natural building

Amelia Swan Baxter: Building The Next Economy With WholeTrees (Rebroadcast)

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Amelia Baxter believes that the 21st century built environment is filled with opportunities for trees. Baxter co-founded WholeTrees in 2007 to develop and sell products and technologies that would scale the use of waste-trees in commercial construction, increasing forest revenues, and offering green construction markets a new material for the 21st century. Amelia has led project teams in over $2M in USDA research grants working toward the commercialization of the tree's natural engineering. By raising equity investment for her company, attracting national executive talent, and pinpointing nascent urban markets for trees as structure, Baxter has participated in the growth of a truly conscious and regenerative company.

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Interview Highlights:

  • How WholeTrees provides an ecological, economic, social, and aesthetic benefit

  • Coming from a place of heart as well as a place of necessity to attract great staff and business culture

  • How the character and inner work of company leaders ripples throughout the entire organization

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Show Notes + Other Links

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Music by Chris Zabriskie: https://chriszabriskie.com/

Amelia Swan Baxter: Building The Next Economy With WholeTrees

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

SUBSCRIBE & RATE us on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, or anywhere you find podcasts!

Amelia Baxter believes that the 21st century built environment is filled with opportunities for trees. Baxter co-founded WholeTrees in 2007 to develop and sell products and technologies that would scale the use of waste-trees in commercial construction, increasing forest revenues, and offering green construction markets a new material for the 21st century. Amelia has led project teams in over $2M in USDA research grants working toward the commercialization of the tree's natural engineering. By raising equity investment for her company, attracting national executive talent, and pinpointing nascent urban markets for trees as structure, Baxter has participated in the growth of a truly conscious and regenerative company.

Amelia-HS-1.jpg

Interview Highlights:

  • How WholeTrees provides an ecological, economic, social, and aesthetic benefit

  • Coming from a place of heart as well as a place of necessity to attract great staff and business culture

  • How the character and inner work of company leaders ripples throughout the entire organization

Help these ideas reach more eyes & ears:

  1. SHARE this post on social media!

  2. RATE Next Economy Now on I-Tunes!

  3. SUBSCRIBE to Next Economy Now: iTunes | Overcast | Stitcher | Etc.

 

LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life. 

Erin Axelrod is a Partner at LIFT Economy, helping to accelerate the spread of climate-beneficial businesses, specializing in businesses that address critical soil and water regeneration. She is an avid ecologist, grassroots organizer and regularly forages for wild food in her home in rural Sonoma County. You can follow Erin on Twitter @erinaxelrod or email her erin@lifteconomy.com.

Beth Rattner: Exciting Opportunities Through Biomimetic Design

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

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Beth Rattner is the executive director for the Biomimicry Institute, a non-profit co-founded by Janine Benyus. Beth directs the Institute’s strategic vision and mission to create a new generation of nature-inspired innovators and oversees the organization’s three programs: Youth Design Challenge, Global Design Challenge + Launchpad, and AskNature. She is a frequent speaker on how biomimetic design in products, cities, and agriculture can bring about a new level of repair and cooperation to our economy and ecosystem which in turn will spur new levels of social equity. 

Prior to this position, Beth worked with William McDonough and Michael Braungart on The Upcycle, the sequel to Cradle to Cradle, before she helped co-found the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute and became its first executive director and vice president. Beth was also a managing director for one of the first sustainability business consultant firms, Blu Skye, and business manager for Hewlett Packard’s Emerging Market Solutions (EMS) group. This HP internal “start-up” championed a new lens on providing technology solutions to those who earn less than $2 a day. The team launched HP’s first multi-user, daisy-chained computer for poorly funded schools and a solar-powered printer. The printer provided microfinance opportunities for women who brought paid photography to remote villages, allowing people to photograph their family events for the very first time. Beth is a graduate of U.C.L.A. and Loyola Law School and lives in Marin County, California.

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Some highlights from Kevin Bayuk’s conversation with Beth Rattner include:

  • A brief introduction to the field of biomimicry

  • How so much of what we depend upon in the chemical & materials world could be addressed through structural design

  • Examples of exciting products inspired by biomimetic design

  • How biomimicry is a perfect compliment to many of the solutions proposed in Project Drawdown

  • How the Biomimicry Institute can capture the genius of today’s engineers and designers to solve today’s most pressing challenges

Resources:

Book: Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired By Nature

Help these ideas reach more eyes & ears:

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  2. RATE Next Economy Now on I-Tunes!

  3. SUBSCRIBE to Next Economy Now: iTunes | Overcast | Stitcher | Etc.

 

LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.

Kevin Bayuk, Co-founder and Partner at LIFT Economy, works at the intersection of ecology and economy where permaculture design meets next economy organizations intent on meeting human needs while enhancing the conditions conducive to all life. He is the Senior Financial Fellow at Project Drawdown and a founding partner of the Urban Permaculture Institute.  You can follow Kevin on Twitter @kevinbayuk or email him kevin@lifteconomy.com.

Massey Burke: Natural Building, Carbon Sequestration, and Resilience in Climate Chaos

Next Economy Now highlights the leaders who are taking a regenerative, bio-regional, equitable, transparent, and whole-systems approach to using business as a force for good. 

SUBSCRIBE & RATE us on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, or anywhere you find podcasts!

Help these ideas reach more eyes & ears:

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  2. RATE Next Economy Now on I-Tunes!

  3. SUBSCRIBE to Next Economy Now: iTunes | Overcast | Stitcher | Etc.

Massey Burke is a natural materials specialist in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work centers on research, design, and hands-on implementation of building with low-carbon, natural materials, with an interest in applying natural building to existing buildings and the urban fabric. She also teams up with organizations such as the California Straw Building Association and the Ecological Building Network to generate technical information on carbon and natural materials in the built environment, and works on code issues surrounding natural materials through the Cob Research Institute and other collaborators. More on her work can be found here.

Massey_pic_25.jpg

LIFT Economy is an impact consulting firm whose mission is to create, model, and share a locally self-reliant economy that works for the benefit of all life.


Erin Axelrod is a Partner at LIFT Economy, helping to accelerate the spread of climate-beneficial businesses, specializing in businesses that address critical soil and water regeneration. She is an avid ecologist, grassroots organizer and regularly forages for wild food in her home in rural Sonoma County. You can follow Erin on Twitter @erinaxelrod or email her erin@lifteconomy.com.