🎙️ Choosing to Matter: Cocktails with Chris
Rethinking Value and Building Regenerative Worlds with Gil Friend
Episode 15
In this episode, Chris sits down with Gil Friend, strategist, translator, and sustainability pioneer.
From a curious, science-minded kid in New York to working alongside Buckminster Fuller on the World Game, Gil's path has always intertwined curiosity with contribution. He went on to become one of the first Chief Sustainability Officers in the United States, serving the City of Palo Alto, and has advised global companies, investors, and cities through his career.
His journey has carried him from cooking in natural food restaurants to shaping sustainability strategies for major corporations and public agencies; always with an eye on pushing the bounds of the possible.
Gil describes himself as a "scout from the future," a pollinator of ideas, and a translator between worlds. What drives him is the conviction that the world can work for all life, if we organize ourselves with imagination and care. In this conversation, Chris and Gil explore systems thinking, the business case for sustainability, and leadership as a blend of outward action and inner dialogue. They reflect on how to move from abstract urgency to grounded action and how to lead with both clarity and compassion.
This is a conversation about the creative possibilities of the living world.
🍸 Cocktail of the episode: Rasa — an adaptogenic herbal brew with chicory, burdock, mushrooms, and cocoa.
🎧 A thought to leave you with: What becomes possible when we treat sustainability not as an add-on, but as the core logic of business?
Episode Resources:
Gil Friend
Natural Logic Inc.
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Credits:
Host: Chris Luebkeman
Executive Producer: Jonelle Simunich
Guest Relations: Taline Frantz
Editors: Viktoria Bacheva and Asmita Mehta
Sound Designer: Taline Frantz
Design and Manager: Kinny Tran-Marazza
Graphic Designer: Nazaré Sarabúa
Presented by: [Y]our 2040
Website: your2040.com/podcast
