Ira Pearl, Cox Enterprises

Today's guest is Ira Pearl, Vice President of Environmental Sustainability at Cox Enterprises. Ira is also the leader of Cox Conserves. In his role, Ira leads Cox's efforts to tackle sustainability challenges while driving its goals to achieve zero waste to landfill by 2024 and become water and carbon neutral by 2034. Cox Enterprises is interesting because they are a privately held global conglomerate headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with approximately 55,000 employees and $21 billion in total revenue. Its major operating subsidiaries are Cox Communications and Cox Automotive. Not only is the scale of Cox Enterprises pretty shocking, but the proactive role they've taken in trying to do the right thing with climate change and the clean energy transition is also noteworthy. Jason and Ira unpack a lot in this episode, including Ira's career and what led him to Cox in the first place. They talk about Cox's approach to sustainability, some of the progress the company has made in reaching net zero goals, as well as some of the barriers that they've come across along the way. They also cover where Cox is going in the future and have a great discussion about some of the things Ira thinks will help everybody move faster and what gets him most excited about the future and the clean energy transition overall. Enjoy the show!