Welcome to EDGE Bandwidth, a show hosted by Patrick Whipkey, vice president of EDGE and Candice Aragon, vice president of marketing and education at the PSA Network, to share their expertise and have insightful conversations with professionals to explore and challenge what low voltage systems integrators are facing.

The AV sector produces a lot of e-waste, but it does not produce a lot of sustainable solutions, with the exception of recycling, which is occasionally useless because it actually transfers the problem to others; this is a critical situation that we can’t ignore anymore. In this episode, Debbie Williamson from Tempest Technologies LLC and Christina DeBono, president of ClearTech, talk about sustainability in AV and the organization SAVe, which strives to meet the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through a number of initiatives, one of the most significant of which is the SAVe certification, which aids in the development of an action plan and opportunities for the business to give back to the community so we may create a more sustainable future. 

Jump straight into:

(03:01) - The AV industry and sustainability - “In fact, our industry, to be honest with you, has fallen way behind and hasn't really done much in the area of developing sustainable initiatives and programs for our industry.” 

(07:33) - Scratching the surface of e-waste and e-recycling - “We discovered that what we thought was good and what we were being holding ourselves and our clients accountable to turned out to be not very good, because we were one of the companies that was shipping things off to these other nations to make it their problem.” 

(09:30) - SDG’s and SAVe certified program for a more sustainable future - “Educating ourselves isn't just enough, taking action isn’t enough for us; we wanted to spread it to our clients and everyone else. I think it’s an important opportunity for us to bring awareness at a level that I didn’t think about before.” 

(16:52) - More initiatives and actions to build a better future -  “This is gonna take everyone to work together to build a future that's more sustainable for all of us, whether it's our businesses, our industry, or our communities. "

Check SAVe’s website. 

Thanks for tuning in! EDGE Bandwidth is a show produced by StudioPod Media, for more information about their podcast production services, feel free to check out their website. Special thanks to our sponsors over at Shure.