Let's Talk Sustainable Business

In this episode, Claudia Lee sits down with Simon Hombersley, CEO of Xampla, a company that has developed natural alternatives to single-use plastics. Simon shares Xampla’s mission, the lengthy R&D process and the product’s versatile applications.

In this episode, Claudia speaks to Olga Dubey, co-founder of Agrosustain, a company that manufactures natural coatings that can extend the shelf life of fresh produce. Olga explains the science behind Agrosustain's key product - ‘breathable’ coating that can be sprayed onto crops after harvest to keep crops fresh for longer.  The founder also shares challenges in R&D and certification that the startup has faced. 

In this episode, Claudia speaks to Olga Dubey, co-founder of Agrosustain, a company that manufactures natural coatings that can extend the shelf life of fresh produce. Olga explains the key challenges behind commercial farming and food supply chains. She also discusses the process of developing the product  and launching Agrosustain. 

Introducing a special season of Let’s Talk Sustainable Business with host Claudia Lee, Sustainability and Governance Research Fellow at The Conference Board. Every week Claudia will speak to guests from global corporates and SMEs about how they integrate sustainability into their business models and company values. Tune in to the series upcoming episodes. 

Shamini Harrington Vice President: Climate Change at Sasol and Presidential Climate Change Commissioner for South Africa in discussion with Uwe Schulte explains what the challenges managing for a Just Transition imply. Moving away from the fossil fuel base requires helping employees to make the transition to new jobs by skills and capability building, working with suppliers to help them to adjust their business model to the renewable energy conditions and more. Shamini explains how Sasol is forging collaborative networks and what benefits they bring in jointly managing the change. Going beyond the company approach she shares the importance of the impact governmental policies have, to create a good base for developing just solutions to the climate challenge. 

Shamini Harrington Vice President: Climate Change at Sasol in conversation with Uwe Schulte explains how a fossil-fuel based company plans to do their part towards the goals of the Paris agreement. Shamini explains how they are going to use their technology know-how to use sustainable sources of carbon and hydrogen to produce for example sustainable aviation fuel in the future. She shares the uncertainties of the technological transition and how the company plans keep option open by working with business partners on a variety of solutions. 

Jacob A. Sterling, senior director and head of ocean decarbonisation and innovation at A.P. Moller-Maersk joins Uwe Schulte to discuss the existing challenge of converting sea freight from fossil fuels to e.g., green methanol, and how this fuel choice provides the necessary flexibility. They explore why without having secured the supply, yet Maersk has chosen to go ahead with ordering 12 new vessels running on green fuel. Together they explore what it takes to become a leader in the field of decarbonization. 

Jacob A. Sterling, senior director and head of ocean decarbonisation and innovation at A.P. Moller-Maersk, shares his experience of moving from an NGO, the WWF Denmark, to work for a multinational company. He explains their ambitions for sustainability, and how being family owned, and implicitly looking for a basis for a long-term striving existence has helped the organization decide to take the risk of changing the business to net-zero by 2040.

In this episode Thomas Udesen, Chief Procurement Officer at Bayer, explains how Bayer Procurement is supporting the company’s sustainability efforts.  Small hold farmers are an important partner for Bayer and the procurement team has developed an engagement process to help farmers to adopt sustainable farming methods.

Another important issue is the reduction of Scope 3 Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. As for many companies 80% of the total GHG comes from scope 3 emissions. Bayer has started with a spend based approximation and is now focusing on the contributors and encouraging them to report via CDP. Thomas is also one of the founders of The Sustainable Procurement Pledge. More information can be found in the LinkedIn group here.

Continuing the conversation Cyril Giraud, Senior Vice President Performance Minerals, APAC gives examples of minerals helping customers to improve their sustainability performance. Imerys is for example providing a coating for paper to replace laminating with Polyethylene film and making products recyclable. IMERYS is also providing vital components for batteries for electric vehicles in form for example of graphite improving conductivity. He explains how they achieve externally audited life cycle analysis for their products and their projects to reduce their carbon footprint.

Cyril Giraud, Senior Vice President Performance Minerals, APAC at Imerys in conversation with Uwe G. Schulte explains how IMERYS is approaching the consequences of their impact by quarrying. They approach it in three phases preparation, exploitation, and rehabilitation with minimizing biodiversity losses at every stage. Imerys is engaging with external partners to join forces for ecosystem restoration.

Thomas Udesen, Chief Procurement Officer at Bayer talks about the role of procurement in the large merger / demerger transition Bayer went through in the last years.  

In this episode Ken Bowles, Chief Financial Officer at Smurfit Kappa Group talks to Uwe Schulte about collaborating for Sustainability. Ken explains several amazing achievements e.g., replacing polystyrene in thermal packaging and helping customer to reduce their carbon footprint significantly. As a CFO Ken is convinced that companies not addressing the social aspects of ESG inside their own operation and their extended value chain, will face serious stakeholder (customers, communities etc.) issues negatively affecting their business going forward.

Guest speaker, Chever Voltmer, Plastics Initiative Director for Ocean Conservancy continues discussing the ocean pollution challenge, especially that of plastic waste contamination. She explains that the first approach we all should take is to avoid using and make sure that we recycle plastic. Building a good recycling structure and aiming for circularity are actions that companies can play an important role in. Chever, discusses how they help corporations to engage with the vast global resource of low-income waste collectors to improve their livelihood and their effectiveness. A new initiative is to engage all cities to tackle the plastic waste issue at the source. The corporate sector can also play an important supportive role in this initiative.

Chever Voltmer, Plastics Initiative Director for Ocean Conservancy joins Uwe Schulte to explore the organization’s extensive activities to fight negative influences threatening the ocean’s ability to stabilise climate change and support marine life. Chever, discusses their annual Ocean Clean-up efforts and the useful database ‘Tides’ which has resulted from these initiatives. Sustainable fishing and the negative effects of ocean acidification are topics discussed as well as the looming threat of plastic waste pollution. Chever, shares first experiences with a scalable technology to clean rivers from plastic waste.

Continuing the discussion with Uwe Schulte, David Hone, Chief Climate Change Adviser at Shell, now describes the implications of the three climate change scenarios. They discuss the need to find alternative pathways out of the global economy’s heavy dependency on fossil resources as well as the timing challenges involved. David expresses the need not just for the oil and gas industry to change but for all business sectors. The changes required cannot be limited to just the types of energy purchased. 

In this podcast David Hone, Chief Climate Change Adviser at Shell explains the principles of Scenario Analysis Methodology and how this can help businesses prepare for the future. The Pandemic has caused major disruptions, the Shell Scenario Team have analysed three pathways out of this crisis and their implications on climate.

• Waves: Countries focus on repairing the economy –with an emphasis on immediate recovery and return to status quo. 
• Islands:Countries focus on the near-term recovery at home – security first. Resilience is understood as autonomy  
• Sky 1.5:Countries focus on responding to the pandemic – health of humans first. This is followed by a growing emphasis on collaboration across the globe All three scenarios point to the need for speed in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. 

Following on from her previous conversation with Uwe Schulte, Kim Dabbs, Global Director Social Innovation at Steelcase explores how the company is profiting from the multitude of social innovation projects they are currently running both in the mid and longer term. All employees have a right to participate and suggest initiatives. Driving communal education improvement projects and equity initiatives, helps to improve the skills and competencies of future employees. Internal employee engagement improves motivation, and engagement to improve environmental performance enables Steelcase sites to operate sustainably. Kim shares advice on how companies can kick-start their own journey to create social initiatives.

In this podcast, Kim Dabbs, Global Director Social Innovation at Steelcase, discusses the objective and application of social innovation. For Steelcase, reducing inequality, improving education, and creating a positive environmental impact are the core elements that help build the company purpose.  Kim gives examples of community engagement and shows how the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals guide their priority setting. Integration into everyday business life is essential to their success.