Digital Infrastructure: United in Carbon Accounting and Reductions ft. Miranda Gardiner (iMasons Climate Accord)

How many of us have heard and even believe that technology is going to play an important role in creating a more resilient future?

I certainly include myself in this group, and at the same time I often wonder what kind of pressure we are putting on data centers and beyond as we search and code our way to these solutions.

What I do find encouraging is that some of the largest tech players have also been the largest proponents to trying to find ways to reduce our impact. But they cannot do it alone. In fact, a key part of the success we have seen so far is thanks to these very players coming together to try and find collective solutions.

Our next guest sheds light on a key organization helping to create this collaboration behind the scenes: Miranda Gardiner, Executive Director of the iMasons Climate Accord.

With over 16 years of experience, Miranda brings extensive industry knowledge in green buildings, energy and water efficiency, and sustainable master plans and policies.  She most recently served as the Global Manager, Data Center Sustainability at Meta, Inc. where she led the sustainability strategy for the entirety of their  Data Centers, including LEED® Gold certification for every facility  as well as site-specific pilot projects such as  Material Circularity and low-carbon concrete.

In 2020, Miranda was recognized by the US Green Building Council as a LEED Fellow – the highest recognition achievable for aLEED professional in the green building industry, recognizing outstanding accomplishments and marking a career high point.

The iMasons Climate Accord was founded in 2022 as a coalition of companies and individuals united on carbon reduction in digital infrastructure. Now, with almost 300 member companies, the ICA is focused on driving significant changes to reduce our environmental impact through the lenses of Materials, Equipment, and Power

In this episode, Miranda and host Lauren Scott discuss the genesis of the iMasons Climate Accord, its work in reducing the sector’s environmental impact, and its emphasis on a common methodology for carbon accounting. Miranda also shares how her background in architecture overlaps with the world of digital infrastructure, how sustainability in the built space it tackled around the world, and more.

If you are listening to this podcast, you are leveraging the digital infrastructure of this world. So get ready to learn about the incredible work being done behind the scenes to help reduce our collective environmental impact as we use technology to educate, develop and implement the resiliency tools needed for our business, communities and planet. 

[Host: Lauren Scott] Welcome back to another episode of The Resilience Report. I'm really genuinely excited for this episode because we have so many of our guests who intersect, I would say, between sustainability and technology. We often dive deep into their respective areas, but behind all of this, there is this true infrastructure. Many of us know it's there, we know we're interacting with it on a regular basis, but we don't necessarily always dive into the sustainability implications of the digital infrastructure. Some of us might be more familiar with terms like data centers or subsets of that. I do think the media is starting to get a little bit of interest in this area to dive in a little bit deeper. We know as things like AI get more and more prevalent in our solutions that we need to have these considerations in mind as well. So we've had a number of guests write in and ask us to dive in a little bit deeper, and I don't think we could have a better guest to talk about this topic. So with that, welcome to The Resilience Report, Miranda.

Thank you, Lauren, for having me. I'm excited to be here today.

Well, to that end, I think the term digital infrastructure—I'm more familiar, at least in the day-to-day, talking about data centers—but I know it is broader than that. Again, I think all of our listeners, if they have a phone or if they've sent an email, have interacted with this infrastructure, but they maybe don't necessarily know what it encompasses. So can you speak to maybe the terminology behind all of this?

Absolutely, and I like that you phrased it that way because it's often how I talk about digital infrastructure to those not in this space, especially somebody like my just newly minted 16-year-old stepson. He just turned 16 yesterday, and when we talk about this, I'm like, "Are you using your phone? Are you on Spotify, or are you using any of the streaming services?" because he's sort of familiar, like we all are, with the buzzword of the cloud. But the cloud is not a physical space. It really is rooted in digital infrastructure in the sense that your data center houses it. You have a lot of things like cabling, whether it's SBC or your power cabling, getting into the space and kind of getting the equipment up and running, which then puts together what we see again on the back end, or the front end if you will—our videos or our music or anything like that. It really is the foundation for everything in the digital economy: businesses, people, connecting, all of us. I know that sounds very wide-ranging, but it really is. Your medical records that you access when you're at a doctor's visit, when you're on your credit card and you're looking at your statement—all of this comes through that broader digital infrastructure space.

Our work, when it comes to sustainability, tends to focus on the brick and mortar of it, meaning the actual buildings of the data centers. But as I said, there's so much more that really relates to anything else that we think about in our daily lives when we're looking and working, no matter how intense or less so we are in the space. I hope that gave some clarity to what we're talking about.

It does. So then I would love to dive in a little bit more into your specific role. You work for an organization called iMasons, which I would love if you could dive into specifically. And then within your role, you are really focused on the Climate Accord that is an integral part of the organization. For those who are less familiar with it, could you help catch our listeners up to speed on those two different concepts?

Sure. The iMasons, or Infrastructure Masons, for short, is a global nonprofit. It's been around almost a decade for professionals in the digital infrastructure space. It really connects everyone from front-end delivery partners—so those in engineering, architecture, construction (again, for the data centers)—to the big tech players in this space: Meta, Microsoft, Google, AWS, you know, and it runs the gamut everywhere in between. We kind of touched on it a little bit: those that serve the power sources, those that are in government and regulatory frameworks. The iMasons themselves are individuals—those are the members of the iMasons—with four pillars that they really tend to look at: technology or innovation, education and what the workforce pipeline is going forward with, inclusion (which also stems out to veterans, workforce, those coming from the armed forces as well as women), and then, of course, last but not least, sustainability.

So the sustainability pillar, and those really kind of all ingrained in this, was when all of them sat down with our global advisory council about three years ago now, realizing how much more responsibility they had towards the actions of climate change and our world, our environment. They launched the initiative called the Climate Accord, which is, as you noted, what I run now. This is a space where now our members are companies—almost 300 of them—with the goal of being on a carbon reduction journey. The ultimate target is net-zero carbon emissions, as outlined in the Paris Climate Accord—hence why it's called the Climate Accord. We're really making strides when we talk and look at all of our initiatives around power, equipment, and materials.

One thing that I find so unique about sustainability overall, and then specific to your group and your work, is that in all other areas of business, it feels like we're so competitive. But when it comes to sustainability—and you probably feel this when you go to a sustainability conference—it feels like we are all in this together. So while your businesses might be competitors, we recognize we have a common goal, and so that kind of overrides the bottom-line-only approach of being competition and makes us really realize that there's such deep value in collaboration. 

I know collaboration is really a key concept to iMason's Climate Accord. Could you speak to that a little bit further? Because especially when you see some of the groups that you're working with, I think in every other way they are probably competitors, but you're bringing them together for this incredible work.

I love that question, and I love that that's what you're taking away from our early discussions. Look at the Climate Accord itself—it is one of our core tenets: this collaborative effort paired with transparency that these companies and organizations realize, as we like to say, it's a team sport. It's not going to get done alone, no matter how big of a company you are, no matter how many resources you have. These are things that work together and, when they don't, really work in counter to each other to drive things like emissions reductions, energy efficiency, or resource-efficient use. So, there are a number of examples that we could get into. This last year, though, has been, for me, quite exciting to see how much they're taking that concept to heart. We were even in a session recently at the Yotta24 conference in Las Vegas on the main stage, and that main stage panel included Schneider Electric, Google, Microsoft, and Meta. Oftentimes, to your point about them being competitors, they sometimes are, or again, they work in spaces that overlap. To see them all on stage talking about these issues together really felt like a great moment, and a warming moment, that this is now everyone getting that message clearly.

And it's so important too, I think, with the power of that level of organization to bring the brightest minds together to try to find solutions. I know one of the solutions that your organization is trying to think through is finding a common methodology or at least an approach when it comes to emissions reductions. I know when we're talking about the digital infrastructure space, that is often a concern that gets bubbled up: as we're using them more and more, is this going to result in an increase in emissions? I think if we go status quo, it would. However, with all of these organizations trying to find those solutions and the common methodology, that seems to be an important piece in the conversations.

Absolutely. To be fair, a lot of companies have been very honest with their public, especially in the last six months or year, that emissions are going up, which I appreciate. In the past, we've seen funny math, avoidance of the topic, or just trying to skirt around an issue when it comes to these questions. If you look at half a dozen ESG reports over the last year, as I said, you'll notice that they have put in their report, "We are 30%, 40% over the baselines that we set, that at this point we should be seeing going the other way." That is large in part due to how much digital infrastructure is growing right now. It is at a very rapid pace. A lot of it has to do with generative AI. The Climate Accord launched prior to generative AI, and yet now we're seeing this acceleration of it. 

So two pieces of work that I'm really proud of and are set to launch: one in January, which is a maturity model, and this is coming from all of our members who have worked together to look at those three areas I noted before: power, equipment, and materials. What are the various levels and tiers that companies should be striving to get to when they are looking at their climate change solutions and, again, their public commitments?

The second part is a project in collaboration that we started last January with the Open Compute Foundation, and this has to do with actual carbon disclosure labels. It's really part and parcel to Open Compute Foundation's area of equipment, and so that is kind of one of those big black holes right now when you're trying to report on your Scope 3 emissions—the materials in the equipment, again, how much power they're using, etc., etc. And so we're really diving into both of those two pieces of work to ensure that, again, there's a road map for anyone who joins us and is on this journey with us together.

I would love to dive into those three areas. So you mentioned equipment, materials, and power, and you have working groups dedicated to looking at these three different topics. Maybe you can take one at a time just to help our listeners better understand some of the good work that is happening in each of these spaces. And I'm just personally very curious from an equipment standpoint, when you're looking at that within the digital infrastructure, is that specific to trying to get better energy efficiency, or what do those conversations look like, and where are you trying to dive in deeper with your members?

Yeah, all of the above. When we talk about equipment, we really are looking at both IT equipment—so servers, processors, what you would find in the data center itself, in the data halls—and then, of course, MEP equipment. How are we cooling and heating these spaces? And that's my background, the built environment, so I get really nerded out on what's going on in the systems on that front. And then, luckily, I have so many experts that know what's going on in the tech space and the IT space that they bring that, and then, you know, we kind of bring it all together.

The goal for that equipment pillar is really the decarbonization of both, again, the materials that are going into it and the efficiencies and the processes that are serving on that. When we're talking about the materials, it's the brick and mortar of the facilities that we look at. And so sometimes I'll chat with people and say, like, yes, it's great that your equipment's efficient, but if your building envelope isn't performing, then it almost doesn't matter. You're trying to Band-Aid a solution by overdoing, again, the sizing of the equipment or looking at it in ways that, you know, can be a lot more holistic and almost communicating within its own space. If your building envelope's great, then of course you have better ways to manage the humidity, that cooling, again the heating—those kinds of things coming out of the equipment.

And then when you're talking about the power, it's really the power that sources all of this—looking at clean power, green power, renewables. I say these separately because for a lot of people and a lot of organizations, these do mean different things. Something like nuclear—not renewable necessarily, but it is a cleaner source; the emissions are much lower than something like traditional oil and gas or coal. And then when you talk about renewables, we're talking solar, we're talking windmills, we're talking, you know, those kinds of traditional renewable sources that most people are familiar with.

The one thing that I will say is that, with all of these cases, resources are limited. We have a finite amount of resources, so how we can be better about using any one of these pillars—and ultimately all of them together—is going to drive that emission reduction the other way versus what we're seeing in that growth of IT or the increase in IT.

And one of those areas too, specific to the materials—I've been seeing this more and more, and I think in speaking with different guests from Europe, it seems like it's almost common practice and it's coming now to North America—is Environmental Product Disclosures. And so, for our listeners who are less familiar with this concept, it is really the idea that as you are sourcing different materials or looking at the environmental details about the individual products—and I believe it is Meta that recently came out and said that they are looking for all of their suppliers to start providing this information with regard to EPDs, Environmental Product Disclosures. Is that something you're seeing more and more, and is that part of that transparency journey?

We do see more of it. It's not at the place that we need it to be. We even actually issued—coming from the governing body this year—so my governing body is made up of Meta, Google, AWS, Microsoft, Digital Realty, and Schneider Electric. They all, in July, signed an open letter and call to action on EPDs. And the reason for that is—and you've noted a little bit with Europe—we need third-party declarations, and we need third-party verification of the information that we are reporting on and going into our buildings. Without that, it effectively becomes greenwashing. There is no source of truth behind the information that we're reporting on. There is no baseline to indicate, "This is why these are, you know, apples-to-apples comparisons." Instead, we're seeing various methodologies, various calculations, not using the same databases—it goes on.

And some of this is we just need the information. So oftentimes, an EPD, while it comes from an LCA—a Life Cycle Analysis or Life Cycle Assessment depending on who you talk to—which looks at factors like resource use, waste generation, emissions, transportation of materials—that, again, gets compiled into the EPD, third-party verified, and published. That's an enormous process. If you can kind of hear that in the process itself, just saying it in a very simple way—it takes time, it takes cost, it takes energy and effort. If those EPDs don't pass the test, your LCA doesn't pass the test, and companies get concerned that they don't look great, they don't look up to snuff. Sometimes they don't share all of that information. And so it's part of what we're trying to kind of break through. Nobody is perfect at this right now. Nobody is doing this 100% wrong. We are all in kind of a place where we need to be better.

Back to your point about collaboration—better about collaborating on it—so we can understand what we don't know and what we do know, and be better about it when we bring all of that together in terms of comparisons, building assessments, certifications, or, in the case right now, EPDs, and getting the information out there.

I love that approach that you're taking. Just as a side note, and I think that's so often when we talk about things like greenwashing or not providing all the information, I don't think there are people kind of evilly sitting behind the scenes. It is really just that we haven't had the resources in place and the common vocabulary or methodology. And so it's great to see that organizations and groups and coalitions are coming together with this approach. So it's fantastic to hear. 

It's really exciting—I'm not going to lie. I've been working in this space for a long time. We've been talking about everything we're talking about today. So to see it move at the scale and speed that we're seeing it now go is, yeah, it just gives me a lot of hope for what we're going to be able to do in the future.

And you bring a really unique lens, I think, probably to the space in the sense that you've lived and worked in all different areas of the world. Certainly here in North America, in the US and in Canada—I know also in Germany and Europe and the Middle East. Is the way we look at sustainability, specifically within the built space—have you seen that there is a difference, and are we starting to come together maybe with a more holistic view, or does it seem to still be a little bit different depending on where you're working?

There's always going to be regional variances on the work that we do. You know, we bring up Europe often because Europe and California tend to set the standard when it comes to environmental regulations. You look at anything from, like, the Clean Air Act in the '70s, you look at now the EU Green Claims Directive. These are the "sticks" that are sort of pushing the market in a way that sometimes they don't necessarily like—but know, we need to get there.

And then of course on the, you know, the kind of next steps—what are those carrots? What are the incentives that get companies to do this? With more and more globalization of the work that we do—again, I've noted some of the big companies that are involved in the Climate Accord, or just ones that we know that are maybe not in it but benefit from digital infrastructure—now you need a global approach to your sustainability efforts.

And so I often will tell companies, or indicate to companies, that if you are playing in that space, look at what the EU is doing. Look at what California is doing, because the likelihood is that's going to drive everything else in the market. Be prepared for it, plan for it. At that sort of—I don't want to say worst-case scenario. In my mind, it's the best-case scenario that we're all doing this and there doesn't need to be regulatory action. But looking at it to direct how you then approach your supply chain, how you approach—you know, we just talked about it—the EPDs, how you approach various components of your strategy so it becomes a global strategy. And again, then it gets into the variance or nuance when you're in your regional markets.

And another unique lens is that you are coming to this work with training and a background as an architect. I thought this was fascinating when I was researching for this conversation, because when I think of architecture work—and I'm a junkie of Architectural Digest on YouTube, so if you ever wondered who subscribes to that channel, I'm definitely that person—but I've always thought of that space as being so human-centric and thinking about the human within the space.

Now you're working in the digital infrastructure, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but I often think of digital infrastructure as almost removing so much of that human experience. So what has that been like, merging those two worlds together? And again, please correct me if I'm wrong about that interpretation.

You're not. You know, if you ever see a TV show, and they poke fun at or have an indicator of who the tech professionals are, or the data center employees, they're usually pretty spot on. It can be very isolating. You know, a lot of these super-smart engineers in software and tech tend to be a little more introverted. You know, they're very much into their programming and their work. And I say this with a lot of love—my parents worked in Silicon Valley for 20-some odd years when I was growing up, so I know and have been around this space for a very long time, even though, you're right, my background and my training is in architecture.

What I like about it is it really marries performance goals with the built environment and the space that humans are experiencing. So no matter how you engage with your space, you do want it to be somewhere where you feel comfortable, where you feel safe, where you can do your work. It’s sort of that inclusion in the physical environment versus one in the mental space.

But then what it does for your mental well-being really keeps you coming back to work and wanting to be there and doing this stuff. So yes, data centers are not often staffed with a lot of personnel in the way that we see, say, a commercial office space. You know, it's a different dynamic there.

But it is a dynamic that when you get into a data center and you see the people working there and engaging and enjoying it, they love being there, and they want to be there. So, you know, who am I to say, "Well, you're not in a traditional office environment the way I know it?" Instead, you are in a different space. How can I help and make sure it's a space that is socially sustainable, that is, you know, again, a place where you want to continue to come to work and do these amazing things that we need you to do?

So I love that it does both of those. I get sometimes a little frustrated when it's just about the aesthetics of a building versus the actual engagement and experience of whomever is working in there. Whether it's one person or, you know, 500 of us, it really gives me a lot of joy to help on that scale.

That is fascinating. I'm definitely going to try and watch some of those shows now that you're saying that to see what that profile looks like. But to your point, whether it's five employees or 500, you want to make sure that it is functional and that it actually takes care. I love that you're even thinking about the physical but also the mental well-being of those in that space.

Yeah, and data centers, again, depending on the design—if you look at it, if you ever get a chance to go look at a data center, they'll take you through the full administrative hall of them. Actually, a great one for anyone who's listening: if you ever fly into Dulles Airport outside of Washington, D.C., "Data Center Alley" or "Data Center Core" is all of Northern Virginia. I think you're on— I think it's the right side of the plane if you're looking down as you lead in. Those are all data center facility footprints, and you can see the various kinds of shapes, how these data centers are built.

There is one design—you know, Meta's data center. Sometimes they're shaped like an "H," so you'll have the data centers, and then in the middle will be the data center hall itself and that administrative facility. That is very much designed for human and user experience versus the data halls themselves and the actual kind of places where you're seeing more of the equipment.

And so when you get into those, that feels a lot more like, "Where is the daylight?" or "Where is maybe artwork?" Or again, if they needed food—cafeterias, other things that become a lot more engaging for the people that are there and working. I've seen ones, too, that, of course, make sure there are equitable practices for moms that are there. Or, you know, oftentimes people will get a migraine and need a quiet room. They have started to build out and design those spaces.

Because of everything that's going on in sustainability—it's a LEED-certified building or it's a GBI-certified space—those have criteria that go into the wellness components of the employee. So again, it becomes this really wonderful mix of architecture, sustainability, tech, and then all the resources that we need coming out of the facilities.

Again, as I say, go take a look in Data Center Alley because you get a lot of them by density. I can't—I don’t know it offhand—but by density, it's the most data centers that we've got right there.

Super interesting. And I'm sure you are working on so many interesting projects, in part just because it's moving so quickly in the space. But is there one or two things that come to mind that just are super exciting projects for you—things that light you up, where you wake up in the morning and you're feeling energized about those specific projects?

I get up every day really excited. That's a hard question for me to answer, mostly because it's such hard work, and yet we get to come and work with friends. There's a very good quote—and I'm going to probably butcher it—by Dr. Paul Farmer, who passed away a couple of years ago. He was an infectious disease expert. He launched a number of public health initiatives, really feeling like health practices need to be equitable.

A student or an intern one time asked him, like, "Why do you keep coming and doing this? You see a lot of sadness in the world, you see a lot of, you know, disparity between wealth—all the things." And he said, "Because, you know, doing hard work with our friends kind of is this."

And I say that because I have met so many incredible experts who bring so many things to the table. Because I can't be an expert in everything. I was saying it this week—I just went to a power conference, and it went right over my head. Like, very little of that made sense to me. You know, Open Compute—same thing. I go in and hear these tech people talk about some things that they're working on, and I have no idea what they're talking about, or little to no idea.

Which is great, because it means, "Hey, I don't know what this is, but you do. Come help me work on these problems."

So I guess, to your original question about the projects that I'm excited about, especially for next year: as I said, our maturity model is going to be launched in January. Where that goes for next steps—how we assist in education components, tools, using that maturity model for certifications that are already out there to inform them, "This is what's going on in data centers and digital infrastructure." Instead of adapting from, say, a residential practice or commercial facility, now you've really got the nuts and bolts of what's happening in the data center. So that's a pretty exciting one to get off the ground. That was actually an initiative of the Climate Accord when it launched, so to see it now, before the three-year mark, get off the ground—I’m really happy and pumped to have that occur.

I would say the other one is that we're going to do a lot more partnerships with events that are out there to bring the content outside of just digital infrastructure or just sustainability. Sometimes those events get siloed into various areas. Now we're going to see it on kind of a bigger scale and make sure that different folks get involved.

Private equity—we were at Climate Week this year, so we got to hear from people that do things in the food space or the film space. I mean, the industries that digital touches are so wide-ranging. To get out into more of those events, more of those opportunities to share the information, is something I'm looking forward to in 2025. And we're building that up over the next couple of weeks before we get into the new year, which is shocking to say already.

It's actually—I'm just thinking this now—it's probably very unique in your space in the sense that both sustainability and digital infrastructure literally span every single industry. So you could show up at every single conference and be so relevant because those two themes do just go across every single organization.

Absolutely. I mean, the power conference I was at this week—it was Reuters' 2024 North American Energy Transition event in Houston—was an amazing event. I really learned a lot. These are power energy experts. They are talking about things like, again, regulatory issues or what's going on in their market. The hot topic was data centers because of how much load and how much use we have and need on the grid.

What does that look like for a transitioning market? What does it look like in a transitioning government right now, too? So how does all of this play into your point—digital and sustainability? So it was really, really great to hear from those leaders this week and those companies. Because, again, that's not my expertise. And so to kind of see the dots already being connected—and we’re barely scratching the surface with the work that we're doing—again, it gives me a lot of hope and a lot of excitement for the opportunities ahead.

Very exciting. I don't know if it's going to cut down on your travel at all, if you're saying you're so happy to finally be home. It sounds like next year you'll probably be traveling even more!

You're clearly very passionate about the sustainability space and weaving it into your work. Was there a specific moment in time where you realized that you wanted to formally integrate sustainability into your job, or did it kind of happen organically over the years?

If you asked my parents, they would say that it's been around for a long time—and that's thanks to them. You know, I grew up in San Francisco. I also grew up in Germany. My parents have distinct recollections of California before clean air acts and bills were passed. There was kind of smog covering everything. If you look back, especially into the '70s and early '80s, you see what our air quality looked like.

So they kind of had a sense of it; they already knew. I have memories of going to Golden Gate Park when your rec program was at a facility right by Kezar Stadium there and sorting all of your recycling. "Where is your green glass going? Where is your brown glass going?" And then, obviously, San Francisco was one of those early adopters of having citywide recycling, curbside recycling, curbside compost.

So it's kind of been my background to be excited and interested in this. And my mom, actually, a couple of years ago, found a yearbook from when I was in elementary school. And it was something about, like, "What is your wish for the future?" And as an 8-year-old, I said that there would be no pollution and that everyone would have a home.

So, to your question—I think this may have been from the jump that I knew I was going to be involved in this.

Infrastructure—built infrastructure. You were there with the home side too!

I was there with the home side. I went to, actually, a tech arts high school in San Francisco. The endowment is in all the students taking the tech arts. You know, oftentimes, when you see somebody in a film or a TV show and they're taking shop, they're sort of the "bad kid," or the kid that, you know, isn’t academically inclined. But they go and build stuff in the wood shop.

This is like the flip of that. Every single person in that school—you had to come out taking wood shop, metal shop, machine shop. I would encourage anybody listening—if you have a kid that can take any of those classes or all of them—do it. Learning how to work with your hands is so important. It's really fun. It is extremely hard work and very technical.

So many kudos to the people that do it well because I don't—I’m shop-phobic. I don't like the band saw, I don't like the lathe. I'm scared I'm going to hurt myself terribly. But we had to take all those classes, and then you had to do in-depth projects in your sophomore year. So I took stained glass, and I took drafting and design—architecture. And then you had to do a senior project.

Well, this concept of digital infrastructure—we started off the conversation by saying most people probably use it, but they maybe don't totally recognize that they use it every day. But it is such a deep part of our day-to-day lives.

So in knowing that, and in knowing that it is a little bit complex, is there any specific takeaway that you would like for our listeners to keep in mind as they step away from this episode?

Great question—great way to wrap this up. Two things.

One is: be aware and mindful of anything that you're using in resources. Whether it's digital infrastructure, or, you know, what you eat, what you purchase—I mean, as has been kind of noted a couple of times—we do have a finite amount of resources on this planet. And I don't say this in the way of, "I'm going to blame a customer or a user." We all have needs; we all have things that we need to do in our daily lives for our children, for our families, for our colleagues, and our friends.

You know, have the life that you need. Don't take this burden on yourself. There are big corporations that can do a lot more, and that's where we're pushing them to do a lot more—to be better about this. But to have that kind of mindfulness about your own use in your daily life, I think, is just something for everyone to be aware of.

And I would say the second piece of it is: get involved. Find the thing that drives you and that you're passionate about, and kind of get into that space. Is it local government? Is it, again, community action? Is it just something that you want to, you know, do for yourself? You know, get more into meditation? Take that on.

Because it really—it does become a holistic approach to everything going on in your life. It's something that I take very seriously in my own, and it's something that I think if more of us were aware of and engaged in, I think we'd be a lot better as a society—in terms of dialogues, in terms of working together on things that are really critical for our future.

And if our listeners would like to learn more about your work—whether it's iMasons more generally, and more specifically The Climate Accord—where would you direct them?

I would direct them to our website: climateaccord.org. I can say this—climateaccord.org. Very easy. There's a lot of information about what we talked about today—our community, how to get involved. It also has some links back to the larger iMasons, too. So if folks are interested in that, it's imasons.org.

And just finally—thank you so much for this conversation. I think it's been super exciting. Again, I just think you have such a fascinating approach that you're bringing to the industry, and I'm so happy that you're talking about it. It takes the best minds and all these different experiences to come together to find a solution. So I'm really happy that you personally are part of this movement.

We do like to end every episode with the same question, just to get all of us to think towards this idea of resilience. But what do you think it will take, in those general strokes, for businesses and leaders to be resilient going forward?

It will take all of us asking hard questions and leaning into hard discussions. This is not an easy space that we're in right now—no matter how you look at this economically, politically, or sustainability-wise. So for it to be—as I said before—kind of a team effort, it's a team effort on a lot of fronts.

Ask the questions. Be sure that you are an engaged participant. That drives the leaders and businesses to respond to that. And the more vocal we are, the more they're going to have to engage in that resilient conversation.

Thank you so much, Miranda. It's been amazing speaking with you today.

Lauren, thank you so much for the invite. I had a great time.