Liliana Esposito

Liliana joined Wendy’s in June 2014 and has served as Chief Corporate Affairs &amp; Sustainability Officer since February 2021 to reflect her range of responsibilities across Communications, Quality Assurance, Customer Care, Public Affairs and Corporate Responsibility. She previously served as our Chief Communications Officer from June 2014 to February 2021. Liliana sets the vision and strategy for all communications with franchisees and employees, public relations, government relations and corporate responsibility. Her work with the Quality Assurance function involves developing quality and safety procedures throughout our supply chain and restaurants to provide a safe and quality dining experience for all Wendy’s customers. Liliana prides herself on building diverse teams and empowering them to find solutions – a leadership style that has produced notable results. Her team recently restructured Wendy’s corporate responsibility efforts under one united banner, Good Done Right, and created our Supplier Code of Conduct. Under her direction, Wendy’s also launched The Square Deal, Wendy’s blog to provide a point of view on issues that are important to our Company and our customers. Prior to Wendy’s, Liliana served as Vice President of Corporate Communications and Public Affairs at Dean Foods in Dallas, TX. Her previous experience includes tenure as Public Affairs Manager with Mars, Incorporated in New Jersey, and as a public relations consultant for eight years in New York City. Liliana Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:  Defining responsible sourcing and identifying criteria for responsibly sourcing food What consumers are looking for in the industry in regards to sustainability The process of starting GHG inventories, CDP reporting, and setting science-based targets Wendy’s “Good done right” goals for food, people and footprint  Tying sustainability performance to incentives Advice and recommendations for sustainability professionals  Liliana’s Final Five Questions Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? The advice that I would give is just to be a sponge for learning and for relationships and networking with others in the field. I would not have considered myself a sustainability professional even 10 years ago. There is so much to learn. There is so much to absorb. I don't think anyone can be an expert in all of it. I think really broadening your aperture so that you have the benefit of expertise from others that are in different aspects of your field is something that I really value. Probably the most important resource that I see in the field is people. Hopefully you can provide some value to them in terms of the expertise and the knowledge that you have, but also continuing to build those relationships and reach out and network to increase your effectiveness. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? The biggest is just the awareness and the general knowledge and interest in this area. That takes a lot of different forms and different parts of the industry, different stakeholders are coming at it with different points of view. But I think that there's never been a better time to really be demonstrating the value and the importance of sustainability work within the business community. I feel like the conversation I'm not having anymore is around “why should we care about this?” Does this actually add to our business value? Is there a strong rationale for being focused on ESG or sustainability? Now the conversation is much more around, “where should we be putting our precious resources?” Where can our efforts be most successful and most effective?  What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? I'll go to the classics. There's certainly lots of more contemporary examples, but I think Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. I was in college when I read it. That really started to open my eyes around not just the importance of a focus on the environment and on sustainability, but a factual, well researched, analysis of what was happening and what we as a society could do to make a more positive impact. I know that's a classic, but I think it's still relevant today. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? To repeat myself, people. I really do collect and curate a great network of people that come from all different backgrounds and perspectives and areas of expertise. The more that I can connect and engage with people that do things that are very different than what I do professionally, I just grow and learn from that. And then a plug for you Josh and your colleagues for podcasts like this one. I usually go for a run every day and I've got a collection of podcasts and other things that, that that's the soundtrack to my daily runs because I feel like there's always something new coming out to help us just learn and get better. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the sustainability work being done at Wendy's? We would love for you to hop over to wendys.com and click on the what we value segment of our website. You can find our corporate responsibility reports for 2022 and the years in the past, and then certainly a wealth of information about the company and our commitments overall.

Liliana joined Wendy’s in June 2014 and has served as Chief Corporate Affairs &amp; Sustainability Officer since February 2021 to reflect her range of responsibilities across Communications, Quality Assurance, Customer Care, Public Affairs and Corporate Responsibility. She previously served as our Chief Communications Officer from June 2014 to February 2021. Liliana sets the vision and strategy for all communications with franchisees and employees, public relations, government relations and corporate responsibility. Her work with the Quality Assurance function involves developing quality and safety procedures throughout our supply chain and restaurants to provide a safe and quality dining experience for all Wendy’s customers. Liliana prides herself on building diverse teams and empowering them to find solutions – a leadership style that has produced notable results. Her team recently restructured Wendy’s corporate responsibility efforts under one united banner, Good Done Right, and created our Supplier Code of Conduct. Under her direction, Wendy’s also launched The Square Deal, Wendy’s blog to provide a point of view on issues that are important to our Company and our customers. Prior to Wendy’s, Liliana served as Vice President of Corporate Communications and Public Affairs at Dean Foods in Dallas, TX. Her previous experience includes tenure as Public Affairs Manager with Mars, Incorporated in New Jersey, and as a public relations consultant for eight years in New York City. Liliana Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss: <ul> <li>Defining responsible sourcing and identifying criteria for responsibly sourcing food</li> <li>What consumers are looking for in the industry in regards to sustainability</li> <li>The process of starting GHG inventories, CDP reporting, and setting science-based targets</li> <li>Wendy’s “Good done right” goals for food, people and footprint </li> <li>Tying sustainability performance to incentives</li> <li>Advice and recommendations for sustainability professionals</li> </ul> Liliana’s Final Five Questions Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? The advice that I would give is just to be a sponge for learning and for relationships and networking with others in the field. I would not have considered myself a sustainability professional even 10 years ago. There is so much to learn. There is so much to absorb. I don't think anyone can be an expert in all of it. I think really broadening your aperture so that you have the benefit of expertise from others that are in different aspects of your field is something that I really value. Probably the most important resource that I see in the field is people. Hopefully you can provide some value to them in terms of the expertise and the knowledge that you have, but also continuing to build those relationships and reach out and network to increase your effectiveness. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? The biggest is just the awareness and the general knowledge and interest in this area. That takes a lot of different forms and different parts of the industry, different stakeholders are coming at it with different points of view. But I think that there's never been a better time to really be demonstrating the value and the importance of sustainability work within the business community. I feel like the conversation I'm not having anymore is around “why should we care about this?” Does this actually add to our business value? Is there a strong rationale for being focused on ESG or sustainability? Now the conversation is much more around, “where should we be putting our precious resources?” Where can our efforts be most successful and most effective?  What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? I'll go to the classics. There's certainly lots of more contemporary examples, but I think Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. I was in college when I read it. That really started to open my eyes around not just the importance of a focus on the environment and on sustainability, but a factual, well researched, analysis of what was happening and what we as a society could do to make a more positive impact. I know that's a classic, but I think it's still relevant today. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? To repeat myself, people. I really do collect and curate a great network of people that come from all different backgrounds and perspectives and areas of expertise. The more that I can connect and engage with people that do things that are very different than what I do professionally, I just grow and learn from that. And then a plug for you Josh and your colleagues for podcasts like this one. I usually go for a run every day and I've got a collection of podcasts and other things that, that that's the soundtrack to my daily runs because I feel like there's always something new coming out to help us just learn and get better. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the sustainability work being done at Wendy's? We would love for you to hop over to <a href="http://wendys.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">wendys.com</a> and click on the what we value segment of our website. You can find our corporate responsibility reports for 2022 and the years in the past, and then certainly a wealth of information about the company and our commitments overall.

Liliana Esposito - Chief Corporate Affairs & Sustainability Officer at Wendy's

Pamela Klyn was named Senior Vice President, Corporate Relations and Sustainability, on January 1, 2022. Klyn was most recently a Vice President in Whirlpool Corporation’s Global Product Organization. During her time with the company, Klyn has held advancing roles in engineering, product development, global innovation, and marketing. From 2013 to 2015, she lived in Italy and served as the Vice President of Products &amp; Brands for Whirlpool EMEA.  Klyn was hired into the company’s Technical Excellence Program in 1993 after graduating from Michigan Technological University with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. She earned a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan in 1995 and has an Executive MBA from Bowling Green State University. Klyn is currently a Board member for the Boys &amp; Girls Clubs of Benton Harbor and a Trustee for the Whirlpool Foundation. She serves on the Michigan Technological University External Advisory Board for the Dean of Engineering and on the Board of Directors for Patrick Industries. Pam Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:  How Whirpool established themselves as a leader in sustainability  The importance of consumer education for best product usage practices Whirlpool’s 2022 sustainability report Whirlpool’s partnership with Habitat for Humanity including Build Better with Whirlpool Advice and recommendations for sustainability professionals  Pam’s Final Five Questions Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give to other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? I think it's always important to look at all the data and information you have. Don't get analysis paralysis, but create a roadmap. Understand what kind of traditional problem solving you can apply. Where do you need innovation? Where do you need partnerships? Where do you need a different way to solve it? Think about who else has this problem or this accountability and how you could jointly solve it together. Anytime there's an inflection point, like the focus on sustainability, that breeds opportunity, in my opinion. Use the skills you have, the problem solving skills, the experience you have, but be open to how this can be a completely new opportunity for you and your organization. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? Opportunity for partnerships. If you look at our 111 year history as a company, it's been about key partnerships at the right time in a continued evolution of doing the right thing, keeping the consumer at the center of it, and finding ways to reinvent for the future. What's outstanding is we have such a strong base to start from, but we know we can do better and we can make a huge impact and really lead the way here. I’m really excited to see what comes out of it, especially as you start to look at recycling and partnering with consumers in their homes. How do we get the message across that if you run this dishwasher at night, if that is workable for you and your lifestyle, you save 30% energy? How do we enable consumers to use appliances in the smartest way possible that doesn't compromise their lifestyle? What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? I don’t know if it only applies to sustainability professionals, but I recently read Shoe Dog by Phil Knight, which is about the Nike journey. I'm very proud of Whirlpool's 111 year history and the reinvention that it's taken, as I mentioned. But a company like Nike, which is such a powerhouse, came so close so many times to not making it, despite amazing orders and all the business they could handle. It really points to: sustainability means so many different things, but it really centers all around ensuring the longevity of a company. It points to the tenacity that it takes and the belief in doing the right thing for the customer, and keeping the customer and quality at the center of it all. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? It's the team, the cross-functional effort. It's our people here and the fact that people want to do the right thing. It's my team's job, the sustainability team's job to guide them and say, overall, here's our targets as a company. Manufacturing, we need this from you, procurement, we need your help here partnering with suppliers. What are our suppliers doing to think about the next level? Are there new suppliers to partner with? For example, information technology, we need systems to measure our emissions in a reportable way. Legal, how do we make sure we're managing the governance aspect? Product, our engineering organization, how do we continue to evolve our product in new and different innovative ways? It really is that aspect that we get to partner with every part of the organization, and our people come through time and time again. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and your work and check out your new 2022 sustainability report? You can find our sustainability report on whirlpoolcorp.com, and we have a lot of great tips and tricks on how to use your appliances more efficiently. We have a consumer facing website called improvinglife@home.com and that talks about making sure you don't open your refrigerator too often, run certain appliances at night, don't hand wash, use your dishwasher, etc. It really gives a lot of those things that people haven't been told and so they're not doing routinely, but that can really make a difference in your water and energy bill.

Pamela Klyn was named Senior Vice President, Corporate Relations and Sustainability, on January 1, 2022. Klyn was most recently a Vice President in Whirlpool Corporation’s Global Product Organization. During her time with the company, Klyn has held advancing roles in engineering, product development, global innovation, and marketing. From 2013 to 2015, she lived in Italy and served as the Vice President of Products &amp; Brands for Whirlpool EMEA.  Klyn was hired into the company’s Technical Excellence Program in 1993 after graduating from Michigan Technological University with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. She earned a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan in 1995 and has an Executive MBA from Bowling Green State University. Klyn is currently a Board member for the Boys &amp; Girls Clubs of Benton Harbor and a Trustee for the Whirlpool Foundation. She serves on the Michigan Technological University External Advisory Board for the Dean of Engineering and on the Board of Directors for Patrick Industries. Pam Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss: <ul> <li>How Whirpool established themselves as a leader in sustainability </li> <li>The importance of consumer education for best product usage practices</li> <li>Whirlpool’s 2022 sustainability report</li> <li>Whirlpool’s partnership with Habitat for Humanity including Build Better with Whirlpool</li> <li>Advice and recommendations for sustainability professionals</li> </ul> Pam’s Final Five Questions Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give to other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? I think it's always important to look at all the data and information you have. Don't get analysis paralysis, but create a roadmap. Understand what kind of traditional problem solving you can apply. Where do you need innovation? Where do you need partnerships? Where do you need a different way to solve it? Think about who else has this problem or this accountability and how you could jointly solve it together. Anytime there's an inflection point, like the focus on sustainability, that breeds opportunity, in my opinion. Use the skills you have, the problem solving skills, the experience you have, but be open to how this can be a completely new opportunity for you and your organization. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? Opportunity for partnerships. If you look at our 111 year history as a company, it's been about key partnerships at the right time in a continued evolution of doing the right thing, keeping the consumer at the center of it, and finding ways to reinvent for the future. What's outstanding is we have such a strong base to start from, but we know we can do better and we can make a huge impact and really lead the way here. I’m really excited to see what comes out of it, especially as you start to look at recycling and partnering with consumers in their homes. How do we get the message across that if you run this dishwasher at night, if that is workable for you and your lifestyle, you save 30% energy? How do we enable consumers to use appliances in the smartest way possible that doesn't compromise their lifestyle? What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? I don’t know if it only applies to sustainability professionals, but I recently read Shoe Dog by Phil Knight, which is about the Nike journey. I'm very proud of Whirlpool's 111 year history and the reinvention that it's taken, as I mentioned. But a company like Nike, which is such a powerhouse, came so close so many times to not making it, despite amazing orders and all the business they could handle. It really points to: sustainability means so many different things, but it really centers all around ensuring the longevity of a company. It points to the tenacity that it takes and the belief in doing the right thing for the customer, and keeping the customer and quality at the center of it all. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? It's the team, the cross-functional effort. It's our people here and the fact that people want to do the right thing. It's my team's job, the sustainability team's job to guide them and say, overall, here's our targets as a company. Manufacturing, we need this from you, procurement, we need your help here partnering with suppliers. What are our suppliers doing to think about the next level? Are there new suppliers to partner with? For example, information technology, we need systems to measure our emissions in a reportable way. Legal, how do we make sure we're managing the governance aspect? Product, our engineering organization, how do we continue to evolve our product in new and different innovative ways? It really is that aspect that we get to partner with every part of the organization, and our people come through time and time again. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and your work and check out your new 2022 sustainability report? You can find our sustainability report on <a href="http://whirlpoolcorp.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">whirlpoolcorp.com</a>, and we have a lot of great tips and tricks on how to use your appliances more efficiently. We have a consumer facing website called improvinglife@home.com and that talks about making sure you don't open your refrigerator too often, run certain appliances at night, don't hand wash, use your dishwasher, etc. It really gives a lot of those things that people haven't been told and so they're not doing routinely, but that can really make a difference in your water and energy bill.

Pam Klyn - Senior Vice President, Corporate Relations and Sustainability at Whirlpool

Emilio Tenuta is senior vice president of Corporate Sustainability and chief sustainability officer for Ecolab. For the past 11 years, he has led Ecolab’s strategic sustainability journey and is actively involved in advancing global sustainability practices, with a significant focus on water stewardship and climate action. In recent years, he’s become a leader in environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices and reporting. Partnering with investor relations and Ecolab’s Chief Executive Officer, Tenuta has advanced Ecolab’s reputation as an ESG leading company. He is chair of the board of directors of the World Environment Center, a global non-profit, non-advocacy organization. Emilio is also on the leadership council of the Corporate Eco Forum.  Emilio Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:  Prioritizing sustainability work between customers and internal operations Ecolab establishing themselves as a corporate leader in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index, CDP, and in other rankings Water and climate; the Ecolab Water for Climate strategy and The Water Resilience Coalition Closing the ‘say-do’ sustainability gap Advice and recommendations for sustainability professionals   Emilio’s Final Five Questions Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? If you really want to make a difference from a sustainability impact, work in the private sector. I believe there is this myth that the only place people can make a difference is by working for an environmental nonprofit. I think today in our discussion we've proven that Ecolab is living proof that more and more companies can deliver a positive impact in the world while driving profitable growth and helping communities thrive. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? The rise of ESG over the last five years. I'm most excited about the tremendous investment in sustainability, climate and water by the capital markets and investors to help the world decarbonize. I think mobilizing finance is a huge catalyst to driving the change we need to see in the world. What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? I'm a big fan of Thomas Friedman, the author of The World is Flat. His latest book is really good called Thank You For Being Late. It's an interesting perspective on the convergence of technology, climate, and geopolitical challenges facing the world; something that is obviously very relevant today. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? I'm a big fan of The World Resources Institute, which is a think tank out of Washington DC. I'm also a big fan of CDP, the Carbon Disclosure Project and the Water Resilience Coalition. After two and a half/three years now, there are a plethora of resources available if you go to the Water Resilience Coalition website that support not only the actions we need to take for a water constrained world, but also driving climate resilience. Where can people go to learn more about you and the work being done at Ecolab? Ecolab.com. It's a tremendous resource and I really commend our global communications team and our digital enablement team. They've done a great job of providing some tremendous resources there. I would encourage folks to follow me on LinkedIn. I'm very passionate about sharing the incredible things going on in the world not only with Ecolab, but with all of our partners, and then Twitter as well. Then I'll shout out to a publicly available tool called the Smartwater Navigator, which is available on smartwaternavigator.com, which is another great place to really learn more about the work that we're doing. 

Emilio Tenuta is senior vice president of Corporate Sustainability and chief sustainability officer for Ecolab. For the past 11 years, he has led Ecolab’s strategic sustainability journey and is actively involved in advancing global sustainability practices, with a significant focus on water stewardship and climate action. In recent years, he’s become a leader in environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices and reporting. Partnering with investor relations and Ecolab’s Chief Executive Officer, Tenuta has advanced Ecolab’s reputation as an ESG leading company. He is chair of the board of directors of the World Environment Center, a global non-profit, non-advocacy organization. Emilio is also on the leadership council of the Corporate Eco Forum.  Emilio Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss: <ul> <li>Prioritizing sustainability work between customers and internal operations</li> <li>Ecolab establishing themselves as a corporate leader in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index, CDP, and in other rankings</li> <li>Water and climate; the Ecolab Water for Climate strategy and The Water Resilience Coalition</li> <li>Closing the ‘say-do’ sustainability gap</li> <li>Advice and recommendations for sustainability professionals </li> </ul> Emilio’s Final Five Questions Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? If you really want to make a difference from a sustainability impact, work in the private sector. I believe there is this myth that the only place people can make a difference is by working for an environmental nonprofit. I think today in our discussion we've proven that Ecolab is living proof that more and more companies can deliver a positive impact in the world while driving profitable growth and helping communities thrive. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? The rise of ESG over the last five years. I'm most excited about the tremendous investment in sustainability, climate and water by the capital markets and investors to help the world decarbonize. I think mobilizing finance is a huge catalyst to driving the change we need to see in the world. What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? I'm a big fan of Thomas Friedman, the author of The World is Flat. His latest book is really good called Thank You For Being Late. It's an interesting perspective on the convergence of technology, climate, and geopolitical challenges facing the world; something that is obviously very relevant today. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? I'm a big fan of The World Resources Institute, which is a think tank out of Washington DC. I'm also a big fan of CDP, the Carbon Disclosure Project and the Water Resilience Coalition. After two and a half/three years now, there are a plethora of resources available if you go to the Water Resilience Coalition website that support not only the actions we need to take for a water constrained world, but also driving climate resilience. Where can people go to learn more about you and the work being done at Ecolab? <a href="http://Ecolab.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Ecolab.com</a>. It's a tremendous resource and I really commend our global communications team and our digital enablement team. They've done a great job of providing some tremendous resources there. I would encourage folks to follow me on LinkedIn. I'm very passionate about sharing the incredible things going on in the world not only with Ecolab, but with all of our partners, and then Twitter as well. Then I'll shout out to a publicly available tool called the Smartwater Navigator, which is available on <a href="http://smartwaternavigator.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">smartwaternavigator.com</a>, which is another great place to really learn more about the work that we're doing.

Emilio Tenuta - Chief Sustainability Officer at Ecolab

Josh Raglin

Josh Raglin has dedicated over 25 years in the fields of conservation, forestry, and environmental stewardship. As chief sustainability officer at Norfolk Southern, he leads efforts to transform the company’s sustainability strategy. He champions initiatives that integrate sustainability practices into daily operations to achieve efficiencies, control costs, generate revenue, and reduce environmental impacts. These efforts include close collaboration with department leaders company-wide, along with external stakeholders such as customers, investors, regulators, and communities. Josh Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:  Advancing efficiency of rails including the Locomotive Modernization program The economic and environmental benefits of shipping by rail, and the feasibility of making the switch to rail Benefits to customers from Norfolk Southern’s carbon calculator  Norfolk Southern's five pillars of sustainability, specifically nature-based solutions Advice and recommendations for sustainability professionals  Josh’s Final Five Questions Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? I would say network. You can't know too many people. The more you network, the more connections you make. Not only internally within your company but externally as well. That's going to increase your knowledge base. Many of our customers have just started their sustainability programs in the last three or four years, and so I can be a resource for them in helping them start their journey, and I really enjoy doing that. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? I think it's the excitement, the corporate commitment that you're seeing, and where we've gone in such a short period of time. And it's voluntary. We're getting the support of all of our stakeholders. It's important to our customers, our investors, our regulators, and it's important to our employees as well. What is one book you'd recommend sustainability professionals read? It's actually one I just completed. It's called How the World Really Works, and it's by an energy scientist Vaclav Smil. He's written a number of books over the years, and he's not a pessimist, he's not an optimist, he's a scientist. He really does a great way of explaining the science, particularly when it comes to energy. I really highly recommend that to anyone. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? I would say probably my engagement with outside groups. I really enjoy engaging with conservation related groups or environmental groups and understanding our natural environment more and how Norfolk Southern can be a part of that. Whether it's employee engagement, whether it's financial support, or volunteering. A number of our employees, we volunteer on boards, we attend events, and it's not just about doing railroading, but it's also about how we can engage with the community to really make a difference. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the sustainability work being done at Norfolk Southern? I'm on LinkedIn, so if you look up Josh Raglin Norfolk Southern, you'll find me pretty easily. And our website is http://www.nscorp.com/betterplanet.

Josh Raglin has dedicated over 25 years in the fields of conservation, forestry, and environmental stewardship. As chief sustainability officer at Norfolk Southern, he leads efforts to transform the company’s sustainability strategy. He champions initiatives that integrate sustainability practices into daily operations to achieve efficiencies, control costs, generate revenue, and reduce environmental impacts. These efforts include close collaboration with department leaders company-wide, along with external stakeholders such as customers, investors, regulators, and communities. Josh Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss: <ul> <li>Advancing efficiency of rails including the Locomotive Modernization program</li> <li>The economic and environmental benefits of shipping by rail, and the feasibility of making the switch to rail</li> <li>Benefits to customers from Norfolk Southern’s carbon calculator </li> <li>Norfolk Southern's five pillars of sustainability, specifically nature-based solutions</li> <li>Advice and recommendations for sustainability professionals</li> </ul> Josh’s Final Five Questions Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? I would say network. You can't know too many people. The more you network, the more connections you make. Not only internally within your company but externally as well. That's going to increase your knowledge base. Many of our customers have just started their sustainability programs in the last three or four years, and so I can be a resource for them in helping them start their journey, and I really enjoy doing that. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? I think it's the excitement, the corporate commitment that you're seeing, and where we've gone in such a short period of time. And it's voluntary. We're getting the support of all of our stakeholders. It's important to our customers, our investors, our regulators, and it's important to our employees as well. What is one book you'd recommend sustainability professionals read? It's actually one I just completed. It's called How the World Really Works, and it's by an energy scientist Vaclav Smil. He's written a number of books over the years, and he's not a pessimist, he's not an optimist, he's a scientist. He really does a great way of explaining the science, particularly when it comes to energy. I really highly recommend that to anyone. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? I would say probably my engagement with outside groups. I really enjoy engaging with conservation related groups or environmental groups and understanding our natural environment more and how Norfolk Southern can be a part of that. Whether it's employee engagement, whether it's financial support, or volunteering. A number of our employees, we volunteer on boards, we attend events, and it's not just about doing railroading, but it's also about how we can engage with the community to really make a difference. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the sustainability work being done at Norfolk Southern? I'm on LinkedIn, so if you look up Josh Raglin Norfolk Southern, you'll find me pretty easily. And our website is <a href="http://www.nscorp.com/betterplanet" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.nscorp.com/betterplanet</a>.

Josh Raglin - Chief Sustainability Officer at Norfolk Southern Corporation

Yogesh Chauhan

Yogesh Chauhan is director of ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) at HubSpot. His brief is to develop a new and impactful ESG strategy covering all HubSpot’s operations. He oversees a range of environmental, community engagement, reporting, innovation and thought leadership initiatives designed to embed sustainability and responsible business across the company. Prior to HubSpot, Yogesh Chauhan was director of corporate sustainability at Tata Consultancy Services for nine years. He was also the BBC’s chief adviser on corporate responsibility and environment and worked for the corporation for 12 years. Yogesh Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:  Upstream and downstream supply chain challenges to reducing emissions as a SAS company Getting buy-in from leadership for SBTI or sustainability goals Activating the workforce around sustainability strategy Advice and recommendations for sustainability professionals  Yogesh’s Final Five Questions Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? Authenticity. My advice to all sustainability professionals is don't get tempted to say and do things that really are not authentic and genuine in terms of how you are driving the sustainability agenda, because you will get caught in the greenwashing mill. Authenticity would be my key advice. Be authentic as much as you possibly can. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? I would say sustainable innovation is something that I'm really getting excited about. Whether that's things like green aviation fuel, more sustainable building materials that are coming on stream, scaling renewable energy and the dramatic reduction in costs for renewable infrastructure, and what we see visibly now amongst most populations is the change in lifestyles that people are beginning to adopt and consumers making individual choices. Those are the things that really excite me. As part of that innovation, there's obviously a whole leap of technology that is being built to drive a more sustainable future, whether that's digital technology or engineering technology, and those are the bits that really do excite me. What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? Just looking at my bookshelf at the moment, what caught my eye is the Dalai Lama's Book of Wisdom. It's just a tiny little book with a few quotes on each page, and it isn't about sustainability. It's rather about the broader concepts that drive sustainability, the essence of being. What does contentment mean? What does joy mean? What does the art of giving and receiving mean? I think once you get that into your system and start to live and breathe those core beliefs that are ingrained in us as human beings, from that flows a sustainability mindset. I would recommend people have that by their side and consult that now just to get a sense of realism about what life is all about. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? Well, actually HubSpot has a number of publications that are part of independent publications but are owned by HubSpot. There's something called The Daily Hustle and the Weekly Trends, again not directly about sustainability, but actually very much about innovation, new ideas, and really capturing the essence of the energy behind startups and small and medium-sized businesses, and all the creative ideas and innovations that are coming out from that. That always gives me a huge amount of inspiration, because nearly always there are things that are going on that people are inventing, developing new business models, new business ideas that have a sustainability focus. At the professional end for the sustainability practitioners, I would say McKinsey's website and podcasts tend to be my go-to on a regular basis. Finally, friends and colleagues that I've kind of nurtured and developed over the years and the opportunity to bounce ideas off and have conversations all things sustainability with. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the sustainability work being done at HubSpot? HubSpot has a website which is engaging, lively, and has lots and lots of information. I would encourage everyone who's interested to go there. We have a sustainability section that's got lots of information about what we are doing, including the current report as well. If anyone wants to connect with me directly, then LinkedIn would be the place I would recommend.

Yogesh Chauhan is director of ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) at HubSpot. His brief is to develop a new and impactful ESG strategy covering all HubSpot’s operations. He oversees a range of environmental, community engagement, reporting, innovation and thought leadership initiatives designed to embed sustainability and responsible business across the company. Prior to HubSpot, Yogesh Chauhan was director of corporate sustainability at Tata Consultancy Services for nine years. He was also the BBC’s chief adviser on corporate responsibility and environment and worked for the corporation for 12 years. Yogesh Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss: <ul> <li>Upstream and downstream supply chain challenges to reducing emissions as a SAS company</li> <li>Getting buy-in from leadership for SBTI or sustainability goals</li> <li>Activating the workforce around sustainability strategy</li> <li>Advice and recommendations for sustainability professionals</li> </ul> Yogesh’s Final Five Questions Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? Authenticity. My advice to all sustainability professionals is don't get tempted to say and do things that really are not authentic and genuine in terms of how you are driving the sustainability agenda, because you will get caught in the greenwashing mill. Authenticity would be my key advice. Be authentic as much as you possibly can. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? I would say sustainable innovation is something that I'm really getting excited about. Whether that's things like green aviation fuel, more sustainable building materials that are coming on stream, scaling renewable energy and the dramatic reduction in costs for renewable infrastructure, and what we see visibly now amongst most populations is the change in lifestyles that people are beginning to adopt and consumers making individual choices. Those are the things that really excite me. As part of that innovation, there's obviously a whole leap of technology that is being built to drive a more sustainable future, whether that's digital technology or engineering technology, and those are the bits that really do excite me. What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? Just looking at my bookshelf at the moment, what caught my eye is the Dalai Lama's Book of Wisdom. It's just a tiny little book with a few quotes on each page, and it isn't about sustainability. It's rather about the broader concepts that drive sustainability, the essence of being. What does contentment mean? What does joy mean? What does the art of giving and receiving mean? I think once you get that into your system and start to live and breathe those core beliefs that are ingrained in us as human beings, from that flows a sustainability mindset. I would recommend people have that by their side and consult that now just to get a sense of realism about what life is all about. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? Well, actually HubSpot has a number of publications that are part of independent publications but are owned by HubSpot. There's something called The Daily Hustle and the Weekly Trends, again not directly about sustainability, but actually very much about innovation, new ideas, and really capturing the essence of the energy behind startups and small and medium-sized businesses, and all the creative ideas and innovations that are coming out from that. That always gives me a huge amount of inspiration, because nearly always there are things that are going on that people are inventing, developing new business models, new business ideas that have a sustainability focus. At the professional end for the sustainability practitioners, I would say McKinsey's website and podcasts tend to be my go-to on a regular basis. Finally, friends and colleagues that I've kind of nurtured and developed over the years and the opportunity to bounce ideas off and have conversations all things sustainability with. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the sustainability work being done at HubSpot? HubSpot has a website which is engaging, lively, and has lots and lots of information. I would encourage everyone who's interested to go there. We have a sustainability section that's got lots of information about what we are doing, including the current report as well. If anyone wants to connect with me directly, then LinkedIn would be the place I would recommend.

Yogesh Chauhan - Director of ESG at HubSpot

Bridgette McAdoo

Bridgette McAdoo leads the Global Sustainability practice at Genesys. She is responsible for sustainability as a management approach that holistically optimizes our economic, social, and environmental impact. In her role leading sustainability at Genesys, Bridgette drives our stakeholder engagement, education, and the evolution of the sustainable strategy and programs across Genesys. She also leverages sustainability metrics to track our non-financial performance and deliver integrated reports to our stakeholders Bridgette has over 20 years of experience in sustainability leadership roles across multiple sectors, including the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), where she most recently led corporate strategy and engagement for WWF’s Freshwater and Food goals, Global Director of Sustainability for KFC, where she headed all sustainability issues for the brand, internally within Yum! Brands and externally with various sustainability stakeholders, and operations roles that were part of NASA’s Space Shuttle and Mars Rover programs. She holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University and an MBA in Strategy from the Drucker School of Management. Bridgette Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:   Creating the foundation of sustainability at Genesys   Advice for finding and hiring good sustainability talent   Quantifying product use emissions   Strategies to align sustainability with work from home   Advice and recommendations for sustainability professionals   Bridgette's Final Five Questions Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? Don't underestimate the power of two words: value and differentiation. Value, because one, it's usually not a group that has P&amp;L responsibility, but you need to show that you can drive pipeline, help with attrition and retention. You have to show all the value that sustainability brings to the business so that it's a value proposition, not just a buzzword. Differentiation is how do you use it to set you apart from your competitors? Use it as a way to help put the company in a different lens than it usually would, and show that value. Show all the intangible values of sustainability, not just the tangible ones, all the qualifiable values, not just the quantifiable ones. That will help you to really get it elevated versus it sitting in the middle of the organizations as some people struggle with. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? I'm excited that I'm starting to see a lot of emphasis on intersectionality. For so long I felt that people felt like they could only talk about one pillar at a time. It's either an environmental conversation or a diversity conversation or a governance conversation. But those should be integrated. There should be an integrated, holistic approach to how we look at sustainability, because when those things are looked at in tandem, when we integrate it, we get the real wins. I'm glad to see that even organizations are starting to restructure to be that way and not silo out the work. When that happens I just feel like the work is really not as impactful as it should be. What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? Because of all the time reading all these white papers and case studies, I like to read things that are way more inspiring and motivating and so far away from sustainability. However, I just started reading Net Positive by Paul Polman and Andrew Winston. I'm enjoying that book. It highlights the way we look at traditional CSR or philanthropy or impact, however your organization refers to it, is just not adequate for where we are today. That we, as leaders in this space, really need to rethink about how we drive the business differently and how we can be the change that we want to see. Another book that has been extremely impactful is Stamped From the Beginning by Ibram X Kendi. It talks about and it details how racist ideas were created, spread and deeply rooted in society. It's thought-provoking and intense, but it's a fantastic read. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? I have a few different distribution lists that I'm on like GreebBiz Weekly. I get a lot of things where I can see a lot of articles. Our marketing team also does a fantastic job of scouring the industry or all the latest sustainability news to make sure that we can have a pulse on what's happening. So that's been extremely useful for me as having that inside outlook and then getting it from different shareholders or key stakeholders across sustainability when I get to see different articles. The climate pledge also being a part of that; you get to see what's happening across different signatories. It's always good to be able to benchmark and look how you're trending against all the different other companies that have the same commitments. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work being done at Genesys? You can always go to our website and you can visit genesys.com/sustainability to learn more about our sustainability initiatives, read our latest report, and stay up to date on our progress.

Bridgette McAdoo leads the Global Sustainability practice at Genesys. She is responsible for sustainability as a management approach that holistically optimizes our economic, social, and environmental impact. In her role leading sustainability at Genesys, Bridgette drives our stakeholder engagement, education, and the evolution of the sustainable strategy and programs across Genesys. She also leverages sustainability metrics to track our non-financial performance and deliver integrated reports to our stakeholders Bridgette has over 20 years of experience in sustainability leadership roles across multiple sectors, including the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), where she most recently led corporate strategy and engagement for WWF’s Freshwater and Food goals, Global Director of Sustainability for KFC, where she headed all sustainability issues for the brand, internally within Yum! Brands and externally with various sustainability stakeholders, and operations roles that were part of NASA’s Space Shuttle and Mars Rover programs. She holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University and an MBA in Strategy from the Drucker School of Management. Bridgette Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss: <ul> <li> Creating the foundation of sustainability at Genesys </li> <li> Advice for finding and hiring good sustainability talent </li> <li> Quantifying product use emissions </li> <li> Strategies to align sustainability with work from home </li> <li> Advice and recommendations for sustainability professionals </li> </ul> Bridgette's Final Five Questions Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? Don't underestimate the power of two words: value and differentiation. Value, because one, it's usually not a group that has P&amp;L responsibility, but you need to show that you can drive pipeline, help with attrition and retention. You have to show all the value that sustainability brings to the business so that it's a value proposition, not just a buzzword. Differentiation is how do you use it to set you apart from your competitors? Use it as a way to help put the company in a different lens than it usually would, and show that value. Show all the intangible values of sustainability, not just the tangible ones, all the qualifiable values, not just the quantifiable ones. That will help you to really get it elevated versus it sitting in the middle of the organizations as some people struggle with. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? I'm excited that I'm starting to see a lot of emphasis on intersectionality. For so long I felt that people felt like they could only talk about one pillar at a time. It's either an environmental conversation or a diversity conversation or a governance conversation. But those should be integrated. There should be an integrated, holistic approach to how we look at sustainability, because when those things are looked at in tandem, when we integrate it, we get the real wins. I'm glad to see that even organizations are starting to restructure to be that way and not silo out the work. When that happens I just feel like the work is really not as impactful as it should be. What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? Because of all the time reading all these white papers and case studies, I like to read things that are way more inspiring and motivating and so far away from sustainability. However, I just started reading Net Positive by Paul Polman and Andrew Winston. I'm enjoying that book. It highlights the way we look at traditional CSR or philanthropy or impact, however your organization refers to it, is just not adequate for where we are today. That we, as leaders in this space, really need to rethink about how we drive the business differently and how we can be the change that we want to see. Another book that has been extremely impactful is Stamped From the Beginning by Ibram X Kendi. It talks about and it details how racist ideas were created, spread and deeply rooted in society. It's thought-provoking and intense, but it's a fantastic read. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? I have a few different distribution lists that I'm on like GreebBiz Weekly. I get a lot of things where I can see a lot of articles. Our marketing team also does a fantastic job of scouring the industry or all the latest sustainability news to make sure that we can have a pulse on what's happening. So that's been extremely useful for me as having that inside outlook and then getting it from different shareholders or key stakeholders across sustainability when I get to see different articles. The climate pledge also being a part of that; you get to see what's happening across different signatories. It's always good to be able to benchmark and look how you're trending against all the different other companies that have the same commitments. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work being done at Genesys? You can always go to our website and you can visit <a href="http://genesys.com/sustainability" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">genesys.com/sustainability</a> to learn more about our sustainability initiatives, read our latest report, and stay up to date on our progress.

Bridgette McAdoo -Global Sustainability Officer at Genesys

Michael Cooke has held senior EHS positions in various industries ranging from pharmaceuticals and chemicals to inks and coatings and engineering. In these roles he has led businesses to world-class performance against industry peers and the top centile when benchmarked against all industries.   Michael has also held senior positions outside of EHS – as business director for a pharma division and Strategy, Mergers and Acquisition director for EMEA/Asia regions. Currently, Michael is the Vice President of Social and Environmental Responsibility for Jabil, based in Zurich, heading EHS and Sustainability globally. In this role, he balances various functional activities, from site and people, social responsibility and human rights, HSE, health and wellbeing — linking this to a clear and effective sustainability strategy creating business value.  Michael earned his BSc (Joint Hons) in Chemistry and MSc in Environmental and Pollution Control from the University of Manchester and his MBA from Henley Management College.  Michael Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:  The history of sustainability at Jabil How to engage employees with sustainability goals across a large number of sites and employees Jabil’s strategy to achieving reduction in emissions without purchasing carbon credits: reduce, produce, procure  The challenges to achieving scope 3 emissions reductions a large number of suppliers  The importance and incorporation of health and wellness into Jabil’s strategy  Advice and recommendations for sustainability professionals  Michael’s Final Five Questions Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give to sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? Make it real. If it's window dressing or something like that, you will very soon lose traction within the employees or your other stakeholders. So make it real. Understand what your stakeholders want. Not that you can always do things for all of the stakeholders, but you can prioritize the ones where you can do that. By doing that, look to create some real value, both in terms of the companies that you work for, but also in the communities and the people in and outside of the business which will also be impacted by what you do. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? You might find this actually a bit strange; greenwashing, or the fact that greenwashing is now being looked at more closely. Right now, as I said earlier, we really are doing things in a way that is having a positive impact. We want to continue doing that. It is also important that people who make big announcements about things but aren't really delivering anything are called out. You see in the SEC in the USA that's already happened. There has been some falling out in terms of greenwashing. I also think that the way that legislation is changing in the EU, the European Union Corporate Sustainability Reporting Director, for instance, and link to the taxonomy, means that you can't make claims as easily as you could do before without actually backing them up better. For me that's a really good thing. What is one book you would recommend sustainability leaders read? This is something actually when I was doing my master's degree I was referred to and read and that is Small is Beautiful. It's a book by E. F. Schumacher. He entitled it Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered. I love that part because if people matter in what we do, then we generally respect the social dimension of things and the environmental and the financial aspects of what we do. Within that book, he talks about the use of natural resources and how we actually value those things, along with how people contribute negatively or positively to those things. What reminded me a bit of it was, I was actually at a conference on putting people into sustainability in London last week. What I thought was quite an interesting point: on the balance sheet, a robot is seen as an asset, but on the balance sheet, a person or people are seen as costs. That seems a bit strange that people are seen as a negative and a robot is seen as a positive. Looking at how we put people into sustainability discussion is a very important thing. And hence, I like that book. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? There's lots on the internet that you can use, but I get most of my inspiration from other companies and other people and listening to what they're doing. I think networking and that respect is probably the most beneficial way of actually being challenged and seeing how we can do things better. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work being done at Jabil? The best thing is to go to our sustainability pages on our website. You'll see we have some great resources there. We've got some blocks from my team and other members on circular economy, on how to create a strategy for carbon reduction. We really would like some feedback on that and to see if other people are finding the same challenges, and also, I think our solutions may be helpful.

Michael Cooke has held senior EHS positions in various industries ranging from pharmaceuticals and chemicals to inks and coatings and engineering. In these roles he has led businesses to world-class performance against industry peers and the top centile when benchmarked against all industries.   Michael has also held senior positions outside of EHS – as business director for a pharma division and Strategy, Mergers and Acquisition director for EMEA/Asia regions. Currently, Michael is the Vice President of Social and Environmental Responsibility for Jabil, based in Zurich, heading EHS and Sustainability globally. In this role, he balances various functional activities, from site and people, social responsibility and human rights, HSE, health and wellbeing — linking this to a clear and effective sustainability strategy creating business value.  Michael earned his BSc (Joint Hons) in Chemistry and MSc in Environmental and Pollution Control from the University of Manchester and his MBA from Henley Management College.  Michael Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss: <ul> <li>The history of sustainability at Jabil</li> <li>How to engage employees with sustainability goals across a large number of sites and employees</li> <li>Jabil’s strategy to achieving reduction in emissions without purchasing carbon credits: reduce, produce, procure </li> <li>The challenges to achieving scope 3 emissions reductions a large number of suppliers </li> <li>The importance and incorporation of health and wellness into Jabil’s strategy </li> <li>Advice and recommendations for sustainability professionals</li> </ul> Michael’s Final Five Questions Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give to sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? Make it real. If it's window dressing or something like that, you will very soon lose traction within the employees or your other stakeholders. So make it real. Understand what your stakeholders want. Not that you can always do things for all of the stakeholders, but you can prioritize the ones where you can do that. By doing that, look to create some real value, both in terms of the companies that you work for, but also in the communities and the people in and outside of the business which will also be impacted by what you do. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? You might find this actually a bit strange; greenwashing, or the fact that greenwashing is now being looked at more closely. Right now, as I said earlier, we really are doing things in a way that is having a positive impact. We want to continue doing that. It is also important that people who make big announcements about things but aren't really delivering anything are called out. You see in the SEC in the USA that's already happened. There has been some falling out in terms of greenwashing. I also think that the way that legislation is changing in the EU, the European Union Corporate Sustainability Reporting Director, for instance, and link to the taxonomy, means that you can't make claims as easily as you could do before without actually backing them up better. For me that's a really good thing. What is one book you would recommend sustainability leaders read? This is something actually when I was doing my master's degree I was referred to and read and that is Small is Beautiful. It's a book by E. F. Schumacher. He entitled it Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered. I love that part because if people matter in what we do, then we generally respect the social dimension of things and the environmental and the financial aspects of what we do. Within that book, he talks about the use of natural resources and how we actually value those things, along with how people contribute negatively or positively to those things. What reminded me a bit of it was, I was actually at a conference on putting people into sustainability in London last week. What I thought was quite an interesting point: on the balance sheet, a robot is seen as an asset, but on the balance sheet, a person or people are seen as costs. That seems a bit strange that people are seen as a negative and a robot is seen as a positive. Looking at how we put people into sustainability discussion is a very important thing. And hence, I like that book. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? There's lots on the internet that you can use, but I get most of my inspiration from other companies and other people and listening to what they're doing. I think networking and that respect is probably the most beneficial way of actually being challenged and seeing how we can do things better. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work being done at Jabil? The best thing is to go to our sustainability pages on our website. You'll see we have some great resources there. We've got some blocks from my team and other members on circular economy, on how to create a strategy for carbon reduction. We really would like some feedback on that and to see if other people are finding the same challenges, and also, I think our solutions may be helpful.

Michael Cooke - Vice President, Social and Environmental Responsibility at Jabil

Fawn Bergen leads Intel Corporation’s Global Water Stewardship program. Using her 21 years of experience as an environmental engineer, she manages Intel’s global water strategy and their commitment to achieve net positive water use by conserving water in operations and restoring more than 100% of their global water use by 2030. Under her leadership Intel has been honored with the 2018 US Water Prize by the US Water Alliance, 2019 Sustainability Champion by Arizona Forward, and 2019 Innovative Partnerships in Philanthropic Giving by the Portland Business Journal, for their achievements in water stewardship. Fawn is a graduate of the University of Florida. Fawn Leads Sustainable Nation to Discuss:  How Intel set their RISE 2030 Goals on climate, water and waste  Carbon neutral computing The critical importance of water in manufacturing semiconductors and Intel’s water goals Advice and recommendations for sustainability professionals  Fawn’s Final Five Questions Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? I would say: keep an open mind. I've known so many people that I went to school with; they had their career path set and of course, things changed. A lot of people would have no idea who they would be working for. That's been a fun part of my journey, the unexpected changes. The sustainability field itself is changing and growing so rapidly as the world realizes that sustainability is not a nice to-do, it's critical. Keeping yourself agile and learning new things is really important in this field. Just keep fighting the good fight. Sometimes it feels like you're only moving the needle a tiny bit, but then when you look back at what you've done, you realize that it really was a big impact. It can be daunting when you're just making that incremental change because sometimes it's one step forward, two steps back, but you have to keep trying to make just that little step forward and you will make progress over time. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? Other than our net positive water goal, our net zero greenhouse gas bill. That is going to be an immense challenge, not just for Intel, but our whole industry. What excites me is thinking about the huge impact it's going to have by getting Intel there and working with other companies as well to get everyone there. It's a huge hill to climb, but I think once we get there, it's going to have a profound impact. That potential has me very excited to work through all of these challenges. What is one book you would recommend sustainability leaders read? I think my favorite sustainability book is called Let There Be Water by Seth Siegel. It was a fantastic book, very well written, and I just kind of flew through it. The book is all about how Israel built one of the best (probably along with Singapore) role models of what a country can do to value water. It's a really fascinating story about how Israel did that and how they're in a desert now, but they're a very water secure country. They can even at times share water with neighboring countries. Really fascinating; it just opens your eyes to what countries can do. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? Our resources that I love are our partners; our external partners, our nonprofit environmental groups like the Nature Conservancy, the National Forest Foundation. Why I consider them a resource is because they're experts in building and supporting natural resilience of our watersheds, reforestation after wildfires. We really look to them as the experts and they shape a lot of the projects that we fund. I take back what I learned from them as far as water challenges and what companies like Intel can do from a broader sustainability standpoint. Water is so connected to climate, so a lot of our investments in water projects also have a climate benefit, they have biodiversity benefits. I learn so much from all of them. They're just a tremendous resource. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work being done at intel. Intel.com/responsibility is where you can get our corporate responsibility report and a lot of other details, and intel.com/water where you can read all about the projects that we funded.

Fawn Bergen leads Intel Corporation’s Global Water Stewardship program. Using her 21 years of experience as an environmental engineer, she manages Intel’s global water strategy and their commitment to achieve net positive water use by conserving water in operations and restoring more than 100% of their global water use by 2030. Under her leadership Intel has been honored with the 2018 US Water Prize by the US Water Alliance, 2019 Sustainability Champion by Arizona Forward, and 2019 Innovative Partnerships in Philanthropic Giving by the Portland Business Journal, for their achievements in water stewardship. Fawn is a graduate of the University of Florida. Fawn Leads Sustainable Nation to Discuss: <ul> <li>How Intel set their RISE 2030 Goals on climate, water and waste </li> <li>Carbon neutral computing</li> <li>The critical importance of water in manufacturing semiconductors and Intel’s water goals</li> <li>Advice and recommendations for sustainability professionals</li> </ul> Fawn’s Final Five Questions Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? I would say: keep an open mind. I've known so many people that I went to school with; they had their career path set and of course, things changed. A lot of people would have no idea who they would be working for. That's been a fun part of my journey, the unexpected changes. The sustainability field itself is changing and growing so rapidly as the world realizes that sustainability is not a nice to-do, it's critical. Keeping yourself agile and learning new things is really important in this field. Just keep fighting the good fight. Sometimes it feels like you're only moving the needle a tiny bit, but then when you look back at what you've done, you realize that it really was a big impact. It can be daunting when you're just making that incremental change because sometimes it's one step forward, two steps back, but you have to keep trying to make just that little step forward and you will make progress over time. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? Other than our net positive water goal, our net zero greenhouse gas bill. That is going to be an immense challenge, not just for Intel, but our whole industry. What excites me is thinking about the huge impact it's going to have by getting Intel there and working with other companies as well to get everyone there. It's a huge hill to climb, but I think once we get there, it's going to have a profound impact. That potential has me very excited to work through all of these challenges. What is one book you would recommend sustainability leaders read? I think my favorite sustainability book is called Let There Be Water by Seth Siegel. It was a fantastic book, very well written, and I just kind of flew through it. The book is all about how Israel built one of the best (probably along with Singapore) role models of what a country can do to value water. It's a really fascinating story about how Israel did that and how they're in a desert now, but they're a very water secure country. They can even at times share water with neighboring countries. Really fascinating; it just opens your eyes to what countries can do. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? Our resources that I love are our partners; our external partners, our nonprofit environmental groups like the Nature Conservancy, the National Forest Foundation. Why I consider them a resource is because they're experts in building and supporting natural resilience of our watersheds, reforestation after wildfires. We really look to them as the experts and they shape a lot of the projects that we fund. I take back what I learned from them as far as water challenges and what companies like Intel can do from a broader sustainability standpoint. Water is so connected to climate, so a lot of our investments in water projects also have a climate benefit, they have biodiversity benefits. I learn so much from all of them. They're just a tremendous resource. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work being done at intel. <a href="http://Intel.com/responsibility" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Intel.com/responsibility</a> is where you can get our corporate responsibility report and a lot of other details, and <a href="http://intel.com/water" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">intel.com/water</a> where you can read all about the projects that we funded.

Fawn Bergen - Corporate Sustainability Manager - Intel Corporation

Amanda Cimaglia

Amanda Cimaglia is currently serving as our Vice President, ESG and Corporate Affairs. Prior to joining us in January 2021, Ms. Cimaglia served as the Managing Director of Solebury Trout’s ESG 360 platform, where she advised private and public companies on the development and communication of ESG strategies, including investor relations and corporate communications initiatives. Prior to that, Amanda served as the head of investor relations and ESG at Hannon Armstrong (NYSE: HASI), the first U.S. public company solely dedicated to investments in climate solutions, providing capital to leading companies in energy efficiency, renewable energy, and other sustainable infrastructure markets. During her seven-year tenure at Hannon Armstrong, Amanda built an award-winning investor relations program, garnering the Best Overall Investor Relations (Small Cap) Award by IR Magazine, as well as being named a finalist for both Best ESG Reporting and Rising Star of investor relations. She has served as a member of the ESG working groups for both the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Amanda Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:  How a background in investor relations helps with managing ESG The history of sustainability as AZEK Creating recycled material and sourcing at AZEK Advice on zero waste events including the TimberTech Championship  AZEK’s process of widening emission accounting  The importance of leadership in integrating ESG into the business strategy at AZEK  Amanda's Final Five Questions Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? I would again say ESG is a journey and not a destination. Focus on what's impactful and prioritize your ESG initiatives accordingly. We will always have the opportunity to evolve. Don't let perfection be the enemy of the good.  What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? Having been in this space for the last decade of my career, the momentum that we've experienced over the last two years alone is remarkable. ESG and ESG stewardship is no longer optional. It's table stakes for everyone. I would add to that, that I am constantly encouraged and inspired by what innovations are being brought to the market, what partnerships are being created to drive circularity, drive sustainability, and the conversations that are being had across companies from the senior level of the organization to the manager level, to other employees and even hourly employees across the organization. It is a point of empowerment and a point of conversation and a point of inspiration for all of us. What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? I just finished a brand new book written by the Harvard Business School professor and ESG rockstar I like to call him, George Serafeim, who I had the opportunity to host for a fireside chat a couple of years ago. The book is called Purpose and Profit: How Business Can Lift Up the World, and it offers a roadmap really for people at any stage of their career who seek to align their professional aspirations with their personal values. It's relatable no matter where you are in the organization, and no matter what level you are in the organization, it's relevant to both corporates and investors alike. George really discusses how the purpose of business has changed over time, how we can implement more purpose-driven strategies, and how companies can capture value. I think my favorite part of the book is how he highlights that we all have choices on what we buy, how we invest, and where we work. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? I like to keep up to date on ESG issues by reading the many newsletters that are published in the ESG space such as Bloomberg Green and Harvard Law School's Forum on Corporate Governance and ESG. I would also say, being an NYSE listed company, the ESG team at the New York Stock Exchange, they do a great job on ESG programming and best practices. And finally, LinkedIn. I find a lot of inspiration from LinkedIn and I seem to wake up every day to find out something new and exciting that is happening in the field of sustainability. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and your work? I'm on LinkedIn, so your listeners are welcome to find me and follow me there. Then, of course, our website, azekco.com. We have our full circle ESG report on there and a lot of additional resources to learn more about the AZEK company and how we are revolutionizing outdoor living to create a more sustainable future.

Amanda Cimaglia is currently serving as our Vice President, ESG and Corporate Affairs. Prior to joining us in January 2021, Ms. Cimaglia served as the Managing Director of Solebury Trout’s ESG 360 platform, where she advised private and public companies on the development and communication of ESG strategies, including investor relations and corporate communications initiatives. Prior to that, Amanda served as the head of investor relations and ESG at Hannon Armstrong (NYSE: HASI), the first U.S. public company solely dedicated to investments in climate solutions, providing capital to leading companies in energy efficiency, renewable energy, and other sustainable infrastructure markets. During her seven-year tenure at Hannon Armstrong, Amanda built an award-winning investor relations program, garnering the Best Overall Investor Relations (Small Cap) Award by IR Magazine, as well as being named a finalist for both Best ESG Reporting and Rising Star of investor relations. She has served as a member of the ESG working groups for both the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Amanda Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss: <ul> <li>How a background in investor relations helps with managing ESG</li> <li>The history of sustainability as AZEK</li> <li>Creating recycled material and sourcing at AZEK</li> <li>Advice on zero waste events including the TimberTech Championship </li> <li>AZEK’s process of widening emission accounting </li> <li>The importance of leadership in integrating ESG into the business strategy at AZEK</li> </ul> Amanda's Final Five Questions Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? I would again say ESG is a journey and not a destination. Focus on what's impactful and prioritize your ESG initiatives accordingly. We will always have the opportunity to evolve. Don't let perfection be the enemy of the good.  What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? Having been in this space for the last decade of my career, the momentum that we've experienced over the last two years alone is remarkable. ESG and ESG stewardship is no longer optional. It's table stakes for everyone. I would add to that, that I am constantly encouraged and inspired by what innovations are being brought to the market, what partnerships are being created to drive circularity, drive sustainability, and the conversations that are being had across companies from the senior level of the organization to the manager level, to other employees and even hourly employees across the organization. It is a point of empowerment and a point of conversation and a point of inspiration for all of us. What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? I just finished a brand new book written by the Harvard Business School professor and ESG rockstar I like to call him, George Serafeim, who I had the opportunity to host for a fireside chat a couple of years ago. The book is called Purpose and Profit: How Business Can Lift Up the World, and it offers a roadmap really for people at any stage of their career who seek to align their professional aspirations with their personal values. It's relatable no matter where you are in the organization, and no matter what level you are in the organization, it's relevant to both corporates and investors alike. George really discusses how the purpose of business has changed over time, how we can implement more purpose-driven strategies, and how companies can capture value. I think my favorite part of the book is how he highlights that we all have choices on what we buy, how we invest, and where we work. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? I like to keep up to date on ESG issues by reading the many newsletters that are published in the ESG space such as Bloomberg Green and Harvard Law School's Forum on Corporate Governance and ESG. I would also say, being an NYSE listed company, the ESG team at the New York Stock Exchange, they do a great job on ESG programming and best practices. And finally, LinkedIn. I find a lot of inspiration from LinkedIn and I seem to wake up every day to find out something new and exciting that is happening in the field of sustainability. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and your work? I'm on LinkedIn, so your listeners are welcome to find me and follow me there. Then, of course, our website, <a href="http://azekco.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">azekco.com</a>. We have our full circle ESG report on there and a lot of additional resources to learn more about the AZEK company and how we are revolutionizing outdoor living to create a more sustainable future.

Amanda Cimaglia - Vice President, ESG and Corporate Affairs - AZEK

Russell Reynolds

Clarke Murphy is a leadership expert who advises the world's top companies on leadership strategies that fuel profitable growth and value for all stakeholders. He has particular expertise helping boards include sustainable competencies and track record into multi-year CEO succession processes. As the former CEO of Russell Reynolds from 2011-2021, he spearheaded a purpose-driven approach to business and led the firm through its greatest period of growth. In his new book, "Sustainable Leadership: Lessons of vision, Courage, and Grit from the CEOs Who Dared to Build a Better World," Clarke tells the stories of dynamic business executives who are using their position to solve the most complex social and economic challenges of our time. Since 2021, Clarke has co-hosted the Redefiners podcast, interviewing courageous leaders who are redefining their organizations—and themselves—to deliver extraordinary results. Clarke Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:  Commercial Leadership vs. Sustainable Leadership The mindset and four competencies of sustainable pioneers Insight on companies using sustainability to recruit/retain top talent How companies are preparing for potential SEC regulations Advice and recommendations for sustainability professionals  Clarke's Final Five Questions Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? Start the action. Don't be a hundred percenter. Hundred percenters want all the answers. They wanna manage all the risk. They want to know all the answers. That doesn't work. Perfection slows down progress and sustainability. Just take the first step. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? I think the energy around several younger generations, not just the Gen Zs and millennials, but thousands and tens of thousands of young executives who want to be involved or are getting involved. That will accelerate the pace of change.  What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? Well, I hope they read mine! Sustainable Leadership by Clark Murphy. But there's another one that Henry Timms wrote called New Power. It talks about the dynamics of these generations and kind of the way companies are run. Henry Timm's New Power is a great book. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? I read a lot of the research by BCG, McKinsey and the World Economic Forum, which I think are really at the moment around processes, marketing and data that's real information, not anecdotes or popularity. I like having real time data as it happens. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and your work and maybe find your book? They could go to the website russellreynolds.com or they also could listen to our podcast Redefiners on wherever you get your podcasts.

Clarke Murphy is a leadership expert who advises the world's top companies on leadership strategies that fuel profitable growth and value for all stakeholders. He has particular expertise helping boards include sustainable competencies and track record into multi-year CEO succession processes. As the former CEO of Russell Reynolds from 2011-2021, he spearheaded a purpose-driven approach to business and led the firm through its greatest period of growth. In his new book, "Sustainable Leadership: Lessons of vision, Courage, and Grit from the CEOs Who Dared to Build a Better World," Clarke tells the stories of dynamic business executives who are using their position to solve the most complex social and economic challenges of our time. Since 2021, Clarke has co-hosted the Redefiners podcast, interviewing courageous leaders who are redefining their organizations—and themselves—to deliver extraordinary results. Clarke Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss: <ul> <li>Commercial Leadership vs. Sustainable Leadership</li> <li>The mindset and four competencies of sustainable pioneers</li> <li>Insight on companies using sustainability to recruit/retain top talent</li> <li>How companies are preparing for potential SEC regulations</li> <li>Advice and recommendations for sustainability professionals</li> </ul> Clarke's Final Five Questions Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? Start the action. Don't be a hundred percenter. Hundred percenters want all the answers. They wanna manage all the risk. They want to know all the answers. That doesn't work. Perfection slows down progress and sustainability. Just take the first step. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? I think the energy around several younger generations, not just the Gen Zs and millennials, but thousands and tens of thousands of young executives who want to be involved or are getting involved. That will accelerate the pace of change.  What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? Well, I hope they read mine! Sustainable Leadership by Clark Murphy. But there's another one that Henry Timms wrote called New Power. It talks about the dynamics of these generations and kind of the way companies are run. Henry Timm's New Power is a great book. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? I read a lot of the research by BCG, McKinsey and the World Economic Forum, which I think are really at the moment around processes, marketing and data that's real information, not anecdotes or popularity. I like having real time data as it happens. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and your work and maybe find your book? They could go to the website <a href="http://russellreynolds.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">russellreynolds.com</a> or they also could listen to our podcast Redefiners on wherever you get your podcasts.

Clarke Murphy - Board and CEO Leadership Advisor at Russell Reynolds Associates

The Sustainable Nation Podcast delivers interviews with global leaders in sustainability and regenerative development twice a month. Our goal is to provide sustainability professionals, business leaders, academics, government officials and anyone interested in joining the sustainability revolution, with information and insights from the world's most inspiring change-makers.

Great guests, informative, actionable 👌🏼

Best sustainability podcast

Thoughtful and provoking, this podcast is very enjoyable.

👍🏾

Sustainable Nation

Jillian Buckholz

Jillian Buckholz is the first Director of Sustainability on the California State University, East Bay campus where she is responsible for managing campus sustainability efforts including: an annual greenhouse gas inventory; 5-year climate action plan; comprehensive campus sustainability assessment and plan; project-based student internship program; campus sustainability committee and associated task forces; and educational programming. Prior to coming to The Bay, Jillian was the Senior Programs Coordinator at the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE).    Jillian Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:  Leading sustainability as a team of one Involving students in sustainability through internship programs Sustainability reporting and climate action planning Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders  Jillian's Final Five Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that help them in their careers? Take time to build relationships. It's easy to be excited, especially in a new position and want to do a lot of great work, but making sure that you know where other people are coming from and what their interests and assets are very important. If you're going to be at an institution for quite some time and make some valuable change. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? I'm excited how the social aspects of sustainability are becoming more and more a part of the movement. It's not about recycling and energy efficiency. You're starting to see campuses looking more at the people aspect of sustainability and social justice. I'm excited to see more of that . What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? Anything by David Orr and This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein is a good one. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that you use that help you in the work that you do? The AASHE website resource center, their Hub STARS, their bulletin. I'm always defaulting to AASHE whenever I need something. Also, the Green Schools Listserv at Brown University is a great resource. When I was in higher Ed managing sustainability, that was my number one and most visited website was  AASHE. They have absolutely everything you need. I submitted a Sustainable Nation podcast as a tool there, so hopefully that'll be up soon. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work that you're leading at Cal State East Bay? Just go to www.csueastbay.edu and scroll down on the main page, you'll see a big box where students are holding up solar suitcase light bulbs. You can click right there to get to the webpage. I'm on LinkedIn as well. We have @SustainEastBay as a hashtag or a handle for all of our social media, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Jillian Buckholz is the first Director of Sustainability on the California State University, East Bay campus where she is responsible for managing campus sustainability efforts including: an annual greenhouse gas inventory; 5-year climate action plan; comprehensive campus sustainability assessment and plan; project-based student internship program; campus sustainability committee and associated task forces; and educational programming. Prior to coming to The Bay, Jillian was the Senior Programs Coordinator at the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE).    Jillian Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss: <ul> <li>Leading sustainability as a team of one</li> <li>Involving students in sustainability through internship programs</li> <li>Sustainability reporting and climate action planning</li> <li>Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders</li> </ul> Jillian's Final Five Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that help them in their careers? Take time to build relationships. It's easy to be excited, especially in a new position and want to do a lot of great work, but making sure that you know where other people are coming from and what their interests and assets are very important. If you're going to be at an institution for quite some time and make some valuable change. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? I'm excited how the social aspects of sustainability are becoming more and more a part of the movement. It's not about recycling and energy efficiency. You're starting to see campuses looking more at the people aspect of sustainability and social justice. I'm excited to see more of that . What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? Anything by David Orr and This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein is a good one. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that you use that help you in the work that you do? The AASHE website resource center, their Hub STARS, their bulletin. I'm always defaulting to AASHE whenever I need something. Also, the Green Schools Listserv at Brown University is a great resource. When I was in higher Ed managing sustainability, that was my number one and most visited website was  AASHE. They have absolutely everything you need. I submitted a Sustainable Nation podcast as a tool there, so hopefully that'll be up soon. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work that you're leading at Cal State East Bay? Just go to <a href="http://www.csueastbay.edu" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.csueastbay.edu</a> and scroll down on the main page, you'll see a big box where students are holding up solar suitcase light bulbs. You can click right there to get to the webpage. I'm on LinkedIn as well. We have @SustainEastBay as a hashtag or a handle for all of our social media, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Jillian Buckholz - Director of Sustainability at Cal State East Bay

Jack McAneny

Jack McAneny, Director of Global Sustainability, has been with P&amp;G for 20 years.  During that time, he has had a variety of assignments in the Health, Safety &amp; Environment and Technical External Relations functions. In his current role, he coordinates P&amp;G’s Environmental Sustainability efforts. Prior to joining P&amp;G, Jack worked for the Federal Occupational Safety &amp; Health Administration as an Industrial Hygiene Compliance Officer. Jack Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:  Leading sustainability in a multinational corporation Science based targets for sustainability goals P &amp; G's Forest Positive initiative 2030 goals including 100% renewable energy and 50% reduction in GHG emissions Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders  Jack's Final Five Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? I think the one thing that I would offer would be really building and maintaining your networks internally and externally. That's not advice that would be unique to sustainability professionals. Right? I'd probably give that to anybody entering the private sector, but I do think it's especially important for folks who are playing in the sustainability space, especially folks who might be in more of a corporate or oversight role. And the reason I say that is we work really, really hard to embed ownership of sustainability into the business and into the line organization so it becomes a way that we just do business. And so, as a consequence of that, it's not like we have a large corporate sustainability staff and we get a lot of our work done and manage by influence. Having robust networks can really be a powerful tool in terms of influencing. I'm not talking about having 10,000 connections on your LinkedIn profile. I'm really talking about a very strategic, deliberate and proactive approach of understanding who you need to develop relationships with and who you need to maintain them with. Certainly that applies internally, but also externally. So, I would just encourage folks to really spend some time thinking about their networks internally and externally, and the role that they play in advancing their work. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? This theme of collaboration. I think more and more people are coming to recognize that if we're really going to address these big issues like climate change, deforestation and solid waste and you name it, those are things that are bigger than any one company. They're bigger sometimes than any one country. So, we know if we're going to drive change at scale, it's going to require collaboration, not just amongst industry but also across governments, civil society and the private sector. Now we're seeing some examples of that here in the US, you have the closed loop front and you see organizations like the Trash Free Seas Alliance that are helping to build collaborative efforts. I think more and more folks are coming to that realization and I really do think that's going to be key to really tackling some of these big thorny issues. I'm just excited to see momentum building behind that approach. What is one book you would recommend sustainability leaders read? That's a tough one because there are so many good ones out there. There's lots of good ones out there that talk about how you build the business case and pragmatic case studies, which I've enjoyed. There've been books out there around reinforcing the importance of the work we do. I think the one that I would offer is a book by an author named Lee Thompson. She is a professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern, and she wrote a book called The Truth About Negotiations. We don't really think about it a lot of time in these terms. We think about the importance of trying to integrate sustainability into the business, and as I think about going to talk to a business leader who has P&amp;L responsibility for a large business or a large brand, typically I'm they're asking for resources, asking for people, money, time or to share a voice or a commitment. These folks who are leading these businesses have finite resources and they have lots of people coming to them asking for very important help and assistance. So, you don't think about that as a negotiation for resources, but I found a lot of tips and tricks in that book, The Truth About Negotiations, that I found helpful. So, that is one that has a proven helpful for me. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in the work that you do? For me, it's anything that helps bring the outside in. I think part of my job, and I suspect the job of many sustainability professionals out there, is understanding what's going on externally today and what we can expect in the future, in terms of some of these big sustainability trends. Bringing that perspective into your organization to help inform decision making and to help develop strategy. Having those resources that bring you that external perspective can be incredibly important. So whether it's news feeds or industry associations or peer groups that you're a part of. I think it's anything that helps bring that outside in has proven helpful. Now obviously depending on your category, your business sector, your, role, you might need to specify those to more topical areas. But beyond that, I would encourage folks to make sure that you have one or two of these, whether their news feeds or subscription services, that give you that really broad view across both environmental and social space in terms of current trends and events, because it's really important to maintain that broad perspective. It has helped me connect dots that I wouldn't otherwise normally have seen. So yes, it's important to be topical and focus, but it's also important to keep that broad view because it helps you from developing blind spots. Finally, where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work you're leading at P&amp;G? Yeah, they can go to pg.com/citizenship. As I mentioned before, we operate against a very broad citizenship framework, environmental sustainability as a part of that. If they go there they can see our most recent citizenship report and have just some great examples of the work that we're trying to do. I think more importantly, given who your target audience is Josh, it'll help folks understand where we're focused and what we're trying to do, and if folks see potential linkages our synergies there, we certainly would welcome any thoughts or ideas that they may have.

Jack McAneny, Director of Global Sustainability, has been with P&amp;G for 20 years.  During that time, he has had a variety of assignments in the Health, Safety &amp; Environment and Technical External Relations functions. In his current role, he coordinates P&amp;G’s Environmental Sustainability efforts. Prior to joining P&amp;G, Jack worked for the Federal Occupational Safety &amp; Health Administration as an Industrial Hygiene Compliance Officer. Jack Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss: <ul> <li>Leading sustainability in a multinational corporation</li> <li>Science based targets for sustainability goals</li> <li>P &amp; G's Forest Positive initiative</li> <li>2030 goals including 100% renewable energy and 50% reduction in GHG emissions</li> <li>Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders</li> </ul> Jack's Final Five Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? I think the one thing that I would offer would be really building and maintaining your networks internally and externally. That's not advice that would be unique to sustainability professionals. Right? I'd probably give that to anybody entering the private sector, but I do think it's especially important for folks who are playing in the sustainability space, especially folks who might be in more of a corporate or oversight role. And the reason I say that is we work really, really hard to embed ownership of sustainability into the business and into the line organization so it becomes a way that we just do business. And so, as a consequence of that, it's not like we have a large corporate sustainability staff and we get a lot of our work done and manage by influence. Having robust networks can really be a powerful tool in terms of influencing. I'm not talking about having 10,000 connections on your LinkedIn profile. I'm really talking about a very strategic, deliberate and proactive approach of understanding who you need to develop relationships with and who you need to maintain them with. Certainly that applies internally, but also externally. So, I would just encourage folks to really spend some time thinking about their networks internally and externally, and the role that they play in advancing their work. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? This theme of collaboration. I think more and more people are coming to recognize that if we're really going to address these big issues like climate change, deforestation and solid waste and you name it, those are things that are bigger than any one company. They're bigger sometimes than any one country. So, we know if we're going to drive change at scale, it's going to require collaboration, not just amongst industry but also across governments, civil society and the private sector. Now we're seeing some examples of that here in the US, you have the closed loop front and you see organizations like the Trash Free Seas Alliance that are helping to build collaborative efforts. I think more and more folks are coming to that realization and I really do think that's going to be key to really tackling some of these big thorny issues. I'm just excited to see momentum building behind that approach. What is one book you would recommend sustainability leaders read? That's a tough one because there are so many good ones out there. There's lots of good ones out there that talk about how you build the business case and pragmatic case studies, which I've enjoyed. There've been books out there around reinforcing the importance of the work we do. I think the one that I would offer is a book by an author named Lee Thompson. She is a professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern, and she wrote a book called The Truth About Negotiations. We don't really think about it a lot of time in these terms. We think about the importance of trying to integrate sustainability into the business, and as I think about going to talk to a business leader who has P&amp;L responsibility for a large business or a large brand, typically I'm they're asking for resources, asking for people, money, time or to share a voice or a commitment. These folks who are leading these businesses have finite resources and they have lots of people coming to them asking for very important help and assistance. So, you don't think about that as a negotiation for resources, but I found a lot of tips and tricks in that book, The Truth About Negotiations, that I found helpful. So, that is one that has a proven helpful for me. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in the work that you do? For me, it's anything that helps bring the outside in. I think part of my job, and I suspect the job of many sustainability professionals out there, is understanding what's going on externally today and what we can expect in the future, in terms of some of these big sustainability trends. Bringing that perspective into your organization to help inform decision making and to help develop strategy. Having those resources that bring you that external perspective can be incredibly important. So whether it's news feeds or industry associations or peer groups that you're a part of. I think it's anything that helps bring that outside in has proven helpful. Now obviously depending on your category, your business sector, your, role, you might need to specify those to more topical areas. But beyond that, I would encourage folks to make sure that you have one or two of these, whether their news feeds or subscription services, that give you that really broad view across both environmental and social space in terms of current trends and events, because it's really important to maintain that broad perspective. It has helped me connect dots that I wouldn't otherwise normally have seen. So yes, it's important to be topical and focus, but it's also important to keep that broad view because it helps you from developing blind spots. Finally, where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work you're leading at P&amp;G? Yeah, they can go to <a href="http://pg.com/citizenship" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">pg.com/citizenship</a>. As I mentioned before, we operate against a very broad citizenship framework, environmental sustainability as a part of that. If they go there they can see our most recent citizenship report and have just some great examples of the work that we're trying to do. I think more importantly, given who your target audience is Josh, it'll help folks understand where we're focused and what we're trying to do, and if folks see potential linkages our synergies there, we certainly would welcome any thoughts or ideas that they may have.

Jack McAneny - Director of Global Sustainability at Procter and Gamble

Joel Solomon

Joel Solomon chairs Renewal Funds, a $98m mission venture capital firm, investing in Organics and EnviroTech. He is Co-Producer of the RSF Social Finance “Integrated Capital Fellowship Program” and is a Founding Member of Social Venture Network, Business for Social Responsibility, Tides Canada Foundation, and Chair of Hollyhock. Joel serves on the University of British Columbia Board of Governors and is Co-Author of The Clean Money Revolution, a call to move trillions of dollars from damage to regeneration. Joel Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:  The Clean Money Revolution The growth of impact investing Mission venture capital investing Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders  Joel's Final Five Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? Spend time on finding out who you are and what your personal skills are and improve them. How do you handle conflict? How do you handle self-doubt? How do you handle difficult challenges? So many people are trained on the financials and the technical side, but they've ignored these other things. What about love? How do I get to feel good about myself? This is actually a tone that is set by the entrepreneur and the leader that affects your ability to recruit and retain good employees. There's more transparency. If you act badly, this can damage your company. We have all kinds of societal stories about that right now. The second part of it for me is, look back from your deathbed regularly. What was your contribution? Why are you here? Who do you care about? What do you care about and how are you acting it out with your business? What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? Well, there's clearly an awakening going on about the fact that we do live in a finite planet. I've mentioned population and practices that were innocent at one time and now we know much more. I don't think people went out to damage and destroy. But, when we had 1 billion people it was a vast untapped Garden of Eden. So, I'm very excited that something I've felt, just as an idealistic and maybe naive idea 40 years ago, is becoming regularized, professionalized, systematized. And as you mentioned those figures early on, there are now trillions of dollars beginning to be influenced by this. So the excitement is everywhere. I look all across this continent, the number of conferences, the incubators and accelerators, the consumer demand and the new products, the grocery store shelves changing, how we get our energy, what our cars are like. Everything is now in shift. So it's a very exciting time of innovation, ingenuity, and actually there's a lot of room for bright people who are motivated to get in that. So that's very invigorating and it gives me some hope. What is one book you would recommend sustainability leaders read? Of course, besides the Clean Money Revolution. Think about what are the deepest curiosities you have and use the modern tools and go start searching, because I was influenced by a wide diversity from spiritual to psychological, too political to practical, how do businesses work, how does politics work? But I think we live in an era where information of course is too much for us and we can't even begin to absorb it, but we do have the ability to follow our instincts. And here's one thing about the books - don't limit yourself just to your field. I'm going to be the best cigar maker. I'm going to be the best renewable energy producer, and all you read is how to be an entrepreneur. I think it's important to be a well-rounded person. You're starting to see in Silicon Valley the philosophy and arts students are starting to find new roles and being lifted up because creativity and ability to think laterally, and to think uniquely, and non-structurally. So be sure and keep yourself broad and diverse as well. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in the work that you do? I'm a very relationship centered person. I learn a lot there. I find resources. I gain friendships. It's time for me to use another four letter word - I find love. The love I'm talking about is a sense of feeling good about myself, a feeling that I'm being the kind of person that brings good energy to me from others, which then causes me to go deeper in my own practice. Be honest sooner or be honest always. But talk about the tough things sooner. So I'm really committed and have done an unbelievable amount of attending conferences, networks, gatherings. Being very people centered, which is not everybody's form. You cannot believe the opportunities that exist today, whether in person or online to connect and to do, you might say peer learning or peer coaching. There's a lot of exuberance about how we're going to make the world better. And so get out and go to places where you're outside your comfort zone and where you meet new people. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work that you're leading? JoelSolomon.org. That is based around the book and there are many of these podcasts and other kinds of interviews and resources that you could find that hopefully will help you on your journey. In my own name on social media, Joel Solomon, I'm on most of the major ones and I am fairly active and I try to put a diverse kind of information and links and connections to things that might not be easily visible otherwise. And you can have a look at renewalfunds.com, which is our model of an impact venture capital type investment business. But you can translate it down to seed capital, startups and kind of everything you do with money as well. Also, hollyhock.ca for Canada. At Hollyhock you will find a number of resources that cover things I've talked about here for our personal development, inner development, but also really great entrepreneur conferences and those kinds of gatherings that are unbelievable ways to make great connections and learn a lot.

Joel Solomon chairs Renewal Funds, a $98m mission venture capital firm, investing in Organics and EnviroTech. He is Co-Producer of the RSF Social Finance “Integrated Capital Fellowship Program” and is a Founding Member of Social Venture Network, Business for Social Responsibility, Tides Canada Foundation, and Chair of Hollyhock. Joel serves on the University of British Columbia Board of Governors and is Co-Author of The Clean Money Revolution, a call to move trillions of dollars from damage to regeneration. Joel Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss: <ul> <li>The Clean Money Revolution</li> <li>The growth of impact investing</li> <li>Mission venture capital investing</li> <li>Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders</li> </ul> Joel's Final Five Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? Spend time on finding out who you are and what your personal skills are and improve them. How do you handle conflict? How do you handle self-doubt? How do you handle difficult challenges? So many people are trained on the financials and the technical side, but they've ignored these other things. What about love? How do I get to feel good about myself? This is actually a tone that is set by the entrepreneur and the leader that affects your ability to recruit and retain good employees. There's more transparency. If you act badly, this can damage your company. We have all kinds of societal stories about that right now. The second part of it for me is, look back from your deathbed regularly. What was your contribution? Why are you here? Who do you care about? What do you care about and how are you acting it out with your business? What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? Well, there's clearly an awakening going on about the fact that we do live in a finite planet. I've mentioned population and practices that were innocent at one time and now we know much more. I don't think people went out to damage and destroy. But, when we had 1 billion people it was a vast untapped Garden of Eden. So, I'm very excited that something I've felt, just as an idealistic and maybe naive idea 40 years ago, is becoming regularized, professionalized, systematized. And as you mentioned those figures early on, there are now trillions of dollars beginning to be influenced by this. So the excitement is everywhere. I look all across this continent, the number of conferences, the incubators and accelerators, the consumer demand and the new products, the grocery store shelves changing, how we get our energy, what our cars are like. Everything is now in shift. So it's a very exciting time of innovation, ingenuity, and actually there's a lot of room for bright people who are motivated to get in that. So that's very invigorating and it gives me some hope. What is one book you would recommend sustainability leaders read? Of course, besides the Clean Money Revolution. Think about what are the deepest curiosities you have and use the modern tools and go start searching, because I was influenced by a wide diversity from spiritual to psychological, too political to practical, how do businesses work, how does politics work? But I think we live in an era where information of course is too much for us and we can't even begin to absorb it, but we do have the ability to follow our instincts. And here's one thing about the books - don't limit yourself just to your field. I'm going to be the best cigar maker. I'm going to be the best renewable energy producer, and all you read is how to be an entrepreneur. I think it's important to be a well-rounded person. You're starting to see in Silicon Valley the philosophy and arts students are starting to find new roles and being lifted up because creativity and ability to think laterally, and to think uniquely, and non-structurally. So be sure and keep yourself broad and diverse as well. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in the work that you do? I'm a very relationship centered person. I learn a lot there. I find resources. I gain friendships. It's time for me to use another four letter word - I find love. The love I'm talking about is a sense of feeling good about myself, a feeling that I'm being the kind of person that brings good energy to me from others, which then causes me to go deeper in my own practice. Be honest sooner or be honest always. But talk about the tough things sooner. So I'm really committed and have done an unbelievable amount of attending conferences, networks, gatherings. Being very people centered, which is not everybody's form. You cannot believe the opportunities that exist today, whether in person or online to connect and to do, you might say peer learning or peer coaching. There's a lot of exuberance about how we're going to make the world better. And so get out and go to places where you're outside your comfort zone and where you meet new people. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work that you're leading? <a href="http://JoelSolomon.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">JoelSolomon.org</a>. That is based around the book and there are many of these podcasts and other kinds of interviews and resources that you could find that hopefully will help you on your journey. In my own name on social media, Joel Solomon, I'm on most of the major ones and I am fairly active and I try to put a diverse kind of information and links and connections to things that might not be easily visible otherwise. And you can have a look at <a href="http://renewalfunds.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">renewalfunds.com</a>, which is our model of an impact venture capital type investment business. But you can translate it down to seed capital, startups and kind of everything you do with money as well. Also, <a href="http://hollyhock.ca" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">hollyhock.ca</a> for Canada. At Hollyhock you will find a number of resources that cover things I've talked about here for our personal development, inner development, but also really great entrepreneur conferences and those kinds of gatherings that are unbelievable ways to make great connections and learn a lot.

Joel Solomon - Author of The Clean Money Revolution

Michael Lizotte

Dr. Michael Lizotte is Sustainability Officer at UNC Charlotte since 2013.  He previously filled that role at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, where he was professor of ecology and helped start an environmental studies program and an online MS in Sustainable Management.  Dr. Lizotte has research administration experience with an oceanography institute and NASA. To study the ecology of algae, he made 12 trips to Antarctica and 1 to the Arctic.  Lizotte Creek in Antarctica is named in his honor. Mike Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:  Incorporating light rail on campus and impacts on sustainability goals and performance How sustainability affects the products of higher education Raising sustainability issues that may not be popular with all stakeholders Using AASHE STARS to guide sustainability improvement Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders  Mike's Final Five Question Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? I think the best advice I can give people is that they have to learn that they can't do all of this on their own, but that almost everything you do is going to happen via some kind of partnership with other people. I don't know of any good examples where someone is really given the reigns of the organization or enough resources to actually be able to do that. It's kind of expected right now that we're going to conduct our work through persuasion and various other sort of leadership skills. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? Well, there is a tendency to get attracted by the piece that's sort of right in front of you, but I'm spending an awful lot of time looking at transportation. I think even in the decade or so that I have left before I might retire, I think things are going to change radically. They may just change because experimental systems need a place to be tested and the universities may be the places that are going to try this. So we may be the first ones that see some smaller scale autonomous vehicle use and test out what does it look like when you really do these radical changes to a community. What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? That was an easy question. So the one that I'm always recommending to folks is Bob Willard's Sustainability Champion's Guidebook. It's just the nicest little book and I'm always going back and flipping through it and getting ideas. It is a series of models, so I'll admit I'm kind of drawn to it from that aspect, but I think he does a great job with summarizing a lot of ideas and creating a way that someone who is supposed to lead can configure out, "how am I going to get all these other people involved or how am I going to make these persuasive arguments." What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in the work that you do? One that's been wonderful for me is just the networks that were formed. Before I arrived here in North Carolina, in Charlotte, I belonged to one network of sustainability officers at universities across the southeast. Just having that monthly call is wonderful. An entirely separate network is one here in the city of Charlotte where some fairly large corporate headquarter sustainability officers are available along with other large organizations. So, I get to see things and solutions that aren't necessarily being talked about at the university. There's even a smaller effort here, which is sustainability leaders having to do with the hospitality industry.  So, wherever you are, I would just say try to find those networks. For the most part they're not Internet based, but they are primarily networks of people who are still doing things face to face or via the telephone. And finally where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work that you're leading at UNC Charlotte. We hope to be getting a lot more attention through the UNC a main page, that's you www.uncc.edu. We have a new plan coming out and we're hoping that the initiatives get more attention from the university, but they're already fairly good at covering regular events and things like that that we do on campus.

Dr. Michael Lizotte is Sustainability Officer at UNC Charlotte since 2013.  He previously filled that role at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, where he was professor of ecology and helped start an environmental studies program and an online MS in Sustainable Management.  Dr. Lizotte has research administration experience with an oceanography institute and NASA. To study the ecology of algae, he made 12 trips to Antarctica and 1 to the Arctic.  Lizotte Creek in Antarctica is named in his honor. Mike Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss: <ul> <li>Incorporating light rail on campus and impacts on sustainability goals and performance</li> <li>How sustainability affects the products of higher education</li> <li>Raising sustainability issues that may not be popular with all stakeholders</li> <li>Using AASHE STARS to guide sustainability improvement</li> <li>Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders</li> </ul> Mike's Final Five Question Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? I think the best advice I can give people is that they have to learn that they can't do all of this on their own, but that almost everything you do is going to happen via some kind of partnership with other people. I don't know of any good examples where someone is really given the reigns of the organization or enough resources to actually be able to do that. It's kind of expected right now that we're going to conduct our work through persuasion and various other sort of leadership skills. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? Well, there is a tendency to get attracted by the piece that's sort of right in front of you, but I'm spending an awful lot of time looking at transportation. I think even in the decade or so that I have left before I might retire, I think things are going to change radically. They may just change because experimental systems need a place to be tested and the universities may be the places that are going to try this. So we may be the first ones that see some smaller scale autonomous vehicle use and test out what does it look like when you really do these radical changes to a community. What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? That was an easy question. So the one that I'm always recommending to folks is Bob Willard's Sustainability Champion's Guidebook. It's just the nicest little book and I'm always going back and flipping through it and getting ideas. It is a series of models, so I'll admit I'm kind of drawn to it from that aspect, but I think he does a great job with summarizing a lot of ideas and creating a way that someone who is supposed to lead can configure out, "how am I going to get all these other people involved or how am I going to make these persuasive arguments." What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in the work that you do? One that's been wonderful for me is just the networks that were formed. Before I arrived here in North Carolina, in Charlotte, I belonged to one network of sustainability officers at universities across the southeast. Just having that monthly call is wonderful. An entirely separate network is one here in the city of Charlotte where some fairly large corporate headquarter sustainability officers are available along with other large organizations. So, I get to see things and solutions that aren't necessarily being talked about at the university. There's even a smaller effort here, which is sustainability leaders having to do with the hospitality industry.  So, wherever you are, I would just say try to find those networks. For the most part they're not Internet based, but they are primarily networks of people who are still doing things face to face or via the telephone. And finally where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work that you're leading at UNC Charlotte. We hope to be getting a lot more attention through the UNC a main page, that's you <a href="http://www.uncc.edu" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.uncc.edu</a>. We have a new plan coming out and we're hoping that the initiatives get more attention from the university, but they're already fairly good at covering regular events and things like that that we do on campus.

Dr. Michael Lizotte - Sustainability Officer at UNC Charlotte

Luke Cartin

Luke Cartin is the Environmental Sustainability Manager for Park City, Utah.  He oversees Park City’s goals of achieving net-zero carbon and 100% renewable electricity for city operations by 2022, and community-wide 2032. These goals are the most ambitious in North America for any municipality, and one of the most aspiring world-wide. There are many programs underway, including; electrification of city fleet and buses, bringing on large scale renewables, quantifying open space as carbon sinks, and pursuing net-zero energy buildings.  Previous to coming to the city, he worked in ski resort sustainability for 15 years. His work has been featured in the New York Times, BBC, Outside Magazine, Newsweek, and other international outlets. He lives with his wife, two kids, and many animals just outside Park City.  Luke Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:  Setting ambitious renewable energy and carbon neutral goals Climate change impacts on the ski industry and tourism Engaging local farmers in regenerative agriculture Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders  What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? I would say there's two ways to view the climate crisis, and then also sustainability overall. View as like you're learning a chest match, meaning the only way you're going to get better is by playing and doing. Failure will be an asset to you because you will quickly understand what does not work. And I know folks are scared to fail, but we need to act and you have the silent majority. So the goal is to really focus on trying and doing. Don't put up barriers to say, "well our community can't do that because of this or that." Set these ambitious goals and that'll force you to create the pathway forward. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability and regenerative development? I think it's how quickly things can change once the pathway forward is shown. When we set our 100 percent renewable electricity goal, people thought we were nuts. I mean other communities were like, "what are you guys doing? You're in a state with a regulated utility that's owned by Berkshire Hathaway." But the great thing is the pathway forwards have been created and it seems daunting to get a community that's mostly coal fired to carbon neutrality and hundred percent renewable in 14 years. But the great thing is we've identified major pathways to get there and it's really exciting to be a player in that. What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? I'll throw two at you here. So one of them is called The One Straw Revolution. It's a great book because the concept is that there's limits to the human knowledge, but it's using natural systems aligned with your goal. It's the exact same concept we're going with some of the regenerative agriculture pieces in that we just want to help kind of steer in the right direction and make sure we're not doing harm, and it's impressive how the natural environment can help increase that. The other interesting book that I really suggest is 10 Percent happier by Dan Harris. You can get very depressed by seeing all of the horrible things going on and you need to balance yourself out. So 10 Percent Happier by Dan Harris is a great book because it talks about meditation. Just kind of keeping your head on your shoulders. It gives you some really easy techniques to keep yourself balanced. Because I think in this role you're under constant attack. I think we'd all be okay with being 10 percent happier. That sounds great. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in the work that you do? One of the tools, and you mentioned it for other communities that are interested in this world, even if you don't have a fully dedicated sustainability person, which I would heavily push any community to have because like I said, they can problem solve for your folks. They can help find savings. There something called the Urban Sustainability Directors Network and it's open to sustainability professionals in municipalities and it is a great resource. I know you've interviewed like Gil and a couple of their folks too. It's an awesome community to say, "Hey, who's tried a community composting program?" And you can dive in. "Who's written an RFP for solar on a library?" It's an awesome resource. The other part for my end that's interesting read, there's a great website out there called Utility Dive. It wraps up what's going on in the utility sphere, because there are some pro-coal pieces going on and there's nuclear subsidies or something like that. This gets a little bit more technical and it's great for me to help understand the broad swaths of what's going on in the regulatory market and also what's happening with the energy sphere overall in North America. And finally, where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work that you're leading at Park City? So we have the city website, parkcity.org. We're actually underway right now to launch another website that'll sum up all of these pieces. So stay tuned for that. Easy way to track me down, just find me through the parkcity.org website or through LinkedIn.

Luke Cartin is the Environmental Sustainability Manager for Park City, Utah.  He oversees Park City’s goals of achieving net-zero carbon and 100% renewable electricity for city operations by 2022, and community-wide 2032. These goals are the most ambitious in North America for any municipality, and one of the most aspiring world-wide. There are many programs underway, including; electrification of city fleet and buses, bringing on large scale renewables, quantifying open space as carbon sinks, and pursuing net-zero energy buildings.  Previous to coming to the city, he worked in ski resort sustainability for 15 years. His work has been featured in the New York Times, BBC, Outside Magazine, Newsweek, and other international outlets. He lives with his wife, two kids, and many animals just outside Park City.  Luke Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss: <ul> <li>Setting ambitious renewable energy and carbon neutral goals</li> <li>Climate change impacts on the ski industry and tourism</li> <li>Engaging local farmers in regenerative agriculture</li> <li>Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders</li> </ul> What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? I would say there's two ways to view the climate crisis, and then also sustainability overall. View as like you're learning a chest match, meaning the only way you're going to get better is by playing and doing. Failure will be an asset to you because you will quickly understand what does not work. And I know folks are scared to fail, but we need to act and you have the silent majority. So the goal is to really focus on trying and doing. Don't put up barriers to say, "well our community can't do that because of this or that." Set these ambitious goals and that'll force you to create the pathway forward. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability and regenerative development? I think it's how quickly things can change once the pathway forward is shown. When we set our 100 percent renewable electricity goal, people thought we were nuts. I mean other communities were like, "what are you guys doing? You're in a state with a regulated utility that's owned by Berkshire Hathaway." But the great thing is the pathway forwards have been created and it seems daunting to get a community that's mostly coal fired to carbon neutrality and hundred percent renewable in 14 years. But the great thing is we've identified major pathways to get there and it's really exciting to be a player in that. What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? I'll throw two at you here. So one of them is called The One Straw Revolution. It's a great book because the concept is that there's limits to the human knowledge, but it's using natural systems aligned with your goal. It's the exact same concept we're going with some of the regenerative agriculture pieces in that we just want to help kind of steer in the right direction and make sure we're not doing harm, and it's impressive how the natural environment can help increase that. The other interesting book that I really suggest is 10 Percent happier by Dan Harris. You can get very depressed by seeing all of the horrible things going on and you need to balance yourself out. So 10 Percent Happier by Dan Harris is a great book because it talks about meditation. Just kind of keeping your head on your shoulders. It gives you some really easy techniques to keep yourself balanced. Because I think in this role you're under constant attack. I think we'd all be okay with being 10 percent happier. That sounds great. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in the work that you do? One of the tools, and you mentioned it for other communities that are interested in this world, even if you don't have a fully dedicated sustainability person, which I would heavily push any community to have because like I said, they can problem solve for your folks. They can help find savings. There something called the Urban Sustainability Directors Network and it's open to sustainability professionals in municipalities and it is a great resource. I know you've interviewed like Gil and a couple of their folks too. It's an awesome community to say, "Hey, who's tried a community composting program?" And you can dive in. "Who's written an RFP for solar on a library?" It's an awesome resource. The other part for my end that's interesting read, there's a great website out there called Utility Dive. It wraps up what's going on in the utility sphere, because there are some pro-coal pieces going on and there's nuclear subsidies or something like that. This gets a little bit more technical and it's great for me to help understand the broad swaths of what's going on in the regulatory market and also what's happening with the energy sphere overall in North America. And finally, where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work that you're leading at Park City? So we have the city website, <a href="http://parkcity.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">parkcity.org</a>. We're actually underway right now to launch another website that'll sum up all of these pieces. So stay tuned for that. Easy way to track me down, just find me through the <a href="http://parkcity.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">parkcity.org</a> website or through LinkedIn.

Luke Cartin - Environmental Sustainability Manager at Park City, Utah

Scott Breen

Scott Breen is Associate Manager, Sustainability and Circular Economy Program with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Corporate Citizenship Center. In this role, Scott helps to strategize and execute program deliverables including events, resources, trainings, and reports that increase understanding of key circular economy and sustainability issues and showcase how companies are making their operations more sustainable and reflective of circular economy principles. Scott Breen started his career as an attorney-advisor at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). While at NOAA, Scott helped advise program staff as administrative rules went from public notice to final publication, brought enforcement actions against those that violated fisheries rules and regulations, and determined the legal sufficiency of agency actions such as the issuance of incidental harassment authorizations under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Scott Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:  Recycling and why collaborative efforts to increase it are so important right now Beyond 34: Recycling and Recovery for A New Economy State of the United States recycling markets and the circular economy Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders  Scott's Final Five Question Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? So one is to generate content. I mentioned my podcast earlier and how it opened some doors for me, but just getting your name out there and some original thoughts, committing to doing something even just once a month, like writing a two paragraph blog post or something. It's something you can point to to show that I'm engaged on this issue, I'm trying to be a thought leader and it means you'll show up in Google and things like that. You won't know what doors will open. So I would encourage people to generate content. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? So I'm most excited about the emergence of venture capital and entrepreneurs in this space. We're seeing it in so many different areas. So one is oceans. Rob Kaplan, he just left Closed Loop Partners to start Circular Capital, which is going to invest in companies, innovations and projects that prevent marine plastic waste originating in Asia. This is really important that he started this because 60 percent of the plastic leaking into the ocean originates in just five countries - China, Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam. So he's going to make these strategic investments and we're going to see what interventions can scale and hopefully lead to other investors coming in too. Also in oceans there's the Sustainable Ocean Alliances new Ocean Solutions Accelerator. So Sustainable Ocean Alliance actually started a couple of years ago by a student at Georgetown. The alliance is going to catalyze solutions in a number of ways including this accelerator. The initial cohort of five companies includes a couple, one is a power company which is developing a next generation converter to harness energy from the ocean. And then others like Loliware. I first saw this on Shark Tank. They create seaweed based straws and cups that dissolve in about two months if you throw it away, or you could just eat it. I'm really excited to get my hands on that. Also in venture capital they have culture space, experiencing a digital revolution. Investors raised more money for ag tech startups in 2017 than the previous two years combined. There's the Urban Drinking Water Challenge 2018, where there's like a million dollars there to deploy and invest scalable water solutions for tomorrow's mega cities. And then lastly, Nexgen Cup challenge. Starbucks and Mcdonald's working together, inviting entrepreneurs to develop materials and design so they can replace today's cups. Big deal, because combined Starbucks and McDonald's distribute four percent of the world's 600 billion cups each year, so they can make a real impact. What is one book you would recommend sustainability leaders read? You got a lawyer on the show, so I am recommending Getting to Yes, which is more negotiation book than anything really sustainability oriented. It gives you really good negotiation tactics, and so many sustainability professionals, a lot of what we do is working with stakeholders, trying to get people to agree on things and work together. The key with this book is try not to think of things as win or lose. You want to get each person's interest out and then see if there's an option where everyone wins. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in the work that you do? I really like the EPA \Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator. It helps you put things in perspective. You can put in this tool a hundred metric tons of CO2 or methane, any greenhouse gas, and then it quickly calculates the equivalent in metrics that people can understand. Think number of homes of electricity use per year, passenger vehicles driven for one year. So it's more helpful to say "22 cars driving for one year were taken off the road from this program," than just, "We avoided a hundred metric tons of CO2." Something we really focus on in our podcasts when we're doing an introduction to the topic we're talking about is, "How can we say this in a different way that people get the context?" You and I were talking earlier about how there's so many freaking numbers out there. It's hard to keep track. Well, if you put it in a way that's more in a context that people can understand, they're more likely to remember it. The other resource is daily newsletters. Corporate ECO Forum has a weekly briefing. Greenbiz has great newsletters and they actually just launched one called Circular Weekly, focused on circular economy. More generally, I can't recommend enough The Weekend Briefing from Kyle Westaway. He has really good social technology articles, so sign up for those. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work that you're leading at the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation? I post articles to my Twitter @Scottybreen. I also post what I'm doing professionally on LinkedIn. The best ways to keep up to date on what's going on at the Corporate Citizenship Center is to sign up for the newsletters. So with the CCC, go to USChamberFoundation.org. For the podcast www.sustainabilitydefined.com.

Scott Breen is Associate Manager, Sustainability and Circular Economy Program with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Corporate Citizenship Center. In this role, Scott helps to strategize and execute program deliverables including events, resources, trainings, and reports that increase understanding of key circular economy and sustainability issues and showcase how companies are making their operations more sustainable and reflective of circular economy principles. Scott Breen started his career as an attorney-advisor at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). While at NOAA, Scott helped advise program staff as administrative rules went from public notice to final publication, brought enforcement actions against those that violated fisheries rules and regulations, and determined the legal sufficiency of agency actions such as the issuance of incidental harassment authorizations under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Scott Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss: <ul> <li>Recycling and why collaborative efforts to increase it are so important right now</li> <li>Beyond 34: Recycling and Recovery for A New Economy</li> <li>State of the United States recycling markets and the circular economy</li> <li>Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders</li> </ul> Scott's Final Five Question Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? So one is to generate content. I mentioned my podcast earlier and how it opened some doors for me, but just getting your name out there and some original thoughts, committing to doing something even just once a month, like writing a two paragraph blog post or something. It's something you can point to to show that I'm engaged on this issue, I'm trying to be a thought leader and it means you'll show up in Google and things like that. You won't know what doors will open. So I would encourage people to generate content. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? So I'm most excited about the emergence of venture capital and entrepreneurs in this space. We're seeing it in so many different areas. So one is oceans. Rob Kaplan, he just left Closed Loop Partners to start Circular Capital, which is going to invest in companies, innovations and projects that prevent marine plastic waste originating in Asia. This is really important that he started this because 60 percent of the plastic leaking into the ocean originates in just five countries - China, Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam. So he's going to make these strategic investments and we're going to see what interventions can scale and hopefully lead to other investors coming in too. Also in oceans there's the Sustainable Ocean Alliances new Ocean Solutions Accelerator. So Sustainable Ocean Alliance actually started a couple of years ago by a student at Georgetown. The alliance is going to catalyze solutions in a number of ways including this accelerator. The initial cohort of five companies includes a couple, one is a power company which is developing a next generation converter to harness energy from the ocean. And then others like Loliware. I first saw this on Shark Tank. They create seaweed based straws and cups that dissolve in about two months if you throw it away, or you could just eat it. I'm really excited to get my hands on that. Also in venture capital they have culture space, experiencing a digital revolution. Investors raised more money for ag tech startups in 2017 than the previous two years combined. There's the Urban Drinking Water Challenge 2018, where there's like a million dollars there to deploy and invest scalable water solutions for tomorrow's mega cities. And then lastly, Nexgen Cup challenge. Starbucks and Mcdonald's working together, inviting entrepreneurs to develop materials and design so they can replace today's cups. Big deal, because combined Starbucks and McDonald's distribute four percent of the world's 600 billion cups each year, so they can make a real impact. What is one book you would recommend sustainability leaders read? You got a lawyer on the show, so I am recommending Getting to Yes, which is more negotiation book than anything really sustainability oriented. It gives you really good negotiation tactics, and so many sustainability professionals, a lot of what we do is working with stakeholders, trying to get people to agree on things and work together. The key with this book is try not to think of things as win or lose. You want to get each person's interest out and then see if there's an option where everyone wins. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in the work that you do? I really like the EPA \Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator. It helps you put things in perspective. You can put in this tool a hundred metric tons of CO2 or methane, any greenhouse gas, and then it quickly calculates the equivalent in metrics that people can understand. Think number of homes of electricity use per year, passenger vehicles driven for one year. So it's more helpful to say "22 cars driving for one year were taken off the road from this program," than just, "We avoided a hundred metric tons of CO2." Something we really focus on in our podcasts when we're doing an introduction to the topic we're talking about is, "How can we say this in a different way that people get the context?" You and I were talking earlier about how there's so many freaking numbers out there. It's hard to keep track. Well, if you put it in a way that's more in a context that people can understand, they're more likely to remember it. The other resource is daily newsletters. Corporate ECO Forum has a weekly briefing. Greenbiz has great newsletters and they actually just launched one called Circular Weekly, focused on circular economy. More generally, I can't recommend enough The Weekend Briefing from Kyle Westaway. He has really good social technology articles, so sign up for those. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work that you're leading at the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation? I post articles to my Twitter @Scottybreen. I also post what I'm doing professionally on LinkedIn. The best ways to keep up to date on what's going on at the Corporate Citizenship Center is to sign up for the newsletters. So with the CCC, go to <a href="http://USChamberFoundation.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">USChamberFoundation.org</a>. For the podcast <a href="http://www.sustainabilitydefined.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.sustainabilitydefined.com</a>.

Scott Breen - Associate Manager Sustainability and Circular Economy Program

Alan Blake

Alan is a "semi-retired” consultant in Packaging and Sustainability and has recently re-activated his connection with PAC The Packaging Consortium as their PACNEXT US and Food Waste Director. Alan also has 20 years experience with Procter &amp; Gamble in Package Development &amp; Design and was the Corporate leader for their global Packaging Sustainability program.  He has been a  board member of PAC, of the National Zero Waste Council (NZWC) and of Green Blue and served on the the Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC) executive committee.  Alan Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:  The new packaging take back program, Loop Importance of life cycle analysis in packaging sustainability The circular economy movement and business's role The business benefits of designing more sustainable packaging Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders  Alan's Final Five Question Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? Two pieces of advice. First and foremost, if this is something that you are passionate about, then follow your passion and don't give up. There is a huge network of people and organizations out there who share your passion and want to make a difference. So, follow your passion. Secondly, be patient, because as I said, this is a journey and it's a long journey and it's going to frustrate you. So be patient, but know that you're making progress and celebrate that progress. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? I'm excited about the fact that there's so much activation out there to get going on this journey and to take bigger interventions. I loved the fact that this sort of program, like Loop was getting center stage in Davos. You had Tom Zacky, the head of Terracycle, on stage with company CEO's talking about Loop. That's crazy. That would never have happened a few years ago. So, I'm excited about that and I'm excited about the ongoing discussion around the new plastics economy and this focus on keeping plastics out of the environment and in the economy. These are the sorts of activation steps and momentum that I think we need that's going to help us make the sort of progress that we'd love to see in the next five, ten to fifteen years. What is one book you would recommend sustainability leaders read? Yeah, this is an interesting one because things are changing so fast that sometimes you struggle to think what's relevant. But I'll go for an old one, because it was something that really helped me a lot in terms of understanding the challenges out there across the value chain. And it is very simply titled Integrated Solid Waste Management. It was written by several of my Proctor and Gamble colleagues about 15 years or so ago. It's just kind of an encyclopedia all to do with solid waste management. It's a little bit out of date now, but it's just a great resource. A second book that's just come out, and I like this because it's a collection of industry leaders talking the sustainability journey, and it's called The Future of Packaging From Linear to Circular. It's edited by Tom Zacky of Terracycle and I think that's a great read because it's today and it's relevant. It's just industry leaders sharing their stories and approaches and thinking on what it's going to take to get to the circular economy with packaging. So those are the two books I would recommend. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? This is another good question and it had me scratching my head for a while and then I thought the more my network has grown in the world of packaging and sustainability, the greater the resources available to me. So, my favorite resources are my network and all of the stuff that they share and send to me. They share websites, they share media links, the latest news reports and I find this phenomenal. I welcome it, and I'll be honest with you, my struggle is to keep up with just the wealth of great information that this network sends to me and then sorting through it. One of the nice things now back with PAC is that we have a monthly letter and our challenge is to sort through and come up with two or three links every month that are relevant to packaging. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work that you're leading? Well, right now, the best place to go is to the the Packaging Consortium's website and that is www.pac.ca. That tells you everything about PAC and the organization that goes all the way back to 1952. So, it's a long standing organization that is focused on promoting the packaging industry. About Sustridge Sustridge is a sustainability consulting firm providing consulting in sustainability strategy development, GHG emissions calculating and management, zero waste planning and guidance in TRUE Zero Waste, B Corp, LEED and Carbon Neutral certification.

Alan is a "semi-retired” consultant in Packaging and Sustainability and has recently re-activated his connection with PAC The Packaging Consortium as their PACNEXT US and Food Waste Director. Alan also has 20 years experience with Procter &amp; Gamble in Package Development &amp; Design and was the Corporate leader for their global Packaging Sustainability program.  He has been a  board member of PAC, of the National Zero Waste Council (NZWC) and of Green Blue and served on the the Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC) executive committee.  Alan Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss: <ul> <li>The new packaging take back program, Loop</li> <li>Importance of life cycle analysis in packaging sustainability</li> <li>The circular economy movement and business's role</li> <li>The business benefits of designing more sustainable packaging</li> <li>Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders</li> </ul> Alan's Final Five Question Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? Two pieces of advice. First and foremost, if this is something that you are passionate about, then follow your passion and don't give up. There is a huge network of people and organizations out there who share your passion and want to make a difference. So, follow your passion. Secondly, be patient, because as I said, this is a journey and it's a long journey and it's going to frustrate you. So be patient, but know that you're making progress and celebrate that progress. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? I'm excited about the fact that there's so much activation out there to get going on this journey and to take bigger interventions. I loved the fact that this sort of program, like Loop was getting center stage in Davos. You had Tom Zacky, the head of Terracycle, on stage with company CEO's talking about Loop. That's crazy. That would never have happened a few years ago. So, I'm excited about that and I'm excited about the ongoing discussion around the new plastics economy and this focus on keeping plastics out of the environment and in the economy. These are the sorts of activation steps and momentum that I think we need that's going to help us make the sort of progress that we'd love to see in the next five, ten to fifteen years. What is one book you would recommend sustainability leaders read? Yeah, this is an interesting one because things are changing so fast that sometimes you struggle to think what's relevant. But I'll go for an old one, because it was something that really helped me a lot in terms of understanding the challenges out there across the value chain. And it is very simply titled Integrated Solid Waste Management. It was written by several of my Proctor and Gamble colleagues about 15 years or so ago. It's just kind of an encyclopedia all to do with solid waste management. It's a little bit out of date now, but it's just a great resource. A second book that's just come out, and I like this because it's a collection of industry leaders talking the sustainability journey, and it's called The Future of Packaging From Linear to Circular. It's edited by Tom Zacky of Terracycle and I think that's a great read because it's today and it's relevant. It's just industry leaders sharing their stories and approaches and thinking on what it's going to take to get to the circular economy with packaging. So those are the two books I would recommend. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? This is another good question and it had me scratching my head for a while and then I thought the more my network has grown in the world of packaging and sustainability, the greater the resources available to me. So, my favorite resources are my network and all of the stuff that they share and send to me. They share websites, they share media links, the latest news reports and I find this phenomenal. I welcome it, and I'll be honest with you, my struggle is to keep up with just the wealth of great information that this network sends to me and then sorting through it. One of the nice things now back with PAC is that we have a monthly letter and our challenge is to sort through and come up with two or three links every month that are relevant to packaging. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work that you're leading? Well, right now, the best place to go is to the the Packaging Consortium's website and that is <a href="http://www.pac.ca" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.pac.ca</a>. That tells you everything about PAC and the organization that goes all the way back to 1952. So, it's a long standing organization that is focused on promoting the packaging industry. About Sustridge Sustridge is a <a href="https://www.sustridge.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">sustainability consulting</a> firm providing consulting in sustainability strategy development, GHG emissions calculating and management, zero waste planning and guidance in TRUE Zero Waste, B Corp, LEED and Carbon Neutral certification.

Alan Blake - Sustainable Packaging Expert 

Jennifer Woofter

Jennifer Woofter is the founder and president of Strategic Sustainability Consulting (SSC). In this role she draws upon more than a decade of experience in the fields of organizational sustainability, corporate social responsibility, and socially responsible investing. She has worked with more than 50 clients on projects including Green Auditing, Sustainability Planning, Carbon Footprint Analysis, Stakeholder Engagement, Training and Facilitation, and Sustainability Reporting. She currently manages the SSC Consultant Network, an association of more than 650 professionals with expertise in virtually every area of sustainability. Jennifer Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:  Key trends in corporate sustainability The ESG and responsible investment movement The evolution of the sustainability consulting industry. The importance of quality data. Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders.  Jennifer's Final Five Question Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? Stop being a generalist and get more specific. There's thousands of people out there trying to sell their sustainability skills and if you're not specialized, you're too easy to overlook. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? The focus on metrics and outcomes is incredibly interesting and I feel like it's changing every single day. What is one book you would recommend sustainability leaders read? I would actually recommend that you just read the newspaper every day. I think that understanding what is happening in the world is probably more important in terms of being a good sustainability consultant than relying on a single book. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? I'm a big advocate of podcasts and simple web reading. I probably spend 45 minutes to an hour every day reading up on e-newsletters from industry groups like Greenbiz.com. Environmental Leader is a great website. I really like to have a broad understanding of what news is coming out, what people are talking about, what they're not talking about, who's doing it, who's leading and who's following. I feel like you have to keep up with all of that information every single day. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and your work? I would suggest you start with my company website which is sustainabilityconsulting.com. I'm also always delighted to connect with people on LinkedIn. About Sustridge Sustridge is a sustainability consulting firm providing consulting in sustainability strategy development, GHG emissions calculating and management, zero waste planning and guidance in TRUE Zero Waste, B Corp, LEED and Carbon Neutral certification.

Jennifer Woofter is the founder and president of Strategic Sustainability Consulting (SSC). In this role she draws upon more than a decade of experience in the fields of organizational sustainability, corporate social responsibility, and socially responsible investing. She has worked with more than 50 clients on projects including Green Auditing, Sustainability Planning, Carbon Footprint Analysis, Stakeholder Engagement, Training and Facilitation, and Sustainability Reporting. She currently manages the SSC Consultant Network, an association of more than 650 professionals with expertise in virtually every area of sustainability. Jennifer Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss: <ul> <li>Key trends in corporate sustainability</li> <li>The ESG and responsible investment movement</li> <li>The evolution of the sustainability consulting industry.</li> <li>The importance of quality data.</li> <li>Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders.</li> </ul> Jennifer's Final Five Question Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? Stop being a generalist and get more specific. There's thousands of people out there trying to sell their sustainability skills and if you're not specialized, you're too easy to overlook. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? The focus on metrics and outcomes is incredibly interesting and I feel like it's changing every single day. What is one book you would recommend sustainability leaders read? I would actually recommend that you just read the newspaper every day. I think that understanding what is happening in the world is probably more important in terms of being a good sustainability consultant than relying on a single book. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? I'm a big advocate of podcasts and simple web reading. I probably spend 45 minutes to an hour every day reading up on e-newsletters from industry groups like <a href="http://Greenbiz.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Greenbiz.com</a>. Environmental Leader is a great website. I really like to have a broad understanding of what news is coming out, what people are talking about, what they're not talking about, who's doing it, who's leading and who's following. I feel like you have to keep up with all of that information every single day. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and your work? I would suggest you start with my company website which is <a href="http://www.sustainabilityconsulting.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">sustainabilityconsulting.com</a>. I'm also always delighted to connect with people on LinkedIn. About Sustridge Sustridge is a <a href="https://www.sustridge.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">sustainability consulting</a> firm providing consulting in sustainability strategy development, GHG emissions calculating and management, zero waste planning and guidance in TRUE Zero Waste, B Corp, LEED and Carbon Neutral certification.

Jennifer Woofter - Founder of Strategic Sustainability Consulting

Stacy Savage hails from the environmental nonprofit realm as a Statewide Program Director where she organized communities and legislative lobbying efforts to hold corporations and government accountable to public health. As a 15-year sustainability advocate, she helped pass bi-partisan Texas legislation for recycling of TVs and computers and worked with allies to lobby for and win Austin’s ordinances for a Single-use Bag Ban, Residential Composting Program, and Construction &amp; Demolition Recycling Requirements. Mrs. Savage is a business owner and Co-Founder of Zero Waste Advocacy serving as the Chief Operations Officer and Evangelist for the company. She specializes in Zero Waste best practices which help businesses and governments to implement operational efficiencies that reduce wastes and increase profits. Stacy Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:  Making the business case for zero waste Using Blockchain technology for waste management US recycling markets and the impact of China's decision to decline recycled materials Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders  Stacy's Final Five Question Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? I would say diversify. As contracting consultants, it's difficult to keep your business funnel alive and full if you're not diversifying. Our business works with the city of Austin, right? We are contracted to help businesses recycle, but we also work with multinational, large corporations to help them reduce their waste. We also work with some very tiny businesses that wanted to do the right thing and they may not have a lot of money, but they do want to make an impact. So, diversifying between municipal and governmental contracts as well as corporate contracts and even your small business contracts. And it's not just that it's, it's diversifying your knowledge around your expertise. So, I'm a zero waste consultant, but zero waste also talks about not only recycling but helping divert food waste - your organics is another part of zero waste. Your construction and demolition debris is another aspect of zero waste, and helping local or statewide a building projects divert their building materials away from landfill. And then, whenever you look at the larger vision or the larger world around circular economy and pulling in energy and water, you can really set yourself as the go-to person for all of those things. You don't have to be in just in one niche and you don't have to be just with corporate contracts. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? It might seem weird for me to say this, but I'm actually excited about the China green wall, because it forces us as developed nations to look at what we're doing. We can no longer dump on other countries and we've got to create the infrastructure here at the local market level, and that's what Zero Waste Advocacy's technology is doing. If we can create the processing here locally, that creates more jobs, it creates more economic stability and vitality instead of just shipping it away somewhere. And again, there's no away. It's somebody else's problem. The current atmosphere in the US is, "Oh my gosh, what in the world are we going to do with all these materials that are being shipped back to us? Well, we don't have the infrastructure right now, so we have a landfill everything." I think that that is kind of what we deserve as a country at this point, but we do need to get on the horse and ride into the 21st century when it comes to building out our infrastructure around waste reduction and our perceptions around waste. Because now, if we're having to deal with it instead of China or India or any other nations, it's gonna help us change our behaviors, change our culture and really incorporate the high tech around it. I don't really think that there are many people who would go from their corporate tech day jobs to sorting recycling by hand, and that's what you see a lot of people in other countries doing with our waste. They're sorting this stuff by hand and it's treacherous and it is a health impact. Why are we doing this to other people on our planet? They're humans too. Let's deal with our stuff here and stop dumping it. So that's what I'm excited about. We've got to get this infrastructure built out. What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? When we're talking about zero waste and the new circular economy, Cradle to Cradle is a really good book. I would also suggest that people, if they wanted a shorter education, is to go through the StoryofStuff.com. Story of Stuff has these short little vignette cartoons that really explain tough waste issues and water and energy issues that kind of whittle it down to the problem solution strategy. I would say Five Gyres as well, as an excellent organization to follow whenever it comes to ocean plastics and recovering the ocean trash What are some of your favorite resources or tools they really help you in your work? Check with your municipal government online - the wastewater department, the municipal waste department and your energy department - and see if they've got a residential calculator or a business calculator where you can put in your baseline usage. You can create an account and you can see kind of your up and down throughout the week and throughout the month. It tracks it for you, so you can see where you're doing a really good job and where things could be worked on to improve. That's something that you can relay to your staff as well. And if you're doing a really good job, you fold that into your zero waste message as well and use it as a green marketing tool. And also, just look in your trash. Start auditing your trash on a daily basis and seeing what is in there. What are the top three things that you can identify? This is the most basic thing that you can do as a visual audit. Look in your trash, what's in there and why? Is there an alternative? Can you use something else that doesn't have to be landfilled? Maybe it can be recycled instead. So, just start doing your research. Where ca our listeners go to learn more about you and the work that you're leading? Folks can go to zerowasteadvocacy.com. We're also on LinkedIn and Twitter as well as Facebook. People can reach out to us by email, you can email me stacy@zerowasteadvocacy.com. If people have a question or want to get in touch with us to learn more, we're more than willing to speak with you.

Stacy Savage hails from the environmental nonprofit realm as a Statewide Program Director where she organized communities and legislative lobbying efforts to hold corporations and government accountable to public health. As a 15-year sustainability advocate, she helped pass bi-partisan Texas legislation for recycling of TVs and computers and worked with allies to lobby for and win Austin’s ordinances for a Single-use Bag Ban, Residential Composting Program, and Construction &amp; Demolition Recycling Requirements. Mrs. Savage is a business owner and Co-Founder of Zero Waste Advocacy serving as the Chief Operations Officer and Evangelist for the company. She specializes in Zero Waste best practices which help businesses and governments to implement operational efficiencies that reduce wastes and increase profits. Stacy Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss: <ul> <li>Making the business case for zero waste</li> <li>Using Blockchain technology for waste management</li> <li>US recycling markets and the impact of China's decision to decline recycled materials</li> <li>Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders</li> </ul> Stacy's Final Five Question Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? I would say diversify. As contracting consultants, it's difficult to keep your business funnel alive and full if you're not diversifying. Our business works with the city of Austin, right? We are contracted to help businesses recycle, but we also work with multinational, large corporations to help them reduce their waste. We also work with some very tiny businesses that wanted to do the right thing and they may not have a lot of money, but they do want to make an impact. So, diversifying between municipal and governmental contracts as well as corporate contracts and even your small business contracts. And it's not just that it's, it's diversifying your knowledge around your expertise. So, I'm a zero waste consultant, but zero waste also talks about not only recycling but helping divert food waste - your organics is another part of zero waste. Your construction and demolition debris is another aspect of zero waste, and helping local or statewide a building projects divert their building materials away from landfill. And then, whenever you look at the larger vision or the larger world around circular economy and pulling in energy and water, you can really set yourself as the go-to person for all of those things. You don't have to be in just in one niche and you don't have to be just with corporate contracts. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? It might seem weird for me to say this, but I'm actually excited about the China green wall, because it forces us as developed nations to look at what we're doing. We can no longer dump on other countries and we've got to create the infrastructure here at the local market level, and that's what Zero Waste Advocacy's technology is doing. If we can create the processing here locally, that creates more jobs, it creates more economic stability and vitality instead of just shipping it away somewhere. And again, there's no away. It's somebody else's problem. The current atmosphere in the US is, "Oh my gosh, what in the world are we going to do with all these materials that are being shipped back to us? Well, we don't have the infrastructure right now, so we have a landfill everything." I think that that is kind of what we deserve as a country at this point, but we do need to get on the horse and ride into the 21st century when it comes to building out our infrastructure around waste reduction and our perceptions around waste. Because now, if we're having to deal with it instead of China or India or any other nations, it's gonna help us change our behaviors, change our culture and really incorporate the high tech around it. I don't really think that there are many people who would go from their corporate tech day jobs to sorting recycling by hand, and that's what you see a lot of people in other countries doing with our waste. They're sorting this stuff by hand and it's treacherous and it is a health impact. Why are we doing this to other people on our planet? They're humans too. Let's deal with our stuff here and stop dumping it. So that's what I'm excited about. We've got to get this infrastructure built out. What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? When we're talking about zero waste and the new circular economy, Cradle to Cradle is a really good book. I would also suggest that people, if they wanted a shorter education, is to go through the <a href="http://StoryofStuff.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">StoryofStuff.com</a>. Story of Stuff has these short little vignette cartoons that really explain tough waste issues and water and energy issues that kind of whittle it down to the problem solution strategy. I would say Five Gyres as well, as an excellent organization to follow whenever it comes to ocean plastics and recovering the ocean trash What are some of your favorite resources or tools they really help you in your work? Check with your municipal government online - the wastewater department, the municipal waste department and your energy department - and see if they've got a residential calculator or a business calculator where you can put in your baseline usage. You can create an account and you can see kind of your up and down throughout the week and throughout the month. It tracks it for you, so you can see where you're doing a really good job and where things could be worked on to improve. That's something that you can relay to your staff as well. And if you're doing a really good job, you fold that into your zero waste message as well and use it as a green marketing tool. And also, just look in your trash. Start auditing your trash on a daily basis and seeing what is in there. What are the top three things that you can identify? This is the most basic thing that you can do as a visual audit. Look in your trash, what's in there and why? Is there an alternative? Can you use something else that doesn't have to be landfilled? Maybe it can be recycled instead. So, just start doing your research. Where ca our listeners go to learn more about you and the work that you're leading? Folks can go to <a href="http://zerowasteadvocacy.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">zerowasteadvocacy.com</a>. We're also on LinkedIn and Twitter as well as Facebook. People can reach out to us by email, you can email me stacy@zerowasteadvocacy.com. If people have a question or want to get in touch with us to learn more, we're more than willing to speak with you.

Stacy Savage - Chief Operations Officer at Zero Waste Advocacy

Eric Nelson

Eric is the Waste Reduction manger at The University of Kansas. He handles administrative duties for KU Recycling as well as  other issues on campus related to municipal solid waste such as collection scheduling, vendor relations, market conditions, and community partnerships/outreach. With almost 10 years in sustainable waste management, Eric focuses on a holistic approach to waste focusing on reduction, recycling, and fiscal responsibility. While at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park Kansas he oversaw the development and operation of the first in-vessel compost system at an educational institution in the state. Eric is certified as a Compost Site Manager from the University of Maine, a board member of the Kansas Organization of Recyclers and the YP Representative for the Sunflower Chapter of the Solid Waste Association of North America. Eric attended Johnson County Community College and The University of Kansas. Eric Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:  Leading waste reduction in large organizations Recycling is not the answer What is need to move towards a circular economy Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders  Eric's Final Five Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? I would say keep a good attitude and keep a sense of humor. Sense of humor would be the most important thing. I think it's very easy to get bogged down when you do this work day after day and see the challenges that we're up against, but I think it's important to keep your eye on the prize so to speak, or you just not get bogged down by the work we do. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? I'm really excited about the push to more of a circular economy and seeing how the manufacturers are going to come up with ways to maybe use some of the new commodities that we're trying to find homes for here in the United States. I think there's a big opportunity right now for innovation, so looking forward to seeing that in the next decade or so. What is one book you would recommend sustainability leaders read? I would say my favorite is Junkyard Planet by Adam Minter. It's almost outdated now with China in the last two years, but it kind of broke down where your aluminum can goes after it goes into the recycling bin and its journey across the sea and into a container ship. So it's a great background on waste management. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in the work that you do? I'm a big fan of the CURC webinar series, so that's College and University Recycling Coalition. About every month they do a new one when the school starts back up. I try to stay on those, to kind of see what colleagues are doing across the country. Lots of great ideas. Solid Waste Association of North America is kind of an industry trade group for waste management. They have a lot of of great resources and learning opportunities as well. I'd say those are my two main ones and then I try to network as much as possible with colleagues Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work you're leading at the University of Kansas. We're at recycle.ku.udu. KU Recycling is also on Instagram, even though I'm still learning how to use it effectively as a recycling guy. We are on Twitter as well. I'm on Linkedin if anybody wants to be professional and reach out on Linkedin, I'm there too. That's probably where our social media outreach is right now. We're not on Snapchat. We're not that hip.

Eric is the Waste Reduction manger at The University of Kansas. He handles administrative duties for KU Recycling as well as  other issues on campus related to municipal solid waste such as collection scheduling, vendor relations, market conditions, and community partnerships/outreach. With almost 10 years in sustainable waste management, Eric focuses on a holistic approach to waste focusing on reduction, recycling, and fiscal responsibility. While at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park Kansas he oversaw the development and operation of the first in-vessel compost system at an educational institution in the state. Eric is certified as a Compost Site Manager from the University of Maine, a board member of the Kansas Organization of Recyclers and the YP Representative for the Sunflower Chapter of the Solid Waste Association of North America. Eric attended Johnson County Community College and The University of Kansas. Eric Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss: <ul> <li>Leading waste reduction in large organizations</li> <li>Recycling is not the answer</li> <li>What is need to move towards a circular economy</li> <li>Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders</li> </ul> Eric's Final Five Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? I would say keep a good attitude and keep a sense of humor. Sense of humor would be the most important thing. I think it's very easy to get bogged down when you do this work day after day and see the challenges that we're up against, but I think it's important to keep your eye on the prize so to speak, or you just not get bogged down by the work we do. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? I'm really excited about the push to more of a circular economy and seeing how the manufacturers are going to come up with ways to maybe use some of the new commodities that we're trying to find homes for here in the United States. I think there's a big opportunity right now for innovation, so looking forward to seeing that in the next decade or so. What is one book you would recommend sustainability leaders read? I would say my favorite is Junkyard Planet by Adam Minter. It's almost outdated now with China in the last two years, but it kind of broke down where your aluminum can goes after it goes into the recycling bin and its journey across the sea and into a container ship. So it's a great background on waste management. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in the work that you do? I'm a big fan of the CURC webinar series, so that's College and University Recycling Coalition. About every month they do a new one when the school starts back up. I try to stay on those, to kind of see what colleagues are doing across the country. Lots of great ideas. Solid Waste Association of North America is kind of an industry trade group for waste management. They have a lot of of great resources and learning opportunities as well. I'd say those are my two main ones and then I try to network as much as possible with colleagues Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work you're leading at the University of Kansas. We're at recycle.ku.udu. KU Recycling is also on Instagram, even though I'm still learning how to use it effectively as a recycling guy. We are on Twitter as well. I'm on Linkedin if anybody wants to be professional and reach out on Linkedin, I'm there too. That's probably where our social media outreach is right now. We're not on Snapchat. We're not that hip.

Eric Nelson - Waste Reduction Manager at University of Kansas

Saskia Feast is VP of Western Region at Natural Capital Partners. Saskia works with companies in the Western Region of North America to ensure they have access to the right mix of market-based solutions to meet their sustainability objectives. Prior to joining Natural Capital Partners, she helped launch a new class of offset into the voluntary and compliance market at EOS Climate. Saskia has an MBA in sustainable management from the Presidio Graduate School, where she now serves as member of their Board of Directors. She also has a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Liverpool University.  Saskia Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:  Carbon Offsets and Renewable Energy Purchasing carbon offsets to meet sustainability goals Global vs local carbon offset purchasing Sourcing carbon offset projects for Natural Capital Partners Carbon Neutral certification Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders  Saskia's Final Five Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? The one piece advice of advice that I would give to other sustainability professionals is to spend the time to talk to your colleagues in other business areas - operations, finance and sales. You really need to be able to tie your actions into helping them being successful. So you need to be making the business case. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? I am most excited about the push for 100 percent renewable energy globally and what that can mean in some of the countries outside of the western world. I think it's happening. It's going at different rates and different countries, but it's already happening. We're seeing the impacts of climate change already and policy leaders and business leaders in other countries are seeing those as well. So, this is a global move towards action. What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? Well, this is not really directly a sustainability book, Turning to One Another by Margaret J. Weatley. I have found this to be a very helpful book and it's really about starting conversations for the future, sitting down, listening, talking to each other about different topics. She provides some guidelines in there. We're so busy these days and we're all rushing to achieve something. I think it's really important to spend the time talking and listening. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? Environmental Finance does the State of the Voluntary Carbon Market Report every year. The ICROA website, which is the best practices for the voluntary carbon market is very helpful. REBA, the Renewable Energy Buyer's Alliance is an amazing organization helping drive renewable energy through the world. As is RE100, this initiative that came from We Mean Business and CDP. I think these organizations and websites are really helpful. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work that you are leading at Natural Capital Partners? Naturalcapitalpartners.com. We have a lot of details about the projects. You can look at a global map, click on the little blue dots and find out more about those projects. We also have a YouTube channel - Natural Capital Partners. We host webinars regularly and you can contact me a sfeast@naturalcapitalpartners.com and connect with me on LinkedIn. I look forward to hearing from you. Contact Saskia: https://www.naturalcapitalpartners.com/  Contact Josh Prigge: https://www.sustridge.com/ 

Saskia Feast is VP of Western Region at Natural Capital Partners. Saskia works with companies in the Western Region of North America to ensure they have access to the right mix of market-based solutions to meet their sustainability objectives. Prior to joining Natural Capital Partners, she helped launch a new class of offset into the voluntary and compliance market at EOS Climate. Saskia has an MBA in sustainable management from the Presidio Graduate School, where she now serves as member of their Board of Directors. She also has a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Liverpool University.  Saskia Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss: <ul> <li>Carbon Offsets and Renewable Energy</li> <li>Purchasing carbon offsets to meet sustainability goals</li> <li>Global vs local carbon offset purchasing</li> <li>Sourcing carbon offset projects for Natural Capital Partners</li> <li>Carbon Neutral certification</li> <li>Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders</li> </ul> Saskia's Final Five Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? The one piece advice of advice that I would give to other sustainability professionals is to spend the time to talk to your colleagues in other business areas - operations, finance and sales. You really need to be able to tie your actions into helping them being successful. So you need to be making the business case. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? I am most excited about the push for 100 percent renewable energy globally and what that can mean in some of the countries outside of the western world. I think it's happening. It's going at different rates and different countries, but it's already happening. We're seeing the impacts of climate change already and policy leaders and business leaders in other countries are seeing those as well. So, this is a global move towards action. What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? Well, this is not really directly a sustainability book, Turning to One Another by Margaret J. Weatley. I have found this to be a very helpful book and it's really about starting conversations for the future, sitting down, listening, talking to each other about different topics. She provides some guidelines in there. We're so busy these days and we're all rushing to achieve something. I think it's really important to spend the time talking and listening. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? Environmental Finance does the State of the Voluntary Carbon Market Report every year. The ICROA website, which is the best practices for the voluntary carbon market is very helpful. REBA, the Renewable Energy Buyer's Alliance is an amazing organization helping drive renewable energy through the world. As is RE100, this initiative that came from We Mean Business and CDP. I think these organizations and websites are really helpful. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work that you are leading at Natural Capital Partners? <a href="http://Naturalcapitalpartners.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Naturalcapitalpartners.com</a>. We have a lot of details about the projects. You can look at a global map, click on the little blue dots and find out more about those projects. We also have a YouTube channel - Natural Capital Partners. We host webinars regularly and you can contact me a sfeast@naturalcapitalpartners.com and connect with me on LinkedIn. I look forward to hearing from you. Contact Saskia: <a href="https://www.naturalcapitalpartners.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.naturalcapitalpartners.com/</a> Contact Josh Prigge: <a href="https://www.sustridge.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.sustridge.com/</a>

Saskia Feast - Carbon Offsets and Renewable Energy Markets

Anne Kelly

Anne L. Kelly is Senior Director of Policy at Ceres, a non-profit advocacy organization that seeks to mobilize investor and business leadership to build a more sustainable global economy.  Anne also directs Business for Innovative Climate &amp; Energy Policy (BICEP), a coalition of 49 leading consumer-facing companies including Mars, L’Oreal, and VF Corporation seeking to advocate for meaningful climate and energy policy at the federal and state levels.  She is a registered lobbyist and is actively engaged on Capitol Hill on behalf of Ceres and BICEP member companies. Anne is an environmental lawyer with twenty years of combined experience in the private and public sectors. In the 1990s she directed the Massachusetts-based Environmental Crimes Strike Force consisting of a multi-disciplinary team of legal and engineering professionals charged with bringing high-profile civil and criminal actions against environmental violators through the MA Office of the Attorney General. She later worked as Special Assistant to EPA Region I Administrator John DeVillars. In this role she worked on corporate leadership programs and developed an International Pollution Prevention Program which was piloted in Sao Paulo, Brazil.    Anne is a member of the adjunct faculty of Boston College Law School where she has taught courses in environmental law and climate change. Anne has also taught environmental law at Tufts University, Suffolk University, New England School of Law, and is a member of the American College of Environmental Lawyers. She also serves on the board of the Environmental League of Massachusetts. In addition to her JD, Anne holds a Masters in Public Administration from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Anne Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:  Why companies should get active on climate / energy policy Companies that are stand-out champions in BOTH the leadership/operational side AND policy advocacy Ceres top policy priorities right now Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders  Anne's Final Five Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? I would say don't be discouraged. This is a steep hill. You're standing on the shoulders of a movement that is 20 years. It can be difficult when you have to deal with your communications, your marketing office, your CFO, but don't be discouraged. Directionally, things are moving in your favor and there's good things to come. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? I'm actually really excited about professional sports. I just had the pleasure of going to the Green Sports Alliance and I was so excited about meeting all these famous former athletes who've become clean energy specialists and to see the innovation. I was at the Atlanta Falcons stadium, and to see the innovation there and the solar panels and the announcement recently of my own hometown team, the Detroit Lions, which is exciting. To know that Patriots quarterback Tom Brady has taken on plastic straws as a cause. There are so many examples of professional sports getting in the game, all puns intended. What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? I thought about this for awhile and I think it's a classic, which is Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, published in 1963. I think it's still really important to read a book that was so pivotal to the origins of this movement and then to understand just how much resistance Rachel had to face when she published the truth. It's a good foundational piece and would give sustainability professionals a lot of inspiration and encouragement when they realize what Rachel Carson went through, what she did for all of us and also how far we've come since the book was published. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in the work that you do? I mentioned a few and I would just reiterate that Winning Businesses is tremendous, filled with tremendous resources. Our colleagues at GreenBiz are also constantly giving us good information, interviews, webinars, podcasts. Our colleagues at CDP, formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project, are just experts. The Science Based Target Initiative. They're part of that. I would say I'm SBTI is another great resource. As a media partner, I would direct people to the Climate Nexus Hot News every day. I'm able to get quickly caught up on the news media and what's going on. For that, I would also say the ENE Reporter is really helpful as a resource to just know what's going on. I'd be remiss if I didn't promote our own Ceres website. We have a number of reports that help people with the basics from disclosure, to the basics of stakeholder engagement, to engage the chain, which is on supply chain management. A lot of reports on water management and water responsibility. We have a report on feeding ourselves thirsty, which really looks at the performance of major food companies in terms of water. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you in the work that you're leading? So listeners can go to Ceres.org to learn more about the work that we're doing and specifically to look up our policy network which goes over our public policy initiatives. The website is complete and I'd be very happy to connect with any listener individually if they have an individual question or if they'd like to get engaged in our work.

Anne L. Kelly is Senior Director of Policy at Ceres, a non-profit advocacy organization that seeks to mobilize investor and business leadership to build a more sustainable global economy.  Anne also directs Business for Innovative Climate &amp; Energy Policy (BICEP), a coalition of 49 leading consumer-facing companies including Mars, L’Oreal, and VF Corporation seeking to advocate for meaningful climate and energy policy at the federal and state levels.  She is a registered lobbyist and is actively engaged on Capitol Hill on behalf of Ceres and BICEP member companies. Anne is an environmental lawyer with twenty years of combined experience in the private and public sectors. In the 1990s she directed the Massachusetts-based Environmental Crimes Strike Force consisting of a multi-disciplinary team of legal and engineering professionals charged with bringing high-profile civil and criminal actions against environmental violators through the MA Office of the Attorney General. She later worked as Special Assistant to EPA Region I Administrator John DeVillars. In this role she worked on corporate leadership programs and developed an International Pollution Prevention Program which was piloted in Sao Paulo, Brazil.    Anne is a member of the adjunct faculty of Boston College Law School where she has taught courses in environmental law and climate change. Anne has also taught environmental law at Tufts University, Suffolk University, New England School of Law, and is a member of the American College of Environmental Lawyers. She also serves on the board of the Environmental League of Massachusetts. In addition to her JD, Anne holds a Masters in Public Administration from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Anne Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss: <ul> <li>Why companies should get active on climate / energy policy</li> <li>Companies that are stand-out champions in BOTH the leadership/operational side AND policy advocacy</li> <li>Ceres top policy priorities right now</li> <li>Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders</li> </ul> Anne's Final Five Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? I would say don't be discouraged. This is a steep hill. You're standing on the shoulders of a movement that is 20 years. It can be difficult when you have to deal with your communications, your marketing office, your CFO, but don't be discouraged. Directionally, things are moving in your favor and there's good things to come. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? I'm actually really excited about professional sports. I just had the pleasure of going to the Green Sports Alliance and I was so excited about meeting all these famous former athletes who've become clean energy specialists and to see the innovation. I was at the Atlanta Falcons stadium, and to see the innovation there and the solar panels and the announcement recently of my own hometown team, the Detroit Lions, which is exciting. To know that Patriots quarterback Tom Brady has taken on plastic straws as a cause. There are so many examples of professional sports getting in the game, all puns intended. What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? I thought about this for awhile and I think it's a classic, which is Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, published in 1963. I think it's still really important to read a book that was so pivotal to the origins of this movement and then to understand just how much resistance Rachel had to face when she published the truth. It's a good foundational piece and would give sustainability professionals a lot of inspiration and encouragement when they realize what Rachel Carson went through, what she did for all of us and also how far we've come since the book was published. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in the work that you do? I mentioned a few and I would just reiterate that Winning Businesses is tremendous, filled with tremendous resources. Our colleagues at GreenBiz are also constantly giving us good information, interviews, webinars, podcasts. Our colleagues at CDP, formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project, are just experts. The Science Based Target Initiative. They're part of that. I would say I'm SBTI is another great resource. As a media partner, I would direct people to the Climate Nexus Hot News every day. I'm able to get quickly caught up on the news media and what's going on. For that, I would also say the ENE Reporter is really helpful as a resource to just know what's going on. I'd be remiss if I didn't promote our own Ceres website. We have a number of reports that help people with the basics from disclosure, to the basics of stakeholder engagement, to engage the chain, which is on supply chain management. A lot of reports on water management and water responsibility. We have a report on feeding ourselves thirsty, which really looks at the performance of major food companies in terms of water. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you in the work that you're leading? So listeners can go to <a href="http://Ceres.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Ceres.org</a> to learn more about the work that we're doing and specifically to look up our policy network which goes over our public policy initiatives. The website is complete and I'd be very happy to connect with any listener individually if they have an individual question or if they'd like to get engaged in our work.

Anne Kelly - Senior Director of Policy at Ceres

John Marler

John Marler is Vice President of Energy and Environment at AEG, the world’s leading sports and live entertainment company. In this role, John oversees AEG’s corporate environmental sustainability program, AEG 1EARTH, and AEG Energy Services, AEG’s corporate energy management program. John came to AEG from Southern California Edison where he focused on renewable and alternative energy contracts and smart grid research and development. Before joining Edison, John practiced law for four years as an attorney in New York State, focusing on commercial litigation and business transactions. John also serves on the board of directors of GRID Alternatives Greater Los Angeles. John Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:  Leading sustainability in the events and entertainment industry Engaging employees across the company in sustainability Updating AEG's GHG goals in response to the latest IPCC Report AEG's 2019 Sustainability Report Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders  Interview Highlights: AEG has two different area to focus on around sustainability - the buildings that are owned and operated by AEG, and then managing events that are not in your venues. Is there a different approach to these two different operations within the business? For us, it's three different scenarios. We have wholly owned and operated properties, which can be events or buildings. Then we have situations where we are a tenant in a building, which presents some different operating constraints and opportunities. Then we also have events in buildings where we are operating the premises on behalf of the client. All those scenarios have different opportunities and it really comes down to the particulars of the site and the relationship with the property to really drive a lot of the work. One example might be our Mary Moore Park Concert Series up in Seattle. That's owned by the local Parks and Recreation Authority. They provide a lot of the infrastructure and services so we work with what they're providing, whereas if we go into a site that we own and control, we have the direct relationship with some of those services and maybe approach it a little bit different. Anything advice or recommendations you can share on how to engage employees across the company in sustainability? I think the first thing is you have to build relationships. We spend a lot of time setting up quarterly calls. We have at least one call a quarter with all of our sites and I go through different operational issues, updates and talking about problems. It's really about recognizing that everyone in the company has a day job, and while we're all subject to the company's policies and procedures, not everyone is a subject matter expert in sustainability. Not everyone has that as the main focus of the job. So, it's trying to build relationships and understand what people's opportunities and constraints are and then helping them be successful within their own context. That takes a little bit longer. Sometimes it can take years to build productive longterm relationships, but ultimately I think that's a lot more successful. I don't think it's successful if you just come up with a list of requirements or demands and just blast those out in an email. That's not going to work very well. So we really try to build those relationships, understand things through the lens of our internal clients and then work with them on whatever initiative that they can push forward. Sometimes there's not much that can be done on energy efficiency, because maybe we don't own the building or any of the infrastructure, but maybe we have more leeway to do something around waste and recycling. So, it's really about building relationships and looking at things from other people's perspective and then trying to fit in what yo can. I see that AEG's 2019 sustainability report is out. I noticed a big drop in greenhouse gas emissions and that you've developed some new greenhouse gas emissions goals. Can you talk about AEG's work around reducing emissions and what led you to develop these new goals? I would say the IPCC report that came out in October of last year really drove that. Starting around 2015 we realized that the goals that we had on the books at that time weren't really future proof. They made sense when we set them in the 2010 time period, but the company had grown so fast and diversified so fast that we needed to do something different. In 2016, we announced that we adopted science based targets and basically moved from an intensity based goal to an absolute goal on the theory that the planet doesn't care how much emissions per unit of production that you do if your carbon footprint, in aggregate, is bigger than it was in the past. So, we felt it's the right thing to do to set an absolute target manage towards that. That was kind of the foundation, and then last year when the IPCC report came out, that was very eye opening and very concerning. Basically, the message for all of us is you've got less than 12 years now to essentially cut carbon emissions in half, and then achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Those are pretty daunting challenges and we decided that we need to incorporate this. So, we did some scenario analysis and realized that, for us, it meant having a more aggressive target - moving from a 3.2% reduction per year to a 4% reduction. This was more aggressive, but I wouldn't say it was so much more aggressive that it seemed like it would be impossible. Everything then started falling in line from that. Once we did the scenario planning and looked at the goals, one thing that our management always pointed out was that once we adopted our absolute goal they said they weren't seeing progress year to year. We're not getting worse, but we're not really getting better. We kind of explained that when you have a growing company, you can make improvements with efficiencies and sort of reduce your emissions, but if you have organic business growth you basically offset that. So, those conversations along with the new goal led to us getting some additional resources to procure additional renewable energy certificates to offset our scope two emissions that come from our consumption of grid electricity. That's why you see that pretty marketed decrease in our emissions from 2017 to 2018, because once we adopted the more serious target and we got that message that was being sent from the IPCC, we thought now's the time that we have to take a little bit more drastic action. There's maybe some historic discomfort around using Renewable Energy Certificates (REC's) and offsets to achieve our goals, but I think after talking through that internally we got more comfortable with it. What is one piece of advice you'd give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? The sustainability stuff is the easy part, right? Kindergarteners know, reduce, reuse, recycle. The trick is, how do you work within your organization to make those things happen? That's all about knowing your organization and being able to influence and guide people to take better actions. So, I would say forget all the book stuff and just really work on influencing and working with your people and to be successful. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? Number one is the rapid decrease in energy prices. I'm also very excited about energy storage which is really blowing up. The other thing I'm really excited about is what we are seeing with plastic. This plastic thing for us started in 2018. Like others in this industry, it started with a picture of the turtle with the star in its nose, and almost overnight, you just got a lot of momentum and concern around single use plastics. I feel like that elevation where it's on the front pages of major newspapers is hugely helpful. Having people understand that it's not only an environmental crisis but it's a personal health crisis. A news article came out this week that said each of us consume like 80,000 pieces of microplastic a day or something like that. I think now that people understand that it's affecting them directly and it's not just this abstract global sea level rise problem, it makes getting people's attention and engagement on these issues easier. What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? So, you're probably not going to like this answer, but my response would be if you have time to read books, you're not working hard enough. We've got 12 years on carbon emissions and this plastic stuff is everywhere. You don't need to read a book, just get to work. Work with people and move the ball forward. 12 years from now and we're all carbon neutral and there's no plastics we can all hang out and read books, but I honestly don't have the time for it. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? I subscribe to so many different emails I couldn't really even name a lot of them. I would say you can find good resources like NGOs, United Nations, EPA, Cal Recycle. You can just Google 10 minutes and you can find a lot of stuff. What I like to do is just sign up to the organization's newsletter to get constant feeds in my email with articles on energy storage, renewable energy, the waste and recycling business, the trucking business and things like that. Just having that constant data stream that I can kind of skim through is really helpful. Where can people go to learn more about you and the work that you're doing at AEG? So you referenced our sustainability report. I think that's a great place to start. It's on our website aegworldwide.com. We have also stepped up our efforts to be more active on Twitter. We have our AEG1Earth@aegworldwide.com email address. Always happy to get feedback, advice, suggestions, complaints etc. at that email address. About Sustridge Sustridge is a sustainability consulting firm providing consulting in sustainability strategy development, GHG emissions calculating and management, zero waste planning and guidance in TRUE Zero Waste, B Corp, LEED and Carbon Neutral certification.

John Marler is Vice President of Energy and Environment at AEG, the world’s leading sports and live entertainment company. In this role, John oversees AEG’s corporate environmental sustainability program, AEG 1EARTH, and AEG Energy Services, AEG’s corporate energy management program. John came to AEG from Southern California Edison where he focused on renewable and alternative energy contracts and smart grid research and development. Before joining Edison, John practiced law for four years as an attorney in New York State, focusing on commercial litigation and business transactions. John also serves on the board of directors of GRID Alternatives Greater Los Angeles. John Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss: <ul> <li>Leading sustainability in the events and entertainment industry</li> <li>Engaging employees across the company in sustainability</li> <li>Updating AEG's GHG goals in response to the latest IPCC Report</li> <li>AEG's 2019 Sustainability Report</li> <li>Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders</li> </ul> Interview Highlights: AEG has two different area to focus on around sustainability - the buildings that are owned and operated by AEG, and then managing events that are not in your venues. Is there a different approach to these two different operations within the business? For us, it's three different scenarios. We have wholly owned and operated properties, which can be events or buildings. Then we have situations where we are a tenant in a building, which presents some different operating constraints and opportunities. Then we also have events in buildings where we are operating the premises on behalf of the client. All those scenarios have different opportunities and it really comes down to the particulars of the site and the relationship with the property to really drive a lot of the work. One example might be our Mary Moore Park Concert Series up in Seattle. That's owned by the local Parks and Recreation Authority. They provide a lot of the infrastructure and services so we work with what they're providing, whereas if we go into a site that we own and control, we have the direct relationship with some of those services and maybe approach it a little bit different. Anything advice or recommendations you can share on how to engage employees across the company in sustainability? I think the first thing is you have to build relationships. We spend a lot of time setting up quarterly calls. We have at least one call a quarter with all of our sites and I go through different operational issues, updates and talking about problems. It's really about recognizing that everyone in the company has a day job, and while we're all subject to the company's policies and procedures, not everyone is a subject matter expert in sustainability. Not everyone has that as the main focus of the job. So, it's trying to build relationships and understand what people's opportunities and constraints are and then helping them be successful within their own context. That takes a little bit longer. Sometimes it can take years to build productive longterm relationships, but ultimately I think that's a lot more successful. I don't think it's successful if you just come up with a list of requirements or demands and just blast those out in an email. That's not going to work very well. So we really try to build those relationships, understand things through the lens of our internal clients and then work with them on whatever initiative that they can push forward. Sometimes there's not much that can be done on energy efficiency, because maybe we don't own the building or any of the infrastructure, but maybe we have more leeway to do something around waste and recycling. So, it's really about building relationships and looking at things from other people's perspective and then trying to fit in what yo can. I see that AEG's 2019 sustainability report is out. I noticed a big drop in greenhouse gas emissions and that you've developed some new greenhouse gas emissions goals. Can you talk about AEG's work around reducing emissions and what led you to develop these new goals? I would say the IPCC report that came out in October of last year really drove that. Starting around 2015 we realized that the goals that we had on the books at that time weren't really future proof. They made sense when we set them in the 2010 time period, but the company had grown so fast and diversified so fast that we needed to do something different. In 2016, we announced that we adopted science based targets and basically moved from an intensity based goal to an absolute goal on the theory that the planet doesn't care how much emissions per unit of production that you do if your carbon footprint, in aggregate, is bigger than it was in the past. So, we felt it's the right thing to do to set an absolute target manage towards that. That was kind of the foundation, and then last year when the IPCC report came out, that was very eye opening and very concerning. Basically, the message for all of us is you've got less than 12 years now to essentially cut carbon emissions in half, and then achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Those are pretty daunting challenges and we decided that we need to incorporate this. So, we did some scenario analysis and realized that, for us, it meant having a more aggressive target - moving from a 3.2% reduction per year to a 4% reduction. This was more aggressive, but I wouldn't say it was so much more aggressive that it seemed like it would be impossible. Everything then started falling in line from that. Once we did the scenario planning and looked at the goals, one thing that our management always pointed out was that once we adopted our absolute goal they said they weren't seeing progress year to year. We're not getting worse, but we're not really getting better. We kind of explained that when you have a growing company, you can make improvements with efficiencies and sort of reduce your emissions, but if you have organic business growth you basically offset that. So, those conversations along with the new goal led to us getting some additional resources to procure additional renewable energy certificates to offset our scope two emissions that come from our consumption of grid electricity. That's why you see that pretty marketed decrease in our emissions from 2017 to 2018, because once we adopted the more serious target and we got that message that was being sent from the IPCC, we thought now's the time that we have to take a little bit more drastic action. There's maybe some historic discomfort around using Renewable Energy Certificates (REC's) and offsets to achieve our goals, but I think after talking through that internally we got more comfortable with it. What is one piece of advice you'd give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? The sustainability stuff is the easy part, right? Kindergarteners know, reduce, reuse, recycle. The trick is, how do you work within your organization to make those things happen? That's all about knowing your organization and being able to influence and guide people to take better actions. So, I would say forget all the book stuff and just really work on influencing and working with your people and to be successful. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? Number one is the rapid decrease in energy prices. I'm also very excited about energy storage which is really blowing up. The other thing I'm really excited about is what we are seeing with plastic. This plastic thing for us started in 2018. Like others in this industry, it started with a picture of the turtle with the star in its nose, and almost overnight, you just got a lot of momentum and concern around single use plastics. I feel like that elevation where it's on the front pages of major newspapers is hugely helpful. Having people understand that it's not only an environmental crisis but it's a personal health crisis. A news article came out this week that said each of us consume like 80,000 pieces of microplastic a day or something like that. I think now that people understand that it's affecting them directly and it's not just this abstract global sea level rise problem, it makes getting people's attention and engagement on these issues easier. What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? So, you're probably not going to like this answer, but my response would be if you have time to read books, you're not working hard enough. We've got 12 years on carbon emissions and this plastic stuff is everywhere. You don't need to read a book, just get to work. Work with people and move the ball forward. 12 years from now and we're all carbon neutral and there's no plastics we can all hang out and read books, but I honestly don't have the time for it. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? I subscribe to so many different emails I couldn't really even name a lot of them. I would say you can find good resources like NGOs, United Nations, EPA, Cal Recycle. You can just Google 10 minutes and you can find a lot of stuff. What I like to do is just sign up to the organization's newsletter to get constant feeds in my email with articles on energy storage, renewable energy, the waste and recycling business, the trucking business and things like that. Just having that constant data stream that I can kind of skim through is really helpful. Where can people go to learn more about you and the work that you're doing at AEG? So you referenced our sustainability report. I think that's a great place to start. It's on our website <a href="http://aegworldwide.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">aegworldwide.com</a>. We have also stepped up our efforts to be more active on Twitter. We have our AEG1Earth@aegworldwide.com email address. Always happy to get feedback, advice, suggestions, complaints etc. at that email address. About Sustridge Sustridge is a <a href="https://www.sustridge.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">sustainability consulting</a> firm providing consulting in sustainability strategy development, GHG emissions calculating and management, zero waste planning and guidance in TRUE Zero Waste, B Corp, LEED and Carbon Neutral certification.

John Marler - VP of Energy and Environment at AEG 

Erik Distler

Erik Distler is the Director of Partnerships for the Green Sports Alliance. In his role, Erik has internal and external facing responsibilities, including organizational management and strategy, business development, and oversight of members and partnerships, in addition to leading the organization's strategic partnerships and collaborations, most significantly with ESPN and various professional sports leagues.    Prior to joining the Green Sports Alliance, Erik was most recently with PwC as a consultant within the firm's Sustainable Business Solutions advisory practice. Erik's experience prior to PwC includes business development, management, accounting &amp; finance consulting and public accounting.   Erik Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:  The sustainability movement in professional sports Getting athletes to become sustainability advocates 2026 World Cup North America and sustainability Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders  Erik's Final Five Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? The advice I would give is to remain flexible and strategic around how you embrace or create opportunities for yourself. So, we are building the plane as we fly it in this space of sustainability. It's often that the jobs individuals have in sustainability were created by someone being inside of an organization who saw an opportunity to establish this new focus for their organization, and many who have roles that touch sustainability in some way, shape or form, probably contributed to establishing the job description or the role or title. So, just consider where and how you can get creative in developing and advancing in this space and creating opportunities, not only for yourself, but for others who are coming out of school or have passion in doing a career change and ultimately want to contribute to effecting change in the space. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? I'm just so thankful and appreciative of the ability to do the work we do and get to connect on a daily basis with the sports industry and all of those who are in the stadiums, at the venues, at the league level in colleges and universities that are doing the hard work, rolling up their sleeves and doing the work. We get the pleasure of being able to tell the stories and inspire others to do the work as well, but I'm always humbled by how hard and how dedicated the people are that are in this space. So, I feel a great sense of gratitude to all those who are out there on the front line, so to speak, leading this work. From an excitement standpoint, the upcoming 2026 FIFA World Cup, obviously the united bid across the three countries and the LA 2028 Olympics. Having the eyes of the world on this continent and on this country is a great opportunity for us to advance and drive and affect change in this space. What is one book you would recommend sustainability leaders read? I have to go back to my graduate school days. Thinking In Systems by Donella Meadows. It was one of the foundational reads for our program and it really addresses a core tenant of sustainability, that systems thinking model. I reference the book consistently in my work today. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in the work that you do? I try to keep up on sustainability news as much as I can. So GreenBiz, Triple Pundit, Sports Business Journal. Really using some of the thought leadership and the insight that's coming out of what is happening in and around this plane as we're building it. So it's all sort of happening in front of us on a daily basis and there's various partners of ours, such as associations and groups we work with, that are constantly putting out new ways of thinking and new ways of advancing the focus that we have in this space. So I try to keep myself well read in my free time. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work that you're leading at the Green Sports Alliance. Check out our website, greensportsalliance.org. We also have active social media presence across Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, Instagram. We are constantly pushing out stories of the work our members and partners are doing, and that's part of our focus on amplifying and spreading the word of this great sports greening movement that we get to work in.

Erik Distler is the Director of Partnerships for the Green Sports Alliance. In his role, Erik has internal and external facing responsibilities, including organizational management and strategy, business development, and oversight of members and partnerships, in addition to leading the organization's strategic partnerships and collaborations, most significantly with ESPN and various professional sports leagues.   Prior to joining the Green Sports Alliance, Erik was most recently with PwC as a consultant within the firm's Sustainable Business Solutions advisory practice. Erik's experience prior to PwC includes business development, management, accounting &amp; finance consulting and public accounting.   Erik Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss: <ul> <li>The sustainability movement in professional sports</li> <li>Getting athletes to become sustainability advocates</li> <li>2026 World Cup North America and sustainability</li> <li>Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders</li> </ul> Erik's Final Five Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? The advice I would give is to remain flexible and strategic around how you embrace or create opportunities for yourself. So, we are building the plane as we fly it in this space of sustainability. It's often that the jobs individuals have in sustainability were created by someone being inside of an organization who saw an opportunity to establish this new focus for their organization, and many who have roles that touch sustainability in some way, shape or form, probably contributed to establishing the job description or the role or title. So, just consider where and how you can get creative in developing and advancing in this space and creating opportunities, not only for yourself, but for others who are coming out of school or have passion in doing a career change and ultimately want to contribute to effecting change in the space. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? I'm just so thankful and appreciative of the ability to do the work we do and get to connect on a daily basis with the sports industry and all of those who are in the stadiums, at the venues, at the league level in colleges and universities that are doing the hard work, rolling up their sleeves and doing the work. We get the pleasure of being able to tell the stories and inspire others to do the work as well, but I'm always humbled by how hard and how dedicated the people are that are in this space. So, I feel a great sense of gratitude to all those who are out there on the front line, so to speak, leading this work. From an excitement standpoint, the upcoming 2026 FIFA World Cup, obviously the united bid across the three countries and the LA 2028 Olympics. Having the eyes of the world on this continent and on this country is a great opportunity for us to advance and drive and affect change in this space. What is one book you would recommend sustainability leaders read? I have to go back to my graduate school days. Thinking In Systems by Donella Meadows. It was one of the foundational reads for our program and it really addresses a core tenant of sustainability, that systems thinking model. I reference the book consistently in my work today. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in the work that you do? I try to keep up on sustainability news as much as I can. So GreenBiz, Triple Pundit, Sports Business Journal. Really using some of the thought leadership and the insight that's coming out of what is happening in and around this plane as we're building it. So it's all sort of happening in front of us on a daily basis and there's various partners of ours, such as associations and groups we work with, that are constantly putting out new ways of thinking and new ways of advancing the focus that we have in this space. So I try to keep myself well read in my free time. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work that you're leading at the Green Sports Alliance. Check out our website, <a href="http://greensportsalliance.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">greensportsalliance.org</a>. We also have active social media presence across Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, Instagram. We are constantly pushing out stories of the work our members and partners are doing, and that's part of our focus on amplifying and spreading the word of this great sports greening movement that we get to work in.

Erik Distler - Director of Partnerships at Green Sports Alliance

Bob Langert

Bob led the development of McDonald’s 2020 Sustainability Vision and Framework, including McDonald’s commitment to the environment, supply chain sustainability, and balanced menu choices.  He retired from McDonald’s, March, 2015 and joined the GreenBiz Group, writing a regular column, The Inside View; and helping with the Green Biz Executive Network. He is President of Mainstream Sustainability, advising companies on sustainability strategies, and a nationally recognized speaker. He is writing a book entitled “The Battle to Do Good; Inside McDonald’s Sustainability Journey,” scheduled for publication in January 2018.   Bob Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:  Lessons learned from decades of experience in corporate sustainability Supply chain sustainability in large corporations Working with NGO's - The good, the bad and the ugly Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders  Bob Langert Final Five Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers?  I noticed a lot of great leadership traits in my years of working with suppliers, working with great McDonalds leaders that made changes and with NGO leaders. You have to have courage because when making change you may have to face a lot of pain and grief. Having conviction. I look at Paul Polman from Unilever. It just kind of comes through in a very magical sense, positive sense of cleverness. And you have to be innovative. Never look at the situation in a standard way of being contrary. Being a sustainability leader, I found myself always in a position where everything I was trying to advocate was against the status quo.   And this often means, oh, you're against. No, that's not what I mean. You need to know how to be contrary in a positive way. Have to be collaborative, and that means listening and really being open to change and adaptation. And the last one is charisma. You don't have to have this magnetic, you know, slapping the back personality. But I think the ability to attract attention and gain trust is what I think is charismatic. You can write those down and then try to figure out how you could develop the plan for yourself to advance all of those in your leadership.  What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability?  I love the big goals that are being set by so many companies. Big goals on climate change and deforestation. When I left McDonald's, that's what's thrilled me the most. We set a goal at McDonald's that we're going to start buying sustainable beef by the year 2016. We didn't even know the definition of sustainable beef when we set that goal. That excites me to see a company's taking a big bold goal and leadership. It's not coming through government so companies are doing a great job and on a great track.  What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read?  The book I'm going to recommend reminds me of when I talked to Jim Cantalupo. He turned the company around as CEO from the early nineties. I asked him after a year or two on the job, I said "Jim, what's the biggest aha in your leadership as CEO of McDonald's?" He said, " I can't believe 99% of my job is communication." Once you develop a strategy, it's how you communicate. My answer is this great book on communication called Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath published about 10 years ago. It was my bible. He's got a formula for success in communicating. Sustainability professionals all need to look at this book or the principles of it.   What are some of your favorite resources or tools that help you in the work that you do?  I'm a big fan of the GreenBiz community. The GreenBiz daily feeds and their website are the best daily news you can get. They have a group called the GreenBiz Executive Network. I found that to be the greatest tool around. Three times a year I get to be with 25 leaders from other companies who's going through the same struggles that I'm going through. Commiserating with them and understanding what they're going through and how they're solving problems was the best tool that I ever had.  Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and your work or follow you online?  The best place is go www.greenbiz.com. Look for Bob Langert. Look for my articles there. In the future, I'll be having a website within a month or two. Look me up for the Battle to Do Good that I talked about earlier and people that are interested in getting on the list to learn more about that book.

Bob led the development of McDonald’s 2020 Sustainability Vision and Framework, including McDonald’s commitment to the environment, supply chain sustainability, and balanced menu choices.  He retired from McDonald’s, March, 2015 and joined the GreenBiz Group, writing a regular column, The Inside View; and helping with the Green Biz Executive Network. He is President of Mainstream Sustainability, advising companies on sustainability strategies, and a nationally recognized speaker. He is writing a book entitled “The Battle to Do Good; Inside McDonald’s Sustainability Journey,” scheduled for publication in January 2018.   Bob Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss: <ul> <li>Lessons learned from decades of experience in corporate sustainability</li> <li>Supply chain sustainability in large corporations</li> <li>Working with NGO's - The good, the bad and the ugly</li> <li>Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders</li> </ul> Bob Langert Final Five Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? I noticed a lot of great leadership traits in my years of working with suppliers, working with great McDonalds leaders that made changes and with NGO leaders. You have to have courage because when making change you may have to face a lot of pain and grief. Having conviction. I look at Paul Polman from Unilever. It just kind of comes through in a very magical sense, positive sense of cleverness. And you have to be innovative. Never look at the situation in a standard way of being contrary. Being a sustainability leader, I found myself always in a position where everything I was trying to advocate was against the status quo.  And this often means, oh, you're against. No, that's not what I mean. You need to know how to be contrary in a positive way. Have to be collaborative, and that means listening and really being open to change and adaptation. And the last one is charisma. You don't have to have this magnetic, you know, slapping the back personality. But I think the ability to attract attention and gain trust is what I think is charismatic. You can write those down and then try to figure out how you could develop the plan for yourself to advance all of those in your leadership. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? I love the big goals that are being set by so many companies. Big goals on climate change and deforestation. When I left McDonald's, that's what's thrilled me the most. We set a goal at McDonald's that we're going to start buying sustainable beef by the year 2016. We didn't even know the definition of sustainable beef when we set that goal. That excites me to see a company's taking a big bold goal and leadership. It's not coming through government so companies are doing a great job and on a great track. What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? The book I'm going to recommend reminds me of when I talked to Jim Cantalupo. He turned the company around as CEO from the early nineties. I asked him after a year or two on the job, I said "Jim, what's the biggest aha in your leadership as CEO of McDonald's?" He said, " I can't believe 99% of my job is communication." Once you develop a strategy, it's how you communicate. My answer is this great book on communication called <a>Made to Stick</a> by Chip and Dan Heath published about 10 years ago. It was my bible. He's got a formula for success in communicating. Sustainability professionals all need to look at this book or the principles of it.  What are some of your favorite resources or tools that help you in the work that you do? I'm a big fan of the <a>GreenBiz</a> community. The GreenBiz daily feeds and their website are the best daily news you can get. They have a group called the GreenBiz Executive Network. I found that to be the greatest tool around. Three times a year I get to be with 25 leaders from other companies who's going through the same struggles that I'm going through. Commiserating with them and understanding what they're going through and how they're solving problems was the best tool that I ever had. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and your work or follow you online? The best place is go <a>www.greenbiz.com</a>. Look for Bob Langert. Look for my articles there. In the future, I'll be having a website within a month or two. Look me up for the Battle to Do Good that I talked about earlier and people that are interested in getting on the list to learn more about that book.

Bob Langert - Former VP Sustainability at McDonalds and Editor at Large at GreenBiz

Paul Dickinson

Paul Dickinson founded CDP in 2000 with an ambition of creating a global economic system that operates within sustainable environmental boundaries and prevents dangerous climate change. CDP represents over 650 investors with assets of over $80 trillion, and it uses this authority combined with the buying power of over 110 large corporations with annual purchases of over $2.5 trillion, to persuade over 7,000 large companies to report on their greenhouse gas emissions as well as strategy on climate change, water use and the drivers of deforestation. CDP makes most of this data available to the public and service providers like Bloomberg, MSCI and many others. In addition, over 600 large cities and 100 states and regions with aggregate over 1 billion inhabitants report annually on their environmental performance through CDP, which is a charitable organisation operating in 80 counties from nine offices around the world. Paul Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:  The corporate sustainability movement and the trends we are seeing in GHG emission reporting How CDP has integrated new frameworks such as TCFD and science based targets into the CDP reporting program The evolution of CDP and what the future may hold Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders  Interview Highlights: CDP, the largest climate change focused data collection and assessment program, really has changed the game on corporate emission reporting and municipality emission reporting. Can you give us a little overview of the state of greenhouse gas emission reporting right now? Are we seeing increases in the numbers that are reporting or decreases? Are we seeing more transparency or more ambitious goals? Just give us a high level overview. Sure. I'll just step a little bit into the way we collect data because it's part of the story. We collect data by representing investors, a very large group of investors - 650 investors with around $90 trillion. So, companies are reporting to their investors through us, or they're reporting to their customers through us, because we have a big supply chain business. The reason I mentioned that is because one of the things that's happening in reporting is it's getting bigger and bigger and more and more normal. At CDP, we're in our 15th annual year of global reporting from corporations. So, one of the trends is you have a big increase in reporting and it's been supported very much by Mark Carney and Michael Bloomberg, who together chaired the Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosure (TCFD), which was also set up in response to an invitation from the Financial Stability Board representing the G20 central banks and regulators. So, the TCFD has provided improved guidance on how companies should report on climate change. CDP redesigned itself completely around TCFD so that thousands of companies are now reporting on TCFD through the CDP platform. You asked me if emissions are going up. They were kind of plateauing and then unfortunately we had some radical changes in government. The previous US administration was really working hard to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and was being quite successful. The Trump administration has gone in a crazy opposite direction. After the Paris Agreement of 2015, which was very much a creation of the United States and global diplomacy, the Trump administration has indicated it intends to pull out of the Paris agreement, although it won't actually be able to unless they win a second term. So, we've definitely had some setbacks from some crazy removal of regulation, which is allowing greenhouse gas emissions to rise again. My 19 years working full time climate change has taught me that you get these crazy setbacks often when industries that are suffering want to lobby a bit, but we get over it and then we get back on track because we have no choice. You can't argue with the science. You mentioned the Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and how more investors want to know the climate related risks of the companies they invest in. Can you talk a little bit more about how CDP is incorporating that into your program and other aspects of TCFD like climate scenario analysis? It might be helpful for our listeners to understand the difference between CDP and a lot of other things that are out there. We really respect TCFD and we think it's great. TCFD is guidance for how a company should report on climate related risks, presumably through the annual report. You have organizations like the GRI who provide guidance for how you should report on various issues through your annual report or your sustainability report. SASB provides guidance on how you should report in your annual report or sustainability report, and how you should evaluate performance. We have a subsidiary called CDSB which is committed to advancing and aligning the global mainstream corporate reporting model to equate natural capital with financial capital. So, there's a lot of guidance out there about how you should report. The difference with CDP is that we are a specific reporting platform. We run large scale information technology in multiple languages globally. So, we run a kind of parallel mechanism to the annual report or the CSR report. If you think about it, a big US corporation like Microsoft will have to report to the SEC on its financial results. Or, A big German company like BMW will have to report to the German government on its financial results. Or, a big Japanese company like Toyota will have to report to the Japanese government on its financial results. CDP provides the same thing as those different governments, but a single global platform where corporations, and as you observed also some 600 cities and 100 states and regions, report annually on their environmental performance into our databases. That data then goes out to the Bloomberg Network, MSEI and various other places. So, what we did with TCFD is we took the guidance of TCFD and we turned that into the specific questions we ask corporations. There are hundreds and hundreds of companies that have adopted TCFD and are putting that advice into their annual reports. But thousands of companies are answering the specific TCFD questions into the CDP databases and then we make that available to the market. Another trend of course are science based targets. The IPCC latest reports say the objective should be to limit the global warming to one and a half degrees above pre-industrial and companies now or are adopting the science based targets for their operations and doing what's necessary to help meet that that global goal. Is CDP also incorporating science based targets or maybe giving the higher letter grades to companies or organizations that are using these science based targets? You have it exactly right. That's exactly what we're doing. First of all, we absolutely love science based targets and CDP strategy is very much designed around the massive implementation of science based targets. We are very proud members of a broader consortium, including WRI and many other NGOs developing ever improving methodology for setting science based targets. For those who don't know what science based targets mean, it's like the end of incrementalism. In the early parts of my career at CDP, big companies with huge emissions would say, "Oh, we're recycling our paper." Well there's nothing wrong with recycling your paper, but if you've got 10 or 15 million tons of CO2 coming out of your operations, that's a much bigger issue. Science based targets mean that you can be confident that the company is reducing its emissions in line with what is required to keep us below 2 degrees, and in due course, changing that trajectory to make sure we stay below one and a half degrees. I just also want to mention that, yes it's true, CDP scoring reflects improved scoring for compliance with the science based targets. But interestingly, we've been working with the French government and others on something called ACT, which means Assessing the low-Carbon Transition. Really, you've got two methodologies to think about: 1) the methodology the company needs to follow to deliver on its science based targets and 2) the methodology the investor needs to use to evaluate how well the company is complying with that objective. What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? Authority is taken and not given. We in the sustainability community are on the winning side of a very long and protracted argument. Stay close to marketing. Recognize that you can add value margin and market share by using sustainability marketing. Also, give orders in your organization politely, effectively and seductively. Achieve the necessary outcome, but recognize that it is not enough to say you're doing your best. You have to actually succeed in doing what is necessary. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? I'm excited by the public demonstration of passion and enthusiasm for sustainability. I'm going to answer your question by sticking to my core passion. Before I actually got involved in climate change 20 years ago, I was kind of involved in the early days of the information and communications technology revolution. I do in fact delight in fiber optic cable and the capabilities of video telephones. When are we going to have a broadband video telephone with eye contact. We're still a long way away from getting that. Where I'm going with this long rambling answer is the concept of dematerialization. We need to dematerialize economic growth and information and communication technology can help us do it. What we need is our big friends in Google, AT&amp;T, Apple, Microsoft, Sony to recognize that they are part of the solution, not part of the problem. The future is going to be moving electrons and not assets. What is one book you'd recommend sustainability leaders read? I would strongly recommend you read the book Dark Money by Jane Mayer. It's a New York Times investigation into the manipulation of public debate on sustainability by certain private companies. It helps frame the level of the problem of why the public is not always so receptive as you might expect to putting money behind their own survival. It gives an indication of what to avoid in terms of sustainability bad instead of sustainability good. It's just a forensic political analysis which will help people to understand aspects of contemporary politics, which they might otherwise find difficult to understand. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? Well, the number one has got to be CDP website. Please go to cdp.net. That's a great resource where you can see what thousands of companies are doing. I would also encourage people to check out another UK based NGO called ShareAction: https://shareaction.org/. Beyond that, there's so many different ways to answer the question. Have a think about tuning into a new podcast called  Outrage and Optimism, which I've had the privilege to launch with my colleagues. We have our first interview with David Attenborough, who's got a new series on Netflix. Where can people go to learn more about you and your work at CDP? cdp.net. Please also have a look ShareAction, this other NGO that I mentioned in the UK. If you're in the UK, download GIKI, which is the company that I'm the director of which I'm very, very fond of. Have a look at Influence Map, which is an NGO I'm involved with. Have a look at the Findhorn Ecovillage in Scotland where I convene events. But at the end of all of that, my primary job where I work 80% of the week is at CDP. I would really welcome anyone listening to this podcast to go to cdp.net. About Sustridge Sustridge is a sustainability consulting firm providing consulting in sustainability strategy development, GHG emissions calculating and management, zero waste planning and guidance in TRUE Zero Waste, B Corp, LEED and Carbon Neutral certification.

Paul Dickinson founded CDP in 2000 with an ambition of creating a global economic system that operates within sustainable environmental boundaries and prevents dangerous climate change. CDP represents over 650 investors with assets of over $80 trillion, and it uses this authority combined with the buying power of over 110 large corporations with annual purchases of over $2.5 trillion, to persuade over 7,000 large companies to report on their greenhouse gas emissions as well as strategy on climate change, water use and the drivers of deforestation. CDP makes most of this data available to the public and service providers like Bloomberg, MSCI and many others. In addition, over 600 large cities and 100 states and regions with aggregate over 1 billion inhabitants report annually on their environmental performance through CDP, which is a charitable organisation operating in 80 counties from nine offices around the world. Paul Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss: <ul> <li>The corporate sustainability movement and the trends we are seeing in GHG emission reporting</li> <li>How CDP has integrated new frameworks such as TCFD and science based targets into the CDP reporting program</li> <li>The evolution of CDP and what the future may hold</li> <li>Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders</li> </ul> Interview Highlights: CDP, the largest climate change focused data collection and assessment program, really has changed the game on corporate emission reporting and municipality emission reporting. Can you give us a little overview of the state of greenhouse gas emission reporting right now? Are we seeing increases in the numbers that are reporting or decreases? Are we seeing more transparency or more ambitious goals? Just give us a high level overview. Sure. I'll just step a little bit into the way we collect data because it's part of the story. We collect data by representing investors, a very large group of investors - 650 investors with around $90 trillion. So, companies are reporting to their investors through us, or they're reporting to their customers through us, because we have a big supply chain business. The reason I mentioned that is because one of the things that's happening in reporting is it's getting bigger and bigger and more and more normal. At CDP, we're in our 15th annual year of global reporting from corporations. So, one of the trends is you have a big increase in reporting and it's been supported very much by Mark Carney and Michael Bloomberg, who together chaired the Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosure (TCFD), which was also set up in response to an invitation from the Financial Stability Board representing the G20 central banks and regulators. So, the TCFD has provided improved guidance on how companies should report on climate change. CDP redesigned itself completely around TCFD so that thousands of companies are now reporting on TCFD through the CDP platform. You asked me if emissions are going up. They were kind of plateauing and then unfortunately we had some radical changes in government. The previous US administration was really working hard to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and was being quite successful. The Trump administration has gone in a crazy opposite direction. After the Paris Agreement of 2015, which was very much a creation of the United States and global diplomacy, the Trump administration has indicated it intends to pull out of the Paris agreement, although it won't actually be able to unless they win a second term. So, we've definitely had some setbacks from some crazy removal of regulation, which is allowing greenhouse gas emissions to rise again. My 19 years working full time climate change has taught me that you get these crazy setbacks often when industries that are suffering want to lobby a bit, but we get over it and then we get back on track because we have no choice. You can't argue with the science. You mentioned the Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and how more investors want to know the climate related risks of the companies they invest in. Can you talk a little bit more about how CDP is incorporating that into your program and other aspects of TCFD like climate scenario analysis? It might be helpful for our listeners to understand the difference between CDP and a lot of other things that are out there. We really respect TCFD and we think it's great. TCFD is guidance for how a company should report on climate related risks, presumably through the annual report. You have organizations like the GRI who provide guidance for how you should report on various issues through your annual report or your sustainability report. SASB provides guidance on how you should report in your annual report or sustainability report, and how you should evaluate performance. We have a subsidiary called CDSB which is committed to advancing and aligning the global mainstream corporate reporting model to equate natural capital with financial capital. So, there's a lot of guidance out there about how you should report. The difference with CDP is that we are a specific reporting platform. We run large scale information technology in multiple languages globally. So, we run a kind of parallel mechanism to the annual report or the CSR report. If you think about it, a big US corporation like Microsoft will have to report to the SEC on its financial results. Or, A big German company like BMW will have to report to the German government on its financial results. Or, a big Japanese company like Toyota will have to report to the Japanese government on its financial results. CDP provides the same thing as those different governments, but a single global platform where corporations, and as you observed also some 600 cities and 100 states and regions, report annually on their environmental performance into our databases. That data then goes out to the Bloomberg Network, MSEI and various other places. So, what we did with TCFD is we took the guidance of TCFD and we turned that into the specific questions we ask corporations. There are hundreds and hundreds of companies that have adopted TCFD and are putting that advice into their annual reports. But thousands of companies are answering the specific TCFD questions into the CDP databases and then we make that available to the market. Another trend of course are science based targets. The IPCC latest reports say the objective should be to limit the global warming to one and a half degrees above pre-industrial and companies now or are adopting the science based targets for their operations and doing what's necessary to help meet that that global goal. Is CDP also incorporating science based targets or maybe giving the higher letter grades to companies or organizations that are using these science based targets? You have it exactly right. That's exactly what we're doing. First of all, we absolutely love science based targets and CDP strategy is very much designed around the massive implementation of science based targets. We are very proud members of a broader consortium, including WRI and many other NGOs developing ever improving methodology for setting science based targets. For those who don't know what science based targets mean, it's like the end of incrementalism. In the early parts of my career at CDP, big companies with huge emissions would say, "Oh, we're recycling our paper." Well there's nothing wrong with recycling your paper, but if you've got 10 or 15 million tons of CO2 coming out of your operations, that's a much bigger issue. Science based targets mean that you can be confident that the company is reducing its emissions in line with what is required to keep us below 2 degrees, and in due course, changing that trajectory to make sure we stay below one and a half degrees. I just also want to mention that, yes it's true, CDP scoring reflects improved scoring for compliance with the science based targets. But interestingly, we've been working with the French government and others on something called ACT, which means Assessing the low-Carbon Transition. Really, you've got two methodologies to think about: 1) the methodology the company needs to follow to deliver on its science based targets and 2) the methodology the investor needs to use to evaluate how well the company is complying with that objective. What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? Authority is taken and not given. We in the sustainability community are on the winning side of a very long and protracted argument. Stay close to marketing. Recognize that you can add value margin and market share by using sustainability marketing. Also, give orders in your organization politely, effectively and seductively. Achieve the necessary outcome, but recognize that it is not enough to say you're doing your best. You have to actually succeed in doing what is necessary. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? I'm excited by the public demonstration of passion and enthusiasm for sustainability. I'm going to answer your question by sticking to my core passion. Before I actually got involved in climate change 20 years ago, I was kind of involved in the early days of the information and communications technology revolution. I do in fact delight in fiber optic cable and the capabilities of video telephones. When are we going to have a broadband video telephone with eye contact. We're still a long way away from getting that. Where I'm going with this long rambling answer is the concept of dematerialization. We need to dematerialize economic growth and information and communication technology can help us do it. What we need is our big friends in Google, AT&amp;T, Apple, Microsoft, Sony to recognize that they are part of the solution, not part of the problem. The future is going to be moving electrons and not assets. What is one book you'd recommend sustainability leaders read? I would strongly recommend you read the book Dark Money by Jane Mayer. It's a New York Times investigation into the manipulation of public debate on sustainability by certain private companies. It helps frame the level of the problem of why the public is not always so receptive as you might expect to putting money behind their own survival. It gives an indication of what to avoid in terms of sustainability bad instead of sustainability good. It's just a forensic political analysis which will help people to understand aspects of contemporary politics, which they might otherwise find difficult to understand. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? Well, the number one has got to be CDP website. Please go to <a href="https://www.cdp.net/en" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">cdp.net</a>. That's a great resource where you can see what thousands of companies are doing. I would also encourage people to check out another UK based NGO called ShareAction: <a href="https://shareaction.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://shareaction.org/</a>. Beyond that, there's so many different ways to answer the question. Have a think about tuning into a new podcast called <a href="https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/global-optimism/outrage-and-optimism" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Outrage and Optimism</a>, which I've had the privilege to launch with my colleagues. We have our first interview with David Attenborough, who's got a new series on Netflix. Where can people go to learn more about you and your work at CDP? <a href="https://www.cdp.net/en" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">cdp.net</a>. Please also have a look <a href="https://shareaction.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">ShareAction</a>, this other NGO that I mentioned in the UK. If you're in the UK, download <a href="https://gikibadges.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">GIKI</a>, which is the company that I'm the director of which I'm very, very fond of. Have a look at <a href="https://influencemap.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Influence Map</a>, which is an NGO I'm involved with. Have a look at the <a href="https://www.ecovillagefindhorn.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Findhorn Ecovillage</a> in Scotland where I convene events. But at the end of all of that, my primary job where I work 80% of the week is at CDP. I would really welcome anyone listening to this podcast to go to <a href="http://cdp.net" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">cdp.net</a>. About Sustridge Sustridge is a <a href="https://www.sustridge.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">sustainability consulting</a> firm providing consulting in sustainability strategy development, GHG emissions calculating and management, zero waste planning and guidance in TRUE Zero Waste, B Corp, LEED and Carbon Neutral certification.

Paul Dickinson - Founder of CDP

This TRUE Zero Waste presentation was conducted in Las Vegas at the Venetian Hotel on December 7th, 2018. The presentation talks about the benefits of zero waste for organizations, walks you through the various aspects of TRUE Zero Waste certification program, discusses the requirements for becoming TRUE Zero Waste certified and insights from the first TRUE Zero Waste certified business facility in Las Vegas, Coco Taps. Speakers include: Josh Prigge (Sustridge), Coco Vinny (Coco Taps) and Stephanie Barger (USGBC).

This TRUE Zero Waste presentation was conducted in Las Vegas at the Venetian Hotel on December 7th, 2018. The presentation talks about the benefits of zero waste for organizations, walks you through the various aspects of TRUE Zero Waste certification program, discusses the requirements for becoming TRUE Zero Waste certified and insights from the first TRUE Zero Waste certified business facility in Las Vegas, Coco Taps. Speakers include: Josh Prigge (Sustridge), Coco Vinny (Coco Taps) and Stephanie Barger (USGBC).

TRUE Zero Waste Workshop - Sustridge, USGBC and Coco Taps

Kristofor Lofgren

Kristofor Lofgren is a founder, CEO, and investor based in Portland, Oregon. As a consummate creator, Kristofor views business as the ultimate platform to impact positive change in the world. Kristofor has shaped his life and work off of one motto instilled in him at a young age – “Be the change you want to see in the world.”  After graduating from the University of California, Berkeley in 2006 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science &amp; American Studies with Honors, Kristofor initially desired to be an environmental lawyer as he understood even then that sustainability is one the biggest issues of our time. However, after looking at the rise of the farm-to-table movement in the culinary industry, Kristofor thought about conquering the impossible by taking the practice to the next level with one of his favorite foods: sushi. In 2008 Kristofor set out on a mission to build the most innovative and creative group in America, the Sustainable Restaurant Group (SRG). SRG is the living embodiment of this mission, whereby the environment, people, community, and profits are all accounted for at the highest level, in unison. Today, under Kristofor's command, SRG runs two successful concepts (Bamboo Sushi and QuickFish Poke Bar) in six locations around Portland, Oregon and Denver, with 10 more slated to open in the next two years, including in new markets such as Seattle and San Francisco.  When Kristofor is not working to foster and grow the culture and people of SRG, you can find him engaging with thought leaders around the world on sustainability, leadership and culture. As well, he is frequently working with suppliers, environmental scientists, and policy makers to create deeper impact for his companies. Kristofor enjoys spending his time outside of work with his wife, family, friends and participating in adventure and adrenaline sports. Kristofor Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:  Sustainability in the chain restaurant industry How to source local and sustainable while also providing affordable products Impacts of sustainability on employee engagement Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders  Kristofor's Final Five Question Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability leaders that might help them in their careers? Think with your heart as much as your head and don't be scared. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? I'm most excited about, I would say technology helping to move sustainability forward at a faster rate. So things like, for example, having laboratory ground meats, and things like that, that would actually remove animal cruelty and the need for so much methane gas to be produced by the factory farming of animals. What is one book you would recommend sustainability leaders read? I don't necessarily have one particular book that I love in sustainability. Anything by Bill Mckibben is always great or William McDonough. Kind of anything in those worlds is always good. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? Probably my iPhone is probably the best thing. I don't actually have a computer and I don't use tablets very often. I literally just do everything with my phone now. I have a computer but I never use it. I turn it on maybe once every two months. So I would say that for somebody who's on the go as much as I am, my phone is my life. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work that you were leading with the Sustainable Restaurant Group? You can either go to my website, kristoforlofgren.com, or you can go to sustainablerestaurantgroup.com or bamboosushi.com, or quickfish.com. So any of our company websites all kind of tell a different story. But all weave up into one common focus and theme.

Kristofor Lofgren is a founder, CEO, and investor based in Portland, Oregon. As a consummate creator, Kristofor views business as the ultimate platform to impact positive change in the world. Kristofor has shaped his life and work off of one motto instilled in him at a young age – “Be the change you want to see in the world.” After graduating from the University of California, Berkeley in 2006 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science &amp; American Studies with Honors, Kristofor initially desired to be an environmental lawyer as he understood even then that sustainability is one the biggest issues of our time. However, after looking at the rise of the farm-to-table movement in the culinary industry, Kristofor thought about conquering the impossible by taking the practice to the next level with one of his favorite foods: sushi. In 2008 Kristofor set out on a mission to build the most innovative and creative group in America, the Sustainable Restaurant Group (SRG). SRG is the living embodiment of this mission, whereby the environment, people, community, and profits are all accounted for at the highest level, in unison. Today, under Kristofor's command, SRG runs two successful concepts (Bamboo Sushi and QuickFish Poke Bar) in six locations around Portland, Oregon and Denver, with 10 more slated to open in the next two years, including in new markets such as Seattle and San Francisco. When Kristofor is not working to foster and grow the culture and people of SRG, you can find him engaging with thought leaders around the world on sustainability, leadership and culture. As well, he is frequently working with suppliers, environmental scientists, and policy makers to create deeper impact for his companies. Kristofor enjoys spending his time outside of work with his wife, family, friends and participating in adventure and adrenaline sports. Kristofor Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss: <ul> <li>Sustainability in the chain restaurant industry</li> <li>How to source local and sustainable while also providing affordable products</li> <li>Impacts of sustainability on employee engagement</li> <li>Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders</li> </ul> Kristofor's Final Five Question Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability leaders that might help them in their careers? Think with your heart as much as your head and don't be scared. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? I'm most excited about, I would say technology helping to move sustainability forward at a faster rate. So things like, for example, having laboratory ground meats, and things like that, that would actually remove animal cruelty and the need for so much methane gas to be produced by the factory farming of animals. What is one book you would recommend sustainability leaders read? I don't necessarily have one particular book that I love in sustainability. Anything by Bill Mckibben is always great or William McDonough. Kind of anything in those worlds is always good. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? Probably my iPhone is probably the best thing. I don't actually have a computer and I don't use tablets very often. I literally just do everything with my phone now. I have a computer but I never use it. I turn it on maybe once every two months. So I would say that for somebody who's on the go as much as I am, my phone is my life. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work that you were leading with the Sustainable Restaurant Group? You can either go to my website, <a href="http://kristoforlofgren.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">kristoforlofgren.com</a>, or you can go to <a href="http://sustainablerestaurantgroup.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">sustainablerestaurantgroup.com</a> or <a href="http://bamboosushi.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">bamboosushi.com</a>, or <a href="http://quickfish.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">quickfish.com</a>. So any of our company websites all kind of tell a different story. But all weave up into one common focus and theme.

Kristofor Lofgren - Founder and CEO of Sustainable Restaurant Group

Josh Prigge

Josh Prigge - Founder and CEO of Sustridge

Julie Newman

Dr. Julie Newman joined MIT as the Institute’s first Director of Sustainability in the summer of 2013. She has worked in the field of sustainable development and campus sustainability for twenty years. Her research has focused on the intersection between decision-making processes and organizational behavior in institutionalizing sustainability into higher education. In 2004, Julie was recruited to be the founding Director of the Office of Sustainability for Yale University.  At Yale, Julie held a lecturer appointment with the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies where she taught an undergraduate course entitled – Sustainability: From theory to practice in institutions.  Julie came to Yale from the University of New Hampshire, Office of Sustainability Programs (OSP) where she assisted with the development of the program since its inception in 1997.  Prior to her work with the OSP she worked for University Leaders for a Sustainable Future (ULSF). In 2004 Julie co-founded the Northeast Campus Sustainability Consortium, to advance education and action for sustainable development on university campuses in the northeast and maritime region. Julie Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:  MIT's next generation approach to sustainability Collaborative efforts to address climate change Managing short-term and long-term sustainability goals Businesses and government learning from sustainability in higher education Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders  Julie's Final Five Question Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? Always be a listener. If you're heading into a new organization, always go in and listen first and assess your rapid assessment of the system before suggesting a whole series of solutions. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? There seems to be an emerging understanding that partnerships are essential in achieving these broad based goals. That's something I have been advocating for almost two decades. And now it feels like it's just a natural part of the discussion, that in order for us to seek and achieve goals such as carbon neutrality, partnerships are essential. Sustainability offices can't do this alone. Often organizations can't go this alone. And I'm seeing partnerships between higher education and industry taking off, partnerships between higher education and their local municipalities taking off and between higher education and utilities companies. When you add all of these up, I think we're going to see greater and greater impact. What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? This fall I have picked up Bill Clark's book entitled Pursuing Sustainability and I have found that to be almost like having a refresher course. It's called Pursuing Sustainability: a guide to the science and practice. Few chapters I've gone back and actually read a couple of times. I've read many sustainability books, but I highly recommend that one. Bill Clark and his team really took their time to lay out the complexity and the depth of these challenges in such an articulate thought provoking way and it's very accessible. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? People. My favorite resource are other partners across the world. I'm part of a very robust, 11-year old network called the International Sustainable Campus Network. I have built a remarkable network of colleagues around the world that I look to for second opinions, for ideas, as catalyst as thought provokers and to seek common ground. It makes the world feel like a smaller place. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work you're leading at MIT? I'd suggest they go right to our website. I'm really proud of my team for the site that we've put together: sustainability.mit.edu. It's a great place to learn about the way we have framed our scales of impact across the role of the individual, the campus, the city and the globe.

Dr. Julie Newman joined MIT as the Institute’s first Director of Sustainability in the summer of 2013. She has worked in the field of sustainable development and campus sustainability for twenty years. Her research has focused on the intersection between decision-making processes and organizational behavior in institutionalizing sustainability into higher education. In 2004, Julie was recruited to be the founding Director of the Office of Sustainability for Yale University.  At Yale, Julie held a lecturer appointment with the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies where she taught an undergraduate course entitled – Sustainability: From theory to practice in institutions.  Julie came to Yale from the University of New Hampshire, Office of Sustainability Programs (OSP) where she assisted with the development of the program since its inception in 1997.  Prior to her work with the OSP she worked for University Leaders for a Sustainable Future (ULSF). In 2004 Julie co-founded the Northeast Campus Sustainability Consortium, to advance education and action for sustainable development on university campuses in the northeast and maritime region. Julie Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss: <ul> <li>MIT's next generation approach to sustainability</li> <li>Collaborative efforts to address climate change</li> <li>Managing short-term and long-term sustainability goals</li> <li>Businesses and government learning from sustainability in higher education</li> <li>Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders</li> </ul> Julie's Final Five Question Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? Always be a listener. If you're heading into a new organization, always go in and listen first and assess your rapid assessment of the system before suggesting a whole series of solutions. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? There seems to be an emerging understanding that partnerships are essential in achieving these broad based goals. That's something I have been advocating for almost two decades. And now it feels like it's just a natural part of the discussion, that in order for us to seek and achieve goals such as carbon neutrality, partnerships are essential. Sustainability offices can't do this alone. Often organizations can't go this alone. And I'm seeing partnerships between higher education and industry taking off, partnerships between higher education and their local municipalities taking off and between higher education and utilities companies. When you add all of these up, I think we're going to see greater and greater impact. What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read? This fall I have picked up Bill Clark's book entitled Pursuing Sustainability and I have found that to be almost like having a refresher course. It's called Pursuing Sustainability: a guide to the science and practice. Few chapters I've gone back and actually read a couple of times. I've read many sustainability books, but I highly recommend that one. Bill Clark and his team really took their time to lay out the complexity and the depth of these challenges in such an articulate thought provoking way and it's very accessible. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? People. My favorite resource are other partners across the world. I'm part of a very robust, 11-year old network called the International Sustainable Campus Network. I have built a remarkable network of colleagues around the world that I look to for second opinions, for ideas, as catalyst as thought provokers and to seek common ground. It makes the world feel like a smaller place. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work you're leading at MIT? I'd suggest they go right to our website. I'm really proud of my team for the site that we've put together: <a href="http://sustainability.mit.edu" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">sustainability.mit.edu</a>. It's a great place to learn about the way we have framed our scales of impact across the role of the individual, the campus, the city and the globe.

Julie Newman - Director of Sustainability at MIT

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