The rapid expansion of clean energy brings unprecedented battery production and waste. With 95% of retired batteries ending up in landfills and only 3% recycled, it threatens material supply chains, the environment, and public health as toxic materials degrade into harmful substances that can enter the food chain and impact health.

Joseph shares how his project focuses on diagnosing battery health to enable second-life applications, bridging critical gaps in recycling and reuse infrastructure. Reflecting on his journey from roles at Dow, Meta, and Apple to the Stanford impact community, he draws inspiration from his grandmother’s wisdom, "your waste is someone else’s treasure," to champion innovative solutions for the battery waste crisis.

We hope you find his sharing inspiring. If you want to learn more about circular economy and waste topics, please find the links below provided by Joseph himself to help you further explore these subjects mentioned during our conversation.

More Resources

• Article | Replacing the “Take-Make-Waste” Model with Sustainable Supply Chains (link)

• Event | Stanford All About No Waste - Trash Talk Series (link)

• Book | 3 books about waste for your reading list (link)

  • Total Garbage: How We Can Fix Our Waste and Heal Our World

  • Wasteland: The Secret World of Waste and the Urgent Search for a Cleaner Futur

  • Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale

Rafa is working tirelessly to develop innovative solutions and advocate for the rights to clean water, sanitation, and hygiene. Recently, as part of WaterAid’s VoteWater campaign, Rafa wrote and delivered at 10 Downing street a letter to the UK Prime Minister Kier Starmer to call for urgent actions towards the global water crisis. She also wrote and delivered a letter to Development Minister Anneliese Dodds MP about how the water crisis is affecting climate-vulnerable countries such as Bangladesh, and how it is disproportionately impacting women and girls.

In this episode, we featured Rafa’s stories and perspectives — an architect turned WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene) development professional. Initially focusing on architectural solutions for marginalized communities, Rafa transitioned to WaterAid Bangladesh, where she co-founded WaterWomen to amplify young women's voices in the water and climate sectors. She shared her journey and projects, notably the 'Pink Toilet' initiative, which addresses inadequate sanitation facilities for women in Dhaka.

Rafa highlights the severe WASH challenges in Bangladesh, particularly for women who are responsible for fetching water for their households, facing harassment, and lacking clean water, toilets, and hygiene during menstruation. These problems are exacerbated by climate change, with floods in the south and droughts in the north worsening the situation. Through WaterWomen, Rafa focuses on capacity building and youth engagement, advocating for gender-responsive solutions and the need for women in decision-making roles.

We hope you find her story intriguing as well, and if you want to learn more about her work and WASH, please find the links below to help you further explore these topics mentioned during our conversation.

More Resources

• WaterAid Bangladesh

• City and town-wide assessments of female-friendly public and community toilets

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I met Ryan at World Water Week in 2023 when I attended her workshop on exploratory scenario planning. I had a lot of fun participating in this session on the future of agriculture for rural, small and lower-income communities facing water crises in the US, and I learned a lot from working with other participants through their contributions and perspectives. While I found her workshop on scenario planning very engaging and informative, I found her journey from journalism to where she is now fascinating. I couldn’t help but want to learn more about why she decided to make the switch, and how she managed to do so.

In this episode, we explore the journey of Ryan, a former newspaper journalist who transitioned to urban planning. Originally from Santa Fe, New Mexico, Ryan covered environmental and political issues in Texas and Colorado before shifting her focus to urban planning. Her transition was influenced by her reporting on climate crises, notably Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Witnessing the rebuilding in flood-prone areas underscored the impacts of planning decisions on community resilience and fueled her desire to influence urban development directly.

Her work in scenario planning involves engaging communities to envision and strategize for future challenges, ensuring inclusivity and local relevance. She highlights the challenges of public participation in planning, emphasizing the need for innovative engagement methods to include diverse voices. Technology plays a role in this effort, offering tools for virtual collaboration, but accessibility remains a key issue, especially in underserved areas.

We hope you find her story intriguing as well, and if you want to learn more about her work and participatory scenario planning, please find the links below provided by Ryan herself to help you further explore these topics mentioned during our conversation. Finally, Click here to subscribe to our Substack email list.

More Resources

• Resilient Communities and Watersheds: Exploratory Scenario Planning

• Sowing Seeds: How Scenario Planning Can Help Agricultural Communities Plan for a Resilient Future

• Agriculture & Water in the West: A Community Takes Charge

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And I'm Ellen. Together, we serve as your hosts on a journey to explore the forefront of Climate Innovation.

1. Why this, why now

When you hear 'innovation,' what comes to mind? Do you picture groundbreaking startups, revolutionary scientific discoveries, or transformative societal changes like Generative AI? And when the term 'climate change' is brought up, do you right away think of the rising temperature and disasters such as heatwaves, flooding and wildfires?

At Climate InnPod, we're all about broadening your perspective and sparking your imagination. As we hear more about the changing climate, we risk becoming numb and detached from these stories and studies. What we need now is to draw closer connections between the physical changes in our climate with the social, political, economic and institutional “climates” which we live in.

The current relationship between our civilization and our habitable planet is a remnants of the Industrial Revolution. It is exploitative and unsustainable. Now, we're at a critical juncture where we must reassess and rebuild the human-environment relationship. That's where innovation comes in. We're here to embrace the spirit of innovation—being creative, curious, and problem-solving. It's about pushing the boundaries and daring to challenge the status quo.

We need to shift our focus away from high-level strategies and overused buzzwords. Here, we aim to show, not tell.

We want to demonstrate how we can tap into the spirit of innovation to drive tangible changes.

We must uncover effective actions that challenge the status quo and inspire more people to make a real impact on the ground.

2. Our story

Climate challenges are complex problems with no straightforward solutions and are multidisciplinary in nature. What got us started on this podcast was our shared observation about climate action: it's often fragmented and isolated, leaving us feeling like we're not quite hitting the mark.

We come from completely different backgrounds. Zeyu is currently an academic researcher, specialising in flood resilience and environmental behavior. While Ellen’s expertise lies in business and finance. Through our discussions and explorations, we've realized that due to our diverse backgrounds, we often bring different and yet somehow complementary perspectives and approaches to the same problems. For both of us, it has certainly opened up our minds to learn to look at a problem from a different angle, and it's been truly inspiring and encouraging. Due to this realization, we both have noticed the importance of presenting diverse viewpoints and bridging fragmented efforts to amplify climate initiatives.

And one more thing - staying hopeful is crucial, especially when we're trying to figure out what we can do at an individual level to address these massive global issues.

3. Episode format

Now we have told you about the premise and the drive for our podcast, here is more about the content and format. Along the journey of our podcast, we delve into the stories of trailblazing individuals who are reshaping our approach to sustainability, igniting hope for collective efforts.

In each episode, we spotlight an individual who identifies a problem and takes action to solve it. We’ll explore their drive, perspectives and how they overcome challenges to bring their visions to life. Each story contributes a unique piece to this multifaceted potential of climate actions, thereby making a tangible difference, one episode at a time.

4. Message for our audience

So, if you're curious to hear these stories and want to collect puzzle pieces, join us along the way. Whether you're hoping to broaden your perspectives, exploring ways to make a difference, or looking to connect with like-minded individuals, you are at the right place.

Be sure to subscribe to our podcast, and click on the button below to subscribe to the Climate InnoPod Substack mailing list, so you will receive updates, highlights, and other related resources.

Subscribe now

5. See you in the next episode

We are so excited to start this journey with you. Soon, we'll launch Climate InnoHub, where we can offer more opportunities for engagement. So stay tuned.

Until next time, stay informed, stay inspired, at Climate InnoPod

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