Interview with Jessica McNaughton of CaraGreen on the Development of Green Products

Hello, everyone, and welcome to this episode of Conscious Design. I'm Ian Peterman, your host of Conscious Design Podcast, author of the book Conscious Design, and I'm here with Jessica, president of CareGreen, to talk about what they're doing in the building materials space in getting us to be more environmentally friendly. So, welcome to the show.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Yeah.

So yeah, a little bit about Kara Green. We are based out of Raleigh, North Carolina, and we were founded about 12 years ago by a designer who was trying to find finishes for a sustainable development, and there was nothing available locally. So, you know, we started kind of curating a collection of sustainable building materials, which was relatively limited at that time, and now we've grown to more than 16 brands. So what we like to kind of envision is that we are sort of that curated collection for designers and architects to go to and kind of have prequalified sustainable building materials. So we warehouse most of the brands and distribute them out of our, you know, network of warehouses. And our goal is really to just have healthier building materials than the conventional alternatives. So recycled glass countertops, instead of quartz or granite, things like that. Wool insulation instead of fiberglass insulation. So kind of more environmentally friendly substitutions.

And you guys, you guys kind of COVID everything. So, you know, I've looked, I've looked through your website, I've spent some time there, and I've found quite a few different, different areas. You aren't, you know, you aren't limited to just the the raw construction material. You're not just, uh, you know, a carpet or a countertop. You guys are, you guys are pretty broad. And I, I'm curious, is there, is there, where are your bounds? Uh, are you, do you have like this expanding, eventually just take over everything? Or are you, what kind of, what, what is your, the space you're really kind of looking for? Yeah.

So I'm, you know, I'm, you know, of an entrepreneurial mind. So when I see an opportunity that makes sense with what we're currently doing, we like to take it. So what I like to kind of think of it is we find brands that may not have the sales and marketing resource they need to kind of really get into the market in the right way, and we're able to do that. So brands that are just starting out, maybe a European brand that doesn't know how to break into the US market, we are really good at supplementing. You know, they— you make a— let them make a good product, let us bring it to market for you. So that's really what we are good at. So we look for brands that are struggling to get inroads into the US market for whatever reason, and we use our resources to help them get into those markets. And, you know, we've had to shift those strategies over time, but I think Carah Green stays at the forefront of, you know, a lot of the marketing platforms to be on and, you know, the sales channels to use and, you know, the architects and designers to get to. So we really have a unique approach. You know, technically we're a distributor, but really we're a distributor with a very strong sales, marketing, Right.

So you guys are the partner distributor that actually gets things sold, not just buying it and sitting in a warehouse.

That's exactly right. And that is the problem, I think, with traditional distribution is they'll bring on some of these lesser-known brands and then, you know, they'll look at the manufacturer and say, where are my orders? And the manufacturer will look at them and say, you know, where's my demand? And there's just a disconnect because they only want to sell— distributors only want to sell the things that are already moving. They don't want to prime the market. When we start with a brand, we tell them initially it's going to be 1 to 3 years before you're going to start seeing revenue come from us because we have to prime this market for you. And if they're not willing to, you know, kind of wait that time, you know, they're probably going to struggle getting into the market. But that's where we are a good partner. We overcommunicate in the beginning. So we're saying we're not selling anything yet, but here's your pipeline this month, here's your pipeline this month. And we're showing them how our efforts are paying off, even if it's not in raw dollars right away. We share those metrics with them. It's really important. I think that's what a lot of our partnerships are built on. And all the brands we work with are partners. You know, a lot of them are honestly like family to me at this point.

Right. Well, and that's a good, that's a good point that it takes a while. to prime a market, and especially— and you guys started when there weren't very many green products, right?

Right.

So I imagine that was a much different journey of trying to get a product to market, uh, when you guys first started compared to now. So I guess that, that would— that's a good point to expand on. How has that changed, and what do you see changing with, you know, how obviously green products are getting more popular? You're There's conferences about them. You're going to events where people are showing off more and more products. You know, I'm even involved in a green material product now. So, you know, it's growing. So do you see a shift in how brands need to get out there, how people are consuming, or how people are even looking for these types of materials?

Yeah. So there's a lot of things going on on that front. I think it's really interesting that when green the term first came out, it meant recycled content or rapidly renewable things like bamboo or wool, or it meant something local, right? It was within 500 miles or 200 miles. And then it— or it could be reclaimed, you know, reclaimed wood was very big. Those were the kind of— that was the barometer.

Yeah.

That was the barometer for what green was. It really shifted in the last, you know, 5 years or so to be more about What is in it, and what are the impacts that your building material has on the environment and has on people? So health impacts, environmental impacts— those things are now the barometer by which green is measured, right? Going forward, people are going to want to know what's the embodied carbon of this brand. Do you have a disclosure about what's in this brand, an environmental disclosure over here? So we've actually worked to put together a course on transparency. documentation, databases, what are the steps you need to go through to help your product progress? Because that has changed. And it wasn't until this year, 2022, that we've had that course that we offer architects, designers, manufacturers, and we offer webinars on it because it is changing. It's not enough to simply say, oh, 65% recycled content. It's not enough if you're polluting, you know, an entire city. you know, city's water supply, but you have 65% recycled content, that's not good enough, right?

So it doesn't offset. No.

And all those things have to be looked at now. So, you know, products have to evolve. It's very easy to sit back and know that, you know, someone specified you X number of times, but you have to pay attention. And with COVID everyone got real savvy on the internet. I was saying the other day, I know where to get a Wagyu brisket now. I know who makes the best Serrano ham. I can order all this stuff online. I found ButcherBox and Marley's. I found everything that I could. I didn't even know you could buy this stuff online, but now I use those resources. You're not going to see me driving through a strip mall looking for a butcher store when I know where I can get it online.

Exactly.

So that's, that's been a big shift. And all that, and with that comes all this information. So A lot of platforms that are out there now, like Mindful Materials, a lot of the BIM or the building information modeling or material bank sample platforms, source sample platform, all of those databases, they're putting your product data in there. They're putting your transparency data in there. So manufacturers have to realize now that as a designer goes in and says, I'm only going to use products that have health product declarations. Once they click that button, poof, you're gone. It's not like a design library where they go and they pull your stuff and they say, well, maybe they have one of these documents. They click a button and you're gone. You're out of the library, the visible library to them. So we work really hard with our manufacturers to educate them on that and let them know there's a baseline level of disclosure that you have to have, or you're not going to get used in projects, and it's just going to become more and more common moving forward.

Right. Well, and that's a great point because it's, uh, I used, I used online searches before, but now everybody does. Everybody is using it. And, and more and more, that checkbox is important. It's not just, it's not, it's not just the Amazon Prime one. There's more, there's more checkboxes out there that have just as much impact. Like you're talking about your declarations, if you don't have those.

Right.

And I'm sure there's a long list of things you could possibly filter out that people are really looking for.

And I wouldn't be surprised if that— I wouldn't even be surprised if the Amazon example that you gave, right, the first thing you click is Prime, then you go over and it has to have at least 4-star review, right?

You know, but then you've eliminated 80% just by— I know.

And then as people get more savvy, they might say made in the USA. because they want to get it this year, you know. So, you know, there's a lot of those things. And it used to be that recycled, reclaimed, um, you know, rapidly renewable, um, all that stuff, local, all that stuff meant green. Today those words mean available, right? There's so many—

Right.

You know, you can get recycled stuff, but you can't get virgin material. You can get reclaimed stuff because it's already there, but the new stuff you can't. Is it rapidly renewable? Great. Then I can, you know, it's going to replenish itself quicker.

Right.

So it's been, it's been really interesting to watch how those things that we defined as being green now mean being available, which probably was the intent in the beginning.

Right, right. Yeah, the whole idea of— and, and not that it's a bad idea, but reclaiming and recycling, you're just minimizing the amount of new material you have to get, which increases your supply technically.

Exactly.

As we see, it makes, it makes you actually have a supply, right?

I know.

In some cases.

Yeah.

So when you guys go through and you're looking at new materials, what are some of the things that you guys are looking for? Like, obviously just green, you know, recycled doesn't, doesn't just check off a box anymore. So in this new, this new world where we have to actually really identify What are those markers that you guys are saying, yeah, here's my, here's my really long checklist of things that you need to actually meet to be sustainable, to actually match your guys' values?

Yeah. So one of the hardest questions I get is when people ask what the perfect material is, because there just really isn't one, you know?

Well, yeah, we'll assume there's no perfect one because—

Right, right. But you have to kind of screen through and say, You know, you have to— there's a business aspect of it, but there's also kind of the— it's got to line up with kind of our values. So who's steering their ship? Are they honest? Do they have integrity? Do they believe in the mission of what they're doing, not just in the bottom line? So that's really important. Do they need help, right? Do they need our kind of help? Because if they're just shopping for the distributor that's going to move the most product for them, that may not be us. If they're looking for someone to help tell their story and to build out their story and get it in front of the right people, that's us. And so those are the opportunities that we're looking for. So you have to have a sustainability story. You have to be on a path towards sustainability. And, you know, the people that are running that company have to value the partnership and what we bring to the table, because if they don't value that, that the services and the value add that we offer, They're just going to be disappointed. It doesn't make sense moving forward. So there's been plenty of products that we've walked away from or that we've kind of knowingly courted, but, you know, at the end of the day, it wasn't going to work out, right? So it really is like you've got to treat it almost like a long-term relationship, you know, and make sure, you know, it's not someone that you just wanted to date for a few months because it's hard to get out of it.

Right, right. Well, and it's a lot of work like you talked about, you know, if they're a new brand, You're talking about 1 to 3 years of working together consistently before, before the money shows up, potentially.

Yes.

Right. So that's, that's, that's long term just, just to start, let alone you want to actually have some profit, profit from it. You got to stick around longer than that to be able to keep, keep making profit from it. So that's—

yeah. Yeah. And there's, you know, and we've run into a few products and I always find this interesting where they're insisting that they are their own product category. So they're trying to break into the market, and it's very difficult for us to explain, look, it's hard enough to establish your brand within a category. When you're trying to build a category and your brand at the same time, it's going to take twice as long. So if you can't find a way to fit into an existing category or broaden the definition of yours so that there can be other players. You know, we've run into that issue as well where, you know, like say it's a countertop material, right? And, you know, your process is a little bit different than everyone else's. So you rename the category. Well, now you don't fit over here. And so when someone asks what you are, you have to start from scratch and say, well, this is what— this product is and this is the specific brand, it's twice as much work. So I really encourage, you know, people bringing products to market to pick the broader category that it fits in and then develop your value proposition within an existing category. You know, I mean, unless you're something truly revolutionary, it just doubles the length of the road ahead.

Yeah, well, I mean, for me, that wouldn't make sense of why you would try to create a new Category. I mean, if I created levitating counters, I would still put it under counters. It still, it still fits in a category, right? It just doesn't make sense. So yeah, it's a good point.

But you would, but right, but you would, you would call it like cantilevered prep space. Oh, is it a countertop? No, it's a cantilevered prep space. You know what I mean?

It's just like, oh man, that would— yeah, that, that sounds like a lot of extra work.

It is, it is. And it's happened and we try to discourage it, but you know, You can't do it every time, but we've learned a lot when you take this many products to market over this amount of time. And we have everything from, you know, recycled, like countertops, like Durat is from Finland. Paperstone is out of the US, and IceStone, Brooklyn, New York, and Geos, that comes from China. Everyone has a different story, and everyone has a different, you know, sustainability story, and it may not be You know, it depends what you value, and you really have to, you know, get to with architects and designers. Do you value the visual aspect and you want some sustainability, or do you really want to be able to recycle this at the end of its life, or do you just want to say you can? This is all that— there's all of that. Yeah.

Right. Well, that's it. Yeah, that's a good, good point. Looking at the— I guess you would call it the design intent. Right. What is, what is the actual design intent and how does that impact which, which materials are gonna, gonna make a good fit? And do you, with that, do you guys work primarily with designers? Is that, I mean, obviously you're the distributor side, but are you also kind of that liaison with designers who go, I want, you know, I want the ultimate sustainable option here. Looks, we'll figure out that later. Or like, do you help with that or is that more—

Yeah. So, so earlier today I had a video conference with a very, you know, high-end retail chain. And so, you know, I am Jessica, the, you know, design consultant talking about our products in a very, you know, pleasant way. Then I get off the call and I'm swearing at some countertop installer who won't listen to me unless I swear at him 3 times, then all of a sudden I have some sort of clout. So we market to architects and designers, we sell to the trade. So, you know, some of these— and they care about money, and, you know, they care about, you know, how easy it is to cut, when they can get it, and how much you can shave off the price. And, you know, and, and, you know, and so I have to get like down and dirty on that side of it and like get mad back. And I think I've made some of my best Partnerships on the trade side with some of the countertop fabricators and mill workers in a screaming, swearing match, where at the end of it, you know, I'm like, you yelling at me is not going to solve your problem. And then finally we get to a solution, and then I'm their best friend. Call Jessica, you know. So you have to put that hat on and off, you know, at different times. So, and it makes it challenging from a marketing standpoint, because You know, we market our brands to architects and designers like these beautiful aesthetic sustainable things, but over here these guys are gonna be like, is this gonna be expensive and hard to work with? You know?

Right.

So kind of bridging that gap.

And that's a, that's a good thing to think about too. And that's, you know, when you're— I think designers should be aware of some of that a little bit more and being aware of the impact of— because you're like, you were talking about at the beginning, like all the impacts, right? An impact on people. One of those impacts is somebody has to install this, somebody has to build and work with this. Can you actually do it? And that's, um, something we've actually recently run into. And looking at some wood alternatives, there's some that were created they actually, um, don't use because they were too hard. They would require saw blades that nobody wanted to pay for to be able to work with. It was amazing. Right. It would— they figured it was going to last forever, really strong, really great. And then the product failed as soon as they got to the point, well, somebody has to cut this to length to be able to put this into something. And they don't want to spend $1,000 on a special saw blade to cut your list.

Yes. And that's something that, you know, that's one of those things that I was talking about that we've learned over time when we brought certain brands to market. We've really learned that sometimes you gotta play the accessory game, and you've gotta offer the accessories from the outset, or send a blade beforehand and give them the blade.

Right. Each, each, whatever, each, every, every 100 pounds of wood you buy, you get a free saw blade. So you can cut it.

Yeah, like Paperstone's really dense. It holds up really well. But if I sell you the adhesive and you don't have to go look for it and You know, I, you know, I give you the carbide blade and bits and, you know, it just, you know, it really does make a difference and remove some of those barriers. But yeah, you're absolutely right. You know, you just can't, you know, all of these things, you just never know what the obstacle's gonna be till you first get it out there and people start using it.

Right. Yeah. Oh, that's a good— I hadn't thought about that material either.

You mentioned that when you mentioned the durability, you reminded me of something as well. So there's a known fact in the building materials world that dark solid surface like dark Corian scratches white. So if you hit it hard, it scratches white, and you gotta, you know, kind of oil it, sand it to fix it.

Right.

But we had an issue where one of our surfaces was scratching white. And I was commenting that it was an industry-known thing, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized this is what a lot of these platforms are doing. They're starting to put the performance characteristics into the platform or into the model. So like a BIM model, if you go into a BIM model, it'll flag like use in high-traffic areas or something like that. They're starting to build some of this performance-related data into these models to catch it beforehand.

So I feel, I feel like they've caught like stain— was it stainless steel appliances? They started, they figured out nobody liked it because fingerprints, right?

Fingerprints. Yeah.

Kids in the kitchen, you're— it looks terrible. And so now there's fingerprint-resistant coating they have on it, right? So that's—

yeah.

And that's now like, I think, because we bought, we bought appliances recently. We bought a fridge. And I think when we went and were just searching on Samsung's website, that was one of the checkboxes. Yeah, fingerprint resistant. So that immediately eliminated everything that any of our kids could fingerprint up.

Yep. And then by the way, it's fingerprint resistant, um, is, you know, and then everyone wanted to come out with these coatings during COVID that like antibacterial, and what's in the coating? Is it safe? Is it okay? Right? So, and I'm sure with an appliance that goes through all that testing, but in the building materials space, there's not, you know, it's not Samsung. It could be Fred's Plywood, and he puts some spray that he got from someone on there, and it's filled with copper, which now becomes a, you know, mutagen or some, you know, you just—

Right.

There's so many things that can go wrong when you're kind of fast-tracking these products to market. The one that— just as an aside, with those refrigerators, what I cannot get over is the ones that you can see inside. I don't want to see inside my refrigerator. It's a mess. They make it look so nice. Whose refrigerator looks like that?

Nobody's.

My kids, like, put half-eaten plates of food back in there. I don't want to see that.

Oh yeah, no, that's, that's real. No, those photos should never be visible. I mean, maybe, maybe Yeah, I can't actually think of a good, good reason why that would actually— it also doesn't identify the object. It's supposed to, like, read all the labels and tell you what's in there.

It doesn't.

Oh, it doesn't do it because there's no way it can read through a plate after the kid puts it in. Right.

I know.

I know.

That's just unnecessary. But yeah, no, I mean, I think, like I said, I think that this transparency information and You know, durability information and proper installation and proper tools. All that stuff is, is kind of becoming inside of these models of one little building material is going to include all this stuff. And the reason it's sustainable, the reason the BIM environment is so sustainable, is you're rendering a— you're rendering an building or a space, and anything that can go wrong gets caught before it's constructed. So there's going to be a lot less construction waste during the process because you're not going to get there and be like, I can't put an outlet here. It'll flag it in the model before it ever happens. So I think it'll be really interesting to see how much time and waste is saved when building design becomes completely virtual.

Yeah, well, that brings me an interesting point. My brother-in-law is a plumber. He's a union plumber. He does big, like, commercial jobs, and they're actually bringing in— because usually, because I've even worked as a drafter, they bring in drafters that don't know plumbing.

Yeah.

They don't know electrical. They just do the drafting as an intermediary. So now they're actually starting to have— there's whole groups of plumbers being trained drafting because they want them to work in the BIM environment to help build it out. So because— and they're catching all kinds of stuff. And so they're, they're now— their expertise is now getting put into the BIM modeling, which means now all those, like you said, electrical outlets— now you're talking about all, all the other things, all the other plumbing that's going in is now built in and, and identifying issues. So yeah, maybe hopefully those materials will also start to get into this space more. And yeah, eventually it'll be fully— it'll be fully 3D and everything. You'll know, you'll know the environmental impact of everything down to the copper elbow joint you stick in. Yeah, for something.

I know, it's, it's, it's amazing. And I love to see the direction that it's going because, you know, I came from electrical engineering, right? I was— that was my degree. And that's what I did for, for years. I worked in semiconductors. And suddenly I found myself in this construction industry. And, you know, it felt very stagnant, you know, like it didn't— like very old school.

You're so nice.

Yeah. And now, and now it just, it seems to be moving Quickly, right? And I think that COVID did a lot of that. And we've had some really interesting conversations within my company around the role of the outside salesperson. I think it has changed forever, right?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. I think that, that the idea of, you know, Penny the architect picking up her Rolodex and calling her carpet rep, her acoustic ceiling rep, her countertop rep, Why would she do that when she can go to Material Bank or SwatchBox or Source or Mortar, get everything she needs, throw it in a cart, and have it on her desk the next day? Or 2 days later, 3 days later. You know, it just— those days are kind of gone. And I really think that building material companies and a lot of other companies in general are really going to have to adapt that sales function to make it be a more meaningful one. post-COVID, as a lot of people continue to work from home.

Right.

And that when you do have meetings, it's going to be meaningful engagement, right? If someone invites you into their office, that is, they want to interact. Everyone's starved for that kind of interaction. So if you're there, create a meaningful bond with that person, have a very meaningful conversation, because they're infrequent, and people need to connect right now. So I just think it's gonna be really interesting to see how that kind of evolves and how far it goes back to what it was before. I don't think it'll go all the way Yeah, I don't think it will either.

And I think it's a good point for, for building material companies to think about. Like you've talked about Material Bank and other, other ones is, is with designers not being at the office where typically— and we talked about it— typically you would have a library at the office, right?

Right.

You would have a physical library of samples that you could go in and grab and touch and feel. And if you're not working, if you're working remote, you know, you're— every designer isn't going to set aside a whole room in their house just to store samples in the idea that they might need one of them at some point.

So it'll be interesting to see if some of these like collaborative spaces, you know, like the, you know, how WeWork and industrious locations were kind of cropping up and it was coworking, right? But I think, I wonder if it won't be the case that there will be some of these like coworking spaces, almost like a library that people go and just peruse the library. I know that Source is looking at setting up some of those where they have one library in a major metro and Gensler wants to come in. Okay. HOK wants to come in today. Okay. You know, Peterman Design wants to come in. Okay. You know, and they just go in there and all the samples are there. They look at what they want. They throw some vignettes together. They Take a picture of it, and you know, that, that's kind of the basis for their project, or they save the project in the location. I mean, Material Bank has Material Desk, which is like this online collaborative space. I wouldn't be surprised to start seeing brick-and-mortar locations pop up as a hybrid between this back in the office and work from home.

Yeah, and I'm sure someone's already thinking of how to do this all in, in VR too.

Yeah, yeah.

Pull up, pull up an empty room and now it's, now it is the room you're designing and take a look at it.

And, but designers too, I mean, they, I don't care if your sample is granite or flooring, they'll, they want to smell it. They touch it, they smell it.

Oh, absolutely.

You know, so that, that tangible piece of it, I mean, I think, I think you will be in these collaborative spaces and you will have that VR and a lot of companies are going to start to put that online, but That the— is it— does it feel warm to the touch? Is it cold to the touch? Some of that stuff is right. You know, just you can't get away from that.

No. And especially in the construction building space, right? We're talking about the buildings you and I are sitting in, offices and homes. And these are places where we do actually live and we touch, we work, you know, and more and more and more often it's just where we live and work. And those are definitely— those are, you know, absolutely high-touch areas where we do care about Is it warm to touch it or is it cold all the time? So I wanted to jump back really quickly to— you mentioned a course to be able to help these companies figure out how to do that. Share a little bit more about the course and what people can get from it and who it's really for, who can benefit from it.

Sure, sure. So, you know, when I first started at KeraGreen, I really felt like education was a big piece of what we could offer, was a value that we could bring So what is the industry grappling with right now? What's relevant? So we always have continuing education courses for architects who need to keep their certifications up by taking courses. A lot of people will do like house wrap and why it's needed, and it's basically like a thinly veiled pitch for some brand of house wrap. We don't do that. We try to pick the larger topics so there really are value-add. Like when LEED came out, we had kind of like the LEED for Dummies, the basics, you know. And then when we started to see a shift towards WELL, we have a course on WELL, becoming a WELL AP. How does LEED compare to WELL? We have a course on biophilic design, which about 4 years ago became a very, you know, was the buzzword. Now we're doing one on transparency, and we have one on biomimicry. But they're all on our website, and you can book one anytime. And it's, you know, it's supposed to be an hour. It goes relatively quickly. There's not a lot of questions. It could be about 30 minutes, but it's meant to be educational, and we always hand out some kind of brief summary of all the points we hit. But we just try to stay at the forefront of what's challenging the building material industry right now, and that's what our latest course is always on. And that's why transparency made its way out there because there's so much confusion around health product declarations and environmental product declaration and who's Mindful Materials, who's Sustainable Minds, who's Material Exchange, who's Material Connection. You know, this is a lot of different entities out there. And so we tried to kind of distill that down. It took a year to kind of interview everyone, figure out who was who.

Yeah, I mean, it sounds like it because we've talked about it and I've looked into some of those and there's There's so much to figure out. So yeah, that makes sense. So taking a year is a lot to distill down into actually understanding how to, how to do it.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Awesome. Yeah, well, that's exciting. That's exciting. You guys, you guys are putting that out there. I'm sure it will help a lot of companies who are confused. I know I would be if I were trying to jump into it right now.

Yeah, I mean, it's now like it's a service we're offering now too, is we're saying, look, you know, to our partners, and we'll say, look, we'll do it for you. We will get you the HPD, you know.

Mm-hmm.

You know, there may be a nominal fee for this, nominal fee for that, but we've done it enough times now, we know how to get it done. So we kind of can take some of the barriers out of the way. But it's usually that first mental barrier that people just think everything costs It costs a quarter of a million dollars to get a certification in there. It's intimidating. But, you know, Europe's starting to require EPDs, and it won't be long until, you know, the same is said over here. So, you know, we're just trying our best to keep, you know, our manufacturers, you know, at the front of the queue. So when you click the box, our guys are still there.

Right. Which is the goal. You still want to be there after clicking the box.

Yep.

Well, awesome. Uh, this has been, I think, really, really great episode. We've talked about quite a few things. Um, and yeah, I would really encourage anybody that's in the building material space that really cares to, to look at you guys' courses, reach out to you guys. Um, could you share what's the best way for someone to reach out if they're interested in working with you and becoming a partner?

Yes, you can go to our website, which is caragreen.com. It's C-A-R-A-G-R-E-E-N.com. And we're on, you know, most of the social media platforms at Cara Green Products. We have a podcast called Build Green, Live Green. And if you want to get in touch with us directly, just email info@caragreen.com, or you can email me, jessica@caragreen.com, and I will get you to the right person.

Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for taking your time to be on this, and Thank you.

No problem. Thanks, Ian.