Our Climate Journey with Ed Havel
“To me, part of sustainability is shifting from a consuming-centric to a production centric lifestyle.”
Ed Havel
Lead Brand Designer
Ed is a Lead Brand Designer at Zum since March 2024. Earlier this year, he created the design of Zum’s EV chargers, and since 2019 has been committed to designing for companies with a sustainability mission and green-energy focus. When not designing, he enjoys writing and recording music, stand-up comedy, fine dining, music concerts, and visually stunning movies/tv series.
At Zum, we’re revolutionizing student transportation in order to build a green, sustainable future. What does sustainability mean to you?
To me, part of sustainability is shifting from a consuming-centric to a production centric lifestyle.
I grew up on a mixed farm in central Kansas. I’ve been aware of farming, organic produce, wildlife—all of it—from an early age. So I’m hyper sensitive to growing and producing versus consuming.
In my life today, I actively garden. Tomatoes, squash, zucchini, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers and green beans. And compost everything, which then becomes fertilizer. I really dislike it when I see neighbors using toxic chemicals to spray and kill weeds. We can be such better stewards of the land, of the soil, of our gardens.
So part of sustainability is also educating people about what you know. If you’re an expert in gardening, then share those tips with others, so we can all benefit.
Climate change is the single greatest threat to our way of life, but it can sometimes feel abstract, far away, a problem for another time. How has climate change affected you personally?
I have a handful of friends who live in Northern California, north of the Bay Area. Many of them lost their homes in the wildfires a few years back. You read about this sort of thing in the news, but when it happens to you, or someone you know and love, it’s different. It really changes things, it changes your perspective, it changes your life. It’s really stressful, and scary.
It was around the time of those fires that I committed to only working and designing for companies that have a meaningful commitment of sustainability, and to thinking about how they affect the planet.
What can Zum do to be a leader in sustainability, to spearhead the charge in the fight against climate change?
As mentioned, I only design for companies with a sustainability commitment.
That means a lot of the design I do is to educate people about sustainability, about the environment, about the effect we have on it. One thing Zum could do to continue pushing this forward is use our school buses as mobile classrooms. Is there a way for us to install monitors for the kids, or figure out a way to use their commute time for educational purposes? Riding on an EV is already a fantastic reinforcement of progress, of sustainable transportation. I wonder if there’s more we can do in the bus itself, to keep doing what Zum’s already doing—leading in the fight against climate change.