a quick walk around who here gets
annoyed when somebody mentions the terms
sustainability environmentalism or
global warming okay you can be honest
as a Floridian people will sometimes ask
me or more often tell me your state’s
going to be underwater by 2100 or
something like that and begin to
comprehend or little them visualize with
that to meet my concern research and
according to climate Central and
National Geographic by 2117 can uncheck
pollution the sea levels will have risen
by a troop of five feet this is what
self order looks like in that scenario
furthermore this is what the city of
Miami eats looks like and you’ll be
pleased to know that Miami Beach still
exists but it’s nothing more than that
it’s just a beach no Collins Avenue no
Lincoln Road and certainly no flamingo
apart so when someone brings up
sustainability or global warming you bet
I’m annoyed I’m damn annoyed and I’m not
just annoyed because of the horrifying
prospect of what could happen to my
homeland but I’m annoyed because like
some in my generation I’m caught
somewhere between well damn I should
give up everything that I’m doing and
put my efforts toward solving this
massive problem but I’m also caught
somewhere between this doesn’t really
seem realistic I’ll be dead then and my
children will be dead too why should I
care
that being said whether you felt
rejuvenated inside hearing the word
sustainability or you secretly groaned
that’s what we’re talking about today I
came to the Scheller College of Business
for one of the first times in the spring
of 2014 for a scholarship interview and
one of my interview errs with someone by
the name of Howard
Cannell howard canal has been a global
sustainability leader at the
kimberly-clark Corporation is on the
board of multiple sustainability
initiatives here in Atlanta and at the
time was the Managing Partner of the
Center for sustainable business at
Georgia Tech and gave me a piece of
advice that I’ll never forget he said to
me it is better to try to change 1% of
Walmart than it is to open up 100 Ben &
Jerry’s when it comes to corporate
sustainability it’s better to try to
change 1% of Walmart rather than open up
100 Ben & Jerry’s
when Howard meant by this is that a
company like Walmart the fortune 1
company has such a huge general impact
that affecting even a small part of it
can have more impact on the environment
than opening up a hundred smaller
initiatives like Ben & Jerry’s even if
they put progressive ideas and social
responsibility at the forefront of
everything that they do
being the skeptic Georgia Tech student
that I am I decided to put Howard’s
advice to the test and I did so by
participating in the 2017
co-op and internship summer carbon
reduction challenge we’ll just call it
the challenge for the purposes of this
presentation and I not only found
Howard’s advice to be valid but also
really important so today let’s discover
together why at first you should try to
change 1% of Walmart to meet your
sustainability goals now before we delve
into the details of why you should try
to change 1% of Walmart let’s establish
why sustainability is important for
business because to no fault of their
own and really no fault of their own
many folks may not see the connection
between sustainability and profit per
the Scheller College of Business and I
quote
the Scheller College of Business has
identified sustainability as one of four
global business megatrends related to
the future success of business education
and research what this mean ladies and
gentlemen is that every worker every
professor every manager every small
business owner every CEO who wants to be
successful in business on this planet
this century needs to keep these four
things behind me in mind and
sustainability is one of them and
furthermore there’s anything I’ve
learned about sustainability is that at
its root it’s a systems issue and what
that means is that sustainability just
has a knack for being something that
influences everyone and everything to
different degrees it can be something as
simple as a paper straw at Ted’s Montana
grill instead of a plastic straw pretty
much anywhere else or it can be as large
as harnessing solar energy in Nevada
using high-speed DC current lines to
transport that across country and then
turning on your lights here in Atlanta
sustainability is a systems issue and
it’s critical to business so I think you
may be able to see how changing one
percent of Walmart can translate to huge
impact down the line
now back to the carbon reduction
challenge I worked on a team with five
under interns so there were six of us at
Sun trust banks incorporated and our
goal was to research design propose and
implement a sustainability project that
would reduce SunTrust carbon emissions
our sponsor at SunTrust Amy Ross who is
here in the audience with us this
evening proposed to us a multitude of
different projects to tackle some more
standalone some more interconnected and
intermeshed these are things such as
starting a walk bike and take the train
to work challenge
increasing the use of LED lighting
bolstering the recycling policy on all
of SunTrust properties and reducing
domestic staff air travel wanting to
test this 1% of Walmart philosophy we
said to ourselves what’s the biggest
standalone carbon emitter here and how
can we make a narrow but impactful
project in that realm we wanted to win
after all because we’re all Georgia Tech
students and were all abnormally hyper
competitive we looked at air travel and
while we could have looked at all the
aforementioned projects and made a broad
impact where we give people reminders of
green things everywhere and every little
thing that they do from 8 to 5 as my
best friend says the carbon reduction
challenge if anything is an exercise of
what to do
when you have no experience when you
have no clout and when you have no time
when you were undergraduate interns with
no sustainability experience and we had
eight weeks to do all of this so we did
some back of the envelope calculations
we said okay one person of Walmart right
what happens if we reduce one to two
percent of SunTrust domestic staff
travel flights over you know you’re over
here for five years something like that
[Music]
[Music]
here in the southeastern United States
25,000 employees in 11 states and army
impact for air travel was preventing the
emissions of 1.1 million pounds of goods
units yes
okay that’s their right we said a
company as good as SunTrust probably
doesn’t send its employees on business
travel and then makes the meat in the
airport in the baggage claim and then
turn around and go home
they probably in a rental cars go to the
beach so he said let’s look at the run
of our boss and it turns out that there
the wall part of our option was an
intermediate part one that knows with
money again big impact 500,000 pounds of
carbon dioxide preventive for being
emitted into the atmosphere and then we
said wow we’re going to you know the
numbers here this is such a crazy thing
as an airline that convinced less earth
and what happens if we switch off
percent of flights for one year lensman
up turns out that exists again they give
not $250,000 of co2 reduce and in the
aggregate we could save SunTrust 1.5
million pounds of carbon dioxide from
being sent into the atmosphere
saved in 2.1 million dollars in total
savings over five years that’s big in
networks and if you’re having trouble
understanding what 1.5 million pounds of
co2 looks like 1.5 million pounds of co2
is energy equivalent of watch TV ed
sheeran cameo on beta
on a 42 inch LCD television for 535
years non-stop seriously what did
something like this look 10 years but
about 15 years from now what does this
won’t change the bench levy – I’m
pleased to report that the date
following our proposals to members of
the c-suite our lens of heart
modification was accepted and approved
and our flight reduction proposals are
currently being evaluated with intent to
implement and I’ll say that you might be
thinking this is a little too good to be
true right interns with no experience no
clouds no time they big carbon impact
and then it gets adopted right away
however our team stumbled upon but as we
think to be the more reasonable two-part
theory as to why our carbon emissions
reduction strategy swirlie it’s not that
just SunTrust votes are real blackity
the first is that our recommendation for
how we propose to modify just a small
percentage
SunTrust overall domestic stop travels
2% you’re over there providers and what
this means is that we could make
significant carbon savings without
upsetting SunTrust current travel
environment because people don’t usually
want to pass their routines completely
upended whether they value those reasons
are not or whether they understand those
risks but steadily our recommendations
were easy to implement in other states
and what this means is that people can
take ownership of these initiatives all
the way down to the individual level let
me give you an example someone who
travels as part of their career at
SunTrust may see the value using the
strengths video headset
there’s the purpose of SunTrust by Laura
to avoid going to just one community
security that is all that it takes to
meet that 2% target and likewise that
employee still has to travel makes you
value to the company’s bottom line into
the planet by renting something we might
afford desta instead of for focus it’s
not difficult to be part of solutions
like these and I truly believe that in
order for corporations to be successful
in their environment of sustainability
initiatives they need to enable their
employees for the education and the
tools
Cerie to allow them to make autonomous
and independent decisions to improving
the company’s carbon footprint please
Allah makes me wonder president because
it wouldn’t be responsible
you wouldn’t be sustainable if we suffer
reality sustainability is really hard
it’s hard to imagine business and its
departed to perpetuate basically
anywhere else
I mean climate change global warming how
everyone returns which is the single
biggest challenge that humanity as a
species has ever faced and it’s not just
what I suppose is a plethora of
cognitive stressful and extremely
time-sensitive issues and it calls for
us uprooting and reexamining every
institution we have designed as Lewis
didn’t say please
staple its mark and it’s not just our
revolutionary but sustainability is
according to come into picture radical
and revolutionary on something a bit
boring momentum percent trust our team
providing padding on top of their
current sustainability platform that
allows them to be more competitive with
our peer institutions that allows them
to restore technological progress and
allows them to be more operationally
efficient this is an incremental change
and the fact that it’s incremental
means that it’s easier to understand and
implement near-term is a short-term end
and what I would import to you today
whether you’re an individual or here
going back to your office tomorrow
morning look for these shorts are in
Vegas and keep with you for these
short-term wins and sillier it’s the
level of education and transformation in
your business model to make those more
wonderful changes when the time comes
because after all they’re paper stronger
way out of saving forests coastlines
sustainability is hard
you still got about it but if we keep
asking ourselves we keep tackling those
what have we changed just 1% questions
we can begin to make progress and we can
begin to make progress more rapidly than
we ever thought possible and as Georgia
Tech graduate and sustainability
champion Greg Anderson probably would
have said it’s a great way to bring your
corner of the world to change 1% to
change the world
Georgia Tech machine you can do that
thank you sincerely for your time and
attention
[Applause]
you
[Applause]
annoyed when somebody mentions the terms
sustainability environmentalism or
global warming okay you can be honest
as a Floridian people will sometimes ask
me or more often tell me your state’s
going to be underwater by 2100 or
something like that and begin to
comprehend or little them visualize with
that to meet my concern research and
according to climate Central and
National Geographic by 2117 can uncheck
pollution the sea levels will have risen
by a troop of five feet this is what
self order looks like in that scenario
furthermore this is what the city of
Miami eats looks like and you’ll be
pleased to know that Miami Beach still
exists but it’s nothing more than that
it’s just a beach no Collins Avenue no
Lincoln Road and certainly no flamingo
apart so when someone brings up
sustainability or global warming you bet
I’m annoyed I’m damn annoyed and I’m not
just annoyed because of the horrifying
prospect of what could happen to my
homeland but I’m annoyed because like
some in my generation I’m caught
somewhere between well damn I should
give up everything that I’m doing and
put my efforts toward solving this
massive problem but I’m also caught
somewhere between this doesn’t really
seem realistic I’ll be dead then and my
children will be dead too why should I
care
that being said whether you felt
rejuvenated inside hearing the word
sustainability or you secretly groaned
that’s what we’re talking about today I
came to the Scheller College of Business
for one of the first times in the spring
of 2014 for a scholarship interview and
one of my interview errs with someone by
the name of Howard
Cannell howard canal has been a global
sustainability leader at the
kimberly-clark Corporation is on the
board of multiple sustainability
initiatives here in Atlanta and at the
time was the Managing Partner of the
Center for sustainable business at
Georgia Tech and gave me a piece of
advice that I’ll never forget he said to
me it is better to try to change 1% of
Walmart than it is to open up 100 Ben &
Jerry’s when it comes to corporate
sustainability it’s better to try to
change 1% of Walmart rather than open up
100 Ben & Jerry’s
when Howard meant by this is that a
company like Walmart the fortune 1
company has such a huge general impact
that affecting even a small part of it
can have more impact on the environment
than opening up a hundred smaller
initiatives like Ben & Jerry’s even if
they put progressive ideas and social
responsibility at the forefront of
everything that they do
being the skeptic Georgia Tech student
that I am I decided to put Howard’s
advice to the test and I did so by
participating in the 2017
co-op and internship summer carbon
reduction challenge we’ll just call it
the challenge for the purposes of this
presentation and I not only found
Howard’s advice to be valid but also
really important so today let’s discover
together why at first you should try to
change 1% of Walmart to meet your
sustainability goals now before we delve
into the details of why you should try
to change 1% of Walmart let’s establish
why sustainability is important for
business because to no fault of their
own and really no fault of their own
many folks may not see the connection
between sustainability and profit per
the Scheller College of Business and I
quote
the Scheller College of Business has
identified sustainability as one of four
global business megatrends related to
the future success of business education
and research what this mean ladies and
gentlemen is that every worker every
professor every manager every small
business owner every CEO who wants to be
successful in business on this planet
this century needs to keep these four
things behind me in mind and
sustainability is one of them and
furthermore there’s anything I’ve
learned about sustainability is that at
its root it’s a systems issue and what
that means is that sustainability just
has a knack for being something that
influences everyone and everything to
different degrees it can be something as
simple as a paper straw at Ted’s Montana
grill instead of a plastic straw pretty
much anywhere else or it can be as large
as harnessing solar energy in Nevada
using high-speed DC current lines to
transport that across country and then
turning on your lights here in Atlanta
sustainability is a systems issue and
it’s critical to business so I think you
may be able to see how changing one
percent of Walmart can translate to huge
impact down the line
now back to the carbon reduction
challenge I worked on a team with five
under interns so there were six of us at
Sun trust banks incorporated and our
goal was to research design propose and
implement a sustainability project that
would reduce SunTrust carbon emissions
our sponsor at SunTrust Amy Ross who is
here in the audience with us this
evening proposed to us a multitude of
different projects to tackle some more
standalone some more interconnected and
intermeshed these are things such as
starting a walk bike and take the train
to work challenge
increasing the use of LED lighting
bolstering the recycling policy on all
of SunTrust properties and reducing
domestic staff air travel wanting to
test this 1% of Walmart philosophy we
said to ourselves what’s the biggest
standalone carbon emitter here and how
can we make a narrow but impactful
project in that realm we wanted to win
after all because we’re all Georgia Tech
students and were all abnormally hyper
competitive we looked at air travel and
while we could have looked at all the
aforementioned projects and made a broad
impact where we give people reminders of
green things everywhere and every little
thing that they do from 8 to 5 as my
best friend says the carbon reduction
challenge if anything is an exercise of
what to do
when you have no experience when you
have no clout and when you have no time
when you were undergraduate interns with
no sustainability experience and we had
eight weeks to do all of this so we did
some back of the envelope calculations
we said okay one person of Walmart right
what happens if we reduce one to two
percent of SunTrust domestic staff
travel flights over you know you’re over
here for five years something like that
[Music]
[Music]
here in the southeastern United States
25,000 employees in 11 states and army
impact for air travel was preventing the
emissions of 1.1 million pounds of goods
units yes
okay that’s their right we said a
company as good as SunTrust probably
doesn’t send its employees on business
travel and then makes the meat in the
airport in the baggage claim and then
turn around and go home
they probably in a rental cars go to the
beach so he said let’s look at the run
of our boss and it turns out that there
the wall part of our option was an
intermediate part one that knows with
money again big impact 500,000 pounds of
carbon dioxide preventive for being
emitted into the atmosphere and then we
said wow we’re going to you know the
numbers here this is such a crazy thing
as an airline that convinced less earth
and what happens if we switch off
percent of flights for one year lensman
up turns out that exists again they give
not $250,000 of co2 reduce and in the
aggregate we could save SunTrust 1.5
million pounds of carbon dioxide from
being sent into the atmosphere
saved in 2.1 million dollars in total
savings over five years that’s big in
networks and if you’re having trouble
understanding what 1.5 million pounds of
co2 looks like 1.5 million pounds of co2
is energy equivalent of watch TV ed
sheeran cameo on beta
on a 42 inch LCD television for 535
years non-stop seriously what did
something like this look 10 years but
about 15 years from now what does this
won’t change the bench levy – I’m
pleased to report that the date
following our proposals to members of
the c-suite our lens of heart
modification was accepted and approved
and our flight reduction proposals are
currently being evaluated with intent to
implement and I’ll say that you might be
thinking this is a little too good to be
true right interns with no experience no
clouds no time they big carbon impact
and then it gets adopted right away
however our team stumbled upon but as we
think to be the more reasonable two-part
theory as to why our carbon emissions
reduction strategy swirlie it’s not that
just SunTrust votes are real blackity
the first is that our recommendation for
how we propose to modify just a small
percentage
SunTrust overall domestic stop travels
2% you’re over there providers and what
this means is that we could make
significant carbon savings without
upsetting SunTrust current travel
environment because people don’t usually
want to pass their routines completely
upended whether they value those reasons
are not or whether they understand those
risks but steadily our recommendations
were easy to implement in other states
and what this means is that people can
take ownership of these initiatives all
the way down to the individual level let
me give you an example someone who
travels as part of their career at
SunTrust may see the value using the
strengths video headset
there’s the purpose of SunTrust by Laura
to avoid going to just one community
security that is all that it takes to
meet that 2% target and likewise that
employee still has to travel makes you
value to the company’s bottom line into
the planet by renting something we might
afford desta instead of for focus it’s
not difficult to be part of solutions
like these and I truly believe that in
order for corporations to be successful
in their environment of sustainability
initiatives they need to enable their
employees for the education and the
tools
Cerie to allow them to make autonomous
and independent decisions to improving
the company’s carbon footprint please
Allah makes me wonder president because
it wouldn’t be responsible
you wouldn’t be sustainable if we suffer
reality sustainability is really hard
it’s hard to imagine business and its
departed to perpetuate basically
anywhere else
I mean climate change global warming how
everyone returns which is the single
biggest challenge that humanity as a
species has ever faced and it’s not just
what I suppose is a plethora of
cognitive stressful and extremely
time-sensitive issues and it calls for
us uprooting and reexamining every
institution we have designed as Lewis
didn’t say please
staple its mark and it’s not just our
revolutionary but sustainability is
according to come into picture radical
and revolutionary on something a bit
boring momentum percent trust our team
providing padding on top of their
current sustainability platform that
allows them to be more competitive with
our peer institutions that allows them
to restore technological progress and
allows them to be more operationally
efficient this is an incremental change
and the fact that it’s incremental
means that it’s easier to understand and
implement near-term is a short-term end
and what I would import to you today
whether you’re an individual or here
going back to your office tomorrow
morning look for these shorts are in
Vegas and keep with you for these
short-term wins and sillier it’s the
level of education and transformation in
your business model to make those more
wonderful changes when the time comes
because after all they’re paper stronger
way out of saving forests coastlines
sustainability is hard
you still got about it but if we keep
asking ourselves we keep tackling those
what have we changed just 1% questions
we can begin to make progress and we can
begin to make progress more rapidly than
we ever thought possible and as Georgia
Tech graduate and sustainability
champion Greg Anderson probably would
have said it’s a great way to bring your
corner of the world to change 1% to
change the world
Georgia Tech machine you can do that
thank you sincerely for your time and
attention
[Applause]
you
[Applause]
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