Business & Society – Details, episodes & analysis

How did a century-old power company become a leader in renewable energy? How can industrial giants adapt to cleaner power? What role are women leaders and community initiatives playing in the renewable energy transition?

Julie Pierce stands as a beacon of innovation and foresight in the energy sector. As Vice President of Strategy and Planning for Minnesota Power, a part of the Allete family, she’s helping transform the landscape of renewable energy with a focus on sustainable development and community collaboration.

"Minnesota Power and its customers in Northeast Minnesota made the decision about a decade ago to start moving in this direction. We wanted to ensure that we took the right time, pace, and path that was thoughtful for our customers and communities to transform. Through the past decade of hard work with our communities and customers, and leveraging new technology in wind, solar, and hydro, we transformed from a 95% fossil-fuel-based portfolio to 50-60% clean energy. Essentially, in the last decade, we've worked to reduce our carbon emissions by half and increase our renewable energy production by 50-60%. It has been a very exciting time. We had over 50% of our board members as women for well over a decade. So we started at the top and then with our leadership teams. The promotion of a diverse, collaborative discussion on any topic within our organization has been paramount."

Season 3 of Business & Society focuses on CEOs, Sustainability & Environmental Solutions
Business & Society is a limited series co-hosted by Bruce Piasecki.

Gordon Lambert shares insights from his decades-long journey, addressing his roles, strategies, and contributions to environmental change and corporate evolution.

Lambert has been engaged in business and sustainability in the energy sector for 40 years. In 2015, Lambert was appointed by the Premier and Cabinet to the five-person panel that designed the Alberta Climate Leadership Plan. In 2016, he chaired the Alberta Climate Leadership Technology and Innovation Task Force, with $1.4 billion in carbon levy revenue being committed to innovation as an outcome. He also serves on the Export Development Canada CSR advisory council and as the Suncor Energy and Sustainability Executive in Residence at the Ivey Business School.

From November 2018 to April 2020, he served as the interim CEO of the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER). For 17 years, he led Suncor Energy’s sustainability strategy, innovation, and embedding efforts, retiring in January 2015. He played a key role in the design and creation of Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA), involving a globally unique collaboration model, that has resulted in the sharing of $1.3 billion worth of intellectual property to accelerate environmental performance improvement.

Season 3 of Business & Society focuses on CEOs, Sustainability & Environmental Solutions
Business & Society is a limited series co-hosted by Bruce Piasecki.

Leah Thomas is an intersectional environmental activist and eco-communicator based in Southern California. She’s passionate about advocating for and exploring the relationship between social justice and environmentalism and was the first to define the term “Intersectional Environmentalism.” She is the founder of @greengirlleah and The Intersectional Environmentalist platform. Her articles on this topic have appeared in Vogue, Elle, The Good Trade, and Youth to the People and she has been featured in Harper’s Bazaar, W Magazine, Domino, GOOP, Fashionista, BuzzFeed, and numerous podcasts. She has a B.S. in Environmental Science and Policy from Chapman University and worked for the National Park Service and Patagonia headquarters before pursuing activism full time. She lives in Carpinteria, California. She is the author of The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet, and Winner of the Creative Force Foundation Award 2023.

"Intersectional Environmentalism to me means prioritizing social justice in environmental movements and really thinking about what communities are most impacted by different environmental injustices. So, for example, in the United States, a lot of communities of color, Black, Indigenous communities, and also lower-income communities struggle with things like unclean air and unclean water, and those are environmental injustices. So I thought it was important to have an intersectional approach to environmental advocacy that doesn't ignore these things and these intersections of identity, but explores them to make sure that every community, especially those most impacted by environmental injustices, no longer are. And I wanted to write a really accessible introduction that was targeted at school kids or anyone who wants to learn more."

www.intersectionalenvironmentalist.com
www.instagram.com/greengirlleah
www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/leah-thomas/the-intersectional-environmentalist/9780316281935/?lens=voracious

Season 2 of Business & Society focuses on CEOs , Sustainability & Environmental Solutions
Business & Society is a limited series co-hosted by Bruce Piasecki & Mia Funk
www.oneplanetpodcast.org

Bruce Piasecki is a NYTimes bestselling author, and organizational innovator. As founder of AHC Group, Inc. a global management consulting firm advising major corporations on social response capitalism, sustainability, and innovation, he has worked for over a third of the Fortune 500 in change management, including BP, Merck, and Toyota. Piasecki has been an agent of climate solutions for over 40 years. He’s also co-founder of the Creative Force Foundation which annually awards young authors writing on business and society issues. He is the author of Doing More With Less, Doing More With One Life: A Writer’s Journey through the Past, Present, and Future, and other books.

www.doingmorewithlessbook.com

www.ahcgroup.com

www.creativeprocess.info

The time to start looking into tomorrow is now.
Scott Tew is the leader of the Center for Energy Efficiency & Sustainability at Trane Technologies (CEES) and is responsible for forward-looking sustainability initiatives aimed at transitioning to more efficient and climate-friendly solutions and minimizing resource use within company facilities. Trane’s smart solutions support many of the challenges businesses, buildings, and the transport sector face in the fight to decarbonize our future, which we will continue to face in the decades ahead. Scott serves as a thought leader in linking public policy, economic impacts and a value-stream approach to sustainability. His efforts have led to the development of world-class initiatives, including introduction of the company’s comprehensive 2030 Sustainability Commitments with the largest customer-facing corporate commitment to combat climate change with the Gigaton Challenge; and as a pioneer in integrated reporting.
Scott holds graduate and undergraduate degrees in environmental science and ecology from Livingston University. He serves on the Advisory Council of the Corporate Eco Forum; as the board chair of the World Environment Center; and as the chair of the US Business Council for Sustainable Development (USBCSD).

www.tranetechnologies.com https://blog.tranetechnologies.com/en/home/author/scott-tew.html

Season 2 of Business & Society focuses on Leaders, Sustainability & Environmental Solutions
Business & Society is a limited series co-hosted by Bruce Piasecki & Mia Funk www.oneplanetpodcast.org

As President of Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Arthur Klebanoff has represented J.D. Salinger, Arthur C. Clark, several U.S. Presidents, Michael Bloomberg, Bill Bradley, Paul Krugman, among others, and has handled books with over $1 billion in sales. In 2001, Klebanoff founded RosettaBooks, an independent eBook publisher which for twe nty years disrupted the publishing business. Klebanoff has published, represented or packaged over 75 thought leadership titles. He founded RodinBooks to publish books by impactful leaders.

www.scottmeredith.com

www.rodinbooks.com

Season 2 of Business & Society focuses on Leaders, Sustainability & Environmental Solutions
Business & Society is a limited series co-hosted by Bruce Piasecki & Mia Funk www.oneplanetpodcast.org

Professor Lisa Jackson Pulver is a proud Aboriginal woman with connections to communities in southwestern New South Wales, South Australia, and beyond. She is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Indigenous Strategy and Services for the University of Sydney and leads the institution's strategy to advance Indigenous participation, engagement, education, and research, including the university's One Sydney, Many People 2021-2024 strategy.

She is a recognized expert and tireless advocate for health and education. Her research focuses on capacity building for healthcare workers and improved health for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. She serves her country in the Royal Australian Air Force Specialist Reserve as a Group Captain and is a member of the Australian Statistical Advisory Committee, the Australian Medical Council, and the Health Performance Council of South Australia.

“We come from the land, and we go back to the land. Aboriginal people have been on this land for at least 60,000 years in some of the most extreme conditions on Earth and survived. And over the last 230 years, the most catastrophic events have occurred to this land because people didn't listen to ancient Aboriginal cultures and knowledge. So my question is, if people were able to look after this place for 60,000 years and thrive, what have we done to ensure that we have a healthy fit world for the next 60,000 years?”

www.sydney.edu.au

Season 2 of Business & Society focuses on Leaders, Sustainability & Environmental Solutions
Business & Society is a limited series co-hosted by Bruce Piasecki & Mia Funk

Josh Kampel is the CEO of Clarim Media where he oversees the overall strategic direction of the organization as well as works closely with the management teams of the individual portfolio companies to build scalable products and services. 

Prior to Clarim, Josh served as CEO of Techonomy Media, which was sold to Clarim Holdings in 2018. At Techonomy, Josh spent 8 years driving sustainable business growth through strategic partnerships and new product development. He built Techonomy to be one of the leading media companies covering technology and it’s impact on business and society. Techonomy Climate 2023 takes place March 28th. The conference surveys the booming climate tech sector and highlight companies making the most significant impact.

“Think about how do they deliver value to all of those constituents rather than just their shareholders. So they will create the more successful long-term companies, especially generationally, as Gen X and millennials care more and more about mission and purpose. This idea of greenwashing or now what we can call woke-washing and that ESG goals are typically held within PR groups, within companies. They just talk about what they're doing versus being held accountable. I think we will continue to see that paradigm shift towards accountability, transparency of companies doing the right thing. I'm impressed every day when I see next generation leaders, entrepreneurs, and educational institutions focus more on this idea of social entrepreneurship. That they're really embedding some of these core values into the next generation of leaders.”

www.clarim-media.com
https://techonomy.com/event/techonomy-climate-2023

Season 2 of Business & Society focuses on CEOs , Sustainability & Environmental Solutions
Business & Society is a limited series co-hosted by Bruce Piasecki & Mia Funk
www.oneplanetpodcast.org

Join New York Times bestselling author Bruce Piasecki at Caffè Lena for an afternoon of stories, memories and interactive conversation. He will also dive into personal narratives about book tours of Australia, his personal conversations with Tom Wolfe, his admiration for Bob Dylan and other master storytellers, artists, and sustainability leaders, and read from his latest book, A New Way to Wealth. Musical accompaniment for this episode is provided by Gordon Lambert. Piasecki has dedicated 40 years of his life to climate solutions with years of experience working for The White House, helping big corporations get on board his fight for climate solutions, and asking his audience to be part of the discussion. He has advised major corporations on social response capitalism, sustainability, and innovation and has worked for over a third of the Fortune 500 in change management, including BP, Merck, and Toyota, among others.

“Each day you wake up you make decisions that shape your own fate, your ascent, position, your own creativity. I like to think of it as fate is a personal construct. When I was at Cornell they had me teach an Emerson essay called “Freedom and Fate” where he said that fate was so overwhelming in some traditions that it’s as though we were each involved in a shipwreck and we were each thrown off the ship and all we had a chance to do was look at each other. I’ve come to believe is that not only is the future near you can design your own life.”

Bruce Piasecki, PhD., NYTimes bestselling author (A New Way to Wealth, Doing More with Teams, Missing Persons, 2040: A Fable), is founder of AHC Group, Inc. a global management consulting firm advising major corporations on social response capitalism, sustainability, and innovation. Piasecki has been an agent of climate solutions for over 40 years. He’s also co-founder of Creative Force Foundation, Inc which annually awards young writers globally on business and society issues.  


www.doingmorewithlessbook.com

www.ahcgroup.com