As I think you know by now, I believe technology can solve most things - but sometimes the right tech just can’t come fast enough, and in the meantime, the most innovative tool at our disposal may be good old fashioned dialogue. 

Such is the case in Maine where a dwindling population of the large and lumbering North Atlantic Right Whale has pitted lobster fishers and environmentalists against each other. The environmentalists say gear entanglements are largely responsible for the spiralling population which they say risks extinction. The Maine lobster fishers say the numbers show they aren’t to blame for mortalities, and most are loath to adopt current "ropeless" gear citing its expense and lack of proven effectiveness. The polemic threatens Maine’s whole lobster industry which, by the way, contributes 1.5 billion dollars to Maine’s annual economy. 

Both sides have now sued NOAA, the US agency that oversees fisheries management.  One side says the proposed rule changes are overreaching, the other side says they aren’t broad enough.  

NOAA, by law, has to convene all parties and attempt to develop consensus recommendations to save the whales. Our next guest has been mediating the difficult work of that group.

David Plumb of the Consensus Building institute grew up in Maine and  in honour of the recent Mother’s Day holiday,  I should add that he originally learned his mediating craft by taking a class from his mother. Since then he has worked as a professional mediator all around the world.

Today David has the unique, and perhaps unenviable, position of working as the mediator between all of these parties. For us this is an opportunity to better understand what’s at stake and what are the tools available to create both a happier fishery and whale population on the planet.

As you will hear in the podcast, the current congressional ruling pushes changes down the road for several years, while providing for upwards of 50M in annual grant opportunities to innovate solutions. For all of you innovators out there, here are some links about this opportunity:

https://www.maine.gov/dmr/news/fri-12232022-1200-message-commissioner-keliher-federal-budget-package-includes-pause-whale

David Plumb
Consensus Building Institute

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Our guest today is Benjamin Sorkin, Founder of Flux Marine, a Rhode Island-based company innovating electric outboard motors.

I was invited to visit Ben’s shop back in January following a conference organized by the Blue Venture Forum. I was impressed by what I saw. 

Ben and his team have taken electric propulsion technology a long way from when I first looked for an electric outboard for my oyster farm back in 2010. Needless to say at that point, I didn’t find a solution that fit my needs. 

Judging from the clients' boats I saw they have outfitted, Flux Marine seems to be - and pardon the pun - hydroplaning towards the future. 

Benjamin Sorkin
Flux Marine

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Today we’re going to dive into the world of marine research. 

Our guest is Deborah Bronk, President and CEO of Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, a Maine-based marine research institute specializing in ocean microbes like algae, plankton, viruses, and bacteria.

Bigelow Laboratory is a relatively small institute but it's growing fast and having a global impact. Under Deborah's leadership,  interdisciplinarity reigns. Deborah believes in removing silos in ocean research and encouraging the interaction and cooperation of researchers from different disciplines.  Even the layout of their laboratory is designed to reflect this operating principle. And science isn't the only discipline Deborah seeks inspiration from for her researchers. Bigelow currently has an art show installed on campus to inspire her team. 

This strategy seems to be paying off as they are commercializing their research and planning for expansion. 

Deborah Bronk
Bigelow Laboratory For Ocean Sciences

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A number of listeners have reached out with questions about how to get involved in angel investing.  So in this episode I speak to one of the most experienced and articulate angel investors I know. 

Our guest is Adam de Sola Pool, a Venture Capitalist by trade who now has over $1M in angel investments of his own. I met Adam through a blue technology angel investment group in Boston called BlueAngels, which is part of SeaAhead, Boston’s premier marine accelerator and investment platform.

If you are thinking about getting involved in angel investing, this podcast is a great place to start.  Adam shares many pearls of wisdom. 

See below for some helpful links to get started.

Adam de Sola Pool
SeaAhead
Investable Oceans
Maine Angels
Paris Business Angels
Angel Capital Association

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When you think about GOOGLE, ocean innovation may be the last thing that comes to mind. But Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his wife Wendy have been great friends to the ocean and climate, pouring millions into the sector through their Schmidt Family Foundation. 

Our guest today is Mark Schrope. He is the Director of Schmidt Marine Technology Partners, an offshoot of the Schmidt Family Foundation. Schmidt Marine Technology Partners is dedicated to what they call “venture philanthropy” in the marine sector. In other words, without taking equity, they fill an important funding gap in marine innovation that we’ve heard about in many prior episodes. When traditional VCs and grants aren’t available, they can step in. And they do.

Mark Schrope
Schmidt Family Foundation
Schmidt Marine Technology Partners

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This week’s podcast touches upon two themes that are close to my heart: my college town of New York City and oysters!

Our guest today is Murray Fisher. He is the man behind two fairly recent, but already iconic, NYC institutions. In 2002, Murray founded the New York Harbor School, a public high school revolving around New York City’s river. Then in 2010, he co-founded the Billion Oyster Project, a non-profit offshoot of the Harbor School, which aims to restore a billion oysters to the city’s harbor by 2035.

As a former oyster farmer, getting invited to bring my oysters to the Billion Oyster Project’s annual fundraiser was something of a rite of passage. And if bivalve-loving listeners have a chance to attend you should absolutely do so - literally tens of thousands of oysters are shucked and eaten in a matter of hours! It’s an epic party.

We also mention a book that I love in this podcast, tiled The Big Oyster by Mark Kurlansky. It tells the history of NYC through the oyster which at one time was one of the city’s economic and dietetic keystones. It’s definitely worth a read.

Murray Fisher
New York Harbor School
Billion Oyster Project

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This week we’re going to address the planet’s plastic problem. These petroleum-based materials only became mass produced after WW2 but as we heard from our very first guest Bill Curtsinger, as early as the 60s micro-plastics were already being identified as a concern in the remote waters of Antartica.

It was about that time that the 1967 movie, The Graduate came out in which a well-meaning Mr. McGuire famously offers career advice to the young, floundering Ben Braddock. “The future is in plastics,” he says. He was not wrong; the 70s and 80s brought a massive and unrelenting surge of consumer and convenience driven plastics that has only continued to grow. And today here we are with massive swaths of plastic waste forming veritable islands in the Pacific ocean.

And while recycling may make us feel better, only 5% to 6% of U.S. plastics are being recycled. According to a recent Greenpeace report, recycling is not economical, it has environmental and health implications, and most plastics are just fundamentally not recyclable. 

Our guest today, Thibaut Monfort-Micheo, hopes to help solve this problem. He is co-founder of FlexSea, a UK-based company aiming to use use sustainable seaweed to make alternative bio-based and biodegradable plastics.

Thibaut Monfort-Micheo
FlexSea

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I am really excited to introduce you all to Steven Fox, a founding Partner of Propeller VC, a new early stage venture fund that invests in and builds ocean-climate companies that use science and technology to address the climate crisis. Propeller is the brainchild of Hubspot Founder Brian Halligan and it was designed to be the venture partner for Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution otherwise known as WHOI, one of the foremost ocean research institutes in the world. 

While the blue economy is still a nascent segment, there are a handful of ocean focused funds popping up around Europe and the US. But with over 100M under management and a strategic partnership with WHOI, Propeller promises to be one of the major players in this industry.

Steven Fox
WHOI
Propeller VC

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There are a few things that separate winning startups from those that crash. Some of them are pretty obvious: Good leadership. A Good Market Fit. Sufficient Cash on hand to grow. But you also need a good story. And that’s not always easy for entrepreneurs to formulate, especially in an increasingly crowded field like climate or blue innovation where the big picture corporate missions are often overlapping. They all want to save the planet. Today we are going to speak with Alex Searle, a professional storyteller, about the craft of storytelling, why it matters and what are the elements of a good story.

For more about Alex and his services, check out his website: https://www.alex-searle.com


Alex is also the host of a podcast on this subject called The Humble Pie:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-humble-pie/id1551300372?l=fr

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This week we meet Edwina Tanner and Jill Storey of Whale X, an Australian company competing for Elon Musk’s X Prize, a multi-year competition resulting in the awarding of $100M to the best carbon removal project. 

Whale X’s solution? Fertilize the ocean with synthetic whale poop. Before you write that off as silly, know that they are currently in 60th place out of 1,000 applicants. And frankly, who better than Elon Musk to support a seemingly outrageous idea.

Some topics covered in this podcast:

• Diminishing whale population and implications for ocean health
• The mechanics of Carbon Sequestration and why the ocean is optimal 
• Backstory on research from Ocean Nourishment Corporation, Whale X’s mother organization
• The role of whales in the carbon cycle and marine ecosystem in general
• How Whale X would be rolled out
• What they need to get it off the ground
• Elon Musk's X Prize

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This week we are going to speak with Rob Cobbold, COO of Beach Collective, a company that is building a digital platform that merges some of the most abstract and immaterial aspects of the web, like Cryptos and NFTs with some of the most tangible and physical activities on the planet, like community building, ocean conservation, and trash pickup.

Beach Collective is disrupting what they see as a flawed financial system and using their own low-emissions crypto called Beach Token as a tool for change for the better of the planet and its people. People around the world are litereally going to be able to earn Beach Token when they take action - like picking up beach trash - to improve our planet’s health. 

Sound utopian? Well, to date, they’ve raised $150,000 in transaction fees with Beach Token and, with their partners, they have registered planet-healthy actions in 50 countries, removed 150,000+ kgs of trash from the oceans and they have restored 10 hectares of mangroves in 3 countries. So maybe this is something worth paying attention to. 

To hear my conversation with Rob, tune in on Apple, Spotify, or Google. And don’t forget to subscribe on your platformto get automatic updates. If you like what we’re doing, please do spread the word.

Many thanks to Maine Technology Institute, Maine Venture Fund and Spark No.9 for their sponsorship. 

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This week’s guest, Christophe Maier, Founder and CEO of Lagosta. Christophe was raised in Switzerland, on lake Geneva, but once he discovered the Mediterranean he couldn’t get enough of salty waterbodies! 

Fast forward to adulthood and Christophe raises spiny lobsters, not for the European luxury food market as he originally expected, but for the pharma market which is turning out to be a very lucrative pivot. And he doesn’t even harm the lobsters. Instead, he up-cycles spiny lobster by-catch, grows them out in his onshore system and uses their “molts” or shedded shells to produce high-quality Chitosan.

Some of the subjects we will touch upon are:

• How Christophe came to Pivot
• How Climate change is affecting spiny lobsters and the Med in general
• How Christophe raises the spiny lobsters
• The particularities of the spiny lobster
• Traceability and spiny Lobster “fingerprints”
• The benefits of Chitosan 
• Christophe’s growth plans and fundraise
• Christophe’s advice to entrepreneurs

Christophe Maier
Lagosta

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We’ve spoken to a lot of entrepreneurs from around the world in the past few months and there is one thing they all have in common - a corporation. The precise structures of corporations will vary from company to company and country to country but a relatively new corporate certification is working its way around the planet and creating a global standard for how businesses should behave. It’s the B Corp Certification and it’s gaining ground. 

Ben Anderson, a B Corp Leader, and former CEO and Co-Chair of Board of B Lab US & Canada joins the show today to explain how it works and why getting a B makes for good business.

A sneak preview:

• How corporate values have shifted over the years
• What is the B Corp
• The Shareholder v Stakeholder economy
• What are the qualifiers to become B Corp
• How to become B Corp
• What it costs
• How B Corp is helping companies prove ESG
• How it turns out B Corp is good for business performance
• B Corp’s influence on international corporate governance
• Why consumers may want to look for B Corp

Ben Anderson
B Corporation

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Watch out NEMO there’s a new clownfish in town and he’s a lot smarter than you are! Today we are talking to Liane Thompson, co-founder and CEO of Aquaai (Uh-qu-why)- which merges the words aqua and the term AI together. 

Liane has an incredible bio including stints in war reporting and television producing. And she knows a good thing when she sees it. She put Alan Bordain on TV. Today she has been named one of 50 Most Powerful Women in Technology and I can see why.  The unabbreviated list of accolades for Liane and her team is below

Liane and her life partner Simeon Pieterkosky have brought to market a robotic, intelligent clownfish that can monitor waterways and aquaculture facilities and provide actionable data. 

The inspiration came from Simeon’s young daughter who asked him one day to ‘save the seas.’ So, like any good parent, roboticist Simeon got to work building technology that can identify and track environmental changes underwater. 

Aquaai’s Nemo is put to use monitoring sustainable aquaculture systems, measuring and identifying sources of pollution, and is even working to monitor carbon capture. And Nemo is only getting smarter and more talented with time.

Aquaai
Liane Thomson
Simeon Pieterkosky


Accolades for Aquaai:
50 Most Powerful Women in Technology to Follow in 2023, NEOM selected 2022, World’s Top 50 Innovators Codex 2022, Top Tier Impact Awards 2022 (finalist), GreenBiz, Atlantic Council, Verizon Climate Resilience Prize 2022 (finalist), 20 Women Driving the Future of Climate Tech in 2021, OceanPitch Fest 2021 (finalist), 30 Women to Know in Robotics in 2020, Hardware Cup CleanTech 2021 (finalist), Awarded Innovation Norway grant 2020, TEKFISH (2020 trip winner) - Australian Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC), European Commission's Seal of Excellence for Impact, Quality and Efficiency 2020, CDL Graduate 2020, Winner Top Aquaculture Innovation Award Fish 2.0 Stanford Global Forum 2019, Innovative Woman in AI / Blockchain to Follow in 2019

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This week’s guest, Tore Enger, Founder and CEO of the group TECO 2030, is pioneering the fuel cell stacks designed for green hydrogen in trucking and shipping, industries traditionally reliant on diesel fuel.

After speaking with Tore, my worldview on renewables started to broaden. I’d love to know what you think after you listen to the episode. Please feel free to email me with your thoughts. 

One note about this episode, I break down the basic mechanics of green hydrogen in the introduction - what it is, how it works. I’ve tried to keep the explanation short (it’s about one minute) but I wanted the episode to be accessible to all.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Mechanics of green hydrogen
• How green hydrogen is well adapted to the maritime industry
• TECO 2030’s role in the green hydrogen revolution - and who they are working with
• The future of trucking with respect to green hydrogen
• Who the big players of the renewable industry will be in the future
• Norway’s role in the impact economy
• Oslo’s green hydrogen passenger car program
• How some of the biggest players in the renewable space might surprise you
• Building a climate legacy

To hear my conversation with Tore, tune in on Apple, Spotify, or Google. And don’t forget to subscribe on your platformto get automatic updates. If you like what we’re doing, please do spread the word.

Many thanks to Maine Technology Institute, Maine Venture Fund and Spark No.9 for their sponsorship. 

I’d also like to thank our promotional partners. Investable Oceans is a US-based angel platform specializing in ocean-related startups. Oceanovation is a Dutch-South African hub for entrepreneurs and investors in blue tech innovation.

I’d love your thoughts on how the podcast is going and please, if you like the show, 

TECO2030
TORE ENGER

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• The importance of Kelp Forests
• How urchin barrens form and become toxic for the ecosystem including for themselves
• Japan’s pioneering of the blue carbon credit space
• How sometimes the best entrepreneurs piece together technology rather than create it
• Farming Uni
• How uni are what they eat and what Urchinomic’s feeds them
• The global uni market
• When we’re all going to be able taste Brian’s uni
• Prioritizing speed even when it might seem too ambitious
• Leaving a climate legacy

To hear my conversation with Brian, tune in on Apple, Spotify, or Google. And don’t forget to subscribe on your platformto get automatic updates. If you like what we’re doing, please do spread the word.

Brian Tsuyoshi Takeda
Urchinomics

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Today we cross the pond and speak with Harry Wright, Founder of Bright Tide, a UK-based consultancy helping businesses achieve their milestones and sustainability goals through hackathons, accelerator programs, and advisement. 

Harry is particularly interested in fostering the nascent blue carbon market where carbon sequestration can be much more impactful, but where it’s notoriously hard to measure. His current accelerator cohort is focusing on cracking that nut.

In this episodes we hear:

• Why Harry left the practice of law to focus on nature positive business 
• How policy for the climate and impact business is evolving in the UK faced with BREXIT, a new Prime Minister and a new Head of State
• What is Natural Capital 
• How nature can bounce back if we let it 
• How Harry plans on accelerating the blue carbon agenda in the UK and beyond

In the short time since he left his law practice to focus on Bright Tide, Harry has helped dozens of startups get to the next level and advised many established corporates on how to be pro-nature and truly sustainable. His is also a story of personal drive to make the planet a happier one.

UNDP Sustainability Goals
Bright Tide
Harry Wright

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This week we meet Nanette Medved-Po, a Philippine entrepreneur who began her career as an actress and became a regional celebrity thanks to her role as the local version of Wonder Woman. Since then she has employed her education, smarts, and star power to help others and the planet.

Nanette is a board member of the WFF Asia and was named one of Forbes’ Heroes of Philanthropy. Most recently she founded The Plastic Credit Exchange, fashioned after carbon credit exchanges, in order to tackle the problem of plastic waste. It’s the first of its kind and they are going global.

I love this story because Nanette’s path is so varied and because the Plastic Credit Exchange came about in order to solve a problem she felt she had created by trying to solve another problem!

This is a meaty episode where we learn not only how the exchange came to be but we also talk UN Basel Convention, Greenpeace, incineration 2.0, Extended Producer Responsibility, and why the perfect can be the enemy of the good when it comes to impact entrepreneurship.

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As promised, Happy Planet is kicking off 2023 with an interview with Patrick Breeding, the young founder who says he’s building Maine’s next “unicorn.” And he’s doing it with a lobster based skincare product that is flying off the shelves. 

His company is Marin Skincare, a Maine-based company founded by couple Patrick and his girlfriend Amber Boutiette who met at the University of Maine and whose lives changed when they got hooked up with The Lobster Institute. 

In this episode we learn:

• How a personal tragedy can lead to a profound desire to do good
• How two university students stumbled into a skincare solution
• How science majors may be particularly well suited for entrepreneurship
• How grants can provide important early funding for startups
• Why it's nice to have a co-founder
• How this company is using PR to drive sales
• How this company is pushing off fundraising as long as they can.

Mentions in this episode

Patrick Breeding
Amber Boutiette
Marin Skincare
MTI
The Lobster Institute
Luke's Lobster
Luke Holden

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Meet Chip Terry, Founder and CEO of BlueTrace, a Maine based software company aiming to digitize the seafood industry where the vast majority of tagging, tracing and reporting is still done with pen and paper. 

Smart and funny, Chip was a lot of fun to interview. But his story also resonates with many entrepreneurs because the problem he is solving now is not the one he set out to solve originally. A couple years in, he made a full pivot and in doing so transformed his potential customer base from a subset of aquaculturists to virtually any harvester or dealer in the global seafood market. Sometimes it takes getting in to find the right path.

I’d like to thank Maine Venture Fund, a two time investor in BlueTrace, for sponsoring this episode. 

In this podcast we’ll learn the following and more:

• When Chip knew it was time to pivot - and how he did it
• Why digitizing the seafood industry is urgent 
• How racing lasers is good training for entrepreneurship
• How Chip raised money in this terrible fundraising climatee

Mentioned in the episode:
BlueTrace
Maine Technology Institute
Chip Terry
Maine Venture Fund

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Meet Lisa Scali of Ocean’s Balance, a seaweed-based food startup specializing in staple pantry items. This is a particularly fun episode for me because Lisa and I met in graduate school at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) many years ago. Since then our paths have crossed again and again with us both ending up in Maine aquaculture!  And to add to that, Lisa's business partner Mitchell Lench is also a SIPA alum. 

In this podcast we’ll learn:

• How working for yourself is a game-changer
• How Lisa’s European heritage and experience are helping her create award-winning products
• Why Americans should eat more seaweed and why it should be locally farmed 
• How seaweed is grown and the respective merits of different strains
• How seaweed sequesters carbon
• Where Ocean’s Balance is in their growth cycle and what it’s like raising money.
• Why Maine is a good place to start a business.
• Lisa’s advice for fellow entrepreneurs.

Also a huge thank you to Lisa for being my first guinea pig on this podcast. There was a bit of a learning curve and we had to do a second take! A supportive friend!

Mentioned in this episode:
Lisa Scali
Ocean's Balance
New England Ocean's Clusters
Gulf of Maine Research Institute
Maine Technology Institute
Katapult VC
Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs

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In this week’s episode of Happy Planet we meet Bernard Hidier, Co-Founder of Finsulate.  The serial impact-entrepreneur shares his story of how the sea urchin inspired his company’s totally unique approach to marine anti-fouling. 

Bernard is a French-born entrepreneur living in the US. He’s a brilliant, energetic serial entrepreneur who is as philosophical in his approach to business building as he is pragmatic. And that combo seems to be working. 

In this podcast we’ll learn:

• What is biomimicry?
• How sea urchins inspired Finsulate?
• How the French used to think "innovation" was heretical and how - fortunately - that has changed.
• How they are going about rolling out this business?
• What’s different about startups in France and the US
• How Finsulate is raising capital.
• What advice Bernard has for other entrepreneurs.

Finsulate
Bernard Hidier
New England Ocean Clusters

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