Interview with Bill Kunze of The Nature Conservancy on Careers in Sustainability

Check out our interview with Bill Kunze of the Nature Conservancy. Bill shared great insight into the Nature Conservancy itself, and the increasing importance of non-profit partnerships with businesses. Bill also shared his thoughts on key considerations for careers in sustainability. “… it’s actually going to be a bottom-line matter for businesses to be operating as efficiently as possible with as little waste as possible, and also making sure that they’re doing what they can to ensure the future security of their supply lines. And that’s really another way of saying sustainability.”  Watch the interview below or on YouTube:

by Amanda Byrne, MES Student

Interview with Joe Rozza, Global Resource Sustainability Manager of Coca-Cola on Careers in Sustainability

Joe Rozza, Global Resource Sustainability Manager of Coca-Cola, took some time out to share helpful industry insight into careers in sustainability. Joe comes from an environmental engineering background and has worked on water resource topics for most of his career. He mentioned that it is helpful to be able to operate in more than one expertise area, and cross-functional skills are key. Students considering careers in the sustainability space need to be technically astute on current issues, and should be able to communicate effectively with relevant stakeholders. “… more career paths into the sustainability space. It’s not really just environmental anymore. So if you’re a finance major, there’s a role for you in sustainability. If you’re a communications or marketing person, there’s a role for you. If you’re an engineer, there’s a role for you.” Watch the interview below:

by Amanda Byrne, MES Student

Careers in Energy and Corporate Efficiency: IGEL Career Event

Amanda Byrne is pursuing a Master of Environmental Studies with a concentration in Environmental Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. She worked at ICF International for four years primarily supporting EPA’s ENERGY STAR program after graduating from Penn State with a Bachelor of Science in Energy, Business and Finance.

How often do you hear electric utilities talk about their work in the sustainability and environmental impact mitigation spaces? Let me tell you, it is a very enlightening experience. Two utility employees participated on the second panel of IGEL’s October 5^th event – Careers in Sustainability, Energy and Business – and discussed many ways they are driving those types of efforts within their companies. Rye Barcott, commercial associate in the Sustainability Office of Duke Energy, and Melanie Dickersbach, Climate and Environment Strategy Manager at Exelon Corporation, both talked about their work to move their companies to a more sustainable and environmentally-friendly framework. An interesting fact that the panelists mentioned is that much of the utility work force will be retiring in the coming years. The utility industry is worth looking into if you are interested in corporate sustainability career opportunities. Based on questions from interested audience members, Melanie and Rye gave the following tips to those interested in careers in that field:

• It is important to first understand the structure and intricacies of the utility industry in order to address future challenges.
• It is particularly helpful to have sales experience.
• Internships with utilities are a great way to get your foot in the door and start building utility experience.

Gary Survis, CEO of GeoscapeSolar, and Bill Kunze, Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the Nature Conservancy also participated on the panel and highlighted the following key points with regard to careers in energy and corporate efficiency:

• Consumers are making decisions based on finances over their emotions (particularly in the solar industry), so it is important to understand the financial components in this business space.
• It will benefit students to study cultural shifts in terms of attitudes towards sustainability.
• Experience at consulting firms can help build experience with breadth and depth for these types of careers.

It is evident from the panelists’ comments, and their resumes alone, that cross-functionality in sustainability careers is important. But that doesn’t mean we have to pursue five different career avenues before settling into sustainability. We can learn from these experiences and figure out how best to tailor our curriculum and the types of companies we pursue to our interests.

This event was the first career event that IGEL held this year, and it was extremely useful for me to hear career and curriculum pointers directly from industry (in particular, employees that hold the types of positions I want!). If you weren’t able to make it, check out a recording of the event here. To hear more from some of the panelists individually, check out panelist interviews here, or at: http://www.youtube.com/WhartonIGEL.

Natural Gas is the Energy Game-Changer: Report from the Wharton Energy Conference

Natural Gas Flaring: Greenpack.com

John Rowe CEO of Exelon was the opening keynote speaker of the Wharton Energy Conference today at the Union League in Philadelphia. IGEL is a sponsor of the conference. Rowe extolled the benefits of natural gas and called it a complete game changer for energy production. The Marcellus shale play is a light in a bad economy, he said, making natural gas much cheaper than almost every other energy production. Switching natural gas is an important part of the Exelon 2020 plan to become more green. Other steps include upping nuclear production, infrastructure improvements, and energy efficiency investments. As the longest serving CEO in energy (28 years) Rowe called this new age of natural gas unlike anything he has ever seen.

At the energy policy panel, experts discussed the next wave of energy policy. Susan Tierney, former Assistant Secretary of policy for the U.S. DOE, argued that the US will never have a comprehensive energy policy due to political landscape. Its not possible. We do have, however, in essence a quilt of patchwork policy. We must shape what we have, she said, by clean energy standards, etc. EPA is using Clean Air Act rules and updates that will help retire old, inefficient plants. Dr. Tierney also extolled the benefits of natural gas, especially in the face of a wave of coal plant retirements. New gas plants are a relatively economical investment, she said. They are now the fuel and technology of choice. By 2025, the U.S. is supposed to support three times as much renewable fuels in our energy policy, but this will be difficult in the face of cheap gas. She argued that we could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent using today’s policy, but not much more than that.

In the short term, natural gas’ cheap prices puts tremendous pressure on alternative energy development, said Adam Umanoff, partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Field LLP. He highlighted advancements in alternative energy such as wind, that are becoming more and more cost effective and competitive. They are not competitive yet, however, and cheap natural gas makes it hazy for alternative energy for the next few years. Dr. Tierney said technological breakthroughs will change the energy landscape in a longer term view. For example, the Midwest would be in a great place for wind once energy storage works. Umanoff highlighted novel technologies such as concentration solar plants in the desert. Using salt, heat and steam, there is 4-6 hours of storage capacity available. It is not quite commercial today, but we are getting close, he said.

At the lunch keynote, Dan Pickering, co-president of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co., further discussed natural gas. He also praised its cheapness, saying that there is a 100 year supply. While he briefly mentioned drilling being unsightly, and alleged that there was not a lot of science behind the allegations of natural gas drilling (fracking) causing environmental degradation, the environmental impacts of natural gas were not discussed.

Many environmentalists are gravely concerned about the environmental degradation and health impacts from natural gas drilling by fracking and tar sands mining. Natural gas leakages from pipelines is another problem, contributing three trillion cubic feet of methane, a greenhouse gas several times more potent than carbon dioxide, to the atmosphere annually – a climate impact equal to emissions from half the coal plants in the US.  Leaks and emissions, according to a National Center for Atmospheric Research study, means that even a partial switch to natural gas from coal, will still accelerate climate change through 2050.

While natural gas does indeed appear the cheapest option, what about these externalities? If we priced carbon and greenhouse gas pollution through taxes, would natural gas still be a panacea? If we priced ecosystem services like watershed protection, would natural gas still win out? These questions are important as we discuss America’s energy future. While natural gas may win out, we need to have comprehensive discussions to mitigate negative environmental impacts and move forward in a positive way on energy.

Author Caroline D’Angelo is a graduate student in the Master of Environmental Studies Program, focusing on environment and business.  She is IGEL’s graduate intern and directs IGEL’s website and social media campaign and also conducts research.

 

Sustainable Metrics: Insights from the First Morning Session

Gil Friend, CEO of Natural Logic and new member of the Sustainability Hall of Fame, opened up the morning session. He argued that measuring the wrong things means that we overlook material risks and potential material value. For example, the wastes that are currently worrisome may not matter in the future, but there are other wastes that we haven’t examined yet that could be worse. 

Jules Peck, chair of Edelman’s sustainability group and trustee of the New Economic Foundation, spoke next via video. Peck argued that ever-increasing amounts of stuff and unlimited economic growth is inherently unsustainable and is becoming impossible due to resources constraints.  We are living beyond our resource availability – if everyone on the planet lived like the British or Americans, we would need 3-5 earths respectively. Instead, he argued that it is possible to have a zero-growth economy while increasing well-being.

Peck agreed with Friend’s assertion that the right indicators are vital for sustainability. He argued that our current measurements of economic progress are skewed toward resource overconsumption. He suggested that the Happy Planet Index 2.0 is a more appropriate measurement of economic well-being than GDP.  In other words, the economy should be the means towards the end of well-being for people. Well-being indicators are especially important because while decoupling is an attractive concept, Peck warned that achieved efficiencies in energy and resources use are overshadowed by population growth and upward mobility development. Thus, he said,  we need a much more long-term market view. We need to relate products, GDP, everything to well-being, while shifting away from consumerism.  

Jeff Smith of Prophet followed with a presentation on corporate reputation. Studies have found that consumers pay more for products from trusted companies. Forbes’ ten most admired companies outpaced the S&P500 over the last 13 years.  Prophet measures about 32 indicators of corporate reputation to create an index, which allows them to track reputation over time and what indicators drive reputation. Companies at the bottom of the list are complex companies with a lot of risk and public scrutiny. Big falls are possible: between 2009 to 2010 due to the oil spill, BP fell from ranking 78 to about 150. Toyota’s recalls caused a tumble of more than one ndred points from 18 to almost 200.  Prophet will use the index to see how quickly can companies regain reputation and can they regain high rankings. 

Prophet has found that transparency is very important to corporate reputation. In research on brand versus reputation found that brand drives familiarity but reputation plays the driving role in consumers’ recommending a brand. Reputation is twice as important as the brand when people consider doing business with a company. 

Libby Bernick of Terrachoice followed to finish the first morning session. She said that we are all part of an exciting transition in sustainability metrics. Metrics will deepen, standardize and improve. Bernick focused on the consumer and institutional side, highlighting Terrachoice research in ecolabels and marketing.

She said consumers are seeing a huge increase in “green” products on the shelves. An important thing to measure is what consumers care about so we can market and educate consumers effectively. Consumers are now interested in “green” products, but with a specific focus on personal, family and community health.   In other words, consumers have their minds wrapped around single attributes – like personal health – rather than more complex multi-attribute measurements, like fair trade + sustainably harvested, etc. Value mapping will help consumers understand the value and metrics on products. Yet a grocery study found that while 65 percent of consumers go into the grocery store looking for “green” products, only 20 percent actually purchase them.

Institutional buying is moving towards more sustainable purchasing by using multi-attribute lifecycle assessments. Retailers’ green procurement programs, however, are competitive because there is not a unified framework to measure product sustainability. There are examples of sector- and industry- wide product measurements like the Sustainable Apparel Coalition and the U.S. Green Building Council. 

Check back to get more updates and insights from the conference and follow the discussion on Twitter #newmetrics and @WhartonIGEL.