Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
We interview sustainability leaders across industries to learn what they are working on and how they are steering their companies toward a climate-friendly world.
Alex - 00:00:00:
Welcome, welcome to Open Source Sustainability podcast. Corinne, obviously you've spent a career in sustainability, but maybe just to kick us off, tell us a little about yourself.
Corrine - 00:00:12:
Thanks Alex. Yeah, so I... I mean, most recently I have just moved from SH Hotels and Resorts, where I was running sustainability for the last three years, to the new VP of Sustainability here at GreenPlaces, which i'm thrilled about. I've had kind of a bizarre track through a sustainability career. I guess that honestly tracks and makes sense though, because I don't think there's one descript way to have a career in sustainability. It's not like going into accounting or something where there was a path laid out for you. I went to school in DC and the air you breathe and the water you drink there is politics. And I jumped in at first. I worked on the hill for a minute and then at a law firm considering maybe going in. Trying criminals in the Hague and the ICC. And when I realized that wasn't for me, I wanted to maintain an interest in human rights and do something that felt compelling. And like I was being productive and giving back to society, which for me was kind of blending a social justice element with working on environmental justice. I joined NRDC and loved it, fell in love with that particular type of law, policy, engagement, and felt that I could do that work for the private sector most fruitfully. So i made a very deliberate move out to California to work for the private sector, joined a consulting firm, sustainability, helmed by John Elkington. Who coined the triple bottom line and was thrilled to land there, really got an in-depth crash course in just about every single industry available to me. And worked mostly with Fortune 500, Fortune 100 companies, consulting, advising on sustainability strategy. And from there, realized that I definitely wanted to go in-house, figure out how implementation would look, all of these programs, recommendations, parsing through reporting frameworks, et cetera, means one thing when you're advising 20 companies and a totally different thing if you're trying to do it all yourself and guide an executive team as to how they should be understanding those goals and priorities. So that was huge for me. I really loved my time at SH and we began working together. It was important for me with a small team to have some support. So yeah, when it came time for me to leave SH, i'm thrilled to have landed here. And that's my little roundabout pathway.
Alex - 00:02:28:
So, I mean, 10 years in sustainability is a long time, so I'm sure you've seen a ton of changes, but where did this come from? I mean, that's basically your career. So, where do you think this started, for you to kind of get in that journey of, this is something that I care about, and it's where I'm going to actually dedicate my career.
Corrine - 00:02:46:
Oh yeah, so when I was living in DC, I got pretty heavily involved in activism, environmental activism. I helped run a campaign, a divestment campaign, with the city, which was just a bunch of 20-somethings and myself trying to figure out how we could get involved working with 350.org, and my friends and colleagues helped run a successful campaign, but it was my first exposure to this kind of question, like what's your why? And I realized that you kind of had to craft one around sustainability, because it exists in this in-between space. If you work in outdoor education or something, maybe you just love being in nature, but to work in sustainability, you have to not only love nature, but love being strategic and love being involved in this sort of maybe corporate space, and I think that's been a little bit hard for me to define my why in that way. What I will say is i've always loved the environment, loved being outside. I now rock climb, I always was that kid rolling around in dirt, running everywhere outside, growing up, loved animals, so I think that there's what you'd think of as traditional bleeding heart, environmentalist component to me that I think that is true, but I've always been really fascinated with problem solving, with trying to, I used to get really offended, people would tell me I’d make a good attorney, I think that's probably true, and then I really ran with that later in life. So I think for me, sustainability is kind of this nice blend of bringing what I think should be essentially true for everyone, which is a deep appreciation for the environment, into every other part of how we understand value and needs as a society. So I mean, I think I am kind of like a wonk at heart as well.
Alex - 00:04:29:
I think that the analogy of the in-between space is really interesting because you're right, it is like, it's not just like I really care, i'm an activist, it's not just that. That in a vacuum has a lot of value and merit, but to migrate to getting businesses to make this leap, that combination of taking, okay, this is what we want to get to, but let's figure out how to align business objectives towards it is a really difficult puzzle to solve. That's just like a really unique way. Well, over the last 10 years, sustainability, I feel like, has moved from something that some businesses really did because it was part of who they were. But fast-forwarding to today, you've got law firms doing sustainability, you've got obviously hotels, and not just the ones that are very branded in the sustainability side. But maybe talk to me a little bit about what you've seen over the last 10 years as this has moved from something that people do because they've kind of built their brand around it, or maybe they have a leader who's particularly interested in it, to something that is where it is today, which is almost like a requirement for the way customers view us, investors view us, the way employees view companies. It's more of like a, this is just a part of every business operation.
Corrine - 00:05:49:
Yeah, I think that's right. I do think that sustainability, in many ways, is now table stakes. I think that sustainability got its start as, in parallel to the way the environmental movement took hold, certainly in this country, which has very much saved the whales' philanthropic understanding of sustainability and giving back to the environment, to the community, society, whatever that framing looked like for that company. I think that the drumbeat has long been, do this to save the whales or save our children. And in the environmental movement, it kind of pivoted at some point to, the urgency actually is really around doing this for ourselves. And in fact, the environment doesn't need us to save it. We are wholly dependent on the natural resources that we are stripping it of to create business value, “business value”. And in fact, it's essential to our own survival, our own success, our own growth, our own prosperity, for us to be understanding the true value of the environment, not so far as it creates financial value exclusively, but in its own right. And so I think that's kind of like a lofty way of saying that I think that we've just become more aware of urgency, criticality of dealing with negative impacts that we've made on the planet. And then I think that... Like even if you go back to the early days of business creation in this country. There was this concept of a social license to operate. What value are you bringing that people are going to want from your business? And I think that holds true today and that's become more sophisticated too. So this pivot away from philanthropic endeavors is really a desire to prove this social license to operate. Patagonia, it creates great clothes, right? But people love the mission because it comes from somebody who really lived their ethos, building their own tools, rock climbing, exploring and adventuring outside and has a real respect for the environment and wants to do something that betters the world in which all of those activities take place. So I think you're seeing that with law firms, with everyone, that they know that they have real value to society and they know that they have potential negative impacts that they need to mitigate. So those two things together build a true sustainability strategy now.
Alex - 00:08:04:
It's interesting because I never really thought about it from this migration from philanthropy to sustainability. And it's almost like philanthropy for a lot of businesses, I think historically, was we're going to set aside some funds and we're going to support a charity or a non-profit or we're going to support something with what we have. This view is sustainability is actually looking inward at the business to say, well, are we... Are we doing things that are in line or out of line with the resources we consume, with the expectations of our customers, are we wasteful or are we not? These are all more like business things, it's more of an introspection. A sustainable business is an efficient business. A sustainable business has more value that they provide to customers. It's not just a branded, every year we support our local baseball team and we support these initiatives, this is very much like an internal, almost like an operations view, which is really an interesting view.
Corrine - 00:09:04:
I think you touched too on sort of like the investor piece, right? That if you want to see the health of a company, you need to look at its full picture. If you're only looking at financial value, then you're missing a significant part of the picture. And so you see so much with the conversation around divestment, stranded assets, et cetera, with the fossil fuel industry. I think that investors have really been instrumental in this transition towards sustainability being embedded within all companies because they want to see, do you understand what the are to you as a company with regard to the environment, to resources, to your potential to operate in a climate stress environment, for example. So that also is like the future development of the space.
Alex - 00:09:42:
Well, it's interesting too because we've always talked about, or at least i've always thought about sustainability and the more historic word of people, planet, and profits, the triple bottom line idea, as opposed to just like the ESG moniker that we have now. And it's funny, like my family's from, like grew up in Michigan, and towns up there that in a lot of ways like the... The corporate businesses supported the communities. They built the schools, and they did that because they knew that if their most precious resource was people, and if they didn't support those towns, if they didn't have the schooling there, if they didn't have the infrastructure that was needed, they weren't going to be able to hire the best talent. In a weird way, there's a lot of similarities to that because it's like, we need to recruit the best people, and we need to be able to support more than just the product that we have. We have to support the people who build it and the communities that live around it. All of these things, to me, just add up to this thing of sustainability is not something that you add to your business, it's something that it's already a part of it. It's a lens at which you can really improve the way that you operate and be more successful.
Corrine - 00:10:52:
Yeah. I think that's true. I think some companies need help teasing that out and understanding-
Alex - 00:10:56:
It's confusing. It's like a hard leap of fate to be able to make those connections, especially I think as people associate this stuff more typically with, as you mentioned, philanthropy, which is great, but has a different mechanism within it. There's a lot of education here. What do you, on that note, getting started on this stuff is so hard. That's the number one thing that we hear. I know obviously you worked at SH and one hotels and the group there, but over your last 10 years, what have you observed in terms of both the fear of people getting started or what kind of causes that? And then what sort of advice do you give people to say, how do you actually begin this thing?
Corrine - 00:11:37:
So you mean any company or individual at a company that's starting on their journey of sustainability?
Alex - 00:11:42:
Yeah, i'm just curious. It's funny, I think a lot of people believe in this stuff. I know the data supports that, but the action lags the interest. And it's like, why? What drives that? What have you observed over the years?
Corrine - 00:11:57:
Well, I definitely empathize with, I mean, I kind of got into this field. I guess it was more in sort of policy advisory capacity and business strategy, but certainly always with an environmental lens. So I really empathize with the individuals who did not come in with any of that background and are expected to deal with sustainability. Because there's a lot of technical background that would be useful. You know, just understanding ways in which natural cycles work and how your impact really does have an effect on the community in which you operate. That would be useful, understanding every different part of the business because we know that sustainability touches every single part of the business. So if you come in as an accountant or you work in ops and you're supposed to figure out your sustainability strategy, it's a very tall order to become an expert all of a sudden in all of these other things that you might not have any backing in. So I guess my advice typically to those who are asking, how do I get started, is to get help. That you could spend your wheels for a really long time forcing yourself to educate around all of these different aspects and it's really not necessary. There's a wealth of knowledge out there. Tons of experts, consultants, et cetera. I think getting plugged into the network is like the first and hardest step. So I think I like things like this, the podcasts, et cetera, and networks that are available like Open Source Sustainability to get plugged in and figure out what is everyone else talking about, what do I need to be responsive to? And then my recommendation is really to go inward about requests that you're getting. So let's take a hospitality company because that's where I just came from. I was curious when I started. Who's talking about sustainability here and your other stakeholders? What do they care about? What are guests asking? What are the customer service ratings looking like? Are there complaints? Do people understand how our systems work internally? So talking to our food and beverage team about where's the waste go? Do you know anything about our contracts? How are we composting and separating? Asking our financial team, what statements are you typically looking at? How does information get delivered to you on sustainability? And then to our lawyers and investment team, asking them what requests are you getting? And what I found is that everyone was getting a lot of dialogue on sustainability and they were just not sure how to answer a lot of those questions. So they needed a centralized way to organize data and then they could start to be responsive to some of these questions. That's a great place to start. Just like what data do we have? Who's asking what? Can I get it all organized? And then you can start to identify gaps. And then there are tons of third parties that I would recommend for various types of gaps that you'd have.
Alex - 00:14:35:
So, step one, it sounds like, as you start to think about building the case for action in a business is to centralize all of this information. Who's asking? Customers? Are they asking? Investors? Are they asking? And start to get the full picture there. And then from there, being able to set up actions like anything else is evaluating vendors and things like that to solve those things.
Corrine - 00:14:58:
Exactly. And I do think that there is a dearth of data on sustainability at every company. No matter how much of a legacy of sustainability already exists where you are, you're going to find that there's some new requests that you don't have access to that data yet, or you just don't have a backing. You know that you do something but you haven't really been tracking it. And so I think that just knowing what you don't know is step one, and then you can start to organize all of the data accordingly. Figuring out, actually we don't have a centralized tracking of our utility bills. Is it an early thing that we interact at this company as well? With lots of other companies, they go, we pay it when no one's checking, is it right? And actually we see these huge spikes and drops and we don't understand why. And so seeing that, seeing that one there's a request, so now you have backing to say, actually I need this and I maybe can put funds back behind getting access to this information is a really good step. And then critical that you just understand where you're at. Your footprint is I think the truest north star of that because there's lots of external validation of reporting frameworks and what data you're supposed to be collecting, how you should look at it, so you can understand and compare your footprint. But yeah, just getting the full picture of all of your data, what you have access to and what you don't, I think is critical to understanding where you can go.
Alex - 00:16:17:
It's hard to improve anything if you can't measure it. And I'm always, I feel like I always take the optimistic view of people that I also think if you give people good data, then people make better decisions.
Corrine - 00:16:28:
Totally, and I think that like the, people criticize this, but the what gets measured gets managed adage. I generally think that that is, I guess half true, half false. So I think that what matters gets measured. So like you manage what's important to you as a company, but you can't manage anything if you don't have the data. So you have to measure to make change to your point. But yeah, I think just because you measure the data doesn't mean just because if show my company, hey look, actually we could make all of these savings on our utility bills if we work on this type of electrification at this property. And here I can show the ROI. That might not necessarily get you all the way. I think that you do need to make the case for when, why, and how. Here's the vendor, here's how it'll fit in with our budgeting plans, et cetera. There's more that has to happen that will compel your business, but you can't get there unless you start with. What is our footprint currently looking like, and here's an ROI, and companies like ours can help give some of that information.
Alex - 00:17:25:
The thing that I found interesting, obviously in conversations with you over the years, is a lot of people have actually resources to help too. Utilities and federal and local governments have incentives, a lot of incentives to give people discounts on everything from ovens and stoves to even in some cases like paying for systems like GreenPlaces to better water management and rebates, and then there's like a whole world of tax and policies and all these things. But even beyond that, you've got vendors who have ways to do this too. Like as you started down this journey with SH and One hotels, as you engaged your vendors, were you surprised to hear that these folks actually had options or they had actually already thought about it or was it like, I can't believe you're asking me that or did you have people who said, oh, i'm so glad that you did, we actually do have stuff here?
Corrine - 00:18:22:
Yeah, I mean, I think that I often kind of had that moment of like, oh, thank God. I was really worried about how we were going to tackle this problem. But it seems that you've already thought it through, especially on rebates, incentive side, purchasing renewable energy, talking with municipalities about what programs are available. There are people with a wealth of knowledge. It's a lot, it's a lot. And if you're dealing with a company that has many different locations or works internationally with many locations, it's really challenging and you might have to sort of start from scratch each time. Is part of what makes it necessary to get some support and some help. I mean, I think people think, oh, it's a sustainability strategy, just roll it out, one size fits all, it's fine. But it's not true. What resonates in the united states probably doesn't resonate in the UK, probably doesn't resonate in Japan. So I just think that like, yes, you can definitely find a wealth of knowledge and resources and finding, I think, some sort of partnership out there that can help you navigate each of those questions is really critical. It is really heartening, I will say, to see how much opportunity there is. Tax incentives, rebates, incentives, et cetera. It feels like it's finally happening. I'm sure you're aware of the climate burnout, like if you work in this field. Yes. Just looking at bad news all day can get really overwhelming and it doesn't mean that we're not acknowledging that that's very much true, but I think that it's important to stay hopeful and one of the things that gives me hope is seeing positive regulation, is seeing encouragement and tax incentives, and that's the wonk in me that gets excited about those things, but I do feel like finally there's something to take advantage of that will make it. Not just business necessary to do these things, but business desirable. They'll want to do these things because there's money to recoup.
Alex - 00:20:14:
Well, and that's the thing that I was coming back to, too. I think we're in such a lucky position of timing with all of this type of stuff, because there are an incredible amount of incentives available to do these things. Both in your own business, you've got customers who care about it, and it's such an easy win to be able to build a better brand loyalty amongst the next generation. You've got, obviously, investor and cost of capital, which makes those really easy. I've got people who call us, who've been developing and building properties for a decade, saying, hey, I heard that if I do it this way, I get a better loan on it. Suddenly I'm really interested in it, and that's great. That's a good tool for people to have. Obviously, you have the regulation, you've got the investor pressure, something like 70-75% of investors want this information when making decisions, so there's a lot of positive push from that perspective. But as you mentioned, everybody around us, whether it's a municipality, utility, a county, is looking to incentivize this behavior because they want to get there too. It's just kind of confusing and it's hard and you're right. It's like these things pop-up in different markets and they're localized and so like anything else, when there's lots of things going on, there's always lots of really good opportunity and my suspicion is that brands that learn how to figure this out are going to be way more successful over the next 10 years. You know, we talk a lot about this, but it's just... I have a ton of empathy for people that are trying to run a business now. It's hard to run a business in general. When you're facing the never-ending recession right around the corner, you're facing inflation, you're facing probably the most volatile commodities market in the last five years. Unbelievable. You've got the price of energy and gas, which is ever more elastic and is just going to continue to go in that direction. Because even as international turmoil heats up or slows down, you also have the fact that there's a huge energy transition. So, the utilities themselves aren't as stable in terms of figuring out how to do these things. So, the cost of energy ... I think I saw something that said by 2050 now, the cost of solar will be by far the cheapest. Power source, when that happens, it's like everything else is going to move around. So you have all of this stuff that is going to make it much harder to be successful and to be profitable, which also makes it really important and very opportunistic for businesses that can get their stuff straight and figure out the basics of how to actually navigate these things, because they'll operate as better businesses. Not even just more sustainable ones, but just truly better businesses.
Corrine - 00:23:07:
Yeah, it's complex by nature. And I think that the early sustainability movement was trying to compel companies to feel like it was in their own interest to invest in sustainability. And now most companies get it. I mean, if there's a company out there that's still wondering, well, do my guests or clients or customers care at all? Yes, they care. Broad strokes, mostly they care. And not that they want to pay more or less for these services based on sustainability, but just they do care. They expect table stakes that you're doing something about this because you operate in this environment. But I think that now that companies are on board, they're facing this complexity and wanting to be better and struggling to figure out how do I prioritize these things? Do I build my own fleet of solar panels over our garage? Is it better for me to opt into a program? What's available near me? And that question requires you to speak to, at minimum, a couple of different vendors who are going to show you their own ROI on the solar panels, your utility company, maybe other local incentives programs that operate within or outside the utility company that can talk to you about them. Maybe a consultant. So it's a lot. It's a lot to figure out. So I have empathy.
Alex - 00:24:24:
It's tough. So, obviously you've had this wealth of experience with all different types of businesses and been working in this for such a long time. What does a VP of Sustainability do at GreenPlaces? Obviously you're going to help us with our sustainability, but what is the service that you're providing to help everybody that works within green places? What does your role do?
Corrine - 00:24:51:
It's a good question. And it's actually when i've been getting a lot, sort of like, sustainability at a sustainability software company, like what do you do? And I would love to just say, you know, my job is done already actually. Thank you, I just sit around. Yeah, at SH or even advising any of the companies that I worked for previously, it's quite clear, right? Or you would hope it's pretty clear. You're helping those companies become more sustainable. And I think that it's very similar here. I am working with our clients quite directly to support their sustainability journeys in a similar way that I would have done as a consultant, sometimes helping them shape their strategies and discussions, picking priorities. But the benefit of doing it here is that I have a wealth of data and information at my backing. And I think if you look even 10 years ago, colleagues of mine, former colleagues of mine, and I would talk about this all the time, like if only we had access to this type of data or that type of data, this would be so much easier. And we would do all kinds of things that were available to us at the time, like I got savvy on the Bloomberg terminal or learned these different databases. And Factiva was like an early media scanner tool. You remember Factiva. So we tried all these things to figure out how to give better sustainability business intelligence and at GreenPlaces you can go straight to the source. You can aggregate all that data, have real-time information underpinning the advice that you're giving to companies. And enabling them to advise themselves. Because I think there's a certain amount of learning the landscape that we can support. And then we can equip companies to understand how to read this information and continue to prioritize, re-strategize as they need to, as they go through mergers and acquisitions, as their business priorities change, as their markets shift. And it's, again, just it's critical that they have all of that information at the ready. And then I think that there's a fair amount of funneling and channeling this newness of information, the shifting regulatory environment, reporting frameworks, evolution in that space is happening rapidly right now as we know. That it's just going to continue to be a real challenge for any one individual at a company to manage all of their sustainability operations, all the education they're doing with employees, customers, guests, et cetera, and figuring out what's coming at them next. And not every attorney or legal team internally or investor team has the capacity to parse those things either. So I think we serve as kind of like that intelligence segment for them as well. So yeah, so i'm still advising companies on their sustainability strategies, just with a lot more data behind me. I also will be doing our own sustainability work. I mean, i've only been here a short time. But, doing our carbon accounting, figuring out our footprint, trying to figure out how to mitigate it. We're pretty small in that regard.
Alex - 00:27:32:
I just bike to work for the first day, so I'm actively, you being in town has made me, we have one less commuter, so.
Corrine - 00:27:42:
Good, I'm glad to hear that. For this trip too, I ditched the car and I've been riding lime scooters around Raleigh, it's been quite fun.
Alex – 00:27:48:
That's great.
Corrine – 00:27:50:
But yeah, I think that, and this would come up a lot whenever I worked with companies in the software space, where they'd be like, well, our footprint's pretty small, data center is here, but we've managed that with renewable energy in this way. But then your sustainability impact really extends to positive potential impact with your customers and clients. And I think that, for us, is our most material issue. And how do we address that? What kind of clients are we working with? How are we supporting them? How are we helping them hold themselves accountable in this evolving space?
Alex - 00:28:22:
So basically what i'm hearing is, and obviously you have tons of experience with these companies that have done this so, so well. Obviously the Fortune 100 and Fortune 500, but even brands like 1 Hotel, which is very much a leader in sustainable hospitality, and then and to paraphrase, you're taking what these folks have been building up for decades of the best practices and how to do this type of stuff and how to think about it. And then helping to use, with the power of this technology, to bring that to the masses. As we make sustainability mainstream ... They're getting real advice and real guidance without having to go develop this and build it out themselves. The plans are there, now we've got to get it into everyone's hands so that they have a personalized and a highly impactful way to be able to reach their goals. And you're the conduit of doing that.
Corrine - 00:29:20:
Totally, and you would never, in a modern business environment, expect anyone doing their job to do it without any tools. The stewarding team at the 1 Hotels, they had a tool for tracking waste. You couldn't expect them to do that and just get their job done if they had no trainings, no provisions to do that work. So the same is true for sustainability. You need to equip your teams with tools if you want them to be successful. Don't just let them... Language out there trying to figure out how to collect their data in spreadsheets and documents anymore. We've moved past that point, and they really can't be successful in such a demanding environment unless you equip them.
Alex - 00:30:00:
Yeah, I always think about the amount of tools that we invest in for the business, just for our business to operate. It's an absolute incredible amount of softwares and services and code bases that really lift us up to the point that our business can operate without having to literally develop every single thing that we do from scratch. And in today's world, it's a way to be more efficient and more sustainable to be able to have tools and things that allow you to do the things that you want to do. I always think a great way to think about building any sort of a business or tool is removing all the things that people don't like doing and then allowing them to spend their time on things that they want to, the things that make them impactful. Whether that's the 80-20 rule, we're going to take 20% of that, 20% of the effort to drive 80% of the value, or here's all of this. Very necessary admin work of collecting and centralizing data that predates any decision that you can make. And if you remove that, then suddenly businesses can actually start to do these things. And so, taking that off of their plate so they can actually make impact is I think going to be a very, very impactful way to really influence the broad market as we all start to come to terms with doing these things. Where do you think things are going? Obviously we've got the regulatory environment, we've got an election in two years, we've got ... We've got all kinds of stuff. Like, what does this look like in five years?
Corrine - 00:31:37:
Yeah. I mean, I think that we're going to see. We're going to see some concerning things on climate adaptation and climate change risk, for sure. That's inevitable and I think that that is going to drive alarm and concern. I think that you'll see some reactivity from companies on that front and hopefully from governments as well. But like I said before, I think. You know, I remain quite hopeful. And the reason that I remain hopeful is that I think that... We've never had this level of sophistication of understanding our impact. We've never had this level of sophistication in the interventions as well. I mean, I think technology is going to serve us quite well, but also we've organized and are continuing to organize resources around solutions that don't necessarily involve radical technology as well. So I love project drawdown. I love the way that they've organized solutions. And I think that we're finally seeing companies take those to heart as an organizing mechanism for how they might want to think about investing in solutions. We certainly take that into account when we talk about what kind of offsets do we want to invest in, what needs funding, what needs investment there. And companies have not ever had as clear of a picture as now as to their impacts. So going into those conversations five years ago with investors, developers, owners, asset managers, et cetera, and saying, well, we really think we need to invest in this. It would help our sustainability agenda. The case wasn't there. You'd have to rely on third parties and estimates saying, well, it could be like this. And they'd go, well, I would never invest in anything without some sort of concrete measure. When can you get that to us? And the answer is now. Finally, now we can show you this is really what the ROI looks like on this. And so I think that you're going to see rapid investment from companies in their own businesses to make them more sustainable. And I think you're going to see a lot of external pressure that is driven by concerning events and climate that will ultimately net to real results in action. And if I didn't believe that, I wouldn't still be working in this space. But I have a really wonderful community of people i've worked with over the years have been very lucky in my career to work with lots of people that I respect that have expressed concerns and fears and hopelessness at times and rebounded based on what they see and this movement moving forward. And I would say that I felt that too, that sort of like going in-house for a company for three years, you can get a little bit socked in. Like you get really focused on your own operations and what's happening. And as i've kind of stepped back and like looked around me a little bit more, i'm thrilled to see advancements from all different types of companies. I obviously don't support greenwashing of any kind, but I want to see companies talking about what they're doing constantly. I think it's a good information share and I think it makes people compete and I think it gets people excited about what's possible. And so I think that, yeah, it's going to be an explosion of activity given that companies can finally say, we're working on this program and here's what it did for us and here's what it did for the environment and here's why we're proud of it.
Alex - 00:34:44:
It's interesting, there's a tipping point in almost every market where, particularly ones that are so public facing, where you go from people, you get to the, of course those people do it, and then wow, a lot of people around me are doing it, and then suddenly you get to the tipping point where it's, now you're the company that didn't do it. And I think when we see that happening, and we start to feel like it's not just the Patagonia’s or the Nike’s or this law firm or that financial services company or that hotel that's doing this, it's really the expectation for everybody is it's there, and you're actually making a stand by not doing it. That's the part I think at which the rush of everyone getting there is going to just really explode.
Corrine - 00:35:30:
Yeah, that I think is very true. And I think the other part that I left out is that we've seen a lot of activity from the Fortune 500s and 100s, but I think the explosion really will be with smaller companies that finally have access to this information, these tools, and can say, we've been trying to create a sustainable business with very little resources up to this point, and now we know that we can actually play in this space, and need to because so many emissions are coming from that segment of the market anyway.
Alex - 00:36:00:
We could coin it as trickle-down sustainability. It's funny, we talked about that a lot where we used to get questions a lot, like, why aren't you focusing on the Fortune 500? It was like, okay, well, look at history. How has the Fortune 500 solved every challenge? It's pressured their suppliers and their vendors to do it. That's the power that they have. They have the power to say, if you want my contract, this is what you have to do. Walmart's done it for decades. And when every Fortune 500 was setting these very public net zero targets and public climate goals, all I could keep thinking was, you, all of these people realize that you're about to get an email, it's going to happen. It's whether it's in the next 6 months or 12 months or 18 months, the other shoe will drop. Suddenly, these things that you thought were only reserved for the world's largest businesses are becoming a reality and an expectation, and in many cases, a very urgent issue to be able to comply. I've seen it in every space. I've seen it in, obviously, I've seen it in business services and traditional companies and professional services, but you get law firms who are like, I'm going to lose this client for things that I didn't expect I might lose it for. You've got suppliers that are really trying to gain visibility in their supply chain because they're nervous that they've got something in there that's going to mess up their big client relationship. You've even got hotels and restaurants that have lost big corporate deals with conferences and bookings and group events where someone just said, like for like, I'm not going to do it. In a weird way, not a weird way, and also, I guess, a different parallel from that, last week we had on Nick, the CEO from Hunt Club. It's a big executive search and search fund. He said, I've had to explicitly tell companies that you lost out on this candidate for something that you could have solved and it was just not addressing sustainability. You were the better company, you were the right fit, you had everything lined up, and it was between you and somebody else, and they said the reason that they chose them was because you didn't have a position on sustainability, you hadn't done the basic blocking and tackling to get there. And these are things that just crush a CEO to lose on something that isn't about just the product that you're doing. That's never the way that you want to lose. You don't want to lose on a technicality. You want to lose because your product wasn't as good. Well, that's super interesting and I think it'll be fun to watch this journey with you over the next five to ten years as we get there. There's a lot, obviously, that we've discussed. But is there anything that you’ve wished that you could tell somebody about sustainability. Something for folks that are listening, whether they're business owners or the lone green team member and their big corporate monolith that they're trying to get up there. It's just a person who just really cares and is trying to figure out how to juggle sustainability and profitability or sustainability and survival or whatever it might be. What's one piece of advice that you would share? One thing that you wish they would know?
Corrine - 00:39:19:
Oh God. I think the question I still get a lot is do individual choices matter? And I think from companies too, how much does it matter if we get rid of plastic straws? And i've worked with a lot of food and beverage companies, they're like, we're tackling the straw thing, okay, so let's get that out of the way, we promise we're working on that, but let's turn to something else. On that, i'm like, the plastic straw is such a minor. I know it got a lot of attention. If you're a food company and you serve seafood, I’d rather talk about that in terms of plastic impact. But I think that... I guess I would say absolutely individual choices matter, and individual choices matter for your company. And what I mean by that is involving your employees and your team members in the conversation around sustainability is the only way that you're going to be successful. Even if you mitigate all of the greenhouse gas emissions that you are explicitly responsible for. And the reason I say that is because it doesn't matter if one individual throws something in a different bin or starts their own at-home composting. What matters is that you do that thing and you talk about it and you get other people involved. And by making those individual shifts, you are encouraging other people to be thinking about it, which leads to larger decisions in your apartment. Let's say you start composting, you've got other people in your building to do it, now your building is doing it, now there's a model for how to do that at other buildings, other people get involved. That leads to municipal changes, maybe there's incentives and benefits that come through from the city that are saying, actually, if you've proved this out, we could do this on a wider scale. And then they start to figure out how to do that. There's regulatory impact. And you see this with everything. No law around sustainability or incentive system came from nowhere. It came from individuals figuring out how to make this happen, how to make it work. So if you at your company think, well, if I make this one change, what difference will it make? You're thinking about it in an isolated way. But really, you could potentially show your entire company how to make this change, have them start to implement it as policy, put resources behind it, get everyone involved. So make the change, try it out. If you fail, try something else. But talk to your colleagues about it, get them involved. And then second, you're not alone. There's a lot more resources out there to figure out how to do those things than there was 10 years ago. And there will be more and more resources going forward. So start to reach out, talk to people. I have been surprised my entire career by who's willing to talk to me. I remember when I was first starting out getting advice of like, okay, well you want to coffee chat with somebody or an interview, like here's how you go about it. Doors were open. Like it was very easy because you're working in this field and we all need people working in this field. I'm still constantly talking with grad students, people reaching out all the time saying, can you just give me some advice? Yeah, happily, I want more people working in this field. I will take time out of my day to talk to you about this. So yeah, I think your individual choices absolutely matter and there's lots of resources available to get it done. So keep hope, keep heart.
Alex - 00:42:19:
That's great. Well, I really, really appreciate you taking the time to chat today. I know you're very busy and you got a lot going on, but really, really appreciate you taking the chance to sit down and talk. Also very, very excited that you're part of the team. We're so happy to have you. And I know you're going to do just amazing work. You've already driven so much impact today. And i'm just very excited to be able to be a part of your journey through all this type of stuff and be able to do it with you. So thank you.
Corrine - 00:42:48:
Thank you, that's very kind. I'm thrilled to be here. I'm thrilled to be working in sustainability still. Who knew that that was going to happen? And yeah, I think there's a lot of great work that we can do. And our team is growing, so i'm excited to meet more of our people. Expand our reach and continue to grow with you all.
Alex - 00:43:07:
That's right, yeah. I mean, we're hiring at every position, and I always tell folks, most people don't get to have a background fully in sustainability, but if it's something that you want to do and you like to solve puzzles, there's a place for you here. So I think it's an absolutely amazing job opportunity to work in sustainability and to get interested in it, whether you're an account manager, customer success, seller, developer, activist, and accountant. I mean, it's like every opportunity for somebody can take their skills and they can push it in a direction that really matters. And I agree with you, when I was in school, if you got a degree in sustainability, you probably don't work in sustainability today, unless you were able to thread the needle and be the environmental lawyer, get that one a lot, but beyond that, it's hard to do, but today is just such a great job. So, well, we're really excited to have you, and thank you for taking the time.
Corrine - 00:44:03:
Thanks so much, Alex.