This is Climate to Action, a CSUSM student podcast.
Climate to Action is an initiative of the Climate Action and Sustainability Center at
California State University San Marcos, and my name is Kaden Luna de la Fuente.
And I'm Molly Saruwatari.
We're here to amplify voices and explore solutions in the fight against climate change and to
address climate injustices for all living things.
We are committed to incorporating discussions on Indigenous knowledge in addressing the
climate crisis and to providing a call to action in every episode.
But first, we'd like to acknowledge that our recording studio is located on the traditional
territory of the Luseno and Pa'iku'ichun people.
CSUSM and its surrounding areas are still home to the six federally recognized bands
of the La Jolla, Pala, Palma, Pechanga, Rincon, and Ceboba-Luseno-Pa'iku'ichun people.
It's also important to acknowledge this land remains the shared space among the Kupeno,
Kumeya'i, and Ipai peoples.
Today's episode is focused on local climate actions and climate justice initiatives.
We've invited Adrienne Fusik, the executive director and founder of InGood Company, to
talk with us about this topic.
Thank you for being with us today.
Thanks for having me.
Of course.
Adrienne, can you tell us a little about yourself?
What brings you to work on the climate crisis and why did you decide to start InGood Company?
Yeah, I'm glad you asked.
But first, I want to say thank you so much for the work you're doing for having this
podcast.
I feel like it's really, really important to get the word out there.
The more we talk about the climate crisis, the better.
So thank you for the work you're doing.
So about me, I am from Sacramento.
So I grew up in Sacramento with my family, obviously.
My siblings and I spent a lot of time outside.
Grew up in the 80s, kind of free range parenting, something that they don't do now.
But in Sacramento, there's a lot of rivers.
So I grew up right by the American River and most of my time was spent outside.
So my siblings and I would basically make forts.
We would make jumps for our bikes.
We would just spend all day out by the river.
And we would find all kinds of cool stuff.
We'd find newts and frogs, and we're just curious about everything.
And just really fell in love with the natural environment and all of the different creatures
we were finding and stuff.
And so that was just my environment.
And that's how I grew up.
And I really learned to just love the natural environment and care a lot about it and all
the different creatures that are on this planet with us.
So I started IGC after working in international education for about 19 years.
So I was developing international programs for faculty members and students.
And so that was great work.
It was fun.
I got to go to all these cool places.
But I know this is completely irrational, but I felt personally responsible for all
of those flights.
And I reached this point where I felt like I was way more part of the problem than the
solution.
And so I felt like I could not continue doing that work.
I had to take my time and energy and put it towards something more meaningful, especially
in terms of trying to reduce our impact on the planet, our negative impact.
And so I started IGC during the pandemic because all of the things that were happening during
the pandemic.
But basically, I felt like I had no choice.
I had to put my time and energy on this planet toward trying to make sure that it can continue
to support our life.
I really love that.
That's really cool how you brought your upbringing into creating IGC, this amazing nonprofit
here in San Diego.
What is the core mission, would you say, of IGC?
Of course, you kind of brought up how you want to be part of the solution, not the problem.
So what do you want our listeners to really see in good company as and see what they're
for?
Yeah.
So our mission is, and the board meticulously crafted every word.
So our mission is to transform climate curiosity into a catalyst for environmental justice
through education and engagement.
Oh, wow.
That's a beautiful mission statement.
I love that.
So you actually offer carbon literacy for community action classes, or IGC does, to
people in the San Diego community.
What do you want San Diegans to gain from these classes?
In other words, why should people go and take these classes?
Yeah, that's a good question.
So education in itself is wonderful, self-fulfilling.
I mean, it's fulfilling, right?
But if there's no action attached to it, then there's a really limited amount of progress
you can make, right?
Absolutely, yeah.
In terms of collective action.
So I think the main thing that I want people to get out of these classes is to understand
that each one of us has a role to play in terms of creating a better future.
So we all have different strengths, and we don't need to be attacking the same problems
altogether at once.
Because we all have different strengths, we could be moving toward climate solutions in
a lot of different areas, because that's needed, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
So we need to have hundreds of thousands of solutions across all sectors, and helping
people understand where they can be most impactful is really what carbon literacy stands for.
And also, we really want to build a critical mass of people who are pushing for climate
solutions.
So we need to be engaging with politicians, engaging with local nonprofits, and really
forcing this change that we absolutely need to see.
I love that.
And I do know that the carbon literacy for community action, the classes do cost money.
I know that you just got, I believe it's a grant for scholarships, which is amazing.
I know as a college student, sometimes it's like we try to find hardships, or we find
hardships in everything like paying for new classes or something.
But this is definitely something important.
And especially for people who have never taken an environmental class, I've gotten the privilege
of taking environmental classes as an ENBS major.
But can you talk a little bit about the price and the scholarships that you offer, and go
on that so that people can understand what price-wise is?
Yeah, exactly.
So as the title of this podcast implies, we are all about climate justice, right?
And all about access.
And so if the price, which is $295 for the class, and the class is eight hours long,
and it's synchronous online, it's pretty accessible in terms of logging in and taking the class.
But if the price is a barrier, then we have scholarships.
And then if we just need to waive it, and we don't have funders giving us scholarships
at the moment, then we'll make sure that there's a way for people to participate.
So actually, we have a lot of really generous donors who will donate scholarships.
And actually, when they donate a scholarship, so they can donate $295 or more.
And then when they donate, they can say whether or not they want to be put in touch with a
person that receives that scholarship.
So this is a way to sort of build collective action.
And so for funders, too, it's impactful for them to understand, okay, well, this person
actually is implementing these actions because of this education that I was able to help
support.
So yeah, I think out of all of the people who've taken our course and obviously can
pay if you want to pay, and that funding goes to IGC and helps with all of this stuff and
the accessibility.
I think there have only been two people who paid.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
Yeah.
So it's really, it's very accessible.
I love that.
Yeah, definitely accessibility is a huge thing.
And I do know that you get a pretty sick little certificate that you can put on a resume.
So yeah, definitely an amazing class for people to take.
And you mentioned carbon literacy, climate curiosity a few times now.
Can you give us a quick like definition of what those are and what they kind of mean
to you?
So carbon literacy as defined by the carbon literacy project.
So the carbon literacy project is based in Manchester in the UK.
And so they're the ones that actually accredite the course and review participants evidence
form.
So they're they and IGC issue the certificate.
So according to the carbon literacy project, carbon literacy is an awareness of the carbon
dioxide costs and impacts of everyday activities and the ability and motivation to reduce emissions
on an individual community and organizational basis.
Oh, wow.
So that could look like reducing your individual carbon burn, which is important.
But way more importantly, it must look like partnering with others to push for systemic
change away from a fossil fuel base.
Yes, absolutely.
And then the other term, so climate curiosity, that in our mission, we basically use it as
a catch all term for climate anxiety, climate grief, climate despair.
So we want to transform that energy, which is not productive at all, into action.
And so in doing that, through the education programs and also building a community and
supporting folks through their actions, that's really kind of where it all all comes together.
I love that.
Like building a community base.
It's where it all starts.
Like, obviously, it starts with the individual, but it grows and the movement grows with the
community.
So really, I apologize, you guys, for doing all that you do.
Thank you.
So my next question for you is that IGC places a strong focus on reducing inequalities faced
by lower income communities and uplifting historically excluded communities such as those
who are predominantly people of color.
Can you share any stories about how your organization was able to provide resources to these communities
and what IGC inspired there?
Yeah.
So first, I would say that we're actually really good at diversity.
Oh, love it.
So we provide a really opening welcome space where people are encouraged to come in their
wholeness.
And so our cohorts, so each carbon literacy class is a cohort of people who do it together,
which also helps with that community building piece.
Each cohort has included a super good mix of people from different racial, ethnic backgrounds,
different lived experiences.
So it's a very safe space to ask questions and figure it out together.
The whole idea is we come to this class not really knowing, right?
And you go to the class to learn.
And so that's what we focus on is really kind of that collective intelligence and learning
together.
Again, in terms of resources, the scholarships really help.
Absolutely.
There's no barrier there.
And then our evaluation.
So with all of the courses that we do, we make sure that we are doing what we're saying
we're doing by asking people their impressions of the class, what they learn, what they would
like to improve, that kind of thing.
But respondents to these evaluations say that they talk about climate change much more often
than before taking the training.
And as we know, talking about climate change and kind of normalizing it.
Like the first step.
Yeah, exactly.
Normalizing these conversations and being curious.
I mean, that's really the first step.
In terms of civic engagement and advocacy for admissions reductions at school and work,
people who have responded to these surveys say they do that more often than before taking
the course.
And then also several people have reported that they have obtained new jobs, gotten promotions,
and pay increases specifically related to transitioning from non-climate related work
into climate related work or emissions reduction work or work related to basically what they
learned in carbon literacy.
Yeah, definitely the climate.
Like working in anything that has to do with emissions, energy, environmentalism, like
it's such a demand.
So I bet this definitely helps like being able to take this carbon literacy class.
And it's cool that you guys have these measures and like people coming back and reporting
back to you about how the classes directly impacted them and how they've taken it and
ran with it.
And I also love you mentioned like when you first started speaking about how you take
InGood Company and IGC into the like two different communities.
I like how you emphasized that it's a very welcoming space because even like as a college
student who's I'm a junior, so I've been doing this for almost three years now.
It's like every time I walk into a class, it's intimidating.
And it's like I know people, but it's still it's just scary.
And so especially my first time ever taking an environmental course, I remember I was
like so nervous.
And so I love that it's a welcoming environment because like you said, these people a lot
of the times they don't know what climate literacy is or anything along those lines.
So I think too, like because our courses are open to the public.
So it's not like a college course.
Yeah, exactly.
But because of that, we have like high schoolers along with like in the same cohort as retired
professionals.
And so they're all kind of at that same level in terms of let's figure this out together.
I love that.
And I think it might be initially, you know, before you get to meet people a little bit
of course, a little bit intimidating.
But, you know, as we kind of get those conversations going and just talk like break it down to
the basics, it's like it's literacy, it's carbon literacy.
And so you're not supposed to know anything coming into it.
You're going to learn it all together.
And so, yeah, I think the diversity in terms of age is important too.
And what people, like how people spend their time, what they do during the day and then
bringing that all together is actually a really cool experience.
That's really cool too.
I love that there's, you know, high schoolers that are willing to make the action from a
young age to retirees who are wanting to still learn because I know that a lot of people
think that older generations don't really care about the climate and clearly they're
breaking down these barriers because they're taking your class.
Would you ever be open to like maybe presenting, I used to work in an elementary school, would
you ever be open to like taking IGCs like and maybe like doing like a much like toned
down version of the literacy?
Like for kids?
Mm hmm.
Ooh, maybe.
So each course has to be accredited through the carbon literacy project.
Of course.
And so in order to do a class for them, I would put together the curriculum and send
it to them for approval and stuff.
But I mean, I could always come and talk to kids.
Oh, yeah.
Totally.
And like it starts young, like genuinely the movement starts so young.
So I know in this we're talking about carbon literacy, but we also do workshops in the
community.
Oh wow.
Okay.
And so these workshops, so we actually sell them to clients.
So if a lot of people, you know, working at corporations or whatever, you know, they have
professional development or team building activities.
And so this is a workshop that focuses on climate science and it's a very collaborative
because we have fee paying clients, we're able to do it for free in the community.
So another thing that they do a lot of.
But those are super good for kids because there's different versions of the workshop.
And so and that's just it's very engaging, very hands on.
There's an artistic component.
Oh, perfect.
So yeah, we can we can absolutely talk about that.
Yeah.
Kids love like finger painting or just playing in the dirt, playing in the mud.
So definitely.
I mean, I do, too.
Yeah.
Right.
Who doesn't?
So I do see does emphasize an idea of a just future in your vision.
What does this future look like?
And how does I do see his work bring us closer to achieving this just future?
That's a good question.
So so we envision a future where people are actively engaged in sustaining justice for
people on the planet because we've already achieved it.
Right.
And we've achieved all this, all this equal despair and all the society and all of that
stuff.
We're actually informed and engaged and actively participating in maintaining that clean, beautiful,
green future where everybody has access to clean air, access to food and the dream, clean
energy.
Right.
And easy transportation that's maybe even social.
You know, so this future that we envision is way better than the reality we have now,
even though it seems like things are pretty great.
There could be, you know, there's so many different benefits to reducing our reliance
on fossil fuels in terms of health, financial and, I mean, obviously environmental.
So that's the that's the future we envision and we love that.
I love that future.
I envision that.
I know it's not just about me having a clean earth, but it's about my kids, my grandkids,
my great grandkids having a cleaner than everything like that.
And to kind of backtrack, we were talking about the community and your workshops going
into the community, the carbon literacy classes in the community.
What role does the public play in driving changes needed for climate justice?
And how do you ensure these communities have a voice in decision making?
Like we talked about earlier, a lot of like there's a lot of communities that don't have
a voice because of San Diego's very affluent versus very much.
There's a huge range of income and medium income household in San Diego County.
So how do you ensure that all communities are heard, not just the ones that maybe are
a little bit more affluent?
Yeah, that's such a good question.
So the the communities who are, you know, busy working and trying to feed the kids,
you know, going from job to job and, you know, stopping to pick up fast food for the kids,
you know, get some some calories for the kids on the way home, that kind of thing.
Those are the communities that the politicians need to hear from the most.
Absolutely.
And I think communities that have to be able to articulate the problems that they're seeing
in their in their lives have the vocabulary and the confidence to show up to public meetings
and say, look, this is my lived experience and I am an expert in that and have that,
you know, confidence to go and push for those changes.
So I think what really comes down to is helping folks identify what is their unique area where
they can contribute.
Right.
And I think if you are, you know, in marketing and marketing is is your total jam, you know,
you love it.
You could still work in climate.
Oh, absolutely.
You could be promoting climate compatible organizations rather than climate irresponsible
organizations.
And so I think it really comes down to understanding that we all have a role to play in terms of
what we're really good at, and then we can focus on that one thing and then relieve a
little bit of that anxiety by understanding, too, that everybody else has their role to
play.
And so collectively, we're going to have a really, really big impact and then hugely.
I don't have to do it on my own.
Yeah, that's definitely so nice.
So it's all about working together.
Yeah, that's a huge part.
I know a lot of people like to take on the whole idea of, oh, I'm going to change the
world, which is an amazing mindset to have.
So lean on your peers, lean on your neighbors.
They're here to help you take a carbon literacy class.
Obviously, you're going to find people like minded individuals who want to make a change.
And I know being like in the Environmental Stories Association here on campus or being
in a Greek organization, you see this like people from all backgrounds, all majors, you
know, people who know what Greek life is, people who know what environmentalism is and
coming together in these organizations here at Cal State San Marcos.
It's really cool because there are such specific roles that everybody gets a chance to be involved
and feel like they're involved, no matter their background.
Like for the environmental org, like we have people who are sociology majors on our executive
board or for my sorority, we have people from marketing to me and environmental studies.
So it's really cool to see all of this.
And definitely, I also see being in these organizations, how much collaboration with
individuals and with the community impacts our mission.
For example, fundraising for a philanthropic partner.
Do you or does Ingood Company have any specific collaborations you hope to have in the future?
Yeah.
And I want to mention before I get into that, that the affluent communities too have a really
important role to play.
Oh, absolutely.
And need to leverage that influence, right?
And so really what we want to encourage people to do is analyze who is watching what they're
doing, who is going to be influenced by their actions, and then take that and incorporate
climate action and work.
And so everybody across all income groups, all sectors, everybody has a role to play.
In terms of future collaborations, we really want to build a collective that will be modeled
after it's called Give a Shit Collective.
Love it.
And that is through Chicago Votes.
And so what it is really, it's led by creatives.
So artists, performers, musicians, DJs, et cetera.
So folks who have just this natural inclination to be very creative.
And this collective will creatively engage others to find solutions to how to engage
politically, right?
So it's all about policy change and influencing politicians to make the decisions in favor
of our future.
Right, of course.
And the ability of the planet to support our life.
And so by putting together a collective of folks who just naturally think very creatively,
that will help us, I feel, and break down a lot of the barriers.
Because people are doing a lot of really great work.
Oh, absolutely.
And I think by connecting maybe like huge dance parties or something like that, and
just getting a lot of attention around this, I think that's an unexplored area for sure.
Yeah, and definitely this year's so important.
Of course, it's an election year.
I literally went out and dropped in my ballot that morning.
So thank you.
Got to do my part.
And so it's huge to definitely get the voice out so that people know how to vote, how to
make the change.
Presidents maybe can be influenced.
Because you never know how far one person's action can grow into a community, to a national,
to a global idea.
And so that's super amazing.
I applaud you for that.
Thank you.
Well, Adrienne, thank you so much again for talking with us today.
You're welcome.
Thank you so much for having me.
Absolutely.
You have been so informative, so amazing.
And we do this thing on Climate to Action where we do a call to action that our listeners
will hear our personal call to action that we wrote for them later.
But do you have a personal call for action for listeners or any resources you can provide
or anything like that?
I do.
I have a couple that are my favorite.
So the first one helps you identify your climate superpower.
So Dr. Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson, who is a complete badass.
So she has created this Venn diagram.
So it's like these three circles and they overlap in the middle.
And so basically she helps you think through what brings you joy, what you're good at,
and what needs to be done.
And then the intersection of those different things, that's your climate superpower.
And so I will give you a link to her TED Talk and that worksheet to put in the show notes.
Beautiful.
And then the second one is download the Climate Action Now app, which is basically it has
these pre-created forms that go directly to your elected official.
So there's somebody on the back end.
It's probably a Climate Reality Project person from the Climate Reality Project, which is
led by Al Gore.
So you put in your address and so automatically they know who your elected officials are and
they're keeping track of what are the different climate related actions that need to happen.
And so then you can just go in there and fill in your name and then send these emails, maybe
call or do whatever.
But it's a really, really easy way to take direct action.
So I will put the link to that app for you.
I'll give that to you to put in the show notes as well.
And then is it like, does it also see like county specific environmental impacts or is
it more of like a national government?
All of it.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
So it could be things that are in your local area, initiatives that are at the state level
or even federal level.
Oh, beautiful.
Beautiful.
That's so amazing.
Want to hear more from Climate to Action, a CSUSM student podcast?
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Visit for updates, behind the scenes contents and more.
Finally, Climate to Action wants to remind you to take climate action.
We challenge you to take the first step in your own climate journey.
Get involved with a local organization like InGood Company, attend a carbon literacy class
or connect with one of San Diego's many sustainability initiatives.
Let's transform our climate curiosity into climate action together.
Remember, every small change can create a big impact when we work collectively.
Until next time, this is Climate to Action signing off.