Epic Eco Hacks for Companies & Individuals with “the ecobabe,” Monica Richards

Show notes in order of appearance:

• Monica’s last oh shit moment
• If you had to chose 1 thing. What is the absolute worst thing we are doing to our planet at the moment?
• Carbon Emissions
• Have you ever broken up with a guy or stopped dating bc he was not eco-conscious?
• Monica shares what it was like growing up on a farm
• The least eco-friendly thing Monica has done in the past year
• Clothes & Fashion- The True Cost. How can we do our part if you are someone who likes being fashionable?
• It can feel very disempowering to be doing things on an individual basis.
• It’s not about everybody doing everything perfectly, but about a lot of people trying.
• Large companies can have a massive effect and impact. How can someone who’s not a founder or entrepreneur and works for a large company do their part in getting their company in the right direction?
• Grace for small companies.
• The Consultancy works with individuals and brands. What is the process of assessing a brand’s sustainability?
• Eco-friendly hacks!
• Soil farming
• The Collective, a membership platform where we co-create a better world.
• What’s next for Monica Richards.
• Monica shares her top two traits for a conscious leader to embody

Connect with Monica Richards, AKA the Ecobabe on Instagram

Connect with Sebastian on Instagram

SebastianNaum.com

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Below is a transcript of the video podcast created by Seb’s Robot buddy, Zekton. He tends to make mistakes so please forgive him if you find errors or some funky sounding sentences. For the real deal, watch the video or click on your favorite audio Podcast platform above! Enjoy!

Sebastian Naum:
What’s up fam today. I had a super energetic and inspiring human Monica Richards, AKA the eco babe Monica Richards is a former farm girl turn eco-friendly interior design and Hollywood TV host who launched her lifestyle brand eco babe to empower people to live more sustainably and believe in the power of individual impact. In addition to the eco babe blog, YouTube channel and eco babe goods, shop Monica owns a sustainable consultancy for homeowners and brands. She also leads the collect a global conscious community of committed eco babes and climate optimist. Co-creating a better world together. I had a great time with Monica talking about her least eco conscious practice and overall look at what we’re doing to our planet and also some great eco hacks for individuals and brands with large impact. I wanna give a special thank you and shout out to the sponsor today’s show conscious capitalism, Los Angeles, whose aim is to connect, inspire, and cultivate conscious business leaders in LA and is a key piece of a larger scale worldwide conscious capitalism movement. Now stick around and enjoy the show. Monica what’s up. Welcome to the show.

Monica Richards:
Hello. Thank you for having me. Good morning.

Sebastian Naum:
Yeah. Good morning. Thanks for being on.

Monica Richards:
Of course. Thanks for having me. Yeah.

Sebastian Naum:
Monica, first question. I always ask my guests. Yeah. What was your last, oh, moment. First thing that comes to mind

Monica Richards:
This morning when I had on this faux leather pair of pants and I went to sit down to do this interview and I was like against the seat. So I had to change

Sebastian Naum:

Monica Richards:
I go through oh moments like a million times a day. So ,

Sebastian Naum:
I love that, you know, some people I ask and they’re like, they think about it and they, they say something from like three years ago. Um, but yours was your Le your full leather pants that were speaking too much. That’s great. I like that.

Monica Richards:
I have a, oh. Three years ago.

Sebastian Naum:
I love it. Monica. What is the, the, if you have to choose one thing, what is the single one worst thing that we’re doing to the planet today?

Monica Richards:
Oh God. Are you gonna make me choose,

Sebastian Naum:
Choose one thing?

Monica Richards:
Uh, carbon emissions.

Sebastian Naum:
Okay.

Monica Richards:
I would say carbon emissions are the big for climate change. So that’s why I’m saying that at a foundational level, everything we do is connect. Do you want me to get into it?

Sebastian Naum:
Absolutely. That’s what we’re doing.

Monica Richards:
OK. So climate change. How I like to describe it because it’s actually like, everything is so connected that it’s mind blowing. So the way that I describe it is the more carbon output that we emit the more the earth heats up. So think of the earth as like an apple, right? And the skin of the apple is our carbon emissions. Well, if you heat an apple, if there’s a thicker skin of carbon emissions, it stays warmer longer. Okay. So as our carbon emissions are in the atmosphere, we’re emitting too much. We’re not able to sequester which means to hold onto the carbon emissions via ocean trees and soil. So this layer, this apple skin is building thicker. And so it traps the heat from the sun. So that’s why our planet is warming. So when that happens, our oceans warm precipitation goes up. The, um, evaporation into the atmosphere is heavier. And that’s why we see like heavier flooding. Um, the heat causes heavier drought heavier like raging wildfires. So everything is literally connected to how much carbon we are emitting into the atmosphere and not able to get back into the ground, into the foundation.

Sebastian Naum:
That’s a great explanation sense. And yeah, and basically in terms of how we’re emitting carbon it’s yeah. All kinds. If the, that were doing

Monica Richards:
Even cryptocurrency

Sebastian Naum:
What’s that

Monica Richards:
Even cryptocurrency all. Yeah,

Sebastian Naum:
That’s true. And I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m big on cryptocurrencies. In fact, I, I had a podcast on a, a very, uh, important guy in the Bitcoin world and he actually talked about it. He was actually making a, a strong point about Bitcoins demand for clean energy. Because if you don’t use clean energy, your margins are tiny because you use so much energy to actually mine, Bitcoin mm-hmm . So a lot of these Bitcoin mins are now going towards renewable sources because energy costs going up. So it’s basically an economics part. So they’re actually, you know, demanding more clean energy. So it’s an interesting thing. Yeah. Yeah. So I won’t ask you like what the solution for that is right now, because

Monica Richards:
I dunno the solution ,

Sebastian Naum:
That was the whole point. You were gonna come here with a solution to solve the world. Monica, have you ever broken up with a guy or stopped dating a guy? Because he wasn’t eco conscious,

Monica Richards:
Oh God. You know, I feel like if I went on a date, I’m divorced, first of all, if I went on a date and the guy used a plastic straw, I’ll be like, we’re just gonna, let’s just be friends. You know what I mean? Like you can hire me first consulting services, but that’s where it ends. Um, I haven’t like really broken up with someone, but I’ve had an ex who is not very eco conscious. And it is like, because it’s so much of who I am as a person, it becomes, it’s not your full identity, but it becomes like your lifestyle and who you are and it’s your morals. It’s like your moral compass. If you don’t get that, then I just feel like we’re not aligned in that way. And, and it’s also you, if you don’t get that, you don’t understand me.

Sebastian Naum:
Hmm. Yeah.

Monica Richards:
Is a huge disconnect in and of itself. Right.

Sebastian Naum:
Yeah. It’s different than just having a, a, a like, or a hobby. It’s more, it’s your moral essence,

Monica Richards:
Right? 100%.

Sebastian Naum:
So,

Monica Richards:
Yeah. I don’t think it definitely would not work.

Sebastian Naum:
sounds good. So guys, you’re out there listening and you’re like, yo, this eco Babe’s a babe, you better, you practices, um, on your website, Monica, it says that you grew up green. What does that mean?

Monica Richards:
I grew up on a farm in the middle of Michigan. So we all use this. Like, I can’t do it in this opposite of the screen. It’s like the mitten, Michigan looks like a mitten. OK. So I use it as like our home base to say where we’re from. So I’m from like here grew up on a super small one stop light or super small town, excuse me, one stop light. And we had like every single kind of fruit tree. Our garden was so ginormous. My dad had a rota till with a big tractor and it was all organic. We had all sorts of animals. So that’s what I mean when I grew up green, I really grew up like collecting chicken eggs and taking care of animals, seeing how everything is connected and having just like so much respect for our planet. Mm-hmm we, we lived off the, I mean, I wouldn’t say like we lived off the land, but we, I would say do did more than most. So it was a really beautiful childhood and yeah, I’m blessed to have grown up green.

Sebastian Naum:
So did you, were you consuming a lot of the things that you guys had on your farm in terms of plants and animals?

Monica Richards:
Yeah. 100%. Yeah. My mom would even make our ketchup and mustard from whoa, nose and mustard seeds. Yeah. Yeah.

Sebastian Naum:
That’s cool. Yeah. Um, I just outta curiosity. Are, are you, um, like dietary standpoint? Are you vegan or anything like that?

Monica Richards:
I’m I like to call lot of flexitarian

Sebastian Naum:
Same

Monica Richards:
I love it. Yeah. It’s the hard thing about veganism. There’s two things. And one is the, I think that veganism becomes people’s identity. And so that’s why it’s such an aggressive movement. I think it it’s getting better. Um, but it really does make people kind of shy away from it. The other issue is that some people can’t actually be plant based. Like I have someone in my family, their blood type can’t absorb protein from anything but animal protein. Mm-hmm, , that’s a really expensive blood test. Like no one usually is able to get it covered it. But, um, so, so there’s those two things for me, I feel better when I’m not eating a lot of meat and honest to God last summer, over quarantine, I was going up north a lot Northern California to discovery bay. And there’s all of these commercial ag farms, like cow farms on the way. And I was just like, when you go buy it, you’re I always use this example, but you’re literally like ACE Venter and that room of death, like in the movie. It’s so heartbreaking. And you

Sebastian Naum:
See, wait, are you talking about when he’s in his room? Full of animals? Yeah.

Monica Richards:
The dead animals, like on the wall. And he was like,

Sebastian Naum:
Oh, oh, the dead animals. Oh no, no. Got it. I was, that was, Got it. I was, I laughed because I was featuring him, like when he was like, ah, and he’s got all, oh, that’s the beautiful part. Okay. Got it.

Monica Richards:
Oh my God. Well, I would’ve loved to be like that and like save all the cows for all the cows, but I wasn’t. So that just, that really made me stop and be like O I don’t wanna be supporting and, and eating that. So, yeah,

Sebastian Naum:
I asked because I think that there’s a lot of people maybe that are connecting eco consciousness with being plant based, for example, or at least being more consci. And then to some people there is a not necessarily not a connection. And, and so I just wanted to see if that was something to you. Um,

Monica Richards:
Yeah. And the interesting fact is a study from university of Michigan just came out this year, where if every person were to go eight times a week, plant based just eight that’s so doable. Especially if you eat like 21 a week. Right.

Sebastian Naum:
Okay. I was trying to figure out, yeah, got it. Got it. Eight

Monica Richards:
Times a week, if you choose plant based over meat. Yeah. We could reverse climate change.

Sebastian Naum:
That’s wild. Yeah. I had heard something like, uh, yeah, it was a similar stat. Mm-hmm, just, it was just out of like, looking at like hamburgers or something. It was like something crazy. It was like, if people ate like one less him, you know, per week or something crazy, it was like an insane amount of impact. Um, it’s wild. It’s wild. So

Monica Richards:
Is,

Sebastian Naum:
Yeah. I put you on the spot. What’s the least eco-friendly thing that you’ve done in the past year.

Monica Richards:
In the last year. Yeah. Oh.

Sebastian Naum:
Or whenever, just, you know,

Monica Richards:
Thing that I’ve done. Well, I mean, I drive a car. That’s not an EV an electric car. Oh

Sebastian Naum:
My goodness. Wow.

Monica Richards:
It has an eco mode. OK. I, when I got this car, I wasn’t, as like, we’re all on an eco journey is what I say. Right. We all take baby steps and we have to give ourselves space and grace to get to where we strive to be. Yeah. And when I got this car, I wasn’t as like ecofriendly, or as far my journey as I am now, um, I would get electric if I were to get another car. Yeah. That’s like, every time I get it, I’m like,

Sebastian Naum:
I saw a, um, I dunno if it was a meme or I think it was some sort of art on the wall that said something like, um, it’s not about all of us doing, it’s not about all of us doing every single thing perfectly. It’s about most of us trying to do most things. Right. And that would be a huge change, you know?

Monica Richards:
Yes. And can you imagine if everyone on this planet was just doing a little bit, be more eco-friendly, it’d be a whole different world.

Sebastian Naum:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, there’s something about, uh, for me recently, it’s been, so I saw the documentary, the true cost a while back. Um, I’m sure you’ve seen it. So it’s a good one. And that’s about fashion and clothing industry. And I was shocked about how much like the clothing industry actually does what it does to the environment. And supposedly the number one worst thing, industry is oil. And then the second worst industry is like clothes. And I was like blown away. And a honestly I like clothes. I, I like fashion. And so, and maybe, and this is probably even more prominent for women than guys, but if you’re someone who likes fashion and you like to switch things up and switch things around, like I’m not going around buying and tossing clothes, like I’m, you know, I’m, I’m, you know, giving clothes away, you know, and donating and this and that, but that’s not the, the point is that I am, I am a consumer of the clothing industry.

Sebastian Naum:
And so it’s really tough because, you know, you go buy something. You’re like, oh man, there’s no label on this. Unless it’s like, you’re buying like this, you know, quadruple over priced t-shirt and Abbot Kenny, uh, that like, you know what I mean? That like says everything about their practices. Usually there’s nothing on a label. Like how do you deal with that with clothes? Hey guys, I just wanna remind you that you could get more content like this@sebastiannam.com. That’s Sebastian NA U m.com. And you can also get a ton of other marketing resources from myself and my agencies ranging from SEO to social media, influencer, marketing, branding, animation, web development, and more again, that’s Sebastian nom.com. Thank you. And enjoy the rest of the show.

Monica Richards:
First of all, for women, I love rent the runway. You

Sebastian Naum:
Just, I dunno what that is. Tell me, oh

Monica Richards:
My gosh. I’ve been, so I’m a TV host. And when I first started doing the show for AOL, like, I don’t even know, six years ago, it was when rent, the runway first came out and I was on this wait list. Like, oh my God, I need this. I was on the wait was like a year, right? So I’ve been with run the runway for this whole entire time. You pay a monthly fee and it’s like 150 bucks, a 20, they just re like re or pivoted their structure, their business structure. But it’s like a 20 a month. You get eight different outfits a month. And you’re just constantly swapping. And they have, um, natural, dry cleaners. They reuse all of the plastic bags, recycle them. They arrive in cloth bags and those are always recycled and upcycled. And yeah, you basically rent these amazing styles that are like all of the name brands that you love, but you can feel better about it. Cause then you’re just giving it back and the next person rents it and you know, it’s like circular, it’s a circular economy.

Sebastian Naum:
Oh, really awesome. Do they have that for men?

Monica Richards:
I think they have, oh my gosh. Is it stitch fix stitch fix? They have a different one. It’s not run the runway. It’s a different one. I’ll look it up for yoga back to you.

Sebastian Naum:
I’ll have to check that out. That’s really cool.

Monica Richards:
Cool. Yeah.

Sebastian Naum:
That’s, that’s one solution for sure. Um, and that’s, you know, honestly that’s a solution probably for people that can afford it. Right. But that’s also maybe the same issue that the people that can afford buying a lot of clothes anyway. So I guess it, it goes with that. Uh, I wish there was some sort of label just like there’s labels on food. I wish there was labels on clothes to be honest, other than just made in what’s that

Monica Richards:
It’s not transparent at all.

Sebastian Naum:
No, no. It’s one of the least transparent. So it’s a, it’s a tough one for sure. Um, and the

Monica Richards:
Other thing is you have to think about like where those clothes are made and who makes your clothes because there is a high rate of trafficking and human slavery yeah. Attached to the fashion industry. Yeah. So that’s the other kicker that we really should be careful.

Sebastian Naum:
That’s, that’s why that dark really blew my mind. Cause it, it just, like you said about the connectedness of everything, it was connected to so much like other, just, just nasty, horrible thing. Just dark. It was dark. That was the, that’s the word I was looking for. Yeah. It’s just dark industries. It’s it’s crazy. Um, I wanted to ask you so it can be very disempowering mm-hmm <affirmative> um, to think about making a difference or doing the right things on an individual basis. And it’s very similar to like voting I in a way it’s like, what is my one vote gonna do, but a bunch of individual votes. Right. Um, make the difference. So now, okay. We’ve talked about, you know, the power of individuals being able to do things, and it’s not about everybody doing everything perfectly. And it’s about, uh, a lot of people doing a lot of things, right? Mm-hmm <affirmative> but companies doing things on a large, on a mass level can, you know, can cause a huge amount of impact because they’re the ones that are doing things on a grand scale. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. So if someone is not an entrepreneur or a CEO or a founder, what do you recommend that they can do as an entrepreneur, inside of a company to try to move things towards eco consciousness inside their companies?

Monica Richards:
Here’s the thing we’re talking about. Small companies, small business.

Sebastian Naum:
I mean, I, I’m thinking more so large businesses because that is the one that is the challenge where somebody feels like, how can I do anything? You know, it’s like, I work for this big company. I have a good salary. Like it helps me support my family. It’s not real, really the very eco conscious company, but I don’t really wanna like move jobs or I don’t wanna do this. Like, but I care what can I do inside my company? How can I try to make a difference

Monica Richards:
Still programs? So there’s a lot of companies like TerraCycle is one. Okay. And they have these amazing recycling programs where it’s all of the hard to recycle items. I mean, they take back like solo cups, every cigarette butts, everything. So I would have my company invest in the TerraCycle box and then get everyone to like, whatever that company manufactures or like whatever you’re using inside the company culture, if it’s like coffee, pods or mask or whatever it is, I would get these boxes and it have like better recycling systems. The other thing that you can do, speaking of salary is switch your bank. The, do you know about this finance? No, it’s pretty insane. Okay. So when you, I, so by the way, sometimes I feel bad because I know like, so it’s, I’m one of those people that like knows a little about a lot, so I could just keep going and going.

Monica Richards:
Um, but <laugh>, you’re not. So for finance, when you put your money into a bank in America, like chase bank of America, so on and so forth, they, you know, that’s like, they take your dog, your dollars, aren’t physically in the bank, they take them and they fund entities around them. Eight outta 10 of your dollars in these big major banks fund, fossil fuels the fossil fuel industry. It’s like a weird, it’s becoming more known, but for a long time, it’s been pretty unknown. So there are banks like bank of the west that you can switch that do not do that and only invest in ethical companies.

Sebastian Naum:
Huh.

Monica Richards:
That’s one thing you can do for yourself, for your family, get more people within your company to do that. Um, there’s and I would just, I mean, it’s hard to answer because it depends on the company. Like what if you installed like a compost garden or like have a compost service come by for like all of your employees dumping their food in those compost. And then the compost is picked up and taken to a local farm there’s services like that too, where you can just like really kind of green up and clean up your interior company culture. Is that where you meant <laugh>

Sebastian Naum:
Yeah, I think that it can be challenging for somebody who doesn’t know where to start. There’s a lot more companies now that have sustainability directors. And obviously if they have sustainability directors, they’re now starting to think about that. So maybe that’s a person that someone inside of a company can go to and speak to and bring things up. Right? Yeah. Um, otherwise I, I do think it’s important to, for people to start bringing these things up to leadership and to, to manage. Right. I think that it’s, um, it’s becoming obvious mm-hmm <affirmative> to me, at least in this industry, that more, that companies conscious brands and conscious companies are starting to resonate with younger generations more and more, and they’re making more money mm-hmm <affirmative> so I think that, is that something that you see sometimes when you’re consulting, when you know, somebody’s like, oh, that’s so expensive, you know, it’s so expensive to go green here. It’s so expensive to go green there, are you seeing that in the end? It’s making them more money.

Monica Richards:
Yeah. I mean, I think the same way that we need to give our individual, we have to do that for companies as well, because when you’re just starting off as a small company, you need to make profit or you won’t stay in business. So as you make more money, then, then you can be on this trajectory of getting becoming more and more green. Um, that’s the way that I think is feasible to structure, unless you have like a ton of investments right off the bat, but a lot of companies don’t have that, you know? So you just have to like take these baby steps, like micro to macro and really grow. I think transparency is key too. So for companies that want to be more green and wanna be higher up on their eco journey and higher up on their support of sustainability, you say that on your website, you have that in your brand story, your brand messaging, like we are striving to become greener every single day. Right now, this is what we’re struggling us with, but we’ve taken these steps to further our sustainable support for sustainability.

Sebastian Naum:
I love that. Uh, I love that I’m currently involved in a little startup, uh, with a business partner. It’s a coffee brand. I’m excited about. I haven’t really been talking about

Monica Richards:
You. Yeah.

Sebastian Naum:
Yeah. I haven’t been talk well, the thing is this, um, I have another good friend who I had on the podcast in the very beginning. There it’s a brand called sun and swell foods and they’ve got compostable packaging. They’ve got all these things. And Kate, the founder talked to me about that. It wasn’t something that just could do all at once. And now they’re there to 2, 3, 3 years later, something like that. And so working with my business partner, I, the one at first was like, no, dude, we gotta, we gotta do it. All right, we gotta do this and this and this and this and that. And he was like, se like we can’t like, we, we need to figure out a way that first let’s try to get profitable. Let’s do a lot of thi let’s try to do all the things we can. And then I was like, you’re totally right. It makes sense from a business standpoint. And then the more you can grow, then you start taking all those steps. So I love the fact, you said having grace for at least for startups, mm-hmm, <affirmative>, uh, for comp small companies, maybe the big large brands that have billions, you know, and not just, they have

Monica Richards:
No excuse.

Sebastian Naum:
They have no excuse. No,

Monica Richards:
Absolutely. That drive me. The other thing you can do as especially, well, either a small or a more large company, you can kind of neutralize your carbon footprint. So you can be like carbon neutral or, and, and how you do that is you could have a tree program, planting trees for every purchase. You could have sea trees, which is actually kelp in the ocean. It’s a huge carbon dioxide sequester. And they, they act as trees, but in the ocean, um, same sort of processes. So you could invest in kelp farming is what it’s called. So you could have all these different programs of kind of like these give back programs where that would neutralize per se, your carbon footprint. So I think that for any size company is something that’s really valuable to the company and to the consumer.

Sebastian Naum:
That’s a great one, actually. Yeah. Yeah. That’s a really good one because I’m, for the most part, I’m thinking about what can the company do? That’s existing in the company that can change or help, but they can actually go outside of what they’re doing on a daily basis. Like what you just said with the kelp farm, invest in that and can give back to that. That’s actually helping, you

Monica Richards:
Know? Yeah. And that’s a bigger scale. Right. So then you can, it sometimes helps. I hate to say it, but it sometimes helps to fund or give back to a, a program that’s on a, a bigger scale than kind of what you’re doing on a daily basis. Yeah. It just feels more empowering that way.

Sebastian Naum:
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So Monica, when you consult for, for brands, not for individual, but for brands and companies, um, is there a, is there a process that you go about? How do you go about it?

Monica Richards:
Yeah. So I have the company fill out this Google doc with questions that I have on there. Just so I know a little bit more about going in, into their space, their work, their work culture. And then I do, what’s called the discovery call so we can like get to know each other. A lot of it is not in person, especially nowadays. Yeah. So, um, yes, we do the call and then I just go from there, like whatever, whatever they need. I have a client right now. It’s an amazing startup company. It has to do with children’s parties and everything is in this box that is sent to parents’ doorsteps. And it’s all eco conscious brands. So it’s like really easy. It’s like set up for eight kids, everything you need for this birthday party, but she needed even help with her website and, um, kind of like that, that sustainable brand story, because also people don’t know the language of sustainability. And so I help, I help literally from the ground up, whatever a company needs.

Sebastian Naum:
Got it. So everything from whether practices to the actual brand strategy and communication essentially.

Monica Richards:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And products as well.

Sebastian Naum:
Love it. Yeah. The, you have a program called the collective. Yes. It’s a member. It’s a membership platform. So, and you say, we, we co-create a better world. What, what does that, what does that, uh, look like? What does that feel like? What does it,

Monica Richards:
So it’s a global community. We have members everywhere from Germany to London, to the states, to Canada, it’s this really healthy ecosystem of people who care. And I co-founded it with the climate optimist, her name is an Janee. She’s amazing. And we, we came together to create this community because we were like we with every, and this is a year ago, right? So if you think about a year ago, yes, it was bad, but it wasn’t this bad. So even back then, climate wise, even back then, we were like, man, we just really want a community where we can come together. We’re having a bad day. If we’re feeling heavy, like we wanna be able to talk into this community and be supported. We also want to be able to take action with within this community and provide people and out lit to take action, to make a difference, to ask questions, you know, so that’s what the community does.

Monica Richards:
We have collective call the action days where once a month we call our local or our state congressional members. The thing that people, and this is another thing you can do as an individual Congress, which is made up of Senate and house of representatives. They Don know exactly what’s happening outside of Congress doors, unless we call them to tell them what we want, supported, which bills want supported. So that then those can be written into law. We are literally the gateway for bills to be written into law. So your calls count to call your local or your state congressional members. You can email them, you can write them, all of it. All of these calls and requests are tallied up at the end of each week per office. And that’s how the, how Congress knows like what’s important to really push for on the Senate floor. Does that make sense?

Sebastian Naum:
Yeah, we, you know, I think the normal thought is like, who the heck’s gonna answer my phone. Who’s gonna, why would it matter that I send an email? Yeah.

Monica Richards:
They actually love it. Every time I call, um, the, the people who are answering the phones are like, oh my gosh, thank you. I’ll pass on the message. And even if you leave a voicemail, those are also talented the end of each week. It’s so powerful. Yes.

Sebastian Naum:
So is there, is there a good resource where people could go find these phone numbers?

Monica Richards:
Yes, it is. Oh my gosh. It’s in the collective. Um, it is. We’re gonna,

Sebastian Naum:
If you don’t have it, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll include it in the links.

Monica Richards:
Okay. Well, yeah, you just click in your zip code and it gives you like your house of representative members and then your as well. Awesome.

Sebastian Naum:
Awesome. Monica, what are your current most like your favorite eco conscious hacks?

Monica Richards:
Oh my gosh. And wait, by the way, the collective also we have, um, we have feature films every month as well. You would love it, love it. All of it. Like the true cost is in there as well. Yeah. <laugh> very cool. Okay. Hacks for what? Like which area of your life.

Sebastian Naum:
So I think we could do it, let let’s, let’s do it this way. So what are your favorite hacks that you could just do on your own and what are your current most favorite products or, you know, brands that are, you know, eco conscious?

Monica Richards:
Oh my gosh, wait, hacks. You can do on your own, like in the kitchen or

Sebastian Naum:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like in the kitchen, whatever it is that you’re doing. Like little things that you actually, you mentioned something the other day when we were talking. Um, and you said that there are things that people think are not eco-friendly, but actually are. So they just need a little bit more information on it. Um, like I think like wool, for example, you said like, uh, you know,

Monica Richards:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, the thing with wall is it’s actually one of the most eco materials that you can wear speaking in fashion, which we just spoke about. Yeah. The another, a hack, a fashion hack is to really go for natural materials. So silk organic cotton, wool, linen. Those are the materials where if you discard those pieces of clothing into the landfill, they do biodegrade and they do down everything else, like Spanx, any synthetic fiber, which is also in most genes, by the way, yeah. Will sit in landfill and it takes like 500 years to biodegrade. Mm. So that’s a, that’s a really good hack fashion wise is to really go for natural materials. That’s

Sebastian Naum:
Good.

Monica Richards:
Yeah. Um, one of my biggest kitchen hacks is to sign up for food service that’s delivered to your home, that supports local farmers. So I use in perfect foods, it’s national, there’s a lot of services like that. And that at this particular service actually combats food waste, we waste 40% of food in America. The most mind boggling number. I, when there’s special percent are starving 40%. And so this company sells you for a fraction of the cost, all of the produce that isn’t allowed to go to market because of minor imperfections, which are, by the way, it’s like eating the same exact, a fruit or vegetable. Yeah. So that’s one of my biggest, my biggest hacks, because we all need food, you know, and not all of us have access to local farmers markets. We just don’t depending on where we live. Um, also try to be as pesticide free as possible for your own health and for the health of our soil. Um, a lot of our soil. So they say we only have, well now it’s like 59, 59 years left of farmable soil in the United States because it’s so depleted. And part of that depletion is not only from mono cropping, which is like monoculture, like just planting same crop over and over and over for soy corn, you know,

Sebastian Naum:
De yeah. You completely yeah. Deplete the land and yeah.

Monica Richards:
Yeah. And part of that’s pesticides. So it depletes the soil of nutrients, which also is why a lot of Americans have deficiencies is that depleted soil, because it doesn’t create these nutritious, amazing vegetables that have everything we need in them anymore. So going past aside free when you’re at the grocery store, which means organic is also a huge one.

Sebastian Naum:
Yeah.

Monica Richards:
Yeah.

Sebastian Naum:
The, um, the food, the food waste situation is insane and that’s a whole thing. Yeah. Um, I love imperfect produce. I’ve I’ve used them in the past quite a lot.

Monica Richards:
Yeah.

Sebastian Naum:
Um, you know, with the organic it’s, it’s a whole other thing too, because, um, there’s a whole chain of events that actually, which what is sad is that a lot of even the organic that we’re getting is not even truly organic. There’s a lot of stuff going on with the international farmers and there’s brokers that are switching things that are, there’s a whole, but you gotta try. And you, you gotta, you gotta do what you can yeah.

Monica Richards:
For your own health as well. Yeah. Pesticides are cancer causing

Sebastian Naum:
Absolutely

Monica Richards:
Cancer.

Sebastian Naum:
Yeah. I mean, I, I can go all day about this stuff. Um, I love it. So, and what is, um, well, I asked you and any other, like what, what brand really inspires you that you think just does it right? Does it all right?

Monica Richards:
Oh my gosh. There’s so many. Um, well let me, can I, can I show you the brand that I just,

Sebastian Naum:
Yeah.

Monica Richards:
The collaboration, because their name is kind. So I recently collaborated with a company called Santa kind and really do it. Right. It’s refillable hand sanitizers made recycled ocean plastic from the waterways of Haiti and Mexico and the culture that is within those like plastic collections is amazing. Um, the, so everything’s refillable, so you literally buy one and you don’t ever have to throw these plastic sanitizers away. They give back to 1% for the planet. Everything is carbon neutral. It shifts plastic free. And the refills are aluminum. Aluminum is like endlessly recyclable. Like even if every pretty much every beer that you drink has already been recycled once the can <laugh>. So it’s like, yeah. Cool. Little fact. So I recently partnered with them for our own sanitizer, which looks like this, there it’s, it says eco babe on it. It has like that cool. She print and it comes out like this, and then you just refill, it comes a little, little funnel. Um, their solution, by the way, is also COVID, that’s affected against COVID it’s who world health organization certified most sanitizers are not so right. Effective against what you’re trying to combat. And then the refills look like this. So it’s like a and aluminum. Yeah.

Sebastian Naum:
That’s great.

Monica Richards:
Check. All the boxes is, and I loved them before I even came to them to be like, can we make one just for our own community? They’re just really good company. And they’re very inspirational because they started from the ground up.

Sebastian Naum:
I love that. They’re awesome. That’s really cool. Yeah. What’s crazy about with COVID was that when it first hit us hard in, in March, April, 2020, and we were all basically, you know, in our homes, it was this beautiful thing for the environment because you know, cars, weren’t, you know, driving around the streets and, and planes weren’t flying. You mean, you could see it here. You could see the smog was gone. It was insane. Yet on the other side, we were just going through tons of paper towels and, you know, sanitizing and hand sanitizer and, you know, all kinds of stuff that, you know, and now all of a sudden, like you go to an office and there’s no more, you know, glasses and plates and it’s now, you know, cups and, you know, you know, whatever. So it’s like, it was tough cuz you saw this beautiful thing for the environment and that same time we started crushing it again. So I love that. That is something directly related to this issue that we’re having today. That that has a solution. So that’s really cool. Yeah. So what’s next. Is there anything you that you’re excited about that you wanna share with us?

Monica Richards:
Yeah. Well I’m moving to potentially New York. I still to figure this out, but I’m excited to like bring the green to a diverse city. <laugh> yeah.

Sebastian Naum:
The green

Monica Richards:
Bringing the green. Yeah. Um, I’m also starting a discovery series on my IG live and IGT where talk about the truth behind sustainability and the impact that you can have in it. So I’ll be interviewing, I think we talk about this, but um, I’ll be interviewing basically my community has asked me questions for years that I don’t always have the answer to, but I’m always like, I will get the answer to this because I also wanna know. So these are the questions, like the burning questions that’ve been left unanswered because they’re, they’re just, <laugh>, they’re too expansive to answer by yourself. So I’ll be interviewing leading industry experts and thought leader. These questions answered once and for all. Yeah. So that’s next. I’m super excited about it.

Sebastian Naum:
Perfect. I love that. Thank you. What are the two traits that a conscious leader must embody?

Monica Richards:
Oh, um, authenticity and transparency.

Sebastian Naum:
You had those right away. I love that. I

Monica Richards:
Why, but yeah. <laugh> I love that. Yeah. Probably. Cause I’m so like passionate about it, you know? Mm. Greenwashing, like you said is also just so yep. Insane. And so that’s something and it’s almost like a trip to the consumer, which isn’t cool. No, it’s like exactly.

Sebastian Naum:
Yeah. What just, if anybody doesn’t know what greenwashing is, why don’t you tell us?

Monica Richards:
I’m sorry. So greenwashing is saying something is like more sustainable than it isn’t like, that would be like me, um, being like, this is plastic free, but it’s not, it’s made of plastic. It’s just upcycle. That’s a bad example. Cause it’s still like really <laugh> it’s still a really good product.

Sebastian Naum:
Well, but it’s how you communicate it too. It’s

Monica Richards:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s like taking something that’s like a tiny bit could be potentially eco and being like it’s 100% certified or eco-friendly that’s what,

Sebastian Naum:
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So Monica, where can people find you?

Monica Richards:
Uh, many places. I have a website called eco babe.co on the collective that’s collective X action.com. And then my Instagram is at the eco babe. All of my socials at the eco, babe,

Sebastian Naum:
The eco babe, love it. I

Monica Richards:
Love to have everyone and everyone join our community.

Sebastian Naum:
Love it. Well, you’re clearly a conscious leader. I love every thing that you’re doing and you’re, you’re an inspiration. So please keep being you and thank you so much for, for being on today. Monica,

Monica Richards:
Thank you. Step. I also have to acknowledge and honor you for doing things like watching documentaries and, and just starting there because it’s such a, a beautiful place to start. And just watching those documentaries is spreading awareness. I’m sure you’re talking about it to your, and it’s like that amazing domino effect. So I just wanna honor you for,

Sebastian Naum:
I appreciate that. I appreciate I’m. I, if the Hollywood industry would be the Hollywood, the pure Hollywood industry would be dead with me. Like I don’t do, I can’t watch, like I don’t binge like, you know what I mean, series or anything? I just watch documentaries. Like that’s all I like to watch. I just feel, I would feel dumber after I watch something, you know? I mean, I like to watch sports, so, but um, <laugh> I do watch some sports, you know, but yeah. Um, but yeah, I just feel so good to come off of something and be more educated and be like, okay. You know, and like you’re right. So thank you so much for acknowledging that. Appreciate that.

Monica Richards:
We’re all evolving and expanding. That’s the goal, right?

Sebastian Naum:
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you So much, Monica. I appreciate you.

Monica Richards:
Bye.