When Chuck - mentor and role model to bloggers throughout EMC and beyond - first suggested I consider blogging about my journey in Corporate Sustainability, we discussed potential topics. One of his many pieces of useful advice was to avoid too many "book reports". After all, they are impersonal, often boring, and readily available in quantity from Amazon.
To date, I've managed to follow his advice. But it's been a struggle, because I read a fair amount and often what is foremost on my mind is a thought, question, or revelation that was planted by my latest read. Or not "planted" so much as "stuck" - something that has adhered to my thoughts like one of those little burrs that sticks to your socks when you wander through a field.
Continue reading "Burr Reports" »
I so wanted the plural of "nexus" to be "nexes". But it turns out it's either "nexuses", which is awkward, or "nexus", which is ambiguous. I can't bring myself to use the former, so let me disambiguate the latter - I want to talk about more than one nexus between Sustainability and Innovation.
Continue reading "The Sustainability-Innovation Nexus" »
It used to be whenever a group of sustainability professionals got together, we'd debate for a few minutes about whether our job was to work ourselves out of a job. Now, it's a question I get asked whenever I'm interviewed about my role. And I admit, my view has changed in the last 3+ years.
For a short while, I thought that's exactly what I was supposed to do. After all, my mission is to embed principles of sustainability into our strategy, our operations, and our culture. That would imply that at some point I'll be "done".
But I know better now. If "sustainability" is about deliberate decision-making to shape our future, then the only thing that would end the job would be to stop having a future. And let's not go there…
Continue reading "The Evolution of the My Job" »
