Making Sustainability Personal

By Chris Behme

This is an exciting time as we see more about sustainability in the news and even in daily discourse. IBV research reported 93% of global consumers had their views of sustainability changed during the covid 19 pandemic.

Sustainability is not just a buzzword from my perspective. It has been way of life from birth, growing up in a large family. I have always had an intrinsic interest in the intersection between biology and technology, which lead to advanced degrees with an environmental engineering focus. Although it may not sound like a typical consulting background, it has prepared me to be keenly interested in solving problems.

Now at this pivotal time in history, we grapple with how to make actionable change. Further, what is the best way to make it personal? How do bring an active element to initiatives? Let’s address these issues from two fundamental angles: corporate and personal responsibilities.

As far as Corporate responsibility, we can aim to promote sustainability within our teams by engagement in key projects such as:

· Apps and self-service programs that prevent calls and unnecessary expenses in all industries;

· AMI or Smart meter projects that prevent truck rolls while giving better service. Just a couple of our recent key projects prevent 120k and 29k metric tons per year of CO2 reduced from energy efficiency;

· Weather company projects which optimize asset usage, timing of service calls, restoration of services;

· Analytics-optimized routes and materials with smallest carbon footprint like delivery truck routing or field services;

· Drones for inspection reduce the need for in person inspections — each saved truck role save ~1 gallon of gas and 10.6 pound of CO2

As a whole, we were one of the first companies to create a sustainability report. Something everyone can work towards with our client companies is to create/update an addressable plan. We should be working with peers to ensure all our alliances, vendors and clients are consciously creating and updating a plan to do more each year.

Personal responsibility should be viewed from the Inside out- Let’s keep making it personal:

Maria Martinez wrote great blog for some ideas while WFH. See here.

Reusable water bottles travel through airports or sitting at home on calls are an easy start with huge impact. As National geographic reported, more than a million plastic bottles are sold every minute. Statistics on recycling are kept by EPA and might surprise you — see here.

Water is taken for granted (like electricity) but requires energy to clean. Recycling is not a new concept but there are so many more opportunities now and it’s easy to engage your community. While we work from home, composting is a natural alternative. In 2018 over 2.6m tons of food was composted.

Gardens inside or outdoors is an interactive activity — you could even involve your kids as steam project. Consider planting a pollinator garden to encourage bee habitats.

Any small steps further momentum and the more personal our actions, the more likely to continue and share with others. You can find more information here.