Sustainability's Reset Moment - with Joel Makower

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: Welcome back to Sustainable Nation. Thanks so much for joining us.

Speaker A: Great to be here, Josh.

Speaker B: Great to have you on again. Uh, a lot to talk about and um, first for those who don't know, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, the history of Green Biz and Trellis Group and the role that they and you play in the world of corporate sustainability?

Speaker A: Okay, I'll try to keep that short. Um, so I'm a journalist by training. I've uh, been in the writing about and speaking about, uh, the field of sustainable business since the late 80s. I think I was a brunette back then. Um, and um, uh, I'm the co founder of the company that was originally called Green Biz Group and now called Trellis Group or uh, media and events company based here in Oakland, California. Uh, we do three things. We have um, events, two event every year, sort of in the two to three thousand person kind of size. One's called Green Biz which is uh, in, in the winter it's been in Phoenix, it's this year, next year in 27, it's moving to San Diego. And then Trellis Impact which is coming up, uh, I think not too long from now in the third week of June in San Francisco. That's more on the, uh, Green Biz is more about the profession of sustainability and, and Trellis Impact is a little bit more on the implementation side around energy and water waste and circularity and finance and a lot of um. So that's the gist, uh, um, of where I'm coming from. Yeah, I've written books. I don't commit as much journalism now these days as I used to, but um, I still love doing that and I just love this field.

Speaker B: Excellent. I enjoyed Green Biz as always this year, another great event. I know a lot of our listeners from larger companies, probably been to a few of those, are familiar with your work. Um, but uh, yeah, excited to jump in and just get your thoughts on where the industry is at today. Um, you know, you've watched corporate sustainability, uh, this field evolve for many years. When you look at 20, 26, uh, where we're at now, where would you say the industry is at now?

Speaker A: Well, it's always, you know, uh, uh, I have a podcast as you know, called Two Steps Forward. And it's sort of, you know, two steps forward, one step back, or as I call it, the sustainable business cha cha. And uh, you know, it's always been a slog, it's never been easy. Um, sustainability professionals have always swam upstream, uh, in their organizations. Sometimes in their families and communities. Uh, and, you know, the industry's gone through a number of waves, update up waves and down waves. Uh, we're obviously. I don't think anyone's going to be shocked to hear that we're in a down wave right now. Uh, between the political uncertainty and the political. Excuse me, the economic uncertainty and the political pushback, maybe political uncertainty as well. Um, but, uh, you know, it's a tough time and this isn't going away. Um, last month we published our, uh, biennial State of the Profession State of the Sustainability Profession report. And it found that, um, uh, you know, there's, you know, two steps forward, one step back. Uh, uh, in the two years since the previous report, in 2024, uh, almost half of, uh, and there's, I think about a thousand, uh, respondents to this, um, uh, about half of about 500 firm per firms, uh, with a, uh, billion dollars plus revenue. Uh, about half, almost half have increased their sustainability headcount and a quarter have, uh, cut them, um, you know, about a little over half. 57% have maintained their sustainability targets, 24% have strengthened them, and 16% have, uh, stepped back, weakened or abandoned them altogether. So, you know, it's a challenging time. Um, but what's remarkable is that this hasn't gone away. The resilience of the, of the profession continues. Um, you know, yes, smaller teams, maybe smaller budgets, scrappier. Um, but, um, you know, and then we can get into where they're reporting now versus a couple years ago and the uh, CEO buy in and all kinds of pieces of this. By the way, this State, uh, of Sustainability Profession report is a free download from trellis.net so you can just go grab it there. And it's pretty interesting. It's. I'm always fascinated and I live and breathe this profession and I always learn so much.

Speaker B: Yeah, great. Um, definitely recommend everyone check that out. Love going through that every, every year when that's published. The reduction in sustainability teams and budgets, what do you think are the main drivers of that? Is it the political backlash, uh, what's happening in that space? Or is it cost savings? Is it companies hearing from stakeholders like investors or customers that sustainability is not as important, uh, as it once was? What do you think are the main drivers in this?

Speaker A: Well, I think the answer is yes. Um, it starts with the political pushback, with this, uh, political moment that we've been going through. Um, companies have been punished, uh, by the, uh, by the political establishment, by the Trump administration for, you know, being proactive, being uh, outspoken on climate and sustainability, biodiversity, and, you know, it was derided as woke and all that. So companies have wanted to keep their head down. Um, so they're, you know, the, the. I think in some ways you can sum up the where we are with the title, um, of this year's the, uh, State of the Profession report says saying less but doing advancing sustainability in stormy times. Um, yeah, uh, the demand hasn't gone away. The problems certainly haven't gone away. So it's really, uh, the willingness of CEOs and boards or C suite and boards of directors to want to step up and in some cases defy the political wins and say, no, this is important. This is not political. This is about business. This is about resilience. This is about risk. This is about opportunity. And that's, uh, I think the interesting dynamic going on right now in this moment. Um, the demand for products, uh, and services, you know, maybe not so much on the consumer side, hasn't grown a lot. I don't know that it's shrunk much, but, you know, consumers are facing tough times. You know, as we're having this conversation, the Strait of M. Hormuz is still closed and oil prices are still hovering, you know, give or take, around 100 bucks a barrel. And, you know, and that's probably going to, you know, not change for much for a while. So, you know, consumers are pressed. Uh, and except for the privileged, you know, sort of elite at the, you know, at the high end, they're. They're really probably staying away from anything that's premium price. So that's a challenge. But operationally, inside companies and their supply chains, in their energy and use and water use and toxics and carbon emissions and waste streams and facility management and real estate and finance, I mean, those are all still engaged. They're still leaning into this stuff pretty much as much as they ever have.

Speaker B: Yeah. So. And you mentioned the name of the report, saying less but doing more. Um, I think a lot of us have been hearing that. There's been research out. You know, companies are, um, pulling back on their sustainability language even though they continue to do the work. Um, so green hushing is what people are calling this. Is green hushing, you think, a responsible response to this moment, or does it kind of weaken accountability in any way? Um, and do you think this changes when the political climate changes, when maybe the midterms happen and we see a change in government a little or the next administration? Do you think that changes the, the headwinds here?

Speaker A: Well, first of all, I think the surprising part of the title of saying less but doing more is the doing more part, um, which I think is really sort of the counterintuitive piece because you just, because you don't hear a lot about it, the green hushing as you call it, you assume that companies have just given up or they're just doing a lot less and that's just not true. Um, there's a great report that came out of a, ah, firm called Futera out of the UK and uh, written by uh, my podcast co host Solitaire Townsend on waves. Uh, and we've gone through these up waves and down waves as I was saying earlier, and they're predicting that based on, on the trends we've seen over the past 30 or more years, that sometime around the end of this year, beginning of, of next year, uh, you know, Q1, Q4, 26 or Q5, 20, Q127 if I haven't, we haven't gotten to Q5 yet. Um, uh, that they will start to see this up wave. Um, uh, and just because again the problems aren't going away, the pressures on companies to uh, reduce their risk and improve their resilience is only going to get uh, increased. Particularly as we see you're talking about uh, El Nino from hell coming at the end of this year, beginning of next year. Um, and so uh, more floods, more droughts, more everything. Uh, there's going to be uh, uh, just more pressure to do something about this and yeah, politically, will the midterms change that? Um, maybe a little bit. Uh, I don't know. And that's of course just in the United States. Um, but I think that uh, what continues to be really exciting and fascinating and hopefully is that companies are still doing the work. And so you know, is, is it bad that they're not talking about it? It's not great, but I don't know that it's a major problem. Uh, it would be better if they could talk about it because it, you know, the more they do, the more people see that this is important, that this is mainstream, this is not just a nice to do. Um, but we're not, uh, but in, in lieu of that or in spite of that, uh, you know, the work continues. Um, and when they do come out of that, whenever that is, whether it's you know, Q1, 2, 3, 4 or 5, uh, they'll ah, I think companies will have a lot of great stories to tell.

Speaker B: Yeah. And do you think any of that leads to the sustainability employee becoming irrelevant in the future? Um, yeah. Yeah. What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker A: Well, as you know, at green biz 26, uh, back in February we had a debate on stage, a 90, an hour long debate, um, Oxford style debate on uh, is the sustainability professional irrelevant? And um, it's sort of an odd thing to do in front of a room full of a couple thousand sustainability professionals. But it was a provocation that we wanted to have because it's an important question to ask and I'm pretty, you know, and the, the state of the room was, you know, absolutely not. It's not irrelevant. Um, but the, the, it's changing. Uh, the problems as I said, aren't going away, but the profession is changing. It's getting uh, uh, more embedded in finance and supply chain and, and, and other parts of the, of the company. Um, legal, because so much of it is, is compliance oriented, particularly you know, with European regulations. Not so much in the U.S. anymore. Um, but it's, you know, somebody's got to be looking at this stuff. Uh, and you know, it's funny because uh, there's this old trope in the sustainability profession among you know, chief sustainability officer types that my goal is to work myself out of a job. Um, and you know, the point being that at some point you won't need. It's really like safety in. You know, you don't. There was a time it's our quality. I'm, you know, remember back in the 80s, you know, total quality management and everyone was talking about quality and everyone was a quality professional and there were a thousand conferences and publications on total quality management. Uh, you know, something that, that was Edward Demings, you know, broadened from the, from the Japanese. You don't hear about quality anymore. It hasn't gone away. Quality is still a uh, hugely important and mission critical piece of pretty much every company and particularly if you're manufacturing anything. Um, but it's just become embedded. Uh, same with safety. Uh, and so uh, it's just an expectation. So the, you know, the, the challenge and the opportunity is how does sustainability become an expectation? Um, and not necessarily some bright shiny object that companies uh, need to shout from the rooftops, um, let alone, you know, stick their head. Just sort of mix metaphors here, but stick their heads above the parapets and, and get whacked at by the haters and the deniers and the, and the incumbent interests who don't want to see this succeed because they have, you know, their paychecks are based on sustainability sort of fading, failing or fading away.

Speaker B: Right. And you know, with these Increasing regulations and this kind of work becoming more compliance driven. Is there. Is there a threat or are you seeing it anywhere where this work is becoming strictly about compliance? And that's might m. You know, might stop us from sustainability innovation in the future?

Speaker A: Well, compliance isn't. I'm so sorry. So compliance isn't just about, uh, you know, minimizing wastewater discharge or emission. It's also, uh, about, um, uh, product safety and honesty and ethics in marketplaces. And uh, there's a number of other pieces of this. So yes, regulations, uh, are the bare minimum I like to talk about. Given regulation, if you did any less, it would be illegal. Um, and so that's not the goal necessarily to just do what the law requires, because the law usually doesn't require a lot in terms of how we get to where we need in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and water, solving water and biodiversity crises and all these other things that we're dealing with. Um, but regulations are getting stricter in Europe. Um, although they have some setbacks and certainly large companies in North America, their markets are global, including in Europe. So that's becoming the default. California, where I live, is also, uh, continues to play a role as much as it has with, uh, greenhouse, uh, gas emissions and tailpipe emissions and a number of other things. So. But there's also the marketplace. The marketplace is a regulator in the broadest sense. And the marketplace is looking customers, particularly B2B customers, not so much. Consumers are looking for companies that are going to, first of all, be leaders that align with their values, but equally important are not going to cause risks, whether they're, um, uh, material risks or regulatory risks or reputational risks or financial risks, uh, among other types of risks that, uh, that the they as customers might face by doing business with this company over here. And so those are regulations too, at least in that in the broad sense.

Speaker B: Yeah, great points. Uh, moving on to the. So the state of the sustainability profession you mentioned, that report recently came out, um, discusses how, you know, companies again are mostly staying the course. Um, but many professionals are starting to kind of feel less fulfilled. Um, what do you think explains that disconnect and what's happening in that dynamic?

Speaker A: Well, it's hard. It's a hard time to be a sustainability professional. Um, we've sort of come not full circle, but when I started off in this, uh, sustainability was. It wasn't even called that then. It was environmental responsibility or corporate social responsibility or just environmental compliance was kind of marginalized. It was sort of sat off to the side. It wasn't seen as core to the business of productivity and profits. And increasingly it became uh, an expectation, a societal expectation, a customer expectation, some cases a regulatory uh, expectation and it became much more embedded but now it's sort of retreating back to being sort of on the margins again and it's not seen as core. And I think that's uh, shortsighted on the part of companies who are going down that path. And it's certainly not all companies. I think it's the minority of companies who are marginalizing it. Um, in that, in the report, um, uh, interesting part is CEO engagement. So as part of the survey that I mentioned is um, how involved is your CEO in your organization sustainability program? And uh, two years ago in 2024 almost half, 48% said uh they own it, they're very engaged. That's now down to 32%. So it's a, it's uh, dropped by a third. Um, the interested but not a priority has grown slightly. So, so this you know it's, it starts at the top that um, and is also that company sustainability, uh spending tracks. That engagement is a great chart I'm m looking at now on the report that said the net that you see these downward lines starting in 2022, um, so this is not just related to the second Trump administration but that CEO engagement started dropping and so did budgets. So um, you know it's a challenging time to be doing this kind of work. Uh, but what's also interesting, the flip side of that I guess uh, Josh, is that there continues to be resolve. Um, there's frustration and resolve. There's a great line in the report written uh by John Davies, uh who runs ah, the networks and leads uh the networks at Trellis Group and uh, leads this report. He said um, uh irritation can turn sand into pearls and pressure can turn coal into diamonds. And so I think to a large extent that dealing with uh, that irritation and pressure is motivating a uh lot of sustainability professionals to lean in to make those cases better, to really align much more with uh, business metrics, um, and the things that companies and Wall street not coincidentally care about, um, uh, you know around sales and profitability and, but, but also some of the intangibles around risk mitigation and, and reputation. Um but to the extent that sustainability professionals are aligning with, with what investors care about and not just so called socially responsible investors, um that's where I think sustainability continues to flourish or at least be stable if not flourishing. And I think that's both the challenge and the Opportunity for sustainability professionals is how do you better align with, uh, traditional business metrics? It seems like that should have been something that was taking place all along, but it's relatively new, at least for a lot of companies. Some companies have been doing it for a while, but most, I would say, haven't. And that's, you know, that's directly the result of this challenging moment.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I think that's something everyone in this industry has been preaching for a very long time, tying your sustainability, um, to your business objectives. And, um, now it just seems like that's an absolute necessity to get a lot of this done. Um, anything that, uh, outside of a CEO leadership, um, budget, maybe availability. Are there anything that you see different, um, separating, you know, these sustainability leaders who are really thriving right now, um, from those who might be feeling stuck or burnt out. Um, any other differences in the companies?

Speaker A: I think to the extent there are, it has a lot to do with the companies changing strategy, changing senior management. I think there's a quote from someone in here who said this earlier on their third CEO in like, five years. And first one cared a lot. The second one, the, uh, first one didn't care so much. The second one cared a lot, and the third one doesn't care at all about sustainability. And so, you know, I think this is not new to the last few years, but sustainability professionals have always had to, had to sort of operate with a neck brace because you're getting whiplashed in one way or the other. Um, you know, that, that continues as, you know, the shelf life of a CEO continues to shrink. What is it, five, six, seven, eight years now? Uh, and so that is hard because everyone, every CEO come in and wants to make his or her mark and, and set new goals and decide what's important, what is less important. Maybe look at, you know, what, what investors are saying right now, that's probably had a lot to do with why they. There's a new CEO in the first place. Um, so, you know, those. That doesn't help, uh, anybody in business when things are, when strategy is changing, when priorities are changing, when, when CEO management is changing, and of course, where budgets are changing and I think, you know, getting back to some level of stability, which I believe will happen again in this up wave that we expect in, you know, within a year, um, will, you know, will solve some of that. Um, but I can say that, that when we do come out of this, uh, or start to come out of this, because it'll be probably a long, long climb back up, um, that sustainability professionals are not just going to go back to the way things always were. They've been chastened, they've been smarter, they' become a lot more uh, entrepreneurial, internally entrepreneurial, I guess, um, in terms of, you know, dealing, getting to know and dealing with finance, with legal, with risk management teams, um, and to some extent, you know, operations or marcom supply chain and really embedding themselves more in, within the company, which is what sustainability should have always been. It should be part of the fabric of sustainability. You know, you don't do anything in business without finance and looking at the numbers and rolling those back up to finance. And if it's not going well, then you do something about it. And I think the CSO types are starting to recognize that they have to be much more accountable in some very hardcore ways. And that's tough because so many of the things that, that ah, we do are uh, in companies is um, longer term, uh, intangible, at least in the short term. And that bumps up against the realities of short termism, uh, inside companies. And so I think it'll be really interesting. I don't have the answer. I can't predict how it's going to be, but I do know it's already, uh, people in the profession are already changing how they show up and that's only going to continue and I think as a result they're going to come out of this in a much stronger position.

Speaker B: Yeah, I love that, I love that, um, going through tough times to sharpen skills and come out better. Um, uh, that's great to hear.

Speaker A: Uh, Josh, we talk about resilience a lot. For companies, resilience is the ability to take a shock and come back, back, uh, you know, quickly. I think there's a lot of resilience in the profession as well. That, that, how do you, you know, take these hits that, that professionals have been taking and, and come back, uh, and, and you know, quickly. And I think that's going to be a really interesting thing to watch. Uh, one of the great stories of probably 2027 and 2028.

Speaker B: Fantastic, great to hear. Wanted uh, to touch on net zero targets quickly. A lot of talk around that. Um, you know, a few years ago Net Zero targets were everywhere. Companies are now starting, you know, 20, 30. A lot of them have 2030 targets and that's coming up soon. Companies, uh, are revising, weakening some, sometimes abandoning targets. Um, I'm wondering if you think, what do you think about all this? Were the original targets too ambitious, um, poorly designed? Were they not backed by, you know, real transition plans. Uh, what do you think about these companies coming up on 2030 targets and those companies that are maybe pulling back or revising?

Speaker A: Yeah, well, all of the above, Josh. I mean, if you put this in context, uh, after the Paris, uh, climate accords in 2015, the watchword was ambition. We need ambition. And so companies said, okay, let's be ambitious. And they created all these goals. Is 2025, 2030, 40, 50 goals are in 2060 in a few cases. And, uh, they were ambitious around net zero. And however that was defined at the time, it turns out this is hard stuff. And it's not a solo sport. You need to engage your entire value, uh, chain and, uh, not to mention the Wall street and the cost of doing this. And then you get into the, you know, the incredibly, incredibly complex, uh, world of measurements and reporting and, uh, offsets and carbon sinks and what's real and verifiable versus what's not. It's not surprising that this company started to throw up their hands a little bit, uh, and not completely at all. Uh, but companies are now saying, well, maybe we won't get to, you know, our 2030 goal until 2035, or maybe we'll only get to, uh, 80% of our 2040 or 2050 goal. And, you know, and, and, you know, some people look at that and say, oh, it's failing. This is terrible. It's obviously companies, you know, and, and it, it's just turned out to be far, far unbelievably more complex than most companies realized. Um, and they're still. It's still complex. It's nothing's really simplified. The complexity of offsets, the complexity of carbon removal, uh, the complexity of the. All the standards that are, you know, of which there are many, uh, and, and the different reporting styles of what companies say and the different kinds of commitments is, you know, are you doing this with or without offsets? And how are they verified? And on and on and on and on. Um, this is really. You're talking about fundamental changes in how companies operate, um, with not fundamental budgets, without fundamental leadership, um, without fundamental, uh, government, uh, support and without fundamental market, uh, approval, really, uh, uh, particularly in the B2B space. Ah, in B2B and B2C for that matter. So this has been really hard stuff. And I don't think I, uh, you know, when. When the current political administration came along and said, you know, this is a hoax, this is all the different things they said. I don't need to get into that, um, you know, and companies are saying, you know, why, why are we doing this? Uh, you know, we're just getting spanked publicly. And, um, they didn't stop doing it. They stopped to the earlier point, stop talking about it. But they recognize that we have to, you know, if we're going to be transparent about this stuff, we have to acknowledge the fact that this has become a lot harder than we thought. And we're going to, we have to pare back our, our, uh, our goals. And you know, companies do that all the time with product releases, with, you know, financial, uh, goals, with all kinds of things that don't get the kind of headlines that, that retreating a little bit on sustainability yet. So, you know, it's just something we got to live with, uh, in this moment.

Speaker B: Yeah. I'm wondering if you've, if you've seen any good ways for companies to go about this when we're talking about missing targets. Um, you know, how, how should they talk about this, um, without destroying trust. I know, you know, you mentioned this. These seem to grab headlines more than other targets companies might have. And I know a lot of companies I work with, that's their question right away, is they're so worried about setting a public target and then falling short and what that means for them. Um, any thoughts on best ways for companies to approach how they communicate that?

Speaker A: Uh, it's such a big question and it really depends on so many different factors. And I'm really not an expert on this. I have my colleague Jim, uh, Giles at Trellis Group, Written, uh, either Written himself or has overseen the, the creation of this remarkable series called Chasing Net Zero, where they dive deep into, you know, really looking at, at some companies, gm, for example, General Motors, um, what do they commit to? How's it going? What's, you know, how is it really going? Not just how they say it's going. What are the obstacles? And, and, you know, where does that leave them? Um, I'm so not the expert on that, so I don't have a great answer. But again, it really depends on each individual company, its exposure, just say its footprint. Uh, environmentally, um, it's competitive. Uh, set, uh, how much is this? Do you have to do this because the competitors are. Or how much do you have to do this because society is saying with data centers right now and energy and water, um, that's not a nice to do. Um, and carbon is, is certainly comes along for the ride and all of that. So I, I, I'm, I'm, I'm evading the answer here. Because I don't have one. Uh, and it really is so dependent on each individual situation.

Speaker B: Yep. And, and speaking of data centers, I wanted to touch on AI and, and sustainability. Um, Trellis has been covering AI in sustainability reporting and the kind of broader paradox, uh, of AI, um, wondering if you think is AI more likely to accelerate sustainability work or kind of increase the environmental pressure related to energy use and water demand and those types of things. Obviously there's a trade off here, but what, uh, are your thoughts on that dynamic of advancing sustainability while increasing environmental impacts?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think in the short term the impacts are going to increase. In the long term, uh, that the benefits, the supercharging of sustainability will outweigh those problems. You know, we ignore those problems of energy, water waste, toxics, land use, noise, uh, e waste, um, we ignore those at our peril, just as we ignore some of the much bigger societal problems with AI. But it's not to overlook, we shouldn't overlook, uh, you know, what AI does so well and better than anything, you know, head and shoulders, is m help, uh, us make sense of vast amounts of, of data that's continuously coming out. You know, whether it's the grid or, or material flows or uh, city operations or, you know, so many things that, uh, all the things that we've been dealing with in sustainability, which are incredibly complex systems, um, AI can make sense of that, it can help optimize that, it can become predictive in ways that we've never even remotely been able to do. I believe that it's going to have a huge accelerate, lead to a huge acceleration of sustainability solutions. And we have these challenges we have to deal with, um, for which there are solutions on the energy side, on the water side, um, they exist. Uh, the enemy, the barrier to that is it is for sustainability in general is change. Um, change is hard for individuals, for institutions, for markets. I always say that when it comes to change, we love the noun and hate the verb. We love the idea of change. But actually changing is hard. And to the extent we even like the verb, we like it in the second and third person. But, you know, you need to change, they need to change. I'm doing okay. And so, you know, that's the big barrier here is how do we, how do we. Because in data centers, um, you know, companies have never been, you know, punished for, uh, the builders of data centers, uh, and the designers of data centers, and to some extent the operators have never been, you know, punished for doing it the way they've always done it. Uh, and that Means evaporative cooling, swamp coolers kind of thing and grid powered and on and on. Um, that's not sustainable. Uh, and we have these technologies you can now have renewably powered uh, or battery operated, zero water, uh, zero net water or waterless cooling technologies. Um, maybe have less noise because you don't have these big cooling fans going 247 in people's neighborhoods. Uh, and we uh, still haven't dealt with e waste yet. That's a, that's a big one because these uh, GPUs that uh, the, these chips that are used uh, uh to power AI have a life of in some cases uh, 18 months and there's millions of them in a data center and so they have to be replaced and the boards that contain the chips and, and um, and what happens after that. And so there's a lot of problems that you have to dealt with but the solutions are largely out there. It's just overcoming change.

Speaker B: Mhm. Wonderful. Joel, we're going to jump into our final five questions here. Change the format a little bit. We used to ask the same questions. Final uh, five to everybody. Um, but I have um, some, some different final five questions.

Speaker A: I've never, I don't know these questions you're going to ask so I'll do my best.

Speaker B: Yeah, these are just kind of big picture reflections. Quick response questions. First one, um, looking back over 25 or so years of green biz trellis covering sustainability, uh, what do you think would have changed by now that has not changed enough?

Speaker A: Oh, there's so many answers to that. I mean at a sort of mechanical level a price on carbon would, would be huge. Um, uh the uh, you know deprioritizing the role of fossil fuels politically would uh, have been huge. Um, you know helping consumers understand that this is about their health and well being of themselves and their families and their communities and not just about saving whales and redwood trees. Um, so there's a lot of different pieces of that but um, you know we don't have those do overs. So those are just, that's just wishful thinking.

Speaker B: And same part of the first question. But what has changed more than you expected over that timeframe?

Speaker A: You know, I was going to say the uh, you know how much this has become mainstream in companies. It's actually changed more and less than I expected all at the same time. Uh, you know it's now part and parcel of every company of any size in, across every sector. Um, so it's there and embedded but it's not, it's still Marginalized. So that's, I guess it's like so many things, you know, two steps forward, one step back. It's a two edged sword.

Speaker B: What do you think sustainability professionals need to let go of?

Speaker A: I think to some extent their egos, that they're not going to be held up as saviors. That they are embedded deep in the companies and are doing really important work for which they may never get credit, but they have to rely on. I hear not surprising that a lot of sustainability professionals say I don't do this for the glory, I do this for my kids. Um, but I think they have to let go of. I think that this is about doing the right thing as much as, you know, doing the right thing is so critically important for all sorts of reasons in, in today's world, you know, this is really about business success, however that's defined usually financially. So I think they have to let go of that. You know, the doing, doing well by doing good, then the doing good part is just sadly not resonating. Mhm.

Speaker B: And what do you think they need to fight harder for attention?

Speaker A: Uh, they uh, need to fight harder to. You know, I hate to, I hate this phrase, but it's still relevant. It's making that business case, which is to say really aligning with the goals of the company in any given moment. And not just the financial goals, but the quality goals, the product innovation goals, the communication goals, uh, you know, the employee engagement goals, um, and really, uh, leaning in on that.

Speaker B: And if the next chapter of corporate sustainability is still unwritten, um, what should we make sure gets written into it?

Speaker A: Gets written into it. I'm not sure I'm understanding.

Speaker B: Yeah, the next chapter of sustainability, um, what do we think? What do you think that looks like? Or what would you want it to look like that's maybe different from today?

Speaker A: Well, I want it to look like what I've always wanted to look like, which is just so embedded and so much part of what everybody expects a company to be that it becomes, as I said before, like quality or safety. We don't talk about it, we don't hear companies, you know, except maybe in a few, very few rare instances, talking about their safety records or their quality records. They just do this because they have to because that's how you compete today. And so that's what I hope the next chapter will start to look. In some ways sustainability will fade into the woodwork, into the fabric of companies of operations and the markets in general, and not be even seen as much of a thing. And it's just accepted.

Speaker B: Love it. Joel, thank you so much for your time here. Super valuable insights, and I know we all appreciate all the work that you do for, uh, this field, for this profession. So thank you so much for joining us, and thank you for making the world a better place.

Speaker A: Thank you, Josh, for what you do, and it's always a pleasure having these conversations.