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Colorado native Mike Lewis has focused his career on the outdoor industry with a focus on sustainability. With degrees in Environmental Sciences and Journalism from CU Boulder and an MBA in Sustainability and Marketing from the Illinois Institute of Technology, Lewis’s goal has been to find ways to showcase how brands can profitably impact and lead the environmental conversation. Before joining Zeal Optics in 2013, where he is director of marketing, he served as Editor in Chief for TransWorld Business. On behalf of Zeal Optics, Mike works with the 1% for the Planet network and the Outdoor Association’s Sustainable Working Group in order to continue advancing environmental stewardship.
RESOURCESzealop.link/yonearth (get a 10% discount on your purchase!)zealoptics.comInstagram: @zealopticsfacebook.com/zealopticstwitter.com/zealopticsyoutube.com/user/zealopticsUSAonepercentfortheplanet.orgnationalforests.org
Transcript
(Automatically generated transcript for search engine optimization and reference purposes – grammatical and spelling errors may exist.)
Hey friends, I’m really excited about this episode we’re about to do with Mike Lewis
at Zeal Opticss and just want to make sure you hear right away you can get a 10% discount
on any of the goggles or sunglasses that Zeal is offering and a portion of the proceeds
will come back to support the YonEarth community. You can do that through the link
zealop.link slash YonEarth. So that’s Z-E-A-L-O-P dot L-I-N-K slash Y-O-N-E-A-R-T-H.
So hope you enjoy that and hope you enjoy this episode with Mike.
Welcome to the YonEarth community podcast. I’m your host, Aaron William Perry and today
we’re visiting with Mike Lewis here at Zeal Opticss. Hey Mike. Hey Aaron. How are you?
I’m doing great. Happy to be here or happy here. Yeah thanks. I’m really excited about
this episode and I’m a big fan of Zeal and have actually been wearing your guys sunglasses
for years now so and we’ll get into some of what you guys are doing and innovation
around materials and sustainability and the ways that you’re giving back and hopefully
a lot of folks in our community and audience will get some Zeal products for their own
use or for gifts or what have you. Yeah that’d be great and hopefully the message and
our mission and vision really resonate with them as well. Yeah I have a feeling. I should
go up here and what I know about Y on Earth. Yeah exactly. So Mike Lewis is the director
of marketing at Zeal Opticss. He’s a Colorado native and has focused his career on the
outdoor industry with a particular focus on sustainability. With degrees in environmental
science and journalism from the University of Colorado Boulder and an MBA in sustainability
and marketing from the Illinois Institute of Technology, Mike’s goal has been to find
ways to showcase how brands can profitably impact and lead the environmental conversation.
Before joining Zeal Opticss in 2013 and becoming director of marketing, he served as editor
in chief for trans-world business and yeah so it’s so fun for me Mike and I’m smiling
because as we were setting up the equipment before we started recording we were talking
about the upcoming ski season and getting kind of excited for getting up there in the
snowy country and you know I love we’re right here in downtown Boulder, Colorado and this
is one of the storefronts that I always enjoy walking by and popping into because of what
you guys are doing and I guess before we get into the sustainability stuff let’s just
talk real quick about the kinds of products you’re making available. Yeah for sure. So
we focus on sunglasses and goggles, ski goggles specifically and these are you know really
gear for any sports in the outdoors you know especially here in places like Colorado where
we have so much sunshine, so much UV light coming through it’s essential to have a good pair of
shades but you know really for adventures anywhere around the world you know this is a great
way to marry our passion for outdoor sports and for sustainability in a product that everybody
needs and it uses. Yeah very cool and we’re going to at the end of the episode we’re going to do a
bit of a walk around around the store and show you guys all the different products it’s really a
lot to look at and it’s so beautifully laid out it really if there’s a nice aesthetic experience
coming in. Thank you. Yeah I enjoy it so and I also I want to ask you a bit about your background
and what you were doing in your your studies that led to now what you’re doing professionally.
Yeah so growing up in Colorado my parents were huge outdoor enthusiasts then you know backpacking
and you know skiing since like before I could walk really and you know over a lifetime of
traveling around the world seeing amazing places and you know seeing those change on you know a
timeline that shouldn’t be the case has you know really taken what started as an interest in nature
and natural processes and you know geology and climatology and you know shifted that to a focus
on you know how we can use our voices how we can use you know whatever reach that we have whatever
leverage we have to make an impact and get people to think and you know hopefully change the way
they operate. So you know it’s been it’s been a fun journey and you know one that’s you know
constantly changing for all of us. Yeah absolutely you know this is causing me to think about something
I’ve reflected on and even written about a little bit which is the evolution of the culture here in
Colorado and I also as you know grew up did a lot of my grown up in the Denver area and it has
been remarkable to see this region grow from a pretty sort of white bread kind of meat and potatoes
culture into a very progressive culture leading a lot of innovations in the sustainability arena
and also has a very strong and healthy ecosystem of entrepreneurship right and it’s when those
two are coming together I think that we see a lot of exciting action it’s not to say there aren’t
other hot spots around the country and around the world indeed there are but I think you know this is
one of the one of the special ones. Yeah a hundred percent and you have a very good point
are reflecting on that and growing up Colorado is incredibly red and you’re seeing it’s
skew now you know more and more blue purplish is you know they like to say is you know very nice
that at the same time it’s taken a huge influx of population which has changed a lot of the
recreation opportunities that we enjoy around here too so and there’s always trade offs in life
yeah yeah it’s really true yeah yeah well it’s a good place to be I sure do love and appreciate it
so I’d like to ask a bit about zeal’s history and you know how a goggles and sunglasses company
is helping lead the conversation with sustainability and the materials being used in the products
yeah great question so the company was actually founded in 1997 in Moab, Utah by a couple that
were professional mountain bikers and huge skiers and they wanted to start an Opticss company that
lived up to you know the the rigorous you know nature of the products that they needed you know
the Opticss on the market just weren’t serving their needs they moved to Boulder a couple years
afterwards just for you know better access to distribution and talent pool etc and you know they
were very focused on these sports and the technical aspects and you know the focus on sustainability
was there but not really a driving part of the business and in 2010 Maui Jim purchased the company
and we’re really really looking at the technology the patents in an intellectual property that
Maui that zeal Opticss had and decided to you know find some ways to you know really re-engineer it
from a design standpoint and to refocus its niche on sustainability you know the Opticss world
is so big and it’s so competitive that you know looking at the Boulder market looking at you
know the younger outdoor consumer they saw an opening for that and we had the opportunity to
take this brand and really reshape it and figure out how we can continually push you know what goes
into our products the messaging as well as what we’re doing as a brand to give back to the community
in the world yeah to me is such an interesting microcosm to dig into a little bit when a company
identifies an opportunity for competitive advantage by leading the pack when it comes to sustainability
attributes and qualifications but part of the hope is that leadership also means the industry is
going to transform and do some catching up and have you already seen that kind of phenomena out
there with the other brands that maybe have more you know market reach already yeah must definitely
there’s when we started we were the only ones with our full line being made from plant-based
materials yeah and we’ve seen a lot of other brands step into that yeah following suit as well
as larger players you know launching you know smaller collections that use similar materials and
you know pushing the boundaries on what other materials exist and we’re still the only ones that
have a hundred percent of our line using that side of things but you know especially on the
goggle side we’re a very small player and there’s just very few factories on that side and so
getting the materials to a place where we can use plant-based materials requires you know other
larger players to kind of come along for the ride yeah so we have actually been actively reaching out
to our competitors and you know showcasing materials that exist and how well they perform
and lobbying that you know people get on board you know at the end of the day especially on the
snow side you know that’s the bleeding edge of the impact of climate change and you know if we’re
not espousing what we’re telling our you know customers then we’re doing it wrong we’re
destined to fail yeah yeah that’s a really good point well it’s been wild to watch some of the
evolution in the the outdoor industry in particular you mentioned the founders of Zio coming
originally from Utah and of course there was recently a major shift with the big outdoor annual
convention moving from Utah to Colorado and I’m curious if these conversations with some of
these larger competitors are turning into opportunities for collaboration are you are you seeing a
generally collaborative atmosphere across the industry or is it a little more silo than that it
depends as a larger industry 100 so the outdoor industry association is based here in Boulder
Colorado and they have a sustainability working group that is focused on you know how as an
industry as you know product specialists as marketers you know really drilled down into the
various aspects of all of our businesses we can improve our processes how we can certify our
factories our supply chains and you know that on kind of the global scale if you will for from an
industry standpoint is is huge and you see you know very close competitors working together on
that front as far as working closely with your direct competitors you know that’s still a little
touchy at this point but we’re getting there and we all collaborate you know that every it’s a very
small industry but very influential at this point especially in the western states and growing
land globally yeah yeah well and if what I’m about to ask you know is is is is verging into the realm
of proprietary and the strategic trade secrets and so on let me know but I’m very curious you know
what is Zeal’s plan looking out over five years is the idea to get acquired and help you know to
grow further off that stronger capital you know balance sheet of a larger corporation or are
you guys anticipating continuing to grow and diversify your offerings as a as a standalone player out
yeah I mean we’re very fortunate as I mentioned we were purchased by Maui Jim a few years back
about a decade now yeah and Maui Jim is the last independently held large scale Opticss company
in the world I mean they are on the scale they’re they are bigger than any other one single brand
huh you know they are actively being pursued by the lexatica’s of the world but you know the
owner of the brand is very focused on doing what he does and his team does very well and that
is Opticss you know they make sunglasses eyeglasses and with a zeal goggles yeah very cool that
reminds me of some of the real leadership of folks like Yvonne Chinard with Patagonia and the the
folks out at Cliff bar and others who you know have chosen to stay sort of independent and continue
to grow and provide the leadership that that that independence allows it’s a lot easier to focus on
your mission when you don’t have shareholders free that on your neck that’s right that’s right
now we’re in a good spot for that yeah that’s great Mike well listen I first heard about zeal Opticss
a few years ago now at a presentation here in town with folks from the story of stuff yeah
right and um I would love if you could tell us a little about what they’re up to and how that
overlaps with what you guys are doing so they are very focused on the life span of products yeah
and you know really dissecting what goes into things and getting people to think about what
their decisions as consumers what our decisions as businesses mean to the impact on our environment
on our society and you know that really resonated when I started talking with Steve Wilson who used
to be there who was leading the talk here and you know he had some incredible conversations that’s
great to hear that’s how you connected with the brand and has really you know let us to continue
to focus on how we’re continually improving what we’re doing that’s great yeah I appreciate that
and I think we’ll probably make a quick reference to a story of stuff in the show notes if folks
are interested in diving deeper on that so I want to I want to kind of geek out a little bit on the
on the technical stuff so what what’s going on with the materials can we talk like polymers or you
know extrusion technology I don’t know what are you guys doing so I mean the primary story from
a raw material standpoint is on our sunglasses so the majority of our sunglasses are made with a
material we call z resin in the frames and aluminum polarized in the lenses and that is all derived
from the caster plant so the caster plant is basically a weed that grows on you know marginal
agriculture lands can be growing on the you know edges of you know other fields etc and we heart
we harvest this in Switzerland and if anybody’s familiar with caster oil that nasty taste and stuff
it’s super easy to produce and it has very similar properties to your typical petroleum based oils
so rather than using the petroleum based oil we replace that with the caster oil and it makes for
you know incredibly lightweight and durable material for the frames and there’s super clear
material for the lenses and you know it’s really interesting when people hear it’s sustainably
focused products or materials they typically think there’s going to be a trade off so it’s either
going to be more expensive or you know subpar quality and the majority of our sunglasses are at
149 in the US which is right on par with substantially you know poor Opticsal quality products out
and we have the same we have the same warranty the same quality standards that Maui Jim does for
their frames so you know from a quality standpoint and a price you really the advancements in
plastics in plant-based plastics has come a long way and if I can touch on another material we
just launched we just launched a new sunglasses frame that’s called C-grass so that’s made from a
mixture of recycled PET and agricultural grasses so like waste products from hemp rice straw I think
like the stocks of those and those get mixed together and you know that that chase from the
agriculture materials is almost like a rebar in concrete so it makes it again super lightweight
incredibly durable and you can see the little flex of grasses in there so each frames a little bit
different but the feel on it is super smooth it’s almost like a matte rubber and I want to show you
some of those here in a little bit but it’s really exciting on that always looking for new materials
yeah that’s really exciting and let me just mention folks that we’ve got a very special
for-profit nonprofit partnership going and folks can go to zeal Optics slash why on earth in fact I’m
maybe reading the link wrong we’ll put it in the show notes for sure but at any rate if you go to
that link you’ll get a 10% discount and some of the proceeds will come back to the why on earth
community to support our podcast series and our community mobilization work so it’s just a great
opportunity not only is there already excellent value but you’re offering folks in our community
another 10% discount on that yeah and supporting why on earth and all the great work that you guys
do as well which is a big part of our mission is giving back to organizations such as yours
yeah it’s super appreciated and I got to give you a shout out for connecting us with the folks
over at 1% for the planet and now why on earth is one of the nonprofits approved in that ecosystem
and of course we recently published a podcast with Kate Williams the CEO over there and they’re
doing so much work so it’s this kind of collaboration is the sort of thing I get really excited about
and love mentioning that in the sustainable development goals that our global community has
created together of which there are 17 the final the 17th is partnerships in collaboration
and I think this is a really fun example of what that can look like walk the talk yeah exactly
exactly well let me ask you about some of the other partnership work your guys are doing I know
you’ve got a really special thing going on with the National Forest Partnership for Tree Planting
yeah so we work with the National Forest Foundation here in the US and each year we run a campaign
called by a zeal planetary and it actually started this last Monday on November 16th and runs
through the end of the year so this is the fifth year we’ve been doing it and it started by you
know just you know partnered with the NFF which is the marketing arm of the National Forest Service
and we were just doing the plantings for things sold on our website and our staff the
Maui Jim staff our retailers got so far behind it that we’re now doing it in every channel of trade
globally we are we’re fortunate through Maui Jim to have distribution centers all over the world
and have grown like crazy in Canada Europe Australia so for this year we’ve added tree Canada as a
recipient in Canada and planted arc which runs the seedling bank and national tree day down in
Australia so really cool to see the momentum on that last year we planted 10,000 trees with this
campaign and this year we’re looking to grow that by 50% so hopefully we’re able to meet our goals
with COVID this year it’s definitely going to be an interesting one but you know excited to be
you know right in the heart of of this additionally for every pair of sold on giving Tuesday through
our partners we’ll be planting 10 trees as well so perfect timing to go to that link that Aaron’s
going to publish in here and give back to the Y on Earth and plant 10 trees in our National Forest
yeah that’s really what a win win win this is when we’re talking about regenerative economics and
how to put value into a bunch of different localities and actions with a single purchase like
this man that that is so powerful yeah and you know a lot of us enjoy wearing sunglasses many of us
need goggles and so when we’re making these purchasing decisions I’d love that this provides
an option to do so much good with that yeah with all the fires that we’ve seen this year as well
there’s so many areas that are in dire need of reforestation to you know keep our
soil on the land yeah no doubt about it no doubt and then it sounds like in the summertime you’ve
got another program you’re doing that focuses more on the oceans is that right yeah so this uh
just this year in 2020 we had plans to launch a program called Shades for Seas yeah I was supposed to
go on all of Earth month but every place was pretty much locked down at that point so we wound up
launching it in June of this year but basically we took that concept and worked with an organization
called plastic bank up in British Columbia it has a very cool model if you’re not familiar with it
but basically they work with communities around the globe to buy recovered plastics and then
they pay them in what’s basically a micro loan to you know sponsor you know small economies in
these areas and get them out of recurrent poverty but anyway for every pair of sunglasses goggles
accessory lenses and e-zeals that were sold during that time we pulled five pounds of plastic out
of the ocean well and you know the goal is to make this an annual thing just like by a zeal
planetary and run that for all of Earth month with you know kind of the uh climax around it on
Earth Day that is so cool wow and that’s called plastic bank yes okay great yeah I’ll make
note of that as well um this is so exciting so let me uh remind our audience that uh this is
the why on earth community podcast and I’m your host Aaron William Perry and today we’re visiting with
Mike Lewis the director of marketing at zeal Opticss I want to give a shout out to our sponsors
and uh some of the wonderful companies we’re collaborating with to make this podcast series possible
as well as our community mobilization work and uh that includes earth coast productions
the LIDGE family foundation alpine botanicals purium earth hero vera herbals growing spaces
soil works earth water press one percent for the planet zeal Opticss doctor browners and
wheylay waters also a huge shout out to our ambassadors and others in the why on earth community
who have joined our monthly giving program and if you haven’t joined yet you can go to
whiners.org click on the donate button and set up any amount you’d like on a monthly basis
if you give at certain levels 33 dollars and above you’ll get monthly shipments of the hemp
infused aromatherapy soaking salts from wheylay waters and they’re sourcing that hemp from
organic and biodynamic growers uh here in calirato so it’s another example of the
win-win regenerative economics that we’re all developing together so just a huge thanks to
everybody uh making all this possible and again uh remember there’s a special link uh
that we’re providing so that you can get to zeal Opticss and uh get your 10 percent discount while
also uh helping to get some of those proceeds also back to the why on earth uh for that work
so uh we’ll say also zealOpticss.com um you can connect with mike and his team on social media
it’s at zealOpticss on instagram, facebook, twitter and youtube and uh we’ll also mention
one percent for the planet uh and they’re at one percent for the planet.org and uh national
forests.org is a resource you can go to on the tree planting work that’s being done
so let’s talk real quick about uh one percent for the planet and how you guys are collaborating
and kind of what’s happening in in that ecosystem. yeah definitely um it’s such a cool organization
and let’s just catch you not with our uh regional um contact for them uh yesterday and really need to
hear that they have added over 2,000 businesses this year and that the brand awareness around one
percent is up to almost 40 percent here in the states and growing by leaves and balance internationally
but what that organization does is to become a member of it as a business you have to um dedicate
one percent of your gross sales to nonprofits that work on sustainability such as why on earth
and for nonprofits to become a part of that they have to be vetted to show that their work is
directly giving back to creating more sustainable ways of life and you know giving back to the
planet as well yeah so you know not only is it a way as a business to ensure that you are giving
to you know verified and reputable nonprofits but as you know a person in our society to better
bet when a company says they’re doing good and are focused on environmental issues that they’re
not greenwashing you know this is a seal of approval that is very well vetted as well as on
the nonprofit side too so it’s a great way to channel programs like buy a seal planetary shades
for seas and then you know all of the other things that we do throughout the year as well yeah it’s
so wonderful and you know 1 percent off of the top line that’s often a very substantial portion of
a company’s profits and you know if a company’s you know say doing 10 percent net profits you know
that 1 percent represents 10 percent of those profits it’s a very significant commitment
and I’d love to that they’ve recently launched a program where we as individuals
can engage and give 1 percent of our earnings for the work we’re doing at the individual level
and we’re actually in the process of developing a whole system of achievement badges for our
ambassadors okay and one of them is becoming a 1 percent contributor so that’s another fun
way for us all to kind of engaging this work together and with our ambassadors with these badges
coming out soon a way to sort of demonstrate what you’ve already accomplished see what more there is
you can do and kind of see what each other is up to very cool so yeah that’s a fun thing we got
in the works right now it’s also really neat you know we talked about you know partnerships as
the 17th point for why on earth yeah they are very focused on getting like-minded businesses
together so that you know we can have a larger reach there’s a front-range steering committee
that we serve on and you’ll work very closely with regional businesses as well as international
businesses through other avenues and being that it’s the holiday season there’s a auction going
on at 1 percent of the planet where hundreds of their member organizations have donated items
that you can bid on and there’s some really cool stuff on there for you know very reasonable amounts
that all goes back to 1 percent of the planet very cool I have to check that out you know I think
also it’s great to hear about what’s going on regionally with the collaborations through the
network and it’d be fabulous to learn a little more about how we and our team can plug into that
a bit more we’ve got our next meeting in late January so that just came on the calendar today
so I’d love to get you out that I think that’d be really neat it’s a good group of folks great
sure you’re familiar with a lot of them already so maybe yeah it’d be fun might be a nice way
to network some more well what do you think should we do a little walk around to her yeah let’s do
it yeah where do you want to start um you would think everybody’s got a pretty good view of this area
yeah I’m gonna get behind the camera so here we go this is also our global headquarters behind
the this little hallway over here is all of our offices this is where we run marketing sales
events normally events that is and all the logistics and operations for the company so we use
this showroom as a way to try out marketing concepts new displays to show our retail partners how
the brand can live and breathe in a physical space and typically as Aaron was mentioning we usually
do a ton of events in here we have a monthly event series where we bring people together our
ambassadors other organizations we work with to have educational series tales of adventure and
find ways we always have a nonprofit partner around those as well so really looking forward to for
those days to come back we can get about a hundred people in here and then this is a good little
update for presentations but for the most part at this point it’s our selling area and if this
is a look at some of our older goggles these are our sale products right now and I’ve taken a
focal point as we’re coming into the holiday season and as we kind of pan around here
you’ll see some of our displays you know being from Colorado as a brand and a lot of us as
individuals we’ve really taken elements from nature here all of our displays are going to be
wood and cold road steel and backdrops that feature you know mountains capes from the lands that we
love over here we have some of our more performance styles as well as our auto sun glasses which
are polarized in photocromic so get a change tint throughout the day so you only need one pair of
shades if you’re fly fishing trail running things along those lines and you’ll see a much larger
focus on goggles right now than typically as the resources starting to open up snow start to fly
here and we’re all getting super stoked and hoping it’s a big winner to come so this is a few of our
hatchet goggles feature our rail lock system that allowed it to slide in like this great for the
backcountry you can stay up for a little extra bending and then very similar
you’re going to be editing this little bit right no it’s okay perfect keep rolling we’ll move on
to auto sun and then also our automatic lens so like the auto sun on the sunglass side this lens
is going to transition it’s polarized in photocromics perfect for you know when it’s sunny in the
morning snowstorm rolls in and one lens for every condition best lens out every is wow give a
product plug that’s great that’s exciting and then as we follow around you’re going to see you know
more of our goggle line along the walls here some more sunglass displays
we’re going to be some of our newer more fashion focused displays that greet you as you come in
the store and then some of the homemade displays that we built here that really tied the brand
together that leveraged the materials and you know design inspiration that you know we focus on
but the the violin here is super laid back we’ve got a great team of people working in here
that are always happy to explain a bit more about who we are as a brand you know we’d like to be
more than just a you know seller of sunglasses you know we don’t want to be thought of just as a
piece of plastic that you put on your face but you know an organization that focuses on how you can
tell a story how you can vote with your dollars and how you can promote conscientious consumerism
in everyday purchases awesome and what do you have over here so getting back into our sunglass
line these are going to be some of our newer sports styles and then going into some of our older
styles shields more performance side of things and then this is kind of the bar and DJ booth
for our event series yeah that’s great
bar and DJ booths I got to check that yeah what’s what about this case right here uh
directly in front of you so that’s going to be our more fashion focus line and you know part of
the beauty and real focus of zeal is creating that quiver killer style so you know taking
a pair of shades like this that is very lifestyle um focused with kind of a fashion edge
but adding performance attributes in it so this is going to look just as good at the pool at the
beach as it will you know on a 20 mile run all of our glasses have pro-flex which is a proprietary
porous rubber so the sweater you get the tackier it gets so they’re always going to stay in place
everything super lightweight and then we also have a line called v light so this infuses microscopic
air bubbles and these come in at less than an ounce with the lenses they look really cool and
they’re going to be super durable you know stepped on these sad on them they’re going to bounce
right back into shape so the cool part about this is yes they’re even more functional but by
introducing that air it’s you know it’s still that plant-based material but it’s less of it so
you know the less you put into it the smaller the footprint is going to be so always looking at
ways to you know reduce our material usage and the impact of everything that we’re making
that’s great Mike and then how about over here at this island so this is going to be our
new releases so here you’re going to find our newest goggle so for this season we launched a new
technology called observation deck technology so ski goggles have been really focused on peripheral
view you know horizontally but when you’re skiing and snowboarding you’re looking down the mountain
so got the idea from looking at an air traffic control tower and ship bridges you know where the
windows tilt out and these are all structures that are designed to have you know a great visibility
downwards and physically they’re also designed to block any sort of reflection when the light’s
coming in so if you look at this it has a 10 degree angle on it which gives you 20% more vertical
field of view which is you know equates to two to three turns or another rock that you might
hit and also like when it’s sunny out sometimes you can see your cheek from like coming in hitting
your cheek and bouncing out the lens that too is the thing of the past so super simple ideas like
the rail access and the idea came from the garage door and you had this came from seeing an
air traffic control tower at the while sitting on a tarmac that’s what I thought as well so
who would have thought about that’s amazing and then as well I mentioned the sea grass material
these are those new styles they come in two styles the divide and ask them not sure how well
it’ll show up but if you can see this you’ll see that you can see the flex of the grass within it
yeah I see that yeah I want to feel that yeah oh that’s nice yeah it feels very finished you know
really well done and you know to have the material story that it does you know that’s
I’m really excited for this piece you’ve seen I’ve seen a lot of other recycled sunglasses that
just look really rough and you know they don’t have that you know it’s a fashion accessory so if
you’re not meeting people’s wants and desires then you can try all you want to reduce the footprint
but you have to you know kind of meet that need as well so the the agricultural components
is it always going to include some hemp or does that vary sometimes that does vary in production the
the goal is to get it to a point you know like and made its pipe dream maybe not no pun intended
but to be manufacturing I’m here in Colorado with the agricultural hemp here yeah that’s
really exciting so you’ve mentioned you’ve got hemp you’ve got straw what were a couple of the
other rice and flax are the four grasses that they’re using yeah oh that’s super interesting
yeah I mean we’re seeing hemp going into building materials all kinds of different products
it’s exciting to see how that plus other agricultural residues are sometimes called yeah
can be utilized and finding uses for what would it you know normally be considered trash or
previously considered trash yeah definitely an area we need to continue to explore yeah yeah so from
here we’ve got a pretty cool shot of the the what do you call it the DJ booth slash register
slash checkout stands yeah that is so fun and yeah you know I I will reiterate this is one of my
favorite stores to visit and I don’t visit too many stores I’ll admit it just has such a nice
vibe in here it’s it’s got that kind of home woodsy mountain cheery joyful vibe that I you know
I consider the best of Colorado we really appreciate it yeah that’s what we strive for and yeah
hope folks I’ll see this as one come in and learn more about what we’re all about yeah that sounds
great Mike well it’s been such a joy to be able to visit with you and I want to again just remind
folks you can go to the link in the show notes to get your 10% discount on these products and help
support the YonEarth community and Mike thanks for all the work you guys are doing and all of
the different organizations and efforts you’re supporting and thanks of course for your support
directly to the YonEarth community and before we sign off for today I just want to ask you if
there’s anything else you’d like to say you know in general or to the YonEarth community in
particular it’d be great really appreciate the interest appreciate everyone’s time listening
to this hopefully you guys getting inspired by the work that YonEarth does and our finding ways to
incorporate their principles in your daily life wonderful thanks like awesome the YonEarth community
stewardship and sustainability podcast series is hosted by Aaron William Perry offer thought
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