1. How does your department spread awareness of environmental sustainability issues within your company and to your customers? To be most effective in how we communicate, we partner closely with many different parts of the organization. We have a number of internal communications vehicles that allow us to share the great stories that we have with our team members; we even have a site that we developed to capture team members’ environmental sustainability suggestions for the company. The tool allows individual team members a chance to make a suggestion, read other people’s, rate and comment on them. This way we are able to highlight the highest rated suggestions and share them with the applicable group within Target to address it.
We also speak to our guests about environmental sustainability and our selection of eco-friendly products both in our store and online at target.com (where we also publish our Corporate Responsibility Report).
2. How do you think corporate attitudes and action towards environmental sustainability will change in the next five years? The next 10 years? We are poised to see a big change in the next five years. Right now we are in a time where innovation can flourish and make a big change in the way that we do business. In the environmental sustainability realm, we are ready for innovations that can help leapfrog us forward and not stagnate in our current position. Over the course of 10 years, I think that corporate attitudes will continue to normalize around what environmental sustainability means and understand more fully how it relates to individual businesses. Environmental sustainability considerations will be integrated into the normal course of business and companies will further understand their strategic advantage in the space. 3. What is the biggest challenge your department faces right now? The biggest challenge and the biggest opportunity is that there are so many people in so many areas of Target working on positive environmental sustainability practices. Gathering and directing all that knowledge and energy, without losing the forward momentum is a complicated beast. It is also a big part of the passion that I have for my job; I enjoy seeing the outcomes once all the pieces are aligned in the right direction.4. What led you to pursue a career in retail environmental sustainability? I am naturally curious about why things are the way that they are. I have had a growing curiosity about environmental degradation and how it affects humans and vice versa. I think that through the natural course of our cultural development, we have separated out our environmental concerns from the rest of our decisions, believing that they were not related. In recent years, people have seen the connections more frequently through various personal and business interactions. My passion is to align those considerations with the goal of mitigating the unintended negative consequences on the environment and human health; I firmly believe that they are not mutually exclusive.5. What is your favorite non-work pastime? I love to garden. I would be outside pulling weeds and picking bugs off of plants if I was left up to my own devices. Seeing a healthy garden that works harmoniously as its own holistic system is fascinating to me – which is sort of the crux of sustainability – (very simplistically) a system that will continue in perpetuity if left alone. I’m also just a sucker for a houseplant that other people have given up on; I can’t stand to see them die.6. What book are you reading now? Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen. It’s a fun story that has made me wish I had the perseverance to try cooking new dishes that include hard-to-find ingredients.