Hi, this is Paul Zelizer and welcome to the AwarePreneurs podcast. On this show we dive deep into wisdom from some of the world's leading social entrepreneurs. Our goal is to help increase your positive impact, your profitability and your quality of life. Before we get into today's topic, I have one request. If you could hit subscribe and do a review. It really helps this podcast grow, helps more people learn how to have positive impact through a values based business. Thank you so much today. I'm thrilled to introduce you to Josh Dortman.

Our topic is to sell sustainability. Don't talk about sustainability. Josh is going to explain that in just a second. Hold on. Josh Dorfman is a climate entrepreneur, author and media personality. He is the CEO and host of Supercool, a media company covering real world climate solutions that put carbon that cut carbon, increase profits and enhance modern life. Josh was previously the co founder and CEO of Plantit, a carbon negative building materials manufacturer which was named to Fast Company's list of the most innovative companies in 2024. He's founded two modern design sustainable furniture companies, directed vine.com, an Amazon E commerce business specializing in natural and organic products, and served as the CEO of the Collider, the first, the nation's first innovation center for climate resilience and adaption.

Additionally, Jos was previously known as the Lazy Environmentalist, a media brand he helped develop into an award winning television series on Sundance Channel, a daily radio show on Sirius XM and two popular books. His work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Forbes, TechCrunch, Fast Company and Routers. Josh has also made regular appearances on national television and radio programs including Morning Joe, Fox and Friends, and NPR's All Things Considered. And it's the only guest to ever ride a bike right onto the Martha Stewart Show. Josh, welcome to AwarePreneurs.

Thank you so much, Paul. Just such a pleasure to have a chance to speak with you.

You've been at this a long time and I'm really excited to introduce our guest to your work. So give us a little sense. Josh, welcome. Wind the clock back a little bit. You've been in sustainability and climate before. It was a cool thing. Before a lot of people were talking about it, before it became a dirty word in certain circles. Right.

What got you into climate and sustainability?

The short of it is I moved to China after college, 1995. I was thinking about a career at the time in maybe foreign service, maybe CIA. I didn't actually know, but I had been an International affairs major as an undergrad in university and felt if I could just get to China, I could somehow see the future, that this was going to become a very important relationship in the 21st century. I was teaching English on a university. I got a part time job working in a bicycle lock factory for then a very famous company called Kryptonite Bike Locks.

I remember them well. Yeah.

An American company had invented the original U shaped bicycle lock. And it was a wonderful experience. I went to work for. To. For. I went to work for Kryptonite full time, traveled around the country, opened more factories. We were looking at a billion Chinese people at the time all riding bicycles. And I thought, my gosh, I don't really know a lot about business, but I do see a billion, you know, the billion number, the market number that gets American companies to drool over what they might do in China.

And sometimes that goes well, more often it goes awry. We were early in that, two years into that, I was in southern China. We were partnering with a Chinese businessman to open another factory. And I was traveling with him to this restaurant. We were going to consummate the deal drinking a combination of grain alcohol or baijio, which is kind of feels like grain alcohol and, and snake blood. I guess I didn't know that. But you drink that in southern China and, and now you're, now you're partners for life. And so we're in the parking lot before we go into this restaurant, this guy takes me aside and says, josh, look, my Mercedes is the biggest Mercedes in this parking lot filled with Mercedes, even though it's Communist China, 1997.

I'd seen so much over the last two years prior to that in terms of the highways and bridges and tunnels coming in. And everything coalesced in that moment. And I thought, there's going to be a billion car drivers here. I don't know anything about global warming, I don't know anything about climate change, but that seems like that is going to be problematic. And that led me on a lifelong journey to work on that challenge.