We brought the lighting, but our AWESOME women brought the thunder. This month’s LIGHTING Round discussions about the ever-growing ESG topic ignited a storm of passionate conversations, sparking innovative ideas and critical thinking among industry leaders. The event was a powerful blend of networking, resource-sharing, and community. Thank you to all of our attendees who enriched the experience with their knowledge and insight.
Here are some key highlights from the event:
“We dedicate 60/40 of our time trying to find ways to be highly efficient, and how we use all the resources within our bakeries to try to minimize food waste inside our scope, but also optimize the demand planning side of it so that we deliver what’s going to be closest to consumption, and therefore we don’t build up additional waste at the end of the value chain.”
“Four years ago, the operations area had a “double hat,” and they would follow the KPIs. It was mainly to answer all the regulatory requirements back then. But now, the department, also [wears] a double hat thinking about community and how we support the environment.”
“We are a water company, of course, it goes to the environmental, but it goes to the governance. It goes to everyone, everywhere. Every drop of water that we waste is absolutely unnecessary… so on our side, I am lucky enough to report directly to the CEO of the company, so, anything that we call out in terms of risks or ESG is very well taken care of. And you know, sometimes it’s just good to be there and have the seat at that table.”
“We have some sort of strategic partnership, focused activities that really hone in on things that are, you know, both cost-beneficial and environmentally beneficial for customers. In terms of waste reduction and process enhancement and then those larger scale projects where you’re really looking for energy efficiencies or technologies that you can implement on a wider scale. Those are the harder projects to identify and prioritize and find and put action behind. But I think it’s multi-faceted. It’s multi-disciplined.”
“There are a lot of initialists around ESG, that actually are more efficient, translate into less uses of usage of resources. So putting the business case behind that initiative usually makes it move faster.”