Sustainable AI for Small Business: Madalina Buzdugan on Using AI Without the Guilt or the Hype

<p>Sustainable AI for small business isn't a contradiction. It's a practice, and Madalina Buzdugan has spent years helping companies figure out what it actually looks like.</p><p>Madalina came to AI from 15 years in startups and corporate sustainability, where she spent most of her time making the business case for environmental responsibility while simultaneously doing the work itself. When generative AI hit the market, she saw the same pattern forming. Rapid adoption, almost no structure, and a conversation that put all the pressure on individuals instead of the systems driving the decisions.</p><p>In this episode, Kathryn and Madalina get into the real environmental cost of AI use (and why most published numbers are unverifiable), why 29% of employees are actively sabotaging AI adoption at work, and what it actually looks like to build an AI policy from your company's values up instead of from a template down. Madalina talks through batch prompting, small language models, and two free browser plugins that can help your team understand its actual AI footprint, without shame and without paralysis.</p><p>If you're a small business owner or nonprofit leader who wants to use AI responsibly without swinging to either extreme, this one's for you.</p><p>Find Madalina at https://madalinabuzdugan.com/and on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/madalinabuzdugan/.</p><p>Download our free AI Policy template at go.goodcirclemarketing.com/summer-of-good-ai.</p><p>A Good Pour: Summer of Good AI is a limited series helping small business owners and nonprofit leaders use AI with confidence and integrity. New episodes drop weekly through July 2026.</p><p><br /></p>