Interview with Mark Bernstein of Earthshot on His Newest Projects

Hello everyone, welcome to this episode of Conscious Design. I'm here with Mark Bernstein, President of Earthshot, to talk about their mission with climate change and how we can have a bit more of a positive spin on that. So welcome to the show.

Thank you, thanks for having me.

Yeah, so I'm really— what you guys are doing really caught my attention because there's so much negative outlook, right? We all look at doom and gloom for climate change, which there's, you know, a place for that. You know, something bad we shouldn't hide. But it's also kind of just been highly focused on only the bad things and how not focused on— How can we make a change and what are the positives of making those changes? And that's something that you're, you're looking to help change. You're looking to help give people more of a hopeful approach to how do we solve that. So what— how did you come about, you know, deciding that that's, that's how you wanted to go and, and your project right now?

Well, a couple of things. One is that, um, So I've been dealing with climate change stuff for 20 years. So kind of early stages of dealing with climate. And I also have a little bit of marketing background. And so for a long time, it's kind of, you know, I recognized that people don't react to fear. I mean, people don't— that doesn't get people to do something, really, except run away. And so that's what fear, that's what the messaging has been doing. People are running away or they don't know what to do or it's too late, then why should I do anything? And so thinking about how can we inspire people, we can inspire people to give them something to strive for, give them a positive vision of the future, something that could happen. And that's where clean tech comes in. And so cleantech is interesting. Cleantech is better than it was before, and it's better than what you use today. So you don't have to sacrifice to reduce your carbon footprint. But most people don't get that. And we're trying to present that vision of the future to people.

Right. That's a good point. It's changed. Cleantech has changed and grown a lot. Since you've been in this for 20 years. So I thought that's a lot of change to have happened, uh, since, since people started talking about what is, what is clean tech, how do we make that happen more. It's changed. And is there— so you mentioned before you wanted to go and bring— you need to be inspiring people, right? You want to inspire people to actually change and make, make those.

Mm-hmm.

And one of the things you're doing is creating a game. And that and a few other things. Tell us a little bit about your— how you're going about it, giving people a way to be inspired about this stuff.

Yeah, so, you know, if we're trying to show off kind of cool technology, you can't just tell people. That's not where people are. People aren't reading things, they're not listening to things, you know. But people are on games.

Right.

Huge percentage of the population are playing games and they get something from the games. And all studies show that people actually do absorb things from the games. And so if you can actually embed clean tech into games, people have come away with, hey, that's pretty cool, you know. And then if you give them the access to be able to go do it— so think about a, you know, a game in which you're not just driving regular cars, but you're also getting to drive electric vehicles. And there are things electric vehicles can do that regular cars can't. From a crab walk that the EV Hummer does to the Rivian tank turn, to be able to, at a button, increase your height. You can put electric-using devices in there. You can have a microwave in there. You can have a popcorn machine. I mean, you can do things in an electric car. And so if you develop something in which people are playing a fun game, but you get to choose kind of electric vehicle upgrades and the people chasing you can't, you're gonna beat them every time. And so the idea is putting this into the gaming community, that 20 to 34-year-old sweet spot of gamers that can influence purchase decisions. And the demographics are broad. They're all over the country. So it's not just showing up in LA and New York and big cities.

Right, right. And that's an interesting point because it's— you know, I have kids, I'm familiar with games, I play them as well, and it is very much— there aren't as many electric cars in video games. There aren't as— like, clean tech hasn't Isn't usually inside those things. And even, even movies. So our entertainment that we consume is not heavily skewed yet towards showing that. So it's kind of what we're staring at all the time is still old, old current technology. You'd say it's not clean technology. Is there— When you're going through that, obviously electric cars are Great, they're easy to integrate, right? It doesn't, it doesn't become science fiction as soon as you put an electric car. Are you looking at, you know, beyond, so like clean tech into sort of science fiction realm, or are you keeping it more to existing technology or really close technology? Like, how, how are you playing with that idea? You know, because we have those sci-fi—

Yeah.

Right, we have the sci-fi stuff way out there. Like, how— where are you kind of seeing what's the best place here?

What we're trying to do is keep it to the near future. We're keeping the people that some people can actually go out and do and get or see, um, you know. And it doesn't mean, particularly in a game, you know, if you think of when you play games, you can stretch that too. And so, you know, yeah, lots of things electric vehicles can do today, they still can't go vertically up a hill, right, up a wall. But we may include that in the game, even though we know they can't do it yet. So you can stretch, but you can create those things. Or you think about a super efficient house, building a Sims and your eco house. And you'll have all these things you can do today, but maybe we have a smart artificial intelligence in there and you walk in and you, you tell your AI what to do and how to keep the house going. And, you know, that's not quite there yet, you know.

Unbelievable.

But it's pretty close, right? You know, it's Alexa and all that stuff. I mean, you can control lots of what's in your house, not quite everything yet, but it's— so that next step we can put into a game, you know, or, or add to an existing game.

Right. And you're— so you guys are working on developing your own game. Are you— do you have like a series of games that you plan to launch? And you mentioned adding stuff to other games. Are you, are you trying to partner and help co-develop and put that into— kind of how, how's that landscape?

Yeah, we are all those things. So we, we have a game under development Kind of to showcase what we think can be done. We also have ideas for adding components into existing games. And so we want to build some of those ideas and approach game studios with, hey, here's an idea. Here's how to incorporate this into your existing games. It's a matter of getting noticed and a matter of getting attention to these things. But yeah, I mean, we don't want to be a game studio. We wanted game studios to kind of work with us and develop these ideas. And there are lots of games out there that could add cleantech into them. Fortnite, for a bit, had windmills, wind turbines. And they had one thing where you had to go find the wind turbines. They don't really do anything in the game, but they're kind of there.

Right.

But they could. It could do more. It could be more of a— if you're doing some stuff with solar and renewables and things, you can add something to your gameplay. So almost any game that I play, you could add some clean tech thing to and have a challenge of it and just get people to notice it. I'd love to see a Mario e-kart someday.

Right, right. And so beyond just— right, games are great. Games are a good way to get into— it's kind of just getting into the public consciousness, right? It's getting it there so that instead of it being an oddity or a novelty, it just becomes, well, this should be, right? It should just exist. Why does it not exist? How do we make it exist? And almost Almost normalizing it, right? It's taking something that I see, I still see people driving giant diesel trucks that blow out rolls and rolls of coal, right? So it's getting it normalized. So electric is normal and clean tech, but you mentioned you're not wanting to be a game studio, right? That's not your dream, isn't to become the next big game studio. So how do you Besides kind of this consulting role of, okay, here, let's work with the game studios, what else are you looking at to help get this into? Are there any other projects or areas where you see a path to help normalizing and putting this out there as part of our, you know, our collective consciousness, so to speak?

So 2 things. We also have another path, which is trying to influence government and corporate decision makers. And that's to build what we're calling a Cleantech is Cool portal, in which we can put in there all the different types of technologies and opportunities that exist around the world, a lot of them under the radar. There are, you know, we hear about solar and wind and electric vehicles and batteries, but there's a lot of things we don't hear about that could have an enormous impact as well. And we need to have the information available. There's no place to go if I'm a company and say, okay, I got this problem. What can I do to solve it? You have to hire a consultant, and they only know what they know. And so what we're trying to do is being able to populate an easily accessible portal for people to find technologies and opportunities that exist. And we'll use a little bit of AI searching, a little bit of people searching and vetting. to basically build this portal. And we're hoping to make it accessible to the average person too. And the initial focus is businesses and governments, but then also create an interface that the average person can go in and say, well, what can I do? You know, if I want to reduce my carbon footprint, what can I do? And where can I find things in my neighborhood or in my local environment? So that's the other stream of things we're doing. to make sure the information is out there so people can make decisions.

Right. Yeah, that's a good point. There's not really a clean tech hub that I, that I know of that shows, hey, here's all the technology that's being developed, here's all the— and it seems to be there's a new, there's a new thing coming out every time I look almost, of just somebody's invented some new device or a new more efficient system somewhere that makes a cleaner, better product.

And there are a lot of local solutions too. And so it's not all global, it's not all— not everything is usable every place. And so if we can help find localized solutions, localized opportunities, that also enhances everything. And And then people can help a local business. I mean, there's a whole lot of ways to inspire people in action. And the other thing we're hoping to do as COVID winds down at some point is to return to a concept of in-person experiences. So creating short 3D immersive experiences for people to understand what's happening and how to fix it. And take it on the road, take it on the road to county fairs across the country where they don't get these things. If you think about the big immersive experiences like the Van Gogh immersive experience in the big cities, they don't show up in Lincoln, Nebraska. They don't show up in these little towns. No, no, no. And so people don't get it. So if we can bring— even if it's a climate change thing, people will go to it because they never get Right. And there are 500+ small science museums scattered across the country, and they don't get the big exhibits. So if we can bring these things there, then, um, people will go and understand more and have more access. So that's the, the third piece of what we're trying to achieve.

Right. Well, that makes a lot of sense. You know, it's And you said those smaller, smaller places don't get the attention, right? Like, it's a new electric car comes out, they, there's, they show up in LA, they show up in New York, they show up in a few other places, and they skip the rest. And there's, there's not a focus on, on that. So bringing it, you know, it's your theme of awareness, right? It's you're bringing awareness of places and people to that just don't typically— they kind of get overlooked in something like this, which if we're trying to change, change the climate and undo anything, you gotta get— we have to get everyone on board. We have to get, uh, that 40%, or probably more, probably even more people.

And it's, it's the 40% who don't think it's happening, but even, you know, the people who care a lot, they're really not doing a lot. Right, so the average person still doesn't quite know what to do. You just need to inspire people, and people don't have to make wholesale changes. You know, we need people to make small changes over time, and you multiply by the population, you get big changes, right? So we don't need everybody to go vegan. We don't need everybody to, to do certain things. We need people to make marginal changes substitute stuff that's actually better than what they're using today, and we can see big changes happening.

Well, and I think that's a great point, and this is something I ran into talking to clients about designing new products, is they don't— a lot of people don't realize how much better materials there are. They don't realize how good of biodegradable options there are. Or how many, right? There's still kind of this idea that we're, we're in a super limited early stage of figuring out how to be green, and that, you know, you can never replace plastics, or it's really hard to, or you can't make something recyclable, it's too expensive. And it's—

We've tipped.

The tipping point has already happened. We just haven't realized Right.

People just haven't realized it yet. I mean, the ongoing assumption is if I have to be more environmental, it's going to cost me more.

Right.

And that's just not always the case anymore. It was 20 years ago when I started and I was selling people on expensive things. And that's not the case anymore. You take LED light bulbs, right? 5 years ago they were more expensive, but today they're the cheapest light bulbs in the market. They last almost forever.

And I actually don't know, I don't understand why we're still making other light bulbs at this point.

Well, we're pretty much not, though there are some, but you know, it's the US, we can't outlaw it.

Home Depot, they still have incandescent light bulbs, and it's— yeah, I don't know why. Like, they even make LED light bulbs that look like incandescent ones.

Yeah. And, you know, it's just got, you know, it's hard in the US to ban things. We've tried, right? But, you know, thankfully for the most part, those are in the back and the LED light bulbs are up front.

Right.

And now that they're the same price, basically, people are switching over, but it's taken a long time. I mean, you know, could have been 10 years ago, uh, and, you know, uh, and there are other things like that, and we just need to show people. We need to, you know, but you can't just tell people because they don't—

right? We've been doing that for 20 years. Right.

You gotta put it in a way that, that's more fun, and you gotta market in the right way too, you know. We've clearly been marketing climate change wrong because people aren't buying it. And so, you know, if you're— you know, if you're— if your product isn't selling, you need to change your marketing. And climate change product is not selling, so we need to change the marketing. And that's what we're all about.

Yeah, that's a good point. And I think thinking of The story of climate change as a product, yeah, it would have been pulled from the shelves. Nobody, no company would have stuck with it this long, uh, or with this market. They would have repackaged it, rebranded it, and thrown it back out there again. So I think that's a— I don't think I've ever heard anybody talk about it like that, but it's so true. It is, it is still something to be You know, marketed and shared. And that's what, that's what storytelling is, right? Branding and marketing, storytelling. And yeah, clearly, clearly we have not been telling the story the right way because if 40% don't believe it and 60% do but don't know what to do about it, then that sounds like a partial story that some people just don't get.

Right.

Great. Are looking at it and going, well, how do we market it differently? How do we, how do we put it out there and have it make sense? Because obviously it's confusing. It's either confusing or scary. And it is what we've been doing, right?

Or, you know, for a while it was too far in the future, right? And it's not impacting me. Well, it's not too far in the future anymore, but people still have that mindset, right?

Right.

And, you know, and there's a lot of throwing up their hands. I mean, it's been— we've had the same problem at some level with COVID in terms of marketing vaccines and things. And, um, but it's different, right? And, um, at some level, but it's— there are some similar elements there. It's, it's like anything else. And You know, the, the only successful fear campaign that worked was, um, car companies selling SUVs in the early stages of— you know, the reason people drive SUVs today is because car companies sold it as safety.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and, um, there was fear of accidents. And so, you know, it was, it was a particular marketing push by automobile companies to scare people out of sedans and into SUVs that make more profits. Um, and that worked.

Um, well, fear will work for a short time, and we— right, it'll drive something, it'll make a spike, right? But when you're talking about long-term like climate, it doesn't— it obviously doesn't work because we get these mini spikes, but nothing— but nothing's really shifted, right? We haven't shifted as a species, right? Which is what we need. We need long-term shift.

And we are seeing some changes at the margin. I mean, um, you know, in the US, um, there's been some reduction in the growth of meat products and certainly an increase in plant-based products, to the extent that big companies like Tyson's and Hormel are beginning to put out their own plant-based meat products. And the reason is they see a long-term decline, and they might as well, um, you know, make the product that substitutes. And the fact is they make more profits on the plant-based products than on their meat products today. So might as well. And that's okay.

Yeah, it's still a driver. And I think that's also— and if you think, if you look at it and think about it, you know, the marketing behind plant-based, that works. And none of it was fear. Like, it wasn't a— there were no giant fear campaigns to get you to buy a vegetable burger. There's no scary, scary campaigns around it. And you look at it and we've shifted. Like, it's a huge— even fast food chains now are offering Impossible Burger or some other vegetable burger.

Yeah.

version, which at that point when the fast food chain switches over, that's mainstream. Like, that's— you can't get any more popular or more out there than getting a fast food version of it. So it's a good shift, I think, is what you guys are bringing out, is looking at the marketing and saying, well, how do we look at this? How do we look at it positive and inspired? I like that idea of inspiring rather than fear. It's, uh, I hope that it works out, and it— I think it will. I think it will shift people long term. Um, is there kind of your, your immediate next steps? Like, you're working on your, your game, you're working on a database, and eventually these in-person things.

Yeah.

Is one of those, do you think, is going to come out first?

We're hoping to get the portal up and going and have the first segment of the portal up. That'll probably be first because that's relatively easiest. Um, I mean, we're also trying to significantly increase our, our presence of who knows us and social media, so we're beginning to ramp up social media presence to begin to, to put some of these ideas out there. It helps us raise funds, it helps us sort of get audience for the things we're doing. But we expect the, you know, the portal to get up, pieces of the portal get up first. Games take a while.

Yep.

Develop and put out, but we hope to have some small-scale prototype, you know, to kind of show people and You know, something fun, a little, a little fun thing to play just as a teaser. Um, hopefully not too long.

Perfect. Well, for anyone that wants to get a hold of you guys or work with you, get involved, where would they find you guys?

Our website, earthshot.us, and info@earthshot.us. And connect on LinkedIn or Twitter or Instagram, any of those places. We are on Twitter @Earthshot_US.

Perfect.

Don't confuse us with the Earthshot Prize. That's Prince William's thing. So you got to kind of— if you search for us, you kind of got to go down a bit to get to us. But we were using the name first, um, and, uh, people are beginning to find us. We have a few videos up on YouTube, um, and we're, we're, you know, all trying to push that, that positive, innovative messaging, which we think gets people excited. I mean, that's what got people excited in the '50s and things about, you know, and then going to the moon and, and all those things. It engages people, inspires people.

Right. Yeah, nobody said anything bad about going to the moon. It was all positive. It works. Well, awesome. Well, I really appreciate you taking time to be on the show and share what you guys are doing. I think it's amazing, and I think we need more of it. So hopefully we begin a new era in marketing climate change into a more, a more positive tune, uh, and inspiring people. So yeah, thanks for being on the show.

Thanks for having me. It was a pleasure. It's really great to chat about it. As you can tell, I like to chat about it.

Yes, it's been great. Thank you so much. Bye.

Thank you.