From the Ground Up - Composting Programs That are Leading Zero Waste
Track
Zero Waste
Speakers
Moderator
Nick Lapis, Californians Against Waste
Title
Director of Advocacy
Leveraging CA's New Compost Regulations for Scaling Carbon Sequestration
Track
Zero Waste
Speakers
John Wick, Zero Foodprint
Title
Board Member
Speaker Biography
John Wick co-founded the Marin Carbon Project and the Carbon Cycle Institute (CCI) and is a founding Board member of Project Drawdown. He helped to fund the development of COMET-Planner and has contributed research to NRCS Conservation Practice Standards and advocated for CDFA’s Healthy Soils Initiative and related laws. He is the co-owner of Nicasio Native Grass Ranch with his wife, Peggy Rathmann.
Abstract Title
Leveraging CA's New Compost Regulations for Scaling Carbon Sequestration
Speaker Abstract
Leading businesses in CA and CO are teaming up with farms and ranches through as part of a regenerative economy to sequester carbon alongside state agencies, regional governments and local conservation experts. This Table to Farm movement utilizes a collective action–just a few cents from purchases, to directly finance projects like compost application and other healthy soil practices.
Zero Foodprint is leading a successful regenerative economy program in CA and CO. Since 2020 the program has generated and awarded over $1.2M to 65 farm projects including over $600k for compost application projects. The cumulative GHG benefit is equivalent to not burning over 4 million gallons of gas.
ZFP also oversees Compost Connector a program that pairs these crowd-sourced funds with USDA grant dollars and prodcer cost-sahre to match jurisdictional budgets consummate carbon farming projects.
Regenerative economy programs can be robust compost purchasers, serving as market development to accelerate the scaling of local compost efforts. Zero Foodprint and others are serving as an intermediary between governments, businesses, technical assistance and land stewards identifying and aligning the cost-sharing opportunities across all sectors to optimize climate benefit and agriculturally suitable compost markets.
Leo Beckerman, Zero Foodprint
Title
Director of Operations
Speaker Biography
Leo Beckerman serves as the Director of Operations for Zero Foodprint, ensuring programs and operations have the maximum impact in the fight against climate change. He oversees strategy and day to day management of Zero Foodprint’s programs including Compost Connector in California and the Restore Grants, available to land stewards implementing Climate Smart Agricultural practices. Co-Founder of Wise Sons Deli in the San Francisco Bay Area, he has experience in restaurant operations, large scale production, and business administration. Leo has a background in public health, education, and non-profit management, and has built and managed teams on four continents.
Abstract Title
Jurisdictions Teaming up with Agriculture and Businesses to Sequester Carbon
Speaker Abstract
same as above
Kourtnii Brown, California Alliance for Community Composting
Title
Co-Founder and CEO
Speaker Biography
Kourtnii Brown co-founded and serves as the Program Director for the California Alliance for Community Composting (CACC). In this role, she is expanding small-scale composting infrastructure and compost operations training in disadvantaged and low-income communities throughout the state. She is also a worm wrangler, soil slinger, and the Founder and Director of Common Compost in Oakland. Her on-site, flow-through worm composting bins empower local resource recovery in order to improve sustainable food systems, and can be found in Alameda, Santa Barbara, and Los Angeles counties. Before Common Compost and CACC were hatched, Kourtnii spent 15 years as an environmental policy analyst working with several nonprofits in Washington, D.C..
Abstract Title
Launching Decentralized Community Compost Hubs in California
Speaker Abstract
Since October 2020, the California Alliance for Community Composting (CACC) has been supported by California Climate Initiatives and the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. We have been assisting CalRecycle to administer their “Community Composting for Green Spaces” (CCGS) grant program, which runs through April 2025. Kourtnii will present on this state-led funding opportunity for launching, expanding, and improving small-scale composting operations in priority regions throughout California. Our goal is to demonstrate how viable, integral, and affordable community-based organizations are to meeting organics diversion targets at a regional scale. CACC is well positioned to provide local governments and waste agencies with strong evidence that, given continued and adequate public funding and technical assistance, decentralized community composting can contribute in a significant way to California’s methane reduction and compost facility development targets under SB 1383.