When we think about reducing fashion’s heavy toll on climate and biodiversity, material choice is one of the most important factors. In this piece, Stella evaluates many of fashion’s sustainable fabrics — and other popular materials — to evaluate their benefits and concerns.
Understanding the systems below the surface of our clothing is the first step we need to take in reimagining and remaking these systems into ones that are more sustainable and just. Part of this is learning about the materials and fibers that make up our clothes, the contexts they were created in, their impacts, and their potential for circularity.
The materials our clothes are made of do affect the impact our clothes have, such as their water consumption and pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, microplastic pollution, soil degradation, deforestation, and waste.
But, Even Sustainable Fabrics Are Nuanced
Rather than going in search of a “perfectly” sustainable fabric or fiber, creating more conscious clothing is about learning about the pros and cons of each material and using this information to help make informed decisions — as designers, fashion professionals, sustainable fashion advocates, consumers, and conscious citizens.
For example, in general, natural fibers are preferred, because they aren’t made from fossil fuels and won’t release microplastics. But even natural fibers can have sustainability concerns, such as if they’re treated with toxic synthetic chemicals and dyes or produced by people working in unethical conditions.
And as Sofi Thanhauser — author of Worn: A People’s History of Clothing — explains on this episode of the Conscious Style Podcast, the reasons why certain materials have risen to popularity in the fashion industry are also a reflection of various complex historical and political contexts.
This is all to say that each fabric will have its strengths and tradeoffs. Below is a list of some of the common materials and fibers that are found in our clothes, along with an overview of each one’s sustainability and design pros and cons, and related certifications.
If you are a designer or brand owner and would like to learn about where to sustainably source these materials, join the Conscious Fashion Collective membership to access our sister site’s guide to 70+ Places to Source Sustainable Fabrics and Materials.
NATURAL
Cotton
Chances are, if you look into your wardrobe now, you’ll find a garment made from cotton without any difficulty. It’s the most common natural fiber in our clothing. Cotton is 80% of the natural fiber market and is the second most commonly produced fiber after polyester, accounting for 24.2% of global fiber production as of 2020/2021.
Its versatility and durability mean that it’s used widely for many different garments from jeans to dresses, to underwear. Cotton is often blended with other fibers — such as polyester — for various applications. Different kinds of cotton include recycled cotton, organic cotton, color-grown cotton, and Supima cotton.

According to the Transformers Foundation’s 2021 report, Cotton: A Case Study in Misinformation, cotton is grown in many water-stressed regions and can contribute to water management challenges. But cotton is a drought-tolerant plant adapted to arid regions, which is why farmers in dry climates often choose to grow it because it can survive and produce a crop in harsher environments. While it has earned a reputation for being a water-intensive crop, it’s not a proportionally high consumer of irrigation water compared to many other crops, according to Transformers Foundation’s research.
While it’s a natural fiber, conventionally grown cotton is also known for its usage of chemical pesticides and fertilizers, biodiversity risks, and hazardous labor conditions.
The more sustainable alternative is organic cotton which is grown from non-genetically modified seeds, cultivated without using synthetic pesticides and fertilizers that harm soil health and the health of farm workers, and typically processed without using toxic chemicals that harm natural ecosystems and the people in cotton supply chains. While it has been widely believed that organic cotton uses significantly less water than conventional cotton, there are arguments that cotton is a water-intensive fiber regardless.
The most sustainable cotton option today is regenerative cotton. This means the cotton is grown on a farm that uses regenerative cultivation practices. While alternatives to conventional cotton farming — including organic — aim to do less bad, regenerative cotton farming aims to have a net positive impact on the environment.
Regenerative farming is based on holistic, indigenous, traditional ways of land management including minimizing soil disturbance, maintaining living roots in soil, crop rotation, and restoring degraded soil biodiversity. While it’s not yet as widely used as organic cotton, there are a few brands — such as Christy Dawn, in partnership with Oshadi, — who are leading the way. And initiatives such as California Cotton & Climate Coalition and organizations such as Fibershed that are helping brands source from regenerative farmers.
Paying attention to the ethics of cotton production is just as important as environmental sustainability. For example, cotton cultivated in the Xinjiang region of China is some of the most widely used cotton in the world — accounting for 85% of Chinese production and 20% of world supply. But, according to a BBC investigation in 2021, the cotton is predominantly picked by Xinjiang’s Uighur minority, who are forced into this labor in inhumane conditions. So regardless of what kind of cotton you are sourcing, traceability is essential for ensuring that the cotton was ethically and sustainably produced.
Sustainability takeaway: Pure cotton fabrics are recyclable, durable, and versatile. The most sustainable cotton option is regenerative cotton, organic cotton, or recycled cotton. Recycled cotton is produced using either post-industrial or post-consumer waste. But, to ensure that the cotton you are using was sustainably and ethically cultivated, you should do research into how and where and how it was grown and processed.
Sustainability certifications: USDA-Certified Organic, Global Organic Textile Standard, Better Cotton Initiative, Fairtrade, Global Recycled Standard, OEKO-TEX Standard 100, Fibershed’s Climate Beneficial
Verification, Regenerative Organic Certified
Price range: $-$$
Hemp
Hemp is a fast-growing, high-yielding, multi-use, hero fiber. Hemp is known as a “bast” fiber, which means it’s derived from the stem of a plant — in this case, a Cannabis sativa L. plant that contains 0.3% or less of THC.
It’s one of the most durable natural fabrics and is used to create anything from flowing summer dresses to workwear sets and even swimwear. It’s absorbent, which allows it to accept dyes readily and retain color better than other natural fabrics.

When compared to cotton, the hemp crop requires significantly less land and water to cultivate the same yield. Importantly, its deep root system can restore nutrients in the soil, keeping it fertile. It’s a carbon-negative material because hemp plants absorb carbon as they grow — far more than trees.
Because of hemp’s natural resistance to many insects, it’s possible to easily cultivate hemp using organic methods that don’t heavily rely on chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
In addition to being used for fabric, hemp oil and seeds are used for food and beauty products. Hemp can be used for paints, inks, paper, and composite boards. So no part of the plant has to go to waste.
Sustainability takeaway: Hemp is one of the most eco-friendly fibers on the market. Only organic hemp guarantees that no harmful chemicals were used, so look out for certifications and do your research to learn about the farm the hemp was grown on and how it was processed.
Sustainability certifications: USDA-Certified Organic, Fairtrade, OEKO-TEX Standard 100
Price range: $$
Jute
Jute is another bast fiber derived from the jute plant. It grows best in warm, humid climates with significant rainfall and is mostly produced in India and Bangladesh. Jute plants require minimal fertilizers and pesticides and was found to sequester nearly 5 tons of CO2 per ton of raw jute fiber production.
Jute fabric is quite coarse, which means it’s mostly used for fashion accessories. But it can be blended with cotton for a softer feel to create a wider variety of garments.
Although jute is primarily known for its fiber, each part of the plant can be used. The jute leaves are eaten as vegetables, while the remaining stick can be used as a building material.
Sustainability takeaway: Jute is a plant-based biodegradable yet durable material that can be a sustainable choice when sourced responsibly.
Sustainability certifications: USDA-Certified Organic, Fairtrade, OEKO-TEX Standard 100
Price range: $
Animal Leather
Leather is a material made from the skin of animals including cows, sheep, crocodiles, snakes, ostriches, and crocodiles. It’s known for its longevity and is commonly used to create footwear and accessories. It’s particularly common in the luxury fashion world.
The most glaring ethical concern about the production of leather is animal cruelty. In addition, leather requires more water and land than almost any other material — not to mention the emissions associated with animal agriculture. It’s also a cause of deforestation and habitat destruction due to cattle ranching.
Some argue that because leather is a natural byproduct of the meat industry, it makes sense to reduce wastage and still find ways to use it. But this argument doesn’t account for the fact that leather processing is where a significant part of leather’s environmental footprint lies. Notably the tanning process involves extremely harmful chemicals, including heavy metals, that end up in waterways and pose risks to workers’ respiratory, skin, and internal health. Some evidence suggests that all tanning processes — including vegetable tanning — can hinder the ability of animal skins to biodegrade.
Sustainability takeaway: Leather is a long-lasting material, but it comes with many sustainability and ethical concerns. Vegetable-tanned leather provides a less toxic alternative. Recycled leather is a more sustainable option, made from leather waste scraps, but may be combined with plastic.
Sustainability certifications: The Leather Working Group, OEKO-TEX STeP
Price range: $$$
Vegan Leather Alternatives
In response to the concerns around animal cruelty and the harms of the leather industry, leather alternatives are being developed. The most common vegan leather alternatives are plastic, specifically Polyurethane (you may see it labeled as PU) or Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which are made with fossil fuels.
Improvements to purely plastic leather include partly bio-based and plant-based leather alternatives, like VEGEA, made from repurposed grape waste from the wine industry, Desserto, made from cacti, AppleSkin, made from apple skins, cores, and seeds, and Piñatex, made from pineapple leaf fiber. American start-up Bolt Threads is developing Mylo, a lab-grown leather made from mycelium, the underground root structure of mushrooms.
Sustainability takeaway: Bio-based leather alternatives are not as widely available as vegan leather. It’s too early to assess the overall environmental impacts of these new leather alternatives, but what they do have in their favor is that they are not purely plastic-based — read: made from fossil fuels — like other vegan leather options.
Sustainability certifications: OEKO-TEX Standard 100, PETA-Approved Vegan, Vegan Society Registered Verification Test
Price range: $$$
Linen
Linen is one of the oldest fibers known to humankind. Linen is reminiscent of light, flowing summer dresses and breathable beach wear. It’s yet another plant-based bast fiber, this one hailing from the flax plant. Flax is able to grow on the majority of soils and, in contrast to many other fibers such as conventional cotton, natural production of flax does not require pesticides, artificial irrigation or fertilizers.

Two different kinds of flax are grown: flax for fiber, which is used to make linen textiles, and flax for seed, which is used to feed people and livestock. To create linen fabrics from the flax plant, the long fibers from within the stem of the plant are extracted and spun into linen fibers, which are woven into fabric.
Linen fabric is known to be an effective temperature regulator — keeping you cool in summer and warm in winter.
Sustainability takeaway: When it comes to sustainability, organic linen is your best bet. Linen is fully biodegradable when it’s left untreated. Its natural colors include ivory, ecru, tan, and gray. Once synthetic dyes and finishes are applied, biodegradability is no longer possible.
Sustainability certifications: USDA-Certified Organic, Global Organic Textile Standard, OEKO-TEX Standard 100, Masters of Linen, Fibershed’s Climate Beneficial
Verification
Price range: $$
Silk
Silk is synonymous with luxury. Silk is one of the strongest natural fibers and is animal-derived. It’s harvested from silkworms who line their cocoons with silk threads, which are the saliva of the silkworm produced to insulate the work in its cocoon until they transform into silk moths.
These threads are spun into the fabrics we know today. About 3000 cocoons are used to make one yard of silk.
In conventional silk-making techniques, known as sericulture, the silkworms are killed during the process of extracting the silk threads, raising a red flag in the ethical fashion community. There are less harmful ways of creating silk — known as “peace silk” — where the silkworms are not harmed, and the threads are taken from the cocoon once the silkworms have transformed into silk moths and are left behind.
Wild silk, on the other hand, is cultivated from silk moths that live in the wild, instead of silk moths that are kept captive for the pure purpose of silk production. Wild silk cocoons are harvested after the moth has left the cocoon and are found in open forests. There are varying types of wild silk depending on the type of moth, plants they eat, and regions in which they live. Some wild silks are naturally colored yellow, orange, or green.
There are also human-made silk alternatives for those who want to avoid animal-derived silk entirely. This includes Bold Threads’ lab-made Microsilk which imitates the silk fibers produced by spiders. Or Banana Sylk which is made from 100% pure banana plant stem.
Sustainability takeaway: Pure silk is naturally biodegradable. Opt for ethically farmed silk and organic silk whenever possible. Organic silk production is a more environmentally friendly, non-violent, and sustainable practice of silk cultivation. The silkworms are allowed to live out their full lives and die naturally, and no chemicals or treatments are required. Or look into peace silk, wild silk, or cruelty-free alternatives.
Sustainability certifications: OEKO-TEX STeP, OEKO-TEX Standard 100, Global Organic Textile Standard
Price range: $$$
Wool
When we think of wool, the warmth of cozy knitwear probably comes to mind. Wool is a renewable, biodegradable, and lower-impact natural fiber. Wool is made from keratin — the same protein as human hair — and is grown on the backs of sheep or other animals such as goats, camels, alpacas, and llamas. There are many kinds of wool including mohair (from Angora goats) and merino (from Merino sheep).
In terms of making clothing, wool is naturally breathable, an effective insulator, reacts to changes in body temperature making it perfect for trans seasonal wear, and requires less frequent washing, because it’s naturally odor- and stain-resistant.
How the sheep are farmed determines both the quality and sustainability of the wool. This is why it’s ideal to opt for regeneratively farmed or organic wool, to ensure that the wool has been cultivated in a way that doesn’t harm the animals, or natural environment, and doesn’t expose workers and animals to harmful chemicals.
Animal cruelty is another consideration when looking for ethically produced wool. Mulesing is one of the cruel practices that were common in the wool industry. The Responsible Wool Standard certifies that the wool is mulesing-free.

Wool can also be recycled. This happens through a mechanical process that returns garments to the raw fiber state and turns the fiber into yarn again, to produce new products. Additionally, wool that isn’t used in the fashion industry can be used for insulation and carpeting.
Sustainability takeaway: Look for 100% wool (or wool with other natural fibers) and not a synthetic blend when possible. Also look for mulesing-free wool and for wool sourced from farms employing regenerative practices to enhance environmental health, biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and water quality.
Sustainability certifications: Responsible Wool Standard, Responsible Mohair Standard, Woolmark, Fibershed’s Climate Beneficial
Verification
Price range: $$
SYNTHETIC
Nylon
Nylon was the world’s first fully synthetic fiber made from petroleum, introduced in the 1930s. Now Nylon is one of the most common synthetic fabrics and is found in everything from swimwear to activewear, due to its elastic recoverability (meaning nylon can stretch without losing shape). And due to its low liquid absorbency, nylon clothes dry faster than natural fabrics like cotton, and usually don’t need ironing.
Nylon starts as a type of plastic derived from coal and crude oil that is then put through a chemical-, water- and energy-intensive process to create the strong, stretchy fibers that make it so useful as a fabric.
Sustainability takeaway: Nylon is a plastic fabric and therefore not a sustainable option. It’s used because of the properties it can give garments that allow for more versatile and longer lasting wear. If nylon is unavoidable, opt for a lower-impact alternative such as ECONYL. More on this below.
Sustainability certifications: None
Price range: $-$$
ECONYL
ECONYL is a regenerated nylon product made from repurposed plastic waste. ECONYL is created by Italian firm Aquafil, using synthetic waste such as industrial plastic, waste fabric, and fishing nets from oceans, that are recycled into a regenerated nylon yarn. The closed-loop production process requires a lot less water — and is virgin fossil-fuel free — in comparison to regular nylon.
Currently, there are two types of ECONYL fibers: ECONYL Textile Fiber, which has a softer attribute making it fit for weaving garments. And ECONYL Carpet Fiber, which is replacing the traditional nylon used extensively in carpet manufacturing.
It’s a lightweight elastic fabric that possesses all the desirable characteristics of virgin nylon. And it can be recycled infinitely at end-of-life.
Sustainability takeaway: ECONYL is a viable more sustainable fabric for designers who want to create garments or apparel that require the characteristics of nylon — such as swimwear or activewear. But even though ECONYL is a circular alternative, it’s still a synthetic fabric, which means it still releases plastic microfibers and contributes to microplastic pollution.
Sustainability certifications: OEKO-TEX Standard 100
Price range: $$
Polyester
Polyester is infamous in the fashion industry for being the most common fiber in our clothing — it accounts for about half of all fibers produced in the world — but it’s also among the most harmful. To make polyester fibers, PET plastic pellets are melted and extruded through tiny holes called spinnerets to form long threads, which are then cooled to harden into a fiber.
Polyester is cheap to produce and purchase, easy to care for, sturdy, and lightweight. It retains its shape, dries easily, and tends not to wrinkle or crease.
But polyester’s allure comes to an abrupt halt when we consider the social and environmental effects of producing and discarding this fiber. The fiber is derived from fossil fuels, not to mention polyester contributes heavily to microplastic pollution and polyester clothing doesn’t biodegrade, dooming it to sit in landfills for hundreds of years.
Sustainability takeaway: If you can avoid using polyester, do so. It’s one of the least sustainable fabrics and fibers in fashion. There are recycled polyester options on the market — most often made from recycled plastic bottles. While the sustainability credentials of these can also be debated, they’re lower-impact options to look into if you can’t avoid using polyester.
Sustainability certifications: None
Price range: $
MAN-MADE CELLULOSIC
Rayon
The best way to understand rayon is to consider it an umbrella term for textiles that are made from chemically treated cellulose — the building block of most plants. Rayon is typically made of wood from eucalyptus, spruce, and pine trees, but can also be made from cotton or bamboo.
The general process for creating all kinds of rayon involves chemically dissolving the wood pulp, converting it into filaments, and then spinning it into fabrics. This is also why rayon is known as semi-synthetic, because it’s derived from plants, but requires synthetic chemicals to be turned into fibers and fabrics.
When rayon was first manufactured in the early 1900s, it was originally marketed as artificial silk due to its softness, nice drape, and luster. It quickly rose in popularity because its price point was significantly lower than silk and cotton. Designers gravitate toward rayon because it’s multi-purpose and easily combined with cotton, polyester, or silk.
The glaring issue with rayon is the chemical-intensive process required to dissolve the wood into pulp. These chemicals are not only environmentally damaging, but damaging to workers in the supply chain too. Carbon disulfide is one of the main chemicals used and it has been historically linked to widespread, severe, and lethal illnesses experienced by those employed in rayon production.
Rayon also has strong links to deforestation. Much of the wood pulp used for rayon production is still sourced from ancient and endangered forests. According to the nonprofit Canopy, 300 million trees are felled each year to make textiles.
Sustainability takeaway: The wood pulp used to make rayon can be sustainably harvested, but often isn’t. The potential environmental and human health risks of the chemicals used to produce rayon should also be considered.
Sustainability certifications: Forest Stewardship Council Certified, OEKO-TEX Standard 100
Price range: $
Viscose
Viscose is a type of rayon. Viscose goes through a slightly different manufacturing process than viscose rayon, which gives it a slightly different feel. Viscose is made specifically with liquid viscose, while rayon is not. It feels like rayon, but has a silkier look.
Sustainability takeaway: As with rayon, the sustainability concerns are related to deforestation and extreme chemical usage.
Sustainability certifications: Forest Stewardship Council Certified, OEKO-TEX Standard 100
Price range: $
Modal
Modal is a type of rayon, and is made from the cellulosic pulp of beech trees. This semi-synthetic fabric has become a popular choice in the fashion industry, because it’s versatile, breathable, and absorbent. The wood fibers are pulped into liquid form and then forced through tiny holes, creating the thread. The resulting fibers are then spun into yarn, sometimes in blends with other fibers such as cotton or elastane. These yarns can then be woven or knitted into fabric.
As with any other type of rayon, sustainability concerns relating to deforestation and chemical intensity apply. Today one of the best-known producers of Modal is the Austrian company Lenzing AG, which now markets its version under the name TENCEL
Modal (previously Lenzing Modal).
TENCEL
Modal is protected by a global certification system. The trademarked TENCEL
Modal is harvested from Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification or Forest Stewardship Council sustainably-managed beech tree plantations in Austria and surrounding European countries.
Sustainability takeaway: While Modal raises similar sustainability concerns to other forms of rayon, Lenzing AG’s TENCEL
Modal is the more sustainable fabric option, because it’s traceable and sourced from sustainably managed forests.
Sustainability certifications: Forest Stewardship Council Certified, OEKO-TEX Standard 100, bluesign®
Price range: $$
Lyocell
Lyocell is another type of rayon fabric. It’s produced by dissolving wood pulp with an NMMO (N-Methylmorpholine N-oxide) solvent, which is less toxic than traditional rayon solvents. While Modal is made from beech trees, Lyocell is made from Eucalyptus trees, oak, bamboo, or birch trees.
With Lyocell, the solvents used in production are almost entirely reusable from one batch to the next. This sets Lyocell apart from other forms of rayon.
Lyocell is also attributed to Lenzing AG. So Lyocell is better known as TENCEL
Lyocell. TENCEL
Lyocell is known for sourcing wood pulp sustainably. Unlike viscose and other types of rayon, TENCEL
Lyocell is made using a closed loop process, which means that the chemicals used in the production process do not get released into the environment.
Lyocell is like cotton or linen and is often blended with those fabrics. Lyocell is also 50% more absorbent than cotton, which means it’s often used for activewear. It’s also often used as a more delicate fabric in garments like underwear, dresses, and dress shirts.
Sustainability takeaway: It’s ideal to look into the sources of the Lyocell you choose to use. With TENCEL
Lyocell fabric, the trees used are only sourced from Forest Stewardship Council-certified sustainably managed forests, which provides safeguards against deforestation risks.
Sustainability certifications: Forest Stewardship Council Certified, OEKO-TEX Standard 100, bluesign®
Price range: $$
Bamboo
Bamboo is a natural fiber that can be processed as a natural bast fiber to create bamboo linen or go through a chemical process to create a cellulosic fiber that results in bamboo rayon or Lyocell. Bamboo material is made from the pulp of the bamboo plant. The stalks are crushed, and the cellulose is separated from the fiber. The cellulose is then turned into thread and woven into fabric.
Bamboo is a sustainable crop — if grown in the right conditions — because bamboo plants are fast-growing (they’re a grass, not a tree), renewable, and have positive impacts on the soil and air. When bamboo is harvested, it can be done without killing the plant itself, and can renew quickly.
But most products labeled as “bamboo” are rayon and involve intensive chemical emissions and energy in the processing of bamboo. These processes — in comparison to the lower-impact production of bamboo linen — cause sustainability of this fiber to take a dip.
Bamboo fabrics are soft and absorbent and are most often used to make basics and lifestyle wear. Bamboo linen is coarser than bamboo rayon, viscose, or Lyocell.
Editor’s note: Kohl’s and Walmart were fined $5.5 million by the FTC for making deceptive eco-friendly claims around bamboo rayon. Be aware of potential greenwashing around bamboo rayon!

Sustainability takeaway: Bamboo linen is more sustainable than bamboo rayon, because it can be produced mechanically — in a similar process to hemp or linen — and doesn’t require as many harmful chemicals as bamboo rayon. It’s also worth looking into whether the bamboo was sourced from certified and sustainably managed forests.
Sustainability certifications: Forest Stewardship Council Certified, OEKO-TEX Standard 100, USDA-Certified Organic
Cupro
Cupro is a regenerated cellulose fiber that is part of the rayon family of fabrics — it’s short for cuprammonium rayon. It’s more commonly known as “vegan silk” because of its soft, smooth, and drapey appearance. It’s quick-drying, ultra-soft, and lightweight. It’s considered to be a semi-synthetic fabric, because it’s a plant-based material, but requires chemical treatment to be turned into a functional fabric. Cupro can be derived from a natural byproduct — cotton linter — or from wood pulp.
Linter is cotton waste. It’s the tiny fibers of cotton seeds that are too small to be spun into cotton yarn. The linter or wood pulp is dissolved in cuprammonium hydroxide (a mix of copper and ammonium). The final solution is spun into fibers.
Sustainability takeaway: It reduces waste by using the linter that would otherwise be discarded. It’s a cruelty-free silk option as no silkworms are harmed in the process. But it does involve a chemical-heavy production process that includes toxic substances — including ammonia, sodium hydroxide, and sulfuric acid — which are polluting and harmful to workers. While cupro can be produced in a closed-loop system where all the water is recycled, cupro is still considered unsustainable because of pollution caused by the production. Alternatives include Lyocell or peace silk.
Sustainability certifications: None
Price range: $$
OTHER
Deadstock
Textile waste is one of the biggest challenges facing the fashion industry. Deadstock is a popular choice for sustainably-minded brands who want to find solutions to this waste crisis — especially those practicing upcycling. Deadstock is the fabric that is unsold or unused in the fashion industry and often goes to waste. It often refers to fabric that is left unsold by a fabric mill or leftover from a brand’s production run, damaged or flawed fabric, or fabric from canceled orders.
Because it requires no processing and designers have to work with what they can get, it has a lower manufacturing footprint and keeps valuable materials from landfills.
The overall conversation about the sustainability of deadstock is a nuanced one, because deadstock’s abundance is a symptom of a fashion industry that continuously overproduces. There are concerns that some mills are intentionally overproducing since they know the excess will be purchased anyway. This raises the question: Is deadstock unavoidable waste? Or yet another symptom of a fast fashion system that doesn’t want to change its ways?
Deadstock fabrics come in as many patterns, colors, and types of fabric as you can imagine. What it’s used for depends on how much fabric is supplied and what kind of fabric it is.
Editor’s note: Tune in to our Conscious Style Podcast episode with Natasha Halesworth for more on the pros, cons, and nuances of deadstock.
Sustainability takeaway: While the pros and cons of the specific kind of deadstock fabric depend on the type of fabric, in general deadstock is a low-waste option because it gives new life to fabrics that would otherwise be discarded. While the systemic sustainability of deadstock does raise questions, finding immediate uses for fabrics that would be wasted can generally be seen as a positive effort.
Editor’s note: The onus to reduce waste should be put on the large brands and mills overproducing in the first place, not on small designers sourcing deadstock as a way to source lower impact materials affordably in small quantities.
Sustainability certifications: Depends on the type of deadstock used.
Price range: $-$$
Denim (typically a cotton blend)
Denim is another common fabric in many of our lives and probably conjures up images of your favorite pair of jeans. Denim is a durable, long-lasting fabric made from tightly woven cotton fibers — often dyed using indigo to give it denim’s distinctive blue look — that form a diagonal pattern. This is known as “raw” denim. More recently, “stretch denim” has become popular for garments such as skinny jeans, which are made from a blend of cotton and elastane or spandex.
The indigo-dyed fibers naturally fade over time with wear and washes. But as the look of “worn in” denim has become aspirational, a range of different finishes have been developed for denim — from “distressed” denim to “acid wash” denim and “stonewashed” denim. Each of these finishes gives the final product a slightly distinct look and emulate what denim might end up looking like after years of wear. Processes such as enzyme washes, sandblasting, or bleaching soften the material and create the appearance of worn fabric.
While these processes may create a more aesthetic product, they come at the cost of the health of workers in denim supply chains. For example, sandblasting — as the name suggests — is the process of blasting the fabric with sand to give it a worn-in look. The dust caused by this process causes respiratory issues for workers. The finishing agents used to achieve a certain look or texture in one pair of pants contain hazardous chemicals like formaldehyde, which poses health risks to workers.
From an environmental perspective, stone washing and acid washing require vast water usage and pollution due to toxic discharge. Some strides are being made such as recycling water and laser technology that can achieve the same look as worn in denim without harmful processes. At the Vietnam-based denim factory, Saitex, also known as the cleanest denim factory in the world, 98% of the water is reused with the other 2% lost due to evaporation.

Recycled denim is another sustainable fabric option. Using industrial denim waste avoids the water-intensive process of growing cotton and keeps scraps out of landfills. But recycled denim still relies on virgin denim for continued production.
Sustainability takeaway: While denim is a highly durable fabric that can be used for many years, it’s also highly water-intensive to produce and — traditionally — relies on techniques that release toxic chemicals and place workers at risk. To decrease denim’s impact, hemp blends can be used alongside organic cotton and the use of water-saving techniques. For stretch denim, recycled polyester, man-made cellulosic fibers, and recycled elastane are more sustainable than virgin elastane and spandex.
Sustainability certifications: USDA-Certified Organic, Global Organic Textile Standard, Better Cotton Initiative, Fairtrade, Global Recycled Standard, OEKO-TEX Standard 100, bluesign®
Price range: $-$$
Next-Gen Innovative Materials
In the past few years, we have seen a wave of next-gen innovative materials being introduced to the fashion industry. A few examples of these materials include Galy, Piñatex, Spinnova Fabric, Orange Fiber, Flocus, Samatoa Lotus Textile, Banana Sylk, Mango Materials, Mycoworks, and Mylo
.
Each of these material innovations aims to address an existing issue in the fashion industry — whether it be finding a way to make “leather” without deriving it from animals, plant-based alternatives to polyester, lab-grown cotton that reduces the impact of cotton production, or ensuring that a circular economy is prioritized.
Since these are new — often high-tech — innovations, they are often too expensive for small and independent brands. Often, it’s more established brands that make use of these materials, because they have the financial ability to invest in these high-end materials. Enter Stella MaCartney’s mushroom leather bag or Ganni’s banana waste tracksuit.
Sustainability takeaway: Many of these materials are not yet widely used, or accessible, enough to make clear-cut sustainability claims about each. While the intentions behind each one are impressive, we are yet to see whether these niche fabrics have the ability to create lasting change in the fashion industry.
Sustainability certifications: Depends on the next-gen material used
Price range: $$$
About the Author

Stella Hertantyo is a slow fashion and slow living enthusiast based in Cape Town, South Africa. Stella finds solace in words as a medium for sharing ideas and encouraging a cultural shift that welcomes systems change and deepens our collective connection to the world around us. She is passionate about encouraging an approach to sustainability, and social and environmental justice, that is inclusive, intersectional, accessible, and fun.
Stella holds a B.A. Multimedia Journalism from the University of Cape Town, and a PGDip in Sustainable Development from the Sustainability Institute. She currently works as a writer, editor, and social media manager. When she is not in front of her laptop, a dip in the ocean, or a walk in the mountains, are the two things that bring her the most peace.
The post How Sustainable Are Fashion’s Favorite Fibers, Fabrics, and Materials? appeared first on Conscious Life & Style.
How Sustainable Are Fashion’s Favorite Fibers, Fabrics, and Materials?
Green Living
Buy or DIY: Summer Beauty Survival Kit
With summer in full swing, most of us find ourselves reaching for sunburn soothers, dry skin remedies, and frizz-taming hair masks. Get everything you need all in one place with a handy summer beauty survival kit made from picks you can either buy or make yourself. Read on for ideas you’ll love.
Editor’s note: Earth911 teams up with affiliate marketing partners to help fund our Recycling Directory. If you purchase an item through one of the affiliate links in this post, we will receive a small commission.
The Problem: Shiny Skin
Buy It: S.W. Basics Toner
Buy It: S.W. Basics Toner
A shiny T-zone is one of summer’s minor inconveniences, but you don’t need a harsh chemical formula to fix it.
Made from organic apple cider vinegar, witch hazel, and organic essential oils, the S.W. Basics Toner is a five-ingredient formula that balances oil production without stripping moisture. The brand sources only fair trade, certified organic, or family-farmed ingredients and holds EWG’s lowest toxicity rating for face toners. It’s also widely available now at Kroger, Fred Meyer, and other grocery chains if you’d rather pick it up locally.
DIY It: Rosewater Toner

Due to its protective and healing properties, rosewater has been used to revitalize skin and hair for centuries. It’s even said that Cleopatra used rosewater as part of her much-lauded beauty routine.
Give the Queen of the Nile’s beauty secret. You can make your own rosewater toner with easy-to-follow instructions from The Healthy Maven in a few simple steps.
Apply lightly to your face to reduce inflammation and alleviate shine without over-drying. Simple, easy, and effective!
The Problem: Sunburn
Buy It: COOLA Radical Recovery After-Sun Lotion
If you’ve spent too much time in the sun without protection, this is the recovery option. COOLA’s Radical Recovery After-Sun Lotion is EcoCert certified with 99% natural-origin ingredients, built around organic agave and aloe vera as the moisture-locking base. Organic agave has been used in traditional skincare for its moisture-binding properties and vitamin content since the time of the Aztecs. The formula also includes lavender, sunflower, sweet orange, and mandarin peel oils for antioxidant support. Paraben- and phthalate-free.
DIY It: Summer Avocado Honey Mask

Store-bought face masks can be pricey. So, if you’re looking for a more budget-friendly sunburn solution, a ripe avocado is one of the most effective sunburn soothers in the produce aisle. Its high content of healthy fats, vitamins E and K, and antioxidants reduces redness and eases discomfort on irritated skin. Weelicious has a straightforward guide to making a homemade avocado honey mask that you can put together in minutes.
The Problem: Chapped Lips
Buy It: Loving Naturals Lip Balm SPF 30
DIY It: Beeswax & Rosewater Lip Balm

The Problem: Frizzy Hair
Buy It: Maple Holistics Silk18 Conditioner
DIY It: Basic Leave-In Conditioner Spray

The Problem: Dry Skin
Buy It: Juice Beauty Hydrating Mist
DIY It: Whipped Shea Butter Lotion

The Problem: Mosquitoes and Bugs
Buy It: Badger Bug Spray
DIY It: Essential Oil Bug Spray
Editor’s note: This article was originally published in 2013 by Mary Mazzoni, and was updated in 2016, 2017, 2019, and July 2026.
The post Buy or DIY: Summer Beauty Survival Kit appeared first on Earth911.
https://earth911.com/living-well-being/summer-beauty-survival-kit/
Green Living
Cheat Sheet: Composting
Food is the single most common material Americans send to landfills. About 24 percent of everything buried there, according to the EPA, is food waste. Add yard trimmings, wood, paper, and other other organic materials make up more than half of what fills a U.S. landfill. Almost all of it could be composted instead.
That gap matters because buried food doesn’t just take up space — it rots without oxygen and releases methane, a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide over the near term. Composting handles the same scraps aerobically, with oxygen, and turns them into a soil amendment your garden can actually use. Here’s how the process works and how to start a pile that does the job.
What Is Composting?
Composting is the natural decomposition of organic materials sped up by managing the conditions microorganisms need to thrive, and when they thrive, they eat. It is managed, aerobic biological decomposition: aerobic meaning oxygen is present, which is exactly why compost avoids the methane problem that landfills create. The result is a stable, nutrient-rich soil amendment often called humus.
For households: composting cuts your waste output while turning kitchen scraps and yard trimmings into a soil booster for the garden.
For small-scale farms: composting manages the residual plant and animal material a farm generates and puts it back to work as fertilizer and a soil-builder for future crops.
Why Composting Is Worth the Effort
Municipal solid waste landfills are the third-largest source of human-caused methane emissions in the United States. Wasted food is responsible for 58 percent of the methane those landfills release, the EPA reported in its 2023 study Quantifying Methane Emissions from Landfilled Food Waste, the agency’s first peer-reviewed national estimate of that figure.
Food waste drives so much of the problem because it breaks down fast. The EPA found that half the carbon in landfilled food degrades within about 3.6 years, so most of the methane escapes before a landfill’s gas-collection system can capture it. Keeping food out of the landfill in the first place is the more effective fix.
Composting sits in the fourth tier of the EPA’s Wasted Food Scale, after prevention (buying less), donation, and feeding animals, in the 2023 update to the agency’s decades-old Food Recovery Hierarchy. But for the peels, coffee grounds, and yard debris that no one is going to eat, composting is one of the most beneficial things you can do with them.
Finished compost enriches the soil while reducing CO2 emissions. The EPA’s 2025 report, Environmental Value of Applying Compost, documents how compost improves soil health, helps retain moisture during drought, reduces erosion and runoff, reduces the need for chemical fertilizer, and sequesters carbon in the soil.

The Science of Composting
So how does composting work? According to researchers at Cornell University, microorganisms break down organic matter, producing heat, carbon dioxide, water, and humus. When a pile is managed well, it moves through three phases:
- The mesophilic, or moderate-temperature phase, lasts a couple of days.
- The thermophilic, or high-temperature phase, can last anywhere from a few days to several months, depending on what’s in the pile.
- The cooling and maturation phase lasts several months.
In the first stage, mesophilic microorganisms rapidly break down easily degradable material, and the heat they generate raises the pile’s temperature. As it climbs above about 40°C (104°F), heat-loving thermophilic microbes take over. At 55°C (131°F) or higher, those microbes destroy many plant and human pathogens and accelerate the breakdown of proteins, fats, and complex carbohydrates such as cellulose.
There’s an upper limit, though. The Cornell team notes that temperatures above roughly 65°C (149°F) begin killing off the microbes that do the work, slowing decomposition. That’s why aerating — turning the pile — matters: it moderates the temperature and moves the pile toward the cooling phase, where activity settles down, and the compost matures for garden use.
What To Put in Your Compost Pile
Knowing what belongs in your backyard compost pile is most of the battle.
The core idea is balance: you need a mix of “green” (nitrogen-rich) and “brown” (carbon-rich) materials, plus enough oxygen to keep the pile aerobic. When a pile runs short on oxygen, often due to too much nitrogen and not enough carbon, or from never being turned, it goes anaerobic and starts to smell. A well-managed pile shouldn’t have a bad odor at all.
Green Materials
Greens are rich in nitrogen. Some examples:
- Food scraps: Fruit and vegetable trimmings are ideal. Skip animal-based leftovers, such as fat, meat, cheese, and milk, since the oils don’t suit a backyard pile and tend to attract pests.
- Fresh grass clippings
- Manure from herbivores like horses, cows, sheep, goats, or chickens speeds decomposition. It’s helpful but not required. Never use manure from carnivores.
- Plants and cuttings: Freshly pulled weeds (as long as they haven’t gone to seed), flower tops, and shredded green leaves all work.
- Coffee grounds
Tip: Freeze your scraps.
Storing kitchen scraps in an airtight container in the freezer cuts down on trips to the pile and keeps the smell of food sitting on the counter at bay. Freezing also helps you manage balance: if a dinner party leaves you with a flood of greens and no browns on hand, freeze the scraps until you’ve gathered enough carbon-rich material to even things out.
Brown Materials
Browns provide carbon, which gives microbes the energy they need to function. Shredding most brown ingredients first reduces the microbes’ workload and speeds decomposition. Some examples:
- Dead, dry leaves
- Hay and straw
- Simple paper products: newspaper, plain paper, and cardboard
- Crushed eggshells
- Tea bags and loose-leaf tea (check that the bag itself is paper or cotton, not nylon)
- Wood ashes and sawdust: use sparingly, as ashes can make a pile very alkaline and limit microbial activity, and sawdust is slow to break down.
Getting the Moisture Right
Moisture is the other lever. The microorganisms doing the work need water to survive, and water also carries nutrients and organic matter through the pile so it doesn’t stall. Cornell’s composting research puts the target range at roughly 50 to 60 percent moisture, because below about 35 to 40 percent, decomposition slows sharply; too wet, and the pile turns anaerobic and starts to smell.
The classic field test, echoed in New York City’s composting guidance: your materials should feel about as damp as a wrung-out sponge; clearly moist to the touch, but not releasing liquid when you squeeze them.
If you get regular rain, it often does the job with a slow soak that’s ideal for a pile. In a drier climate, you’ll likely need to water, adding it slowly and turning the pile so it reaches every section.
Your climate has a real effect here, so expect to experiment a little.
What You Can Do
Ready to start? A few concrete steps:
- Pick a spot and a system. A dry, shady, easy-to-reach corner works best. Match the method to your space — an open pile or bin, a tumbler you crank to aerate, or a worm bin for small indoor setups.
- Layer greens and browns. Start with a rough balance and adjust by feel. Smelly and wet means add browns and turn; dry and cool means add greens and water.
- Turn it regularly. Aerating keeps the pile oxygenated, moderates the temperature, and keeps odors down. Once a week is a reasonable habit.
- Keep food out of the trash even if you can’t compost it all. Many cities now run curbside organics collection. Check what’s available where you live with the Earth911 Recycling Search, or find a drop-off site through the EPA’s Excess Food Opportunities Map.
- Support organics diversion where you live. A growing number of states and municipalities are restricting the landfilling of food and yard waste. Backing those programs multiplies the impact of any single backyard pile.
Editor’s Note: Originally published by Haley Paul on August 31, 2009, this article was updated with recent statistics and guidance in July 2026.
The post Cheat Sheet: Composting appeared first on Earth911.
https://earth911.com/home-garden/cheat-sheet-composting/
Green Living
Sustainability In Your Ear: GoodPower’s Leah Qusba on Selling Clean Energy as Pocketbook Power
In 2024, 91% of new large-scale renewable projects around the world made electricity for less money than any fossil-fuel option, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency. Solar power was 41% cheaper than the lowest-cost fossil fuel, and onshore wind was 53% cheaper. The technology that can lower energy bills, keep the grid stable, and create jobs is now the most affordable way to build power almost anywhere. So, here’s the big question our guest faces every day: if clean energy is this good and this affordable, why is it still so tough to get people to support it? Leah Qusba leads GoodPower, a nonprofit focused on strategic communications and research. For almost twenty years, it was known as Action for the Climate Emergency, but it changed its name during Climate Week 2025. Since Leah took over, the group has grown about ten times bigger, built a network of over 8,500 content creators who share facts about renewables, and started running live messaging tests through its Good Data Lab. The new name highlights that renewable power is good power, and the best way to win support is by showing how it affects people’s monthly bills. The decision to rebrand was based on data. Leah’s team learned that words like “climate” and “emergency” can shut down conversations in rural, conservative areas where most new wind and solar projects are built. GoodPower shifted its message to focus on jobs, community investment, and steady power bills.

GoodPower also works to fight anti-renewables disinformation, which Leah says spreads fastest in the first day or two after a grid emergency. When Winter Storm Fern knocked out power in more than 20 states in January, the organization had a few days’ notice and quickly got its creator network ready to “prebunk” the usual claim that renewables caused the blackouts. This strategy, based on the Debunking Handbook, starts with the truth, points out the false claim, and then repeats the truth to make it stick. GoodPower uses the same idea in its AI tools: CleanCast predicts where local fights over new projects might start so communities can get accurate information early, and TrueVoice spots AI-generated comments in public records. Still, Leah says the best messengers are neighbors, since people trust those who share their experiences. For instance, when Boulder City, Nevada’s Republican mayor, Joe Hardy, talks about how solar and storage helped his town’s budget, it connects with other conservative communities in a way ads can’t.
GoodPower’s network of creators shares clean-energy messages through car-repair, food, and gaming videos. Leah calls this the raisin bread theory: the regular content is the bread, and the renewables message is the raisin. For communities already dealing with climate impacts, she highlights groups like Extreme Weather Survivors, which gives wildfire and flood survivors a way to push for policy changes from the ground up.
To learn more, visit goodpower.org and follow Leah Qusba on LinkedIn, where she is active and easy to reach.
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Interview Transcript
Mitch Ratcliffe 0:10
Hello! Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are on this beautiful planet of ours. Welcome to Sustainability In Your Ear. This is the podcast conversation about accelerating the transition to a sustainable, carbon-neutral society. And I’m your host, Mitch Ratcliffe. Thanks for joining the conversation today. Let’s talk about accelerating that shift to renewables in detail.
The technology to lower our energy bills, build a more secure grid, and create millions of jobs already exists. Renewables are now the cheapest and fastest power to deploy almost anywhere on the planet, so here’s the puzzle my guest today wrestles with every single day. If the solutions are this good and this affordable, why is it so hard to build public support for them?
Part of the answer is that we’re trying to make the case for sustainable technologies in an openly hostile environment. Federal climate policy has been rolled back, and there are coordinated disinformation campaigns ready to blame wind and solar within hours of any grid emergency, whether or not the facts support those accusations. And the social platforms where most people get their information will quietly bury anything labeled climate, handing it only to people who already agree that it’s a concern. The audiences you need to reach most never see your message about sustainability.
Leah Qusba has built a career breaking through the noise to reach audiences intent on climate progress. She’s the CEO of GoodPower, an organization you may have known until recently as Action for the Climate Emergency, or ACE. She’s led it for more than 15 years, growing it roughly tenfold into one of the sharpest media and research operations in the climate space, and she runs real experiments on what messaging actually changes behavior, working with thousands of content creators to carry the conversation to people the movement has never reached before. Her own path started along Wisconsin’s Fox River, in a stretch of water she played in as a kid that later became an EPA Superfund site before she finished high school.
We’re going to explore how to sell the benefits of clean energy when the word climate itself becomes a liability, and how you fight disinformation when a lie travels faster than the truth, and why Leah ultimately believes affordability, not alarm, is the door most people will actually walk through when asked about climate. So, what can we do to shift the climate conversation? Let’s find out after this brief commercial break.
[COMMERCIAL BREAK]
Mitch Ratcliffe 2:41
Leah Qusba, welcome to Sustainability In Your Ear. How are you doing today?
Leah Qusba 2:45
I’m doing great. How are you?
Mitch Ratcliffe 2:46
Well, I’m well, thanks for taking the time to talk with me. It’s always interesting to speak to somebody who’s been dedicated to climate awareness for so long. You grew up in Wisconsin’s Paper Valley, and a river you played in, the Fox, became an EPA Superfund site while you were in high school. How much of your work derives from the experience of having played in that river, which was polluted and needed a cleanup?
Leah Qusba 3:10
Yeah, I certainly didn’t know it at the time, growing up in small-town USA in northeastern Wisconsin. I think it has impacted me dramatically and greatly. I kind of look back — it’s over, you know, 25 to 30 years ago at this point. I look back at that time and think, wow, there’s nobody organizing people around that type of environmental disaster. People were angry, they felt powerless. It took over a decade, and then the EPA said, well, we did our best, we can’t really fully clean this up in terms of all the PCBs in the river. So I look back on that time, and I think it did set me on the path that I’m on today.
Mitch Ratcliffe 3:52
We know so much more about the world, and part of the experience of living by a river that turned out to be so polluted is your own recognition. How do you use that approach to storytelling to help other people make the leap to understand where we are with regard to the climate?
Leah Qusba 4:09
Well, I often think about my dad, and what’s interesting about my dad is he’s a staunch conservative — he believes climate change is not man-made — and he recently became a supporter of solar, not because of me, not because of his own daughter’s influence, but actually his HVAC guy has a side business doing rooftop solar, and it was that conversation that convinced my dad. So I think what I take away is: rural speaks to rural, conservative speaks to conservative, neighbor speaks to neighbor.
I think in an internet environment where people trust what’s on the internet less and less, and with the rise of artificial intelligence and related content, I think all we have left is really each other, and so we really leverage that. How do we find stories of communities that already have solar, wind, and batteries, for example, to demystify what these technologies are for a neighboring town, county, or state? It really works.
Mitch Ratcliffe 5:11
In September, you changed the name of the organization from Action for the Climate Emergency to GoodPower. What stopped working about the words climate emergency?
Leah Qusba 5:21
Yeah, I mean, I think as the years went on and we were using this brand, we don’t want to fall into traps where climate, decarbonization, and energy issues are sort of unfairly politicized as left versus right. When we say words like climate in a rural conservative community, that can be a non-starter. When we say things like emergency, do we fall into the trap of being climate alarmists, as we have been dubbed? There’s a different way — there’s a bigger-tent approach where, depending on the audience you’re speaking to, there’s different ways in to showing the economic promise of the energy transition.
Right, what do communities get? Jobs, community investment, long-term leases for farmers and landowners that are, you know, nervous private equity is coming to buy their land for an Amazon logistics warehouse or a data center or something like that. So I think for us, our brand wasn’t working for enough of the American people, especially where, you know, ground zero for the energy transition happens to be rural red America, where a lot of this infrastructure needs to be built and is being built.
So we did it because we wanted a bigger tent that more people could get under and feel a sense of belonging — that, wow, I see something for me in the energy transition. I see something for me in what community benefits I could potentially reap from decarbonized power being built in my town or community. So it was really about creating that bigger tent for more people to get under.
Mitch Ratcliffe 6:51
Well, your dad’s experience is recognizing that there’s economic opportunity in advanced technology. Funny thing, it wakes you up to the opportunity, but it doesn’t address the fact that we’re being told that there’s a crisis all the time, and one of the issues that I seem to run into a lot is that even within the climate community there are very rigid differences of opinion about where to focus our effort and investment. How has the movement torn itself apart to a degree, even as it establishes real credibility because of the fact of the climate changing so rapidly?
Leah Qusba 7:25
I mean, when you just break it down to scientific terms, right? Climate change happens very slowly, and then all at once, I think, is the famous quote, right? How did I go broke? It started slowly, and then all at once. I think for us, what we have learned — we’ve been in business for about 18 years, and I’ve been at GoodPower for about 17 of those years — the number one voting issue, cycle after cycle, and now even young people in 2024, in the last presidential, even young people rated the economy as number one. Usually they’re voting on values issues, you know, racial justice and all sorts of other things. They rated the economy. So the economy isn’t working for most people. Nearly 70% of us in the US live paycheck to paycheck.
So we really, at GoodPower, recognize that people want immediate change. How are my energy bills going to go down? Why are prices at the gas pump going up and down like the stock market? Why aren’t they more predictable? The answer: homegrown power — solar, wind, batteries. It’s not exposed to global commodity risks like oil and gas, right? There’s no far-off war that is going to make the cost of the wind and the sun, which happen to be free — there is no fuel cost — it’s not going to make those go up and down in that way.
So I think it’s about connecting the everyday experiences and things people are constantly worried about. How am I going to keep my job? Am I going to be laid off? Will I be able to afford groceries this week? My energy bill doubled in the last year, and there’s no sight. How do we look at the energy transition as unlocking this generational economic opportunity, right? This potential economic renaissance for the middle class. It’s not just saving money and having more predictability and control and autonomy around one’s bills. It’s also about the wealth regenerating and the economic investment.
I’m from a rural community. These communities are emptying out. Young people are leaving. They need investment. They need new schools, new infrastructure, new roads. Farmers are struggling — hundreds close every year in the US. Well, great: let’s farm 300 acres of solar, along with my 3,000 acres of soybeans and corn. When I have a rough year, the solar still pays the bill. So I think there’s incredible economic potential here, and that hasn’t really been communicated effectively.
Mitch Ratcliffe 9:39
You argue that renewable power is good power, but at the same time, as you just pointed out, our energy bills are going through the roof. Are you arguing for truly distributed energy generation, or are you saying that there is a path to a collectively owned — whatever form that takes — infrastructure that allows us to really meet the electrical demands of the era we’re entering?
Leah Qusba 10:00
I think that’s a false choice. Our position is all of it. We are huge proponents of distributed energy resources, dispatchable power, some of the virtual power plant policies and investments that we’ve seen. We’re huge proponents of utility-scale and community-level renewable projects. We think battery energy storage — when you pair that, right, that’s the invention of the battery — is how we get to more reliable power. So all of it. I think we need all of it.
I think, you know, global energy volatility is really a hidden tax on American families that people are really exhausted having to pay, in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis where everything else is going up — healthcare, housing, groceries. When energy goes up, by the way, everything else goes up too. So I think it’s the predictability, it’s having more control and not being at the whims of these sort of global markets and importing that volatility into people’s lives that already feel chaotic.
Mitch Ratcliffe 10:59
And yet we need to press through the capital investment phase of this with determination, and it seems like the determination is being shaken by, let’s say, people at the White House. How do you tell a story in the face of such rigorous and often completely misleading responses from the other side of the political argument?
Leah Qusba 11:20
Well, I think the American people are pretty smart. Only 40% of Republicans actually approve of their own president’s energy policies right now. That’s from GoodPower’s own national poll we did with the University of Chicago back in mid-March. So there’s extremely low approval. People understand — they feel it. You have to fill your gas tank up, right, probably once, maybe twice a week. If you’re going on vacation, a lot more than that. You have to pay that energy bill and open it up, or go online and pay it every month. So it’s in your face constantly. Nobody’s seeing change, and when you have only 40% of your own party approving your energy policies and your agenda, that’s pretty abysmal.
So I think, from my perspective, when we look at the sort of all-of-government approach to kill renewables, we’re choosing energy winners and losers, and Americans are left kind of holding the bill. It’s simple economics 101 here — supply and demand. If we’re restricting the fastest, most affordable electrons from coming online, which happen to be from solar, storage, and wind right now, we’re going to drive up bills. I mean, my 11-year-old daughter would understand the economics of that.
Mitch Ratcliffe 12:28
AI is going to play a big part in how we ultimately tell the story, and part of the solution in terms of how we optimize everything that we do — simply because we have visibility into how things work in ways we would never have been able to pre-AI. How do you integrate that part of the story, that some of this investment is necessary to develop the intelligence that is going to help us untangle the crisis that we face?
Leah Qusba 12:53
I think the stark reality is that data centers are highly unpopular right now, and land use in general — land use projects across the country are really facing increasing public opposition. I am seeing some really bright lights within the news cycle around land-use development that is being done very responsibly, transparently, in an innovative way. I think about some of the Google data center announcements recently in the MISO region, where they’re looking creatively at how do we get electrons through virtual power plants, how do we invest in infrastructure, how do we invest in community benefits, how do we procure clean electrons to power our digital infrastructure. So I think there are some really good actors out there lifting up those stories where these developments are happening in a very positive way.
I think we can look to the utility-scale renewable energy sector — I mean, this is a lot of GoodPower’s work — but just telling the stories: people have reaped enormous benefits and are very happy with this infrastructure when it’s done in the right way, and it’s transparent, and it’s with stakeholder input. I think there’s a way to do land use that can be really uplifting to communities, but getting their input and involving them as stakeholders, I think, is absolutely essential.
I think the other piece of the story that we forget: big tech, right — technology has been the number one global procurer of decarbonized electrons on planet Earth for the last 15 years. So in other words, the growth of the renewable energy sector has been commensurate with the growth and advancement in the sort of digital revolution and technology. So again, there’s a right way to do it, and if we can uplift stories of where the community is on board with this infrastructure — because they’ve been consulted and they’ve gotten to weigh in, and they’re really getting a good deal out of it — I think the more we can do that, the better off we’ll be.
Mitch Ratcliffe 14:47
On the other hand, AI is also part of the problem, because it is used by algorithms to direct people away from the issue. You’ve said that when you mention climate in a video, it immediately gets relegated to a pile of links to people who already agree. In other words, we’re talking to the converted. How do you articulate that to somebody who is focused on the concerns they have about their community — particularly a rural community, where I live in one as well — when talking about the need for the investment in electrification and AI, which is also potentially part of the problem that we face in terms of being relegated to pools of people who agree and never get the opportunity to evangelize to others?
Leah Qusba 15:28
We don’t say anything to rural communities. We let rural communities talk to each other, so that’s what we enable. We basically find stories that are under-told and under-platformed. For example, here’s a farmer in rural Oklahoma, in western Oklahoma. They’ve had wind on their land for 20 years, put their kids through college. They were able to keep their generational farm that was handed down to them for six generations, and they wouldn’t have been able to keep it without the wind industry, right? So that could be very convincing to another farmer who’s facing closure in a neighboring plains state, or even within the Midwest generally.
So brands, I think, need to say less. I think what we need to do more of is find and mine those stories where the projects were built responsibly, the land-use development was done in a way that enriched the community and, you know, consulted the community. How do we find those stories? We’ve produced hundreds of these now over the last five years, all over the United States, all over Brazil, the UK, right, where we were trying to really build positivity and social permission and social acceptance of this infrastructure. The stories are all out there, and it’s just about platforming and telling them and breaking through when we see this news cycle that has been so anti-renewable from this particular administration. This is the counterbalance. Just go and ask the communities, and they’ll tell you how they feel about this infrastructure.
Mitch Ratcliffe 16:55
Can you give an example of a story that, for lack of a better word, sells the idea of economic prosperity built on renewables?
Leah Qusba 17:03
Yeah, I mean, really authentic, genuine stories. I’m thinking of a story from Mayor Joe Hardy in Boulder City, Nevada. Mayor Hardy is a Republican. He’s a staunch conservative. His story is about how economically secure Boulder City, Nevada, is for the next 25 years. He talks about solar and storage. He takes us out to the fields and shows us what that looks like, and that the community has no economic worries in terms of property tax revenue, and where those revenues are going, and how it’s investing in community infrastructure, schools, etc.
I think of another story in Oklahoma, of a school superintendent who talks about how the community benefit agreement that they signed with this wind developer built a new school, and what that means for children in a community that has not seen a lot of investment over the last few decades. And then we have countless stories of farmers, landowners, neighbors to these projects who talk about the community benefits agreements — what’s in them: long-term leases, new infrastructure, donations of emergency management vehicles, police cars, fire trucks.
And again, when you position the community as a stakeholder and it’s transparent and you consult them, we can strike deals here that really work for the industry and for building decarbonized power, and that really work for people in the communities who feel like, “Wow, I’m being invested in, I’m not being extracted from.” We’re not replicating those systems of extraction; we’re investing in building something together. I think that’s really special.
Mitch Ratcliffe 18:35
Is there a risk in the movement swinging so hard toward pocketbook messaging that it no longer talks about climate, or clean in contrast to the dirty systems — or is that exactly the point?
Leah Qusba 18:45
I also think this is a false question, because we do talk about climate. It’s important to talk about climate. 8% of voters under 35 rated climate as their number one issue in 2024. So a front-door climate message, and increasing the awareness and the pie — you know, the slice of people who are really motivated by a climate message that’s front-door — I think there is a huge audience out there. We speak to that audience.
I think the point is, this is not a one-size-fits-all solution, right? The internet and social media are increasingly fractured. Audiences are tribalized. Knowing what platform you’re on and who you’re speaking to — once you know that information, you should have a very sophisticated segmented strategy. How do we connect audience to messenger and message? If you’re trying to have a silver bullet, sort of, you know, one campaign to rule them all, I think that’s a recipe for failure, and in fact you can have polarizing effects. You can make people feel less inclined to support energy and climate policies that are going to drive forward a decarbonized economy by not having the right messenger, or even a polarizing messenger that could make them more entrenched in that opinion. So I think you can do more harm than good in some cases.
I think having empathy — whether you’re talking to somebody on the left side of the ideological spectrum or the right side of the ideological spectrum, or somewhere in between — really knowing who those people are and what moves them and what they’re about, and really trying to seek to understand them and not label them as something other, or “these are not my people.” I kind of hear a lot of that sometimes. Everybody’s our people. If you’re a person, you’re our people. And I think there’s a way to speak to literally anybody about these issues in a way that’s going to land with them, and that’s really the science of communication.
Mitch Ratcliffe 20:37
To be a people person takes real work, especially when you’re telling stories. There’s a lot to unpack in this strategy. Let’s take a quick commercial break and come back to continue this fascinating discussion. Stay tuned, folks.
[COMMERCIAL BREAK]
Welcome back to Sustainability In Your Ear. Now, let’s continue the conversation with Leah Qusba. She is CEO of GoodPower, which is a strategic communications nonprofit working to highlight the need for and benefits of renewable energy. Leah, how do you see the world of storytelling changing because we have the tools that AI unlocks to target and reach people better? Or are we going to be overwhelmed by misinformation? I’m just — where should we set the bar in our expectations about the future of storytelling?
Leah Qusba 21:25
What a deep and complex and fascinating question. So let me start with the platforms themselves, where people are now using Claude and ChatGPT and other AI platforms almost as Google search platforms, right? So they’re looking for information. So I think one way that we’re using these tools is really, how do we set the terms of what information comes up when people are searching around: is solar good or bad? You know, will this raise my bills, lower my bills? Right, so it’s basically like SEO, but for these AI platforms — it’s called AEO and GEO. So how do you do search optimization and get the facts, not the fiction, to pop up in search results? So we do some of that work, going to the source of when people are searching, what information are they getting.
I think then, you know, we think about AI as a technology when it’s really a set of complementary capabilities, right? We’ve got automation — how do we automate the tedious and repetitive things that humans don’t want to do, so we can focus on higher-level creative work? Predictive — right, how do we forecast where siting and permitting battles are going to be through 2030 around clean energy projects, or where opposition might be forming? So how do we predict the future? And then we’re all familiar with the generative capabilities around doing better analysis and communications and content creation, etc. And the way we look at these capabilities at GoodPower, it’s less about a single piece of technology; it’s about leveraging these capabilities to build custom models. So I can walk you through a few pieces of those technologies that we’ve sort of housed.
One product is called CleanCast, and this is a piece of predictive, AI-enabled technology. It helps us forecast where the renewable energy industry might build their projects, so it pipes in public opinion research from local counties, it pipes in the governmental, environmental, and regulatory constraints that might exist. Are there existing bans and moratoria? How does that state do permitting? Does it do it at the county level through a county commission, or is it a state process through a PUC or PSC? So all sorts of intelligence to help us predict: where are these projects going to be built? What’s the prime location? Can we get there first and inoculate the public to disinformation? Can we make them resilient and less vulnerable to disinformation?
The disinformation we see out there is astounding. There was a disinformation cluster last week trying to scare potato farmers, saying Frito-Lay won’t buy your potatoes if you host solar on your land, because they’ll have glass shards in them — your potatoes will have glass inside from the solar panels. We traced this disinformation to some potato trade industry associations that are funded predominantly by the fertilizer industry, and fertilizer is petrochemicals, right? So if you follow the money — how do we anticipate where disinformation or opposition is going to be? Where is the industry going, and how do we get there first? Generally, people remember what they hear first, right? So before the public understanding hardens around the disinformation, how do we get there first? So that’s an example of one product. I have a few more I could share with you as well.
Mitch Ratcliffe 24:41
Well, you also have a small army in what you call the Creator Collective — 8,500 creators, 350 to 400 million followers in food and fashion and gaming and all the things that creators do. How does the sustainability message travel through a network like that? Maybe the message begins with a car influencer, then you run into it in a fashion commentary as well.
Leah Qusba 25:03
Well, I think, going back to your previous question around the tribalization problem on social media — like, how do we break through when the algorithms just sort us into the, you know, left-of-center green climate bucket? We don’t want to be sorted into that bucket. So creator marketing is a way to get around that. We don’t generally lead with a sustainability message with everyone. We lead with the message we think is going to work with that audience.
So if we’re trying to reach a bunch of car bros or commuters that really could save thousands of dollars annually from switching to an EV — maybe they live in a rural commuter town, they drive to the city for work — we want to hire a bunch of car bros, right, creators that are talking about fixing cars, and they slip EV messaging into their regular content streams that are more entertaining for their audience. We call it the raisin bread theory, where most of the content stays the bread, and you’re sprinkling in the raisins.
You could apply this to any one of these content verticals. If we’re talking about regenerative agriculture and getting toxic chemicals out of our food supply, MAHA moms are a great example — suburban white women in the MAHA movement, right? We want to find a bunch of them, or doctors and nurses who are really universally credible messengers who talk about health content. So depending on the audience and the campaign’s goals, we look into that community and we decide: okay, who do we want to engage for this campaign, and who’s the right credible messenger for the audience?
Mitch Ratcliffe 26:26
So would you describe that as: you coordinate and plan a sequence of messages? Or is this something that continues to happen organically based on your urging?
Leah Qusba 26:35
We do both. We do long-term campaigns that are multi-year, sort of patient-capital investments to changing an entire community’s way that they think about these technologies, where maybe there was a huge gap in understanding. One example would be: over 55% of Americans say they’ve never or rarely even heard about battery energy storage. They don’t know what it is. Great — it’s a fantastic opportunity to provide some baseline education to a huge group of people, where these projects are probably going to be built. We can get there first, before any disinformation gets out around these projects.
Then we have things that are more reactive and tied to the news cycle. So, almost two decades I’ve been in this work, and we keep losing during these rapid-response, sort of high-attention moments. The wildfires in LA are a really great example from last January, and we actually lost that narrative — DEI was blamed, that we were too busy with DEI in California to, you know, do proper forest management. It was ridiculous, but when you looked online and did advanced social listening analysis of the narrative, there were more mentions where the disinformation around DEI took over the conversation, instead of “hey, climate change is making these disasters more costly, more dangerous, and by the way, insurers are leaving the market in California.” Who’s holding the bag for that? It’s not the polluters that caused the problem; it’s the ratepayers, the premium holders that live in that state. So how do we make those connections? So there’s both a rapid-response element where we’re gathering this intelligence from the news cycle and responding, and then there’s more long-term strategies that we’re building as well.
Mitch Ratcliffe 28:14
Talk a little about the rapid response. In January, Winter Storm Fern caused up to $6.7 billion in damage, and there were a lot of disinformation initiatives around that storm almost immediately, and they were blaming wind and solar for the grid not having stayed as resilient as it needed to be, ignoring the fact that it’s an ancient grid. What does an effective, fast counter-messaging effort look like? How do you move the truth at the speed of a lie when lies are propagating so quickly?
Leah Qusba 28:46
We actually did a rapid-response activation with our creator community that last weekend in January — I remember that vividly — and because Winter Storm Fern was a forecasted storm, we actually had a few days of lead time, so it wasn’t a same-day activation. We could plan and really activate our community.
So what we did: we used the best practices — sort of the gold standard for inoculation, or prebunking, is another way you can name it. It’s to prepare the audience for disinformation they might see, so that when they see it, it bounces off of them instead of sinks into them. So we follow the Debunking Handbook, and there’s a way to do it where you’re not reinforcing the disinformation. There’s a huge risk in social science of actually reinforcing the lie if you don’t do it in the right way, in terms of introducing the truth, talking about the disinformation, and ending with the truth. We call it the truth sandwich.
So we did that. We activated a couple dozen creators who got millions of views on their content, basically saying, look, the lights are going to go out because of this storm. It’s affecting over 20 states. It’s happening this weekend. If you see blaming or scapegoating — that, oh, the power went out because of those unreliable renewables — don’t be fooled, that’s not the reason. It’s actually inter-regional transmission in our aging grid, and literally frozen coal and gas supply.
And we can look back — we had people who went through Winter Storm Uri. We had some Texas moms who were in our rapid-response creator community that could talk about their own experience. Oh, the same thing: Governor Abbott actually said disinformation on national television in Texas, saying, “Oh, those frozen wind turbines, that’s why the lights went out.” So we actually had people from Winter Storm Uri, who went through that in ’21, that were part of this collection of creators that were activated and were able to speak to their own experience — that, oh, every time there’s extreme weather and the lights go out, renewables are scapegoated. Don’t be fooled, that’s not what it is, it’s this. And so it was very effective.
Mitch Ratcliffe 30:45
Now, you do a lot of randomized trials of different kinds of messaging, and I’m wondering if there’s an example of something that you didn’t expect to work but really did when you put it in the market — or conversely, something you thought was a surefire win that didn’t work at all.
Leah Qusba 30:59
You know what was surprising? We saw a speech that was televised on the Senate floor with Senator Brian Schatz from Hawaii. He was giving a speech on the Senate floor around how the Trump administration’s policies to block renewable energy were driving up the cost of electricity and utility bills for Americans, and that that will continue to happen. We said, wow, this is great — most people in our testing think Congress isn’t talking about these issues. So we said, why don’t we give this speech to our creators, have them clip it up and add some commentary to it, and we’ll have a bunch of them share it. And then we’ll do a randomized control trial, where the treatment audience saw the content — one of the pieces of creator content — and the control group saw nothing, or a placebo. Let’s see how this works.
And our research question was: does this help Democrats, or does it help Republicans? Like, what happens when we have people in Congress talking about this? And it turns out not only was it extremely effective at solidifying the idea that these policies to block renewables from being built are driving up bills — so it was very effective at education and awareness — it was very bad for the Republican party generally. Eleven points we were able to get in the treatment group on disfavor for how Republicans were handling energy policy and utility issues. So we found that to be fascinating. We didn’t think a single exposure of a speech of somebody in Congress talking about these issues would be that effective, or have that outsized of an impact.
Mitch Ratcliffe 32:27
One of the things I noted: you started off focused primarily on youth climate education, but as you pivot toward everyone’s energy bill — which is a very dinner-table kind of 30s-and-40s, you-got-kids, you-got-to-think-about-this-stuff kind of problem — how do you stay relevant to youth who continue to grow up into what they can see plainly is a crisis, but that is increasingly being cast as a pocketbook issue?
Leah Qusba 32:53
I think what’s fascinating, and the unique part of this story, is that I’ve been at GoodPower almost the entire time, so many of the young people I personally worked with in high school are now into their 30s. They’re working for social impact investors, they’re working at the EPA, they’re working for big foundations, some are working for hyperscalers and AI companies, and what’s fascinating is they’re taking those values around these issues into their professional lives.
I think, you know, this idea of kind of growing up and maturing within the movement — and I think post-COVID, when we see how COVID really affected the youth movement in general, and college campus organizing: nobody was in person, and you kind of got to be in person to do organizing, to build those relationships and pass the baton to underclassmen, etc. So I think, for us, seeing some of these young people mature themselves into the professional working world — this generation has now permeated the private sector, the public sector, and they’ve carried this sort of generational youth climate movement, sparked by Sunrise, you know, sparked by our organization, Power Shift Network. They have a whole new view, I think, that they’re bringing into corporate America right now, around their values and around how much they prioritize climate and energy policies that make sense.
I think they’re also living in a world where they can’t attain the same things their parents did financially. They can’t own a home, they can’t afford to buy a car, or even move out of their parents’ house. So I think our messaging around the economy — I think it works for young people that have kind of grown up in this movement and are very angry, like most Americans are, around this cost-of-living crisis.
Mitch Ratcliffe 34:37
The number of jobs represented by the capital that is being held in abeyance because of the misinformation must be incredibly frustrating for younger people. I mean, we can see the explosion of economic opportunity that would happen — it might look more like China, for instance. I was reading your 2030 plan; you’re leaning into AI and product development and breakthrough technology, and I’m wondering what those breakthrough technologies that you think are most important to understanding where we can go might be.
Leah Qusba 35:07
I think geothermal is really fascinating. Of course, anything that is zero carbon, I think, is really interesting to our organization when we think about the climate problem and decarbonizing the global economy. I think it’s a very nascent technology, so there’s some fair criticism there, but I would say uniquely it has this bipartisan support because it uses the same rigging and tools and equipment and skills as the fossil fuel industry, right — oil and gas and fracking workers. So I think there’s incredible bipartisan support as well, and I think as these technologies mature, we’ll be in a front-row seat, kind of looking and seeing how these develop and mature over time.
When we think about artificial intelligence tools, we think about it in a bit of a different way. I think one pervasive issue we’re seeing right now is AI manipulation and fabricated opposition in local siting — so AI-generated comments flooding decision-makers, and they don’t know what’s real and who’s real. So we built a product for that called TrueVoice that separates authentic local input from AI-manufactured opposition. We’re going to give it to community stakeholders, county commissioners, public service commissioners, the developers — everybody deserves to know: okay, what’s the probability that there was AI manipulation on this docket, and now how much do we weigh this? Maybe it’ll create new systems of what we prioritize and how we gather community input. Maybe there’ll be a premium on in-person hearings and showing up, you know, and reinvesting in local organizing.
So I think our use of these tools is really around identifying the cracks that could become fissures that could become huge cliffs for the work that we do in our pathway to accelerating decarbonization — and how do we fit within those, and how do we problem-solve and deliver solutions that don’t just solve our own problems at GoodPower, but sort of solve big, big systemic, sectoral problems.
Mitch Ratcliffe 37:04
As you think about where we are right now, and everything you just said in the context of what we’re looking toward in terms of the world we want to build — what are you most hopeful about right now?
Leah Qusba 37:13
Well, I think the market forces, much to President Trump’s chagrin, are just too strong to stop the industry. You know, we have a deadline coming up on July 4, where the PTC and ITC — right, if you haven’t begun substantial construction, and now this is being litigated, or this 5% test, you know, have you spent 5% of the project budget — you will not be eligible for the PTC and ITC, these important tax credits that make these projects more lucrative and more profitable and more desirable from a financial investment perspective.
But when you look at the impacts of this sort of arbitrary deadline that we’re all racing toward — yes, Rhodium Group says, you know, the industry is going to take a hit, and a lot fewer projects will be built, there’ll be more consolidation — but the industry is too mature, and decarbonized power is too attractive and affordable and clean and just desirable and homegrown and stable and secure. There’s just too many good things, I think, wrapped up in decarbonized power to stop it.
I think the same is true for electric transportation. If we look to the global south — we work in the global south and non-OECD economies — where you see these two-wheelers and people buying electric vehicles in droves, because they don’t want to import this volatility of the global oil market into their households either. We look to food and agriculture, the MAHA movement of regenerative agriculture, the best carbon capture solution nature offers. People don’t want poison in their food, and we’re seeing a movement around that, and we’re seeing people get very exhausted and disgusted with, you know, the administration’s actions with Monsanto recently.
And so I think there is too much momentum for any one person or one administration to stop what’s happening right now. Can we throw roadblocks? Can we create friction? Can we run interference? Of course. We see our role as removing those bottlenecks, and kind of the counterbalance to that. So I think that gives me hope. The question is, how much time will it take? Time is our greatest enemy, and if we can save time, I think that’s the point. That’s where we avoid the worst consequences, and we seize the most opportunity. So how do we save time?
Mitch Ratcliffe 39:22
How does the adaptation story fit into what you’re doing today? Obviously, we’re going to need to prepare for this.
Leah Qusba 39:28
I think there are fantastic organizations out there working more on adaptation, disaster relief, mutual aid — community-based organizations that are doing a lot of that work. I think it’s hugely, hugely important. We’re going to need to figure out how to live and thrive and support people. The stories out of New Orleans, you know — hey, people have to move; this is going to be us; we’re going to lose 60 miles inland, right? So it has to happen. That’s not work that GoodPower is leading.
There’s a group of organizations, and also environmental disaster survivors. Extreme Weather Survivors is a great organization led by a dear friend of mine named Sierra Kos. They’re doing incredible work to really platform disaster survivors and what it’s like to live through wildfires, lose everything, lose your insurance — what does it look like to be on the front lines of these climate consequences, and how do we really tell those stories and use them, I think, as a warning signal, but also as an education tool to move local, state, and federal policies further toward supporting people.
I think the last thing I’ll say is some of the insurance subrogation laws that are being proposed in Rhode Island and New York, California, Hawaii. These are some of the leadership states saying, wait a second, polluters caused this knowingly for four decades — why are my constituents being left holding the bag? Why are they footing the bill when this industry was complicit? There’s actually a huge state policy movement right now called insurance subrogation, where insurance companies can actually go and make the industry pay for this and clean up — have a superfund, basically, where these companies pay into it, and when these disasters happen, they have to help clean it up, and that bill should not go necessarily to the community or the homeowner. And the insurance companies, too, I think, always get the blame and the ire, but as this continues to happen, that market is going to be more and more difficult over time. So I think having a solution where those most responsible and complicit with driving this situation are also going to be helping to pay for it.
Mitch Ratcliffe 41:46
Leah, thanks so much for this incredibly inspiring conversation. How can folks keep track of what GoodPower is up to?
Leah Qusba 41:52
Oh, good. Go to goodpower.org. We’d love to hear from you. You can contact us, you can reach me on LinkedIn, where I’m active as well, and we’d love to be in touch. Thanks for having me.
Mitch Ratcliffe 42:02
Thank you very much for spending time with us today.
Leah Qusba 42:04
Take care.
[COMMERCIAL BREAK]
Mitch Ratcliffe 42:11
Welcome back to Sustainability In Your Ear. You’ve been listening to my conversation with Leah Qusba. She’s CEO of GoodPower, the climate and media research organization known until recently as Action for the Climate Emergency, and you can learn more about Leah and her team’s work at goodpower.org. GoodPower is all one word, no space, no dash — goodpower.org.
Let’s consider what it means when an organization that spent 18 years with the words climate emergency in its name concludes those words themselves have become an obstacle to connecting with an audience. Now, this was a data-driven decision. Only 8% of voters under 35 rated climate as their top issue in 2024, and young people ranked the economy first and most important. And that’s the movement’s critical base. If it’s to transform this economy, affordability is what people — especially young people, who want to buy their first home, want to buy their first EV, or would like to be able to put their kids through school. Those folks are the ones who are going to make the change that we’re talking about, who are going to vote — both with their wallet and at the ballot box — for a new world. GoodPower’s rebrand is a bet that the movement can meet them at the crossroads of economics and sustainability.
Leah accurately described global energy volatility as a hidden tax on American families. Every far-off war and commodity swing shows up in the utility bill and at the pump, while wind and sun carry no fuel costs at all. There’s only the capital investment involved in building the solar and wind systems in the first place; then you get free power. But with oil, those taxes are effectively paid to companies, not governments. And as we heard in last week’s interview with Shareholder Democracy’s Gabriel Grant, shareholders have not yet leveraged their voting power to exert control over the companies whose stocks they own, and those companies are ultimately accountable to those shareholders.
When you see the problem through the lens of the Trump administration’s hypocritical approach to market competition, in which they suppress emerging technology, the renewables argument becomes simple supply-and-demand mathematics. The fastest, cheapest form of energy is being blocked from coming to market, and the result is rising rates rather than economic resilience. This isn’t the proverbial 500-miles-per-gallon carburetor purportedly suppressed by the oil industry in the 1970s. This is a real technology ready to reduce the cost of living while doing immense good for the environment, and people see this. GoodPower’s polling with the University of Chicago found just 40% of Republicans approve of their party’s current energy policy.
There’s a real tension as we continue to reinvent the economy, and Leah’s decision to lean entirely on pocketbook messaging is a clear path to building support for solar, wind, geothermal, and other renewables, which will only become more plentiful, not run dry, over the next century, like fossil fuels ultimately will. Leah’s answer is audience segmentation: one message — a front-door climate message — for the audience that wants one, the people who are already convinced and who want to share that message; and on the other side, economics-based messaging for everyone else. The messenger now matters more than the message, and in an era of influencers, this really comes through bright and clear.
Leah’s father, a conservative who doubts human-caused climate change, went solar because his HVAC contractor made the case — not his daughter, who runs one of the country’s largest climate communication shops, but an HVAC contractor. As Leah said, rural speaks to rural, neighbor speaks to neighbor, and GoodPower has operationalized that instinct at scale. They have a creator collective of more than 8,500 content makers with a combined audience in the hundreds of millions, and they’re slipping what Leah calls raisins of clean energy content into the bread of car videos, food channels, and gaming streams. And they measure it. That’s a discipline that separates persuasion from wishful thinking. What you can measure, you can change. It remains too rare in a movement that too often assumes its urgent warnings will carry the day by themselves.
The last idea to revisit is a leading indicator, and that is that artificial intelligence has become the new front line of the information fight, on both sides of the aisle.
Mitch Ratcliffe 46:29
People now ask Claude and ChatGPT whether solar will raise their electric bills, so GoodPower practices answer engine optimization to make sure accurate information surfaces in the first AI response. Its CleanCast tool predicts where siting battles over solar installations, wind installations, and so forth will erupt, so that developers can inoculate communities before disinformation arrives — like the recent industry-funded campaign that told potato farmers that solar panels would result in glass shards in their crops. Another tool that GoodPower has come up with, the TrueVoice tool, launching now, separates authentic public comments from AI-manufactured opposition flooding county permitting dockets and congressional mailboxes.
So one of the good things about AI, at least, is that it allows us to cut through a lot of the noise that we’re being flooded with. But look, this is an arms race, and Leah is candid about the tools being young. These are nascent movements and a nascent set of technologies we’re building on. But the prebunking playbook worked with Winter Storm Fern in January, when creators reached millions with the truth about the aging grid before the wind-turbine scapegoating could harden into what would be perceived as truth by many people. There’s a clear strategic method evolving in real time, and we will keep tracking that race for the American mind here on Sustainability In Your Ear.
Hey, look, if today’s conversation was useful to you, could you pass it along? Sharing an episode with a friend or leaving a review on your favorite podcast website is a great way to get the word out there, because folks, you are the amplifiers that can spread more ideas to create less waste. And you can tell folks they can find more than 560 episodes of Sustainability In Your Ear at Earth911.com/podcast, or you can check us out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Audible, or whatever purveyor of podcast goodness you prefer.
Thanks for your support. I’m Mitch Ratcliffe. This is Sustainability In Your Ear, and we will be back with another innovator interview soon. In the meantime, folks, take care of yourself, take care of one another, and of course, let’s all take care of this beautiful planet of ours. Have a green day.
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https://earth911.com/business-policy/sustainability-in-your-ear-goodpowers-leah-qusba-on-selling-clean-energy-as-pocketbook-power-2/
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