Going Green had the opportunity to meet with Jose Antonio Alvina II to discuss fitness and how being eco friendly can play a part of it.
Jose, thank you for being here. Tell us a little bit about you and your background:
I have a degree in Communications but spent my years after college as an Artillery Officer in the United States Marine Corps. It was during my time in the Marine Corps when I first played with the idea of harnessing the human power to produce energy. I had my Marines jump on a bike to produce energy to power our lights inside of a tent when our generator went down for a prolonged period of time. Once I completed my tour of active duty I decided to get out and returned back to Sacramento to work on my idea of creating a sustainable fitness facility.
After a few weeks of pitching the idea to enough friends I had acquired the team that I needed to bring this idea to life and we moved into our new facility in 2017. Since then we’ve grown from a 5 man team to a 16 person team, to include team members in the U.K., Netherlands, Japan and Mexico. We’re currently in the process of opening more in the U.S., Germany and the U.K.
What is a fun fact about you?
The Marine Corps pays me to jump out of planes.
Why do you think climate change/sustainability is such an important topic today?
Climate change has been an issue but it’s an even bigger issue now than it ever was. We have wild fires in California, record flooding on the East coast due to high number of powerful storms, ice levels in the North pole have shrunk and scientist are making new discoveries due to the ice level dropping. We as humans are the cause for all this and we must be the solution to the issue. We can’t continue to ignore the inevitable, and as these natural events continue to occur we are becoming more and more aware of the devastating effects it has on our daily lives.
What do you envision your industry looking like 10 years from now?
We will have paved the way for others to join our movement and 90% of the gyms world wide will have converted into eco gyms.
What can the average person do to make a difference?
Join a gym that’s harnessing the human power to produce clean energy and that will help reduce your carbon footprint. Individuals are far too often unaware that their daily actions can have a positive out come on reducing the global carbon foot print. Small actions such as walking or running to the gym in stead of driving a car makes a difference. Buying a water bottle that you can reuse is good but ensuring that the water your drinking is coming from a sustainable source is very important. Becoming more aware of where and how produces are made, makes a big difference in the fight to reduce energy consumption. Those are just a few examples of how an individual can make a few changes in their daily lives to make big impact on the environment.
What positive changes are you seeing?
Our members went from driving to walking here. They’re recycling and reusing certain produces. They’ve even taken and interest in what we’re doing that they help keep the lights and fans off when not needed. They’ve also become more active in sustainability and tagging us on various different channels to show us new eco concepts. I believe that it’s safe to say, we’re motivating people to think green!
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Dylan Welch is the CEO and Host of Going Green, a podcast, website, and social media brand that highlights renewable energy, cleantech, and sustainable news.