My Sustainability Leadership Journey
June 5th, 2023
“We are visionaries and collaborators who find and implement transformative strategies at the intersection of commerce and conservation to facilitate systems change. We build trust through sharing ideas, solutions, and best practices while challenging each other and celebrating sustainability successes.”
This is the statement of purpose for the Sustainability Leadership Initiative (SLI), of which I am now a proud Fellow. Today, World Environment Day – a day of awareness and action for the protection of the environment, I’m reflecting on my experience with SLI and my continued sustainability leadership journey.
I initially applied to the program in order to better serve HRP as we further our sustainability program as well as to be a better sustainability advisor to our clients. I initially approached the program regarding what I could learn; but in reflection, it was something I experienced.
Through the program I was surrounded by a cohort of professionals that I otherwise would not have met. In my profession circles, I commonly find myself in rooms of familiar faces from consulting, law, business, and industry. However, the diverse representation of sustainability stakeholders in my cohort exposed me to topics and perspectives I would not have otherwise experience. The growth I experienced was not only from our classroom exercises in systems and futures thinking, harnessing conflict, and communication but more so from the interactions with my cohort.
World Environment Day this year has a theme centered around plastic pollution. Before my SLI experience, I would have digested this theme as many others would have by envisioning the floating islands of garbage in the ocean, or envisioning plastic grocery bags littering our communities, or birds with plastic bottle rings around their necks from landfills. However, with Caroline James, Director of Sustainability at Atlantic Packaging, in my cohort, I look at the complexities of packaging, plastics and recycling in a whole new light (by the way, if you want to learn more about plastic pollution, recycling and packaging, follow Caroline James on Linkedin – she is a wonderful source of information and thoughtful perspective!)
I also learned from my cohort how companies are designing in considerations of a circular economy into their product; how conservation easements work; how governmental relations and communication play a critical role; and how business and industry can perform as they transform. Not to mention what I continue to learn from my cohort on construction, energy, carbon capture, and reporting goals and objectives.
Where my SLI class has ended, my journey in harvesting the connections made and the perspectives gained has just begun. My journey with SLI lead me through the intersection of collaboration and growth, and I now get to take this experience with me as I aid our company and our clients in moving their environments forward.
(If you too would like to be an SLI fellow, applications are open until June 30 at https://www.sustainsouthcarolina.org/sli)
Jackie Baxley, Principal & EHS&S Practice Leader at HRP Associates, Inc.
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