UWaterloo Alumni Podcasts
Uncharted: Where does the garbage go? Feat. Michelle Li (BSc ’05)
Michelle Li (BSc ’05) has always been interested in sustainability and took a leap in 2017 to become vegan when she wanted to do more to decrease her own carbon footprint.
Today, she’s the founder of Clever Carbon, a playful educational website with the goal of increasing carbon literacy amongst consumers.
“When we don’t understand the impact, it’s easy to ignore it.”
Michelle is also passionate about empowering other women working in climate and has founded a global network of over 4,000 people.
On the podcast, Michelle shares how her dream of studying optometry brought her to the University of Waterloo, an interest in business drew her to Silicon Valley and a side project to make a user-friendly carbon footprint quiz grew to a successful career in sustainability.
Michelle Li (BSc ’05) has always been interested in sustainability and took a leap in 2017 to become vegan when she wanted to do more to decrease her own carbon footprint.
Today, she’s the founder of Clever Carbon, a playful educational website with the goal of increasing carbon literacy amongst consumers.
“When we don’t understand the impact, it’s easy to ignore it.”
Michelle is also passionate about empowering other women working in climate and has founded a global network of over 4,000 people.
On the podcast, Michelle shares how her dream of studying optometry brought her to the University of Waterloo, an interest in business drew her to Silicon Valley and a side project to make a user-friendly carbon footprint quiz grew to a successful career in sustainability.
Welcome to Uncharted, a University of Waterloo alumni podcast. I'm your host, Jennifer Ferguson. On Uncharted, we feature awesome alumni who open up about their career journeys, the highs and lows, the twists and turns and anything they've learned along the way. On today's episode, we're welcoming Michelle Li.
Michelle Li:If you present to a consumer, the average vegetarian meal is 600 grams of CO2 emissions per serving. A serving of chicken is 1,300 grams. A serving of beef is 7,700 grams. Consumers understand that and we may change our decisions based on just that simple data.
Jennifer Ferguson:Do you know your carbon footprint? I just did the quiz on Clever Carbon and I'll admit I could do better. So what if it was easier to make informed choices about the products you buy, the food you eat and the way you get around? Carbon labels that help you compare the carbon footprint of items, kind of like the nutrition labels on food that tell you the calories. Well, they're just one of the things Michelle Lee advocates for in her mission to help the world become more carbon literate. Michelle is the founder of Clever Carbon and Women and Climate, and she's not going to tell you what's right or wrong when it comes to your choices, but she does want to empower you to deepen your knowledge about carbon literacy about carbon literacy. Michelle, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. Let's go back a few years only a couple years to when you were at the University of Waterloo, and what you started in, what you were studying, is not exactly what you're doing today. So what made you choose science?
Michelle Li:Yeah, when I was thinking about what I wanted to do for my career, it was always very evident to me that I wanted to do something that was both a career that would provide rent and food, but also something that could help other people, because might as well do something that hits two of those targets. Why not? So science for me was a pretty natural decision, and I actually headed to Waterloo because of the optometry program, which there's only one in Canada that is English speaking.
Jennifer Ferguson:Now, speaking of like optometry and science, that's not exactly what you're doing today. So what happened when you graduated? Where did you want to go next?
Michelle Li:Yeah, I think I was pretty confused. I mean, aren't we all at that age, what do we want to do with our lives? And I had spent a couple years preparing for the optometry exam and getting into Waterloo's graduate program for optometry school, and I kind of was at this juncture where I got accepted, but then I wasn't quite sure, like, is this really what I want to do with the rest of my life? Do I want to, you know, be in the position of an optometrist? So I ultimately decided that that really wasn't the direction that I wanted to go. But then I had this science background and didn't really know what to do next. So I decided to pursue graduate school because I could continue down this path and get a master's degree. But you also get paid a stipend, which is pretty nice and not similar to many master's degrees that don't give you a stipend. So that's what I ended up doing. Afterwards I studied molecular genetics for about two to three years and, yeah, I basically mutated C elegans, which is a worm, and looked for genetic anomalies
Jennifer Ferguson:It's a kind of a path that a lot of students end up taking just by happenstance that they get to that question. Like you said, what are you going to do after university? And the answer is often more university and more research. Was there a time where you said you know what I'm done with research and I need to try something else?
Michelle Li:Yeah, during research, what I really enjoyed was making collaborations with new labs, sort of establishing new partnerships, and I got addicted to reading Bloomberg Businessweek how large companies were using different strategies to compete in the business world and I really wanted to work in that area. I wanted to work for a CPG company and work on business strategy because really, I think what I didn't realize, what I was doing like business development with other labs, and I really loved presenting and sharing my work and sort of telling that story. So I was already doing sales without even really understand or knowing what I was doing, and when it came time for graduation, I kind of had this choice to either continue in research or do something different. And I found myself with an opportunity to work for a medical device market research company, so leveraging a lot of the skills that I already had but also having this business component of working with large medical device manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, and it was a really great transition from academia into the business world.
Jennifer Ferguson:And Michelle, this took you to Silicon Valley, is that correct?
Michelle Li:There was a little bit of time.
Michelle Li:I worked at this company for about four years, so it was quite a long time, and during this time I also tried to get into CPG companies.
Michelle Li:The problem was that I had two science degrees and in Toronto there are so many commerce graduates and economic graduates like they would never even look at my resume for a business strategy type of role.
Michelle Li:And so that's when I decided, okay, maybe an MBA is a good idea. You know, during my time and during that time it was very popular to get an MBA, it was very useful to get an MBA and I ultimately decided to take the leap and leave the workforce and I headed to San Francisco to do a one-year MBA program that was very global in nature. The school had campuses in London, shanghai, san Francisco and Boston and you could rotate through them through the one year. But I ended up San Francisco and Boston and you could rotate through them through the one year, but I ended up picking San Francisco, thinking that I would end up in Shanghai and working there, maybe long term. That was kind of my secret hope, because I really wanted to do work in Asia. But yeah, I mean that's how I ended up in San Francisco and ended up starting my second career.
Jennifer Ferguson:Okay, so the second career was not the end for you, it was only number two. Tell us a little bit about how that came about, like what made you want to try something else? What moved you into the next part of your career?
Michelle Li:Yeah, I think the MBA was really like a clean slate for me. You know, I had work experience but now I wanted to neon lights kitchen and it was such a big deal. We got this crappy coffee maker into the office and then you go to Silicon Valley where they've got baristas in the office. You've got the best snacks that are available for you to just take as you please, and you know, from the best chips to Nutella and to all these fancy things.
Michelle Li:And my first job after graduating from MBA program was at this company called Jawbone.
Michelle Li:They made Bluetooth headsets and speakers and they were such a cool company. They were very much Apple-esque partners with Apple and in their office every day we would have the most delicious catered lunch and everyone would always line up together. It was kind of a buffet style but there was a chef that had brought in the food and was reheating everything and, you know, putting it out on a buffet and it was just so incredibly different from the world that I had come from. And in addition to that, in Silicon Valley, like networking is a really big part of the lifestyle there for many people and every week you could go out and go to different like designer networking or, you know tech networks and meet different people and through that that's actually how I got my first job at Jawbone was through networking and also continue to learn about other tech companies like the Salesforce's, the Googles and Facebooks and stuff, and it was just such a cool time and a very big contrast to what I was doing in Toronto.
Jennifer Ferguson:I mean, you're really selling me here on the Silicon Valley dream. The way you would describe it is exactly how I picture it.
Michelle Li:Yeah, When you watch the TV shows, it's exactly like that.
Jennifer Ferguson:So why would you ever want to leave that? I mean, you've got sunshine, you've got Nutella in the office. What, what makes, uh, what makes that environment? What was it about it that was not the right fit? What happened?
Michelle Li:I don't think that it was not the right fit. I really enjoyed my job and you know I had a lot of good types of challenges. But I think that you know, after living in San Francisco for seven years, I was at this juncture where you know I had this apartment. I'd been living in it for four years, the rent was so fantastic, but it was teeny, tiny and my window looked across into someone else's unit and I was kind of ready to maybe progress and maybe move somewhere different. I was like looking at apartments in San Francisco and the rent had just skyrocketed like double what I was paying for. I had a studio and if I want to get a one bedroom it would be like double the amount, even I guess five years ago we're talking about like $3,000 US dollars for one bedroom and it just like. I wasn't sure if I wanted to take that leap and, on the other hand, I knew that the company that I was working with had offices in other places around the world and I thought why not take this opportunity to explore? If I'm going to move out of my apartment, why not go somewhere else in the world to explore and see that? And so that's what ended up happening.
Michelle Li:I moved to London for about a year and a half and I went out there to support our enterprise customers and I had about six months of a window before COVID started. Amsterdam, because I think a lot of us don't realize this but Europe's teeny like. It's not teeny, tiny, but it's a lot smaller than we think and from London to Amsterdam the flight's like an hour and a half, two hours, so you can do that in a day trip. But I think before I moved to Europe I would have thought, oh, that must be like a four hour flight, like there's no way you could do a day trip. But everything in Europe is pretty compact and you can get easily to places like with the train. So I yeah, I moved to London because I was ready for a change and my company was ready to support me and I just took the leap.
Jennifer Ferguson:That's such a cool story and I think so many people can relate to the idea that you started in one place and things are going okay, and then you know rent prices, for example. We definitely still feel that now in some places, and how some of these factors kind of catapult you into like a change and you know taking a leap and taking a risk and going somewhere else. Now, while you were in London, england, is this where your passion for sustainability really started to develop?
Michelle Li:Yeah, it definitely accelerated when I was in London, francisco, and I think it started like through my childhood and things that my family used to do like helped me think about things more critically and not just accept the status quo. In San Francisco, I was, you know, in 2015 and 16, already using a reusable mug, already using a canvas tote and a reusable bag, because it just didn't make sense to me. There wasn't any common sense in using a single use cup when does all the garbage go? And the plastic as well. But we didn't talk about climate change back in 2015 and 16, but just logically, it didn't make sense to me.
Michelle Li:And in 2017, I went vegan. And I went vegan because I just couldn't imagine a planet where we have 7 billion people now, 8 billion people with a growing middle class and an increase in the demand for animal protein and what that would look like from a land perspective Like how do we even have enough land to provide the supply of the animal protein that people are demanding? So I yeah, I went vegan. It was really. My friends were pretty shocked and it was absolutely inconvenient because, you know, I worked in sales in Silicon Valley and I was still living there at the time, and you know, sales culture is very much like going out and steakhouses and you know, eating well and all these things. And now, all of a sudden, I'm like super inconvenient for the party because it was like this one person that, um, you know, needs a special diet, but uh, but yeah, I in 2017, I moved to London.
Michelle Li:But when I moved to London, my eyes kind of really opened. I thought I was doing so well. But in London there was a convenience store that was near where I was living and you could actually go in with a glass jar and refill your shampoo, your laundry detergent, your like hand soap, and I had not seen that in San Francisco. They probably did exist, but, like where I went, I had never seen that before and I was really in awe. And I feel like the public transportation in London is so good, so reliable, whether it's like the bike infrastructure or the tube, which is what they call the subway, and the buses. Everything was very robust. And then I would also say that there were lots of really great vegan options, whether it was just a pure vegan restaurant or a regular restaurant with just really good vegan options. And so, moving to London and moving to Europe in general really just kind of like made me go oh wow, like I wasn't doing so well and there are ways that I can do better.
Jennifer Ferguson:It's so eye-opening how other places can cater to these things and actually make it a priority. That's such a cool experience to see. So how did Clever Carbon come out of all of this? Was it during the pandemic?
Michelle Li:Yeah, it was actually during the pandemic. I was volunteering for a local plastic-free advocacy nonprofit and I had been working with them for a couple of months and I wanted to try and get them to do something different, because a lot of the messaging was don't do this, this is bad, and it wasn't really marketing and brand friendly, but I it was. It was difficult to convince them to maybe explore different methods. This has worked for them. So I was already looking to start something new on my own, because I want to experiment with my ideas. And as I was sort of in this process of brainstorming, one day I was like walking in the park and during COVID, every day I would walk in the park. But Mondays were just particularly difficult because over the weekend everybody went to the park and you know, the beer cans, bottles, coffee cups, takeout containers were spilling out of the garbage can, all over the lawn and it was just so depressing and I was just thinking to myself how can 7 billion people be doing this? Where does this stuff go? And my idea is that when we don't understand the impact from a very concrete perspective, it's just easy to sweep under the carpet. So I'll give you an example Right Before we knew that soft drinks were kind of.
Michelle Li:We knew that soft drinks were not that great for us. They were high in sugar, right, but we still drank them because we didn't know how bad they were or how much sugar they had. So when nutrition labels came along and it gave us this number and people were like, oh my God, a soft drink has 40 grams of sugar and, oh, an iced tea only has 20 grams of sugar, they were able to make more informed decisions. Now people still drink soft drinks. I'm not saying that it solved the problem and whether or not it's a problem it's very personal. But having that number and being able to compare two things with each other is so powerful and that's what I felt like we were missing when it came to our actions. So when we use a single-use coffee cup or when we fly, or when we eat animal protein, we just don't know the number.
Michelle Li:So I kind of wanted to find the number and I went on this rabbit hole of research and what I ended up reading about was carbon footprint, and what I ended up reading about was carbon footprint. The problem was that a lot of the websites were very technical. It was like ISO, this and acronym that Very clearly not meant for everyday consumers. And what really clicked was when I saw a prototype of a carbon label. And it's very similar to a nutrition label. What it has is the carbon footprint of the life cycle of the product. So what the carbon footprint is to gather the materials, to manufacture, to ship, to use the product and then end of life.
Michelle Li:And when I saw a carbon label, like everything just made sense to me and I started taking these personal carbon footprint quizzes to find out your own carbon footprint. And a lot of them were super long and you had to, you know, go get your energy bill and blah, blah, blah. And I wanted people to learn about their carbon footprint. And so what I ended up doing was making a highly condensed version of a carbon footprint quiz and developed a brand through Clever Carbon. I hired a designer, I hired a developer, and the idea is we would just have this carbon footprint quiz that would just kind of sit on a website and do its own thing. And it was a side project. I, you know, continue to to do my day job, um, and that was really the original idea.
Jennifer Ferguson:Okay, these carbon labels. This sounds so interesting to me, like excuse my ignorance here Like are these actually a thing? Like could these possibly be a thing?
Michelle Li:A hundred percent. Yeah, have you heard of the brand Oatly? So Oatly is a really popular sort of hip manufacturer of oat milk. They started in Europe and you can also find them in grocery stores in Canada. They're a really great brand. Um, they're. They're really great brand. Um, allbirds is another brand. So they make shoes and apparel um, they're very sustainably minded and they also carbon label and every product that they make they share the carbon footprint with their consumers and that's really their competitive differentiator. One of their competitive differentiator, one of their competitive differentiators, is that they're transparent and they share this data with their customers. So, absolutely, brands are doing this and in Europe there are. You know, france, I think, is working on some legislation and policies to make this mandatory and Denmark, I believe, is doing some stuff around that as well. So restaurants carbon label as well. Just Salad is a fast, casual restaurant in New York and when you look at the menu, you not only see the price and the calories but you see the carbon footprint as well.
Jennifer Ferguson:That is so fascinating. I think that being a conscious consumer is like one of the most powerful things that you can do, and when nutrition labeling in Canada became like mandatory, or like with franchises of restaurants where they had to tell you what's in the product and what the calories are, and things like that, it makes it so you are making conscious decisions, and I just think how life-changing it would be if I was deciding between three different products and I could see that the carbon footprint, like the impact that it was making on the environment, was less for one product. I would absolutely choose that product.
Michelle Li:Mm-hmm. Exactly, yeah, and I'm not saying that everyone will, but even just knowing. Oh well, between these two products, the manufacturing part of the emissions is much higher here, but the end of life is higher for this product. So just understanding and deepening our relationship with carbon footprint, I think carbon labels would be really helpful for that.
Jennifer Ferguson:I think one of the things when it comes to talking about climate change and when it comes to talking about your carbon footprint is that it can be pretty doom and gloom, and I know I'm a former high school teacher and when we talked about topics like this, it was difficult sometimes to find that light, to find that you know something that you could talk about where it wasn't just all doom and gloom, and being able to empower students to understand it a little bit more. That's kind of a way to do that, isn't it?
Michelle Li:Absolutely. That was really one of the things that I was trying to tackle with Clever Carbon is to take the doom and gloom out and make it look like an everyday topic or branding topic or branding Clever Carbon really is. If urban outfitters were to teach people about carbon footprint, it would essentially look like Clever Carbon and I think, taking the negativity out. And also we don't really try to tell people what to do. We just give them the data so that they can make the decisions. That makes all the difference, because I think once you try to tell people what to do, they turn off. They don't like that.
Michelle Li:But if you present to a consumer the average vegetarian meal is 600 grams of CO2 emissions per serving. A serving of chicken is 1300 grams. A serving of beef is 7,700 grams 1,300 grams. A serving of beef is 7,700 grams. Consumers understand that and it ruminates in our brain and we may change our decisions based on just that simple data. But we don't ever really try to tell people like, don't do this, don't do that, because again it just turns people off and you achieve the opposite of what you're looking to do.
Jennifer Ferguson:It's a pretty smart strategy, Michelle. I definitely understand where that's coming from. Just empowering people with knowledge is very cool, and Clever Carbon is just kind of the beginning for you with everything that you've done with climate. Tell me a bit more about what you're doing now and women and climate.
Michelle Li:Yeah, so I mean with Clever Carbon, again, it was a side project, but at one point I was ready to move on from the tech company that I was working with and I was, you know, looking for another job. I had left and kind of had this free time looking for another job. I had left and kind of had this free time and instead of spending time on looking for jobs, I just spent all my time working on stuff for Clever Carbon and I was like, okay, this is not very productive. So, Michelle, why don't you give yourself six months to just fully work on Clever Carbon? You're not going to have a job, you're not going to have pay, but that's okay. Take six months of a sabbatical to do that for yourself. And I never looked back.
Michelle Li:I ended up becoming a TEDx speaker on the topic of carbon literacy. I spoke at South by Southwest two times in a row, being picked for one of the official panels, and Clever Carbon is now an official partner to the NBA, the National Basketball Association, and we work with the NBA to bring carbon literacy to fans, which has been very, very impactful. So it's been a pretty wild ride. But I have to be honest when I first transitioned into climate. It was difficult. Climate is such a beast when it comes to all the different topics that you could know about or learn about and it was difficult to transition. There's like all these acronyms, and I was living in New York at the time and you walk into a networking event and everyone knows each other and I was kind of like in the beginning I just wanted to talk to people about the education piece and composting and plant-based eating, and most people were really just interested in investing and, you know, finding startups or startup founders looking for investors, and I just didn't really feel like I was satisfied with the conversations that I was having. I wanted to have more in-depth conversations. So I put a dinner on Eventbrite for 12 people at a vegan restaurant in New York and 12 people came 12 women came. I did it again in March. The first one was in February of 2022.
Michelle Li:I did it again in March. I just kept repeating it and then my community builder, our community builder Stephanie Corbally, ended up being my co-host in our New York events and within a very short span of time, we had thrown like six or seven or eight events and we had this community of people that repeatedly came back and we decided to kind of make Women in Climate a little bit more formal. And we decided to kind of make Women in Climate a little bit more formal. We had a little LinkedIn company page and we had a Slack group with like 10 people in it, and today we have almost 4,000 people in the Slack group and our global community includes people from Doha, Dubai, Taiwan, Hong Kong.
Michelle Li:We have almost 100 city leads who are volunteers that organize events on behalf of women in climate, and the goal is kind of twofold. And the goal is kind of twofold it's to help women who are not working in climate jobs have a way to start their climate journey in a joyful and safe space. And the second goal is to empower women who are working in climate and to help them thrive, and so that's just been a wild ride as well.
Jennifer Ferguson:4,000 people that is such an accomplishment. That's really inspiring, Michelle, is there criteria to join this amazing network of women?
Michelle Li:No, the only criteria is that you're women or non-binary. So those are welcome in our Slack group and we essentially cater mostly towards women professionals. You know people who are working have a voice at the office and, you know, have some spending power. You know, looking to network and bring climate to their careers. That's kind of where we put our focus.
Jennifer Ferguson:That's very cool. We may have some people who are listening that may be interested. So there you go. Women and Climate. Before we finish, I want to jump back to your time at the University of Waterloo as an alum. If you remember back then, do you have any favorite memories? Places? Did you live on campus? Anything that you remember that stands out?
Michelle Li:Yeah, So I was part of the badminton team.
Michelle Li:So in my first year I tried off the badminton team and I got in and I ended up being captain of the team for a couple of years as well and it was just a ton of fun traveling around, competing in different tournaments with different universities and just forming bonds and relationships with the other members of the team as well.
Michelle Li:So that's definitely a really fond memory and I also remember that during exam time, you know I'm one of those people that was like the first person at the library and I had my favorite desk at the library. Like the feng shui of where I was sitting to study was so important to me. If I didn't have a great seat, like maybe a seat where, like a lot of people were walking around or was opening up into an aisle, like I couldn't focus as well. So I was like really adamant about getting to the library first and finding my favorite spot and I would just spend hours at the library, like from morning until late night. You know you're going to get some takeout, bringing it back to the library and just like cramming and studying with your friends, which is, you know, the fun part. But yeah, lots of late nights or early mornings, I guess in the library.
Jennifer Ferguson:I love that the studying, though it does become like that, almost like that social thing, because you're doing it with your friends at the library, right.
Michelle Li:Yeah, and you always grab a space for a couple of friends, put your backpack down if they didn't come yet. So it was very much a special thing.
Jennifer Ferguson:You have to save the spot for your friends right? Before we finish. Michelle, I was just wondering if you have any advice for any of anyone that's listening, but in particular any alum or current students, even you know, either with their career journey, getting into work with sustainability and climate change, or just any advice in general.
Michelle Li:My advice would be to enjoy the journey of learning, right? Don't get a degree because you need to check that box, right, it just needs to be done. But get a degree because you want to learn something and you want to exchange ideas. I think that's really valuable. Like four years can go by so quickly, in the blink of an eye At the end of it, sure, you have a degree, but like, in the blink of an eye at the end of it, sure, you have a degree, but like you know what is the journey Really. Experience that and be open, keep an open mind. Right?
Michelle Li:I think a lot of us spend a lot of time deciding okay, what do I want to do for my undergraduate which is a good thing, but you're not bottlenecked into that career or to that area, right? I studied science, I moved into tech and then now I'm working on climate, which is science, but I didn't study environmental sciences. I studied biology and chemistry, so you know you can pivot your career. There's always hard work involved when you do, but you know, just because you're studying one thing now doesn't mean in 10 years you're going to be doing that thing. So be open to what life brings to you and where your passion lies, and you know life is short. I would encourage you, if you can, to go pursue your dreams and go pursue your passion, because you don't want to look back and feel like, oh what if I had done this or done that?
Jennifer Ferguson:Michelle. Thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure having you on the podcast and learning all about your career journey and your time at Waterloo, and all the best in the future. Thank you so much for having me Jennifer.
Michelle Li:It was a ton of fun.
Jennifer Ferguson:UWaterloo alumni podcasts are produced and hosted by me, Jennifer Ferguson. Don't forget to follow, like and subscribe wherever you listen and find more alumni content at uwaterloo. ca/ alumni.