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We're back from an extended Spring Break hiatus! Over the past week, in honor of Earth Day, I took a tour around LinkedIn to visit people and places that are driving innovation and conversation about #sustainability, #conservation, and #climate.

Our first stop is Rotterdam, Holland-based The Ocean Cleanup, a non-profit that "designs and develops advanced technologies to rid the world’s oceans of plastic by means of ocean cleanup systems and river interception solutions."

Every year, millions of tons of plastic enter the oceans primarily from rivers. The plastic afloat across the oceans – legacy plastic – isn’t going away by itself. Therefore, solving ocean plastic pollution requires a combination of stemming the inflow and cleaning up what has already accumulated.

They are undertaking what they call the largest cleanup in history, seeking to undo and reverse decades of plastic waste accumulation in our rivers and oceans. They post frequently here, and I find their work incredibly inspiring. They are one among many seeking to stem and reverse the tide of plastic waste and ensure a plastic-free ocean for our future.

Pasturebird is Paul Greive's Temecula, California poultry farm and regenerative agriculture business. Paul is one (among many) of the standout voices in the thriving #regenerativeagriculture community here, and has had videos of his work and his tech go viral (you might have seen the incredible solar-powered moving chicken enclosure that allows the birds to roam and move around the pasture).

If you're interested in the field (pardon the pun), make sure to give Paul a follow and discover who else is in on the conversation in his post comments!

Next, we’re stopping by Stripe, the San Francisco, California internet payments company, and taking a look at a post from Nan Ransohoff, the Head of Climate there. Stripe has made bold moves and financial commitments to fund companies and technology that directly capture and safely store atmospheric carbon. They’ve incorporated this part of their mission and vision directly into their products and are placing informed bets on tech that can be scaled rapidly to meet the crisis.

As asked in the article headline, what is your company doing to fight climate change?

Staying in San Francisco for a bit, I'm visiting Project Drawdown (they also have a presence in Europe via Drawdown Europe Research Association in Amsterdam, Holland). My friend Kimberly Nicholas reminded me of their work in a call today and I was excited to see they have a great presence on LinkedIn (though I would love to see them get a lot more followers, so please share widely!).

"Project Drawdown presents 100 solutions for humanity to reach climate drawdown, the point at which greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere begin to decline on a year-to-year basis."

They just posted this chart, which is part of their full report that you can find on their website.

I cannot recommend reading the report, following them here, and getting involved enough!

Our final stops are a whirlwind tour of the United States! I'm visiting several organizations that I'm planning on working with as I ramp up my sustainable woodworking side hustle Root & Crown.

It's important to me that the products I use and the sale of my creations support the expansion of healthy diverse forests rather than contribute to their demise.

I source all my wood locally from a supplier that provides only sustainably sourced material (often from treefall in the area), and I'm proud to use Walrus Oil (based in Springfield, Missouri) for all the finishes.

The shop I'm in is powered by a solar net-zero metered (still attached to grid) setup.

While my ecommerce site isn't up and running quite yet, I plan to incorporate Stripe's 1% of all purchases put to carbon capture technology, as well as getting on board with Burlington, Vermont based 1% for the Planet.?

Additionally, I plan to set up a matching system with One Tree Planted (Shelburne, Vermont) and SeaTrees (Manhattan Beach, California) to directly contribute to reforestation projects on land and in our oceans.

I hope that some of the above might inspire you to consider how you can incorporate sustainable practices and support for climate solutions into your work and hobbies. Thinking through how you can make choices about where an how you work, that align with best practices to reduce and remove carbon is worth the effort. Putting that plan into action, to the best of your ability, adds to our chances of keeping our planet in a state that ensures life as we know it can continue to survive and thrive.

Thanks so much for joining me on this week's exploration, keep on traveling here on LinkedIn, and see you again soon!