An Interview With Monica Sanders
People think something small they do absolves them of something much larger. After having spoken to hundreds of people one-on-one about their personal sustainability habits, the one conversation I still replay in my head while falling asleep at night is the person who triumphally told me she made a particularly long trek to a supermarket that sold her favorite vegan cheese because it was better for the environment. The gallon of gas she burned for that roundtrip was not accounted for in her calculations — and likely never will be.
Although the United States has had a long trend of non-renewable consumption, the tides are turning. Many companies are working hard to break this cycle, moving towards renewable consumption. In this interview series, we are talking to business leaders who are sharing the steps they are taking toward renewable consumption. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Paul Kradin.
Paul Kradin, Chief Sustainability Officer, Lumi, is a serial entrepreneur who has co-founded sustainability-focused ventures like CO2CYCLE, Aerrem, and Jybe. With decades of experience in communications and a passion for environmental advocacy, Paul is leading LumiCup’s mission to eliminate single-use plastics with groundbreaking aluminum technology.
Paul’s impressive career includes more than 25 years in public relations, where he honed the art of simplifying complex issues — a skill he now uses to champion LumiCup’s mission of eliminating single-use plastic waste. His past ventures tackled how businesses and consumers approach sustainability and, with LumiCup, he and his co-founders are taking on the $20 billion plastic cup industry.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about how you grew up?
As a child in the 1970s and early 80s, I was very much a part of the GenX wave that was expected to get itself to school, to sports practices, to friends’ homes and wherever else we wanted to go on our own initiative. I suppose I’m saying I wasn’t “helicoptered.” And if I had a problem, an injury, got lost or just had a bad day, I needed to exhaust my own solutions before I would seek an adult’s help. It may sound today like a lot to put on a kid’s shoulders, but with that responsibility came a great sense of capability — both perceived, and learned. And there was a subtle message in there from my folks that they trusted me and felt I was able to handle myself. That helped build self-esteem and independence. As an adult, I think those deep-rooted lessons bolstered my confidence and whispered a narrative in my ear that I could — and should — take risks.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I’ve had a series of mentors through the years — each one gave me an important boost along the way. But to name one person who’s had the greatest impact, I have to credit my mother — an extraordinary individual who modeled good values and ethics, demonstrated what a tireless worker looks like, showed me how to share credit, give and receive advice, own mistakes and pick myself up and keep going when necessary. One instance of this — more like a discovery than a story — has replayed in my mind countless times over the last 30+ years.
I was home on summer break from my freshman year of college and my mother’s answering machine — back then, “voicemail” was an actual machine on your counter that recorded callers on a cassette tape — started blowing up with messages from people who’d heard that her boss had just died. That’s how I found out about it. He was a beloved elected official who had a heart attack during a city council meeting and collapsed in front of a full chamber. No cell phones then, and there was pure pandemonium at her office so I couldn’t reach her. I just anxiously waited until she got home — which she did hours later with a council escort who’d driven her. She was bereft — our families were friends and this loss was searing. Nevertheless, as a senior staff member, she had to compose herself to write the press release confirming his death, field dozens of phone calls, and basically provide support to everyone else — which she did, tirelessly. I saw it all, and I never forgot what it looked like to persevere through a tragic experience.
What is the mission of your company? What problems are you aiming to solve? What is your “why”?
Lumi believes we can speed the market’s transition away from using single-use plastic for food and beverage containers, and produce exceptional aluminum alternatives that delight consumers and protect our environment. To do it, we want to give consumers the ideal product that balances convenience and disposability with the urgent need to curtail single-use plastic. People are busier than ever, and usually running from one commitment to the next. That’s why 500 billion single-use plastic cups of all sizes are sold each year. But plastic waste is an epic problem, and aluminum is an affordable and infinitely reusable material that makes it easy for people to be conscious without compromise.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company or organization?
Maybe more of an anecdote, but when my husband Steve and I first came up with the idea for Lumi, Ball — our only aluminum cup competitor — wasn’t yet in the market. We actually thought for a short period that we’d have it to ourselves for a bit. But for that same reason, we were a little worried the absence of a competitor meant there wasn’t a market for it, or some other hurdle lay in wait for us. We didn’t have the resources to do a comprehensive market analysis — like each of our earlier ventures, we were going on an instinct alone.
Then about a year later we saw Ball’s cup — or at least an ad for it. Initially we got that deep, sinking feeling in our stomachs that we’d lost our advantage to a major player and were discouragingly behind. Then we realized, if they’re introducing a product, then all of their marketing experts and analyses must confirm that there’s a big opportunity here. Our stomach aches turned to high-fives in about ten seconds.
Do you have a favorite life lesson quote? Can you tell us how that was relevant to you in your own life?
Yes, and it actually harkens back to your question above where you ask about our “why.” When I first watched Simon Sinek’s 2009 Start With Why Ted Talk, it felt like both a personal and professional Eureka moment. “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it” suddenly became my anthem and answered so many questions and misgivings about my approach to life and work. I had spent a lot of time focusing on the “what” — and defining myself by what I was doing — rather than investing in “why” I did it. I think in a broad sense, I measured success by promotions and salary rather than meaningful contribution, and I would define my skills based on my output rather than the impact I was making. Discovering that people connected to each other most powerfully when they understood the why — the thing that drives and excites you — made me examine what did, in fact, drive me. It’s why I do this today rather than what I was doing before.
Let’s now shift to the main part of our interview. Can you tell our readers about the initiatives that you or your company are taking to help break the cycle of non-renewable consumption? What specific problems related to non-renewable consumption are you aiming to solve?”
Society is addicted to convenience and low-cost disposability. It’s a difficult reality to face because my business partners and I tried several prior sustainability ventures that sought to make it easier for consumers to switch to more eco-friendly habits. But they didn’t work because habits are hard to change. We realized the best way to get people to make better choices was to give them choices that met them where they are, not where we’re hoping to move them. LumiCups are effortlessly sustainable — and they perform better than their plastic counterparts. A better experience with every guilt-free sip means there’s no settling — no compromise.
Aluminum is a renewable superstar. SIngle-use plastic is a calamity that will torment future generations for centuries. Not exaggerating.
Aluminum gets recycled each year at higher rates than glass and paper, and it beats single-use plastic rates by about 15x. That’s because aluminum never wears out. Ever. It’s endlessly recyclable through a process that uses just 5% of the energy needed to make it the first time. It’s very valuable, so there’s an incentive to collect and process it. That’s why we focused on it as our core material for our cold cups. Our lead product is the 16 oz. size, but 12 oz. and 9 oz. will roll out this summer.
For the plastic version we replace, it’s all bad news. It can only be recycled once or twice before breaking down, so old plastic only delays new plastic, it doesn’t displace it. Almost every plastic cup you’ve ever used is still out there somewhere, buried in a landfill, scattered in our natural spaces or drifting in our oceans in massive floating garbage patches. We have got to end this runaway single-use plastic cycle, and Lumi believes an ideal place to start is the 500 billion plastic cold cups sold globally each year.
Try to imagine these numbers. Humanity produces about 400 million tons of plastic each year — a 19,000% increase from 1950 and even that astronomical figure is estimated to double by 2050. Those scary facts are well known; here’s a new one that might cast doubt on the accuracy of that 2050 forecast.
The world is widely believed to have reached “Peak Oil” in 2025. Renewable energy sources and the rising prevalence of electric vehicles mean the global demand for oil has crested and will begin drifting down — Yea! sorta. But oil companies aren’t ready to slow their production. The industry’s own trade groups say that 75% of this “surplus” production will be redirected to make plastic. Basically, they’re going to flood the zone with cheap plastic to keep sales booming, and much more single-use material will be forced into the marketplace.
LumiCup wants to give consumers the ideal product to replace their plastic habit and encourage them to see that choosing aluminum is better for their enjoyment, and better for the environment they also like to enjoy. Ours is the lightest aluminum cup on the market, yet it keeps drinks cold 70% longer than regular plastic can.
Can you give a few examples of what you are implementing to help address those issues?
We entered the market with our 16 oz. LumiCup in November 2024 and already are available at select hotels and event venues offering the same convenience, affordability and stackability as plastic cups, but with full curbside recyclability and a chic, lustrous look.
It doesn’t take many steps to begin to see how quickly a renewable aluminum cup positioned at major public venues could rapidly alleviate a massive source of plastic pollution. After every tallied score, concert encore and halftime show that brings fans together — mountains of single-use plastic waste are left behind. Over the course of a year, a single U.S. stadium uses an average of 650,000 cups and most of these end up in landfills. There’s more than 900 stadiums and sports arenas in the U.S. — a simple swap to LumiCup could spare the planet hundreds of millions of plastic cups annually. That’s a scorecard I’d be proud of.
We will also roll out new sizes, including 9 oz. and 12 oz. LumiCups this year, and some other sizes and fun products are on-deck soon after that, making it easier to reach for recyclable aluminum. We’re also excited to expand our manufacturing capacity later this year and make the cup available direct-to-consumer on our website and on retail shelves. Expanding our product line and where we show up makes it easier for people to adopt an eco-friendly cup choice.
How do you measure the impact of your company’s sustainability initiatives, both in terms of environmental benefits and business growth? Can you share any key metrics or success stories?
We are literally one giant measurement. Every time we sell a cup, we displace a plastic cup that could’ve been used. We know how much CO2 is displaced — about 1,885 grams — and how much single-use plastic is avoided — about 16–18 lbs. per case.
The carbon dioxide figure is based on the difference between our per-cup footprint — 19.24 grams and a single-use plastic equivalent’s footprint of 22.81 grams. The core data are taken from respected national and international government ratings, university studies and other independent sources. Importantly, they are then adjusted to reflect ancillary impacts that aren’t usually captured when you just analyze the manufacturing cycle. With aluminum, there’s a small CO2 contribution from the mining process, though it’s nearly a rounding error. And then a huge recovery of CO2 in the recycling process, which uses just 5% of the initial energy required.
With plastic, we account for the recently disclosed fact that methane (natural gas) wellheads leak at a rate of 9% nationally. This is from a longitudinal Yale University study that really blew our minds. This means that for every 100 cubic meters of gas pulled from the ground, 9 cubic meters escape into the atmosphere.
In 2023, the world drilled — and captured — 4.08 trillion cubic meters, so 367 billion cubic meters of additional methane went into our atmosphere. Methane is about 72–78 times more potent than carbon dioxide for the first 15–20 years, so it’s vital we all understand the process for creating single-use plastic doesn’t just entail the methane used as feedstock, it also entails the methane spewing into the air. So, we add that proportional burden into our footprint calculation.
On the production side, we measure everything we do. How much aluminum we buy — of course, how many boxes, how many glassine sleeves (we don’t wrap our cups in plastic), how many miles our materials and products travel by ship, rail, truck or air. How many miles we fly or drive for sales meetings or trade shows, how many hotel room nights we use and meals are eaten for work purposes, and we track the water usage involved in the aluminum smelting process that’s attributable to our purchases.
To null out our impact, we purchase carbon offset credits from Indigo Ag’s soil health program, and for the water we purchase Water Restoration Certificates from Bonneville Environmental Foundation. We love Indigo Ag’s soil health program because it’s a triple-win. They teach farmers cultivation methods that allow the soil to achieve its full potential as a carbon sink — generally 2–3x more than heavily tilled farms can achieve. Farmers get paid to make the changes, boosting their income, and the topsoil gets healthier and its productive life is extended.
We are nearly single-use plastic free in our sales and production methods, will only sell aluminum-based products that are endlessly recyclable, and we take accountability for our other impacts and do our best to either limit or offset them.
What challenges have you faced while implementing sustainable practices in your company, and how did you overcome them? Can you share a specific example?
Not everything is under our direct control — especially as a start-up. Many times, you’re just glad a vendor returns your call, let alone lives up to your sustainability expectations. For instance, when we build a pallet of boxes for shipment from our factory, the shipper requires that we wrap that stack in cellophane to keep it stable. We hate having to do that, and it’s pretty clear we could strap them down under a protective material that would keep them secure without resorting to a plastic wrap. But it’s not our cargo container, so it’s not our rules.
However, we are in the fortunate position to have built our company from scratch with a tireless focus on sustainable practices, so we didn’t develop any bad habits we now have to break.
How would you articulate how a business can become more profitable by being more sustainable and more environmentally conscious? Can you share a story or example?
I want to use a quote that is usually attributed to either environmental scientist Donella Meadows or author Kurt Vonnegut. I think this statement sums up our situation: “We’ll go down in history as the first society that wouldn’t save itself because it wasn’t cost effective.”
That’s really where we are. At some point, the culture is going to fully awaken to the problems we’re creating and decide to hold businesses and political leaders accountable for their actions — or inactions. When that happens, some will pivot and survive, but others won’t have the time or the means to make the changes the market will demand.
Producing consumables responsibly isn’t more expensive, it just takes a little more initial effort. In the near future, with high-volume production, we’ll be able to sell our aluminum cup for about the same price as plastic. It’s not magic, it’s just persistence. Using a glassine sleeve instead of plastic isn’t more costly, we just had to experiment with it a bit to work out the details. Using a recycled wood pulp as a box insulator rather than the plastic air pillows isn’t more expensive, we just had to try out a few versions.
Something that all organizations should do as a first step is start measuring all of their impacts — all of the inputs their business requires — with total honesty and transparency. Let everyone in the organization know you’re doing it, and encourage everyone to contribute ideas about how to capture all the data. As we all know, if you don’t measure it, you can’t improve it.
When you see the results, you’ll know where you have to start. Some problems will lend themselves to easy fixes while others will take some time and require strategic decisions. But the alternative is a society that won’t save itself.
This is the signature question we ask in most of our interviews. What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started promoting sustainability and climate justice” and why?
1 . Facts don’t always help…or…people won’t believe you. This one took some getting used to. There’s a lot of ego wrapped up in people’s eco-habits. No one wants to believe they are part of the problem, but they also don’t want to admit they’ve been wrong about stuff. One time, I was speaking to a woman who proudly touted that she took all of her plastic shopping bags back to a grocery store collection bin so they could be recycled. While wondering why she didn’t just bring reusable tote bags with her, I took a deep breath and explained that those programs were just greenwashing. The stores may collect the bags, but they just ended up in the landfill because there was no economic incentive for them to be recycled. I’d hoped she’d be more mad at the store than me. But I guess she really loved that store.
2 . Scary consequences don’t motivate people to act. One of our previous startups was called Aerrem and we made a specially designed tote bag to carry reusable bottles and tumblers with you throughout your day. The bag had a removable liner you could wash, and special stitching to keep the bottles upright. We thought if we made it easy to carry a reusable, people would say no to plastic bottles and cups more often. And because we were so hopeful, we went all-in on the negative consequences of plastic bottles and cups. We hit it hard on our website and social media, in our Google ads and our printed collaterals. It was like, here’s a chic bag that will HELP END THE CALAMITY OF MICROPLASTIC AND GLOBAL WARMING. It wasn’t an effective sales pitch.
3 . People at parties want you to stop talking about the environment so much. While I may think I’m helping to save the planet and hold the line on toxic plastic waste, other people just want to enjoy dinner or a cocktail in proximity to me. As a newbie in the field, I had two settings when the topic of sustainability came up — 100% and 100%. I was sure my earnestness and deft delivery made people want to hear my next thought on the environment. Polite smiles from strangers eventually gave way to close friends remembering they left something in the other room…that they needed to go get…for the rest of the evening. Like everyone who is passionate about what they do, it’s always a good idea to be measured until invited to be expansive.
4 . People think something small they do absolves them of something much larger. After having spoken to hundreds of people one-on-one about their personal sustainability habits, the one conversation I still replay in my head while falling asleep at night is the person who triumphally told me she made a particularly long trek to a supermarket that sold her favorite vegan cheese because it was better for the environment. The gallon of gas she burned for that roundtrip was not accounted for in her calculations — and likely never will be.
5 . People don’t necessarily act in their best interest…while they’re in the act of agreeing with you. I think this one I associate more with GenZ and Millennials. I spent a lot of time around them because a couple of our ventures naturally placed us in their circles. So many would want to engage, ask for details and specifics, and generally be so interested in actions they could take. And then they’d post a picture on their Insta featuring a giant soda cup with a plastic straw. Or it would be some other disposable product. And I’d wonder if I misunderstood them, or they misunderstood me. How does the generation most impacted by these choices so blissfully pile onto the problem? Friends who propose to understand GenZ-to-GenX translation tell me our youngest adults have decided the problem is well past the point of their influencing or fixing it, and they’ve decided not to stress themselves out. If that’s the case, it just makes me want to do an even better job on my end.
You are a person of great influence and doing some great things for the world! If you could inspire a movement that would bring the greatest amount of good to the greatest amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
That’s a generous description, but thank you.
I spend a lot of time thinking about the fact that humanity has only had plastic in its stockpile in a major way for the past 65–70 years. Before that, we used to manage pretty well without it. People figured out how to eat, drink, wrap things, mail stuff, package products and dress up a room for a party without access to plastic. I wonder if we couldn’t change course and head in that direction again.
If people could resolve just a few times a day to allocate a few extra seconds to solving a need with something that isn’t plastic — take a few extra steps to get something renewable or reusable, to wash a container rather than tossing it, to mail something in a box rather than a plastic pouch, to do a slightly longer search on Amazon for the choice that’s savvy and not just a particular color. Maybe if folks could adjust their mindsets just a bit, the results would add up to something truly beneficial and give future generations less clean-up work to do.
What is the best way for our readers to continue to follow your work online?
Join the movement online at lumicup.com and @thelumicup on Instagram. For more information, please contact LumiCup at [email protected].
This was so inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
About the Interviewer: Monica Sanders JD, LL.M, is the founder of “The Undivide Project”, an organization dedicated to creating climate resilience in underserved communities using good tech and the power of the Internet. She holds faculty roles at the Georgetown University Law Center and the Tulane University Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy. Professor Sanders also serves on several UN agency working groups. As an attorney, Monica has held senior roles in all three branches of government, private industry, and nonprofits. In her previous life, she was a journalist for seven years and the recipient of several awards, including an Emmy. Now the New Orleans native spends her time in solidarity with and championing change for those on the frontlines of climate change and digital divestment. Learn more about how to join her at: www.theundivideproject.org
Paul Kradin Of Lumi On How They Are Breaking the Cycle of Non-Renewable Consumption was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.