AJ Boyce – Building Green Spaces Where They’re Needed Most

[00:00:10] Dominique: Hello. Welcome to Green Champions.

[00:00:13] Adam: Thanks for joining us in a conversation with real people, making real environmental change in the work that they do. I'm here with Dominique, our sustainability expert.

[00:00:19] Dominique: And I'm so glad to be here alongside Adam, the social enterprise extraordinaire. We bring you guests who saw the potential for impact in their job or community and did something about it.

[00:00:27] Adam: From entrepreneurs to artists, scientists to activists, this podcast is a platform for green champions to share their stories and plant new ideas.

[00:00:33] Dominique: Today, Adam and I are very excited to be joined by AJ Boyce. AJ is an agricultural conservation practitioner with The Nature Conservancy, where he works at the intersection of environment and sustainability and social justice. His work focuses on naturalizing, industrial and agricultural development, creating green solutions that reduce carbon emissions and improve public health, especially looking at the BIPOC communities.

And today we are excited to spotlight AJ as our green champion and discuss his efforts to advance conservation strategies that are both environmentally effective and socially inclusive. Thanks for joining us, AJ.

[00:01:05] AJ Boyce: Thank you. That was a great summary.

I like need that for my bio actually for the future. That was great. 

[00:01:12] Dominique: Well, AJ, let's start by hearing a little about your journey. So what sparked your passion for that kind of work?

Growing up you never know what the world really has to offer, especially when it comes to employment and what are you gonna do? And one thing that I always cared about inherently was just environmentalism, Because growing up in the South Side Chicago, you're very hyperaware of what you don't have access to. At least I was. And so it made me wonder what else is out there? What more can I do? And having two grandmas from, one from Mississippi, one from Alabama, they didn't have access to anything growing up. And so they had to raise all their own livestock, grow all their own food. And hearing their stories about how they had so much autonomy over their diets and over the way they lived their lives was very subtly impactful and it made me recognize how having more of a connection with the environment could really help bolster underserved communities and make us be at a more level playing field where we don't have to rely so much on government programs and things that clearly are not built to benefit us. That's amazing. I mean, that's also feels very unique.what inspired them? Do you know? 

I think like they just grew up in a time where if they didn't grow their own food, they weren't going to eat. And nowadays we're getting back to a time where with the price of food, if you aren't trying to subsidize your own diet, you might not have a fully nutritious diet. So I think it's just that necessity became a privilege that is now becoming a necessity again. And that cyclical loop, I think also speaks to the generational gap that we speak about within BIPOC communities and agriculturalism.

[00:02:42] AJ Boyce: A lot of our grandmothers and our grandfathers were really a part of this, whether they be sharecroppers and they had no choice so they need to produce their own food. And then people got away from the land and now we're realizing that the land is there to take care of us. It's not there to inhibit us or to make us feel as though we're less than anyone else in society. And so I think putting value on the land that puts value upon us is just super important.

[00:03:01] Dominique: So were you taught a lot about gardening and how to interact with 

[00:03:06] AJ Boyce: Not Not at all.

[00:03:06] Dominique: You just saw it happening, but you, maybe weren't taught that much? 

[00:03:08] AJ Boyce: I was always the oddball in the family for caring at all. They thought that was rather peculiar.

[00:03:13] Dominique: I have a hard time. If I care about something, I care about it. And there are so many things that I don't care about. And so like, when I find something I do care about, I'm like, "All right, let's stick with this." There are so many other ways to be sustainable, right? And to integrate it into our life. But that was never part of the conversations growing up, or even within my schooling.

[00:03:30] AJ Boyce: I guess one thing that really helped is I took an AP biology class in my junior year of high school, and that talked about ecology, and that was the first way I thought about environmentalism in a way that was integrated and all connected, and that helped me wanna pursue that more within my career. But growing up, not much exposure.

[00:03:48] Adam: What is an ecology degree and what do you learn in that?

[00:03:51] AJ Boyce: Right. So I went to a small liberal arts school and my degree is in Environmental Studies, Natural Sciencesecology is essentially, I think of it as the science of ecosystem interactions. And you could look at it from multiple scales, whether that be just the microclimates that happen on the shaded side of a rock and the different microbiota that lived there. Or you have large, like massive, macro ecology, where we're looking at entire rainforest and how those rainforests connect to the watershed and how the precipitation and the wind currents all affect the precipitation that like leads to the vegetative growth. Oh my God. Okay. Yeah, I'm getting excited.

[00:04:23] Dominique: Good.

[00:04:24] AJ Boyce: So, yeah. And so

[00:04:25] Dominique: You should.

[00:04:26] AJ Boyce: It's just And the beauty about ecology is that you can take it at whichever scale you want it to be at. And one thing that helped me become a practical ecologist was thinking about agricultural ecology. So like how do like the different plants within a garden scape interact with one another, and what different things can we plant to then bolster that? And how does that also relate to the immediate environment around what should planting those agricultural landscapes? But it can look like anything. It's just looking at how things interact with one another and it's 

beautiful.

[00:04:57] Dominique: I'm curious about your degree and like what in college as you got deeper into understanding the interactions with nature within itself, but also with people. Was there like a light bulb moment?

[00:05:09] AJ Boyce: Yeah, totally actually. The first three years I was just taking any ecology class I could because we didn't have a set ecology degree. And then I went abroad and I studied tropical ecology. And that's when I got introduced to Agroforestry, which I never thought of would ever come back to and now that's like a large part of my job. 

[00:05:26] Adam: Where abroad?

[00:05:27] AJ Boyce: Panama and Costa Rica. And it was really awesome because you would spend like a different week within each ecosystem that you were studying. So you weren't just at one place, you had multiple homesteads. So if you're studying cloud forest, you're in a cloud forest. If you're studying some type of like coastal ecology, we were scuba diving every day. So it was really, really cool experience. SIT, School for International Training, plug them. Please go, go sign up for that.

My senior year, I took an agricultural ecology class and that helped me realize that I could have a focus on the environment that could also impact people. 'Cause I used to have a really hard time trying to integrate those two. So it felt like two very separate worlds. And that was the first time where I was like, I can see myself practically doing this without trying to be focused on science and academia and all of that elitism while actually just being like on the ground impacting people that look like me and trying to put them into a different mindset that they can then also empower themselves.

[00:06:16] Adam: Have you seen somewhere in your travels like where they do that really well?

[00:06:20] AJ Boyce: i'd say South Side Chicago is really great, 

We're like one of the leaders in urban agriculture in the nation. We, I'm from Chicago. That's why I'm saying we. I realize we're not in Chicago right now. 

[00:06:28] Dominique: You are Chicago.

[00:06:29] AJ Boyce: Yeah. But yeah, there's a lot of cool things happening there. And then when it comes to trying to integrate ecosystems, like agricultural ecosystems into natural ecosystems, a lot of the practices that we're advancing in North America are borrowed from indigenous communities that happen to be within like Asia, Africa, and Central and South America. And so there are a lot of examples of communities that like in their front yard, they have a food forest, and that's just how people live their lives. 

[00:06:54] Dominique: It sounds like a big part of where your heart is with some of this environmental work is like how it interacts with communities.So when you think about like nature and what it means to consider groups that are traditionally excluded from those areas and really need nature to be including them on their side, aiding in their survival, can you tell us more about that? Can you explain it to someone who might be like, "I don't get how those things connect." 

[00:07:17] AJ Boyce: Yeah.

It's a really hard concept for people to conceptualize, but everything is nature. We are nature. I think of cities as being nothing more than a human ant colony. You could just self-impose all these different natural concepts onto the human world. We're not that different. So thinking about the fact that all of our resources come from nature is also very important, which I'm just like, so if you need to care about your phones, if you care about your laptops or your air conditioning units, well, you better care about conservation because without those resources, you're not gonna have that if you're not being sustainably produced.

And so try to bring it to what people care about is a little bit easier. But then for me, like inherently, it's just about everything in this world relies upon this. And the beauty of nature is that it doesn't need me. Like it doesn't need any of us. And if humans continue on the track that we continue to, the earth will still be here, we won't.

And so I also try to explain that to people. I'm like, I'm not an environmentalist for the earth's sake. It's for our sake. It's very, very anthropomorphic and selfish, in nature. And so therefore, if you were to be selfish, you would also care about nature as well.

[00:08:22] Dominique: Well, I think that is a mindset shift, and that's honestly really interesting. right now, there's a lot of things that feel loud and scary, But I think like it does sometimes feel like the world of sustainability is fighting the love of convenience, the love of like selfishness. And so for you to spin that on its head, I just think is very interesting. You know, reframing that of if you were invested in your own survival, you would respect her. 

[00:08:45] AJ Boyce: You would really be respecting her. Yeah.

[00:08:48] Dominique: I'm curious, like if someone's listening and feeling like environmental science feels really big. Maybe they kill all their plants, maybe they can't grow a single thing in their garden. 

What do you think is like some ways to start really understanding nature or feeling connected? I mean, I think a simple thing we've heard guests say, "Just get outside, just go be in spaces." What were some early things that started to be light bulbs for you along the way? 

[00:09:12] AJ Boyce: Yeah.

 It's a vast environmental, anything is very, very vast. It's about figuring out like what you would want to do. I care about recycling, I just don't wanna do it. So I think having exposure, like those people said, those simple answers going outside is really, really useful. One thing I do is I just try to grow people gardens. So like at my home, my mom, I plant a garden for her every year.

And now that I don't live there, she's forced to go out there. And so she's seeing the different bugs and I'm like, "Oh, that's actually a cabbage moth. You should kill that one." But like just seeing her get tangible and now she's like planting perennial plants around the yard. So I think just having a little bit of a inkling of someone to introduce them is really helpful as well. Someone knows a little bit of what they're doing.

And that's why I also love like museums because even if "I hate outside and I hate bugs," well perhaps you could enjoy the science behind it 'cause that's what encouraged me. Going to museums and just being the annoying kid that read every single plaque. But that was me all the time. Going to zoos, going to conservatories, going to preserves, and then also trying to, one thing I really would've helped me growing up is like having camps like and having access to different programs that focus on youth and getting youth within the outdoor spaces, because those are so, so fun. And I think you need to frame all this within a way that is fun. It's not a labor, it's not a burden. It's like you doing something you enjoy and getting something actively out of it. like for me, I'm like getting my hands in the garden. Or for some people that's like flipping rocks over in the creek and looking at the different invertebrates 

 everyone can find something in nature to care about. It's what is your interest? What is your special thing that you care about?

[00:10:55] Dominique: You're gonna make a bunch of kids run around parks and flip rocks.

[00:10:58] AJ Boyce: I, you know, so long as they don't do it too crazy. I support that.

[00:11:02] Adam: You said you had a track record of, of making a garden in your family's home. What did that look like? 

[00:11:08] AJ Boyce: Yeah, I'd say it started 2017 'cause I was doing work, on the South Side Chicago transforming abandoned lots into community gardens. And using a lot of that was for flower production but we had just started to work on food forest. Then the pandemic hit and everyone was like, "Okay, food." And I was like, yeah, we need food. So I just took it upon myself to plant a garden at my mom's house and my friend's house. And then by posting that stuff on social media, people started to ask me, "Hey, could you come over and build a garden in my house?" 

before you were planting flowers in these community gardens, was that just for the enjoyment of having that space or were you those flowers being used for something?

Yeah, so that was for a nonprofit in the South Side of Chicago, and the purpose of that was to develop skills for at-risk youth. I would work with a different group of youth. They would be like, have a lot of the same faces but different groups often that were either in like risk for juvenile detention or some type of gang violence. And we would bring them into the gardens and try to develop like their hands on skills, how they become more of like a farm manager. And then also bringing youth that were involved with, say church ministry groups, and providing them also like that mentorship and that leadership. And then the flowers we would sell them and a lot of them would go towards like bouquets for banquets or weddings or making flower walls. it was just growing the flowers, focusing on skill development for the youth, and then also trying to support the nonprofit to have more capacity through the sales of the flowers.

[00:12:42] Adam: That's really cool. I mean, just selfishly from my, my own background working with youth who are experiencing homelessness, I'm curious like what kind of transformation you saw from the youth that you work with?

[00:12:51] AJ Boyce: I think it's so important for people to want to be in a space, right? And so obviously there are people who are like, "I hate this." And I was like, "I get it, dude. I would hate it too if I didn't want to be here." And then there are those others that really just took to it. And you could just see that they were like really good workers

 there were like a few that really just kept me going and it was hard because these people still were challenged every single day with like food insecurity, with homelessness. Seeing them show up when they can't even really fully be a person it's so difficult, but still they were doing it. They were really, really inspiring.

[00:13:23] Adam: I like how that ties into the rest of us as well, right? So one thing that you're saying is, "Hey, just get out in nature and find what calls to you". And maybe that's working in your garden. Maybe it's flipping over stones

[00:13:32] Dominique: I also think that you clearly have leaned in your own journey into just like showing up and doing stuff and getting out there. It's very motivating, I think that is like a really big testament to how much you've allowed yourself to learn. Like even traveling to like other places, which sounds like it was cool, but still kind of hard you to going through new communities and new cultures and putting yourself literally out there. It also has different ways to make learning about this stuff fun. Because it should be. 

[00:13:57] AJ Boyce: Yeah. And it is weird how often I get asked like, "Why do you care about this stuff?" from people. Like from when I was like a kid up, even until now I'm in professional spaces and I don't love getting the question 'cause I'm like, isn't it obvious? Like, why are you here? But at the same time, I guess sharing a little bit helps open people's minds. And if I can do that, I'll take that as well. 

[00:14:22] Dominique: Well, and you, like, you take for granted, and I do the same thing. We previously had recorded an episode, like our very first two episodes of the podcast were adam's kind of journey and his purpose for being here and mine, it was like getting a chance to meet the hosts type of episode, but ended up being really hard because we were asking each other 'why?' back and forth. And I was like, I hate this. Like I don't know how to tell someone why I am doing something 'cause I just care about it.

[00:14:45] Adam: And you, It seems like you've always had this spark and it's like you knew that spark. I had this 20 year career in technology where I was like trying to find my spark for 20 years of what do I actually want to do? And I had to work at it. So like some people seem to just like naturally know "

[00:14:58] Dominique: it is really valuable to hear someone else and what 

was 

[00:15:02] AJ Boyce: a light bulb 

[00:15:02] Dominique: for them, 

[00:15:03] AJ Boyce: because yeah, 

[00:15:04] Dominique: it can really open your mind to like a new 

way 

[00:15:07] AJ Boyce: of looking at something. 

[00:15:08] Dominique: So.

[00:15:09] AJ Boyce: I'm glad you mentioned that, because

I'm super grateful to caring about the environment because it does really, I think, translate to every single other aspect of my life where it allows me to think outside of the box where I don't have to follow the norms, where my interactions with people, my relationships with others, and the way that I think about myself in this world is all focused on the environment, which has no rules.

And that's the beauty of it. And yeah, I, I'm so grateful I was just telling, talking to my mom the other day and I was like, "I get paid to care about the environment. That's crazy. And y'all thought it was dumb." Look who's laughing now.

 So, yeah, I'm really grateful to have something that i've been able to focus all of my life around, yet I still feel fulfilled.

[00:15:51] Dominique: That's cool. And speaking of that, what led you to the nature Conservancy?

[00:15:54] AJ Boyce: So it was when the pandemic was coming to a close and I was like, "All right AJ, what's the next step for you?" I wanted to have a little bit more of a larger impact. So I was like, how could I scale up? And The Nature Conservancy, they look at a much, much bigger picture. And it felt like a way that I could take these concepts and not just think about how to work on one plot by one plot.

However, I could work with organizations that are handling multiple plots, right? Because a lot of my job is about partnership creation and like networking. And so therefore we could bring a lot more resources than I could ever as a solo employee of a very, very beginner nonprofit because I'm able to leverage all the things that we currently have, but I could bring a perspective that they have not had historically.

So then trying to be able to influence where, what do we consider conservation? Who do we engage with in conservation? What does that even look like? What does equitable conservation? And those are just very, very simple questions and simple answers that I had. However, once working at a large, you're like, oh, these things aren't so simple for some people. Okay. Well let's work through this together. So 

yeah, that's kind of sort of I get there. 

[00:17:01] Dominique: How would you describe the Nature Conservancy's role in the world of conservation? 

[00:17:07] AJ Boyce: The Nature Conservancy is the largest environmental nonprofit in the world in over 72 countries and territories. each state has their own teams that work independently. However, we're also, I believe, the third largest landholder in North America. A lot of it can be detrimental in that it is preserving land, but also not giving people access to that land, right? Because you're preserving it. You're not allowing for hunting or fishing or for the natural resources like natural recreation to be done there.

However, a lot of people also have a great perception because they are focused on that natural aspect, like of the preservation, like looking at the butterflies and the salamanders and the gophers. 

And since I've been there, they have been looking at themselves a lot more intensely, you know, being a lot more reflective and I think that's changing the way that they do their work. It's guiding their work in a different way that I think will be a lot more profitable for the communities that they interact with instead of just the them themselves in the future. 

[00:18:04] Dominique: What kinds of groups collaborate together underneath or with the Nature conservancy? 

[00:18:10] AJ Boyce: A lot of people that we work with are also, let's say, university partners or government agencies, like the Ohio Department of Natural Resources or Division of Forestry. And we work with these people to try to develop programming that can impact people on the local level.

 And then figure out like, how can you work with us? But also how can we work with you?the Nature Conservancy tries to figure out how to best impact communities, but oftentimes we don't have community input. And I feel as though if we were to open a two-way line of communication when people came to us and said, these are the things that we would like to see, then we could have a lot more impactful work. So I encourage people to reach out to us more because we need to work outside of our current organizational and educational nonprofit partners.

[00:18:55] Adam: So it sounds like some of that is just building that two-way communication of understanding, hey, here's people's needs, but here's also the resources and abilities to connect them to nature. And kind of further what you're 

[00:19:06] AJ Boyce: Mm-hmm. 

[00:19:06] Adam: that.

[00:19:07] Dominique: And you've described your work, I think as naturalizing, industrial and agricultural development. What does that mean in practice and what drew you to that intersection? 

[00:19:17] AJ Boyce: Yeah, so for me that means more application of natural concepts. And that gets back into that ecology of things, right? 

So it's trying to bring things back to a way of making it natural, where you don't have to require so much infrastructure and things that are economically draining because you're working with the environment. And the environment, like we said, you're paying for the resources all the time, but that's also because you're not working with them. And so if you work with the resources that you already have on your land that you might find that you have a lot easier time interacting with it.

And then when it comes to, of industrialization, there's, I think a lot to be done with, like trying to create green spaces within cities. We talk about reforestation or afforestation, creating green spaces where there weren't previously. And then also trying to be more sustainable with our design. 

So that way you have climate controlled environments without having to rely on furnaces and air conditioning units. So it's just all about how can we make things less time consuming, resource extractive and economically unprofitable.

[00:20:22] Dominique: That's really cool.we did an episode about sustainable agriculture and sustainable design in terms of buildings, and it really is like just a no brainer.

 So that's super cool that you're seeing enough of that to make you 

[00:20:31] AJ Boyce: feel 

 Yeah. And I would say Southern Ohio is pretty awesome in that there's some weird people down there. And I love 'em all.

they're just like some really innovative minds that aren't beholden to the Western standard. And they're willing to think outside the box. 

[00:20:47] Adam: Do you, do you drive a lot? Is that a big part of your role?

[00:20:50] AJ Boyce: Oh, for work? no. no work from home. Yeah. For fun, yeah. Like I was just in West Virginia doing some rock climbing and cliff jumping

Let's hear your hobbies. What else you do?

Okay. I guess my main things are like trail running, rock climbing, snowboarding. And then after that would be like plant id.

I'm trying to get more into like water recreation, so like paddle boarding and kayaking, so that way I can do more deep water soloing, which is just rock climbing without a rope over a lake, which I did over the weekend. It was awesome.

[00:21:20] Dominique: Where'd you do that?

[00:21:20] AJ Boyce: In West Virginia it's at Summersville Lake. It's part of the New River Gorge, which is 

 the newest national park in North America. And it has a wide range of activities you can do there Going from rock climbing to whitewater rafting or mountain biking. And it's just a beautiful area within West Virginia.

I 

like do 

[00:21:39] Dominique: rock 

climbing, 

but 

I have 

not 

rock 

climbed over 

water. 

So 

tip, taken. 

[00:21:43] AJ Boyce: Yes. 

It's fun. 

[00:21:44] Dominique: That's cool, Honestly. 

Okay. 

I'm curious to ask you, in your opinion, like what's the biggest issue motivating you right now? 

[00:21:52] AJ Boyce: I think I, my biggest issue right now is complacency and ignorance. And that people feel so removed from systems that directly affect them and they don't recognize the ways in which they're being harmed and injustices occur. And that grinds my gears a lot. So I think trying to make those connections between the communities that are most impacted by policies 

[00:22:16] Adam: So is most of that done by just showing up in the communities, talking to people? What sort of things pull people in and help reduce that ignorance the most?

[00:22:24] AJ Boyce: I'd say talking to people, having the, that initial spark so that way people like recognize that there are larger issues that they can be a part of. 

So one really like tangible example for is that in our work with Agraria Center for Regenerative Practice, which is also a great place, plug them, is that they were working with a group of primarily BIPOC farmers to develop their agricultural skills and their business management skills so that way they could have a viable farm business.

And then out of the course of that, we started talking a little lot more about how policy affects the funding that directly goes towards the proliferation of BIPOC farms. Then out of that, we birthed a BIPOC policy farmer fellowship, where a lot of the farmers who were within that first cohort also then applied to become more policy educated.

And so they were meeting with legislators at the State House and trying to figure out what policies are impacting me, how can I go to contact my representatives, you know, and how does legislation impact me and how can I make comments on that?

[00:23:22] Adam: Actually being able to pull people into the whole policy generation that are affected by the policy and have them as part of that conversation.

[00:23:29] AJ Boyce: I can represent people all day, but it's not as impactful as for someone who is directly being impacted to show up to speak to their senator or whoever that they can speak to, to tell their story.

[00:23:43] Dominique: And how has your own identity and background shaped the way that you show up in this space and the things that you really wanted to advocate for in conservation? 

[00:23:52] AJ Boyce: I recognize that impact doesn't rely on the largest area. And so a lot of my internal strife when I first got into inside the world of conservation was trying to prioritizing place over people. And for me, it's really, really important to think about the people first because then if you have a more, a better connection with the people, then you have a much, much easier time supporting the place, especially if those people live in that place.

And so I've been trying to change our perspective at work to focus more on like smaller growers, people who are focusing on feeding their like local communities. And so that's been a large part of my being super hyper localized that's how my background has shaped my work, which was not really being done at my job before, but we're now looking at that a lot more. 

[00:24:46] Adam: It's been really fun, hearing your whole journey, So where you started from being inspired by your grandparents, growing their own food to going off to school, starting to make your own gardens. And then getting into , a position with the Nature Conservancy where you are helping bring other people into that conversation and helping connect them with the policy and the things that they can do.

But most of all, this theme of getting people out into nature where there are no rules, and allowing them to discover it for themselves, 

[00:25:10] Dominique: I think you made the idea of getting outside feel like safe and fun, which I appreciate. What advice would you have for young professionals, maybe especially from underrepresented backgrounds in these spaces that wanna get more involved in climate or conservation? 

[00:25:24] AJ Boyce: I think that oftentimes we feel as though we're going at this alone. I was focused so much on my schooling and like getting straight A's that I felt I didn't focus on networking and being personable. And so I was like, left a drift after graduating.

And I think that for younger people it's so important to recognize what opportunities exist and what people are around you, what organizations already exist because there's a lot of people doing a lot of great work and we don't all have to reinvent the wheel or start from ground zero.

So try to like plug in on social media, try to volunteer at different organizations, see what you can find out because that might help lead you in the right direction that a lot of people just don't know what opportunities are around them.

There's so many, so many cool bIPOC-led environmental and outdoor recreational organizationswhenever they have things in my area, I go to them. like I also volunteer for Outdoor Afro and I take black communities out into the outdoor recreational excursions all the time.

So just seeing how can you become more plugged in and then meet so many awesome, cool people that would just blow your horizons out of the water 'cause you just never knew what could be done.

[00:26:33] Adam: Speaking of like social media, where can people follow you and get engaged and support the, the work that you're doing?

[00:26:39] AJ Boyce: Go to the Columbus Outdoor Afro Facebook page. You can join that. You could also go to the Nature Conservancy of Ohio website, and you could reach out to us there. And so that, that way you could reach me and my volunteer in my professional way. And then personally, I am @homestead_heaux.

[00:26:54] Adam: Underscore heaux is H-E-A-U-X, like faux.

[00:26:59] Dominique: Cool. Thanks Thanks for chatting today. 

[00:27:00] AJ Boyce: I'm 

very 

excited to 

get 

into 

the 

rest 

of 

your 

[00:27:02] Dominique: story next time. 

[00:27:03] Adam: As always, our guests have found a unique way to champion sustainability. We are here to put real names and stories behind the idea that no matter your background, career, or interests, you really can contribute in the fight against climate change.

[00:27:14] Dominique: You can find our episodes at thegreenchampions.com. If you wanna stay in the loop, give us a review and follow us on your favorite podcast platform. If you have questions about climate change or sustainability, you can reach us on our website, thegreenchampions.com. Our music is by zayn dweik Thanks listening to Green Champions, We'll be digging into the rest of AJ's success story in on our next episode.