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John Shegerian: Welcome back to Green is Good and we’re so honored to have back with us again Linda Demmler. She’s the Vice President of IBM Global Financing and Global Asset Recovery Services of North America, the great and iconic IBM brand. Welcome to Green is Good again, Linda.

Linda Demmler: Great, thank you John. I am so excited to be back on your show.

John: I’m so happy to have you back on and for our listeners that didn’t have the opportunity to hear the great work that you’re doing at IBM the last time you were on the show, before we start talking about what you’re doing, talk a little bit about Linda Demmler. Give a little bit of your story and you journey leading up to IBM and the important position that you have here today.

Linda: Sure. I’d be happy to. Thanks, John. In my current position, I’m responsible for global asset recovery services and at IBM and this has really been a journey for me. I started with IBM in the northeast region and I have worked in our leasing operations, our leasing company, for the majority of my career in a variety of different roles, whether it’s been strategic alliances or channel development or business development but I keep coming back to this asset recovery business because it’s just an interesting and fascinating business to me in terms of its ability to have real impact on the world around us. I live now in Annapolis, Maryland. I’m married. I have a 10-year-old daughter, Reese, and so as we look at the world around us and we want to be strong professionally in furthering the agenda of our corporations, we also want to be good stewards of the environment that we’re operating and the communities that we’re operating within so it’s been nice that this IBM journey has afforded me the opportunity to work on something as valuable as asset recovery and sustainability that really improves the way companies operate as well as the way IBM impacts the environment and communities in which we operate.

John: Before we go into the nitty gritty of our discussion, for our listeners out there that want to follow along online, IBM has one of the greatest websites out there and to follow along on what we’re going to be talking about with Linda today, you can go to IBM.com/financing. There’s so much great information here on sustainability and all the great work IBM is doing with regards to asset recovery services and sustainability. Your role has of recent times changed a little bit. Can you share the difference in your roles now in charge of North America versus worldwide?

Linda: Yeah, absolutely. So it certainly has been an exciting and dynamic year. It’s interesting. There’s been so much that’s been new. Previously, I was running worldwide sales within global asset recovery services. I spent my life on a plane visiting all the countries and geographies around the world, meeting with clients, meeting with business partners, meeting with other IBMers on how we can further the sustainability agenda and really leverage best practices as a singular unit around the globe. About a year ago, I took this position responsible for North America and it’s been very interesting in that there is so much new in working directly with companies and getting down to the next level of working with them and driving companies’ own agendas, whether it is an IT transformation or a business transformation or their own sustainability initiatives but honestly, the world’s become so accessible that one of the things that I’ve found is that there are as many similarities as there are differences and I find most often working with the North American companies that no matter what we’re doing, there tend to be global implications to what their current needs or their current initiatives are, more than ever before so for instance, many U.S. companies have non-U.S. operations and even the smallest of partnerships could have a global footprint impact and I’m always approaching the new engagements anticipating that there will be a global impact and that’s really helpful for me as an IBM organization, given that we have this global footprint and that this critical mass of IT assets from our leasing portfolio. That gives us great insight and experiences that resonate in a variety of different situations. We’re used to working with businesses small and large, the smallest businesses to Fortune 100, but doing that across 40 different countries really gives us a breadth of perspective that in American companies, gives us a lot of flexibility and a lot of adaptability for the way the world is changing for everyone and how we need to recreate and reinvent our business models going forward.

John: That’s so interesting so of course hindsight in life, Linda, is always 20/20 but now that you look back a little bit of recent years and your position change, are you happy with the sequence that your career followed? Because are you better in your current role in charge of North America because of your previous global worldwide experiences?

Linda: I absolutely think so. I think having that diversity of experience and meeting with employees and clients and partners from around the world and seeing all the variety of business models that are out there really gave me the ability to look at problems, look at solutions, look at new ideas from many different perspectives as opposed to having just one view of the world so it has been very enriching to me professionally and I would say personally as well. I still mentor a number of women from different countries around the world and bringing those experiences to me as a person makes me a more enriched person and you can’t help but be changed by those relationships.

John: That’s great. In our first interview, we talked about three principal market advantages that you have at IBM that you offer in the global asset recovery services division and those were sustainability, affordability, and trusted advisor and I’ve thought about that a lot more and that resonated with my listeners. I got a lot of feedback on that. Can you take a deeper dive into those three principles that set you apart from everyone else. Talk a little bit about the genesis of those three and how they continue to drive your differentiating sales proposition forward at IBM.

Linda: You know, John, this was a real turning point for GARS when we focused on– We had been creating value through asset recovery solutions for over 30 years and we had so many best practices. They had been replicated around the world. We have eight patents for our unique and innovative remanufacturing and demanufacturing operations. I’m not going to say we became complacent but we certainly thought we know what’s going on. Over the last 10 years alone, we processed nearly a billion pounds through these operations so a few years ago, we really challenged ourselves to say we can do more, we can do faster, but how do we do better? What is it that really makes us different as an organization, as individuals, why do we show up at work in the morning? Why do we do what we do? Why do clients want to do business with us? What do we do that clients value? And so we created these small teams around the world to take pulse of local clients and marketplaces and honestly, we walked in with kind of a bias that we assumed we’d have to create these regionally based themes that resonated with clients locally and it was really fascinating. It’s not what we found at all. Of course, there’s local customs, there’s legal restrictions, there’s lots of business practices that are unique as you go to each city around the globe but at the core, what we’ve found is that clients value us because of the robust investments and IBM’s unwavering commitment we’ve made to environmental leadership, sustainability and they work with us because we don’t focus on selling just what’s in our warehouses but they want to work with us because we listen to their challenges and we work with them to develop real solutions to their problems, whatever those solutions might be. Sometimes there’s many client conversations I’m involved in. I don’t get a sale out of them but I get a customer and I get a customer that we will partner over many years in the future because I show up as a trusted advisor, not as a solutions seller and my team prides themselves on being innovative experts to really drive the pain points out of the customer business model, not just sell what we have on our truck and what we create that the clients value through that process is real affordability, not just low cost. I’m not just going to walk in with the lowest priced hardware or services but really focusing on what is it that we can do to accelerate a customer’s critical transformation end to end, acquiring solutions, getting them implemented, using them, getting rid of them. Sometimes disposing is the hardest thing and all of this comes down to affordably reducing the time cost and risk of customers’ transformation and affordability, for me, is all about realizing and truly recognizing with the client that time is money and the higher the risk, the more exposure clients have to costs increasing when things go wrong and so what was eye-opening was that these three themes of sustainability leadership and showing up as a trusted advisor not just there to sell something and really looking at the end to end transformation and how can we improve the affordability of that transformation, whether it’s reducing risks or reducing costs or reducing time and it was eye-opening that this was the same in every region, every geography, every client. Clients want to work with trusted advisors that enable them to affordably accelerate their transformation and link their corporate agendas and their execution to sustainability stewardship.

John: That’s the recipe for success at IBM.

Linda: It’s been really fun. I think it’s really energized the team that while we like what we did, we’re all very passionate about it, you can tell we enjoy what we do but for us, what really crystallized it was the impact it could have on improving clients’ businesses and moving the agenda forward on a smarter planet was really energizing.

John: For our listeners out there that just joined us, we’ve got Linda Demmler back on Green is Good today. She’s the Vice President of IBM Global Financing and Global Asset Recovery Services of North America and to learn more about what she’s doing at IBM, it’s IBM.com/financing. Linda, I don’t want to gloss over it but I do want you to touch upon the wow numbers. You just touched on it a little while ago. Give the last x amount of years. You said a billion something? And give the annual number that you recycle in the cars division at IBM.

Linda: Right, so I did mention, over the last ten years, we passed about a billion pounds of material through our remanufacturing/demanufacturing division around the world and I’m a visual person so for me, this is equivalent to 1,000 Airbus 300s.

John: Oh my gosh!

Linda: If you look at 2013 alone, we processed more than 800,000 units of IT equipment and what we very much focus on, our unique value that we try to bring to the sustainability environment is we pride ourselves on our high percent of reuse versus solely recycling, 800,000 units of IT that we processed in 2013, more than 91% of it was reused and resold with the remainder being dismantled parts, going into recovery of precious metals, and if you take just the laptops we processed last year, it would be nearly the height of Mount Everest.

John: But let’s be honest, all of this is just appropriate and great sustainability practices, 91% being reused and resold and the other part going to end of life practices being commoditized. Everything’s staying out of the landfill then and everything is being disposed of appropriately so that’s all great sustainability practices and so kudos to IBM, kept that all out of the environment

Linda: It’s also good business for customers because it frees up the capital for the customers to spend on their core business requirements, whether they’re focused on investing in innovation or growth or transformation so we do, the tens of thousands of assets that we receive back each week, we do remanufacture them and we remanufacture them according to original manufacturing standards and the way we drive such high reuse standards is we custom configure them for reuse and resale and so by focusing heavily on this reuse versus just pure recycling objective, we are able to help customers enable and drive forward their transformation because they’re either extending the life of the assets within their enterprise or they’re acquiring repurposed assets that allow them to extend the life of what they have in their footprint already while they’re making the big investments and transformations that are really going to drive their business forward, cloud, analytics, mobile, all that initiative that is bringing strategic importance to their business and really displacing huge number of assets in the process.

John: Linda, what we love to do on this show, as you already know, is give solutions so we have about four minutes left. For our listeners out there that are COOs or CEOs of companies, our listeners out there that are CTOs or other operations managers that make decisions with regards to recycling and new equipment and new technology, what are they supposed to be thinking about? What do you want them thinking about in terms of making decisions when need to refresh their equipment and such? What are some of the paying points? What are some of the things that you want to be top of mind?

Linda: I think the untapped potential for companies out there is as companies are driving huge investments in these new promising initiatives, like Cloud and big data and mobility, are hugely disruptive and will move their businesses forward but it is displacing a large number of assets that can and should be reused and can return value to offset some of the cost and risk and time of those transformations they’re investing in so the key thing to think about is having a strategic asset management initiative in place that allows companies to extract the value out of the assets being displaced and working with a trusted advisor so that they don’t incur incremental risks or incremental costs as they go through that displacement and dispose of those assets.

John: And that’s really what you are then. You’re the plug and play for COOs and CEOs and other company leaders across the world and people become then that trusted advisor who then takes those assets and gets them repurposed in a safe, both environmental and data protection way, correct?

Linda: Correct. Absolutely.

John: Got it, got it, got it. What should they be aware of though? Down to two minutes here. What should they not be doing? What are some of the absolute worst decisions someone in a decision making role can make right now when getting rid of their electronic assets?

Linda: There’s a few considerations. Being cognizant of your own environmental stewardship plan, making sure that companies you’re partnering with are following the same policies and practices and methodologies that you have, that companies that you’re partnering with are keeping up with the complex ever-changing environmental regulations and that there truly are environmental management systems and I’d be remiss if when you’re working with companies, you’re working with companies who are not focused on reusing versus solely recycling because the reuse is where we really contribute to the sustainability of the environment and reduce the manufacture of incremental new assets because we have fully appropriate and fully capable new assets ready to go.

John: And reuse is one of the greatest and most legitimate forms of recycling. Shameless plug. We’re down to the last minute or so. If you want our audience members to have one big take away about your thoughts about IBM’s Global Financing Global Asset Recovery Services, GARS business unit, what would it be?

Linda: I have to say I’m very proud of IBM’s longstanding history of environmental leadership and through those initiatives, we truly are making the world smarter and a better place and we’d be happy to work with companies small and large to help put in place an asset management and disposition strategy.

John: You are making the world a better place. Thank you, Linda, for being a visionary sustainability superstar. You are truly living proof that Green is Good.

John Shegerian: 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 has 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. This is a very special edition. We’ve got the dynamic duo from Adobe with us today, Amy White, she’s the global head of corporate social responsibility, and Angie Bush, the head of technology for good. Welcome to The Impact Podcast.

Angie Bush: Thanks so much.

Amy White: Thanks so much, John. Good to be here. Thank you for the invite.

John: Happy to have you both here. Before we get going, we were talking a little bit off the air first, but both of you have huge and fascinating backgrounds that lead to these very important positions. Can you just share with our listeners a little bit about each of you? Amy, can you kick off as the global head of corporate responsibility? A, how you got here, and B, what your task is, what you do there.

Amy: Absolutely. Well, I appreciate it again, thanks for the invite, John. It’s great to be here and of course, my esteemed colleague, Angie Bush. I’m excited to chat with the two of you today. So my career actually starts in the nonprofit sector. And I think that that is not uncommon with corporate CSR folks is that we had some turn or another whether as we were a good liberal arts student in college, or we took a turn and worked in nonprofit settings is that we have some foundation in community work. So maybe that’s America, or maybe that’s your local YMCA, maybe it’s something that’s more in the public sector, with governments but mine starts actually quite literally with Girl Scouts. I started my career as a young teenager at a Girl Scout camp, and then a Girl Scout counselor and camp director, and then moves through the nonprofit world as I was in college, and right after graduation. I always knew, I am the child of two public servants. My dad worked for the federal government, my mom worked for the state, both working in agriculture, farming, forestry, and then actually development. So my mom raised money for scholarships for kids to go to school. So it was always kind of a part of the DNA. So very quickly in my career, I knew that was the path. And then I had the good fortune of learning that while I’m a good fundraiser, it didn’t bring me a lot of joy. So I had the good opportunity to transition from raising money to giving money away. So that was actually my pivot that took me down a path where I worked for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and then transitioned probably about a half dozen years ago into corporate philanthropy and corporate social responsibility. So at Adobe, what that means for us is we call it five verticals. So I lead corporate social responsibility and social issues, and communication. So we have a communications team that thinks about how we proactively tell our story, but also how we tell the stories of our customers, our grantees, and the folks that are doing really great work in the world. Then we have a philanthropy team. So we make grants to the tune of about $50 million annually. Then we have the technology to transform the team, which Angie will certainly speak more eloquently to. We have an employee impact team. That’s where all of our employee matching gifts, our employee volunteerism, our pro bono work anything where our employees are being empowered to support nonprofits or community organizations in their backyards. Our backyard is global so that could be anywhere from Delhi to Detroit, wherever they are, they’re giving time and money. Then we also, of course, have sustainability as a core pillar of our work that we’ll dig more into today. Then finally, I’ve forgotten someone, which is always the case.

John: That’s okay. How long have you been at Adobe itself because your career is already a storybook?

Amy: Oh, gosh, well, that’s generous of you. Also, it makes me sound old John, so careful there. Just kidding. I just actually had my one-year anniversary with Adobe. August of last year is when I joined the company.

John: Angie, you are the head of technology for good, which I just love that name. Talk a little bit about where you grew up, what your journey was, and what you’re tasked with doing at Adobe.

Angie: Sure. So I grew up in Idaho and grew up the granddaughter of ranchers and so grew up on horseback and everything else went to undergrad at Colorado Boulder. I have a deep love for nature and being out in the mountains and whatnot. I think after I graduated with my undergrad degree, very quickly thought I really wanted to get into public policy. So I think Amy and I actually have a very similar background around this time. But I moved to California almost 20 years ago to get my Master’s in Public Administration and focus on public policy, and I really wanted it to have my impact and legacy be on the policy front. After graduating, I decided, actually, that wasn’t quite my path. I wasn’t quite sure what I was looking for. So I got into the nonprofit sector. I was very fortunate to join an organization called Youth Noise, which was the first pre-Facebook social network for civically minded youth around the world. I loved my job, I also fell into development. But where I really found my home was bringing together large brands, some of the best Nike, Virgin, bringing together some of these brands, with nonprofits, NGOs, state governments, you name it and really finding that intersection where we could all come together and tackle an issue in all the ways, all bringing our superpowers to that effort. So that’s really where I found my passion for that kind of work. Then a few years ago, I decided I wanted to be on the for-profit side of that equation. And so made the switch went to for-profit and landed at Adobe about three years ago. And it was in this new role about exploring how there are already great things happening at Adobe, but how are we going to create a concerted effort around technology for good and how we could leverage that for social and environmental impact. So I feel very grateful that I’ve been given the opportunity to build that function at Adobe from the ground up. Now it’s not just going up, but out. And I feel like, every day I get to work with some of the best teams across the business in every region, to figure out how our products can really be leveraged how we can enable our customers and how we can really amplify the great stories of impact that we’re having around the world.

John: Love it. So you’ve been there about three years and Amy has been there about a year. I mean, as I shared with you, when we were off the air when we were just catching up a little bit, I’m 59 and both of you are relatively young comparatively speaking. You’re in these very exciting roles and have a fantastically great platform, this might be one of the greatest times in modern history to be involved with good/sustainability/ESG/circular economy. I feel like we’ve hit some form of tipping point somewhere in the last 36 months and that there’s really no looking back, and that your generation and I say this solely with absolute respect and generosity, is really going to take the torch now and get us back on the right track. Because man, have we been off our rails for some time now. Do you feel like this is a great moment in time to be doing the kind of work you’re both doing now at Adobe?

Amy: Well, I’ll take a stab at that, John. I think there’s there’s only one answer in my mind is that optimism and hope are the ways that we move through the community in what we do. So I think absolutely, I think that I think that we are at a tipping point for employees around holding the companies that they work for, not necessarily accountable, but asking them the right questions. I think that people are willing to take aggressive personal action to support you know, we were talking about homeboy recycling, but whether that’s your own recycling or your own water consumption, obviously, we know those aren’t going to be the things that move the needle the most dramatically. But that collective movement, I think is a critical part of how we create change. Then I think different administrations and different governments across the globe are tackling this it at different speeds, but what I’m encouraged by is that consistently on a global scale. We no longer are debating whether or not there’s a climate crisis. It’s a debate about what to do and how fast to do it. Right is that everywhere from India making its declarations last year at COP to individual companies setting new targets is that there we know a collective movement is required, and it has to be aggressive. So I think, yeah, I feel optimistic because we have no other option but to work together to create that sort of change. And I do think what you’re sort of alluding to that generational shift is that this is an imperative, particularly climate but sustainability and social impact and social good and demanding that of companies and other industries across the board is no longer negotiable. It’s no longer the nice thing to do, it’s imperative.

Angie: I would say from my perspective, it’s not an either or. It’s not, hey, we’re going to stick to business. And we’re gonna focus on the bottom line, or we’re going to focus on sustainability. I think it’s what companies are finding with a lot of the technology for good the product innovation side of it is that we’re helping show business value along with environmental savings. I think that is the Nexus at which we need to approach this when it comes to the business imperative. I think it’s convincing and educating and demonstrating to our employees, our customers, to the world at large, that going and trying to be more sustainable does not mean that you give up your business goals and ambition. In fact, I think sustainability is going to be a great driver of innovation. I think that is something that we need to focus on, especially as we go into these next few years because we are at a tipping point from governments to companies to individual actions, we all need to come together and figure out how we’re going to tackle this together.

John: I love it and I agree with you. It’s like you said, this is not just a trend or a thing to do for a little bit. This has become now and it should become more of a DNA issue with every organization that exists. Let’s talk about that. Let’s get a dig in a little bit. Also for our listeners and viewers out there to find Amy, Angie, and all their colleagues and all the good that they’re doing at Adobe, you can go to www.adobe.com. Sustainability becomes an internal and external concept for a company. There are these internal initiatives, and these external initiatives, share a little bit about what you’re doing both internally and externally to drive your sustainability commitments forward.

Amy: Yeah, absolutely. I’ll take that one, John. I think as I mentioned in our chat at the top that our commitment to sustainability and social impact starts 40 years ago. We’re very fortunate this year. As our 40th anniversary, we’re doing some celebrating, and also some recommitting to who we are and what that looks like for the 40 years ahead. So sustainability is have been a part of who we are as a company for a very long time before even… I don’t want to say [inaudible] because I think it always has been to certain pockets. But we started investing in our three pillars, which was our operational sustainability. So how we manage our own buildings, our own operations, our product sustainability, how the products Adobe creates, support our customers in reaching their own sustainability targets, and then the ecosystem. So those are three building blocks, and the ecosystem being policy advocacy, partnerships, and commitments to how we work as a collective, as I mentioned before. So our site operations and workplace stuff, I think is above and beyond what you see a lot of companies do. All of our own facilities are LEED certified. We go above and beyond to try to manage both our water consumption, and our electricity to build really powerful, beautiful workplaces, but also with sustainability at the heart of that. That’s a global commitment. So certainly LEED certification isn’t everywhere, but the practices and principles are. So we take that very seriously. Then as you I know have seen as we’ve been reviewing and preparing for our chat today, we’ve set goals a long time ago… not a long time ago, relatively long and in the landscape of corporate goal setting but in 2015, we started setting what we believed at the time were really aggressive targets around greenhouse gas reductions, around renewable energy and a commitment to using 100% renewable electricity. Then of course setting and achieving our science-based targets. So we have a couple of science-based targets and to have that 1.5% commitment of reduction. So it’s a part of who we are. We operationalize that a long time ago, our facilities and our teams are focused on it. We continue to push ourselves to talk about what more can we do, how can we set more rigorous or aggressive targets around water reduction as that is a hot topic, particularly in California where we’re headquartered across the globe. Then looking ahead to how can we do more? What does that look like? Or should we be accelerating some of the targets we have, how do we work with some of our largest suppliers? Those of you that are close to sustainability work, of course, understand that this is a collective and that we as a technology company that doesn’t actually create a product. The best way we can make progress is by working with our vendors and suppliers to help bring down that collective greenhouse gas emission. So how do we think about our cloud storage and our partners who are helping our products make it out into the world to reduce their footprint? So there’s a lot of really powerful, exciting energy inside the company to think about how we do more, and how we use our voice and our impact and our products to make that difference. So I think the internal part is managing ourselves and then the external part is asking ourselves, how we empower our customers, how we work with our suppliers. And then also where should we be showing up? So what sort of policy what sort of advocacy? Where do we have the most differentiating voice to bear? I know Angie is going to speak a little bit about our product piece in that part. But we really think that our products are one of the keys unlocks, particularly as we all went to a virtual workplace is that the ability to sign documents to produce videos, everything in a remote environment not only helps business keep going but also had a great and powerful positive impact on the environment. So continuing down that path is a real priority for us.

John: One thing I didn’t ask at the top to give our listeners a little bit of scope. How many employees does Adobe had give or take?

Angie: Give or take, around 25,000.

John: So 25,000 and that’s around the world?

Angie: Yeah.

John: Now, going back to what Amy was just talking about in terms of renewable energy, I know you have a big announcement coming up in terms of your 2023 headquarters in San Jose opening. Why don’t you share a little bit about renewable energy and your new headquarters towers in San Jose, which opens in 2023?

Angie: Amy, I’m gonna let you take that one because you’ve been right in the center of all that.

Amy: Sure, absolutely. I think we’re excited, of course, because it’s an ongoing part of our commitment to using renewable energy. So we’ve made this 100% commitment to renewable energy. Part of that is the purchase of more renewable off the grid, but also enhancing and electrifying our physical facilities. So we’re excited, sort of towards the tail end of this fiscal year will be our excuse me calendar year, we’ll be opening up we call it the North Tower. I think we might get about a fancier name than that eventually. But it’s, it’s our first all-electric building. So it’s the first one in the valley. We’re excited. I think it is a physical manifestation of our commitment to how we enable employees to come back to work and have a beautiful working environment, and a collaborative space, but also airflow, water usage, renewable energy, and all-electric are all key components of how it was built. So how do we create the best kind of working experience, particularly as folks are coming back to the office, but also had the least amount of impact?

John: I assume that was a LEED-certified building.

Amy: Yeah.

John: Go back into that, you were just breaking that down. You don’t join the LEED certification institute and write a check, it’s hard to earn that. Go through that checklist again that you really have to think about and touch upon and attack and accomplish. It’s just not writing a check.

Amy: No, absolutely. I mean, there’s design principles. The LEED certification process is one that we started almost two decades ago now. So our team, our facilities team is well versed in what it takes. And again, LEED is not a global certification it is, but in North America in the US, we ascribe to it. So it is a financial commitment, you actually do become a member of the LEED certification community. What it means is that you are making purchase decisions, you’re looking at your supplier. So who’s bringing materials into your building? What are their practices? Not just sustainability practices, actually, but human rights practices, sustainability practices? How are they sourcing materials? Can we verify sourcing, particularly on wood products and metals? Can you verify all the way upstream where those metals came from that they aren’t doing an unnecessary or planned harm as you procure them to put them in the building? Then, of course, a lot of recycled products and then commitments extend far beyond the actual creation of the building. It’s also how you run the building. So if that’s greywater in your toilets, if that’s your recycling, and composting waste diversion programs that you have committed to, it’s how you manage your H-back, and how you manage heating and cooling throughout the year, particularly as the world gets hotter how we look at that. So that’s why I mentioned airflow is that any reduction in dependency on air conditioning and cooling systems is a big win. So looking at how we place windows, where we place them using shades, doing all sorts of design, beautiful design elements that both enhance the experience for our employees and our guests, but also get us to that side where we’re we’re managing our sustainability outcomes as well.

John: I love it. Angie, one of the things is that I’m fascinated with your title head of technology for good. When I first started the show in oh seven and started as a radio show, and it was called as a play on the Gordon Gekko famous line, we trademarked the line, green is good. And again, it was done for the same reason. But I expanded it over the years because the guest list expanded to be people and organizations that are making an impact. As the head of technology for good, share some examples of things that you’re working on right now, initiatives that you’re working on, that get you out of bed in the morning, that get you excited that and that keep your sustainability initiatives and the good that Adobe is doing moving forward?

Angie: That’s a great question. Again, I think, as I’ve said before, I think sustainability really is going to be the biggest opportunity for innovation at Adobe. What gets me out of bed in the morning honestly, is working for a company with such a powerful and robust portfolio of products. We are not a one-trick pony, we are just the opposite. So we have three major clouds Document Cloud, creative cloud experience, cloud, and a whole lot of solutions underneath those titles. So I think when we look at what we’re doing from a sustainability perspective, we have a lot to do. And we are doing a lot I think Adobe’s mission has always been to create products that empower people to change the world. And that’s what we’re doing. And we’re not just doing it, keep your own house in order with great things like the North Tower in our operations, but we’re going out and we’re innovating around the products, we’re engaging our customers, because they’re the ones that are going to go take that out and apply the tools and use the products to actually create that environmental benefit. So we’re doing things like with our Document Cloud, it’s really fueling the paper to digital transformation. Creative Cloud, especially during the pandemic, I think we have such cool examples of how customers were just reimagining the creative process with digital at its core. Then with Experience Cloud, we’re powering businesses from SMBs, on up to the biggest largest brands you can imagine, enabling more sustainable practices, and helping other customers reach their own sustainability goals. So I think all of these things together are a lot to manage. So last year, we started on this journey of, let’s take a look at all of our products. Let’s take a look at what we’re doing right now, what’s available, and at what point in the life of that product are we kind of coming into the process? How are we impacting and going in the product? How are we creating tools to help customers realize the value of using that product? And then as we look further down the line, I think the goal always is to come in from day one, and be in those conversations as we’re ideating around new products because then sustainability becomes part of that DNA and we’re building with sustainability in mind. So I think those are the different tracks that we’re looking at, in terms of kind of the lifeline of the product.

John: I want to just ask you a question, I’m interrupting here. I want to take it from a very specific example because not everyone understands the interrelationship of cloud technology and SMBs and where sustainability comes into play there. So I want you to explain that, but let’s make it I want to break it down first into a simpler but more tangible reference of something that we all understand nowadays. We all understand e-signatures because we’re all doing that much more than we were last 15 years ago. Adobe Acrobat Sign is a solution. Explain why your e-signature solution makes a real difference, sustainability, then we’ll go back to the cloud issue, and I want you to interconnect cloud solutions with SMB and sustainability.

Angie: Yeah, I mean, I think that we found a really interesting last few years because everyone was focused on the pandemic, obviously, and that interrupted a lot of things for people, especially doing anything brick and mortar or anything with e-signatures. Now, obviously, Acrobat Sign has been around for a long time, and e-signatures have been around for a long time, but never before has been so accelerated in terms of absolute business imperative. So when you have these signatures, you’re moving away from paper, you’re going completely digital, and I know with Adobe Sign, using Adobe Sign creates 95% less environmental impact than a paper workflow. To give a little context, every million transactions through Adobe sign actually equates to 27 million gallons of water saved and over 2300 cars off the road for a year. And I think when you think like, okay, I’m doing a signature, or our company’s investing and we’re doing 20,000 transactions a year, it’s like, okay, that’s great. But I think when you really put it into the context of the environmental benefit of that, you’re going, oh my god, that’s an incredible environmental benefit. And I think what we saw during the pandemic, especially were entire industries, financial services, for example, completely accelerating their switch to digital. People weren’t going to banks, people weren’t going and doing things in person. So by accelerating that, and investing in digital workflows, we saw that not only was customer experience improved, we were also seeing incredible environmental benefits. We’re seeing more and more of the entire industry invest more in these types of workflows. And I think that when you look at customers, like, for example, the government, the state of Hawaii is a great example. They launched an initiative a few years ago to move away from paper-based processes and not only are they seeing rates, and great sustainability, but taxpayers are saving almost $3 million a year. So I think that what people are starting to see is, again, what I was talking about earlier, is that sustainability can actually help you, especially things like the pandemic, which we’re just going to see more and more of these types of disruptions occur. It’s actually helping overcome those types of issues while also realizing great value from a business perspective, time, time savings, cost savings, you name it.

John: Got it. Let’s go back to when you refer to earlier, the cloud solutions that you’re creating for SMBs and other enterprises, and the interconnectivity between those kinds of solutions that you’re creating in technology and sustainability and the benefits that accrue thereof.

Angie: Sure. I mean, I think we have some really great examples of SMBs, small-medium businesses that really, I can’t imagine a group were impacted by the pandemic when it came to business continuity. So I think what we saw was a really heavy investment, and really accelerated timelines for some of these folks to get online with e-signatures, start using our experience cloud, start meeting customer needs fully digitally. So I think we have some really great examples of how that was done to accelerate business and stay afloat, frankly, when almost not overnight, but over just a few weeks, they had to shut down brick and mortar and go completely virtual. So I think that what we’re seeing is probably, was it sustainability first? Probably not, it was probably we got to keep our virtual doors open. But I think from that we’ve started to see more and more people are saying, wow, we’re starting to see environmental benefits of this, we’re starting to see the value that the business continuity is bringing from a whole many other many metrics that we’re seeing come in. So I think that for small and medium businesses whether it’s sustainability or just business continuity, I really feel like Adobe solutions in that powerful portfolio we talked about, really helped in this robust kind of wraparound service. So creating using digital tools, instead of doing physical photoshoots, moving to some of our 3d technology and being able to do virtual photoshoots, and being able to recreate the fabric on 100 different chairs virtually instead of having to produce those materials. That’s huge environmental savings, especially when you think about just the millions of small and medium businesses out there in the world, as well as large companies benefiting from those products.

John: If you just joined us now, we’re really excited. We have Amy White, the global head of corporate social responsibility at Adobe with us today and Angie Bush, the head of technology for good. If you want to find them and their colleagues at Adobe and learn all the good and important things they’re doing in sustainability, ESG, and circular economy, you could go to www.adobe.com. Let’s talk a little bit about big. Big sometimes is wonderful because it gives both of you and your colleagues, this great platform, that when you make decisions and decide to move forward with initiatives, the needle really moves. But how does big also get in the way of communication internally with your employees and keeping them motivated and understanding all the important work that you’re doing, and then externally? How do you combat the issues that bigness creates with regard to communicating effectively?

Amy: John, I’ll tackle that one. Your question nor my answer will be unique to Adobe. I think that that is a huge opportunity and one of the greatest challenges and I think that every company, particularly anyone working in our global landscape in the last two and a half years has had to address is how do you maintain morale? How do you help people feel connected? How do you maintain culture when you’re all remote? I think those are really, really hard questions and I think we’re all still learning. As folks are easing back into the office and figuring that out sort of prioritizing how you use in-person time and how we think about what kind of culture we want to build because a little bit of this moment is actually about not only extending the culture that existed but also establishing something new. I read a statistic I think recently that most corporations have a third of their employees are new since the pandemic. So, the great resignation and the great hiring and Adobe is not any different. Myself included, we have thousands of people that have joined who have never met people in person. So I think, as we become more agile in what that looks like, we’re going to maintain the back-to-work mentality is that we’re going to go into the office for moments that matter, and to make sure that the teams are getting together, we’re doing strategy and planning, but also relationship building in person. But also leveraging the best parts of what it means to work in a global setting is that we can talk now. We’re in three different places, I’ll be at all on the west coast, but we can enable great work and great conversation from anywhere now. So I think leading into that, and then my guess is, and Adobe, again, is not dissimilar to other companies is that we’ve all really leaned into the value of internal communications and employee communications. It’s not just one way of telling people, You can’t just send emails and hope people read them. We need a multi-channel approach to how we talk to our employees, just like we do with our customers, with the media, with our investors whether that is in instant messaging on Teams and Slack and other devices like that or sending things in the mail, or getting on calls or showing up in person is utilizing all of the tools at our disposal to make sure that we’re tackling our business, our core business and being successful and competitive in that way. So, I think the bigness, if anything, the pandemic, one of those strange bright spots is that it doesn’t feel quite as big anymore, because we’ve all had to work in a global context. So yes, time zones are still a hassle than figuring out how to talk to people that are 13 and a half hours away. It’s complicated, but we can and we do it regularly now. So we really think we’ve done a great job. And one of the core pieces I think our CSR team has enabled is that those were really, really powerful place-based programs and offices. So we certainly have over 25 offices globally and each of those offices has a site council, and a group of folks who think about the culture, the things that make coming to the office and being together really important, that aren’t necessarily about the day to day tactics of your work. But they’re thinking about, you know, in Seattle, we have a Wiffle ball league, which is very funny to me. It’s a very hot competition at the noon hour where people are out on the field playing together. But also they think about how they volunteer together? How do they host and learn about one another’s families and cultures? How do our employee resource groups and our cultural moments come to life? So we built that infrastructure a long time ago because we know that the importance of place and giving back to the place where you do business only enhances your experience as an employee, enhances our reputation with our customers and the broader community that we’re a part of. So we’ve been able to lean on that infrastructure, and I think has really helped us maintain a lot of those cultural components, even as we’ve been virtual.

Angie: John, I would add, I think it’s really about intentional engagement and that two-way conversation that Amy was just alluding to, too. I think that we’re focused on sustainability here and I would say, from a sustainability perspective, I think that engaging with our employees and helping them to see how they are part of the sustainability story and journey and how they can actually contribute to achieving our goals is extremely important. I think that it’s not just hey, the CSR team is over here setting some cool targets and doing these initiatives. It’s like, hey, you work on product design, let us show you, let’s work together on how we can build sustainability to products. You work on our operations team, you are here designing things, how can everybody see themselves in the solution? I was really excited, just recently, Adobe conducted a survey with our employees. We asked about what is your stance on sustainability at work. Is it something that we should focus on? And the answer was a resounding yes. And I think what was really cool is that Adobe’s employees saw so many benefits to implementing sustainability practices at work, and it wasn’t just because, oh, I feel like I’m contributing. I mean, the thing we heard back was this is going to boost productivity. It’s going to position Adobe as a leader. It’s going to open more opportunities for innovation, which everyone’s really craving especially come out of the pandemic. And the largest response was about improving workplace culture and how sustainability, you have so many people passionate, all along the spectrum, from taking individual action at a small level to going out and this is what your life is dedicated to. I think we need to harness that and I think making employees feel engaged just that it’s a two-way conversation that they’re contributing to the goals that we’re making, and that they can see themselves in the solution, I think is how we’re going back to the workplace and making sure our employees feel like they are a part of the sustainability journey.

John: So interesting. You both use the word cultural a lot. I wrote an email to one of my business partners, he’s a CEO of a different company, has nothing to do with ERI three nights ago, and he had been telling me about a weekend he had spent this past weekend in the inner city somewhere working on a business deal. He’s 25 years old. He’s a very young man. And I said to him, when I was your age, it was all about strict intelligence, and working hard. I said that about 15 to 20 years later became about him, also you layered on emotional intelligence, and working hard, but also, more importantly, working smart. And I said, there’s been a full sea change now. We’re now yes, it’s important to be a smart person. And yes, you have to have emotional intelligence. But I said, the new type of intelligence that really matters, is cultural intelligence. So I’ve heard you use that word because he was a little bit of a fish out of water in the inner city having grown up in a very well-to-do part of the suburbs of Denver and then graduating from USC. He enjoyed the experience very much but was experiencing an awakening. I said it was much like my awakening during my homeboy years as well. But I said they stay with you forever and they make you understand the importance of diversity. Going back to what you both were talking about at Adobe, I think if the stats are correct in terms of how many people have shifted jobs and careers post-pandemic, I think it’s a tremendous retention tool that you’re creating in terms of your culture around sustainability and doing good. Also, it’s both a great way to recruit or retain employees in the future, because I think your generation and younger, that’s what they’re all about now. It’s not about getting a job at 21 anymore and leaving when you’re 63. All the algorithms in math have changed tremendously. I did want to ask you this question about you said 25 or so groups around the world that are cultivating that culture and nurturing it. How many people when you take your teams of technology for good, and of course, the CSR team, how many people do you have working on these initiatives given the size of your company and also the amount of clients you have around the world?

Amy: Sure. I mean, not unlike lots of companies done, we have a core CSR and social impact team which is around 25 people globally who support that work. Then, of course, we have a couple of vendor-supported roles and things like that for events that come together. I think the power of what I mentioned before is that sort of play space is what we do is equip and support and help promote and program alongside each of those offices. So in each office, there’s someone who, usually it’s a two-year gig and sort of like serving on a nonprofit board that you commit to being an extension to our team. So you receive training, you receive support on how to promote programs, whether those are volunteer events, fundraisers, or food drives, you name it. Our office teams come up with all sorts of ways to give back and support our work. That also includes a sustainability person, and there’s a sort of community person. Those two folks have support directly from our team on all the tools and goals that they set. Then they engage locally. So they use the office communication strategy, whether that is digital communications, or literally signs on the elevator, to get people to turn out to events and to show up to give time, money, and attention to some of the goals that we committed both as a company but also how they manifest those in a local market. So if you take it out, there’s another 50 to 75 people globally that are an extension of our team actually carrying out programmatic work.

John: Post-pandemic, will this platform be used primarily by you both to communicate with your leaders around the world, or is going back on the road part of that process as well? How do you see the right mix of meeting with your teammates in person geographically speaking around the United States and around the world? How do you run that balancing act in the future? What’s your thoughts?

Amy: Yeah, I think that culturally, both in Adobe culture but also just in the world you can’t replace in-person communications and gatherings and the power that is built when I meet and share a meal with you or have a strategy session with you with a big whiteboard is that we know that those things are valuable. So across the board as a company, we will be returning to our office, but also, we’re a technology company. And we have tools that enable being virtual, and actually, in some ways make it better. Actually, Angie and I were on a call this morning, just talking about a group gathering that actually is better because if everyone is remote, then we can all participate collectively instead of having that other feeling that sometimes happens. So our approach is definitely we are returning to our offices and making sure that the time that we spend there is a really valuable strategy. We have sort of this motto around moments that matter is that we will gather with our most important customers, with our most employee events that there will be times when we are on the road, sharing our story meeting with people. And that has already happened even in the last six to eight months. Our leadership team has been on the move, people are meeting with customers across the globe. And what we know is that sometimes we can be more efficient. We can not only have good sustainability outcomes, but also we can just solve problems faster, sometimes virtually. It’s that we don’t need to coordinate a big trip if it’s actually just a quick hour-long phone call. And what we’re finding over and over, which is probably true across the industry is that customers actually like that, too. If there is an ease, if we’ve already had sort of that meaningful moment, and now we’re getting into some of the tactics or transactions or just problem solving, now that we have a foundation of the relationship, we can move into sort of the management and ongoing management in a virtual setting. So I think it’s going to be hybrid, that’s what we’re going to see across the world that what we have learned is what it can enable, and what we also learned as what we missed. So figuring out the right balance of getting those missed opportunities back on the calendar and people meeting face to face is a critical part of how we’ll work.

Angie: I would add, you mentioned customers, and I think that what I and my team focus on is truly we want every single member of our field that are face to face, whether in person or virtually with our customers, we want them to be champions for sustainability, we want them to be champions for our tech for good work and take that out to our customers. I think that, as Amy just mentioned, I think our customers, our field, we’re all kind of learning what this flexible hybrid workplace and environment now look like. And I think some of the things that I’ve seen that are really cool is it’s not just us sitting here on the CSR team, or within our company wanting to get together on a board. In a room with a whiteboard, customers want to come together. We’re hearing more and more from customers even seen anybody, we have all these ideas, we heard your solutions can help us drive sustainability or drive, X, Y, Z. So they’re wanting to get into a room together virtually or physically and they want to have a whiteboard and start working together. And I am so excited by that because I think that shows as we’re coming out of the pandemic, that all of these people in these different industries and fields want to get together and find solutions together. And I think that that’s because of that tipping point. That’s because we just saw the effects of a global pandemic. So, to me, I’m really excited that those moments that matter, also include these collaboration days or opportunities to get together and say, okay, we’re all bringing our experience and our knowledge and our products and our business together. Now, how do we work together to create the change we want to see?

John: Angie, you bring up a great point. I love what you’re talking about collaboration on the whiteboard. For our listeners and viewers who want to see Adobe’s important corporate responsibility report, you can go to www.adobe.com/corporate-responsibility. So I’m always fascinated by the process. So you get into a room, whether in person or virtually, and the whiteboard is there. Amy and Angie, from where you sit and everything that’s coming at you and also your massive experiences historically in public service and on the public side, but before going on the private side, you have sucked both knowledge bases of the problems in the world and the voids that are out there that need to be filled. The opportunities you have now where do you sit to create solutions, how do you strata and decide how to make the whiteboard make sense now going forward?

Amy: Well, I think you bring up a great point, John. I’m laughing and maybe your listeners didn’t know I was laughing because if I’ve learned nothing in the pandemic, I tend to mute more than I should. But I am a terrible white border. There’s pictures and drawings and I love it. It brings me so much joy because it’s all in my head. And I just put it out on this whiteboard, but no one understands it. But I think what you bring up in my mind, John, is we all have to get really good at figuring out what we can be the best step. As I joined the company a year ago, that’s been our number one focus is how do we figure out, how do we define, and articulate who we are as a brand and what we are trying to accomplish from a social impact perspective. And then that should be differentiating, it should be meaningful, it should be measurable, it should have rigor. It’s that we aren’t just doing good for the sake of doing good. We are trying to influence graduation rates. We are trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We are trying to enable diverse voices to come to the stage, whether that is in film or television or on a music stage. It’s that we are trying to do specific things as a brand. And I think we’ve spent a lot of time getting really clear about what it is we’re aiming at then applying measurement and evaluation to that. So what you’re gonna see from Adobe in the next chapter, the next four years is applying that rigor around our four belief pillars. That’s Adobe for all, which is our commitment to diversity, inclusion, and belonging. That’s internally around our employees around our talent pipeline, and then externally around the policies, we advocate for the students that we support for the nonprofit organizations we partner with. It’s that we believe that it’s core to every corporation, we are all better off when there is a diversity of voices at the table, both in our companies and in the external community. The second pillar is creativity for all and this is the foundation of Adobe. And you mentioned at the top is creativity is who we are. We enable creativity with our products. But creativity means a lot of things to a lot of people. I do not use most of Adobe’s products in my personal life, it is not my go-to. I have a five-year-old and a two-year-old so I sang a lot of songs, none of them very well. So that’s my creative outlet. But we believe that everybody is a creator. So we are focused on how we make sure that creators who are doing that as a professional are being paid a living wage. How are we amplifying diverse voices in that setting? And then also, how do we help folks like you and me and Angie, who may not be designers or creators by trade? How do we get you tools and experiences that help you with your overall well-being? How do you create a community with creativity at the heart of it? So those are two and then the next two are technology to transform which Angie has of course articulated. But how do our products enable good? And how do we get really focused on what we’re trying to accomplish in that space? It’s that everybody’s been at the product game for a long time, whether that’s our good partners at Microsoft or Amazon, we make things that certainly allow our businesses to thrive, but also how do we design and enhance products to actually both help the business, but support a social impact agenda as well? Then our final piece, of course, is what we’ve talked a lot about today, which is our sustainability sale. It’s that it’s not just about our own operations anymore, how do we work as a collective? And how do we as a company creates products that enabled electronic signatures or 3d production of virtual photoshoots? How do we make sure that customers and folks understand how to use those tools so that we can be a part of that collective climate crisis champion team that’s going to do the good work ahead? So our goal is to make sure you know those four pillars, and that we have meaningful targets and each of those that we help share so that you know what Adobe is about. Also, so that we know what we’re going to stand for, and how we’re going to show up in the community.

John: I mean, you don’t need a whiteboard, it’s in your head. That’s why you’re not good on a whiteboard. Come on.

Amy: Oh, well, that was kind of you. I think when you try to turn all those talking points into a strategy, that’s where it gets a little tricky, but I appreciate that. And I do think it’s because we’ve been really focused on, we can’t do everything. No company can do everything. So how do we use what we are best at to differentiate our own brand so that you know who we are, but also so that we can drive the most strategic impact in the communities that we care the most about?

John: Before I let you both go today, I want to ask Angie. Angie, can you share a little bit about your public-facing resource savings calculator, what that really does on your website, and how our listeners and viewers and their friends and relatives, and your clients can make great use of it?

Angie: Yeah, well, I would say that our resource, there were calculators tool we’ve had where we’re continuing to push this in product and get this in front of our customers. It’s a really exciting tool that we’ve developed. You can see the background of the science behind it so you know it works. But basically, it’s a calculator that allows the customers to see the environmental savings that are associated with their switch from paper to digital and the positive impact of going to digital documents. So users can basically select the type, the frequency, the measurement, of their digital paper use, and then use a little slider bar, it’s great. Then you can actually equate the number of pages that you normally would print and have physically signed, and actually see the environmental savings across things like water, pounds of wood, pounds of waste, greenhouse gases, cars on the road, that kind of stuff. It’s an easy-to-use tool, I think what I really love about it is that it’s stood alone for a long time. And now what we’re seeing is, we’re wrapping that with customer case studies where you’re seeing, you’re starting to really get the context, like we talked about the top of the hour, 2300 cars off the road, or this type of savings. We’re continuing to expand on how we can, again, get that in the product so customers are seeing it every day. Wow, I did this, and therefore. I think, once again, I think that’s going to be as we build out more calculators and more tools. So customers can see, can actually not just hear by using this, there’s these environmental savings, but they actually you can actually say, and here they are. I think that’s going to allow them to engage with their sustainability teams more to understand how this is actually contributing to their own sustainability goals But it’s also going to allow us to really be focused on how we can take this content and understand how we’re impacting industries and understand how we’re actually having larger impacts with everything from SMBs, to again, those largest brands, and how tools like this can actually continue to demonstrate again, that beautiful combination of not just hey, this is good for the environment, but it’s also saving you time and money. It’s hitting your bottom line. So go visit the Resource Saver Calculator Adobe, especially we have a sustainability hub that you can visit and see some great case studies of different users and customers. I would just highly encourage you to check that out on our site.

John: And I would bet the use level of that is going up and up, month over month, year over year, etc. because more people want to see the good that they’re doing.

Angie: Absolutely and again, I think this really goes to just how important it is to make at a company, I think the best practice is to really make the field educate, inspire, resource your field so they can go out and deliver that word to customers and have those really valuable conversations. Because I can’t meet with every Adobe customer, good Lord, but our field certainly is. And I think that what’s really great is they get excited because that’s like, wow, I’m actually gonna go help our customers achieve these great environmental benefits. Again, I feel part of the solution of Adobe’s environmental commitments and also helping customers be aware of that because it can sit on a site for as long as you want but until you make people aware of the value of that tool and its existence, frankly, you’re just not going to see that kind of use. But yes, we are seeing use go up, up, up. And I think what’s great is we’re starting to see, not just because we’re sending people a link, we’re actually walking customers through it, we’re having them come and read the case studies, we’re starting to really get industry profiles together. And I think you asked me what gets me out of bed when it comes to this work, I think that what gets me really excited is to see that aggregated impact and know that we are making a difference.

John: I’m gonna give you ladies the last word. You’ve said it all today, it’s so impressive. On everything that you do at Adobe, is there anything final thoughts that either of you has before we say goodbye for today? And you’re always welcome back of course on The Impact Podcast. Can you continue to share Adobe’s journey, both of your journeys and all the important work you’re doing? Is there anything that you’d like to add?

Amy: Well, of course, we’d be remiss if we didn’t say thank you. We’ve obviously found some comms people in your Rolodex, too, that love to tell our own story. We’re really excited. I think what I mentioned at the top, is both collective action and optimism is the name of this game. And I think having the opportunity to share a little bit about our journey and where we’ve been and why and what the building blocks of that are. Then who we want to be and how we’re gonna differentiate in the future are really, really important to us. So I appreciate the time and attention and am happy to answer additional questions as they come up along the way. But I think really encouraged by the audience that you brought together around these topics. They’re so critical. Having encouragement from employees, from stakeholders, from listeners, from customers, to do more to do better to talk more about how we’re going to make change together in the world is really important. So mostly just thank you and appreciate your time.

Angie: Same here, I just want to say thanks, John. It has been really, really fun. I feel like I learned a lot. I learned about your background too, Amy. But I would say I think just in terms of best practices and things I’m really excited about as we look toward the future, I think it’s all about intentional innovation, engagement, collaboration, all of which we talked about today. I think that’s how we’re going to be able to reach the sustainability goals, not just here at Adobe but across the industry across the world. I think coming out of the pandemic, and looking at how we’re going to overcome all these challenges from a sustainability perspective and beyond, I think it’s going to be working together, it’s going to be tearing down the walls of competition and peers and just kind of jumping in together. It’s engaging our employees, it’s allowing in asking people to innovate and say, how are we all in this together? How are we going to overcome these challenges and how can we do it from the desk we set out every day in the work we do every day? Because I think that’s what’s going to get people fired up and inspired to really take on this work.

John: That’s awesome. Again, thank you both Amy White and Angie bush for joining us on The Impact Podcast today. First of all, you both are sustainability rockstars. I mean, just either one of you would have been an amazing show to have both of you today. It’s quite a dynamic duo. And I think you’re more than just the head of technology for good, I think it should be the head of technology for great. What you’re doing Amy with the CSR team is just unbelievable. Again, find Amy and Angie at adobe.com. You can also find there the Resource Saver Calculator, you can find their CSR report and look for their new building in 2023 in San Jose, California. Thank you both for doing all the great work with Adobe that you do and making the world a better place. You’re always welcome back on The Impact Podcast.

Angie: Thanks so much.

Amy: Thanks, John.

John: 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 Loops 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.closedlooppartners.com.

John Shegerian: 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.

John: Hi, this is John Shegerian. I never could have imagined when we started the Green Is Good Radio Show back in 2006 that it would grow into a big podcast called The Green Is Good Podcast. Now, we’ve evolved that podcast to The Impact Podcast which is more inclusive and more diverse than ever before. But we did look back recently at some of our timeless Green Is Good interviews and decided to share some of them with you now. So enjoy one of our great Green Is Good episodes from our archives and next week, I’ll be back with a fresh and new episode of The Impact Podcast. Thanks again for listening, I’m grateful to all of you. This is John Shegerian.

John: Welcome back to Green Is Good and we’re so honored to have with us today, Stephanie Hodge. She’s the UNICEF cross-sector program specialist in the education department. Welcome to Green Is Good, Stephanie Hodge.

Stephanie Hodge: Well, thank you for having me.

John: We’re so honored to have you on today and Stephanie, before we get into UNICEF and all the great stuff you’re doing there, talk a little bit about Stephanie Hodge. Like, how do you end up here? Talk a little about your journey leading up to this position and all that kind of wonderful stuff that our listeners want to know.

Stephanie: Well, I was a curious kid and I also had the UNICEF boxes when I was a kindergarten student. I mean, from an early age, I had an interest in things around nature and human rights and definitely child rights, and UNICEF was a big UN brand. As a child, my journey was I was a very adventurous kid and ended up teaching in Africa as a young teacher. But then I found myself in the Okavango Delta, remembering all those Mutual of Omaha programs, all about beautiful nature and all those things. That led me really into the exploration of environmental education and climate change education today at UNICEF.

John: Oh my gosh, my childhood just flashed in front of me like the orange boxes and the Mutual of Omaha. I have goosebumps right now. Oh my gosh, Stephanie. So, talk a little bit about your wonderful website for our listeners out there that want to follow along as we are having this chat with Stephanie. It’s unicefusa.org. It’s a gorgeous website, unicefusa.org. Talk a little bit about what is UNICEF, the original mission of UNICEF, and how the organization has evolved.

Stephanie: Well, UNICEF started after the war. I mean, basically, it was the UNICEF emergency fund for children. Basically, we started with sort of providing emergency relief after the world war and handing out the schooling box, and schooling became a big part of emergency programs and it just grew from there. It’s the mission of children, support the children not only in emergencies but also in development situations like in terms of their rights. So their right to education, their right to health, their right to nutrition, their right to water and sanitation, children’s rights, and children’s protection is UNICEF’s mandate.

John: So, the issue of children which is so important. Before we came to the studio today, I was watching something on television about climate change and there are still some people that don’t believe it’s actually happening, which is still unreal. I’m sitting there just scratching my head while I’m watching television, but talk a little bit about the impact that climate change is having on children around the globe today.

Stephanie: Well, as the mother of all environmental problems, climate change is a proxy indicator for what’s going on with the environment. I’m from Newfoundland. Basically, the Icelandic shelf is coming to our shores now at an extraordinary pace. I mean, the impact, the evidence is there even in our daily lives. Even here in New York, with the hotter summers and the more erratic weather but the impact is definitely hitting children. It’s hitting school infrastructure in terms of increased natural disasters. It’s really impacting their right to learn because the learning outcomes are being impacted by this global trend that’s related to climate change migration, increased migration in population, human population, and changes in the traditional learning environment as a result of that increased migration. So we’re getting a lot more people with a lot more needs in a small classroom. They have a lot more needs in terms of languages, things like that. Well, it’s growing inequality as a result of this proxy indicator of what’s going on in our environment. There’s a structural issue around structural development issues, really creating a greater global divide between rich and poor and that gets right down even to communities with small villages. You still get that disparity. That disparity is linked to what’s going on in the environment and the fact that environmental externalities are now a factor in development. The poor getting poorer and the rich are getting richer. Insurance, land degradation, insurance access for the poor is also becoming something difficult. We have that here, Sandy, you see who has the insurance.

John: That’s a great point. Isn’t it fascinating Stephanie that when we talk about climate change, the deniers act like it’s not going to ever happen but the truth is, it’s happening now? This is not a problem that if we don’t act now, it’s going to happen in 30 years as you just pointed out with Sandy and the degradation that’s already happening. This is something you’re going to deal with, I’m going to deal with, our children will deal with, our grandchildren going to deal with, but it starts now. But talking a little bit about jumping forward, how bad is it, then the roll forward effect 20-30 years from now? Give our listeners a little visibility on what you see, because people like you that have a worldview and have the opportunity to both travel and also have some of the best experts in the world on these issues, that you are involved with, explain a little bit about what’s even coming.

Stephanie: Well, I guess there’s two scenarios, isn’t there? One is if we stay on the unsustainable path, then there’s going to continue to be environmental degradation and growing inequality. More changes in the climate, more vulnerability, more poverty, more altered land use, more land degradation. However, if we take the more sustainable path, where we start to really factor in those environmental externalities in our planning, in our daily lives, then, of course, we have actually a win-win scenario where we’re actually leapfrogging some of the problems because we’re taking affirmative action around structural problems around equity, around sectoral planning, around cost-benefit analysis, around the environment, really pricing that environment, right? I think then the future is really a good scenario. We’ve got a choice and the choice is now and I think we’re getting there, but it’s the disaster that’s now in our action and I guess that’s human nature.

John: At UNICEF, what’s your mission in terms of reduction of risk to children who face climate change? Obviously, children are always in any population, some of the most vulnerable people, and if not the most vulnerable to any external forces that are larger than life, such as climate change. What are some of the factors and some of the mission statements that you guys are working on to reduce the risk to children?

Stephanie: Okay. Well UNICEF, as I said started as an emergency agency. So wherever there are natural disasters, UNICEF is there 24/7. They’re there from the first moment that the emergency is there to provide sort of relief services but then UNICEF really does get involved in going beyond the band-aid. That’s where we get into the structural issues, especially in education. We look at the vulnerability of schools, we look at the structural changes that need to happen in the school infrastructure. We look at the need for more relevant content in the school. We look at how you mainstream this knowledge into school so that children have access to knowledge and resources and skills around the environment that maybe we weren’t providing in past sorts of scenarios of education. The way that we address climate change education is really looking at the struggle for power, power over resources and the access to relevant knowledge and resources, access to knowledge and information about who has access to information to support individual knowledge base, and evidence-based decision-making, transparency, and participation. Children should be involved in decisions that affect their lives. Having access to that information is part of the education process. So making that systemic, looking at how to mainstream within the school system. So, how do you get environmental education, for example, into teaching and learning? How do you look at the learning environment from the perspective that you have a green school, for example, how do you look at the key most capacity of a child, who understands what it is to love nature, plants, and animals from a very young age, empathy for the environment, and for nature? These are classic educational outcomes and they improve learning outcomes. Children who are interested in the environment tend to be more inquisitive, tend to really get out there and take action and just be more resilient.

John: I agree with you so much. For our listeners out there that just joined, we’ve got Stephanie Hodge on with us, she’s from UNICEF. She’s really the environmental education guru at UNICEF and I want to get into this. Please go to their website unicefusa.org, it’s a beautiful website. I’m on it right now. In fact, I’m just going to give you a little shameless plug here. What I love about organizations like yours, and again I grew up with the orange boxes too but this is so important, and more organizations should take note of what you’ve done here. Give with confidence, there’s a nice green box on the cover of your website. $0.90 of every dollar we spend goes to help children. It is so brilliant, the transparency that your organization shows that it’s not being spent on overhead and other types of issues that well-meaning organizations sometimes get bogged down in and the money’s actually going to go to the help that people donated for. So, I mean, this kind of transparency, I don’t see enough of it. There’s not enough of it, frankly, and this is to me a real winning statement right there.

So, Stephanie, kudos to you and kudos to your great organization. Can you get into some more particulars though? Since you really helped develop the strategy for environmental education at the United Nations Education Program, can you talk a little bit about the curriculum that UNICEF is promoting?

Stephanie: I mean the curriculum is the heart of education. So I really kind of have to discuss that a little bit because it shows you how we approach this which is really not sort of going into countries, okay, you have to mainstream this. The ideas about transformation, UNICEF promotes child-friendly education, the curriculum being the heart of what the society and the school values is a process. The development of curriculum thus becomes a democratic process. The curriculum is the heart and soul and therefore, what we promote is really a system’s critique. So you look at the educational policy and legislation around education and you say, do you have an environment as a kind of like a domain in that education? You also look at teaching and learning. So you’re looking at that process and you’re questioning, is the environmental domain a part of teaching-learning from a young age? You look at the cumulative capacities of the child from preschool and you say if you really want to create competencies around the environment, then the child should have the experience of the environment from a young age. So how is the child getting into nature through the education in the curriculum at a young age? So we promote, starting with the love of outdoor education or experimental learning. So you love a tree. But as you grow older, that becomes much more concrete in terms of your expectations for learning outcomes across your school life cycle. So as you grow older, the idea of a child’s growing capacity and ability to take action becomes a kind of guide for that curriculum. So as you go into Grade 4 and 5, you start to have more projects with the child that takes the children into more of an action mode. So you start to promote teaching and learning around little projects in the environment, school gardens, things like that, that really gives the child a sense of responsibility around the environment. The children can monitor that environment and that type of love and stewardship comes as a growing process. It’s not just about putting science environmental education in Grade 10. It’s about starting from before kindergarten and looking at the love of nature. How did you and I, for example, become stewards? We basically spent most of our younger years interested out there, picking up the fish, looking at the fish, looking at the trees, playing in the outdoors. That type of interaction and the love that’s guided by the facilitation of a good teacher becomes then the learning outcome, which is really the stewardship, the monitoring, and the love of nature and the environment.

John: That’s so important. Can you give a couple of examples of where this education is taking place? Like what countries or where particularly so we can frame the whole thing better and we can all imagine this whole thing?

Stephanie: There’s two parts. Unfortunately, it’s only taken place in pockets but fortunately, it’s expressing itself all over the world due to like you said, the grassroots base demand for change in education and in particular around the environmental domain in education. Now, it’s not systematic and now that’s the unfortunate part. So, what we try to promote is mainstreaming, so the policies and legislation of the school to create learning outcomes link to that environmental domain in schools in a systematic way. But at the same time for example, in the US, we are having so many great examples of green schools, eco-school, and school-based private. Usually, though, in private institutions or international schools, this is where you sort of get this because I guess the teachers and the administrators are starting to see the link between more relevant content and learning outcomes. So the international baccalaureate schools, they’re seriously progressive countries, Finland, Sweden, and the Netherlands. They really kind of have taken this forward as part of a systematic mainstreaming approach. Many countries in the south in developing countries are leapfrogging to this type of education, recognizing that the education, the whole sort of traditional sitting behind the school desk is not working anymore. But what we want now is a much more progressive education that takes advantage of the digital revolution and the fact that content is universally accessible now through digital content. We are not restricted to books anymore. Using our environment as learning pedagogy is now becoming really something that is going to make your country progressive and really give you a sense of where and what children need to learn today. So in Thailand, you’ll find a great progressive school. Again, it’s a champion. Basically, the principal is a monk and very, very attuned to environmental goals, and he’s decided to build a water school. The theme was the water school, but the stuff that’s coming out of that school is really showing the way that children are being taught is more progressive, is more attuned to what they want to learn. Children are naturally interested in the environment. We kind of like deskilled children from thinking about the environment. We also deskilled children in our current education from things that are natural like creativity, like sitting there behind a desk right now when there’s so much opportunity for sort of more experimental learning. Really, this is about transformation in our education that’s really going to provide us with new thinking around education that’s really relevant. Having children work together on projects in a multicultural environment is progressive education.

John: That kind of progressive education, since you’re one of the creators of it… we have about 2 minutes left. Has it been effective as you want it to be? Are you happy and hopeful about the effectiveness of this type of education?

Stephanie: Well, I was at the Harvard School of Education’s Project Zero last week. Harvard has been really promoting this education since 1968. You just go to their Project Zero website. We need more. We need more champions, we need more schools of education involved, we need more teacher education. This is what we need. We need the teachers to get involved in looking at school and saying, is this what we need for the 21st century? We need more of those involved in the educational process saying we need transformation. It’s coming but we need more. We need more advocacy. We need more journalists like you supporting the movement.

John: Well, we’re down to the last minute. Any last thoughts or shameless plugs for your great organization and all the great missions, especially environmental education?

Stephanie: UNICEF is a great organization and I’ll tell you why, because of its staff. The staff are motivated, committed, and educated. They are everywhere. 190 countries, they’re working with governments on education, nutrition, and health. UNICEF is a good organization. Partnering with UNICEF on what you think is right and protecting children around the world and children’s rights including around the environment is really an important mission. So thank you very much for this time and we look forward to partnering with the US population.

John: Well, Stephanie, you’re right. We need more transformation. We need more Stephanie Hodges, frankly. And for our listeners out there again, UNICEF, unicefusa.org, and $0.90 of every dollar you spend and give to UNICEF goes to help children. Stephanie Hodge, you are an inspirational sustainability educational hero and leader and truly living proof that green is good.

John: 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 Shegerian: 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.

John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact Podcast. I’m John Shegerian and I’m so excited to have with us today Amie Hedblom. She’s the senior manager of corporate sustainability for Ecolab. Welcome to the Impact Podcast, Amie.

Amie Hedblom: Thank you so much, John. It’s an honor to be here with you today.

John: And it’s so nice you’re sitting in beautiful Saint Paul today. I’ve been there and I think Saint Paul’s one of the nicest beautiful cities in America. And I’m here in Fresno, California. So, again we have the wonder of Zoom that lets us connect, that lets us connect with our audience today. And before we get talking about all the important work that you and your colleagues are doing at Ecolab, Amie, share a little bit about your background. Where did you grow up and how do you even get here?

Amie: Yeah, sure. So, like you mentioned, I’m sitting in Downtown Saint Paul right now at Ecolab’s global headquarters. I actually grew up in the suburbs of Saint Paul, Minnesota. And like a lot of people of the area, I decided this was a great place to stay. So I actually went to school at the University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities. And I received my degree in Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering, which is a long name for a unique program that actually stems from the University’s agricultural engineering school. My focus has really been on innovation and products from bio-based sources, think paper, food engineering, biofuels, etc. My interest and experience have always really been rooted in that area of sustainability in bio-based products. And my career path has probably been a little bit unconventional since that… I started with Ecolab almost 10 years ago now in our Research and Development Department as a chemical engineer. And I worked in our Industrial Food and Beverage New Product Development team, which meant that I was formulating in the lab, the kind of mad scientists, mixing chemicals that you think about trialing new products with our customers, launching programs that we’re really focused on, protecting food safety, and saving water, energy, and waste[?]. I then made the move into the realm of corporate marketing and wound up joining Ecolab’s Corporate Sustainability team about three years ago now. Even in that short time, I’ve really seen the sustainability space, and especially Ecolab’s message and progress morph into what it is today. And so now as a senior manager in our corporate sustainability marketing team, what I do day to day is manage our Enterprise ESG and sustainability reporting efforts. I lead the development and support for Ecolab’s public water tool, the Ecolab’s Smart Water Navigator. And probably most importantly, I engage with Ecolab’s associates and customers on how Ecolab Solutions not only deliver great business outcomes but do so at the highest environmental and economic return.

John: So you grew up in Minnesota, which I’ve had the total honor and privilege to spend a lot of time in, in my life, my other life not as a podcast host but as a CEO of a recycling company with a lot of clients there. And Minnesota is probably one of the most amazing, beautiful states in the United States of America, but it’s also very green. Was that part of your upbringing? Did you have sustainability-minded household or was it just part of the community you lived in? Or was that some of the inspiration that helped inspire your journey here?

Amie: Yeah, I’d say our family has always been avid outdoors people. We have this thing in Minnesota that people are familiar with the[?] going up north, which is really just having a cabin near Lake Superior or the other lakes that are popular in the area.

John: Right.

Amie: And so you always had a chance to disconnect, get in touch with nature, and so that was obviously a big part of growing up. But I would say from a family perspective, I definitely tried to break the mold in going into engineering. Both my parents had gone to school for journalism. My sister was in public relations. And I said, I’m going to do science and technology. And then I want backup in marketing. Just like that. It’s awful. There were good intentions but you never stray far [crosstalk] from your root[?].

John: Before we get talking about the ESG and sustainability journey at Ecolab, let’s talk about Ecolab to start with. For our listeners and viewers that aren’t familiar with the wonderful and iconic brand Ecolab, tell us what Ecolab is, what your mission is, and how big is it right now.

Amie: Yeah, once you know about Ecolab, you’ll start to see it everywhere. But until then, it’s kind of a behind-the-scenes partner.

John: Right.

Amie: So, Ecolab is really the global leader in water, hygiene, and infection solutions and services. So you have probably seen and many of the listeners have probably seen hand sanitizer stations or soap dispensers with the name Ecolab on it in big blue, bold font but we actually work at nearly 3 million customer locations across 170 different countries and in more than 40 different industries. So from the restaurants and hotels that most are familiar with all the way to food processing to auto manufacturing, data centers, and many, many more. And we actually have an extensive sales and service team. So, about 25,000 of our 47,000 associates, our sales and service members who are working at those three million customer locations each and every day, and they’re there to provide insights and service to our customers to work on food safety, maintaining clean and safe environment, optimizing water and energy use, and really improving operational efficiencies holistically. Just to give you some scale too.

John: Wow.

Amie: Three million sounds like a big number, but our solutions really touch more than a trillion gallons of water for our customers every year. And those types of solutions help us save energy, avoid millions of metric tons of greenhouse gases every year. On the food safety side, we help customers safely feed 1.4 billion people every year through the production of 45% of the global milk supply, 36% of the world’s processed food supply. And then on our healthcare and life sciences businesses, which you’ll see in hospitals and long-term care facilities, we actually help clean more than 60 billion hands a year, provide medical care for 70 million people, and clean over 800 million hotel rooms every year. So those are a lot of big numbers but that’s how big Ecolab really is.

John: Whoa! The impact that you’ve made positively, Amie, is clear. It’s really massive. What I’ve learned in this journey with this podcast the last 15 or so years is bigger can be better. Because when great brands like yours move the needle in ESG, sustainability, circular economy, and we’ll get into all those facets, it really does move the needle. And in terms of… it’s great when small brands and startups are into sustainability and circular economy as well, and there’s no denying we have a massive birth of loads of wonderful brands that are shooting up in Silicon Valley and around the world now being incubated, but truly when brands like yours that, as you just pointed out with all those eye-popping numbers, really get into the field of sustainability, wow, change can really happen. So let’s get into that a little bit. When did Ecolab start their journey from your perspective in sustainability?

Amie: Yeah, we often say it’s from day one. So next year we turn 100 as a company. We’ve been in the business for 100 years as of 2023, and sustainability has been core to everything that we do at Ecolab from day one. We’re really addressing some of the world’s most pressing sustainability challenges around water scarcity, climate change, food safety, and then public health as well. Like I mentioned, Ecolab has customers across nearly every industry and a lot of them have set water and climate targets. We’re seeing out to… setting that 0 by 2030, 2050. And like all companies who have set these goals, one of the best things that they can do is get to work, and they can’t do it alone. And so Ecolab’s really the partner for our customers across these industries to use less water, use less energy, avoid emission, and manage their processes so that they can meet those really ambitious climate goals that they’re studying. And in addition to the work that we do with our customers, we have those goals for ourselves.

John: Right.

Amie: We’ve set those goals for our own operation and we set the science-based target to have our own emissions by 2030 and achieve net zero by 2050. And we’re also working to achieve a positive water impact in our high-risk watersheds, and we’ve made tremendous progress towards those goals. But we see we’ve reached this point in our evolution that the work that we have in front of us over the next decade really can’t fall on the shoulders of a vital few. It can’t just come down to the corporate sustainability team.

John: It’s fascinating. So let’s go into that because like you just said, it breaks down into external, you work with your clients and supporting their goals and making them better and helping them achieve their goals. But there’s also an internal facet to this. So, you mentioned a little while back the Global Sustainability Network. What is that and how that come together and why now?

Amie: Yeah, like I mentioned we have had a corporate sustainability team for many, many years. We’re making great progress with our goals, but we really recognize that we need to involve more people to make the progress that we need to make. And so that was the impetus for launching our Global Sustainability Network this year. And the Global Sustainability Network is really expanding opportunities to all Ecolab associates to help us on this journey. And this is engaging them, building awareness, providing education on how each and every Ecolab associate can have a direct impact on sustainability through their work, no matter what they do, no matter where they are in the world, and that’s putting the Global Sustainability Network [inaudible] for them. So, this past April on Earth Day, we actually launched the Global Sustainability Network, we call it the GSN, and it’s an employee-led community group, like an employee resource group that works to accelerate our growth through education, communication, and then collaboration on environmental sustainability issues.

John: And that’s internal. Sustainability Network is all internal at Ecolab.

Amie: That’s correct. So it’s by Ecolab associates for Ecolab associates. You might think about traditional green teams that organizations have typically organized at the office level to help employees, like Go Green, use reusable water bottles or avoid plastic straws or here’s how you can compost at home.

John: Right.

Amie: This group is different than that. It’s certainly talking about some things that you can do personally but it’s more on the impact that because you work at Ecolab you can have a greater impact than just you as an individual. Like you said, organizations with this amount of scale really have a broader impact than just one person on their own.

John: That’s true. But what I’ve found to be true also is bigger is better in terms of making the impact that you can make, but it sometimes becomes the counterproductive to communications. So, given that, like you said, you were educated as an engineer but now you’re really in the communications business, is this really one of your… Was this advent of Global Sustainability Network one of the initiatives to create better communication among the bigness of Ecolab, which is 47,000 employees?

Amie: Yeah, that’s definitely a component. There’s this piece of education that’s going to be foundational to everyone, is understanding what is sustainability today. What are the trends that are out there? How do we get that to our 47,000 associates across the world? And we’re a US-based company but we’ve got operations around the globe and so it’s how do we mobilize in each of the key markets where we are to make sure that we’re reaching everyone. And it’s not just this corporate English message that’s coming across.

John: For our listeners and viewers who’ve just joined us, we’ve got Amie Hedblom with us today. She’s the senior manager of corporate sustainability with Ecolab. To find Amie and her 47,000 colleagues at Ecolab, go to www.ecolab.com. Amie, this is interesting to me. 20 people out of 47,000, did you have to apply where they’ve chosen? How much did you use data analytics or how subjective was this really or how scientific was it on the other side?

Amie: Yeah. So, you’re talking about the leadership team that now we have put in place to lead the Global Sustainability Network. So I’ll talk a little bit first about how we made that structure.

John: Sure.

Amie: First and foremost, the network operates per member. So, Ecolab associates can sign up as general members to participate in event trainings, volunteering initiatives, etc. Now, the leadership team is about 20 leaders that were actually hand-selected from across the globe. And they’re responsible for setting the strategic plan for the group and then really executing on the purpose of the network, which is to engage all of those members.

John: Wow.

Amie: Yeah, we actually created a pretty robust charter and bylaws governance documents for the network and this led to the leadership team selection process. We received almost 250 applications and nominations from within Ecolab to apply to be on the GSN leadership team. I can’t tell you but the candidates are amazing. The leaders of the organization coming together, and we narrowed down the pool through a really rigorous interview process and ended up having about 8 to 10% of those who applied be on the leadership team. What it came down to really was significant focus on achieving diversity of this team.

John: I see.

Amie: Because we are so spread out, we wanted to make sure that we had geographic, functional gender, ethnicity all covered from a diversity perspective to make sure that we could really create program in them catered to the entire organization.

John: That’s really brilliant.

Amie: Yeah.

John: Yeah, because as we know diversity just creates better ideas and better solutions. So that makes total sense. What you just said makes total sense.

Amie: Yeah, [crosstalk] absolutely.

John: That you are fair[?]. I’m sorry.

Amie: No, it’s fine. I was just going to give you details on the final 20 members of the inaugural leadership team. Fifty percent are women, which we’re very proud of, and they represent each of Ecolab’s major markets. So, from the US to Europe to Greater China, everywhere in between, they support six different functional areas of the business from our sales and service force, which is a huge chunk of our associates to marketing, to our [inaudible]. We’ve got finance represented, which is obviously up and coming in the sustainability in ESG world.

John: Sure.

Amie: And then they’re organized into four different committees. So there’s an Executive Committee, it’s run by a president, vice president, like similar employee resource groups. There’s an Education Recruitment, and then Communications Committee that really put everything together for members. So they had a very robust strategic planning process that took place shortly after we launched on Earth Day.

John: And I know April is only 4 or 5 short months ago, so I know it’s very early in the process but share with our listeners and viewers what the most important initiatives that you’re working on, and how is it going so far? Let’s keep in mind, it’s so, so early. So I want to be sensitive to that fact and things of that such. But what are you working on? What were the first group of initiatives that you… that the Global Sustainability Network chose to work on?

Amie: Yeah. Well, it’s early but because of the intense interest that we’ve had in this group, we’ve been able to make a lot of great progress. And so just from… I’ll give you some quick stats to that.

John: Yeah. Let’s hear it.

Amie: Let’s put some scale to itself, but the network actually launched on Earth Day with over 550 founding members. So, before we’d even launched, people had been signing up ahead of time to join the group and it’s grown to almost 1,300 members in just the 4 months that it’s been established. So, it’s about a 200% growth in membership to start with.

John: That’s good[?].

Amie: I think that’s just a great illustration for the transformation that we, as a company, are undergoing. Associates from all throughout the organization have seen the challenge that we have in front of us and want to contribute. I will say we’ve got a great membership base that is helping us and obviously the leaders of this team have gone through a robust planning process to deliver on what they’re doing now. So, let me talk about what we’re doing. I mentioned they’re separated into three different committees. So education, first and foremost. This committee helps to provide trainings and initiatives that really break down what sustainability means in our industries and the industries of our customers, and how to apply those learnings to the work that they do every day. And so this is primarily accomplished through a calendar of life training and communications that highlight the work that associates at Ecolab are doing to advance our goals. And this is really focused on climate change, water conservation, product stewardship, and the circular economy. So, we place a really heavy emphasis on no matter where you are in the organization, whether you’re in Sales, Finance, HR, there’s something that teams in every business and function can be doing. And so we provide examples of that and the GSN is kind of the convener for bringing these stories to life so that we can share these best practices across these teams.

John: Got it.

Amie: Go ahead.

John: Go on[?], go.

Amie: Well, I was just going to give an example of some of those stories because I think they’re really powerful too. One of the recent projects that we’ve done with our customer Kraft Heinz, which is one of the largest food and beverage companies in the world…

John: Sure.

Amie: …they set goals to actually achieve net carbon, that zero carbon by 2050 and get there halfway by 2030, the same as Ecolab. And so our teams actually partnered with them on hundreds of projects at manufacturing sites across North America. And we focused on water reuse, cleaning efficiency, and we help them conserve millions of gallons of water. And this work has been put into a great, no, case study on how other [inaudible] service teams can use that type of process with our other customers. And the impact, just to Kraft Heinz where we’re large, but by sharing this across our Global Sustainability Network, it helps others see that they can do the same things.

Another example of our operations, so at Ecolab’s manufacturing site, we have a site that’s located near Mexico City, Lerma, Mexico, and they took it upon themselves to create a risk assessment of our manufacturing site and implement water savings projects. They built a rainwater collection system. They installed high-efficiency bathroom fixtures and it led to great water savings but also certification to the Alliance for Water Stewardship, which is the gold standard in water stewardship assessment in the world. And so we shared that through the GSN with other teams and now we’ve got more and more sites pursuing that Alliance for Water Stewardship certification. So, that’s really the Education Committee team’s number one goal, sharing what we’re doing, how others can do it too.

John: Speaking of how others can do it, there’s a lot of companies out there that will be listening to this podcast and say, wait a second, it’s a great idea to create some sort of network in our company to better communicate. Most companies are looking to better communicate anyway. What a great idea to bring people together on sustainability because who doesn’t agree that they want their children and their grandchildren to breathe cleaner air and drink clean water? It’s something that brings us all together, no matter what our political differences or all sorts of other things that go on nowadays that can literally be differentiating items that we could have interesting debates on. Sustainability is one that brings us all together. What’s some of the better advice that you can share and learned lessons from your launch in April to where you even are today and already the success, like you said, with so many people signing up for your Global Sustainability Network, with other companies that are looking to do something like this to make a difference, to better communicate and make it more of an impact with their customers and their employees and communities that they serve?

Amie: Yeah, John, I’d say I’ve got two pieces of advice. First is to ensure that, if you are a company who wants to start up something like this, that you have unwavering commitment from your leadership to put this idea into action. So, we did an extensive stakeholder analysis grouping, all the way from the CEO to our chief human resources office to our diversity and inclusion team that helped manage our employee resource groups. So, having that backing and support for your organization on all associates’ participation is so, so critical. And what, I’d say, really helped them get on board is understanding the implications to the business in terms of risks and opportunities both from an environmental perspective but also coming from a place of talent acquisition and retention.

John: Right.

Amie: So, there’s employees driven by values and especially along the environment and sustainability. And so the risk of not aligning an organization can meet and exceed those value-driven interests, is too big to ignore. So, that’s my first piece of advice.

John: Then[?]?

Amie: My second would be regardless of what you’re hoping to design or build, always keep that end member or end user in mind. Ask yourself, what’s the experience that they’re having today? How is what we’re going to put together, make it better or different? Is this providing value to them? Is it actually solving a problem? And so innovating with that compass, especially with all of these different environmental and social and economic structures, is really the smartest way to design for the future. And that’s what we did with the Global Sustainability Network. We recognized there was a need and a want for Ecolab’s associates to learn and become actively involved in our sustainability strategy. They didn’t just want to know about it, they want to do something about it.

John: Right.

Amie: I think, when people think about climate change, there’s so many different reactions to it and some can be paralyzed by the enormity of the issues sometimes. Well, others are called to action and what we see by and large is that Ecolab’s associates are called to act. And so we created this group to allow them to do just that.

John: That’s great. Earlier, when I asked you what Ecolab is and you did a great explanation of the immense impacts that you make across so many industries with millions upon millions of transactions and clients, you did bring up the issue of water. And water has become a paramount issue around the world: water shortages, water cleanliness, accessibility. Share a little bit about your thoughts about where we are going with regards to water availability access, cleanly… clean water, and the technology that your Ecolab is leveraging and using to help bring cleaner water to more of us around the world. Because you do make a big impact. And there are lots of updates with regards to not only science and technology, and you are an engineer by education, but also predictive analytics and AI and other great technologies. Can you roll that up and share some of the better things that are going on at Ecolab with regards to water and water technology to make the world more accessible… give the world more accessibility to cleaner, better water?

Amie: Yeah. You started at the macroscale, right?

John: Yeah.

Amie: So, well, the start is there and then I can narrow in on what Ecolab [inaudible] [crosstalk].

John: Yeah.

Amie: But the water issue is it’s huge and it’s inherently tied to climate.

John: Yeah.

Amie: The first effects of climate change are going to be felt through water scarcity. And currently, 2 billion people around the world are living in water-stressed areas. The same will be true of more than half the world’s population by 2050 if no action is taken. So, Ecolab is part of a group of 150 companies that can directly impact approximately a third of the world’s water use. That’s a huge impact that 150 companies can have.

John: Right.

Amie: And we believe that we have a unique responsibility to address the global water crisis. So collectively, Ecolab has founded, has co-founded initiatives like the Water Resilience Coalition which is an industry-driven initiative of the United Nations Global Compact’s CEO Water Mandate. And we, along with about 30 other companies now, are working towards this idea of Net Positive Water Impact, especially in areas of high-risk water scarcity, water quality. And so this collective partnership I think is really instrumental in driving change. So I want to say that first.

John: Sure.

Amie: Narrowing down into Ecolab specifically, we have a water management business called Nalco Water, which we acquired about 10 or so years now, and through this business, we’ve really evolved from traditional treatment processes and reuse and recycle processes, now integrating digital technologies and service technologies hand-in-hand with more traditional solutions. And so we find that through these digital technologies like our ECOLAB3D platform, which helps monitor water use throughout industrial facilities and identify issues before they become issues, almost predictive, that we’re helping our customers really conserve water in the areas that they need it most. And so I think that merging of digital technologies with traditional ways of operations, especially in industrial areas, is really helping to deliver on some of those big impacts like saving 215 billion gallons of water for customers every year. And we actually have the aspiration by 2030 to save 300 billion gallons of water every year with our customers which is equivalent to the drinking water needs of a billion people, so helping to support this growing population as well.

John: I know you created something at Ecolab called the Smart Water Navigator. Can you explain to our listeners and viewers what that is and how they could make great use of this too great tool?

Amie: Yeah. So, the Ecolab’s Smart Water Navigator is a publicly available tool online, www.smartwaternavigator.com, and it’s really a water management tool for organizations that are looking to identify their risk in all levels of their organization. It drills down both from that corporate level of setting ambitious goals down to a facility level and get that[?] those actionable insights based on context-based risk. So, no matter where you are in the world, you can use it. It’s looking at the geographical locations that pulls in data from World Resource Institute Aqueduct tool, and it helps you actually set facility-level target too. So, not only having those big, broad, ambitious water goals but bringing it down to each and every site or hotel or manufacturing location. Whatever industry you’re in, you can set a goal for water reduction or reuse, and this tool helps you to do that and gives you actually a checklist and an actional plan on how to do it.

John: With regards to the future of Ecolab, you said next year you’ll be celebrating 100 years and there’s a whole new generation of young bright leaders like you, Amie, that are coming into not only leadership positions but also are really passionate about sustainability and ESG and circular economy and things that are going to really make the world a better place. Share a little bit about the great future that Ecolab has in front of it and where you, guys, are going.

Amie: Yeah, I think obviously sustainability is a passion, it’s a core purpose for Ecolab. And it’s the future, so we’re going to continue to impact climate change, water scarcity, food safety, and public health concerns that are never going to go away. So, we are where the world needs us today and we’re going to continue down that path now. I’d say that we’ll continue to push the boundaries too, so maybe an example of bringing digital into some of the systems that have been so traditionally manual. And it’s this thinking beyond the conventional way of doing things. And we have to reach higher, further, and faster goals, but the simple problems have already been solved, right?

John: Right.

Amie: So, the ones that we’re facing are messy and complex, then they hardly have one root cause and the way that people can work on these has to change. And so I think we’re all really motivated by a passion to tackle those hard problems and to bring others along with us.

John: Well, it makes me really happy that these great young people like you will carry the torch forward in the future for the next hundred years at Ecolab. And for our listeners and viewers again, to find Amie and her 47,000 colleagues, you go to www.ecolab.com. If you want to read their 2021 Sustainability Report, you could go to ecolab.comcsr. Amie, thank you for spending time today at the Impact Podcast but more importantly thank you and all your colleagues at Ecolab for making the world a better and cleaner place.

Amie: Thank you so much for having me, John. I really enjoyed our conversation today, so[?] great.

John: 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.closedlooppartners.com.

John Shegerian: Welcome to another edition of Green Is Good, and we are so excited and honored to have with us today Al Hildreth. He is the Global Energy Manager for General Motors. Welcome to Green Is Good, Al.

Al Hildreth: Thank you very much.

John: Hey Al, you know it’s so great to have you on. We’re going to be talking about energy and GM, and we’ve had already GM on the show so many times, and when you guys do things and make a motion in a direction, you really move the needle and you guys have moved the needle in a big way in sustainability in the recent years, and we’re so excited to talk to you about everything you’re doing with regards to energy. But before we do that, talk a little bit about your history, Al. How many years ago did you join GM, and when did you get really involved with regards to sustainability and energy with regards to the evolution of General Motors?

Al: Certainly. So I’ve been with General Motors over 30 years.

John: Wow.

Al: And really since the beginning of my career have been interested in the environment. It kind of matches my personal life. I like to camp, scuba dive and I enjoy swimming in the beaches and oceans, so it really kind of matched my personal beliefs. So I have been involved in recycling projects in the past and, over the past 20 years, have been involved in the energy program here because it really is great for the environment, good for the economy and really I’ve found it to be very rewarding. So I have been working in that for about 20 years.

John: Wow.

Al: In various jobs, energy manager and am currently the Global Energy Manager for GM.

John: And I’m on your amazing website right now, and for our listeners out there that want to learn all about the great green things and sustainability things that GM is doing, and Al is doing with his colleagues at GM, please go to www.GMsustainability.com. It is the coolest website. I am on it right now and it’s just like there is so much information there, and we’re going to get into that in a second. So for 20 years you’ve been involved with energy and sustainability with GM. Can you talk a little bit about the 20-some-year partnership with Energy Star that General Motors has had, Al?

Al: I certainly can. It’s been very beneficial for us just having a group that we can network with our other OEMs – Toyota, Honda, Ford, Nissan, etc. We get together and we have benchmarking activities. Energy Star has provided some great tools for us. And then their recognition programs, like the Challenge For Industry; we put all of our plants in globally for the Challenge For Industry and have 70 of them so far that have met that and that means that a plant has reduced their energy intensity 10 percent within a five-year period.

John: Wow. So Energy Star with regards to we all are used to hearing it – it’s a ubiquitous and great name and brand – when we’re dealing with our refrigerators or our freezers or our washers and dryers, but with regards to GM and the collaboration, it’s about the reduction of energy that you’ve created in the manufacturing process.

Al: Yes. That’s right. So we have two assembly plants that are Energy Star-labeled – very similar to a refrigerator or a laptop.

John: Right.

Al: So that’s a very positive recognition for us.

John: Wow.

Al: Then, also, Energy Star has a Partner of the Year Award that we’ve applied for and the past four years have won it for energy management and sustained excellence.

John: That’s awesome. So then talk a little bit about, so what does that mean in terms of how do you – being that you’re the Global Energy Manager – how do you approach it on a macro basis? It’s a fascinating thing that you’re reducing the energy. Energy, to a layman like me, I’m thinking about solar and things like that. How are you reducing the energy in your plants, the use of the energy?

Al: So the majority of our energy use is in our assembly plants and, specifically, in our paint shops, so we focus mostly on where we get the most benefits out of our efforts in energy efficiency.

John: In the paint shops. And even though your production is increasing and GM is becoming a bigger and more iconic worldwide brand, how do you continue to reduce the energy every year? How do you keep moving the finish line?

Al: Yeah, so that becomes a challenge. In the past 20 years, we’ve reduced by about 41 percent our intensity – carbon intensity – and so it gets more difficult each time to reduce once you’re into that law of diminishing return, where it gets harder and harder to get that last piece of efficiency out. So we have integrated energy and the environment into our business plans – so very similar to safety, quality, cost, productivity – and that has really, I think, helped us move the mark and continuously improve and reduce energy.

John: What are some of the biggest challenges? Is going green as hard as they say it is? The constant pushback 15, 20 years ago we all used to hear, Al, was that “going green is more expensive.” Have you turned it on its head at GM and said, “No, no, no. Not only is going green not more expensive, but we actually make it a money saver here at GM?” How does it work there in terms of the culture and the DNA and the bottom line?

Al: I mean, that’s one of the things I really like about my job is the fact that this is good for the economy as well as for the environment. For instance, over the past 20 years, we’ve not only reduced energy and carbon, but we’ve also reduced money, so we‘ve saved about $435 million over the past 20 years and that just goes right to our bottom line. So great for the environment and good for the economy, so it’s really hard to argue against this, so I get a lot of support from top level management, and we have a dedicated fund for energy efficiency and that really helps us year over year continue to plan and do long-term planning for energy reduction in our facilities.

John: And as you’ve had success, though, of course you know the old adage, Al, “No good deed goes unpunished,” as you say you’re moving the finish line and sustainability is truly a journey – there is no finish line – so how did you get together with your colleagues and make the 2020 goals, and how do you keep balancing goals that you know are achievable so no one loses hope but also create stretch goals so your team continues to strive to break through some barriers that no one ever thought you’d make it through. How do you strike that balance?

Al: So our goal to reduce energy and carbon from 2010 to 2010 is 20 percent and we really looked at that as kind of a stretch goal for us. We’ve done 40 percent in the previous 10 years. I knew we’d never get that continued performance because then we’d be at zero and we know that’s not possible.

John: Right.

Al: Like 2025, it said that that’s not possible. So it’s kind of sealed off, and we put in some realistic business opportunities that we have for energy efficiency and came up with the 20 percent.

John: I got you. And when you talk about things that are the biggest wins and things that are just nice, just steady wins, if you could share with our listeners – you got that 40 percent. What were the one or two or three biggest savings tools? What tactics got you the most just when you started this?

Al: So really I think one of the biggest impacts originally was to just not use energy when we’re not producing vehicles but just try to get the best energy shutdown that we could possibly get. Get as close to zero. You can’t get zero again but getting close to that is really good. So putting the measurement tools in place was very effective for us. So we measure energy on an hourly basis and we send information back to the plants to say, “This is how you’re doing on an hourly and a daily basis compared to your monthly targets,” so I think that once you’ve measured it then you can start managing it and that was one of the key success factors for us.

John: So the big data, this whole booming of big data is actually very helpful to you. Do you actually have a dashboard that you could pull up on your computer or your whatever gadgets you use as a management tool, and do you have a dashboard that actually you could look at the energy and the plants on a real time basis, if you want, or your management team could look at?

Al: Yes, we do. And we’ve coined the term “Energy OnStar,” because it really kind of acts similar to an OnStar system. It not only looks at our energy use, but it looks at the drivers, what causes energy. So heating, ventilating and air conditioning systems in our plants. We move a lot of air for our paint shops and other uses, so it looks at those HVAC systems and continuously commissions them to make sure that we’re operating at the most efficient point possible.

John: For our listeners who have just joined us, we’re so honored to have with us today Al Hildreth. He is the Global Energy Manager for the iconic and wonderful brand General Motors. You can learn all about the things that Al and his colleagues are doing in sustainability at General Motors at www.GMsustainability.com. On an industrial scale, energy efficiency isn’t that clean and easy always. You said you’ve saved 435 million dollars. That is a tremendous bottom line case. How about the employees? How excited are they about what you’re doing not only from the top down but from the bottom up? Are they involved and are they encouraged also to bring you ideas on how more can be done in different ways?

Al: Yes, exactly. I mean, one of the benefits of integrating energy into your business plan is that each team member sees that in front of them every day to say, “This is my target, this is my goal, these are the kinds of things that I can impact, that I can do in the plant to provide better energy efficiency.” Then also we tell them “bring your green to work,” so you’re doing some things at home that are helpful for efficiency – shutting off your lights – bring that attitude and bring that motivation to work as well.

John: And how are they engaged – or let me just say this in the right way. Are they rewarded to make them energy champions or to make them sustainability champions, or how does that work from the bottom up? Are there meetings? Are there newsletters? From running such a big company and communication, the bigger you get becomes – I would assume – somewhat more difficult, how do you make it such a cultural thing that everyone is excited?

Al: So we have champions at each level in the organization and those champions really drive the energy efficiency, the awareness. Then, there is a suggestion program where people can put in a suggestion. Many of them are for energy efficiency and energy savings. Then once they’re implemented, they’re compensated with a portion of the savings that we get. So they are incentivized to save.

John: They’re incentivized. Wow. Now let’s leave your plant and go downstream. How do you get your supply chain excited and motivated to follow suit, to follow all the great work you’re doing at GM? How do you get them on board with energy efficiency and helping you to achieve the goals that you’re trying to achieve, Al?

Al: So it’s an interesting and emerging topic for us because what we find is through lifecycle analysis of our auto parts that we buy, it turns out that the energy and the carbon use is really magnitude times more in our supply chain than what we have ourselves. So we’re trying to instill those same kinds of business attitudes of save money, help the environment. And we participate with some groups like the Automotive Industry Action group, the Carbon Disclosure Project and Energy Star, and that way we can kind of go across different industries and get as many of our supply chain folks involved as possible.

John: Is this too simplistic of a way of saying it, though? But you have buying power so do you actually have to just say to them at some point, “Hey listen, we want your parts, you make great stuff that we get to make our great cars out of, but you’ve got to move in this direction of sustainability and get greener?” Do you have to have those kinds of tough discussions also with supply chains so you can achieve the goals that you want to achieve at GM?

Al: So we have established some guidelines and expectations for the environment.

John: Right.

Al: But you’re right, it is a simplistic to think about it as that this first tier is really the total ones responsible, because what really happens is they buy steel from someone else, they purchase electronics from someone else.

John: Right.

Al: So it really goes out to about five tiers of suppliers and it becomes a little more complicated to work with but we’re trying to identify major industries that we may be able to impact as well as to see how we can affect change ourselves.

John: I got you. You know, Al, we have listeners not only in the United States but around the world, and we have, of course, a lot of young high school and college listeners, but we also have a lot of business owners that constantly stay in communication with us and they love listening to the show because they get to hear what’s really happening at the top of the food chain in terms of business. And obviously, being the Global Energy Manager of one of the most iconic brands in the world, you are at the top of the business food chain. If you were to give one tip to businesses to make a significant impact in their energy use – whether the business is a mom-and-pop small business in a wonderful place in America or if it’s a large manufacturing facility in Shanghai – what would be the tip that you give to make the biggest impact on energy use to a business owner today?

Al: I feel that integrating energy into your business plan is probably the most effective. Doing a one time – we call them “treasure hunts” – where you go out and find opportunities and you get those implemented, those are good, but you really need something to sustain those savings year over year so you can kind of continuously improve. So I think integrating energy into your business plan would be the main tip that I would provide.

John: That’s so interesting. How much are best practices shared among your group of analogous leaders? So, for instance, I would assume Ford or Toyota or Mercedes all have Global Energy Managers. It’s a small group of you in this world of the leading brands. Are all of you sharing best practices or is it highly competitive or is it more collegial?

Al: We participate with a number of groups where we get together as fierce competitors but when we look at the energy, the percent of our spend, even though we spend about $1.2 billion a year in energy, that’s a small percent – less than 1 percent – of our total revenue so it’s not really a competitive issue for us from that standpoint. And we all have very similar goals that we want to try and help the environment, so we share quite a bit few best practices amongst the OEMs.

John: Got you. And you all sort of know each other and you can pick up the phone and send an email and contact each other and try to get answers if you need to share or brainstorm something.

Al: We meet regularly and we’re actually going to do a boot camp for our supply chain collectively.

John: Oh. That’s great.

Al: With a few OEMs, so we can start to train our supply chain to get the same kind of results that we have.

John: That’s really great. That is great. How about for our listeners out there? We love giving solutions and we love being solution-oriented. What would be the tip to save energy at home? The one best tip from the Global Energy Manger at General Motors. What would you give to save energy at home?

Al: I’d say, it would be as easy as screwing in a light bulb. If you look at incandescent light bulbs and you do a business case – I just did this recently since we passed them out at an energy conference as kind of a token to get people thinking about energy savings – right now the prices of LED lights – the screw in that fit in an incandescent fixture – are getting so competitive that it’s about a one-year payback. So anybody who wants to save energy year after year – and these are going to last a long time for you – purchase a LED light bulb from your local hardware or store and you’ll get on a one year payback.

John: Got it. Wow. That’s a good ROI I’ll tell you that.

Al: Yes.

John: We’re down to the last minute-and-a-half or so. When you go to bed at night, Al, and you put your head down on the pillow, what do you feel GM’s greatest energy accomplishment has been in the years that you’ve been at its helm?

Al: So I really like the fact that we look kind of holistically at energy, the environment, water savings, the economy, and we find a way to make all of those kind of work together and that is really the importance – I think – in going green is if you can make it a positive business case. I get support from on top down to the bottom of the organization, and we’re helping the environment as well so I feel good about that. My grandkids, I’m leaving a better world for them in the end.

John: That is so great, and we are so appreciative of all the great work that you and your colleagues are doing to leave a better world. And for our listeners out there, you’ve been listening to Al Hildreth. He is the Global Energy Manager at General Motors. And to learn more about all the great work and sustainability that General Motors is doing, you can go to www.GMsustainability.com. I was looking at it a little bit before we taped the show today, Al, and also while we were on the air. It’s just an amazing website and a great compendium information. Thank you for joining us today, Al, and sharing GM’s story in energy with our listeners. You are making the world a better place with General Motors and are truly living proof that Green Is Good.

John Shegerian: 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.

John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact podcast. I’m John Shegerian, and I’m so honored to have with us today Sally Taylor. She’s the vice president and general manager of FICO Scores. Welcome to the Impact podcast, Sally.

Sally Taylor: Thank you for having me, John.

John: It’s an honor. And, Sally, before we get talking about this very, very important work you’re doing at FICO, can you please talk a little bit about you? How do you even get here? This is a big job but… that makes a huge impact with millions of people across our great country. How did you even get here and where you grow up and what was your journey like?

Sally: Sure. My dad was in the Air Force and my mother is Japanese, and I grew up mostly in Japan. I didn’t really move to the States until I was 12, and then we moved to Southern California. And then I came to college up in Berkeley in Northern California. I was a Math geek. So, that’s really how I got into it.

John: Wow.

Sally: I loved Math and the Sciences. And when I got my degree, I found this company called Fair Isaac. We now call ourselves FICO, but I’ve been at this company for over 35 years and really it’s… I felt that I’ve[?] very much connected with the academic atmosphere and just the fact that we were a lot of Math nerds that believe that businesses can do a better job making decisions if they use Math.

John: Well, that’s interesting. So when you started… I’m old enough as I shared off the air how old I am, I’m 59, I’m going to be 60 soon so I remember Fair Isaac. What did you come in as? What was your entry-level position?

Sally: It was as a data scientist except we didn’t call ourselves that at the time. My title was programmer analyst, so basically running a lot of statistical programs and working on projects with clients that were banks in building customs credit scoring models for them.

John: Right. And so when did the transition happen from Fair Isaac to FICO? Because I don’t remember that myself but…

Sally: Right. Well, so interestingly enough, our formal name is still Fair Isaac. So, FICO was the nickname for Fair Isaac. Even when I started, I was told the industry calls us FICO, it stood for Fair, Isaac Companies.

John: Got it.

Sally: It’s just a nickname. And then it was because of the FICO Scores that got introduced available at all three credit bureaus around the late 80s is when the FICO Scores got introduced. And just over time, they all have their own product names through the credit bureaus, but everyone just refer to them as the FICO Scores in the whole industry.

John: That’s right.

Sally: And then eventually, an enterprising chief marketing officer at our company says we’re just going to brand the whole company FICO.

John: Got it. And for those listeners and viewers who are interested in finding Sally and her great colleagues and FICO, you could go to myfico.com, myfico, F-I-C-O, .com. Or we’re going to also talk about later in the show scoreabetterfuture.com and we’re going to talk about how and why that was created and what you’re doing there. Before we get going about FICO per se, let’s talk about the problem because it’s not a problem that’s… The media, of course, wants to cover all the biggest things that they could… they can make a lot of hay about. But insidiously, the problem of financial literacy is truly… An illiteracy is a big, big problem in America. How big is the problem that you’re solving? How big of a gap do we have between those who really know what to do and how to handle their finances and those who don’t?

Sally: Yeah, now that’s a great question. I think we are really looking at the problem from a few different angles. There is the financial literacy and just understanding how to manage your finances properly. And then there’s information just about how credit works. How do FICO Scores work? How do lenders use it? And then there’s the issue around what it takes for a consumer to get a FICO Score. So, FICO Scores as I said were introduced in the late 80s and they actually just look at the information that’s on a traditional credit report. And the reason for that is not because that’s all that matters. Usually, a lender, when they make an underwriting decision, will ask other information on an application and use other types of data. But the FICO Score comes along with a credit report because that just makes it really accessible and makes it very accessible not just to lenders of all types but to consumers themselves because it rides along with that traditional credit report.

John: Right.

Sally: So, what happened though, as all… the lender started really using this very powerful tool, the FICO Score that comes along on the credit report, is that you have to have credit to have a credit report. And this is an age-old problem with credit. It was even a problem when I started at FICO. And even when I was a child, my father had a hard time getting credit because how do you demonstrate to a lender that you can handle your credit if you haven’t had credit yet? So, this on-ramp to credit has always been an issue and getting that first FICO Score is… can be difficult for somebody who’s young or an immigrant. So, we consider that problem the financial inclusion problem because how do you get that first line of credit and how do you assess a consumer’s credit risk when they haven’t had credit yet? So, those are all the three ways that we’ve really focused on the problem. There’s the literacy, there’s the understanding about credit and credit scores and how it works, and then there’s how do we help consumers get that first… their first FICO Score.

John: Catch-22.

Sally: Right.

John: It’s a Catch-22. So, now you’ve had a journey at FICO yourself 35 or so years, but the fascinating part is during your journey, technologies had a journey. We’ve had a technological revolution concurrent with your career. So, share a little bit about how… what you’re doing in FICO, but how that’s been impacted by also the technological revolution in terms of delivering the information and solving those three problems that you just shared.

Sally: Yeah. No, that’s been really a fascinating part of my career because 35 years ago, we didn’t have the sort of digitized data that we have today. So, we were building credit scorecards and I literally went on one project where we went to file cabinets and pulled out paper applications and data entry used to enter them in in order to build the scorecard. That was before everything was automated like it is today.

John: Right.

Sally: And when it comes to, say, the data that’s on a credit bureau report, I’ll give you a sense of how it’s changed. Back in those days when there were manual underwriters evaluating, you would fill out an application for credit and it would say what your occupation is and your income. And maybe you would bring bank payment stubs on paper to your underwriter and then they pull a credit report, and the underwriter would look at it as a human looking at it.

John: Right.

Sally: And even though there’s a lot of rich data on there, they’re just looking at a few things like what was the worst level of delinquency and how many lines of credit do you have? It had to be really simple for human to be able to do it. Well, now, all of that is digitized data and what that’s done… So, that was a huge transformation of FICO Score coming along on a credit report because now, all that rich data is just annualized… analyzed by a computer.

John: Right.

Sally: And so you can look at much greater depth than look at comparisons and ratios and this and that and it’s all done, and it comes along as a three-digit number along with the credit report. So, it’s been very transformational and what it means is that now there’s a lot of rich analysis. And lenders today and their custom models look at even more data, so a lot of analysis. And they understand their customer segments very finely. There’s a lot of rich history of data science in the field of lending.

John: Sally, I know you’re a humble human being, but you’re known to be not only a data specialist, you’re really a predictive analytics specialist. So, historically, when I was growing up, the folks that were smart like you were called nerds, but nerds have become the cool people now. So, I assume it’s been a really fun journey to be a predictive analytics and data scientist during this transformational period of where technology and data analytics have taken on a whole new meaning these last 35 years.

Sally: That’s right, and applied in so many areas which is really fascinating.

John: With regards to FICO, let’s talk about two out of the three problems that you brought up a couple of minutes ago. So, one question, how does FICO specifically help people that have no credit history start their credit journey? That whole Catch-22, how does that happen?

Sally: Yeah. So, we’ve done a lot of innovations not just in the US but internationally, I’d say in the last 10 years. And the key to financial inclusion in the scoring itself is alternative data. So, data that’s outside of the traditional credit report and data that you don’t necessarily have to… have had credit for. So, there are two products in the US that we have available for lenders who want to lend outside of that, those who have that traditional data, one is the FICO Score XD and it looks at what’s called specialty credit bureaus. So, we offer that with our partners Equifax and LexisNexis and it looks at not just any data that might be at Equifax but it looks at the NCTUE database, which is a collective of how people pay their telco and utility type bills. So, it’s just a specialty database there because that information is not on a traditional credit report.

John: Report…

Sally: And then with LexisNexis looking at property type of… public record type of information. So, it’s tapping other types of information than what’s on a traditional credit report. So, the XD Score allows us to score quite a few of the people that don’t get a FICO score. And then the second product that we launched a couple of years ago is called the UltraFICO score. This uses a new technology that allows people to share information from their financial accounts. Imagine that you apply to credit with a lender and the lender is using the UltraFICO Score in your interaction, like on the website it’ll say, do you want to enter in your checking and savings account information? And it pops up a screen where you can enter it in like you’re logging into your account online, you put in your credentials, and then it pulls from your online checking and savings account from your bank, banks that you bank with, that information. So it looks at… In addition to any credit, it looks at how you’re managing your finances through your checking and savings account. Are you saving money? What kind of cash loan do you have? And so forth. So, these are examples of what we call alternative data, so information that’s outside of the credit report that gives the consumer more ways of showing how they’re managing their finances.

John: That’s fascinating because I assume this becomes even more relevant and important as the last 15 years we’ve had the rise of the side hustle economy, where people are Uber drivers or DoorDashers or all sorts of other side hustles that typically didn’t get, don’t get reported as much or get accounted for as much. This is a way for you to account for them and to help them to build FICO credit score.

Sally: That’s right.

John: That’s so fascinating. Let’s go back one step further, the issue of illiteracy, financial literacy. Folks like you or me or other of our friends and relatives are blessed to have great educations and it’s almost something that gets to be taken for granted once you have it. But if you don’t, it’s a huge gap to not have the right financial literacy or education. What is FICO doing to help in the literacy and education space, to help make a bigger tent[?] to be more inclusive and bring more people in? So we create a more democratized society with regards to financial literacy and education.

Sally: Yeah, so we’ve got a couple of programs and I think the one that really hits the spot at what you’re talking about is the Score A Better Future program. So, the Score A Better Future, it’s a free workshop. We make them available, we used to make them available regionally, but now after the pandemic, we’re doing them virtually. [crosstalk] So, it’s a free workshop. People learn about their FICO scores from FICO expert as well as how to build credit, and then they get their own FICO Score. And there are credit counselors that can work with them one-on-one so they can set goals for themselves, learn what are the kind of practices and behaviors that help long-term building of credit. So, those have been great because people come to that very much wanting to have a goal, like wanting to buy a house someday or buy a car. And it helps them to establish those goals and what do they need to do to build that up and manage their credit, so that it’s looked at in the most appropriate way.

John: So, let’s give that a shoutout. People could go to scoreabetterfuture.com. And then how often are these held? How often are these events held?

Sally: Yeah, they’re held about once a quarter, yeah.

John: It’s great. That is great. That’s great. For those who just joined us, we’ve got Sally Taylor. She’s the vice president and general manager of FICO Scores. You could find Sally and her colleagues at myfico.com. Sally, I didn’t realize this. Again, a little bit comes from sort of the American feeling of superiority or something of that nature of all of our brands of the greatest brands, but FICO is no… is not just an American brand. As you said, it’s an international brand. How many countries is FICO in? And how does that create more challenges but make also what you do more interesting?

Sally: Yeah. So, the FICO Score is available in about 30 countries. Because we ran a little campaign recently, 30 years and 30 countries because our first country outside the US was Canada, and that happened shortly after we launched FICO Scores in the US. And another one shortly after that was South Africa. And then we’re actually relaunching the latest version of the scores in South Africa this next month. So, the challenges, it’s… The financial inclusion challenge that we were talking about in some countries has even another layer to it. Because the US is a very developed credit country.

John: Okay.

Sally: And so at least, the vast majority of people do eventually… That on-ramp is not always easy but they do eventually become credit consumers. There are other countries that are more developing countries where there are many, many people, even a majority of people that don’t have credit and even many people that are unbanked entirely. So, meaning they don’t have like a checking account where they go and put their money. They transact in other ways. And interestingly enough, some of them are almost kind of skipping over and using things like mobile payments before they use like traditional banking. So, for example, we partnered with Vodafone in Africa because they offer mobile payments, something called M-PESA, where in African countries, that’s the way they give money to each other digitally. So that’s their next step beyond Catch. It isn’t going to traditional banks, but it’s transacting. It’s almost like doing the Venmo-type thing, right?

John: Right.

Sally: But that’s the way they commonly transact. And lenders are starting to get into lending money through those sort of channels. So, that really gave us a completely different type of data to look at. Now, we’re looking at these mobile transactions instead of like a traditional credit report. In different countries, we look at different sources of data and it makes it very interesting, but it’s also the dynamics. In some countries, credit just isn’t as big as it is in the US. But other technologies like mobile banking or open banking, which is what we were chatting about, how you can put in your credentials for your checking account, pulls that data, might be more of the thing rather than the traditional [inaudible] [crosstalk]…

John: Right.

Sally: …in those other countries.

John: Earlier, you spoke about some of your innovations, your alternative data methodology, etc. What other innovations are you working on that you could share with our listeners and our audience since technology and predictive analytics and data science is always evolving and actually seems to be evolving very quickly? And Moore’s Law has actually been turned on its head. Where are we going with regards to FICO and the innovations you’re working on to help us in the future?

Sally: Yeah. Well, so the whole area of alternative data can be very, very deep, right?

John: Yeah[?].

Sally: We’ve worked with partners that helped with even like psychometric data where you essentially take a test that almost gets into the psychology of how you think about money to… So, when you’re going into populations that are completely unbanked or you don’t have the digital infrastructure necessarily to gather information, then these other types of methods start to become really interesting. We also partnered with a company where they had a technology where with the consumer’s permission, they’ll interrogate like the information on your phone. And, say, just based on how you use your phone, we’re going to be able to detect a little bit what kind of risk you might be. So, really creative interesting things especially when you don’t have the kind of infrastructure of finance and banking as you have in the US. So, that’s been a lot of the interesting thing. And then I think another angle of areas that are really interesting is more and more working on helping the consumer see their score. So, scoring first and foremost is for lenders, is for lenders to help decide how to evaluate the consumer. We started off as very much of a B2B sort of solution but it was in 2000 that FICO started myfico.com which was now consumers… We’re starting to know about their FICO Score. They were hearing it from their mortgage brokers or they were going to buy a car and the auto dealer was saying, do you know what your FICO Score is? So, more and more consumers started finding out about their scores and that prompted us to start myfico.com. And that’s a whole area of innovation as well, because how can you be helpful to the consumer? If you go to myfico.com, there are, for example, simulators where you can say, “Well, what if I want to get a mortgage in two years and my score today is here, and my goal is for it to be here? What do I have to do to get that?” And there are these tools and simulators out there that help the consumers manage their credit that way. So, those are a few different areas of innovation.

John: I always like, Sally, to give takeaways that for our listeners and viewers that they could use, that are actionable. And I have course for my friends and relatives that have higher FICO scores. I have a FICO EMV. So, I want to know from you, I want to overcome my FICO EMV. I want to understand how do people… What’s the most actionable steps as good law-abiding citizens can take to get their FICO Score up? Tell us some real good tips coming right from one of the leaders of FICO.

Sally: Okay. So, the two big ones, the two most important things, pay your bills on time and don’t take more credit than you need. If you follow those two golden rules, you’ll be just fine.

John: How about credit cards that go unused? Like credit cards that I have historically, but I’m not really spending all money[?] anymore. Do I cancel them or do I just keep them and leave them?

Sally: All right.

John: Come on. Give me a couple more.

Sally: This is where I recommend that you would go and get a simulator because I’m going to give you the answer that in my career at FICO I have to give the most often.

John: Okay.

Sally: It depends. That tip[?], that’s the truth of it.

John: I believe you.

Sally: It depends on what’s in your credit file. Do you have a lot of credit? Do you have this… It depends on what model’s being used. It depends on so many things. It’s not generic like that. It’s very depends on where you are. And so that’s why these simulators are really, really helpful because it takes what your score is and what your data is, and then you can say from there, what can I do? And they’re very helpful. They do give you some good tips but it’s very specific to you.

John: One last question here. This is, yeah, you’re going to break the code of my family here because there’s my wife and she’s always looking over my shoulder. So, we have on[?] competition, we have a question in our household. If I do something that’s not good, does that affect her FICO Score or vice versa? Does your behavior affect your spouse’s FICO Score if… negatively or positively?

Sally: Yes. So, it depends. But here’s what it depends on. I’ll be more specific on this.

John: Okay.

Sally: So, with every, like… Let’s say you have a credit card.

John: Yeah.

Sally: It’s either joint or it’s yours and you have an authorized user.

John: Right.

Sally: If it’s joint or either you’re the authorized user of your spouse’s or vice versa, then it’s on both of your credit reports. But if you have a card that does not have your spouse’s name on it, she’s not an authorized user, then it’s only on yours.

John: Got it.

Sally: Okay? So, that’s how you tell. And then if it’s on both of yours, it’s the same information, it doesn’t matter who spent the money.

John: Right. Wow. Well, you’ve answered a lot of the great or very important questions because like I said, FICO EMV’s a big deal in my household especially with me and my wife. Sally, this has been great and this is… The issue of financial literacy is so important. I’m so grateful for the important impact that FICO’s making in this space. And for our listeners and viewers out there, to learn more and also to improve your FICO Score and to do the predictive analytics that Sally was talking about earlier, go to myfico.com. Also, this fall will be the next seminar. And the Zoom call that Sally was talking about in terms of getting better scores, please go to scoreabetterfuture.com, scoreabetterfuture.com. Sally Taylor, you’re making an important impact on this world, so is FICO. Thank you for all that you’re doing and thank you for being a guest on the Impact podcast.

Sally: Thank you, John.

John: 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.closedlooppatners.com.

John Shegerian: Welcome back to Green is Good, and we’re so honored to have with us today Lynelle Cameron. She’s the Senior Director of Sustainability at Autodesk and she’s the President and CEO of The Autodesk Foundation. Welcome to Green is Good, Lynelle.

Lynelle Cameron: Thank you. Hello, John.

John: Lynelle, before we get into talking about all the great things you’re doing at Autodesk, both as the Senior Director of Sustainability the President and CEO of their foundation, I want you to first share the journey and the story of Lynelle Cameron leading up to these two very important roles that you’re playing at Autodesk.

Lynelle: Sure, yeah. I’ve had a fun life and career getting to this point, so I’m probably one of those rare people that in college majored in subjects that I’m still pursuing today 25 years later, so I studied sociology and environmental science and the intersection of human systems and natural systems and that’s exactly what I find myself doing in my role at Autodesk but just to backtrack a little bit, I spent 10 years in the nonprofit sector working on the front lines of conservation with local communities, primarily in mountain regions so thinking that that was the greatest impact that I could have was to work with mountain people as stewards of globally significant resources and then of course, I realized that the corporate sector down below, if you will, in the cities and urban areas was having a huge impact on the natural resources of the planet and so at that point, I left the nonprofit sector and went back to business school and then I’ve been working in the corporate sector in sustainability roles ever since, first with Hewlett-Packard and now with Autodesk.

John: Wow, so you really have mastered the straddling of both the public and the private and putting it all together in your two roles at Autodesk, you get to do both really.

Lynelle: That’s exactly right. That’s the excitement for me is that I do get to work with nonprofit designers and the whole nonprofit sector while also working with all of our mainstream customers to help both design our future on this planet and to help to really be intentional about what we’re putting on the planet for next generations.

John: Lynelle, for our listeners out there that aren’t familiar with Autodesk, can you just share a little bit of what Autodesk and what their core business model is before we get going into all the green things that we’re going to talk about today?

Lynelle: Absolutely. Autodesk is a leader in 3D design technology. What that means is we provide the software for architects, engineers, industrial designers, people in construction, even personal makers. We provide the software that enables people to design quite literally anything on the planet so if you’re designing buildings, highways, cars, manufactured goods, even special effects in animation and film. Each of those projects can use some piece of Autodesk software so our mission as a company is to help people imagine, design, and create a better world and that’s essentially what we do and my team, as the head of the sustainability effort on Autodesk, is really focused on a better world. What does that mean and how do we help people to imagine, design, and create this better world that we all want in the future?

John: That is awesome; so let’s now talk about the green difference. Since you wear two different hats, Senior Director of Sustainability and also President and CEO of The Autodesk Foundation, talk a little bit about the green difference that you get to make wearing both hats and the impact that Autodesk gets to make with regards to green.

Lynelle: Sure. Well, if you think about where we’re headed as a species really, we are expected to have 9, maybe 10 billion people living on the planet in 2050. That’s not very far away and when you think about the indications of that, we’re going to need to provide more for people while demanding less from the planet and from our natural systems and with more and more people moving into the cities and a growing global middle class, they’re going to expect a lot more services and quality of life and so we are fundamentally going to be redesigning how we’re living on the planet and that is a perfect opportunity for designers. Design is almost like a secret weapon that can help us figure out how we can live on this planet with this many people and change the future that we’re creating so that’s what we get to think about is how do we equip our customers with the right technology, the right mindset, the right access to tools to start to think differently about everything that we’re designing.

John: That is so interesting so recently, you spoke at the Fortune Brainstorm Green Conference and you spoke on the idea of design led revolution. I’ve never heard those words together. Can you share and define that term for our listeners out there and for myself so they understand where you’re taking us and when you’re speaking of design, what does design led revolution really mean?

Lynelle: Sure, so I think about the last few decades kind of in three eras from a sustainability perspective. The first era in the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, even ’90s was the era of the NGOs, the nonprofit organizations, the activists who were calling attention to some of these sustainability issues, environmental issues, social issues and then around 2000, the era of the corporate started so corporate sector waking up to sustainability, sustainable design, sustainable development, the rise in the number of sustainability reports. A couple years ago, almost every Fortune 500 company was writing a sustainability report. They all have CSOs, Chief Sustainability Officers, and now what we’re seeing as we look to the future is the era of the designer where it’s this rise in the power of designers to step in and make decisions which seem small on the one hand in terms of the impact but actually can radically change the trajectory that we are on and so the design led revolution is about this rise in the power of designers to use their talents and skills to change the future and the design led revolution is not an Autodesk thing. It’s not a revolution of our making. It’s something that we see happening. We are simply calling attention to it in order to accelerate the power of designers and we provide the technology and we want to put forth the very best design solutions that make it easy for our customers to make better decisions about everything that they’re making, whether it’s energy, water, materials impact of their design, or the implications for people and human health and improving people’s lives and so we have an important role to play in the design led revolution but it’s something that is much larger than Autodesk that we just are really inspired by and we want to help accelerate.

John: For our listeners who just joined us, we’ve got Lynelle Cameron on with us. She’s the Senior Director of Sustainability at Autodesk. She’s also the President and CEO of The Autodesk Foundation. If you want to follow along, I’m on their websites right now. There are two amazing websites, one for the foundation. It’s www.autodesk.org but they also have a really fascinating website. It’s www.autodesk.com/designledrev and I’m on that site right now and it’s really, really first of all, visually beautiful. Second of all, it has lots of great information and I’d like to ask you some questions with regards to the information on this. First of all, when you talk about the term ‘impact design’, what does that mean, Lynelle, and how does that tie into the design led revolution?

Lynelle: Great question. Let me back up a step and then we’ll get to impact design so the key component of the design-led revolution, as I mentioned, is the rise in the power of designers specifically to solve today’s most epic challenges so again, whether it’s an environmental challenge of climate, energy, water or it’s health, education, poverty, some of these huge epic global challenges and we use the word epic because these challenges are very interconnected systemic ones. You can’t solve them in isolation. They truly are epic in nature and so we are helping people solve these epic challenges. Impact design, you mentioned Autodesk.org website so a couple months ago, we launched something called The Autodesk Foundation, which is the first foundation focused exclusively on design and we did this because we really saw a number of design driven organizations within the nonprofit sector who are having tremendous impact on some of these epic challenges and so we decided on a foundation that was focused entirely on impact design so impact design is about using design to have impact on some of the greatest epic challenges so that’s the connection, if you will, between epic design, the design led revolution, and solving these epic challenges and we are so inspired by the kinds of organizations that we’re finding within the nonprofit sector but even more broadly through the social enterprise and the social sector broadly and I’m happy to give a few examples of those if that’s helpful.

John: Please. Yeah, that would be wonderful.

Lynelle: Okay. There is a whole list of these organizations on Autodesk.org for people who want to know more about them but just to highlight a few, we a couple months ago hosted a team of engineers from Kenya from an organization called Kickstart International. This is an organization that makes irrigation pumps for small farmers across the African continent and they believe that there’s not necessarily a water problem but there’s an irrigation problem and extending the growing season so that we can irrigate farms during the dry season is really the big opportunity and so we brought these engineers to San Francisco for about three weeks where they could learn all about our design technology. get trained in it, visit Pier Nine, which is our fabrication lab, tech shop, which is another fabrication maker space that we gave them access to, and so these people were able to radically change their whole design process, which used to take a matter of years to improve an irrigation pump and actually get it to market, down to a matter of days because they could iterate in the computer, optimize their design, and then print it with a 3D printer and be ready to have something to field test in the market so it’s organizations like Kickstart that we want to support. I’ll just throw out a few more. Mass Design is a nonprofit architectural firm that builds hospitals and pools in remote underserved communities and so again, it’s exactly the kind of organization that we want to support because they are using design to solve some of the most epic challenges. Similarly, an organization called BREV, which is a nonprofit organization that sets out to health and medical technologies to people who live on less than $4 a day so we supported them to do a field testing of a prosthetic knee and they are truly demonstrating the power of design to serve a whole new set of people at the bottom of the period so these are the kind of organizations that we support through the foundation but I’ll just highlight that another similar effort that we’ve been doing at Autodesk for many years is our partner program and that’s a similar effort but it’s targeting the clean tech early stage entrepreneurs so any company that’s starting out that has a business that’s specifically tailored to address an environmental challenge can have easy access to Autodesk technology and so again, it’s a really simple online application process but the goal for us is to get our technology into the hands of the people who are having the greatest impact in solving these epic challenges and so that’s where I get to spend my time doing every day is working with really inspiring creative people who are not afraid to tackle some of the thorniest most epic challenges.

John: Right, but I’m on your dot-org site now, the Autodesk.org site, and I’m looking at some of these stories that you were just talking about, helping farmers grow their income and improving mobility for amputees, building affordable efficient homes, but then below that, you have then designing solutions to epic challenges and then you have all the buckets that are how you see the epic challenges; water, climate change, urbanization, energy, land and resources, and health, so where in the world are the greatest opportunities for designers to make a difference or is the opportunity just almost limitless? Because in terms of epic challenges, mixing design and leveraging your design capabilities and your great software to help solve some of these epic challenges seems like you’re covering a lot of ground here.

Lynelle: You hit the nail on the head. The opportunity is everywhere and that’s the really exciting part and there is nothing that is designed on our planet that doesn’t yield an incredible opportunity from a sustainability or impact perspective and I think that’s the real message that we want to get out is whether you’re designing a building or a product or a transportation system, energy, even whole cities, there is an incredible opportunity to think differently about what you’re designing and about how you’re designing and we’re doing that ourselves as well. A month ago, we announced an intention to produce a 3D printer and we’re thinking a lot about what kind of materials do we want to be printing with. Do we want recycled material? Do we want non-toxic material? How can we optimize our own 3D printer just as we’re advocating our customers to do? And I think that’s the message is we all have a role in the future, whether we’re a consumer or a designer, or a policy maker, and we each have a really important role to play if we can think differently about each of our roles and find the change that is most meaningful to you or your company or your organization so the opportunity really is everywhere. The future is our design brief and it gets really exciting when you think about millions of people thinking differently about the role of design and their role in shaping the future.

John: That is so true. Can you give us a little history? We have a couple minutes left unfortunately, but why has Autodesk chosen the convergence of their business model, which happens to be design software, and why are they so passionate about these amazing causes that you’ve gotten involved with with regards to the foundation and everything you’re doing with regards to sustainability and the foundational work? Talk about the passion and where does it come from at Autodesk.

Lynelle: Well, we’re talking about our collective future and what’s not to be inspired about having a hand in shaping the future and I think when you talk to CEOs of most large companies today, they understand the planetary situation. They understand that we will soon be living in a carbon-constrained world. It’s inevitable. What we are really inspired to do is to help people understand this reality in an inspiring way. We all know about the epic challenges but sometimes they seem too daunting to really take personal action against and we are at the nexus of design professions in the broadest sense and that is so inspiring to us to work together with creative people every day to design the solutions that our future, our children and their children, need so it’s a pretty obvious position for Autodesk to take and I think we are on the verge of a breakthrough as a society over the next 10 years to get where we need to be.

John: Thankfully, you’re leading the way, both wearing your two hats as Senior Director of Sustainability at Autodesk and as the President and CEO of The Autodesk Foundation. For our listeners out there that want to learn more about the foundation, it’s www.autodesk.org and go to www.autodesk.com/designledrev. Thank you, Lynelle, for being an inspiring leader of the design led revolution and using the power of design to create a better world. You are truly living proof that green is good.

Lynelle: Thank you, John.

John Shegerian: 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 cyber security 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. This is a super special edition. We’ve got Peter Feigin. He’s the president of the Milwaukee Bucks and he’s a native New Yorker. He’s with us today. Welcome to the impact podcast, Peter.

Peter Feigin: Hey, John thanks for having me.

John: Hey, Peter. Before we get talking about all the amazing things you’ve done in basketball, and just coming off amazing championship. Talk a little bit about where you even grew up, how you even got here.

Peter: Yeah. Crazy simple story grew up in New York City, Manhattan on the Upper East Side, went to high school in Brooklyn. I have an identical twin brother who happens to still be in New York and runs a private school called Trevor Day School. That school happens to be the place where all of Mark Lazari and Wes Edens’s kids went, who are the owners of the Bucks. And probably about 15 years ago, Mark Lazari was looking to explore buying teams and they were in a parent conference, and my brother just said to him, “Hey, my twin brother’s over at Madison Square Garden he runs the marketing there he understands the P&L you probably get a kick out of him coming with you and giving you an opinion on what that was.” Make a long story short, we probably spent the next 10 years having the most incredible adventures of going to do due diligence on teams that he was prospecting to buy. One Thursday night he gave me a call and said, “Do you think you can go to Milwaukee and talk to Senator Herb Call. He thinks he’s going to sell the team.” Low and behold 24 hours, called him back and I said, oh, he’s going to sell the team. I’m like, we actually, might have a chance to get this done and to make a long story short, and unfortunately my twin brother thinks like I owe him a commission, for…

John: Commission. Right.

Peter: Yeah. But that’s how…

John: Or dear love.

Peter: …it worked in such a great way for me and with a magic wand really evolved into one of the most incredible jobs ever.

John: You grew up on the Upper East Side, you are a native New Yorker, your brother’s still back there. Growing up, you used to hang out, go to the garden and you were a Knicks fan or Rangers fan and Yankees or Mets. Where were you on sports?

Peter: Well, my dad was at Brooklynite so we were Mets and Jets.

John: Okay.

Peter: We took the lumps and then, yeah, I had my dream job when I was in my mid-20s as in Madison Square Garden like running marketing for the New York Knicks and I thought I could have died and gone to heaven and that’s, I lived breathed in the Knicks basketball and Ranger hockey, it was the greatest.

John: Was Sonny Werblin still around, or was that the same?

Peter: No, he was gone.

John: He was gone. Okay. All right. Got it. Now you’re on the journey. You buy the Bucks, you help with that whole negotiation and you were living in New York, so you were married already and you decided…

Peter: Married. I’ve got two kids I’m working as, I’d say a consultant, helping to put together a business plan. Post-acquisition we’re in an interesting time in life where my dad had been ill for a while and there was no way I was going to move to Milwaukee or take, even have the prospect of taking a job because I wanted to stay in New York and be with my father. My father happened to pass away probably within a couple months and very close with Mark and Wes, who basically at that time said, “Well, you now have to really consider this and do this.” And at the time, I always say, I was their last hope because of the timing of the acquisition. The way it works is they closed in April. It was July. It was one of these terrible times where, when you’re in pro sport, you book all your revenue, you do all your dirty business before tip-off and if they didn’t have somebody to run the business in July, it would’ve been a disaster and they were stuck with me and that’s my road to success.

John: Now, you married, what, wife is a native New Yorker?

Peter: My wife’s a native New Yorker. My wife’s born in El Salvador came here when she was 9 to Brooklyn.

John: Right.

Peter: We’ve been married like a hundred years.

John: Hundreds. That’s good. That’s a good run.

Peter: It’s a little less, minus 76.

John: Okay, that’s still a good run.

Peter: We knew each other. We were together in high school.

John: Wow.

Peter: We have two kids. We’ve got a sophomore in college and a senior in college.

John: Where did you go to college again?

Peter: I went to Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

John: What did you study? You didn’t study sports.

Peter: American studies in business.

John: Got it. Now, you’re talking to your wife and your children and you’re moving from New York City to Wisconsin.

Peter: Yeah.

John: Who’s raising their hand saying “Dad, we’re all in with you.” How does this work? How does that boat go?

Peter: That’s great, that’s one of the only times that question’s been asked. I’ll tell you how it… I got the offer, the conversation and we play a pickup game of basketball every Saturday for 20 years with the same guys. Some guys I went to high school with some guys who played college, and I leaked it at the opportunity at that game on a Saturday morning and everybody went absolutely nuts because for better or worse, I’m kind of being your average guy, you do not think Peter Fiegin’s going to have the opportunity to become an NBA president to do it and these jobs are so rare and so incredible. Everybody at ball was just, you got to move, go leave now. I said, oh, it’s so good to get all your support. I better go home and talk to Natalia to do it. So when I talked to her, I said, hey, I’ve got to tell you, first of all, the executive committee at Saturday morning run says, this is a good thing. Then she just starts laughing. It’s all about your partner, it was one of these opportunities where she was just all in and to her benefit, like I owe her forever because it was, like it’s been an unbelievable, run and a huge opportunity. We pivoted and our kids were able to finish high school in New York and we made it work and now we’ve been Wisconsin residents from New York City, which is a whole other interesting transition.

John: That’s literally a reality show that, it could be on Netflix. Talk about it, you transition now from the Knicks and your consulting gig to the president of the Bucks. When you show up for the first day, are you pinching yourself? Number one, obviously, because like you said, it’s rare air, but you’re learning on the job. This is learning on the job, right?

Peter: Well, I think it’s leadership 101, you’ve got to grasp where you are number one, and this was a very distressed brand company position. This was the Milwaukee Bucks at the time had lost the most games in the NBA, had the least revenue, had the least season ticket holders, any metric you could measure. We were either 29th or 30th in a league of 30 teams, we were in a 25-year-old arena, that part of this was how do we get a new arena built? We were in this really awesome mode of, oh, this is a startup, like this is a startup. How do we rethink it? How do we build the plumbing? How do we build the baselines? How do we get the people to try and start the journey to professionalize and really build a gold standard operation. That’s for every aspect of it. We had to certainly do it on the resources, our facilities, we had to do it on the human capital, and then we had to change our whole perception which came from the owners on what we wanted to do on the court, which win an NBA championship and what we wanted to do off the court is be the innovators and be the leaders in the way we really operate.

John: Let’s step back. I know you’ve said your pops passed. What did your dad do for a living? Just so I get a little…

Peter: He’s was in consumer products. He ran companies like Alma and Posner and cosmetics. He was a truly taught consumer products, marketing, and operations guy, was okay. Our dinner table conversation. My mother was one of the preeminent ad executives from Grey Advertising for 40 years. You talk about advantages, just the osmosis at our dinner table was I knew in two seconds like I wanted to be in business. I wanted to be in marketing in sales. I understood what a call to action was.

John: Right.

Peter: I’m fairly, my mom was immersed in data analytics before data and analytics was business intelligence.

John: Your mom was part of the George Lois generation and Jerry Della Femina and then Donny Deutsch’s father David Deutsch. That was the real mad man era that your mom was in at Grey Advertising, right?

Peter: You got it running the 70s, 80s and 90s, yep. That was…

John: That was it.

Peter: That was it. In the middle of New York and your…

John: You knew you wanted to be a business person when you went to…

Peter: Yeah, no question.

John: No question. Now, you had private equity partners. When you are visioning this out, like you just said, human capital, a new physical capital, on the court, off the court, what were you using both singularly as you, as Peter Feigin goes, but also with your partners and the private equity guys, what were you using as your role model? Were you looking at other franchises that have done this before, or were you looking at other business models and merging some version thereof?

Peter: Yeah, it is a combination of both because you really, I had a real rare opportunity to get out of sports and work outside of the sports industry for wealth. Just my own exposure was mixed in what are best practices for centralized services. We hired an unbelievable CFO. We hired a great human capital person to build up the structure, but it was really best practice. I will say one of the big advantages of the national basketball association is it truly is a collaborative, like on the court we are competitive. We want to win. Off the court it is best practice. We don’t compete against each other in arena revenue and local media revenue. How can we help each other and learn from each other? The ability to go into an NBA franchise and really pick all the great practices which is going around in the league is a huge advantage.

John: Is mom still around?

Peter: Yes.

John: This must be one of the greatest rides of her life seeing you do this whole journey, huh?

Peter: Well, it’s having like I’ve always said, people talk about their personal board of directors and what that is and I had the advantage and still have the advantage of my mother being the best consultant you could possibly have.

John: Oh, my Gosh. That’s just what a joy. Okay. Now you’re there, you’re rebuilding. Talk about the steps leading up to pulling off, living the dream, actually winning the championship. You start and now talk about the major, like you said, you got a great human capital person, you got a great CFO. How did you put the stadium deal together? How did that come together?

Peter: Start from, yeah, start from the beginning. It all starts with the answer, right? Our owners, when you talk about, our active operating board of governors, you’ve got guys like Mark Lazari who kind of in avenue capital and ran the distressed debt world. You’ve got Wes Edens who has probably started up dozens of companies in private equity and has an unbelievable kind of entrepreneurial spirit. You’ve got Jamie Dimon, who is this incredible long-term equity holder who is done it and then you’ve got Mike Fascitelli who’s really was the chairman and CEO of Vornado Real Estate in New York on the commercial real estate side. You talk about your operating board committee, you’ve got these Masters of the Universe, and really you start with the answer. You start with what’s the goal? Well the goal on the court is we want to win a championship. The goal off the court is we want a new arena. We need to resource this place, like you can’t imagine and we need to build an infrastructure that is beyond sound for growth, so not just day one.

John: Right.

Peter: How do we envision the next day? I think it starts with human capital, but it really starts with road mapping out each little thing. The arena was, if the arena didn’t happen, nothing happens, and that was a public-private. I think probably one of the last public-private partnerships that that’ll happen, when Troy brought together the city, the county and the state to put together a partnership for a new arena in downtown Milwaukee.

John: Right. I’ve had some of my employees have been there and they say, it’s just amazing, just a wonderful place to watch a sporting event and I’m just talking to one this morning and he just said, “Great place, just a great arena.”We’re not going to go through this interview without talking, of course, about Giannis. You’re the ultimate insider. It’s been talked about the whole Giannis effect. Talk about having arguably the greatest player in the world on your team. How does that, and then, with that also because this harkens back, I’m old enough, you’re old enough even, we remember the Michael Jordan era, he was the greatest player in the world back in his… Again, you not only have one of the greatest players ever to play on the planet, but you’ve also created this culture of retention. Talk a bit about how to do that without bruising anyone’s ego and keeping everybody happy.

Peter: Well, I think first of all, everything is like, you plan to be great. Everything’s compounded we happen to have picked Giannis in a draft, like in, as the 16th pick. He ends up being a generational player like you couldn’t, if you were writing a Disney movie, which they have now written and now produced, it would be the fodder for a Disney. And then I think on a parallel track, you’re really building an infrastructure. You’re physically building an arena, a district, a template for success. Then you talk about what your leadership is and what your purse is so it all starts and ends with Giannis. Here is your example of everything you read everything you hear, everything he does is true. This guy is a relentless workaholic who is selfless to his teammates and like wants to win. There’s some other attributes, but just take those three is like your best, which, whether you’re on basketball or the business side, you die for. That is like what you live for. He perpetuates a culture that attracts like-minded people to him. You end up with a Jew holiday, who is this incredible, understated, all star. Then Chris Middleton next to him, which is almost the same, who are these high quality character folks who happen to be all stars in skill level. You build this infrastructure and skill set that is geared toward a championship. Then you mirror that off the court. How do you get people who care? We always tell people, listen, if you want to work here, you’re going to have to collaborate with people. You’re going to actually have to be a decent person and not be toxic. You’re going to have to work your butt off because it’s work. Some people don’t like to hear that anymore. Hey, it’s a job. We’re going to appreciate the hell out of you. You’re going to have a lot of fun. We’re going to pay you, but hey, you’re going to work. We’re going to constantly improve. It’s not the right environment for everybody.

John: Right.

Peter: But one of the incredible things, alignment we have with myself, John Horst, who’s our GM and coach Bud is like, we’ve got this undercurrent of constant improvement and kind of like never, pleased but never satisfied. How do we keep driving? And we want to attract people who want to be in that mode.

John: That’s awesome. Now you win, you have the championship. I actually read a whole story, there’s a whole article, Peter, about your ring. Talk about the special, the specialness of how you were involved with designing the championship ring, because there’s a lot of thought that you guys put into that ring.

Peter: Well, I made one of the biggest mistakes ever to begin with. It’s like, hey, I worry about the execution. Everything’s got to be perfect to do it and don’t realize because like, hey, I’ve never won a championship before, never run a ring so I just started the process and I didn’t realize which I now do and why our owners wanted to be intimately involved with the design of the ring. Incredibly these three guys were literally engaged. We had weekly calls. We were literally refining, cared about all the cookies and stories in it and stuff. It really is. We had a, if you remember, we had a COVID extended season.

John: Right.

Peter: We didn’t finish the championship till mid-July, which meant like we didn’t have long to get the rings included. What people never tell you about the rings, it’s not just the 20 rings for the players and the coach and the owners. It’s hundreds of rings.

John: Yes.

Peter: You are doing your employees, your service, your limited partners so it is a huge process. But it was so much fun. We had Chris Middleton and Giannis involved in it kind of conceptually, and really fun conversations with Giannis’ brother Costas had just won for the Lakers the year before. Giannis was like, “I’ll make this simple, it’s got to be bigger than that Lakers ring it might be, and it’s got to be cool.” We wanted like a really cool clean design. I think one of the things Jason of Beverly Hills, who was the designer and the manufacturer did, we just had this awesome element that the top of the ring came off and became a pendant on your, that you could actually wear as a necklace.

John: Oh, wow.

Peter: Which people gave. A lot of storytelling and symbolic, and it’s been 50 years between championships. We’re one of those cities that it was just so powerful. It was just such a big deal.

John: That is a big deal. That’s and like you said, you get to share that with all the hundreds of other rings. It’s not just the players, but the way you get to honor so many of the others who put their blood, sweat and tears into helping make it a possibility. What a wonderful experience. Where is your ring? Where does it sit? Because I know a lot of coaches, lot of presidents, lot of GMs, I run into them and I ask them, can I look at your ring? And they’ve got it on. Where does your ring sit?

Peter: So my ring sits in my underwear drawer in our house which is like, great and it’s got readily accessible…I mean it’s huge. But I will tell you that most cathartic incredible, awesome thing, which everybody told me and again, the collaborative is awesome. Because I talked with the Lakers guys, I talked with the Boston guys on what they had, did. The most meaningful thing that you can never take for granted is we gave about 850 part-time workers rings to get done. Even though all of us who were so engaged into, nothing compared to what that value was, what that emotion was too. We had a ceremony and we had, and out of all the things in the experience, like I want to be in a parade every day. I’d like to do that ring ceremony for hourly staff every day and the world would be a good place.

John: It’s so amazing you say that. As you said, we all have to pay, keep the lights on buy groceries, but you can’t put a value on that kind of memento that you’ve given to those 850 people, as opposed to a monetary bonus, you can’t, there’s no, it’s invaluable that kind of experience. They’re going to look at that ring forever and remember that. What a great thing. Hey, so talk a little bit about impact. This is the Impact Podcast. You are in a community that’s not only sports crazy, but very community minded, the Packers, the Badgers, the Bucks are all very community involved. Talk about your organization, community involvement, and the impacts that you get to make both positive and otherwise. Just go beyond the scoreboard and championships that you guys get to make in your community, that you are proud of, Peter.

Peter: Yeah, I think number one is to explain kind of a small market. Because I hadn’t worked in, I’d worked in New York city. I’d worked for the New York Knicks. I’d been in a big market. Even though you think you’re such a great brand, there are a hundred things that happen in New York a day that you’re one of the elements. Here in a million person city and your ability to affect change, your platform, your ability to really make a difference is so incredible. It’s really important and you’ve got to take a real responsibility. I would say again, from our owners, from day one, they understood that from how are we stewards of the brand of the Bucks and how are we examples in the community? I think we’ve gravitated again with a lot of people we’ve brought in to engage and get it done. There’s some great things. Listen, for the rest of my life, having a boycott for the game in the bubble where we put a pause in the world.

John: Right.

Peter: That was the Milwaukee Bucks. That was one of these monumental, incredible, awesome times to get it done. But then there’s, in this group we’ve got 300 full-time people and 250 of them are involved in volunteering. That’s what we call our volunteering. We call it “volundeering”.

John: Right, I see. I like it.

Peter: Obviously, we have like, all of them are employee resource groups. By the way, part of the culture here and part of the DNA is, before you come in and before you, you’ve got to want to be involved. By the way I never would’ve said this seven years ago, I think you have to be involved. I think to be successful here and take it from a very fast talking, sometimes lazy speaking New Yorker, who swears too much and does everything. You really need to build equity and build trust especially in the Midwest you’ve…

John: Right.

Peter: …got to do what you’re going to say and say what you’re going to do and really be substantial. I think engagement and investment in the community and social responsibility is like a big deal.

John: That’s so great. Talk a little bit on a fun topic, when I was reading up about you and the team and everything else, I read about this new venture you guys got going over in Wisconsin called the Cluckery and I got hungry looking at the website and looking at the menu. Please talk about the Cluckery because this is so much fun and I wanted you to share your whole, the vision and how this all came about.

Peter: Well, I always default to the Cluckery. God, I love it as a case study. Number one, we’re in the middle of COVID. We happen to have like the largest kitchen in the state of Wisconsin. We were sitting brainstorming like, how do we keep people employed? What the heck do we do, like everybody else? We had this, I think it was an intern, said to us like, “Well, we should, have you read about ghost kitchens?” Of course we’re sitting there going like, eh, kind of like, we don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Within 45 minutes, we had this unbelievable excitement of, we’re nuts, why don’t we do like take home it’s big ordering out. This is COVID, how do we do it? We are brand marketing sales people. How could we not be good at quick serve restaurants? Why don’t we build the tenders business and leverage the Bucks brand and leverage like we’re…Low and behold, we’re up to two, almost going to get three locations on the Cream City Cluckery and it’s like a chicken tender business of which we’ve done relatively well. But I think it’s more the fun, the story. It’s certainly an example of how do you keep the entrepreneurial spirit in an organization and what better way to do it with chicken, and it’s great chicken.

John: It looks amazing. I wanted to eat some. When I was looking at the website, I was like, man, I can’t wait to taste that chicken. It looks amazing. People can find it at, I saw the website, it was Cluckery, cluckery.com, right?

Peter: Yep.

John: By the way, we’ve got with us today, Peter Feigin, he’s the president of the Milwaukee Bucks. To learn more about the world championship, Milwaukee Bucks, you can find Peter and all of his colleagues and the players and all their stats @bucks.com, bucks.com. Peter, talk a little bit about the future. It’s incredible and not many people get to do it, let’s be honest, when you get to actually live your dream and go to the top. Now you’ve been to the top of the mountain. With your owners and partners and this great group of people you put together, what’s the future look like for the Bucks and what can some of the fans expect in the upcoming season?

Peter: We like to be, delusionally optimistic. How do we sit here and I think like, how could the Millwaukee Bucks not be, not America’s team, but Global’s team. We have the DNA and the strength and this caliber of championship caliber team to really be attractive to the world. Number one, growth is so exponentially outside the us, which is like really interesting for NBA basketball, for participation, for media, for social consumption. How do we continue to not only understand it, but monetize it in a very big way? Which is a huge opportunity. Then I think as we keep exploring and kind of what’s happening with online gambling and what’s happening with NFTs and what’s happening in the ticketing business, that it all evolves with technology, will be really interesting. But the overarching is how do we maintain kind of championship caliber excellence, like across the business and across the team. On the team, it takes extreme like investment to keep it. In business it takes a real challenging of like where your growth is going to come from I in a big way. We spend a lot of our time really trying to figure out what are the levers to move the revenue.

John: Go back over that, what it was called typically what’s called web3 now, or something the young people around me tell me it’s called web 3.0 NFTs, crypto sports gambling. Are they all going to be important or do you see one heavier leaning heavier than other, in terms of future revenue opportunities that are credible and consistent?

Peter: Yeah, I think the credible and constancy is like NFTs and, are in the next phase. It’s gotten through its first iteration to see where it is. It’s not really in a place where I could tell you, like, hey, here’s our growth potential…

John: Right.

Peter: …here’s the market. But online gambling, in state by state is massive and how you can center that do you want to become part of a casino? Do you want to open a sports book? Do you want to like, figure out what the handles are and become a…There are lots of opportunities in that realm, which I think are immediate. It all matters what state you’re in and what’s going on with the legislation. Then I think the big huge growth for NBA is how do we really figure out what our media is domestically and what it is internationally like in the next two years, which is changing dramatically. That’s the biggest change is the regional sports networks have changed dramatically. Like it’s going to streaming, it’s going to over the top, that is a huge change from all these local teams depending and getting guaranteed large dollar values for regional sports deals.

John: How about the issue of when people put on those special glasses now, and they can watch a game in 3D or what…I’m so out of it a little bit, Peter, technologically speaking, but the young people are talking about the future of watching sports is we’re going to be able to, is going to be eventually cameras court side, and we’re going to be able to watch it and feel like we’re sitting court side and you’re at a bucks game. Is this coming?

Peter: Yeah, so I think it’s here and I think it’s all about the customization, right. What’s going on with technology what’s going on, even with your experience in the arena…

John: Right.

Peter: …is you’ve got to have so many opportunities and different variations to really, to really acquire different types of fans. We have large sections that you never think about 10 years ago that people hang out at a bar, never have a seat, never, standing room only.

John: Right.

Peter: Which like, by the way, might evolve to 20%, 30% of an arena at some point. You can’t imagine.

John: Right.

Peter: Then I think you’re, listen, viewer consumption, what you’re talking about is whether you put on an Oculus or whether you’ve got five screens going up, people are now watching short form video in five to 20 second increments to absorb a game. How do you balance with that and how do you create that menu that people can pick and choose from?

John: In terms of watching the young generation now come up, has NIL and the advent of NIL do you believe that’s going to have a positive or negative effect as you continue to recruit players in the future? Because are they getting too sophisticated too early in terms of their value enterprise?

Peter: Wow. That’s an interesting question. We deal, and we’ve had some meetings with our friends at the Badgers of the University of Wisconsin as they create a collective, we’ve certainly been tracking kind of what’s going on. I think it changes the landscape. Right now, it’s very hard to figure out and understand where it’s going, because this is the wild West.

John: Right.

Peter: NIL has no guardrails, no anything who’s getting paid what? How does it really work? Donations to the school can be turned into compensation. I think it’s hard to grasp where this is going, but it professionalizes players at this…

John: Yeah.

Peter: …point teenagers at a much earlier level than they’ve ever been…

John: Right.

Peter: …professionalized on a revenue basis, so yeah. I think if nothing else, it changes the awareness, the sophistication, and the business operations of the way players will position themselves and the way they’ll market themselves. Just what you said is like we’re always coming in this balance of how do we, we want Giannis to represent the Bucks brand. His own social presence is so valuable, is so great. In a perfect world, how do we mesh them together to have one and one equal three?

John: Right. As you said, because of your mom and dad’s background, and because you had some of the rock stars of industry, as you say, Masters of the Universe, as your partners, you got to meld your experiences, your parents coaching, and then the rock stars came and they were also, you got a perfect soup of business experience to create this amazing success story. Are you now being used as a paradigm by other team presidents, GMs owners that are looking to you and coming to you for advice or for just pearls of wisdom of how can we do it because here’s where we sit in baseball or in football or in basketball because they want to follow this amazing path and journey that you guys have created there?

Peter: Yeah, I think I have this, my own personal craziness is I love to collect people. By form, I think your strength of your network is as strong and as smart as you can possibly be. I answer that by saying like we were successful because at the time the Brooklyn Nets, the Orlando Magic, and a bunch of other teams were selfless with their help with us on how to have best practices on how to build an arena and how to build an infrastructure on how to form. I really think it’s kind of a cycle of selflessness and kind of best practices. Yes, we are shiny toy people want to see how you build a project in time and under budget and how you’d manage a project. I’m probably like someone who gives everything away. I think that’s like fair. I always think it comes back. I’m not a big fan of, hey, we need to make money or consult off that. I encourage it, and selfishly, it’s a fun way to network and deal with people. By the way, it’s so much fun. Whether you’re building an arena, whether you’re building infrastructure or a team, whether you’re dealing with the same problems, it is really powerful to end up with, when you come up with conflict and problems or you need solutions, or you need smart brains to be able to pick up the phone with 5, 10 like-minded people who are dealing with the same stuff.

John: It’s fascinating you say that. You talked about the head of human capital, and obviously I’m proud to say, and I’m only saying this with love, you’re a native New Yorker like I am and we’re people, people. This is the most, this is fun of life. Not everyone is. How do you balance a world and a sports world, especially, that’s become so excited about, what Billy Beane created in terms of data analytics and the importance of numbers with the human capital element. Let me just throw this out there. Above me there are my two children, my son, Tyler, my daughter, Courtney. My son was a freshman at San Joaquin Memorial High School when Brook Lopez was there and he played with Brook under coach Pat Giles. We sponsored Brook, the Lopez twins and you have Brook on your team, another great kid. You’ve collected all this human capital, both starting and back up. How do you end up managing the importance of numbers and capital. financial capital with human capital to end up with the right result, how is that math done in Peter Feigin’s head?

Peter: Yeah. That’s the relentless, that’s the difference I think of what success is. How do you care about it, and Jon Horst is so great on the basketball side. How do we attack every day with how can we resource everybody who works here to be able to do their job very well. How can we do fun special things, what matters to people? I think, listen, you could certainly have success with superpower and great skill and everything, but to have people…You mentioned at the beginning of the show, how in a small market, do you keep consistency? Can you keep a competitive championship-caliber team across an era? Well, you got to be beyond on top of your game. Not only do you have to have the best facilities, the best resources, no reason for anybody to say, “What want to be,” you got to be good people. You got to be someone that actually that enjoys being here and part of the family culture and part of an organization. When they talk about Milwaukee, they’re like, “Are you kidding me?” This is the best place I’ve ever been.” We go from that answer where we know how important it is because the winters here suck. They’re the worst. You can imagine, yes, I’d rather be in Miami for 180 days, no question. But, you want to be in a place where people care about you? Do you want to be in a place where people are having fun and we’re trying to get rid of all the toxic. It has huge value and it’s paid huge returns for us.

John: Just for a fun look, for our listeners’ sake. Before we started this interview, you took a little break and said, “John excuse me for a second because someone very special stopped by.” Talk a little bit about the ice cream truck, the ice cream man.

Peter: The ice cream truck. Well, you know about the ice cream truck.

John: You talk about it.

Peter: You are a genius because you use food as you’re incentive and nothing better than ice cream. I just think we’re just laughing that it’s so great to have, we have an ice cream Wednesday where it’s supposed to be Tuesdays, but we incentivize to ride his ice cream truck around the floor and around the facility to do a break. But I think, those are the things that like, yes, you can always pay people. You can always have a kitchen with food in it. You can always have free coffee. But I think, if you sprinkle in the effort and the care, it affects change. It’s a difference maker, especially now in our labor market.

John: You talked about your Masters of the Universe being your partners and owners and really some of the brightest people on this planet which of course, that’s true. Their track record proves it. Who negotiated in 2018 for the only NFL player to invest and buy 1% of the Bucks, Aaron Rodgers, being Aaron Rodgers, whose genius was that? And how did that all come about? Are you allowed to talk about that, Peter?

Peter: Yeah, I will just tell you that was one of the most fun dreamlike things for us ever. I think Wes Edens and Aaron Rodgers had been friends for awhile. By the way, Aaron is a fanatical basketball fan, and by the way, a regular classic Wisconsin superstar wants to come to a game, pays for his ticket wants to be left to watch the game.

John: Right.

Peter: I think when the opportunity came and we thought it was such a good idea, we were aiming an incredible. We’ve had Giannis invest in the brewers, which is like…

John: That’s awesome.

Peter: …it’s not the biggest, but it just talks about how special when you talk about in a small market, and we try to coalesce with the Brewers and the Packers as much as we can to be like the strength of these three pro teams and their players and their coaches and our coaches and GM spend a lot of time with the coaches and GMs at the Packers, which is just great. It’s like you think about what the culture of community is.

John: Yeah. Peter, before I let you go, I have to ask you. A, if you weren’t doing this and I know this is a dream job. Like you said at the top of the show, very few human beings even get to be in this position in any professional sports level. But you’ve not only lived the dream but also climb to the mountain and very few win a championship. You’ve done it all. What would you be doing if you just couldn’t be doing this? When you think about it, what else would you be doing? What would you be doing?

Peter: Oh, my goodness. I think if you took me at this point in my life and where I am and…

John: Yeah.

Peter: …which I can’t even believe it, I’d probably have some fun teaching.

John: Okay.

Peter: Probably, now with the way interesting curriculum has expanded and fun case studies and like where schools are. I also listen, I thought, and my parents thought both my brother and I were as you can imagine before ADD was actually diagnosed…

John: Right.

Peter: …for kids our age and stuff, because it’s still be on impulsive, relentless, like, [inaudible]. It would be fun to own a hundred McDonald’s franchises and you guys would be great at that. They were trying to think of something that would be like…

John: Exciting.

Peter: …did active, to get in. But that kind of thing. But was like loved and I think I’m addicted. I’m addicted now to the operating side of the challenge of constant improvement, and how would you look at an organization and dive in there and really look to re-engineer tweak, and build for revenue growth? Whether it was in sports or somewhere else I’d probably look to lead an opportunity for a turnaround or a startup.

John: Talking about teaching, we have 15 years of this podcast, so we have thousands of young people around the world that actually tune in and listen and when we have someone like you on, I’d like to ask you this. There’s a lot of people that look up to you and want to be either the next Peter Feigin, or be an entrepreneur and do a startup. In many ways, you were doing a startup when you came to Milwaukee with your partners. What advice can you share backwards to the young people out there that want to live your journey or something close to it?

Peter: Yeah, what really worked for me is I think I was just insatiably curious. I asked every good question, every dumb question you could possibly imagine to really learn. Then, I would literally leech myself. I don’t know if that’s a word, but I would attach myself.

John: Yeah.

Peter: …to anybody I thought was of great skill and value for selfish reasons to feel good. Again, under the umbrella of collecting people and really having experience in a big way. I think one of the big skills is, I definitely do not know the answer to everything and if you’re able to… Basically I do think I can solve anything. I can come up with a solution, we can figure it out somehow, some way if you’ve got the right people around you to do it. But the honesty of saying you don’t know all the answers and figuring out what the solutions are is probably like pretty powerful in the way things work. I’ve been really lucky. I’ve had so much fun and been in sports entertainment and aviation and in different things and it’s all been about every job I’ve had incredibly, I’ve said like, oh my God, could you imagine, like I’ve died and gone to heaven. Now, I’ve been extremely lucky.

John: I don’t want to skip over that. You were very part of that whole Marquis Jet, NetJet thing too, right?

Peter: Yep.

John: Talk about and want you to share a couple of thoughts about Warren Buffett and that whole deal.

Peter: Yeah, it was incredible. In a 10 year phase, I started with a startup with Marquis Jet, with Kenny Dichter and Jesse Itzler who started the business and came from sports…

John: Another native New Yorker from Roslyn, New York.

Peter: Yeah. Absolutely. Jesse the Jet, no question. We scaled the company up to, a little bit under a billion dollars. I became the president of the company for a number of years, and then we got absorbed by NetJets and took on that role at NetJets for a couple of years, and really learned incredibly, had this opportunity to learn P&L and operational…

John: Excellent.

Peter: …administration, in aviation, in a $3 billion international aviation company, which was just amazing.

John: Unbelievable. How’s Warren Buffett in person as, how exactly?

Peter: The same he is, everywhere else. There’s no complexity. He’s very straightforward. He wants to know what the answers are. He trusts you to run a business and he also ethically says “Don’t do anything you wouldn’t want on the front page of a newspaper the next day,” and he means it. Those are simple, it’s his genius. He really taught me the lesson late in life is the real geniuses or the ones who can take these complex things and talk to me about them and I understand them. He simplified the housing market for me. He simplified the commodities business like, oh, I understand it now. That’s…

John: Like you said, the smartest people could take the most complex issues and just make them simple.

Peter: Yeah, right.

John: That’s so true. Well, Peter, this has been more than a delight. I really hope I get to meet you in the future. I’m sure somehow our paths will cross. For our listeners and viewers out there, to find Peter Feigin and the Milwaukee Bucks, you always could go to bucks.com. You could also see their new uniform styles at Bucks Pro Shop. At Bucks Pro Shop, you can find them. We are going to put in the notes Peter’s email address because he was kind enough to give us that. Please remember if you’re going through Wisconsin, go and have some chicken tenders at the Cluckery. Go to the Cluckery. Enjoy the chicken tenders. Peter Feigin, you’re making an amazing impact. You’re unbelievably inspirational. I’m so proud and honored to have this conversation with you today, and thank you for your generosity of your time.

Peter: John, the best. Thank you. A lot of fun.

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.

John Shegerian: Welcome to another special edition of Green is Good. We’re here in San Francisco at the Green Festival, and we’ve got a very special guest with us today. It’s Mike Tinskey. He’s the Director of Global Vehicle Electrification and Infrastructure from the Ford Motor Company. Ford is making another visit to Green is Good. Welcome to Green is Good, Mike.

Mike Tinskey: Thanks for having me, John.

John: Mike, there’s lots to talk about today, but let’s first talk about Ford and the Green Festivals. What cars have you brought today to the Green Festival, and why are they so special?

Mike: Thanks for asking. Ford believes in what we call the power of choice, so we brought both plug-in hybrids, hybrids, and a pure electric. It’s in the form of C-Max Energi, Fusion Energi, both the C-Max and Fusion hybrids, as well as the Ford Focus electric, which runs 100% on electric energy.

John: That’s great. And how has the response been from all the people here?

Mike: It’s fantastic. We’re here in San Francisco, and there’s a lot of want for these kinds of technologies. In fact, I don’t know if you know this, but we sell about 40-50% of all of our plug-ins here in the state of California.

John: 40% right here. I’m not a real car expert or anything, Mike, but has the Ford brand and these great electric cars started going internationally already?

Mike: They have. That’s one of the things that we really like because we build our products globally. Products like the Focus electric are offered as both the Focus electric, they’re also offered as the Ford gasoline, and in Europe as the Ford diesel and the Ford gasoline and the Ford Focus electric. So you take that one product that we build everywhere around the world, and you can take it and offer it as an electric in all those different regions. So to answer your question, yes, the Ford Focus electric has been launched in Europe, and we are about ready to launch our plug-in hybrid over there as well.

John: Wow. So my son just graduated from college in the spring in New York and moved back to California, and he needed a car. So I said, “Son, choose a car, and we’ll go look at it together.” So he took me to the Ford dealership in Santa Monica, and we got the C-Max Energi.

Mike: Oh, you did? Fantastic. First of all, your son, is he nine years old?

John: That’s nice, but no, he’s 21 years old. He did all the homework, and he was so excited and he told me all the benefits that come with it, stuff that I had not even heard of, such as the stickers that come with the car, the fact that in Santa Monica and other cities in California now that are starting to go with the program, you can park for free. You can go on the carpool lane with just one person. There’s so many other benefits that come with your great cars now, it’s just amazing. He loves it.

Mike: That’s great to hear. It’s really good to hear. We hear that a lot. The C-Max Energi that he has can drive up to 19 miles on electric. You mentioned all the other benefits he gets, but one of the prime benefits is it’s green. For that first 19 miles every day, he’s running off of energy here in California that is over 30% renewables.

John: He said that in the first week of driving, he used less than a gallon of gas. He was just psyched. Of course, we took a test drive together, and I drove it with him the first day. It’s unbelievably comfortable and has all the greatest new gadgets inside, really just a wonderful product. It’s nice to talk about it from just seeing it at the Green Festivals, which we’re here today, but it being in our family, I’ve got to tell you, you guys made a great car there.

Mike: That’s great. Will that car be called your son-in-law? No, your car is somehow related, being the father of the son. I think that the whole plug-ins are really starting to catch on. That vehicle he has, there’s really no compromise because if he does go farther, he has a gasoline engine and it runs in hybrid mode.

John: That’s why he chose it.

Mike: I get screenshots sent to me from customers all the time that show me how many miles per gallon they’re getting. Many of them are charging wherever they can find a spot, and here in California, there’s lots of places. There’s a gamefication. People try to stay in electric mode as much as they can.

John: That’s right. He was explaining to me, not only does his apartment building have it, but also the Whole Foods has it, so his whole path of travel has the charging stations now, and that’s just wonderful here in California. It makes it really convenient. Ford’s been on our show before, and we’re so honored that you guys take the time to come on the show. For good reason, we always want you on because you guys are so committed to the environment. Can you share beyond today at the Green Festival and the beautiful cars that you brought, the other commitments that Ford is making to the environment, and what you’re doing way beyond these three wonderful cars?

Mike: Sure. I can give you just a few ideas. You’re right. Sustainability is sort of in our roots. Our Chairman and our leadership are very passionate about it. On the emissions side, it really starts with the climate change. We believe that climate change is happening, and we need to do our part. When we do our products, when we launch our products, we want to be the fuel economy leaders. When we do products like the plug-ins we’re talking about, we want to offer as many of these products for our customers as possible. But it really extends even further than that. For example, we use old blue jeans for sound insulation in many of our products. You have to have sound insulation for your products. You might as well use old blue jeans. Much of our carpet in many of our products is used from recycled plastic water bottles. We partnered with a company called Reprieve, and they actually help us get that carpet and make it out of recycled material. Then we use a lot of grown products, soybeans and others, throughout the vehicle. If you move into the plant side, our manufacturing side, we just announced our fourth plant in the world that will have solar installed to help offset all the electricity use. We took our water usage down by 30% over the past five years. It really extends throughout the whole business to try to the best we can.

John: I also know you guys are big into recycling. Talk a little bit about recycling in Ford.

Mike: I don’t know if you know this fact, but the car is the most recycled product of any consumer product. When a car is done with its life, we can recycle about 95% of it and make it into other things. That’s not the only place we focus on. The other place is at the beginning of its life. We have a whole team. It’s a really cool team at Ford of research scientists. They’re sort of the dream team of how can we grow the raw materials to put into the vehicle? You would be amazed. Everything from the seat coverings to the floor coverings, we have quite a bit, and it’s all sustainable.

John: Even the pressed aluminum in the Ford F-150, most of it is recycled aluminum.

Mike: That’s right. In fact, that company in particular, that new F-150 that we just launched last week, all of the aluminum alloys are from 100% recycled aluminum.

John: Unbelievable. At Ford, green and sustainability and environment is really cultural and a DNA issue. Again, I’m going to make it really personal. I love the car. I was excited. The price was really, really fair, but speak a little bit about, Mike, and I was shocked when this happened, the tax advantages and the rebates available to people who want to avail themselves of your wonderful cars.

Mike: Sure. The government has a vested interest in seeing this happen because running on electricity is better for the planet. Let’s use a Focus electric as an example. We just lowered the MSRP to just under $30,000 to $29,900. If you take that vehicle and purchase it for that price, you are eligible for $7,500 from the federal government. In this state, you’re eligible for another $2,500, so there’s $10,000 right there. Some cities have additional incentives, depending on where you live. Then you add in the savings you’re going to get from running on electricity versus gasoline. You throw in some of the savings of your time, based on going in HOV lanes, as you mentioned, etc. Airport parking has been a big benefit. You add in those other intangible, not monetary, incentives, and you start seeing a very compelling case.

John: Mike, we’re so thankful for you guys coming back on Green is Good today. For all our listeners out there, please go and check out all the great green vehicles made by Ford at www.ford.com. Mike Tinskey, you are living proof that green is good.

Mike: Thanks, John.

John Shegerian: 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.

John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact Podcast. This is a really special edition because I’m so honored to have with us today, Judy Adler. She’s the Vice President of the ESG of the Gap, the iconic great American brand, the Gap. Welcome, Judy.

Judy Adler: Thank you, John. It’s just an honor to be on the show. Thanks for the invitation.

John: Of course. Judy, before we get talking about all the great brands that you represent, like Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic, Athleta, and all the great work you’re doing there with your colleagues, can you just share a little bit of your background and how you even got here?

Judy: Yes, I’m happy to. Thanks for the question. I’ve always been drawn, John, to opportunities where I could have the biggest impact. I’ve had a really curvy career, going from the private sector, to government, to nonprofit, and now, I’m back to the private sector. It’s all been amazing. I don’t know about you. I just feel so grateful that I get paid to work on things that I’m just so personally passionate about. I, again, just have a lot of gratitude for that. Let’s see. Where did I start? I started off as an engineer. Or if you want to go way back.

John: Yes.

Judy: You can say that. I was really inspired by my involvement in girl scouting. I think that really influenced me in a big way, both in the importance of giving back to the community but also appreciating the outdoors as well. Those two things really had an impact to me as a child and I think really led me down this path that I’ve been on for… I don’t want to say how many years. That will take me.

John: When you were in the Girl Scouts, where were you growing up? Which part of the country?

Judy: I was in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

John: No kidding?

Judy: Yes, yes. I obviously loved the ocean, but I spent a lot of time in the smoky mountains, too, going on camping trips.

John: Isn’t that interesting? Those kind of experiences can have everlasting impact on us all if we stay open to it.

Judy: Absolutely.

John: Like you said, when you start connecting the dots backwards and start thinking like, “How did I really get here?”, that makes tremendous sense. I agree with you. To have a chance to make an impact like you’re making every day, what a wonderful way to make a living.

Judy: Yes, we’re very lucky, for sure.

John: We’re going to talk about your great brand today. For our listeners and viewers, the Gap, again, like I said at the top of the show, for those who’ve grown up in this country, just one of the greatest brands, a great American iconic brand. To find the Gap, and Judy and her colleagues, and all that you’re doing in sustainability, you could go to gapinc.com/sustainability. I’m on your website now and I’ve read, of course, your ESG report which came out this April. Unbelievably impressive. Can you share… The two major pillars that I pulled out of your report when I read it, Judy, were inclusivity, and of course, sustainability. Can you share what that means to you and the great brands that you represent?

Judy: Yes, absolutely. I’m happy to. Our company purpose is inclusive by design and it really is weaved into the fabric of all of our brands from the beginning. John, I don’t know if you know about the story of how Gap was started. But it was started in 1969 by Doris and Don Fisher. At that time, Doris had an equal stake in the company. This was 1969. That was a really big deal back then, right?

John: Yes.

Judy: As you can imagine, women’s empowerment is such a big part of what we do, as well as racial and gender equity throughout the business. Again, that’s part of the fabric of the company. Same with sustainability, Gap Inc. has been at the table as a leading corporation for many, many years, and the beginning. It’s just an honor to work for the company.

John: Really, you’re saying genesis from birth. This was a DNA issue. This was a DNA. It was already… It was there from ’69. Think about it. Sustainability and chief sustainability officers, as you well know, is just a recent phenomenon of the last 15 or 17 or 18 years maximum. ESG in circular economy discussions are just the last four or five years that are catching fire in the United States, really. The fact that you go back to ’69, that’s impressive. That’s impressive. When you talk about empowering women and human rights, and enabling opportunity and enriching communities, flash that out a little bit for us in terms of those great headlines.

Judy: Yes, absolutely. With empowering women, all of our business is run by women. If you look at our leaders, they’re predominantly women. If you look at our customers, they’re predominantly women. If you look at who works in our supply chain, which is in 25 different sourcing countries, it is predominantly women. Again, it is so important for us to empower women in the work that we do. We do that in a number of ways. We have a program called P.A.C.E. We just reached a milestone of empowering 1,000,000 women, part of our P.A.C.E. program, which is a women’s empowerment and life skills program for women in our supply chain. We are super excited about that. We all still do a lot of work internally on empowering women in our owned and operated facilities as well. That’s our empowering women pillar. And then, we have enabling opportunity. An enabling opportunity is really focused on creating opportunity for underrepresented and underserved communities. That means opportunity for refugees, for Black and Latinx communities as well. We have a number of programs designed to make sure that there are not unnecessary barriers for moving up in your career and getting in the door that allow you to advance in your career. That’s enabling opportunity. And then, enriching communities is our other pillar, which is our environmental sustainability pillar. All of that makes up our ESG program and priorities.

John: Since, as a phenomena and as a trend, sustainability, circular economy and ESG, comparatively speaking to Europe and other parts of the world, is new to the United States. When did the journey get — how do we say it the right way? — codified at Gap? Even though it was part of your DNA and the fabric of Gap’s creation, when did it start becoming actually codified and your title created, and things of that such?

Judy: Yes. Well, like you said, I think circularity is a new word, but these are issues as, John, you know, like we’ve been working in this field for 20 years, that we’ve been working on for a long time. I just think we have different terminology, different semantics. For example, even in water, I started out as an environmental engineer designing water reuse systems. You could say that is a part of circularity. It’s a circular water strategy, right? If we’re talking about water resources and waste issues, that’s all about changing our business models. We’re working on multiple fronts as it relates to circularity. One, I do want to point out it can be a challenge because I just want to be candid with you. If you think about the clothes that consumers buy, we have limited control as far as what happens after that. We have a partnership with thredUP. I’m not sure if you’ve had thredUP on your show… [crosstalk]

John: No.

Judy: …before, but they’re a wonderful partner of ours. We make it very easy for consumers to… They can order a Clean Out Kit online or go to our stores and take clothes that maybe don’t fit anymore, and resell them to other consumers. It’s so important that we increase the life of apparel and clothing. That’s our number one priority. It’s to increase that life.

John: Let’s pause there because that’s great .That’s really important. You’re saying the encouragement of reuse of apparel has become a major initiative at the Gap.

Judy: Yes, [crosstalk] in partnership with thredUP.

John: thredUP is your partner in that? How old is thredUP? I’ve never heard of them, but I’m so excited that you’re bringing this up.

Judy: Yes. Well, John, I don’t know how old thredUP is, but I will say this. I have a teenager and I didn’t know about thredUP until my teenager told me about it right when the pandemic started because we are talking about getting clothing and at the time, we weren’t going to stores. We both love going to consignment stores. She’s like, “Well, Mom don’t you know about thredUP? It’s this huge online consignment stores. Like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” It’s my teenage daughter that turned me on to it. I was thrilled when I came to Gap Inc. and learned that that was our big partner as it related to resale.

John: That’s so interesting. I’m so glad you brought that up because now, I’ve never heard of them. Thanks to your daughter and you. Now, I get to hear about them and I will reach out to them and try to include them now on a future episode, because what a great thing to be able to repurpose clothing and things of that such. I’ve heard of the high-end stuff. I’ve heard of Rent the Runway or whatever those kind of… I’ve heard of that.

Judy: Right. Poshmark is another one.

John: Right. [crosstalk] They sell and resell. That’s great. How does that actually work? Explain that again, the connection with Gap and your consumers.

Judy: Sure. If you go into an Athleta or Banana Republic or a Gap store, you can get a Clean Out Kit from thredUP, which is a big bag essentially. Or you can go online and you can order one through our website as well. You get this bag. You put all the clothing that you no longer want to wear for whatever reason anymore. I don’t know about you, but I don’t fit into a lot of my clothes after the pandemic. I have a number of clothes. I need to order another… I already went through two during the pandemic. I need to clean out my closet again. [laughter]

John: That’s my life, too. Don’t worry about it.

Judy: You get a Clean Out Kit, and then they send it to thredUP and then your clothing is put up for sale online. If, for some reason, your clothing can’t be sold, then it’s donated to nonprofit partners for other uses as well. If it can’t be worn any more, then they have textile recycling operations as well. We have programs for that, too, that we can talk about. That’s how it works. And then, the money that you get for selling your clothes, you actually then get a credit at any of our stores to be able to use that to buy more sustainable products.

John: That’s wonderful.

Judy: Yes, that’s how the partnership works. We try to make it as easy as possible for the consumer.

John: And everybody wins. I mean, everybody wins in that. That to me is truly circular. That’s true circularity right there. One of the things, Judy, I’ve seen along the way when I’ve had wonderful guests like you, that represent big brands like you represent, is the issue of big of being great, but then also the challenges of being big. Let me explain what I mean by that. Big means you get to really change the world in your actions and inspire so many others along the way. When you were talking about empowering women and human rights, and enabling opportunity, and enriching communities, which I love, I just suddenly think you’re so inspiring. How do you then get to message that and get buy-in from the size of your organization now, not only in the United States but around the world? How does that work at your organization?

Judy: That’s a great question, John. Thank you for that. You’re absolutely right. One of the reasons why I was drawn to Gap Inc. is because of the scale of the business and because of the company’s commitment to really leverage that scale for change, not only in our footprint but for the communities that we touch and for our global community. I love this question. It can be daunting. Like I said, we source our clothes in 25 different countries. If you think about the broad goals, the bold goals that we have of carbon neutrality of being a water-positive company, it can be overwhelming. Setting those incremental goals is incredibly important. Getting started, piloting things is incredibly important. Right now, we’ve worked with our suppliers for many, many years on energy efficiency to help reduce their climate footprint. What we’re doing more of is providing assistance to them and starting pilot programs for renewable energy implementation at their facilities as well. Can we do that with every supplier all at one time? No, we can’t. We need to try out things and see what works. Every country is different, so we have to work with different partners. But you just need to get started to get to that larger goal. I think there are some things though that you can do at scale. We have something called a Virtual Power Purchase Agreement for renewable energy to help offset our footprint at a very big scale. At the same time, it’s also important to work on community level projects as well. It can be incredibly daunting. You just need to get started, and you need a set incremental goals. At the same time, I’m a big fan of bold, audacious goals. I don’t know if you saw. I work for Ted Turner for many, many years. I think that is the thing, the number one thing that I learned from Ted is just the importance of having those bold goals because you’re going to go much, much further than you will if you start just having incremental goals. Again, that’s why I was attracted to Gap. It’s because they had those bold goals.

John: I’m glad you bring up Ted Turner. I had the pleasure years ago, at a conference, of meeting him. I found him not only to be, obviously, amazingly charming and inspirational, but he cared about the world and he cared about our environment way before it was cool to do so. Was he one of your major inspirations along the way of your journey?

Judy: Oh, absolutely. It was just a great honor to work alongside Ted for 15 years. I just… I don’t know if you saw, but I led the family foundation, Ted Turner’s family foundation for a number of years. Our mission was to protect and restore our natural systems. He was an inspiration, inspiration to so many. One of the things I know he is really proud of, everyone’s really proud of, is the importance for people of wealth to spend their money on making the world a better place while they’re still living. He inspired so many people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to do the same. Again, he’s one of my heroes and I pinched myself for being able to work with Ted for so many years.

John: So am I. This conference, now that I’m thinking back, is about ’07 or ’08 . I’m sitting in the audience in LA with my wife, who was then our co-founder at our recycling company and our CEO as well. He gets up in front of the audience at the lunch hour and he was the keynote speaker. What he put out there, which goes right to what you were saying at the top of this conversation, he said the world would be a better place if we had more women leaders of countries.

Judy: Yes, yes. [crosstalk] I remember when he said that, John. I have to say he was the biggest supporter of women’s empowerment. A lot of the work that we did focused on reproductive health and justice. He truly believed it and really inspired me. He was so supportive of me as a woman leader in the organization. He was very proud that all women led all of his philanthropic efforts, including the United Nations Foundation which was our sister foundation as well, and the Nuclear Threat Initiative as well, and the Captain Planet Foundation.

John: What a great conference.

Judy: Yes. That’s so cool that you were there to hear that.

John: That stuck with me. Those kind of things stay with you forever. Constantly, he inspire us, and boy, was he right? I think he continues to be right and so much of what he created continues to impact us all positively. That’s so wonderful that was part of your journey. You’re very humble, Judy. When I was reading your bio, you talked about a little bit off the air that you’re on the Advisory Board of Georgia Tech’s Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business. Early days when I only have 35 listeners on this show, Ray took the time and his energy to come on the show and explain everything that he had been up to in sustainability. Talk a little bit about that position, how you enjoy that, and how that continues to both re-inspire ou but also allows you to give back with all your experience.

Judy: Yes, well it’s an honor to serve on the Advisory board for the center. Like you, I was inspired by Ray Anderson many years ago. He’s one of my heroes. Back before I was with the Turner Foundation. I managed a technical assistance program, which was a sustainability division back when businesses didn’t have staff on sustainability. Basically, I let a technical assistance program that provided free sustainability assistance to businesses to help them get started on their sustainability journey. A lot of what we did was we took a few companies that were already leaders in Georgia, Interface being one of them, and ask them if they’re willing to mentor others. Interface and Ray and his team were always willing to mentor others on their journey. Again, he inspired me to get into this field, to stay into this field, and it’s just an honor to help continue his legacy. And then when I was with the foundation, I work with the Ray C. Anderson Foundation as well. His grandson, John Lanier, runs that. Yes, I think you would enjoy getting to know John Lanier on another show.

John: I’d love to.

Judy: But yes, he inspired so many people in this field. I think the field of sustainability and ESG as it relates to the private sector is what it is because of Ray.

John: For those listeners and viewers who’ve just joined us, we’ve got Judy Adler. She’s the Vice President of the ESG at the Gap. You can find Judy and her colleagues at gapinc.com. You can also read their very impactful sustainability report at gapinc.com/sustainability. Judy, you run ESG in this worldwide brand. Pre-COVID, was traveling and visiting other destinations and locations around the world part of your annual work?

Judy: Oh, absolutely. Again, we source in 25 countries. I have a team of about 90 people on our ESG team. Most of those are international because it’s really important for us to work in collaboration with our suppliers, with our supply chain on environmental and social issues. Yes, traveling internationally in those different countries is a big part of this. We assess our factories for performance. We have remediation and capability programs to ensure that they meet our standards and that they’re continuing to improve as it relates to sustainability performance, both social and environmental. As you can imagine, during COVID, it was really tough. It continues to be tough in some countries. We are traveling. Again, there are some limitations still in some countries, but that’s absolutely critical to the work. You can do some of this virtually, but if you think of going to a manufacturer, you have to be there on the factory floor to know what’s really going on. That part of our work on compliance and assessment, and we call it capability building with our supply chain, is incredibly important. We did have to put a pause, for example, on some of that work on energy and water efficiency, and renewable energy that I was talking about, which pained us to do that. We did as much as we could virtually, but I’m thrilled that now we’ve ramped u all those programs again.

John: Just a little bit of learning here, as a leader of these 90 people around the world, how often do you communicate with them and they communicate with each other in terms of sharing best practices and collaborating on pushing the greater good forward for the Gap?

Judy: Yes. On a regular basis, that’s the beauty of Zoom that we’re on, right?

John: Yes.

Judy: Things have changed a lot. Yes, we bring our teams together to talk about best practices and to share lessons learned. We have town halls on a regular basis so that we can all get together. But I will say I’m excited that I’ll finally be able to travel to Asia after we’ve had some travel limitations for obvious reasons here, soon to see some of these folks. Some people on my team, I haven’t actually met in person before since I’ve only been at the Gap for a little over a year now. I’m so looking forward to that.

John: Yes, I just came back from Asia. Like you said, things in person, is… Obviously, when there’s a COVID situation, Zoom is wonderful. As it starts to hopefully wind down and things get better, like you said, around the world, I found my… I’ve already done two trips to Asia this year and I’m going to have another one scheduled already. It’s invaluable to see people face to face.

Judy: It really is. I know, John, like me, you want to reduce your carbon footprint, right? We have to be really strategic in how we scheduled travel.

John: It’s so true. Let’s go back to all the great things you’re doing at the Gap. Talk about sustainability goals. I know you have bold goals. I know you said that that was inspired by Ted Turner himself. Talk about some of your bold goals and what you’re trying to accomplish in the months and years ahead, Judy.

Judy: Yes, happy to. Well, we talked about women’s empowerment. We have 2025 goals for women’s empowerment and we are talking about our supply chain and the factories. A couple of those bold goals are, one, that 100% of our strategic factories have these women’s empowerment programs, P.A.C.E and something we call Empower at Work, in place. And also, that 100% have gender parity at the supervisor level, which is a really bold goal that our company is committed to. Let’s talk about the environment. What’s most important? As you know, we are feeling the impact of climate change right now. It’s those shorter term goals that are super important. We have science-based target. We have a goal of 100% renewable electricity for owned and operated facilities by 2030. We also have a science-based targets as far as what we call our Scope 3, our emissions that relate to our supply chain.

John: Logistics.

Judy: Exactly. How are we handling that? Well, we talked about our efficiency and renewable energy programs that we have at our factories. We also… If you think about clothing, it has a climate impact, especially synthetics. You think about where to synthetics come from, those come from fossil fuels, from plastic. We have goals for 45% of our synthetic fabrics by 20… Sorry, I need to make sure I get this right. …2025 will be recycled polyester as an example, which also helps with our climate goals. Again, those incremental goals are incredibly important. As it relates to water, again, we have a goal to be a water-positive company and we have something called the Women and Water Alliance. We have a goal next year to increase access to water and sanitation for 2,000,000 people. We are really close to that goal, and I’ll be excited to celebrate when we reach that goal here soon.

John: Judy, you just brought up something that’s so important for our listeners, viewers, and others that are leadership positions or want to be leaders like you — the issue and the importance of incremental goals. My pet peeve is when I get an email from someone. They mean well. They work for well-meaning organizations. On the bottom, I’ve seen this just recently and I’ve said it to some friends and other colleagues, it says their goal is net zero by 2050. Net zero by 2050? Even though I’m grateful for that, that just seems like some corporate version of kicking the can down the road. The fact that you have goals that are incremental goals that are literally right upon us. We’re in 2022. 2024 and 2025 are right here. I think that’s so brilliant and so tangible in terms of making everybody buy-in at your organization.

Judy: Yes, it’s very important. You are so right, John. If we talk about our 2050 goals, I think folks are just their eyes are going to glaze over. We need to talk about what our goals are now. We’re all about embedding the work of ESG throughout the company. It’s really important that we help them understand what their role is in helping us achieve those short-term goals. Like those longer-term goals aren’t terribly effective in inspiring our employees.

John: That’s just incredible. When you go to bed at night or wake up in the morning and you think about challenges that you faced, your goals are one thing. Given where you are right now and the scale that you have, what are some of the bigger challenges that you’re facing that you’re still working through in your mind, yourself and with your colleagues, to try to achieve in the in the future?

Judy: Sure. Well, with women’s empowerment, I think a lot of these things that were working on are systemic. It’s going to be really important to work with partners as we implement that strategy. John, I think you know, this pandemic, we now have been sent back as far as our progress on women’s empowerment. Now, we have even more work to do. Those 2025 goals that we set before the pandemic, well now, we even have further to go. Honestly, this pandemic is a challenge as it relates to some of those goals. Climate change comes to mind, of course, because we need to make progress now. As you know, this next decade is incredibly important, and just like women’s empowerment, we have to do this in partnership with others. There are public policy barriers, for example, to convert to a clean energy grid in a lot of our sourcing countries. We’re going to need to work in collaboration with others in the industry, with government, with nonprofit organizations. We have the road map to get there and we know it’s through partnerships, but a lot of these challenges that we have are beyond Gap Inc. We have to leverage collective action to get to where we need to be.

John: We need a bigger tent.

Judy: Yes.

John: We need more stakeholders involved.

Judy: Exactly, exactly. The good news, John, I don’t know if you’re very familiar with the apparel and retail industry, but there is a lot of collaboration in our field, which is absolutely fantastic. It’s one of the things that I love about working in this sector, whether it’s through things like on energy. We work with the Apparel Impact Institute, who has been just an amazing partner for years on our climate goals. I would say on women’s empowerment, through Empower at Work, we work with others in the industry on those issues as well. We also partner with nonprofits. CARE, you may have heard of, is a nonprofit, as well as Business for Social Responsibility and Better Work are incredibly important partners as well. We’re building those tents. We have them, but you’re right. They need to be a lot bigger, John, and we’re working to do

John: You’re saying, in the fashion and retail industry, there’s a lot of cross-collaboration.

Judy: There is. There is. In the water space, too. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the CEO of Water Mandate, the Water Resilience Coalition that goes beyond the apparel industry. It really is across the private sector. Again, we couldn’t achieve these goals as far as addressing water risk and water stress in communities without partnerships.

John: A couple of things, Judy. As you said, the folks that are listening to you now that represent brands of your size or smaller, it’s a daunting thing to start a sustainability journey. Go back to some of the lessons learned that you shared earlier. How do we inspire more to follow your footsteps and Gap’s footsteps in terms of inclusivity and sustainability so we can actually accelerate making the world a better place?

Judy: John, thank you for that question. You bring up inclusivity and sustainability, and one of the lessons learned is to not think of these things in silos as you go on your sustainability journey. For example, our water strategy through the Women and Water Alliance is to address our water footprint of the company, but it’s also to empower women at the same time. As we’re looking at our climate strategy, we’re doing the same thing. How do we empower women? How do we enable opportunity for underrepresented communities? In our climate strategy, how do we intentionally create jobs for those that need it most in the clean energy sector, for example, through the actions that we take as a company? Again, not thinking of the social, the environmental, and the ESG in a silo is a big lesson learned. That’s one of the things that I so love about Gap. It’s the integrated approach to sustainability. Also, it’s just so easy to get overwhelmed very quickly. Focusing on what is most important to the business and what will have the biggest impact, those things that have shared value, shared value for the business and for society, is really important. I know you know all about materiality assessments. That’s a really great first step and something that you need to update every few years. That’s an important step as well.

John: I love your lesson of incremental goals. That is just so great. Besides bold goals but also having incremental, and finding the right balance between bold and audacious goals but also incremental goals so you can feel like you’re making progress along the journey. Man, that makes so much sense. That makes so much sense. Judy, who inspires you now? You’ve had access to so many wonderful people from Ted Turner to Ray Anderson and so many others. We all need to be re-inspired on a regular basis, recharge our batteries. Who really turns you on now to say [inaudible] has it right?

Judy: I’m from Atlanta, Georgia. Obviously, I’m inspired by Martin Luther King Jr. Just a reminder to integrate equity and justice in the work that we do on the environment and sustainability, I would say that’s someone who’s inspired me in my lifetime. I think it also is just young people in general that are really just standing up for what they believe in. I think we’re making the progress that we are on climate change because of young people’s leadership. They’re saying, “You, old people, are not doing enough. We’ve have it.” Yes, I would say, just young leaders, in general, are really inspiring me right now.

John: Judy, speaking of young leaders, one of the real purposes of this show is to inspire more young people, who want to be the next Judy Adler, to show them a path and there’s lot of them. We need more Judy Adler’s to make this world a better place. What advice can you have to our listeners? Not only here in the United States, but we have listeners obviously around the world because of the beauty of podcasts and technology. Really, what’s the right way to go now in terms of education and experience? Can you share some of your pearls of wisdom with regards to how do we create a world with more Judy Adler’s in it?

Judy: Well, that’s very kind, John. As far as advice, following your passion, thinking about what the world needs, figuring out what you’re really good at, and finding that intersection, I think, is incredibly important to get you on the path. It definitely is something that has guided my career. Also, just being open-minded. I never had an intentional career path. As I said, it’s been very curvy, but if something sounds like it’s fun and I could have an impact, I have an open mind to that opportunity. I would say don’t have too much tunnel vision as it relates to your path. Just be open-minded because you never know what opportunity could present itself.

John: Well, that’s wonderful. Judy, I really appreciate you taking the time to share some of your journey and the Gap’s journey with us today on the Impact Podcast. For our listeners and viewers, again, to find Judy and her colleagues, you can find them at www.gapinc.com. To read their very impactful and inspiring sustainability and ESG report, you could find it at gapinc.com/sustainability. Judy, I meant what I said. We do need a world with more Judy Adler’s in it to make a bigger impact. Thank you again for all that you’ve done throughout your career, and now, at the Gap. Thank you for your time today.

Judy: Thank you, John. We need a world with more people like you as well. It’s been an honor and a pleasure.

John: 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.closedlooppartners.com.