Sustainable Nation

Chris serves as Global Senior Principal for Sustainability and ESG where he is responsible for leading Cardno's corporate sustainability initiative and in particular, providing ESG support to institutional investors. In addition, Chris supports Cardno's Science and Environment division by delivering great project outcomes for our clients, developing new  business, growing existing client relationships, fostering staff development, and aiding in strategy and planning. Chris also chairs Carno's Sustainability Task Force and has over 30 years of experience in both the public and private sectors working on environmental and sustainability issues. 

Chris Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:

• Cardno's services and clientelle
• Internal vs. external ESG work at Cardo
• ESG challenges and opportunities facing the solar and natural gas industries
• Defining sustainability vs. ESG
• Institutional investors' focus on EGS and sustainability 
• Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders

Chris' Final Five Question Responses

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

Some advice that I got when I was getting started in this game from a Congressman named Jim Cooper who's a centrist from Tennessee. I was a general generalist coming out of college and he said "That's okay, it's okay to be a generalist. But get really good at one topic or one thing. Become an expert to the extent that you can in one topic and become indispensable." That I think can apply to ESG. It's very much potentially a generalist field because you need to be able to think broadly. But there also is that element that you need to be able to dive in pretty deep so that you're not just a mile wide and an inch deep. So that's my advice: get really good at one thing where people can count on you to know how to navigate that one thing. Then obviously keep your eyes open for other changes in the industry.

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

We kind of touched on it. It's this investor shift into ESG factors. I think that has fundamentally altered the landscape. The fact that now these investors are looking for solid advice, science-based advice. That's where I think the opportunity is for not only for Cardno but for lots of other companies as well.

What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read?

A lot of this is about communication, and a book that really changed the way that I think about how to interact with people is a book called Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. The people that were awarded the Nobel Prize for economics earlier this week are students of Kahneman. This idea of behavioral economics and how people make decisions in the real world is essentially what behavioral economics is all about. Kahneman was the foundation of that. It's a fantastic book; it will change the way you look at the world.

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

In terms of resources, the newspapers of record are part of my daily reading; The Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post. Axios and their various newsletters are also becoming part of that regular daily read for me. Industry specific; the Canary Media's a fairly new entity out there. I find them really interesting on energy issues. Corporate Eco Forum, GreenBiz, Cypher; there's a number of ESG specific streams that are out there that I really depend on.

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

I have a LinkedIn page course, but certainly go to cardo.com and there's a sustainability link there. I'm happy to talk to anybody about it. I enjoy talking with colleagues and other professionals with people who are just getting started in this space; I think it's exciting.

Cecilia is the Sustainability Strategy Director at Electrolux in Sweden. Her role includes supporting the continued development of the company's sustainability strategy. She is responsible for implementing the strategy in the various Electrolux organizations, including defining ways of working and establishing relationships. Cecilia is also responsible for governance development and coordination, coordinating development of KPIs and other activities, as well as continuous improvement, assessment and development of the scope of the sustainability framework.

Cecilia Joins Sustainable Nation To Discuss:

• Empowering customers to lead better and more sustainable lives through offering the right products
• Integrating a sustainability strategy to the point it becomes the strategy
• Electrolux's approach to circular design: closing the loop in materials, product as a service
• Electrolux's climate-neutral value chain goal
• The 50 Liter home
• Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders

Cecilia's Final Five Question Responses

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

For a younger person, I would say that an important thing is not to lock on having a career in sustainability, but really to decide what field you want to be active in. Get a good degree in the field that you're interested in and then combine it with sustainability. I think the era of sustainability generalists might be coming to an end. I think the future will need more really good experts in the different fields. We need good industrial engineers to set super energy efficient operations. We need great designers to design products for refurbishment and recycling and for this new circular society we're working in. We need financial experts to work on sustainable finance. Make that combination; that will give you a faster career and I think stronger results in your work. For a person that's sort of come a little further in their career, I think be really true to the materiality analysis that you've done in your company. Even if things are hard or seem hard to solve or will take a long time. There is no way around really focusing on what makes most sense and what is needed to be addressed from a sustainability perspective.

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

After 25 years in this business, I'm really excited; it really seems to be crunch time right now. I see it in my own company. We were the geeks, trying to knock on doors and bring our message to everyone. But now everyone's talking sustainability and we're struggling to keep up with everything with all the activities that are going on and all the interest. I hear the same things from my friends working in sustainability and from other companies. I see it in the news, I hear from my neighbors, and in policymaking. Above all I see it in the financial world, which is the real game changer. Just take an example: Electrolux this year is renewing its long-term incentive program. For the first time, the top two, three hundred managers and key people within Electrolux will be incentivized based on our SBT roadmap. There will not be a full long-term incentive payout for our top management unless we fulfill our science-based targets. That will be a game changer.

What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read?

I'm reading two books in parallel. Right now we're realizing that we won't just have to change our products and tweak our business. We're going to have to rethink our whole society. There is a book by Kate Raworth called Doughnut Economics, and another book called A Finer Future by among others Hunter Lovens and Stuart Wallace and John Fullerton. They're both talking about a new economic concept: the way we value materials, the way we value work. We will have to make new economic models, we'll have to rethink our business models and how we calculate investments. We'll have to redo it all. I think these two books give me a lot of happy thoughts that actually it's going to be possible before we run out of time.

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

By now you've understood that I I'm a stickler for science, so I tend to go to the sources. We have a lot of good resources in Scandinavia; Stockholm Environments Institute, Stockholm International Water Institutes, the Stockholm Resilience Center. They publish a lot of stuff that is really good and front edge thinking. I read a lot of IPPC stuff, WWF stuff and from the Potsdam Institute as well. The other is creativity and turning it into what fits your business, but you really have to stick with the science.

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

You'll just have to go to our webpage www.electroluxgroup.com/sustainability. We'll be launching a new sustainability report in just a few weeks covering the 2020 work that we've done, so look out for that. For the Better Living Program: www.betterlivingprogram.com. For the 50 Liter Home: 50Lhome.org. There hopefully will be lots for you to read in the year to come.

As Managing Director, Global Environmental Affairs and Sustainability at United Airlines, Lauren is responsible for leading United’s efforts in environmental compliance, waste, water and energy management, sustainable aviation fuel, and overall environmental sustainability strategy. These initiatives are designed to support United’s goal of achieving a 50% reduction of carbon emissions by 2050.  

Lauren is a business leader focused on the relationship between innovation and environmental sustainability. With 20 years consulting experience, Lauren has led a variety of initiatives addressing business and digital transformation, strategic planning, and change management that yield environmental and operational benefit. 

Lauren Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:

• United's GHG reduction goals and its commitment to realizing net zero without carbon offsets
• Direct air capture technology to sequester carbon and United's investment in 1point5
• The advantages and challenges of sustainable aviation fuel
• Eco-Skies Alliance
• United's partnership with Archer Aviation 
• Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders

Lauren's Final Five Question Responses

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

Please start with your passion place. I have talked to so many folks that have said to me, "but I'm not an environmental engineer, but I didn't grow up in the ESG space, well I don't quite understand greenhouse gas accounting protocols." That is fine. If you have a passion and desire to learn and a willingness to really affect the conversation and make change happen around climate change, you have a role in this world right now. This whole space is just blossoming, so don't stand down, stand up and lean in because it's a really great time to be considering a professional career around sustainability.

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

I'm excited because what used to be a single group of folks having almost singular conversation in isolation of business and in isolation of broader economic discussions is now becoming mainstream. We're hearing not just from the environmental community who has always cared about this issue. We're actually hearing from the C-suite and we're hearing from our corporate customers and we're hearing from our investors and we have a government that is really leaning into all things de-carbonization and net zero. There's a huge opportunity for us to come together and really find pathways forward that enable us to realize the goals that were set out with the Paris Agreement. That's exciting. I'm an optimist; I see a ton of potential through technology as well as the nature based solutions. I think we're going to solve for this, but I've never seen this kind of momentum and passion and focus before. Now all of a sudden what used to be the folks hugging the tree in the corner has become really about business strategy and changing the economy. That is just wildly exciting to me.

What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read?

I just finished Bill Gates book. I do recommend anybody who wants to learn about the challenges facing us in the next couple of decades take a look at that book. It breaks down quite frankly and simply the opportunities facing us in the next couple of years. But it also conveys a bit of urgency. We do need to work together to address some of these hard to abate industries, including aviation. We do need to work together to assert to goals that makes sense and are measurable and we can actually commit to. We do need to work together to figure out the infrastructure around accounting and making sure that there's integrity in what we're trying to accomplish. The last thing we want to do is think we're on the path to success and then find out a couple of decades too late that our numbers are wrong and the way we're approaching it is inaccurate. I believe there's a ton of opportunity for us to get over that threshold and really get on the positive path to address climate change through a variety of solutions. Bill Gates book was really clear and crisp in defining the Green Premium and those industries that we really need to laser focus on and the roles that not just you and I, but government and corporations and everyone can play in really facilitating this change.

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

Quite frankly, and this is probably going to sound quite lean, but conversations like this and conversations across a variety of audiences where you learn about the barriers, you learn about the challenges that each industry and each sector is uniquely facing. Quite honestly, it probably isn't unique to that industry. It probably isn't something that another group has not overcome before. I spend a lot of time talking; I spend more time listening. That's really important because this whole issue around climate change and the science and the solutions evolves every single day. It's an opportunity for those of you out there that are passionate learners, but then also enthusiasts for the climate and this beautiful planet we live on to reach out to one another and find the right communities and conversations to engage in. It is equally balanced between listening and learning and acting and doing right now.

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

I encourage everyone to go to united.com/sustainability. You can learn about engaging our corporate customers in their quest to reduce their scope three emissions. You can learn about all of our fun and amazing investments in electric aircraft, as well as sustainable aviation fuel and direct air capture. You can hear from our CEO, Scott Kirby about his vision and his commitment to combatting climate change and United as a leader in this space. If anyone wants to reach out to me I encourage you to reach out through that website as well.

With over 3 decades of experience at Procter & Gamble in Brand Management and Innovation, Virginie has a broad experience across multiple categories and global to local brand management expertise. Virginie has worked across several of P&G’s multi-billion dollar brands, including Pantene, Ariel/Tide, and Pampers, and has extensive international experience having been based in France, UK, Switzerland and the United States throughout her career.

Since 2011, Virginie’s focus has been on sustainability and corporate citizenship, with a global remit covering all brands and business units, in all regions. Her mission was to embed sustainability into the innovation, brand-building and everyday business practices at P&G. In 2016, she was promoted to Vice President of Global Sustainability, in recognition of the work she has led to make sustainability a core business strategy, an innovation driver and a catalyst for a more resilient organisation.

Even though Virginie recommended the creation of this new position, her vision has always been for the role to become obsolete, with sustainability embedded in everything P&G does as second nature. As she puts it: “Innovation and communication will not be conceived without sustainable groundings.”

Prior to her current position, Virginie was the Western Europe Franchise Leader for Ariel, one of P&G’s largest brands, where she turned Ariel into the leader in sustainability through the launch of the highly successful “Cool Clean/Turn to 30” campaign and the most sustainable laundry product (Excel Gel).

Beyond her brand and innovation expertise, she is a certified coach and widely recognised for her vision, change management and leadership development skills.

Virginie Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:

• Making sustainability irresistible - change management and motivation
• P&G's process for prioritizing and developing sustainability goals
• Getting executive leadership on board with aspirational goals
• P&G's role in the 50 Liter Home coalition
• Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders 

Virginie's Final Five Questions Responses

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

Depending on where they are on their journey, it will be different advice. For the beginners, I would say understand the science so that you can define your strategy based on where you can have the greatest impact. For the most advanced, which have probably exhausted all the programs that they can directly control and do on their own, I would encourage them to go and join others in collaboration and coalition and choose the ones that are committed to action. You have some that are more about think tank- I think here it's about action, and also those who have the greatest scale.

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

It forces you to ask questions that you would not ask in business otherwise. What is the role of your business or your brand in society? That's our program on basis core brand 2030 - that each brand needs to have a commitment which is societal, environmental and social. It forces you to ask you those big questions. It also forces you to ask, how can you do more with less - sustainability as a key driver of innovation. How can you do what was deemed impossible; when you come together to do things like with the 50 Liter Home coalition. It's an amazing catalyst for widening the screen, opening the box, and really big transformations of systems.

What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read?

I would recommend books that are actually not on sustainability but on leadership. It's all about great leadership and leading change. One that I really like, it's called Building the Bridge As You Walk On It, it's from Rob Quinn. And the one I mentioned which is Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard from Dan and Chip Heath.

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

I would mention collaboration organizations that are member based. I would mention two of them because for me personally they have been ones that have been the most enriching and the most actionable as well. One is called Sustainable Brands. It's the leading organization of brands and sustainability to help brands really on the journey of becoming sustainable and now even regenerative in business. The other one is called The World Business Council for Sustainable Development. It's an organization of 200 CEOs who are getting together to tackle the big global challenges, and they're also very inspiring; very bias to action and making a difference.

Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work that you are leading at Procter and Gamble?

Go to our website, we actually just refreshed it. We have added a big section section with our new goals on forestry. There is the website and there is the citizenship report that we issue every year. The latest one is from November of last year. Lots of brand stories and fascinating partnerships that we described there. Follow me on LinkedIn; I share regularly all our best stories.

Erin gives voice to Interface’s conscience, ensuring that strategy and goals are in sync with its aggressive sustainability vision established more than 20 years ago. Today, Interface has evolved its thinking to go beyond doing less harm to creating positive impacts, not just for Interface and the flooring industry, but for the world at large.

Erin led the company to unveil a new mission in 2016 – Climate Take Back, tackling the single biggest threat facing humanity: global climate change. This mission is focused on creating a path for Interface and others to reverse global warming, not just reduce carbon emissions.

As CSO, Erin leads a global team that provides technical assistance and support to this audacious goal and the company’s global business, addressing sustainability at all levels – from operations and management, to employees and customers, and in policy forums. Erin and her team also develop industry-leading approaches to measurement, driving transparency and innovation in the field of sustainability.

Erin Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:

• Creating carbon negative products (without offsets) and this impact on the built environment
• How to balance the sustainability of a product with performance and cost
• Expanding carbon negativity throughout not only products, but within Interface's own buildings and operations
• Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (EC3) as a tool for making better choices in building
• A dive into Interface's Net-Works Program and other innovative waste diversion programs
• Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders

Erin'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 building on the idea of networks. I always say to people starting out in the profession: pilot projects are your friend. We really have an opportunity as sustainability professionals. Every day we're innovating, we're trying to help our businesses do something new and different often in opposition to what has been a traditional business model. So I've really had success in my career and sort of de-risked that for partners by saying, let's try out this innovative, new idea that flies in the face of how we've normally done it and delivers value for more stakeholders than just investors. Let's enter into that with a pilot project approach. You'd be surprised how much that de-risks what's about to happen and makes people feel more comfortable entering in. At the same time, it sets a tone for this as a place where we're going to learn about how we do things differently.

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

I'm most excited about the carbon revolution happening in buildings. I really feel very optimistic that we can make progress on decarbonizing the economy and really come up with removal solutions in the next decade. I see it happening here. I see it happening in the built environment. I think over the last two years, the conversation around carbon removal and the technologies- whether it be on the regenerative agriculture end or on the opposite end of that spectrum, the really high-tech carbon removal- I feel like every day there's some new announcement about a new technology or a new way that we can harvest a nature based systems to remove carbon from the atmosphere in really innovative ways. I really believe it's going to be a very exciting next 10 years on carbon.

What is one book you would recommend sustainability leaders read?

You can tell that I'm in sustainability because I obviously appreciate the natural world and I find a lot of value and connection in that in my personal life. So I would say one of the best books I've ever read is Biomimicry by Janine Benyus. You don't have to be a sustainability person, but understanding how to look at nature as an innovator and seeing those examples of where designers and others have tapped into nature's genius to solve design challenges, organizational challenges, it's a really inspiring, interesting book.

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

I like to listen to Nori's podcasts and read things from Nori. I follow Carbon180 and I think they have really fantastic resources. Project Drawdown has just released something really exciting called Climate Solutions 101. It's a fantastic series of six new videos that tell stories of how we are working every day to reverse global warming. Project Drawdown and Drawdown- fantastic resources, and they have a whole bunch of new things coming out. I would say those three are the things that I probably look at, use, refer people to on a weekly basis. 

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

There's a fantastic place that they can visit, which is just the Interface website www.interface.com. You can learn more about Interface's mission, you can learn more about carbon negative products. You can follow Interface on LinkedIn, and you can also find me on LinkedIn - Erin Meezan, and you can find me on Twitter @Erinmeez.

As Senior Director of Brand, Reputation & Impact, Tabitha Upshaw leads NI’s global Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) strategy, where purpose and social impact meet brand. 

A seasoned marketing and nonprofit leader, Tabitha has worked at the intersection of brand and corporate citizenship for more than 10 years, helping organizations use their strengths and innovative spirit to be a powerful force for good. 

Prior to NI, Tabitha was the first chief marketing officer of Global Wildlife Conservation. She also created and led Dell's corporate social responsibility (CSR) marketing function and did the same for SunPower. Pulling from these experiences, Tabitha built and led the development of NI’s first Corporate Impact strategy, a series of goals and commitments to realize a vision of a more sustainable and equitable world where diversity is embraced to drive innovation.  

Tabitha and her family volunteer with Generation SERVE, an organization focused on developing generations of community-minded leaders. She earned her bachelor’s at Texas Tech, her MBA from St. Edward's University and lives in Austin, Texas, with her two beloved children Meredith and William. When they are not at sports practices or games, her family enjoys camping and being in nature. 

Tabitha Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:

• Transitioning into a career in CSR
• The history of corporate impact at NI
• NI's STEM education initiatives
• Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders

Tabitha's Final Five Question Responses:

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

Speak the language of the business. Know what the different functions of your company really care about and how sustainability can help them achieve their goals. Know that the CMO and what they care about is going to be different than the CFO, as well as the general counsel. General counsel largely is reducing risk. Make sure you're able to to speak their language.

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

Having most recently come from an environmental NGO that was focused on biodiversity and wildlife protection, I will say the overall growing awareness of the importance of biodiversity; it's a twin issue to climate change. Biodiversity is basically our planet's life support system. I get excited when I see more companies talk about what they are doing specifically about protecting ecosystems. CDP has added their forest risk disclosure to to their models; so really seeing things like that. This has been enabled by the SDG goals specifically, like life on land and in life in the oceans.

What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read?

Bill Gates new book: How to Avoid a Climate Disaster. Full transparency, I'm not all the way through yet. I'm on chapter three, I just got it last week. I love it. It's an easy read, it's very accessible, it's interesting. It's a candid look at what we're doing today, but it does offer optimism and solutions as well.

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

The tools are things like exercise, taking breaks. I recently got into meditation and mindfulness. It's things like that. I find exercise is really paramount to my overall mental health and wellbeing. If I'm taking care of my own mental health and my body, that means I can better be of value and service to other people, and I'm just better at my job.

Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work that you're leading at NI?

LinkedIn is the best place. I'm trying to be more active on, on LinkedIn, so do a search for me there.

Ratish Namboothiry is the Director for Innovation for Good and Sustainability at Kohler Co.

Innovation for Good (IfG) is Kohler’s internal volunteer think tank created to incubate new ideas for social impact products that deliver positive solutions. Namboothiry was appointed as the business leader for this team when it was formed in 2018.

Namboothiry is responsible for both strategic and operational leadership for IfG. This includes driving sales and distribution of social impact products, such as the KOHLER Clarity water filtration system, and converting ideas into successful products, technologies and business concepts. Ratish’s passion lies in innovation and solving social problems through the power of business and creative capitalism.

Namboothiry earned his Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from University of Mumbai and Master of Science in mechanical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Ratish Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:

• The importance of transparency in meeting sustainability goals
• Consumer demand for sustainable products/environmental declare labels
• Net Zero environmental impact at Kohler
• The Gates Foundation and Safe Water for All initiative
• The 50 liter home
• The Kohler waste lab - converting manufacturing waste into useful products
• Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders

Ratish's Final Five Question Responses:

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

As a practitioner and a follower of sustainability myself, and I've seen so many people around me who are that way; one thing I've noticed is a lot of us are passionate about the topic and with a lot of passion could come this idealism to a certain degree. There could be frustration that we're trying to drive our projects or goals or initiatives forward, and if we're not successful in implementing them, the word of advice I would offer is don't get frustrated. Always think about how can you move the needle in the right direction, even if it's a really small step. As they say, don't make perfect the enemy of good. If something big cannot be accomplished, don't be disappointed. Instead, think about what are the little things you can do to progress in the right direction. Then over time, some of the bigger steps can be taken.

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

This is just an exciting time to be in the business of sustainability or driving sustainability into businesses, I should say. We're finally seeing sustainability emerge as a real business priority. Not only are companies responding to increased customer demand for sustainable products, but we're also seeing a really remarkable shift in their strategies to integrate it as part of their core operating model. That to me is probably the best place to be as a sustainability practitioner in an organization to be able to drive that sustainability thinking and sustainability practices into the day-to-day of how we make decisions in our companies. From that standpoint, it's no longer about saying that we have a suite of sustainable products. It really is about saying: here's how we're actually integrating sustainability into everything that we do. This is becoming second nature for us.

What is one book you would recommend sustainability leaders read?

I'll go back to the passion on innovation topic. This has been something that has inspired me along the way. I read a lot of innovation books and one of the books that has truly stayed with me along the years is this one called The Innovator's Dilemma, written by late Professor Clay Christensen. He was a professor at Harvard Business School. He wrote this book back in 1997. It's amazing how forward-thinking his ideology was. He offered such usable framework for how large corporations can plan for disruptive market forces and stay ahead of it, and really stay out of some of those external forces that you don't see coming. He coined the phrase of "disruptive innovation." Till this day, I think about it almost on a daily basis as we think about innovation for good and designing our next product and business strategy, and think about how some of those principles from that book can be applied. I really recommend that book to anyone who's interested in reading about how innovation can actually solve some real problems in the world. 

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

We live in such a resource heavy world today. It's very decentralized to be honest. I go to many different resources. When it comes to specifically sustainability and innovation, I listen to a lot of podcasts. Bill Gates is a tremendous resource. If you look at podcasts offered by Bill and the one with Rashida Jones that he's hosting recently; amazing resource. All of the things they talk about in terms of what has inspired Bill; how he grew up, how it led to what he's doing today. All of that is amazing. I think that's really inspirational. When it comes to other topics like leadership, one person I really follow and admire is Simon Sinek. I follow his talks, I read a lot about his work. Very inspiring, but also very practical and actionable in the environment that we live in today.

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

They can find me on LinkedIn. I'd love to connect with your listeners and understand how they're driving sustainability into their strategies and their organizations. To learn more about Kohler, our website is full of stories and updates on our environmental sustainability and social impact initiatives. You could go to our main webpage, which is kohlercompany.com/social-impact. You'll see a lot of really good resources in terms of our annual report that we referenced earlier; our projects and key initiatives there, and our Safe Water For All initiative, which is our signature initiative. You could go to safewaterforall.com to understand what we're doing today and our future projects coming up.

Danielle Jezienicki is the Director of Sustainability for Grove Collaborative, the leading digital-first brand & ecommerce platform for natural home and personal care products. A certified B Corp, Grove serves hundreds of thousands of households in the U.S. every month. Prior to Danielle’s current role at Grove, Danielle was as the Director of Corporate Social Responsibility at Williams-Sonoma, Inc. (WSI) where she supervised ESG reporting and sustainability initiatives for the Company and its West Coast brands including Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids, Pottery Barn Teen, Williams-Sonoma, Rejuvenation and Mark & Graham. Long inspired by the possibilities of sustainability-first consciousness provide, she was an Impact Analyst for four years at Sonen Capital, an investment firm that prioritizes socio-environmental outcomes in conjunction with financial returns. She holds an MBA in Sustainable Management at Presidio Graduate School and BA from Brown University.

Danielle Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:

• Establishing sustainability goals that are both practical yet challenging
• Addressing plastic use and the concept of being plastic neutral at Grove
• Reforestation efforts at Grove
• Advocating for legislation around safety and sustainability in consumer products
• Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders

Danielle'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: your next job is not necessarily your dream job. Just find something that you're going to learn or work on that will eventually get you your dream dream job. It's all a stepping stone. Just keep learning; keep growing your experience. It will all be useful down the line. Get to work, roll up your sleeves. We have so much to do.

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

The focus on regenerative agriculture; this conversation about biodiversity. The shifting is thinking about sustainability as an add on: we use carbon and then we offset it. But becoming a more circular business, and circularity around sustainability. Understanding that it's all connected. It's all one ecosystem. We need to regenerate the soil and take back the materials. It's this growing consciousness about the role that sustainability plays and how important it is to regenerate, not just sustain. 

What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read?

I'm currently reading All We Can Save: Truth, Courage and Solutions for the Climate Crisis. It's really inspiring, and focused on women. I just also read The Overstory, which from a fiction standpoint will give you a good shake and remind you that this is really urgent. We just don't have time to waste.

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

One thing I love that we have at Grove, we use Slack and we have a sustainability channel. I love hearing from non-sustainability people about sustainability things, because you end up in your own bubble inevitably. So I love hearing what other people have to say and what other people are hearing. It opens your world as to how it is that you should be engaging with people who aren't knee deep in this stuff day in, day out.

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

For me personally, LinkedIn is a great place. I try to share all of our major announcements. Then we have a sustainability page, sustainability report, plastic report- that's always on the Grove site: grove.co/sustainability or grove.co/beyondplastic. We will give you the latest and most transparent information: our plastic footprint, what percent is reusable. We're really committed to being super transparent about everything that we're doing.

Danielle Jezienicki is the Director of Sustainability for Grove Collaborative, the leading digital-first brand & ecommerce platform for natural home and personal care products. A certified B Corp, Grove serves hundreds of thousands of households in the U.S. every month. Prior to Danielle’s current role at Grove, Danielle was as the Director of Corporate Social Responsibility at Williams-Sonoma, Inc. (WSI) where she supervised ESG reporting and sustainability initiatives for the Company and its West Coast brands including Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids, Pottery Barn Teen, Williams-Sonoma, Rejuvenation and Mark & Graham. Long inspired by the possibilities of sustainability-first consciousness provide, she was an Impact Analyst for four years at Sonen Capital, an investment firm that prioritizes socio-environmental outcomes in conjunction with financial returns. She holds an MBA in Sustainable Management at Presidio Graduate School and BA from Brown University.

Danielle Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:

• Establishing sustainability goals that are both practical yet challenging
• Addressing plastic use and the concept of being plastic neutral at Grove
• Reforestation efforts at Grove
• Advocating for legislation around safety and sustainability in consumer products
• Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders

Danielle'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: your next job is not necessarily your dream job. Just find something that you're going to learn or work on that will eventually get you your dream dream job. It's all a stepping stone. Just keep learning; keep growing your experience. It will all be useful down the line. Get to work, roll up your sleeves. We have so much to do.

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

The focus on regenerative agriculture; this conversation about biodiversity. The shifting is thinking about sustainability as an add on: we use carbon and then we offset it. But becoming a more circular business, and circularity around sustainability. Understanding that it's all connected. It's all one ecosystem. We need to regenerate the soil and take back the materials. It's this growing consciousness about the role that sustainability plays and how important it is to regenerate, not just sustain. 

What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read?

I'm currently reading All We Can Save: Truth, Courage and Solutions for the Climate Crisis. It's really inspiring, and focused on women. I just also read The Overstory, which from a fiction standpoint will give you a good shake and remind you that this is really urgent. We just don't have time to waste.

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

One thing I love that we have at Grove, we use Slack and we have a sustainability channel. I love hearing from non-sustainability people about sustainability things, because you end up in your own bubble inevitably. So I love hearing what other people have to say and what other people are hearing. It opens your world as to how it is that you should be engaging with people who aren't knee deep in this stuff day in, day out.

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

For me personally, LinkedIn is a great place. I try to share all of our major announcements. Then we have a sustainability page, sustainability report, plastic report- that's always on the Grove site: grove.co/sustainability or grove.co/beyondplastic. We will give you the latest and most transparent information: our plastic footprint, what percent is reusable. We're really committed to being super transparent about everything that we're doing.

Tim serves on the executive leadership team guiding long-term social and environmental strategy for a 220+ acre campus that includes the 4M SF convention center, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the former Georgia Dome, Centennial Olympic Park, and the upcoming Hilton Signia hotel. GWCCA also operates the Savannah Convention Center in Savannah, GA. In this role, he oversees a team focused on executing day-to-day practices including waste diversion and volunteerism. Tim also helped develop and now leads the organization’s first Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) council.

Tim Trefzer Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:

• Managing sustainability over a large campus
• COVID-19's impact on the sports world and how GWCCA has given back
• The value of LEED certification vs. building to standards
• Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders

Tim'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'd give different advice to professionals in different stages of their careers. If I had to give one common piece of advice, it'd be to network and generate those relationships with other individuals that are in the industry, or maybe even not in the industry. When I moved to Atlanta in 2008, I met with a gentleman who is part of, at the time it was called Sustainable Atlanta, it's evolved into the city's sustainability department. The first thing he told me was, it's not about what you know, it's about who you know in this industry. I've really come to find and believe that that's true. It's really about those connections and sustainability. If you're looking for success, whether it's in a business or just personally, it's all about creating those relationships with other individuals, understanding where they're coming from and getting them speaking their language. I've really found that it's a person to person business, and generating those close relationships and that network with others has been really beneficial to me. That's where I'd say others would also benefit.

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

You mentioned it's November and last week was the presidential election. Without getting too political, I'll say that with a Biden administration coming in, I think they will turn the trajectory of our environmental work, at least in this country, around. They, I hope will, reset some of the practices and policies that we've seen change over the last four years. Based on the plan of the Biden administration from an environmental standpoint, rejoining the Paris climate accord, setting very strong targets for the country from a carbon emission reduction standpoint, I'm excited about that. I hope that they'll have a tremendous impact on the world of sustainability, and I believe they will.

What is one book you would recommend sustainability professionals read?

Ray Anderson is a hometown hero in Atlanta, and his book Confessions of a Radical Industrialist, I think is a phenomenal book that any sustainability or business professional should read. Ray Anderson is the founder of Interface, the carpet manufacturing company here in Georgia. It's really just a great book looking at how business can change the world from an environmental standpoint; it can do positive good for both business from a bottom line standpoint, but business from an environmental standpoint. That book, which was written in the nineties, has come to set the standard for business. I think it's just a phenomenal book. That's probably the first of a number of books that Ray Anderson has written that I'd recommend the audience read.

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

Some of my go-to resources: GreenBiz, Sustainable Brands. I do a lot of research in the Harvard Business Review, Bass company. One that I've found a lot of value lately has been Boston College's Center for Corporate Citizenship. They provide a lot of great work from a CSR standpoint. But going back to your first question, I think networking and creating those relationships and working with other individuals like US Green Building Council and the Green Sports Alliance, those organizations have really provided a lot of benefits. I've got a number of different resources and tools, but those are some of the ones that stand out.

Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and your work at the Georgia World Congress Center Authority?

You can go to our website GWCCA.org. You can also find me on LinkedIn, or on Twitter at Tim_Trefzer. Any of those would be great and I'd love to connect with your audience.