31 - Kiersten & Aparna

To celebrate the upcoming Earth day and more than a year of podcasting, Green Collar presents a special episode! 

In this special role-reversal, the hosts become the hosted when a dear friend, Max Kriegsfeld, takes over the mic to interview us. What follows? A candid, occasionally chaotic, fun (and funny?) chat. The vibe is joining three pals for coffee to chat about a passion project.

We span from childhood recycling squads (global edition 🌍), career considerations that almost included actuarial science and culinary school, to our hottest takes on the public transit, reusable water bottle hierarchies, and a few greenwashing myths that deserve to be thrown out (composted!) immediately.

Resources Mentioned:

🌱 Organizations, Professional Groups, & Frameworks

• Carbon Leadership Forum (CLF) 
• U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) 
• Association of Energy Engineers (AEE) 
• American Institute of Architects (AIA) 
  • Architecture 2030
• American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE)
• Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) 

🎓 Certifications & Credentials

• LEED Green Associate
• Certified Energy Manager
• LEED Certification
• WELL Certification
• TRUE Certification

📱 Other things to Check Out

• Climate Action Now
• Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA)'s iconic social media
•  Plant-based plastic from Japan that dissolves in saltwater  
•  Legislation to standardize “sell by / use by” labels to reduce food waste

Transcript

[00:00:00] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): Joining us today are Aparna and Kiersten, two engineers by trade and podcast host by night in a slight change of pace for the green collar pod. Today we'll be turning the mic around, so to speak, and give our lovely hosts an opportunity to talk about their journeys from the young ducks that once were into the grown doves that now operate the sustainability space. Aparna and Kiersten, welcome to your own show.

[00:00:21] Aparna: LMAO. Thanks, Max. I can't believe we're here.

[00:00:25] Kiersten: Familiar and yet so different. Also, I've never been called a young duck, but I love it.

[00:00:29] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): Well, I have to begin, as we so often do by asking you a bit of your background. neither of you grew up in places often thought as bastions of environmental sustainability. So I'm curious about when did the passion for pursuing this field begin?

[00:00:44] Kiersten: Are you telling me that. The South is not known as a bastion of sustainability. This is news to me. Jokes aside though. I don't have a really fantastic answer for this. I feel like I learned the concept and word of sustainability in college, but I loved Earth and like campaign for recycling as a little middle schooler in my small town, in North Carolina.

So I feel like there's always just been an edge of environmentalism, even before I knew what to call it. It just feels like the right thing to do. So I'll keep it short with, there was no big, you know, big event that that turned a new leaf, if you will. It's always been there and certainly only grown stronger.

[00:01:25] Aparna: I will say Kiersten's wearing green as well, so the leaf motif has stayed with her all these years. I think for me, yeah, I think Austin is a cool city to grow up in because there is so much just access to outdoors nature, emphasis on being outside, but there's a very distinct memory from when my family and I lived in Bangalore, India.

Where we volunteered, my younger brother and I with this group called the Global Green Kids, where we essentially just walked around our neighborhood. We had these jute bags and we'd pick up trash. We talked to people about recycling and reusing items, and we were just like a bunch of, I don't know, 10 year olds walking and saying, pick up your trash.

So similar to Kiersten's like recycling group from her youth. I also had a recycling group from my youth on the other side of the world. And I think that was one of the first young forays into, huh, there's a right and wrong way to do this thing. And it's fun to talk to people about it.

[00:02:24] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): So I'm curious, have you noticed whether any of these global green kids have gone on to big things in the years since?

[00:02:31] Aparna: Yes. Actually, one co-hosts a podcast that you may or may not be listening to right now! But the rest of them, I don't know. I hope they're all in different corners of the earth doing the same recycling gig. 'cause we all had a great time walking around and getting a vitamin D in the neighborhood back in the day.

[00:02:46] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): That's great to see that you guys had this knack for sustainability early on. But there's a difference between kind of knowing what's right and wrong and having that actualize into a profession.

So were there any other fields that you thought of that would be worth exploring?

[00:03:00] Kiersten: Yeah, I still believe to this day that I would be happy in many different areas. So had considered many things, architecture, urban planning. Those two aren't so different than where I actually ended up, since it is the green building sector. But I also looked at biology, ecology, landscape architecture.

And for a second I thought maybe I could be an actuary 'cause I liked math. Glad I didn't go down that route. I don't think you get to talk to too many people when you're just crunching those numbers or working for an insurance firm. And then I also had a moment where I wanted to be an event planner, but then I was like, wait, when do people have big events?

Usually the holidays when you wanna be chill with your own family, having your own events. So that was the end of that era.

[00:03:43] Aparna: That's funny. I'll echo the architect as well. That was one of the biggest things I thought about, and then it was business for me, communications and like culinary school for a hot sec.

[00:03:57] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): Okay. I like the wide variety of potential jobs and that you both would be so happy in any of them, but I'm more grateful that you ended up where you are. All right. So one thing I've noticed in being an avid listener of the green collar pod is that so many of these great guests have shown that at some point in their career path they pivoted and that work isn't always linear. Sometimes these are late career pivots. I'm curious for you as two young professionals in the midst of that career, and it seems like one that you really enjoy, if you were to make a late career pivot like my guests have, what could you see yourself doing?

[00:04:30] Aparna: Hmm, a late career pivot from this. Would it be useful to give context of the pivots up till this point too?

[00:04:36] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): Absolutely!

[00:04:36] Aparna: Cool. I'll start you guys off on my pivoting journey. After college I moved up to the DC area and started to work with the general contractor here that did historic preservation and actually got to help out with the restoration of the Jefferson Memorial.

So I think from GC to grad school to where we currently, both work has been a little bit of a funny pivot to go from contractor to like real estate consultant pretty much. But I feel like a next career pivot. I always love creativity. I want something that connects me with the community that lets me speak, that lets me share ideas.

So it's almost like can the next career pivot include the green collar pod? And taking that a little bit further, I think that's what's really exciting to me right now. Of we both work in corporate America. I think it's a very stable, dependable, we know what we're doing, but the unknowns that are associated with podcast, I think are quite exciting.

So that's where my mind goes with that question, Max. Kiersten, how about you?

[00:05:39] Kiersten: Yeah, I'm actually a little inspired by your answer of like potentially working for ourselves. Who knows where the podcast will go? But similarly, my journey has had a few pivots. I will add that- I think this is useful to young people exploring while you're in school, internships and even jobs, like side projects, one-offs, or part-time jobs are such a great playground to figure out what you like and don't like. So I worked in a nanotechnology lab. I did babysitting, I did personal assisting. I worked for a solar consultancy firm. I worked for the facility services of my university, so doing facilities management for the school, I was a barista, I worked at the city, like municipality level under a civil engineer. 

So I think use that time to explore as much as you can. And if you hate what you did, at least you weren't locking yourself into that career. Right?

 Once I did get into my career, it was a little more steady. I've been in the built environment pretty much since I got started. I was originally with an engineering firm and then another MEP engineering consulting firm that focused on high performance buildings and then to JLL where I now get to work with you two beautiful souls.

 I do really enjoy the green building space. I think there's so many niches within it, and could see being happy here for quite some time. But if I had to pivot, I think I would wanna do something that's more for myself and more directly impactful. Like when I do a community cleanup and I see the street dirty before, and then I see it clean after I don't know, nothing fills my cup quite so rapidly as something like that.

So if I could do something where I'm seeing it in the more immediate term, speaking to people making a difference, I think that would be interesting. But that could be many different shapes.

[00:07:28] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): So long as you guys keep the pod going, then I think all the listeners will be happy campers. But to circle back to something you said, Kiersten, for new listeners, it's important to, to define up throughout the conversation. And we talk about within our field, the built environment a lot.

Yet, I don't know how inherent of a term that is for folks who might just be interested in sustainability but don't quite understand what does that specifically mean?

[00:07:54] Kiersten: So the built environment to me, and to be fair, I don't know if this is gonna be like a match for the dictionary definition, but it's all the infrastructure that we live in and amongst. Roads are part of the built environment. Buildings are part of the built environment. The distribution of energy and generation, so like the electricity grid is part of the built environment. The things that kind of make it so that we don't live in a forest, that's what we as humans have built as our environment. I've always said my goal is to bring that built environment into harmony with the natural environment.

Maybe we can live in a forest in a nice net zero carbon building. That to me is how I make the distinction: what's naturally occurring versus what have we built.

[00:08:34] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): Phenomenal definition. I feel smarter already. And I would say knowing the difference between the natural and built environment is definitely weaved within this podcast. The kind of wide net that all of your guests have cast in terms of how many different sectors of this field you can work in remains to be seen.

I know there are more pockets for you to explore, and I'm excited to listen to them. I often hear in talking to recent college grads that they're seemingly up against a monumental task of trying to get into this field, and yet one of the monikers of this podcast is that any job can be a sustainability job. So please describe how someone who works in the seemingly unrelated field can make inroads to where they wanna be.

[00:09:17] Aparna: Yeah, totally. I think that there's so many ways to create a sustainable workplace, whether that's through individual action or just conversations you're having with your peers. Whether that's talking to the sourcing department and saying, "Hey, let's not buy plastic water bottles in bulk instead, let's ask people to bring their own water bottles. Let's, encourage company branded water bottles if that's a concern."

 To me it starts at the small personal level. You as an employee of an organization, what can I do to create that space for myself? It's having conversations with colleagues to say, we should put that in the landfill. Let's recycle that. And doing a little bit of the low hanging fruit. At my last job, we actually didn't have recycling, so my colleague and I decided that we would find an extra recycling container and just bring that to the trailer and place it in the corner, and we would just take turns every week taking it back home and dumping it out into our own residential recycling box.

There are some creative ways that you can get outside the box and make something that doesn't seem inherently sustainable. Like I worked for a general contractor, but you can still make small change towards a sustainable end.

[00:10:32] Kiersten: I love that Aparna. I also have personally taken charge of taking compost in and out just so that I can have it in the office spaces.

I think a really common phrase in our industry is you can't manage what you don't measure. And I think that gets to the root of having an awareness of something before you try to optimize it.

And so I think something that literally anyone can do is access some of the worldwide web of information about sustainability in your field. Simple as a Google search. And then from there, ask questions of people around you because they also might not have that awareness and might not have that interest. And you never know what seed you're planting just by asking the question. Now, of course that guarantee that anything's gonna change by asking the question. But the great thing is it's free. It doesn't take a lot of effort. It doesn't take a lot of time just to plant the seed and ask.

So for instance, when I was looking to move back to DC and I was touring apartments, I had a list of questions for every tour that I went on, including do you have EV infrastructure? Is this building all electric? And frankly, most of the leasing managers could not answer, but I feel like hopefully in that instance they'll be like, oh, someone else might ask this question.

I should probably do my homework and be able to answer and therefore who knows like what journey that may or may not have sent them on. For me, at least I knew where I wanted to live because I could prioritize the one building that said, we do have EV charging and it is all electric. We also have a LEED certification.

[00:12:01] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): I do agree that's the best way to, to make inroads within your own company. My fear is that inevitably that might turn into pro bono labor and if someone wants to like, properly pivot into this field the, they might need a little bit more juice in their resume.

You both have a bad case of alphabet soup after your last names with more letters than I can keep track of. So I have to ask, of all those certifications, which one do you feel has actually moved the needle most in your career? Then a follow up for those aforementioned young professionals thinking about adding a few letters of their own. How should they decide if a certification is really worth it or not? Apart from just listening to you.

[00:12:40] Kiersten: This one is so hard because I have to say I do sometimes advocate for free labor in a very specific instance though, so I'll clarify and then I'll answer your question. I think that volunteering with professional societies is such a fantastic way to get to know the industry, so you're getting knowledge out of it, but also to make contacts.

For me, I felt very awkward in transactional interactions and even doubly so if I felt I didn't have anything to offer in that transaction, but I wanted something out of it, i.e. a job, or whatever. So for me, volunteering was a great way to be like, I deserve to be here.

We're all trying to do something by giving our time. And then I was able to make great connections a little bit more naturally and a little bit more deeply I feel than just like a. Hi. Like the weather this week is pretty crazy global warming. Am I right? Which I've had plenty of those conversations too. But yeah, I think it's a fine line and definitely don't wanna advocate to do too much for free. This is valuable work and it deserves to be paid, but that can be a great way to make an inroad.

[00:13:42] Aparna: We actually had a recent episode that will be launched about a guy who started off just doing free labor and essentially made a job for himself. So if I could interject, it's: show the impact of the work that you're doing. Make the business case. We live in corporate America, we sometimes have to speak that language . You have to have some persuasion along with it. But I think there is a clear path if you have a passion and a demonstrated product.

[00:14:07] Kiersten: Yeah, I love that. That is where doing some virtual coffees and speaking to others could help clarify , is it worth my time to do some of this free labor? And then will it lead somewhere or do you think I'm gonna just end up in a place where I've been taken advantage of because maybe it's free labor at your current company and they don't latch on. But then you now have a portfolio of work that you can use to show outcomes. 

We both digressed the answer to the question is most impactful. Two things. LEED green associate- I got this one in college. Another thing is get these while you're a student 'cause oftentimes they're like markedly cheaper.

 Because the other one that I do you think made a needle move in my career is CEM and that's a couple thousand dollars. So CEM is certified energy manager. It's run through AEE. It's a fantastic certification it really gives you a wonderful technical background to do energy management or brings sustainability to a facilities management type role. 

So I think those two.

[00:15:07] Aparna: I totally agree with that. And I'll echo you on CEM. I think that's the one that I draw from it quite often and that's the one where I'm like, oh yeah, this chapter, that question, this is related to this during my day job. So that has been very impactful, I'll say. And it is expensive. So if you are someone who's listening to this and you're Googling what a certified energy manager is, what the Association of Energy Engineers is, I'd say the best way to figure out if it's worth your time and your company's money or not, is just to ask people who have it about their experience, right?

Or you go to that certifying body's page on LinkedIn. See who, see who follows them, see who also has that certification in their alphabet soup on LinkedIn. Is that something that you wanna do? If it's an immediate yes, then sure that's another tick in the go get the cert box but if it's a no or a maybe reach out, ask questions.

Understand if it's gonna be worth your investment both time and money, because they're not simple tests. They do take a good amount of effort to go through. So you just wanna make sure that you're putting that towards something that you're at least interested in, that you think is gonna help you take another step.

[00:16:23] Kiersten: Also on the note of altruism for giving time. Another thing about volunteering that I point out, and it's why I recommend it, even though you are giving of your time, is oftentimes you can get something out of it too. So conference registrations for things that could help you get continuing education credits to maintain this alphabet soup of credentials that we both have. Oftentimes if you volunteer to help with the conference, you can get free entry. A lot of the conferences I've attended, that's how I've gone.

So just keep that in mind too, give up your time, but do so strategically make sure that you're getting a little something out of it as well.

[00:16:56] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): So it's the backend organizations behind a lot of these credentials. Are these kind of professional societies or professional organizations, and I know you two are both a part of some, are you able to talk about what that experience is like? What kind of connections are you able to make there? And could someone coming up in this field use that as a, here's how I present myself to people within the field and how I start making connections.

[00:17:20] Aparna: Definitely, so I'll talk about some volunteering with different groups in the DC area. I think my favorite one that I give my time to is CLF, the Carbon Leadership Forum. It's a group who just likes to nerd out about embodied carbon and embodied energy, and they don't have a specific certification, to the best of my knowledge that they back, but it is a good group for thought leadership, for meeting people in the AEC, architecture engineer construction industry, and just built environment at large who are interested in implementing sustainability into their day-to-day.

So I'd say that's a great forum for folks who want yes, sustainability, yes energy, but also carbon and building materials and policy. That's my like, fun geek out stuff. So that's where I've put a lot of my time. Other cool groups that I think have been useful in learning are the structural engineering association.

I definitely got myself in there a little bit. I'm like, I'm not a structural engineer, but can I volunteer with you guys a little bit? So it was funny to give the real estate perspective to a bunch of folks who work in structural engineering. And just for context, my background is civil engineering and focused in on materials and structures.

So I could speak like 75% of their language. But that other 25, I definitely got a couple funny looks.

Through the CLF group though I will say. It's been great to meet other organizations. So we've partnered with USGBC, the US Green Building Council on a handful of events, and that's been another interesting thing to kind of network as a professional org with another professional org and make new crossroads like that, make new like connections.

Kiersten, I know you have some other volunteer experience with different groups than me.

[00:19:04] Kiersten: There's definitely some overlap, so I'll skip those that are repeated. But I would say generally because Aparna and I, while we come from different backgrounds, like work in the same field now our answers here to this and even this certification and credential question are gonna be based in built environment roles, right? Advice to anyone would be: follow the standards or the goals of your industry for instance I used to be a bit involved with AIA American Institute of Architects. I'm not an architect by training or by practice. But they set the architecture 2030 goal which pertained to some of the design work that I was doing at my old firm. Same with ASHRAE standards. Designate a lot of the rules when you're designing HVAC systems for the amount of ventilation and outside air and standardized set points. Those standards are from ASHRAE, which is another society that has these technical committees that write the standards. So if you wanna get involved joining the Society ASHRAE, which is, gosh, it's like heating, it's HVAC, but I don't know if I can perfectly do the acronym, but it's A-S-H-R-A-E, ASHRAE. That's another one.

And then similarly, like we said for CEM, what is the professional credential that reigns supreme in your area? Who owns that credential? So AEE, Association of Energy Engineers, owns CEM. USGBC, which Aparna mentioned they run, LEED and WELL and TRUE, which are all certifications that have come up on past episodes.

So again, you start to sniff these out by just learning a little bit more about your field. If you are in more of the ESG side, you would potentially learn about the STBI goals and maybe there's a membership platform. I actually don't know 'cause as we've established, I think we have full plates and plenty of letters already. But I encourage you generally to use that kind of methodology to parse out what's gonna be valuable for your field specifically.

[00:20:59] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): Thank you for that. I think that it certainly helps when you have the type of personality that tends to be so forthright with what you do, what you're interested in, and you're able to make connections. And as we've seen throughout these podcasts you end up meeting people in the environmental, the engineering conference circuit, that you're able to actually foster those connections and relationships to the point where people want to be interviewed and they want to talk about the work that they do.

Ye t not everyone is as gifted as socializing with new folks. So what are some things that first time either conference or event attendees could do to make those meaningful connections?

[00:21:36] Aparna: That's a fun question. And I will say it has been a learned skill, at least on this end. So I would say just don't be too harsh on yourself. If it's your first conference, those things are very overwhelming. There are thousands of people, hundreds of people, and there's just so much to do.

It's hard to not feel like the opportunity cost of what you're doing is so great. So you need to maximize when in reality you want to just pick a couple things, talk to a couple people, give yourself some realistic goals. So if I were to give you like first time conference goer advice, it would be, speak to two booths at the expo hall, start a conversation with one other attendee, ask one question.

So start small. Start with something that's gonna let you build some steam and not have you have a goal that's just unattainable, because that's not gonna make you ever wanna go back to a conference, and that's gonna be such a downer of a first experience. So yeah, don't put too much pressure on yourself.

Everyone's also in this funny little, how do I speak to people bubble. So as long as you can ask a question, present yourself I think you'll be good.

[00:22:40] Kiersten: I wholeheartedly agree, and frankly, my answer is something I've already said, which is I got around this awkwardness by volunteering, so I won't be a dead horse and repeat that. But that definitely did help me feel like I belonged to places and now even if I stop, I've established those relationships where I feel I can walk into certain spaces and I already have connections, so I'm not as nervous anymore.

But I have given a presentation on this essentially, and a big technique is gamification. So any of the things Aparna said could be like a tic-tac toe board and you're trying to win against yourself. Like you have nine goals, you're not trying to do all of them, but can you get tic-tac toe? Can you meet someone that has the same job title as you?

It doesn't have to be anything intimidating. Can you add three new people on LinkedIn? Things like that, or like little mini missions that can make it a little bit more fun as you're going in.

Another thing I personally like to do at conferences . I like to wear a conversation piece and I cannot tell you how effective it's to have people come up to you and say oh, I like your shirt. And then because we are sustainability people, oftentimes I'm wearing something thrifted or secondhand and I'm like, "No way I got this at a thrift store." And then, there's immediately good energy and kind of bonding. So obviously a personal choice, but that is one way that I have just broken the ice passively without doing anything.

[00:23:58] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): Okay, so my two primary takeaways from this: one stand next to one booth the entire time and just talk their ear off. And then the second wear a crazy outfit that hopefully will garner some attention that you don't have to ask someone what they do for work because they will come up to you anyways.

[00:24:15] Aparna: You got it!

[00:24:16] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): Okay.

[00:24:16] Aparna: That's the one takeaway. We can wrap this up.

[00:24:18] Kiersten: We love a recap. I don't know if I said crazy, but

[00:24:21] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): A loud piece. Forgive me.

[00:24:23] Kiersten: a themed piece, Max, if you will. I have one of my favorite shirts has buildings all over it, so I could always be like, I'm a building science engineer. It's on the nose. Ha. Which is honestly a pretty accurate representation of who I am. Little bit awkward, little quirky.

[00:24:38] Aparna: I think you once wore your bee sweater vest over the building shirt and I was like, if I couldn't dress someone better myself.

[00:24:44] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): My fear is when you say themed that could mean you're just wearing branded merch from the conference and just head to toe, in which case, I don't know if that's quite garnering the same interest,

[00:24:54] Aparna: I'm getting a sweatband, I'm in.

[00:24:56] Kiersten: You could probably get the booths to talk to you in that way though.

[00:24:59] Aparna: Mm.

[00:24:59] Kiersten: to talk to them if you're wearing their merch and you walk by,

[00:25:02] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): that,

[00:25:02] Kiersten: I think they would be excited about it.

[00:25:04] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): That's true. You quickly snuck it underneath the tables and you were prepared by the time you walked past. Okay. That's great feedback for the younger generation. But I'm curious about when you both were coming up, some of the advice that, that you've been given.

Now, I think so often people ask, you know, what's the best career advice you've heard? That can mean a whole lot of things because if you have mentors that have never actually said anything insightful to you then you might not have the best career advice that you can reference, or most people don't write it down when they hear it. So I'd like to ask you both, what is actually some common career advice that you hear in the ether that you would like to dissuade people from listening to?

[00:25:42] Aparna: So advice I, we've all gotten so much good advice and bad advice over the years. I think something that I personally heard coming up in school and the industry was networking is fake. Networking can be manipulative. And the moment, it was something that I definitely internalized. I was like, oh, I don't wanna be manipulative, I wanna be genuine, I wanna be friendly, and I want people to wanna talk to me.

But I think going through like the early stages of a career now being, I don't know, like six years deep into work, like networking isn't fake. It's not manipulative. It's something I've had to unlearn and it's just having a conversation with somebody. It's not like you're coming into a conversation loaded every time like, "oh, Max, like this is what you're gonna do for me."

"Oh Kiersten, this is what I need from you." It could just be, Hey, we're both in the same room listening to the same presentation. What's your name? What do you do? How did you end up here? So I think it can be as innocent as you want it to be.

I think whoever started saying networking is a bad thing messed a lot of us up.

And then I'll give you the converse of good advice, man. Something also growing up was understand the fundamentals. It was something my dad always said when he was helping my brother and I out with like homework as a youth in like math, physics, whatever it was.

But every time we had an issue, he'd always say, okay, what are the fundamentals? What are the basics of this? We'd work our way backwards to maybe one of the three principles of physics, maybe like a common math function, and then be able to use that as a springboard to get to the answer we wanted. And I think that's a good message that I would love to give everybody.

So understanding the fundamentals of where you work, of what you wanna do, of who you are and what you're trying to affect in this job, in this world, however you wanna take it. But yeah, understand the fundamentals and networking is good.

[00:27:35] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): I do think that certainly is true. Okay, so we're gonna pivot slightly to talk about theme that's a little bit more holistic. Those one-on-one dynamics that you both have experienced.

So you both are engineers, you're women. This is a field that is generally speaking very dominated by older men. I would love to hear from your perspectives, how do you see that gender disparity dynamic play out?

[00:28:01] Kiersten: I feel really lucky to say that I haven't had too much outright negativity. There's certainly been some comments like I'm dressed in jeans and a button down and tennis shoes and like I was like, "you sure you can climb that ladder?" And you act as if I'm wearing stilettos, like I am a able-bodied, at the time, like 24-year-old. Yes, I can climb the ladder. But I've also had a lot of allies, so I think that's been very, it's been something I've appreciated a lot. The first person to hire me, Jess Farber at CMTA was a really great mentor while I was there, so that was fantastic.

Going back I do think there's still a little bit of a unspoken rule about don't be yourself sometimes. So this is not bad advice that someone has given me. No one has told me, don't be myself. But jokes about the louder outfits, like there's a reason that most people are wearing gray and tan and navy blue because that for a long time was the industry standard.

And if you wear something else like a bright color, you do stand out. And I think we have to be a little bit wary of in what way are we standing out? And I do, I have been able to pivot it into good attention making connections, like I said before, but it makes, it can be uncomfortable to have an eye on you as the other in a room. So I definitely encourage people to. To the best extent they can their whole selves to work. Don't hide part of yourself just because it's different than what you're seeing elsewhere. If you do good work, I think the way that you present yourself, for the most part, obviously there are boundaries, but like the way you present yourself is not the most important outcome.

Your actual outcomes are the important outcome.

[00:29:39] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): Perfect.

[00:29:40] Kiersten: Also it is not advice I was given, I was watching a TV show once and there was a scene where a woman was talking about how she had reached a certain career pinnacle and she was sending the ladder back down. Those that are in positions where you can aid someone else to think about what you're doing and who you're helping. Is that group one specific group or is it a lot of people, if you're involved in recruiting, where are you recruiting and is that gonna give you the same pool of people or can you find diversity there? And if you have that sort of power. And you've overcome anything, how can you help people in your same position to overcome it?

So that concept of you climbed the ladder, now send it back down for the person behind you to also have something to climb. So that actually does echo through my head as just, maybe not advice, but like a refrain of how am I sending the ladder back down for others? And I think far and I both view this podcast as one way in which we can do that by creating a tool people can listen to at their leisure and hopefully learn and enjoy.

[00:30:45] Aparna: I really like that you said that. Honestly, that's something I look for in company leadership at this point. Do I see myself there? Can I see any aspect of myself in leadership in higher positions than what I'm in right now? And that to me, signals that it's sustainable.

They value diversity, they value different schools of thought, and that sends such a bigger signal than any other action could. So yeah I'll definitely echo you there. And it's something that as I was coming up in my career, I wish I could have seen more of in earlier companies.

There definitely is that gender disparity, but I have seen it start to change. More and more as we've been in this field, specifically in energy and sustainability. I think there's a lot of really incredible female leadership within the sustainability space, and it's such a beautiful feeling to look up and say, oh, I see myself there. There's someone else who maybe has my background, maybe like shares my same interests, and that encourages me to want to do more and stay in here.

It's sustaining me.

[00:31:49] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): It does seem that sustainability is one of the few fields where there is next to zero gatekeeping, and we're all in this kind of together, and the hope is that we can help bring more people into the fold and have more companies care about this.

But let's take off our professional hat for one second. I would say one thing that strikes me about both of you is that sustainability doesn't stop once you log off for the day. could argue that's a terrible work life balance and maybe the planet would disagree with me on that. I'm curious, how do you incorporate sustainability into your social life, into your day-to-day actions?

How do you bring just friends who might be, in finance or whatever, into the fold?

[00:32:27] Aparna: I feel like I'm infamous for always having a reusable water bottle on me. I was in India for the last couple weeks and I have this like large sling bag. We called it the banana bag and if it's a water bottle and a lot of other things. So it's such a small action.

Everyone also now says, oh, can I have a sip of water? I'm like, aren't you glad I have a reusable water bottle guys? We should all have reusable water bottles. I'd say that is something, it's like my third arm.

Always having a coffee thermos, a stacher bag if we're going to events. Kiersten and I both were at an event on Tuesday that we hosted with CLF and this man who hosted the event, infamous for always having extra food.

So we came prepared with bags and it's just a funny little conversation starter. 'cause people ask, what is that? How did you know to do this? And we're like, we've just been here before, but this is a st or bag, it's a reasonable Ziploc bag. You can stick it in the dishwasher.

And it, it's just a funny little conversation piece within your group.

I think for your second point of how do you bring it up in conversation? Just always, the keyword's gonna be gentle. I never wanna seem like I am saying, oh, this is bad, this is good.

Rather, if you see someone doing something, or if you're having a conversation and maybe something about a Splenda packet for example, comes up, you can say, ah, did you know I learned recently?

Not all of those are recyclable. So making it engaging, making it not this dire thing.

[00:33:48] Kiersten: I had my haughty, HAU, not H-O-T-T-I-E phase of like I am morally superior because I'm trying to save the planet and how dare you drink from a straw. And I think we all have to move past that if the movement is going to go anywhere. So I don't often say anything until I'm asked. But as Aparna said, there are a lot of visible things that you start to do that people are like, what?

What? Why do you do that? And that's where I hop on my soapbox, but still gently and politely be like, actually and show, I authentically show how nerdy I am about this. And if the people seem like, oh, whoa, too much. Then I back off.

 Recently, had a note left on our front door that someone was taking signatures to have the green party on the DC ballot. And so she left a note saying call me back. And I did. And when she came, I read her survey and did end up signing, but then I was like, Ooh, like friended sustainability.

So I asked her, I love that you're doing this grassroots stuff. Have you heard of the climate action now app?

 If I think someone's already feeling it, maybe slipping in a fun fact like, do you do this? And it's not a name or shame, it's just like a sharing of passion in that way.

And so I think it's well received.

[00:34:57] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): Absolutely. I, definitely is the less you can nudge people and the more you can just bring them in, easier it is in getting any of your wants and needs across. Especially if it comes to just having them recycle correctly.

Of course. Okay. We're all within a similar age demographic. We're all in very similar living situations while not all in dc some in Phoenix, we all face kind of similar realities. So let's think of those realities that our age group faces renting limited resources the pressures of the kind of internet age, just constantly coming down upon you. Despite these constraints, what can an individual do day to day to make small meaningful impacts?

[00:35:37] Kiersten: I love this question and I could probably do a full podcast on it. It's become the social norm we're constantly marketed to, and I hate that. But all of us should think carefully about how we consume and how much we consume. 

To consume less, is one of the most sustainable things that you can do. I think we've referenced this on the podcast before, but it is nice to note that we should acknowledge that privilege of choice.

 Educating yourself is, a number one thing that I think people can do and then from there, doing what's within your means. So buying secondhand, reusing things, making sure that things, when they do reach their end of life, find the proper end life home.

But always going back to, do I need this? Can I borrow it? Can I get it secondhand? And that type of hierarchy is something I think anyone, anywhere can do.

[00:36:28] Aparna: If I could add, going back to fundamentals, honestly, you were talking about how you should talk to people. You should speak to your community, your family, your friends, and there have been so many studies. I'll link a couple here that show that people trust, friends and family more than they trust the internet more than they trust random press. So the more you can have the conversation, the more grassroots change you're basically affecting.

[00:36:51] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): Okay, perfect. As two people who I know often use the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority or whatever, WMATA actually stands for the Metro. I'd be curious to hear what is the best public transit system both of you have been on, and you're not allowed to say DC's.

[00:37:08] Aparna: That was my answer.

[00:37:09] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): Well, pick a different one.

[00:37:11] Kiersten: Me too!

[00:37:11] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): Pick a different one

[00:37:12] Kiersten: my feet and the sidewalks.

[00:37:14] Aparna: My bike.

[00:37:15] Kiersten: I love the metro. I really do. And their social medias just makes me love them more. Guys,

[00:37:20] Aparna: Yeah.

[00:37:20] Kiersten: If you have not seen the WMATA social media account, go to Instagram. Look it up. It's gold.

[00:37:24] Aparna: It's unhinged in the best way. I don't know what else that, okay. We both like DC I think outside the us, London and Vienna, I was trying to do like domestically. Internationally. Those two are crazy. Good outside, always clean, always on time. I've never had issues in the us. What's the second best, Kiersten?

Because DC is the best.

[00:37:45] Kiersten: No, I don't like the others. I think the T in Boston, it feels like a time portal. I think that New York smells like pee. Sorry guys. If you're in, it's, I'm not hating on you. I'm just saying these are some areas you could

[00:37:57] Aparna: the L in Chicago also leaves a lot to be desired. LA Metro. I took it once and I was made fun of so much.

Answer Amtrak. It's public transit. Amtrak. 

[00:38:09] Kiersten: Also, the city bikes that we took, they were called Tangerine when Aparna and I went to Toronto, those were easy, we were not, people that lived there, hadn't been there before. And we were like, this is a nice area we could bike through. And we rented a bike that day, so counts.

[00:38:22] Aparna: Yeah.

[00:38:23] Kiersten: Rentable bikes in the city of Toronto.

[00:38:25] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): Sponsor the pod is what we're saying. Okay. Next rapid fire question. You work with all four of these, so I'd like to hear your power ranking of waste, water, carbon, and energy from most underappreciated to most over appreciated.

[00:38:40] Kiersten: I am so curious if we're gonna agree here, Aparna. To try to keep it rapid fire. I won't explain too much, but I think water is most underappreciated,

[00:38:48] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): Thank you.

[00:38:48] Kiersten: second to waste and then carbon and energy. So I think the most focus has been on energy. 

[00:38:55] Aparna: I will flip carbon in waste, so I have water, carbon waste energy. Cool.

[00:38:59] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): Great answers, and I don't know if you just did that for someone who lives in a drought stricken state, but nonetheless, we appreciate it. Okay. We touched on it a little bit, but Aparna, you are an avid user of re reasonable water bottles. I myself am as well. In a world where reusable water bottles and Kiersten, forgive me, constantly changing in terms of what's in vogue, please tell me what is the true winner of the reasonable water bottle wars.

[00:39:24] Aparna: To me it's gonna be Nalgene and Hydro Flask. I do not want a straw water bottle that's gonna start growing mold that I have to then figure out how to clean.

[00:39:32] Kiersten: I will say the best is the water bottle you already have,

[00:39:36] Aparna: That's true.

[00:39:37] Kiersten: Yeah, I do personally love a Nalgene because the sides are flat, so I can put stickers on it. And it's like a wide enough mouth that you can really get in there and clean it to a partner's point of things, growing. So yeah, don't go out and buy anything!

[00:39:50] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): A recommendation to listeners. If you go to Goodwill, they tend to have an entire aisle full of people's disposed of reusable water bottles, so you don't have to necessarily buy them new and you can throw them in the dishwasher if you have one. Okay.

[00:40:03] Kiersten: My husband exclusively has blender bottles from Goodwill 'cause he loses them all the time. And if you go to Dick's Sporting Goods, they're like $9.99 to $14.99 a pop. Goodwill, $1.99 baby. And you can always find at least two the shelves.

[00:40:17] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): Hard to beat those prices truly. Okay. would like for you each to dispel one common greenwashing myth that you see daily.

[00:40:25] Aparna: Eggs. I hate how they're labeled at the stores. They're like free range cage free non G-M-O-X-Y-Z. Beautiful yellow yoke inside. I would love the FDA to regulate what the naming convention on eggs are. This is just a personal pet peeve of mine. I don't know if this counts as greenwashing Max, but if all the eggs are saying organic cage-free without meaning, like defining what they mean, I don't know.

I think the people deserve to know.

[00:40:53] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): Aparna, I think you're really just talking about food labeling in general as being misleading. I don't think eggs deserve as much hate as you just gave them, but nonetheless I'd agree. Kiersten?

[00:41:04] Kiersten: Reaction comment - there is something on, I think it's the house floor right now, about changing the use, buy, sell, buy date rules to help reduce food waste. So we can link that in the comments. 'cause I know I, yeah saw a template email in my Climate Action Now app.

I really love that app. I don't think they sponsor things, but I just freaking love them.

Okay. But my answer, I will say our current administration is trying to pay, play fast and loose with a lot of definitions like calling coal sustainable. I have no idea how that adjective could be applied to that natural resource. But they're trying to say we should have more base load coal. It's not sustainable, folks don't believe it. Do the research, look it up. And yeah, I've also seen like renewable natural gas. There are some cases where you might be capturing like waste methane and that is a little bit renewable and that you're at least capturing it and then using it as fuel. But by nature it's not renewable.

[00:42:04] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): That's a great point. And for listeners coal miners are often trotted out as these sad individuals who have no future. We've actually done the research. There are about 40,000 coal miners in the US so this isn't some large swath people. This is generally speaking a state college's campus. And I just wanna give some context for listeners who might not be really sure exactly how many there are

[00:42:29] Aparna: Honestly for us too, who didn't know how many? I didn't know it was only 40,000. My undergrad campus was 50.

[00:42:34] Kiersten: That's a fantastic fact! Those 40,000 people, they still matter. But that is not the giant contingent that the news would have you believe. And we also know from research and green job studies that. We need technical people in green fields like servicing of ev, charging stations, servicing of solar, installation of solar, servicing of wind.

So all of those things there. There are jobs out there and there are even programs that help retrain folks from unsustainable industries to get into very specific parts of sustainable jobs.

So 

[00:43:06] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): We should help them, not just continue sending them to the coal mines. I think that's a reasonable takeaway. Okay, so our last rapid fire question, give me one win that you feel deserves more shine whether it be in your personal life, your professional life, or something in the world that you've seen recently.

[00:43:21] Aparna: I got an Instagram reel. The other day, which I absolutely loved, it was about scientists in Japan and how they've created a plant-based plastic that completely dissolves in salt water within hours and doesn't leave any microplastics behind.

I thought that was wild, especially since we see so much plastic litter in the oceans. If you could sub things out with this new plastic, that would be incredible, and I think the ocean would love us for it.

[00:43:48] Kiersten: I definitely wanna look more into that. We should link it in the show notes.

I think I'm gonna pat us on the back. It's been over a year of episodes and I really hope that we're reaching the people we're trying to reach and actually helping to bring about the type of future that we wanna see.

But I can say no matter what we're trying to do that, so I'm pretty proud. 

[00:44:13] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): And rightfully so. Well, that concludes today's episode. I wanna say thank you to our gracious hosts as well as our guests who happen to be the same people for joining us today. So thank you, Kiersten. Thank you Aparna for sharing your wisdom, and most importantly, sharing your time.

[00:44:29] Kiersten: Max. I was thinking you were thanking yourself, but we should be thanking you too. Thank you for our gracious host. We love that you took over the host platform and interviewed us today.

[00:44:39] Aparna: There's no one else we would've wanted in that seat, you did super.

[00:44:43] Max Kriegsfeld (he/him): Thank you.