be able to be working with companies that do care, that do want to be better, so let’s not vilify the companies in our industry. Let’s give everyone some grace in this conversation while, at the same time, holding them accountable to figure things out.

Figuring out your sustainability is not easy, but you can make it easier on yourself. I’m not giving away the secret sauce, but I will say this. Organize yourself. Establish a strategy and stop marketing sustainability by the seat of your pants and the whimsy of your salespeople telling you what you need yesterday. At some point you will need to put all those spreadsheets you get every week from different design firms to the side and look ahead at how you want to address climate impact as an organization. Once you develop a strategy that helps you better understand your impact and your priorities, you’ll be on your way to getting out in front of the conversation. If you don’t do this, it will continue to distract your company and cost you valuable time and resources.

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Part of your organization, your strategy, should be identifying those impact areas you feel you should focus on. Understand what that work will cost you, assign ownership and give yourself some due dates. If your program is progressive, if your program makes your organization better year over year, it will survive. If it only costs you money and time, then it will very likely fizzle or be value engineered out when you set your budgets next year.

Here’s to 2025. I’m hoping it’s a year of traction and substantial conversations that aren’t so tangled up.

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