Now, the thing I'm really most excited about, and in my opinion the catalyst for the mycelium fabrication revolution is that lots of different people are starting to use this technology for their own products. We have people all across Europe, in the Netherlands, Germany growing and creating their own products. You see other folks in the United States: students, artists, designers, other people forming companies to make mycelium based products.

I think that's really exciting because, at the end of the day, this is a technology. Ecovative is never going to solve all the problems for everyone, so I'm excited to see lots of other people joining us in this field and creating really cool innovations.

My fundamental belief is that every time you use a piece of disposable plastic, you're hurting the Earth. And every time you use a natural material, whether it's mycelium, or wood, or other natural fibers, you're helping the planet. Now there's always a pull and tug about where that natural material comes from, and whether it is grown sustainably. I really believe mycelium is something that can be used to develop great products, which will be inherently really good for the Earth.

HD:That's an interesting point you bring up about the complexity behind the sustainability of every product. It's a subjective term and it’s difficult to understand all the nuances—even within a product that you yourself are so intimately familiar with. But as a consumer, you can't be really expected to know the minute details of how every product you buy is made.

What would be your advice to consumers who want to be more mindful of what they're doing to the Earth with the products they buy? And what are some things that you, over this decade of work at Ecovative, have learned in your life as a consumer that have changed your behavior?

EB: For the first part of this question, there isn't one right answer. It can get really complicated. The litmus test I use is to ask myself: "Is this poison?".

The issue is that so much of the plastic we produce is ending up in the environment, ending up in our oceans, ending up in fish, ending up in our food, ending up in our blood, that it's acting like a permanent poison. Of course organisms make natural poisons to compete with other organisms, but they can all be remediated in a cycle of life on Earth— if you introduce something that doesn’t fit into that cycle, it's probably going to end up being a permanent poison. That's the first order, simple test I'd ask myself, and I believe that all the technology we need can be found in biology. Nothing in biology is permanent poison to other biology.

Food for plants

HD:Are there any things that you've changed in your behavior over the last decade, from what you've learned through your work with Ecovative—in terms of how you live or think about your personal consumption?

EB: That's a good question. I live off grid, which has always been a dream of mine. I lived first in a one room cabin and now in a house that my wife and I built over three years. We assembled the house using heavy timbers that we notched, raised, and assembled with friends and a few winches. Building a house is very environmentally expensive. So the the goal was to build something that can last 500 years, produce all its own power, water, heat, cooling, and eventually food.

The power sources are solar energy and micro-hydro from a stream with small dam on it, so almost all of our energy is made renewably. We are now in the process of finally getting to put in gardens and add animals so we can produce not all of our own food, but a lot of our own food in the summer.

That's been a really wonderful experience. It's something I've loved doing. We also heat the house using wood we collect from the property, so we're pretty carbon neutral in that sense, but in doing it I also realized just how much energy and materials go into making something new. One of the things I’ve learned in the process is that there is a very strong argument to reuse if you can, and that's also true for housing stock. If you're going to build something new, you better build something that lasts and pays back its upfront carbon costs. For me, when I think of housing, that means design for 500 years; don't design a house that in 30 years might need to be gutted and retrofitted, or knocked down because it was made using the cheapest, fastest materials.

Another thing I'll say is this: as someone who really does want to live these values, it's really hard. I've personally realized that I have to compromise in my life in some ways. I worry about CO2 emissions, but I take a lot of airplane flights. I try to avoid disposable use plastic in my life, but I end up sometimes buying things in disposable use plastic, because that's the only option available. For me, it's about finding that pragmatic balance between living your values, and rather than being a zealot about things like plastic straws in the moment, working to move the world in a direction that is foundationally more sustainable. That's reflected more in my everyday work life where we try and create technologies that are just better. They can substitute for materials people need to have in their everyday life.

Ecovative's packaging is meant to fit in that space, where it replaces a plastic product you use, and whether or not the person on the other end knows they're getting it, it's helping the Earth by removing a piece of styrofoam or plastic that could've ended up in the ocean.

HD:That is very well put.

EB: I think that point is really important, because it's so hard to change people's behaviors and people behave based on the system they're in, so we really owe it to ourselves to create products that make it easy for people to be good to the Earth.

HD:On that topic of changing behaviors through systems, here is hard question. Imagine it's post-Trump, and we have a real, policy-making administration again—but policy being only one of the things that we can do as a society.

What do you see is the tipping point where some of the behaviors that you've been trying to implement in your life and the kind of products that your company has been building become more the new norm? What are the kinds of things that you'd like to see happen that get us closer to that vision?

EB: This one's such a tricky wicket, because the concept of natural capital has been around now for a really long time. In theory that's the missing component of capitalism, because capitalism finds the most economical way to do things, except it treats the environment as a free resource. So you can dump stuff in the oceans, you can mine stuff out of the ground, you can put carbon or methane into the air. All those are considered free.

In theory, if we could have a unified world policy around how we treat natural capital, a lot of these things would get solved within that system. We've seen with the climate agreements coordinating worldwide, that's unbelievably hard to do. And while I think it should happen, and we'll probably get closer over time, we'll never quite reach it.

My view on how we're going to get there is actually that we're going to end up relying more on natural technology because it's the best. The ability to engineer biology to do new things is going to give us products that are better than the ones that we make using today’s conventional stuff. By using biology we're going to be returning to nature. Nature produced magnificent forests on this planet for billions of years, and they persisted and they've created more diversity and more beauty. I think we can create products for humans using biology that are very similar. As we do that, the incremental cost we put on the Earth will decrease. I'm more of a techno-optimist if you consider natural technology “technology”, then I am a policy optimist at this point.

HD:What are some other companies out there that you think are doing really good work in this area?

EB: Within the field of biomaterials, where they're near and dear to my heart, the work of bioMASON, which has a way of growing cement using bacteria and sand, which addresses a big problem of cement and CO2 emissions. I'm also a fan of BoltThreads. They've done great work connecting the power of biology to really desirable products, through great design and branding.

HD:We’re almost out of time, so let’s end on a scented note. What's a smell in your life that inspires you, that you would have trouble living without?

EB: For me wood smoke, which reminds me a lot of growing up at home on the farm. Also, there's nothing better for me than starting a wood stove on a cold winter day. You're outside the house, with those wisps of smoke. It just brings back a lot for me. The second is the smell of water on wet rocks, and mud and everything that goes along with being around a stream or a creek. I'm obsessed with water. The third is the smell of a forest on a spring day where it's wet, but not damp, and there's a warm breeze coming through the trees and it just smells like life.

Eben on a hike with his father

HD:I feel like I'm listening to Walden. I imagine that's something you've read.

EB: (laughs) Yes.

HD:And I’m pretty sure that’s also as good a description as you’ll find of Wood Cabin. Thank you so much, Eben. It really gets me going every time I’m reminded that there are people out there working on solutions to our environmental problems. We’re really excited to work with you guys!

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