Every entrepreneur’s journey starts somewhere; Alex Piaski’s began at the dining room table with his family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States.  For the Piaski household, food wasn’t just about feeding everyone; food was about making sure his family members were more than just roommates. Every day, no matter the circumstances, Alex Piaski’s parents made family dinner a priority. If someone had practice after school, or a club meeting that ran too late, it didn’t matter; dinner would be rescheduled for later so that everyone could make it.

In life, most of us are on a journey to unveil what our true purpose is. Sometimes we envision the path as linear, but as we go through life, we embark on windy turns and unforeseen roads. In the end, most will find that the answer to all our questions was always right in front of them. This was the case for Pankaj Agarwal. After spending close to 20 years in the corporate world, Pankaj could tell that his destiny wasn’t quite fulfilled. He knew he served a deeper purpose, one that gave back to the community that raised him: India.

What could our world look like if everyone were provided the opportunity to learn about their local ecosystem and get to participate in research, knowing that their contributions would lend to a thriving planet? Here’s what it’s like for one entrepreneur who is fully immersed in the work, experiencing a healing ecosystem at the heart while inviting others on her journey.

T. Scott Case is no stranger to entrepreneurship. He started his entrepreneurship journey by mowing neighbors’ lawns at age 12. After his second startup, he became Founding Chief Technology Officer at Priceline, a company that hit over a billion dollars in sales in just two years. Now, he’s applying his entrepreneurship expertise and desire to help the world to solve the greatest challenge of our time: climate change.

Opportunity is brewing.  Four hundred billion cups of coffee are consumed worldwide each year.  In the United States alone, people consume 450 million cups of coffee each day.  That’s a lot of coffee!  In fact, coffee is the most popular addiction with over a billion people worldwide consuming at least one cup daily.

        Local, handmade goods have risen in popularity in recent years amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and growing concerns about climate change. Thanks to the internet, handmade goods are becoming more widely available on platforms like Etsy, and now, Rural Handmade.

Do you ever catch yourself binge-watching a TV show, wanting to snuggle in bed and watch movies on a mindless day off?  Entertainment is valued in our society because it evokes imagination and allows us to decompress from the daily grind. However, Ethereal Films is flipping the script on the way we pass time, providing enriching documentaries to help people understand pertinent environmental problems. Ethereal Films’ founder, Elijah Yetter-Bowman, tries to identify critical stories that connect the dots between environmental factors and disease, with the intention that the showcased information will inspire change.

Many of us know the feeling of leaving a business conference with our pockets filled with business cards and promotional items from A-Z, knowing deep down we will never actually use them. In the business world, corporate swag often lacks unique character or usefulness, and so is rarely used.

Michael Stausholm has an antidote for drab, wasteful office items. Stausholm is the CEO of Sprout, the world’s first and only producer of a pencil you can plant.

It takes a special person to find the silver linings amidst the dark clouds of Covid-19. For Janneke Geven of the Netherlands, the pandemic created the space and time to cultivate an incredible vision for a sustainable yoga and fitness brand.  If not for Covid-19, Janneke, a down to earth entrepreneur, would have never launched her company, Terra Active.

100 million pieces of plastic cutlery are thrown out every day in the United States. An engineer by day and food industry trailblazer by night, Dinesh Tadepalli is on a mission to reduce that number in a fun, innovative, and eco-friendly way. As co-founder of IncrEDIBLE Eats, Tadepalli is reinventing the way we eat our food by replacing single-use plastic cutlery with edible cutlery.

Despite being a leader in the conscious consumer movement for decades and c-suite executive for several leading sustainable brands, it was only recently that John Replogle took the leap of faith on the journey of entrepreneurship.  It takes special person to embrace the uncertainty and risk of launching a sustainable enterprise whether it’s a young rookie or a seasoned executive.  Amidst the twists and turns of his career, no matter the scale of the company, the common thread for Replogle has always been his commitment to sustainability.

“Food upcycling is pretty sexy”, according to Minnesota-based entrepreneur, Sue Marshall, founder of NetZero, a company dedicated to reducing food waste.   Given the resources and embodied energy that goes into growing, processing, packaging, and shipping food, reducing food waste is one of the most impactful ways to combat climate change.