Being groomed as an engineer, my thought process has been to understand the underlying physical aspects of everything and find innovative ways to solve real-world problems with a long-term view. "Take it and give it back better and more sustainable". The climate crisis brings the most challenging and interesting transformation that humankind needs to undergo, beyond the previous four industrial revolutions, and this time with a carbon clock ticking.

Both this threatening challenge and the need to reinvent societies raised my interest and pushed me to adopt sustainability from personal and work perspectives.

BeAcoming a father undoubtedly accelerated my interest in understanding the issue in more depth and in raising the bar to help both peers and corporations be educated, and implement tangible actions to reinvent themselves.

Being in charge of supply chain sustainability in my previous company, we faced the same questions as many: what can we do?

In a for-profit company setup, this translates into a longer question: what can we do that is good for the business, cost-effective, good for the planet, and good for the people? This led us to run a baseline assessment on the value chain carbon footprint, which was designed both to educate and engage team members and leadership and act as a reference point to benchmark improvement solutions.

This meant aligning the best possible value chain model with help from all involved functions, discussing in-depth the assumptions to retain, gathering all possible data from suppliers, customers, and consumers, filling the gaps with collective intelligence, and finally ensuring an understanding of emissions at the lowest granularity to enable action plans.

Convincing co-workers of the urgency to act despite multiple business priorities is and will remain a challenge for many. While a data-based and analytical approach can help, the human factor and emotional engagement are needed to better convince decision-makers of the urgency.

I found surrounding myself with competent and business-oriented folks was paramount to making the conversation easier when it is time to put skin in the game.

A growth mindset and listening skills are crucial to adopt as we go into new territories and reinvent society to put sustainability at the forefront.  

“Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”

So it is time to get started and accelerate!

Being invited to talk about my experience as a sustainability champion in other corporates was a great pride, though it sometimes came with Imposter syndrome, not being academically educated in environmental studies, and with no decade-long credentials.

I hope sharing real-life business cases helped others get inspired to get started on their journeys and raise interest in more people to work on sustainability topics.

1. Join The Matcha Initiative or other sustainability events  - the best way to deep dive into a topic and more importantly to build a network of outstanding sustainability practitioners. They are a future source of energy
2. Ask for help - well-defined problems always raise interest,  they are either solved elsewhere or need more collective action to be solved!
3. Give back - once you develop your own experience and expertise, others will benefit from it

• Kick Start Help
• Best Practices sharing
• Experience Sharing

• Providing insights on how to decarbonize supply chains and convince your peers and leaders to invest in sustainability
• Offering views on upcoming regulatory requirements that affect supply chain management
• Offering tips on how to juggle between all priorities supply chain professionals have to deal with

Carbon Mapping / Supply Chain design / Supply Chain strategies

Japan, Singapore