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  • Designing for Resilience: with Alex Berkowitz of Coastal Protection Services

    Designing for Resilience: with Alex Berkowitz of Coastal Protection Services
    2025/07/30
    This episode is another in our series on Climate Resilience featuring Alex Berkowitz, Founder and CEO of Coastal Protection Solutions (CPS), a startup developing nearshore infrastructure that reduces wave energy and enhances climate resilience. Alex shares how her personal experience with Hurricane Sandy in her hometown of Rockaway Beach led to the creation of the Wave Breaker—an innovative floating barrier designed to protect coastal communities from storm surge and erosion. She explains how CPS integrates landscape design, marine engineering, and microgrid energy into its solution, and how it differs from traditional seawalls or breakwaters. Alex also discusses navigating public policy, permitting, and insurance incentives, and finally, Alex shares her career advice for those who are interested in climate resilience. Host and Guest Host: ⁠Mike Toffel⁠, Professor, Harvard Business School (⁠LinkedIn⁠) Guest: ⁠Alex Berkowitz⁠, Founder & CEO, Coastal Protection Solutions (⁠LinkedIn⁠)
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    41 分
  • Investing in Climate Resilience and Poverty Alleviation: Acumen Founder & CEO Jacqueline Novogratz

    Investing in Climate Resilience and Poverty Alleviation: Acumen Founder & CEO Jacqueline Novogratz
    2025/07/16
    In this Climate Rising episode in our series on climate resilience, Jacqueline Novogratz, Founder and CEO of Acumen shares how impact investing is agriculture is helping smallholder farmers build climate resilience. Jacqueline shares insights from two decades of investing in poverty alleviation that includes climate resilience and adaptation social enterprises engaging in agriculture and off-grid solar. She explains how Acumen uses blended capital, including philanthropic first-loss investments and commercial impact funding, to scale business models in underdeveloped markets where traditional investors hesitate. Jacqueline also shares examples of companies solving food insecurity and extreme climate risks for smallholder farmers and discusses how a “post-aid” world demands new tools, structures, and partnerships for impact investing.
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    59 分
  • Forecasting Climate Risk with Geospatial AI: Sarah Russell of X , the Moonshot Factory at Alphabet

    Forecasting Climate Risk with Geospatial AI: Sarah Russell of X , the Moonshot Factory at Alphabet
    2025/07/02
    This episode, part of the Climate Rising series on climate resilience, features Sarah Russell, General Manager of Project Bellwether at X, The Moonshot Factory at Alphabet (formerly Google X). Sarah shares how geospatial data and artificial intelligence can help communities and businesses anticipate and respond to climate risks. Sarah shares insights from her work building predictive wildfire risk models using satellite imagery, AI, and systems design to enable more targeted insurance underwriting and disaster preparedness. She also explains how Bellwether is creating geospatial AI infrastructure and tools to support natural disaster response by the National Guard. Sarah also shares how emerging foundational geospatial models will transform adaptation, and she offers career advice for those in climate tech and applied AI.
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    37 分
  • Closing the Loop by Recycling Apparel: Reju CEO Patrik Frisk

    Closing the Loop by Recycling Apparel: Reju CEO Patrik Frisk
    2025/06/18
    Patrik Frisk, CEO of ReJu, joins Climate Rising to discuss his company’s mission to recycle textile waste and build circular supply chains for apparel made of polyester fabric. Patrik brings his prior experience leading Under Armour and other global brands across the textile and footwear industry for over 35 years. Patrik describes how ReJu turns discarded apparel made of polyester blends into new polyester, and how it tackles the logistical and technical challenges of sorting, processing, and regenerating blended fabrics at scale. Patrik also describes relevant policy trends such as extended producer responsibility and offers advice for those pursuing careers in the circular economy.
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    46 分
  • Extending Apparel Lifespan: ThredUp CEO James Reinhart

    Extending Apparel Lifespan: ThredUp CEO James Reinhart
    2025/06/04
    James Reinhart, CEO of ThredUp, one of the largest online resale platforms for secondhand clothing. James co-founded the company while he was a Masters’ student at Harvard and has spent the last 15 years scaling a national logistics and digital infrastructure platform for resale. In this episode James describes why the company decided to handle physical goods rather than act as a pure marketplace, how ThredUp helps brands run their own resale channels, and how AI and automation are reshaping their operations. James also describes related public policies like extended producer responsibility (EPR) and provides advice for those pursuing careers in circular economy innovation.
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    40 分
  • Designing for Circularity at Scale: A Conversation with Karen Pflug of Ingka Group

    Designing for Circularity at Scale: A Conversation with Karen Pflug of Ingka Group
    2025/05/21
    In the latest episode of Climate Rising from Harvard Business School, Karen Pflug, Chief Sustainability Officer of Ingka Group (IKEA), shares how IKEA is embedding circularity throughout its business model. She discusses how IKEA is redesigning iconic products like the Billy bookcase to make them easier to disassemble and repair, how secondhand retail pilot programs at IKEA stores are reaching new customers, and how investments like RetourMatras are developing circular solutions for end-of-life mattresses. Karen also describes how policy, design, and customer nudges can accelerate circularity at global scale—and offers advice for those seeking careers in circular economy innovation.
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    48 分
  • Advancing the Circular Economy: A Conversation with Lauren Rodriguez of Closed Loop Partners

    Advancing the Circular Economy: A Conversation with Lauren Rodriguez of Closed Loop Partners
    2025/05/07
    Lauren Rodriguez, who leads partnerships at Circular Services, a Closed Loop Partners company, joins host Mike Toffel to discuss building the infrastructure and investment models needed to scale the circular economy. Lauren explains how Closed Loop Partners supports the transition from a linear to a circular economy through capital management, innovation initiatives, and operating companies like Circular Services. She shares how their private equity, venture capital, and catalytic credit strategies are helping scale recycling, reuse, and circular supply chains.Lauren also explores the critical role of policy—especially extended producer responsibility(EPR) laws—in driving investment and highlights emerging technologies like AI-powered waste stream analysis and autonomous electronics disassembly that are accelerating progress. She closes with advice and resources for students and professionals interested in careers at the intersection of circular economy, investing, and innovation.
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    44 分
  • Scaling Reuse with Vytal: A Circular Economy Conversation with CEO Fabian Barthel

    Scaling Reuse with Vytal: A Circular Economy Conversation with CEO Fabian Barthel
    2025/04/23
    Fabian Barthel, Co-Founder of Vytal, a circular economy packaging-as-a-service startup, joins host Mike Toffel to explore the innovation, behavioral science, and regulations shaping the market for reusable containers for take-out food and beverages. Fabian shares how Vytal is tackling packaging waste by building a reusable container system for restaurants, canteens, and major events. He explains why deposit-based systems often fail, how Vytal’s “borrow and return” model changes consumer behavior, and how data, technology and behavioral science underpin their service design. Fabian also discusses the evolving regulatory landscape, including Germany’s reuse mandates and emerging municipal single-use taxes. He closes by offering advice to circular economy entrepreneurs about how to align impact with profit.
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    47 分