 Welcome to It's About Time on ThinkTech from our downtown studio at the core of Honolulu. I'm your host Becky Sampson, a professional speaker, author, and coach. And we're going to just jump right into our subject today, which is sustainable entrepreneurship and how does sustainability apply to you? So welcome, Les Harper, and he's the founder of the Global Sustainable Projects. So welcome. Thank you. Thanks for coming in today. I'm here. There you go. It's been fun. The reason why, actually last week somebody had suggested me to talk to you, because you have a lot of different projects that you're working on as it comes to global entrepreneurship as well as sustainability. So can I tell everybody where you're from? Because you're not from here. No. They sure might give it away. But I'm originally from Canada, Alberta, Canada. It's that accent that gave it away. What's that, A? It's the accident. A? Yeah, Alberta, Canada. I live in Lloyd Manchester, which is the border city. It's right on the border of Alberta and Saskatchewan. I was an entrepreneur, a businessman there. I had a dozen different companies going on at different times. And 12 years ago, we sold our biggest company and decided that maybe it was time to do something a little different. So on the beckoning of my wife, who loves you. Do I know really well? Yes. She's beautiful. Yes. She loves wine. She loves the little hot spirit and really film press, that there was something here for us. So we took the long plane flight from Canada to here. And it's been an amazing experience. That's awesome. And so, I mean, we're going to be talking about sustainability today, but what kind of got you into that field of sustainability? What drives that passion for you to teach people about it? It goes a long ways. My parents were frugal, for what? Not the word. But at the same time, Frugalio also kind of says that you're going to make use of what you have. Right. You'll say waste not, want not, make or do or do without. Well, there's a lot of resources that we tend to use now as a single use. Like one of our biggest challenges in the world and then specifically in Hawaii is single use plastic. The idea that we just use it and get rid of it. And our intent are the things that we try and teach or work with people is the idea that whatever you have has to be long term sustainable. In other words, what the project, the business, whatever you have, has the ability to maintain itself on a long term basis. That way, you're not going to run out of resources. You're not going to run out of money. You're not going to run out of land or water or the things that are essential. It allows those things that are part of the business to just keep going through and maintain the business. Right. So it sounds like you kind of grew up with that kind of attitude and outlook in life is not to waste, but how do you take those resources and recycle them in a way that's going to be able to help the world? Well, first of all, you really have to think outside the box. One of the businesses I had back in Canada was used oil collection. Used oil collection? Yes. That was taking the oil that's in your van and recycling it into another product that could be reused again. So I did that for over 10 years and you build this mindset where somebody else's garbage becomes your commodity. It has value to it. So you take it and you make value out of it and make it so that instead of it being a waste product, it becomes useful and valuable. You take a look at even garbage. Garbage that's unsorted is just a mess and a problem where garbage or plastics or different materials that are segregated have value to them. So the goal wise is to get the oil before it became a spill problem before it could become a problem and gather up the little parts of it from all the different service stations and shops. And what would you use it for? It was basically a diesel fuel replacement. Oh, okay. So there's a process that it goes through to be able to... Actually, as a matter of fact, I think my husband's friend does that just for a hobby. He does it in the back of his house. And you can. You pretty much can. A lot of people talk about biodiesel, which is made from animal fats, cooking oils, that sort of thing. This is a little different because you're dealing with hydrocarbons and there's different materials. And it's some that are somewhat hazardous. But it's just taking it, knowing how to deal with it, gathering enough knowledge and technology that you can take those products and reuse them. Our goal was to take the oil and to be able to make it back into the lube oil that we had dirtied and put into... To reuse it. Yes. So what do you think is probably the biggest problem when it comes to people, when it comes to having that mindset? Because I do believe that we're in a society, we are very wasteful. Well, we really are. Yeah, we really do throw away a lot of stuff. And we don't think like that. So how do you change somebody that's maybe wasteful to... Okay, how do we start shifting? What's the biggest problem to changing that? You probably have to get my mom on their case because she'll make sure that you use it for as much as you can. Yeah. It comes down to a paradigm shift. Literally, the ability to just go, why do I need this? How long will I use it? And what long-term value does it have? It's kind of like business goals. I was in class this morning and one of the things was, how do you make decisions in business? And that is to look at the long-term perspective and the consequences attached to it. So when you buy a bottle of water, why are you buying it? If the tap has water in it, if you can bring a reusable bottle, why don't you just do that instead of contributing to the problem that's there? But I don't think we really realize when that first came out. I don't know about you, but when bottled water first came out, I thought, who in the world is going to pay for bottled water? And now it's like nobody drinks from the tap. Well, one of the strangest things I've seen since I've been on this island and no offense to anybody, but when one of the hurricane warnings came out, everyone rushed Walmart and all the stores to pick up bottled water. Yeah, rather than filling containers. Yes, out of their own taps. That's so interesting. There was a panic that was created that was unnecessary that could have eliminated the need for all those extra bottles being filled with water and simply have reusable containers, put it under your tap in your bathtub and you could work your way through. Well, at least I'm doing something right. Because my husband's really into a lot of emergency preparedness and so I kind of make fun of him because we have so many bottles. I mean, they're just drinking out of like a, we buy a juice or something and so he keeps these juice bottles and we always fill them with water. We've got them all over the place, right? We doesn't want to throw any of those away. Well, they can become a problem if they're not stored right so we don't have a place for them. But back in Canada, we lived on an acreage out in the country so sometimes the power would go out, sometimes we'd have problems with our well. So we kept water set aside just to help us get through our basic necessities. Yeah, so like when you're working with somebody, what's one of the first things that you would tell them? Is it water would be the first thing? First thing they need? Yeah. That's the most important element in our lives, is water. So, yeah, and it's easy to store. It's, you know, you reuse the containers that you perhaps would have thrown away and at the same time, our municipal water here is wonderful and store is easy. So that would be the first simple place. What's one of the other issues and problems that you see when it comes to sustainability? It's going to be global, not just on the island. Well, we do a lot of work in the country of cannabis. There's 33 islands, none of them are above six feet above sea level. Amazing. Yeah, they're just, they struggle. And the ones that I've been on and they're all pretty much the same are no wider than two-foot-all fields and, you know, can be just a few miles long. Atrawa, which is the main island, is part of a group of islands that are going together with causeways, but it did at best. There's two-foot-well fields wide and 15 miles long. Six feet to the ocean. And how many people live in that kind of space? 110, no, 60,000 on that group of islands and then another 50 to 60 on all the other islands. That's amazing. And I have to say I went to your website last night and started watching all the videos and the projects that you have going there. And that definitely inspired me to want to like learn what you teach because not only for myself, but to also teach other people sustainability because it's a lot easier than most people think. It really is. It really is. Like nature does it all the time. All we have to do is figure out how to replicate nature and with our one project you may have looked up is it's hydroponic. We're taking a game where we really replies or really applies is in Kiribati where between that whole six feet you've got any water they may have but at the same time there's graves there. There's pigs and the challenges attached to that. So they don't have a lot of land to plant their own crops and the land is contaminated with salt. So we developed at Atai Kitibwe who's one of my students who went home to Kiribati developed a box that's basically about our home depot and we put scrolls from the top and added on some other equipment. And the most important part that I saw in that is that you have to be able to put oxygen into the water. That's a bonus. Okay, it's a bonus. You don't have to. One of the most... one of the great systems that was set up was developed at UH, the Katke system and it can be just a still water system with air ventilation on top. We put the air pump in because first of all it just seems to accelerate the growth it keeps everything mixed in the water so that the plants grow that much quicker like we're looking for a head of lettuce in 30 days and so it's got to be a pretty optimum nutrient level in the water. It's done, everything's got to work together. And it looks so nice and green. It's beautiful. Just a story in one of our projects in Kiribati a family called this hop in a bit of a panic and they brought the edutai over and showed them this beautiful melon in their container. They didn't know what to do with it because they had never been able to grow anything like that in the island. So, the edutai just said, get a knife, let's eat this thing. You know, plant some more seeds and keep going. So, it's a new frontier and it's something that is stretching people but at the same time that it has 25% diabetes rate in the country. Yeah, that's, I was really, I mean obviously you know my story, right? Of losing a lot of weight and going from really unhealthy to healthy. It's really important to me to be able to help people get solutions to health problems. And so, I really commend you for what you're doing because you're helping a whole nation and a whole people become sustainable by their own efforts, right? And not relying on other people to do that. So, I want to talk more about that as we come back from the break and talk about how what every single person can do because there's something that everybody can do as they're looking to make their life more sustainable when it comes to their health and other aspects. So, we're going to be taking a short break. I'm Becky Samson and you are watching It's About Time on Think Tech Hawaii and we're talking to Les Harper about sustainable entrepreneurship. How does sustainability apply to you? Stay tuned and we'll be right back. Aloha, my name is Victoria and I'm a host at The Adventures in Small Business. This is a collaboration between US Small Business Administration, Hawaii District Office and its partners where we showcase the stories of local entrepreneurs and small businesses, talk about how to start a business, talk about great tips for small business owners. Please join us every Thursday, 11 a.m. at Think Tech Hawaii. Neeson, mahalo. Hey, hello, everyone and welcome to the Think Tech Hawaii studio. My name is Andrew Lanning. I'm the host of The Pretty Matters Hawaii. We air here every Tuesday at 10 a.m. Hawaii time. Trying to bring you issues about security that you may not know, issues that can protect your family, protect yourself, protect our community, protect our companies, the folks we work with. Please join us and I hope you can maybe get a little different perspective on how to live a little safer. Aloha. Back and I'm Becky Samson and this is About Time. I'm talking with Les Harper on sustainable entrepreneurship. How does sustainability apply to you? So right before the break, we were talking about Kittibus, some projects that you're doing there. Like I said, I went to the website and looked at the videos and everything. I got passionate about it because anytime that you can empower people in their own personal life with their families, their communities, you change the world, right? And so you're going in and one of the things that problems with Kittibus is that you said that it's only six feet above the sea water, sea level, sorry. And so when they have disasters that come in, their crops are completely taken out. But you're teaching them to use containers to build aquaponics and there to grow their own food. Well that was aquaponics. We're doing hydroponics. Hydroponics. Oh, I'm sorry. Aquaponics is a little different. Okay. I'm learning. I'm learning. So hydroponics. Yes, hydroponics is when you put your nutrients into a water solution and then your seeds are germinated above it and the roots from those plants reach down into the water. It's kind of cool. It's literally, you can have roots that are 12, 14 inches long and a big mat of it underneath. Yeah, I saw that. It's just awesome. That's crazy. Aquaponics is using fish. Basically you grow fish and the waste from the fish is put through medium. In other words, rocks that has microorganisms in them. Those organisms change the waste from the fish into nutrients for the plants and then the water that comes back to the fish is clean again. That's so interesting. It's kind of what they call a symbiotic solution. Nice. Where one enhances the other. And helps the other one. Yeah. So tell me some of the things that, I mean obviously you've got projects all over the world. Kittibus is kind of where you're spending a lot of your time. Because there's, and I love that you're working with students that are here to learn what they need to learn and they can go back to their countries and help empower their own people. Because they want to stay there in their country. Oh yes, very much so. But their health is going down the tubes because they're having to rely on things that are being shipped in instead of growing their own food. So what can people do here or just an average, how do they create that? How do they create a sustainable living? Well, first of all it's awareness. It's recognizing that first of all we are on an island in the middle of the ocean. Yes. We don't have nowhere but everywhere. Yes, exactly. Everyone wants to be here. So to recognize that 90% of the food comes from somewhere else and that at the same time we have incredible growing season that's phenomenal. We have the resources here that can potentially allow us to grow almost anything that we want to. Right. So it's just a matter of starting small, starting on something that's simple and doing it. Yeah. Go into home people, go into one of your garden stores and just buy a pack of seeds. Read the back and put it in, find a bit of soil, buy a bit of soil and just start growing something. Yeah, for someone like me that is really, okay, I will say to you less. I will say a year and a half ago me and my husband did a garden. It was probably, I'd say 25 feet, it wasn't a garden, it was really a farm. 25 feet by, I don't know, 50 feet or something like that. And it completely died because we left for a month. But I will say that I think like you said, starting small and putting it in there and learning whatever it is that they need for that because we have rich soil here that we don't have around the world. Well, and the thing is in Kervis we do trainings, our preemptive training is here so that students can go to Kervis and help the people there. But it takes, we take one hour to teach people how to do hydroponic. So and can they go to your website because I mean I learned just by looking at it but I'm sure there's a little more than just the videos that are on there. What's your website again? Our website is GlobalSustainableProjects.org. And it's the GlobalSustainable Projects I believe with our Facebook. We're happy to train anybody that wants to learn how to do hydroponics. We have students that, well, editize a good example. He didn't know what hydroponics was. He had no idea. And yet over a period of time he killed a whole bunch of plants before he finally started growing watermelon in Kervis. That is amazing. How do they fit in those little things? Well, he's got this trellis where the vinyl grow up and then they just hang. Oh, okay. So it doesn't grow in that little thing. No, it's too small for that. But lettuce you can grow lettuce. And lettuce, I think, can't you cut that off and use it and you still use the stem and it keeps coming? Yeah, or just peel the outside leaves off and keep going. And let it go? Yeah. You know, there's such a wealth of knowledge out there. We like to use the University of YouTube. Yeah. It's an amazing source of information. A lot of my students that I work with, if they're not sure about something and I'm not sure about something, I just send them to YouTube. Yeah. Because everybody loves to show off their success. One of the most important things I think is the message, is that anybody can do this. Anybody can. And is it something that I can put on my porch or on my deck? Yes. And just start growing stuff. I'm going to have to come tell you some of your classes. I'm really serious. Like I really, I'm not one that can really grow very well, but I believe in it. And I eat a lot of vegetables. So if, you know... You should be growing your own vegetables. I know. I know. There's nothing more therapy-wise. There are other things, but working in the soil and working with plants is very therapeutic. Therapeutic. It's just, it feels good to grow something. Our little patch where we are on the north shore, we're now growing a thousand pounds of bananas a month, where just a year ago there was almost nothing. What do you do with all that? The students get a lot of them. Do they? I only give them to people. Those who come and work at the garden are allowed to take produce and fruit with them. So it's reciprocal. If you earn it, it tastes that much better. So I love that you said that because I was just going to say that my sister is, she does some gardening, and she said when the kids, she has two girls, they're not teenagers, but she says when they're involved in growing the vegetables, they're more likely to eat the vegetables. So if you're having a hard time getting the vegetables in, you better start gardening, and that's for me too. I'm giving myself that kind of advice. And there is nothing that tastes better than a homegrown tomato, especially something that you literally saw rise up from the seed, to be able to eat that and keep your teeth in good. And so what about, I know when we started our garden last, because my husband's much better at this than I am, but he, we had a lot of weeds. Is it not so much here, or do you have animals that eat stuff? Our secret is box garden. So instead of growing right into the ground, we build a little framework, just like eight by eight or six by eight of two by four seed. A foot high. And it seems, for whatever reason, that once you start, you put soil in a box, you limit- You don't put any liner or anything? No, we don't. In fact, we make a point of not putting a liner in because we want basically the box of soil in the box be a part of the soil underneath it. But our need to weed is minimal. Where in those same areas, there were open spaces that students used to farm. And it was a shady time. I know in our carrots, they kept getting pulled down by the, what do you go for? Is there something? I was like, okay, why are we doing this? Well, the other thing about that site is there's a mongoose, and they don't like carrots. Oh, the mongoose. You're okay. Oh, okay. Those guys are crazy animals. So the very first thing, let's just kind of recoup, I mean, re-say what we were saying before. But the very first thing you'd say is anyone to be sustainable is to get their water source. Yeah. Right? If anything were to happen, we need to have clean water. Clean water. Yeah. You can store, you can store food, but you don't need food. You can go without food for a few days. And it's water that you have to have for consumption and for hygiene. Beyond that, then you can, some of us can live a few days without having to eat. But water is your most important. So water is number one. Secondly, if you have any space, and actually, you can be in an apartment. Yeah. You can, is that, I definitely recommend them go to your website, which is global sustainable projects. .org. .org. And look at those videos that you have and the different things that you do. And then also, look into the hydroponics on YouTube to be able to get ideas of how to start setting up box gardening. And just simply don't be afraid of making mistakes. Yeah. You know, we're all learning. I'm still learning a lot. And it's just simply step out of your comfort zone, take a chance, and you'll be surprised how things are going. Yeah. And the thing is too, is I love that you bring up that it's looking at the resources that you have and then educating yourself on those so that you can make progress. I mean, I've noticed that being here on the island, they don't do recycling like we did on the mainland. Well, that's where on the mainland you're from because in Hawaii they do better at recycling than some places in the mainland. So how can we get more involved in the community in recycling? Well, first of all, if you're a residential homeowner, make use of the bins that are provided by the city. OK. So they do have Yeah. They're out there. Then there are depots, your high-fives, put those things in a place where you can get a triple R to the recycling centers to get some money back. What's a high-five? I don't even know what that is. It gets a deposit on drinking bottles. Oh. Your water bottle that you buy or your soda. I'll have it a five-center deposit. Oh. The other thing is lobby your local government to increase the incentives on those sort of bottles and extend it to other products. We have over 40 products in Canada. Everything from drinking bottles that all have a deposit return system on it. And the recycling rate that we have there is much, much higher than most places in the world. My little used oil was a deposit return system. Oh, OK. So if we had almost, well, as close to 100% as we could recycle. And so education is a really important thing. Absolutely. And just get aware of maybe in your county or your state that you're looking to be the recycling. Yeah. And then how you can reuse the things that you have. And make use of the systems that are in place. If they have a recycling center, take stuff to it. Encourage other people to take it. Get your neighbors together. If it's not being used, they'll shut it down because it becomes obvious that there's no value in it. Are there voters? Are those usually government-assisted in the country and location? They can be assisted by local or federal government. Awesome. How do people find you? And where, I mean like, I know we give you the website. You want to give your phone number out if they want you to come in and teach the hydroponics or if you want to get them involved with the projects. My email is fine. Okay. Yeah. LG Harper. Yes. Yes. Nice and simple. I know I call you Lester all the time just because I love nicknames and so I hope you're not offended by that. No, that's fine. In my younger years, when I was just at the neighbor used to call me Lester B after one of the prime ministers of Canada. So, that's a firm of endearment. There you go. I think nicknames are endearment. Yeah, it's kind of cool. But thank you so much for being on the show today and sharing your wisdom and sharing with everybody the ideas. I know if you offer classes, I'm going to come to them. Oh, yes. That's not a problem. I don't offer classes, but my students do. Oh, good. They're all, many of them are more qualified than I am now. Awesome. Awesome. And I can just go spend a minimal amount of money and start having my own lettuce, right? It'll take, you can do it for nothing. Absolutely zero if you want it. Oh, I'm so excited. I hope this brings you guys hope that you can also have a sustainable lifestyle as well. So thanks for joining us today. So we're out of time and we'll have to wrap it up. But I'm Becky Sampson with It's About Time on the ThinkTech live streaming network series. We've been talking with Les Harper about the sustainable entrepreneurship and how does sustainability apply to you? We want to thank the broadcast engineer, our floor manager and to Jay Fidel, our executive producer who makes the show possible. And of course, I'll see you on Wednesdays for more of It's About Time on ThinkTech. I'm your host, Becky Sampson. Mahalo everyone.