KGCI: Real Estate on Air - How to Reduce Waste In Daily Life

Episode Date: April 22, 2024

Hello everyone, this is Izumi Tanaka with Home Green Homes podcast. Today I have special guest, Denise Brown, and she is a president and co-founder of All About Waste. And first of all, I want to ask Denise about your background. I know you're from Brazil, but I just want to know I always ask my guest about how you end up in this space. You know, we could be doing all different things and how you became a specialist in the waste, right? So Denise, tell me where you came from and what's your background? Yeah, well, thank you for having me here. I love, I admire your work you've been doing in the green building industry.

And I appreciate the space to talk about waste because there's there's not enough channels or conversations or opportunities that I see around waste. So thank you so much for making this space. So my journey started back in Brazil 20 years ago. But actually going even further back, when I was 9 years old, I was on my beach house. near Sao Paulo because San Paulo is not on the beach. You need kind of travel like an hour to go to the beach. And there was like a huge flood.

And all I remember was waste flooding with the water with a flood. And that traumatized me like a really impact, made such a huge impact in my life. That stayed with me. And then I let my parents move to the house. to another house and they bought a house that was one of the largest sustainable development. It's like a district. I think in entire America is definitely the South America. It's called Riviera de San Lorenzo.

And that area, it really was very interesting because back then didn't have lead or anything like that. This is like 30 years ago. But they use all the ISO 14,001 as a concept to develop this district. And they had, for the first time, they had, I experience living there and all that. They have recycling in Brazil different than the U.S. We have similar to Japan. We have different waste streams for the different materials. And on top of that, they hire local jobs to,

sort the way. So they have like a MRF, what we call like a material recovery facility, without robots or anything like that, was totally manual. And the money from that, the sales, the recyclables were coming back to the community. So really that shape my personality that, you know, this is, and this, again, it was on the beach and there was like so many other things. They have like green corridors and all that. And I started looking at sustainability. different lenses and like really like leaving that right then um i graduated um psychologists by training and i start working with human resources at large um editing and publish publisher uh company in brazil and then one of my clients i call her my angel gave me a book one day and she said

you need to read this book and the book is the natural steps it's a old book for the young generations who are watching us now. But it's one of the first books that actually translates sustainability to businesses. Oh, wow. And it's all, it's really cool because it's the majority of the book, it's case study. So they give you a principle, a concept of sustainability, and they're saying, this is how IKEA implemented is. This is how General Motors, whatever it is, implement this concept.

And I read the book in one week and I closed a book and I said, that's it. That's what I want to do. I want to work with sustainability. I want to work with waste. I knew waste was something reading the book and with all my life, I always was worried about waste. I didn't know there was a work that could translate to indirect working with waste. So then I got my first job in a large engineering company in Brazil who was doing. the first lead projects in Brazil.

They need somebody to track and monitor their construction waste of all the lead projects that they were doing. So that's how everything started and I never stopped for 20 years. Wow. So yeah, this is a little bit of short, long story short. Yeah, I'm sure there's a lot of small little wonderful stories in between. between. And so tell me about all about waste. This is a business that you started. And what is what I can kind of see where how it came about, but tell me about the genesis of all about waste. Yeah. Thank you. So all about waste. It's a minority own consulting firm.

Um, focused on zero waste and circular economy solutions. specifically for the building environment, all the way from operations, building operations, different type of building operations, all the way from data centers we've been working with, distribution centers, tech companies, multifamily buildings, multi-tenant buildings, and so on, to construction buildings. So design and construction. How can we apply zero-waste concepts, initiatives and circular concepts and initiatives in the design and the construction of a building to promote this, you know, for the companies, for the developers, developers, the investors, and the community.

Right. So that's what we do. We've been very grateful to be the world leaders of the true zero-e certification, which is the same certification own and management. owned and managed by USGBC, the US Green Building Council. I say it's like a friend, like a cousin or a sister of the lead certification. Definitely is the only certification in the world that focused solely on zero waste for the building environment.

So we don't have homes yet. I will love to work in a single family home. Yeah. on that, but we don't have that yet. We just certified the first true for construction site in San Francisco. It's a biotech campus. This is Marina.

I can share a link to you. You can share with your audience. So we've been leading the true certification in the world. As I mentioned, we have literally projects all over the world. In India, we have a commercial interior. pursuing true for construction sites, but we certify last year a large campus in Dublin, pursuing true for operations. We have projects all over the United States.

We have projects in Brazil. We have projects in Dubai. Everybody, unfortunately, generate waste, and everybody needs a waste alone. Yeah. Yeah. To make waste. Amazing. I'm just so inspired by what you're doing.

And so how long ago did to start the All About Waste? It's a good question because I started all about waste when eight years ago. And it was like I don't understand why I did that, but I do kind of do. So I got pregnant and eight years ago at my son, my baby. and I was encouraged very much by my husband who was like, Denise, if you want to, because for almost 20 years, you know, I've been working for a consulting firm or engineering firm who was able to give me some space to talk about ways,

but not the space I needed to really make the transformation that I could see, right, for us to do. So he's like, just use this opportunity. You want to stay at home and stay with your son here in the US for the moms and the parents who doesn't have kids yet. We don't have maternity leave. Very different than the rest of the world. And I was able actually to get three months of maternity leave.

And then after that, I left my consulting, the consulting firm that I was. consulting for and then I open all about waste. Wow. Well, I think it was a decision about like seeing, having a bigger impact, like the impact that I want to see and at the same time trying to stay a little more with my family and give the mother support and the time to my son. Yeah. Well, congratulations.

You've done some amazing things. Thank you. That's a short period of eight years. Yeah. So I, you know, the reason that I was really interested in talking to you was, of course, what you've done with All About Waste is, you know, inspiring and impressive. But I'm just curious how you implement that in that personal life because I myself struggle with, you know, like I, I, honestly, I go to Trader Joe's and buy my groceries. Everything comes plastic. Everything in plastic, right?

And each time I am replacing something like toothbrush, for instance, or, you know, I stopped buying surround wraps, you know, and started to use some silicon, you know, cover, food covers and stuff like that. But there's just no way that I can eliminate plastic in my life. So I just want to know how you do it. Do you have any specific method that you use in your life? Or how are you doing with waste reduction in your personal life? Yeah, it's a great question. It's funny because yesterday I was invited to speak in a school, in a city nearby where I live.

And it was my first time actually speaking, because normally when I speak, it's like I talk to you like, tech companies, you know, like the clients or the industry work with and not necessarily, you know, students or, you know, like on more personal level, right? Yeah. So, and I thought it was very cool because, so they invited me to speak exactly the subject you asked me. And I love the fact that there was like so many teenagers and young adults attending the event.

So that's definitely some, you can feel that this movement, it's getting more traction. But I think to be very honest with you and very realistic, I don't expect, and I think that's very, very important for us who works with sustainability for so many years and we live this. This is our work. This is our life. I think it's important for everybody. to understand that nobody's perfect. And we don't need a bunch of like few perfect people. We need a bunch of everybody trying their best.

Right. Or trying somehow. Yeah. So that's my main message, I would say. I'm not perfect, even that I'm obsessed with waste and obsessed, like reducing my waist and all that. I loved her to Joe's. I do shop for you know, my son, I have a kid.

And like I was just telling you yesterday too, like one of the things that drives me insane is Halloween. Halloween in the United States, we give thousands of candy. My son gets a bag. Yeah. Full of baggy. All that candy is literally trash for us and trash for the apartment. Mm-hmm. So, but I'm not going to like private him, stop him doing Halloween because he's inserting this culture and all that.

because of my awareness about waste. So we need to be flexible. It's important to that. I think my two things that I always say is like for everybody, you as a consumer, us as a consumer, we have an enormous power to make the transformation that we want to see. But in one of the transformation as a consumer is select. the right product because the competitor who is not doing the right packaging, the right

product is going to see that they're losing clients to the competitor that is doing more sustainable products and produce and materials. So he's going to change. He's only going to change because us as a consumer are driving that change by purchasing the right or the best material available for us. So that's number one. And then the second thing is be aware. Try to be aware of things.

Like just you go into trade jobs and be aware that that is a plastic. And, you know, there are a few things like sometimes they do like something in an aluminum can or something like that. Go and buy it. You know, like so be aware. It's like a huge, I think it's a huge step for us. But what I do on the daily basis, I've been doing that for a long time, is always like, actually, there was a question really good yesterday from a mom. And she said if there was like, because I made a presentation and I organized by kind of the area in the house that you could focus on waste. So bathroom, kitchen and laundry mainly, right?

And then she's like of those three areas you brought it up and I brought like samples of things that I have at home so they can see and I'm like I bought this at Target. I buy this at Costco. I buy this online and so on so they can see that it's feasible to do it. But she asked me what are the three areas you mentioned. What is the most impactful one that you like if you could start there? Where do you start and I would say kitchen. So if you want to be come zero waste or have a less impact, including for your health, yeah, starting your kitchen. So let's try it, cook less, choose your products, better products, like possible organic, local, you know, there's a simple thing that I've always recommend. It's like the dish, the dish.

brush, things like that, the soap. There are so many options. Even, again, at Target, I buy my dish soap at Target. Oh, really? Yeah. And it's a refillable one. It's called Grove Collaborative. They are a massive competitor of like traditional household cleaning products because they have everything

and everything. It's very sustainable and zero. Yeah. Yeah. So it's possible, you know, but I would say definitely if you want to start, if you want to focus on something, kitchen, almost your food, try to as much as you can to not sending material food to landfill, buy local and try to buy bulky or refillable products and food and so on. So they're, we're very privileged in LA and other cities too. You can go just Google like zero a store and there's like even websites like a blog where they compile a list of, you know, zero way stores around you. Right, right.

Yeah, I have been going to a store where I get my dish soap refilled. So I bring a jar of glass jar and I get it refilled each time. I run out. And then like little things like shampoo, like, you know, everything comes in plastic container. So now I'm using the bars, you know, like the solar bars. What else I've gotten, I've switched the dental floss. Mental floss, yes. Yeah. Right. So what are your, like, other than like looking at the, the Google, you know, waste-free stores and stuff, anything else? that you can think of in terms of like, you know, when you're purchasing food items that might come in plastic packaging or plastic bags or something, how are you managing that? Do you go to

farmer's market to purchase your produce? What is your practice? Yeah, it's a good question. Food actually, I think it's getting better and better. Yeah. To be honest, where I live, I don't have a farmer's market that I can walk. I wish I could live in Santa Monica. Yeah. And I could walk to the like really good for us market. Definitely. If you have the like I grew up going to a farmer's market in Brazil. It is it's a very traditional thing on Saturdays or Sundays. At least my family, but I imagine like looking at other family too is to go to the farmer's market and you spend the morning there. And that's normally the moment I used to have with my dad, because he used to work a lot. And it was so cool because I experienced, like, you really create a relationship with that person.

You know, yeah, I remember my dad is like, we'll talk to the guy. And he's like, oh, I separated the eggs for you or I separated tomatoes because he knew the client. That's we lack in a supermarket, right? this connection, what the customer likes and so on, that in a firmness market, you have that option. So it goes beyond just the waste. It goes to like the social aspect, you know, the business. It's very important for those small producers to have the opportunity to know their clients, to sell without having, you know,

a large grocery store behind and so on. But one of my favorite, and I've been doing this for a long time, it's a service called Imperfect Produce. Yes, I get them too. Yeah. They are amazing and they got so much better. Now, when I start ordering with them,

so Imperfect Produce for those who knows, it's a box online, that right now you can even select what produce, it could come all the way from meat to eggs to letters and fruits and vegetables. You really customize how much you want. If you only want a box of fruits. It's really cool. And what I love about it is because they kind of rescue produce normally.

That's kind of how they started. that you don't see in a supermarket because the supermarket is so worried about how aesthetics and how it's play and so on that it a lot I think it's like 38% of the food of the United States that we don't we throw away because we don't eat either because of a restaurant or because from the produce to the grocery store is not they don't accept that. so they can throw away. They kind of like a beautiful, ugly or like aesthetic, you know, carrot because that carrot's not perfect. But for me, I want that carrot. Yeah. So I think, you know, those services are great. And definitely farmers market, have the luxury, because I think it's a

luxury. Yeah. Walk to your farmer's market or to go to a farmer's market, creating that connection and so on. It's something I really recommend. And then try to like Sprouts. It's a good supermarket. It has a lot of also options for bulky. You can refill like your granola, your rice, and you're bringing your own container. I think Sprouts is very underrated kind of supermarket.

They're doing really good. They've been doing a lot of sustainability stuff. And then, you know, traditional whole foods and things like that. They can buy in bulk and things like that I recommend. Yeah, but even those sprouts or whole food, even Trader Joe's like when I walk down the aisle and how they have to keep that shelves packed, right, all the time. And I always like, do they all get consumed? You know, like like the case of the vegetables, right? Like, you know, they, they separate the ones that didn't look good, you know, throw away.

But how about those boxed items or packaged items? Like I always like, there's so many stores now that it's always fully stopped. And I always worry about, you know, where do they go? I mean, they're not going to all get consumed, right? Yeah. Actually, there's a huge movement, especially in Europe, and especially in the U.S., actually, that literally people that live, they're not homeless. They're normally like young generation that live going dumpster diving.

Yeah. On, you know, supermarket and groceries, bins, dumpsters and get their food there because a lot of the food, it's pretty good, or it's a buyer to expire. There are one supermarket that I think they do something like that. It's like called Smart and Final. the price is pretty affordable and I think their business development it's pretty much like talking to either producers or other grocery stores and say hey your meat or whatever it's about to expire sell to us or donate to us they probably suffer nothing and then they put a profit

margin a little bit because they probably bought for like one dollar a box of of eggs they sell for three and at normally you know whole foods you buy for eight yeah right so you have that option for from some supermarkets i i worked before a little bit with um the dollar not it's not general uh 190 99 their business model is very similar they they collect a lot of materials that are buyer to expire. Oh, I see. Port or things like that, you know, like a container that's been sitting in the port. And it's about to expire.

They buy that for nothing and they sell. Wow. And then it's funny because I went to to rear up for two months for work last year. And that's one of the things that shocked me a lot because a lot of the support. markets are smaller. Mm-hmm. They're like kind of local supermarkets.

The shells are smaller. There's a, you know, there's, I don't know, maybe three or four type of pasta or price here. Everything is so massive. Like, why we even need, I get sometimes overwhelmed to go. That's why I like to be honest to go to Trudeau because it's smaller. I feel overwhelmed. going to Costco and all that.

And that's, I think, the culture that it's hard for immigrants to adapt. It's like, it's funny. Like, even the Europeans make fun of us because they're like, oh, you go to Costco and then you need a bigger car, transport the Costco purchase, and then you need a bigger house. Exactly. Big pantry. Yeah.

Yeah. Right. So I know. That's, that's, it doesn't happen in the rest. of the world, especially you don't have big cars. When you go groceries, you take the train or the bus or your bike. Yeah. Find smaller quantities. Everything. Exactly. More, again, the awareness, you know, it's much bigger. And the structure make that type of behavior be more aware. Yeah. You know, if you're cooking a pasta, you go and buy the pasta before you

cook on pretty much the tomatoes and that or the next day you're not going to buy like a box tomato that you buy at Costco right yeah so what do you have you know you are a mom so you must have other mom friends with kids so what do you tell them how do you put your message across to some of your friends or peer mothers and other parents it's funny because a lot of people think that I'm a waste police. When they see me, they're like, if they have like something like reusable and all that, they're like, see, I'm using this. Or of the opposite, they're hide.

Like, Denise, please don't say anything. I know this is wrong. So they're like kind of, they call me the police. And I'm a normal try to hold myself and not say anything. but I think it's so the message is so strong and all that, that they kind of have that type of behavior. So it's funny. One of my favorite things that I've been doing since they want,

I started doing birthday parties for my son, is really putting a huge effort to do a zero-waste party. So that being said, I do have like a lot of reusables in my garage. that I keep for parties in general. Right. Normally my son is the only son and he likes to have a lot of people. So the last year we did like a party for 100 people. Oh, wow.

And it was all reusable. You know, I have reasonable glasses for wine. I have reusable glasses for kids. I didn't have like, normally you go to like a kid's party. They have like all those juice boxes. they're terrible. Yeah. Yeah.

And I'm like, nope, we are actually making juice here. So I bought like a like kind of a water dispenser and I put water. I have water. I have like juices and I got. I made so many like parties that I will talk to the catering and I said, I have my dishes. I will bring it to you. And you bring instead of like plastic or anything like that, I will take. care of everything. So that's something I've been doing. It's a lot of work. But it's, it's so cool.

It's, I feel so good. And everybody, I think the people that are in the party enjoy and feel like more. I don't know if it's respect, but they feel like treated differently than drinking wine in a plastic cup. You know, they're actually drinking a glass or like a green glass that looks like a a wine cup. So that's what I've been doing. I've been volunteering for my son's school. And literally every single opportunity that I have to like, hey, by the way, it's not a gentle way.

I think it's very important. I'm not better than anybody again. Right. I'm not here to change or anybody. Like, you know, I want to be very positive. That's the message I want to bring with my work. And what I do, it needs to be positive. And so I try to, when I have the opportunity, which I'm trying to be more, control myself more to, you know, become like a discussion and all that, then, yeah, I will bring some feedback.

But I would say the best way always, that's my philosophy, is your attitudes. So more than talking, do yourself. If you have kids or if you want to do a party, a dinner at your home, don't sell on plastic utensils. Don't have plastic utensils. Please put an effort, show to your guest that, you know, that's, I think I admire so much about the Japanese culture because there's all this, the ceremony, the, you know, this that sometimes I think, especially with disposable things, we'd lose that. That connection. That's, you know, you're my guess. I'm receiving you in my house.

I'm honored to have you in my house and vice versa, right? So I think the ways to kind of translate that, the type of materials that you serve, you have guests that translate a lot. Yeah. So, add-ins, definitely. So what is your goal, Denise, in terms of, I know you have a very big goals with your business,

but in your personal life, what would be your ideal? life look like if you were to eliminate as much waste as you can? I think, I think again, my life, my personal life and my professional lives are very connected. Sure. But my dream is definitely be on a higher level, have some type of influence with the government, on policies and yeah like some i don't i don't not necessarily i'm looking for it to be like a governor you know a mayor or anything like that but be like a trusted advisor

or the mayors for the governor and and so on for leaders that could really make a big change when it comes to like community and society. That's that's definitely something I would like to do. Yeah. Yeah. So great. I am so glad I got to finally talk to you. I've been wanting to do this for a long time.

I know. Thank you so much, Denise. I know there's so much more I want to talk to you about, but I am running out of time. So I thank you so much. And tell us how people can find you, Denise. Yeah, so I have a LinkedIn page, Denise Braun. Braun, it's the version, the German version of the color brown.

Yeah. There you can see. It's B-R-A-U-N. So definitely LinkedIn or my website, All About Waste.org. That's probably also one of the things that I would love to do. it's transformed my business to a non-profit, some type of an institution that we can make more work with different communities and other non-profit organizations. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much again for your time, Denise. I know you're very busy,

and I'm really grateful that I finally got to talk to you. Thank you so much. This was Izumi Tanaka with Home Green Homes.