Climate Solutions Are the Future of Business — and Young People Can Be Part of It

Josh Dorfman 00:00:00

What many people have no idea is that increasingly the front lines of sustainability in America are fast food restaurants. What he said to me is like, if you just step back and take a look at it in its totality, this is the greatest fastest pace of human innovation and transformation in all of history. If you read the academic research and you read the published reports from like the UN Communications department published with like Yale and other places, they all say the same thing. Like, if you want to reach people and get them interested in caring about climate, you have to communicate about solutions. Nobody takes their own advice.

Mark Taylor 00:00:49

Hello, my name is Mark Taylor and welcome to the Education on Far podcast, The place for creative and inspiring learning from around the world. Listen to teachers, parents and mentors share how they are supporting children to live their best, authentic life and are proving to be a guiding light to us all. Hello and welcome back to Education on Fire. Today I'm delighted to be chatting to Josh Dorfman and he's a climate entrepreneur, author and media personality. Now he's the CEO and host of Supercool, a media company covering real world climate solutions that cut carbon emission, increase profits and enhance modern life. Now, Josh was previously the co founder and CEO of Planted, a carbon negative building materials manufacturer. Now we discuss how these issues are often reported in the media and how children see climate solutions from that standpoint only. So we talk about the realities of the green economy and the role that children can play in that now, but also as they step into their future. Really hope you enjoy this. My conversation with Josh Dorfman. Hi Josh, thank you so much for joining us here on the Education on Far podcast. Climate is one of those things that comes up a lot on the show for people in education. It's also one of those things which I think people think is really important and then suddenly it's not important because other things get in the way or there's more focus or there's a financial implication and all those things. So I love the fact that you've got so many conversations about this area, but also sort of from that business sense, you've got things that you've put in place and you sort of taking that action and showing that way forward. So, yeah, really excited to see where we go with this conversation.

Josh Dorfman 00:02:26

Awesome. Thank you, Mark. Pleasure to be here.

Mark Taylor 00:02:28

So tell us where your passion came from. From this. Why is this sort of a big driver in your life?

Josh Dorfman 00:02:35

Yeah, absolutely. So for me, my passion for climate was really born out of a passion initially to go out and experience the world. I moved to China and in the 1990s, about a year after university and I wanted to go explore the culture. I wanted to, I thought, prepare myself perhaps for a career in diplomacy, State Department maybe if I got like really quote unquote lucky. CIA, who knew? But, but that was really a driver for me was to be out in the world. And so I went and got a job teaching English on the Nanjing University of Science and Technology 1995. I soon got a part time job working in a factory that made bicycle locks for an American company called Kryptonite. At the time, Kryptonite locks were the strongest, best lock in the world. They happened to be opening their first factory 20 minutes from where I was teaching. And I needed a part time job, make a little extra money and I wanted to experience more of the culture. I see different sides of the country. I ended up going to work for Kryptonite full time. I became fascinated by business, fascinated by cross cultural business. Just thought it was all so interesting. In my second year, we opened a factory in southern China, not far from Guangzhou. And I was traveling with the Chinese owner of that factory to this restaurant where both sides were going to celebrate. We're in the parking lot and before we go in, this guy takes me aside, says Josh, look, my Mercedes is the biggest Mercedes of all. The Mercedes in this parking lot. And there were tons of Mercedes, which is, there's some cognitive distance. It's still a communist country 30 years ago, but there's a lot of Hong Kong money spilling into southern China. And I, a couple of things clicked for me in that moment. One, I thought, of course, in this regard you are just like us, the Americans, who want more, bigger, more stuff, bigger car, bigger house, bigger quality of life, higher standard living, which is great, right? And then I thought, but there's also a billion people here currently, all riding bicycles. Nobody actually wants a bicycle. Everybody actually wants a car. And in the limited time I've been here, I have seen a highway literally get built right in like a year and a half from Nanjing to Shanghai, where in America it would be decades and there'd still be jackhammers and nothing would get built. And so I thought, what's going to happen when there's a billion car drivers here? I don't know anything about climate change, I don't know anything about global warming, but how does this, how's this all going to work out? And it was a journey from there that led me eventually to a lot of exploration to understand the issues around climate, to understand how I might play A role I was very interested in business, like I said, maybe through the lens of business to start to affect change. And that really has been the driver of my career.

Mark Taylor 00:05:18

And so have you sort of found that going so not full circle but sort of into that. When you're talking to students or younger people, do they, do you sort of get a sense that they have that passion for it, something they've grown up and it's, it feels to me certainly here in the uk it's sort of within the culture of, of what they know. I know my kids when they were younger and my nieces, you know, the idea of recycling, the idea of, of actually what we put into the world makes a difference is something that they've grown up with, which is certainly something different for my generation.

Josh Dorfman 00:05:47

It's mixed I would say you certainly see more of that, I think you see more of that general understanding, that general ethos of we should recycle, we should take care of our planet. I think that as kids though get older and they really start to educate themselves on these issues, there is an emerging view. I think it's very clear. I think it's clearer in the UK actually than it is in the us. When I look at some of the youth led movements around climate, that the idea that individuals should be recycling is really part of a larger shift that has been intentional where the corporate world over many years try to assign responsibility for taking care of the planet onto individuals so they didn't have to do it themselves. And I think that creates a lot of confusion, frustration, anger, questioning. Are those powers who are in charge, are they doing the right thing? Are they doing enough for us, for our generation? So I think it's a very challenging time. I'm always amazed in general when talking with kids. I find that every generation, for better or worse, gets a lot smarter, a lot younger. I did a stint teaching in a PhD program at George Washington University. I was briefly in a program for political science. It was actually the last place I chose to be before starting my first company. This was a decade after I was in college and I was blown away by how bright those kids were, how engaged and aware of what was happening in the world was know that was back in 2002, I think progress, successively successive generations are even more aware, articulate understanding of the challenges we face. And I think it's very difficult for them to, you know, process what's coming at them.

Mark Taylor 00:07:45

Yeah. And do you think we're not going to get into the, the exact current climate of where we are now, but I think as soon as there's a change of political focus, if there's something which is kind of, we think this is a good idea, but it's always, you know, we need to do this by 2030, by 2050. You know, there's a moment in time in the future where we get past the point of no return. If we're talking about global warming and, and those kind of things. It's very hard to keep it in the here and now when there are other things at bay. So what, what are your sort of experiences with that in terms of keeping it sort of front of mind, like, say, from a business point of view, is what is sort of what we think sort of individuals are doing?

Josh Dorfman 00:08:25

Well, I think that's a very different opportunity and conversation. Because when you look today, what I find very exciting is that when you look today at where money is flowing globally, clean energy investment in 2025 was $2.3 trillion. That's the second year in a row that clean energy investment globally has topped $2 trillion. That's solar, that's, that's wind, that's electric vehicles, principally those, then batteries, geothermal, nuclear, other technologies, modernizing grids, et cetera. When you look at what the spending was for AI in 2025, it was $1.5 trillion. The headlines are all about AI, but the biggest driver actually of the global economy is not AI, it's the clean energy transition. And so when you back that out, what that means is there are, there are hundreds, if not thousands of companies that are actually making that happen. There is all of this opportunity and what I get very excited about, the reason why I'm so excited about climate innovation and solutions today is because I see so many solutions succeeding in the market that don't just solve climate. They actually improve our quality of life. They actually make, you know, our, our enjoyment of being alive far better than the status quo, you know, solutions that we're stuck with today. And so that is exciting to me on two levels because one, I think there's great opportunities to build wealth, to have great jobs, to build a better, stronger economy. And two, I think even if you don't care about climate or even if you think, oh, climate, we're never going to solve it, we should be building these climate solutions anyway because they just actually are the, the best path to make better based on everything else we like and want and care about. So that's what, that's what I, what I try to help young people also kind of tap into and become aware of is also an opportunity for them.

Mark Taylor 00:10:29

And in terms of getting that message across, there's sort of two parts to this, I think. One is the fact that like you say, you get traditional media, which is if we take that AI scenario, it's like this is what's happening all the time and this is therefore what people's perception is because it's what they're being fed a lot. But, but as you quite rightly said, you know, if you look at the statistics and you know, all the data, that's just a perception, it's not necessarily the reality. So I guess that's one of the great things about living in, in our world in terms of podcasting, you know, you get to speak to lots of different people about lots of different things in the way they're doing that. How do you sort of get that message across, like, say, to younger people or those conversations that you had, so that their perception is a, is a real one, despite whether it's misinformation or just the way the algorithms work and those sort of, kind of, sort of slights on what the reality really is.

Josh Dorfman 00:11:18

The only way that I can think to do this for anybody, young, old, doesn't matter, is with examples, right? Solution after solution after solution. Let me tell you at this company, let me tell you about this company, Let me tell you about this company, right? This is all happening today. You know, for example, this, there, what many people have no idea is that increasingly the front lines of sustainability in America are fast food restaurants, right? Like that's a crazy thing. So you're going to go into Kentucky Fried Chicken on Long island, you know, outside of New York City, or you're going to go into a Taco Bell. And the reason why is because there is a company called Butterfly, B, U, D, D, E, R, F, L, Y that walks into a, you know, a Taco Bell franchise and says to the franchise owner, I'm going to make you an offer you can't refuse. It's very Godfather, right? It's very like, it's very Sicily, like old school, like Mark, you know, Corleone family. I'm going to make you an offer you can't refuse. And that offer is for free. I am going to upgrade all of the equipment in this restaurant because they're using so much energy in it because it's old. Your refrigeration, right? All of your cooking, all of your lighting. This is an energy intensive business. I'm going to update it, I'm going to give it to you for free. I or we butterfly. We're going to take most of the energy savings, which is how we can afford to pay for this, the delta between how much you're paying now, which is also your carbon footprint, and how much we're going to reduce that. We'll take most of those savings. You'll get some of the savings too. But you're about to get a modern, updated restaurant, right? Cuts emissions, makes you more efficient, better experience for your workers, better, more enjoyment for everybody who's eating in here. The plant's going to benefit. Everybody's going to benefit because we've figured out how to innovate a new business model that actually delights everybody. So now you have over 8,000 fast food franchises around America that are signed up and just butterflies growing exponentially. It's just one of many, many examples. And I just rattle them off and I'm like, this is how the world is changing. These are all opportunities for you. And this is actually having a material impact in terms of solving climate right now.

Mark Taylor 00:13:33

And I love that we just have been recording the Gay Grouse Gets Gritty Season. And as part of that, one of his big things in terms of education is the fact that the kind of the pause and the apostrophe followed by for example. And I think you've just demonstrated that brilliantly. It's just that sense of, oh, I now understand that. I can see how that works. I can also see that I might not have thought of that if I went into a fast food place last year. And it. Maybe it's different to this year, but that just, it just demonstrates nothing's changed for me as it might look, you know, like, say, maybe the environment's slightly different, but the bigger picture of actually what's happened behind the scenes is really massive.

Josh Dorfman 00:14:12

This is why I, my focus has evolved over my career from being much more focused on initially, early on, what can you do in your life? This is how we started the conversation, Mark, what can you do in your life to specifically reduce your environmental impact? And I went so far down that path that I created a reality TV show called the Lazy Environmentalist, where I would travel around America helping lazy Americans go green in all the little ways that they could that would fit their lives, where no one had to be inconvenienced or work very hard. I spent years, I wrote two books. I was very, very focused on this. Over time, I just started thinking about, okay, I don't really see this market actually growing. I don't really see the proportion of the percentage of People actually taking all these easy steps, really shifting. I don't actually think this is having a transformational impact. And people keep talking about it, but the conversation generally stays the same. And more than that, it would be fine if the conversation stayed the same, but more people were getting on board with changes. I just don't see that happening. So if I think about like one of the core tenets of, you know, sustainable living, reuse, right? We talk reduce, reuse, recycle, we talk circular economy reuse, let's reuse stuff. What excites me more than someone saying, here's my super awesome looking reusable cup or bottle is when a company like Our World Reuse goes to the arena in Los Angeles, the crypto arena where the Lakers play, where there's lots of concerts, and becomes the default for every event that happens there. Every cup that is sold for your beer or anything else is now a reusable cup. And the only bins available to you, the only infrastructure in that place for like the 20,000 people at the event, is for you to take your cup and, and drop it into the reuse bin. And then our world has all of the logistics to take those cups, take them back, sanitize them, et cetera, industrially, and make sure that crypto arena is restocked. They do it at Coachella, at music events, they do it at like Cal Berkeley for football games. And so that means by default, everyone is doing reuse. It's no longer on the onus of the individual, right? And the scale and the impact, which is really what I'm after, is far greater because these systems are now going into place because businesses are creating the infrastructure to make this happen and making the economics work. The value proposition to the crypto arena in Los Angeles or to Coachella or whomever else work in their favor too. So it's like, oh, this fits my business. I still need to run a business here as the crypto arena. This is a system that actually works for the business. And also we like the fact that it's good for the planet too. And it also creates this halo that now everybody gets to be part of change just by default. That is what excites me and that is how I see the world moving and that is how I think we're actually going to make a real difference over time.

Mark Taylor 00:17:14

And I like say that dual responsibility within that. Because when you think about the like I mentioned before, that sort of generic kind of buy 2050, it's going to look like this, and this is going to happen and that's going to happen. It becomes very abstract, doesn't it? But like I say, the fact that I've just bought a beer in this arena and I know that this cup is going to be reused and we're going to be able to do it, then, then there's an immediate step, there's an immediate way to do it. And the fact that we're all into interconnected in, in that way, like say the business has already got this, this has got, it's. We've got this, we've got you for this, we can take care of it. You just do your bit by buying it. Like you say, I've been able to make those things happen and then all of a sudden you see all the stepping stones. You see everyone sort of galvanized in a way that works for everyone. And that's usually the key, isn't it? It's a win for me, it's a win for you, it's a win for everybody. On a more sort of global setting. And then the path, I guess sort of forms in front of you and the more people get to see that, the more people will sort of jump on board and create their own versions of it in whichever part of the business or the environment they're in.

Josh Dorfman 00:18:14

I think that's well said. I mean, I agree with that. I think that that does. That becomes very visible, right? Then it's like, then there's different pressure because then now it's like arena to arena pressure, right? Like, oh, well, if the cryptos are in, geez, like what should we be doing in Colorado or what? Right? What should we be doing in these other stadiums and places if they can do it there? And so yeah, it shifts the onus and the responsibility and yeah, I think those are really positive dynamics. The thing that I found interesting about our world as well is to make that business work, you have to design a cup. It's a really interesting design design brief because you have to design a cup that's functional, attractive enough that people are will drink out of it or not think about it, but not too attractive that people want to take it home, right? Because it's reusable. It has to sit in this kind of sweet spot of it's okay enough to work, but not super fantastic. And I find that there's some delight in that too. But you're absolutely right the way you're describing it and I think the way that this can ladder up and increasingly drive positive change. And to your other point, because I know you've hit on it a couple of times. I also agree, these goals of we gotta do this by 2030 or we gotta do this by 2050, they're meaningless. I mean, they're just meaningless. And I think the other thing, and I think young people are very attuned to this. 2018, The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change from the UN came out with a report that said. That was the first report there, said we have to limit temperature rise, global warming to 1.5 degrees above whatever baseline, right? 1.5 Degrees Celsius. And the world was like, oh, my God, okay, can we do it? Can we not do it? And that's when we got anchored to 1.5. Then two things happened. We quickly realized that that's not gonna happen. And so again, I feel like kind of the entrenched media, other leaders were kind of actually starting to be a little bit dismissive of that. It's not that important, right? Then it's like, well, wait a second. The science was pretty clear, 2018. And then the science even started to get a little bit diluted around that messaging. Because then you have like, you know, un cop events where the whole world's coming together to talk about climate, like, sponsored by oil companies, right? Because then the oil companies are like, oh, time out, time out. Now we got to pay attention to this thing, this 1.5. If we actually do that, that's going to really be an existential threat to our business. Let's sponsor this, let's co op this, let's try and dilute this. And they have been effective. I think young people look at that and they just see the sheer stark hypocrisy in all of that. And so then anytime anyone's like, oh, 2015 net zero, it's just like, dude, I don't trust you guys at all. You know, you put any number, name, you know, whatever you want to say, like, there's just no trust. And I completely get that. And I just think it's like, you know, anyone's like, oh, here's our 2050 goal. It's like, cool, what are you doing right now? What's the plan from tomorrow? Right? Or even today to get you to 2050? Because otherwise it just sounds like, oh, sweet, that's just an opportunity for you to brush this off and actually not do anything.

Mark Taylor 00:21:24

Yeah, that's absolutely true. And just going back to what you said about the cups, I can just think of everyone listening who's got a really nice beer glass in their cupboard that they've Taken from the pub on a night out. Because it's like this is really good at. It seems to have falling in my bag. It's really good at home, like I say. But that's a, that's an interesting mix about the. I don't want to take it with me, but it's been brilliant for today. I love that. It also takes me from an educational point of view. I sort of think about like say the way that business is then set up in terms of. I really like to sort of people to think about how does that work. So like you say you've got the, the, the producing of that particular product in the way that it is, the design of that, you know how it's then marketed, like you said about bringing it into arena, all that sort of stuff. And I think when people sort of think, oh do I want to get into this industry which is based about climate or based around sustainability and all those sorts of things, you can bring your skill set into that. And it doesn't matter what that happens to be. It doesn't have to be that I'm really good at designing the best cup that's going to be great for reusable. It's about. I'm good at the messaging, I'm good at being able to chat to someone because I want to get this into a place. And it's sort of realizing that you just put your energies in the way that works for you and then like say if you're passionate about this particular area or this particular business, then you can go full steam ahead and get the sort of passion that I know that you've got going within yourself.

Josh Dorfman 00:22:47

I think that's absolutely true. And I mean you look at some of the things happening in the UK where I think this over the last. I've seen some reports over the last couple of weeks about the extent of renewable energy now, for example, that the UK is generating a lot of that coming from wind, solar panels becoming far more prevalent. Of course there's some really interesting companies doing cool stuff around EVs and what you start to see when you think about this $2 trillion number and you think about $2 trillion of clean energy investment year over year over year. What that basically means is that at some point it's not like there's this thing called the low carbon economy, like this thing that's sort of out there that's like still a little bit weird looking. We're still not really sure actually like what it is. The low carbon economy actually just becomes the economy and so what that means is just like you're saying, whatever your interests and skills are, are you an accountant, are you a finance person, are you an attorney, a lawyer, are you a marketing person, sales, all of those jobs are increasingly the jobs that, that are enabling us to move toward that low carbon future. So everybody does have the opportunity to take your skills and be part of this change. A few years ago I was talking with this journalist for Bloomberg, Eric Roston, and we were having a conversation where saying, help me understand the scale and magnitude of this energy transition, how we're eliminating our reliance on and dependence on fossil fuels. What he said to me is like if you just step back and take a look at it in its totality, this is the greatest, fastest pace of human innovation and transformation in all of history. The Industrial revolution took many, many decades. This is moving so fast. The question of course, is it moving fast enough? Given the immensity of the challenge? When we think about climate, right. And we think about avoiding the worst impacts and hitting tipping points from which there's no point of return, that is an open question. But that does not, but that is different and it does not actually deny or in any way kind of minimize how fast things are actually moving and humans are actually moving. So I do think there's just so much for potential for people to participate in their careers. And if you're participating in your career like it's basically your lifestyle, because what do you do more than anything else, maybe other than sleep, but for most people, don't get enough sleep. It's your work. Right. This is the core of, you know, how you can contribute.

Mark Taylor 00:25:35

Yeah. So take us into all of this passion and insight that you've just been chatting about and how does that sort of show up now within super cool and, and kind of the way you sort of put that together for your sort of life as it is at the moment.

Josh Dorfman 00:26:31

So my life is bifurcated into two main projects today. Five years ago I co founded a company called Planted, P L A N td. It's like a hipster spelling no E really to try to solve a climate problem which is of course too much carbon in the atmosphere. And so I came together with two really amazing engineers from SpaceX who were helping to build rocket ships. And we had an idea. We said, well, what if we could grow some biomass, something that grew much faster than trees. What if we could find something that grew 10x faster than trees? Trees, of course, through photosynthesis, are pulling carbon down from the atmosphere. What if we could 10x that process through some other biomass. Maybe it's hemp, maybe it's bamboo, maybe it's something else that grows really, really fast. And if we could do that and the fiber of that biomass were strong enough, maybe actually wouldn't have to cut down trees anymore in the U.S. i mean, that's right, you cut down trees. That's how you go build houses. That's like right where all the trees go right into timber. And we thought, what if we could keep the trees standing if we could grow something else. And what if since we have a SpaceX team, we could build an amazing factory where we could take this massive like $400 million mill which has a press that takes like chipped wood or wood and like presses it down to form a panel which you then nail to like the wood sticks or the two by fars to build a house. Right. You have these like 4 foot by 8 foot panels that press in like a normal mill is £4 million eight stories tall. Four stories are actually underneath all the reinforced steel and concrete is a huge carbon footprint. What if we could actually miniaturize that mill, remove the smokestacks, make the whole thing electric so we can grow something. And eventually it became we found a grass that we actually grow and we got tobacco farmers to grow 10 times faster than trees. Pull carbon down, take that grass, slice it up, take it to our mini mill that plugs in and then create these building materials without sending all the carbon back up a smokestack so we can actually sequester, lock away carbon in the walls, new homes. That's actually we built that thing call planted. Like I said, we work with the largest home builder in America called Dr. Horton. They've given us an order subsequently for 10 million of these panels. That's about 90,000 homes. We're still only five years in, but we're doing that. And so to me that's like I'm pretty excited about that business. So three years ago I stepped back as CEO and you know, I left the company and I started looking around at other climate innovation and I started thinking, oh my gosh, there's hundreds of companies that are further along than planted that are doing really cool stuff. Some of I mentioned to you, but these stories I actually feel are hidden, like they're not being told in the media. And if you read the academic research and you read the published reports from the UN communications department published with Yale and other places, they all say the same thing. If you want to reach people and get them interested in caring about Climate, you have to communicate about solutions. Nobody takes their own advice. Right? And so here are all these companies in a $2 trillion plus economy, the biggest driver of the global economy, and it's not getting concerted coverage so that people really understand that all of this stuff exists. Now, I'm not doing it just to. So Supercool does that. We talk to these CEOs, we talk to these founders, we talk about. I'm not doing it as like, hey, I want to just share all the good news or like, this is about hope. Of course, it's a hopeful conversation. What I'm really trying to get at is tell me about your solution. Who are you selling it to? Oh, you've got an H vac AI cloud based system that automatically cuts heating and cooling and buildings by up to 25% and cuts carbon by 40% and it just saves everybody a bunch of money. It's already in 17,000 buildings. Let's talk about that. How do you, how did you sell it? I need to know because other people want to know so we can all get better at selling climate stuff. And I want our listeners who maybe work in real estate to be like, maybe I should go tell my CEO about that thing because maybe we should get it in our buildings. The theory of changes. Let's hurry up and shine a spotlight on de Risked Solutions working today so they can gain market adoption and move faster. That's why I started Supercool. That, of course, is why I'm very excited. Because every week I'm talking to another company that I find more inspiring than the last. And it's just there are all these companies that have gone from the lab through their pilots into commercial scale. And that's where we focus. I'm not interested in your big funding round. I don't care if you raise $500 million for your advanced geothermal that might be here one day, or you're the latest, greatest small nuclear reactor, blah, blah, blah, that doesn't exist. And we'll see if it ever even, you know, shows up and does anything. That's what, like the tech media covers. I think that's a waste of time. You know, I want to know what exists today, what's real, what's operating, what's deployed, and how do we speed up, you know, getting more of that.

Mark Taylor 00:31:43

I think that's amazing. And that's, and that's the two things that strike me there. That's the reason this podcast started was sharing information for people involved in education and learning about. You didn't know about this, but I happen to be in this school and this person was doing this or this charity is funding this thing. I know that you want to be able to put on this project. You can't afford it, but there's someone to do it. You start to join the dots and, and it's in the hearing now. But the flip side of that is the fact that, like you say, you get completely immersed in it and you're like, well, everyone knows about this because I'm doing it. And then you realize, like you say, the mainstream media isn't it. And I find that a really sort of fascinating sort of juxtaposition of kind of, I know what's going on and I'm sharing it with the world. But the question is then, how many other people are doing it? So that's why I thought this conversation would be so fantastic. Because, you know, this is talking about something which is so important. We've explained a little bit about how it affects children and education and how those conversations happen, but your podcast isn't necessarily that sits next door to mine in terms of the, the Apple charts or anything like that. But yet these are the conversations we should be sharing because then we get to sort of put all this knowledge in a place where those that need to know it, not because they're educators or children or anything like that, but because the world needs it. And of course, the more we share, the better it is for Everybody.

Josh Dorfman 00:32:59

I have three kids and my youngest is 10. And she will often ask, she will ask me like, hey, dad, how was your day? Or you know, like, like, what are you, what are you working on? Which is great. I mean, I love it every time she asks me and sometimes my filter for should I bring this company on or do I think it actually merits or hits kind of the level of being super cool? I'll talk to her about it, right? And if she's like, oh, I get that, yeah, that actually, that that's super cool, dad, I'll be like, okay, cool. And my 10 year old understands and my 10 year old is into it and she thinks that's cool. And she thinks the thing, her talking that her dad's talking about that week, Kenny is at that level. I feel like that's really important. You know, I feel like that this, can you. This, it's a business conversation, right? So how does that apply to a young person? Should, should they tune in? But, but I do think it's really what I'm trying to get at and communicate is this is how the, this is how the future is being built. If you're just curious like how the future is getting built, let's remove the technical stuff, let's remove climate, let's remove kilowatt hours. I mean, who cares about that stuff? Like this is just the cool stuff that's actually going to build a far better future and it's going to be a future that's going to matter to you a lot because this is like, this is again, this isn't just like the low carbon future, this is just the future. And that's what I think is really exciting.

Mark Taylor 00:34:28

Yeah. And I think just to sort of round that part of the conversation off, I think that's something I hadn't quite realized in, in this kind of conversation is the fact that the herein now, the what's going on, the excitement of that is as an industry and the benefit that it has. And I think as you so brilliantly put there, if you can make it in such a way that your 10 year old gets it as a concept, as the sort of thing that you're doing, then that just generates an energy around a whole different generation, but also in the here and now. And I think that's a brilliant place to sort of, to straddle, to kind of make those things work.

Josh Dorfman 00:35:00

Thank you.

Mark Taylor 00:35:01

So the acronym of FIRE for Educational FIRE is obviously really important and by that we mean feedback, inspiration, resilience and empowerment. What is it of those words or a combination of those things that sort of strike you or sort of relevant to what we've been talking about today?

Josh Dorfman 00:35:18

Well, of course I think the obvious one would for me to be to lean into inspiration because I get very inspired by doing this type of work. But I would point more toward resilience and empowerment because I think this really is a moment that we're living through where of course there are so many ups and downs when it comes to climate. And I'm talking about solutions, I'm talking about this wonderful future. But I don't mean to be glib about it. We're dealing with political setbacks, we're dealing with extreme weather events right now. And I think for everybody and for certainly for young people to have a sense of, okay, how do I cultivate a mindset, how do I surround myself with enough, a broader set of information, not just problem information, but solution information so I can develop my resilience to recognize that I'm going to emotionally be distraught sometimes, but I can come back from that and then I can choose to either I can choose three things. I can choose to just focus on the problem, I can choose to just focus on solutions, or I can try to hold problem and solutions in a kind of more holistic view of where we are today. Resilience is really important to that because that's reality. At the same time, I feel like when you do that and when you welcome more of this solution conversation into your world, that really is about empowerment. Because then you start to see, hey, you know what? Maybe I have more agency here than I thought. And maybe my agency isn't necessarily like, I gotta convince my parents to recycle more. I mean, sure, great, do that. But maybe my agency is really about how am I setting myself up for a career to go be part of this change. Like, I can really do something here and contribute in a way where my life is really aligned with my values in a very deep, meaningful way, a bigger way than just, you know, I recycle the trash once a week or whatever. I think there really is this sense of empowerment in this whole conversation and I. That to me, well, I would say, actually I find that inspiring too.

Mark Taylor 00:37:37

I think that's a brilliant way to kind of. To round off Josh. I really appreciate. I love. I love the passion. That's why I love doing the podcast. Just to be able to speak to people who just love what they do. And I think the way that you just embodied that last sort of sentence in terms of if you can put your energies into that inner part of the world, no matter what your skill set that you're passionate about is going to make, is going to make all the difference. Where would you like people to go to find out more about all the things that you're doing? We'll of course have links in the show notes as well, but just so people can. Can have a listen.

Josh Dorfman 00:38:08

Absolutely. The easiest place to find. Everything we're doing with Supercool, which is now podcast newsletter, we're developing courses around how do you drive market adoption for solutions. All of that body of work is at Getsuper. Cool. The podcast, of course, is everywhere, I'm sure, just like yours is, Mark and Planted. I mentioned our building materials company that's Planted Plan, if anyone wants to check out the insane business we're building there. It's really kind of nuts, but we're very excited about it. And yeah, those are the two hubs.

Mark Taylor 00:38:42

Amazing. Josh, it's been an absolute pleasure. Keep up the great work, keep the inspiration going and yeah, I really look forward to connecting again and seeing how it's going.

Josh Dorfman 00:38:51

Thank you. Mark. Really appreciate it.

Mark Taylor 00:38:53

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. It.