Buildings carry carbon long before anyone turns on a light, locked into the steel and concrete it took to put them up. Josh Lloyd's job is to drive that number down. As Regional Sustainability Manager at Turner Construction, the firm ranked the number one green builder every year since 2008, he leads sustainability across 10 offices in eight states, on job sites where one decision about a concrete mix outweighs anything a person could do at home.

That comparison is his favorite way to make the point land. Reducing the concrete on a project by a single truckload beats living car free for a year or giving up meat. The conversation gets specific about how that actually happens, from piloting low carbon mixes with local ready mix suppliers to running renewable diesel and pushing drywall recycling in four states where almost nobody recycles drywall. It also gets honest about the setbacks, including a hauler that changed how it counts and dropped a 75 percent diversion rate to 60 overnight with no change in practice. The story he did not expect to be proudest of started when an administrative assistant on one of his sites asked a simple question: why are we throwing away so much food? Since September, the answer has kept nearly 22,000 pounds of it out of the landfill and put it in front of people who needed it.

Episode in a glance

01:37 What It Means to Be the Number One Green Builder
04:12 Going Beyond What the Client Asked For
07:31 When the Hauler Changed the Math on Waste Diversion
09:15 One Less Truckload of Concrete Beats a Car-Free Year
10:02 Why Data Centers Are His Best Sustainability Projects
13:29 Recycling Drywall and Building a Market From Scratch
16:23 Nearly 22,000 Pounds of Food Rescued From Job Sites
20:53 Designing for the People Who Build the Building

About Josh Lloyd

Josh Lloyd is the Regional Sustainability Manager at Turner Construction, where he leads sustainability initiatives to reduce environmental and operational footprint across 10 offices in eight states: Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Tennessee, Alabama, Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. He studied architectural engineering at Alfred State and architecture at Kent State University, and he has built his career around green building since LEED's earliest years. He contributed design and construction documents to the first LEED Platinum home in Ohio, built by students at Worthington Kilbourne High School, and previously ran commercial energy efficiency and incentive programs at CLEAResult. He is a longtime US Green Building Council volunteer, organized rain garden builds for local schools through Green Apple Day of Service, and serves on the city of Worthington's green team.

Connect with Josh Lloyd and his work

Josh Lloyd on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshualloyd/

Turner Construction → turnerconstruction.com

US Green Building Council → usgbc.org

Send us a message!

Josh Lloyd is the Regional Sustainability Manager at Turner Construction, where he leads sustainability work across 10 offices in eight states. He came up through architecture, adopted LEED early enough to have watched it launch, and volunteered the design and construction documents for the first LEED Platinum home in Ohio, a house built by high school students. The path there started with a dad who was always renovating something and a college fascination with using sunlight to heat a building.

Josh grew up outside Rochester as a latchkey kid who pitched a tent rather than sleep in his parents' motor home, and that pull toward the outdoors turned into a career built on a single question: how do you get people to move? The conversation draws out the lived experience underneath that, including his candid admission that he is an introvert who had to learn to work a room, and the summit where he clammed up the moment the topic left sustainability. It also presses on the mechanics he has spent a career refining, from reading a room in the first five minutes to knowing when to stop saying the word sustainability and start saying waste reduction instead. What comes through is someone whose North Star never really moved, who just kept finding bigger levers to pull.

Episode in a glance

01:21 From His Dad's Renovations to Passive Solar Design
04:16 The First LEED Platinum Home in Ohio, Built by High Schoolers
07:22 Building for the Community, Not Just the Site
10:36 Getting Kicked in the Pants and Learning to Read the Room
14:29 The Introvert Who Learned to Work the Room
17:11 His Shot at Being a Change Agent at Turner
18:49 Persistence, Questions, and Leading With Your Passion

About Josh Lloyd

Josh Lloyd is the Regional Sustainability Manager at Turner Construction, where he leads sustainability initiatives to reduce environmental and operational footprint across 10 offices in eight states: Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Tennessee, Alabama, Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. He studied architectural engineering at Alfred State and architecture at Kent State University, and he has built his career around green building since LEED's earliest years. He contributed design and construction documents to the first LEED Platinum home in Ohio, built by students at Worthington Kilbourne High School, and previously ran commercial energy efficiency and incentive programs at CLEAResult. He is a longtime US Green Building Council volunteer, organized rain garden builds for local schools through Green Apple Day of Service, and serves on the city of Worthington's green team.

Connect with Josh Lloyd and his work

Josh Lloyd on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshualloyd/

Turner Construction → turnerconstruction.com

US Green Building Council → usgbc.org

Send us a message!

Most people think a solid waste district exists to run the landfill. Mary Cropenbaker's job is the opposite: keep as much material out of it as possible. As the Assistant Solid Waste Manager at Hamilton County ReSource, she works with businesses, schools, and communities across the Cincinnati region to divert waste, and she does it without a single mandate to force anyone's hand. Her answer to that challenge is 513 Green, a free sustainability certification any business can earn.

513 Green started from a frustration. Mary could help a business start recycling, but she had no way to keep it moving toward bigger goals, until a free program she saw at a conference gave her the model. This episode presses on the mechanics: how a certification built around employee behavior works for everyone from the Cincinnati Zoo to a small Pilates studio, and how a checklist of 45 achievable steps turns good intentions into action. It also draws out the honest parts, including why the hardest thing to measure is the impact itself, and why she built the whole program to be copied by any community willing to try.

Episode in a glance

02:42 The Waste District That Wants to Put Itself Out of a Job
05:12 Why Starting a Recycling Program Is Harder Than You Think
07:39 How 513 Green Went From Idea to Free Certification
11:27 What It Actually Takes to Get Certified
14:36 From the Cincinnati Zoo to a Pilates Studio
21:43 A Certification Built to Be Copied

About Mary Cropenbaker

Mary Cropenbaker is the Assistant Solid Waste Manager at Hamilton County ReSource, the solid waste district serving the Cincinnati, Ohio region, where she helps businesses, schools, and communities implement waste reduction strategies on the path to zero waste. She holds a master's in environmental science from Miami University's Institute for Environment and Sustainability and an MBA with a certificate in sustainable business, and her background spans psychology research, a sustainability practicum at the Cincinnati Zoo, and a role at the US EPA. She piloted the 513 Green Certification Program, a free sustainability certification that has certified 67 organizations across the region.

Connect with Mary Cropenbaker and her work

LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/marycropenbaker

Hamilton County ReSource → hamiltoncountyresource.org

513 Green Certification → 513green.com

Send us a message!

Mary Cropenbaker is the Assistant Solid Waste Manager at Hamilton County ReSource, the solid waste district for the Cincinnati region, where she helps businesses, schools, and communities cut what they send to the landfill. She piloted 513 Green, a free sustainability certification now used by dozens of local organizations. But her path into waste and sustainability started somewhere you would never guess: a psychology lab studying how pigeons gamble.

Mary grew up along the Ohio River, hopping fences and running through cow pastures, and headed to college for animal cognition research, not the environment. A single class on business sustainability changed her direction. This first episode traces the human turns behind that shift, including the senior-year crisis of realizing research alone would never let her act on what she was learning. The conversation draws out that lived experience while pressing on how a foundation in data and science communication became the throughline of everything she does now. What emerges is a portrait of someone who kept following her curiosity until it added up to a career.

Episode in a glance

00:57 Growing Up in Cow Pastures Along the Ohio River
02:38 The Psychology Major Who Fell for Sustainability
04:24 What Gambling Pigeons Taught Her About People
07:10 From a Zoo Practicum to the EPA to Zero Waste
13:04 Inside a Solid Waste District That Serves Everyone
21:44 Why This Work Still Gives Her Hope

About Mary Cropenbaker

Mary Cropenbaker is the Assistant Solid Waste Manager at Hamilton County ReSource, the solid waste district serving the Cincinnati, Ohio region, where she helps businesses, schools, and communities implement waste reduction strategies on the path to zero waste. She holds a master's in environmental science from Miami University's Institute for Environment and Sustainability and an MBA with a certificate in sustainable business, and her background spans psychology research, a sustainability practicum at the Cincinnati Zoo, and a role at the US EPA. She piloted the 513 Green Certification Program, a free sustainability certification that has certified 67 organizations across the region.

Connect with Mary Cropenbaker and her work

LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/marycropenbaker

Hamilton County ReSource → hamiltoncountyresource.org

513 Green Certification → 513green.com

Send us a message!

There is not enough public money in the world to fund the clean energy transition. That gap sits at the center of Vin Valentino's work, and his answer is the green bank, a purpose-driven financial institution built to stretch every public dollar and pull private capital in behind it. As the Energy Economy Lead for the Washington State Department of Commerce, Vin helped stand up Washington's first green bank, capitalized at 25 million dollars in its first year.

The build runs from one question in a Seattle conference room to a working institution. Vin breaks down what the Inflation Reduction Act actually unlocked, why a green bank can do what a grant cannot, and how a constitutional rule dating back to the railroads nearly killed the whole idea. The conversation presses on the mechanics and the financing models, from no-cost C-PACE solar to a 500 million dollar revolving loan fund, while keeping the thread tied back to why it matters. It lands at a port, in front of the governor and a crowd of unions, on a single question that captures what real climate progress feels like.

Episode in a glance

00:21 Moving to Seattle to work on green economy after the IRA passes
05:06 Defining what "green economy" actually means
06:21 What the Inflation Reduction Act did and why it mattered
09:14 Building Washington's first green bank from scratch
15:07 How green finance tools like C-PACE work in practice
18:14 What's giving Vin hope despite the current political climate

About Vin Valentino

Vincent "Vin" Valentino is the Energy Economy Lead for the Washington State Department of Commerce, where he works to grow the state's clean energy economy through investment, policy strategy, and partnerships across government, industry, and communities. He earned an interdisciplinary degree in applied sustainability, spanning policy, economics, business, and design, from Ohio State University. His path runs from leading sustainability and operations at Land-Grant Brewing in Columbus, Ohio, to managing sustainability programs at Stanford Health Care, to serving as a Green Economy Strategic Advisor and division manager for the City of Seattle, where he helped establish Washington's first green bank.

Connect with Vin Valentino and his work

• Vin Valentino on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/vinvalentinowa
• Washington State Department of Commerce → commerce.wa.gov
• Land-Grant Brewing Company → landgrantbrewing.com

Send us a message!

Vin Valentino is the Energy Economy Lead for the Washington State Department of Commerce, where he works to grow the state's clean energy economy through investment, policy strategy, and partnerships across government, industry, and communities. He holds an interdisciplinary degree in applied sustainability from Ohio State University, and his path has run from a craft brewery in Columbus, Ohio, to Stanford Health Care, to the City of Seattle. Before any of it, though, he was a kid from Dayton who played in bands, bartended through school, and had no clear plan. His story starts there.

His turning point was small and human. One political science class cracked open how climate, economics, and migration all cross borders, and a single nudge from his older sister sent him back to college. From there he talked his way into a sustainability role at Land-Grant Brewing over one beer, then leapt to Stanford Health Care. The conversation draws out the lived experience behind each jump while pressing on how Vin keeps spotting opportunity where other people see a dead end. What surfaces is a way of working that treats every messy, uncertain step as part of the build.

Episode in a glance

00:53 Vin explains Washington State's clean energy economy
03:19 From Dayton to Columbus, dropping out and playing music
05:37 The college class that sparked his interest in climate
12:17 How a conversation at a brewery became a sustainability job
16:41 Getting laid off during COVID and landing at Stanford Health Care
21:56 His advice for breaking into sustainability work

About Vin Valentino

Vincent "Vin" Valentino is the Energy Economy Lead for the Washington State Department of Commerce, where he works to grow the state's clean energy economy through investment, policy strategy, and partnerships across government, industry, and communities. He earned an interdisciplinary degree in applied sustainability, spanning policy, economics, business, and design, from Ohio State University. His path runs from leading sustainability and operations at Land-Grant Brewing in Columbus, Ohio, to managing sustainability programs at Stanford Health Care, to serving as a Green Economy Strategic Advisor and division manager for the City of Seattle, where he helped establish Washington's first green bank.

Connect with Vin Valentino and his work

• Vin Valentino on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/vinvalentinowa
• Washington State Department of Commerce → commerce.wa.gov
• Land-Grant Brewing Company → landgrantbrewing.com

Send us a message!

Francesca Cercelletta, creative director for ReGeneration Hub Friuli and graphic designer for Zegna, brings a unique blend of artistic vision and sustainability passion to NanoValbruna. As the organizer of "Frame The Change," a short film festival within the forum, she champions the power of visual storytelling in communicating complex environmental issues.

Francesca shares her journey into the world of filmmaking, recounting how her participation in a workshop in Naples inspired her to bring a similar experience to NanoValbruna. She describes the "Frame The Change" program, where young filmmakers, armed with just their iPhones, create short films centered around the theme of regeneration. Francesca emphasizes the importance of creativity, especially when working with limited resources, and how it can unlock innovative solutions and captivating narratives.

She discusses her own short film, "O' mare è casa toja" ("The sea is your home"), which was selected for the Pimiento Film Festival in Rome, and how this experience further fueled her passion for filmmaking. Francesca also talks about the value of bringing together diverse perspectives, the power of mentorship, and the importance of providing young people with opportunities to explore their creative potential. She shares her perspective on regeneration, emphasizing the need for tangible, real-world solutions, particularly within the fashion industry.

Episode in a glance

- Francesca's Role at ReGeneration Hub Friuli and NanoValbruna
- Frame The Change
- Francesca's Short Film: 'O' mare è casa toja'
- The Theme of Regeneration in Filmmaking
- Regeneration vs. Sustainability: A Creative Perspective

About Francesca Cercelletta

Francesca Cercelletta is the creative director for ReGeneration Hub Friuli and graphic designer for Zegna. She is the organizer of "Frame The Change" at NanoValbruna.

Connect with Francesca Cercelletta and her work

Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/franziska.konrad/

Francesca on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/francescacercelletta

Francesca's Short Film → "O' mare è casa toja”

Website → http://nanovalbruna.com

Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/nanovalbruna

Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/nanovalbruna

ReGeneration Hub Friuli LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/company/regeneration-hub-friuli

Send us a message!

A resort that generates 25 tons of waste every single day has two choices: manage it badly or build something worth talking about. Jake Kheel, VP of Sustainability at Grupo Puntacana, chose the latter. He's back this week to get into the real work: composting at industrial scale, coral reef restoration, a hawk conservation project that now has 150 birds on property, and why climate change has stopped being a future problem for coastal communities and started being a right-now one.

Jake breaks down what a VP of Sustainability actually does in the tourism industry: part problem-solving, part what he calls "troublemaking," meaning finding things that are broken and convincing people it's worth fixing them. He's candid about the failures that got him here, including an early composting experiment with worms from his New York City apartment that did not go as planned. The organic waste work took years of hardheadedness and iteration to become what it is now: a composting operation that manages food, manure, and green waste from hotels, an airport, thousands of employees, and an entire residential community. The goal isn't just to handle the waste. It's to close the loop and regenerate soil in the process.

Then there's Leo. Leo is a Ridgeway's Hawk, an endemic species once down to roughly 200 breeding pairs, who now serves as an ambassador for a conservation project that started with three birds and has grown to over 150. Jake talks through how Grupo Puntacana partnered with the Peregrine Fund to establish a second breeding population on the resort property, and why taking a hawk to a school or a family farm turns out to be one of the most effective conservation strategies around.

Episode in a glance

01:32 What a VP of Sustainability Actually Does All Day
04:15 Sargassum: The Seaweed Crisis Threatening Caribbean Tourism
11:28 The Composting Experiment That Flopped (And What It Eventually Became)
18:47 How Kids Are Convincing Their Parents to Compost
20:39 Meet Leo: The Ambassador Hawk Winning Over Communities

About Jake Kheel

Jake Kheel is the Vice President of Sustainability at Grupo Puntacana, a privately held resort and real estate company in the Dominican Republic that has become a benchmark for sustainable tourism in the Caribbean. With degrees from Columbia and Cornell and over 20 years on the ground in Puntacana, Jake leads a wide-ranging portfolio of environmental programs spanning coral reef restoration, composting, wildlife conservation, and sargassum management. He co-directed the award-winning documentary Death By a Thousand Cuts, which explores deforestation and cross-border conflict on the Haitian-Dominican border, and is the author of Waking the Sleeping Giant, a book about mobilizing the private sector for environmental action. His work has been recognized by National Geographic and Condé Nast Traveler.

Connect with Jake Kheel and his work

Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/jakekheel/?hl=en

Grupo Puntacana → puntacana.com

Waking the Sleeping Giant → https://www.amazon.com/Waking-Sleeping-Giant-Unlocking-Business/dp/1544520123

Death By a Thousand Cuts documentary → https://deathbyathousandcutsfilm.com/

Send us a message!