Sustainable Materials Manufacturing | Hosted by Grace Donovan and Carol Mitchell-Lin

Hi, and welcome to the Industry 4.0 Club. I'd like to wish a good local time to everyone. Before we start, I'll let you know a little bit about us and today's conversation. The main purpose of the I40 Club is to accelerate the evolution to Industry 4.0 by having engaging conversations among industry leaders. innovators, leaders, and manufacturing professionals. This is Women in Manufacturing, our Tuesday conversation with the focus on tech and manufacturing. Welcome to our first series of the year on sustainability, where over the last couple of months we've introduced to you women with unique perspectives on sustainability in manufacturing and I-40. This is our 5th in the series titled Getting Serious about materials manufacturing. I'm Carol Michelin, an Industry 4.0 Club co-founder, and for over 6 years I've been creating content for i40 adoption in manufacturing. When I'm not supporting my fellow co-founders, I'm a content marketing specialist at Fuse Data in Toronto, Canada. What we do at Fuse Data is help leaders build data strategies for better team alignment and decision-making. I'd like to introduce my co-host and fellow i40 Club co-founder, Grace Donovan. Hi, Grace.

Hello. Good morning, at least for me. Thank you so much, Carol. As Carol mentioned, I'm another co-host to Women in Manufacturing, as well as a co-founder of the Industry 4.0 Club. I am the executive director of the Rural Engagement and Vitality Center, which is a joint initiative between a nonprofit and the university to bring extra capacity capacity and energy and ideas to communities and local governments around Eastern Oregon. So, and I have a background in working with entrepreneurs specifically in the mining space. So I'm really excited to dive into today's conversation around materials.

Thanks, Grace. And today we're pleased to have Julia Freer Goldstein as our special guest. Julia is the founder and owner of the JLFG. I had to practice that. Communications. Hi, Julia.

Hi.

We really appreciate you taking the time to be with us today.

I'm happy to be here.

Awesome. Well, we're gonna— oh, we're gonna make you center stage. There we go. And I think, as Carol mentioned, you know, you're an author and founder, and I'd love if you could share us a little bit about your journey and how you came— kind of what was your career journey to where you are today?

Yes, my interest in materials science started back when I was an undergrad, and I was majoring in general engineering, and I discovered the field of materials science, and I thought it was so fascinating that engineers could tailor materials to have specific properties. And then I ended up— I was so fascinated, I got a PhD in material science, and I started my career as a process development engineer in semiconductor packaging. So taking those computer chips and figuring out how to best attach them to printed circuit boards and how to make sure they were properly protected from the environment and connected, etc. I also— my kind of foray into really thinking about sustainability aspects to some degree started with my PhD research, which was on lead-free solders. And so I was very much involved in, in the early 2000s where the whole industry, the electronics industry, was switching from leaded solders to lead-free. So part of that, and then The other piece of my journey was I was always the engineer who would write. I was the one writing the articles that appeared in trade magazines, the reports for government contracts, all that kind of thing. And so it just seemed natural to shift into writing content. I wrote for some trade publications, and then this version of my business started about in 2011. And was focused on a variety of different kinds of content writing, really very technical, often white papers, blog posts, technical reports, and that kind of thing. And in 2017 was when I said, oh, I should write a book. I've been a writer for so long, I should write a book. And so that kind of started my journey as an author. And then I am now leaning more into the teaching aspect of being able to talk about what I do with other people and excite them about making changes in materials and sustainability and how they do things at their companies.

So within that journey, you know, you mentioned a little bit of maybe what got you more interested in sustainability, but could you expound on what Like how this, like, focus of yours on sustainability really developed kind of in that career journey?

Yeah, it was to some degree gradual, and I know some people, they have one particular defining moment where they make a big shift. It was more this realization that I felt like, oh, I was just writing about the technology behind gadgets.

Mm-hmm.

This was sort of, you know, the iPhone was just taking off and that kind of thing. And I remember thinking, I want to write about and work in industries that are making more of a real positive difference in the world, right? Obviously smartphones have had their pluses and minuses in the difference in the world and, and all that. And so again, I thought back to that materials background and really about some of the negative environmental and social impacts of materials.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, you were talking about being in mining. Yeah, mining is an incredibly impactful in a negative way kind of industry. and also necessary, right? We, we need these metals for society, and it can be a very toxic process. And so there need to be better ways of doing things. And I was also again thinking I should have written a book by now. And I said, okay, I want it really to be about how we can better use materials. And starting with stuff like, you know, plastics, metals— how are they made? How can they be made better? What are people doing to really think about some of these issues and impacts, mitigate them, and find better ways of doing things? So I just— I kept— just in the process of researching that book and interviewing people, I learned a lot more about it.

Mm-hmm.

And I just— the more I learned, the more I wanted to learn and the more I said, yes, I want to have this be more of a focus in my career.

Excellent. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Now, do you— now that you've been writing for 20 years, do you consider yourself just a writer or how— like, are you— as far as material sciences, that— still drives your, your interests and your passion? Or are you more sustainability? Or do you see it as all in one?

Well, I am multifaceted. Yes, I am a writer, and I know a lot of people like, oh, what do you need to do to say you're a writer? Well, I, I mean, obviously I have published stuff. I enjoy writing, and it's not all that I do. And it also matters to some degree what I write about. I have occasionally had projects where I'm just not that enthused about what I'm writing about, and I realize those aren't the kinds of projects and contracts I want to have.

Mm-hmm.

I want to have ones where if I say, oh, I want to research more about this, I want to learn more about it. Like, there's a project I was doing recently about the issue of PFAS, right, those perfluorocarbons, and the, the impacts of those and how to mitigate that. And I'm like, okay, yes, I want to learn more about that. So I want to work on that kind of thing. Um, and I would say I'm still— I'm a materials geek. So if there is something about how companies are learning about better ways to use materials, inventing new materials. I get excited about that.

Now, I noticed on LinkedIn that you were talking about water recently. And how does water fit into that as a component?

Well, absolutely. It's interesting. So one of the things I write a Sustainability 101 column for semiconductor industry publication. And I started that column in, I think, 2021 with 7 sort of introductory posts on important topics. And one of those was greenhouse gas emissions. There were a number of other things, including water. And water is a natural resource that is critical for life. On Earth, and it's limited in terms of thinking about— there's whole things of like, oh, are we going to run out of this and that minerals? Are we going to have peak oil? Are we going to run out of all these resources that are underneath the Earth? Um, there's a lot of issues regarding that. I don't want to get sidetracked there. Water is something that we really can run out of, and because of climate change, we are experiencing More droughts, floods, not the right amount of water in the right place. Uh, one thing I wrote about was issues in Cape Town in South Africa where they were counting down to day zero when they were going to have to turn off all the municipal taps if they didn't get water. And there were several years where they came dangerously close to that and really had to ration it. So Water is a crucial element to life, and it's also a crucial element in many manufacturing operations. They need to use water, and they need to use it wisely.

I can see the importance of having less water used. Yeah, in manufacturing processes. Is that something that you think about that's on your mind?

Well, there may be some cases where, yes, they can use less water, but what is more important to some degree is thinking about where the water is coming from and recycling it, filtering it, and also making sure that the manufacturing operations aren't taking away the community's supply of water or making that unsafe, right? I mean, I think back to Flint, Michigan, which is probably a situation that I know is maybe a number of years ago now, but, you know, with lead in the water and the residents couldn't drink their water. And honestly, today some people in that part of the country still don't trust their water supplies even though tests have shown that they're okay.

Yeah.

And meanwhile, The manufacturers were finding their— they had plenty of fresh, uncontaminated water to use. So it's, you know, it's just— I think manufacturers have to be aware of what's going on in their communities and respectful of that and finding ways to address water use. Because I still think about like Intel building a plant in Arizona. That's a desert. And I know, I mean, that's a company that is mindful of their impact, you know, but it's still— anyway, you just, you just got to think about the— oh shoot, I gotta remember the how many millions of gallons of water a fab uses every day.

Anyway, it's a lot, and ideally those are recycled and recirculated, and it's not like they need to be drawing millions of gallons a day from a river because that is not Well, and I think the other kind of side of that coin too is you're kind of mentioning kind of the community impacts, is how sustainable it is for communities to live around manufacturing processes or be neighbors to them, especially if there's a lot of waste and, you know, quote, toxic processes that are spilling over and having some impacts there. I used to live in Detroit, Michigan, so I'm familiar with some of those those challenges where certain neighborhoods were exposed to more air pollution, and those neighborhoods unsurprisingly were lower income and neighborhoods of color, whereas the wealthier, more affluent, whiter neighborhoods didn't have those same air quality issues. So there's a lot like, you know, this can continue expanding kind of as a topic.

Absolutely.

Yeah. So as we've been going through this series, we've been asking everyone kind of What is your kind of in your world, what's maybe perhaps the most important of the 3 Rs, you know, reduce, reuse, recycle? But there's also so many others like repair, rental, recovery, regeneration, remanufacturing. What is your opinion of some of these, you know, quote, R, you know, these Rs? And do you have a preference for one over the other?

Yes, there is an order to consider them, and it's not like there's just one exact fixed order, uh, but one of the things that's on top of that list, which I'm not sure if you mentioned, is refuse. Oh, which is that one?

That's a new one.

Yes, which is just refuse to even use this thing to begin with. I mean, it can be simple as somebody in the grocery store just, oh, I'm going to refuse to use those plastic bags in the produce section. I'm going to bring my own from home, or I'm just going to put my produce loose in its cart because some produce already has its own natural packaging that you're not going to eat anyway. But it also— Yeah, bananas are Aren't they? Well, there's, there's many issues around bananas, but yeah, they come with their own packaging. So why do we need to put them in a plastic bag anyway? But, you know, it can be used in a manufacturing environment as well to say we will refuse to— maybe it could be refuse to do business with certain suppliers that are not being responsible manufacturers. It can mean we will refuse to support certain industries and choose to support others with how and where our products are used, in what kinds of applications. So that's the refuse. And reduce, because sometimes maybe you can't completely eliminate something that's problematic.

Mm-hmm.

How can you reduce it? And then you go into things like reusing. Water is a key example, but there's many different materials that can be reused, reprocessed over and over and over. That's a piece of the circular economy, and plastics are super problematic in the circular economy. The idea that, oh yeah, we have circular plastic because it's supposedly recyclable. Yeah, that doesn't exactly work. I could go on that for a really long time. But there's also things like repair and refurbish and remanufacture. There's opportunities for equipment to go into secondhand markets. So one example is in the semiconductor industry, like the silicon wafers, they've had different sizes. And let's say a company is going from processing on 200-millimeter wafers to 300-millimeter. Well, the old 200mm equipment could go to other suppliers who, for whatever reason, are still manufacturing on a 200mm size. And that's just one example. Um, I mean, this kind of thing is used for cars. You get a certified pre-owned car, which sounds a lot better than a used car. Because then the manufacturer has exam, you know, taken it in, gone through its however many point process, certified, it's got a warranty, we guarantee it's going to work properly, and here you go. So, um, you know, there are just a lot of different chances to do that. I was listening to a fascinating, uh, podcast episode about somebody who specializes in selling refurbished laptops with the idea that they can be 5 years old and they can still work for most use cases. So there's just a lot of opportunities for them and finding ways sometimes between different industries, because maybe there's cast-offs that you can't reuse in your industry because of requirements for purity or reliability or something, but another industry can use it because their requirements are different and that recycling is way down on the list.

Thank you. I really like that we have like a new, you know, read because I do think that's really important. We have a comment from Mike and he's asking, are you aware of any schools that are teaching engineers, design skills with sustainability incorporated into their coursework?

That is becoming much more of a trend. And when I was in school, this was decades ago, that was definitely not something that was happening. But it is something that is happening a lot more often. In fact, so Harvey Mudd College, which is where I went undergrad, they are designing now new majors that incorporate climate. And their first one is chemistry and climate. And they're going to have it with other ones as well. And the students are— young people are especially interested in contributing positively. And, you know, they have many decades of life ahead of them. And so it is fascinating just seeing all the programs that are coming up at colleges, and there is a great opportunity to educate young people in a way that says, yeah, we want to consider sustainability first. And there's somebody I know who's been an architect for decades, and his take is he's really working on incorporating more of those sustainability aspects into architecture. And when he talks to architects that are over, well, whatever age you want to say, they've been doing it for a long time, they're kind of like, we want to keep doing things the same way. And the trick is to reach the young people, whether it's when they're still in school or when they've recently graduated, because they are really more able to listen to that message and really want to incorporate it in their workplaces.

And are you seeing kind of on the other side of that coin, are you seeing a lot more demand from employers for roles in sustainability? Or are they seeing the value in that?

They are talking about it. And in terms of how well they're implementing it, it really varies. And one of the messages that I want to convey is if you want to attract the next generation of intelligent, skilled, enthusiastic employees who will help your company continue to be relevant in the years coming forward, you need to address this.

Because—

and I don't have the statistics in front of me, but some significant portion of today's college students and recent grads say a company's social and environmental impact and approach and company culture is something that they seriously consider. That may be a very important aspect to where they decide to work. I know people who have left companies because they want to really incorporate sustainability into their work and they don't see the support coming from their employers, so they leave. And those companies are losing out on some great people. And then of course, wherever they go, those companies are gaining. And so if you want to be one of those companies that is gaining those amazing workers that are going to be around for a long time, if you treat them right, It's got to be part of— it's got to be part of what you do.

Yeah. We have another question from Karen who asks, how does consumer demand for eco-friendly products influence adoption of sustainable materials by manufacturers?

Consumer demand is an important factor. So in terms of feeling pressures, it can be customer pressures. It to some degree depends on the sector. But there is definitely this idea that, well, if they have the customers who are demanding this kind of product, then they will deliver it. And I mean, we've seen that just like, say, with organic food.

Right.

Organic produce. It used to be a really niche thing, right? That was like what the hippies did or something. Well, now it's everywhere. It's not just in co-ops and Whole Foods. It's in all the grocery stores. There are those options and the prices come down, right? The early adopters for a new thing are going to pay a premium. When it becomes more mainstream and you have more people saying, we want this, then companies are going to deliver. Now, the other warning to people is sometimes they will overpromise and say, oh yes, our product is now eco-friendly. It doesn't have these 5 ingredients in it. It's the most fabulous thing for the planet. Not exactly. So, you know, it's, it's still, it's still a product. There's still that— remember that refuse, right? Do you actually need it? Now, if it's something that you feel like you really need in your life and there are a couple of options, and one of them is, you know, less toxic or has better packaging or is going to be healthier, yeah, choose it.

Excellent.

Yeah. Now, earlier, Julia, you mentioned that you were involved in the transition, the lead solder transition. for lead in soldering materials. Now, how does innovation play a part in any change that takes place?

Okay, so it's interesting because the lead in solder example, that started from a regulation in Europe, in the, in the EU, that said, oh, after a certain time, we are not going to allow lead in solders because lead is toxic. So sometimes an industry is really forced to do something because of regulations. And so in that case, they had to work for, oh goodness, like 15 years or so to develop lead-free solders that could perform as well as the tin-lead solders that they had been using. for decades. And so to some degree, that was like they were forced to innovate. But doing it in a proactive way that's going to say, we want to support research that is going to develop those materials that we will need in the future. is something that is happening more. We're seeing more collaborations between universities and industries. Now, sometimes, of course, that means that then the university students are kind of tied to that company, but in general, it's really a good thing. And so I think of the clean energy testbeds at the University of Washington, where they're working on batteries, solar cells, grid kind of energy grid technologies. And there is that collaboration between the students, entrepreneurs in the community, companies. And so that kind of interdisciplinary approach, or when companies are even, say, funding startups in the area, as opposed to, oh, we're going to try to invent this all ourselves, we're going to support startups that are developing the new materials. that we will eventually want to buy to use in our products.

So our companies— I've seen instances of this before here in Canada where companies are collaborating with the universities because they have the testbed where the companies may not have that R&D space and people to help.

So yes. That, that universities will have the different facilities and they will have students who want to do this work. And so it can be really a win-win for both the universities and the companies.

Now, um, are there any cases where you think that change won't happen unless it's legislated or required? Like, for example, with the lead solder?

Yes, there, there are just— there's often a tendency to continue doing things the way they have been done. There are companies that want to be on the leading edge and want to be seen as the more responsible environmentally friendly companies, and they have kind of put that into how they operate for a very long time. There are also companies that will maybe put lip service to it but also fight it with incredible lobbying. And so some of that is that they want to even restrict regulations. Oh, we don't want to be regulated, basically. We want the license to pollute as much as we very well please. And that is unfortunate. And I really hope that those kind of things aren't allowed to happen. I don't want to get overly political here. But I do think— I mean, that's another way that people can make a difference is if you really care about ensuring a healthy world for generations to come, support the politicians who will also try to enact the right kind of regulations to make that happen. But to some degree, just the trends and the interest and the increased just knowledge and awareness of some of these really serious issues around climate change and pollution and things like that Companies that are actually responding to that are going to be well positioned for the future. And there can— there are cases where other companies that are more resistant are realizing that unless they get on board and do this, the company may not be around decades from now.

So like sustainable Processes equals sustainable company.

Ideally, yes. And it's sort of both aspects of, right? Sustainable means it can keep going for a long time. Now, sustainable growth is like another issue, like the way growth is, oh, it's got to be so many percent per year. And we have to keep growing and growing. And that is an exponential curve. And it is not, it cannot continue indefinitely. So there's a lot of things that we need to really rethink, and some industries and some kinds of products may disappear. And then to some degree, they will have to, right? We're going to need to transition away from fossil fuels. And can that happen? You know, how— on what timeline is that going to happen? And what can we do to accelerate that? I am not an absolute expert in that. But there are people who know a lot and can do that to, like, put that reality check on it and say, okay, this is what we think we can do and how can we accelerate that and make some of those transitions happen faster?

I let my hand slip a little bit, but I've been hovering on this question because I think it's very pertinent and it's similar to another question that's been posed in the chat. So when manufacturers are considering transitioning, what are some of the pros and cons that they are weighing as they look to adopt new sustainable practices or refuse or reuse?

Yeah, so moving to more sustainable materials. So one thing that needs to be top priority is performance. There are certain parameters, there are certain requirements that a material must meet, right? Whether that's about strength, weight, chemical resistance, it all depends on how you're using it. If the replacements do not perform well, and I think we've probably all seen some examples of so-called green products and they really don't work very well.

They're just so-so.

Just what?

Paper straws.

I know, you know, I remember— I give away my age by saying I remember those like paper straws with the colored stripes from the '70s. Anyway, those disintegrated and so do, yeah, new ones. Like, yeah, just don't use a straw unless you need to for medical reasons. Anyway, so the— what, what you're— what it's replacing needs to work.

Mm-hmm.

As well, or ideally better. Now, there may be a learning curve, and there may be some points where, as they're developing it, it takes a while for it to get there. And that's why, you know, supporting that research. Another thing that often comes into play and stops companies is the cost, right? They will say, oh, this one costs 30% more per unit or per kilogram, I can't afford that. And I think it's really important to rethink some of those considerations and look holistically.

Mm-hmm.

Because let's say it's a less toxic option and it costs more when you buy the material. Well, maybe you're going to be able to save money on hazardous disposal fees. So look at that whole picture before somebody just looks at the upfront price to buy something and balks at it. And so it's a matter of really looking at the whole picture. And are there ways to reduce waste? Are there ways to use less material? That's the other thing too. What if, you know, it ends up you can buy less of the thing? And so some of it also is working with these suppliers, talking with, say, some of those startups that are really working to develop something and collaborating with them to make sure that what they're developing is going to meet your needs. You know, is it going to be available at the performance and at the quantity you need and all of that?

Mm-hmm.

And so it's just doing that analysis. And some of it is, it's considering the designs with some of those sustainability metrics up front. And how can you really look at your whole bill of materials and say, where are there opportunities to improve? What is available? And maybe there's some things that you can kind of test out on a small scale before implementing them throughout your company or throughout your product line.

Excellent. We have another question kind of in that vein from Kat Schreier. How can companies and agencies do better to support women and economically disadvantaged groups and founders of color with startups in sustainable materials, water technology, and other fields with extensive early-stage costs and barriers to entry?

I think some of that is just the awareness. And because there's a tendency for companies to just do business with the people they know, all the people like them. And so I would just encourage those groups and I would encourage investors to support more diverse founders, and there are organizations that are doing that. And to just, you know, for the founders that are, you know, women, people of color, it can be difficult because you don't, quote, look like what they expect To see. And some of it is just— it's speaking up, it's becoming visible. It's first maybe speaking out in communities where they are willing to listen to your voice. And maybe some of those people have connections to a broader community that might not have ever heard of you. But if they can open up those doors then hopefully the opportunities will broaden. And for— we, we need those companies to tell their stories.

I have actually have a little bit of a case study here. I mean, it's very specific, but I think this kind of brings back the role of universities. Um, so while I was working in you know, northern Chile around the copper mining industry, there was a woman who had— she'd spent decades at the universities locally developing products and applications, like new materials applications from algae specifically. So she was a marine biologist, and the application that she was using it on was dust reduction. So in the mining industry, all these trucks kick up a whole bunch of dust, and that presents air quality issues. And they used a lot of water. And mind you, this is a desert where there's not a lot of water available, but they're using water to, you know, quell the dust, but they have to apply it multiple times a day. So her application was you mix this with water and it essentially creates a bio-cement. And so you no longer have dust. You're using this, you know, from a marine biology application, but it wouldn't have been possible for her to kind of get into the position that she was in if it hadn't been for a lot of university support, kind of supporting her research, because as Kat mentions, there's a lot of early-stage costs into doing all this research and development. So there's a lot of different ways that you can go about this, but that's just one kind of example that I can see that kind of fits both sides.

Yeah, that's really cool.

Yeah, if anyone needs dust reduction solution, that's Aqua Marina. That's the name of the company. So speaking of maybe case studies, you've, in your new book, you've included a lot of interviews of different practitioners in sustainability. I'm curious what maybe your kind of favorite or most standout use cases around materials and Industry 4.0 and circular economy that you encountered while writing this latest book.

Yeah, one thing that comes to mind— well, you were talking about diverse voices, and we did really work to include interviews with people from around the world, with men and women. I said we tried for gender parity. We got 50— or what was it? Oh, 42% of our interviewees were women. Anyway, uh, and one of those, um, was the, uh, the founder— or not founder, executive— sorry, executive director of the Additive Manufacturing Green Trade Association. So, um, so definitely part of Industry 4.0 is additive manufacturing, which maybe people know about— 3D printing, right? And that's, that's not just a thing for hobbyists or for companies that are just making, uh, prototypes. It is really expanding a lot more into being able to be used for higher volume manufacturing, and especially when you need to tailor a particular thing. And so this association, which was founded in 2019, and I said, oh, that's why I didn't talk about it in my first book, because it hadn't even been founded yet, was they want to bridge the gap between the additive manufacturing and the sustainability communities. Meaning that they might not have necessarily talked with each other and that there is a really opportunity to consider additive as an option and do a full lifecycle analysis. And they are helping support some collaborations that indeed involve university research. So you have students and professors who are leading those works to do a full analysis of how can additive manufacturing support sustainability, what are the differences between using a conventional subtractive approach, right, which means, you know, you're etching away materials or you're machining them away, you know, versus additive, and to also rethink it where it's not just Oh, let's take our existing design and move it to additive. Let's consider this upfront and redesign and maybe make things that might not even be possible without using this technology.

Very cool.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's really neat. I know we had— Carol, do you have any, like, maybe case studies around sustainability that really have caught your eye over the past few months?

As far as materials goes, um, yes, I do have one, but it doesn't really fall into the I-40. Um, it's a company here in Canada called Walker Industries, and what they do is they take waste products from other companies and their products and processes, and they use it to create their own products. So it's, it's, it's not using new products, so it's using waste from others to create something new. And I really like what they're doing and how they fit into the supply chain, and that way they're diverting waste. That's probably one of my favorite examples.

Yeah, I think it's important to rethink waste. And think of it as a resource, right? As opposed to this is just waste and something we need to throw away. How else can we use it? Another interesting thing with when you're thinking about Industry 4.0 and sustainability is RFID tags. And those are, you know, those definitely help with inventory control and more efficient ways of using things and reducing waste.

Mm-hmm.

And they are generally made on plastic substrates, PET, right? Polyethylene terephthalate. That same stuff that is in those dang plastic water bottles, which I think we should really work on. That's another thing. Reduce, reduce, and refuse. Don't buy a plastic water bottle. I saw one time a neighbor, they had delivered like cases of plastic water bottles.

Really?

Why? Why do you need that? But anyway, going back to the RFID tags, that, um, there's a number of companies that are talking about their so-called eco-friendly RFID tags, and these are with aluminum traces printed on paper. And so, you know, so you get away from their— they're plastic-free. They're still a very small percent of the portfolio. So that's a case where you have, you know, the company, look, we're eco-friendly, and if you look at the reality, it's only— 10%, and still most of what they're selling is the PET ones. But anyway, it's just something that RFID tags in themselves, regardless of what materials they're made from, are going to, you know, have that sustainability message of, yes, let's better track our inventory, let's not overbuy things, let's find ways to reduce waste, let's track, you know, how long a product is going through this different chain, especially when you're talking about cold chain stuff that needs, you know, needs to be kept cold in order for it to reach its destination and still be fresh and usable. So there's a lot of advantages there. And we can also consider things like, what are all those millions or billions of tags made out of?

I really liked what you mentioned in terms of, like, you know, using waste as a resource and One of the companies that I thought of kind of as we were preparing for this discussion was— it's another— they're a Chilean company called Neptuno Pumps, and they are located in Iquique, which is, um, I forget the name, but it's like a special trade zone where a lot of junk is then boarded because it's a port city. So you get all of this scrap metal and rusted out cars, and it gets put on a barge and shipped to China. And so this company was started there, and they are a pump manufacturer. They're vertically integrated, so they have, you know, everything that they need nearby. So they've got the foundry and just everything on site. And they go to these scrapyards, and that's their market, because they're making metal soup, basically. What, you know, what are our alloys? And so they can source all this waste that is going to be otherwise shipped, shipped across the ocean. and use that as their primary materials where they're getting that for very cheap, they are able to build these really efficient pumps relatively locally for their customers who are mines way up in the, you know, high in the Andes that need a lot of pumping power to pump water from the ocean all the way up to use for their applications.

Yeah.

And this company, they also track, you know, the life cycle of that pump. And when it is, you know, full of cavitation and has been around for a couple years doing its job, they'll bring it back down, recast it, and remanufacture it, and send it right back up to the client. So they're very focused on circular economy, and they've also implemented a ton of analytics lately to kind of give that customer their view of how well are your pumps performing. So they're a company that I really look at as, you know, one kind of at the forefront of making circular economy really a part of their business model and trying, you know, keeping things away from kind of an end of life in a, in a— Landfill.

Yeah, that's an excellent example. And again, for in my book Materials and Sustainability, I also interviewed some people in the mining industry in Zimbabwe. And that they are, you know, you think of all the mining industry, they're just, they're horrible, and all the human rights abuses and all the environmental, you know, negative stuff. They are really improving things. And there are a number of mines that are really considering all the different aspects of their impacts and recognizing, well, we still are going to need to mine metals.

Yes.

We want to take that metal scrap and reuse it as much as possible. And we're not going to just be able to get all the supply of that and make mining disappear. So let's try to make it work in a better way. that is less harmful to people and the environment while we also transition towards greater recycling and reuse of metals.

That's, I think, the nice thing about metals is that it is, quote, easier to recycle them than plastics, for example.

Oh, for sure.

I say quotes because it can still be very expensive.

Well, no, it is definitely easier. That doesn't mean that it's a no-brainer and there aren't issues with getting the supplies and building the infrastructure and making it all happen.

Yeah. Julia, when we first met, we were talking— you talked about something that was interesting to me that I hadn't really heard the term before, was absolute emissions. And really, we're in an ecosystem where we make headway in sustainability metrics, but we We lose it when we have to scale the ideas. I'd really like to revisit that topic, that conversation we had. It was just the 3 of us, but I really like to bring that back to life for the audience.

Yeah. So to clarify the definitions, when you're talking about emissions, we're talking about greenhouse gas emissions, and companies can calculate those. need to report on them. And there are, you know, absolute emissions— how many tons of greenhouse gases are your operations producing? And then there are relative emissions, which are how much are you producing per million dollars of revenue or per product or per million products or what have you. And so companies will say— and again, I have this experience in the semiconductor industry. I've seen examples. I'm reading their latest sustainability report. And they said, oh, look, we have cut emissions per wafer by 40%. You're like, that's great. And we're producing 2.5 times as many wafers as we did a few years ago. Well, there's demand. Okay.

So that—

but I think it is important to reduce those relative emissions. Yes. So you can increase efficiencies and make each one of your products create fewer emissions. But it's also important to really look at those absolute emissions. And that's where, you know, what industries are going to grow and what industries are going to shrink. And how do we need to change that up? I mean, I think that we will continue to— our society will continue to need and use and produce a whole variety of different kinds of, you know, parts and products and everything. But let's look at what are your absolute emissions, because you talk about, oh, we want to get down to zero. Well, just reducing the relative emissions isn't going to get you to zero.

Thank you.

And then we can get all into offsets. That's a huge topic, which we probably don't have time to cover.

Probably not. But that is, I think that's a good, you know, challenge for us to chew on in terms of those absolute versus relative emissions. That's not something that I'd necessarily thought of in those terms before.

Yeah, you probably haven't read as many sustainability reports as I have.

Definitely not. But speaking of reports, you have written quite a few books. But you have a book coming out in April called Materials and Sustainability: Building a Circular Future in collaboration with Paul Folks-Ariano. Could you tell us a little bit about that?

Sure. That book, it's based on— I mean, the sort of starting point was my book Material Value that came out in 2019. And I met Paul when he bought that book in 2020 and reached out to me, I think on LinkedIn. And we kind of— we began this conversation, and he was saying at one point, I think Material Value 2: The 2020s would be a really good idea. I mean, things have changed. It's still a great book, and things have evolved in the last few years, and there's so many more innovations coming out. And we just kept talking about it and decided, yes, we're going to do this. And so we— it still has stuff about plastics and metals and ways to manufacture things. And looking at— I was introducing some kind of circular economy principles. It goes really more into those with also additional chapters on pulp and paper products, glass, and novel materials, which is mostly about bioplastics and includes some composite materials. It also has all these brand new interviews. As I said, you know, reaching out to really people around the world to say, what is happening? What are we doing? And also looking at things like, how are we talking about that? And what kind of messages are we sharing? So it's again about how stuff's made, how it can be made better, and to really build that understanding because there are a lot of misconceptions about, you know, what is the circular economy and where do these different materials come from and what happens to them and how do we go about evaluating a possible change in materials or a new technology or a new way of processing them.

Yes.

What's going on with e-waste? So there are really a lot of important topics and this book is for really 2 audience segments, and one of those is academic and one of those is corporate. We talked earlier about some of those collaborations. Well, there you go. Have the students learn about this in school, have the companies learn about it, have them come together and make things in a better way.

I will say, as someone who's got a sneak preview of the book, it is easy reading. It's for someone who, you know, does— is not you know, no longer really embedded in, in this industry. It was, you know, easy reading, which is, I think, um, a real testament to your experience translating engineering and all of these kind of complex terms into like the layman's language.

So thank you. Yeah, I say I speak English and Spanish and engineering, and I can kind of translate between them. Although don't ask me to do this interview in Spanish because I would not sound very intelligent. In that language. This is where I can communicate, but it's—

it's anyway, a lot of engineering and technical terms in Spanish when I was living abroad. Wikipedia is low-key the best translation tool. So yeah, because you can go look at PFAS and then you just hit Spanish and it'll tell you all the terms. So fun tip for anyone who needs translation assistance. Wikipedia is your friend.

Well, I'd like to add that it's really important, Julia, that this feedback from Grace— because for the word to get around and people to have conversations around different tables, if especially people in marketing, sales, accounting, all different areas of manufacturing, if they can read something like this, it really goes a long way. So it's not one of It's not one of those conversations left only to the engineers.

Absolutely. And I mean, I, and I say, if, if my writing, if an intelligent English major cannot understand what I have written, I have done something wrong. And so I, you know, I want it to be, you know, it's not like, oh, it's dumbed down. No, it's not. It's, this is not a technical textbook for graduate students in materials science, not at all. Now, if you're a graduate student in materials science and you want to read it, fantastic, but you don't need any of that technical expertise.

Thank you. Now, uh, we're approaching the end of our hour, and, uh, usually near the end, if we have time, I'd like to do just a little recap with the final thoughts and takeaways from everyone. And Julia, we'll leave you last. If you could include a way for people to reach out to you, that would be great. But Grace, we'll start with you.

Yeah, I think my takeaway here is I kind of see— I think you've stated this, but I also just want to kind of trace this of your evolution in your career as a materials engineer. just how it's transitioned from being very focused and interested in, you know, the impacts of material science to what an evolution of ICU kind of like amplifying the message of what this can be. So communication is such an important piece of, you know, bringing sustainability more to the forefront and for folks to understand the different ways that they can, you know, improve sustainable operations. And so we've been kind of asking these questions around reuse, recycle, reduce, all the others. And so now we can add refuse to that. It's the first time we've heard it. So I just want to say, like, I think my big takeaway is just around communicating. It's like sharing case studies, sharing new opportunities. What you mentioned, kind of cross-industry partnerships, if waste from one industry can be used in another, you know, it all really boils down to communication and messaging and spreading the word of how this can help not only the company's bottom line, but the communities that live next to it and ultimately the future of our planet. So thank you.

And for, for me, I think I would like, as my big takeaway, is, is the refuse. Like, that's something we never really thought about. I mean, Chris, we've talked to, you know, you're, uh, you're the 5th person we've talked to in the series, and, um, I think that's definitely something that I'm going to take away is That's maybe where it starts, like you said, with the refuse. You can't have anything else until you at least consider that. For me, that's the big takeaway. I'll leave the last word for you, Julia.

Thanks. I'm glad that that little bit of the message got through. Because to me, if I can go and explain something, share information, and sometimes ask the right questions and gets people rethinking things or saying, wait a minute, I hadn't considered that before. That is just such an excellent starting point. And then the examples that both of you brought up, realized, wow, I never knew that, you know, this was going on in Chile or in Canada because we can't be aware of everything that's happening and just the importance of sharing these stories on, on different platforms and, and, you know, talking to more people so that we can all grow our awareness. It's great talking with both of you because I love doing this kind of thing in conversation where I don't feel like I'm just speaking into the void.

I appreciate that.

Yeah, um, it sounds like there's a lot more room. Like, I think we just like hit the tip of the iceberg here.

Yeah.

So that's— I'm feeling very optimistic about that. So that's great.

Good.

Now, we'd like to thank you for sharing your expertise and a little bit of your knowledge. And we'd like to thank the people that submitted some questions today, Melissa, Karen, and Mike. Thanks very much. If you like having conversations like this, we encourage you to follow the Industry 4.0 Club on LinkedIn and subscribe to our Substack newsletter. Oh, also, Julia, before we go, how can people reach you?

Yes, well, if we're not already connected on LinkedIn, go ahead and reach out with a connection request and mention that you saw this particular presentation. Also go to jlfgoldstein.com/ And where I've been, and I actually intend to blog more frequently, but in any case, there's a way you can sign up for my newsletter and you will get all the updated information about what I have going on and where I share some tips. So I said the new book, Materials and Sustainability, comes out on April 12th. It is currently available for preorder through whatever normal channels you would go to to get books.

So, excellent.

Thanks.

Thank you, and everyone have a wonderful day. Bye.

Thank you. Thanks, everyone.