James Gowen is Sr. Vice President, Global Supply Chain and Sourcing, and Chief Sustainability Officer for Verizon. Since taking on the complementary roles of Supply Chain and Sustainability in 2009, his team has enlisted more than 65,000 Verizon employees in 50 countries around the globe in helping to reduce the company’s environmental footprint while increasing the efficiency of a growing enterprise. 

John Shegerian: Do you have a suggestion for a Rockstar Impact podcast guest? Go to impactpodcast.com and just click be a guest to recommend someone today. This edition of the Impact podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet and your privacy, and 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 For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit eridirect.com. This episode of the Impact podcast is brought to you by Closed Loop Partners. Closed Loop Partners is a leading circular economy investor in the United States with an extensive network of Fortune 500 corporate investors, family offices, institutional investors, industry experts, and impact partners. Closed Loop’s platform spans the arc of capital from venture capital to private equity, bridging gaps and fostering synergies to scale the circular economy. To find closed Loop Partners, please go to www.closelooppartners.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact podcast. I’m John Shegerian, and this is a very special edition because we have a longtime friend of mine and just a really great visionary and leader. Jim Gowen’s back with us today. He’s the senior vice president of global supply chain and chief sustainability officer of Verizon. Welcome back to the show, Jim.

Jim Gowen: John, great to see you and thank you very much for having me back and love to see the progression of the show. Congratulations.

John: Thank you so much. You helped make it great because you were one of the early people that agreed to come on when I was having to beg people to come on. And this show isn’t about me. It’s about our guests and the great brands that they represent and all the important impacts they’re making on this planet earth. So you, of course, are the prototypical person why I created the show for. Because not only you were a great human being, I got to know you personally over the years, but you represent Verizon, who has empowered you to really make great shifts in this planet with regards to sustainability and circular economy. And for that I’m grateful. But coming on the show, I’m super grateful. And our listeners really have responded to your past show, so I’m so happy you’ve agreed to come back on today. Before we get talking about Verizon and all the important things you do there, Jim, can you share a little bit about your background, how you got on this very fascinating and important journey that you’ve been on. Where’d you grow up? And where did you even get inspired to get on this journey?

Jim: Yeah. So, as we joked before we started the podcast, I grew up on the right coast here over in New Jersey. I’m a Jersey Shore clam digger. I’m born and raised at the beach and could not be more proud of what we’ve done here in New Jersey and New York, and grew up working in New York City and started at Verizon when it was nine x way back 28 and a half years ago now, and went through the merger and merger of Bell Atlantic and then later on becoming Verizon overall back in 2000, and grew up in the business, starting in operations, moved around. I’ve had stints in finance and strategy. Got out of IT, recovered from that, and really found my sweet spot at home with the best job in the company, running our global supply chain for all of our wireless infrastructure as well as our fiber infrastructure around the world. And then, as you may recall, in 2009, I got even happier when I was put in charge of sustainability for Verizon. And I’ve been there since 2009, and we’ve been just moving and grooving ever since and trying to keep our networks as green as possible.

John: I remember so vividly being so abjectly dumb that I sat in your offices in 2009 ish, ten ish, and you had just been named the chief sustainability officer. And I said to you, “Jim, explain this to me. Explain to me the nexus of supply chain and sustainability.” Now, this has become the paradigm that others have followed, but you are out in front of this. Can you explain to our listeners and viewers the real nexus and importance of the convergence of supply chain and sustainability and why it works so well?

Jim: Sure. And I’d love to sit here and tell you that it was all my idea and I came up with it. But as you recall, at the time, I was running our fleet of over 40,000 vehicles, and I had our operations of warehousing and distribution and transportation. And it was our CEO at the time, Ivan Seinberg, who had the idea that let’s not put this responsibility into our public policy down in Washington, where there’s great folks and they’re always looking at energy bills and all the bills, but let’s put it into the operations of the company, because that’s where we can make a change on a day to day basis and not just on legislation type things. And then fast forward to where we are now, what we didn’t realize at the time is what he was doing was invoking the passion of the Verizon employees. And that has really been the difference. And starting in the supply chain, we ship out over 100,000 packages a day throughout our distribution to our customers, and then we build our networks as resilient as possible. And all those things come through supply chain, whether they’re through the sourcing group, through the supply chain, the distribution, and by the way, then they come back and we’ll talk about circular economy here in a bit. But it’s just been a brilliant move. I’ve been so grateful, so thankful to see the way the Verizon team has responded to it, but also to see the way the industry has responded to it. All the way from large OEMs, to our competitors, people are seeing the value of putting sustainable goals right into their supply chain. And that’s been a huge difference in driving the world forward.

John: It was early 2009 was still virtually early days of huge organizations, iconic brands like Verizon, naming chief sustainability officers. So you were very early on to this. And if you could share a little bit, Jim, obviously, the world has evolved and has caught up to great leaders and visionaries like you. With regards to now, we have, as you just mentioned, the shift from the learning to circular economy. We’ll get into that in a little bit. And the Alphabet soup of goals such as ESG and DEI and all that other kind of stuff. But before we get talking about that, talk a little bit about green bonds. You had been on the show before, and you talked about green bonds, and you put together, and I think back in, if I’m not mistaken, 2019 or so you did the first ever green bonds. Can you talk a little bit? And green bonds have become much more popular now. What are green bonds and what’s the importance of them?

Jim: Yeah. So you fast forward from where we were in 2009, where I’ll totally agree with you. We had visionaries here at Verizon, and they were forward thinking about just how important it was to look at our overall impact. Because we’re in and out of our customers homes every day, we’re running our networks every day. And the fact that we were looking at supply chain sustainability and the future was super important. And now fast forward, it’s a business imperative. It’s in our DNA. But then, a real game changer happened in 2019, as you mentioned. Our treasurer at the time and our CFO and I got together and we had been talking about green bonds and what they mean and what they could do and remembered vividly February 2019. We were going through the process of talking with analysts and talking about what we were going to do. And in typical Verizon fashion, we measured twice, cut once. We went through the due diligence of creating our use of proceeds. We talked about what we would do with the green bonds because we want to make sure that we were being as transparent as possible. We went so far as to have a second party opinion, write a paper on what we were doing. And then I’ll never forget that Tuesday morning when we came in and it launched. It was a lot of sleepless nights because I didn’t know how it was going to be received. I’m not the finance guy in this equation. And then you look at 11:00 in the morning when we had to shut off because it had been oversold so many times. And this was our first one. And then you look at what we did with that. We were able to spend that first $1 billion in less than a year. And we were able to be very transparent about it. And it went to everything from greening one of our large innovation centers through building infrastructure around sustainability and renewable energy on site. Now you fast forward and we are six $1 billion green bonds later, five of them which have been fully allocated out to use of proceeds. And the sixth one, I’ll let you know, that we did earlier this year in February. We’re not too far from spending it. I never thought I’d be this good at spending money, but it’s all been, in all seriousness, it’s all been about additionality. It’s been about bringing renewable energy to on site locations as well as throughout the infrastructure of the grid around the country, near loading to where we are. But then making sure that it’s new, it’s additional. It’s not just going and buying green Rex[?], not that there’s anything wrong with that. We want it to make a commitment to build more green into the grid. And it’s just been incredibly positive. I mean, our last one alone, the fifth green bond, over $990 million, went right into renewable energy. That’s great.

John: That’s tremendous. What a record of success. Jim, when you became chief sustainability officer, C suite folks still, when they heard the word sustainability back in zero nine thought like, oh, that’s going to cost me money. And in their mind, it was dead money. Can you disavow the world that really investing in sustainability is really good for business. There’s a return on investment. There’s a resiliency. There’s a recruitment tool. There’s a retention tool. Sustainability has so many wonderful benefits. Share a little bit about the last 15 years and learnings that you had, why investing in sustainability is, like you said, a real imperative.

Jim: You hit on so many of the key words. It’s such a multifaceted and really focused effort here. I’m going to use the word you use, resiliency. What does Verizon do? Well, we run the best wireless networks, and we run the largest wireless network, and we run one of the best fiber networks globally. So what is the most important thing? It’s all about, as our engineers say, five nines. That network better be up 99.99 percent of the time. What do I say? It’s got to be up all those five nines, but it’s got to be up and it’s got to be fueled in the greenest way possible. It’s got to be up when it’s up and down when it’s down. In the middle of the night, you can lower the consumption. So it’s all about resiliency of our network, but that’s just one aspect of it. And I love the way you frame the question there, because it’s also about our employee base. If I think about the journey we’ve been on, and I think about the transition of the employees here at Verizon, over 100 plus thousand of them operating in over 186 countries and territories around the world, it’s evoking their passion, because what we always say is, work green, live green. Bring what you’re talking about at your backyard barbecues to the office. Give us those solutions. And by the way, take what we’re doing here and bring it down to bring it home to your backyard barbecues. Because at the end of the day, sustainability, renewable energy, it’s not a competitive sport. We want to see everyone across the board raising the level of renewable energy everywhere and raising the level of sustainability. We want to make sure we do it better than everybody else just a little bit. But at the end of the day, that’s what we’re focused on.

John: You have millions of clients all around the world. Verizon is a massive company, 134 billion or so in revenue, over 100,000 employees, over 150 countries and other plans in over 200 countries around the world. So you literally are everywhere we are, and everywhere we go we need your service, such as me. When I travel the world, I rely on Verizon everywhere I go. Share a little bit about your thoughts with regards to sustainability and your user base. You and I know you have five children. I have two. And so that generation now, how much should they care about the brands that they rely on, the brands that they are served by being sustainable? And they’re now voting with their pocketbooks more than others. What’s your findings with regards to your clients and how much they care about sustainability?

Jim: Yeah, it’s really twofold. And I always joke, my five kids know more about sustainability than I ever will because they grew up in a different time. They learned it. They don’t even think about it. Of course you’re going to recycle. They don’t even think about those things, which is awesome. So when I look at our consumer base and I’ll just focus right now on a wireless type customer, it’s a different customer experience. They are not just asking for, they’re demanding that they’re working with companies who are operating in a responsible manner. They’re responsible business. Which is why we’re so super proud that we are a lifetime member of the EPA’s energy star partner of the year. We have a life term status. So you think about all of our 1500 plus wireless stores. Those are our consumers walking in and out every day. They’re seeing that sticker, that that’s who we are, that’s what we represent. But then you also think about those consumers in terms of the network. The network has just got to be up. They don’t even think about that. Now, they want to know, what else are you doing? So when we’re bringing solutions to education, when we’re bringing solutions to inner city opportunities and we’re bringing technology, it’s a game changer for that consumer base. But then look at your enterprise customers. We deal with 90 plus percent of the Fortune 500s around the world. They’re counting on us to run our networks as responsible as possible, as green as possible. And by the way, they’re just again, once again, uptime, five nines. That’s a given. That’s table stakes. So that’s why we’re focusing, regardless of where we are operating around the world, whether it’s just ourselves or with partners, everything has to be transparent, everything has to be auditable, and everything has to be focused on how do we move our customers and ourselves forward into a greener economy.

John: Jim, talk a little bit of there’s a whole generation now working at Verizon that not only want to make a paycheck, but want to make a difference. Talk a little bit about the importance of sustainability inside of Verizon to the hundred plus thousand employees as a recruitment tool, a retention tool, and a cultural tool.

Jim: Yeah, it’s so important. I’m freshly off just meeting with our interns for the summer. Let me tell you, you think your employees are passionate. Those interns who are right now in school and who have had just an absolutely crazy 2024 with everything going on around the world and the passion of the activists really coming out, they let you know where they stand and they let you know how they feel. As long as that is focused on the power of good, how can you ever argue with it? And we’re hearing that. But by the way, when we sit here and we go through our recruiting events, whether it’s at a university, whether it’s at a job fair, things like that, those are the questions we’re asked. We’re asked, okay, “What are you doing about this? How do you care for every bit of the needs?” Far beyond my responsibility. When I talk to our chief human resource officer, Sam Hammack, she’ll tell you about the questions they’re asking, just about working mothers, and they’ll talk about working remotely. Oh, by the way, we enable working remotely. No better example than Covid when everyone went home and our networks had to be up. But sustainability, responsible business, how you operate your culture, that’s what employees are looking for. And that’s why I tell people I bleed black and red, because I am never more proud than [inaudible] Covid to now in what we represent, who we represent, and how we represent them.

John: Jim, as we know, the sustainability has evolved massively since I first met you 15 or so years ago. And now the big shift is a generational one, from the linear to circular economy. And then there’s an Alphabet soup of acronyms that we’re also all aiming for in different ways, shapes and forms, such as ESG and other things, but also the race to net zero, the race that just decarbonized the planet is on and every organization and brand is doing in some way or another their part. Talk a little bit about Verizon horizons role in not only reducing our carbon emissions, but how it’s much more broadly read in terms of sustainability and all these other things. The ship from the linear circular economy and ESG and how you get to manage. You have a lot of spinning plates now going on in sustainability. It’s just not focused on one or two things. How do you keep all the plates in the air at once, and how do they interrelate with one another?

Jim: Yeah. It’s such a great challenge globally, to be perfectly frank, especially when you operate in so many countries. So I’ll chunk it up into a couple of ways.

John: Okay.

Jim: The first thing I think about, when I think about net zero, when you look at what Verizon is committed to, well, we’ve committed to net zero in our operations. What we control, that’s scope one and scope two, fuels and our electricity. Not easy, but controllable by us. We can make decisions to impact that. And we’ve been very transparent that we will get there. We’ll get there by 2035. And we also made decisions 50% of our energy would be source from renewable energy sources by 2025. Well, fast forward, we’re going to be there any minute now. And we made a commitment that 100% of our energy equivalent would be done by 2030. But we’re going to get there, too, because I got the secret weapon called those green bonds that’s going to help me keep moving that forward. And all those engineers who want to build out the radio network, they’re going to have to get money from somewhere else. But in all serious note, when you look at scope one and scope two, we control it. It’s our operations. We make commitments, we’re transparent about it. You look at scope three, and that’s the real challenge, really, globally, of how you think about your value chain up and down. And let me tell you, that’s where it gets challenging. And that’s where you now have to have partners, whether they’re large OEMs or component parts, all the way up and down your supply chain, having the same commitment to net zero, having the same commitment to the environment, having the same commitment to human rights. And that’s where you have to get feet on the street, you have to audit, you have to communicate, you have to get together with them. And that is really the next ten years, in my opinion, of really sustainability, how it moves forward. And your earliest comment on supply chain sustainability coming together? I think that’s where the rubber meets the rubber. There’s going to be governmental involvement, there’ll be regulations, there’ll be something in the US, there’ll be something in Europe. A company like Verizon. We abide by all local, state, federal rules, no matter where it is. Again, that’s table stakes for us. It’s how do we keep moving this forward? How do we keep moving ourselves forward? How do we act responsibly as a responsible business and then take it to the next step? Bring others along with us? We’re involved with many different organizations, Jesse, the global E sustainability, which Verizon’s a chair of right now out of Brussels, and there’s over 70 of our service providers around the world. We’re helping set the stage for what the telecommunications industry can do to help others come along. Because at the end of the day, we’re an enabling technology. Smart cities, smart transportation, IOT devices, we’ve been talking about them for a long time. They’re here. And it’s not just in parking garages to help you find it’s a lot more than that. And those are the type of things that are really going to be game changers for us. And our industry is going to help drive.

John: You mentioned the worldwide aspect of what you do. And Jim, even though I know you’re a great New Jersey homeboy, you’re also a sustainability rock star and OG. And people around the world look up to you, including myself, as inspiration. Everyone I know, knows and loves you. And I get to touch a lot of people and I get to interview a lot of people on the show. Talk a little bit about harmonization, though, of rules and regulations. As a leader, when you’re asked to advise some of these regulating bodies around the world on all these important issues of sustainability, circular economy, ESG, how are we going to get a little bit more harmonized? So EU, North America, Asia and other parts of the world, it doesn’t make it impossible for great leaders like you and great brands to adhere to the regulations across the world. So you can focus on the main things, keeping it the main thing, instead of all the regulations that become this unbelievable Patrick quilt of diversity.

Jim: Yeah, and it’s real interesting and you brought up a lot of the regulations and the things that are going on, but I’ll take a step back and I’ll put my other hat on for a second. So running our global supply chain and dealing with manufacturing and dealing with transportation, the first thing you said, and we learned such great lessons during COVID is geopolitical challenges. They’re all over the place. There’s such a few really unfortunate situations going on as we speak. There’s some that have been going on for hundreds of years. Those all have to be factored into your day to day, how you operate, why you operate in certain regions, how do you build that resiliency back in? Then you fast forward and you say everyone has these aspirational goals, which is great. You have to have aspirational goals. How do they become a reality? Well, how do they become a reality when you have inflation challenges, when you have political uncertainty, when you have energy crises, when you have rising prices throughout the world, you have port[?] situations, you have strikes. It’s keeping focused on the long term. And this is why I’m so proud of Verizon. We’ve made long term commitments, and even through Covid up to today, we haven’t backed off. We’ve kept going. It was really easy during COVID to use the excuse, hey, my revenue is not what it was. My customers aren’t where they were. And there’s challenges. We didn’t do that. And we’ve kept going forward. I think about regulation and aspirational goals the exact same way. We’re going to do them because we have to. And that’s who we are as a company. But we’re going to set the aspirational goals, and we’re going to continue towards them. And they’ll be incremental and they’ll keep going. And then we’ll report out on them. And then we’ll work with others, specifically in our supply base and our customer base, because we see it end to end. And the last thing I’ll talk about, as you mentioned a couple of times, is circular economy. So when you start thinking about, we start with building with end of life in mind. So when we design a product, maybe it’s a router for a home or it’s a fixed wireless router that could go anywhere around on our networks, you start thinking about, okay, how is that made up? From the printing circuit board to the casing that’s in it? And then how many did you make? Where are they located? How many do you have? Are you just in time? We look at that end to end. And, oh, by the way, when you upgrade to the newest one, let’s make sure we took that old one, bring it back into our supply chain, let’s make it like new, and let’s get it to an area of the country, the world, that can use it for a second life or a third life. The same thing with devices. We work with all of our OEM partners to give our phones whatever one they are, whatever make or model, a second and a third life. And then that’s where you can really start to see the game change. And during times of challenging economic situations, that’s where it becomes more affordable as well. So you’ve actually really helped the overall society from that stage.

John: So you’ve been ahead of the curve with regards to what is now being called by the OEMs and other large enterprises like Verizon, designed for sustainability. You’ve been doing that already.

Jim: We’ve been focused on it 100%. I mean, even we don’t talk about it publicly, we don’t put in our advertising. But if you look at many of the routers we have in our Fios footprint here from Massachusetts, Virginia, we provide the Fios home broadband. Over 60% of the housings of them are made up of ocean plastics. You’ll never see that on an advertisement, it’ll never be on a billboard. But that’s just building it into our design and how we operate on a day to day basis.

John: I love it. Jim, we can’t get up any morning and either read the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, or look at Bloomberg or CNBC and not hear the words AI. How is AI going to affect Verizon, both inside the house, operationally and from a supply chain standpoint, but then externally with regards to sustainability? And where is that going to be able to continue to make Verizon one of the most resilient and important brands on this planet?

Jim: Yeah. You do not have a conversation at all without AI and ML coming up at some point nowadays because it hits you everywhere. So I’ll take the two questions internally. Internally, it’s across the board. When you think about uptime of our network, I mentioned it earlier, up when they need to be up and they need to be down. We are constantly doing traffic patterns. We’re constantly looking at where people are using our network, how they’re using our network, peak times, major venues. NFL, we’re the sole supporter of many of the NFL stadiums, and we have a deal with the NFL. Making sure we can peak up when we have to and then ramp down from an energy perspective. So we are always using AI to run our networks, ,whether they’re fiber or wireless. Then I think about our call centers, and I’m not going to do justice because I have peers in the company. But you think about how we’re using AI to look at customer opportunities, to have a better experience, chat, all those different things, and I’m going to stop there because I won’t do the justice that it deserves. But it’s all across our internal operation that’s making us better and more efficient. But then you go and you look at smart transportation, smart cities, AI on traffic patterns, AI on how lights operate AI on sensors, building sensors that can control either a small area, a large area, and I’ll take it one step farther you look at how AI is being used by many of our customers who are in farming with irrigation, smart irrigation, making sure in the area out by where you live, where all the great crops are grown, maybe a vineyard or two, I bet. They’re focused on what the soil looks like. And by the way, that gets into smart agriculture. So I’ll stop there. But AI, ML, it’s being used internally and by many of our customers.

John: Jim, you have 15 years of massive success as a chief sustainability officer, and I know you have a long way to go in front. What are two or three of your most favorite accomplishments and initiatives that you’re the most proud of during the last 15 years? And then, of course, I’m going to turn that question around and say, what are you most looking forward to in the years ahead?

Jim: I think one of the things I’m most proud of is when I had the opportunity to meet President Obama and talk about EV’s and not pass out. So I thought that was a huge accomplishment. But when we were one of the first ones starting up with the smart transportation with President Obama, that was one of the proudest moments of my career just to be there with him. And he was such a visionary. And we’ve gotten some things done and we’ve got a lot more to do there. When you look at the infrastructure of what we’ve created with renewable energy, it’s just overwhelming how proud I am of Verizon. Not me, but Verizon and what we mean and what we’ve done. And it’s just super impressive. And I’ll tell you, though, there is one thing that if I go to bed at night, it gives me a smile, and that is Verizon employees. Over 60 employees are part of the Verizon green team. Now, I talked to you last time, I think we were in the thirties, over 60,000, and we’re in over 61 countries. That just tells me that 28 and a half years ago, I picked the right company to work for because that passion of those individuals, that’s why they get up in the middle of the night when we have a natural disaster. That’s why they make sure that renewable energy is running and we’re greening our networks. It’s the employees at Verizon that make the difference. That’s what I’m so proud of.

John: Well, they’re also lucky. They also the right choice when they chose you. So, Jim, you publish your sustainability impact report every year, what month does it typically publish?

Jim: Usually our annual report will be in the February timeframe, and then it’ll come right after that. It’ll be part of our entire ESG report in the April timeframe, right around Earth day each year.

John: And that lives in [inaudible] perpetuity on the verizon.com website.

Jim: That is correct, yes.

John: Well, Jim, any final words before we say goodbye for today? Because this is just another of our great interviews in our series. Because as you and I know, and you’ve taught me over the years, there is no finish line in sustainability. It’s a journey so tracking your journey is always just fascinating and also, like I said, very inspirational. Any final thoughts on the rest of the year and the upcoming year in 25 on sustainability and Verizon?

Jim: What I would say is watch Verizon may have a few announcements here in the second half of the year and take away one thing, we are thinking all the time on how we run the most responsible business there is, the greenest network there is, and that we are focused on our customers, 24 by 7365. And we appreciate all of our customers out there.

John: Thank you so much, Jim. And thank you for all listeners and viewers. To find Jim and all of his 100,000 plus colleagues at Verizon and all the important work that they’re doing in sustainability and impact and circularity, please go to www.verizon.com. Jim Gowen, you’re not only an inspiration to me, but I’m so grateful to you and all your colleagues for your time today, but also, more importantly, for making the world a more sustainable and better place.

Jim: Thank you, John. Really appreciate everything you do at impact. And I still remember green is good radio.

John: That’s right. You helped put us on the map and I’m never going to forget that. And you’re always welcome back on the show because I always get reinspired when you come back on the show. So thanks so much, Jim, for everything.

Jim: Take care, John. Good seeing you.

John: Take care.

John: This edition of the Impact podcast is brought to you by engagement. 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, and 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.