The Invisible Climate Job Inside Every Building

How Mastercard Cut $28M of Digital Waste + 3 Real Playbooks

Mastercard saved $28M cutting digital waste. Three more companies in this episode did the same. This episode is part of Any Job Can Be a Climate Job, a podcast exploring how people bring climate impact into everyday work, even in roles that aren't labeled 'climate.' If you're in tech, reducing emissions might be easier than you think. While it accounts for 4% of global emissions (and rising), most of it is wasteful by default, not by necessity. No one's bothered to look and make a shift. In this episode, Nolwenn and I dive into examples from 4 companies, talk about what they did, and what the impact was. * Leboncoin (French Craigslist) - 85% of Leboncoin's half-billion weekly API calls were returning 404 errors. A two-week sprint cut total calls by 72%. * Raptor Maps (solar field software) - App had grown so heavy that workers were buying new phones to run it. An offline-first redesign cut data load by 99%. * Brussels Environment (government website) - Hired eco-designers, set new baselines (page size, load time, eco-score), and rebuilt their site to be both lighter and more usable. * Mastercard (GreenOps program) - Saved $28 million and cut data center electricity by 40% in two years by shifting workloads to cleaner regions, right-sizing, and turning off unused instances. The playbook is free, and the case studies are reusable. You don't need permission to start. What will you do to make the world a better place today? About Nolwenn Nolwenn Godard is the founder of Carbon 2C and co-author of the Climate Product Leaders Playbook. She previously led product at PayPal and worked inside California state government, where she helped push climate considerations into the GenAI executive order. Her full story is in Part 1. Who this episode is for * Software engineers who want to do climate work without leaving their current job * Product managers looking to bake sustainability into their roadmap * CTOs and engineering leaders who need a credible, cost-defensible sustainability story * Climate-curious tech workers who feel stuck or unsure where to start * Anyone who wants to understand the actual environmental cost of running AI at scale ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Chapters 0:00 Carbon vs cost: why workforces respond differently 0:32 Welcome: a playbook episode for tech teams 2:14 The 4% problem: tech as much emissions as aviation 3:22 Leboncoin: 85% of half a billion API calls were 404s 9:39 Raptor Maps: 99% data reduction for solar field workers 15:01 Brussels Environment and the search bar story 19:22 Mastercard's $28M GreenOps story 24:28 GreenOps vs FinOps vs DevOps 26:05 You don't need permission 29:09 Water, AI data centers, and the closed loop myth 34:25 How Nolwenn uses AI (and the AI Wattch extension) 37:21 Self-care and eco-anxiety 38:33 Where to find the free playbook ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Resources mentioned * Climate Product Leaders Playbook (free) [https://climateproductleaders.org/playbook] * Carbon 2C [https://carbon2c.com] * Green Software Foundation [https://greensoftware.foundation] * Green IO podcast/conference [https://greenio.tech] * GreenPixie [https://greenpixie.com] * GreenPT [https://greenpt.com] * AI Wattch: Chrome extension [https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ai-wattch-track-your-ai-f/dicpbfeifndejijbnhenndlnbnglkgcl] | GitHub [https://github.com/AIWattch] * Greenspector [https://greenspector.com] * Nolwenn Godard on LinkedIn [https://linkedin.com/in/nolwenngodard] For the full resource list, see the show notes on Substack [https://anyjobcanbeaclimatejob.substack.com/]. A note on the digital emissions stat: ICT is estimated at 1.5-4% of global GHG emissions today; one academic projection estimates this could rise to ~14% by 2040 under business-as-usual growth (Belkhir & Elmeligi, 2018). Disclaimer: This episode is for informational purposes only. Views are the guest's own. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 Listen to the podcast * YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@anyjobcanbeaclimatejob] * Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/any-job-can-be-a-climate-job/id1780900570] * Substack [https://anyjobcanbeaclimatejob.substack.com/] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✨ Work with me For speaking, workshops, and leadership programs: kidoki.com [https://www.kidoki.com] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙 Credits Produced and hosted by Louisa Henry [https://www.linkedin.com/in/louisas/] Edited by Alex Leff [https://www.resilience.org/human-nature-odyssey-podcast/] Music by Run Riot Run [https://www.runriotrun.com/] Logo by Cassidy Frost [https://www.getlostcassidyfrost.com/] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🤝 Sponsor or partner with the show: partnerships@anyjobcanbeaclimatejob.com [partnerships@anyjobcanbeaclimatejob.com] Know someone who thinks their job has nothing to do with climate? Send them this episode.

From Climate Doom to the Redwoods: Alex Sherry on Teaching Hope, One Kid at a Time

Sometimes saving the planet starts with a banana slug on your face.Alex Sherry is a 23-year-old naturalist at Mission Springs Outdoor Education in the Santa Cruz Mountains. We talk about what happens when you put city kids in the redwoods for a week, what it's like to grow up inside the climate crisis instead of watching it approach, and how small moments outside can stick with kids for years.This episode is for teachers, coaches, parents, nannies, or anyone who works with kids. You have more influence than you realize, and Alex has ideas for how to use it. Fun, educational, and just a little outside the comfort zone. In this episode: * The one-week transformation from "afraid of dirt" to eating edible plants off the trail * A food waste system that took one group from 28 pounds to 4 in a week * The Thanksgiving table moment that changed Alex's major * How being outside every day is what actually calms her eco-anxiety * What any adult who works with kids can do starting tomorrow ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ About Mission Springs:Website: https://missionspringsoe.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/missionspringsoe/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Chapters:00:00 Cold open: The banana slug club01:00 Why this conversation stuck with me03:13 The Oakland kids transformation09:41 Comfort zones and how kids grow at camp13:23 The Banana Slug Club Challenge15:50 Food waste: 28 pounds to 424:28 Screen time and Gen Alpha26:28 From climate doom to the redwoods32:48 Advice for anyone who works with kids35:35 What sticks in you?37:29 My closing reflection ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 Listen to the podcast ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠ [https://www.youtube.com/@anyjobcanbeaclimatejob] ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠ [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/any-job-can-be-a-climate-job/id1780900570] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🗞️ Sign up for the ⁠newsletter⁠ [⁠⁠https://anyjobcanbeaclimatejob.substack.com/⁠⁠] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🤝 Partnerships ⁠⁠partnerships@anyjobcanbeaclimatejob.com⁠⁠ [partnerships@anyjobcanbeaclimatejob.com] ✨ Work with me ⁠⁠For speaking, coaching, and workshops⁠ [⁠https://www.kidoki.com] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Know someone who thinks their job has nothing to do with climate? Send them this episode. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🎙 CreditsProduced and hosted by ⁠Louisa Henry⁠ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/louisas/] | Edited by ⁠Alex Leff⁠ [https://www.resilience.org/human-nature-odyssey-podcast/] | Music by ⁠Run Riot Run⁠ [https://www.runriotrun.com/] | Logo by ⁠Cassidy Frost⁠ [https://www.getlostcassidyfrost.com/]

She Wrote California's AI Policy in 60 Days | with Nolwenn Godard

The tech industry talks about AI's carbon footprint. Nolwenn Godard says the real issue is resource limits: energy, water, rare earth minerals. "Tech doesn't want any limit, but the world has limits, nature has limits." Nolwenn spent 13 years at PayPal, where she pitched a carbon calculator that was too early for a US conversation. She went on to help write California's first executive order on Generative AI in just 60 days, fighting to get climate language into the policy. Today she runs Carbon 2C, helping software companies find the massive waste hiding in their own codebases. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ In this episode, we cover: * The physics of why an AI query uses dramatically more energy than a Google search * How she got climate language into California's GenAI executive order in 60 days, and the moment she asked "Am I the only one thinking of this here?" * Why companies are going quiet on climate ("green hushing") even when they still want to act * Her argument that resource limits, not just carbon, are the real environmental cost of AI * Where to start if you're a product manager, engineer, or CTO who wants to find the climate lever in your current role ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ About Nolwenn Godard Nolwenn Godard helps turn tech jobs into climate jobs. After leadership roles at PayPal, SoFi, and California's Office of Data and Innovation, she founded Carbon 2C, her sustainability consultancy for software companies. She co-authored Sustainable by Design: A Playbook for Product Managers [https://climateproductleaders.org/playbook/], leads Green IO US, and co-leads the SF chapter of the Green Software Foundation. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Chapters * 0:00 Intro * 2:07 Growing up with climate at the dinner table * 4:34 From France to Silicon Valley * 6:09 PayGreen: the climate idea PayPal wasn't ready for * 11:34 Traditional AI vs. generative AI and the real cost of AI video * 13:26 Writing California's GenAI executive order in 60 days * 19:49 "Am I the only one thinking of this here?" * 23:02 Founding Carbon 2C * 25:46 Do companies care about green software? * 27:10 Green hushing: the new greenwashing * 29:25 Can change happen without regulation? * 33:38 MasterCard: $28M savings, 47% electricity cut * 36:17 Where to start if you're in tech * 39:30 Moral ambition and the tech industry * 45:52 Where to find Nolwenn ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Resources mentioned * Nolwenn on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/nolwenngodard/⁠] * Carbon 2C [⁠https://www.carbon2c.com/] - Nolwenn's consultancy * Climate Product Leaders Playbook (free) [https://climateproductleaders.org/playbook/] * Resources for a Climate Career (see Tech Stack) [⁠https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ua4bnKay3ssMWXQnGyZv3Qxj9YZ3aaCg/edit#heading=h.vhzpakypxmtk] * Green Software Foundation [https://greensoftware.foundation] * Green IO podcast [https://greenio.tech] * Electricity Maps [https://electricitymaps.com] * AI Watch (browser extension for real-time AI carbon/water tracking) * terra.do [http://terra.do] (climate education) * Climate Fresk [https://climatefresk.org]: a 3 hour workshop to get you up to speed * California Executive Order N-12-23 [https://genai.ca.gov] Disclaimer: This episode is for informational purposes only. Views are the guest’s own, and nothing here should be taken as professional advice. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 Listen to the podcast YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@anyjobcanbeaclimatejob] Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/any-job-can-be-a-climate-job/id1780900570] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🗞️ Sign up for the newsletter https://anyjobcanbeaclimatejob.substack.com/ [https://anyjobcanbeaclimatejob.substack.com/] 🤝 Partnerships partnerships@anyjobcanbeaclimatejob.com [partnerships@anyjobcanbeaclimatejob.com] ✨ Work with me For speaking, coaching, and workshops [⁠https://www.kidoki.com] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙 Credits Produced and hosted by Louisa Henry [https://www.linkedin.com/in/louisas/] Edited by Alex Leff [https://www.resilience.org/human-nature-odyssey-podcast/] Music by Run Riot Run [https://www.runriotrun.com/] Logo by Cassidy Frost [https://www.getlostcassidyfrost.com/⁠]

The Invisible Climate Job Inside Every Building

Building ventilation eats 10% of all US energy — just for temperature. Most systems are on autopilot. Dr. Suresh Dhaniyala (Clarkson University, sensors on the International Space Station) explains how sensor-driven ventilation cuts energy 30-40% while improving the air we breathe. If your work touches buildings, facilities, or public health, your job can be a climate job. In this episode, we cover: * Why CO2, humidity, and particulates matter more than temperature alone * The 10% stat: what's really consuming building energy, and where the savings hide * How smart ventilation delivers better air quality AND lower energy use * The 30-40% energy savings that's already been validated * Who can start now: facilities managers, VPs of operations, building engineers * Three sensors that matter: particulate matter, VOCs, CO2 * How NASA monitors air on the International Space Station * Practical first steps: EPA AQI, indoor sensors, raising the question with your team Who this episode is for: * Facilities managers, VPs of Operations, building engineers * HVAC and public health professionals * Parents concerned about indoor air quality in schools * Anyone whose work touches buildings ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Chapters 0:00 A daughter's asthma attack 0:24 Why buildings matter for climate 1:20 What fills your days? 2:49 Particles you can't see, sensors that can 3:11 Growing up in polluted southern India 4:27 How air moves through buildings 5:20 Relative humidity and why it matters 6:08 What's missing from current air monitoring 7:28 CO2 as an occupancy and infection indicator 9:38 The 10% stat: US energy for building HVAC 12:11 How better measurement reduces climate impact 13:33 Smart ventilation: better air AND lower energy 14:46 Classrooms and offices: variable occupancy 17:04 30-40% energy savings, validated 19:35 Who can start: facilities managers and VPs of operations 21:50 Seeing pollution from above: New Delhi from a plane 25:15 A daughter's asthmatic episode 28:27 Practical tools: EPA AQI, indoor sensors to buy 31:27 Three sensors that matter: PM, VOCs, CO2 31:53 Air quality on the International Space Station 34:10 ISS air: extremely clean and dirty at the same time 36:43 We all have responsibility 38:26 The invisible climate lever ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ About Dr. Suresh Dhaniyala Professor of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering at Clarkson University. Founder of an air quality sensor startup with sensors in commercial buildings and on the International Space Station. Research focuses on airborne particulate matter and affordable sensing technologies. Resources mentioned * EPA Air Quality Index (AQI): https://www.airnow.gov/ [https://www.airnow.gov/] * South Coast Air Quality Management District (sensor performance reviews) https://www.aqmd.gov/aq-spec/evaluations/summary-table [https://www.aqmd.gov/aq-spec/evaluations/summary-table] * Three sensor types to look for: particulate matter (PM), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and CO2 Disclaimer: Views are the guest's own and shared for informational purposes. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎧 Listen to the podcast * Always posted here on Spotify, or: * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@anyjobcanbeaclimatejob [https://www.youtube.com/@anyjobcanbeaclimatejob] * Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/any-job-can-be-a-climate-job/id1780900570 [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/any-job-can-be-a-climate-job/id1780900570] * Substack: https://anyjobcanbeaclimatejob.substack.com/ [https://anyjobcanbeaclimatejob.substack.com/] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙 Credits Produced and hosted by Louisa Henry [https://www.linkedin.com/in/louisas/] Edited by ⁠Alex Leff⁠ [ ⁠https://www.resilience.org/human-nature-odyssey-podcast/⁠] Music by ⁠Run Riot Run [⁠https://www.runriotrun.com/⁠] Logo by Cassidy Frost [https://www.getlostcassidyfrost.com/⁠] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Sponsor or partner with the show: partnerships@anyjobcanbeaclimatejob.com [partnerships@anyjobcanbeaclimatejob.com] Work with Louisa - coaching and advising for founders and leaders: kidoki.com [http://kidoki.com] Know someone who thinks their job has nothing to do with climate? Send them this episode.

Accidental Climate Win: 70,000 Gallons of Jet Fuel Saved Daily

The U.S. Air Force was planning multi-million dollar combat missions on a whiteboard covered in magnets. It took three people, twelve hours every night. A product manager showed up, built a tool in 90 days, and accidentally created one of the biggest climate wins in the Department of Defense. 🌎 This episode is part of Any Job Can Be a Climate Job — a podcast about bringing climate impact into work that isn't labeled "climate." When Eric Schmidt visited the Air Operations Center in Qatar, he found three people spending twelve hours every night planning mid-air refueling missions on a magnetic whiteboard. 70% of those missions were replanned the next morning anyway, and the fix was always the same: put another tanker in the air. Getting a single tanker to altitude costs $200,000. And every gallon of jet fuel releases 20 pounds of CO2. Jason Fraser was at Pivotal Labs when the Air Force came with this problem. His team built a mission planning tool in 90 days. Twelve-hour cycles dropped to two hours; replanning to ten to fifteen minutes. Within 90 days of delivery, at least one tanker was staying grounded every day — and the emissions went with it. Jason never pitched climate. He pitched speed, efficiency, and cost — what the Air Force cared about. Climate came along for the ride. Find the overlap between what your organization needs and what the planet needs, and lead with the former.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ In this episode, we cover: * The magnetic whiteboard running billion-dollar missions — and why it kept failing * Why 70% of missions got replanned daily, and why the fix was always "another tanker" * How Jigsaw got built in 90 days instead of years * Why leading with efficiency (not climate) was the right call * Every gallon = 20 pounds of CO2: the down pillows metaphor that makes it real * The granddaughter frame: "is the carbon cost worth the increase in temperature for my granddaughter?" ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Who this episode is for: * Product managers, engineers, and ops professionals who want their work to connect to climate — without a title change * Anyone inside large institutions wondering whether change is possible from where they sit * Anyone curious about how one of the world's most bureaucratic institutions learned to ship software in 90 days ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ About Jason FraserJason Fraser is an impact strategy consultant, formerly Director of Product Management and Design at Pivotal Labs' public sector division. He's worked with the U.S. Federal Government and the White House Presidential Personnel Office, and serves as a program mentor for the Earthshot Prize. Co-author of Farther, Faster, and Far Less Drama. Find him at missionratio.com [https://missionratio.com/]. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Resources mentioned * Farther, Faster, and Far Less Drama [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Farther-Faster-and-Far-Less-Drama/Janice-Fraser/9781637742891⁠] * Jason's website [https://missionratio.com⁠] * Jigsaw case study [⁠https://www.morganhoosedesign.com/work-case-study/jigsaw⁠] * NATO + the tanker planning app [⁠https://www.airandspaceforces.com/nato-kessel-runs-tanker-planning-app/⁠] * AFRL — Air Force seeks to accelerate efficiency [⁠https://www.afrl.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/2539627/the-air-force-seeks-to-accelerate-efficiency/] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━✨ Work with mehttps://www.kidoki.com [https://www.kidoki.com]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙 CreditsProduced and hosted by Louisa Henry | Edited by Alex Leff | Music by Run Riot Run | Logo by Cassidy Frost━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ The views expressed are Jason Fraser's own and reflect his personal experience; nothing here should be taken as official government policy or professional advice.