In this episode of Five Lifes to Fifty, we sit down with Jenny Liu, Head of Sustainability for the Advanced Performance Materials business at Chemours. Jenny takes us inside the world of chemistry — not just as a science, but as a powerful enabler of sustainability, innovation, and everyday life. From electric vehicles to semiconductors and the hydrogen economy, we explore how advanced materials are quietly shaping the future, and how Chemours is leading the charge through bold sustainability goals and data-driven decision-making.

In this Episode

Shelley: I'm wondering if you could just tell us how you see it and tell us more about the advanced performance materials category that you work in.

[00:59] Jenny: Thanks so much, Shelley. It's a great question. You know, Chemours is a global company and we provide trusted chemistry to make lives better and to, you know, really help communities thrive.

[01:10] And I don't think that many people realize the role that chemistry plays in their everyday lives, our everyday lives. You know, more than 95% of all manufactured goods are touched by the business of chemistry.

[01:24] So really, chemistry is essential for everything that we depend on in modern society. And I believe it's really essential for decarbonization as well. If you think about the computers that we're speaking into, your cell phones that you use for stay connected to the world, but all the semiconductors and advanced electronics that underlies that and enables that,

[01:45] right? And then as again, as we head towards green economy, electric vehicles, batteries, hydrogen economy, you know, ultimately and you know, all the electrolyzers and fuel cells, so we make the membranes and the materials that underpins all of that and really brings that to life.

[02:02] A little bit more about Chemours. You know, innovation really is at our core, so we're focused on how we can make our products and applications, how they can really enable sustainability, not only in terms of our own operations, but but also for our customers.

[02:16] So we tend to have very high-performance materials that our customers use because they need them in the application, whether it's, you know, chemical resistant, temperature resistant for the electrical properties, inert.

[02:26] So they'll use them to solve their problems, which are usually very high-performance application needs. But then also those are enabling things to make society better and to reduce environmental footprint.

[02:38] So we have three businesses. We have a thermal solutions and refrigerant business so that's refrigerants, heat pumps, et cetera. We have our titanium dioxide pigments business. And so that's coatings and performance, coatings and materials and paints.

[02:53] And then we have the advanced performance materials business for which I lead sustainability. You know, some of the brands you might know, you know, Teflon, Krytox, Nafion, these are high performance materials that go into critical medical applications, electronics, we talked about some of the consumer advanced electronics, clean energy, electric vehicle batteries. The hydrogen economy is a big growth area. And then a lot of areas of transportation.

[03:18] So whether it's a safety feature on an airplane, for instance, or the space shuttle, or many, many valves and hoses and other sensor coatings and things that underpin automotive, you know, both a traditional combustion engine as well as a lot of materials in the EV space. Those are the types of...

Episode 14: Sustainable Mining & the Future of Copper

In this episode, we sit down with Andrea Vaccari from Freeport to explore the rising demand for copper and its crucial role in the clean energy transition. From electric vehicles to wind turbines, copper is everywhere—but how will we meet skyrocketing demand sustainably? We discuss challenges in mining, the shift toward responsible sourcing, and why designing for disassembly is key to a circular economy. Whether you're in product design, manufacturing, or just curious about the future of sustainable materials, this episode is packed with insights you won’t want to miss!

In this Episode

Shelley: One of the things I think is interesting and I think would be great to have you introduce to the listeners is the role of copper in the clean energy transition, because I don't think everyone appreciates how much metal is going to be needed to make that work. And it's also great context for those listening who might use copper or metal in their products. [00:44]

Andrea: That's right. Copper and molybdenum especially are really, really critical for the energy transition. When you think about all of our low carbon or zero carbon forms of energy. So we think about solar, when we think about wind, when we think about hydrothermal, even just thinking about LNG and how LNG actually provides power to a grid, copper's in all of that. In wind turbines, offshore wind turbines need lots of copper. I think actually a few tons of copper per wind turbine to be able to not only power the wind turbine, but then the deep sea cables that connect them and that connect them back to the grid. We think about solar power and it’s not just a solar cell; there are batteries involved. And how do you tie a battery storage device to infrastructure and to the Internet? That's copper. [01:02]

The simplest things, like developing nations, as they come along in the energy transition in a just way and we improve their grids, those are full of copper. Transformers, cabling in houses, as we improve green buildings, it's just everywhere. It really is. And then molybdenum is used in stainless steel and it's used in a number of other applications, but stainless steel especially and we know how much that's used in building and construction, bridges, all kinds of different applications for the energy transition. [02:07]

Shelley: Is it possible to give us any numbers for that, like forecasting 5, 10, 30 years, like how much is needed? [02:36]

Andrea: Right now the total refined copper market annually is in between 25 to 30 million tons a year and we expect that to double by 2050. Now you hear all kinds of different things. So, you hear people talk about doubling, tripling, quadrupling. I don't know, the way that I look at it is whatever number we come up with, we're always going to have the wrong number. But I think there's general consensus that it is at least twice. Just take like an electric car. So, if you take an internal combustion engine vehicle and then you take a fully battery electric car like a Tesla or a Mercedes, you're talking about three to four times the amount of copper per vehicle. And then you've got charging stations which are full of copper. [02:44]

Neil:. Some of these models don't even consider the development that you see in countries which are not electrified yet. So, India for the largest part isn't really electrified and in the next 10 years we will see a huge part of that also taking shape. So, I think you're right. Some of the numbers that I have in my mind, more short term where we'll be needin...

Merck's Jeffrey Whitford joins the team for episode 13 of Five Lifes to Fifty. Jeffrey is Vice President of Sustainability & Social Business Innovation at Merck (known as MilliporeSigma in the US and Canada since Merck's acquisition of Sigma-Aldrich in 2015), and has a deep background in education, communication, advertising, marketing and strategy. He uses those skills to develop and execute compelling platforms to showcase his organization's efforts in Corporate Social Responsibility.

Today, Merck/MilliporeSigma offers a range of more than 300,000 products to support the life science, biomanufacturing, and biotechnology sectors. These products have applications in biotechnological manufacturing and development, laboratory research, and pharmaceutical drug therapies.

In this Episode

Shelley: Merck is a global life science company. Tell us more about the field you're in and the sustainability culture at Merck.

Jeffrey: Yeah, absolutely. So, we are one of the places that most all scientists know of. If you're not in science, you may not have heard of us, but basically we are the one stop shop for scientists to get all of the materials they need to do discovery R&D and then manufacturing for things like pharmaceuticals, drugs, therapies, treatments. But also, certainly if you're in academics, you're doing academic research, we're a place that you're going to go to. But we also do other things like testing. So, if you need a standard to look at the quality of something like what clean dirt is, well, we're the people who make clean dirt that you actually measure against. So, we have such a wide array of things that we're involved in. Like I said, you may not know about us, but we're probably interacting with you in one way or another throughout the day and hopefully helping you make your world a little bit better. [00:40]

Shelley: And I understand that sustainability is deeply embedded into your process. Tell us about how sustainably gets embedded into your product development process. [01:33]

Jeffrey: One of the things that I was given as an instruction, in terms of our ambition regarding sustainability was we don't want this to be just a showcase product here or there. We want this to be something that is systematic within the organization. So that was the guiding light - I was told you need to make it systematic. So, because of that, we looked at the different ways we could go in and address systems, because that is the key to change. So, we try to find where that lever point is in each of our different processes, and that's where we go in. So, for product development for us, we use our product development process. We have a system called accolade, where everything is tracked and driven through. That was the point really where we identified to say if we can get sustainability embedded there, we're going to start to make the change or the transformation to a product portfolio. We have 300,000 products, so it's a big challenge in front of us to think about sustainability across the board. But ultimately that's the place where it starts when we think about the products themselves. I think for us, that's really what we've been thinking about is where are those key lever points that you've got the ability to then take more control into the process and give people guidance about what we're looking to do and the changes that we need to make. [01:43]

Neil: Jeffrey, 300,000 products, how do you start? [03:00]

Jeffrey: I cry a lot. No, this is the hard part when you think about the volume of p...

In episode 12, we welcome Ethan Soloviev, Chief Innovation Officer at HowGood, to Five Lifes to Fifty. Ethan is also an owner of High Falls Farm, and is the author of "Levels of Regenerative Agriculture" and "Regenerative Enterprise: Optimizing for Multi-Capital Abundance."

Ethan is an international expert on regenerative agriculture, regenerative business, and innovation, with experience in 34 countries. He is the founder of the Regenerative Enterprise Institute, an Associate of the Carol Sanford Institute, and a member of the Regenerative Business Alliance. Ethan holds a B.S. from Haverford College and an M.S. in Eco-Social Design from Gaia University.

At HowGood, Ethan's focus is on driving product sustainability and business model innovation for Fortune 500 Retail and CPG companies. HowGood is an independent research company and SaaS data platform with the world's largest database on food product sustainability.

In this Episode

Shelley: This is the first time we've had a guest from a technology company on the podcast. Could you tell us a bit about what HowGood is and who it serves? [00:33]

Ethan: HowGood, as you mentioned, has the world's largest database on food, product and ingredient sustainability. We're a non-traditional startup in that we're 17 years old right now. So, we've really spent the better part of two decades building out a massive picture of what global supply chains look like and what are the impacts that happen in three key areas: carbon, nature and human rights. From that massive amount of data that we've gathered for 33,000 ingredients, we've built up the capability to, automatically, using AI, calculate the impact of any food ingredient or product in the world. We've built it all into a software platform that is, I think, fun and easy to use and we have six of the ten largest food companies in the world using the platform to understand their impacts and to automate reduction strategies. We have major retailers around the world, from Ahold Delhaize in the USA to Carrefour in the Middle East, and we even have ingredient suppliers like Ingredion and the Kerry Group, who use the platform to understand their impacts and communicate downstream to their consumers. So overall, you can think of HowGood as a social network for impact data on food and agriculture. It’s the place where the industry comes together, whether you're a formulator or a procurement specialist, or someone in marketing and sales or a sustainability team needing to do reporting; everyone comes to us for a single source of sustainability data truth, so that they can coordinate, collaborate, network, engage with suppliers to transform the impacts of their products. [00:41]

Shelley: Thinking about the broader picture, you're bringing all these groups together, what do you think the role technology does play? Because it sounds like you're playing a role already, but what role do you think it plays for these food formulators and food companies? And what is it doing for them to achieve sustainability? [02:27]

Ethan: I'll just tell a little story that is part of how we got to where we're at now to answer that question. This was a number of years ago in San Francisco, it was at a co-lab, a sort of weeklong sprint event and I met somebody from Danone who said, look, I have 1000 product formulators globally at Danone and every day they are innovating and they are renovating new yogurts, new plant based beverages and those people, many of them really care about sustainability, but many of them weren't trained in it. They are food scientists. They are formulators. They are making deliciou...

In episode 11, we welcome Bob Mitchell, CEO of the Global Electronics Council (GEC), to Five Lifes to Fifty. Before beginning his tenure at the GEC in 2023, Bob worked at the Responsible Business Alliance (RBA) where he served as Vice President, Human Rights and Environment from 2016. He also has previous experience with Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Hewlett Packard Enterprises (HPE).

The GEC is is a mission-driven nonprofit that leverages the power of purchasers to create a world where only sustainable technology is bought and sold. GEC manages the EPEAT ecolabel, a free resource for procurement professionals to identify and select more sustainable products. In addition, the EPEAT ecolabel is a resource for manufacturers to demonstrate that their products conform to the highest sustainability standards. Since its launch in 2006, procurement professionals have reported purchases of over 2.7 billion EPEAT products, generating cost savings exceeding $30 billion USD and a reduction of over 30 million metric tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.

In this episode

Shelley - With your deep experience with supply chain, I thought we could start with how product sustainability changes in a company that has a fully outsourced supply chain compared to one that might have a more vertically integrated supply chain.

• Bob - That's a great question. The supply chains of multinational companies has evolved quite dramatically over the last few decades. Ones that were more vertically integrated and the manufacturing owned by, especially in the electronics field, by companies and brands that we know quite well in the late nineties into the early aughts [2000-2010], was outsourced both from an efficiency perspective, cost perspective, and that really led to a complete shift in terms of the leverage that companies have. [00:54]

• That's been, I think, further changed by the supplier community beginning to evolve their capabilities as well, going from pure contract manufacturers where they were provided designs by the brands, into moving up that ladder from contract manufacturers into original design manufacturers. So, they actually own the designs in many cases and engage with the brands after the fact. And so that began to change both that leverage within the supply chain, but also very key components of business relationships, like who owns the intellectual property. It's completely changed how companies engage when it comes to specific standards, but in this case, social environmental responsibility standards specifically. [01:29]

• And that really begins to affect this space in a couple of ways. One is when it comes to integrating social and environmental standards into product design and manufacturing, as well as the complete value chain. So, these specific standards are very complex and, in some cases, not only begin to affect the price of materials and logistics and shipping, things like that, but also the behavior and policies that a company might have in the supply chain. So that's one. And I think we'll talk a bit more about that as we get into the impact of regulations and voluntary standards as well. But the second area is really around when something runs afoul of social environmental responsibility standards, whether it be environmental specifically, or we get into, for instance, human rights within international supply chains. [02:18]

• And how do you remediate those adverse impacts? The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights actually has a ladder in terms of how you begin to address that, which now with some of the corporate due diligence requirements that are coming out of the EU, is really beginning to move its way over to the e...

In episode 10, we welcome special guest Connie Hensler, Global Director of Environmental Management and Product Stewardship at global flooring manufacturer Interface. A long-term and passionate advocate of a more sustainable approach to design and manufacturing, Connie joins Neil, Jim and Shelley to discuss how to break traditional product development thinking with moonshot goals, all while achieving financial - and sustainable - success.

In this Episode

Shelley - For the sake of our listeners who may not know much about Interface, can you describe what Interface manufactures and its history with sustainability, because it's got a bit of a unique history. [00:34]

• Connie - Interface is a global flooring manufacturer. We make modular flooring, like carpet tiles, resilient and rubber flooring and we're a mid sized company with annual sales of just over a billion dollars. We're headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, but we have manufacturing sites in many countries across Europe and the Asia Pacific region. But we aren't really known for our flooring as much as we are known for our design and sustainability leadership. We're more of a sustainability company who happens to make flooring. That's the perception of us in the marketplace, I think. [00:47]
• Neil - But you do it well, and that's the point at the end, right?
• Connie - We were lucky to be put on a mission many years ago, back in 1994, when our founder, Ray Anderson, had his environmental epiphany about the damage that the company does to the environment. And he really turned the entire company's mission towards eliminating that environmental impact. Of course, we still have to make flooring and we have to make money to support that sustainability habit, but that's really where all of our focus is and has been since 1994.

Neil - Do you remember how big of a company you were back in 1994? [01:54]

• Connie - I don't remember the exact figure. We were certainly a lot smaller than we are today. We have acquired a lot of companies and we have had organic growth. Back in 1994, carpet tile was our only flooring. We didn't have the other businesses. And carpet tile was just in its infancy. Most carpet wasn't modular back then. It was broad loom and so it's been a real revolution in the flooring industry to move from, you know, giant rolls of flooring down to the modular concept, which is so much more sustainable. So we've grown a lot since 1994.
• Neil - The reason I asked is flooring has been around for a long time. The kind of flooring has changed and as you described, the products have evolved over time, but it's not nuclear fusion, it is not artificial intelligence; these kinds of themes that everybody focuses on. It's quite unique to find something that makes you stand out and it's not often that a company finds it. It seems you guys banked on being the most sustainable company of your kind. Would that be fair to say?
• Connie - Oh, yeah, definitely. We just did it so early in the game before anybody else was doing it. I think that's what really made us originally stand out.

Neil - So how did it start? [03:21]

• Connie - That was so long ago. We began with Mission Zero - our goal to eliminate all of our environmental impact. And it wasn't just a top-down initiative, it was driven by the chairman CEO of the company, which is immeasurable in the impact that can provide. But it was also a groundswell on the factory floor because we engaged all employees in it. Because let's face it, anybody who's in the company who's doing anything, whether you're answering the phone o...

In episode 9, the latest in our ongoing series of guest-centric features, we’re pleased to welcome Al Iannuzzi to the podcast. Al is Vice President of Sustainability at Esteé Lauder Companies.

Al has made his career as an Environmental, Health, Safety and Sustainability Executive and author, and has over 30 years of experience as a subject matter expert in the EHS&S field. His 2017 book ‘Greener Products’ is a must-read – insightful, engaging and a fitting accumulation of the wealth of knowledge Al has picked up in his career.

In this episode, Al, Neil and Jim discuss what product managers should be paying attention to right now, how they can cut through the noise and get to the route of the matter at hand – and what the true goal of ‘greener’ products should be.

In this Episode

Shelley: Al, as you know, our listeners are product managers and others who have a role developing sustainable products. You're active in this space; you teach, you write, and you work in this space. Right now, what do you think is the most relevant thing for our listeners to know? [01:00]

• Al: I have done quite a bit of research on making products more sustainable or greener. Whenever I speak, I like to say this: There's no such thing as a green product. And the reason I say that is if you think about a product, like think of the greenest product in your mind right now, and what I typically tend to think about are, like 7th generation products or Method products, because I think of household laundry detergent or dish detergent, those type of things. And those products are very sustainably minded when it came to bringing them to be. But even those products can be improved. If you think about the raw materials it takes to extract from the earth and the manufacturing of those raw materials and then further manufacturing and then transportation to distribution centers and then from there to the place where it's being sold, the use phase of the product, and then the end of life of the product and the packaging, there are improvements that still could be made for a product that some people would call green. [01:15]
• What does green mean anyway? There's no obvious definition for green, so that's why I say there's no such thing as a green product, because every product can be improved. That's why in the book that I wrote called Greener Products: The Making and Marketing of Sustainable Brands. I call it greener. It's a journey. And you can always make a product or a process more efficient, better.
• The other thing I like to focus in on is when it comes to product developers, is that a lot of people are in different places when it comes to thinking how important sustainability is to bring a product to market. But perhaps the strongest case for product developers to get their mind around is future trends. And there is a study by the consulting firm McKinsey. They actually wrote this book called Resource Revolution. I cite that in my book. Some of the things that they are stating will happen is by 2030 there will be 3 billion more people in the middle class and primarily that will be coming from India and China. Anybody who's visited those countries, you see tremendous growth. And if you think about the growth of the middle class, so what does that mean? People coming into more prosperity, so they have more availability, more income to spend on things besides just basic living needs, right? So that means that these 3 billion people moving into the middle class are going to want the same thing that the listeners have. They're going to want cars, they're going to want cell phones, they're going to want iPads, TVs, you name it, new clothing and home goods. With all of that, it's more difficult to extract material...

In episode 8, we’re pleased to welcome another guest to the podcast – Stanley Black & Decker’s Product Sustainability Senior Director Dan Fitzgerald.

If you don't know about Stanley Black & Decker, it is the largest tool company in the world with over 100 manufacturing facilities worldwide. In his role, Dan leads the ‘innovate with purpose’ pillar under the corporate social responsibility strategy, which includes goals focusing on addressing unmet societal needs, circular design, and sustainable supply chain.

In this episode, Dan, Neil and Jim discuss the problems product managers have in embedding sustainability into products, recycling quotas and design requirements and the growing demand for a ‘greener’ approach.

In this episode

Shelley - Dan, could you start by telling us what you think is hindering product managers from embedding sustainability into products? [01:09]

• Dan - It's not that product managers don't want to. I just think the nature of the job has been so granularly focused on the details of the product itself in operation. How much does it weigh for a tool? How much power does it have? Does it rest nicely on my belt hook, right? We're talking personal preferences on how you use a product and gathering those requirements of what is going to make a winning product. [01:22]
• It's not that end users don't care about sustainability. I think there's an assumption from an end user that things of that nature, such as following the laws, and minimizing impact when you create things that companies are doing that already. And it's not on them to tell product managers, even if they know how to communicate that in the first place, because sometimes if you're not in that space, you just don't know the details.
• What I think misses a little bit is that the follow up because the end-user is not saying anything about it [sustainability]. So, it doesn't get placed in a high priority in the product specification because the end user isn't directly saying it. But we all know it is needed at some point to either pass through a regulatory requirement or even the customer. And in our case, our customers are retailers because we don't sell directly to the end user. So, a customer may have a requirement because they're focused on sustainability that we need to meet such that the end user has an option to buy it in that store.

Neil - Dan, could you clarify that a bit? Because I think that's unique to the other conversations we've had. You have two customers, and I think that's not obvious to everyone. [03:03]

Dan - We maybe even have more behind the contractor. The person that hires the contractor could also have requirements. I think this idea of the expanding end user and seeing it more of a worldview about everything you have to hit to get a product out the door, that's when sustainability starts making it into the doc. [03:11]

• Neil - There was a study done by McKinsey, I think back in 2019, where they asked exactly this question because they were wondering, why is it that we don't see sustainability in requirements from customer surveys? And what they found was customers expected brands to take care of this. I think it was a pretty significant number. [03:31]
• That said, we're assuming the brands we buy from are not engaging in unsustainable practices. I think in the past, if there was something bad happening in the supply chain, you didn't need to tell anyone about it. But this has become very different especially and regulations in Europe are forcing this. In one of these podcasts, I mentioned what Europe is doing is, and what regulation does in general is it makes you live in a glass house. And people live very differently when they'...