Three fierce women founders join us on IT SHOULDN’T BE THIS HARD, all kicking ass across different industries: food waste, capital flows for a new regenerative economy, and ethical, sustainable snacking. Tessa Clarke (Founder of Olio), Alessa Berg (Founder of Top Tier Impact), and Heather Terry (Founder of GoodSAM Foods) aren't waiting for the system to get fairer, cheaper, or more rational before they act. They're building what needs to exist themselves.

Tessa Clarke grew up on a farm where food waste "was pretty much criminal" which is exactly why, on moving day, she resorted to what she calls cross-border vegetable smuggling rather than let the removal men throw out perfectly good food. That was the lightbulb moment for Olio, now a neighbor-to-neighbor app that's moved 150 million meals' worth of food. Alessa Berg built Top Tier Impact's 80-country ecosystem by trusting what she calls her own "internal coding" instead of forcing her path into a five-year plan. And Heather Terry built Good Sam Foods around a simple, radical bet: cutting out the middlemen and prioritizing farmers.

This episode gets into the reframes that changed how each of them operates: why Olio stopped talking about saving the planet and started talking about what's in it for you, the "drama triangle" Alessa uses to catch herself before slipping into victim mode, and Heather's belief that "weaponizing cash" by building a company that's profitable and does right by its supply chain is can be more disruptive than protest.

• Why environmental messaging failed to drive action for Olio and what actually worked instead
• How Olio turned its biggest weakness (food vanishing off the app in seconds) into its main revenue driver
• Why treating corporate partners as paying clients, not donors, is what unlocked Olio's supply side
• How to use the "drama triangle" (victim, hero, perpetrator) to catch yourself before you play the victim
• Why Alessa trusts "emergence" over rigid five-year plans and what that looks like in practice
• How Top Tier Impact operationalizes "take responsibility for your reality" as a company-wide rule
• Why Good Sam Foods runs its entire supply chain with zero middlemen
• How cutting out middlemen directly improves the economics of smallholder farmers and indigenous communities
• Why Heather sees profitability itself as a form of protest against a broken system
• How scaling slowly and staying profitable can undermine a broken industry faster than scaling fast

00:00 – Three founders, three industries, one instinct

01:30 – Tessa Clarke: growing up where food waste was "pretty much criminal"

02:00 – "Why isn't there an app for this?" Olio is born

02:44 – Alessa Berg: trusting her own "internal coding"

03:15 – Building Top Tier Impact's 80-country ecosystem

03:49 – Heather Terry: backing smallholder farmers, cutting the middlemen

04:21 – The Reframe: what changed how each founder operates

04:30 – Olio's pivot: from "save the planet" to "what's in it for you"

05:06 – Alessa's framework: escaping the victim-hero-perpetrator triangle

05:45 – Heather's reframe: "weaponizing cash" as protest

06:10 – The Reframe, in practice

06:31 – Olio's 100,000 volunteers and the supply-side fix

07:35 – TTI's rule #1: take responsibility for your reality

07:59 – Good Sam's slow, profitable scale as "system sabotage"

08:36 – Closing + what's coming in Part 2

About the Show

IT SHOULDN’T BE THIS HARD by grounded is a podcast show for business leaders, social entrepreneurs, and sustainability professionals navigating the messy meaningful work of responsible business and conscious leadership. Co-hosted by Phil White and Heidi Schoeneck, each episode brings together social impact entrepreneurs, corporate changemakers, and sustainability leaders -who've been there and are doing it- for lively, playful (and sometimes provocative) conversations about why it's so hard to do the right thing (and do the right things). This episode was produced and hosted by Paloma Jacome.

Additional Resources

🤖 Meet Gaia, Grounded's sustainability AI: https://grounded.world/gaia

🌍 Get Grounded: https://grounded.world/

#Sustainability #ImpactInvesting #FoodWaste #SocialEntrepreneurship #WomenFounders #Business #ItShouldntBeThisHard

In Part 2 of this two-part conversation, co-hosts Phil White and Heidi Schoeneck continue their conversation with Matthew McCarthy, former CEO of Ben & Jerry's, moving from the false choice of purpose vs. profit into some of the thorniest territory in modern leadership: anti-woke backlash, the monetization of conflict, and the quiet collapse of trust underneath it all.

Matthew opens up about "authorizing yourself" instead of waiting for permission, then turns to what we call "wokery pokery" — the way both sides of the culture war often care more about conflict than the actual issue at stake. From there, the conversation moves through the fear of being publicly called out, why hyper-transparency has made holding statements obsolete, and why trust may be the single biggest driver of business performance.

Matthew closes with a candid look at the hardest part of leadership: not choosing between right and wrong, but choosing between two things that both hurt and why compassion for the people around you (including the ones treating you badly) might be the most underrated leadership skill there is.

• Why "authorizing yourself" is more important than waiting for permission from your boss or company
• How delegating responsibility upward quietly drains your own agency
• Why most "toxic" people are engaging in toxic behavior, not being toxic people
• The difference between the anti-woke movement's stated concerns and its actual function: monetizing conflict
• Why holding statements and PR positioning no longer work in an age of hyper-transparency
• Why "the coefficient of trust" may be the most important number a leader never measures
• The direct link between organizational trust and financial performance
• Why "check your values at the door" is a dangerous myth
• The hardest part of leadership: choosing between two painful options, not right vs. wrong

0:00 — Introduction: purpose, profit, politics

1:20 — Avoiding sticks vs. moving toward carrots

3:00 — "Authorize yourself"

5:29 —Wokery Pokery — has "woke" gone too far, or worked too well?

6:16 — Walking the talk vs. inviting criticism

9:39 — The Coefficient of Trust — "a moment of manufactured terror"

11:16 — Trust as fuel: why low trust correlates with poor results

13:53 — "Check your values at the door" is a dangerous distortion

15:00 — The case for "real talk" about the human cost of leadership decisions

15:30 — Closing: build trust, make trade-offs, keep moving

It Shouldn't Be This Hard is the podcast for leaders, founders, and change-makers navigating the messy intersection of purpose and performance — exploring why doing the right thing in business can feel far harder than it should.

🤖 Meet Gaia, Grounded's sustainability AI: https://grounded.world/gaia 🌍 Get Grounded: https://grounded.world/

#Sustainability #Leadership #BenAndJerrys #Trust #AntiWoke #Business #ItShouldntBeThisHard

In Part 1 of this two-part conversation, co-hosts Phil White and Heidi Schoeneck are joined by Matthew McCarthy, former CEO of Ben & Jerry’s, to challenge one of the most deeply ingrained beliefs in business: that purpose and profit are competing priorities.

Drawing on decades of experience leading one of the world's most outspoken purpose-driven brands, Matthew McCarthy argues that many of the biggest barriers to growth, trust, and impact aren't coming from competitors, regulators, or changing consumer expectations.

They're coming from inside the organization.

From the false choice between doing well and doing good to the growing crisis of consumer trust, this conversation explores why businesses so often become the fox in their own henhouse, creating the very obstacles they're trying to overcome.

Along the way, Matthew unpacks why consumers shouldn't be blamed for problems businesses have the power to solve, why leaders spend too much time debating whether instead of focusing on how, and what it takes to build organizations capable of creating both impact and value.

• Why the "purpose vs. profit" debate may be setting businesses up to fail
• How organizations become their own biggest obstacle to growth and sustainability
• Why consumers shouldn't be blamed for problems businesses can solve
• What declining trust signals about the future of business
• How debating whether to act drains energy and momentum
• Why "scale" means something different to everyone in the room
• The relationship between purpose, profit, and long-term value creation
• Why leaders can't outsource sustainability to founders, legacy, or brand DNA

00:00 – Introduction: The fox in the henhouse

00:45 – Why the purpose vs. profit debate is broken

02:15 – How businesses become their own worst enemy

03:40 – The false choice between growth and impact

05:05 – "The fact that lots of products suck..."

06:20 – Consumer trust, accountability, and changing expectations

07:15 – Stop debating whether. Start focusing on how.

08:10 – Why everyone hears "scale" differently

09:05 – Purpose, profit, and long-term value

09:45 – Closing reflections

It Shouldn't Be This Hard is the podcast for leaders, founders, and change-makers navigating the messy intersection of purpose and performance — exploring why doing the right thing in business can feel far harder than it should.

🤖 Meet Gaia, Grounded's sustainability AI:

https://grounded.world/gaia

🌍 Get Grounded:

https://grounded.world/

#Sustainability #Leadership #BenAndJerrys #Business #ItShouldntBeThisHard

In Part 2 of this conversation, co-hosts Phil White and Heidi Schoeneck continue their discussion with Jeffrey Hollender — Founder of Seventh Generation, professor at New York University Stern School of Business, social entrepreneur, and author of Built for a Better World to explore the deeper systems, incentives, and leadership challenges that make responsible business so difficult to sustain.

While Part 1 unpacked Jeffrey’s personal journey building (and eventually losing) Seventh Generation, Part 2 zooms out to examine the broader forces shaping business behavior today: political influence, broken incentives, governance structures, internal culture, and the uncomfortable reality that doing the right thing often still comes with risk.

Jeffrey reflects on the early struggles of Seventh Generation, why the company’s growth accelerated when sustainability became connected to personal health and wellness, and why movements like B Corp still haven’t reached the scale needed to transform business at large.

But perhaps most importantly, this conversation explores the human side of leadership:

Why humility matters more than ego.

Why radical transparency terrifies companies.

And why businesses can’t close the gap between intention and execution without fundamentally changing how they operate.

Built for a Better World explores Jeffrey Hollender’s journey building Seventh Generation and the lessons learned navigating the tension between purpose, profit, leadership, and systemic change. Grab your own copy here: https://jeffreyhollender.net/

Key Takeaways:

• Why business is both a driver of solutions and a major contributor to systemic problems
• The role storytelling and internal culture play in scaling impact
• How market incentives shape whether sustainable businesses succeed or fail
• Why Seventh Generation reframed sustainability around personal health and wellness
• Jeffrey Hollender’s perspective on the B Corp movement
• Why larger corporations still resist accountability and transparency frameworks
• The overlooked business case for sustainability, diversity, and stakeholder governance
• Why humility is essential for responsible leadership
• What “radical transparency” actually looks like inside organizations
• Why purpose-driven businesses struggle when systems still reward short-term profit

Timestamps:

00:00 – Introduction: the deeper systems shaping business behavior

00:45 – Why business is both the solution and part of the problem

01:30 – The role storytelling plays in purpose-driven organizations

02:15 – Why values often collapse under external market pressures

02:50 – How Seventh Generation repositioned sustainability around health and wellness

04:15 – Jeffrey Hollender’s perspective on the B Corp movement

05:10 – Why businesses still struggle to understand the business case for sustainability

06:05 – Diversity, governance, and systems thinking in leadership

06:50 – Words of wisdom for leaders trying to do the right thing

07:15 – Why humility and radical transparency matter more than ever

07:55 – Closing reflections on rebuilding business systems differently

About the Show:

It Shouldn’t Be This Hard is the podcast for leaders, founders, and change-makers reimagining what good business looks like -real conversations, radical ideas, and the belief that purpose and profit can - (and must) coexist.

Additional Resources:

🤖 Meet Gaia, Grounded’s sustainability AI:

https://grounded.world/gaia

🌍 Get Grounded:

https://grounded.world/

#Sustainability #Business #Leadership #ESG #Bcorp #SocialEntrepreneurship #ItShouldntBeThisHard

What happens when the company you built to change the world starts drifting away from the very values it was founded on?

In Part 1 of this conversation, co-hosts Phil White and Heidi Schoeneck are joined by Jeffrey Hollender — co-founder of Seventh Generation, professor at New York University Stern School of Business, social entrepreneur, and author of Built for a Better World — to unpack the uncomfortable realities behind building a purpose-driven business inside systems that are designed to reward the opposite.

Jeffrey reflects candidly on the rise of Seventh Generation, the mistakes he made while scaling the business, and the painful realization that purpose alone isn’t enough to protect a mission.

But this episode goes beyond one company’s story.

It explores the deeper structural tension sitting at the heart of responsible business today:

Why do so many businesses want to do the right thing… yet still struggle to do the right things?

From investor misalignment and growth addiction to systems thinking, leadership consciousness, and the growing fear around speaking publicly about sustainability, this conversation unpacks why purpose-driven business can feel so difficult — even for the pioneers who helped define it.

Key Takeaways:

- What Jeffrey Hollender learned after being fired from Seventh Generation

- Why mission-driven businesses often break when values collide with growth pressure

- How investor misalignment can slowly erode a company’s purpose

Why “doing the right thing” doesn’t always translate into “doing the right things”

- The role systems thinking plays in sustainability leadership

-Why businesses need cultures built around consciousness, not just compliance

- How political and cultural pressure is fueling sustainability silence and green-hushing

- Why community is essential for sustaining purpose-driven leadership

Timestamps:

00:00 – Introduction: building purpose-driven brands inside broken systems

01:00 – Jeffrey Hollender’s journey as a lifelong social entrepreneur

02:32 – The painful reality of getting fired from the company you built

05:10 – Being “ahead” without bringing people along

07:37– Why hiring and cultural alignment matter more than strategy

10:05 – Why business systems often reward unethical behavior

12:45 – Sustainability as an endless hurdle race

14:28 – Why business isn't stepping up

16:40 – The gap between doing the right thing vs. the right things

17:14 – Why not all sustainability actions are created equal

About the Show:

It Shouldn’t Be This Hard is the podcast for leaders, founders, and change-makers navigating the messy intersection of purpose and performance — exploring why doing the right thing in business can feel far harder than it should.

Additional Resources:

🤖 Meet Gaia, Grounded’s sustainability AI:

https://grounded.world/gaia

🌍 Get Grounded:

https://grounded.world/

#Sustainability #Business #ClimateLeadership #ESG #SocialEntrepreneurship #JeffreyHollender #SeventhGeneration #ItShouldntBeThisHard

Every year on Earth Day, businesses around the world make commitments, launch campaigns, and announce new sustainability goals.

What happens when the Earth Month celebrations pass?

Because the real test of sustainability isn’t what gets said on April 22nd—it’s what actually gets done on April 23rd, and every day after that.

In this special Earth Day episode of It Shouldn’t Be This Hard, co-hosts Phil White and Heidi Schoeneck sit down with Kate Williams, CEO of 1% for the Planet, to unpack one of the most quietly powerful models in climate action today: what happens when businesses commit to just 1% - consistently, transparently, and in community.

Because simple actions. Done repeatedly. In community. isn’t just the 1% For The Planet philosophy, it’s a theory of change that has already driven over $800M in environmental giving.

But this conversation goes deeper than giving.

It’s about the structural barrier holding sustainability back: the intention–action gap.

Why do so many businesses care but still hesitate to act?

Kate breaks down the tension at the heart of the system:

- The pressure to be perfect vs. the need to start

- The fear of criticism vs. the urgency of transparency

- Greenwashing on one side, green-hushing on the other and a growing silence in between

And in that silence, progress stalls.

This episode explores why progress (not perfection) is the only model that scales, and why aggregated small actions are often more powerful than isolated big ones.

Because the economy impacts the planet—full stop. The question is whether businesses are willing to act on that consistently enough for it to matter.

This is not about Earth Day as a moment.

It’s about Earth Day as a practice.

Key Takeaways:

- Why the intention–action gap is now one of the biggest blockers in sustainability execution

- How the 1% model turns incremental commitments into over $800M in verified environmental impact

- Why “progress over perfection” is a strategic advantage, not just a mindset

- How greenwashing fear and green-hushing are slowing down real climate action

- What it takes to build movements that scale beyond awareness into action

- Why consistency—not intensity—is what actually drives systemic change

Timestamps:

00:00 – Introduction: The intention–action gap in sustainability

01:10 – Why businesses are stuck between intention and execution

03:40 – Kate Williams on the 1% model and $800M in impact

04:10 – The theory of change: simple actions, done repeatedly, in community

04:45 – Greenwashing vs green-hushing: the new sustainability paralysis

05:00 – Why progress over perfection is the only scalable path

06:15 – Building movements through transparency and participation

07:00 – Closing reflection: what actually drives change at scale

About the Show:

It Shouldn’t Be This Hard is the podcast for leaders, founders, and change-makers reimagining what good business looks like—real conversations, radical ideas, and the belief that purpose and profit can—and must—coexist.

Additional Resources:

🤖 Meet Gaia, our sustainability AI: https://grounded.world/gaia/

🌍 Get Grounded: https://grounded.world/

#EarthDay #SustainabilityLeadership #PurposeDrivenBusiness #ClimateAction #ESG #ItShouldntBeThisHard #1PercentForThePlanet #EarthDayEveryDay

Every April 22nd, a billion people across 193 countries do something for the planet. Companies make bold commitments. Partnerships get announced. And then April 23rd arrives.

For businesses building sustainability into how they actually operate (not just how they communicate) that day after is the real test. Because the ROI of Earth Day isn't in the moment. It's in the partnerships that outlast the press release, the operational changes that compound year over year, and the culture that doesn't need a calendar reminder to care.

In this special Earth Day episode of It Shouldn't Be This Hard, co-hosts Phil White and Heidi Schoeneck sit down with Kathleen Rogers, President of EarthDay.org — one of the most recognized environmental platforms on the planet — to ask the question she returns to every single year: What do we do the day after Earth Day?

From the paradox of growing awareness alongside growing powerlessness, to the equity arguments hiding inside the word "environment," to what it actually takes to keep a billion-person movement going — this is a conversation about turning caring into action. Not just on April 22nd. Every day.

Key Takeaways:

• Why awareness and powerlessness are growing at the same time and what that means for anyone trying to drive change
• How redefining "environment" as what surrounds you reframes sustainability as an equity issue, not just an ecological one
• Why the antidote to greenwashing fear isn't a better communications strategy
• How incremental progress beats absolutism when building movements that last
• Why the intention–action gap is as much a strategic problem as a communications one
• What "the day after Earth Day" reveals about the difference between moments and movements

Timestamps:

• 00:00 – Introduction: What do we do the day after Earth Day?
• 01:08 – The paradox of awareness: more knowledge, more powerlessness
• 03:50 – What does the ‘environment’ actually mean? And how a simple definition can change everything
• 05:17 – Climate equity: who bears the real burden of environmental harm
• 05:50 – Why companies are afraid to talk about climate change
• 06:30 – Urban tree planting, community tools, and building the tent for the ‘do-gooders’ of the world
• 07:26 –The billion-person challenge: keeping momentum after April 22nd
• 08:15 – Closing wisdom: nature as miracle, protector, and source of hope

About the Show It Shouldn't Be This Hard is the podcast for leaders, founders, and change-makers reimagining what good business looks like: real conversations, radical ideas, and the belief that purpose and profit can — and must — coexist.

Hosted by Phil White and Heidi Schoeneck, the show explores how sustainability can drive business performance, especially under real commercial pressure. Season 2 continues those conversations at the intersection of purpose and performance — because the work matters every day, not just one day a year.

Additional Resources:

🤖 Meet Gaia, our sustainability AI: https://grounded.world/gaia/

🌍 Get Grounded: https://grounded.world/

#EarthDay #Sustainability #ESG #ClimateAction #ItShouldntBeThisHard #EarthDayEveryDay

After a full season of conversations with leaders from Starbucks, Plastic Bank, Earth Day Organization, Philip Morris International, BIGGBY Coffee, Divert, and The Washington Post one theme kept surfacing:

If so many people care about sustainability… why is doing the right thing in business still so hard?

In this special Season 1 reflection episode of It Shouldn’t Be This Hard, co-hosts Phil White and Heidi Schoeneck step back from the individual interviews to connect the patterns behind ESG, systems change, sustainable supply chains, and purpose-driven leadership.

This is a compilation episode revisiting the most powerful insights from across Season 1 and asking what they reveal about the intention–action gap inside modern business.

From corporate accountability to empathetic capitalism, this conversation explores why progress stalls and what actually makes sustainable transformation possible under real commercial pressure.

Key Takeaways:

• Why sustainability struggles are rarely about intention and almost always about systems design
• How shareholder pressure, risk aversion, and legacy operating models create barriers to ESG progress
• Why extractive business models create long-term instability in global supply chains
• How behavior change scales when sustainability is operationalized
• Why shame and cancel culture can slow corporate transformation and curiosity unlocks collaboration
• How small, visible actions rebuild agency and close the intention–action gap

Featured Voices from Season 1:

• David Katz (Founder & CEO of Plastic Bank) on corporate adaptation and risk
• Jenny Morgan (Author of ‘Cancel Culture in Climate’) on cancel culture and “pretty good” sustainability.
• Karimah Hudda (Founder of illumine.earth) on conformity inside large institutions.
• Bob & Michelle Fish (Co-Founders of One BIGG Island in Space) on direct trade and empathetic capitalism.
• Amelia Landers (Former VP of Innovation, Starbucks) on designing convenience into sustainable behavior.
• Jennifer Motles (Chief Sustainability Officer of Philip Morris International) on driving change inside controversial industries.
• Kathy Baird (Former Chief Communications Officer of The Washington Post) on apathy and civic disengagement.
• Hilary (Former CMO of Divert) on food waste and operational sustainability.

Timestamps:

• 00:00 – Introduction: Why “doing the right thing” still feels hard
• 00:40 – Season 1 patterns and the intention–action gap
• 01:15 – Plastic Bank: Risk, shareholders, and adaptation
• 03:25 – Cancel Culture in Climate: Systems built to punish risk
• 05:10 – Systems change and institutional conformity
• 06:40 – BIGGBY Coffee: Extractive vs empathetic capitalism
• 11:50 – Starbucks: Designing sustainable behavior
• 14:25 – Come into Conversations with Curiosity
• 15:00 – PMI: Courage inside controversial industries
• 16:20 – Overwhelm, apathy, and disengagement
• 17:45 – Divert: Small actions that sustain momentum against climate change
• 19:05 – Closing reflections: It shouldn’t be this hard

Additional Resources:

🤖 Meet Gaia, our sustainability AI: https://grounded.world/gaia/

🌍 Get Grounded: https://grounded.world

- - -

It Shouldn’t Be This Hard is the podcast for leaders, founders, and change-makers reimagining what good business looks like: real conversations, radical ideas, and the belief that purpose and profit can (and must) coexist.

Hosted by Phil and Heidi, the show explores how sustainability can drive business performance especially under real commercial pressure.

Season 1 brought together global brands, social enterprises, and systems thinkers to challenge extractive models and rethink the future of responsible business.