How much circularity can one company squeeze out of a toothpaste tube?

That’s the mouthwatering challenge taken on by Colgate Palmolive, the iconic 220-year-old company whose chief sustainability officer, Ann Tracy, has been leading the charge to make Colgate toothpaste tubes not just recyclable, but potentially turned back into new tubes.

It’s not just toothpaste, as Tracy told us. If the process works with toothpaste it can work with its other products, from household cleaners to skincare products and more.

Also in this episode, we assess this moment in the sustainability profession, including the critical need for telling new and better stories.

Financial services is high on the list of the most fascinating and challenging sectors for sustainability. Ellen Jackowski, Chief Sustainability Officer at Mastercard, is one of the sector's leaders. In just a few years at the financial services giant, she's helped pioneer approaches to using payment systems to inspire, inform and enable change at a mass scale.

Jackowski talks about her company's role in effecting systemic change and shares several examples of how the company innovates solutions for its customers and banking partners.

Also in this episode, Soli and Joel discuss the state of greenwashing and greenhushing, including how much of it is a distraction from more ambitious sustainability work that companies need to do.

Hawken's latest book, “Carbon: The Book of Life,” explores carbon's role in living systems, not just an evil gas contributing to climate change. He criticizes the climate movement for objectifying carbon and advocates for a shift in narrative from fear to possibility. Hawken highlights the limitations of technological solutions like direct air capture and bioenergy carbon capture systems and encourages a focus on local, grassroots efforts and individual actions, stressing the need for gratitude and wonder in our relationship with the natural world.

Also in this episode, Soli and Joel discuss the role of neurodivergence in sustainability.

“I'm excited for this moment,” Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., president and CEO of the Hip Hop Caucus, an advocacy group that works for racial, economic and climate justice, told us right off the bat. “It's a tough moment, but I'm excited for it,” he said, citing the group’s 20-year history of harnessing culture and storytelling to “shape our political experience.”

In this episode of the Two Steps Forward podcast, Yearwood reflected on his organization's journey leveraging culture to address major social and environmental challenges, particularly those impacting frontline communities.

The tech giant’s chief sustainability officer reflects on how she’ll make the most of this critical time in the two decades since she’s been working to advance sustainability, in the debut episode of our biweekly podcast Two Steps Forward.

Soon to celebrate 10 years at Google — preceded by sustainability leadership roles at the White House and Defense Department — Kate Brandt, the chief sustainability officer at Google, talked with my co-host Solitaire Townsend, co-founder and “chief solutionist” at Futerra, and me in a wide-ranging conversation about this moment in sustainable business and the role of technology in accelerating sustainability goals.