Sustainable Nation

Stacy joined Shopify in January 2020 where she is the Head of Sustainability and oversees and leads the company's sustainability initiatives. She also serves on the advisory board of the Carbon Management Research Initiative (CaMRI) at Columbia University. Prior to joining Shopify, Stacy was Head of the Ozone Layer Protection Program at Environment and Climate Change Canada. Stacy has worked on several chemicals management regulatory initiatives and represented Canada as a member of delegations for the Stockholm Convention and Montreal Protocol.

Stacy Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:

• How Shopify began and continues to evaluate quality carbon offsets for investment
• Shopify acting as a customer and a demand signal for high quality investments; especially for startups 
• How is shopify engaging customers in the fight against climate change
• Shopify’s carbon removal playbook
• Advice and recommendations for sustainability professionals

Stacy'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 started this off by talking about how I came to the job that I'm at and I'm not a typical sustainability professional. What I have done is prioritized impact over everything else. That's clear in how we're trying to set up our sustainability fund and the companies that we choose, but it's also in how I've made my career choices. I've always wanted to make sure I'm in the best position at the right time to use my specific skill sets to have the most positive impact possible. I think everyone knows in the pit of their stomach when they're not playing for the right team. I think it's really important to act on that and to be strong in the skills that you do have, and to find ways to apply those to a career in sustainability or climate. There's a lot of people who are transitioning from accounting or marketing or communications and want to use their skills in sustainability or in climate. I think that it's really important to find your spot and use those skills for good. I think that's the most impactful way to drive change.

What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability?

This isn't something to be excited about, but I'll get to why I'm bringing it up. This past year we've seen a lot more of the negative effects of climate change, and they're not just being felt by populations around the equator or populations that live on the coastline. We're starting to see mainland Europe experiencing very intense heat waves, we're seeing these things become more and more commonplace in a larger swath of the planet. I'm not excited about that, but what that brings me to is the fact that a larger component of the world's population is now experiencing the negative effects of climate change that other countries and other populations have been experiencing for decades. I'm hopeful that this is going to bring this topic to the forefront and we're no longer going to be seeing the effects of climate change as somebody else's problem and we don't need to change our day to day existence or how we're operating our businesses. I think we're seeing early signs of people taking notice, because we're getting a lot of momentum in terms of funding commitments from government and the private sector to really start addressing climate change in a meaningful way. I'm hopeful that these unfortunate events are going to catalyze an acceleration in action.

What is one book you'd recommend sustainability professionals read?

I thought a little bit about this one because you've had a lot of guests and I don't want to pick the same book. I really loved The Future of Life by Edward O. Wilson. He's an American biologist known for speaking a lot about how behavior in the natural world combined with natural selection can alter biology through evolution. The book describes the the breadth and depth of the planet's biodiversity, but then also talks about the effects that we're seeing on biodiversity worldwide and how this is going to be detrimental to the planet. It also offers some solutions. What I get most from this book is that our natural systems are very complex and the interconnectedness of an ecosystem is super complex. That complex system to me is almost analogous to how complex the system is that we need to drive change in to solve climate change. When we're thinking about biodiversity, the effects of one small action can have an immense impact on an ecosystem, but it's only because of its second, third and fourth order effects. It's not that one action that causes the problem. It's everything that happens after it. I think about that when I think about how to solve climate change, because it's not one action that's going to solve climate change. It's the knock-on effects of that single effort that drives more change and gets momentum. Then that complex system starts to shift and adapt. I like to hold both together. That's a great book I'd recommend it if you're wanting to think about systems and also learn more about biodiversity.

What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work?

I love reading research papers and reviews specifically related to carbon removal technology; I'm a bit of a tech nerd when it comes to things like that, being an engineer. I get a lot of my information from the AirMiners community and that's a little play on words about mining the atmosphere for carbon dioxide. They have a great community that they've set up where everybody working on carbon removal can come together and they put on all sorts of excellent webinar programming and there's publications and things like that. One of the things that works really well for me that's really basic is a list serve mailing list, almost like a Google group. It's run by professor Greg Roe who is one of the leading experts worldwide in ocean alkalinity enhancement. Again it's that connectivity that's provided. Everybody shares new journal articles or new findings from different research projects, so it's a great way to stay up to date.

Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work being done at Shopify.

We mentioned this earlier, but I'd recommend hitting up Shopify's website www.shopify.com/climate. You'll see what we offer in terms of services for our merchants and how we're building sustainable commerce. You'll also be able to click through and see our playbook and read up on the 22 companies in our fund. If you want to get the play by play and stay up to date, I'd recommend following myself on Twitter and you can get up to date news and announcements there as well.

Bérénice Lasfargues is Sustainability Integration Lead at BNP Paribas Asset Management. In this role, she is in charge of the implementation of the firm's ESG integration policy, working closely with portfolio managers across all asset classes to more purposefully integrate ESG criteria in their portfolios; and manages the internal firm-wide network of ESG Champions in investment teams. The changing regulatory environment is placing increasing importance on ESG data, and in her role, Bérenice works on the evolution of the firm's ESG research platform (including development of BNPP AM proprietary ESG rating and SDG data models) and provides strategic guidance on the optimal flow of ESG data through the company. She also coordinates the firm's approach to impact investment, and leads on its ESG analysis in the ICT sector. 

She is the representative for BNPP AM’s sustainable investment capabilities across the Americas, promoting the firm's expertise with clients and externally across the region.

Previously, she worked at the OECD, undertaking economic research on green and blended finance. She was also a legislative fellow in the U.S. House of Representatives and conducted fieldwork on climate change and development in emerging markets. Bérénice holds masters' degrees in engineering and environmental management from Ecole Centrale Paris (now CentraleSupelec) and the National University of Singapore, respectively. She is an EFFAS CESGA (Certified ESG Analyst) certificate holder.

Bérénice joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:

• Why asset managers are looking so closely at sustainability and ESG goals
• BNP Pams sustainability investment beliefs and four standard pillars
• Challenges with ESG rating systems
• How ESG data could become more valuable
• Advice and recommendations for sustainability professionals 

Bérénice's Final Five Questions Responses

What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers?

One piece of advice would be to get involved or keep up as much as you can with collaborative working groups and networks. Depending on your focus area or sector, there are so many. For example, if you are within the investment management industry, you could get involved with Principles for Responsible Investment, the Global Impact Investing network, or the Initial Investors Group on Climate Change, just to name a few. I was collectively marched towards mainstreaming sustainability for more cognitive diversity to solve common challenges and raise the bar across the board. So number one is get involved. Number two would be to put in the work into the training and knowing your stuff on sustainability. It may seem from the outside, the ESG landscape is a bit fuzzy. We just talked about the fact that the market is fragmented. But ESG is now part of a firm's license to operate. Therefore there is a need to engage and upscale your workforce on this topic. There are great trainings that exist, the CFA Institute, the Fundamentals for Sustainability Accounting from SASB, the European Federation of Financial Society also has a training. Within BNP Pam we have a network of ESG champions. Each client and investment facing team has one, and they're required to get some formal certification on ESG. So it starts with people and upscaling your people so they have expertise to make the right judgment calls. Maybe a final one would be: develop your leadership skills as they relate to change management. All ESG jobs at the moment, unless you're working at a pure player firm, and even then, involve some element of persuasion and winning hearts and minds.

ESG is a journey, and along the journey you will need people and you will need to be able to convince people in other parts of the firm on the foundation of ESG. That is what change management is all about. 

What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability?

The momentum of the space, but also the increased scrutiny from a new set of stakeholders- regulators, retail, investors, consumers- clearly they shine the light on the fact that we have made so much progress. But there is still so much progress that we still need to make. In the current environment, there is a strong and very important push against greenwashing and that is welcome. I think it will make us only better as practitioners.

What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read?

One short book, which is really a call to action, would be On Impact: A Guide to the Impact Revolution by Sir Ronald Cohen. This book is kind of a prelude of sorts to this much longer book titled Impact: Reshaping Capitalism to Drive Real Change. So you can either read the short manifesto or the longer book depending on your bandwidth. But both books talk about the advent of the impact entrepreneurs and the potential paradigm shift from the risk return equation to a risk return impact equation in investment analysis, and also from measuring activities and inputs to measuring outcomes. Also how at each level as consumers; citizens, employers, we can facilitate this transition in thinking on impact investing. Another book, I have to confess I'm only halfway through, but another book which I find very interesting is Moving Beyond Portfolio Theory by Jon Lukomnik James Hawley. We truly look at how modern portfolio theory has been instrumental in shaping traditional investment but also how it falls short in terms of including a consideration of systemic risk and market ecosystem impact. So that's a very tall order, tackling modern portfolio theory. That's what you're trying to do in this book.

What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work?

In terms of resources, keeping up with market developments related to ESG investing. There are a few newsletters and resources that I would say most of us in the industry tend to read. There is Responsible Investors, Environmental Finance, Bloomberg Green, the Financial Times Moral Money newsletter just to name a few. Another resource for us is academia as well as looking at work done by international organizations, such as the IEA, the OCE or the World Bank Group. We at BMP Pam are a founding supporter of GRAFSI, which is the Global Research Alliance for Sustainable Finance and Investments. It is a global network of leading research universities founded in 2017 that aims to develop academic collaboration on the topic and they have aan annual conference. The next one is in September at the University of Zurich and next year will be at Yale university in September 2023. I think one of the reasons we are very keen to support academia is that as sustainable investment practitioners in such a growing and emerging field, we really need to rely on high quality academic research to make sense of this ESG alphabet to support development of new methodologies, as well as inform development of our new policies in a way that is transparent.

Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and your work being done at BNP?

They can find information regarding our approach to sustainability on our corporate website https://group.bnpparibas/en/. On it you can find global sustainability strategy, all our policies on integration, stewardship, regulatory documentation. We have a sustainability report but also have profiled members of our firm on what it means for them in the day to day sustainable investor for a changing world. I can also be reached out to directly on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Clare Doyle has served as Masonite’s Senior Vice President, Chief Sustainability Officer since August 2021. Previously, Clare held the roles of Senior Vice President and General Manager – UK Business from 2018 to 2021, and Senior Vice President, Business Leader – Components from 2016 to 2018. Prior to joining Masonite, Clare was with Elementis plc from 2010 to 2016 most recently as Vice President of Marketing. Prior to joining Elementis plc, she spent 11 years with Rohm and Haas Company in various roles in Corporate Development, Electronic Materials and in Architectural and Functional Coatings.

Clare Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:

• Her tips from her transition into a sustainability role
• The roots of sustainability at Masonite
• Masonite's plans for setting targets regarding emissions
• Collaboration on sustainability both up and down the supply chain
• Advice and recommendations for sustainability professionals

Clare'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 tell them to focus, focus, focus on developing your leadership skills. What the world needs from us right now is absolutely leadership. Focus on developing your leadership skills each and every day because that is what I see as being in really, really short supply in the sustainability world. 

What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? 

I'm really excited about the innovation that's coming, the emerging innovation. We are in a climate crisis right now, and times of crisis can be the catalyst that we need for great innovation. There's so many things where the answer is just not there yet, but I have to believe. I'm so optimistic that in this time of crisis we are going to see great innovation that's going to allow us to make the world a better place. 

What is one book you would recommend sustainability leaders read? 

I'd almost rather tell you what I'm reading now versus what has made the great impact. Only because every time I read something new, it puts what I did read in a better light, a new light; maybe puts together more understanding. I'm currently working my way through Decolonizing Wealth by Edgar Villanueva, which I highly recommend to everybody. Earlier this year I had read Net Positive by Paul Polman and Andrew Winston. Every time I read another book, it really does add some strength or new insights to what I read before. So I wouldn't say that there was any one thing, it's just one of those current things I'm working on. 

What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work? 

The network. The community of sustainability professionals who are out there, the community of corporate social responsibility people who are out there. It's just those dialogues and being able to reach out to everybody is just so powerful. Just keep working on your network, keep talking to people. There are so many people who are so willing to share their knowledge, their experiences. It just adds so much. 

Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work being done at Masonite?

They can read our sustainability report at masonite.com/esg, and I'm on LinkedIn.

Emma Stewart, Ph.D., is Netflix’s first Sustainability Officer, where together with teams from across the company, she seeks to bring Netflix's carbon footprint to net zero, raise environmental awareness through film and television series, and spur conversation on climate action among our hundreds of millions of members in 190 countries.  She previously led World Resources Institute’s global work on urban efficiency, climate, and finance. She served on the Board of the U.S. Green Building Council and software company Ecomedes.  She has been a member of the professional faculty at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and Stanford Graduate School of Business where she taught “Intrapreneurship for Sustainability”.

Emma was rated a “Badass Woman in Sustainability” by GreenBiz, a "top 3 speaker" by The Economist Summits, and has been named a “one of the most powerful women under 45” and an “urban pioneer” by FORTUNE Magazine, a “sustainability insurgent” by MIT Sloan Management Review, and one of the “Top 10 Women in Sustainability” by American Builders. Her work has been featured in The Economist, Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Financial Times, Reuters, L.A. Times, and Environmental Law Journal, among others.

She holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Science and Management from Stanford University and a B.A. with Honors in Human Sciences from Oxford University.

Emma Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:

• Netflix's Net Zero + Nature strategy
• Balancing reduction of emissions with offsets
• Netflix's 5 step screening process for carbon credits
• Netflix's greatest sources of emissions are strategies to address them
• Advice and recommendations for sustainability professionals

Emma's Final Five Questions Responses

What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers?

Always look for ways to become a profit center. I remember in a past company I worked for, and also those that I've had the privilege of advising, there's often an assumption that this is a cost center. It's maybe a cost of doing business, it helps the company maintain its license to operate. But I think that's often a lack of creativity. When you look at the product portfolio of most companies, there's a way to make money, to delight your customers, and to align with environmental needs. My advice is always find that journey from cost center to profit center.

What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability?

There's been a real global awakening as to how this touches every living thing, humans of course, as well as non-human species. It's now front page news in every region of the world. Unfortunately, often because it's taking the lives of the most vulnerable with a heat wave or a climate fueled natural disaster or grid outages or sea level rise. But it's not just the impacts that are making headlines. It's now also the fact that companies are mainstreaming this as a way of doing business. The largest financial institutions in the world are setting targets and starting to align their investment portfolios with climate science, and it has become a political dealbreaker. In many parts of the world. You see elections hinge on this topic in many countries. So for better or for worse, it has become front page news, which means there are many more voices in the room.

What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read?

My team and I just finished a book called Generation Dread, which I can highly recommend. It's written by Dr. Britt Wray. It's a survey of the latest research on how climate is manifesting as anxiety among the majority of the population, with the most vocal being gen z and the millennials, but it turns out they're not alone in feeling this dread. On the flip side, they are harnessing that anxiety and that helplessness into action as voters, as consumers, as employees. We found it very helpful and we actually had a team meeting with the author to unpack what it means for us as individuals and how we can better serve our consumers and members.

What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work?

I am an avid reader of Bloomberg News. They cover the intersection of business technology and climate with real sophistication, and they also had the wherewithal to acquire new energy finance. The BNEF outlooks as they're called, on electric vehicles on the energy sector on carbon pricing, you name it, those are excellent. On a more regular basis, I read updates from Fortune. They have a CFO Daily that often touches on sustainability and ESG topics. Carbon Brief is very good. Ceres and NRDC are strong on policy related developments. Energy Weekly and Climate Tech Weekly are really good on the clean tech side. The Hill I find to be quite useful also in terms of the politics, at least in the United States. And lastly, Project Drawdown’s work, which was so seminal in a multi-year multi-scholar model of the top climate solutions and how they could be executed. Project Drawdown continues to produce research that we rely upon.

Where can and our listeners go to learn more about you and your work at Netflix?

Sustainability.netflix.com and also LinkedIn.

Passionate about creating a better world and enabling growth among Anheuser-Busch employees and business, John is responsible for leading teams to deliver a more sustainable future and a resilient, dynamic and efficient supply chain. John joined Anheuser-Busch InBev in 2012, and has since held various positions across Europe and Africa focusing on agricultural development, procurement, technology and business operations.

 

John led the design and launch of Anheuser-Busch’s SmartBarley program, a global platform supporting farmers across the world, and most recently was responsible for leading the business operations and digital transformation agenda in Africa before stepping into the role of U.S. Chief Sustainability and Procurement Officer. Prior to his time with Anheuser-Busch, he worked with Root Capital, providing business and investment support. John holds a Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from NC State University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

John Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:

• Anheuser-Busch's main sustainability focuses: renewable energy, water, agriculture, and packaging
• Sourcing ingredients and how sustainability is incorporated into the supply chain
• Anheuser-Busch's SmartBarley program
• How Anheuser-Busch reached 100% renewable electricity with the Budweiser Wind Farm and Anheuser-Busch solar farm
• Reducing emissions in transportation/distribution
• Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders

John's Final Five Questions Responses

What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers?

For me it would be to really learn the business. To my last thoughts on our sustainability team, I think it's so important to learn the business, to understand the different elements of our strategy, of how we're connecting with consumers, to customers, to all the aspects of our value chain. I think this integration is really relevant to driving change and to ensure that we understand the intensions and we understand the value propositions, we understand how we can bring innovation into sustainability. Sustainability is not on the side. It's totally integrated within and it's a part of our management system. It's a part of our strategy, it's a part of our actions. I think as a sustainability professional, having that knowledge and experience is really important. My last role before coming back to the United States was in Africa leading technology in our business operation. There was nothing in my title that was sustainability, but that experience for me was so meaningful to learn different parts of the business. Obviously in a different market like Africa that has different challenges and different opportunities. Learning technology by leading the technology team in Africa— super relevant now to come back to a more formal sustainability role incorporating that knowledge and applying that to the impact and the acceleration of our agenda. Think of sustainability broadly, don't think of it as a narrow niche, think of it as something that really needs to be enabled across the entire business that requires that business experience and understanding.

What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability?

I think the energy. Ten years ago when I joined Anheuser-Busch and we were talking about agriculture, we were talking about it in a very different way. We were talking about how meaningful it was and how important it was, where now it's fundamental. Sustainability is our foundation. It's gone from important to fundamental. I think the energy within our business is represented in many other organizations that are really leaning in and integrating this into their core strategy. For me that's incredibly exciting. I think we see it in the ambitions set forward by many around net zero and taking the risk, knowing that there's a lot to learn, there's a lot that we don't understand, but we all know that that's such an important mission. Seeing that energy is incredibly exciting. Seeing the evolution of the work of sustainability, something that was maybe niche a decade ago, that's now core, fundamental, and at our heart is awesome. We've got to make sure that deliver on that opportunity.

What is one book you would recommend sustainability leaders read?

A book that was really meaningful in my life was The Blue Sweater written by Jacqueline Novogratz. This was personally at a really formative period when I was transitioning from being a design engineer to get back into agricultural development. I was thinking about what that would look like and what that would mean. That book opened my eyes and mind to thinking about business in a very different way - social enterprise and the role of business and society solving really meaningful societal challenges. Ultimately that's at the core of sustainability- how as a business do we solve the problems and the needs of our consumers and our customers so that our business can sustain and grow and achieve all of our missions and goals. That book really brought that to life through really relevant innovation and pushing a frontier on how do we bring finance to the missing middle especially in markets such as Africa where those institutional voids are so relevant and pressing, and the role that business can play in funding and investments, taking the right risks with a triple bottom line mindset. That would be one book I'd recommend. It meant a lot to me and certainly shaped the last 12 years of my life and career.

What are some of your favorite resources or that really help you in your work?

The power of networks is so important. I've had the opportunity to stay connected to different sustainability networks and colleagues. I have a learning group of sustainability professionals that I met many years ago. I think those types of networks are just so important. There's always so much to learn in this space as it evolves. Having people that are close to us that are in a different company, in a different industry, but connected to this ever growing and broadening topic around sustainability has continued to be where I really find a lot of inspiration and learning. I would recommend strengthening those networks if you have them. If you don't have them find them and contribute to them, and certainly you'll value from those networks.

Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work being done at Anheuser-Busch?

Our website anheuserbusch.com. That'll also link you to our global websites as well. You'll find some good information around our sustainability goals and some of our use cases and stories of progress. Certainly feel free to follow me on LinkedIn. I always try to share some of the interesting work that we're doing and what we think can be an inspiration to others.

IRA Pearl is the Vice President of Environmental Sustainability at Cox Enterprises. Ira is responsible for leading Cox's sustainability strategy, including driving ambitious goals to achieve zero waste to landfill by 2024 and to become water and carbon neutral by 2034. IRA has more than 25 years of experience, both in consulting and leading environmental departments at large Fortune 500 companies, as well as in operational leadership roles. He spent most of his career developing and executing strategies in the areas of renewable energy, sustainability, climate change, and environmental compliance. Ira Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:

• How being a private company impacts the way sustainability is handled
• How Cox establishes sustainability goals and targets - ground up process
• Cox's approach to employee engagement and the benefits of having top down support
• Sustainability reporting at Cox and the emphasis on transparency
• Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders

Ira's Final Five Question Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers?

Understand the business side of things. Having a passion for sustainability is great, but you need to make your work economically sustainable as well.

What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability?

So many companies are now coming to the table and seeking to reduce their footprint. The accompanying level of investment is driving innovation and cost reduction and it helps all of us get there faster.

What is one book you'd recommend sustainability leaders read?

I would recommend Confessions of a Radical Industrialist by Ray Anderson, who was the CEO of interface. It talks about how running your company sustainably is just good business. I think Cox has proven this by delivering double digit returns on our sustainability investments.

What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work?

There's so many it's difficult to list them all. My web browser has so many bookmarks, but one of the ones I use a lot is the EIA website, the Environmental Administration website, because it is such a credible source of truth and data that helps identify trends and lends credibility to the analyses behind these resources. I also listen to a lot of business news, which more and more is covering ESG. I keep abreast of a lot trends and what other companies are doing and evolving technology by subscribing to a bunch of email list servers that that give me that data and feed it to my inbox every day.

Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work being done at Cox?

They can go to coxenterprises.com/cox-conserves where they can learn more about our programs. If you want to learn about the investments we're making in Cleantech, you can go to https://coxnewinvestments.com. Our vision there is to take the problems facing the world and transform them into business opportunities. At Cox, we want to run a business that gives employees a better life, gets the return on investment and has a positive impact on society.

IRA Pearl is the Vice President of Environmental Sustainability at Cox Enterprises. Ira is responsible for leading Cox's sustainability strategy, including driving ambitious goals to achieve zero waste to landfill by 2024 and to become water and carbon neutral by 2034. IRA has more than 25 years of experience, both in consulting and leading environmental departments at large Fortune 500 companies, as well as in operational leadership roles. He spent most of his career developing and executing strategies in the areas of renewable energy, sustainability, climate change, and environmental compliance. Ira Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:

• How being a private company impacts the way sustainability is handled
• How Cox establishes sustainability goals and targets - ground up process
• Cox's approach to employee engagement and the benefits of having top down support
• Sustainability reporting at Cox and the emphasis on transparency
• Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders

Ira's Final Five Question Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers?

Understand the business side of things. Having a passion for sustainability is great, but you need to make your work economically sustainable as well.

What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability?

So many companies are now coming to the table and seeking to reduce their footprint. The accompanying level of investment is driving innovation and cost reduction and it helps all of us get there faster.

What is one book you'd recommend sustainability leaders read?

I would recommend Confessions of a Radical Industrialist by Ray Anderson, who was the CEO of interface. It talks about how running your company sustainably is just good business. I think Cox has proven this by delivering double digit returns on our sustainability investments.

What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work?

There's so many it's difficult to list them all. My web browser has so many bookmarks, but one of the ones I use a lot is the EIA website, the Environmental Administration website, because it is such a credible source of truth and data that helps identify trends and lends credibility to the analyses behind these resources. I also listen to a lot of business news, which more and more is covering ESG. I keep abreast of a lot trends and what other companies are doing and evolving technology by subscribing to a bunch of email list servers that that give me that data and feed it to my inbox every day.

Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work being done at Cox?

They can go to coxenterprises.com/cox-conserves where they can learn more about our programs. If you want to learn about the investments we're making in Cleantech, you can go to https://coxnewinvestments.com. Our vision there is to take the problems facing the world and transform them into business opportunities. At Cox, we want to run a business that gives employees a better life, gets the return on investment and has a positive impact on society.

Ellen has worked at the intersection of sustainability and human resources as a recruiter and consultant for 20+ years. A super connector, Ellen’s passion for sustainability and ESG was sparked while obtaining her MBA from Yale and interning at L.L.Bean. Ellen is a regular speaker at industry events, as well as a contributor to Forbes, Huffington Post, and has her own column with GreenBiz entitled “Talent Show.” Ellen Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:

• The background and future of the CSO role 
• ESG vs. Sustainability 
• The future of supply and demand for sustainability professionals 
• How to address the great resignation and keep people in the field
• DEI in sustainability 

Ellen's Final Five Question Responses

What is one piece of advice you would give to other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers?

Network. Especially in this covid pandemic period where we're getting out of the house/office less often, it's important to keep your network going and those relationships with great other sustainability professionals alive.

What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability?

The investment and energy that's going into building sustainability programs from the corporate side and from the investment sector is very exciting.

What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read?

Profession and Purpose by Katie Kross. It's a guide for sustainability professionals wanting MBAs/wanting to go into sustainability.

What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work?

The GreenBiz conference and the Sustainable Brands conference. Certainly conferences are good opportunity to get out and see a great deal of people. And also LinkedIn as a resource, especially as a recruiter. We use LinkedIn for all of our searches. So even if we have resumes or we know people, we're still looking at their LinkedIn profiles. Also the feed- to see who's got a new job or what they're doing, who's speaking, who has some accolade. It's a valuable tool so we're on LinkedIn a lot.

Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and your work?

Www.weinrebgroup.com, our website. We're also on Twitter at Sustainable Jobs and also on LinkedIn.

Kristen B. Sullivan is a partner with Deloitte & Touche LLP and leads Sustainability and ESG Services, working with clients to help address their sustainability and non-financial disclosure strategy needs. Kristen also serves as the Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited’s Global Audit & Assurance Climate and Sustainability Services Leader and the Integrated Reporting Community of Practice Leader. Kristen brings extensive experience in delivering sustainability risk assessment, governance, strategy alignment, measurement, reporting, and assurance services.   Given the growing market emphasis on the importance of ESG standards and frameworks, Kristen serves as a member of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Community, the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) Assurance Task Force, the Sustainable Stock Exchange (SSE) Initiative Corporate Working Group, and as Chair of the AICPA Sustainability Task Force. She previously served on the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) Working Group. 

Kristen has authored a number of publications around the value of sustainability and ESG disclosure and assurance. She was #10 on the 2020 Top 100 Corporate Social Responsibility Influence Leaders list.

Kristen has more than 25 years of experience with Deloitte, beginning her career in Deloitte’s Audit and Advisory Services, working in Deloitte’s National Office in several capacities, and working with the deputy CEO of Deloitte LLP focused on regulatory and public policy matters. Kristen is a CPA (CT, MO) and CGMA and earned SASB’s Fundamentals of Sustainability Accounting (FSA) Credential. Kristen completed the Berkeley Law Executive Education Certification: ESG: Navigating the Board’s Role. 

Kristen also serves as a member of the Eureka College Board of Trustees and the Financial Women’s Association. Kristen lives in Greenwich, CT, with her three year old daughter.

Kristen Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:

• The role of assurance professionals in ESG
• The future of comparability of data across the industry - a building blocks approach
• The shift in approach to ESG toward integration
• Where we are in transformational change in business
• Advice and recommendations for sustainability professionals 

Kristen'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 love this question. As I reflect on my journey and the fact that I didn't come to this space with an expertise or an ESG education, I always encourage professionals no matter where they are in their career to really look at, in a traditional corporate context as an example, where is that discipline that you align with? For me it was accounting. Whether it's marketing or operations, finance or legal, complementing a traditional discipline within an organization to really bring that depth and a perspective of the way ESG or sustainability overlays to bring a differentiated perspective to that discipline. We've seen that this “ESG expert” doesn't really exist per se, because we know that ESG performance and priority areas are so broad and diverse. So, bringing that perspective to an existing discipline within an organization is that tool, that effective way to help an organization drive integration within all parts of the business. 

What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability?

The momentum, the energy, the passion that we're seeing by not the usual suspects in the market. For those of us who have been working in this space for a long time, the commitment and energy that we're seeing from within organizations. It's not just the sustainability team; it's the finance teams, operations, the supply chain, the talent teams that are all really engaging and driving this momentum. And then naturally, it's a reflection of where the market is headed more broadly, but I would say very simply that the momentum and the recognition that ESG is not a fading movement; it's really here to stay and it's going to become increasingly central to companies. It’s the license to operate and the license to grow.

What is one book you'd recommend sustainability professionals read?

It's hard to choose, but the first is Accountable: The Rise of Citizen Capitalism. It's a great book that came out not too long ago. Michael O'Leary creates and provides some practical examples of the way that the capital markets are evolving and the way in which ESG is so central to strategy. I've also always been a fan of John Mackey. Conscious Capitalism and Conscious Leadership are two of his books that provide great perspective and examples for those participating in this space at different levels of maturity.

What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work?

This will likely come as no surprise. While it's not super sexy, looking to the developments in the whole standards landscape. The largely voluntary standards today - standards and frameworks - there's a tremendous amount of guidance and practical tools that are provided for public use that really help translate these concepts into actionable business priorities, and really help guide companies along this journey toward preparedness for greater scrutiny. The work that that we do is naturally grounded in standards, and the value of a number of these resources is somewhat underplayed given that there's a wealth of accessible information out there.

Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work being done at Deloitte?

Visit our website, deloitte.com. We have information about our sustainability ESG services, our thought leadership, and the way in which we engage as a professional services firm. Follow me on LinkedIn and Twitter and search #deloitteESGnow. I'm very active in sharing our thought leadership, our perspectives, and the role that we feel is so critical that we play in contributing to this market momentum and ultimately our public interest role.

Braden Kay is the director of sustainability for the City of Tempe. He was recently the sustainability project manager for the City of Orlando, where he led sustainability implementation in waste diversion, urban forestry, and urban agriculture programs. He received a PhD from Arizona State's School of Sustainability for his dissertation work on stakeholder engagement and strategy building within the City of Phoenix. Previously, Braden managed community engagement, sustainability assessment and strategy building for the City of Phoenix's Reinvent Phoenix grant, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Sustainable Communities program. Braden's academic and professional experience in urban planning, sustainability assessment, and sustainability implementation make him an asset for innovative urban sustainability efforts. 

Braden Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:

• Tip for starting sustainability programs in cities
• Learning from indigenous people and incorporating their ideas into sustainability strategies
• Developing a climate action plan
• Trade-offs between focusing on climate adaptation vs. mitigation when faced with limited resources
• Ensuring water security in dry regions like Tempe
• Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders

Braden's Final Five Question Responses

What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? 

The power of networking to me is so important. I derive so much value from the Sustainable Cities Network, the Western Adaptation Alliance and the Urban Sustainability Director's Network. I know that if I need something, I can call Chris Castro in Orlando or Dan and Melissa and Jill and the team in DC, or Kizzy in New York or Leah and Providence. It's so great to be able to rely on the fact that we are a network of professionals. I think the worst thing that our profession does sometimes is say, "Well, this has never been done before. We're just building the plane as we fly it." I think we hear that in cities all the time, and I think that's a terrible perspective to have. There is something along the lines of what you want to do somewhere out there. Really having conversations with the people that have gone through that and learning from them as to how they handled that change and what they did is so valuable. Recently, we've been struggling through how we incorporate the International Green Construction Code into our city. Scottsdale, on the private development side, and Boise, on the city building side, have been so great. They've been willing to come in and have meetings with our senior management. They've been willing to have more technical meetings with our technical staff and be willing to actually meet with our consultants. We just had a meeting of 40 people listen in to Boise, Idaho and learn what they've learned from building their first three buildings with the International Green Construction Code. That kind of network, the importance of having the network and then using the network - not just new using the network for yourself, but using the network for all the other people in your city, so that your city engineer has tapped into the network, so that your city manager and mayor are tapped into to the network. I think it's a huge part of us being successful. Our profession is still only about 20 years old, and most of us have been in our positions for five years or less. It makes that networking piece such an important part of what we do.

What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? 

I'm most excited sustainability professionals are finally understanding that the sustainability movement exists out in community. Community-based organizations, activists, young people, students, they're making sustainability happen on the ground. It's up to us as sustainably professionals to help local government, state government meet the movement. Ten years ago, a lot of people that were sustainability professionals thought they were the movement. Now I think there's a lot more of us that are understanding that government should not be at the center of climate action and climate change work. Government plays an incredibly important convening and supporting role, but it's really about government being more accessible to people, and sustainability professionals need to be those guides. We need to help people understand how to navigate government and how to make change happen efficiently and effectively instead of thinking that we alone can fix it. I'm really excited seeing those examples out there from Fort Collins, Colorado, and from the Bay area, and from Portland, Oregon, and from Orlando, Florida, where people are doing these authentic city community-based partnerships, making change happen where it's really community led and government supported. That's how we're building our cool kids work with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. It's designed to be youth-centered with the university and city supporting in the background. This work with the NEA, our town grant is meant to have the artists and tribal members lead the work with the city in support. This is a really exciting model for how we do climate action in cities an I can't wait to see what our colleagues around the country and their community-based partners are able to do. It also seems like both the federal government and national philanthropy like the Bloombergs and Bezos's of the world are starting to understand, "Hey, we need to really support community-based organizations in this work. We still should support cities, but we need to also support community-based organizations in working together with cities so that the movement happens." Then the cities can come behind with the infrastructure, with the policy, with the programs that support what community members are asking for. Another great example of that is the work that's been happening with the climate action work in Denver. They have their new climate tax that was city led and government followed. The work in Portland where they now have a green new deal fund that was done in that same community-forward government second kind of way too. It's a really exciting trend.

What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read?

Right now I'm reading Braiding Sweetgrass. It's a book about indigenous knowledge specifically around plants. I'm finding that book to be very inspiring and helping me understand more around how indigenous perspectives and indigenous concepts of resilience and indigenous knowledge of plants and ecology can inform our collective work to save the planet.

What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work?

Well, like I said, the network work I find very, very useful. The other thing I want to pitch to all the sustainably directors out there, we're trying to do this with the Western Adaptation Alliance, we have federal agencies that we need to be working more closely with - your EPA region and with your FEMA region and with DOT and DOE. We went through a phase where the federal government was not as interested in climate action and now it is. Right now is a time to make sure that we're really strengthening our relationships with federal agencies and with our local regions for each of those agencies. They have a lot of great tools. We're constantly hearing about new tools and new opportunities from our federal agencies. We've gotten some small grants from FEMA and EPA in the past. DOE is funding some really exciting stuff. Tempe would not be where it is now without some of the partnerships we've had with the Department of Transportation. Those federal agency relationships, that's one tool I'm really focused in right now. Especially with the infrastructure bill coming and the potential for a reconciliation package, it's really important that all of us are tapped in to our relationship with federal agencies making sure that as those programs are coming out. We're really thinking about how to make sure that those programs are getting tied to community-based organizations as quickly as possible, and that we're getting more federal resources out into our community.

Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and your work at Tempe?

You can check us out at tempe.gov/sustainability. You can go to our annual report which reviews what we've been doing at the city as well as our first Climate Action Plan. That's up there now, and then this winter we'll have our Climate Action Plan update, and that's what we're working on right now. Please stay out and look for our new update. I think it's a new way of thinking about how to create climate action planning that is really people-centered and centering the agendas of specific stakeholders, as opposed to just being a government document that sits on the shelf and kind of waffles around the politics of who cares about what. We've really come up with a way of presenting to our mayor and council the broad diversity of work that's happening in the city and the broad diversity of perspectives and actions that our business community and our residents want to see. That should be coming out in February.