Andrew Shakman is the CEO of Leanpath, a company on a mission to make food waste prevention everyday practice in professional kitchens worldwide. Before any of that, he was a child actor, a film school graduate, and a digital marketer selling Cap'n Crunch on the early internet.

Andrew Shakman did not set out to work in sustainability. He set out to tell stories that mattered. What drew him, from early childhood through film school and into his career, was a hunger for meaning and a fascination with how things work. His father was a preventive medicine pioneer writing about food and health in the 1970s, long before the medical world caught up. It took Andrew ten years of running Leanpath to realize he had followed the same instinct into a different field. That kind of slow, earned self-awareness runs all through his story.

What makes Andrew's background so interesting is how little of it looks deliberate from the outside. Theater in college. An MFA in film producing. One of the first digital marketing agencies on the early internet, where he happened to land food and beverage clients. Each chapter looks like a detour until Andrew connects the dots himself, and suddenly the whole thing makes sense. By the time he stumbled into food waste, he had already spent years learning how to build things, how to bring people along, and how to make a complex problem feel urgent to someone who has never thought about it before. He calls it baking a four-layer cake: get people to care about food waste, convince them prevention beats composting, show them measurement is the path to prevention, then make the case for automation. Most conversations never made it past the first layer. It turned out those were exactly the skills that problem needed.

Episode at a Glance

00:54 Why Storytelling Is the Most Powerful Tool for Change
03:27 The "Prevention" seed: Growing up in a mission-driven home
05:02 From Film School to the Early Internet
07:17 How Food Brands Changed Everything
12:53 The Four-Layer Cake of Food Waste Analogy
19:18 Leadership lessons learned from training "problem horses"

About Andrew Shakman

Andrew Shakman is the co-founder and CEO of Leanpath, the global leader in food waste prevention technology for foodservice operations. With a background spanning theater, film producing, and early internet digital marketing, Andrew brings a distinctly human-centered lens to one of the most consequential environmental challenges of our time. Under his leadership, Leanpath has grown into an enterprise platform used in over 50 countries, helping some of the world's largest food service and hospitality organizations measure, understand, and dramatically reduce the food they waste.

Connect with Andrew Shakman and his work

• Andrew Shakman on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-shakman-3861/
• Leanpath → leanpath.com

Send us a message!

Nancy Zavada returns for part two of her Green Champions conversation, this time pulling back the curtain on the actual work behind sustainable events. As president of MeetGreen, Nancy has saved clients $7.8 million in sustainability-driven decisions and cut $2.5 million in aisle carpet alone from a single event last year. This episode is a masterclass in making the business case for doing things better.

On a cross-country flight, she ordered tea in economy and got a styrofoam cup, a plastic stir stick, and a sugar packet. On the way back, upgraded to first class, the same tea arrived in a china cup with a silver spoon and a sugar cube. That airline wasn't trying to be sustainable. They were trying to be elegant. Nancy's point is that we've somehow convinced ourselves that sustainability means sacrifice, when the most refined, considered experiences have always been the most efficient.

The practical strategies Nancy shares in this episode are the kind that stick. The Clean Plate Club, which turns food waste reduction into a community game at multi-day conferences. The stone-in-a-jar voting system that replaced conference swag with charitable giving. The carbon uncalculator MeetGreen built during COVID to show clients exactly how much emissions they avoided by going virtual. And the emerging Hub and Spoke event model that she believes is the next major shift in how organizations gather. Each idea is grounded in the same philosophy: reduce first, always. Then measure, share the data, and let the numbers do the talking.

Episode in a glance

02:08 The internal focus group: Balancing logistics with sustainability
04:54 Rebranding Green: Why first class is the ultimate sustainability model
06:46 The Clean Plate Club: Gamifying food waste at scale
14:00 The $7.8M Business Case: Saving money through intentional reduction
23:44 The Hub and Spoke: Why the future of gathering is regional

About Nancy Zavada

Nancy Zavada is the Founder and President of MeetGreen, a firm dedicated to providing sustainable event management and consulting for some of the world's most recognizable brands. With over three decades of experience, Nancy is a recognized leader in the industry, helping organizations reduce their environmental footprint while maintaining high-quality attendee experiences. She is an Oregon native, a lifelong environmentalist, and a passionate mentor to the next generation of green event professionals.

Connect with Nancy Zavada and her work

• Email → nancy@meetgreen.com
• LinkedIn → Nancy Zavada
• Company Website → MeetGreen

Send us a message!

Nancy Zavada is the founder and president of MeetGreen, a sustainable event agency that has spent over 30 years helping organizations design and deliver events that are both environmentally responsible and genuinely exceptional.

Nancy grew up on the Oregon Coast, where recycling wasn't a trend but a way of life. She never set out to start a company. She was simply an event planner who noticed something she couldn't unsee: a single five-day conference for 2,500 people would generate 31,000 styrofoam cups destined straight for the landfill. That moment didn't just bother her. It moved her. She made one different ordering decision, told everyone about it, and never looked back. That's the kind of founder Nancy is. Not the type chasing product market fit, but the type whose values simply outgrew the room she was in.

What followed was 32 years of building MeetGreen into a firm that serves clients from 300-person workshops to 60,000-person global conferences across Singapore, Brazil, Denmark, and beyond. Nancy shares the practical wisdom behind her approach: find the champion in every room, lead with education, and always make the business case. She also offers a beautifully simple piece of advice for young sustainability professionals: don't try to take on the world. Pick one thing. Get really good at it. Then pick the next one.

Episode in a glance

00:10 Meet the Woman Who's Been Greening Events Since Before It Was a Thing
03:16 31,000 Styrofoam Cups in One Week: The Moment That Started It All
06:03 Before It Was Called Sustainability: Pioneering Green Meetings in 1994
08:57 Still an Accidental Founder After 32 Years: The MeetGreen Origin Story
13:13 How COVID Forced the Events Industry to Finally Catch Up
16:15 Pick One Thing, Get Really Good at It, Then Pick the Next One

About Nancy Zavada

Nancy Zavada is the Founder and President of MeetGreen, a firm dedicated to providing sustainable event management and consulting for some of the world's most recognizable brands. With over three decades of experience, Nancy is a recognized leader in the industry, helping organizations reduce their environmental footprint while maintaining high-quality attendee experiences. She is an Oregon native, a lifelong environmentalist, and a passionate mentor to the next generation of green event professionals.

Connect with Nancy Zavada and her work

• Email → nancy@meetgreen.com
• LinkedIn → Nancy Zavada
• Company Website → MeetGreen

Send us a message!

Karimah Hudda, founder of Illumine Earth, returns for part two of her conversation with Dominique and Christy. After exploring her roots, Karimah dives into her "champion story." From the mountains of Indonesia to the boardrooms of global giants, she shares the tactical moves and mindset shifts required to rebalance power in global supply chains and lead with purpose. Karimah recounts a powerful story from Aceh, Indonesia, where a simple shift in strategic planning allowed 100 farmers to fundamentally change their relationship with exporters. It’s a vivid reminder that real impact isn’t about doing the work for people, it’s about providing the tools for them to unleash their own potential. Karimah challenges the idea that systems change has to be slow and complicated, offering a refreshing mantra for anyone trying to make a difference: simplify, believe in people, and stay messy.

The conversation also tackles the corporate "survival guide" for sustainability leaders. Karimah breaks down her signature framework for driving change without burning out. She explains why you must learn the "language of the business" (because the business won't learn yours) and how to balance personal, enterprise, and industry leadership.

Episode in a glance

04:56 From guerrilla warriors to expert coffee negotiators
08:28 Karimah's mantra: Simplify, believe in people, and stay messy
16:47 The challenge of passing the torch in long-term work
19:51 The 3 Pillars: Personal, Enterprise, and Industry leadership
22:38 Unlearning burnout: Why sustainability leaders must "flourish"

About Karimah Hudda

Karimah Hudda is the founder of Illumine Earth, a consultancy focused on helping leaders navigate complexity and drive systems change. With over 20 years of experience, she has led sustainability initiatives for global brands, non-profits, and community-based organizations. Karimah is a passionate advocate for equity and has lived, worked, and traveled in nearly 50 countries, bringing a truly global perspective to the fight for a more sustainable and just world.

Connect with Karimah Hudda and her work

Website → illumine.earth

LinkedIn → Karimah Hudda

Send us a message!

Karimah Hudda, founder of Illumine Earth, has spent two decades working where sustainability, leadership, and global systems meet. She discuss how her multicultural upbringing and work across 50 countries shaped her approach to equity. Karimah shares how she navigates the complexities of power to turn core values into real-world action.

Why do we introduce ourselves by our titles instead of our roots? For Karimah Hudda, the journey didn’t start in a boardroom. It started with her grandmother’s courage in a small Indian village. Karimah shares how a legacy of compassion and a belief in "shared humanity" led her from studying microbiology to transforming global supply chains. She takes us behind the scenes of the Fairtrade movement, explaining how simple shifts in equity can change the lives of hundreds of thousands of farmers.

But how do you bring that grassroots mission into a massive corporation? Karimah pulls back the curtain on her time at giants like Mondelēz and Nike, revealing the "messy" reality of corporate sustainability. From flying to Zurich weekly to land a global coffee strategy, to using satellites to track the world’s palm oil, she shares what it actually takes to move the needle within a corporate hierarchy.

Episode in a glance

01:03 More than a title: Who are you really?
04:54 Giving up medicine for global impact
09:46 Behind the scenes of the Fairtrade movement
13:31 Going "In-House": Corporate life at Mondelēz
21:07 Using satellites to solve the Palm Oil problem
23:45 How to get noticed in the sustainability world

About Karimah Hudda

Karimah Hudda is the founder of Illumine Earth, a consultancy focused on helping leaders navigate complexity and drive systems change. With over 20 years of experience, she has led sustainability initiatives for global brands, non-profits, and community-based organizations. Karimah is a passionate advocate for equity and has lived, worked, and traveled in nearly 50 countries, bringing a truly global perspective to the fight for a more sustainable and just world.

Connect with Karimah Hudda and her work

Website → illumine.earth

LinkedIn → Karimah Hudda

Send us a message!

Season 5 is here, and we have some exciting news. Christy Cook is officially joining Green Champions as co-host! You may already know Christy from her previous guest appearance, and now she's here to stay. If you're missing the voice of former co-host Adam Morris, don't worry. You can still catch him on his podcast, People Helping People, on all listening platforms.

So who is Christy? She's a sustainability consultant and entrepreneur with over twenty years of experience in corporate sustainability, ESG, and customer success, having worked with major players like Walmart, Sodexo, and the UN Environment Program. She's also been a mentor and trusted sounding board for Dominique behind the scenes for years, so this partnership has been a long time coming.

In this intro episode, Dominique and Christy share a little about what makes them tick. Christy's light bulb moment traces back to her time at Emory University, where she got to explore how food systems could create a real sense of place and community on campus and realized sustainability could actually be a career. Dominique's "why" is a little closer to her heart: her family. With relatives living on an island directly impacted by climate change, protecting the planet feels like a personal responsibility, not just a professional one.

Together, they bring different lenses to the work. Christy with her big-picture corporate perspective, Dominique with her engineer's instinct for building processes that are replicable and scalable. As they look forward to Season 5, they promise to explore uncharted territory. From the sustainability of our sports stadiums to the hidden figures in our food systems, all while maintaining the heartwarming, real-world storytelling that has defined the first 100 episodes of Green Champions.

Episode in a glance

00:21 Meet the New Co-Host: Christy Cook
01:57 Dominique's Process-Driven Approach
04:20 Celebrating 100 Episodes and the Season 5 Roadmap
06:10 Finding Our "Why"
10:11 The Power of Creativity and Family
12:09 What's Coming This Season

About Christy Cook

Christy Cook is a sustainability consultant and entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in corporate sustainability, ESG, and customer success. She has helped some of the world’s largest organizations—including the United Nations Environment Program, Sodexo, and Walmart—take meaningful action. A mentor and advocate, Christy is driven by a deep curiosity about lived experiences and how they can be leveraged to create a more sustainable world.

About Dominique Hadad

Dominique Hadad is the founder of Green Scope Consulting and a process-oriented engineer who uses her skills to help government and enterprise clients develop replicable sustainability programs. A winner of the Ohio State University President’s Prize, Dominique is dedicated to making climate action go further through data measurement and strategic program development.

Connect with Green Champions

Website → thegreenchampions.com

Instagram → @greenchampionspod

LinkedIn → Green Champions Podcast

Learn more about Green Scope Consulting → Green Scope Consulting

Follow Adam’s Podcast → People Helping People Podcast

Learn more about InvestHER Strategies → InvestHER Strategies

Send us a message!

Lauren Koch, Sustainability Senior Program Manager at Mars Veterinary Health, is a passionate advocate for purpose-driven work and a champion for sustainability in the healthcare sector. She delves into her impactful work, sharing how she has successfully navigated the complexities of both human and animal healthcare to create lasting, sustainable change.

Lauren gives us an inside look at her passion for driving waste reduction responsible pharmaceutical stewardship, and more, Lauren explains the unique ways biodiversity is addressed in the veterinary world, from creating pollinator gardens at clinics to ensuring the proper disposal of pharmaceuticals to protect local ecosystems.

She provides a masterclass in advocating for sustainability within large organizations, detailing projects focused on recycling, waste prevention through reusable sterilization tins, and reducing the carbon footprint of anesthetic gases. Lauren draws fascinating parallels between her current role and her previous work at the OSU Wexner Medical Center, sharing the powerful story of a two-year project to implement reusable sharps containers, a seemingly simple change that diverted 70 tons of waste annually. Finally, Lauren reflects on what keeps her optimistic, highlighting the deep commitment to sustainability at Mars and the power of working for a purpose-driven company.

Episode in a glance

00:57 Lauren’s Role at Mars Veterinary Health
03:03 What is Biodiversity in the Veterinary World?
06:19 The Net Zero Journey in Healthcare
10:34 A Champion Story The Reusable Sharps Container Project
16:41 The Immense Scale of Healthcare Waste
21:51 What Keeps Lauren Hopeful and Optimistic

About Lauren Koch

Lauren Koch is the Sustainability Senior Program Manager at Mars Veterinary Health, where she leads initiatives to create a more sustainable future for pets, people, and the planet. With a diverse background that spans business, public policy, and environmental science, she is a passionate advocate for data-driven strategies and collaborative action. Lauren's journey is a powerful reminder that a career with impact is always within reach if you're willing to ask questions, build relationships, and never stop learning.

Connect with Lauren Koch and her work:

Lauren Koch LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-koch-oh/

Mars Veterinary Health → https://marsveterinary.com

Mars Veterinary Health Sustainability Report → https://www.marsveterinary.com/media/uploads/2025/01/Mars-Veterinary-Health-2024-Environmental-Sustainability-Report.pdf

Green Building Article → https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283624285_Energy_performance_of_campus_LeedR_buildings_Implications_for_green_building_and_energy_policy

Health Care Without Harm → https://noharm.org/

Practice Greenhealth → https://practicegreenhealth.org/

Green Columbus → https://www.greencbus.org/

FLOW (Friends of the Lower Olentangy Watershed) → https://www.olentangywatershed.org/

Send us a message!

Lauren Koch, Sustainability Senior Program Manager at Mars Veterinary Health, is a passionate advocate for purpose-driven work and a champion for sustainability in the healthcare sector. Lauren shares the story of how a viewing of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" during a moment of career uncertainty ignited her passion for environmental action. She recounts her decision to return to Ohio State University to pursue a dual Master's degree, where a conversation with the legendary Neil Drobny opened her eyes to the world of sustainability in business. This "aha" moment set her on a path that would combine her business acumen with her deep desire to make a positive impact.

She discusses her early work at the OSU Wexner Medical Center, where she began weaving sustainability into her role as an office manager, researching best practices, and building a case for a dedicated sustainability program. This initiative and her volunteer work with local organizations like Green Columbus and FLOW (Friends of the Lower Olentangy Watershed) paved the way for her role at Health Care Without Harm and Practice Greenhealth. Lauren offers invaluable advice for those looking to break into the sustainability field, emphasizing the power of volunteering, seeking informational interviews, and the importance of "paying it forward." She also explores the complex, and often surprising, parallels between human healthcare and veterinary health, and the universal challenges and strategies for implementing sustainability in a clinical setting.

Episode in a glance

00:59 An "Inconvenient Truth" and a New Career Path
04:09 The GEICO Program That Taught Her About Purpose
06:38 From Office Manager to Sustainability Advocate
08:41 Advice for Aspiring Sustainability Professionals
14:06 Navigating the Safety vs. Sustainability Conversation
18:13 The Surprising Similarities Between Human and Animal Healthcare

About Lauren Koch

Lauren Koch is the Sustainability Senior Program Manager at Mars Veterinary Health, where she leads initiatives to create a more sustainable future for pets, people, and the planet. With a diverse background that spans business, public policy, and environmental science, she is a passionate advocate for data-driven strategies and collaborative action. Lauren's journey is a powerful reminder that a career with impact is always within reach if you're willing to ask questions, build relationships, and never stop learning.

Connect with Lauren Koch and her work:

Lauren Koch LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-koch-oh/

Mars Veterinary Health → https://www.marsveterinary.com/

Mars Veterinary Health Sustainability Report → https://www.marsveterinary.com/media/uploads/2025/01/Mars-Veterinary-Health-2024-Environmental-Sustainability-Report.pdf

Green Building article → (PDF) Energy performance of campus Leed® buildings: Implications for green building and energy policy

Health Care Without Harm → https://noharm.org/

Practice Greenhealth → https://practicegreenhealth.org/

Green Columbus → https://www.greencbus.org/

FLOW (Friends of the Lower Olentangy Watershed) → https://www.olentangywatershed.org/

Send us a message!