Erin Meezan - VP and Chief Sustainability Officer at Interface (Episode 2)
Erin Meezan, Interface's Chief Sustainability Officer, leads a global team that provides technical assistance and support to the company’s global business, addressing sustainability at all levels – from operations and management, to employees and customers, and in policy forums. Erin and her team are also responsible for developing industry-leading approaches to measurement, driving transparency and innovation in the field of sustainability. This includes creating a framework for and implementing the company's newest sustainability mission Climate Take Back, while also capturing successes as the company nears its Mission Zero targets in 2020.
Erin is a frequent lecturer on sustainable business to senior management teams, universities and the growing green consumer sector to audiences around the world, including China, Singapore, Hong Kong, the United States and Europe. Past speaking engagements include Bioneers, Greenbuild, SXSW, Conscious Capitalism and others.
She's also participated in forums during the COP21 climate talks in Paris, and served as a guest faculty member at Harvard University for the Executive Education for Sustainability Leadership program. Outside of Interface, Erin serves as an advisory board member for the Sustainable Entrepreneurship MBA (SEMBA) program at the University of Vermont's Grossman School of Business.
The Interface Sustainability Report showcases the work of the team at Interface as they develop industry-leading approaches to measurement, driving transparency and innovation in the field of sustainability, while also capturing successes as the company nears its Mission Zero targets in 2020.
Erin Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:
Creating carbon negative products (without offsets) and this impact on the built environment
How to balance the sustainability of a product with performance and cost
Expanding carbon negativity throughout not only products, but within Interface's own buildings and operations
Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (EC3) as a tool for making better choices in building
A dive into Interface's Net-Works Program and other innovative waste diversion programs
Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders
Erin's Final Five Question Responses
What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers?
I would say building on the idea of networks. I always say to people starting out in the profession: pilot projects are your friend. We really have an opportunity as sustainability professionals. Every day we're innovating, we're trying to help our businesses do something new and different often in opposition to what has been a traditional business model. So I've really had success in my career and sort of de-risked that for partners by saying, let's try out this innovative, new idea that flies in the face of how we've normally done it and delivers value for more stakeholders than just investors. Let's enter into that with a pilot project approach. You'd be surprised how much that de-risks what's about to happen and makes people feel more comfortable entering in. At the same time, it sets a tone for this as a place where we're going to learn about how we do things differently.
What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability?
I'm most excited about the carbon revolution happening in buildings. I really feel very optimistic that we can make progress on decarbonizing the economy and really come up with removal solutions in the next decade. I see it happening here. I see it happening in the built environment. I think over the last two years, the conversation around carbon removal and the technologies- whether it be on the regenerative agriculture end or on the opposite end of that spectrum, the really high-tech carbon removal- I feel like every day there's some new announcement about a new technology or a new way that we can harvest a nature based systems to remove carbon from the atmosphere in really innovative ways. I really believe it's going to be a very exciting next 10 years on carbon.
What is one book you would recommend sustainability leaders read?
You can tell that I'm in sustainability because I obviously appreciate the natural world and I find a lot of value and connection in that in my personal life. So I would say one of the best books I've ever read is Biomimicry by Janine Benyus. You don't have to be a sustainability person, but understanding how to look at nature as an innovator and seeing those examples of where designers and others have tapped into nature's genius to solve design challenges, organizational challenges, it's a really inspiring, interesting book.
What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in your work?
I like to listen to Nori's podcasts and read things from Nori. I follow Carbon180 and I think they have really fantastic resources. Project Drawdown has just released something really exciting called Climate Solutions 101. It's a fantastic series of six new videos that tell stories of how we are working every day to reverse global warming. Project Drawdown and Drawdown- fantastic resources, and they have a whole bunch of new things coming out. I would say those three are the things that I probably look at, use, refer people to on a weekly basis.
Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work being done at Interface?
There's a fantastic place that they can visit, which is just the Interface website www.interface.com. You can learn more about Interface's mission, you can learn more about carbon negative products. You can follow Interface on LinkedIn, and you can also find me on LinkedIn - Erin Meezan, and you can find me on Twitter @Erinmeez.
Listen to the first part of the podcast here.