Saving Planet A

''My mother was always saying "I am raising you not for myself, but for the world.'"

I chat to Simone Mattar Altoe - ESG Corporate Benchmarking Manager, sustainability lecturer, mother of two and a black belt in Shorinji Kempo to boot.

Simone Mattar Altoe is an old and very dear friend of mine that I met almost 20 years ago when I first moved to Amsterdam. Simone has a marketing and business studies background from Brazil; she then went home to do her PhD on sustainable agriculture at Hokkaido University in Japan.

After moving to Amsterdam, Simone worked as a marketing consultant for brands, such as Unilever and BP. She had consultant roles on sustainability in various firms, and later set up her own ESG consultancy company. She also worked as a lecturer in the University of Amsterdam, where she taught the business and sustainability course for exchange students.

Most recently, Simone has been working as a corporate solutions manager, providing analytical environmental, social, and governance (ESG) research ratings and data to corporations.

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Every second, the equivalent of a rubbish truck load of clothes is burnt or buried in landfill.

How can we build a circular fashion industry that prioritises balance instead of growth?

What is the true environmental cost of the clothes we easily discard?

I chat to Ana Carneiro, a sustainability manager who campaigns for a circular economy.

We talk renting clothes, the value of the stuff we own, carving your own path as a woman and more.

Ana Carneiro, a sustainability manager who campaigns for a circular materials economy, was born in the north of Portugal in an area with a rich manufacturing industry. She was aware of the environmental toll and social inequality endemic to the making of goods from a young age.

Ana graduated in product design from Central Saint Martins in 2015. She was disillusioned with how little was being done to solve our climate crisis, and started pursuing a career at the intersection of design and circularity. To further her knowledge within the field of sustainability, she took the Cradle to Cradle design course from the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute, achieving a Silver Certification on closed loop design. Today, she works as sustainability manager in the fashion sector, collaborating closely with design and production teams as well as manufacturers to change the industry for the better.

Connect with Ana:

Instagram @beforchange

Connect with Gizem:

Instagram @saving_planet_a_podcast

Twitter @Saving_PlanetA

LinkedIn

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Who is the ocean for? If we find home in the ocean, will we be able to better protect it?

Meet the real-life Ariel, ‘’The Black Mermaid’’ Zandile Ndhlovu, who is changing the perception of the ocean in her Cape Town community since 2016, when she fell in love with freediving.

Zandi is South Africa's first black female free diving instructor and the founder of the Black Mermaid Foundation, an organization seeking to create diverse representation in the ocean spaces. Her work centers around enabling access to ocean spaces to local ocean facing communities.

She hopes to diversify ocean spaces recreationally, professionally and in sport while creating a new generation of ocean guardians. As a diversity and inclusion consultant, she has contributed to global topics that include ocean conservation, climate change, coastal justice and capacitating the youth to participate in the Blue Economy.

In partnership with WaterBear, she’s released a documentary which seeks to encourage people of colour to consume more content that pushes them to get involved with reclaiming the ocean and, ultimately, protecting it.

Tune in as we talk reclaiming the ocean, plastic pollution, wise grandmothers and more.

Useful Links:

An interview with Zandi in the Guardian

Condé Nast Traveler Interview

The original documentary ''The Black Mermaid''

Connect with Zandi:

Instagram @zandithemermaid @theblackmermaid_foundation

Twitter @Blackmermaid_F

The Black Mermaid Foundation website

Connect with Gizem:

Instagram @saving_planet_a_podcast

Twitter @Saving_PlanetA

LinkedIn

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''Sustainability is simply really considering all our actions in terms of the impact on the planet. If we carry on at the rate that we're doing, we need three planets to sustain our current lifestyles. The equivalent of three planets' resources, just to do what we're doing at the moment.''

I chat to Heinz Richardson, award-winning architect, Royal Society of Arts fellow, teacher, mentor and industry commentator. Join us as we talk about rocketing energy prices, sustainable, low-energy homes and the time Heinz cycled across America from west to east coasts.

A graduate of the Bartlett School of Architecture University College London, Heinz is an award-winning architect, teacher, mentor, and industry commentator. He's a former director of Jestico+Whiles Architects, an international practice that has won many awards.

Heinz is a pioneer of employee ownership as a model for business. He has particular expertise in sustainable design, housing and education projects. He believes passionately in the considered use of the Earth's natural resources to create architecture which is enduring and socially responsible. In 2016, he designed and built his own carbon-neutral home in the Chilterns area, House 19, which was long-listed for the RIBA House of the Year award and has been widely published.

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’There’s a lovely adage that ignorance is bliss. But in an increasingly complex world, knowledge may be your only means for survival and ignorance no longer becomes blissful.’’

Chris Hadfield (former commander of the international space station) in short documentary film Ice Alive, directed by Eddie Frost (2018)

I chat to director and series producer Eddie Frost about finding poetry in glaciology, shooting a documentary in the Arctic and how rock climbing as a kid and Sir David Attenborough helped shape his understanding of the natural world.

Eddie Frost is chairperson at Proudfoot Limited, a production company based in Clerkenwell, London. Ever since his childhood, he has been passionate about the natural environment and conservation. He has directed documentaries for British and international broadcasters well as for major brands and NGOs. He now runs a small but impactful team producing content gathered from all around the world. His work aims to shine a spotlight on those fighting for positive change, and to explain complicated solutions to our global problems for as wide an audience as possible. In 2018, Eddie directed a short film called Ice Alive, where glaciologist and data scientist Joseph Cook takes a closer look at the microbial life that can be found all over the planet's glaciers and ice sheets. This rich ecosystem affects the melt rates of polar ice and snow, and could be accelerating climate change.

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