WGEG
Tags   
Tags   

Colorado provides the green-print to success

This week, Jay Tipton ventures west to Colorado to investigate how the Centennial State became home to a groundswell of green jobs. As he’ll come to find out, a mixture of public policy, entrepreneurial endeavors, and a love of outdoor recreation provided the perfect formula for massive growth in environmentally friendly start-ups.
-

As a former fossil fuel state that has swung both red and blue, Colorado has become a national leader when it comes to green innovation. To better understand how the state could give rise to so many environmentally-friendly enterprises, Jay speaks with professor of entrepreneurship Jeff York who explains the three factors Colorado has working in its favor: renewable energy standards, an ecosystem of entrepreneurs, and a ubiquitous love of the outdoors. 

Next, Jay sets out to see how businesses of all shapes and sizes came to call Colorado home. In the case of Motili, VP of Sales Matt Sallee reveals how a national HVAC provider pivoted into an energy efficiency operation. On a smaller scale, Eric Adamson of Tortuga Agtech explains why he picked Denver over Silicon Valley as the location to build his crop-picking agricultural robots. And for those of us with homegrown operations, Jay speaks with Ashley Tindall, founder of Soul Bean Roasters, a coffee roasting company with the goal of zero waste, to see how Fort Collins provided the opportunity to wed her passions for coffee and sustainability together.

A trip to Colorado wouldn’t be complete without a trip to the Rockies, and so Jay heads to Aspen to hear from world-renowned environmental activist Auden Schendler about how Colorado’s ski industries are adapting to shorter ski seasons, and to find out what green businesses they have invested in to provide proof of concept for scalable change. Finally, Jay talks to Mario Molina of Protect Our Winters to get a sense of the impact winter recreation has on the local economy.

CREDITS:
Featuring: Jay Tipton, Jeff York, Matt Sallee, Paula DiPerna, Eric Adamson, Ashley Tindall, Auden Schendler, Mario Molina
Produced by: Alicia Clark
Executive Produced by: Melissa Panzer, Joan Lynch, Art Bilger
Written by: Jay Tipton, Alicia Clark, Mike Zunic
Edited and Sound Mixed by: Lynz Floren
Music by: Avocado Junkie
Made possible by: the Walton Family Foundation