The Sustainable Jungle Podcast is a mission driven show, focusing on solutions for the world’s sustainability challenges. Host, Joy McConnochie talks with some of the most interesting and inspiring consumer brands who are innovating and leading their respective industries.
Episodes
Monday Jul 09, 2018
Monday Jul 09, 2018
Danelle Murray, together with her husband Brendan, her two kids and her team, runs the Owl Rescue Centre and Sanctuary in Hartbeespoort, South Africa. "The Centre takes in hundreds of owls every year through their rescue efforts. The owls are rehabilitated and when they can survive on their own in the wild, are released in The Sanctuary - a farm which is located within a twelve thousand hectare protected conservancy." Danelle and Brendan are also working hard on a number of other projects including a plastic recycling program and a master plan to save the world with a giant ship. These guys are practical, hard-working legends that are out there making it happen.
We visited the Owl Rescue Centre in Hartbeespoort, about 1 hour outside of Johannesburg. Danelle very kindly showed us around, introduced us to some feathery and rather vocal owls and chatted to us about saving + rehabilitating owls, the Owl Rescue Centre's very own plastic processing plant, Danelle's book about their lives in Africa and buying a ship to haul plastic out of the sea!
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Find the show notes here
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Monday Jul 02, 2018
Monday Jul 02, 2018
Philip Wilson is a serial entrepreneur, who, having been successful in business in the USA and Guatemala, sought meaning and purpose in his life and turned his hand to social entrepreneurship. He built Ecofiltro into a profitable business that serves clean water to the rural poor of Guatemala. Philip also mentors other social enterprises who focus on building financially sustainable businesses and have “doing good” at their core. He now lives in Antigua, Guatemala and also runs an organic coffee farm!
For us, this was an incredibly inspiring interview and we were grateful for the opportunity to learn about the following from Philip: Finding happiness in being a giver, how the concept of 'people, planet and prosperity' is entirely feasible, the Ecofiltro business model, sustainable manufacturing and the role of consumers and social enterprises in driving change.
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Find the show notes here
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Monday Jun 25, 2018
Monday Jun 25, 2018
Eliza was born in the USA and grew up in Guatemala City to visionary parents who today, run The Jungle School for 400 kids in San Andres, Petén, Guatemala. Back in the USA, she enjoyed a career in PR and events before hearing the call to return to Guatemala to start Itza Wood, the social enterprise that uses local, responsibly sourced wood offcuts (that would otherwise be wasted or burned) to create beautiful heirloom pieces while employing local people and supporting education at The Jungle School.
This interview was done jungle style! We hung out with the fabulous Eliza in the gardens of the Jungle School in San Andres, Petén, Guatemala. The birds were singing, the spiders jumping and the wind blowing so please forgive the range of noises and momentary distractions ;). This was a relaxed and reflective interview that covered supporting education at the Jungle School, creating local employment, using sustainable, natural resources and creating beautiful one of a kind heirloom products
This interview was done outside so the audio can be a little windy at times! Hopefully, the sweet, jungle bird sounds make it worth it ;)
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Find the show notes here
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Friday Jun 15, 2018
Friday Jun 15, 2018
Frank is a Southern Californian who spent his youth hanging out in nature. He pursued a career in the Navy until, on a prompt from his wife, realized that he needed more in his life. Today, he is the founder of Golden Coast Mead, a small meadery based in Oceanside California that supports healthy bee populations by buying organic honey from regenerative farms. Frank is a deeply thoughtful and deliberate guy and we really enjoyed the opportunity to learn from him!
We had the pleasure of hanging out with Frank at his meadery in Southern California. It was a rather fun and joyous episode, in no way due to the delicious and unique organic, coffee mead we were tasting along the way ;)
We cover Frank’s transition to work that makes him happy, saving bees by choosing suppliers wisely, Bee Colony Collapse Disorder, Regenerative Farming and where to get a good ‘ole mead in Southern California.
Really sorry about the beeping – there was all kinds of construction and meading action at the meadery in the background… you get used to it!
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Find the show notes here
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Friday Jun 08, 2018
Friday Jun 08, 2018
Elysse is an “Entrepreneur, mentor, and unabashed wanderluster livin' it up in San Diego, CA”. She is the founder of Wabi-Sabi Botanicals, a luxury, ethical beauty line and ‘Be Led by Love’, a beautiful website about self-love and empowerment. Elysse is passionate about the betterment of women… all women!
We caught up with Elysse in her home state of California, USA and she graciously shared her approach to business, self-love and women empowerment all over the world. Many words of wisdom and advice on living a fulfilled meaningful life
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Find the show notes here
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Friday Jun 01, 2018
Friday Jun 01, 2018
Nick Mott is an outdoor guy! He is also a conservationist, climber, and environmental journalist. He is the Assistant Producer for Threshold, the beautifully produced Podcast which uses” stories to explain how humans are changing and being changed by the planet”.
We met Nick on the Lions Lair Spur Trail Head in Boulder Colorado with the intention of interviewing him out in nature but it was so windy that we ended up having a sauna-like and somewhat noisy interview in the car! Nevertheless, we managed to learn more about Threshold Season 1 including latest updates, what to expect from Season 2 and more about Nick and his 2018 projects.
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Find the show notes here
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Thursday May 24, 2018
Thursday May 24, 2018
“Jenny Golding is a writer, musician, mom, and educator. She loves long rambles in the woods, writing songs, singing harmony, cross-country skiing, and adventuring in the wilderness with George and little George. After 20 years working for nonprofits in conservation and education, she now writes about Yellowstone and natural history topics from her home in Gardiner, Montana, and has published over 40 e-news and print articles for local nonprofits and other digital and print publications.”
“George Bumann can draw, sculpt, and teach about all aspects of Yellowstone. He holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in wildlife ecology and has spent thousands of hours studying the animals of Yellowstone and interpreting them through art, lectures and courses. It is this intimate, daily knowledge of wildlife, natural history, and animal communication which infuses truth and meaning into his artwork. His art and writing have appeared in popular and scientific publications, and his sculptures can be found in public and private collections throughout the United States and around the globe.”
We spent the most magical day roaming Yellowstone National Park while interviewing Jenny and George for our Podcast. We had almost 3 hours of audio! It was tough editing down to just 1 hour of the best gems from the day which include lessons on noticing the small things and truly listening to better understand the world around you, making deliberate choices about the life you want to live and how nature and wild places give you perspective!
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Show notes for this episode can be found here
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Sunday May 13, 2018
Sunday May 13, 2018
Cara Smyth is a leader in the Fashion Industry. She has built her career in management, brand building, and global scaling and has served as President of Jill Sanders America, a Director of Burberry and the CEO of Menichetti International in Milan. Today, Cara is an Executive Board Member and Vice President of Glasgow Caledonian University New York College (GCNYC) and is also the passionate founder of the College’s Fair Fashion Center.
The Fair Fashion Center (FFC) “focuses on the intersection of profitability and sustainability. With the unique mission to facilitate the incorporation of sustainable practices into fashion, the FFC is proving the business case for sustainability by turning global issues into industry opportunities. The Center is closely aligned with industry leaders and strives to create a fashion industry that is a respectful, regenerative ecosystem supporting people, planet and profits. Its efforts are built upon the recognition that systemic change in the fashion industry requires an approach that is aligned to the industry’s disciplines, and reconciled to the bottom line.”
In this episode, we learned about the complex world of fashion, how fashion can be used as a force for good and how the Fair Fashion Center is changing industry perceptions and turning sustainability into an opportunity.
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Find show notes for this episode here
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Friday May 04, 2018
Friday May 04, 2018
Harish Hande is the definition of a social entrepreneur. In 1995, after learning about the power of a distributed energy model, he founded SELCO India, which “provides sustainable energy solutions and services to under-served households and businesses” and recently won the 2018 Skoll Foundation award for social entrepreneurship. Harish has won numerous awards over the years and has an incredible amount of wisdom to share. Today he also heads up the SELCO Foundation and SELCO Incubation Center which support start-up social entrepreneurs working to alleviate poverty. The SELCO family helps the underserved out of poverty and eliminates the environmental and health impacts created by today’s kerosene, coal and wood energy sources.
We talk about setting up a social enterprise in the 90s, SECLO's approach and business model, key lessons Harish has learned along the way, SELCO's impact to date and the other 3 arms of the SELCO family: SELCO Foundation, SELCO Incubation Center and the SELCO Fund.
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Friday Apr 27, 2018
Friday Apr 27, 2018
"Louis Masai is a visual artist based in London. He uses his research on endangered species as a topic of discussion to heighten the general public’s awareness of the ‘sixth mass extinction’. When not working in the studio, Masai travels around the world painting murals in cities, towns, and villages. These are often of locally endangered species. His paintings have reached out to people in ways that environmentalists and activists find hard to capture. To this effect, he often works alongside scientists, and conservationists as well as environmentally minded companies."
This episode is a little longer than the usual because we were enjoying ourselves and found so many topics that were fascinating to cover with Louis including Louis’ inspiration, his evolution as an artist, his local and international projects and the role of his art in communicating important messages. If you want to jump to a specific topic covered in the interview have a look at the timestamps in the show notes.
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