Green Sense Radio

This week we sat down with Arama Kukutai, CEO of Plenty an indoor, automated vertical farming technology company that can grow clean produce year-round, anywhere in the world. Arama is a pioneer in both Ag Tech investing and Vertical Farming. Hear about how growing up in New Zeeland, his Māori heritage and college days playing rugby shaped him to succeed. He shares his insights on the current CEA industry and what big plans he has as the newly appointed CEO of Plenty. 

Ridder a Dutch indoor growing technology company is on a mission to help farmers grow more crops sustainably. They are on the constant hunt for new technologies that can grow a wider range of crops faster, better, safer, and cheaper.  This week we spoke with Ridder’s CTO, Joep van den Bosch to learn about what technologies are on the horizon, when they will become commercially available and how they will address labor, rising inputs costs and crop quality to produce more crops with less resources.

First Student is an industry leader in home-to-school transportation and furthers its
commitment to electric school buses. This week we spoke with Kevin Matthews, Head of Electrification at First
Students to hear first-hand how their electric buses are transporting over 5 million students to
school every day.

This week we spoke with Chris Higgins of Hort Americas and Urban Ag News to discuss how GE – Current repurposed an existing US light factory to make horticulture LED lights onshore.  Did they get lucky to get ahead of kinks in the supply chain or was this well planned? Listen to this week’s episode and learn about the eco-innovations that are happening in the world of Controlled Environment Agriculture.

This week we sat down with Tom Appel, publisher of Consumer Guide Automotive to discuss the latest news in the automotive industry and the challenges manufacturing companies face to ramp up production of EV trucks to meet demand. Tom gives us insight into how car companies are competing in two different automotive markets - cars, and trucks, to meet increased consumer demand for EVs in 2022 and
beyond.

There are currently 2.4 billion people around the world who don’t have access to clean water because of poor or no infrastructure to treat wastewater. This week we spoke to Triangle Environmental’s Founder & Principal Tate Rogers to learn more about the company’s development of a small on-site water treatment system that maximizes the chemical energy potential contained in wastewater to produce zero-waste and valuable effluent streams.  

This week we are joined by AppHarvest founder and CEO Jonathan Webb to discuss how
AppHarvest hopes to become the farm of the future, investing in robotics and artificial
intelligence, while transforming Appalachia into a year-round hub for vegetable production.
Johnathan will also be the keynote speaker at Indoor Ag Con, Feb28- March 1 st in Las Vegas.

President Biden began his term nearly a year ago facing massive environmental and public health challenges. One year in, how has his administration fared when it comes to the big environmental issues - especially ones that don’t get much media coverage?  

This week we’re joined by Lisa Frank with Environment America Research & Policy Center to look at how the current administration is tackling environmental challenges such as climate change, pollution, energy policy, and more. 

This week we spoke with Anthony Dente, principal engineer, Verdant Structural Engineers 

to discuss sustainable building material such as straw, bamboo, hemp, and cob as novel new green building materials.  We review the benefits and limitations and talk about projects in which straw has been used to construct residential and low-rise commercial buildings.

Eight million metric tons of plastic waste end up in our oceans each year. This week we spoke to Patrick Simpson of PKS consulting, who is working to launch a Mobile Plastic Ocean Waste Recycler pilot system in Alaska coastal communities. Listen to the full episode and learn how this system collects plastic in the oceans and turns it into usable plastic building materials, creating an economic driver for ocean cleanup.