Telling Better Stories, Building Better Systems: A Conversation With Rachel Zerowin On Relatability And Resilience
If you want people to rapidly and actively address today’s biggest social issues, you have to simplify overwhelming ideas and set aside unusual jargons. This is the reason why Rachel Zerowin focused on telling better stories to educate communities about the importance of water conservation and circular economy. She joins Christine Yeager to share her work at Circular Action Alliance (CAA), wherein she uses storytelling to drive awareness of the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) legislation across Colorado. Rachel talks about different approaches to teaching communities about recycling programs and water conservation projects. She also explores how sustainability does not only concern community-building efforts but also building a better version of yourself every single day.
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Telling Better Stories, Building Better Systems: A Conversation With Rachel Zerowin On Relatability And Resilience
Welcome to Change Cycle. I'm your host, Christine Yeager, and I'm here with Rachel Zerowin. I'm very excited to interview you. We met working together at the Circular Action Alliance, and your passion and knowledge in this space were infectious to me. I could see it. I could feel it. I'm super excited to have this conversation with you because you know a ton about the Colorado space in general, but also some unique things about water conservation that will expand the knowledge of our audience. Hopefully, your passion and excitement will rub off on the audience as well. Thank you for being here.
We met at the Circular Action Alliance, where you are the Colorado Communications Manager. You drive awareness of EPR implementation and the work across the state in general. Previous to that, you were the Community Program Director for the High Country Conservation Center. I'm excited to get into this because there, you oversaw zero waste, water conservation, and sustainable food initiatives in Summit County, which is a beautiful county.
Your career also includes leading marketing and communications efforts for Keystone Resort Hospitality and the Breckenridge Tourism Office, which I can only imagine was a fun job. You are drawn to Colorado's diverse landscape, as am I, and passionate about communities dedicated to their stewardship. You're committed to creating a more sustainable future. You can see that through your experience. Anybody who talks to you can see that as well. Thank you for being here, Rachel.
Thanks, Christine. I'm so excited that we got to meet at the Circular Action Alliance. It makes me happy and proud that you saw the passion that I have for sustainability. Sometimes, I worry about sounding too much like a cheerleader, but it is important to me. Colorado is a beautiful place. It's spectacular. I want to keep it that way, not just for myself, but for anybody who visits or the future generations. Thanks for the opportunity.
Rachel Zerowin Of Circular Action Alliance
On that note, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and how you live with intention?
I love Colorado's landscapes. I came to Colorado first on a bike tour when I was eighteen. Further down the road, I did a guided canoe trip. I realized that guided boating trips could be a job. Remembering how much I loved Colorado's landscapes, I became a raft guide. That brought this connection to nature that I don't think I could ever let go of. That's what drives me to work in sustainability. As much fun as tourism was, I feel lucky to be able to have made that transition into more of a sustainability-focused job, so we can protect these things that residents, visitors, or anyone is looking to explore in Colorado.
Spending Time On Personal Sustainability
In some of the prep work, you shared a couple of things from a perspective of change. I'd like to start with this idea of personal sustainability. This is a topic we covered in a previous episode when I interviewed John Hite. Personal sustainability is not about the personal actions that you're taking to live a sustainable life. It's more of this idea of how do you live sustainably? How do you fill your own cup as you're doing this work that can sometimes feel daunting, a sustainability space, preserving natural landscape, and things like that? Can you talk to us about how you've been learning to stop when you need to rest, and how you've been navigating that change to live more sustainably for yourself?
It's so important because when we think about sustainability and the types of careers where you could burn out and experience a sense of hopelessness, sustainability is one of those. To be effective, we need to not do that. By living our personal lives with a bit more intention, for me, that means slowing down a bit. I'm not always good at it. I want to do all the things for work and my family, and on a personal level for myself. If I don't listen to myself when I need that rest, whether that's rest from doing outdoor activities or rest from a focused day at work, I'm not as effective. That's not good for me. That's not any good for the people I work with or the communities and spaces I'm trying to impact with my work.
It's so important to get that rest. I talk a good game. It's not always that way. I try hard. I go in circles. Sometimes, I stray pretty far from that path of intention and living that sustainable life, but I try to bring it back. Some of the ways I try to do that are with yoga, with mindfulness, and time outside. All those things seem to help me. The more I can learn to do that and stay on that path, the more effective I can be in my job, as a mom, and as a wife.
When you do hit those strays back, how do you help yourself? Sometimes, I get too critical of myself when I deviate from my intention. I know that something that would help me in so many ways is if I meditated every day. Instead, I spent 90 minutes in a sensory deprivation tank to try to jumpstart this idea. It was quiet, and that was lovely, but I was lying there thinking, “If I can do this 90 minutes on a Saturday, why can't I do it for 10 minutes every day?” How do you talk yourself back?
It's hard. The dangerous words are should, could, I need, and we want to. I feel the same way. There have been times when I'm like, “I need to meditate every day.” This came up in a leadership class, too, that I had the privilege of taking. The more we can understand what fills our cup and what we need, the better positioned we are to carve out that time. I'm going to tell you a story about one of my goofy things right now.
Just down the road, they expanded our park. It's pump tracks. It's one of these circular tracks. It's the mob scene for little kids, but in the middle of the day, when kids are in school, I can ride down there for fifteen minutes, go do circles on my bike, come home, and be fine to go back to work. That 30 minutes is so impactful for me. It's understanding these things when we think about how I should meditate, I should do this, or I could do that. What are those things that are going to drive that change within ourselves and keep us vibrant and ready to tackle big sustainability challenges? We need to understand what fills our cup, and then we need to make the time to do it. I plan my 30 minutes, and instead of meditating, it's riding my bike down the street.
We need to understand what fills our cups and make the time to do it.
My therapist said, “Time is not found. It's made.”
I would agree with that sentiment 100%. Scheduling those things is as important as scheduling a meeting or the focus time to act on the task at work.
On that note, how does this bleed into your work? How do you find the time for rest? How does that help you perform in a different way, or do you also find a little bit of grace for yourself in your work deliverables and things like that?
I'm not so good at finding grace for myself. I can tell other people to do that. They are so much better at encouraging our friends and giving a nice, compassionate response to our friends, but I'm not so good at that. It is being intentional and making the time and space for the things that do give us energy, whether that's in the morning, in the evening, or the middle of the work day. I could sit and scroll on my phone, which sometimes I do, or I can move my body outside. By doing that, I come back to my workspace with a more focused mind and ready to act on the big change that so many people are working toward and that our communities need.
Building A Community-Wide Water Conservation Program
Sticking in the professional change space, can you tell us about building a community-wide water conservation program in High Country Conservation Center? That sounds challenging. Many people may not even know what the High Country Conservation Center is, but can you share a little bit about what that work was and what you found most challenging about influencing that change?
Thanks for the opportunity to share. The High Country Conservation Center is a nonprofit that's based in Summit County, Colorado, which is where I live. The resort town of Breckenridge is included in the Summit County community along with Silverthorne, Frisco, Dillon, as well as some other smaller towns. That's where the High Country Conservation Center operates. Among several climate action initiatives, water conservation is one of those.
When I started, the organization and my predecessor there had created a water efficiency plan. This is something that's required by the state of Colorado for communities of certain sizes. In the case of Summit County, when it was created, it was voluntary. It lays out strategies to say, “How are we going to reduce water?” That's through policy actions. It's through voluntary programs. It's also through education outreach.
There's a great plan. You might think, “You walk into the job, and you have this whole plan set out in front of you. That's perfect.” It was super hard and intimidating. I had just come from tourism at that time. It was a hugely complex thing that I was learning about. This was a big challenge for me. The action items within that plan represented some big changes in our community. Policy and land use codes are not always easy. It seems like it's never easy.
I was navigating through that change, learning as much as I could, and then starting to understand all the different communities that were involved in the creation of that plan and how they came together. It was remarkable. Water is life, and it brings people together. Sometimes, it can divide us pretty hard, but we all want clean water to drink. The number of people who came together to create that plan was remarkable.
Water is life and brings people together. It sometimes divides us, but we all want clean water to drink.
We are continuing to work with all those different people throughout the process to understand, “How can we, as a community, reduce our water use? What does that look like?” The plan had the structure and the organization. I came in to work with the community to help build the programs outlined in that plan. That's all very intangible, but that's the gist of it, and happy to talk about the tangible pieces as well.
You mentioned that some different stakeholders had different values. Maybe expand on bringing that into the forefront of how you're executing, and the challenges that are faced when you have so many different stakeholders.
As you influence change, create new programs, implement new policies, or whatever the case may be, that involves bringing people together, because that's how it makes these programs better. We were creating sprinkler checkups, irrigation assessments, and low-water garden plans to help people understand how they could use less water on their lawns. To give you a sense, somebody like Denver Water, one water provider, serves more than a million residents or customers. You have a community like Summit County, where you have nineteen different water providers serving about 30,000 people.
As you influence change, create new programs, or implement new policies, you bring people together.
That looks different. Some of those water providers are in very sustainability-minded communities that want to use less water. Other providers are coming from a place of, “My board may not support water conservation,” or “How are we going to have our operating income if our customers use less water and we don't get the income from their water bills?” It is understanding and working with people to understand what their real challenges and barriers are, what's important to them and their customers in the community, and bringing everyone together to find a path forward that works.
Understanding The Extended Producer Responsibility
I don't even understand how you have nineteen different service providers. The idea that they wouldn't have enough income is hard. The challenge of conservation or sustainability actions against profit for a business is an age-old conflict. How do you restructure economics to support? It brings us to the Circular Action Alliance, which is effectively what extended producer responsibility does. We do have an episode that goes deep into extended producer responsibility directly. Could you give a quick overview of the extended producer responsibility legislation, specifically in Colorado, and what are some unique aspects of it?
Colorado's Producer Responsibility Law, at its heart, shifts the cost of recycling everyday household packaging items from consumers and local governments to the producers who are creating that common household packaging. What the Circular Action Alliance does is we help producers navigate this law, which will make recycling as easy as taking out the trash for residents in Colorado.
In Summit County, there's a dump. If you have a dump, then you would take your cycling to a similar situation. Whereas if you have curbside trash, you would also then need curbside recycling.
How we take out the trash in Colorado is different across the state, and communities are unique. At the end of the day, so many people can wheel their trash bin out to the end of their driveway, or they can carry a bag of trash to a shared waste enclosure. When it comes to recycling, they don't have that same easy access. The Producer Responsibility builds Colorado's recycling infrastructure, so that recycling is as easy as taking out the trash. It's not written into the law in those words, but that's the idea of it.
One of the other things that's unique to Colorado's Producer Responsibility Law is that, in some cases, producers who are funding the recycling of these items are partially funding a system or partially funding recycling for residents. Here in Colorado, they are fully funding the disposal and recycling of those products as well as the recycling system that gives those recycled items a new life.
Do you have any insights on what might be some specific barriers to change that we'll see in Colorado that we may not see in other states?
It's the classic. We can call it a framing, a barrier, or an opportunity. Surprisingly, Colorado lacks access to recycling. When we look at the statewide level, there are a lot of people in the state who simply don't have access. When we think about that, recycling is going to be new for people. They may not know how to do it. Their experiences with it in other places may not have been good. When we think about residents, they're going to be at so many different stages of recycling knowledge, or lack thereof, or how committed or motivated they are to participate in a recycling program.
When we look at that across the state, that's a real opportunity for the Circular Action Alliance. It's what the legislation does. It creates this uniform list of recyclables that, whether you're in Lamar, Denver, Summit County, or Grand Junction, you can recycle the same things, which is fantastic. It's going to make recycling easier for people, too. Is it not a barrier and an opportunity? Absolutely, but ultimately, figuring these things out is going to contribute to our success.
Setting The Industry Talk Aside
We chatted before in preparation. One of the things that you think is going to be important, and it's also something that we talk a lot about here on the show, is the fact that sustainability professionals have a lot of knowledge because there is a lot of homework to move into the sustainability space. There are perhaps some foundational things that some people are at different levels of. They may know a lot about the circular economy or water conservation, but then, when they're talking to someone else outside of that specific niche or area of interest, they have to catch them up.
You mentioned it as a key aspect of this shift, specifically in Colorado. There are going to be people who don't know about recycling or trust it. Can you share some advice for sustainability professionals on how to talk about circularity, the circular economy, and recycling in a way that's relatable to people who maybe don't know all of the details or the ins and outs like you and I? You probably know more than I.
I don't know that I do. I like stories. I don't necessarily relate to science and terms. When I say things like recycling nerd, I say that in a loving way and could accuse myself of also being a recycling nerd. When we're talking to people who are not fellow recycling nerds, we need to not use words like circular economy because it doesn't mean anything. I did hear you in one of your past episodes talking about compost. I also love compost. Composting is wonderful. It's a great story, thinking about how we have food that we can compost the scraps. That can get turned into a soil amendment that is used to grow new food.
That's a wonderful story. For some people, that excites them. For other people, the idea of growing your own food is overwhelming. What is the story about circularity that we're not going to call circularity that we can connect people to? When I think about how we talk to people, it's about listening and understanding what's important to them and using words that we can relate to, rather than our favorite, EPR or PRO. It's easier. It rolls off the tongue, but when we're outside of our circles, we need to listen and use everyday language.
When talking to people outside your circles, you need to listen well and use everyday language to create better connections.
I say things like, “I was working with the Circular Action Alliance,” and they're like, “What is that?” I go, “Bear with me.” It's got to go deep fast because you've got to explain extended producer responsibility. Then, you have to explain the producer responsibility organization. This was a thing even back at Coca-Cola. There was a leader who said, “We're not using any more acronyms.” There was an acronym glossary when you joined the company. It didn't work, but I took that to heart.
Now, I intentionally try not to use acronyms, or if I do, I say the full thing almost repetitively, because not only is it hard to connect to. The other aspect is you're making an assumption that somebody else has a level of understanding that you have. It can be a little arrogant and off-putting because it's like, “You don't know what this is.” It's not welcoming. It's not inviting. It's not accepting of the fact that everybody has different backgrounds and experiences. Just because they don't know that specific acronym doesn't mean that they aren't a very valuable contributor to the conversation that you're trying to have.
You're talking about your co-training. I did a session on putting together PowerPoints. We can think about the people's lived experiences and whether growing food excites them or makes them think, “I don't have time, money, space, or any of the things to even think about that. Move on.” Whether we're talking about that kind of space or whether we're talking about something simple, like a community presentation, where some people relate to numbers, some people relate to words, and some people like pictures. I like pictures. That's what inspires and motivates me.
We go back to listening, and that's something I'm working on. I need to work on it more. It's one of those things that I think will drive our success as sustainability professionals if we can all think about communication and how we can listen and use language that anyone can relate to and understand. It's so hard. I started at the Circular Action Alliance in December. It was holiday party season. People were like, “What's your new job?” It only took one party for me to be like, “Producer responsibility.”
After that, I was like, “I need to develop a better answer to this.” I was talking with someone about this. We help people reduce waste and recycle more. That's what we're doing. Circular Action Alliance is working with communities and businesses, large, small, and everywhere in between, to reduce waste and recycle more. We don't ever need to say producer responsibility organization. We don't ever need to say extended producer responsibility. We are working with businesses and communities to reduce waste and recycle more.
The other thing that we can talk about as sustainability professionals is the impact that that work is going to have. We all want to drink clean water and breathe clean air. We all deserve that. How can we talk about our work in that context, whether it's a water role, a waste diversion role, or a greenhouse gas reduction role, and any of those sectors? We all deserve to drink clean water and breathe clean air.
Doing The Work In Colorado
That was a great point, Rachel. Thank you. Can you share how this way of thinking is helping you in your endeavor to bring free and accessible recycling to Coloradans? How are you thinking about this storytelling in the Colorado EPR, extended producer responsibility, helping people reduce waste and recycle more?
It's so hard to get away from that industry language. It's easier for me to say in a communications role that that's inherently part of my job. It would all benefit us as sustainability professionals to have that lens of communication and how we talk to people. Certainly, in my role at Circular Action Alliance and how we're thinking about communication, there will be people recycling who've never had a chance to recycle before. That's exciting. Maybe they need some help. Maybe there are neighborhoods or specific buildings that may not have had recycling before, or maybe they're having challenges because more people are recycling. People are putting the wrong things in the wrong bins. We need to help them.
Understanding and listening to what's going on in Colorado's communities and making sure that we are delivering on an education outreach program that fulfills those needs is what's going to make us successful. It's building that access and helping more people recycle. Whether it's folks who recycle now or folks who are new recyclers, it's helping them recycle the right way. That's important as well, especially as things change and we work toward this minimum recyclables list, where everyone across the state will have a unified recycling list.
Wishcycling is something that happens in non-EPR states. For sure, it's going to happen through this journey. I would expect that there's potential for people to think, “EPR is fixing everything, so now I can recycle everything.” It is getting ahead of that mentality and being very clear in what is recyclable and what isn't. As a recycling nerd, one of the beauties of the minimum recyclable list is the standardization, at least for the state of Colorado, and how that can help accelerate the understanding. It'll be a matter of managing the change as you move through and add more things to the list, which is a good problem to have.
Indeed, that's a great perspective. It's a great problem to have. The other thing that we're lucky to have in Colorado is a lot of organizations that have been around for years, who know their communities and are already working with them to reduce waste and recycle more. The way that producer responsibility is structured in Colorado is that we at the Circular Action Alliance can work with those local governments, local communities, and local organizations who already do a good job on that. We get to build on that.
That's exciting for us as well. We think about education and the Circular Action Alliance leading a broad statewide campaign and effort to help educate residents on how to recycle, among other things, where to recycle, what not to recycle, and litter prevention. We also have local communities and local organizations working toward educating residents. Another layer beyond that is the waste collectors who come around to your house and collect the recycling. We'll be working with them as well to help educate residents.
We talked a little bit about listening. One of the education opportunities in Colorado's program plan that excites me, and this is where I'll go into my recycling nerd fest, is for data-driven projects. We'll have the ability to look at a specific building or a neighborhood and say, “This building's residents are throwing out a lot of glass. How can we change that?” “There's a lot of trash in the recycling bins in this one neighborhood. How could we work with that community and do this very focused project?” There is an opportunity to listen, be responsive, and improve, not just the program itself, but our education of residents. That's something I get excited and nerdy about.
Why Embrace Change
Rachel, final question. I like to end all my episodes with this. Why embrace change?
Embracing change means we stand to grow, learn, and become more resilient. That's on a personal and professional level. Even if we think about change on a very practical level, I can save money. I can be more effective if I change. If all of a sudden I start planning my meals out on a weekend, instead of going out to eat every night, I could probably save myself some money there. There are so many little ways and big ways that we can embrace change. In one of the classes that I had, they talked about changes. People aren't necessarily afraid of change. They're afraid of loss. They're afraid of losing what they currently have.
Embracing change means to grow, learn, and become more resilient.
Even if we think about the meal planning example, “I love going out to eat with my friends. I love going out to eat with my family. It's a fun experience.” How am I losing something by not doing that? What can I create at home to support the small businesses and restaurants I love? Still have that social time with family, but maybe rein it in, plan some meals, and save some money. When we think about change, it's how we structure it in a way where people aren't losing something, or we're making people less afraid of losing something. I would get back to how much change allows us to grow, learn, and become more resilient as people.
I love this idea of shifting the narrative away from being afraid of losing to what you can gain from the change and putting it into that perspective. We've talked in previous episodes about the change curve, how there's shock and denial, and you're trying to move to acceptance. Framing it in the beginning, not about what you're losing, but what you're gaining, is a good tool in the sustainability professional's toolbox.
Episode Wrap-Up And Closing Words
Thank you for all of this conversation. This was rich. A couple of things stood out to me, which are listening, understanding, and using everyday language. Listening, empathy, and thinking from the perspective of your audience are such critical skills to build. It can feel hard at times not to be patiently waiting for your turn to talk, especially for an extrovert, which I am. When you feel like you're a subject matter expert as well, you can jump to the conclusion that this is probably the direction that they're heading. If you listen, and data-driven listening is even more powerful in your ability to build a response, that is something that can address and show that you're understanding your audience.
We talked at length, but I want to reiterate this using everyday language and how approachable it makes a very complicated topic. I love this push for stories. Sustainability feels like it needs to be so macro in scale, but it also has to work at the local level. It can feel as if you hone in on too many stories, you're not thinking about the bigger picture. However, using those stories helps people understand what you're trying to get to from a bigger picture level.
You can use them as examples to then showcase this macro and scale that you're trying to get to. These local communities are having very specific challenges in a certain area. It is being able to shift, and how you can use that knowledge to shift whatever the challenges are. Let's say it's a glass in the wrong bin or whatever. It is using that as a showcase example that can then be applied to a broader macro solution. My point is to continue to highlight and bring those to the forefront in the service of being approachable and helping people understand, and then recognizing that you still have to do the larger macro changes.
I liked how you brought up the concept that people are going to need help to make this change. Part of the role of an organization like Circular Action Alliance is to provide that help, both from a producer standpoint and from an everyday person's standpoint. Coming at it from that point of view can be powerful in how you provide that help, as opposed to, “I'm telling you what needs to change. I'm telling you what needs to get done.” Instead, I'm providing the service to help you move through the curve. Having that point of view reiterates this concept of empathy that you've been bringing through this whole episode.
I appreciate your time. Hopefully, our readers got some tangible examples of things that they can use and apply as they're trying to communicate about their sustainability initiative. It was also helpful to hear some of the unique challenges that Colorado will be facing, specifically for extended producer responsibility, or as I will begin to say, helping people produce waste and recycle more. Thank you for the time. Rachel, I don't know if there are any last words.
Thank you. I recently uncovered something that is on the Circular Action Alliance website that I love. When we think about what the Circular Action Alliance's work in Colorado will do, we're going to more than double Colorado's recycling rate of common items like shampoo bottles and shipping boxes, to name a few of many. This adds up to more than 410,000 tons of additional materials recycled annually, which is roughly equivalent to filling the Empower Field at Mile High, where the Broncos play every year. Every year, we will be recycling an additional Empower Field at Mile High's worth of materials through this new program.
That's pretty exciting. That's a helpful picture. Thank you so much.
Thank you for having me. This has been so fun.
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About Rachel Zerowin
As Colorado Communications Manager for Circular Action Alliance (CAA), Rachel Zerowin drives awareness of EPR implementation and CAA’s work across the state. She previously served as Community Programs Director for the High Country Conservation Center, where she oversaw zero waste, water conservation, and sustainable food initiatives in Summit County. Her career also includes leading marketing and communications efforts for Keystone Resort Hospitality and the Breckenridge Tourism Office. Drawn to Colorado’s diverse landscapes and the passionate communities dedicated to their stewardship, Rachel is committed to creating a more sustainable future.