Sophie Beckham is VP and Chief Sustainability Officer at International Paper (IP), where she works across the enterprise to advance sustainability strategy development and Vision 2030 goal achievement. She also serves as the company’s primary external spokesperson and thought leader on issues related to sustainability and stewardship. Her career has been dedicated to driving sustainable business outcomes through purposeful leadership in consumer goods and forest product manufacturing sectors.
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John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact Podcast. I’m John Shegerian and I’m so honored to have with me today, Sophie Beckham. She’s the Chief Sustainability Officer of International Paper. Welcome to the Impact Podcast, Sophie.
Sophie Beckham: Hi, John. Thanks so much for having me.
John: You’ve never been on the show yet, which I’m so glad to have you on, and I’ve never covered this topic of paper. And so this is going to be a great show, Sophie. Before we get talking about everything with regards to what you and your colleagues are doing in sustainability at International Paper, I’d love you to first share the Sophie Beckham story. Where’d you grow up and how’d you get on this important journey that you’re on?
Sophie: Thanks. Yeah, I am a product of the Eastern seaboard. So I started my journey in Connecticut and made my way down South to North Carolina and made a lot of stops in between. I got into this space probably because as a child, I had a lot of experiences in forests and anybody who’s ever been for a walk in the woods, whether you live in a city or you live in the country, connects with forests on some emotional level. So that struck a chord with me and it took me into an education in biology and ultimately a master’s in forestry. And it brought me into working in the world of forest products and ultimately to International Paper where I’ve been for about 12 years.
John: And you didn’t leave far from home. I mean, let’s just say, you went to one of the greatest schools for environmental studies in the world. You went to the Yale School of Environment.
Sophie: That’s exactly right. And at the time, it was called the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and it was the forest part that I gravitated towards. So that’s right, it was a great launching off point to my career.
John: So, you and I know, Sophie, sustainability can be read very narrowly and widely and has an alphabet soup of acronyms nowadays that are tossed around. In terms of your day to day, week to week, month to month, quarter to quarter, year to year role at International Paper, how do you read and define sustainability in terms of what you do with your team?
Sophie: Sure. I think sustainability is a long-term plan, essentially. And so what I’m constantly reminding my team of is that the actions we take today and the way we work today have implications—decades, if not a generation into the future. So whether that’s putting things in motion or having a positive impact, particularly when you’re talking about forests, which have a much longer lifespan than say agriculture, the things that we do today, the action we take today can have a positive or a negative impact generations down the road. So I think we have to ask for things, what are we doing today that we might look back on 20, 30, 50 years and cringe and say, “Oh my gosh, how could we have possibly thought that was okay from a social or environmental perspective.” And so thinking about where we are now and kind of figuring out how to see around corners into the future is a really important part of what we do. We are futurists in the very sense of it. We think about actions today and how we can prepare the company for another 126 years. We’ve been around a long time. We want to continue to operate.
John: I love what you just said. You know, 16 and a half years we’ve been doing this shows, so many amazing and wonderful people have made this show what it is. It’s the guests that make this show; chief sustainability officers, chief impact officers. I’ve never been ever—no one’s ever brought up the fact that really sustainability officers or impact officers are really futurists. That’s great.
Sophie: We have to be.
John: That’s really, really great. You know, for our listeners and viewers, first of all, just so they understand the size and scope of International Paper a little bit, annual revenues north of $18.9 billion at the end of 2024, over 39,000 employees in 250 locations in more than 10 countries and 35 US states. And to find Sophie and her colleagues and all the important work they’re doing in sustainability, please go to www.internationalpaper.com. Sophie, I know you have a big announcement though. You’ve recently grown since the end of 2024. International Paper and the size and scope of what you’re doing has grown. Can you share with our audience a little bit of what’s happened recently?
Sophie: Yeah, we’re in a really exciting time. I think in 2024 we have a new CEO join us and he’s really led us with an 80-20 mindset into a new era of transformation for the company. So you mentioned before we were a paper company, we’ve been a paper company for a very long time. We’re still a paper company in the sense that we make fiber-based packaging, but we are transforming into a sustainable packaging solutions provider. And as part of that transformation in early ’25, we closed an acquisition of a really amazing European company called DS Smith, which nearly doubles our packaging footprint. So we are now North American, European with trading offices and sales globally, and are really aiming to be a global packaging leader in the space of sustainable packaging. So it’s an exciting time for us, meeting new colleagues and collaborating. DS Smith has a really incredible track record on sustainability and so we’re sharing knowledge and sort of figuring out where we go from here.
John: That’s fascinating. Was packaging part of your mandate before, or is this sort of a new space for you?
Sophie: No, it’s a great question. For the last few years, we’ve been about 85% packaging. We have a small cellulose fibers or pulp business. And prior to the last few years, we were a paper business—the kind of paper you can see on your desk; the copy paper and other things. And that’s our origin story. We were really a paper company starting in the late 1800s. And over the years with mergers and acquisitions and changes in markets, and also the demand for paper, which has changed over time with the advent of technology, we’ve also pivoted to packaging. And so usually you’re more excited about what’s in that box that arrives on your doorstep than the box itself. But those are the things that we make and help commerce and trade function at a global level.
John: Really, more and more what I’m seeing is less and less use of the alphabet soup of acronyms of, for instance, ESG and DEI and all that other stuff, and more and more talk of the shift, the generational shift from the linear to circular economy. What does circularity mean to International Paper from where you sit?
Sophie: Yeah, first of all, I agree with you on the on the moving away from acronyms and kind of thinking in a systems based way. And I think that’s how we actually have to think in order to impact change. I used to say, we were circular before circular was cool. Our system is a naturally virtuous cycle. So we take both virgin fiber from sustainably managed forests, and we take recovered fiber, the kind that you recycle in your bin at your house. And we put those together in our manufacturing process and transform them into boxes. And those boxes are used and hopefully they’re recovered again and brought back into the system. So I think we fit really well into a model of a low carbon circular economy, but we still have opportunities within that cycle to think about how do we advance circularity of the material inputs to our processes? What do we do with our waste? How can we have a beneficial use of that waste? And how do we think about really products or some of the inputs to our products at end of life? How do we encourage recycling at the municipal level? So I think there are a lot of opportunities for improvement and for really delivering on the promise of circularity. But really, I think our industry is well suited to be a leader in that particular way.
John: Do you put out every year an annual impact or sustainability report?
Sophie: Thank you for the prompt. We put our sustainability report out just about two weeks ago, and we are really proud that in addition to that, we have put out our annual climate report, which is modeled after one of our favorite acronyms, the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures. This week, and just in advance of Earth Day, we put out our first Task Force on Nature-Related Financial Disclosures, our TNFD report. Those are all available on our website, which you kindly mentioned.
John: Right. And it lives in perpetuity up on internationalpaper.com.
Sophie: You bet.
John: That’s awesome. So, with regards to carbon, how is that journey going in terms of reducing your carbon footprint and creating a more flat carbon future for International Paper?
Sophie: Sure. I think you’ve hit on the topic of climate and carbon being the most interesting to our stakeholders, our customers and our investors, our employees. We hear a lot about climate and carbon from those entities and our customers in particular want to know how are we helping them deliver on their climate targets. We operate manufacturing facilities. You know, many of them, just to give you a sort of a visual, are the size of a football field. And we operate lots of those facilities in the US and now, of course, in Europe. The challenge in heavy manufacturing of decarbonization is real. And so what we’re doing is assessing what are all of the tactics that we could deploy to reduce our annual greenhouse gas emissions. And that’s everything from implementing changes in our processing equipment, looking at the way we use heat to, you can say, cook wood into a fiber-based packaging and figuring out other sources of thermal energy, to really thinking about what can we do in our scope three, our suppliers, as well as our downstream partners to reduce emissions. So we have to have sort of an all systems, all hands on deck, all systems on the table approach to decarbonization. And I’m transparent in saying that we have been pretty challenged by that in the last few years. And that doesn’t mean we’re not working hard on a pathway. So we’ve communicated kind of what we think our key tactics are to get there and to reach our science-based target. And I feel like we are on our way to seeing some of the results in the coming years.
John: Well, and this, and no pun intended, but International Paper prior to even your most recent acquisition or merger was already an international brand, multi-continental brand. How do you harmonize or how do you deal with the challenges of harmonization when you’re dealing with manufacturing facilities on multiple continents? And as you and I know, the rules and laws with regards to climate and climate change and sustainability are a patchwork quilt around the world. How do you walk that delicate high wire in trying to bring best practices to every manufacturing facility you have, but also honoring the rules and laws of those different continents that you’re working on?
Sophie: Yeah. It’s a really important question. I think fundamentally, we see Europe leading the way on a lot of levels; regulatory, market expectations, customer demands, and end consumer preferences. There’s just a lot in that particular geography that I think is on the cutting edge of where sustainability in general is going. As a global company, we need to be able to speak with a unified voice about our ambition. But we also need to look at what are the tactics that are specifically relevant for the geographies and the markets and the regulatory environments in which we have operations and facilities. So this is really where the special sauce of cross-functional collaboration comes in. We need to be working with our government relations colleagues, our investor relations colleagues, our operations engineers, our fiber supply managers. We’ve all got to kind of work together, so we’re swimming in the same direction. I think fundamentally, we know that the next few years, no matter where you are, we’re still going to be aiming towards the same sustainability goals and targets. As a global company, we need to be informed in North America by the regulation that’s coming faster and more comprehensive in Europe. And we need to be ensuring that we can meet that regulation and our customers’ expectations, particularly those global customers who have purchasing from us in both North America and Europe. So I think it’s not as hard as it might seem. I think we’ve got good coordination, collaboration, kind of across our operations and facilities. And our leadership is very much committed to being a sustainable packaging company. And to do that, we need to be really pretty laser focused on the critical few when it comes to priorities and deliverables.
John: You know, Sophie, since you were inspired as a young lady through the forest, through the forest and the beautiful areas that Connecticut offers in the great outdoors, you’re really a sustainability OG. You studied it, classically studied it, and then applied it, and they’re still applying it in a very important leadership position. Where are we on the sustainability journey? You and I know chief sustainability officers back when, even when I started the show, it was hard to find any. People were back then, supply chain officers who were then handling sustainability or they had other roles as well. Where are we now in that journey in sustainability in terms of, as you said, it’s a never-ending journey. Are we at the bottom of the second inning? Are we at the top of the fifth? How do you see things backwards and forwards right now, since, as you said, you’re forced to be a futurist, which I just love that definition of sustainability officer?
Sophie: Yeah. I mean, I think most companies of a certain size recognize that some sort of sustainability strategy is table stakes for customers. It’s good risk management for investors. It’s good business because it brings in a long-term view to the corporate leadership and sort of decision-making structure. And I think that the expertise necessary to advance the work, both strategy and tactics, is increasingly available in the workplace. We’ve got a lot of smart young people coming into sustainability roles. They’re starting to grow skills that I didn’t have the opportunity to even consider 20 years ago when I came into this space. So I think it’s a really important time for both mainstreaming of sustainability across the board and embedding it into our businesses and also recognizing that where and when we need those true subject matter experts, they’re starting to really exist. So rather than being a Jill of all trades all the time, I can actually bring in people who I would be the first to say no more than I do are smarter than I am and can apply a solution to a problem that’s in front of us in a much shorter amount of time. So I think that what we’re seeing here is rather than having a couple of people who are well-versed in this topic, who are bringing some insight to the corporate world, we have, I would say, an increasingly diverse and sort of broad base of sustainability expertise out there that is starting to help corporates of all sizes level up. And that’s what we really need. It’s sort of one thing to have somebody in the company that you can call your sustainability person. It’s another thing to have enough resources in the right places to actually go from ambition to action and to implementation.
John: You know, so many people, Sophie, love watching and listening to the show because they’ve imagine eventually taking, getting a career and working towards a career that’s like yours, where you get to really sit in a very important position, make a paycheck to pay the bills for our households, which we all need to do, but you also get to make an impact, make a difference every day. More and more sustainability officers that I speak with and impact officers tell me it’s a tremendous attraction and retention tool at their companies. Do you feel the same way with regards to the International Paper and the issue of sustainability?
Sophie: I think increasingly, yes, I absolutely feel like our employees and attraction, yes, but I think retention is even stronger. The indications are that keeping people, you really have to be able to live your values and to stand behind your commitments. And I think sustainability as a company is part of that. I also think fundamentally, when you have opportunities for people to engage in a sustainability strategy in a way that they feel like they’re having an impact, that’s a huge employee engagement tool in general. So I think the answer to that is yes. I think sometimes companies do that better than others. And one of the things that’s exciting for me about acquiring DS Smith is that they have done a really excellent job at making sustainability part of their brand identity. Their employees really recognize it. It’s important to them, they care about it, and that’s something that we’re hoping to sort of strengthen our muscles on here at IP as well as we become one company and really translate that kind of value across the company and give every employee access to it.
John: If you just joined us, we’ve got Sophie Beckham with us today. She’s the Chief Sustainability Officer at International Paper. To find Sophie and all the information that her and her colleagues are working on with regards to sustainability and circularity, please go to www.internationalpaper.com. Sophie, talk a little bit about being a futurist. Talk a little bit about the IPs focus on sustainability beyond just your core products and the future. Where are things going right now with regards to this new acquisition that you’ve made and how you see the future in the next 12 or 24 months in sustainability and IP and the new acquisition you made with DS Smith?
Sophie: Yeah, I think the next 12 to 24 months is really how do we come together as one company and how do we leverage the synergies and the strengths of our individual sustainability strategies into sort of a unified enterprise view. So one of the things we’re doing right now is we’re looking at our numbers. We’re getting down into the dirty work and the nitty gritty of kind of how do we calculate this element here, how do we calculate this thing here, how do we put those things together and make sure we’ve got transparency and proper documentation. So I think that this is a moment in which we are both leveraging like a top down as well as a bottom up approach. So how do we pull together all the information and how do we also think about where we want to go and how do we skate to where the pub will be for the company and for meeting the needs of our customers. And there’s just a ton of learning that goes on in knowledge sharing in a moment like this. It’s not often that you get to almost double in size and also have a 12-month period to really come together and have a unit speak with one voice. And so I think everything from aligning our brands to talking about our business and our commercial and our sustainability strategies, all of those things have to happen in a period of time to meet the needs of our investors and our customers. And so that’s really top of mind for us right now.
John: Also, what’s kind of really exciting is that hopefully I get to have you back on the show in a couple of years to share the continued journey. But by then, your impact is going to be double what it is today, double.
Sophie: Exactly.
John: Which is really mind blowing when you start thinking about the magnitude of the impact that teams like yours get to have and brands like yours get to have on the planet. There’s not a day that goes by, Sophie, that we don’t put on any of the news channels, normal news channels, business or otherwise, and we don’t hear about AI and robotics. Is AI and robotics going to play a role in the sustainability and circularity journey at IP?
Sophie: I certainly think we can’t put our heads in the sand and ignore those opportunities. I think right now, I would say we’re probably more focused on the role of AI. And I think a lot of companies are thinking about how do we connect AI and climate? And not just from the perspective of the energy consumption that’s needed to power all the servers that are running some of our AI systems. But how do we think about using AI to get smarter about the ways in which we both manage data and have decision useful data? So I think there’s a lot of exciting stuff coming up. Probably, some of our tech giants in the world are going to be using that and are using that data more quickly than in International Paper. But we think there’s tremendous opportunities for AI. And also in sort of looking at how do we ensure that we’re keeping people safe. And our top priority in the company is safety, both for our employees, our contractors to go home at the end of every day to their families. In order to do that, we can look at using AI, where are some of the places that we might have some weaknesses or gaps, and what can we do about that to increase the layers of protection between our employees and the machinery and the operations they’re working in. So I think there’s a huge opportunity there. I think robotics is also something of interest, but unlike other industries, most of the work that’s done in a paper mill are massive machines that are already automated to some extent. And so I think that while we certainly won’t ignore that space, it’s probably not the top priority in the next few years.
John: Yeah, so I’m so happy you brought up the word safety. I remember back when, I’m not going to call out any brands, but I was having dinner with a chief sustainability officer of a very large manufacturing brand, which was also a multinational company. We were having this wonderful dinner. It was myself, my wife, and one of my partners with this gentleman. And halfway through dinner, he had to take a phone call. And we saw the blood drain from his face. And he stepped outside to take the rest of the call. When he came back in, he said, how it works at his company is that level of hierarchy being the chief sustainability officer, he would get the first phone call on any catastrophic accidents that happened at the company involving human beings. And this accident that he took- the call that he took that night had to do with a forklift, which he then gave us a very great lesson that forklifts in manufacturing facilities are the number one causes of catastrophic accidents or death. And that safety rolled up all to the chief sustainability officer. Does safety roll up to you as well, under the mandate that you and your colleagues are in charge of?
Sophie: It does not roll up to me, but it does roll up adjacent to me. And I think that story is really meaningful because when we do have an injury or fatality, we communicate broadly about it internally. Obviously, senior leaders are the first to know. And the purpose of that is to learn from what may have happened in that event and prevent it from happening again. The mantra here is safety above all else. And I think that each of us are empowered to make a decision for the safety of ourselves and those around us, no matter what the cost associated with it. And so right now, we’re working hard to sort of assess our current safety systems and our facilities of all types, and having someone who really is a trained expert in safety leading that work is really to our benefit. And so I think it’s something that everybody in the company takes seriously. We all have a responsibility to it, but I’m thankful that I have a more qualified colleague to know not just when an event happens, but how to avoid those things.
John: That’s so important. I’m so glad you brought that up originally. We spoke a little bit earlier about your path and your education. Now I’m 62 years old, so in my generation, it was all about getting out of high school, going to the best school, getting to the best graduate school, and then going, getting real-life experience. There are a lot of young people who listen to or watch this show around the world who are a little bit more confused now because there’s more information out there. Since information has been democratized because of the technological revolution, there are some thought leaders who are saying, “You don’t need a classical education anymore.” Talk a little bit about what’s your advice to the next generation, either in school, grad school, just coming out of high school, just coming out of college. If they want to become the next Sophie Beckham or someone in your community of sustainability or impact executives, do you believe a classical education, work life experience, or some mix is the best path forward for them now?
Sophie: I really believe in the mix, and I think that it’s okay if your path is not linear. What I would say is that no experience is a bad experience if you can learn from it and you can take it into your next step, and you can connect the dots. But fundamentally, I think being driven by your values as well as your passion, if it is making an impact, if it is a singular purpose, those are the things that create kind of the red thread going from one thing to another. So I work with a lot of smart young folks who are coming into this field. I tell them two things. First of all, if you wanna come out of college or graduate school and go straight to work for an organization that’s made sustainability a top priority and they’ve kind of arrived on their sustainability journey, I think that’s great, but you might get a little bored. If you want to come out of that, your education or whatever your background is, and go and work for a company that hasn’t quite got it all figured out, you’re going to learn on the fly. You’re going to develop a skill set that you can apply for the rest of your life. And you’re also going to know more clearly and more sharply what’s important to you and where you need to go next. So I think it’s okay to take some stops on the road, not to sort of land that perfect job. Your first day in the working world, and to use those experiences to kind of layer on top of each other and just kind of build your knowledge and expertise. When I’m looking at resumes and I’m asking questions in an interview, the other thing that I think is really important that I tell folks is how aligned are my corporate values with your own. And do you feel like this is a place that you could work? So I think the values piece is really important, as is the experiential learning.
John: When you think about the challenges that you face and the role that you have, what is the highest nails that you’re working on right now? One or two greatest challenges that you’re working through to continue to drive sustainability throughout the culture of International Paper?
Sophie: Well, John, it might surprise you to know that everything I think is a good idea doesn’t immediately get adopted and resourced. So-
John: Oh, come on. Why are you getting-
Sophie: I know, I know. So sometimes the biggest challenge is really listening to the needs of the people around you and understanding what’s important to them and figuring out how to build consensus and to get people’s buy-in in order to advance something that you could stand up as a wise decision from a sustainability perspective. I think that ability to kind of interact with different stakeholders, the ability to talk to different people, and to differentiate between management and leadership; those are two different things. There’s an intersection, but those are two different things in your organization that are critically important to be successful. And I think fundamentally, the reality of sustainability professionals is that we are influencers. We have to be able to lead with influence because many of us don’t have multi-billion-dollar budgets and the authority to make decisions without the buy-in of the other leadership in our companies. And so I think that is a special skill set. And it’s one that everybody who’s successful in these roles, I think, has really honed over time.
John: So important. Let’s talk a little bit about your recognition of being a futurist, because all the sustainability officers that I get to interview on the show and impact officers, they’re very excited about the sustainability report they just produced, but they’re very, very excited about next year’s sustainability report, what they’re going to be able to put in that. So they are futurists. So you call that so perfectly. So let me ask you about the next 12 months, what are you most excited about the next 12 months in terms of developments and evolutions that are happening in International Paper that you’re leading the charge on?
Sophie: Yeah, I think one thing I will say, and a lot of companies are looking at this right now, we can all roll our eyes at the increase in regulation and need for compliance. But the one thing it’s doing for us is it’s helping us really sharpen the pencil on our materiality. So what are our material impacts and dependencies? What I’m excited about is that as we go through the process of looking at a double materiality assessment where we really bring elements of financial impact into the context of sustainability, we really have the opportunity to hone in on the things that we have the opportunity, that we can influence and also build, I would say help develop the profitable growth of our company. So in the next 12 months, what I’m thinking about is as we combine into one company, we have the opportunity to say, what have we done in the past that’s been successful in the context of sustainability, what hasn’t worked and where do we think we need to go for the next decade? So, putting something in motion now and kind of coming into that space of being a futurist, putting something in motion now that we think will still be relevant, important, and sort of front and center for our stakeholders in a decade is a special kind of challenge. But it’s also really exciting because you get to throw around some moonshots, right? What do we really think the aspiration could be? I think it’s energizing. It gets people together around a sort of common project, and it gives us an opportunity to think about who we want to be and where the identity of the company and the values of the company can really be present in safety, ethics and excellence, which are our three corporate values that we really kind of drive everything behind.
John: Sophie, how do you get inspired? You’ve been doing this for a long time. Do you look to your peers in your industry? Do you look outside of your industry? What is your fuel of inspiration in 2025?
Sophie: Certainly, I feel there’s a huge support network in my peers, in the sustainerati, the sustainability mafia as we call them. I think it’s critically important to have your advisor, your personal advisors, and the ones who challenge you, too. I think that’s really top. I think the other things that inspire me are people who are doing really great work outside of the sector, but models of leadership are increasingly important to me. And leadership can look a lot of different ways in different contexts. But looking to leaders and how they’ve been effective brings me a lot of inspiration and allows me to kind of translate that into my own position. So those are the things I kind of keep my eye on. And the thing I always come back to when everything else fails is it’s time to go outside and go for a walk or sit in a beautiful place and appreciate that there is a big, beautiful world out there. And if I can influence in a positive way, one small part of it, I will feel at the end of the day that I’ve fulfilled my own mission.
John: That’s awesome. You know, Sophie, like I said, you’re always welcome back to share the continued journey of sustainability and circularity at International Paper here on the Impact Podcast. For our listeners and viewers who want to find Sophie, and also your colleagues and all the important and great work you’re doing at International Paper in sustainability and circularity, please go to www.internationalpaper.com. Sophie, Thanks for not only spending about 45 minutes with us today on the Impact Podcast, but much more important, thanks for making the world a better place.
Sophie: Thank you, John.
John: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Engage. Engage is a digital booking platform revolutionizing the talent booking industry. With thousands of athletes, celebrities, entrepreneurs, and business leaders, Engage is the go-to spot for booking talent, for speeches, custom experiences, live streams, and much more. For more information on Engage or to book talent today, visit letsengage.com. This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet, and your privacy. It is the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company in the United States and maybe even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit eridirect.com.
John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact Podcast. I’m John Shegerian and I’m so honored to have with me today, Sophie Beckham. She’s the Chief Sustainability Officer of International Paper. Welcome to the Impact Podcast, Sophie.
Sophie Beckham: Hi, John. Thanks so much for having me.
John: You’ve never been on the show yet, which I’m so glad to have you on, and I’ve never covered this topic of paper. And so this is going to be a great show, Sophie. Before we get talking about everything with regards to what you and your colleagues are doing in sustainability at International Paper, I’d love you to first share the Sophie Beckham story. Where’d you grow up and how’d you get on this important journey that you’re on?
Sophie: Thanks. Yeah, I am a product of the Eastern seaboard. So I started my journey in Connecticut and made my way down South to North Carolina and made a lot of stops in between. I got into this space probably because as a child, I had a lot of experiences in forests and anybody who’s ever been for a walk in the woods, whether you live in a city or you live in the country, connects with forests on some emotional level. So that struck a chord with me and it took me into an education in biology and ultimately a master’s in forestry. And it brought me into working in the world of forest products and ultimately to International Paper where I’ve been for about 12 years.
John: And you didn’t leave far from home. I mean, let’s just say, you went to one of the greatest schools for environmental studies in the world. You went to the Yale School of Environment.
Sophie: That’s exactly right. And at the time, it was called the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and it was the forest part that I gravitated towards. So that’s right, it was a great launching off point to my career.
John: So, you and I know, Sophie, sustainability can be read very narrowly and widely and has an alphabet soup of acronyms nowadays that are tossed around. In terms of your day to day, week to week, month to month, quarter to quarter, year to year role at International Paper, how do you read and define sustainability in terms of what you do with your team?
Sophie: Sure. I think sustainability is a long-term plan, essentially. And so what I’m constantly reminding my team of is that the actions we take today and the way we work today have implications—decades, if not a generation into the future. So whether that’s putting things in motion or having a positive impact, particularly when you’re talking about forests, which have a much longer lifespan than say agriculture, the things that we do today, the action we take today can have a positive or a negative impact generations down the road. So I think we have to ask for things, what are we doing today that we might look back on 20, 30, 50 years and cringe and say, “Oh my gosh, how could we have possibly thought that was okay from a social or environmental perspective.” And so thinking about where we are now and kind of figuring out how to see around corners into the future is a really important part of what we do. We are futurists in the very sense of it. We think about actions today and how we can prepare the company for another 126 years. We’ve been around a long time. We want to continue to operate.
John: I love what you just said. You know, 16 and a half years we’ve been doing this shows, so many amazing and wonderful people have made this show what it is. It’s the guests that make this show; chief sustainability officers, chief impact officers. I’ve never been ever—no one’s ever brought up the fact that really sustainability officers or impact officers are really futurists. That’s great.
Sophie: We have to be.
John: That’s really, really great. You know, for our listeners and viewers, first of all, just so they understand the size and scope of International Paper a little bit, annual revenues north of $18.9 billion at the end of 2024, over 39,000 employees in 250 locations in more than 10 countries and 35 US states. And to find Sophie and her colleagues and all the important work they’re doing in sustainability, please go to www.internationalpaper.com. Sophie, I know you have a big announcement though. You’ve recently grown since the end of 2024. International Paper and the size and scope of what you’re doing has grown. Can you share with our audience a little bit of what’s happened recently?
Sophie: Yeah, we’re in a really exciting time. I think in 2024 we have a new CEO join us and he’s really led us with an 80-20 mindset into a new era of transformation for the company. So you mentioned before we were a paper company, we’ve been a paper company for a very long time. We’re still a paper company in the sense that we make fiber-based packaging, but we are transforming into a sustainable packaging solutions provider. And as part of that transformation in early ’25, we closed an acquisition of a really amazing European company called DS Smith, which nearly doubles our packaging footprint. So we are now North American, European with trading offices and sales globally, and are really aiming to be a global packaging leader in the space of sustainable packaging. So it’s an exciting time for us, meeting new colleagues and collaborating. DS Smith has a really incredible track record on sustainability and so we’re sharing knowledge and sort of figuring out where we go from here.
John: That’s fascinating. Was packaging part of your mandate before, or is this sort of a new space for you?
Sophie: No, it’s a great question. For the last few years, we’ve been about 85% packaging. We have a small cellulose fibers or pulp business. And prior to the last few years, we were a paper business—the kind of paper you can see on your desk; the copy paper and other things. And that’s our origin story. We were really a paper company starting in the late 1800s. And over the years with mergers and acquisitions and changes in markets, and also the demand for paper, which has changed over time with the advent of technology, we’ve also pivoted to packaging. And so usually you’re more excited about what’s in that box that arrives on your doorstep than the box itself. But those are the things that we make and help commerce and trade function at a global level.
John: Really, more and more what I’m seeing is less and less use of the alphabet soup of acronyms of, for instance, ESG and DEI and all that other stuff, and more and more talk of the shift, the generational shift from the linear to circular economy. What does circularity mean to International Paper from where you sit?
Sophie: Yeah, first of all, I agree with you on the on the moving away from acronyms and kind of thinking in a systems based way. And I think that’s how we actually have to think in order to impact change. I used to say, we were circular before circular was cool. Our system is a naturally virtuous cycle. So we take both virgin fiber from sustainably managed forests, and we take recovered fiber, the kind that you recycle in your bin at your house. And we put those together in our manufacturing process and transform them into boxes. And those boxes are used and hopefully they’re recovered again and brought back into the system. So I think we fit really well into a model of a low carbon circular economy, but we still have opportunities within that cycle to think about how do we advance circularity of the material inputs to our processes? What do we do with our waste? How can we have a beneficial use of that waste? And how do we think about really products or some of the inputs to our products at end of life? How do we encourage recycling at the municipal level? So I think there are a lot of opportunities for improvement and for really delivering on the promise of circularity. But really, I think our industry is well suited to be a leader in that particular way.
John: Do you put out every year an annual impact or sustainability report?
Sophie: Thank you for the prompt. We put our sustainability report out just about two weeks ago, and we are really proud that in addition to that, we have put out our annual climate report, which is modeled after one of our favorite acronyms, the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures. This week, and just in advance of Earth Day, we put out our first Task Force on Nature-Related Financial Disclosures, our TNFD report. Those are all available on our website, which you kindly mentioned.
John: Right. And it lives in perpetuity up on internationalpaper.com.
Sophie: You bet.
John: That’s awesome. So, with regards to carbon, how is that journey going in terms of reducing your carbon footprint and creating a more flat carbon future for International Paper?
Sophie: Sure. I think you’ve hit on the topic of climate and carbon being the most interesting to our stakeholders, our customers and our investors, our employees. We hear a lot about climate and carbon from those entities and our customers in particular want to know how are we helping them deliver on their climate targets. We operate manufacturing facilities. You know, many of them, just to give you a sort of a visual, are the size of a football field. And we operate lots of those facilities in the US and now, of course, in Europe. The challenge in heavy manufacturing of decarbonization is real. And so what we’re doing is assessing what are all of the tactics that we could deploy to reduce our annual greenhouse gas emissions. And that’s everything from implementing changes in our processing equipment, looking at the way we use heat to, you can say, cook wood into a fiber-based packaging and figuring out other sources of thermal energy, to really thinking about what can we do in our scope three, our suppliers, as well as our downstream partners to reduce emissions. So we have to have sort of an all systems, all hands on deck, all systems on the table approach to decarbonization. And I’m transparent in saying that we have been pretty challenged by that in the last few years. And that doesn’t mean we’re not working hard on a pathway. So we’ve communicated kind of what we think our key tactics are to get there and to reach our science-based target. And I feel like we are on our way to seeing some of the results in the coming years.
John: Well, and this, and no pun intended, but International Paper prior to even your most recent acquisition or merger was already an international brand, multi-continental brand. How do you harmonize or how do you deal with the challenges of harmonization when you’re dealing with manufacturing facilities on multiple continents? And as you and I know, the rules and laws with regards to climate and climate change and sustainability are a patchwork quilt around the world. How do you walk that delicate high wire in trying to bring best practices to every manufacturing facility you have, but also honoring the rules and laws of those different continents that you’re working on?
Sophie: Yeah. It’s a really important question. I think fundamentally, we see Europe leading the way on a lot of levels; regulatory, market expectations, customer demands, and end consumer preferences. There’s just a lot in that particular geography that I think is on the cutting edge of where sustainability in general is going. As a global company, we need to be able to speak with a unified voice about our ambition. But we also need to look at what are the tactics that are specifically relevant for the geographies and the markets and the regulatory environments in which we have operations and facilities. So this is really where the special sauce of cross-functional collaboration comes in. We need to be working with our government relations colleagues, our investor relations colleagues, our operations engineers, our fiber supply managers. We’ve all got to kind of work together, so we’re swimming in the same direction. I think fundamentally, we know that the next few years, no matter where you are, we’re still going to be aiming towards the same sustainability goals and targets. As a global company, we need to be informed in North America by the regulation that’s coming faster and more comprehensive in Europe. And we need to be ensuring that we can meet that regulation and our customers’ expectations, particularly those global customers who have purchasing from us in both North America and Europe. So I think it’s not as hard as it might seem. I think we’ve got good coordination, collaboration, kind of across our operations and facilities. And our leadership is very much committed to being a sustainable packaging company. And to do that, we need to be really pretty laser focused on the critical few when it comes to priorities and deliverables.
John: You know, Sophie, since you were inspired as a young lady through the forest, through the forest and the beautiful areas that Connecticut offers in the great outdoors, you’re really a sustainability OG. You studied it, classically studied it, and then applied it, and they’re still applying it in a very important leadership position. Where are we on the sustainability journey? You and I know chief sustainability officers back when, even when I started the show, it was hard to find any. People were back then, supply chain officers who were then handling sustainability or they had other roles as well. Where are we now in that journey in sustainability in terms of, as you said, it’s a never-ending journey. Are we at the bottom of the second inning? Are we at the top of the fifth? How do you see things backwards and forwards right now, since, as you said, you’re forced to be a futurist, which I just love that definition of sustainability officer?
Sophie: Yeah. I mean, I think most companies of a certain size recognize that some sort of sustainability strategy is table stakes for customers. It’s good risk management for investors. It’s good business because it brings in a long-term view to the corporate leadership and sort of decision-making structure. And I think that the expertise necessary to advance the work, both strategy and tactics, is increasingly available in the workplace. We’ve got a lot of smart young people coming into sustainability roles. They’re starting to grow skills that I didn’t have the opportunity to even consider 20 years ago when I came into this space. So I think it’s a really important time for both mainstreaming of sustainability across the board and embedding it into our businesses and also recognizing that where and when we need those true subject matter experts, they’re starting to really exist. So rather than being a Jill of all trades all the time, I can actually bring in people who I would be the first to say no more than I do are smarter than I am and can apply a solution to a problem that’s in front of us in a much shorter amount of time. So I think that what we’re seeing here is rather than having a couple of people who are well-versed in this topic, who are bringing some insight to the corporate world, we have, I would say, an increasingly diverse and sort of broad base of sustainability expertise out there that is starting to help corporates of all sizes level up. And that’s what we really need. It’s sort of one thing to have somebody in the company that you can call your sustainability person. It’s another thing to have enough resources in the right places to actually go from ambition to action and to implementation.
John: You know, so many people, Sophie, love watching and listening to the show because they’ve imagine eventually taking, getting a career and working towards a career that’s like yours, where you get to really sit in a very important position, make a paycheck to pay the bills for our households, which we all need to do, but you also get to make an impact, make a difference every day. More and more sustainability officers that I speak with and impact officers tell me it’s a tremendous attraction and retention tool at their companies. Do you feel the same way with regards to the International Paper and the issue of sustainability?
Sophie: I think increasingly, yes, I absolutely feel like our employees and attraction, yes, but I think retention is even stronger. The indications are that keeping people, you really have to be able to live your values and to stand behind your commitments. And I think sustainability as a company is part of that. I also think fundamentally, when you have opportunities for people to engage in a sustainability strategy in a way that they feel like they’re having an impact, that’s a huge employee engagement tool in general. So I think the answer to that is yes. I think sometimes companies do that better than others. And one of the things that’s exciting for me about acquiring DS Smith is that they have done a really excellent job at making sustainability part of their brand identity. Their employees really recognize it. It’s important to them, they care about it, and that’s something that we’re hoping to sort of strengthen our muscles on here at IP as well as we become one company and really translate that kind of value across the company and give every employee access to it.
John: If you just joined us, we’ve got Sophie Beckham with us today. She’s the Chief Sustainability Officer at International Paper. To find Sophie and all the information that her and her colleagues are working on with regards to sustainability and circularity, please go to www.internationalpaper.com. Sophie, talk a little bit about being a futurist. Talk a little bit about the IPs focus on sustainability beyond just your core products and the future. Where are things going right now with regards to this new acquisition that you’ve made and how you see the future in the next 12 or 24 months in sustainability and IP and the new acquisition you made with DS Smith?
Sophie: Yeah, I think the next 12 to 24 months is really how do we come together as one company and how do we leverage the synergies and the strengths of our individual sustainability strategies into sort of a unified enterprise view. So one of the things we’re doing right now is we’re looking at our numbers. We’re getting down into the dirty work and the nitty gritty of kind of how do we calculate this element here, how do we calculate this thing here, how do we put those things together and make sure we’ve got transparency and proper documentation. So I think that this is a moment in which we are both leveraging like a top down as well as a bottom up approach. So how do we pull together all the information and how do we also think about where we want to go and how do we skate to where the pub will be for the company and for meeting the needs of our customers. And there’s just a ton of learning that goes on in knowledge sharing in a moment like this. It’s not often that you get to almost double in size and also have a 12-month period to really come together and have a unit speak with one voice. And so I think everything from aligning our brands to talking about our business and our commercial and our sustainability strategies, all of those things have to happen in a period of time to meet the needs of our investors and our customers. And so that’s really top of mind for us right now.
John: Also, what’s kind of really exciting is that hopefully I get to have you back on the show in a couple of years to share the continued journey. But by then, your impact is going to be double what it is today, double.
Sophie: Exactly.
John: Which is really mind blowing when you start thinking about the magnitude of the impact that teams like yours get to have and brands like yours get to have on the planet. There’s not a day that goes by, Sophie, that we don’t put on any of the news channels, normal news channels, business or otherwise, and we don’t hear about AI and robotics. Is AI and robotics going to play a role in the sustainability and circularity journey at IP?
Sophie: I certainly think we can’t put our heads in the sand and ignore those opportunities. I think right now, I would say we’re probably more focused on the role of AI. And I think a lot of companies are thinking about how do we connect AI and climate? And not just from the perspective of the energy consumption that’s needed to power all the servers that are running some of our AI systems. But how do we think about using AI to get smarter about the ways in which we both manage data and have decision useful data? So I think there’s a lot of exciting stuff coming up. Probably, some of our tech giants in the world are going to be using that and are using that data more quickly than in International Paper. But we think there’s tremendous opportunities for AI. And also in sort of looking at how do we ensure that we’re keeping people safe. And our top priority in the company is safety, both for our employees, our contractors to go home at the end of every day to their families. In order to do that, we can look at using AI, where are some of the places that we might have some weaknesses or gaps, and what can we do about that to increase the layers of protection between our employees and the machinery and the operations they’re working in. So I think there’s a huge opportunity there. I think robotics is also something of interest, but unlike other industries, most of the work that’s done in a paper mill are massive machines that are already automated to some extent. And so I think that while we certainly won’t ignore that space, it’s probably not the top priority in the next few years.
John: Yeah, so I’m so happy you brought up the word safety. I remember back when, I’m not going to call out any brands, but I was having dinner with a chief sustainability officer of a very large manufacturing brand, which was also a multinational company. We were having this wonderful dinner. It was myself, my wife, and one of my partners with this gentleman. And halfway through dinner, he had to take a phone call. And we saw the blood drain from his face. And he stepped outside to take the rest of the call. When he came back in, he said, how it works at his company is that level of hierarchy being the chief sustainability officer, he would get the first phone call on any catastrophic accidents that happened at the company involving human beings. And this accident that he took- the call that he took that night had to do with a forklift, which he then gave us a very great lesson that forklifts in manufacturing facilities are the number one causes of catastrophic accidents or death. And that safety rolled up all to the chief sustainability officer. Does safety roll up to you as well, under the mandate that you and your colleagues are in charge of?
Sophie: It does not roll up to me, but it does roll up adjacent to me. And I think that story is really meaningful because when we do have an injury or fatality, we communicate broadly about it internally. Obviously, senior leaders are the first to know. And the purpose of that is to learn from what may have happened in that event and prevent it from happening again. The mantra here is safety above all else. And I think that each of us are empowered to make a decision for the safety of ourselves and those around us, no matter what the cost associated with it. And so right now, we’re working hard to sort of assess our current safety systems and our facilities of all types, and having someone who really is a trained expert in safety leading that work is really to our benefit. And so I think it’s something that everybody in the company takes seriously. We all have a responsibility to it, but I’m thankful that I have a more qualified colleague to know not just when an event happens, but how to avoid those things.
John: That’s so important. I’m so glad you brought that up originally. We spoke a little bit earlier about your path and your education. Now I’m 62 years old, so in my generation, it was all about getting out of high school, going to the best school, getting to the best graduate school, and then going, getting real-life experience. There are a lot of young people who listen to or watch this show around the world who are a little bit more confused now because there’s more information out there. Since information has been democratized because of the technological revolution, there are some thought leaders who are saying, “You don’t need a classical education anymore.” Talk a little bit about what’s your advice to the next generation, either in school, grad school, just coming out of high school, just coming out of college. If they want to become the next Sophie Beckham or someone in your community of sustainability or impact executives, do you believe a classical education, work life experience, or some mix is the best path forward for them now?
Sophie: I really believe in the mix, and I think that it’s okay if your path is not linear. What I would say is that no experience is a bad experience if you can learn from it and you can take it into your next step, and you can connect the dots. But fundamentally, I think being driven by your values as well as your passion, if it is making an impact, if it is a singular purpose, those are the things that create kind of the red thread going from one thing to another. So I work with a lot of smart young folks who are coming into this field. I tell them two things. First of all, if you wanna come out of college or graduate school and go straight to work for an organization that’s made sustainability a top priority and they’ve kind of arrived on their sustainability journey, I think that’s great, but you might get a little bored. If you want to come out of that, your education or whatever your background is, and go and work for a company that hasn’t quite got it all figured out, you’re going to learn on the fly. You’re going to develop a skill set that you can apply for the rest of your life. And you’re also going to know more clearly and more sharply what’s important to you and where you need to go next. So I think it’s okay to take some stops on the road, not to sort of land that perfect job. Your first day in the working world, and to use those experiences to kind of layer on top of each other and just kind of build your knowledge and expertise. When I’m looking at resumes and I’m asking questions in an interview, the other thing that I think is really important that I tell folks is how aligned are my corporate values with your own. And do you feel like this is a place that you could work? So I think the values piece is really important, as is the experiential learning.
John: When you think about the challenges that you face and the role that you have, what is the highest nails that you’re working on right now? One or two greatest challenges that you’re working through to continue to drive sustainability throughout the culture of International Paper?
Sophie: Well, John, it might surprise you to know that everything I think is a good idea doesn’t immediately get adopted and resourced. So-
John: Oh, come on. Why are you getting-
Sophie: I know, I know. So sometimes the biggest challenge is really listening to the needs of the people around you and understanding what’s important to them and figuring out how to build consensus and to get people’s buy-in in order to advance something that you could stand up as a wise decision from a sustainability perspective. I think that ability to kind of interact with different stakeholders, the ability to talk to different people, and to differentiate between management and leadership; those are two different things. There’s an intersection, but those are two different things in your organization that are critically important to be successful. And I think fundamentally, the reality of sustainability professionals is that we are influencers. We have to be able to lead with influence because many of us don’t have multi-billion-dollar budgets and the authority to make decisions without the buy-in of the other leadership in our companies. And so I think that is a special skill set. And it’s one that everybody who’s successful in these roles, I think, has really honed over time.
John: So important. Let’s talk a little bit about your recognition of being a futurist, because all the sustainability officers that I get to interview on the show and impact officers, they’re very excited about the sustainability report they just produced, but they’re very, very excited about next year’s sustainability report, what they’re going to be able to put in that. So they are futurists. So you call that so perfectly. So let me ask you about the next 12 months, what are you most excited about the next 12 months in terms of developments and evolutions that are happening in International Paper that you’re leading the charge on?
Sophie: Yeah, I think one thing I will say, and a lot of companies are looking at this right now, we can all roll our eyes at the increase in regulation and need for compliance. But the one thing it’s doing for us is it’s helping us really sharpen the pencil on our materiality. So what are our material impacts and dependencies? What I’m excited about is that as we go through the process of looking at a double materiality assessment where we really bring elements of financial impact into the context of sustainability, we really have the opportunity to hone in on the things that we have the opportunity, that we can influence and also build, I would say help develop the profitable growth of our company. So in the next 12 months, what I’m thinking about is as we combine into one company, we have the opportunity to say, what have we done in the past that’s been successful in the context of sustainability, what hasn’t worked and where do we think we need to go for the next decade? So, putting something in motion now and kind of coming into that space of being a futurist, putting something in motion now that we think will still be relevant, important, and sort of front and center for our stakeholders in a decade is a special kind of challenge. But it’s also really exciting because you get to throw around some moonshots, right? What do we really think the aspiration could be? I think it’s energizing. It gets people together around a sort of common project, and it gives us an opportunity to think about who we want to be and where the identity of the company and the values of the company can really be present in safety, ethics and excellence, which are our three corporate values that we really kind of drive everything behind.
John: Sophie, how do you get inspired? You’ve been doing this for a long time. Do you look to your peers in your industry? Do you look outside of your industry? What is your fuel of inspiration in 2025?
Sophie: Certainly, I feel there’s a huge support network in my peers, in the sustainerati, the sustainability mafia as we call them. I think it’s critically important to have your advisor, your personal advisors, and the ones who challenge you, too. I think that’s really top. I think the other things that inspire me are people who are doing really great work outside of the sector, but models of leadership are increasingly important to me. And leadership can look a lot of different ways in different contexts. But looking to leaders and how they’ve been effective brings me a lot of inspiration and allows me to kind of translate that into my own position. So those are the things I kind of keep my eye on. And the thing I always come back to when everything else fails is it’s time to go outside and go for a walk or sit in a beautiful place and appreciate that there is a big, beautiful world out there. And if I can influence in a positive way, one small part of it, I will feel at the end of the day that I’ve fulfilled my own mission.
John: That’s awesome. You know, Sophie, like I said, you’re always welcome back to share the continued journey of sustainability and circularity at International Paper here on the Impact Podcast. For our listeners and viewers who want to find Sophie, and also your colleagues and all the important and great work you’re doing at International Paper in sustainability and circularity, please go to www.internationalpaper.com. Sophie, Thanks for not only spending about 45 minutes with us today on the Impact Podcast, but much more important, thanks for making the world a better place.
Sophie: Thank you, John.
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