About This Episode
Episode #4 is with Christen Montero. She was chosen as the top 100 most influential Filipina Women and is the co-founder of both Blue Social and CannaBoss Lifestyle!
Topics discussed in this podcast include:
1. How to become a fashion designer
2. Sustainability in fashion
3. High end fashion branding
4. New Technologies in Fashion
5. Advice to fashion designers
Listen To The Episode On Spotify
Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to The Brew. Today, we’re joined by Christen Montero, who is the co-founder of Blue Social as well as the founder of CannaBoss Lifestyle. So to get started, tell us a little bit about your time abroad, because I know recently you just did a trip to London, as well as other places in Europe to explore more about CannaBoss lifestyle as well as some other events. So can you tell me more about that?
[00:00:43] Yeah, thanks, Val. Thanks for having me here on the show today. So I just got back from Paris and last year I was awarded in London as most influential Filipina. And congratulations. Thank you.
[00:00:56] And when I was in Paris, I was actually there speaking on fashion, sustainability and corporate social responsibility in general and at the same time being founder of CannaBoss Lifestyle. Right now, our whole mission is to help fashion designers internationally to really grow their brand in the United States market and also be mindful of the carbon footprint that goes along with the supply chain going all the way to international countries, to Europe, China, Japan. So it was really good. It was a fun adventure, definitely speaking and also getting to know some of the fashion designers and their struggles. That really shows that, you know, even though there’s fashion designers out there that are already, you know, the public sees that they made it because there’s such celebrities wearing their clothing. At the same time, a lot of people don’t realize that some of the same fashion designers are still struggling today. And a lot of it is partially because the way that the system of the fashion industry is built right now and how it feeds into society, but also the lack of support that’s needed to actually operate a retail business versus just being a fashion creative.
[00:02:15] Yeah, I think that’s a super important point that you bring up, a lot of times you see a piece of clothing whereby a famous celebrity is one on one of the red carpet or it’s worn out like in Vogue magazine or whatever. It’s all over the place. It’s very publicized, has a lot of PR push. But just because that very, very expensive piece which that celebrity most likely never even paid for because you give it as an endorsement doesn’t mean that’s going to convert into an actual regular everyday person buying that piece of clothing. And that’s usually because of branding, business development, the retail stores, online web presence, all these factors that they usually don’t consider. So would you say that the biggest struggle for fashion designers in general is more that they’re really creative, not a person? Is that where you think that the kind of disconnect comes from?
[00:02:56] Yeah, I think definitely that is a huge disconnect. And a lot of individuals, even in different types of business, think that, OK, anybody can run a business and anybody can.
[00:03:08] But it’s more to just bossing people around and telling people what to do. And a lot of times it requires a team of people. And when you want to make clothing, for example, you can only make so much being yourself at a certain point, there’s going to need to be somebody who’s managing the fabric inventory to make sure that you have the fabric that you’re using for your different projects to making sure that it’s the right fabric. So even doing R&D for fabric research to develop high quality products is there’s a lot of work that goes into it. And a lot of times, you know, as creatives, we don’t want to spend that time doing all the research for venturing and setting up these partnerships and filling out these forms and applications and getting this permit. And so there’s even a lot of legal stuff that goes into really operating a true business in general, let alone a fashion business. A lot of times it only goes so long just succeeding, as you know, carrying your own brand as a fashion designer. But if you ever truly want to scale rather than just rather than just ride the hype, I’m learning the operational side of business is crucial.
[00:04:22] Yeah, I think that’s that’s a good point, because the one thing that I think a lot of fashion designers really don’t think about is the supply chain itself. So if you’re international fashion designer and you have a piece of clothing that you make somewhere in Europe. Yeah. And somebody in the United States wants to buy that piece of clothing. Now, you’ve got to think of Import-Export. You’ve got to think of the taxes. On top of that, you have to think of if you can actually legally even ship it over, then you have to think of how you package it, if it’s going to even get there. And then once it gets there is even the right fit. So there’s a lot of, I think, problems, but there’s a lot of opportunities in that space because it is such a traditional industry. It’s been around for a long time. That’s why I do see that the same problems are reoccurring because it has been a PR industry. It has been this huge push. But now it’s slowly I mean, not necessarily a high end fashion designers, but just, you know, everyday fashion designers, very like low end, just making not necessary fast fashion, but just making clothing pieces. A lot of people are using, you know, boutique stuff like Etsy, they’re using Shopify. So they’re at least kind of creating ecommerce presence.
[00:05:20] But I really don’t see that on the high end luxury side, yeah, so on the high end luxury side, it’s really hard to establish yourself as a brand in high end luxury. And usually you’re doing a lot more community endorsements than trying to sell retail initially. So there’s a lot of issues that also happen when you’re doing things on Etsy or looking to just establish a fashion company in that manner, because there’s also a lot of waste that goes into the fashion industry. And although it’s good that we have a lot of entrepreneurs that are getting into fashion, I mean, creating these fashion brands, I also think it’s really important that we’re mindful of where we’re getting our fabrics and our resources and how those fabrics are being created, because right now we’re dealing with the whole issue of fast fashion and the fact that the fashion world is the largest polluter to waste and then in the entire industries of industries other than oil. Yeah. And, you know, some people may not know that actually high end designers rather burn their clothes in piles of clothing and sell it at a discount to a consumer because they don’t want to lose the reputation of their brand that they have of high quality. And sometimes consumers do, you know, think of pricing and think of quality. And there is and not marketing a pricing strategy aspect to marketing itself. But one thing that’s really important for all people looking to get into fashion or starting their own fashion is really to be new advocates of change of sustainable fashion and finding ways to weather design their designs with sustainable fabrics and recyclable fabrics, because nowadays sustainability can mean just fair wages. And that’s getting thrown a lot. And I’ve seen it in a lot of manufacturing plants abroad especially. And there’s only very few that actually turn recycled bottles into fabrics and weaved clothing, apparel that you can use and maybe some of them and not maybe, but actually some of them don’t even create the clothing. They just create the fabric to be used to create clothing again. And I think it’s really important where we become really aware of that and start using those type of suppliers.
[00:07:40] I agree. And I think that’s another important point is the word sustainability is such a vague word, like it’s so ambiguous. It’s like, what does it really mean to be sustainable? Because there’s so many different areas of sustainability. So when I hear that thrown out by large corporations, it really makes me question because you saying something doesn’t mean your actions are following. And this is shown by HLM and all of these companies, because what they do is they slap on sustainability on their stuff, but they’re really taking out one process. Maybe what they’re doing that’s like one percent of the waste that they’re pushing out and then they’re calling that sustainability. And then the consumer, when you read, they’re like, all right, it’s sustainable, it’s cheap. I’ll buy. It looks good. But that kind of goes into the horrors of fast fashion, which is a lot of times fast fashion looks at what are the trends right now. They use algorithms to look at like all these amazing, you know, luxury pieces of xrayed like this are how do we make that super cheap and how do we mass produce it? Then they do that in a cycle. And the amounts of different clothing that comes out, I don’t know what your numbers are, but they come up with, like the amount of clothing lines. They come up per year. It would blow your mind, like the number is so high because they’re just coming out. It was like every week they come out every other day or something like that. They come up with a new piece of clothing because they just see the trends and then they push a certain amount of product and they sell it on the market. Yeah. And then the consumer will buy more and more and more even though they don’t need it and just wear it one time.
[00:08:57] Right. So I think you bring up a good point that there’s actually a responsibility for the consumer, you know, ourselves and we’re all consumers and it’s really, you know, starting to be more cautious and care about the products that we choose to hold companies responsible to truly being sustainable from the aspect of caring about environmental sustainability and using recyclable products. You see it a lot with people who are flagging around this corporate responsible. You know, we’re corporately responsible and, you know, what does that mean? A lot of people are saying, oh, well, we’re environmentally conscious and friendly or, you know, they say that we’re we’re increasing our corporate responsibility and this is what we’re doing now. But usually a lot of times they’re just tweaking one little thing in the process to be able to use that as a marketing play. It’s not that it’s actually in their operations or their business model. So I think that’s where consumers are self, you know, is encouraging companies to become more transparent about their processes operationally and also using block chain technology in this whole environmental, you know, change that we’re going to right now, even in this nation and in the world in general and using that. Analogy to keep integrity and also be able to track where the sourcing of recyclable fabrics are even coming from, because even if a company says we got these recyclable fabrics, how do we know it’s truly recyclable or how do we know that the plant that they’re getting it from is actually using clean, recycled products to create this product and not just saying that it was recycled and now it’s coming into this fabric weave?
[00:10:49] Yeah, I agree. And I think that’s another important thing to think about is the word CSR. It’s important for any company needs to think about their corporate social responsibility. It’s honestly part of a corporation nowadays that that they need to include it in some way, shape or form. But the question comes from, are you doing it because a good faith or are you doing it because of profits? At the end of the day? And a lot of times when I do see the word sustainability, that’s when I do start questioning it. But there are some good examples of people are using CSR companies that are using CSR and that’s really benefiting them. For example, Adidas plans. But I think it’s I don’t remember the exact date. It’s like twenty, twenty three or might have been twenty, twenty six or twenty five or whatever, that they want to make most of their clothing out of recycled materials. Same thing with a company in Finland built into their entire approach, which I think is very, very smart, is that they are trying to do it through all plastic and renewables. However, they realize that they can’t 100 percent make all their clothing out of it. But right now that even on their website says about thirty nine percent is made out of it, that’s a start. And at least they’re honest about it. They’re saying this much recycled materials going into this this our building it out and their entire brand is around that. So that’s why I think it becomes legitimate when your brand pushes that image. Not necessarily. I’m just going to slap it onto my brand and let’s hopefully it catches on. But if you’re authentic from the start and you’re showing because on their website, they literally show how much like gallons of water, they’re saying it’s an Finlandia liters of water they’re saving and how they’re actually helping the environment, how much pollutants they’re removing and how much textiles and fabrics and all this kind of stuff. Yeah, having stats in front of you scares you, because when I see how much this industry actually creates pollutants, it will blow your mind. Actually, let me pull up some stats because it’s interesting to look at the numbers. So right now it says, um. Thirty five percent of all micro plastics, which is the biggest pollutants that go into our oceans, is made from textile factories and. Yeah. Polyester. So that means that it’s coming directly from the fashion industry and that is in twenty seventeen. So, yeah, that’s definitely going to be a lot higher. Yeah. And the issue with that is because of the trajectory of the jump in profits too. So the jump in the fashion industry profits and how fast it’s growing, it’s only going to cause more and more of this factory to come back into play of sustainability, because if they’re producing more and more and more, if they’re not making these systems now of like how they’re going to be sustainable, it’s really just going to cause more pollutants. Yeah. Which goes into our oceans, which causes these problems. And I always think it’s funny because we bend straws, but then we don’t go towards the industries with a real problem, not necessarily the product, but go towards the industry.
[00:13:24] Right. Right. And that’s something also, you know, as United States citizens, a lot of us aren’t truly aware of even the recycling process compared to other countries. You know, we think that all plastic is recyclable even. And and that was actually just a huge campaign that was done in the United States by the companies that were creating these plastics to convince consumers that plastic was actually truly recyclable and didn’t destroy the planet. The truth is that even certain plastics are numbered. I think it’s like one through 10 or all these different categories. And a lot of the different categories of plastics truly can’t still be recycled, even though we all throw all plastics into recycling. So like you said, it’s not only being cautious as consumers in purchasing certain products, but holding industries liable to say, OK, you use all of this type of chemical to create all of your product, you know? Well, how about changing that entire process? Yeah, changing an entire process. And the company costs more than just tweaking. You know, let’s recycle all of our water now and now. It’s going through some recycling system and then now all the water in the company that they’re washing their hands with and all that is recyclable. Now, they can say they’re corporately, socially responsible and that’s the cheap way. But then the actual changing the process and the chemical usage. And yes, that means, you know, changing maybe an entire piece of equipment that was thousands or even millions of dollars. But if that means a completely entire impact, change, you know, when we start seeing no longer any plastic bottles or even being able to be used by. Other smaller companies that are looking for packaging to put juices in or packaging to put in whatever, if we stop it at the source, then that’s how we can truly impact and change the extremely exponential increase of climate change that’s been happening because of our decisions.
[00:15:42] Yeah, and it really does come from your own societal decisions, because at the end of the day, we bend straws. You go to target, you look in your shopping cart. When you leave Target, everything is in a plastic bag, everything that has a plastic container. And even the whole push that we did in California, where you have to pay for plastic bags, it’s 10 cents. Are you really telling me the consumer’s not going to decide to take bags because it’s 10 cents and a lot of those plastics are actually thicker plastic, which I know they’re doing that because they want them to be reused. But are you really reusing them? Because even I can tell myself I am not reusing them. I am going there. But I tried to bring my own bag when I can. I try to have my own bag that I can just fit in all my groceries and bring it back to my house. But if I forget it and I plastic bags, what am I going to do with them?
[00:16:22] Yeah, it’s almost like we created that whole system, forgetting that everybody is always on the go. Yeah, it’s not like we’re walking around with plastic bags in our purses or our back pockets and say, OK, I’m stopping at the grocery store. I knew I was going to stop at the grocery store real quick. Yeah, I have my own bag, you know. Yeah, most of the time that’s not the case. And even then they do get Reeves’ like I use mine and eventually throw away, you know, my animal feces stuff from my pets. And it’s still going in the trash. It may get used a couple times, but it doesn’t stop me from buying, you know, ten cents when it’s convenient. And it’s either I have fifteen pieces of different produce going into my car and now going into a trunk that has nothing to hold them. Yeah.
[00:17:12] You know, and so it does come back and I’m even responsible for being more responsible, honestly, you know, and it’s just also getting into new habits in ourselves, because we grew up in a society and a culture where it was OK and we didn’t learn the all these impacts, whereas in other countries they’re more already aware, even at a younger age, teaching about recycling and things like that. And I know my nephews now, they even have taught me about some things about environmentalism, which is really nice to at least see that in the schools, but it’s not holistically learned.
[00:17:50] Yeah, I agree. And I mean, bringing that back into like the fashion world in general. And I know this is unrealistic for a lot of people, but it should be realistic and it comes back to your own kind of responsibility in your own decisions. But you don’t necessarily need to buy a new piece of clothing every week. You don’t need to consistently buy every month. Be aware that every single time you buy a piece of clothing, what is actually behind the scenes of making that piece of clothing? What happens afterwards? If you’re buying a piece of clothing and wearing it once or twice and now you’re going to push it back out, you’re clearly creating those pollutants. And I actually do find that is very hypocritical because I do know a lot of people that speak to being very environmentally friendly and that they’re really caring about the environment, all this. But I do see them buying a new piece of clothing weekly. And since that industry is the biggest pollutant, it for me, it shows that your actions don’t really lie with what you’re saying. And I think that’s really important to put people into check and realize that, look, this industry, the fast fashion world, it’s great. It’s great to look good all the time. It’s great to have all these clothes. But think about do you really need that piece of clothing? Is it just because it’s cheap doesn’t mean that you necessarily need to buy it.
[00:18:55] Right? Right. And definitely I mean, we just we have Christmas right around the corner and all the people that are buying all their Christmas clothes, I can tell you it’s not for the summer. And I can tell you that they’re going to go shopping again before summer hits with a whole new wardrobe of clothing. I mean, I was just looking at some stats earlier and let me find it here. So it says that we’re actually the largest country that gives out second hand clothing and exports second hand clothing to the rest of the world. Wow. So I think that’s huge. And I mean, we only know of goodwill and, you know, nonprofits and organizations that will pick up the clothing we don’t want. But how many of us truly are doing that and putting it in a bag, making that phone call or, you know, going and dropping it off somewhere, whereas we just throw it in our trash or whatever it is. And I mean, as consumers, we’re not conscious of, OK, when you’re done with your clothes, here’s a place to drop it off, just like with your mattress. I mean, the mattress, at least when you get a new mattress, most of the time it gets picked up by the company, even if it wasn’t their own mattress, because they know you definitely can’t have a bunch of mattresses thrown out in the streets. You get fined, you know, and that kind of pollution that happens on the streets at that point. It has a whole Trent does has a whole transportation effect.
[00:20:23] Yeah, so I when I think of, you know, industries being responsible for their industry, the only thing I could think of is at least mattresses taking them out of the homes when they get new ones versus think about all of the consumer products that go into our homes, some that never leave and some that leave through the trash but aren’t actually recycled, recycled or even being able to be put in a landfill.
[00:20:49] And I don’t think that’s a really, really important thing that you just brought up, which is, yes, maybe you’re buying a lot of clothing. Take that next step. If you’re if you do want to buy a lot of clothing. And that’s the issue that you’re having and you don’t want to cut that out, that’s fine. That’s a personal decision, obviously. Think about the facts. However, at least give it to goodwill or donate it out, like at least do that much. If you’re not going to care about the first part of the process, at least care about the second part of the process. Give that to somebody else in need. Give that to somebody who’s dealing with poverty. Give that to another country. Give it back to society, then at least like that. That’s my like at least take on it. If you don’t want to care about the whole thing, at least give it away afterwards so that somebody else can get use from it. So that piece of clothing doesn’t live for just like two or three ways. And that’s it. Because that’s the biggest thing for me that bothers me about the industry, is just how minimally people wear clothing. It’s just like I’m going to wear it one or two times I’ve done.
[00:21:39] Yeah, yeah. And I mean, there is companies, you know, like rent the runway that, you know, tried to help with that issue and the consumers wanting to buy this piece of item and then only wear for one time. But then again, it comes back to the consumers and then truly being responsible because even them as a company, they dealt with consumers who wanted the item to rent it, but then didn’t even treat it with care like their own. And if you’re sharing as a community now products and sharing into a product inventory, almost share it. Everyone has to see it as sharing closets with each other. And it’s not just, oh, this is the companies and I’m just going to rent it because this is what I, I deserve to spill wine on it if I mess up, you know, and in the end now this is a community philosophy and community values are really important in understanding that it’s not just about this individualistic. This is mine and this is all mine because I’m renting it, you know? Well, it may be yours temporarily, but it does belong to the community that’s participating in this renting type of behavior in practice for the fashion industry.
[00:22:50] And it comes back to being aware and people truly caring as consumers of products like this to understand, to have even respect for communities that are coming together for specific causes like these where they share responsibility.
[00:23:09] Yeah, and I think that goes into kind of the final topic that we should talk about, which is the technology that can play a piece into the fashion world. Obviously, one of them we talked about, which is block chain and to kind of start with blocks. And I think it’s good to kind of identify what it really is, because a lot of times when you hear the word block chain, you’re going to think of cryptocurrency, you’re going to think of Bitcoin, you’re going to hear Ethereum, all these these buzzwords that I mean, it’s somewhat died off, but it’s still in the back of people’s minds just because of that high tech it was created. Yeah, even though I believe in the concept, the cryptocurrency is that’s not when I talk about block change. That’s not my focus. My focus and block change is how do you create to simplify it once? Not really simplify, but to simplify. To an extent, it’s creating a ledger system that verifies one hundred percent where it comes from and it’s a peer to peer network. So instead of having middle of people, a bank or anything involved in that process, we verify through each other and through a community if that transaction is legitimate or not. The reason why I think block chain technology is so, so, so powerful when it comes to the fashion world is one obviously logistics. So the supply chain networks understanding where the pieces are coming from, what we what we talked about. So where the actual textile pieces coming from, where is it getting made, how much water is being used, is that verify that they’re actually using those products inside of it? Is it like is the product verified? And then after it’s verified, how does it come to the consumer? Because if you use a block chain system, you’re actually able to track every single thing, verify it. But then you can also make your supply chain networks way more optimal because you can use algorithms within your block chain system to actually tell you how you should change your your supply chain network. Where should you get your materials from? What makes the least amount of carbon footprint? How do you actually benefit society? That’s why I love the cost of a block chain. Is it like right here right now? Not necessarily. The technology is still very new, but to see how people are already using it, I think it’s really going to change how a lot of industries go about CSR and sustainability.
[00:25:03] Right. And as a company, like you said, it’s really helpful because then they can set up these APIs and algorithms to track it from their vendors to their actual manufacturing operational plant to their creative team all the way to the market. Shellfishing and the reason why.
[00:25:20] Lockshin is also crucial for the consumers to be aware and know about this, they may not care about the API and that aspect of it, but for the consumers to hold the companies accountable, it is the one way that companies can be transparent with their consumers. And consumers can say, OK, I know exactly where the t shirt came from. It didn’t come from this company that created, you know, the design of it necessarily. It went all the way back to the source, all the way back to who actually created the weaving of the fabric that’s used in this actual fashion piece. Yeah, and that’s the way, you know, how consumers truly can participate, not only in block chain, but in holding companies accountable to being environmentally conscious, using recyclable plastics. And when companies do say they’re sustainable, investigate, go find out. Why are they saying that they’re sustainable? How are they sustainable? Really, what is it that makes them sustainable? And is it just a tweak of a couple of things and it’s a marketing play? Or is it truly there’s something that they stand behind as a business model that they’ve created to help and address that aspect? Because like I said, you know, and like you mentioned, it’s cheaper to take the shortcuts and just tweak a couple things that really have no environmental impact versus changing an entire true business operational process to have a better impact on the world, which may not necessarily financially put profits out in the first even year.
[00:27:11] They might, you know, company might go back down into debt a little bit just to change into that process and take that risk. So it’s that balance of capitalism, but social responsibility at the same time, you know, where do we draw the line now? Because as an American society, we’re huge on capitalism. We believe that the economy, you know, takes care of itself. And if a products made eventually, if it’s faulty, people won’t buy it and it’ll fall out of the market. But now the issue is, is that you have a lot of people, I guess, giving into the market from entrepreneurial side, but then not understanding the awareness and the vendors and the things that go into true business on the back side, because we’ve been so into the consumption of it that now we’re consuming and then practicing just to make money versus understanding the true impact on a social level, which now we’re suffering from today.
[00:28:10] Yeah, and it’s in a super to do a social influence. That’s the that’s the both the beauty and the kind of really evil side of social media, which is that through social influence you can cause people to buy. So for example, I mean, Fashanu was really good at this. They’re extremely good at this. They get Cardi B and they get a bunch of these very well known kind of hip hop celebrities of today that are very influential to a young target market. And they have them wearing the piece of clothing and they’re easily able to convert them through ads and through messaging. They’re able to convert cells. And then that’s why they oh, this is cheap. This is easy to make. Now we can go through trends, algorithms. We figure out what the piece of clothing will make it really, really fast. And they don’t care what you just brought about the back end of the process. They care about the consumption side. That’s that’s that’s America. That’s that’s capitalism. That’s all fine here. But it needs to be considered because I think that’s actually going to hurt companies in the long term, because the way the millennials consider their choices now is very conscious of like what’s going on to that to an extent. I mean, obviously there’s still a lot of social influence, but to an extent they’re at least paying attention to stuff. And I applaud companies like Patagonia and stuff like that that really do care about sustainability because they gave a fat donation check to give back to sustainability to recycled materials and all this kind of stuff once they made those profits. So, yeah, sure. Make those profits, but then give back and actually benefit society by R&D, developing these new systems, developing sustainability. Don’t just hoard the cash and then make more cash, give back to society for making the money from society. That’s at least my point when it comes to business.
[00:29:39] Yeah, and they’re actually a really good example because Patagonia will actually take back the products once the consumers don’t want them. Yep. If companies start taking that kind of responsibility for the products that they put into society and giving consumers a way to give them back and either companies take them back and recycle them or at least take them back to help the consumers change out their products that they consume, that’s another way, because then again, they can’t all go to the trash. And then another thing that you bring up is influencer marketing is good, but now influencers really need. You know, I think it’s really important that we in.
[00:30:20] All influencers to be conscious of the products that they’re pushing out themselves and not to be just so money hungry, and it’s the same thing even with other individuals that are public, influential figures like celebrities, like actors, even like, you know, specific talk show host and things like that, because they are influencing the masses to a certain extent. And they do have the ability to educate and reach a good amount of people. And if they instead, you know, consider the environmental aspect of their decisions and how it impacts and trickles down even to the fashion industry and consumer industry, you know, it’s not just, OK, build your hype in building this word of mouth effect on social media to support this cause, you know, it’s truly being a person of integrity and having values. And like you said, research shows now in the digital marketing world that millennials care more about the purpose of the company than what the product is. Even though we may think everyone’s purchasing on Amazon, there’s a lot of us that now have gone against that because of the amount of waste and seeing it in the factories ourselves, being true witnesses to just the waste that’s happening in industries like that and with companies, you know, choosing to be more capitalist minded without considering the social impact that they have on their local communities as well as the global economy. And I also shared this when Fiona Ma came down to the city of Riverside to talk about affordable housing and how do we create that, because then again, it’s not about creating cheap houses to sell cheap houses. It’s about quality living, quality homes, you know, a good lifestyle. It’s not just about the small, tiny, cheap made homes that we all just think, you know, they think we want we want to actually live in a home that feels like a home, that is quality, that is, you know, in quality, in a sense of just quality material that you don’t have to change out in one year because you chose to, you know, buy a home that was cheap and made with cheap stuff where you have to repaint your wall or change out an entire dishwasher because it was a cheap dishwasher.
[00:32:51] I mean, that’s a couple of things to point out for. And there is one, that technology can be used for both good and bad. So, for example, when I heard Amazon is going to go to one day shipping, a lot of people were stoked about that. I was horrified by that because I understand that means that the carbon footprint, amount of transportation that’s happening, the amount of, you know, boxes are creating all that kind of stuff. I mean, that’s the technology. They’re creating algorithms. They’re they’re creating these things to be able to do that, which is, you know, great for Amazon. Like that’s going to make them become even more and more wealthy. But at what cost do we really need that piece of item the next day? Like, I know they have to do that for competitive advantage because eventually Target will jump in, Walmart will jump in. I get it. They have to do it. But if you really think about the repercussions of that, you know how hard the workers are working those warehouses and the distribution centers, then you think about how much the trucks have to actually drive and then planes, a lot of people don’t consider planes. Planes are massive, pollutants massive. And the more and more the flights are getting cheaper because of technology and how much people are transporting, that means that there’s more and more. So I think a lot of what it really boils down to is think of both sides of the equation. Just because you get something cheaper, faster, there has to be something that happens here. And that’s what technology is able to do. Yeah, but I think we’re technology should be pushing towards it. How do you keep those in check block chain I think is great for that. Certain algorithms are great for that. Certain new technologies that are created are great for that. But I think that’s where society needs to really understand is that technology can be used for both good and bad. And even when it’s good for you as a consumer doesn’t mean it’s very good for the rest of society or the global environment to be more conscious about it and like research and actually do your due diligence as a member of society and really understand what’s going on.
[00:34:34] Right. And we all you know, we all are preaching about this right now, but it comes back to practicing and, you know, even something as simple as composts, you know, and just changing the habit of what we’re used to on that daily basis of buying this fashion piece, like we said. And what about clean vehicle transportation? You know, I think Riverside City of Riverside has moved towards having all of their public busses, you know, clean energy now. Yeah. So even companies that are involving logistic transportation, you know, maybe start considering even if it as an entrepreneur, if it’s anything that involves cars, consider using a clean vehicle, an all electric vehicle or setting up. Supply chain that lowers the carbon footprint that may seem easier, easier process, but a lot more pollution.
[00:35:29] Yeah, I mean I mean to defend Amazon, these large companies, which I’m not really trying to defend, but on their own benefit, a lot of their R&D budget does go through the supply chain systems that are using more renewables and electric vehicles and stuff like that. I’m sure there’s a they did a cost analysis on that to figure out what is R&D cost compared to the benefit they’re getting from it. And they have to do that. That’s a business. However, at least they’re doing something right, but it still doesn’t matter because the amount of usage is still massive, like electric vehicles still have batteries. That still creates pollutants. Like there’s three problems, even with renewables that aren’t talked about enough, which I get why they try to kind of hide it, because we still need to move away from oil. I get it. It’s a huge transition, but there are still pollutants in those areas as well. So I think it just needs to be more of an honest conversation and people need to be willing to listen and be more open minded about it, because when it comes to, like the political stage, it goes one way or the other and they’re trying to turn it and twisted it on the news and all that kind of stuff. I think it really comes down to the individual. Do your research, look at what’s going on, look at how you can help even if some minor things are changing around. That’s a good start. But going back to the industries that really matter, look at whether you’re approaching the fashion industry. Look at how you’re looking at supply chain logistics and buying stuff of Amazon and e-commerce and all these things and then make your judgments based off of that and the progress as a process.
[00:36:43] So like you mentioned earlier, one of the most successful companies, 39 percent, is renewables. You know, right now, no one’s 100 percent sustainable. You know, we’re still creating the the infrastructure to have a more corporately, socially responsible economy. Even so. Yeah, like you said, just going back and making sure we all do our research and staying informed and even to the extent of being aware of the things that we read online and the sources even to, because a lot of people, they don’t teach that in high school about credible sourcing, really and understanding truly what it means to read something where someone just wrote it up and put it online versus there’s actual factual research behind what’s being stated and it’s been checked and has been verified and checked and verified.
[00:37:38] Better word check doesn’t really mean anything verified. It needs to be verified. But to kind of close this out, what would your final piece of advice be to any entrepreneur that is trying to make a business and does care about sustainability?
[00:37:50] Yeah, so I would definitely consider the social environmental aspect. That being said, you know, closing the gap between skill sets to help people to grow themselves and have newer opportunities within your company and creating those opportunities, but also looking at the different processes and operations. And there’s different ways to be corporately, socially responsible and environmentally sustainable and also using renewable energy and recycled products to create your new product or even a service. So whether it’s a product or service at the end, environmental sustainability, corporate social responsibility, all of that can be implemented in all the way down the chain from how you deal with people to how you get something from overseas to how you get what you’re giving to the to your customer base and to your market and to just be really aware of that. And all I ask is for entrepreneurs, you know, money doesn’t bring happiness. And so to keep in mind that we care about the future of our generations and our community and how our businesses impact our community is huge and important because that’s something that wasn’t considered before. It was just more of this money hungry mindset. But now it’s time to think about community.
[00:39:25] Yeah, and I honestly cannot say that any better. The only thing I would add on to that is usually if you look at the way that your business is operating, you can probably find a way that you’re making waste, that waste is an opportunity to actually make more profits from more sustainability or more benefit for business. So look at those things. Audit your current business or if you’re trying to build a business, look at where you’re doing building waste and actually trying to make opportunities out of that because you’d be surprised that actually might make your business even better. Yeah, but thank you so much for being on the brew and thank you.
[00:39:56] Thanks.
[00:40:03] Thank you for tuning in to the group, I hope you enjoyed this episode and tell us what you thought about our conversation and the comments below. If you guys like our content, make sure to follow us on our various social media platforms and we will see you all next to.
