THE WOMEN IN SUSTAINABILITY FORUM AT SUSTAINABILITY LIVE

Written by Charlotte Devine

At the start of September, Sustainable Business Magazine attended Sustainability Live, an event at the Business Design Centre in London which brings together industry leaders who are shaping the future of sustainability. On the second day of the event, the Women in Sustainability Forum saw a range of C-suite executives discuss their experience and offer advice as women in the sustainability sector.

Amongst the speakers were Michelle Davies, Global Head of Sustainability at EY, Joanna Bonnett, Head of Sustainability at PageGroup and Founder of Green Jobs Foundation, Angela Hultberg, Global Director of Sustainability at Kearney and Katie Mills, Head of Zeigo Power at Schneider Electric.

Sustainability As A Space For Women

According to Ecoact, 58% of sustainability executives in large companies are female. The panellists opened by discussing the reasons why, in their experience, the sustainability sector has been a space to which women are drawn and in which they excel. For Michelle Davies, sustainability is an area ‘which really plays well to women’s strengths’ as ‘women tend to see the bigger picture’ and are ‘nurturing, protective’ and ‘pragmatic.’ The sector ‘lends itself to far greater emotional intelligence probably because of the impact that sustainability has on many many people’, adds Katie Mills.

While the sector appears to offer an inviting space for women, the panellists noted how far the industry needs to go to improve gender diversity in finance, engineering and other STEM pathways. ‘We’ve got to get more women interested in finance. Women need to see engineering and finance as a career option in school. It needs to start early in schools.’ Mills pointed out the lack of female role models which she saw in tech, reflecting that the ‘industry does a really poor job of putting female role models out there.’ The panellists agreed that in order to get talent into the sustainability sector, change needs to begin in schools. Women need to be encouraged to see themselves in STEM careers and sustainability needs to be ‘infused throughout our education system’ starting ‘from reception.’

Sustainability Vs Profit

One of the principal challenges which sustainability executives face in forming their business strategies is the ‘perceived conflict between profit and sustainability.’ However, Davies makes clear, this perception is ‘absolutely false.’ Hultberg, who was named the road transport lead for the COP26 Climate Champions team during the annual United Nations Climate Change Conference, also underscores the profitability of sustainability strategies as ‘institutional capital at some point will cease to engage with you if you are not showing progress’ towards ‘a transition plan or strategy of sorts.’

Sustainability strategies, explains Hultberg, who is a lawyer, do not necessarily even mean losing out in the short term. There are ‘value triggers’ to be found, for example, amidst risk insurance and debt providers, which can turn sustainability action into ‘a short to medium term value proposition.’

The problem with implementing sustainable business plans, Davies identifies, is not a lack of developed tech but a failure in ‘deployment’ of technology towards sustain- able goals: the reality is ‘we have solutions to most of our problems… we are just not deploying them.’ The women agreed that in order to encourage departments to deploy sustainability strategies the executive needs to impose a ‘mandate’, with Davies and Mills asserting that they ‘should tie bonuses to sustainability’ as had been carried out at Schneider Electric decades earlier, currently one of the top 10 most sustainable companies globally.

CAN WOMEN ‘HAVE IT ALL’?

Mills reflects on her younger self’s desire to ‘have it all’, an attitude which she recognises in many young graduates today. ‘Why can’t I be a mum and have an amazing career and not have to have my husband stay at home?’, she remembers asking herself.

The reality she found upon having her first child was a desire to find her own ‘balance’ between work and home, which the panellists acknowledged might look different for different people. The women shared how they have each had to find their own balance amidst ‘sacrifices’: for some this was having a stay at home husband and for another it was placing their child in a nursery five days a week.

The ‘myth’ of ‘have it all’, as Davies calls it, appears to ask women to impossibly ‘be the perfect stay at home wife’ and ‘the perfect c suite executive.’ What is more realistic, they agree, is figuring out what personal sacrifices they are prepared to make. Hultberg explains that missing out on time with her children is ‘not ideal’ but that ‘if you were a stay at home and you were anxious for that big career, that’s not ideal either.’

For Davies, ‘the difference between men and women in this case … is just the guilt: the men have to make the same sacrifices’ but they deal less with the ‘internal and external’ judgement of being seen as a ‘bad mum.’ What’s important, Bonnett affirms, is for people to ‘be kind to themselves in those decisions.’ c