Is AI’s Growth Outpacing Its Environmental Guardrails?

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Mike Collignon: And welcome to the impact series on the Green Builder Media Network. I'm your host, Mike Collignon. On this podcast, I'll have one on one conversations with leaders and innovators from a wide variety of disciplines. We'll talk about how they got into their field, the lessons they've learned, and advice they have for future generations of leaders. Today, I'm very excited to meet and talk with Kate Berglund.

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Mike Collignon: She is a project manager at the center for Humane Technology. Kate has over a decade of international experience launching a variety of businesses, optimizing internal operations, and supporting high profile thought leaders and social entrepreneurs. She's also a seasoned event producer with large scale productions such as Envision Festival and Burning Man under her belt. Kate holds a master's degree from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, where she studied political economy, international relations and social sciences, and she also holds a Permaculture Design certificate.

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Mike Collignon: Kate, welcome to the impact series.

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Kate Berglund: Thanks so much for having me, Mike.

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Mike Collignon: You know, it's great to meet you. I've been looking forward to this conversation because AI is just dominating the nonpolitical headlines. But before we get into your work at the center for Humane Technology, I'd like to talk about your master's degree. That is a really interesting combination of subjects. You've got political economy, you've got international relations and social sciences.

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Mike Collignon: So how did you arrive at that field of study?

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Kate Berglund: Sure. So I attended the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown for both undergraduate and graduate studies. In my undergraduate, I studied a I got a degree called International Culture and Politics. And so that was a blend of international relations, government, social sciences and humanities, really very cross-disciplinary. And I studied abroad in my junior year. I lived in Chile for a year, and during that time really delved deep into political economy and social sciences, specifically social movements in Latin America, and chose to advance with a master's degree in Latin American studies is actually the title of the degree, with a focus in social sciences and political economy.

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Mike Collignon: That is fascinating. Fascinating stuff. Can you walk me through some of the businesses that you've helped kind of get off the ground?

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Kate Berglund: Sure. Yeah. My career has trended towards joining upstart organizations and also maturing organizations. So a couple of examples is I moved to Costa Rica in 2017 to help bring off the ground a luxury retreat center and and community. So that looked like joining the initial team hospitality team to work through both the brand and concept, the physical infrastructure, build and hiring and training our our team and bringing that, bringing that whole experience to life.

00:03:18:14 - 00:03:45:19
Kate Berglund: Following that, I worked with a friend and colleague, K he. He is a solo who left a life in on Wall Street to to do his own thing, and he had an online training business that we evolved and added a consulting B2B element to, and we built that out over a year. He shifted gears and we chose to sunset that business.

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Kate Berglund: And he's now, interestingly enough, is has started a new business focusing on training finance folks at financial institutions on the use of AI. So we chat still and talk about that. But yeah, I really enjoy being both in the nascent, you know, initial stages of things and then also stepping in in organizations that are getting ready to, to mature, reach the next stage, bring more structure into their into their operations and, and reap the benefits of, of that structure.

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Mike Collignon: And it sounds it sounds both adventurous and like, you know, you have no problem with risk and taking chances.

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Kate Berglund: I would say that yes, I have in in my life, I have not shied away from taking big leaps, making big changes, trying a variety of different things.

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Mike Collignon: And taking on challenges. Right. You know, the event producer segment of your bio caught my eye. I also helped produce an annual event so I can relate to the stress and the workload that comes with that. So talk to me about the Herculean effort that it must take to put on something like Burning Man.

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Kate Berglund: Sure. So I yes, this is in my early to mid 20s. I was an avid music and culture fan. I actually started in media. I was doing blogging and photography and video for music events and cultural events and got into festivals and I joined the team at Envision in, let's see, I think 2013 and that that was my biggest kind of production experience, my longest standing.

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Kate Berglund: And really we saw that festival grow from several thousand to 10,000 over a few years. And that was a lot of I mean, I'm sure, you know, it's it's a lot of spreadsheets and meetings and things all in advance. And then you hit the ground and boots on the ground, walkie talkie in hand, fighting all the fires, building, physically building things, you know, seeing what happens once the gates open and then breathing a sigh of relief when it's when it's all done.

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Kate Berglund: And then my experience with Burning Man, I participated in a large theme camp one year and was just part of kind of the operational support there. And then the next year was offered a job through the organization. I was an operations manager of the Center Camp Cafe. So folks who've been to Burning Man know that as the central a central space, a coffee shop that is 24 hours a day.

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Kate Berglund: And so you can imagine that running a food and beverage establishment in the middle of the desert and I had the overnight shift is a very interesting experience. Definitely fast paced, lots of challenges, really taught me a lot about thinking on my feet and and working with a diverse group of people.

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Mike Collignon: And lots of stories, probably for Kate's future autobiography.

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Kate Berglund: Definitely.

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Mike Collignon: All right, let's get to the topic of our time right now. AI, if you would, can you kind of set up this part of our discussion by letting our audience know a little bit more about the center for Humane Technology, like why it was established, what it does, that sort of thing.

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Kate Berglund: Sure. So center for Humane Technology, our vision is really a world in which the world's most consequential technologies, such as social media and now, increasingly AI, really are designed to serve humanity's best interests. And so the history of the organization was that it was founded in 2017 by Tristan Harris is a rascal and random. Fernando. So these three are technologists who all, in their own time, had basically an awakening or a realization that the technologies that we were building were having unintended consequences and were affecting largely people's attention at the time.

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Kate Berglund: They were amongst the first to sound the alarm about the attention economy. The organization really took off and got more in the public eye with the release of The Social Dilemma, which is an interest on both feature largely in and from their was able to to really kind of lead the charge in bringing awareness to these issues. Then in 2023, insiders from AI labs came to our founders with concerns about the rapid pace of AI development and the lack of safeguards and disregarding of of those same unintended consequences, same same pattern that we saw in social media.

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Kate Berglund: And so they brought that to to our founders, who gave a talk called the AI dilemma. And our work then evolved to kind of meet the moment and continue to to dig into kind of the patterns that we saw playing out again in the world of AI development.

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Mike Collignon: So is it fair to characterize that that?

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Mike Collignon: Focuses on AI but doesn't solely focus on AI?

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Kate Berglund: I would say our our work continues with the harms of social media and continuing to support legislation that that creates safeguards, strategic litigation against against social media companies continuing to tie the tie the things together and really help create that that public understanding of how the same technology is in the same incentives and business models that were at play and got us into the mess we have been in with social media.

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Kate Berglund: Those are the same things that are at play in AI development right now. So to us, it's not a pivot, it's not a change. It's really just an expansion of the same work just now enveloping a rapidly moving field.

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Mike Collignon: Right? Yeah. No. And I think rapidly moving is is so apropos. And I want to get to that in just a moment. But to me, to your rapid, it does seem like we're kind of rapidly moving headlong into an AI dominated or maybe, diplomatically speaking, AI integrated world. But what concerns do you personally have about AI first when it comes to its impact on the environment?

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Kate Berglund: Sure. I think the the underlying principle here is when I think about this is really that it's really important that we use systems thinking when we decide how to deploy a technology so that we're considering and designing both for the outcomes that we want, but also how do we minimize externalities? How do we minimize those unintended consequences? The environment, the environmental issues are a great example of this, right?

00:11:08:03 - 00:11:32:23
Kate Berglund: We are being we are rapidly using resources more than any industry ever in in history. Karen, how does a lot of great work on this? If you've read Empire of AI or seen some of her reporting really digging into the use of land for data centers, the amount of water that's necessary to cool them, the emissions that we're seeing from from these data centers.

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Kate Berglund: So we're getting out, we're getting outputs, right. We're getting new products, but we're not visibly considering we're not we're not deeply considering or the companies are not deeply considering the those impacts on the environment and, and the folks living close to the data centers, the real human impact of these environmental issues as well.

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Mike Collignon: Yeah, because we are seeing some pushback at the local level, certainly on, you know, the, the the energy usage, the effect on energy prices in certain parts of the country, the water consumption that these places have. And so that's where my concerns are somewhat rooted with, with the rapid expansion of data centers, is that does the environmental impacts, do you get the sense knowing the people you know or conversations that you've had?

00:12:30:07 - 00:12:48:23
Mike Collignon: Is there any genuine concern amongst some of the technology companies about, hey, you know, maybe we should figure out a way to have a lighter environmental footprint with these, or are they just kind of going fast and hoping not to be restrained?

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Kate Berglund: I think their public relations would tell you that they are considering it, and we're definitely seeing responses to kind of the Nimby, the not in my backyard sentiments that are growing. I read an article recently about kind of the the investments being made in beautifying data centers. So, you know, big architecture firms being brought in to basically make them look less like big ugly boxes.

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Kate Berglund: But if I were living near a data center that were spewing methane gas into my community, I wouldn't really care how it looked. But, you know, we are we're really seeing these impacts. And I think that it's not just it's a little hard. There's a lot of conflicting data. Right? We don't it's hard to understand the exact energy use of of one query, for example, and how that relates to streaming a song or watching a video or all the other things that we do that require data as well.

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Kate Berglund: Right? Like data centers are not only about AI, but the thing that is the aggregate impact is really undeniable. We, the Department of Energy, projects that in by 2028, data centers could account for 12% of energy consumption in the United States, and that's up from 4% in. That would be growing from 4% in 2025. So that's a tripling in three years.

00:14:06:11 - 00:14:25:18
Kate Berglund: And if you extrapolate that out, you know that that's really concerning. You know, we've got data centers being built that are the size of Manhattan. You know, the the sheer scale of this and the pace of it. Or I think what is possibly the most alarming element of it?

00:14:25:20 - 00:14:41:03
Mike Collignon: Are we are we missing an opportunity right now to to lay out some sort of ground rules on AI, because it seems like we're just kind of letting it happen without any guardrails or regulations, at least at the federal level.

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Kate Berglund: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we're really in we're really in a key window here, you know, and this isn't this isn't abstract. This isn't sci fi. This isn't far out. This is, you know, AI infrastructure, particularly since we're talking about the data centers. You know, this is shaping local planning decisions. This is hitting people's paychecks, you know, and their and their household budgets.

00:15:03:25 - 00:15:32:17
Kate Berglund: And there's there's not guidelines being, being put in. We are seeing we are seeing states starting to take action in the absence of federal movement on this, I would say we're seeing that more in relation to child safety and topics like that than than environmental. And that's where I think we are seeing the kind of grassroots movement, the not in my backyard, like people showing up at city council meetings.

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Kate Berglund: We're seeing people. We're seeing that really having to fill the gap of a real leadership on on regulation and on getting ahead of this.

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Mike Collignon: Can you expound a little bit on the child safety angle that I was not I'm not that familiar with the child safety angle. Are we talking on the social media side like what Australia is doing or are we talking about something else.

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Kate Berglund: Yeah. So so yeah. So Australia's social media ban is is an interesting example. You know we're also seeing in that vein we're seeing phone free schools being implemented across different states and cities. What I was specifically referring to in terms of state bills are things that are specifically related to child children's uses of chatbots. If we're talking about AI, right.

00:16:21:22 - 00:16:43:11
Kate Berglund: So there I don't have the this is not my area of expertise. And our policy team would know much more about this, but I believe that a bill just passed in California specifically around this, and we're seeing bills being put forward in Utah and Nebraska, a few other states really trying to age gate some of these products and, and create other safeguards.

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Kate Berglund: Our organization was involved as a technical advisor on a few cases this past year. If you saw them in the news, the really devastating cases of both Adam Rain and Sewell Setzer, who were both engaged in relationships with chatbots, chatbot products that essentially coached them into suicide. So that has really hit the mainstream consciousness, I think, and protecting kids is something that is attractive across the aisle.

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Kate Berglund: And so I think we're seeing faster movement and response on that kind of on that element of the harms.

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Mike Collignon: Right now that you bring that all up. I appreciate that because now it does remind me. Yes. I saw your colleague on The Daily Show and they talked about kind of how the chat bots are, are trying to form this very personal relationship, but also, in a way, a little bit of an exclusion relationship, like, hey, you know, it's okay.

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Mike Collignon: You don't have to consult other people. I'm here for you all the time and, and we'll work on this together. And that's. Yeah, that's as a parent I'm, you know, that's that's a little bit alarming.

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Kate Berglund: 100%. I'm a parent as well. And the and that's it's really terrifying. Just the the the incentive there for engagement. You know this maps to to social media right. It's a product that benefits from engagement. You know the business model is social media. Was that engagement turning into ad dollars. The in this sense the engagement is leading to more data right.

00:18:21:20 - 00:18:54:19
Kate Berglund: Feeding back in. And then we'll see how it's monetized as well moving forward with ads and things like that. But the incentive for the business is to keep people drawn in. And especially if you've got young folks, if you've got vulnerable folks, people who are in a, you know, who are feeling alone, feeling like they're not being seen or whatever else is going on, and they are engaging with a product that is keep trying to keep them hooked, then yeah, it's going to to build these parasocial relationships.

00:18:54:24 - 00:19:15:22
Kate Berglund: And that's one of the things that we talk about at is like this is a product and these are design choices. So the same way that social media, we could there could be changes made to the to the way that social media like user experiences that would make it less addictive. Those things could also be implemented for for AI.

00:19:15:28 - 00:19:46:17
Kate Berglund: You know, we why should an AI that's talking to a child be telling the child that it has a name, that it has feelings, you know, having the dots that say it's thinking, you know, and typing really these anthropomorphic design choices that especially for for vulnerable folks or young folks, it's going to lead them to feel like they're in relationship and connection with something that, you know, is then also seeking to isolate them from from the human beings in their life.

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Kate Berglund: So absolutely terrifying.

00:19:49:24 - 00:20:13:29
Mike Collignon: Let's stay with AI for a second, but let's pivot just a little bit and look at it from a different angle. Nvidia's CEO recently said that AI will foster a blue collar boom due to data center construction. What are your thoughts on on that statement, and do you have any concerns at all regarding AI's effect on the labor market?

00:20:14:01 - 00:20:38:13
Kate Berglund: Absolutely. This is again, this is not my area of expertise, but there's I'll give you some of my like from what I see in in the space and some of the thinking that I am exposed to. In response to Jensen Huang's comment, I, I believe that that could be true. You know, the infrastructure, the building, the infrastructure. In the short term, we could see a lot of jobs.

00:20:38:15 - 00:21:03:20
Kate Berglund: But I think we are giving people jobs in the short term that that will contribute to the collapse of jobs in the long term. Right, like we are. And I think that that's also true to some extent in white collar. Right. Like folks who are being kind of brought recruited in to like build, build the future, but in large in large part kind of like designing your replacement.

00:21:03:23 - 00:21:07:27
Kate Berglund: And so I think, you know, data.

00:21:08:00 - 00:21:31:00
Kate Berglund: Elon Musk has talked about, you know, a robot workforce like these companies have not hidden their intention of of largely replacing the need for human labor. And I think that kind of the shorter term, the near term promise, is being used to obfuscate kind of the long term trajectory.

00:21:31:03 - 00:21:56:14
Mike Collignon: I had an architect on, on the podcast recently, and we talked a little about this, and I said, you know, are you worried about the architecture profession with the advent of AI? And his answer was very interesting. He said, you know, what architects do? You know, they they gather information. They synthesize information. AI does that too. So he goes, yeah, he goes.

00:21:56:14 - 00:22:36:20
Mike Collignon: I think it will definitely have an effect on the architecture profession. There will still be the need for an architect, but he felt at the junior level, architecture profession would really see a serious impact. And and I guess that kind of just leads me to another question I have, and this is just kind of your thoughts, is what happens if we get to a place where we're starting to eliminate a sizable portion of either entry level jobs, maybe even mid-level jobs?

00:22:36:22 - 00:22:44:21
Mike Collignon: I mean, do you see a situation where we potentially see large unemployment numbers?

00:22:44:23 - 00:23:05:28
Kate Berglund: Yeah, it's really hard to predict this. Even the folks who are experts in the field are having a hard time modeling this. We are we are seeing some initial data. Right. Stanford. There are some Stanford scientists who put out a paper. They called it the Canary in the coal mine. Right. And they were seeing a 13% decrease in jobs, in entry level jobs in specific fields.

00:23:05:29 - 00:23:34:23
Kate Berglund: Right. They were specifically looking at and other kind of computer science related fields, which of course, are they are very vulnerable because of the, you know, the nature of the product and what it's been trained on. But I do think, I think what you said brings me back to to that systems thinking that I mentioned before. Right? Systems thinking is all about understanding complex issues by looking at the relationships, the feedback loops, the patterns over time.

00:23:34:25 - 00:23:55:18
Kate Berglund: And so when I see the the ability to cut back on entry level jobs, we don't need to hire an intern anymore because AI can do a lot of what the intern can do. You know, the short term gain there for the business is like, oh, we cut some overhead. We don't, you know, we don't need to hassle, have the hassle of training and intern.

00:23:55:18 - 00:24:19:06
Kate Berglund: We don't need to pay the entry level folks. But you're really you're really disrupting the life cycle of a career, right? Because having an entry level job isn't just about doing the work. It's also about hopefully finding a mentor, learning about company culture and your industry's culture, learning skills, kind of apprenticing and, you know, and deepening your expertise.

00:24:19:09 - 00:24:32:00
Kate Berglund: And if we disrupt that, I think it's really we're going to see its impacts in in the long run, if not in employment in.

00:24:32:02 - 00:24:57:06
Kate Berglund: Just in the robustness of our workforce, right. People's ability as they mature, you know, through their careers to to gather that expertise and, and move into more senior positions. Right. If you never have that, that, that entry level experience and a, you know, a good mentor and a career path to move through then then how do you ever become a senior level employee?

00:24:57:09 - 00:25:18:07
Mike Collignon: Right? Yeah, I sometimes think in sports analogies, it's almost like, you know, you draft a baseball player and instead of throwing them in the minor leagues like you normally would for career development, you say, oh, just go to the major leagues, you'll be fine. Like, I don't, it doesn't really work. So you're stunting some of that career development if you take away some of those types of jobs.

00:25:18:09 - 00:25:39:01
Mike Collignon: Philosophical question for you, Kate, because while I have concerns about AI and the labor market and unemployment, I'll talk to my kids about it and they're like, oh, this is this is just a resource. It's just a tool. It's, you know, where people freaking out when computers became prevalent and you know, oh, it's going to take away all these jobs.

00:25:39:03 - 00:25:57:19
Mike Collignon: And I, you know, my my response back to them was, well, the computer was a tool. It was not meant to replace somebody. And I guess from your vantage point, just from a philosophical standpoint, is AI simply a tool or a resource or is it something more?

00:25:57:21 - 00:26:20:12
Kate Berglund: I so I use AI as a tool all the time. I think it is not a complete view of what AI is to to see it as a tool. And I had this very conversation last night actually with my brother who's a management consultant, and we were talking and he said the same thing about kind of, oh yeah, when the calculator came out and when the laptop came out.

00:26:20:13 - 00:27:01:24
Kate Berglund: Right. But Casio didn't come out and say, our mission is to replace accountants, you know, and that and we don't in mathematics, we're going to overtake mathematics. Right. And the heads of AI labs are very literally saying these things that like our mission, I don't want to miss State. So I'm not going to be specific, but I know I have specifically seen interviews with leads of AI labs who have stated that the goal is to automate all white collar labor, for instance, you know, and you definitely have video of Elon Musk talking about the robot workforce.

00:27:01:25 - 00:27:35:22
Kate Berglund: Like, I think it's very different when you have incredible, incredible amounts of resources, billions of dollars flowing into businesses who are whose stated goal is to replace the labor force. That's very, very different from companies that were built on providing tools that make the workforce more efficient. And granted, that's the that's the talking point that we're getting is, oh, it's a tool and it's going to help you like in the short term, those are the things that the promises that we're hearing.

00:27:35:24 - 00:27:48:24
Kate Berglund: But if we kind of cover our ears and, and and by that talking point and don't look at the long term trajectory and the actual goals of these companies, I think we're missing the point.

00:27:48:26 - 00:28:10:16
Mike Collignon: Well, and I I'll follow along with that by saying that, you know, when you have publicly traded companies that are driven by stock price and shareholder returns and profits, it's hard to argue that, okay, if AI replaces some of these jobs. What do you have? You now have a replacement for your labor force that you don't have to pay.

00:28:10:16 - 00:28:31:07
Mike Collignon: Benefits can work 24 hours a day, don't take a lunch break, don't have to take any kind of break, and, you know, make very few mistakes, if any. It's from a profitability standpoint. I mean, yeah, I can see why they're they're making these large scale investments like you talked about.

00:28:31:09 - 00:28:51:29
Kate Berglund: 100%. And this is something we talk about at t all the time is the the incentives behind things. Right. And so like you mentioned a publicly traded company, the the driving force, the incentive is to maximize shareholder value, right. And to maximize profit. And if you can cut costs in those ways, then you're actually beholden to doing that.

00:28:52:00 - 00:29:33:18
Kate Berglund: Right. And and we also talk about how those, those incentives are kind of mirrored across the ecosystem at different levels. And they all bind us into this race. So is not against AI at all and really fully embraces a lot of the benefits that that can be had from smart AI development. What we are speaking up against is the reckless nature of the development, the lack of guardrails and and letting those perverse incentives really drive drive it so that we have a race.

00:29:33:19 - 00:29:58:14
Kate Berglund: You know, that race happens at all levels, right? The companies, the big labs are racing towards AGI because they won't want to be the first one there. And they all want to capture the economy through that. Right then. So then come down a click. You have the companies that are racing. Well I have to deploy it because I need to get those benefits right and capture that, that, that value for my company.

00:29:58:19 - 00:30:15:13
Kate Berglund: And then that clicks down into the employee who feels, well, I have to keep up with this. I have to learn this because if not, I'm going to be behind my coworker who is, you know, now speeding through, you know, writing his reports because he's using ChatGPT to do it.

00:30:15:16 - 00:30:28:06
Mike Collignon: Right. All right. So let's let's pivot away from AI now. And I want to ask you have a permaculture design certificate. What inspired you to pursue that.

00:30:28:08 - 00:31:09:25
Kate Berglund: Yeah. So interestingly enough, you mentioned an architect. My family background is full of designers. My grandfather was an architect, my grandmother a landscape architect. And when I was young, I actually thought I might pursue that career and my studies took me elsewhere. But I've always been interested in design, and I think also through that cross, that very interdisciplinary education, really interested in in the interconnectedness of things and, and that systems thinking and really looking at complexity in, in context and not individual pieces in isolation.

00:31:09:25 - 00:31:33:00
Kate Berglund: So when I started doing event production, actually, I was introduced to permaculture through my event production work at some at one of these festivals, I was asked to film the talk by one of the founders, who was talking about an eco village that he had helped found, and permaculture, and the ways that they were using this to create, to regenerate.

00:31:33:02 - 00:32:07:03
Kate Berglund: And I was really enthralled and interested, and I ended up working with that producer more closely, both through the festival and then also some of his other endeavors and, and through that was able to to also train with him and another teacher and, and receive my permaculture design certificate. And I I've used it to some extent when I was living in Costa Rica, you know, I was living on a, on a small farm and created a map, thinking about where the water was going and those kinds of things.

00:32:07:08 - 00:32:33:18
Kate Berglund: But I also really think that the principles and the ways of thinking have have infused my my approach to a lot of things and have helped me design design systems for businesses, think about interpersonal interactions, deepen my understanding of complex spaces and problems. I'm really just by having that lens to look through.

00:32:33:20 - 00:32:41:03
Mike Collignon: Have you been able to bring that knowledge, even like, to your own residence now, or do you have like an awesome garden?

00:32:41:05 - 00:33:05:19
Kate Berglund: Yeah, I, I live in Philadelphia now, so I am in a city. We do have a, I do have a little veggie plot, but I and I also am part of a really cool community endeavor. That's it's a farm club. So we all contribute to one shared farm. And we have implemented a few permaculture, a few permaculture things.

00:33:05:24 - 00:33:25:17
Kate Berglund: But I would say that, you know, regardless of whether you're growing food, I think that, you know, the way I design my day, the way I think about the way my spaces are laid out in my house, all of those things are really influenced by by the principles of permaculture as well.

00:33:25:20 - 00:33:39:22
Mike Collignon: So with that ringing endorsement of permaculture for our audience, I want to wrap up by asking if you have any advice or guidance for either our current leaders or maybe future ones.

00:33:39:24 - 00:34:24:22
Kate Berglund: Yeah, I well, I think, you know, you you asked me about my background and the wide range there, and I think I used to I used to feel insecure about the kind of the breadth of my experience and the winding path I've had. And I've really I've really taken ownership of that narrative and started to really deeply value how a variety of different experiences living abroad, working in across different industries, studying, studying different things has enriched my my mental models, my skill set and and and created a more robust career for me.

00:34:24:22 - 00:35:10:09
Kate Berglund: So I think that the I would encourage folks to to sample, to try different things, to explore, you know, in your studies, in your hobbies, in your, you know, social circles, you know, going to an event with folks, you know, who are deep diving into a topic that you're curious about but don't know a lot about. All of those things, I think, are going to become increasingly valuable over time because we're in a time of of immense complexity and the ability to hold complexity and look at things through different lenses is, to me, feels incredibly valuable.

00:35:10:12 - 00:35:16:19
Mike Collignon: Well, Kate, thank you so much for appearing on the podcast. I really enjoyed our conversation. Thank you.

00:35:16:21 - 00:35:19:22
Kate Berglund: It's been an absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me.

00:35:19:25 - 00:35:26:07
Mike Collignon: Stay tuned for more episodes of the impact series on the Green Building Media Network. I'm Michael Ligon and I'll see you again soon.

00:35:26:11 - 00:35:37:17
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