 It actually goes both ways. Like some people who work on stuff, I feel like there's this thing of like, everything should be beautifully made and lasts forever. And yes, but actually, I don't think that every object you own, you have to keep forever and commit to for the rest of your life. And you have to live in like a museum that looks like architectural digest and everything costs, you know, no, actually some things move into your life and move out of them. The key is that if they move into your life and into your life and into a landfill, that's the problem. You have to share them with other people and build that circularity in. But I feel like we need to have, the part of a healthy relationship is, as you said, an attachment and appreciation of the things around us on the one hand, objects that are well made that can last a long time and an understanding that there can be a flow of objects through our homes and through our lives and back out into somebody else's home and life and that that's part of it too. ["Inside Ideas"] Sandra Goldmark is my guest on this episode of Inside Ideas, brought to you by 1.5 Media and Innovators Magazine. Sandra is the founder of FixUp, formerly Pop-Up Repair, an innovative social enterprise in New York City. She is also a theater set costume designer, a leader in the field of sustainable theatrical design and director of the sustainability and climate action program and associate professor of professional practice at Bernard College. She has an A, B, and American literature from Harvard College and an MFA in theatrical design from Yale University. In her book that I have right here, Fixation, how to have stuff without breaking the planet, which was published in 2020, September 2020. Sandra Goldmark calls on us all to move beyond our throwaway culture by rethinking how we shop and what we value and to incentivize companies to produce better, easily repairable goods that really are in desperate need from some of us to be fixed to be repaired instead of thrown away. Sandra adapts a simple model from the food movement that has profound implementations, have good stuff, not too much, mostly reclaimed, care for it and pass it on. Sandra is so good to have you here on the show. Thank you for making it. Hi, thank you for having me. It's so great. You've got a busy schedule and you're doing a lot of things at Bernard College and you're in New York and all sorts of busy things going on in these crazy times that we're living through. So I really value your time to connect with me and talk about your book. We could talk for hours because there's not only, as I just teased in your quote here at the end of your biography, a lot of things to do with food and Michael Pollan are connections to that as well. As well as one of my mentors, William Bill McDonough from Cradle to Cradle and Michele Browngart, who actually lives in Hamburg. He lives a little bit outside of Hamburg and has the Cradle to Cradle office right across from the Hamburg Parliament. And you mentioned them a lot in your book as well. You've been doing this for a while. So obviously you got into it in kind of what some people might say is a roundabout way. Theater, design, things like that. And now it's almost got this overarching sustainability fixation theme. And so my question with all this experience, all this educating and teaching people in different ways where you kind of touch on these subjects, how in the hell have you weathered this pandemic, the crazy time Black Lives Matters, the inauguration, all the social distancing in relation to what you do, not only teaching, but in the book fixation. And that has any of that given you resilience to get through these crazy times or have you been hard hit yourself? Yeah, let's start with a big question then. This year has been in some ways for me difficult in the sense that it has been for everybody, that it's been a really crazy year. But on the other hand, I feel very lucky that for me personally and my family, we've been okay. I'm very conscious of that. We did get COVID, my husband and I got COVID early in the pandemic in March here in New York. But it was okay, it wasn't too bad. And in some strange way, having had it early at the very least removed some of the anxiety for us. And while it's been like, as for many people, to have your sort of regular routine upended, there have been, first of all, we have not, we have jobs, we haven't lost anyone close to us, so we count ourselves very lucky. And on the others, there have been some strange things that have been quite nice, like while it's difficult to work with children shouting and jumping in the background, it's nice to have extra time with them. We spent a lot more time in New York State this summer than we do normally and really, because we couldn't go anywhere. And that was wonderful. And on a bigger level, it has been like in terms of work, you know, people ask me like, oh, do you see, you know, you work on consumption, do you feel like the pandemic is helping people consume less or better? And frankly, the answer is no, but, or at least in America, but, and maybe we'll talk about that. But I do think this, this sort of terrible slowdown and pause is definitely an opportunity for reflection or a forced reflection. And I do think in terms of climate change, I do think that the conversation is shifting. And that is maybe the most important thing. So maybe that's the, I don't, I hesitate to say silver lining, but the, you know, the, the new growth that might, or the new, you know, like the little flower that might grow from the winter. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. Your book also was released September 22nd to 2020. So right at the, the middle of the pandemic. So I mean, I don't know if you have other experiences with other book launches or release, you have a fabulous publisher, Island Press. So, so that they're great to work with. But I mean, that's also something that's kind of different. Now you're not doing like book signings or tours or going anywhere or that it's all online. And how did, how did you feel about that? Was that like a kind of a weird experience or was that also okay? Well, luckily this was my first book. So I didn't have anything to compare it to. So I thought this is great. And also I had secretly, but you know, before the pandemic I had secretly thought, oh my God, am I going to have to like fly all over the place for this book about sustainability? And I thought maybe I need to sort of. You know, like rent a little electric car and drive. You know, I couldn't quite imagine flying all over the place to talk about a book about sustainability. I mean, this sort of hypocrisy just seemed kind of insurmountable. So that was good in the end. And I think probably. It's not a good time to publish a book maybe during a pandemic, especially if it's, you know, not about something sort of critical mission critical at the, at the time, but, but it is what it is. And I, I'm happy to have been able to talk to so many people all over the world without, you know, about traveling. So maybe, maybe another silver lining. Yeah. A more effective use of your time more efficiency. I mean, I used to travel a lot as well. And I spent most of the time in airplanes, taxis, hotel rooms in and out. And it's just kind of very shallow, not a lot of depth and substance. And it's very quick. You never kind of really get to have that interaction with people. And this is kind of more efficient of time. And sometimes we can make those, those good connections. Just, just for, for my listeners and for you as well, there's when I was in elementary and in junior high school, I was on the drama team, the stage crew and theater team where I did the lighting and the sounds and did the set design. Well, obviously with a, with a teacher who, who was in charge of us and kind of giving us direction for the specific plays or the programs that we would do. And so I, I, I get it when I read your book and hear a little bit about how, how you came to this, how you kind of have to out of necessity, find ways to create a set on the stage of a theater. You've got to make it look like a house or a city or whatever type of environment. And you really have to, you don't have in some, especially in elementary and junior high, you don't have very big budgets. So you're pretty much a scrappy. I remember going to, that we had this area called the pit and it was like a big dumpster people. It was just the old people go dump their trucks there, all their garbage. And we just, it wasn't a dump yard, but we'd go there and grab all the scraps. We could get it and then build it up at the school. But I really love, I have to tell you, I was so glad I had a physical copy. I also got the digital copy. I read it a couple of times and I love it. It's such a good book. There are so many great references. There's so many down to earth. It's an easy fun read and you make it very personal. I feel like, you know, your husband and your children and kind of your experiences. And I've had some of those same crazy experiences with my families where I said, you know, and in the first of your book, you kind of talk about with your husband, say, we should write Walmart a letter and your husband kind of. The way I read it, it's almost reals the inner says, okay, well, maybe that might not be possible or okay, let's, you know, and so I love that. The question really is, you feel like you are a global citizen and how would you feel about a world without nations, borders and divisions of humanity, one from another related to your book, your theories on fixation on this whole stage crew, design Bernard college. Now you might probably be teaching online and those things too. And your ties to sustainability. Do you think those are some of the issues we're dealing with today? It's funny that you put that sort of super small. I think that's the whole point of the universe of the theater right next to an idea of like a world without borders, because on the one hand that might seem like a kind of crazy juxtaposition like how does a question get from like, oh, you designed scenery to like, let's talk about the whole planet. But I like that juxtaposition because there's, you know, as you said, I come from this theater background, right? I just made scenery all through high school and college and then went to grad school for it. And I'm so happy that I did it. I just kind of designed and made these little worlds with theater people. And one of the amazing things about theater is it is like a little world, like a little universe, sometimes to a fault like you kind of shut yourself in this dark room and you don't eat and nobody sleeps properly. And it's like, and you kind of forget the outside world and the show, you know, show has to go on. So, you know, you know, you have politics, you have people who sweep the stage and people who strut around, you know, feeling very important and everything in between. And you've got stuff, you know, you make stuff, you have a very clear process for how you make decisions and how you, how that little universe operates, you know what I mean, that you're making. And the scale of it is very human. I think this is one of the reasons a lot of people in, in, in school at all levels really love theater. First of all, it's creative. It's fun. But there's a scale to it that I think we as humans kind of understand instinctively. It's a group of like, you know, 10 to 50 people full hunter gatherer size group. And everybody really matters. Like if that person does not sweep the stage and doesn't push the, the, you know, push the button to turn the light on at the right time, like the show is screwed. And so even though there are sort of hierarchies and importance, there's a real sense when theaters going properly, that we all matter. And there's also a sense that within a certain structure, we're inventing this world. We're creating this world together and we have a creative process. And so, and the role of scenery within that, the first thing is, you know, that people think of, as you said, is like location, right? Like, are we in a city or in a castle? I think you said, but there's a layer to design within theater that is actually about meaning. And it's about setting up the rules of this world. Like when I walk in as an audience member. Is this a, is this a world? There's a writer named Dennis Kennedy who writes beautifully and he calls it the thematic signifiers, which sounds sort of like, I think, academic speak, but what it means is that you walk in and you understand, oh, this is a world where this happens, where this is important, where people speak like this, where I understand the emotional quality of this experience before anything happens just because of the music that's playing or the visuals I see. So for me, the role of the designer and the theater is to help create that, that tone, that world. And especially for my part of design, thinking about the physical objects that occupy it. So the way for me that translate into like this big jump of like a world without borders is I think, funnily enough, as I've started thinking about and working on questions far beyond theater or far beyond design, I have to lean really heavily on my work on my many years in theater because like, that's all I've got, you know, and so I look to some of the ways we make decisions, not that theater is all perfect, good and bad, you know, some of the ways that we are, as you said, scrappy and resourceful and kind of the original circular economy and some of the ways that were very wasteful and some of the ways that we value each person on the team and some of the ways that we don't and some of the ways that our labor is not fairly compensated. And so I think there are analogies to much broader scale human endeavors in terms of thinking about what are the rules of the world we're creating? We have this incredible creative capacity as humans. So how do we, how are we going to design that world in a way that is beautiful and fair and regenerative? How are we going to think about the material objects that we make and create and have them communicate a meaning that's really the meaning we want to say? And how are we going to value the labor of all of the people in our little, in our little made up world? And really make sure that it's in alignment, that if we think we're telling a story of a healthy planet or a regenerative society, that we're not saying one thing with our words and doing another with our physical actions or our social actions, like, you know, the way we pay people or the way we credit them for their work. Anyway, that's, that's how I might draw a little tenuous line between you and your dumpster and me and the big wide world. There's absolutely no, no anyway, because I'm so glad that we're aligned and you were able to draw those connections because they are so real. And that's why I brought them up because there's an enormous amount of diversity in the theater and that whole stage crew, theatrical environment, the way from, from every aspect, every job or role or even audience, not only the audiences from, you know, back, back in my situation was much different that you're at a different level, obviously, and I have experience of that, than I had way back then, elementary, junior high, but grandparents and people of color and different cultures and different times of the year, you know, and I would even remember times when we would do some kind of a Christmas thing where I was like, well, what about the Jewish people? What about Muslim? What about all these others? You know, so I guess this is only a select audience and how does that work with the students, students and that. And so, but also where I was getting scraps and things of someone's rest to build in that, but there's that much bigger connection where not only are we very creative in that process or you are very creative and what you design for the theater, you're creating this new world, but the only way you have to draw on that experiences from the stories or the history of the real world that you've experienced somewhere else. And it really is one that doesn't function well with social distancing, borders, division of humanity, one from another. It tells a different type of story. And it's one that always ends in something negative, a collapse or destruct. There's usually not a lot of positive stories in that respect where it's, okay, because of that, then we moved on to this much more desirable, better future. It's one that kind of prolificates into something more negative and harmful down the road. And so, and this kind of ties to where we're going to touch a little bit on food and things and also on business is during the pandemic, during the lockdown, air, water, food were all global citizens, didn't see nations, borders, divisions, didn't stop in most cases. And the pandemic was very exponential. It didn't also stop at borders and nations. And it really, it would have spread regardless of air travel, regardless of ship travel, probably in a 10 to 15 day period anywhere, just because of the air flows of our world and the pollution that we have going on in our world. But it was exponential because of our air travel. And so I wanted to get your views on that thought process because currently our world's civilization frameworks have a lot of us human beings at this ease. One with another one with our politics are kind of saying this civilization frameworks not working for us anymore. It's not representing me. And in your book, you specifically get into this couple of ways. You mentioned companies like Apple and Ikea and built in obsolescence. And then you also touch upon some great wisdoms from Michael Poland and his food wisdoms and things and how that's related to the built environment. But those are very global operations. Those are very big operations for that. And so I wanted to get your take because I have that feeling as well. The question really is, I get the sense that it's not about the brands of the future, the products of the future. It's about how we produce any product, manufacture it and make those products that really can reduce not only obsolescence, but also human suffering and solve our global grand challenges in the future. And more so than it is, this is a sustainable brand. Apple or Patagonia or whatever. And I wanted to get your fillings on. Is there a more tangible term or way of looking at that? Because we tend to get caught up in this. All the brands of the future that are real sustainable is this and this. Well, it's not. It's about how you produce. It's kind of my opinion. I want to get your views on that. But I think it's definitely not about the products of the future. There's no single. Product that's going to do it. But there might be a product that's made. By a brand of the future and the brand of the future are the brands that are building, I guess you might call it like the systems of the future. Or maybe it's the systems of the past. I don't know. I don't know that these systems are really so new. The ones that we really need to. To build out. In fact, they're probably very ancient. And all around us in the natural world innovation to me. There's this. David sacks has this op-ed called and the innovation obsession where he talks about. The concept of rear view innovation. And not thinking of innovative products or brands or systems as something that's like, whoa, you know. I'm surprised, but more things that, especially now as we're facing. Such big challenges, things that, that look to what has worked in the past or what works in nature. So I guess for me, like the big challenge for brands is to build. For me, it really boils down to like. Building a system. That it's about circularity, plain and simple, right? We have a linear system right now. We have a linear system right now. We have a linear system right now. We have a linear system right now. Most companies, business models are totally built on a linear system where they extract materials from the earth. Make them sell them. And then they basically go into landfill pretty much. And so to me, the whole like. Path forward is to think in about circular systems is where you mentioned cradle to cradle, but like. That you have to create a business model that isn't built on that, that isn't built on always selling more new objects, but that has revenue that comes from some new objects that are made in a different way. That comes from reuse business model built on repair service upgrade. So that little Michael pollen kind of adapted adapted tagline that you mentioned of have good stuff, not too much. That's really all about circularity and it applies at every level. It applies to an individual who's thinking, how should I shop? Like what is a sustainable brand? Or a business that's trying to say either trying to be responsible or frankly trying to survive in the kind of coming years. And also to policymakers to say, how can we kind of scale and support building these systems globally? So. I guess, yeah, for me, a sustainable brand is one that is really, really looking at building a regenerative circular system for how they work. And that means their business model. I guess this is probably a point where we can, where we can get into this. Individual action versus political or bigger actions. There's a lot of debate back and forth or. There's a lot of confusion where, you know, it's, oh, it's the consumer's responsibility or it's the individual where I'm too small to do anything. And there are some things that tie to the bigger circularity with, you know, Ellen MacArthur Foundation, big circular economy. But the other economy that you were also talking about is really, it makes a stractive and extractive economy, which is very destructive. It's cradle to grave. It's got an end. It just piles up. What are some of the things in the US or your other discussions around it? What are you seeing the confusion between this individual action or I'm too small or this bigger political or production point of view on that? Well, I see, I feel like there's a weird discussion or conversation happening right now that I feel like often sort of almost like pits individual action against some people's responsibility. Some people say systemic change or some people like to talk about policy changes or some people like to really point to the kind of corporate responsibility. And for me, I just don't see these as opposed. I don't see it as an either or in fact, I see both as completely necessary. I don't think we're going to get systemic change without a whole lot of individuals changing their individual actions. At the same time, I think that corporations and policymakers have a much higher level of responsibility to make those changes in their systems, which are big systems within the larger system. What's a corporation? It's a system within a larger system. What's my household? It's a very small system within a nest of larger, larger, larger systems. And what am I? I'm a little system in my household, in my city, in my country connected with all these corporations. To me, they're all connected. They're all one system. And so every single part of the system needs to shift. So if you're sitting around, if you're a corporation and you're sitting around and saying, well, the individual consumers, there's no, there's no demand. So I can't make these changes. Then, you know, that's BS. You can. Because sometimes you can take it if you build it, they will come model. And also the demand is there, which we can talk about later. If you're an individual and you're sitting around and being like, well, it doesn't matter what I do. You know, we just need system change. Well, you're part of the system. That would be like a leaf on a tree being like, well, I don't care what the tree trunk does. I'm just going to, you know, I'll do my own thing. I'll do my own thing. I'll do my own thing. I'll do my own thing. I'll do my own thing. You know, it's ridiculous. You're totally connected to the larger organism, to the larger system. And those, you know, changes come from the top down, but they also come from the bottom up. And in fact, they really work when they go together. So sometimes people say like, oh, the most important thing you can do is vote. Like, yes, if it's an either or, if you have a choice between, if you only do one thing all year and it's vote, you can change your personal shopping habits, please vote. But I don't think that's how human beings work. I do lots of things all day long. And in fact, the things that I do all day long, the things I do in my household, the things I do in my community, the things I talk about with my people in my organization, where I work, those inform how I vote. Those inform how my neighbors vote. That informs how my children will vote. That informs whether people vote. I think it's important to me, the debate or the discussion of like, to say individual actions don't matter to me is idiotic because you might as well tell me not to vote. Right. It's this, that's, that's an individual action. It's just one at my vote. And frankly, it's true. If I don't vote next election, it doesn't matter. But it does because as soon as you say that, every single person can say, well, I'm just going to sit this one out. And it's also like, you know, anyway, so I think it's, uh, it's, you know, it's a, you know, It's just sort of a very important thing. I mean, it's a marshal's debate. I think it disempowers people. And I think it gets into a sort of weird. Spiral. Yeah. Side thing that is sort of Michael. It's not useful. So I think it's, it's, it's, it's everything. It's it's, um, We're all at every level in action is also, uh, to do anything where I'm going to set this one out. It is an action in and of itself because you're giving way to someone else to deliver the future to you or futures to you by having that in action. And there is, so we really touched upon a few things right out of the ship. One more thing though about that individual action thing that I do want to acknowledge and understand is the plastic bag example for me is a great example of where you can get into some sort of BS on all fronts. When you go into a store and there's a little plastic bag and it says, please recycle, that's where you're like, okay, all of this is ridiculous because that bag shouldn't be there. The store should not be putting this bag that can't be recycled and then asking me, the individual to like magically somehow on my own, like recycle this bag that can't be recycled and shouldn't have been made in the first place. So I want to be clear that I'm not saying like, for those of us like me sort of who've been dutifully saving and trying to not take our bags and bringing our canvas bag, like we do need the kind of corporate thing of being like, no, that's bullshit. You can't just stick that bag in the store and say, please recycle individual consumer and think that we're at all gonna solve the problem that way. At the same time, those individuals who dutifully bring their canvas bag to the Seatown every week are actually sort of helping lay the groundwork for the bag band that eventually gets passed by city council. If you don't have those sort of early adopters and those individuals saying, actually it's possible to bring my canvas bag and then encouraging their neighbors to do it. And then finally you get the bag bill passed. And then other people are like, I guess I can do this too. I can, so it's like there's a relationship between these and you need to sort of acknowledge the role of all of them. Sorry, I just wanted to clarify that it's- No, that's so important. There's also a form of an infrastructure that needs to be there or support from community, cities, organizations that give that convenience aspect so that it's easier to do the right thing. That there's not even that option really there and it's when it comes to human nature it's usually we default for the convenient aspect. If we're hungry, we do what's the most quickest and convenient. We don't think about all these other bags and choices that we need to make along the way. But in some respects to go back to what we were speaking just a tad bit before there is this systemic thinking. Everything in our world systems, you said it was so eloquently. And we try to dumb things down. We're like, give me the TED talk or the simple answer, the short version, the elevator pitch. Those don't solve our global ground challenges. Don't fix these complex things. And then if you understand all these systems no matter how small they're all intertwined with one another in the bigger system we're working most of them autonomously every single day. It's okay to embrace that complexity and say, yeah, every day I get up, I breathe, I eat, I sleep. I do all these other things that gets me through but that's multiple systems working almost gooey autonomously every single day. So embrace that complexity and say, no, I can definitely do it. There was for me in your book, an aha moment which I want you to break down for me. In here you said that with your repairs and your fixing of products you also started kind of a questionnaire with people where you would ask them, are you doing this because it's sustainable or for the environment or the earth and for me, the responses you receive were like, yeah, that makes sense but it was also kind of shocking because you think, no, they're doing it because they're sustainable and the result was actually something total different. Can you kind of give us more insight into that and what those questionnaires over time told you and what learnings you had from that? Yeah, so we asked, we thought, we came into running these repair shops with such a kind of green crusader spirit like, you know, no more blenders to landfill. And we assumed that all of our customers were doing the same thing that they were fixing their blenders to say the planet or to reduce waste or whatever. And but we did a little survey and we found out that they all said, you know, it was like one, something like one to 10 did you come here for yourself or to save the planet or reduce waste? Everyone said, I came here for myself and everybody said that they did it because they wanted that specific object to work. And it was really interesting. At first I was disappointed. I was like, oh my God, we're doomed, you know. And then I thought, you know, and then I thought, well, let's like look at this a little closer and they were all happy to reduce waste and happy to, you know, help save the planet or whatever. But it was really interesting that they all, it was really like this particular object, they just wanted it to work and the sort of waste reduction was definitely a bonus. But more importantly, what I realized was the waste reduction wasn't even that, even that wasn't so altruistic. It was more like a lot of them felt a lot of guilt about chucking the broken thing because they felt like it was kind of perfectly good and it felt wasteful. So even the waste reduction thing was a little bit of like a selfish thing of like, oh, I felt guilty dumping this printer, but look, this repair shop owner told me that it can't be fixed. So now I can like, you know, recycle it or whatever. And it made me realize that like, it's just a different conversation. It's not, we're never gonna sort of all altruistically, I guess sort of say like, we're gonna do the right thing or save the planet, but we can build these pathways to where those behaviors are easier for people because actually they do want them and they do feel good for people. If you can make it feel, if you can make it not too hard because people are busy. People are working really hard. People have, you know, kids, they have two jobs. They have whatever. So like, I wound up feeling hopeful in the end because I realized, you know, it's really all focusing in this case on these stuff. Like they have these attachments to these objects. And at first I thought this is crazy. And then I thought, wait a minute, no, it's like that attachment, that connection is actually valuable and powerful and can weirdly wind up if we build the right system with like the right answer, the right action. Does that make any sense? It totally makes it goes back to actually what we were talking about on how you produce and this, if it doesn't have built-in obsolescence it's something that you, it becomes part of your culture, your family as a tool to your life that you can have forever. And I don't know how well this relates, but there's a section in your book as well I don't know if it was with your kids who were at an event where you're talking about what's the original tool, you know? And it's basically a rock and how people didn't take the original Neanderthals or whoever, and I'll let you describe it better than I do, have a rock. They didn't carry the rocks from one city or one place of the world to another. They just found another rock where they're going and as over time we've kind of gotten this every tool, everything that I pick up, I've got to keep and I've got to keep it forever and carry it around with me. It's like you to tell me a little bit more about that story if you don't mind. So now you're getting into like this question of humans and stuff, which I feel like I got so interested in in writing this book because I feel like it's a little bit under-recognized in some people's daily lives, like how important this topic is. Like if you look around you, anyone, whoever is listening right now, I guarantee you, look around yourself and there is stuff all around you. Like even if you're backpacking in the middle of, you know, Yukon territory, you're wearing clothes, you've got tools, you've hopefully got a tent. Like, and most likely you're sitting in a home or an office literally surrounded by man-made or human-made objects. Like this is how we live. It is totally central to our species. And even if you look way back or at societies that today have much less numerical objects, like a less volume of objects, we still, as humans, we have and we make tools and make things for those tools. Like it's as important as food, as cooked food. We can't survive without it. It's as important as language. It's one of the defining things of our species. So actually thinking about stuff in the built environment or whatever you wanna call it is, to me, actually needs to be kind of central, especially because manufacturing is such a huge driver of environmental degradation. So we actually really need to talk and think about, yes, some of the big drivers like concrete, but also the things that all of us interact with on a daily basis that can help inform the way we think about some of those more abstract, distant things like concrete. So the way I think about it is, he mentioned the sort of like, you know, Neanderthal. It was cause I was in Branson, like a Neanderthal museum. And it's actually goes both ways. Like some people who work on stuff, I feel like there's this thing of like, everything should be beautifully made and lasts forever and yes. But actually I don't think that every object you own, you have to keep forever and commit to for the rest of your life. And you have to live in like a museum that looks like architectural digest and everything costs, you know, no, actually some things move into your life and move out of them. The key is that if they move into your life and into out of your life and into a landfill, that's the problem. You have to share them with other people and build that circularity in. But I feel like we need to have the part of a healthy relationship is, as you said, an attachment and appreciation of the things around us on the one hand, objects that are well made that can last a long time. And an understanding that there can be a flow of objects through our homes and through our lives and back out into somebody else's home and life and that that's part of it too. So it's kind of a, it's like maybe let's just use the 100, you know, the Neanderthal analogy, maybe that first rock, maybe there's one that works really well and you hold onto that one. Everybody who's used any tool knows like, oh, that drill, I love that drill. It fits my hand versus sometimes you're like, oh, I'll pick up whichever hammer they work. You know, like, so there can be a transience and there can be a holding on. But the key part of it is to recognize the value of these objects and the human labor that went into them and that either you keep it, you fix it for a long time or you pass it on to somebody else. I just had Alan Moore on the podcast. He wrote a couple of books, Do Design and Do Build. I've got them right here as well. And in Do Build, he really talks about that as well. He talks, goes in specifically about different companies. One of them's an axe company that's very well built and it's really about how we think how products are made and produced. And I mean, that's kind of an overarching theme and not only your book, but also the direction of thinking and circular economy that we need to go with humanity and to repair, regeneration, restoration. How do we do that? And when we're, we detach that tool or that object from ourselves and we decide instead of going to the landfill that we try to have it in a good condition to pass it on to someone else who can use it or in a way to recycle it as much as possible to get into another new product that works and that's what, you know, with the plastics that you brought up, I speak at a lot of food events and for me, the complex food systems is a lot about packaging and how we produce those and transport those goods and those food products. And plastic for me is the Frankenstein, the big evil. But it's only that because it's pretty much a single use or cradle to grave type of thought process. And if Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Unilever, Nestle, they said, okay, every year or every day we produce, you know, a hundred million metric tons of plastic and drink products that go out every day. But every single day we clean up that same amount of a hundred million no matter if it's our products or not, as long as it's plastic, no matter what brand, what number, what level we'll take that back. And we've found a new innovation to get it back into the cycle, to keep that in the flow so that it never ends up in our oceans and microplastics in our landfills. And that is just continually in this organic or technical circle, closed system that doesn't come back to harm humans or our environment in any way. Well, and you know what's so funny is it's not new, like early Coca-Cola, but was in glass and they collected the bottles and they refilled the Coke bottles or milk, you know, like the idea of sort of circularity and packaging, it's not even that far in the past. I think it's, it's, it was pretty basic, but you know, in the 19th and early 20th century to basically do what loop is doing, refillable packaging. Yeah, and I think somewhere we got off the track because we started cheapening the way we did products and whether it's you cheapen food or you cheapen any product, you actually in return cheapen life because somewhere someone has to pay for that cheapening. They are not being paid a fair wage or there's an environmental impact or then the way they're disposed of is a big impact and comes back to bite us. So your book really talks about that many different aspects and that, but I want to, before, I want people to go out. I want them to buy your book. I want them to get the physical copy or digital if it's available and read it and really consume it. So I don't want to give too much away but I want to get into one last aspect and I'm kind of caveat that with an example that I had. Matter of fact, it was just last week. I spoke for a big European company that are actually based out of Germany. It's a big climate environmental HVAC. They do climate controls and heating and air conditionings, refrigeration. It's called Wiesmann and a fabulous five generation company that is really trying to move in the right direction circular economy and things. They have a big issue in Europe especially with people saying, okay, we've got this old Wiesmann boiler or this old way that's based on fossil fuels or coal or another type of kind of inefficient, very destructive and not up to date for infrastructure or this renewable transition, energy transition or this clean tech future. And we'd like to get people to that but we just have people having trouble letting go of this old thing. So they're in your book and in this whole principle I see two kind of different. There's definitely things that should be fixable, should be kept in the cycle but then there's some things that are still based on the industrial revolution and a very fossil fuel intensive way of producing, plastics that take tons of oil and fossil fuels on and on. To make sure of how do you, what are your thoughts or your feelings on this jump to a new type of a transition or a new model of getting us to the future where we need to be off of fossil fuels, off of oils, off of bad type of products that are this cradle to grave thinking. Yeah, I mean, I think the word you used is right is transition, it's gonna be a slow process like we can't all right now, we shouldn't all right now run out and replace everything we've got with the new shiny even if it's energy efficient model like when but when that thing is up for replacement because of the embodied carbon also in the new object but when that thing is up for replacement that's when the opportunity in terms of especially big things like HVAC and heating and cooling is to really make that decision right. Like my building is actually considering it and we have to get a new boiler and it's a big expense, it's a big step and that's a minimum 10 year commitment. So that's like those type of decisions are gonna be big for individuals, for businesses, for buildings, for cities. How do we slowly transition out the old equipment for the new? One of the things that I think we really need to start talking about though is the way we build that new equipment. Like if you look at electric cars as a great example we have to now with all these commitments in the United States and in Europe we're talking about essentially transitioning our whole fleet of vehicles from combustion engines to electric vehicles which is amazing and absolutely needs to happen. And nobody would have thought like four years ago that would be really seriously kind of having this conversation at least in the United States but what I'm not hearing as much is a really serious conversation about how we make that new fleet. What kind of circularity principles are we gonna use to not just make the new fleet with the old linear design and production systems? You hear it about batteries where people are like, oh, we have to make the batteries recyclable and this and that. What about the steel? What about the car, the seating material? What about the dashboard? The whole car as we transition to this new fleet should not only be energy efficient but needs to be made with circular principles. And to me that applies to like the whole bigger transition of objects like HVAC like you said, cars but actually everything what we have right now I call it the fire hose of new stuff. We have a huge fire hose of brand new things everything from like plastic bottles to cars to HVAC units being made with raw materials and now we're talking about maybe making them better but that pipeline of raw materials needs to really, really, really over time diminish and transition a new sort of feed stock of reclaimed materials so that we're making those new cars and HVAC units and blenders and whatever with reclaimed materials. And that's a really tall order and it's gonna take a while but I think we have to do it that way in order for it to be not just about energy but also about the material impact and labor, right? How are we making these things? How are we paying for people to make them? I've got really big, sorry. No, no, that's where we need it. So in your book, you really talk about repair activism the care economy, the circular economy, the stuff movement the true differences between development and maintenance there are so many not just nuggets of wisdom but actually tools and ways to kind of see the world in a different way. And it's not one that really comes over as evangelizing sustainability don't come across as a tree hugger or an extremist in that respect but it's just the realities of nice creative beautiful design and ways to repair that can kind of change the way we look and see things to help us as individuals transition a lot easier but maybe even nudge larger corporations and organizations to go in that direction of a different built environment how we do things differently. You from Bernard College have some tools as well and I'm gonna let you touch upon because you know that I'm better than I do but the sustainable production toolkit and I think you're also working on Bernard circular campus thing as well maybe you could tell us about some other tools and things, I mean you did pretty heavily this whole repair movement, the shops, the pop-up stores the markets and things as well and so you've had that breath and I don't know if it's still going on it as much as it was but I'd like to kind of know about the new tools what things you're working on what's coming out, get us up to speed. So we, I paused the repair shops I came to a point with the repair shops I was doing them, you know I'm teaching at Barnard the whole time and still also designing for theater and running these repair shops and I came to a point where I was like what am I doing, you know am I gonna be a repair shop owner or something and I thought, you know I could scale that way like quit all my quit my job and run these repair shops and fix every lamp in New York and I realized that at a certain point what I wanted to do was sort of like scale the conversation in a way to say what we learned about in these repair shops how does that apply to bigger questions of circularity how does that apply to what we're doing at Barnard in terms of climate action and trying to build a circular campus as you said how does that apply to what I've been doing in theater all these years? So I thought and I had the opportunity to write this book which is a big surprise for me so I put the repair shops on hold and wrote the book in the hopes that as you said it would nudge or inspire other businesses other communities to develop these kind of systems of circularity at all levels big businesses like the Walmart, you know and in fact it's interesting not because of my book but like in 2020 IKEA committed to becoming fully circular by 2030 which is amazing and when I started this project in 2013 would have been seemed very far-fetched so it is happening and I feel like for me I've sort of trying to tell this story about consumption and repair and then as I said apply it to theater apply it to our campus. I love that. And so there's the sustainable production toolkit you're coming out as well. Oh yeah, so that is something I co-authored with some fellow theater artists we just did it over the pandemic summer all the theaters shut down and these are some fellow theater people who also have felt for many years that our industry needed to really address this address climate change more seriously and at the same time that we were starting to put together the toolkit we wanted to just basically make it easier because theaters have major sort of bandwidth issues nobody has extra staff to like do carbon accounting or extra money to put solar panels on the roof like it's really challenging for that particular industry but we also felt like it's really important because A we feel like every industry needs to tackle these things and B we felt like cultural organizations and arts organizations have a role to play and then at the same time the kind of events of the summer of George Floyd protests erupted and there was this real reckoning with systemic races in American theater that had been there before but really came to a head in the summer and so we're trying also to help theaters see how and this applies to the larger conversation of all of climate change trying to make the case that working on climate response and working on social justice issues actually really go hand in hand and it's not like oh now I have another big really challenging item but actually this work is related because I think the roots of inequality and racism and climate change in a way are they share it's not one problem but they share common roots in what you said before which is extraction, extraction of labor, extraction of materials from the earth and a sense of dominion or ownership that is not right and not serving people. So the toolkit is like the book is a series of really practical tips and tools for theaters to become more sustainable but hopefully also touching on some really deep questions of how do we do this work? How do we make this transition in a way that is just and equitable but also try to break it down so it feels accessible, a path that is possible. Beautiful, I only have four more questions for you and the first one is actually the hardest one that I'll have to ask you today is the burning question WTF and no, it's not the swear word that we've all been asking for the last 12 months are saying it's really what's the future? And I don't wanna know for the US or I don't wanna know what's your vision of the future? For me or for the world? For you, what's your hope? What's your vision? Do you know what the roadmap and plan is? What's the future? It's funny you ask us just last night my husband and I were having sort of conversation. I think for anybody who really works on climate change and thinks about it all the time you tend to flip flop between a sort of state of like horror and despair or avoidance or hope. And I think there's definitely times when you look at the numbers and you think this is bad like this is bad A and B it's really bad and people aren't like jumping out of their skin to deal with it. So it's kind of two levels of worry though things have gotten much better in this country with the change of administration. But I guess for me the future is I guess I'm a naturally hopeful person and I feel like I have work that I've cut out for myself to try to join this effort at Barnard at Columbia in theaters in terms of circularity. And I feel like that is the work that I wanna keep doing and that hopefully can help like in my little corner of the puzzle. You know, I have children. I think anybody who has children you look to the future and you're a little worried or a lot worried. And so I think, you know, creating it sounds so vague. How do we doing this? Creating a world where I feel like they'll be able to be healthy and happy, you know for me, it's two things. One is the big like trying to work on the macro problems and then two working at home, you know raise your kids right. We bought a small piece of land upstate and we've been really trying to go there and use it as a place to kind of reconnect and figure out what we're doing and why we're doing this work. Sounds mushy, but it's a tough question. Life is mushy. I think that that's a great answer. And actually, ding, ding, ding, you got it right. That was the right answer. So I ask everyone that question. I've asked thousands of people that question and they're all different. I don't think I've had to be the same. A little bit more to tell you how and why I led you into that question is because if you ask people what's the future, basically what's the plan for the future? What's our, where are we going? Where are we gonna end up? Most people don't know, but to break it down very simple as it sounds, if we don't have a plan, a roadmap, a way to get there guaranteed someone else is gonna deliver the future for us and we're not gonna get there. So your circularity, the macro and micro levels, I think is a perfect plan. I'm a big sustainable developmental advocate, the Paris Agreement. I really think that's the world's first ever global moonshot we've ever had. It's a historical precedent, 192 countries for the first time ever in our history, agreed upon something. If you know anything about countries or politicians or delegates, you're like, oh my God, that is the most unbelievable historical precedence ever because the politicians and delegates can't agree upon anything, let alone 192 on a roadmap or plan for the future. And yeah, we've almost were derailed and had some snafus and that's not looking as good as it can, but it is a plan if we work at it chunk by chunk. I guess the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. One, two at slowly, one bite at a time until you're done, not that I advocate eating elephants. That reminds me of the same conversation Mike and I last night at dinner, we were sort of, he was sort of, he was reading Uninhabitable Earth and he was, so that book always makes people feel really worried and despairing. And he was like saying, it's capitalism, it's capitalism. And I was saying, I think, yeah, maybe, but I also think there's something deeper that is also a little bit of array of hope. Like I think kind of what got us into this mess is weirdly is our human capacity, right? Like, a human from altruism isn't gonna save the planet. We saw that in my repair shops, right? But neither is like a coyote or a rabbit. They're just gonna try to do the best they can for themselves. With the difference between the human and the rabbit is our capacity to transform the world around us, to build collaborative societies, to work together, to imagine a different future. And so far that capacity has done amazing things and has also gotten us into a whole lot of trouble. But I do feel when I look at things like the Paris Agreement or the UN SDGs or some of the shifts that are happening now, I do feel like maybe that weakness, that sort of fatal flaw is also our strength. And maybe we do have the capacity to change and to rebuild our society intentionally. Cause I always think that it works on an individual. I always think a person's strength is also their weakness and vice versa. And so maybe our weakness might just also be the strength that gets us out of it. Throughout your book, I have to say it again, I'm not, you haven't paid me to say this. I love your book. I see more so than I see circular economy principles or that it is a circular economy model. I see a regenerative economy model and that's really something that's emerging. It will progress and not only within the UN but within the world that more people are switching to regenerative business models or regenerative agriculture economies, regenerative capitalism, whatever you want to call it. It's a new way of operating within the safe spaces of our planetary boundaries. It's so new that I don't even think we know what it means yet. Yeah, no, we don't. I agree. Absolutely not. It's almost like the beginnings of sustainability or the beginnings of corporate social responsibility, environmental, social governance, what we're still grasping it. I've spoken on it 17 times this year alone, regenerative principles, practices, what it is. And every time they always think I'm gonna talk about regenerative agriculture, regenerative organics because I come from the food background, but I want people to understand what the whole, it's a whole different operating system. It's a whole different way of looking at the world and interacting. And so that's really what I see in your book because I read it with a different lens, but it's beautiful and I really recommend my listeners get it. The last three questions I have are really for my listeners. If you were to give my listeners a sustainable takeaway that had the power to change and impact their lives, your message, what would it be? I guess my message to a listener is to take action where you are, right? Like where you are, where you're working, what you're thinking about is a piece of this system, is a piece of this puzzle and has value. And starting there, I think, is incredibly powerful and important. So if you're a preschool teacher, do it in your preschool. If you're a mom at home, work on it at home and with your neighbors. If you're the head of a big company, do it there. But I really feel like people should and could feel empowered to pick up this work of really imagining and building a regenerative, sustainable future and to feel like every single person owns that work. Definitely. What should young innovators in your field be thinking about looking for ways to make real impact? So theater designers, educators, what should they be thinking about to make a real impact on the world? Well, I think theater designers really have an opportunity to push it in terms of circular design and production practices or regenerative design and production practices because theater is just a little Petri dish. It's relatively small. We already have a really strong tradition of circularity. We have a really huge push in the industry right now to think about anti-racism and social justice and designers and production people have a huge opportunity to kind of embody it, to make it real, to tell that story in the physical theater that we make. And then there's sort of no, it's not just words, it's right up there on stage. And so I think it's a great opportunity for theater makers. Is your sustainable production toolkit a nudge or a good thing to empower them to take that journey or to take that step in the right direction? Hopefully, yeah. Good, good, good. What have you experienced or learned so far in this crazy journey that you've had up until this point, professional and just life that you would have loved to know from the start? Hmm, I think this is something I still need to learn. I am currently learning it, which is that I'm trying to learn to sort of, you know, over the past 10 years, I took up a lot of work. I'm gonna start these repair shops. I'm gonna work on climate change. This is what I care the most about. I'm gonna try to help transform the American theater and Barnard College and all this stuff. And that's like nothing compared to the work that some people are doing in the world. But I'm trying to learn to do that work with a kind of lightness and joy and grace so that because there's no reason to do it any other way and it's much better. So that's my lesson that I'm working on right now. And I guess if I had thoroughly learned that lesson 20 years ago, it would be much easier right now, but that's where I am. Well, that's, I always say I'm still on the journey. So I'm still learning at the journey as kind of the process sometimes without that you wouldn't have learned those things, but I love that response. Sandra, thank you so much for letting us inside of your ideas on the podcast and sharing your wisdoms and insights and your wonderful book and your time and giving us your personal thoughts and feelings on your view on how we can transition to better futures. I really thank you so much. And unless you have anything else you'd like to share with us, I'm done with my questions today and I thank you very much. Thank you so much for having me. It was really fun talking.